Adam Torus Worm Chapter 5: 5, a 17776 fanfic

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Worm

Crusader (RWBY/Worm)

Thread starter MasterDuplicator Start date Apr 30, 2022 Tags rwby worm (parahumans)

Which story idea should I focus on next?

The eleventh hour(An AU where Beacon and Haven go differently, and humanity is dying off in Vacuo).

Votes: 77 4.3%

Punchclock(A chronicling of Lung's rise in Brockton Bay. Oni Lee will also become a person here).

Votes: 125 6.9%

Bark & Bite(The Hound and Arya Stark get comfortable in Thedas just as the Blight begins anew).

Votes: 182 10.1%

InFamous: An unofficial novelization(What it says on the tin).

Votes: 102 5.7%

Wanderlust(Artyom and Sam (From Metro/Metro Exodus) leave for America in the world of TLOU.)

Votes: 153 8.5%

Defender(Adam's continued adventures in Earth Bet.)

Votes: 1,162 64.6%

Total voters 1,800

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MasterDuplicator

Big Fan of a Mad Cow

Super Awesome Happy Funtime

Apr 22, 2023

#1,387

Woooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Just caught up with the rest of volume nine.

Ya know what, I'm just happy they finally just went out and did it(Though the circumstances in which it happened really irritated me. Why couldn't they have had that conversation themselves? Them literally being forced with a metaphorical gun to their head to finally talk their shit out really irked me. Like, dude, just sit down by a fire and have an honest conversation. Literally, everyone in the show just needs to pair up, sit down, have a beer, and fucking talk. That would solve almost every issue I have with the show and would have also probably stopped

Spoiler

It also hurts me a little bit that immediately after confirming it, they started crowing about it being planned all along, when if you know literally anything about Monty or the show's behind-the-scenes production, you'd know that statement to be ridiculous. It really bothers me when people bring him up to make a point or a statement about the show, whether or not it's a fan, a critic, or a producer doing it, because the man is fucking dead. He's been dead, for over eight years now, and to this day people keep using his coffin as a soapbox to make their points when the reality is that we'll never really know how his mind worked or what he wanted to do, or even how he was going to do it in the first place. I know I've been guilty of it in the past, but I always try and do my best to keep him out of my critiques of the show besides the obvious role he played in the animation.

I'd also like to apologize for the delay. I got a new job, met a sweet gal, and nearly broke my wrist after eating shit on a skateboard. It should be smooth sailing from now on.

Now, on the topic of characters having an honest conversation, here's Adam Adamantly refusing to open up and be fully honest in a conversation.

The door behind him slid shut with an ominous creak. Adam took a step forward, biting down a swear when his toe made contact with the base of the sink in front of him. The room was pitch dark, and even with his night vision, he had trouble parsing out the layout of the cramped restroom he'd walked into.

He reached to his left and fumbled with the wall, blindingly groping for a light switch. When the light came on, he instinctively reached a hand up to protect his eyes, the light blinding, and his hand impacted the lightbulb above him hard enough that Adam was worried he'd almost knocked it loose when the bulb began flickering ominously.

After a moment, the flickering stopped, and Adam sighed. The sink didn't have a mirror above it, so he turned to his right.

Adam stopped.

His reflection hit him with a force that almost felt physical.

His hair, finger-combed down to disguise himself and messed by his hat, had strands and bangs run down long enough to touch the shell of his ear. Lightly soaked by the rain, it had dried in a way that had knotted parts of it together in a way that looked virtually nothing like his style.

His horns, hidden by his hat.

His one free eye, a gleaming emerald, with only a few small flecks of blue shining bright enough to fight their way past the contact lens, and that in and of itself looked unique enough to differentiate himself from himself.

His face was unblemished by scar or by scowl, free of stress lines, the small wrinkles dotted under his eyes and the sides of his cheeks hidden by the makeup.

And, of course, his scar, hidden by the eyepatch on his face. His nose, of course, still bore parts of the mark his meager cosmetology skills couldn't hide, a few small cuts and raw skin bright and angry.

His usual attire was nowhere to be seen, and even his jacket and gloves were gone, having been left behind in the booth at the diner's entrance he'd shared with Sabah.

He looked years younger. For once, he actually looked his age.

He couldn't recognize himself.

Adam didn't feel like himself.

Adam Taurus had built himself into a machine. Had mentally and physically prepared himself to become a weapon, a beast, a monster, a force. A force of change, a force of destruction, a living symbol of freedom, of what his species could be without humanity's chains to hold them down.

Adam Taurus lead men into battle. Adam Taurus did not sit down in a crowded movie theatre for two hours to watch a film about robots boxing in an arena at a human's request.

Adam Taurus had personally hunted down his former partner in the midst of her burning home to tear out the knife she plunged into his chest with her betrayal and stick it into hers. Then he'd made it his mission to twist it in, deeper and deeper and deeper until it finally killed her or broke her.

Adam Taurus had just smashed open a claw machine inside a children's casino to retrieve a stuffed animal at a human's request. Because he hadn't wanted that human to suffer, to be upset.

Adam Taurus had personally inspired hundreds of men and women, all young, all angry, all desperate, to join the White Fang and get their own payback.

Adam Taurus was currently mentoring a girl to hopefully one day become his opposite.

Adam looked in the mirror, and he saw a stranger. A stranger who laughed, who smiled, who blustered and joked and went to the movies, who went out to eat and who loved to sew and knit and listen to rock music on his friend's radio, who loved to have a friend in the first place.

A small part of him liked that stranger in the mirror.

An even smaller part of him wondered what it would be like to be that stranger.

Adam shifted, and felt the contents of his left pocket rub against his leg. He remembered the pit stop he insisted they make along the way.

Reality set in.

He reached up towards his left eye and plucked out the contact, tossing it into the sink.

Then he took off his hat, lifted his eye patch to the side, emptied his pocket, inhaled, and went to work.

(X)

When it was over, he flipped the eyepatch back into place, wincing as it rubbed against his skin.

He looked at himself again, at the makeup he'd all but ruined, and reached upward to style his hair back.

When he opened the bathroom door and stepped back into the dining room, a few stubborn strands fell back down past his hat, dancing in the breeze the fan at the ceiling of the diner generated.

He reached upward-

Stopped.

He looked towards Sabah, who was on her phone, idly chewing on a fry from the meal they'd apparently been served whilst he was away.

He let his hair sway.

(X)

Adam swallowed the remains of his burger, grimacing at both the irony and the cold taste. Evidently, he'd taken longer than he'd thought.

He proffered a quiet apology as he wiped his mouth with a napkin.

Sabah hadn't responded. Her food was all but untouched, and she was still staring into her phone with a frown. It looked focussed.

"Sabah?"

She jumped in place slightly, tilting her phone to the side to look at him. One of her eyes glanced back toward the screen for a split second before she made full eye contact. "What's up?"

"What are you doing?"

Sabah shrugged. "Just looking some stuff up." She set her phone on the table facedown and reached for another cold fry.

Adam nodded.

Silence reigned.

There was a wall between them, he could see that now. It had been there since his passing comment about his time at the mall.

He'd chosen to be honest with her, unlike the half-truths he'd given her at his apartment and her warehouse.

He could see now that it had been a mistake.

He reached for the right words to say, the right lie or the right apology, but he could come up with nothing.

Sabah chewed on distractedly. Had what he said truly affected her that much?

Adam swallowed his pride.

"I'm-"

"How about we get some drinks?"

What.

Sabah laughed, reaching forward to slap him on the shoulder, her hand passing through that lingering wall between them as if had never existed at all. "You heard me! It's a right of passage! No day out like this is complete without a little bit of drinking."

Adam chuffed. "Spend a lot of days out like this drunk, do you?"

Sabah blushed. "Nnooo, but my roommate has been trying to drag me out to all these parties, and I keep saying no over and over." She looked up at him, suddenly quite serious. "I figure I'd be safer my first time drinking if it was just me and you."

The admission wracked him, but Sabah didn't let the feeling linger. "Besides, I'll bet I can out-drink you!"

Adam let his eyes draw downwards, taking her in.

All four feet and eleven inches of her.

"You're on."

(X)

Adam felt a buzz come along, a pleasant haze that dulled his senses and brought with it a sense of serenity and dull satisfaction. He hummed along with the music that played in the background and took another sip that drained his beer bottle dry. That was his third in fifteen minutes. Sabah was only a third into her first, and he could already see the shaking in her legs and the flush beginning to spread across her cheek.

He'd brought them to the same bar he'd mentored Shadow Stalker(Sophia, he reminded himself. Sophia Hess. He'd have to start addressing her by name soon. He much preferred it that way, rather than her ridiculous code name).

The bartender hadn't asked for any ID, and had been quite magnanimous and welcoming once Adam had slipped him a 100 dollar bill to ensure no questions were asked.

He'd never gone drinking before.

Gods only know he'd been tempted. Sienna had offered, the Albain brothers had, Yuma & Trifa, and even his own men had tried to get him drunk once or twice to loosen him and get him to spill his guts, but he'd never wavered.

He sure had now though. And he was beginning to regret not taking their offers.

He leaned back, pressing his body up against the leather booth with a contented sigh, the slow guitar and low vocals in the background music to his ears.

"What's this song called?"

Sabah took a hesitant sip of her beer, and he could see her grimace at the taste. "White Rabbit, I think. I don't know the band."

He committed the name to memory and left himself a mental note to look the song and band up. When he opened his mouth again to call out to the bartender however, Sabah spoke up. "How about we play a game?"

He echoed her, and she clarified after another sip of her beer, which was infinitely more courageous and enthusiastic than her last. "A drinking game!"

Adam shrugged. Tonight would be a night of many firsts. "Sure."

Sabah nodded, and for a moment she seemed hesitant. But after another swig of liquid courage, she seemed to steel herself and rose up to talk to the barkeep.

Adam sank further into the leather. There was a weight, and certain heaviness that seemed to be dragging his body down, but he didn't fight it. There weren't very many people here, and the ones that were sitting calmly and drinking were the kind of people he could fight in his sleep, let alone slightly inebriated.

So he decided to float away with that heaviness instead of fighting it, and he let his eyes drift shut.

He was jolted into the conscious by the sound of glass impacting wood, and he let his gaze fall upon the source of the disturbance.

It was a wooden platter, loaded with shot glasses, five over five stacked against one another in two rows.

Adam very slowly quirked a brow.

Sabah enlightened him. "The games pretty simple. One of us asks a question. It can be about your favorite color or your deepest darkest secret, it doesn't matter."

Adam grimaced; Sabah grinned. "The trick is, if you don't answer the question, you have to take a shot."

"Who's the winner?"

"Whoever's the least drunk."

Adam's brow raised up further, further, and further until it all but merged with his hairline. He'd bet just one of whatever those were would knock her off her feet.

"You wanna go first?"

Adam shrugged. "What's your favorite color?"

Sabah chuckled. It sounded off even through his pleasant haze, but he ignored it. "Starting easy, huh? White. What's yours?"

As if it wasn't obvious. "Red."

Sabah hummed, tapping a beat on her chin. "What's your most embarrassing memory?"

Adam froze. He was tempted to reach for a shot glass as soon as the memory dredged itself up, one he'd almost forgotten.

After an argument with Blake about her countermanding his orders and speaking over him during a briefing, she'd refused to talk to him for hours. His only recourse had been to surprise her with their anniversary gift three weeks early. It was a signed copy of one of her dumb romance novels, 'Ninjas of Love'. Even that hadn't been enough.

So he'd dragged a chair into their tent, propped it up against their bed(Which she had been hiding in, cocooned in blankets), and proffered a dramatic reading of the book's contents.

Smut included.

He could hear dozens of his men outside their tent listening in as he narrated some of the most vulgar and depraved sex acts he'd ever seen put to paper until Blake had finally cracked and thrown a pillow at him to shut him up with a laugh. Then they'd made up, and soon after that, made love.

The men outside the tent had quickly dispersed once Adam's falsetto moans had been replaced by Blake's quite real ones.

"Adam?"

Adam realized he was smiling. He hid the smile by reaching over for a shot glass and dumping its contents down his throat.

Adam wheezed.

His entire face scrunched up, and Adam slammed a hand on the table.

Sabah laughed.

Adam swallowed, gathering his composure, and threw the question back at her.

Sabah's laughter subsided. She glanced to the side for a moment, eyes downcast. Then she smiled. It was a small thing.

"When I first came to America, in our old house, there was a raccoon that lived by the park nearby. I'd never seen one before, I thought it was cute." Sabah licked her lips. They looked dry. "But my father..." Her voice trailed off at the word. He could see her visibly compose herself, and the smile on her face turned a shade more nostalgic. "My father warned me that it was a wild animal. It wasn't a pet and it wouldn't ever be. He said not to feed it, and not to touch it."

"Did you listen?"

Sabah chuckled softly. "Not at all. I threw food at it from day one, until it grew comfortable enough with me to hop up onto our porch. I fed it day after day, week after week, and I thought I'd tamed it."

The smile upturned. It looked brittle.

"I named her Noor. I was young and dumb and thought we were friends. I'd spend hours sitting on my porch just watching her scurry around. Then, one day, she comes waltzing up on my porch with a bunch of baby raccoons trailing her."

Sabah swallowed. "Up till then, I'd taken my dad's advice. But by then, I figure that she trusts me, right? So I walk over to her, and try and pet her."

Adam didn't speak.

There was a pause as Sabah looked him in the face, eye to eye.

Adam turned away.

"She reared back and clawed me, right across the face. There was blood everywhere. My dad heard me yelling, and ran out with a gun. He sees me covered in blood and the raccoon running away. He put it together pretty quick."

Sabah laughed again, but this time there was life in it.

"All the neighbors come out to see the commotion. They don't see the raccoon, but they do see this giant, bald, angry Iraqi man waving a gun around, screaming at a teenage girl in Arabic, a teenage girl whos bleeding all over, and they assume the worst. The cops show up pretty quickly, and it took me half an hour to convince them it was a raccoon that did it, and not him."

Sabah sighed. She gazed longingly at the shot platter. "I miss him sometimes."

Adam felt he was woefully unqualified for this line of conversation. "Only sometimes?"

She nodded. "I know he's in a better place. I know he's watching over me." She snorted under her breath. "Judging me."

"Judging you?"

Sabah nodded again. "My father was very traditional. Very religious as well. He brought us to America, but he didn't want us to be Americans, if that makes sense. He argued with my aunt constantly. Everyone in our family started integrating, and it bothered him a lot. He tried not to show it, but we could tell. We didn't go to mosque as often as we should be, or we weren't praying enough, or I was going out dressed like a whore, he'd tell my aunt that she was going to go to hell for philandering, and he kept asking me and asking me why I hadn't found a boy yet."

Sabah paused for a moment, obviously shaken. "He felt like he was failing us. Money was getting tight with my tuition, and his practice wasn't making as much as it used to. The stress got to him, and then he had the heart attack."

Her left hand was splayed out onto the table. Adam laid his own atop it in a show of sympathy. "I'm sorry."

Sabah shook him off. "Don't be."

There was another bout of silence, but this time Adam decided to fill it. "What's your last name?" It struck him, that he hadn't asked her that already.

Sabah blinked at him dumbly before laughing softly. "I can't believe I haven't told you already! It's Zghir. My full name is Sabah Aabidah Zghir."

She reached out with a hand, and Adam leaned forward to shake it. "Adam Taurus. No middle name."

"You used your last name as a cape name?"

Adam shrugged. "I doubt anyone else but you is ever gonna learn it."

Sabah squeezed his hand in a mocking form of reproach. "Don't say stuff like that. One of these days you'll meet someone else you can trust."

Adam hummed, and didn't deign to argue the point any further.

Sabah retracted her hand and asked her next question. "Alright, next up; If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?"

Adam thought about that.

Adam reached for a shot, and dumped it back.

His face seized up for a moment before settling.

Sabah stared for a moment. Then whatever she'd been distracted by flew by and she nodded to herself. "Paris for me."

Adam didn't know anything about Paris except that it apparently had a giant tower, so he didn't bother commenting. "Does your family know about your powers?"

Sabah stopped. "I guess I walked into that saying nothing was off limits. They do."

"Did you tell them?"

Sabah chuckled. "Nope."

She seemed content to leave it at that. Her eyes darted down, toward her pocket. Towards her phone?

"What did you do before coming to Brockton Bay?"

Adam's mouth opened, then slammed shut just as quickly. The lies tumbled free on reflex, half thought out. "I did some small-time mercenary work. Bodyguard work, mostly. Lots of small-time criminals and civil servants wanted someone big and mean looking to watch their back and stand by them menacingly."

"You were a mercenary." Her voice was flat.

He nodded. Maintained eye contact, kept his voice level. "A small-time one. I moved all through the midwest, but I mostly stuck to where I grew up after I was adopted."

"Where was that? I can't remember."

His eyes narrowed a touch. That was because he'd never told her. "A small town in Iowa." He grasped for a name, cursing himself for his lack of research. A name came to mind. He snapped his fingers. "Mantle. Small enough town you'd have to dig around a paper map to find it."

Sabah nodded. Her eyes drifted toward the shot platter.

She lifted one up, pinched her nose, and downed it before he could say a word.

Sabah wretched, muttering a low curse under her breath.

"What was that for??"

She panted for breath a moment, and set the glass down. "Just trying to keep it even."

She coughed, once, then gathered herself. "Why go after the Empire 88?"

That was easy to answer, He could even be honest with his answer, at least for the most part. 'I wanted to do something good. I got tired of sitting around doing nothing with my abilities. I wanted to just do something for once. To try and right some wrongs the only way I know how."

Sabah nodded.

Then she gave him a look.

It was a deadpan, slightly narrow-eyed glare.

Despite the flush in her cheeks and the slight shake in her hands, she looked as serious as he'd ever seen.

"Who was the woman in the painting?"

Adam paused.

Adam reached for a shot.

A hand snaked across his wrist and clamped down tight enough he could feel his aura warp with the force, arresting his movement.

Sabah's mouth was open, her eyes squinted, a million words on her tongue, a million different thoughts racing through her head, a million different emotions visible on her face.

Then she laughed, and pulled her hand away with a slurred apology. "I'm sorry! I don't know why I did that!"

She snorted down another chuckle, and Adam could see that that shot had really gotten to her. "It's fine."

He glanced toward the door. "Are you ready to go?" He needed to get work on his new clothes, and she needed to sleep this off. This obviously had been a mistake.

Sabah nodded slowly. Her whole body lolled with the movement.

Adam exhaled and slid out of the booth. His stomach rolled.

It was then he remembered a comment Trifa had made to him about drinking. Something about liquor and beer and being sick.

Sabah's cheeks turned green as if on cue.

His stomach rumbled again.

Adam spent ten minutes with her in the bathroom before they even stepped out the door.

(X)

Adam swayed on his feet. The body nestled against him went limp, and Adam squeezed Sabah higher to his chest to keep her from falling down.

Adam half lunged, half-collapsed against the doorframe. Sabah clumsily wrenched the doorknob open, and they stepped inside her warehouse.

Almost immediately, Sabah disentangled herself from him with a low moan and beelined lined towards a row of stuffed animals she immediately collapsed upon.

Adam laughed. The noise echoed through the empty room and made his temple throb.

He shrugged off his jacket, then shakily made his way towards his workstation.

