Outsiders 1.2: Monsters

⸻1⸻

The sound of hip-hop music echoed off the walls of the abandoned mall. Bags and shopping carts of goods had been left behind, the contents ruffled and scattered as though picked apart by vultures. Shadows of people slinked further into the boutiques, the metal gates pulled down and locked, barring the entrances. Kinda rude, but whatever.

Whitney Geist was unperturbed. He vibed to the likes of the Wu-Tang Clan, bobbing his head along to the beat. The trip to the music store had been a fruitful one. Propped on one shoulder was a boombox stereo with a cd spinning inside and in his hand was a hard seltzer liberated from the fridge in the employee lounge.

Why were they drinking at work? They worked at the mall. No further explanations should be necessary.

The fizz tang of blackberries hit his tongue, a hint of maltiness lingering after each sip. It was warm, but that was to be expected. Most places didn't have any power these days. The government supplied a few generators early on, but otherwise the power grid has pretty much been kaput.

He rounded a greening fountain while RZA was telling him to bring da motherfuckin' ruckus, and found himself gazing at the shops the center court had to offer. According to the wall map, this was where the really good shit was. Apparently, others had thought so too. Most of the stores had their display windows smashed and insides gutted like the aftermath of a Black Friday riot.

The boutiques that survived the initial onslaught of looters were the ones with high-end security. Whitney stopped in front of one such store. It was a clothing shop. The window sported several quarter-sized white indents, likely from gunshots. Bulletproof glass, eh? The store-owner must have been one paranoid fuck. And for that, we thank him.

Taking another sip of flavored vodka, Whitney casually walked right through the steel shutter and into the store; boombox and all. The inside was dark. He flicked on his flashlight and nearly slipped through the floor in fright. The first thing to be illuminated was the featureless, pale face of a mannequin. It posed with a hand on its hip, showing off a fashionable sleeveless dress.

Fuck. He forgot how unnerving mannequins could be.

Panning the light around the store, everything looked to be in good condition; a time capsule of before the Simurgh. Only a few people Whitney had met had been willing to even say the bitch's name, like she was Voldemort or some shit. Really though, could they have possibly picked a less threatening name? Instead of an angel of death, Simurgh sounded more like a muppet reject.

Setting the boombox on the counter, Whitney approached a mannequin locked inside a display case with some amount of reverence. Proudly arranged on the figure was a fluffy white trench coat. The collar was extra puffy and reminded him of an arctic fox tail. Wasting no time, Whitney shed his old jacket and donned the fur coat, pulling it out of the case as if the glass wasn't there at all.

The price tag on the sleeve was in the four figures range, but that didn't matter much anymore. These days, if you could haul it you could have it. Money had become worthless, more useful as fuel for campfires on cold Wisconsin winter nights.

He never felt more like a pimp.

For all the doom and gloom that seemed to hang over the city like a miasma, Whitney personally has been having the time of his life. For the first time ever, he was free to do anything he wanted. He even robbed a bank the other day. Though it was mainly for the hell of it, he wanted just once to sleep on a bed of cash like Fafnir, the legendary dragon. And as it turned out, it wasn't really all that comfortable.

Moving on to the next set of display cases, Whitney eyed the gold jewelry. There were rings and necklaces, and even things like brooches and cufflinks. Maybe he really was like Fafnir, all this gold was driving him crazy. He dipped into the case and snatched a handful of rings plus a shiny necklace.

Finally, he grabbed a few long and decorative hairpin needles. They were like knitting needles with how long they were, and had a silver orb with a tassel of diamonds on the end that glittered in the beam of his flashlight. His hair had been getting a little unruly, and that was even before he spent the past month in quarantine. Loosely bunching the brunette locks behind his head, Whitney speared it with the hairpins.

Sure, they weren't the most masculine accessories, but frankly he didn't give a fuck.

Finished with his shopping, Whitey gathered up the boombox and left the clothing store, decked out in his shiny accessories. He pondered where he should go next (he remembered seeing an electronics store on the map; and he could use a new tv) when he spotted a strange creature out the corner of his eye. This wasn't the first otherworldly thing he had seen lately, but it was admittedly weirder than usual.

Hanging from a security camera was a little naked gnome. Its skin was pink and flabby, like an obese piglet. Golf ball sized eyes bugged out from the guy's head, looking every which way independently of one another. A curved nose that'd make a bird envious loomed over a bushy beard that obscured the front of the gnome's body (thankfully). It eyed Whitney and bleated.

