Fun fact: this was placehold-named 'Reclamation-Perpetration-Grinding' until two days ago, when I finally came up with something more sensible.
Also, after three months of fucking around (including a three-week holiday of playing Elden Ring, more corrective knee surgery for Mum, and now getting the house painted), I'd like to get out two-Chapters worth of material now and clean up the third for the CYOAv3 story in a week or two.
Difficulty: Skitter Mode2. Powers: Timeless-2; Biological Self-Manipulation-2; Henshin-2; Cheater McCheaterson Junior-2.
Biodata: Hero-Villain-Rogue-Hero. Reality: Canon2. Timeline: Pre-Worm (2011/04/04)1. Shard State: Shardless-2.
Pointless Extras: Tinker Taylor (Bio: Arthropods); Taylor SMASHES (Four 'Psychic' Spider Legs); Taylor Stranges ('Ant-Man' Shrinking). Pointy Extras: Chaos Mode (?); You Hebert-1.
Perks: Brain Bunker-1; Insane Determination-1. Drawbacks: Marked3 (Merchants, ABB, E88)3; Blind II2; Arch Enemy3 (Jack Slash, Butcher, Coil)3. Total: 13.
-Total: 13/13-
First Day: The Light Side1; What A Hero!1.
Powers: Super Sense-1; I Know Ninjitsu-1.
First Week: Cape Combat1; First Case1.
Power: Buff De Buffer-2.
-Chapter 1-
Really, I reflected, it would make much more sense to break the Lunch period up. Have an early 40/45-minute break for eating, and a later 15/20-minute break to relax. Too short for anyone to pull shit, but long enough that the students can rest and properly integrate their knowledge, and maybe make room for a snack if they're desperate. But a whole hour?
I knew the Merchant drop-outs only did their deals under the bleachers on Mondays and Fridays, but the fact I knew that from how obvious they were to everyone, and the faculty didn't do a damn thing about it… the school wasn't a graffiti-riddled hellhole, or a lawless gang-infested wasteland, but there were a lot of times you could just look at a situation and know, in a heartbeat, that this kind of thing wouldn't happen in Arcadia, or Immaculata, or pretty much any other Secondary School. Or for that matter, any other city.
Still, I reflected as I watched Madison get harassed by the closest thing the Empire had to a presence (a dozen angry-at-the-world teenagers), it could be worse. A year ago, that had been me and my sister. Then three months ago, on the same day we'd come back into school, Emma (with Sophia's help, of course) trapped Taylor in a locker contaminated with rancid tampons and god-knows-what-else, and when I went for a piss near the end of my lesson, I'd heard the faint screaming, raced over to help her, pulled out the emergency phone I wasn't supposed to have but which I only used for writing (and which didn't have a SIM Card in it to prove it, the only thing that had convinced Danny to drop the argument when we got home at the end of the day), and called an ambulance. She'd spent over a full week in the psych ward recovering from a thankfully-relatively-mild lung infection, and a month convalescing at home, and despite me having told the police exactly who was responsible, the whole investigation had been dropped a few days later.
Partly because Taylor refused to identify the perpetrators, and partly because before Taylor had even left the school, someone found Emma's corpse in one of the bathroom stalls with her throat inexpertly-slashed and called the police as well. No-one had found any evidence or even an explanation, and despite her father's rants about Taylor being the 'obvious culprit', the whole thing had inevitably petered out to make way for next week's news cycle. The only change other than Emma being gone was Sophia's transferral to Arcadia. Because of course the gutless weasel who acted like she was 'above everyone else' had bolted at the first sign of real danger, and of course she was allowed to transfer mid-term despite my own quietly-emailed questions returning a 'sorry, but we're already full' response. Of course the track star got special treatment.
But as grudging as I was about that, me and Taylor (and any other potential victims) were finally not being relentlessly tormented on a daily basis. She hadn't magically cheered up, but she was calmer and less-nervous wherever she went, and her grades were steadily climbing, so it was better than nothing.
The rest of Friday came and went without incident, and we both quietly left the bus and plodded home with barely a word between us. After mom's accident, I'd taken over cooking duty while she handled the washing-up. Danny… hadn't been there for a while. But he was finally improving after Taylor's hospitalisation (because it had taken a real kick-in-the-balls to wake him up out of his funk and be a father again), and he hadn't stopped doing the bare minimum in all that time. He'd just been a deadbeat for sixteen months, which… I wasn't going to pretend I wasn't mad about him abandoning his daughter (closing-off from the son he hadn't adopted, fine. His own flesh-and-blood, no), but things had improved a lot.
Not as much as she deserved, I privately thought as we carefully navigated the one rotten step up to the front door, but as well as this shithole would let them get.
As was tradition, we got in the door, kicked off our shoes, and we shared a quick hug to remind each other her that everything was alright now. Then she went off to have a shower while I got to work on dinner; some generic stir-fry I could throw together in my sleep. The Hebert's had never shared my love for asian flavours, and most nights were just chicken wraps, fish and chips, or some kind of ravioli chucked on the stove, but Friday's were 'thank god the weekend is here' days and Saturday's were 'celebrate the weekend while it lasts with a proper pasta dish' days, and I wasn't exactly putting in much effort to socialise with my family outside of dinnertime's, so the least I could do was a few proper meals a week.
By the time Taylor was done and combing her hair, Danny was back to take his own shower, and after we settled in for Satay and small-talk, we retired to our past-times. In my case: locking my bedroom door, carving a few more abnormally-sharp shuriken out of chunks of wood scavenged from the treeline behind our house, and going through a few new stances.
Waking up on Monday from some sort of prophetic dream blind unless I transformed, I'd had to use my new self-Biokinesis to induce a fever and spend the day 'recuperating' at home while I figured out what the fuck was wrong with my eyes. That night, however, I used my time 'meditating' to make up for the hours I was about to lose, and snuck out to test my new powers. The odds of running into a random Cape out on the streets at night were pretty damn low, less so when I crept into the 'bad' side of town solely to look for an abandoned building, and proceeded to demolish it floor-by-floor until I'd both confirmed my raw strength and left almost no sign of my presence.
Then I'd gone looking for trouble, found some Empire scumbag on a corner with two-or-three friends hidden away, and kicked the shit out of them and stole their wallets and a pistol. Not my finest moment, but better I spend it on fancy snacks than they spend it on drugs, or selling drugs and buying guns. I also found out I was bulletproof, and a hell of a lot quicker in short bursts than the average human, even if I wasn't close to a true speedster, but this… this felt like what I'd been missing my whole life. A chance to change things.
And then I was broken out of my epiphany by a 'notification'. Apparently, my powers included some kind of 'mental checklist' I could use to complete 'Missions' (read: achievements) and spend their given 'points' on more powers. I already had a ridiculous variety by most standards: self-Biokinesis, a 'costume' transformation that gave me Power-Ranger-level strength and durability (and a whole bunch of situational abilities, like motion-sickness-inducing '360 Degree Vision'), some sort of 'self-time-travel' ability that let me 'delete' my wounds and reposition myself mid-combat, and a currently-unused power that let me copy any two other Parahuman powers within an arbitrarily-large range. Now I could also sense Parahumans within that range, and I'd picked up a Thinker power that gave me the skills of a Feudal-Era ninja: everything from martial arts, to poison-brewing, 'substituting' myself with a prepared corpse, stealth, archery, thrown weapons, and even a boost to my dexterity and agility that let me parkour at speed like a motherfucker true Power Ranger knock-off.