He flipped on Sabah's radio, set the volume low, and went to work.

In his inebriated state, he never noticed Sabah get up, much less shakily than she had previously been moving.

He didn't see her walk out the door.

He didn't hear her take out her phone.

He didn't hear her dial a number.

He didn't see her look back at the door forlornly.

He didn't hear her hang up the phone just as the call was answered.

And when she finally came back inside to see him passed out in his chair, he never saw her finish his work and correct the mistakes his shaking hands had made.

Nor did he feel her touch when she gently plucked him free of his chair and laid him down over a blanket and a pillow.

Nor did he hear her final words before she fell asleep herself, nestled against his side.

"Please don't make me regret this."

That mirror scene was one of my favorite parts of this story. I don't know why.

This is the last chill chapter. It all goes down from here. The plot moves, and doesn't stop moving. We have the ABB arc, Brockton Bay's version of the Boston Games starts in the immediate aftermath(And a little bit during the ABB's rampage) the Empire Arc wraps up once Coil makes a drastically different decision than canon, Cole Perry gets Gangster, Adam confesses, and then Leviathan and our conclusion.

I appreciate all of you sticking with me. The end is nigh.

Last edited: Apr 22, 2023

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MasterDuplicator

Apr 22, 2023

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Threadmarks Brad IV

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MasterDuplicator

Big Fan of a Mad Cow

Super Awesome Happy Funtime

Apr 22, 2023

#1,397

I'm not much for sensitivity or trigger warnings, but this is Hookwolf. This chapter should(If there is anyone who may think this) assuage any doubts that I was trying to flanderize or glow up Hookwolf.

I am unsure about SB's rules regarding racial epithets, I've seen some stories here use the whole word, and some stories censor it. I went with censorship, but If I broke any rules, please do let me know. I was trying to think of a plausible reason as to why Hookwolf became so gung ho during his time in the 'Nine. The result of that thought process was the speech you'll be reading below.

Be forewarned: There are quite a few slurs at play here.

Brad kicked in the door with a whistle and a jaunt in his step.

Lars trailed behind with a grimace.

"One pit stop to n*ertown and you've got sunshine flying outta your ass, huh?

Hookwolf grinned.

Five minutes.

That was all the time it had taken to break the Merchants.

Four years in the 88, begging and pleading and fighting and being denied his purpose.

And five minutes on his own, on his terms, and the Merchants were destroyed.

Skidmark either dead or crippled, that coal-burning bitch Squealer gutted, Mush off the reservation, and a buncha dumb junkies dead.

All in five minutes of being back in town.

They'd done it in the night.

Cricket had her trial run at the start of the ABB fiasco. That had proven it could be done. That it could work.

She was in on the plan. Wholesale.

But Lars had some reservations about the latter part of the plan.

"I still don't know how to feel about all this."

Hookwolf flipped a switch. The floodlights kicked on.

He groaned.

"Did no one remember to feed the fucking dogs?"

Bodies littered the cages ahead of him. The dogs had starved and eaten their cagemates. Then the lack of water must have killed them.

That was gonna be real annoying to clean out.

Lars had a hand to his nose. He could feel the man's glare dig into his back. "You didn't tell anyone to, dumbass. You didn't tell anyone anything."

Brad shrugged. "It was spontaneous, I know, but-"

" 'Spontaneous'? You called me and Mel at three in the goddamn morning telling us to pack our shit and get the fuck out. You tell us to go to Boston. Then you hang up the fucking phone and don't even tell us where you are."

Brad shrugged. Lars sighed. Brad sauntered past the corpses into his 'office' and opened the mini-fridge atop his desk. The beers inside were warm. He didn't care.

He stepped back out into the entrance and tossed Lars a beer. He caught it with a free hand and slumped against the wall with a sigh.

Brad followed suit. He popped the tab, chugged it, crumpled it, and tossed the can to the side with a burp. "I'll ask again. Mel's in, so-"

"Mel's gonna do whatever the hell you tell her to do man. You know that. I'm the guy you gotta sell, and I'm the guy who's always tryna reel you in."

"So let me sell you then. What's the problem, huh? You drink the cool-aid already?"

Brad gave him his best party salute. Lars flipped him off. Brad kept going. "I can't believe it. Larson fucking Jurist, white fuckin savior. Come here to save all the Aryan babies and-"

"Jesus, cut it out. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth, fuckin over the people who took us in."

He nodded. "I can understand that. But let me give you a hypothetical: Say we stuck around. We walk back up to Papa Max, get on our knees, give him a little spit'n'shine, and go back to the way it was. What happens?"

As soon as Lars opened his mouth, Brad cut him off. "We die."

Lars scoffed. "You afraid?"

"No. But I wanna die on my terms, for my cause. Not for some bitter rich prick who don't give a fuck about us."

Lars narrowed his eyes and spat on the ground. Brad lamented the wasted beer. "That's a hell of a thing to say about the man who took us in after the shit we stirred up."

"And why the hell do you think he did that, bro? Think about it. Four years, and never once did he let us do our job, he never let us run loose. The arguments we had about the dog fights alone shoulda clued you in. I've dodged the Birdcage twice. I'm marked for death stateside everywhere I go. Think about it."

Lars turned away. Brad seized the moment. "The only reason you keep a man like that around if you ain't gonna let him work, is that you plan on selling him out to curry favor with the pigs when the heat is coming down on you. Remember Vista?"

Lars shrank inward. He took a long swig of his beer. "That poor fuckin kid."

"That dumb fuckin kid shouldn't have been anywhere near that shitshow. But she was. And for days after that, I had the PRT on my ass like a fly on shit. And I'll bet you all the money in the world Max was helping them along."

Lars opened his mouth again, but Brad was on a roll now. "How you feel about n*ers?"

Lars blinked. "What?"

"You like 'em?"

"Nah-"

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why you not like 'em?"

Lars fumbled a moment before shrugging. "I can't fuckin stand the way they talk."

"Well no shit, that annoys me too, but I'm asking what have they done to you to annoy you so much?"

Lars took another sip of his beer. He seemed to be genuinely pondering the question.

"Exactly man. How about a Jew? What they do to piss you off?"

Lars spat. "You forget our bookie?"

Brad would take the hit there. But he could still spin this.

"Well shit, that's just how they are. It's what they're good at, no shame in that."

Lars nodded at him slowly, like he was humoring him.

He needed to reorient this. "Max says the whites are the best, right? We invented culture and all that hippie hoo-hah horseshit."

Another slow nod.

"I'll grant him that. I can get behind the Ayran ideal, ya know? Family, duty, honor, loyalty, strength, all that shit. I also have a thing for blondes, so it all works out."

"So you plan on upholding that ideal by fucking over the actual, legitimate, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Aryan ideal man?"

When he put it like that...

"Just bear with me here. If whites are so good, how come the chinks invented gunpowder?"

Brad cut off his reply before it could formulate. "The fuckin Sand people invented all that math shit. Blacks gave us those pyramids, that weird dick-shaped obelisk in Ethiopia, and peanut butter. The slavs wrote up a bunch of really fucked up and sad books, and the first real empire came outta Arabia."

"What's your point?"

"I'm asking the question: "How are they supposed to be inferior, when they not only outnumber us, but have been giving us a run for our money since forever? How can n*ers be inferior, when they gave us Shaka Zulu and Menelik II? They had their own empires and wars and nations and leaders while we were out toling for nothing, wiping our asses with leaves."

Lars cut him off. "What do you believe then?"

"I think that each of us has a tribe. A group. That white men and black men and yellow men and red men can all be capable of great things. It's just that whitey got in his head that they needed to 'raise them up' when they was just fine as they were. While we had guns and rockets and carriages, they had spears and shields. That's what they knew, that's what they were good at. But we came over and started acting all high and mighty and said 'no, you need to start acting like us'. And you know what happened when we built our roads and gave them our guns and our clothes and our cars?"

Lars sighed tiredly. "Enlighten me."

"They said 'fuck you' and went back to what they knew. Slavery, war, and conquest. I look at Africa as it is now, at what crazy bitches like Moord Nag have been doing, and I say good for them. They see the world for how it is. I think we're the backwards ones. We keep pretending we're all so above it all, but if we were, then the Empire and the PRT and the 'Nine wouldn't exist. We forgot who we were, and they never did. Max calls Lung a savage. I say Lung gets it, and that it's a damn shame they got him locked up. The chinks don't know what to do without someone to tell them it. It's just how they work. We all got our quirks. The problems all came up when we started mixing everyone together. I say keep the blacks with the blacks, the reds with the reds, the yellows with the yellows, and the whites with the whites. Eventually, nature'll sort itself back out, and the damage thats been done will undo itself. That's why I started the dog fights, you know? There was a time when the dog was man's best friend. We hunted together, fought together, and bled together. Now you've got all these rich fuckin white women breeding them into tiny purse accessories, who can't kill, can't fight, even if they wanted to try. So-"

"Brad, what the actual fuck are you talking about?"

Brad paused, out of breath.

"What the fuck does literally any of that have to do with anything?"

Brad sighed. "I'm saying it wasn't ideology that kept me in, Lars. It was respect. They took us in when no one else would, and promised us three things. You remember those three things?"

"Fighting, fucking, and fame."

"Yeah. Now let me ask you this: Since when did we need the Empire for any of that? We had all'a that on our own before. Max would have us die for him. Make no mistake, we would die trying to fight Taurus, and it wouldn't make a lick of difference. We would be forgotten."

Lars sighed. Brad knew he had him now.

"But if we do this, if we do this right, we'll stack up enough bodies that our names are gonna be right alongside his." Brad smiled. "It'll be just like the old days."

Lars was quiet.

"Are you afraid to die?"

Lars spat again, and this time he aimed the loogie right at his face. Brad felt the spittle drip off his chin as Lars glared at him. "I ain't afraid of nothing."

Brad stood up, made his way over to Lars, and extended a hand. "That a yes?"

Lars gave him a long, long look. Then he clasped his hand.

Brad hauled him to his feet. "Good."

Lars nodded. "What's the first step then?"

"I've got Mel sending some feelers out to Rune and Crusader. I wanna see if we can get them in. Justin's a true believer, but he cares about that kid. He knows Max's hold on the city is dying. If we look like the safe bet, if he thinks we can give her a place to stay, a place that's safe, he'll come along. I want you to make contact with our guys. Not Max's, ours. Let them in on the plan. We're making our own tribe."

"And after that?"

"Come morning, everyone's gonna know we're back in town, and that the Merchants are fucked. Max has Krieg's replacement and a few true believers from the fatherland arriving by boat tonight. We ambush that, alongside a coordinated land grab from our loyal guys? That's gonna send a message."

"And the PRT?"

"They'll have their hands full. I made sure of that. I gave Alex a call."

Lars froze.

"The only thing keeping the Elite outta town was Max. If I know Alex, he's been frothing at the mouth for a shot at the Bay. I gave him a call and let him know it's open season."

Lars swallowed. "You call anyone else?"

"I told him to pass on the message to the Teeth."

Lars went pale.

Brad's grin stretched even wider.

For the first time in forever, he had a plan.

So naturally, the universe decided to fuck him over by setting the Bay on fire not seven hours later.

But Brad couldn't bring himself to be upset.

He wouldn't have it any other way.

Alex is my made up name for Bastard Son, one of the Members of the elite, whose cell is described as just a rung below the fucking nine.

Last edited: Jun 18, 2024

271

MasterDuplicator

Apr 22, 2023

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Threadmarks BBPD(Det. Cole Perry) III

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MasterDuplicator

Big Fan of a Mad Cow

Super Awesome Happy Funtime

Apr 25, 2023

#1,431

Here we go.

Cole Perry woke up to sounds of what he considered to be Brockton Bay's natural ambiance.

Those sounds being a pair of gunshots, a scream, a car alarm, and squelching tires on pavement.

He sighed. His wife came to life with a low, pillow-muffled moan, and she lazily whipped a hand in the direction of their bedroom window, before said arm went limp and plopped back down onto their comforter.

Cole sighed again.

He snaked a hand underneath his pillow until his hand closed around the grip of his gun. He pulled it free, flipped the safety, and got to his feet.

He walked bare-ass naked towards his window, and by the time he'd pulled back his blinds and opened it, the car alarm had gone silent. He poked his head out and surveyed the area, the only remaining signs anything was amiss were the tire marks on the road and the broken glass and bloodstains by his neighbor's car.

When he realized whose car it was, a half-hysterical laugh escaped him, and he set the gun down by his nightstand.

His wife rose up, arms stretching out and pointed skyward as she yawned, her long blonde locks askew and bedraggled. The bags under her eyes matched his own, but on her, he thought them alluring. "What was it?"

He shrugged and scanned the floor for his underwear. It was nowhere to be found. He tried to remember where she'd tossed them. His mind drew a blank, as it did when he tried remembering anything else that could have happened last night. "Some idiots decided trying to steal Harper's car was a good idea."

Anna blinked. Laughed. Yawned again.

She bent over the side of their bed to retrieve her bra. "Is anyone dead?"

He shook his head. Scanned the floor with more intensity. Last night they'd gone out for drinks with Mike and Girlfriend #8. The entire night had been a blur of fluorescent lights, robotic music, and half-digested seafood.

His head throbbed. The last time he had partied like that had been the summer of '84. His graduation party.

God that made him feel old.

"I'll go check on him."

Anna gave him a long(And quite appreciative) once over. "Dressed like that?"

Cole looked down.

A pair of boxers struck him in the face.

(X)

He shut the door behind him dressed only in a pair of socks, sweatpants, and a half-buttoned dress shirt.

Harper was standing out front, gun in hand, waiting for him. The man had a shirt on, thank god. He didn't wanna have to see that godawful tattoo unless he had to.

Somehow he had a feeling it had to do with their current predicament.

Harper glared at him, eyes wary. His brows rose up slightly at his disheveled appearance, but he chose not to comment.

"You gonna arrest me?"

Cole's eyes trailed over the bloodstain in Harper's driveway. He sighed. This was not the way he wanted his morning to start. "Nope."

Harper eyed him for a second, then he visibly relaxed. "You gonna be here in case the cops show up?"

Cole rolled his eyes. "Do you honestly think anyone even bothered calling them?"

Harper thought about that for a second.

Then he shrugged, bid him good morning, and walked back inside his house.

Cole turned around, stopping to watch the blood slide down the slope of the driveway into the street.

By god, he hated this fucking city.

(X)

He cranked down his window and made a show of extending his fuck-you finger in the direction of the cyclist who'd cut him off.

"You're in a good mood this morning."

He glanced into his rearview and saw his wife's ever-so-omnipresent smile. "Can you blame me?"

She smiled wider, tossing back her hair. There wasn't a single grey strand to be found. He envied her for that. "You've been living here longer than I've been alive, and you still haven't gotten used to it?"

His lips thinned, and he fought the urge to defibrillate that long-dead argument back to life.

He chose to keep silent. Anna chuckled knowingly.

Cole made his final right turn and pulled into the parking lot.

Fugly Bob's awaited. The Breakfast of Champions.

His stomach rumbled. He gave it a silent apology for what he was about to put it through.

(X)

Anna moaned. Normally that sound would've had him perked right up.

Instead he found himself repulsed.

He reached for a napkin and wiped the grease from his wife's chin.

She gave him an appreciative nod as she swallowed the remains of her burger.

"Why the hell do you insist on making me take you to such a shithole whenever you want breakfast?"

Anna gave him a mock glare, her lips peeled back as she hummed in amusement. "You really are in a bad mood this morning."

He turned his head away, sipping his coffee with a scowl.

The mockery on her face was replaced by sympathy. "What's wrong? You've been testy these past few weeks. You can talk to me, you know that, don't you?"

He could. Whether or not she would listen was up for debate.

The door chimed. He turned his head around to look, and saw a pair of teenagers walk inside, one male, one female. Their arms were linked.

The Alexandria sticker on the girl's leather jacket made him grimace.

Anna caught his eye. She chuckled. "Not a fan of merchandising, huh?"

Cole sipped his coffee. "Not since Hero."

That wiped the smile from her face.

Cole used the opportunity to reminisce.

The freakout the PRT must have had when the news broke.

Hero had been the most popular(And advertisable) member of the quadrumvirate. He'd been on TV, guest starred on Talkshows, appeared in magazines, and Scuttlebutt had said there were talks of giving him his own toy line like Vikare.

And the Siberian had gutted him live on national television for millions to see, and suddenly the PRT had been much more selective about who it let appear on paper stickers.

He remembered that broadcast. The day of mourning that had followed. He'd been on duty that day. The streets had been silent.

Cole sipped his coffee. Weighed his wife's earnest desire to help against her naivete and youth.

She gave him her best puppy eyes. Cole broke.

"I'm thinking of quitting."

Anna froze. He saw the gears in her head grind to a halt in real-time.

"But you're retiring in a year, you said so yourself! What about your pension, what about-"

"Fuck the pension. Fuck retirement." He drained the rest of his coffee and slammed the cup back down on the table hard enough to make it rattle. "If I have to work under Pappalardo's fat ass for one more goddamn day, I'm gonna lose my shit."

"But you love being a cop!"

"Oh yeah? When was the last time you saw me smile before heading to work?"

Anna paused. He saw her chew on that statement for a little while. Then she got right back to it. "Is it because of the PRT?"

His lips thinned. "Not just them."

Anna sighed. "Every city has gangs, Cole."

"Yeah, but they didn't used to have superpowered ones, Anna." He sighed, fumbling with his words as he gathered his thoughts. He wondered how to explain this to someone who'd been born knowing nothing else, born into the reality he'd only been able to imagine whilst reading his father's comic books.

"What would you do if you If you had Alexandria's powers?"

Anna blinked.

"Would you fly around like Scion, plucking cats from trees and try your hand at punching out giant monsters? Or would you use them to hurt, to kill, to maim, to rob?"

"Obviously I'd-"

"The trick to this question is that the answer doesn't matter. The mere fact you have the option of choosing does."

Anna paused and leaned forward.

"There used to be a time when actions had consequences. Where men had to follow rules, a time when men breaking those rules were hunted down to the ends of the earth and brought to justice. But now, with these powers in the mix, it feels like everyone just collectively decided that those rules don't apply to them anymore. That they have a bad day, get some shiny superpowers, and think that putting on some spandex and a domino mask gives them leeway to do whatever the flying fuck they feel like. That some asshole wearing a costume while he rapes, pillages, and murders affords him protections no normal man would get, just because he might be useful later on. Shoot a man with a gun, and have your face plastered on every television in miles. Do it with a laser, and you get to go on your merry way so long as you're not out wearing a mask. It makes me sick, because when you have kids like Glory Girl flying around wrecking shit, who has to clean up after them? Who rebuilds the roads they destroy, the buildings they level? We do, and we're supposed to just suck it up and be thankful."

Cole panted, out of breath. He reached forward and wrapped his lips around the straw inside of Anna's drink, taking a long, deep swig of her coke.

"Just think about what I'm saying. My dad fought in Korea. He'd only just missed out on fighting the Japs. Sometimes I wake up in the morning, I look outside, and I wonder what he would make of the world right now, knowing that the city he grew up in had been taken over by honest to god Nazis and some wannabee Pan-Asian emperor. How he would have taken New York getting leveled by Behemoth or knowing that psycho fucks like Jack Slash have been wandering around as long as we've even had these powers. To this day, we still don't know anything about them, or even about the glowing man in the sky who probably fuckin gave them to us!"