Deeming him to be unimportant, the gnome turned away and swung up on top of the camera. Whitney wasn't sure whether to be offended or not, but either way, he'd rather not have that creature stare at him more with those big ol' eyes. Talk about creeper peepers.

The gnome jiggled the camera violently, trying to rip it from the mounted bracket it had been fastened to. Resting on the lip of the algae infested fountain, drink in hand, Whitney watched the thing work with morbid fascination. Like, what was it even trying to do?

After about a minute, the camera jarred loose a bit and the gnome fell to the floor as if bucked by a mechanical bull. Just then, the security camera came free completely and dropped directly on the little guy's midsection, bisecting him and splattering goo on the white tile flooring.

Unlike the blood and guts Whitney had been expecting, it was like the gnome was made of clay. From the top half, a new set of legs morphed into existence; and from the bottom half, a new torso, head, and arms. Instead of one, there were now two smaller gnomes. They each grabbed an end of the camera and carried it together.

Heading for the hall opposite of the fountain, they briefly stopped and stared at Whitney with unblinking eyes. Their mouths hung half-open, breathing heavily.

Jeez, why do they have to be so damn creepy?

"Um, hey… How's it going?" Whitney said, raising a hand in greeting. The gnomes bleated once more and dropped the camera, scurrying off into the dark crevices of a derelict shop further up the way. "...Was it something I said?"

The rumbling of motorcycles resonated throughout the mall like a pack of snarling beasts, drowning out the music from his boombox. Looking over his shoulder, he spotted a group of four men riding their bikes down the main hall. They expertly maneuvered around all the crap lying on the ground and circled the fountain. Whitney was surrounded.

A burly man dismounted his bike, flicking out the kickstand in a savvy swish. Dressed in a leather jacket, there was an intricate depiction of a grim reaper on horseback embroidered on the sleeve. There was a pistol holstered at his side and a heavy chain wrapped across his torso from hip to shoulder. Moving his sunglasses up to his bandana-draped forehead, he looked down at Whitney. Hand drifting to his gun, the biker spit on the ground. "You lost, boy?"

"I mean, I don't think so? I checked the map on the first floor. Pretty sure I know where I am." Whitney glanced off to the side and absentmindedly flicked the diamond tassels dangling from the ornate hairpin. Oh look, the bottom of the fountain was paved with spare change, slowly corroding in the sour stagnant water. Once upon a time, he would have braved public humiliation and a staph infection for a scrap of that slimy bounty, but things were different now.

He was different now.

The burly man laughed, flashing yellow teeth behind his scraggly beard. His buddies joined in; a guffawful baritone choir. After the laughter died down, he wiped a finger below his eye. "Shit, fellas. We got ourselves a comedian. You better think again, 'cause it seems to me that you don't know where you are. You see, this mall is our turf. Property of the Horsemen, yeah? That means everything in it belongs to us."

"It does, eh? Ah, sorry, I didn't know. This place looks like such a shithole that I figured it had been abandoned," Whitney replied and took a long sip from the hard seltzer, finishing the can. He shook the last drops out over his awaiting tongue, then tossed the empty can at the biker's feet. "Why don't you be a doll and get me another one, Hog Wild. I am your guest, right?"

The biker slammed a foot on the aluminum can, flattening it under his snakeskin boot. He whipped out the pistol, a six-shot revolver, and leveled it at Whitney's head. "Don't you go being all cute with us, you little shit. Here's what's gonna happen. Me and the boys here are going to take everything of value you've got. And unless you try anything funny, Mr. Comedian, we'll be kind enough to leave you with your life."

One of the bikers, a man in his late teens, shuffled his feet. Pale and sweaty, a nervous discontent ran rampant on his face as he squirmed in his leather jacket. Unlike his companions, he was squeamish with the idea of killing. Maybe as a last resort—and only in self-defense. This was teetering on cold-blooded murder.

"Golly gee, how generous." Whitney slid one of the hairpins out of his messy bun and tapped a finger on the tip. A bead of blood bloomed at the pinnacle of the appendage. Wow, these things were pretty damn sharp. It would make for a handy weapon, should it come to that. He wiped his finger on the concrete fountain, leaving a russet trail of blood.

"Okay, enough of this shit," the lead biker grunted, tilting back the hammer on the revolver. "No more games. Give us your shit or I'll paint your brains all over this fountain."