If I hadn't been ready to stand on par with the local threats, I sure as hell was now, and I would only get 'stronger' and more versatile as time went on: speed, range, phasing, Trump-ing, Tinker-ing… and speaking of Tinkering, Taylor was a Cape too. In hindsight, looking up 'causes of Parahuman powers' on a proxy and finding out about Trigger Events, not a big surprise. Copying her power and 'sitting in the back seat', on the other hand, showed a basement full of Black Widow's that were weaving a costume, complete with some kind of bioTinkered helmet and elbow guards/knee pads, four gaps on the back for her to summon 'psychic spider legs' with an impressive Brute rating, and she even had some weird 'shrinking' ability like that Ant-Man character from the old Marvel Comics (the Aquaman-equivalent: useful power, but only in very specific situations), which probably explained how she was working on insect-carapace armor with such precision. Was she like me, some super-Parahuman? Most only get a single power they have to work with, but us…
And then there was the big one I had access to: Event Triggerer. I hadn't even taken it yet, the 'responsibility' felt too huge and I didn't know who I'd even use it on (other than Danny, who'd probably not even use it… fuckin' Greg Veder is the only other person I really 'know', and he's not exactly strong-willed… maybe the Dockworker's as a whole?), but… I could completely reshape the 'lands-Cape' with that. Maybe I wouldn't get enough out of it to replace regular Capes, but protecting my city? Keeping the rest of America in line?
…well, those sorts of thoughts are exactly why I don't want to address that yet. I should have a clear goal in mind, and just 'fuck everyone else in America' isn't a great baseline.
The rest of the week hadn't been much more exciting. I had found a Merchant Cape proper, and almost regretted announcing myself with a 'Henshin!' just to fuck with Trainwreck, but it turns out I couldn't hit him hard enough to rip apart his suit, and he couldn't hit me hard enough to do more than scratch my exoskeleton. I'd ended up offering the 'alright, we'll call it a draw' bit from Monty Python, and while he hadn't been happy about me calling the cops on his 'safehouse', he didn't have much choice but to run. There was a reason the Merchants didn't hold any territory, and while he might have been strong enough to go toe-to-toe with me, he clearly wasn't going to stick around and chance the PRT sending in Armsmaster or Dauntless. I did, but only to nick all his laundered cash. I needed a SIM Card for my 'new' crime-fighting phone, and I wanted one for my original while I was at it. This was way too dangerous an occupation to not have an easy out, or a direct line to the heroes I inevitably encountered when it mattered… even if I'd never trust the Protectorate.
But that would have been a story for another time… were it not for what happened a few hours after I should have gone to bed.
Backseating Taylor's power was kind of fucked up. I couldn't access her human senses, only what she was doing with her insects and whether or not she was actively-using her other three powers that didn't have 'passive' components like her 'Arthropod Sense'… but I was still watching what she was doing with them. How 'okay' was that? I mean, 'not' is the obvious answer, but to what extent? I didn't really think about it until tonight, as I 'watched' the number of bugs around the house grow as she brought in more from the entire block, but she didn't exactly need her hand held (as much as I knew she secretly enjoyed our hugs), she wasn't a cripple, and I knew she could take care of herself now.
But then her power 'moved' in my mind, from its previous location downwards past the bathroom, and then further downwards past the kitchen. That made me get up and strip off my pyjamas: I had a feeling my older sister was planning something, and I wanted to confirm it real quick before I did anything rash… and then, instead of coming back upstairs, she left the house at eleven o'clock at night. I'm… not sure how to feel about this: sure, I have an excuse to go out on a patrol of my own now, but even so… it was wrong to feel exasperated here, I've done this multiple times over the last week so I have barely any right to complain, but I wasn't going to leave her to go out there alone. Not on her first night.
Fortunately, while she chose to stay out for an astoundingly-infuriating three hours (on a Sunday night, meaning she'd be exhausted for school tomorrow), she somehow managed to not run into anything major despite her self-sacrifice. She ran into at least one drug den, and her swarm was abruptly filled with annoyance as she had to go and find a pay phone to report it, only to be tuned out by the police and have it explained to her that they needed evidence to do anything. Of course, she abandoned that call pretty quickly when I tore through the place and grabbed all the 'loose' cash (and any 'piles' where it was stashed in safes that my ninja-enhanced intuition randomly pointed out behind picture frames, under floorboards, and covered in conspicuously-dumped fabrics), causing a hell of a ruckus that none-too-subtly drew her attention.
By the time she reached the front door, I'd already emerged swinging a now-half-full briefcase at my hips, then made a show of pausing to look at her, dialling the 'usual' number on a stolen gangster's phone, setting it to speaker and gently tossing it to her with a casual "Evening, miss…?" that she only barely caught in her fluster.
"I-…don't have a name yet." She mumbled as she checked the phone and realised it was already calling someone. "Who are you?"
She got her answer when the phone did. "PRT Hotline."
"Henshin, just raided an Empire den." I both introduced and identified myself using my 'disguise-voice' (a mostly-English/faintly-French tone I'd stumbled onto by chance, and 'hated the least' of all the others I'd tried), and rattled off the address of the drug house. "Found a newbie who inadvertently tipped me off. Apparently, she doesn't have an alias yet."
"This is my first day." She managed to say in a neutral tone.
"And I've only had my powers for a week, and got my alias by accident when I knocked over a drug house Trainwreck was hiding in five days ago." I shrugged. "Everyone has to start somewhere, but if you don't have a name by now, you should ask the PRT for suggestions and a list of already-claimed names."
"Like that would help." She snorted out loud. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to come up with an insect-themed name that doesn't sound villainous?"
"Plenty of insect goddesses no-one cares if you blaspheme in this day and age." I shrugged again. "Anansi's a spider-goddess in Africa?"
"I think I'll take my time." She turned me down with aggressive disinterest.
"Suit yourself." I shrugged one last time and added to our third party, "Police inbound, I'm moving on. Not expecting anything else tonight, I've been tracking the newbie to keep her safe, and she's been out here for three hours. Clearly, she can take care of herself." Then I started walking, only for her to suddenly dash up next to me.
"Wait, what?" She forced herself to calm down, sending her feelings into her swarm with moderate success. "I mean, thank you for trying to help, but you've been stalking me?"
"At first, I needed to see what you were doing and confirm you weren't a villain. Then I needed to confirm you weren't already a Ward: I have issues with one of them. And as soon as I heard you report that to the police, rather than the PRT, I showed myself." I listed off my 'plan of attack', checking she'd ended the call first. "I know it was a bit shitty, and I apologize if it makes you uncomfortable now, but that's Cape business for you: sometimes, you have to make the wrong choices for the right reasons."