He sighed. "I don't think he'd be able to deal with it."

Anna frowned. She set the rest of her food aside and frowned at him, face alight with sympathy. She set a hand on his shoulder. "Are you able to deal with it?"

The love in her voice nearly brought him to his knees. "Sometimes I'm not sure anymore."

Anna frowned. Then she cupped his chin in her hand. "Then you don't have to be. Quit."

Cole blinked.

"Quit. I mean it. We'll sell the house. Sell our things. We'll move, far, far away from here. Maybe somewhere north. Canada, maybe, it doesn't matter. We can do it tomorrow."

"I don't-"

"We have money. We both have been working since were kids. We'll retire, hide away in a cabin somewhere in the middle of nowhere and forget about the rest of the world. How does that sound to you?"

Cole smiled.

The doorbell chimed.

His world erupted into flame and color and light and sound and then went upside down and then it was sideways and-

And then it was nothing but blackness.

(X)

Awareness came to him slowly.

A weight was pushing on his chest. The world was dark.

Something wet was dripping down his cheeks, out from his eyes. He tried to blink it away. Nothing. The muscles refused to cooperate.

Cole smelled charred flesh, could hear flames crackle, eager to devour the wooden interior.

Above all he could hear the screams, all so loud, deafening.

The smoke irritated his nostrils.

Cole tried to move, but couldn't. Tried to speak, his mouth open wide.

He croaked. Coughed. Liquid flooded into his mouth and made him gag.

His head lolled to the side, and it dribbled out past his lips. It tasted like copper.

Someone called his name. They sounded so far away.

Sirens wailed. Just barely, in the distance, past the screaming and wailing, he could hear more explosions in the distance, They sounded like fireworks.

"-le"

The flames surged. Cole felt the heat wash over his face, felt a bright, searing pain brand itself into his cheek before fading away.

"COLE!"

He twitched. Anna.

"Ma'am, get back, this building isn't stable!"

The weight on his chest lessened. Cole sucked in a breath. His lungs burned.

No. No. No. Run away. Leave me here. Please.

The weight was gone. Cole heard something clatter off to the side.

He just barely heard his wife whimper out a quiet prayer.

"Ma-"

There was a crunch, the sound of snapping wood.

His wife went silent.

Cole felt something heavy slam into his chest.

Then silence. Then-

(X)

Nothing.

Nothing and everything, all at once. He could see, but he had no eyes. Hear with no ears. Feel with no hands.

He was flying.

No.

Floating. Floating free, in an infinite vista of darkness.

he was dead.

alive

dead

a ghost

a witness

there was something with him

broad

vast alive and hungry and it was redredredredredredredred

falling fallingfallingfalingcloserclosercloser

a fragment

a star

a god

a monster

he saw them

dancing

swirling

shattering

alivingmirror

reflections

infinite

he hated them

he didn't know why

one approached

it came closer

closer closer closer closer closer redredred red red red red

it was falling

it was redredredredredred

and-

(X)

And nothing.

Nothing but darkness.

Cole moaned.

His wife was silent.

You have no idea how tired I was of seeing [DESTINATION] [AGREEMENT]. I wanted to try my hand at describing an actual trigger event. I hope I did okay.

Last edited: Apr 26, 2023

255

MasterDuplicator

Apr 25, 2023

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Threadmarks Sophia VI

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MasterDuplicator

Big Fan of a Mad Cow

Super Awesome Happy Funtime

May 15, 2023

#1,557

As I've mentioned prior, I have insomnia, and that's where ninety percent of my thinking gets done when it comes to stories, ideas, and just in general when it comes to my life.

Last night, instead of getting up off my ass and posting this chapter, my mind was trapped in this spiral of insanity when I randomly had the shower thought of 'What if the Slaughterhouse Nine live-streamed their shenanigans like a (Slightly) more fucked up IP2?"

Tired me thought this random idea was the funniest fucking thing on earth, and it kept spiraling and spiraling and spiraling until I was at my computer typing up some absolute fuckshit about the Nine and Jack Slash being elaborate character LARPers ala Jace Connors of Deagle Nation fame(Chat, Press 1 if I should burn down this orphanage). I was halfway through writing about Manton driving around in his(Now) souped-up Van screaming about Cauldron baby-rapers like Fedsmoker as the Siberian before I thought "Wait, what the fuck am I doing, this is dumb" and deleted it all and laid back down.

Now that I'm here, I wonder if that was a mistake.

Anyway, here's a Sociopath trying to objectively self-reflect and consider her prior actions in a healthy way. That sociopath then realizes that the only reason she's even alive right now is luck. They are understandably disturbed by this revelation.

Said sociopath also realizes that in order for someone to understand tough love, that someone needs to understand it's coming from a place of love in the first place.

I feel like the only way you could ever get someone like Sophia to even begin to consider whether or not they'd done some stupid things is to do what Adam did, which is give a clear example of why her(And most Sociopaths) 'Fuck it, why not' outlook on life can go very very bad for you. Then make them think over the shit they've done beforehand and ask them, 'now how could that have gone differently?'

Only this time, Sophia is asking herself that question.

It was really fun writing out her fucking alien brain. Especially the part below where she just assumes that Taylor will 'get it.'

The whistle blew, and she was off.

The wind in her hair, her blood rushing through her body, her heart pounding in her chest.

Sophia felt a wild grin spread across her face as she blew past her classmates, her feet kicking up stormy gusts of dirt and gravel as she ran across the track.

Some of her more pathetic track mates were already winded clearing the first fifty feet, the dolled-up bimbos with fake nails and fake eyelashes who thought they were hot shit, and the nerdy pathetic Hebert types who knew their place and didn't even bother trying.

She could go on like this for another fifty miles.

She was king here. Everyone knew it. Maybe not at home, her mom was still at least trying to pretend she gave a shit with her brand new 'ground rules', and she was the PRT's bitch, as much as it fucking burned her to admit.

But here? At Winslow? She ruled the roost. No one could touch her. Not teachers, not students, not anyone. The track team's big star, the one redeeming fucking thing about this school. The only thing that made it stand out as anything other than another failed inner city school.

Her. Her and no one else.

On this track, she could be herself. She didn't have to pretend for anyone. Not her mom, not the PRT, not for Emma, not for Taurus, nobody.

It was her in the breeze and her in her mind. She could close her eyes and run the gauntlet five or six or seven times without opening them once, that's how well she knew the path.

It was here she could finally take his advice.

"You don't think, you just do."

That truth hurt to admit more than any punch or slap she'd ever taken in her life. It wasn't something she wanted to admit to, because it would make her go back and question almost every decision she'd ever made in her life with those words ringing in her ears. She would have to second guess everything she'd ever done since getting her powers, since before then, and put a microscope up to it and ask the question.

What was I thinking?

A pit had opened up, deep in her heart. Every time she thought about it, the pit deepened, got wider. She felt the vaguest sense of nausea thinking about it even now.

Because she already knew the answer to that question. It came to her, crystal clear.

She hadn't been.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd sat down to think something through or planned out anything outside of the broadest of broad outlines.

What had she been thinking, when she'd gotten back into that car with Steven, the taste of cigarette, regret, and whisky still on her lips?

She hadn't been. She'd been confused, bewildered, and more than a little grossed out, but she'd gotten back in the car anyway. It hadn't taken her more than a minute to decide. If she were honest with herself, she'd admit that she had already made the decision before even stepping out. She was desperate, and lonely, and she hadn't wanted to lose the one person on Earth who acted like they knew she existed.

So she got back in the car.

What had she been thinking at fourteen years old, when she'd walked into that sporting goods store with Mr. Barnes's credit card tucked deep inside her pocket? When she'd walked out with a crossbow in her hands and a tangled, frustrated knot of directionless rage and anger in her heart?

When she'd killed her first man, some scumfuck drug dealer who'd been willing to give her a 'discount' out back in that alley off Cicero Avenue?

She'd watched him bleed, made it slow. She spent ten minutes in that alley, sat atop his chest, her thumbs buried deep in the hole in his throat that pocket knife had made. She pressed in, deeper and deeper and deeper until something had given way. Till she'd wrapped her fingers around his voice box and crushed it in her hands.

What had she been thinking, at the time?

She couldn't even remember. It was like there was some sort of hole in her head where those memories lie, her own thoughts and feelings scattered to the wind.

All she had left were the pictures, all as incomprehensible to her as she was to everyone else.

She'd spent three months cherry-picking victims like some pint-sized serial killer until the PRT had picked her up. For that whole three months, that idea that they might catch up to her, that they might have stopped her, hadn't entered her head once.

When they finally had, she'd signed on as soon as they'd mentioned juvie. She hadn't spared a thought as to what her time with them might entail.

Everything she'd done, she'd done on a whim. The idea had struck her, and she'd simply gone along with it in the moment.

Saving Emma had been a whim. Keeping her around yet another one. Buying that crossbow, going out, killing those people, approaching Taurus, revealing her identity to him, to Emma, even just fucking with Hebert. All on a whim, on a dime, just because she felt like it.

Sophia felt that pit grow wider. She slowed down almost unconsciously.

It...bothered her, looking back. Counting all the myriad ways it could have gone wrong.

The only reason she was where was right now was blind luck and fucking charity on the PRT's part.

That bothered her the most.

What if that dealer in the alley had seen the knife coming? Even with her power, she was far from invincible. All he would have needed was a Taser, and that would have been that. She'd been arrogant then. She hadn't even considered the possibility her power had a weakness in the first place.

Her mind raced, back to the past, to every hard-won fistfight or crossbow shot from twenty feet above, and she counted all the ways each little scuffle could have gone wrong.

One single spark, one missed shot, one blocked punch, one wrong step, and it could have been over.

She could have died any day.

She still could.

One stray bullet from some mook in a gunfight, a wrong step tangoing with Hookwolf, even just some fucking shitty driver going a little too fast over a crosswalk in downtown could do her in.

That night, with Taurus.

She saw him angle his hips, watched him subtly incline his head.

Saw his finger twitch towards Blush's trigger.

She'd known, unconsciously, that she needed to choose her words carefully, that she needed to calm him down.

But thinking back now, with his lesson from the bar in mind, she knew.

She'd been a whim away from death.

He hadn't been considering her words, he'd been thinking about killing her.

He could have, too. That bothered her the most. With his fucked up power, she was a quickdraw away from blowing away in the wind, her body twisted and melted away into fucking rose petals.

She wouldn't have even seen it coming. There wouldn't have been any sort of closure or transition.

Just a small twitch, then nothing, forever.

No one would find her. No one would know.

It would be like she'd never have existed at all.

Her, the sum of her parts, gone. Everything she'd done rendered meaningless.

What the fuck had she even done? What was she gonna do?

Terry was off up in fuckin Vermont for college. Her mom had gotten clean, and was preparing to get another job to help take care of her little sister.

All her teammates were going full hero once their time in the Wards was up. Emma wants to be a model Practically was one already, albeit not full-time. Her dad's a lawyer. She remembered Madison blathering on and on about her college plans.

Everyone knew where they were gonna be in five, six, ten, or even twenty years from now.

Everyone but her.

Was she gonna go to college? That would be a fuckin joke. What would she study? Where would she go?

What was she gonna do once her time in the PRT was up? Stay a hero? Please.

Was she gonna slog it out in some shitty downtown apartment and break her back working some 9-5 like the rest of the fuckin sheep in the city?

Or was she just gonna get right back to it, picking fights with people until someone stronger or smarter than her did her in?

She didn't know. Hadn't thought of it.

She needed to, but every time she tried imagining some sort of future or tried making some sort of life plan. her mind drew a blank.

The safe answer, she supposed, was that she just couldn't.

She felt a scowl marr her features.

The way she was now, she wasn't going to last. She needed to change.

She'd grown fat and lazy.

She'd forgotten that there was more to being a predator than strength.

Predators had to adapt. Grow, evolve.

She needed to slow it down, pull back, and ask herself, 'Is this a good idea?' 'Why or why not?'

She needed to reconsider everything. Fix what needed fixing, change what needed changing, and drop what needed dropping.

Her mind drifted towards Taurus.

Think it through.

She'd sought him out of an admittedly delusional sense of kinship. When he'd welcomed her on, she had assumed that that kinship was shared.

But the more she thought about Taurus, about him in abstract, the less sense that idea made.

The less sense he made.

The puzzle pieces were there, but she couldn't figure out how they fit together.

How could one man have so many different powers? She'd never heard of a grab-bag monster cape. How was he so strong? How in the hell was he so skilled?

What was up with all the paintings? At first, she'd just assumed they were abstracts, random shit his artistic mind felt like putting to paper, but it was so clear to her now since she'd mangled that portrait of that girl, Blake. It should have come to her when he'd added those little victory scrawls when he'd iced Krieg, but her mind hadn't been there.

If all those paintings were either people he'd met or places he'd been, then where the hell had he been with so many forests? How had he met all those cat people? What the fuck was even up with them anyway? What was up with those freaky bone monsters? With the dude falling down the waterfall? Was that him? It had to be.

Who, no, what. was he? Where was he from? What had he even been up to before coming here? Why was he here?

What was his plan?

Most of all, what did he want with her?

It wasn't sex, she'd nudged that angle. He wasn't trying to use her as a spy, he wasn't trying to butter up to her to get something, she knew that by now, so what did he want?

Her mind went back toward the girl. Blake.

Was he just lonely? Did he just want someone to talk to, to understand? Does he have some sort of pathological need he needed to fulfill by being in charge of someone, by teaching someone?

More importantly, what did she want from him?

That was the most important question of all.

She didn't have an answer for that one either.

They needed to talk. She'd been open with him. Stupidly so, if she were being honest.

She felt she was due a little more honesty in return. She couldn't blame him for not telling, simply because she hadn't been asking, but she sure as hell was gonna now.

She-

Something slammed into her back and stole her breath away. She tumbled down to the ground, ass over elbow. Muscle memory kicked into gear, and she rolled forward into the grass and spun around with a snarl.

Then she paused.

The something that had slammed into her was another classmate. She watched the girl get to her feet and turn around, and she winced when she saw the girl's face.

She was Asian. Korean, maybe. it was hard for her to tell. She looked fairly plain. A month ago, she would have even said normal.

But she knew what to look for now. The specks of blood, mucus, and dried powder that clung to the aperture of her nostrils. The small, almost imperceptible twitch in the hand the girl raised in her direction, presumably to help her up.

At the red in her eyes and the paleness of her cheeks.

The girl shuffled in place, clearly uncomfortable with her staring. Her mouth opened, and Sophia scoffed, slapping away her hand and rising to her feet on her own. "Fuck off, junkie."

The girl recoiled so hard that Sophia may well have slapped her in the face. She turned away just as the whistle blew again.

(X)

She meandered through the crowded lunchroom till she saw Emma, who was excitedly waving her arms about to guide her forward.

The tray in her hands felt heavy, almost impossibly so. She'd filled it to the brim, even though she wasn't even remotely hungry. She'd moved through the lunch line almost mechanically, Filling up space just to fill space, her mind a world away.

She tuned out all the screaming and laughing and yowling of all the dumbshits around her, and put what little focus she could muster up into scanning the floor and sidestepping any landmines left behind by the last lunch group.

She made her way to the table and sat down, and she gave Emma a tired smile.

"You okay, Sophia?"

She twiched. Turned left towards Emma's little pet tag-a-long, Madison Clements.

The concern in her eyes filled Sophia with a wave of anger she couldn't even begin to describe, and her mouth was moving before she could even reason out why she was so upset.

"Disappear, Clements. I don't wanna fuckin look at you."

The girl wilted. The hurt in her eyes felt good and shitty at the same time. Her face twisted up, but before she could speak, Sophia slammed a fist down hard enough to make the table shake. Her fist stung bad enough that for a split second, she wondered if she'd broken her hand. "You deaf and retarded? I said to disappear. Shoo, get the fuck outta my face."

The pathetic bitch didn't even say anything. She just stood up and staggered off, her eyes misty.

Sophia worked her mouth soundlessly.

That anger burned, still. If anything, she felt worse.

It was directionless. Purposeless, just like before. Just like always.

She scowled. Grabbed her fork and slammed it into the mush on her plate and began eating, just to have something to do, just so she didn't have to talk.

And Emma, blessed Emma, didn't say a word. She raised a concerned brow but kept her mouth shut. She leaned back, smile kind, eyes patient.

She ate and ate until her stomach rebelled, and she spat her last bite back onto her tray, unable to swallow. Emma didn't blink.

Sophia raised her head back up. "I'm sorry about that. Dunno what came over me."

Blessed Emma shrugged. "I didn't really like her anyway. She never shut up."

Sophia chuffed, the irony in that statement so thick that she about choked on it. "I guess. My mind's just other places."

Emma smiled wider. She leaned forward conspiratorially. "Thinking about him again?" The stage whisper was rather obnoxious, but also so Emma that she couldn't bring herself to be annoyed by it. Emma had been shit-scared of the guy until she'd mentioned offhand that she'd met him. Then she'd 180'ed so hard Sophia began regretting ever mentioning his name. Taurus was all Emma talked about these days. Every day, she asked another batch of questions about him, questions that Sophia never had any real answers for.

She nodded, since that technically wasn't untrue.

Emma clapped her hands. Sophia sighed.

"Have you seen his face yet?"

She asked that one every time. But this time she could at least answer it properly, having seen him during the daylight, her view unobscured by the strange red glow of his power or the darkness of the night. "Yeah."

"How old is he?"

"No clue. Maybe twenty? Twenty-two? He looks pretty young, but older than he should at the same time, if that makes sense."

"What color are his eyes?"

"Eye."

Emma stilled.

"He keeps his left eye covered up all the time, even without his mask on. He'll wrap a line of fabric or cloth over it like a bandage, or angle it like a blindfold. He wraps it down tight enough it practically looks like a tourniquet most of the time. He's got a little band of scar tissue over his nose, and it's really red, so I'm betting his eye got burned out. Case-53's have that brand on them, so my bet is that they put it there."

Emma digested that info, visibly perturbed. "Over his eye? That's pretty messed up."

She nodded. Privately, she wondered if it was something other than an Omega symbol under that mask.

"You didn't answer me though. What color?"

She made a small 'ah' sound. "Blue. Wasn't what I was expecting, considering how red his hair was."

"What shade of blue."

"What?"

Emma rolled her eyes. "Turnqoiuse, Teal, Azure, Sky Blue, Steel Blue-"

She scoffed. "How the fuck should I know?"

"Are they light blue, or or dark blue?"

Uh..."Light-ish?"

"Ish?"

She shrugged. "It depends on the light."

Emma hummed. "What's his voice like?"

"Gravely. Rough, but not smokers rough. You hear a voice like that, you think it belongs to some roided-out bodybuilder, but he's pretty slender. Toned, but slender."

"Toned?"

Sophia nodded. "Like me. He's not rippling with muscle, but he's got some. Like a swimmer's body."

She glanced to the side. "I got to hold his sword too. Fuckin thing was heavy. Especially with the sheath."

Emma leaned forward, whistling. "Is it really a gun too? I heard it's a gun too."

Sophia grinned. "Oh yeah. There's a little switch you can flip by the trigger. When you do, the back of the sheath retracts inward and angles itself out like the stock of a rifle, and the barrel then extends outward a little bit. I'm pretty sure most of it is hidden inside the back, but I ain't sure. But that ain't the cool part."