"I'd like to see you try, seriously. I'd be impressed if you actually could. I've been pretty much untouchable the past month."

"I warned you!" the biker yelled and squeezed the trigger, but his arm was knocked away at the last second. The bullet whizzed wide, burrowing through the circuits and innards of the boombox. Shrapnel rained into the gunky water as the back of the music player shattered, the force of the impact pushing it off the brim of the fountain and into the mossy soup. It sparked and sunk to its final resting place—on a copper bed of pennies. "What are you doing, Sasha?"

"You know the rules, Grant," the young, nervous biker, Sasha, said between pants. He gripped the lead biker's arm tighter. "No killing unless we are attacked first! Even if the world has gone to shit, we should still stick to our convictions."

"Fuck off," replied Grant, the lead biker, breaking loose from Sasha with a shove. "I didn't join the Horsemen to follow fucking rules. You know, for having the name 'Black Death' our leader sure is a giant pussy when it comes to killing. We can't afford to wait to be attacked anymore. The city has changed, we need to change too."

Grant turned to Whitney with a crazed look in his eyes. "Kill or be killed. You get it, right? You've seen them, right? The monsters that have been crawling all over our city? We can't compete with that. We're just prey to those… those fucking things. And the capes? They are no different. They may look human, just like you and me, but they aren't. No human can do what they do! Just die!" He raised his gun once more.

"Stop!" Sasha shouted, but it was too late. A pinch of pressure, and the gun spit a bullet in a crack of thunder. It zipped through Whitney's chest and lodged itself into the fountain. Whitney tumbled forward, clutching his heart.

"Ohhhhh! You got me. Ouch! Oof! I'm dying, like, for real; trust me." He fell to the ground, covering his eyes with a forearm; hairpin still firmly grasped in hand. "Is this the end of the road for me, the great Whitney Geist—jewel of a generation? Vision…fading. I… feel so cold. Blah, I'm dead…" He laid motionless for a few seconds before moving his hands to show a distinct lack of blood staining the white fur trench coat, and popped back up to his feet. "Just Kidding! Heh, heh! I'm alive and only a tad drunk."

"You, you're one of them! A cape!" Grant spouted, the revolver trembling in his hand.

Whitney shrugged, a smug smile tugging at his mug. "Guilty. Well, I don't know if I'd really consider myself a 'cape' per se. I'm not a big fan of the whole 'codename and costume' rigmarole. It kinda makes me cringe a little inside. I mean, grown adults playing dress-up? Super weird. I'm definitely a parahuman though. No question about that."

"T-T-They're everywhere!" Grant stammered and staggered back a step, clutching his head, "Hiding among us. Black Death sent us here to investigate after calls about a suspicious person, but was there really such a thing? Maybe it's a trap. You two are working together!"

"Take it easy, Grant. You know the boss wouldn't do that," said one of the other bikers. He spoke in a soft manner, like he was trying not to spook a cornered animal. He gently put a hand on Grant's shoulder, but the man swung at him with the pistol.

"Back off! Don't fucking touch me! This is all a ploy! I see now. I get it. You're all in on it! The real target is me! Well, too bad!" Grant pointed the revolver at his friend's head and fired his third shot. The biker's head evaporated into a visceral firework of bone slivers and pink mush. The headless body jerked forward and then slumped down, jittering slightly.

The fourth biker turned and ran. He made it to his motorcycle before he lost his life. A bullet bit his veterbate at the base of the skull and exited his jaw, sprinkling teeth and flesh over the bike's jet black paint job. Paralyzed, the man suffocated while laid out on top of his toppled bike, the remains of his brain dilating into shock.

Next, Grant turned his gun on Sasha. The man looked barely human anymore. Spittle dripped from his snarling mouth and his eyes ran red with bursted vessels. He was a beast, a wild boar. "You lose!"

Whitney grabbed Sasha by the arm and the fifth gunshot phased harmlessly through the young man's body. Having squeezed his eyes shut, expecting death, Sasha tentatively opened them after feeling no pain. He was alive! Holy fucking shit!

"An eye for an eye," Whitney commented, releasing Sasha, "You stopped me from getting shot (Sorta. I guess it's the thought that counts), so I did the same. It's only fair."

"No…It's not fair," Grant whispered, dropping to his knees. "Oh God, I can't take this anymore. Don't you see? You, me, everyone… We're fucked. We're so fucked! You just don't know it yet. But, oh, you will. Trust me, you will. In the end, there is only one escape."