She didn't immediately answer, choosing instead to match my pace and change the subject. "Well, at least announce yourself next time: even if I was an obvious Villain or Ward, you have an exoskeleton and probably some Brute or Mover power to go with it, you could easily endure my swarm biting you and likely outrun me anyway."
"Maybe." I didn't agree or disagree. No need to give away unnecessary information until she knew who I was, and who knows how long that'll take.
"Are you a Case 53, a Cape with amnesia?" She checked. I guess that's fair enough to answer.
"Nope, Changer with a mix of Mover and Brute applications, and a Thinker power that basically makes me a knock-off Power Ranger." I rattled off my 'cover story'.
"…I suppose it's thematic, at least." She absorbed that, and quietly added, "I'm… a bit more than just a Master, but…"
"You don't want to give the game away to someone you just met. I understand completely, I have a few more cards I'm keeping close to my chest, too." I reassured her. "It's fine, and I encourage you to stay vigilant: you never know who you can trust these days, and unless the situation calls for it immediately, you're free to keep it as secret as you want."
"Okay." She acknowledged, sounding a little more confident now. "What were your plans for the rest of the night?"
"Well, we could go looking for more drug warehouses to hit... but I'm going to be honest and admit that like I told the hotline-guy, it's late and I'm going to be feeling this in the morning as it is." School tomorrow, fuck me. "If you want to stay out yourself you're free to do so, but you haven't had much success for the last two hours I've seen. World you rather I walk you home, and we meet up again another night? I could really use your help scouting when it isn't two in the morning, and we probably both have school tomorrow."
She obviously didn't want to say yes and end her (first I believe) patrol on a sour note, but she clearly recognised my point. "Not really… but you're not wrong. This way."
Our meandering path didn't lead us straight home, and she took the time to discuss some meet-up options for Tuesday and/or next week. Plenty of locations a pair of young crime-fighters could use as relay points, though I'd offered to give her a burner phone so we could exchange numbers. That got reluctance, but surprisingly, not as much as I expected. I guess not being able to call the PRT (or at least the cops) on-the-spot had taught her the lesson of how important it was to be able to communicate this kind of stuff right away.
After ten minutes of wandering vaguely in the direction of home, she abruptly ceased the small-talk and turned to 'look' at something using her swarm that I hadn't noticed yet. "There are half-a-dozen people loitering in an alleyway two blocks over there."
"…fuck it, we're not getting back to bed at a reasonable hour anyway. Let's have a look." And this is ABB territory, and Lung is always worth vibe-checking.
Fortunately they'd picked an alleyway between two buildings with fire escapes, so I calmly led the way up the first one we found, and we hunkered down to quietly scrutinize them.
"Definitely ABB. Bit of a downside: I can understand and translate Japanese, but none of them are speaking it. Must be from other countries. Anything else 'suspicious' nearby?"
"Not… yet…" She took a moment, straining her range and her Thinker senses. "Wait. Convoy of half-a-dozen cars coming this way, slowly and quietly."
"Too many for just them to use. Maybe they're grouping up for a raid on another gang…?"
We didn't have to wait long to see who was leading them.
"Oh shit. That's Lung down there." She mumbled in shock. Not so gung-ho now, are you 'big sis'?
"Fuck me, whatever this is must be important." I went for my phone as he started addressing his minions in an eclectic mix of Asian languages- "Not that I think we couldn't make a good showing ourselves, but better this gets called in to the proper authorities before things-get… ah, fucking hell." -then froze. She's definitely not going to let this go, is she.
"What, what are they say-?" She didn't have to wait long before his voice floated up, in English rather than Japanese this time.
"…the children, just shoot. Doesn't matter your aim, just see one lying on the ground? Shoot the little bitch twice more to be give them no chances to be clever or lucky, understand?"
"Does that answer your question? Pretty sure he's talking about the Undersiders, the kids who robbed the Ruby Dreams casino last month, but this is a huge escalation." And I know I mentioned vibe-checking Lung earlier, but there's a difference between curbing his activities, and shoulder-checking the actual Parahuman himself.
"Another gang?! …should we get involved?" She actually hesitated for a moment, which made me think it over myself… and I'm just as bad, because I'm not going to let this go either.
"Logically, no, we should leave them to sort it. They brought this retribution on themselves, and they're hardly free of blame. But villains or not, I don't think I can walk away if he's talking about killing kids. And besides, it's Lung: we don't need a special reason to want to take him down."
"Got a plan?" She immediately took command, for which I was grateful. I'm more a civil leader than a peacekeeper.
"I'm bulletproof and I can lift five tons. I should be able to choke Lung out before he ramps up, but it's Lung so nothing's guaranteed. Anything to add?"
"I can scare off the henchmen with my swarm. I don't know if I should sic it on Lung, though. I could use their venom, but how much can he take before it kills him?"
"Well it couldn't happen to a nicer guy, and if you hold back, either he escapes or he comes after us. I'll drop down while you hit everyone, and as soon as I get to him, I'll put him in a chokehold and you pull back anything that I might squash: you'll want some reserves just in case anyway, I can handle his fire but your swarm definitely can't if he does ramp up-"
And then her swarm surged into hearing range, as she shot up to her feet. "-shit, they're leaving, go-go-go!"
I promptly dove off the 'back' of the roof into a dumpster I'd left open, the trash serving as a muffler for my impact (though I wasn't using it for a hypothetical retreat like I'd planned). As I threw myself out, Id ashed along the side of the building as yells and cries of shock turned into screams and howls of pain, and I rounded the corner into a crowd of fleeing gangsters, none of whom I even bothered laying out. I had bigger game in mind.
Lung was easy to identify: he was the only one not running for the exit, mostly because he was covered in a living carpet of wasps and spiders that undoubtedly blocked his vision. I didn't waste time in leaping over to him: as soon as he thrashed in the opposite direction, the bugs already abandoning his back, I had an arm around his neck and a thumb separately digging into his carotid artery just above his collarbone.
If I hadn't been nerfing his power, I'm still honestly not sure I could have held him for long enough. I didn't want to copy it while 'the newbie' could see me, but thankfully, the other option bore fruit: in less than a minute, he was unconscious at my feet and I had to twist his power the other way to ensure the venom didn't kill him, the connection quickly re-'stabilising' as I pulled him back from the edge of death where I'd been accidentally dragging him.
I also grabbed his unconscious body and leapt up the nearby buildings one handhold at a time, placing myself back on the roof I'd come from. Having him closer wasn't necessarily safe, but he would only be more of a worry if he wasn't. Last thing I needed was for him to recover or wake up abnormally fast thanks to me.
"Well, that was enough excitement for the night." I added unnecessarily as I tossed him into the corner of the roof.
"Are you sure he's down?" She refused to take her eyes off him, her slightly-depleted swarm at the ready despite the few aimless fireballs he'd flung around while blinded.