Emma raised a brow.

"When the swords in there fully, if you pull the trigger, instead of shooting out a bullet, it shoots out the goddamn sword."

"Seriously? That's ridiculous."

"Not if your fast enough to catch up with it like he is. I've seen him practice with it. I've seen him outpace it and catch it before it hits anything less than ten feet off. It comes out with enough force to bust up concrete for god's sake. I saw him break a dude's whole ribcage doing it. He's good enough at aiming it that whenever he hits something with it, it rebounds right off and back into his hand."

Emma tilted her head. "I saw photos of him on PHO. They were pretty grainy though. Does he really have a giant rose on his back?"

"And one painted on the side of his sheath. He named his stuff after roses too. Wilt for the sword, Blush for the sheath."

"Wilt & Blush?"

She huffed. "He thought it was a bit melodramatic too."

Emma nodded. "You sound like you're getting to know him quite a bit."

"Sorta."

"Cool." Then she went for the kill shot. "Is he the reason you're so upset?"

It was her turn to freeze this time. Emma pounced. "Did he say something? Do something?"

Sophia worked her tongue, searching for the words. "Sorta. I did something stupid, and he got real pissed off at me. But he gave me some advice too. It's been...bothering me, I guess."

"Bothering?"

"It's made me think about stuff."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Irritation made her lips twitch. "It means I've been thinking about stuff. You, me, the school, my life, even fuckin Hebert."

Emma went very, very still, voice deceptively calm. "Taylor? What about her?"

"I dunno. Just what we've been doing. Building her up."

Emma nodded slowly. "And?"

"I wonder if we've been doing it the right way."

Emma's lips peeled back into a snarl. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean..." She grasped for the words, her mind blank, the thoughts only half-formed. She thought of the way Taurus had been making her stronger. "I mean, what's the win condition?"

Emma raised a brow. Her fists were clenched.

"I mean, we've been trying to tough her up. Fuck with her. It was your idea, ya know? We bring her up to our level. See if she can take it. But I'm not sure if her brain works that way."

Emma opened her mouth, irate. Sophia quickly cut her off. "I ain't saying she's a lost cause. I just don't think she can learn the way we did. She doesn't get that we're trying to help her. All she sees is us fucking with her for no reason. You told me she's super delicate. You were right. She doesn't talk back, and she only tried fighting us once. She's spineless. I think we need to give her a spine in the first place before we can start stress testing it. I mean, she shut the fuck down after the locker. That shoulda been it for her, you know. Her moment. Fight or flight, win or lose, live or die. My time was with Steven, yours was with those ABB pricks. But she didn't even try."

Emma relaxed, ever so slightly. "She's been cutting class lately." Her voice was thoughtful. Wondering. "To get away from us completely?"

"I think so. And that little bit of rebellion there means it's working, at least a little bit. Goody two shoes Hebert playing Hooky? Never thought I'd seen the day. But it's been over a week. I think we just gotta change it up."

"How so?"

She hadn't thought that far ahead. Hadn't really considered it at all in the first place.

Think it through.

She'd spend too much time trying for Emma's sake to just give it up. "That's what we'll have to figure out. Our biggest problem is that she doesn't know that we're trying to help."

Emma nodded slowly, the tension in her shoulders leveling off. "What do we do? Tell her? She won't get it."

"Maybe not. But we gotta try something, because so far it's not working. I figure at least explaining why you iced her out might be a good start. We get it all out in the open. You two were best friends. I think if we explain it out, really explain it, she'll understand. Maybe even appreciate it."

The lunch bell rang, drowning out Emma's reply.

(X)

They filed out into class single file. Everyone made their way to their seats, Emma, four chairs ahead of her. Hebert's seat, three down to her left.

It was empty, as per usual.

What was odd, though, was that the set next to it was too.

She wracked her brain, trying to remember who sat there. She drew a blank. She didn't really know many people here, since she usually just went by faces.

She gave it another half seconds contemplation before shrugging. The teacher began blathering on, and she leaned back and began to tune the world out.

Then the door slammed open. Everyone paused, and thirty-odd heads swiveled around at once.

Sophia furrowed her brow. It was that Asian girl again. Looking rather worse for wear too. Her cheeks were wet, half-dried trails drawing down from her eyes where the tears had ruined her makeup.

The girl slowly shuffled towards her seat in a way that made Sophia's hackles rise.

She looked like she was marching toward her grave, her eyes hollow, her movements mechanical. The girl sat down and buried her face in her hands

Everyone collectively shrugged, played it off as another 'Winslow Moment', and went back to their business, even the teacher.

Everyone except her.

Something didn't feel right. She couldn't explain it, parse out the feeling, or even really describe it. It felt like danger, like emptiness.

Just something low in her gut that whispered to her that something was wrong.

She glanced up at the clock.

It read 11:29.

She glanced at the Asian girl from the corner of her eye. She was laying her head down sideways, eyes laser focussed on the second hand as it traveled down from noon.

Fear pooled low in her gut. Unexplainable. Irrational.

Tic

The girl's eyes began to wet with fresh tears.

Tic

TIc

Tic

A phone began vibrating, loud enough to drown out the clock. The Asian girl shuddered.

It rang and rang and rang and rang and rang on and on and on for what felt like eons.

Then it went blissfully silent.

All she could hear was the clock.

Tic

She launched to her feet, chair tumbling towards the ground, mouth half open, her words dying a quick death on her lips.

Everyone froze.

Tic

Emma and the teacher both raised a brow in askance.

Tic

"Miss Hess? Is something wrong?"

Tic

Her gut told her to run.

Tic

She listened to it.

It saved her life.

Is it just me, or does it feel like everyone kinda forgets that Sophia has a family, and at least a semi-stable one at that? Everyone seems to write her as this crazed psychopath who's like IRL braindead and incapable of understanding that actions have consequences, utterly consumed by rage, and utterly obsessed with Taylor to the point of absurdity.

Writing her as a Confused Sociopath feels more right to me. It feels to me like everyone forgets that she's still sixteen, and that for every one bad thing Sophia's done, Taylor's probably done it herself at some point ten times over. We just see it from her eyes, and can see how she justifies it in her head. I wonder how one would see Worm, if someone like Brian or Lisa was the protagonist instead, and we saw everything from their point of view instead of Taylors.

I wonder how many more or how many less people would be cheering for her then.

I'm terrible at parsing out color differences, so for the longest time, I legitimately couldn't tell if Adam's eyes were light blue or dark blue. It made me feel really stupid.

'Aquamarine' blue was my pick.

Spoiler

Last edited: May 15, 2023

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MasterDuplicator

May 15, 2023

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MasterDuplicator

Big Fan of a Mad Cow

Super Awesome Happy Funtime

May 27, 2023

#1,601

Spoiler: POV: You're the Bai the ABB guy next chapter

"Oh shit!"

Adam lurched upward, arms swaying, a hand towards Blush-

Nothing.

His head swam, his thoughts muddled by his sudden awakening.

An enemy, a threat?

He turned towards Sabah, recognizing the voice to be hers, his aura crackling to life-

She was on her phone, starting at the time in dismay.

Adam flopped back down on the blanket, the bridge of his nose pinched between his fingers, temple throbbing at shrillness of her voice.

He couldn't tell if that shrillness was real or simply a product of a hangover, but the panic in her voice was as real as could be.

"What is it?"

Sabah groaned. She was slumped on her knees by his workstation, and he took a moment to take in his finished outfit.

When had he done that? He couldn't remember. His recollection of the night before was distant, hazy, almost dreamlike.

The sunlight that poured forth from the skylight only intensified his weariness. His aura flared, draining slightly with the effort, oddly sluggish, as he blanketed the warehouse in darkness.

Even that took effort. How on earth did long-term drinkers function?

Sabah didn't even blink as her pallor drained away. giving him a small look he couldn't make out with her face shrouded before gesturing to the muted pale light of her phone, iridescent in the wake of his semblance. "It's 11:40."

"And?" Time meant little to him as he was now. His scar itched, and he rubbed against it softly through his eyepatch. It warmed his hands through the fabric. His semblance always irritated it.

He didn't miss the irony inherent to his power. Every time he gathered forth his wrath to lash out against those who would do him harm, he felt the letters sear themselves into his skin again.

Burning himself for every life he took.

"It means I'm late for class, Adam. I've already missed an entire period."

Sober Adam would have cared.

Sober Adam wasn't here right now.

"What of it? It was your idea to go out drinking, after all."

She sighed. "Yeah."

A low moan of dismay. His sensitive hearing made it come off as a ragged groan. "I've never missed a class. Ever. My mom's gonna be so mad at me."

"Not your teachers?"

Sabah's head tilted. "We live in Brockton Bay, Adam."

A fair point. "What will you do then?"

"Call her. Later, anyway. I need to wake up first." She turned her head to the bright source of light in the room, the gleaming rose on the back of his jacket. "Can you turn that off Please? It's hurting my eyes."

"The sun will hurt worse."

Sabah rolled her eyes. He only could barely make out the green glow in them. "That thing may well be as bright as the fucking sun, Adam, I don't wanna look at it. I'll get us some coffee to help us sober up."

Adam bristled. Had she just said fuck? "Can I at least keep everything greyed out? I'm a lot more sensitive to light than you are."

Sabah acquiesced with a nod of her head, and the color rushed back, in smaller and smaller increments until their visual spectrum was only mildly desaturated.

Sabah took a moment to marvel at the shift in lighting. "How hard is it for you to do that?"

Adam hummed. "It's involuntary when in combat. Sometimes I'll intentionally warp everything to briefly disorient someone, but for the most part, it just coincides with the amount of energy I release. Doing this takes some effort though. It drains me, but only slightly. It's a small enough sacrifice for my comfort or for the drop on an opponent."

Sabah nodded, then gestured to her phone. The white light was just a tad too bright, as was the red in his hair. "How many colors can you affect? This is brighter than it should be."

He took a moment to think about that. "I'm not too sure, in all honestly. I guess it just depends on how bright that color is naturally. Sometimes it'll get caught up in my power with the red. There was a girl I remember, from a while back. She had the blondest hair I'd ever seen, and she was as striking as me in the murk of my power activating."

Yang Xiao Long. He would never forget her charge through Beacon's cafeteria. He'd been stunned at the ferocity of her scream, at the blinding rage and fear in her voice. She'd been a marvel, a living, fiery comet, golden light weaving through golden flames, her fist cocked back. The sheer frenzy in her attack in defense of a Faunus, of Blake of all people, had given him pause for a moment.

Only a moment.

He'd watched her tumble to the ground, eyes as bright as the blade in his hand, sunlight wafting through her golden locks, and almost thought her beautiful.

It was a true tragedy that Blake had gotten to her and snuffed out that spark, that energy. He'd managed to bring it back, in their final encounter. He'd felt something akin to pride, as twisted as it had been, when she'd rejected his offer of clemency in exchange for Blake's life. For she was no coward, not like Blake.

She was fully prepared to die a warrior's death in the defense of a comrade.

He had been fully prepared to give her that aforementioned warrior's death.

But it was not to be.

Perhaps for the better. It would have been a shame to see her life snuffed out. He'd looked into her, even before Beacon, when he'd only known her as Blake's human partner from the photograph The Witch had shown him.

She had the same rage, the same passion for justice and for dealing just dues.

Perhaps it was no coincidence that Blake had fallen for her.

For what was she but him, idealized?

His head tilted back.

What was she up to now, he wondered, unburdened by the White Fang?

Fighting her shadow war against Cinder's ivory-skinned master? Against the Grimm? Against his violent, scattered fanatics whom had no doubt taken up his name for a martyr?

How much time had passed, in Remnant?

It had been perhaps two months in his time here in Brockton Bay. His counting had been hazy, mired in uncertainties. It could be less, could be more. He didn't know.

Where were they now? For all he knew, it could have been years on Remnant already.

Mayhaps hours instead. For all he knew, Blake was still perched up on that bridge, lamenting his wasted life even now.

His hand came to rest upon his chest. He fingered the scar above his heart, and felt his pulse jump.

A blade through the heart, a knife through the kidney.

His back, splintered upon the rock.

The ocean, salt and copper flooding his lungs.

The remainders of the waterfall, pounding down on his head like a drum, plunging his broken body beneath the waves.

Death, the end.

Or so he thought.

For here he was, unbroken, his body back to its prime, his old uniform in hand, missing blade by his side.

Alive.

But for what, and more importantly, how?

He never enjoyed thinking about it. Had put it out of his mind, for entertaining the impossible had driven many a man mad.

What was he here for?

Was it fate, a whim, chance?

He pondered the world as it was, and wondered where else he could have woken up instead.

Dreamlike, a fantasy, yet all too real. Some nights, as he stared at the whole moon, he found himself pinching his skin till it bruised purple, just to confirm to himself he was in fact here, alive and well.

He entertained this line of thought only a moment longer and dreamed up other worlds, of what could have been.

Perhaps up in the stars, in a distant galaxy or future. Somewhere new, unlike anything he'd seen. Or a vast, vast desert, filled with savages with curved swords under the command of a white-haired tyrant, to fight for the common man.

A door lock clicked, and he about leapt free of his skin.

When had she even left?

Sabah gave him a funny look, two cups of coffee in each hand. She set them down by his workstation before talking. "You had a moment. I didn't want to interrupt, so I just went out and for our stuff. Drink it quick, because I'm heading out to the rest of my classes soon."

He obeyed, standing up and stretching, grimacing as he popped several joints, before making his way over and picking up the coffee in hand.

He was in as much worry as her, draining half the cup in one go even as the health scalded his tongue. His aura would repair the damage, and he needed to wake up.

He glanced towards his new clothes, admiring them. His emblem had been painstakingly stitched into the back, alongside its accompanying white floral backsplash. The banner and the zippers he had finished himself, but the additions to the collar of his jacket had been done entirely at Sabah's discretion.

A small, almost fond smile graced his lips. He approved.

The collar on this jacket was different than the original leather jacket he'd modified for Mantle's cold. Where it buttoned together, a red line arced upward tying together both sides of the jacket before blossoming outward to form a popped collar, quite unlike the enclosed one he wore previous. On the right side of it lay his white floral crest, this time unaccompanied by vines. On the left lay a different floral pattern, the same dark black on his back and shoulders. The vines and thorns looked more sinister. but were smaller in number. It also exposed a lot more of his chest. Three pairs of belts he'd purchased lay atop the clothes, alongside a new shirt. It was half red, half black, each color awarded its own corresponding side of the shirt, slanted down in an arc from left shoulder to right hip.

He turned towards Sabah in askance, and she raised her coffee in a salute. He snorted. He rather enjoyed her hungover.

He set his coffee down, taking off his plain red tee and putting the new one on. He slipped on his new jacket, buttoning it in place and flaring the collar. Next came the belts, all three brown leather. The first slanted over his left with a slot for Wilt & Blush, and the other carried a small pouch to store spare magazines for Blush that he did not have. He frowned at that thought. Being limited to ten shots per engagement could become a problem.

Something he would need to rectify later.

He banded the last belt above his left knee and straightened out.

It felt good, but lack of comforting weight on his left side made it feel hollow. He wouldn't yet be whole until his mask and his weapons were in his possession again.

Sabah gave him a small once over before hiking a thumb toward the door. He nodded, and stepped behind her shadow as she walked toward the door and made her way outside.

Adam deactivated his semblance as he breathed in the fresh spring air.

Sabah turned back towards him and smiled.

Adam smiled back,

Then, in the distance, a pop.

Adam stilled.

The sound was almost a mile off, Nearly inaudible even to him.

Sabah's smile wavered at the sudden tension in his shoulders. "What?"

"I don't..." Another pop, more akin to a gunshot in the distance. Nothing unusual or out of the ordinary, but something was holding him back, telling him to stay still and pay attention, to listen.

Sabah's head swiveled around, towards downtown, a question on her lips.

It was drowned out in a cacophony of white noise and ruling thunder as the cityscape erupted into flame.

There was a half-second long pause where Adam was struck dumb at the encoaching shockwave and rolling fireball before his instincts kicked into gear.

His hands found Sabah's waist, clenching tight enough he felt bone begin to buckle beneath his fingers. A scream was halfway out of her mouth as he raised her up off the ground, but all that came out was a muffled wheeze as he spun around and dropped her face first onto the concrete. Her chin split open, and she made to rise.

Adam dropped his entire bulk around her, rolling her to the side and pushing her legs up before covering her with his body, aura strained to its maximum.

There was loud metallic groan, a whistle in the area, as a wall of fire and encroaching dust rolled across his back.

He felt more than heard the skyscraper six blocks off topple to the ground.

It was the loudest thing he'd ever heard.

It felt like the entire world had heaved and exploded all around him, his fingers digging furrows into the concrete as he fought to stay still.

Another shockwave, and a wall of dust and dirt and debris followed suit.

He felt hundreds of pieces of concrete bounce off his back and held his breath in as the dust threatened to choke him into lifelessness.

Sabah screamed the whole time, though he could not hear it.

Adam felt something hot and sticky trickle out of his ears, the world out of sync and off balance. He teetered atop Sabah, his balance destroyed, and he fought the sudden exhaustion in his limbs so as not to simply go limp and crush her.

A high-pitched whine drowned out everything else. Adam felt as though he was underwater, all sound distorted, muffled, and twisted into something foreign and unrecognizable.

Ten seconds passed. Then thirty. Then a minute. Then two, before the dust cloud receded and Adam trusted himself to take in a deep breath.

He panted, his aura working to slowly bring his eardrums back online. Another thirty seconds passed.

There was a moment of pure silence, a void of all sensation or noise, before the screams of three-hundred and fifty thousand people echoed all around him.

Adam turned his head to see billowing smoke clouds rolling out from every district in the city. Block upon block upon block, there wasn't a single neighborhood for miles unscathed.

Adam stood up sharply, hands ensnaring Sabah, and he pulled her into a protective embrace, her head buried in her chest.

She was wailing, tears streaming down her cheeks, intermingling with the blood that ran down from a cut above her brow and the bottom of her chin. She was sobbing, insensate, her eyes wild with fear and panic.

Her whole body shook violently, her arms wrapped around his waist, squeezing tight enough to hurt.

She was barely cognizant. He bet she couldn't even hear herself scream, not with all the blood running down from her ears. Every second was another explosion, and Adam pulled her tighter towards himself and prayed that their warehouse would not be next.

Another minute passed, the sounds of the world cut out by explosion after explosion.

Then silence.

Nothing,

It almost felt anticlimactic, the way it all seemed to stop at once.

There was fire, death chaos, misery, an all-encompassing terror that had frozen his blood in his veins and chilled his bones with frost.

Then a sudden, eerie stillness.

Even the screaming had stopped, the city collectively holding its breath.

Yet, nothing.

Then the white noise resumed, screaming and air raid sirens and crumbling buildings drowning out Sabah's muttered prayer.

He could not understand her words, the language foreign, but he just knew it was one nonetheless, for how reverently and dismally she spoke.

She was shaking, eyes squeezed shut, the words repeated ad nauseam.

"اللّهُـمَّ إِنا نَجْـعَلُكَ في نُحـورِهِـم، وَنَعـوذُ بِكَ مِنْ شُرورِهـمْ." She spoke.