He put the muzzle under his own chin and fired the final shot.

⸻2⸻

One Month Ago…

The throbbing of his aches and bruises felt like a distant memory—faded to the point that Whitney couldn't be sure that they happened at all. Memory was unreliable. It had been seven winters since he had seen his mother's face and he probably couldn't pick her out of the crowd among the other prisoners of New York State Penitentiary. Being trampled under foot and the hero in black turning her back on him, did these things happen too?

Whitney opened his eyes and saw black nothingness. His body tumbled sluggishly as if he was falling through a sea of gelatin. What happened to the angel? He couldn't hear her screams any longer. What happened to him for that matter?

Something was missing from his head. He had a strange dream, but he can't recall it.

He fell out of the ceiling and into a dark concrete cylinder filled with water. Gasping for breath, Whitney surfaced. Dead leaves plastered themselves to the side of his face and sticks jabbed at his abdomen, whisked into him by the current. He was in a storm drain.

In the past, he had often hung out in them with his friends. It was a quiet place free from the cares and problems that dangled from their necks like the rotting corpse of an albatross. Smoking cigarettes and tagging the walls by the light of a lanturn, they could have been anyone. Some friends moved away, others were sent away. Regardless, by the senior year of high school, Whitney sat in the tunnels alone.

Dragged through the drain on the world's most fucked water slide, Whitney fought to keep his head afloat. Normally, he would have been fine, but for some reason his body felt odd. It felt light, hollowed out somehow. He did slip through solid rock to get into this predicament—and that certainly wasn't normal.

At the end of the storm drain was a rapidly approaching metal grate. A mess of tree branches, garbage, and dismembered body parts had piled up at the choke point, creating a black pool of clogged water. Whitney was going to crash into it and likely drown.

There was something in his head. Whitney could picture it; his entire existence encapsulated in a white balloon. Instinctively he knew that the string of the balloon was all that kept him tethered to this world. Mentally snipping the string, he set the balloon free and he phased through the debris and metal gate.

So it was true. Whitney had become a parahuman.

He gauged his surroundings. The storm drain had dumped him into the lake. Standing in the muck at the bottom, Whitney watched in awe as a bluegill swam past his face. He was underwater, yet his Bluno's uniform was perfectly dry. It was like he had become a ghost, interacting with the physical world in a mostly limited capacity.

Curious, Whitney willed himself corporeal and was instantly soaked. The icy water of the lake stabbed his chest and limbs, and he gasped in shock. Releasing reality's hold, the frosty touch of the December lake vanished and he breathed deep. Wait, how could he breathe in this state? His power held no answer for him.

Pushing off the lake bottom, he floated up and through the ice covering the lake surface. Snow crunched beneath his feet as Whitney touched down onto the shore. Overhead, painted on a backdrop of gray clouds, was that ethereally beautiful angel. The hero from before was there as well, flying around like a big black bug. She was joined by several others, the swarming pests.

Houses along the beachfront were obliterated as the battle raged on. Whitney sat down on a snowbank and observed the fight. After what had just happened to him less than thirty minutes prior he figured he should have felt angry or vindictive seeing those so-called heroes getting their asses kicked by Heaven's reject. But honestly, he really didn't feel much of anything. Even the pain in his ankle and had faded away.

Were his emotions just as disconnected from the real world as his body?

The angel flapped her wings and ripped another hole in the sky, much like the one that brought Whitney to this place. The tip of a building poked out from the gash in space-time, ramming into the hero in black (Hah!), and exploded in a blast of brick and mortar. From within the building, all sorts of otherworldly and monstrous beings rained from the sky. Just what kind of dimension did that bitch tap into this time?

A steel container like a sci-fi sarcophagus slammed into the frozen lake roughly ten feet from where Whitney was sitting. It looked like some kind of pod. The face of the device was a sheet of curved glass, and trapped inside was a woman.

She was without a doubt the strangest woman he had ever seen. Her skin was dark gray; and her bones, teeth, and hair glowed bright yellow. The hints of her shining skeleton could even be seen under her drab jumpsuit. The teeth alone gave her a permanent and sinister smile which gleamed through her cheeks.

The woman shoved her shoulder against the glass repeatedly, trying to break it. Water slowly started to fill the pod as it began to sink into the lake. Spotting Whitney, she banged on the glass with her fist and shouted at him. He couldn't hear a word. The entire thing was sound proof. In a matter of moments, it disappeared beneath the black water.