"I have Ninja powers, remember: I know vaguely how unconscious he is, and if he gets anywhere near waking up… I can sedate him with some of my pre-evolved bodily fluids." It occurred before I actually got to that sentence that there was no other way to explain that, so I told it exactly how it is and bore her eye-covered stare with stoicism. "I'd appreciate you not mentioning that to the world at large: I'd like to keep my limited self-biokinesis, and any other hypothetical powers I haven't shown off yet, away from the public. If any of the enemies I inevitably make can look these things up, they'll know exactly what they need to take me down, and being a chemical factory isn't exactly easy to leverage in a fight."
"…right. Okay," she moved past that as best she could, "let's just, call the PRT and keep an eye on-" Then she froze and spun around to face the edge of the roof. "-!-incoming."
It took me a little longer to spot what she was: I couldn't interpret her 'Arthro-Sense' as well as she could, but I had enhanced vision to make up the difference, and I saw the three giant monsters leaping from a lower roof up to ours only a half-second after she mentioned it. As a result, I had another second to brace myself before they hit the roof. Notably, one had no rider, and the other two had two each… and those are definitely the Undersiders. False alarm, I hope.
Three of them dismounted with a bit more force than was wholly necessary, probably to avoid the spikes on them, while the fourth took her time climbing down. Seems Hellhound and/or Bitch instinctively knew her way around her own monster-ized dogs, which made sense on some level.
The smaller girl (Tattletale?) immediately started crowing at Grue, their recognisable leader with his skull helmet and biker leather, "see? See?"
"Yes, fine, you were right, whatever." He quickly shifted his attention back to us. "Thanks for that, you've really saved us a lot of trouble." I gave the outstretched hand a wary look and shook it. 'The newbie', on the other hand, shied away from his intimidating presence as he continued. "When we got word Lung was aiming to come after us tonight, we were pretty freaked and spent the better part of the day arguing strategy. We eventually decided, fuck it, we'd meet him halfway. Wing it. Not my usual way of doing things, but wouldn't you know, his flunky Lee is there with a half dozen guys, but Lung and the rest of his gang are nowhere to be found. Lee's no slouch in a fight, but there's a reason he's not leader of the ABB. He got spooked without his boss there and ran. I guess you guys are responsible for that?"
"He said he was going to kill kids. I didn't know for sure who he was referring to, but neither of us were willing to take that chance." I passively responded.
"And we appreciate it, believe me." He gave the downed Lung a side-eye. "You sure he's going to stay down?"
"Between the insect bites and deadly venom hampering his regeneration, and choking him out before he could 'ramp up', I'm pretty sure he's not getting back up for a while." I unintentionally over-rode the smaller girl, leaving her looking mildly-put-out. I couldn't say I was overly upset about it: kids or not, they were still supervillains.
"Alright. Introductions: I'm 's Tattletale. The girl with the dogs-" He pointed at the not-really-'costumed' girl, who I was very happy to hear the name of because the internet had thrown around at least two and her civilian identity in the process… which in hindsight, probably explains her lack of a 'real' costume. "-we call her Bitch, her preference, but in the interests of being P.G., the good guys and media decided to call her Hellhound and certainly least, we have Regent."
"Fuck you, Grue." Regent shot back with an errant chuckle.
"Henshin, because I made a joke when I introduced my foot to Trainwreck's face and I can't be bothered to fix it now," I gestured at 'the newbie', "and she hasn't picked a name yet. I still think Anansi is workable."
"I'll consider it." She tightly answered me, clearly put-off by the people around her.
Grue paused and turned slightly towards her. "Hey, you okay? You hurt?"
"Nah, she's just shy." Tattletale filled in for him, as she examined Lung from various angles. Information-based Thinker, I guess. It would fit the name. She abruptly perked her head up at something in the distance only she could perceive. "Heads up. We've gotta scram."
Bitch nodded and whistled in a pattern that brought the dogs over for them to remount with clear practice in their movements. "Either of you want a ride?" Grue checked with us.
"I'm fast enough and strong enough to get us both out of here if we need to escape. Not sure if I wanna try riding one of them without practice. 'The newbie' just shook her head.
"Well, fair warning to both of you," Tattletale added as she climbed up, "a hero is gonna show up in less than a minute. You did us a solid by dealing with Lung, so take my advice." She gave us a knowing smile. "Someone from the Protectorate shows up, finds unknown Capes standing over a villain, they're going to ask questions. You should get out of here."
With that, they leaped over us, one of the dogs screeching past the fire escape on the way down, and bolted.
"Well, that wasn't too bad." I sighed, 'the newbie' almost flopping to the ground as the stress poured out of her.
"Not too bad. Sure." She slipped over to the roof access and slumped down the wall. "We just took down Lung, got confronted by an entire gang of child-villains (except for maybe-Grue, there's no way he's not over eighteen by now), and a member of the Protectorate will be here at any moment."
"I don't see you running away in terror." I pointed out as I joined her a respectful distance away.
"I have nothing to run from." She retorted without heat, flipping her hair nervously. "I just stopped a major criminal, didn't attack them because they weren't actively committing a crime in front of me, and you took down a drug den earlier with my help. I'm a hero. We're heroes." She corrected herself, then turned to check with me. "Do you want to leave?"
"Not yet. I have…" How do I phrase this… fuck it, anything about this will set her off, might as well not worry about hiding it. "…a reasonable suspicion that a group of bullies at Winslow contain at least one Cape, and furthermore, that this hypothetical Cape is a Ward."
"!-what?!" She didn't jump to her feet, but there was no other sign of shocked outrage that she didn't display as she twisted towards me, even her swarm ramping up in volume.
"I don't want to give anything away until the hero arrives and have to repeat myself, but there's a possibility, and that means this is my best chance to investigate it." I continued. "I don't know what ramifications this could have: does the school know she's a Cape, do the PRT know about her actions, how badly will this impact their bottom line if it comes out… and whether she's a Ward or not, exposing a Cape's civilian identity is deadly-serious business." I looked up at her frozen body, our masks giving away nothing. "If I'm right, and she's pulling shit that they somehow don't know about, then letting it out hurts everyone they're trying to protect. But I can't just sit on this information. That's just wrong. You know?"
Despite the lame ending I tacked on, she simmered down to a slow boil instead. "Yeah. I get that. I've had, problems like that since I started in Winslow myself. But that… there's no way the PRT couldn't have noticed this by now, right?" She looked at me in faint desperation. Just because it had stopped, didn't mean it hadn't left scars. Bitches.
"Never underestimate the limits of human incompetence." I paraphrased out loud. "If the PRT know she's there and all they have to go on is her grades, and they're not digging any deeper, then all she has to do is keep up a B-average and she probably gets a pass. It's not like Blackwell gives a shit if she's assaulting other students if nothing gets proven, and she's probably getting paid to host her which gives her incentive not to report anything. I mean, she hospitalised one of her victims, but they didn't report it to the police, so it's possible the whole case got closed even without the PRT noticing. And then right after that, she got conveniently transferred to Arcadia, who didn't have any open spaces last I checked, and where the rest of the Wards are suspected to go." Taylor froze at that, processing Sophia's transfer and the plausible implications. "I mean, one of her friends got murdered on the same day. That makes it sound like someone noticed her 'activities', probably Empire, and decided to do something about it. After Fleur, I wouldn't put anything past them."