"رَبِّ اغْفِرْ لِي وَلِأَخِي وَأَدْخِلْنَا فِي رَحْمَتِكَ ۖ وَأَنتَ أَرْحَمُ الرَّاحِمِينَ" She said.

Repeated over and over, a mantra, a lifeline.

Adam held her close and listed, his head atop hers, as her shaking died down.

Another minute and Sabah finally relaxed, for lack of a better word.

She made to step away, but Adam pulled her close again, cradling her. He was taught as a live wire, body tense.

They weren't safe here.

His hand drifted downward.

He swore. A lead weight made his stomach drop. Unarmed. In the heat of the moment, he had forgotten.

His mind raced.

A plan formed. Hasty.

More of a set of steps.

Take Sabah, get home, get Wilt, then hunt.

For he already knew who was responsible.

Sabah looked up at him, grimacing. Her hands came up towards her ears, and came away soaked in blood that dripped down along her fingers. She was pale enough that Alabaster would have been envious.

Adam swatted her hands down before gesturing in the direction of his apartment.

Sabah shook her head, voice choked."My family-"

Adam placed a hand against her mouth, knowing she would not be able to hear his words. He mouthed them instead, slow and deliberate.

Your safety is the first priority. I'll take you home, patch you up. Then I'm going after the ABB.

He didn't give her time to reply before he was already taking flight towards a nreaby rooftop, leaping from building to building.

Sabah was silent the whole time.

(X)

His eyepatch drifted off into the wind as he placed his mask upon his face.

He gave Wilt a comforting squeeze, before inclining his head.

Sabah was sat upon a stool, the one with the missing leg. One hand ran across her chin, counting the clumsy stitches that ran across it.

It was far from his best work. He was a mediocre medic at best, unused to stitching things that had to breathe and writhe and wince whenever his thread ran through their flesh. The cut was almost bone-deep. It would scar, and with his less-than-stellar stitch work, quite badly at that. He was more concerned with her ears, however.

He'd already gone through five pairs before the bleeding had tapered off. She still could not hear, and it was obvious she was in agony. Without surgical intervention, she would have permanent tinitus as a best case scenario.

Adam had a feeling that wasn't what she was going to get. He knew that she was feeling the same way, judging by the color (Or lack thereof) of her skin.

And yet, aside from her labored breathing and the shaking in her hands, she was remarkably calm.

He was not.

Rage, pure, unfettered rage.

It consumed him, Gave him focus, a sudden sense of purpose, a clarity he had not felt since he had discarded his mask and gone after Blake.

It was so clear now. He had dithered. Wasted time. Wasted mercy. Had tried playing by their rules, at least a little. Had tried playing at something he wasn't.

Wasted effort. For people who did not deserve it. Did not need it.

No.

It ended, now, here, before it could truly begin.

No more rules, no regulations, nothing to hold him back.

Bakuda would die. Oni Lee would die. Lung would die, if he was a part of this.

Along with anyone else who got in his way.

He turned towards Sabah. His eyes honed in on the dried blood that had crusted up alongside her chin.

No more.

He looked back, outwards, towards the city that was now his. At the buckled, shattered Remains of the PRT's headquarters.

Towards the docks, where a certain ABB gangster resided.

Someone else might have said something witty as Adam plummeted off his balcony. Something profound or pertinent. They might have said something cliche or tart or made a promise to themselves or someone else.

Adam was silent.

Silent, up until he made his way down towards to docks, towards a defaced apartment building by the ocean.

Only when he had kicked in the front door and shrouded the city in a crimson eclipse did he verbalize his wrath.

Yes, I, for like ten seconds, thought about plunging Adam into Daenerys's service in Game of Thrones. They would have found him out in the desert as a mad hermit after Khal Drogo bit it, and would spend a few days resting in his cave-of-the-week. Adam would be quite insane by this point, but have a legendary reputation as a shadow warrior who goes around leveling cities and freeing slaves wherever he went.

After a long, tense few days, they convince him to go with them, with Dany dressing up her attempt at regaining her birthright as a revolution of sorts, to free Westeros's serfs from their tyrannical lords and ladies to serve as a benevolent dictator. Adam would hesitantly agree, with the promise of great power in her service and his own lands to govern as he sees fit. He is given his own house, with his rose sigil as his banner. He ends up her seamstress and advisor, and they have many, many conversations between the two of them about right and wrong and the greater good, and about whether or not ends can justify means.

The other one, a Mass Effect idea I almost started writing. Adam joins The Normandy Crew in ME2 after being freed by Shepard from the Batarians, as he'd basically been going on a one-man Genocide from colony to colony with some escaped slaves for about half a year before being caught.

Most of the story would be about Adam's interactions with the galaxy at large and his 'therapy' conversations with Femshep. He feels uncomfortable around her due to her uncanny resemblance to his dead mom. Her motherly demeanor freaks him out, and they clash quite a bit whenever she tries her usual style of talking with him. It would be a sorta inversion of the usual ME story where the new character and Femshep get along famously. Adam is very uncomfortable opening up to a human in any great detail, and Shepard really has to pull teeth to even get his last name out of him. The big climax of the story would have been Adam finally showing her his face before the suicide mission. Shepard would leverage his mommy/authority issues in her renegade moments to manipulate Adam, but would try and get him on the straight and narrow for the most part. It would be a tense push-pull, back-and-forth story that would be almost 100% character driven.

And yes, before you ask, Adam did develop a pseudo-crush on Yang. You'll see how and why when we get to the backstory part.

Last edited: May 27, 2023

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MasterDuplicator

May 27, 2023

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MasterDuplicator

Big Fan of a Mad Cow

Super Awesome Happy Funtime

Jun 1, 2023

#1,676

A while back in this thread, i remember me and a few others floating the idea of a theme for Adam. I thought about holding a competition. The winner gets...something?

I just remembered it today. I was all set to leave it all up to you.

Then Spotify gave me two songs that were literally perfect. They sure as hell weren't in the style I had envisioned, but the lyrics are almost perfect. They describe his character in the fic and his current arc(Which is more of a up and down line rather than real curve at this point perfectly.)

Adam's Journey

And His Struggle

I would still love to see your guy's ideas though. So far, Architect Ironturtle's rec has been my favorite.

Say hello to the old Adam. Here's here for a while. Maybe to stay.

The world burned, a chill falling upon the air as his Semblance devoured the Earth's very warmth for fuel. Red upon Red upon Black, the darkest of eclipses overshadowing the sun, the city buried underneath a crimson veil, its inhabitants only recognized by their silhouettes.

Adam stood at its epicenter.

His leg came up, and it crashed into the tagged and defaced apartment's rusted door.

It ceased to be the second his foot made contact, energy racing outwards from the pattern his sole burned into the steel. It parted away into flowers before the hinges had even fully snapped beneath the impact.

Those too, wilted away before the sound of its destruction could even ring out, as Adam was already halfway inside the foyer, Wilt half drawn, a scream tearing free of his throat.

"Dai! Get down here!"

A silhouette to his left stole his attention for a nanosecond, An ABB gangster. Armed, stumbling on his feet, a hand on the gun at his waistband, blinded by the sudden change in lighting.

Adam raised Wilt high above his head and cleaved the man in two with a roar.

Wilt's glow ensured it was unbothered by the bone that lay beneath the man's flesh as it carved clean through the man's body in an arc from shoulder to hip. By the time blade had exited his body, the man in his entirety had already rotted away, nary even a droplet of blood to leave behind, all boiled away and transmuted into the whirling, blackened rose petals that floated through the air unnaturally.

Adam heard a crash above his head, above the staircase in front of him, a feminine cry, and he was already up the stairs before his brain had fully comprehended the sound. There was a door in front of him, and distorted voices spoke up in a language he could not understand, their voices strained,

Adam walked through the door and yelled his ABB contacts name again.

Eight silhouettes turned in unison, swaying blindly in a circle in the middle of the apartment's living room. None had any distinguishing features in the darkness aside from a woman's dyed pink hair and a man's neon green shirt, all blindingly bright in his Semblances wake.

One silhouette reached downward,

Blush barked, and it fell back, dead before it hit the floor. He waved the gun around the room until one man stepped forward, a small line of glowing white powder below his nose, horrified panic turning his surprised yell into a squeal of delirious, drugged-out panic.

"Whatthefuckwhatdoyou-"

Adam was in front of him, a hand around his throat. He threw the man forward and he crashed into a table. Wood splinters rained down upon the ground as it split apart. Dai made to rise, and Adam kicked him in the ribs hard enough to lift him three feet in the air, which gave him enough airtime for Adam to grab him by the throat again.

All around him, the inhabitants screamed, in shrill dulcet tones that made his head pound and his blood boil.

Adam slammed Dai into the nearest wall hard enough for the room to shake, and he leaned close up until their noses were touching, Adam's breath coming out in harsh pants that blew across the man's face as he ground out his words. "Bakuda! Where is she? Why did she do this?"

The waste, the sheer waste, the senselessness. The murder of dozens, of hundreds, millions in property damage, an incalculable amount of livelihoods destroyed, how, and for what?

He remembered Haven, his thumb on a trigger, hundreds stood around to watch with their breaths bated. Blake's horrified eyes, the mania in his voice, his men's wide-eyed stares as he pushed the button down, damning them all.

So much death, for no justifiable end. For pride, pure and simple, damn the consequences.

Dai lolled in his grip, babbling and praying incoherently in white-knuckled terror, words slurring and mingling together in a mish-mash of different languages and accents.

The screaming reached a fever pitch. Adam lifted Blush up and shot the green-shirted man in the head if only the lessen the noise.

The man's head exploded in a shower of red and pink gore, and Adam watched as the remnants of the man's skull impacted the wall and stuck to it, blood and brain matter painting the wall in a pattern not dissimilar to the neon lighting that had weaved and coiled all throughout the mall's arcade.

He was too angry to think, to speak properly or to try coaxing Dai into speech, so he didn't bother trying. He flung the man to the ground with another roar and whipped Wilt free, lighting snapping outward, yipping and snarling and coiling across Wilt's length. Adam flung a wave of energy back outwards toward the table he had broke, and the wave of light that flowed forth plowed clean through the wall and raced out towards the sky before imploding in a violent burst that showed the ocean in sparks and petals.

The subsequent rush of adrenaline had his heart racing. Adam could hear his blood rushing through his ears. He turned towards the group of terrified men and women, many of which were turning to flee, and he snarled out a warning. Terror froze their feet. Black and red-rimmed lighting sparked off his blade and burned holes into the ceiling and floor, and he waved it in a warning. "SHUT UP!"

They did, out of shock and fright more than anything else. The woman at the center of the group was hyperventilating, doe-eyed and panicked.

His next words were delivered with a familiar, practiced calm.

"Line up against the wall."

The woman finally spoke coherently, in broken English and mispronounced vowels. slurred and twisted by grief and tears. "Please God, please don't-"

Adam growled, a warning shot from Blush drilling a hole in the floor beneath her feet. "Now!"

They all froze, then, one by one, slowly shuffled forward. He waved them toward the destroyed wall, and the shifting wind from the open air had them fighting to keep their balance in the darkness.

He turned back towards Dai, and planted Wilt into the floor.

Dai was too numb with horror to speak. Adam removed Blush's magazine, and he kneeled down into Dai's face and spoke for him, a cold fury poisoning his words with malice.

"Ten rounds, plus the one in the chamber. That leaves eight left over. Plenty enough for you and the rest of your friends. I'll even have two left over to plant in Bakuda when I find her." Adam waved in his hostage's direction casually, then loaded the magazine back into Blush. He stepped over Dai's limp body until he was crouched over his side, to lean down and whisper into his ear. "Every word I hear from your mouth that isn't a direct answer to my question, I kill someone here. I'll go one by one in a line, starting from the left, until I get the answer I want, or you're all dead. Do you understand?"

He didn't wait for a 'yes'. He simply stood up and pointed Blush at the first in line's head and squeezed the trigger halfway down. "Where is Bakuda? Why has she done this?"

Dai glanced upward, eyes pleading, They were bloodshot and rimmed with tears. "I-iiiii- I don't k-"

A gunshot, the smoke wafting from Blush's barrel invisible in the suffocating darkness.

The man at the head of the line gasped, clutching his chest with both hands, blood pooling beneath his fingers. He stumbled backward, blindly, and he tumbled out of the hole where the wall had been and fell into the ocean with a splash that felt louder than the gunshots that had preceded it.

A chorus of screams, suddenly cut short by the rifle swaying across the room until it leveled off on its target.

He turned towards Dai, finger on the trigger once more. "His death was on you. You could have stopped this, all of this, before it had even begun, if only you had answered me the first time."

Dai shooki. "No, no, no, no-"

"Yes. But you can still save them, if you give me the answer I want. I'll ask again you again."

He leaned down again, until his head obscured Dai's vision, and all Dai could see was the glowing lines that ran along his mask. "Where. Is. Bakuda. Why has she done this?"

Dai swallowed, a facsimile of compose on his obscured face, his breathing nearly level as his mind raced. Adam gave him a few seconds to think, and he spoke up. "Please, man, I'm telling you, hand to on my heart, on my mother's fucking corpse, I don't know. Please, I was straight with you when the Empire hit, I-"

Blush jumped in his hands. Dai's next words were inaudible as the gunshot rang out and bounced all along the walls. A headless body slumped down and fell halfway out of the building.

Adam stomped down on Dai's arm before he could say anything else. Bone crunched, and his radius snapped in half and broke free of his skin. Dai screamed, and Adam lifted Wilt to the man's throat. Adam hushed him quietly as he pressed the tip in hard enough to break the skin. Dai whimpered, biting his lip hard enough to bleed to muffle his screaming.

Then Adam moved Wilt's tip from his throat to the exposed bone. He nestled it up against the break, and Dai shuddered when it slipped past his skin.

When Adam clipped Blush back onto his belt and angled his body to the side, both hands on Wilt's hilt as he made to twist it to one side like a lever, Dai cracked.

"I DON'T KNOW I DON'T KNOW I'M NOT LYING PLEASE GOD PLEASE PLEASE FUCKING PLEASE FUCK FUCK FUCK, I DON'T KNOOOOOWWW!"

Adam twisted the blade slightly, raising his voice to match Dai's. "WHAT DO YOU KNOW?"

Dai sobbed. "Fucking nothing! None of us do! I haven't seen her once since Lung got booked! Not fucking once! Please, please believe me! She only communicates via phone call! She moves from building to building, house to house, workshop to workshop, every goddamn day! All over the city. None of us know anything, we didn't want any fucking part of this! I'm a fucking drug dealer, for chrissakes! The only reason I'm even still in this godforsaken city is 'cause that cunt put a bomb in my neck!"

Adam froze. The rage inside him curdled like milk. the effects of his Semblance wavered a moment before fading away entirely. "A bomb?"

Dai shook, heaving in air as his body shook with suppressed sobs. "S-s-s-She called me, a few days before Lung was arrested. Said she wanted to talk shop. I figured it was because I used to be tight with the Oni. I knew him back when we were with the Triads. I'm one of the only people he still remembers, so I figure she wants to hear it from me how to deal with him. H-he gets funky sometimes. Get's lost in his head, and you gotta remind him where he is and what he was supposed to do. I figure I'm supposed to show up, tell her a few stories so she knows how to ground him, but..."

Adam lifted Wilt out of his arm. Dai sucked in a breath, and Adam whipped the blood off the blade and sheathed it. Bile rose up in his throat. Regret and remorse threatened to cloud his judgment. He sucked in a breath to center himself and brought his wrath back to the forefront. "But what?"

"But I don't fuckin know. I remember walking through a doorway, a bright light, then just nothing. The next thing I know, I'm lying on a gurney, there's a loop of gauze wrapped around my neck, and the back of my neck is itching like hell. She was standing over me wiping down a pair of bloody tweezers on her jacket. Told me there was a bomb in the back of my neck. That trying to dig it out would make it go off. That she could detonate it any time, and that I was lucky to be alive."

Dai's eyes were glassy. He spat his next words. "She said I was her bitch, now and forever."

Adam leaned back, eyes wide beneath his mask. He hauled Dai up by the shoulder and turned him around. Dai didn't resist, his body limp.

There was a poorly healed incision on the back of his neck. Crudely cut, sewed shut even cruder. It was half open even now, leaking a yellow liquid, pus all over. Infected. The stitches inside were rotted and hooked into scabs, half ripped free from incessant scratching.

Adam turned towards the survivors by the wall.

Slaves. Suicide bombers as slaves.

"I was part of her first batch. The people she had to cut into and experiment on. She conscripted everyone else using us, a group of maybe fifteen to twenty guys. She had us go out and bring people to her. Made us watch. Later, she made us hold them down as she..."

His sentence faded off into a choked-down sob. "She got the method down by batch four. She started shoving them up people's noses. Can't get them out no matter how hard you try. But if you annoyed her, she'd put up 'em your ass, down your throat, up your dickhole..."

Dai grabbed him by the shoulder with his good arm. His eyes were wide and unseeing. High, and delirious with bloodloss. "She made me hold this girl down, made me watch as she put it up her..."

Dai trailed off. he shook his head violently, as if to make the memory disappear.

It lingered on in both of their minds.

Adam shook his arm off, body numb.

He walked back towards the wall almost in a daze, past the cringing survivors to the body that was halfway to the outside.

Adam stared at it. Watched the blood trickle down out of the stump of his neck and the remains of his jaw as it pooled across the ocean's surface.

He'd killed slaves.

Murdered them.

The woman muttered something he could not understand,

Dai responded in the same sing-song language. Chinese, maybe.

Adam nudged the body with his toe, and it slid out of the building and hit the ocean's surface. There was a splash, violent enough to spray Adam in the face and make him flinch backward.

Adam watched it sink beneath the waves.

He looked down towards his shaking hands and clenched them tight.

"I can't get to Bakuda?"

Dai shuffled forward, hissing in pain, agony lacing his voice. "Not without combing the whole fucking city. Every house, every bar, every train car, every abandoned warehouse and dockyard, top to bottom. You'd never be able to find her without her knowing you were sniffing about. She's crazy enough and paranoid enough that she's probably booby-trapped most of her old hide-outs with god only knows what too. And all that ain't even the clincher."

"No?"

"She's got a deadman's switch. It's the only reason I didn't take her out on day one. And if she's got enough ordinance to do this much damage now..."

He couldn't even begin to contemplate the damage everything she had made going off all at once would cause.

Adam narrowed his eyes. "How do you know she isn't lying?"

"Why would she lie?"

"Because It's the kind of lie you can't put to the test. A bluff you can't call, because if you do, and she wasn't bluffing after all..."

"Boom."

"Exactly."

Dai paused a moment before shrugging. The movement made him cringe in pain. "I dunno. I just know she's crazy enough to probably give it a shot."

Adam swallowed. Watched the ocean's gentle waves roll across the nearby dock's supports.

He licked his lips and tasted salt. Felt a phantom pain throb in his chest.

Five people dead. Five slaves dead. At his hand.

The anger came rushing back. It had never truly left. Adam didn't think it ever would.

He swallowed again. Placed a hand on Wilt's hilt.

He heard everyone in the room collectively inhale.

He gave Wilt a comforting squeeze. Inhaled deeply.

Then he did what he did best. He buried the rage deep, deep inside, and honed it. Turned it into focus.

All he could do now was redirect it.

He turned towards the woman. "Go out and bring me gauze, a needle, and thread."