He wasn't a hero… He had no obligation to save that woman… For all he knew, she could be a dangerous villain… She was locked up in that pod… Maybe that was for a good reason… Besides, no hero saved him when he was in trouble…

God dammit.

Whitney sprinted across the ice and dove into the hole, allowing the water to phase through his body as he drifted over to the submerged pod. It was completely filled with water and the woman inside had a hand pressed tight to her mouth, her eyes clenched shut. He did what came naturally and reached through the glass, grabbed the woman, and pulled her out.

Hauled to the surface, she coughed up a bit of lake water and laid on her back, gazing up at the war-torn sky. To her, it was the most wonderful thing she had ever seen. "Da-Danke."

"Whatever."

And that was how Whitney came to make his first friend in this new world—a woman named Oppenheimer.

⸻3⸻

Present Day…

Despite it being on the cusp of February, the small beach at Warner Park was not devoid of sunbathers. Wearing only a bikini, Oppenheimer was stretched out on a lounge chair, the legs of which were buried in an inch of snow. With a reflector in hand, she soaked up the sun's rays. She could feel the heat in her bones, and her bones in turn seemed to glow even brighter.

The view of Lake Mendota was beautiful in the way the ice glistened in the afternoon sun. Though the several hundred foot tall wall blotting out the horizon was a blight on the eyes. The parahumans of this world were quite adept at sealing people away. It had only taken them a few days to erect the ugly structure, trapping everyone whom they deemed undesirable for the last month and counting.

She grabbed her drink off the little table next to her and tried to sip. The lemonade had frozen to a slush and clogged up the straw. Frowning, Oppenheimer held the glass tighter and it began steaming. The lemonade quickly melted, heating up to a boil in a matter of seconds.

Unfortunately, she hadn't accounted for the temperament of the glass. Rapidly switching from freezing cold to boiling hot caused microfractures to form and the cup shattered into pieces, spilling her drink into the snow. Her hand was sticky now. Gross.

As she wiped her hand clean in a patch of snow, a group of men crested over the hill and sauntered over to her. Feeling a shadow obstructing her delectable sunlight, Oppenheimer flipped up her aviator sunglasses and glanced at the men unimpressed. They looked like a pack of stray dogs, adorned with unkempt facial hair and ragged clothes. She moved her sunglasses back down.

"You all by yourself, Miss? We can protect you… for a price. You know, for one of those monsters, you're too bad looking. It has been slim pickens these days. How about you come quietly and I'll show you a real good time."

"Verschwinde! You're blocking my sun." Oppenheimer reached under her chair and pulled out a silver laser pistol. She shot the man with a pellet of glowing green light and the horny vagrant burst into flames. He crumpled to the ground, charred to the bone over the course of a minute, all while screeching in agony. With frightened screams of their own, the dead man's friends fled.

She holsted her weapon and nuzzled back into her lounge chair, enjoying the warm daylight once more. "Dummkopf."

She had spent years locked away in that facility, dreaming of the day that she'd get to taste the sun. Now that she was free to experience that luxury everyday she wasn't about to let some bump deprive her. She was having the time of her life. And it was all thanks to that kid.

Where was he anyway? He should have met back up with her ages ago. Eh, he was probably fine.

The obnoxious grumbling of a motorcycle polluted her ears and she whipped out her laser pistol once more. Clicking her tongue, Oppenheimer complained, "Tch, Can't a girl relax for five minutes?"

She put the weapon away when she saw that riding down the street towards her wasn't some gangster, but rather, her companion Whitney. He had changed his clothing to a ridiculous looking white fur coat and had gold necklaces dangling from his neck. It looks like his little shopping spree went well.

"You sure took your time getting back, Ghost. Did something happen?" Oppenheimer asked as he skidded to a stop at the edge of the sand, inertia spilling him over the side of the bike.

"Naw, just the usual stuff," Whitney replied, ignoring Oppenheimer's use of his 'cape name', and popped up to his feet. Bits of sand fell off his body and settled back on the beach. He glanced at the blackened human remains resting in a puddle of melted snow. "You know how it is. I guess some guys tried to rob me, but I made off with their bike instead. Of course, learning how to ride is another matter entirely. I managed to convince the survivor to give me a crash course."