The conversation petered off pretty quickly, the approaching motorcycle engine suddenly and conspicuously cutting out. So, Miss Militia (which would make sense at this hour), or-
No, it was Armsmaster who abruptly grappled to the rooftop using a grappling hook, yelling "Freeze!" as he did so to what I'm pretty sure was both of our deadpan expressions.
"Do we look like we're going anywhere?" I gave him as much of a Look as I could through my pupil-less eyes.
"I'm reasonably sure you're Henshin, but I have no idea who they are, and they're dressed like a villain." I blinked at that as he approached, and 'the newbie' jerked to her feet.
"Excuse me?!" She outright-yelled in outrage at him, checking his advance. "This wasn't intentional! I was more than halfway done putting the costume together when I realized it was already looking more edgy than I'd intended, and I couldn't do anything about it by then!"
"Seriously, dude, saying someone 'might be a villain' based on the not-gory way they dress in? That practically equates to profiling." I agreed in a thoroughly-unamused tone.
He actually paused at that, considered for a moment, then holstered his halberd on his back. "You're right. I apologize. It's late and I'm tired, but that was still an extremely-poor way to phrase my suspicions. Unknown, can you please confirm that you're a newly-Triggered independent, and haven't committed any unresolvable crimes since then?"
"I haven't committed any crimes ever." She made clear, still upset but softening her tone.
This time, his pause was more measured and practised before he decisively answered "you're telling the truth" with certainty. I suppose the internet 'rumors' that he has a lie detector in his helmet were true, but either way, this seemed to shock 'the newbie' into calming down for now. "Do you have a name yet?"
"Not yet." She sighed. "You know how hard it is to come up with a bug-themed name that doesn't make me sound like a supervillain, or a complete dork?"
"I wouldn't know.I got into the game early enough that I didn't have to worry about missing out on all of the good names." He chuckled… in a weirdly-normal way. I suppose he is just a guy with superpowers, not some impossibly-perfect standard to meet. "Do either of you need medical attention?"
"Nope, she attacked him and his goons at range, and I dropped down and choked him out before he could ramp up." I relayed as he walked over, pulled out a set of syringes from a slot over his ribs, and jabbed him in the shoulder with one after another. Probably some kind of sedative to keep him unconscious for transportation?
"It would've helped to be sure that the 'kids' he was talking about shooting were a rival gang before we pre-emptively attacked him, but I guess it's better to have someone like Lung put away regardless of any other villains he was going after." 'The newbie' begrudgingly agreed, maybe a little sore over two different groups having assuming she was a Villain.
Armsmaster perked up at that, and glanced around. "These 'kids'. They showed up, knew I was coming, and fled on giant dogs before I got here?"
"Spot on." I confirmed. "I'm guessing these Undersiders are a big deal?"
"Not nearly as much as the major gangs, but they're slippery." He stared off into the distance for a moment. "On the few occasions we manage to get in a toe to toe fight with them, they either win, or they get away more or less unscathed, or both. We know so little about them. Grue and Hellhound were working on their own before they joined the group, so there's some information there, but the other two? They're non-entities. If Tattletale has some way of detecting or tracking us, it would go a long way towards explaining why they're doing as well as they are."
…well, that sounds like exactly what I'm looking for. "It's funny. They didn't seem that hardcore. Grue said they were kind of panicking when they heard Lung was coming after them, and they were casually joking around while the fight was going on. Grue was making fun of Regent and everything."
"I bet anyone they've robbed at monster-dog-point doesn't feel the same way." I noted.
"They said all this in front of you?" He double-checked.
'The newbie' shrugged, "I think they thought we were helping them out. The way Tattletale talked, I think she thought we were bad guys too or something." With a touch of bitterness, she added, "Dunno why they thought that about Henshin, but I guess it was my costume that led them to that assumption."
"Could you have taken them in a fight?" Armsmaster asked the 'important' question.
"…eh, plausibly?" I waved a held-horizontal hand back-and-forth. "Grue's darkness would have been an issue, but I'm immune to Regent's nerve-control and I'm probably strong enough to keep Hellhound's dogs busy. If the newbie's insects could target Grue and the other Capes through his darkness while I held off their steeds, maybe. But I don't know how our powers interact with his and Tattletale's, and it's her first day and my first week. We're not exactly veterans."
"Then count it as a good thing that they got the wrong impression." Armsmaster pointed out.
I raised an eyebrow at that. "I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have attacked us anyway, given that we just took Lung down for them."
"Probably not, but Hellhound has at least one kill on her record and is known to hit Empire dog-fighting rings with excessive force from time to time, and the other three are choosing to work with her. Minors or not, don't forget that they're still violent criminals." He further warned us.
"!-Hellhound's a murderer, and they're still considered 'small-time'?" 'The newbie appeared to be having trouble processing that.
"The death happened during her Trigger Event and was considered accidental as a result." He paused for a moment, probably getting information from his 'tech. "There were also several substantial accusations of her adoptive mother having abused her at the time, but it doesn't change the fact that several of her other adopted children were maimed during the event, and that she has shown herself perfectly willing to use potentially-lethal force against other Capes without knowing that they can survive."
"Sounds like someone else I know." I snorted, then paused and realised I'd just gained both of their attentions. "…and that was not supposed to be out loud, but while I have the opportunity… Armsmaster. I have a series of very uncomfortable questions I need to ask you, likely concerning the identity of another criminal Cape."
That got his attention. "…go on."
"Three months ago, an ongoing bullying campaign in Winslow High concluded with a student being trapped in a locker filled with rancid tampons for over an hour, and later hospitalised for a week and kept home for another four. According to all of the students, no-one saw the trap being prepared. Given that there's no realistic way this was done in a single day, and that the trap was sprung the day after Spring Break ended, this must have been prepared over the holiday, which would require access to both the school and the victim's locker. A skilled infiltrator could reasonably sneak into the school once, and maybe break the lock on her locker with brute force. But doing so multiple times over a month-long period, without being seen or leaving any evidence like a broken lock, implies the use of Parahuman abilities." And that derailed his train of thought. "The three perpetrators are all female, too old to be Vista, and Rune wouldn't be friends with Sophia. But Shadow Stalker? Known to be black, athletic, and a violent vigilante, versus the school's African-American track star known by many witnesses to have physically abused the victim in multiple instances. And, most importantly, she can reach through walls."
I carefully 'ignored' Taylor's reactions to this, and tamped down her bugs' buzzing. "You're suggesting you've uncovered a probationary Ward in the act of committing a crime."
"What other conclusion could I draw?"
"That the accused committed the crime in front of the student body, and the witnesses are concealing that fact with blatant lies?"
"Plausible, but Miss Hebert's locker has been broken into multiple times in the past, with no sign of tampering, and despite changing the combination every time. And given what happened to Sophia's friend on the same day…" I led the conversation. He paused for a moment, no doubt looking up the files himself.