He turned towards the male survivors and gestured towards the doorway. "You lot go with her."

They stood still. Terrified and confused, even now.

Adam stomped his foot. "Now!"

They jumped, as one, then as one, they ran out the door.

Dai gave him a questioning look.

Adam gestured to his mangled arm. "I'll need to improvise a cast as well."

Dai shook. In pain, in surprise, in shock, in fear, in gratitude.

"I'll be fixing your arm and getting that bomb out of your neck. Then I'll do them, if they come back. Do you have any painkillers?"

Dai nodded dumbly. Gestured towards another room, a kitchen.

Adam stepped inside, and blinked in surprise.

A mountain of white powder lay atop the kitchen counter.

He sighed. "That'll have to do."

Last edited: Jun 3, 2023

259

MasterDuplicator

Jun 1, 2023

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MasterDuplicator

Big Fan of a Mad Cow

Super Awesome Happy Funtime

Jun 3, 2023

#1,707

One interesting thing I don't often see acknowledged was how passively suicidal canon Adam was. Dedicating yourself to an Impossible cause or terror organization like the White Fang speaks to a certain kind of mindset to be sure, and I've seen quite a few people argue that Adam's final attack on Blake and Yang, after stalking them for so long and abandoning his mask, the mask being a literal symbol of why he fights and continues to live on, was him trying to go out in a sort of 'suicide by cop' routine, consciously or unconsciously(I lean toward unconsciously).

But at Haven, when his back was on the wall, when everything he had spent half of his life building was crashing down around him right before his eyes, he pushed the button to detonate Haven's explosives. He had zero idea Ilia had betrayed him. He was 100% willing to die and kill everyone around him, Blake, Yang, Hazel, Cinder, his troops, all of Atlas's ships, even himself, if it meant getting one over on his enemies, on his terms.

Just something that was in my head when I was editing this chapter.

"Hold still. This is delicate work, and the more you move, the longer this will take."

Dai inhaled deeply and held down his damaged limb with his free hand. It, alongside his wounded arm, was laden with tremors. "Mẹ kiếp nó đau."

Adam hummed in amusement. "What language was that?"

Dai turned his head and stared longingly at the other side of the countertop. "Vietnamese."

Adam followed his gaze, then scowled. He jabbed the next bit of thread in with more force than necessary, and Dai swore again in another mystical tongue and turned back towards him. "I'm not letting you have anymore. That's half the reason this has taken so long."

Fifteen minutes of impatient waiting and agonized fumbling as they had both waited for the group to return. Adam had managed to bridge the bone back together, but there wouldn't be anything to keep it in place for a good long while yet. Once Dai's compatriots had come back with the supplies he'd requested and had dumped Green shirt into the bay, he'd told them to wait in the living room for their turns.

As it was now, another forty-five minutes had gone by, and Adam was only halfway down Dai's arm after putting in twenty stitches.

"Distract me then, cause this hurts like a motherfucker. There's a reason doctors put you to sleep for this shit, you know."

"I'm not a doctor. But fair enough."

Adam paused his work and inclined his head to look the smaller man in the face, to properly take him in. His hair was as black as his old jacket, cut short with a pair of bangs that had a few staggered gray hairs strewn about from stress. His face was laden with small scratches and scabs, symptoms of a severe drug habit, and there was a long, jagged scar below his eye that ran across the bridge of his crooked nose. It had been broken several times over and left to heal on its own, judging by how warped it was. His eyes were a brilliant Jade, but the color was washed and muted, with the whites of his eyes flooded with burst blood vessels. He looked three or four times his actual age, though Adam suspected the man was only a few years older than himself.

Instead of commenting on all that, Adam chose a more tactful avenue of conversation. "How many languages do you know?"

"Seven." Dai flicked his eyes to the side, counting under his breath. "Yeah, seven. Tiếng Việt, Nihongo, Putonghua, Yue, Tagalog, Xiang, Bahasa Melayu."

"And those are?"

"Vietnamese, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hunanese, and Malay. Tagalog is just one of many languages from the Philippines." Dai huffed under his breath. "Fuckin hate that place. Still can't understand half the Philipinos in my crew because they speak so many goddamn languages down there."

Adam's impressed whistle was shockingly genuine. "Seven languages?"

"It ain't as cool as you think. I was born in China, so I learned those dialects growing up. That's Mandarin, Cantonese, and Hunanese. I learned Japanese growing up from all the Kyushu survivors who flooded Bejing after Japan got sacked. I'm sorta-kinda fluent in Vietnamese, but I sound like a jackass with my accent while talking in it, or so I've at least been told, and the rest of my knowledge in Malay and Tagalog outside of swear words is just how to say 'Shoot that guy' and 'How much you want?'. I was working on Korean before..." Dai gestured toward the back of his neck.

Adam snorted. "You seem much too intelligent to be a drug dealer."

"I ain't."

"Says who?"

"Says me."

"I don't believe that."

Dai rolled his eyes. "Forgive me for not trustin the word 'a some psycho spree killer."

"That is an interesting characterization. You sounded as though you admired me a few days back."

Dai gave him a hard look. "Yeah? That was before you kicked in my door in the middle of a party and shot four of my guys in the fucking face. You fuckin lunatic."

Adam stilled, fists clenched, and Dai hissed in pain as Adam pulled the thread taught. He counted to ten in his head before replying, voice clipped. "I'm sorry for that. I wasn't thinking straight. A friend of mine was hurt in the bombings. I didn't take it very well."

Dai started at him. Adam couldn't read his expression, his eyes hollow, his sudden smile empty. "You've got friends?"

"Yes." Adam hated the slight waver in his voice. He'd been alone in the White Fang but for Blake, and later Ilia for the short time their friendship had lasted, Sienna hundreds of miles away, and Adam surrounded by faceless strangers. "Two." Sabah was a friend, and Sophia looked up to him. Surely that counted.

Dai shook his head. That smile twitched, up, down, cracked, then disappeared. "We'll see."

Adam narrowed his eyes, a note of warning in his voice. "What do you mean by that?"

Dai shrugged with one arm, suddenly morose. "Bakuda."

"She'll get what's coming to her."

Dai shook his head. "I ain't worried about that, She signed her death warrant the moment that skyscraper came down. It's what's gonna happen in the meantime." Dai glanced backward at the edge of the kitchen counter, where Adam had messily swept the pile of cocaine to the side for room. Adam watched his nostrils flex, as if in anticipation. "Bakuda's got her hands on a lotta people. A lotta explosives."

Adam shook his head, "I won't let anything happen to them."

"Really?"

"Whatever it would take."

"Whatever?"

Adam flickered red. "Whatever."

Dai's gaze flicked down toward his broken arm. His smile was an ugly, brittle thing. "Let's hope they appreciate that, then."

Adam turned his gaze back toward the living room. At the blood staining its walls.

He swallowed. The words on the tip of his tongue, wilted away. His mind wandered toward Sabah, towards the expression on her face when she'd grabbed his wrist at the bar.

"She'll just have to live with it."

Just like him.

Dai didn't reply. Didn't speak again, for the rest of the surgery.

Neither did Adam.

(X)

Dai prodded the ducktape sling wrapped around his arm. "How's it going to heal?"

Adam jolted slightly at the break in their shared silence. "Poorly. My stitchwork is good, but not as good as a trained surgeon's. That duct tape won't hold up for long, and even if by some miracle it does, it'll allow for too much movement of the damaged bone. It'll need a plate and screws to hold it together properly. Having a crooked nose is one thing, but if that arm heals like your nose, you'll never have full function again unless you have someone break it again and realign it properly, with yet another three-six months of recovery time. As soon as I have that bomb out of your neck, you should go find a real doctor. It shouldn't be too hard, considering the magnitude of what just occurred. By tomorrow, I'm betting that there'll be a few dozen streets and locations cordoned off to be turned into improvised triage and aid stations."

"Speaking off, how the fuck are you gonna get that thing out? Bakuda said that if anyone tries lifting it outta there, they've got three good seconds to regret it before 'bang'."

"My power." The word Semblance was on the tip of its tongue, and he had to bite it down before continuing. He hated simplifying it so. Moonslice had a name. "I can take care of it in less than one. As soon as my fingers touch it, it'll be gone to nothing."

Dai went very, very still.

"Relax, I'll cut you open first. Make sure I can see it clearly, and try and do as little internal damage as possible. But it's gonna be messy either way."

Dai nodded his head. Adam could see sweat bead down his brow. Dai reached down into his pocket and lifted free a small switchblade. Adam reached forward and took it, bringing it up to his face. The blade shot upward with a click when he depressed the button on its side, and Adam made a disgusted noise when he gleamed at the dried blood, rust, and powder flecks that spanned its length.

Adam lifted the glove on his right hand free and put it inside his pocket, activating his semblance and running a finger across the blade, his touch featherlight, until the blade was clean and sterilized, if slightly more rusted. He could use his power on any weapon of his choosing, but his Semblance wreaked havoc on most objects, and after a few seconds of use, most were rendered unusable or outright fell apart. The only reason Wilt worked so well was that he had designed it around his Semblance, and there had been many days of trial and error as he'd worked through prototype after prototype to find the perfect dust-steel ratio to maintain integrity and lethality. He'd experimented with Blush, but whenever he had tried, by the time he had activated his Semblance and pulled the trigger, only flowers poured forth from the barrel, and Adam had to redo Blush's rifling almost every time. Dust-ladden rounds were more compatible, but still volatile, and keeping his concentration on the bullet so as to maintain his Semblance's effects was often too difficult to do when in a real fight.

He hummed under his breath as he examined the subtle red glow the switchblade emanated as he wrapped his Aura around it. He'd yet to try with bullets made here.

Something to experiment with when he had enough time.

"Yo, we doing this or what?"

Adam flinched, then nodded his head. "Turn around and kneel down. I'll make this as quick as I can."

Dai nodded, and did as bayed. Adam stepped forward until he loomed just above him, and he bent down and pressed the tip of the switchblade to Dai's neck.

Dai shuddered as the cold steel carved a line down across his neck, two inches long. He outright gasped when Adam pressed the knife in slowly, so slowly, until it pressed against something too hard to be muscle but too soft to be bone.

Dai took in a slow, careful breath. Adam hear his pulse race, heard his lungs contract and expand as he fought the urge to move, to panic, to scream. "That's it." His voice was tight.

Adam lifted the switchblade up and placed it back on the kitchen counter, opening the wound wider with two fingers. The blood obscured his view for the most part, but he could make out a hint of black nestled against the final layer of skin before muscle and empty space were all that lay below.

It was tiny. Maybe the size of the tip of his pinky. he couldn't say for sure.

Adam-

A phone vibrated.

They both froze.

He could the light of Dai's phone shine through his jeans. Dai looked down, and they both stared, transfixed, frozen in horror, when the phone stopped ringing after its caller hung up, seemingly impatient.

Adam whispered a quiet apology.

Before Dai could say anything, he plunged a pair of glowing fingers into the wound.

Dai screamed, for seconds that felt like an eternity before Adam ripped his fingers out and smeared the decaying blood and plastic upon the kitchen counter.

When it finally wilted away, the linoleum was cracked and scorched.

Dai heaved forward, sobbing, and Adam saw tears drip down from his face and fall upon the floor.

Adam put his hands on his shoulders and lifted him up. A strange, wheezing laughter rang out, and Dai stepped forward, shrugging off his hands. He reached back with his good arm and prodded the wound and the missing skin alongside the back of his neck.

Adam offered the only comfort he could. "At least the infection is gone."

Dai nodded his head. He was still facing away from him, staring at nothing in particular.

There was a long, long period of silence before Dai spoke up. "I was supposed to be in a hospital."

Adam took a moment to linger on the horror inherent to that statement. "A hospital."

Dai nodded. Blood flew across the room with the motion. "She gave me the address beforehand. I don't know if she did that for very many people. I think she blew up most of us where we stood, no confirmation call needed. But I couldn't..."

Dai trailed off and shuddered. "I couldn't do that. Some of us had some sort of desperate hope, some of us were just scared, and some of us were just too drugged out to care. But I knew what she was going to do, and I wanted no part in it. None of us did."

"Us?"

"Everyone here. We were all chosen. We knew what that meant, and I knew my day was today. We brought in a mountain of cocaine and a boombox, and we were gonna have the time of our lives. I was gonna toss my phone out in the bay, so none of us would know when it was gonna happen. We'd bring down that mountain of coke so all of us would OD, blast some music, have an orgy, dance, do whatever, and just...enjoy it all. Enjoy it all, and pray to every God there is that all our hearts would stop before the bomb went off."

Dai shrugged. "Then you came by, before we could even really start, and suddenly death wasn't so far away, in the back of our minds. It was in our faces and screaming at us."

"I'm sorry."

Dai shrugged. "It doesn't matter. If anything, it's good you came, because we might actually get to live now. That's probably why the others bothered coming back in the first place."

Dai turned back towards the living room. "Speaking of.."

"We'll do them now."

Dai shouted something in Japanese, and the woman walked inside out from the living room on shaky legs.

She glanced towards the blood running down Dai's neck, then turned to him.

Adam jolted backward with an 'oomph' as the girl slammed into him and wrapped her arms around his chest, squeezing tightly as she proffered thank you after thank you in broken English.

Adam shuddered beneath her grip.

How broken she was, how twisted by fear and by terror and her desperation to live, that she thanked the man whom had not two hours ago been ready to doom her.

Adam gently pushed her forwards and asked the dreaded question.

The woman went still and turned towards Dai. He nodded.

She took a step back. Then she lifted off her shirt.

She wore no bra.

Adam could see why plain as day.

His fists clenched.

Bakuda would pay.

(X)

By the time he had finished with everyone there and made his way home, Sabah was gone and the sky was dark.

The city wasn't.

Fires raged all around. Fluorescent red lights and wailing sirens rang out for miles and miles. He saw police cars and firetrucks from places and cities he'd never even heard of. Even a few from New York. Helicopters with PRT and National Guard markings fluttered about, APCs and armored cars grinding through the streets, traffic gridlocked for miles as the city was cordoned off.

Martial Law. At least a facsimile of it, headed by the PRT.

Ruins were being demolished and survivors were being excavated continuously. Adam had a feeling it would go on for months.

His neighborhood was yet to be trawled over.

Adam had a feeling that wasn't going to last.

His time limit, so nebulously far away before, was very real now. Concrete.

They would find him. There would be nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, nowhere to go. It could be in a week, a month, it could be tomorrow.

He looked around his apartment.

His home. Something he had found and claimed all on his own, something that was his, in the same vein as the clothes on his back and the sword on his hip.

Adam sucked in a deep breath, his nerves alight. He needed to finish the mission. Finish off the Empire and ABB.

After that...

It wouldn't matter.

Adam finished a phone free from his pocket and dialed a number.

Adam spoke up the second it was answered, voice grim.

"I'm going to need the home addresses, names, and faces of the rest of the Empire-88."

There was a long, dogged moment of silence before Coil replied, voice carefully neutral. "And you think I have access to this information?"

"Don't insult my intelligence and I won't insult yours. You found Parian. You found her getaway. It stands to reason you could find someone like Fenja, Crusader, Night, or Purity."

"And why would I pass this information on to you?"

"The stakes have never been higher for you. Whatever your plans for this city are, I'm sure they didn't take into account all this. While you have your people look for Bakuda, I can take care of all your known quantities with nothing back onto you. By the time they and the ABB are dead, I won't be long after. The gangs will be gone, and I'll be dead, so you won't have to worry about finding a place for me after all the chaos I've caused. You can rule uncontested. We both get what we want."

Another long pause.

"There are some things you need to know first. Hookwolf has betrayed the Empire."

Adam jolted.

"Kaiser was shipping over some reinforcements from Europe. I was going to send agents in to intercept and eliminate them before they could become an issue. The bombings were a surprise to be sure, but my people put a stop to them, at least temporarily, so I decided to go ahead with the plan. But when my men got there, Hookwolf had apparently been lying in wait already. He fought them alongside Stormtiger and Cricket. As a group, they managed to kill three of his new capes before being forced away by the remnants."

That certainly wasn't something he'd expected. Maybe Hookwolf could prove useful. "Anything else?"

"I called a meeting to establish a truce and an alliance against the ABB between all independents and villains left alive in the city. It occurs in seven days' time, at a small Bar & Grill named Somers Rock. That is your timeframe. After that, I expect you at the meeting and to uphold the following truce until the ABB is dealt with."

"I can play nice. For a short time at least."

"Good."

Adam heard a shuffling noise before Coil spoke up again.

"Jessica Annabelle Bierman, age twenty-nine. Alias; Fenja. Nessa Lynn Bierman, age twenty-nine. Alias; Menja. They live downtown, in a luxury condo a few dozen floors up a skyscraper. You'll know the building when you see it. Olivia Anne Kissinger, aged 19. Alias; Othala. 4235 Hazelwood Drive. Wife of Samson David Kissinger, aged twenty-two. Alias; Victor.

On and on it went, and Adam committed each and every name to memory.

But one stuck out the most. Brought with it a sense of familiarity.

"Maximillian Richard Anders, age thirty-five, CEO of the philanthropic and pharmaceutical enterprise Medhall. Alias; Kaiser."

Last edited: Jun 3, 2023

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MasterDuplicator

Jun 3, 2023

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MasterDuplicator

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Super Awesome Happy Funtime

Jun 11, 2023

#1,743

Happy 100k words. We're about done. I expect to hit maybe 140k or 150k, depending on how much fat I want to trim off the chapters that take place in Remnant. I could post them as their own story and it would be decently long. I might do that on some other site actually. Covering 23 years of life(More like 8 in extra great detail) was challenging to do in only four chapters. I know I've more than likely mentioned it already, but they are long. They kinda have to be, considering I'm covering six seasons' worth of content plus several extra years. I'm rewriting the timeline for the history of Remnant and the White Fang a decent bit, since the time frame we are given really stretches my suspension of disbelief(Adam's short takes place 5 years before canon but Ilia has the same model? Is the whole White Fang only staffed by pedos?)

Joking aside, as mentioned prior, I wanted to give the White Fang and the Faunus a history and try and give a legitimate grounding for their existence since the show really doesn't give you one.

And honestly, as much shit as I've given CRWBY about it, I perfectly understand why there wasn't any. RWBY was the literal trope example of Style Over Substance.

You didn't watch RWBY because you wanted to see a Tolkein-esque great adventure or a Martin-esque political thriller shitshow, you watch it to see the girl wearing fucking Daisy Duke's fist-fight other girls with a pair of 8 gauge shotguns strapped to her wrists. That, alongside the shoestring budget, meant they literally couldn't have done anything like that in a visual format even if they wanted to. They didn't have the time or money to make full-length episodes with deep character moments and overarching subplots, so they just...didn't try.

And that was a good thing. They knew their limits and stuck to them. The cracks only started showing during Volume 4 when they decided they wanted to have their cake and eat it too, and that quirky schoolgirl action comedy suddenly had a world-ending threat driving all 8 of the main characters forward.

When you have 8 fucking main characters, and that shoe-string budget only upgraded to a fanny-pack man-purpose budget, and you still aren't feature-length 30 minutes long per episode, you simply do not have time to develop your characters reasonably. Jaune and Ruby are the ostensible main characters, but Jaune was really the only character to truly change and grow over time, minus Ruby's questionable trip through Wonderland. You could get away with stuff like this if RWBY was a novella, where you could actually dive inside a character's head and have them expouse their thoughts and explain the history of the world, but as it is, they simply couldn't. Even doing it in Volume Nine was a serious struggle for them since they all but emptied their purse to make it.