Slinging a backpack off his shoulder, he rooted around the inside for a small black box. Flipping the lid, a smell of tobacco leaves brushed Oppenheimer's palate. A dozen or so cigars lined the bottom of the box. Whitney cheerfully stated, "I've got stogies!"

"Wunderbar." Oppenheimer took one and pressed a finger tip to the end, lighting it. She breathed in and exhaled several puffs of smoke. Holding out her glowing ET finger, she asked, "Wanna light?"

"No thanks. I'd rather not get super cancer." Whitney flicked on a lighter and lit his cigar the old fashioned way. Breathing deep, the smoke simply exited his lungs as if his chest had exhaust vents.

"Your power is such bullshit."

"Heh, heh. Yeah."

They sat together in comfortable silence and watched the sun fall behind the great stone wall, casting them in its oppressive shade. The city may have gone to hell, but to some, this place was a paradise. Whitney thought about that quite a bit. His life has never been better than this moment right now. It was almost enough to make him cry.

Whitney glanced at his friend. "Let's go home."

⸻4⸻

Sasha knocked on an old wooden door. The varnish had vanished, stripped away by father time until the tarnished wood beneath it had faded to a pale sepia. The door creaked open with the anguished cries of rusted hinges, and a waft of smoke bellowed into the hall. Sasha stepped inside and the door closed behind him.

The room was a fully furnished office; granted, it had been furnished in the 70s. The wood panel walls and shag carpet had seen better days. Though it was hard to see in the pitch black room, Sasha could feel the carpet under his boots—spongy with each step. A smoldering cigar hung from the ashtray. That meant the boss had to be nearby.

"Um…Miss Black Death, ma'am. I, uh, have a report for you. And it's… not exactly good news."

The first few times he delivered a message to the leader of the Horsemen he felt rather foolish calling out into an empty room. But he knew she was there, watching and listening.

The shadows of the dark room seemed to gravitate towards the corner, condensing into a black smudge. A figure rose from the blackness without a sound. She was eerily dressed like a medieval plague doctor. Waxy linen coveralls and a birdlike mask obscured her features. When she spoke, her voice had a soft, impossible rasp like moth wings scraping together. "Yes, what is it?"

"I—we investigated the mall like you asked, but ran into some complications."

"Such as? And where is Grant? He should be the one delivering the report. Don't tell me he deserted like the others. Fuck those DVARG bastards. Can't they poach members from someone else?" Black Death moved like a specter from the corner and sat in her leather chair. Tapping the excess ash off the tip of the cigar, she brought it up to her face. Undoing a latch on the side of her mask; Black Death exposed her pale mouth, setting the bottom piece of her mask on her desk, and put the cigar to her lips.

"Er, no, it wasn't that. He's dead. Same with Avery and Cliff."

"Oh, yeah? Who or what did them in?"

"It was Grant, ma'am. He was a Ziz Bomb."

A Ziz Bomb, eh? Black Death leaned back in her chair and took an extra long drag on her cigar. There really was nothing like a stogie at the end of a long day. Breathing out a cloud of roasted tobacco, she relaxed in her chair.

If there was one thing more annoying than DVARG in this mad city, it was the Ziz Bombs. They could be anyone. A perfectly ordinary person, until one day a very unique set of circumstances triggers an insane-o switch in their minds and they fly off the handle. Anyone that heard that bitch, Simurgh, sing her lovely song had the bomb set in their psyche, primed like a sleeper cell awaiting their orders to attack. "I see…"

"I would have died too, but this guy, a cape saved me. I think his name was… Whitney Geist?"

Black Death leaned forward and rested her elbows on her desk, and hands folded under her chin. With the bottom of the mask still discorded, Sasha was privy to the unsettling grin splitting his boss's face. "Tell me everything."

End of Chapter

⸻Author's Note⸻

I don't really have much to say other than that these first few chapters will be focused more on introducing all the "players in the game" as it were, before we get into the nitty-gritty of the story.

As for Whitney's powers: He is a powerful Breaker capable of allowing anything he wants to pass through his body. He also has a minor Striker ability which allows him to imbue anything he touches (people, animals, objects, etc) with the same Breaker effect for as long as they maintain physical contact. That's not quite all there is to it, but I want to keep some things a secret for now.

To put it simply, he is a broken Breaker.

Southpawishly Yours,

A Horseshoe Crab

Chapter Word Count: 5,268

Arc Word Count: 11,065

Story Word Count: 11,065