"Emma Barnes had her throat slashed in a girl's bathroom. The police who were called to the scene were distracted by Miss Hebert and released her first, and the paramedics who followed them in declared Miss Barnes dead at the scene and prioritised saving Miss Hebert. You think someone else came to the same conclusion and targeted her?" He confirmed.
"Well, it probably wasn't a random act of violence, and if it was, it was a hell of a coincidence that no evidence was found at the scene. Seems professional: there aren't a lot of Empire recruits there, but the guy who murdered Fleur in her own home got off scot-free, so maybe someone figured it out and pulled the same shit, tried to warn Hess off bullying anyone else, or to punish the 'race traitor' for helping a black Cape almost kill another white student. Murdering a student seems extreme and a little too attention-grabbing,but you've been giving the skinhead's a lot of sway in this town, so maybe someone got overconfident and jumped the gun. Or maybe it was personal: I know I'm not the only one those two bullied, and even if they didn't suspect Sophia's identity, there wouldn't be a better time to strike." I embellished my story only slightly and misled with it a lot.
He didn't seem convinced, but withheld his judgement for now. "You have any other suspicions?"
"Hebert has an adopted brother they preyed on from time to time too, but he's autistic as shit and he'd have to be a fucking ninja to pull that off with no warning and less than an hour to prepare… and he called the cops to let her out of the locker, so he'd have had even less time, and I can't see that lining up. Other than that, maybe look at the minorities: the Merchant affiliates who sell weed under the bleachers twice a week, Sophia might've taken a swing at them in the past and provoked someone…? Well, it's a bit too late to do anything about that now, except figure out who did it." I shrugged in feigned indifference. "But probably-Shadow Stalker is an active threat to the PRT's reputation, and just because she stopped kicking the crap out of me after Barnes bit the dust, and got an in-hindsight very suspiciously-sudden transfer, doesn't mean I want her to get away with everything she did before that, to me and all of her targets. All criminals should be punished as appropriate: the good shouldn't have to play vigilante and taking the law into their own hands."
"You realise that's exactly what you're doing?" He tried to argue.
"What? How?" I asked in genuine puzzlement. "I haven't done anything illegal yet. I've just confided my suspicions in a reasonable authority figure, and you agree with me that if she is who I think she is, she needs to be held accountable. How is what I'm doing 'exactly' what she's done?!"
"I'm not talking about her. I'm talking about him." He abruptly pointed at Lung, of all people. "You succeeded in taking down a dangerous criminal, and you've done good work in the past week, but your activities aren't officially licensed or approved by the PRT. Not only does that make things more complicated for the paper-pushers, there will inevitably be pushback from the ABB aimed directly at you, and when the Empire starts fighting their weakened forces for territory, civilians are going to get hurt in the crossfire. You should be working with the authorities and developing plans and countermeasures for the consequences of your actions, not foisting them off on the normal people."
"…Armsmaster: no 'normal' person can realistically stop supervillains like I can. Even if I'm not associated with a government-sponsored paramilitary group that also stops villains, I feel like I have a reasonable moral obligation to help out the people in ways they can't realistically protect themselves." I pointed out, not withholding my annoyance at his absurd complaints from my voice. "And frankly, the authorities have utterly failed me and at least one of my peers. Why should I 'work' with the Wards when I believe with confidence that one of them is a criminal who's abused me in the past? Why should I trust that the PRT will magically fix this, only now that they know one of her victims is a Cape?"
Apparently, that wasn't enough for him. "And why should I believe that you had nothing to do with what happened to Miss Barnes?"
"!-excuse me? I'm a hero! I just stopped a supervillain from killing children, or whatever his end goal was, and I've been stopping criminals and calling in the cops for a week now!"
"And raiding them for money."
"Hey, don't you fucking judge me for following the law! We don't all have a paycheck to live off of, and if I'm taking their stolen money because I need it to survive or feed my family, that's none of your fucking business." I snapped right back. "And where the hell is this sudden hostility coming from?! I just took down a supervillain known to be trafficking sex slaves out in the suburbs, why the hell am I suddenly being accused of criminal activities, let alone murder?!"
"Because you've just bought this to my attention, and the timing of both 'incidents' at Winslow is suspicious. Because you know the identity of a Ward and are refusing to fully co-operate with the PRT in protecting her hypothetical family, who might not even know she's a Cape and would undoubtedly be targeted by the Empire if they were also non-white and she was exposed. And because if you were strong enough to take down Lung, even if it was a fluke, you're potentially strong enough to be a threat to Brockton Bay, should you start robbing the wrong kinds of people." What a load of absolute crap- "It only takes one mistake to destroy all the goodwill you've built up, and I am obligated to make it clear that even if you weren't involved in any criminal activity prior to now, refusing to cooperate in protecting a Ward's identity is a serious concern."
"And I am obligated by my morals to ensure that justice is meted out, and that everyone who commits a crime gets punished for it. If you have a problem with that, guess what, you don't need to because it's literally your job to do what I'm asking you to do." I built up a righteous tirade, not over the morality of his threats, but over his failure to do the job for which he was being paid. "If a Ward commits a crime, they get charged for it like anyone else! If their family will be in danger because you're so incompetent that you haven't rooted out the Empire after years of failures, you transfer the family somewhere safe under witness protection! These concerns are the duties of people who are being paid to handle them. Not me, the teenager who just took down Lung while you were joyriding around and accomplishing jack shit."
That last bit, out of everything I'd said so far, was what struck a nerve. "I am working on behalf of the government to protect the people. You are hunting for villains with neither the training nor the experience to confidently deal with larger groups. If Oni Lee were here, or the ABB's newest Explosives Tinker, this little stunt could have cost you your life. If you are prepared to engage in such reckless conduct, I have every reason to suspect that you will not or cannot keep Shadow Stalker's possible identity a secret."
"Bullshit." I cut him off before he could go any further- "You're mad because when this comes out, the PRT are going to be in deep shit for not doing their jobs, and you're taking it out on a pair of kids who just took down a serial-killing sex-slaver." –and I turned around and walked towards the fire escape. "Fuck you and fuck the Protectorate, I'm going home. Somewhere my services are actually appreciated. And Armsmaster?" I added over my shoulder. "If I don't see that Sophia Hess has been investigated, and I do mean a proper investigation, I'll take these 'suspicions' of mine to the media, and we'll find out just how much attention your hypothetical Ward gets yo-"
And then he shot me in the back. I didn't trust him not to try something, but my reflexes weren't ready for him to literally fire a taser at my unprotected back. Still, between it being fired and it connecting, I resisted the shock and the 'prongs' with my carapace, 'reverted' with Timeless to be right next to him, and smashed my elbow into the side of his head with enough force to throw him off his feet and knock him the fuck out.
"!-fucking, backstabbing scumbag!" I spat at his body. "I just saved some kids' lives and you try pulling this shit?! Because I want a criminal to face the consequences of their actions? You absolute fucking traitor to the American people!" Then I kicked him in the ribs and stomped back to the edge of the roof as I pulled out my burner phone.