So knowing all that, I can't be upset about it. But the potential for so much is there. You could head-canon an entire 6 book series about RWBY's world and story if you tried hard enough.

But they didn't have the time or money.

So why they spent half of Volume One on fucking Jaune I will never know.

I think he's the best character in the show, but I don't like that he only became that way at the expense of everyone else. I think everyone saying he's a self-insert is being a bit too much, but to me, he feels more like the lead of the show than the girl who bears its name.

She feels like she's flying, vertigo making her sick to her stomach. There's a ringing in her ears that hasn't faded since the explosions began. There's blood on her face and in her mouth and in her hair and all over her clothes. Her heart is pounding hard enough that it should hurt, but all she can feel is a muted, rhythmic pulsing that sounds as washed out as everything else.

She can barely hear the woman in front of her. Can't remember her name or muster enough focus to hear her words. She feels like she's drifting in and out of reality.

"-Situation is-"

Sophia feels like she's dying. She felt her head loll back slightly, canting her already blurry vision into an angle that renders the world unrecognizable.

The shadow in front of her pauses its noises for only a moment before continuing again.

Sophia feels like she's somewhere else. In her own world. Trapped inside her head.

She smells the smoke. Feels her nostrils twitch at the memory of her best friend's flesh melting and bubbling up before her eyes.

God the sound Emma had made. She had time for one, small garbled scream before the explosion's aftereffects had taken root and liquified her vocal cords.

The blood.

The fucking blood. It was all that was left of her. Of everyone. Of that stupid Asian bitch and Clements and mom and-

"Option-"

The baby. The baby. The fucking baby.

She presses a finger against her pulse, counts the beats, if only to remind herself that she's alive and not trapped inside some sort of Hell or Purgatory.

She isn't.

This is real. She can smell it and hear it and feel it and taste it in her mouth. The dread, The numbness. That split second of panic that's somehow lasted the whole night.

She hasn't slept. Hasn't washed her hair or brushed her teeth or spat the blood out from her mouth. She'd wandered the streets in a daze. Hadn't known where she was going until she was standing amidst the ruins of her house and kneeling next to the glass monument made in her mother's image.

It had taken maybe an hour for Clockblocker to talk her into getting up. She didn't know for sure. Hadn't checked the time, hadn't understood time had truly passed at all until the sun was suddenly in her eyes and there was a mop of red hair in her face and a pair of arms around her shoulder.

Dennis had led her along like a dog until a woman in a suit had taken her away into her car.

She remembered being offered food. Sophia couldn't remember if she'd eaten or not.

She remembered walking up a set of stairs, but she couldn't remember the building she was in.

"Wage-" Static. "Housin-".

Her hands are shaking. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips, and something wet and warm begins running down her chin.

When had she bitten her tongue?

"Miss Hess?"

Her vision swims.

Suddenly the world is clear. She is back inside of it.

She blinks.

Once. Twice, three times. Hears the chiming of a clock on a wall counting down.

"Miss Hess?"

She looks up at the woman. Her case worker. The letters on the nametag are too blurry to be read.

"Miss Hess, have you been listening?"

Sophia wonders if this is what grief feels like.

"Miss Hess-"

She stands abruptly, mouth parted.

Seconds pass as her jaw hangs open, all her words dead on the tip of her tongue.

She wants to scream. To cry. To swear and yell and howl and ask why the fuck this had to happen to her-

All that comes out is a choked sigh.

She feels trapped. Hears the clock tick and tick and tick.

Time marching on.

"Sophia-"

She jolts. Makes for the door. The woman steps up out of her chair, indignant. "Miss-"

"I need to go."

The woman blinks.

Sophia doesn't give her time to respond before she's out the door and down the stairs and out into the broken and bloodied streets.

(X)

A hand comes upon her shoulder.

Red hair, blue eyes.

For one hysterical moment, she thinks Taurus has found her.

But its eyes plural, and the face in front of her is boyish, smattered in freckles.

She shifts uncomfortably under his grip.

He doesn't say anything.

His arm lifts free of her shoulder, and suddenly reflex has her hand darting out and finding his wrist. She grabs it and drags him back down to her level.

He's still silent. Sophia thinks he understands.

He sits down next to her, the both of them leaning against the walls of The Rig.

She closes her eyes and listens to the ocean waves lap at the structures supports, and for a moment, she can pretend he's someone else.

She listens to the seagull's cries and the soft breathing off to her left, and she sidles up closer to him.

It's almost peaceful.

So of course he has to fucking ruin it by talking.

"It's been a half hour."

She doesn't deign to respond.

She feels him sigh against her. "They wanted to start without you. I told them to wait, or I'd personally fuck each and every one of them up myself and cozy on up to the Undersiders for a new job."

She snorted reflexively. A little more life enters his voice at that. "They didn't appreciate that. But Vista and I made our feelings known."

"Vista?"

The rawness in her voice shocks even her. Clockblocker doesn't comment on it.

"We don't hate you, you know."

Something in her cracks.

She feels him pull her closer. "I've said some stupid stuff. Done a whole lot more. I know you don't like me. I know you don't have much reason to like me. If I'm being honest, I don't like you much either. But after what happened yesterday?"

He trails off. The small chuckle he lets out makes her shiver. "Feels kinda weird, being speechless for once. But I know there's nothing I can say to make this any better for you. I'm sure you don't want me spouting platitudes and writing 'get well soon' cards."

"Your right. I don't."

Another chuckle. "That's fair. But there's no way I'm letting you stay out here to deal with it alone."

"Why? It's not like we're friends."

He stills a moment. "True. But that doesn't mean I'm just gonna leave you here to suffer."

"I wouldn't do it for you."

The words do exactly what they were meant to do. Hurt.

But he doesn't pull away. He pulls her closer instead.

"I know."

(X)

The room is silent.

The meeting is inside Piggot's office. There aren't enough chairs for everyone to sit, so half the room is standing awkwardly in a semi-circle around her desk. Piggot is sat behind it, a half-empty bottle of Brandy, a small mountain of paperwork, and an empty glass within arms reach.

She looks like she's aged ten years in as many hours. Her face is covered in grease and sweat, and the stench of alcohol is pungent enough to nearly make her sick. Her hair is uncombed and trussed up in a messy bun, and she can barely fit her bulk inside her chair.

She took a moment to critically eye each and every one of them, with special attention given to her and the two new capes awkwardly shuffling by the entrance. The reinforcements she'd been begging for.

Piggot licked her lips, lips twisted into a parody of a smile. "The phone calls I've had to make."

The room is still.

"The Governor. The Chief Director. The National Guard. The Mayor. The Chief of Police."

No one says a word. Piggot's left hand reaches out towards the empty glass, only to freeze halfway. Then she changed course and grabbed the bottle of Brandy by the neck before taking a long swig.

"I'm sure you all understand the magnitude of this situation."

Nods across the room.

"Let me remind you anyway. We have almost three hundred confirmed dead and over six hundred injured. Considering we've only just managed to set up a cordon and establish a scant few camps for medical treatment and temporary housing, both of those numbers are going to skyrocket in the coming few days. The Massachusetts National Guard has been called in. The mayor and the chief of police have officially ceded power to the PRT for the time being. Brockton Bay is under de-facto martial law. Lung has escaped custody, our main office is a ruin, there is a mad bomber out forcefully conscripting people and turning them into fuel-air bombs, and there is a domestic terrorist capable of causing city-wide eclipses running wild. There are power outages all over the city and my department is under national scrutiny. The Butcher is reportedly on the move and scuttlebutt says Bastard Son can smell the blood in the water and is on his way south."

Piggot paused a moment to take them in again. An odd expression flickered across her face.

"I've been given an ultimatum."

She leaned forward despite herself, watching as Piggot took another swig. Seeing Piggot drink felt wrong. Didn't look real.

"In two weeks' time, I don't expect to have a job."

The whole room flinched. Armsmaster dared to cut in, eyes wide beneath his helmet. "Ma'am-"

"I have two weeks to clean up this mess. Obviously, that isn't going to be possible. With Taurus butchering by the dozen, A two-time Birdcage escapee slaughtering an entire gang, and a tinker tech bomber leveling half my city, the PRT no longer feels as though I can perform my duties effectively."

"But-"

"I know. I know."

Armsmaster swallowed his next words, and Battery cut in. "Who would succeed you?"

Piggot sighed. "Deputy Director Renick is going to be moved out to another city. They want to clean house. Several candidates have been floated so far, but my bet is on James Tagg."

The whole room flinched. Piggot chuckled darkly. "As for Deputy Director, my bet is on our local consultant, Thomas Calvert. That smug motherfucker has been eyeing my chair for years, and when Tagg comes, I have no doubt he'll be begging for a new job. Once the situation is contained, I imagine there's going to be a significant reorganization in our roster to boot."

She saw Armsmaster bristle. "Not if we can clean this up by then, Ma'am."

Piggot put a hand to her chin and leaned back with a sigh. "Do you all think you're up for it?"

A chorus of nods ran across the room. Noticeably still were the out-of-towners. Gauss and Braizer, she thought.

"Right now the ABB is our number one priority. Not the Empire. Not Hookwolf. Not even Taurus. Bakuda and Lung together and of one mind is something that takes precedence above all else. If I know Kaiser and Faultline well, they will be thinking the same."

Assault tilted his head. "Does that mean-"

"That we're going to be operating under truce? It's possible. I'm not saying to leave them be, but if they were willing to cooperate to get this situation under control, I won't say no. Chaos benefits no one."

"What about Taurus and Hookwolf?"

Piggot turned towards her, and Sophia instinctively shied away from her inquisitive glance. "Hookwolf can be reasoned with, for the most part, but without Kaiser holding his reins, I wouldn't trust him. As for Taurus..."

She trailed off, and Armsmaster answered for her. "He's a wildcard. We don't know what he wants, why he's doing the things he's been doing, his identity, if he even has one, or any real concrete details about his powers. All we have is speculation. We don't know the depths or limits of what he can do, and our prior idea about his powers has gone out the window as of last night. Our best thinkers are still confused as to how a grab-bag cape could have so many versatile and strong powers at once, let alone a Case-53 being a grab-bag in the first place. Our new working theory is that he isn't a Case-53 at all, but all efforts to turn up a history have left us wanting. It's as if he didn't exist until two months ago, and a fresh trigger simply could not do the things he does. As of right now, we're tentatively willing to cooperate with him if only to redirect his efforts onto a gang actively endangering the city itself. He's shown no outward hostility to the PRT and made significant efforts to avoid interaction and engagement with us. He beat Miss Milita and I quite soundly, but let us live. He is capable of reasoned thought and attempted to convince us to leave him be when we first met. He specifically mentioned that he has no quarrel with us. We can use that."

"And after?"

Armsmaster sucked in a breath. "That's another matter entirely. Since I assume he's part of our ultimatum?-"

Piggot nodded.

"Then that makes our situation even more complicated. As of now, we are outright forbidding engagement with him without a 6-1 advantage, and that is the bare minimum. Once the ABB is dealt with, we'll liaise with New Wave and Faultline's team to formulate a plan of action, and we'll leverage our remaining infantry assets to perform a complete sweep of the city until we have a confirmed sighting, then we will engage in full force. We won't lift martial law until both Taurus and Bakuda are dealt with. Director Piggot already has kill orders signed off on Lung, Taurus, and Bakuda, with bounties set at five hundred thousand, three hundred thousand, and eight hundred thousand respectively. It might bring even more extra attention to the city, but every rogue or independent willing to take Taurus on is another body in his way that isn't PRT."

Sophia whistled. That was almost Slaughterhouse 9 money right there.

"As for rules of engagement, lethal force is authorized, and Wards are still forbidden from making contact with him. Our plan of action is heavily reliant on New Wave for harassing and hemming him into a narrow area where his speed advantage is neutralized. We don't know how much punishment Taurus can take, but we believe a sustained bombardment from New Wave's lasers and our ground troops' firearms, alongside hit-and-run attacks from our speedsters, can bring him down. His unwillingness to kill members of the PRT should not be relied upon. We've never seen him in a desperate situation, and we have no idea how he would react were he to begin losing a fight. Disarming him is still our best bet. What makes him so dangerous is his use of lethal implements. If we can remove their sword and the rifle from the equation, we can play it like we would with any other Brute."

They were all listening intently, but she noticed the out-of-towners giving the speech particular attention. They were the ones called upon a few weeks ago to deal with him specifically, weren't they?

What the hell could they do, if the two of them alone were considered enough to deal with Taurus beforehand?

Piggot took another draw off the bottle. There was only a fourth left now. "That's all for now. Dismissed."

One by one, everyone begins trickling out the door back onto the Rig. In the off distance, she can hear a roaring engine, one of Dragon's ships coming to take everyone back to the city. Armsmaster is first out the door, closely followed by everyone else. Clockblocker and Browbeat both linger by the edge and stare at her for a moment before retreating back.

After a moment's hesitation, she follows behind, dragging her feet.

"Shadow Stalker."

She turns back around at the sound of Piggot's voice.

"We need to talk."

She feels herself drawn in a deep, controlled breath, fighting to keep her voice even. "What about, ma'am?"

They both know.

Piggot just gives her a look. Something twitches in her brow, they she's sighing despondently. "Pull up a chair."

Sophia does as she's bid, and she sets the chair down in front of Piggot's desk and takes a seat, suddenly antsy.

Piggot notices. She glances towards the Brandy, then slides it an inch forward in her direction.

Sophia stares.

Piggot gives a one-armed shrug, lazy, exhausted. "We both need it."

She takes the bottle in one hand before tipping her head back and bringing the bottle to her lips. It's sweet and fruity and bitter and sour all at once, and by the time she sets it down, the glass is empty and she's bent over the desk coughing and wheezing from the burn in her throat.

She feels Piggot awkwardly pat her back until the coughing subsides, and then there's a napkin dabbing at her lip to wipe away the dried blood and spit.

Immediately she can feel her body relaxing, the booze quick to do its work, a sudden warmth surging through her body.

Piggot doesn't waste a second. "I'm sorry about your family."

She feels herself shrug, her voice deceptively neutral. "Me too."

Piggot frowns, her eyes searching.

Whatever she's looking for, judging by the tightness of her jaw, she doesn't find it. "I spoke to your mother frequently. She liked to be kept updated on your patrol routes and activities. She seemed like a good woman."

Another shrug. "She was."

Piggot opened her mouth again, and her patience frayed. "Let's not play this game, ma'am."

"Game?"

She shrugs helplessly. "You know why I'm here. How I am."

"You don't care?"

Her fist slams atop the desk, the sudden sting of pain bleeding into the snarl that tore from her throat. "Of course I care."

Piggot is unperturbed. "Normally this kind of situation would destroy someone."

But not you, her eyes say, and she wilts down into her chair, her fury ebbed. "Not me."

Piggot gives her another long, long look. "Not you." She agrees.

She switches gears then, suddenly serious. "How did your meeting with your Case Worker go?"

She can barely remember it. She says as much, much to Piggot's consternation.

"I figured as much. In that case, I'll quickly go over with you your options. We have contingencies in place for Scenarios like this. Considering the unique nature of your situation due to your...legal status thanks to your plea deal, you really don't have any options until you turn eighteen. Once you do, your options become available to you, as limited as they are. As of now, We'll be giving you a raise to give you money for a future living instead of fun bucks, and give you free housing inside of either The Rig, or our local branch headquarters once it's repaired. You will be able to move between the two at your leisure with your personal effects. Once you do turn eighteen and your sentence is up, we can offer you free or subsidized housing in a program we bring our recruited Case-53s into. You will be able to request transfers, pick your own hours, and have access to all things full-time Cape's are granted."

She pauses, giving her another long, searching look. Sophia refuses to give her anything. "Now, that's all if you decide to stay with us. At eighteen, if you want out, we have several programs you can enroll in to get your GED and a scholarship to a college of your choice, and subsidized housing on our dime if you decide to stay local."

She obviously felt she wouldn't go down that route. Sophia didn't have it in her heart to disagree.

"What do you think I should do?" It would be her birthday in June. She had a year and a half to decide.

Piggot gave her another minute shrug, a hint of pity and a dash of scorn in her gaze. "It's your life. I can't decide for you, but if you want my honest opinion, taking someone like you on and putting them with other children is a mistake I'll be sure to never repeat again."

The bluntness shocks her. Piggot keeps talking. "I don't think you are a good hero, or even a particularly good Cape, but I was desperate to get my hands on anyone I could get to try and stem the tide. I figured we might be able to do something about your whims or at least redirect you and control you. But I feel as though all I've done is encourage you. I know you don't get along well with your teammates. I know you have sadistic tendencies. I know you've killed, contrary to what your co-workers think."

Something in her eyes hardens, and Sophia feels her blood chill. "I know you've been sneaking off from patrol on irregular days to do god only knows what. I know you have a secret stash of broadheads that's been coincidentally getting smaller and smaller every day."

Her mouth is dry. Piggot is as serious as Sophia has ever seen her.

She shook her head with a sigh. "I'm not an idiot, Miss Hess."

Abruptly, she stood, walking away from the desk and out towards the doorway. She walked towards the edge and put a hand on the doorframe, turning back to look at her.

"If I were you, I'd put that costume away, bury those crossbows, and spend some time thinking about my future in for the year and a half I have left in Juvie."

She left the room and walked down to somewhere unseen, her parting words echoing across the hall.

"Think about it."

Good guy Dennis.

Writing Piggot was fun. People always write her as this sociopath incompetent Amanda Waller-expy, but to me, she always felt just like an exhausted, troubled woman just trying to do her best in a shithole of a city that didn't want the best. Factoring the situation Brockton Bay is in, plus Cauldron wanting Brockton Bay to be their little petri dish as well, she was fucked no matter what.

Their strategy for dealing with Adam is also fairly sound, considering their limited capabilities and information. I envision Adam to be in the same archetype of fighter as Roman, IE; the ultimate one-on-one duelist. Roman was an immovable object parrying and deflecting attacks, still as a rock in a stream until he saw an opening, then he would ruthlessly exploit it. He fucking hammered Blake one-on-one, literally laughing as he casually fended off the girl trained by Adam personally, and his scuffle with Sun kinda speaks for itself.

Adam is the inverse. Attack attack attack is his motto. He never stops putting pressure on his opponents. He never lets them catch their breath or back off for a moment(Except when they need to deliver pertinent exposition). A guy who can do shit like this fighting a bunch of squishy normal humans is gonna go pretty bad for them.

His quickdraw style and semblance are perfectly paired together in a way that lets him completely and utterly dominate the pace and tone of a fight one-on-one. His semblance allows him to make short work of any attempts at taking control back away from him, and when you put that all together with his skill, you have a terrifying fighter who never lets his opponents breathe for a second.

But he has some weaknesses. His vision, for one. His aura can only help so much in that regard, and since he can only see shadows, movement, and a scant few colors in his bad eye, his depth perception is non-existent without serious draining help from his aura. Multiple opponents coming in from multiple directions and moving in and out of his blind spot could confuse him, especially when some of his opponents can fly at decently high speeds.