"PRT Hotline."
"Henshin."
"I thought you were 'done for the night'?"
"The newbie found a dozen ABB loitering in an alley, and when we climbed a building to wait and see, Lung pulled up with a dozen more and told them to kill kids."
"You fought off Lung?"
"No, the newbie dropped a swarm on them and hit him with every venomous insect she had, then I put him in a choke-hold after his henchmen ran away screaming, and knocked him out. No fighting, just a quick take-down."
"Wait, Lung's already been called in by the PRT. Is Armsmaster there?"
"Oh, you fucking bet he is!" I abruptly snarled into the phone. "I told him I had a reasonable suspicion that the girl who hospitalised one of my fellow students at Winslow was Shadow Stalker using her powers to bully her, and he shot me in the back! I want this on the record, I want him court-martialled, and I want it known that this is exactly why I will not join the Wards! I'm sick to death of promises being broken and assholes like this poisoning the well for everyone else!"
And then, despite the temptation to throw the phone at Armsmaster (probably hard enough to break it), I instead muted the call and stomped off. Maybe the guy listening to that didn't deserve to have to listen to that rant, but it had to be on-the-record, and that was the only way it could be done. I wasn't going to let this asshole get away with misconduct, let alone stabbing me in the back like a coward… and I had a feeling what would be recorded next would be important to secure a conviction.
I'd barely hit the sidewalk and rounded the building by the time 'the newbie' finished climbing down the fire escape and joined me without a word. "Still want to be a corporate 'hero' under the PRT?" I quietly asked. Tellingly, she didn't respond at first. Not for about a mile of walking.
"…I can't believe he did that." She eventually whispered, about two blocks away. "Labelling us villains was already crazy enough, but then… I'm one of the people Sophia has been abusing at Winslow." She rushed past her 'confession'. "I suspected she was targeting at least one other person, but her being a Ward?"
"And Armsmaster didn't confirm it, but he also didn't deny it, which screams of legal bullshit." I nodded along. "He knows something about what's going on, but he refuses to admit it because he cares more about enforcing the law and protecting his own ass than he does about justice."
"And then he tried to taze you." She rolled the sentence around in her mouth. "That… if he'd done it earlier, I might actually be more okay with it, because he could say he was proactive about potentially protecting the identity of a Ward, but waiting until you turned your back… that's wrong. If he thought you were a threat to her, and he thought she was innocent or at least wasn't sure, he shouldn't have waited."
"Entrapment: he was delaying me in an effort to trick me into incriminating myself, and then shot an insect-man in the back with the equivalent of a bug zapper." I hinted at a weakness I didn't have and could 'logically' convince the PRT might be real for some time. "Asshole's lucky I'm letting him live after that."
She paused at that, staring at me and then power-walking back up to match me. "…'lucky I'm letting him live'? Isn't that a bit extreme? I don't think he was trying to kill you."
"Maybe not, but he's being paid by our taxes to do a job, and he's wilfully not doing it." I paused for a moment and tried again with a little less hostility. "Even in the best case scenario where I'm somehow wrong, and he doesn't want to risk a non-Cape getting targeted by the Empire, criminals are criminals and crime needs to be punished. Even if all he can do is pass this on to the police, trying to turn this around on me and outright threaten me is the height of intentionally-insulting hubris, and I'm not putting up with his shit. Not after I just did more in one night than they have in the last, what, five years? Ten?"
"I'm not arguing with that, but… do you actually want to be a Hero?" That gave me pause, and she stopped as well. "You say 'crime needs to be punished', and then you go and offer to work for the Undersiders on multiple specific jobs? How can you justify that?"
"Macro-economics." I let the 'one'-word answer settle for a moment before expounding on it. "What do you think of the Boat Graveyard?"
"It's a blight on the city, and a constant crushing reminder that Brockton Bay is falling apart." She immediately responded. "We can't even look out over the ocean without seeing a huge pile of shit floating just off-shore, and even if ocean trawlers are unpopular with Leviathan's presence, it would be a huge boon to the city if it were somehow cleaned up."
"And how about the homeless population? The general class divide between the have's and have-not's. Should that be 'cleaned up', or otherwise 'fixed'?" I started walking again.
"…well, that's not really comparable, is it? I suppose you could say that both are signs of decrepitude," She pulled out some of Mom's fancier English, "but the homeless population is not in-and-of-itself responsible for Brockton Bay's economic turmoil. Homelessness might be considered a 'disease' in metaphorical terms, but having homeless in a city doesn't automatically create more homeless from their mere presence. And as for the class divide, that really has to be addressed on a case-by-case basis: I'm sure some of the rich got to where they are without screwing over other people, the same way I'm sure some of the hobo's fell into poverty by their own fault. And if you were going to do something about the class divide, where would you even start?" She mused more to herself at this point, deep in thought as she fell in line next to me. "It's not automatically right to just take money away from people lucky enough to be born into it, the same way it's not right for people to be born into destitution. Is it even 'just' to interfere in a scenario like that…?"
"Almost certainly to some extent, but here's my underlying logic: any police officer can stop any human gang member. Even if they're armed, it only takes one bullet to put someone down if they have to. And sure, my powerset is easily too much for the average henchman, so I can technically do better than a normal cop. But the Docks, both the eyesore floating at their edges and the downtrodden masses huddled around burning barrels for warmth, aren't something I can also 'just fix' with my powers, and if I want to actually solve the problem of crime, that's probably the most effective way to do it. And what keeps the city from putting the time and resources into fixing the urban decay (outside of the political corruption and general incompetence)? Supervillains, problems that I am uniquely suited to handle, the same way the 'normal' people are probably better at 'fixing' the city."
"But… alright, maybe this is the best path for you to help Brockton Bay as a whole," she conceded, "but committing crimes of your own? How can you justify that?"
"The law frequently does not align with the morals or the express desires of the people. Likewise, there are some times when breaking it might be the 'right' thing to do. If I commit a handful of crimes to grow my powers, then go back to being a hero and do vastly more good for the people as Eidolon-lite, while also paying restitutions with all of my wrongfully-gained wealth (and then some) to all the people I've wronged, then I say it was worth it, and I'm willing to take the gamble that the people on the whole will agree that I made some 'bad' decisions for good reasons." I made my argument as well-thought-out as I could manage. "Some crimes, mostly the ones we define as Capital, are beyond mere financial compensation and I'll obviously do my best to avoid them. But just because someone commits a crime, even a serious one, doesn't mean they're 'forever evil'. We have a whole system designed for prisoners to serve time, after which they're supposed to be redeemed in the eyes of the public… and it's full of holes and fuck-ups because the sentences are often handed down by biased judges or juries, but it exists for a reason."
With a carefully-cultivated argument presented to her, she seemed to be struggling to form a similarly-reasonable counterpoint. So I threw her a non-sequitur bone. "Have you done the same history classes I have, on the cause of the Black Plague that washed over Europe in the fourteen-hundreds?"
She blinked at me, train of thought derailed again, before responding. "It was a bacterial disease spread from rodents to people by fleas and ticks."
"And Brockton Bay is absolutely full of dilapidated buildings, which no doubt have their own infestations of various pests. Even for creatures larger than insects, it would be a joke for a Cape like you to go in and cleanse these ruins. Even if it isn't as glamorous, you could potentially save or otherwise improve more lives by using your powers for economic good. But you're not allowed to be paid to do so because a bunch of fat-cat politicians decided NEPEA-5 violating the constitution was more important than impacting their profits. So you can't serve the community without violence unless you do it without pay, and if you're actively spending hours of every day patrolling outside of your school hours, you need a bare-minimum income to support yourself. So you can be a Hero or a Villain full-time, but you can't be a Rogue and benefit the city's people while also earning bed and breakfast. The laws don't define morality, and you shouldn't follow them blindly just because some geriatric politician said 'do it this way or we'll stick you in a hole for the rest of your life'."
"So I should 'blindly' follow my own morals instead?" She dryly challenged me.
"Given that your morals clearly demonstrate a willingness to listen to others and consider their opinions, yes." I heavily emphasized. "You shouldn't accept anything blindly, but you're a smart girl and clearly driven to do good, so just focus on gathering information, and then using that to do what you consider to be the right thing."
"Hey, I'm fifteen." She adorably grumped at being called a 'girl'.
"And so am I, and I'm a heartless bastard. But you're a good person, and I believe in you. Never forget, no matter what happens, that someone else does: genuinely-nice Capes like you are hard to come by, these days." I finished, leaving her temporarily speechless and outright stumbling in shock. "And if you have a reaction that intense to hear it, you deserve to be praised more often." I patted her on the shoulder. "Don't forget: we saved lives and stopped Lung. You did good tonight, and no-one gets to take that away from you. Not the Undersiders, not Armsmaster, no-one." I gave her a minute to soak that in, then made a show of looking around while I pulled another phone out of my 'pocket'. "I know you started from the city-side of the docks, but not exactly where from. Still, I doubt the ABB are already looking for you, so you should be home free. You good to go from here?"
"…yeah." She took a moment to not-stutter, like I bet she was close to, and I let the moment pass in silence as I finished adding a contact.
"Good." Then I held it out for her to take. "This one has my number and twenty bucks of pre-paid credit on it, so don't waste it on non-emergency calls, but feel free to send me a text if you need some help, or just to meet up and talk. I usually keep the battery separate from mine out of paranoia when I'm at home, but I still check every half-hour or so."
She didn't hesitate for long, taking it with almost-reverence and a whispered "thank you". That… kinda makes me feel bad, honestly. Have I been neglecting her just like Danny? I have an excuse, I've been getting bullied almost as much as her, but that's all it is: an excuse, not a reason or a justification.
"You're welcome. Take care of yourself." I added as I leapt off, quickly putting a few buildings between us and carefully monitoring her power to ensure I was actually outside of her immediate range, then leaving my range first and resolving to double it before I looped around back home. Even for my usual habits, staying up this late wasn't going to be all that pleasant, and the last thing I wanted now was to get caught sneaking back in.
AN: Much like my previous version of Worm CYOAv3 (in which the SI had less points, but didn't run PanaceaX or DoormakerX and which I quickly lost interest in as a result), the old Worm CYOAv4 story (On The Run) had a different setting: the SI had metaknowledge, arrived on New Years' Day, and after awakening Taylor's Changer powers early (with Web Slinger from the first/old V4), confronted Shadow Stalker mid-Locker Incident, revealed her identity in the principal's office, and promptly killed her in self-defense after she tried to kill him and his adoptive sister/father with phased pens and other detritus thrown in their general direction. After being transferred to the PRTHQ and waking up, Armsmaster was Armsmaster and they ended up making a fool of the Wards, the Protectorate, and all three Marked factions in one infirmary-escaping, city-wide chase, hence the title.
What separates this from the other CYOA's is the existence of the RPG-esque 'Achievement-Levelling' system, and the 'Pointless/Pointy Extras', one of which allows you to be Taylor's sibling. However, the 'Black Hat Capers' are designed after Skitter's in-universe feats, and it only makes sense to follow along with them. So after the first story petered out for the same reason as the CYOAv3 'beta' did (a lack of direction), I realised that I could do my own thing by having a different style of SI take the reins: a no-nonsense Cerebus Knight who only really cares about himself first, his bullied older sister second, and his 'deadbeat' father third (followed loosely by friends and innocent civilians). You'll also note that it's unclear whether or not this SI has metaknowledge or not, a mystery I'd like to keep going for a while longer (but which isn't terribly impactful to the story, don't worry).
I'm sorry to say that most of the other CYOA's will likely not result in stories: CYOAv1, unless deliberately hamstrung by authorial fiat, makes you an Entity-level threat right out the gate (so you pretty-much have to write yourself as a 'god' and try to make a Black Hole Sue interesting, probably by deconstructing their morals and methods); CYOAv2 is just CYOAv3 but shittier; CYOAv5 is designed with setting-appropriate powers but is easy to end up like CYOAv1 (or so 'outside' Canon that you have to make it up as you go, which I'm not-good at); most of the 'other' CYOA's take their powers from other settings, like V3, but are often even more generic or imbalanced (or just not very interesting outside of making builds, like the Worm Alternative CYOA); and any higher-numbered CYOA's suffer from the same problems. Hard to be original, after everything their predecessors established. If I did use any of them, they'd probably be as one-shot 'Omake/What-If' accompaniments to a hypothetical CYOAv1 story as described above (or a similar 'central' story structure).
That being said, I do have a vague idea of using several Worm JumpChain CYOA's (that don't take powers from other settings) for a single story, using multiple weak and mid-tier powers to become an incredibly-strong threat that has to deal with shit-tons of Drawbacks (and being a voice in Taylor's head due to Scenario's and Missions), but that's going nowhere due to the 'too broken' problem rearing its head (it'd mostly be about the two of them trying to get along, while she navigates the Cape world as the second coming of the Eidolon, and he fulfils his 'quotas' by completing Scenario's and grinding away at the planet-wide Parahuman 'problem' populations).
Also, the 'Lewd' Worm CYOA's (V1.065 and V2PP) are both interesting: the latter because you can start in locations like Bet-Madison during the Travellers' arrival as Oliver, or Lung's Yangban camp as Cody, and the powers are all useful in non-sexual contexts; and the former very much so because (working around the sexual applications of the powers offered/themes associated with pretty much everything else for a moment), there are a lot of interesting ideas with Companions, Power Sources, and Missions/a Kill List all at once, and an explicit 'Multiplayer' feature that can be used to add additional SI's in different forms. Interesting to pit a 'Diplomatic Tar-God' against an 'Oni-Dragon with a Persona 5 Parahuman Family', and 'Sidero Moriarty's younger brother' and his extreme views/conflicting Kill List. You can even justify an Endbringer pick to take them out of the equation, which just leaves the setting as a 'playground' for all your different ideas to flourish… it just so happens to cross the NSFW line by a mile, making it awkward to write about.