Another thing is his predictability. As good as Adam is, he's a one-trick pony. Him being a really good one doesn't negate that fact. As unpredictable as some of his movements in a fight can be, what with him literally fucking kicking and throwing his sword around(And in some deleted footage, literally disarming himself to feint out Yang. He reaches down to draw, Yang covers her face pre-emptively, and Adam literally just fucking throws Wilt & Blush up into the air, drawing her gaze up and distracting her so he can attack unarmed), he's a repetitive fighter. Swing, swing, sheath. It's a reflex for him. He exposes himself multiple times in the black trailer to possible counterattack while turning or sheathing his sword, he just has Blake to cover his openings. It's so ingrained into him to rely on Wilt to absorb and redirect blows that a clever enough fighter can bait him out into a hasty or fumbled block just like he does in that test footage against Yang. Multiple opponents attacking him at once can also render that energy absorption a non-factor, since he needs to actively concentrate much more heavily when trying to absorb energy with his body like Yang. Multiple attacks from multiple directions, and just like Behemoth, you can beat out the redirection.

His temper is also another thing to consider. Annoying or angering him in a fight wouldn't work very well or for very long, since Adam has heard every slur and every insult you can imagine, and all that anger mustered up during a fight he channels into focus.

You can't anger him into making a mistake. You have to upset him.

There are a few ways to do that. Be Blake. Be a Schnee. Or mess with his weapons.

Iajitsu is a very personal fighting style. After killing Sienna, Adam almost tenderly cleans off Wilt's blade with a rag, and the only time he truly loses his composure in the whole show is when Yang throws Wilt into the ocean. The look on his face is of utter horror before it sails over the edge, and he sprints after it yelling 'NO', and that unbalanced him enough that he panicked at the end of the fight trying to keep Blake disarmed, and that's what got him killed.

Take away Wilt or Blush, and you immediately have his attention on whoever has it. His tunnel vision will kick into overdrive, and he'll power through and ignore things he shouldn't ignore in an effort to get them back.

Get one of New Wave to disarm him, and have them play hot potato with Wilt while you rain fire on him from above and do hit-and-run attacks from the ground to keep him unbalanced and distracted, and you have his number. The only problem is that a desperate Adam is a dangerous Adam.

Last edited: Jun 11, 2023

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MasterDuplicator

Jun 11, 2023

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MasterDuplicator

Big Fan of a Mad Cow

Super Awesome Happy Funtime

Oct 28, 2023

#1,797

It was a tough debate I had with myself, deciding whether or not to put the next Cole and Parian chapters before this, but I figured all of you would have wanted to hop right back into the action.

Also, isn't it fucked up that Victor and Othala have like, the healthiest relationship in Worm? I almost felt bad for ruining it.

This one is short and sweet, but it's the beginning of the end of this story.

Brockton Bay was under military occupation.

As he stood on high, stolen cloak billowing in the breeze, hearing hyper-sensitive, all he could hear for miles was the rumbling of engines and scattering of gunshots.

The first few hours were chaos, in the wake of his Semblance's eruption. Civil authority had almost instantaneously collapsed due to the sheer amount of destruction, and Brockton Bay's already bloated and overstretched Emergency Services were utterly overwhelmed by the amount of destruction and death.

Mass shootings, lootings and riots all followed almost immediately. As soon as the dots connected between the ABB and the bombings, what was left of the E88's rank and file sallied forth towards the remnants of Brockton Bay's Chinatown and started a pogrom.

It was the first riot crushed by the newly conscripted Massachusetts National Guard.

It wouldn't be the last.

Every Cape in the city was in hiding. No one dared leave their homes and hovels until the truce was in place and each gang could work together to finish off the ABB and whatever bit of normally left standing in the aftermath could be resumed.

The idea that the Army would simply stay, ABB or no, to finish off everyone else was one no one wanted to entertain. Everyone with a civilian identity had to play nice until the decision was made.

That suited him just fine.

That was the reason he found himself two blocks away from the home of Victor and Othala after a two-hour cat-and-mouse game between himself and the PRT.

His first engagement with their ground forces wasn't his best showing, considering he did nothing but run away from them and slap away a bullet here and there. But it was a sign of the times.

Time was short.

He'd garbed himself in the best disguise available to him at the time, that being a scarf and cloak he'd pilfered from one of the many homeless killed in the bombings. It would have rankled him, stealing from an innocent, were it not for the fact that they were already dead.

And judging by the pallor of the corpse's skin, he doubted they'd mind what he was about to do with it. He tugged the ragged hood above his head and thumbed Wilt free, running this thumb across the crimson steel.

Wilt gleamed in satisfaction, hungry for blood.

He'd never been one to anthropomorphize his weapons, that sort of degenerate behavior was best left to fresh recruits and veteran Huntsmen.

But even he couldn't shake the feeling that the blade's shine in the sun was just a tad too bright in the light, too alive.

Adam started at his bloodied reflection in the blade and suppressed a shiver.

It was time to get to work.

(X)

He smelled her before he saw her.

Before he even heard her, really.

There was only one person home, and judging by the waft of burning grease and bubbling batter, Adam figured it was Othala.

Adam watched her through the kitchen window, her back to its side, as he watched her work. She wore a robe and an apron, a solid white eyepatch covering her right eye. She was singing to herself in a language he couldn't understand, but even to his ears, it sounded rough and mispronounced.

That didn't stop her from singing so loud, however.

It was almost hypnotic, watching someone so young, so normal-looking act out part of their daily routine like a normal human being. Like they lived a normal life.

He wondered to himself if that was on purpose.

He grimaced to himself.

Olivia Anne Kissinger. Nineteen.

That young, already married, and already in a house of her own.

Judging by the smile on her face, and the lack of clothes beneath the robe whenever she turned, Adam was willing to bet it was a happy one.

A shame he had to ruin it.

He stepped away from the window and made his way into their backyard. The street was empty, everyone locked up inside their homes and unwilling to leave no matter the ruckus. This neighborhood was one of the only in the city that had come away unscathed, and everyone there wanted to keep it that way.

He had been seen for a fact. But no one here was willing to get in his way,

He walked up to their back door and quietly mangled the doorknob in his hands, crushing the locks and pushing the door open. He made his way inside and silently stepped forward towards the tiled kitchen.

Othala turned toward his way just as he made his way across the foyer.

Her jaw dropped.

Adam saw her arms go limp, the ceramic plates in her arms shattering on contact with the floor. The shards drew red lines all across the tops of her feet, but she didn't acknowledge them.

She merely stared at him, transfixed, one blue eye open wide and blinking rapidly.

Adam tilted his head and smirked, taking a mocking whiff of the air in the room. "Breakfast smells good."

Othala gaped, mouth sputtering. "Oh God-"

Wilt rasped free, and a twitch of a finger rendered blush a rifle. Wilt glowed as he rolled his wrist, blade flourishing. "Of a sort."

Adam glanced around. "Where's Victor?"

Something about that name shocked her back to reality. Her good eye hardened in defiance, and Adam saw her back straighten by a millimeter, her fists curl slightly in an obviously fake show of control. "I'm..." Her throat bobbed, her fear for her husband's life outweighing her fear for her own. "I'm not going to tell you that."

Adam gave her a moment to reconsider, making a show of dragging Wilt's glowing edge across the floor, a black and red replica of the blade cast in shadow trailing a few millimeters behind, giving off the impression of a false afterimage. "Are you sure?"

Othala's gaze dropped down towards the Wilting kitchen tiles, but she didn't waver.

Then he turned towards abandoned food. His lips twitched further. "Quite a large breakfast for one, hmm?"

Her eye twitched.

"When will he get here?"

Another twitch.

As if on cue, Adam heard a revving engine in the distance. One coming this way.

Othala paled.

Adam grinned, turning his head towards the dining table set at the edge of the kitchen. "Go on then. Make plates for three."

Othala didn't move.

Adam's grin disappeared. "Which would you rather him come home to? An extra guest at the table, or a cooling corpse on his floor?"

Othala did as she was bade, and Adam made his way over to the table, seating himself at its head. He placed Blush flat up on the table in front of him and leaned Wilt against its side.

He kicked his feet up on the edge and waited.

He saw Othala feverishly open a cupboard out of the corner of his eye and retrieve three new plates, just as Victor's car pulled up in the driveway.

A few seconds of tense silence passed as Othalla lay the freshly cooked bacon and pancakes on the plates. He heard the front door open, Victor stepping inside and freezing in place almost as quickly as he cast his gaze on the open back door.

Adam heard him swear under his breath. "O! Where are you?"

She turned towards him. Adam nodded his head.

"I'm in the kitchen!"

Victor stilled at the terror laden in her wavering voice. Adam heard the sound of an unlatching safety and the soft rustle of a gun being lifted from a holster.

"I wouldn't do that. Your kitchen is quite nice. I'd hate to make a mess in it."

Victor breathed deeply, yelling out from the doorway. "Alright then. What do you want me to do?"

His voice was calm. Too calm. Adam wondered how much stolen experience he was drawing upon to keep himself that rational. Adam yelled back.

"Drop the gun."

After a moment's hesitation, Victor did. "How...How did you find us?"

Adam shook his head. "That isn't the right question."

"Okay...What do you want?"

"For you to come and have a seat. Breakfast is ready."

Silence reigned. Then Adam heard a series of cautious footsteps make their way toward him.

Victor stepped inside the kitchen foyer and froze. His head swiveled between him, Othala, and Blush.

"There's nothing you can do." Adam's voice was flat. "Doesn't matter how good you are, I'm better, and the first to die will be her, not you, understand?"

Victor scowled at him, voice bitter. "That's the way it always is."

Adam hummed in acknowledgment. "Have a seat."

Victor inclined his head. "I can't do that."

Adam tilted his head.

Victor waved a hand. "You're in my seat."

Adam very delicately raised a brow, placing a finger on Blush's trigger.

"I built that chair myself. If there's a chair I'm going to die in, it's that one."

Despite himself, Adam laughed, if only at the sheer absurdity of the demand.

Adam stood up and moved one chair over, bringing Blush along with him. He left Wilt where it was. "Better?"

Victor said nothing, merely stalking forward with a surprising amount of poise and grace for a man walking on death row.

He sat down at the head of the table and gave him a defiant glare. "Whatever this is about, whatever bug is up your ass about me, about the Empire-88, I don't care. I've known I could die any day the moment I signed up. But you leave her out of it, do you understand?"

"Why would I do that?"

"She doesn't know any better."

Adam guffawed. "That's her excuse?"

"She was born into the Herren Clan. Instead of playing with barbies and going to school like a normal kid, she grew up in a cult saluting pictures of Adolf Hitler and being homeschooled by a bunch of crazy fucks. I wasn't even supposed to marry her, but her cousin and most of her family died at a demonstration and she was the only viable option left."

"Quite a way to talk about your wife."

"I married in for my race and my race alone. She wasn't the one I wanted, but I learned to love her despite that."

He turned towards Othala, who stood frozen in numb horror. "Come plate us, O. Then you can have a seat."

Victor's voice brought life back into her. She picked up two plates and set them down, one for her, one for Victor.

Victor nodded towards the last plate. "Him too."

Adam raised a brow.

After a moment's hesitation, she grabbed the final plate and slid it across the table towards him, before sitting down across from him.

No one touched their food.

After a few moments of awkward silence, Victor spoke again. "O, show him."

Adam saw Othala's good eye grow wet. "Sam, please don't do this."

"I'm doing this for for you. Show him."

Adam shifted his gaze to Othala just as the eyepatch fell to the floor.

The world gleamed red a moment, as he took in the empty eye socket boring into him.

"She was sixteen and hiding under a car. The Clan was dumb enough to hold a public rally. Lotta people showed up. Most of 'em weren't friendly. They dragged her out and stuck a shard of broken glass into her eye. I was there at the rally that day, and saw her. Couldn't get to her, couldn't fight any of them off. I was useless. She was scared. We both triggered. I brought her into the Empire. She's never hurt anyone directly-"

Adam snarled. "Directly. How many people have you hurt, have you killed, with her help?"

"Not as many as you."

Adam stood up with enough force to topple his chair. "I killed your people because they were scum, to make this place better-"

"Just like all the N*er's I've killed. I've killed twenty-three. Mangled a few too. Tortured a few of Lung's gooks to death for raping a white girl. Shot a few more in some scuffles. I'd give myself credit for thirty or forty bodies at most."

Victor narrowed his eyes. "You killed more people on the first day you showed up here than I have in my whole life, and you look barely a year or two older than me. You killed enough of us that the Chinks got cocky and blew up half the fucking city. How the hell are you gonna look me in the eye and tell me you were killing my people cause they were scum or to make the world a better place when you being here has done nothing but fuck it up!"

Adam went very, very still.

"I don't give a shit what you do to me. But leave her alone. She ain't part of whatever fucked up pathology got you started on this Crusade to begin with."

Adam worked his tongue, glancing at Othala's discarded eyepatch. At that pale blue eye, wide with fear.

"Get out."

It was barely a whisper.

Othala hesitated.

Victor nodded his head. "Go."

Very slowly, Othala stood up.

And walked out the door.

Adam waited until Victor's parked car drove away, Othala at the helm. Until neither one of them could hear anything but their breathing.

"Why are you doing this?"

Adam turned his head.

"What the hell did we do to you, to make you wanna get back at us this bad?"

Adam hesitated a moment.

Then he cast down his hood and placed a hand upon his mask, placing it on the table.

Victor took a long, hard glance at his eye. There wasn't any pity, or joy, or really any feeling at all in that look. Just cool, cold acknowledgment.

Then he sighed. "They shoulda used a knife instead of that hot iron."

Adam's trigger finger twitched. He raised Blush and pointed it at Victor's head.

"Killing me ain't gonna kill whoever did that. Fix it either."

Adam rolled his shoulders alongside his eyes, forcing a semblance of calm into the fury that threatened to make his voice explode. "Are those really going to be your last words?"

Victor raised a brow. "Do I get to pick 'em?"

Adam shrugged. "You just did."

Then he shot him.

Adam now has the train drip from 6X1.

Last edited: Oct 28, 2023

282

MasterDuplicator

Oct 28, 2023

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Threadmarks Bradley V/Coleson Maxwell Perry I/Sabah V

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MasterDuplicator

Big Fan of a Mad Cow

Super Awesome Happy Funtime

Dec 30, 2023

#1,857

It lives. It Breathes. Its Heart Beats.

Sorry, I got sidetracked by this other incalcitrant asshole named Balon.

More to come. Menja and Fenja are gonna be tough cookies. New Wave less so.

Edit: Refresh the page, I'm stupid and posted this with the format all fucked up.

The phone rang.

And rang.

Brad twitched. Motherfucker better not be dead too.

The dial tone buzzed in his ear.

Brad kicked his foot forward and dialed again.

A piece of bacon and the bug atop it crunched under his toe as he shifted his stance. He turned to Vic and gave him a little wink and a nod, knowing he'd had the same problems with Justin and his full schedule.

Vic smiled back at him in mute appeal, big and wide.

On the fourth fucking try, Justin answered him.

"Who the fuck do you think you are, calling this number after what you did?"

Brad smirked, whistling innocently. "I'm your 'brother', ain't I?"

Justin hung up. Brad's grin fell away, and the man in the chair ahead of him shifted slightly, his mangled head thrown back in a great big guffaw.

Brad mouthed a swear at him and dialed again.

Two rings and an answer this time. "You ain't my brother. You ain't a man. You ain't even a N*gger. N*ggers are people. N*ggers are human. You're a fuckin dog, a great big feral one, snapping back at the hand that tried feeding its dumb ass. Why are you calling me?"

"I wanted you in."

He pulled the phone away from his ear in annoyance as the tinny laughter that came through burst his shitty chink flip-phone speakers and nearly rendered him deaf.

When it subsided and Brad put the phone back, Justin was already shouting mid-tirade, voice distorted. "-To some retarded bullshit fucking conspiracy to screw over the one man who was ever a decent person to you for...for..for I don't even fucking know what, and you want me to turn my back on my friends, my race, my family, for some inbred, hillbilly, backwood, mouth breathing, furry fucking pissant to go harass some fuckin nobody Krauts? Are you for real?!"

Brad laughed. "Well, not just you. I wanted Rune too. Maybe even Al."

A guffaw. "You'd have better luck calling Victor. He'd be the one smart enough to come up with something fancier than the 'fuck off' I'm boutta give ya."

Brad sighed. taking a reflexive inhale and wrinkling his nose at the scent of shit and fermenting rot. "As a matter of fact, I did call him. Twelve times."

"That desperate, huh?"

"He never picked up the phone, J."

There was a silence at the other end of the line. He heard something shift on Justin's end, and then he spoke up again, voice free of levity or wrath. "Twelve times?"

Brad nodded, the motion gone unseen. "Twelve times. Straight to voicemail. He never picked up."

He took a deep breath, eyeing the gorgeous corpse that sat ahead of him at eye level.

An ant wriggled its way out its destroyed left eye socket, a pinch of meat and nerve clutched in its mandibles.

Never did fix that ant problem, did you V?

"Brad?"

"So then I called O. She picked up the first ring."

"And?"

"And she was hysterical. Almost incomprehensible. I couldn't understand a word she got out besides swears at me and sobs of Vic's name."

Justin swore. "What happened?"

"What was gonna happen to me If I stayed. What already almost happened at that warehouse with Krieg and Kayden."

Brad spoke softly. "What's gonna happen to you and everyone else."

Brad let him connect the dots. There was another moment of quiet before Justin said another word, voice clipped. "Where are you right now?"

"At his place. I got here about half an hour ago."

"Is he still in the area?"

"No. He was in and out. Ransacked the place on the way though, trying to make it look like looters. Took some cash, knocked over a few dressers and cupboards, and made off with that fancy Kriegsmarine saber Vic bought for a few grand a little while back and his gun."

Brad shot a glance toward the kitchen window. "Right in broad-fuckin-daylight, too. I braced a few of the neighbors. They saw him walk up to the front door like he was gonna knock and ask for a cup of sugar, then saw him double back around behind the house. After a bit, one saw Vic drive up, park, and get out. Give it five or so minutes and there's a gunshot and a naked woman is running out the door who then hops in his car and swerves off.

"How long's he been dead?"

Brad grunted. "Half a day. Maybe a day, maybe more, I don't fuckin know. I ain't a doctor. I just know he smells like shit, the blood is dry, and the neighborhood ants are having a picnic."

Brad heard Justin shudder. "And no one called the cops?"

Brad pinched his nose. "As soon as they saw that mask and sword, they realized who it was, and more importantly; what he was there to do. My showing up all but confirmed it. I doubt most were doing anything but shrugging their shoulders or cheering him on. Not one of them was gonna distract the PRT from hunting for Bakuda on the account of a member of the 88. If it wasn't him, I bet a few of the fine neighbor folk around here might tried something on their own, if they knew who he was. You have no friends on this side of town anymore."

Or anywhere, really.

"Why.." Justin paused, put off. "Why tell me this?"

"Cause I want you in."

"In fucking what? You haven't really explained your master plan, or any sort of plan at all really?"

"You didn't let me." Brad retorted. "Come see me. I wanna explain it man on man and for you to look at the reason I'm doing it face-to-fucked-up-face."

Another great pause, then a deep sigh.

"I'll be there."

(X)

There was a great cry, a heaving sob, and Cole turned his head away from the head in front of him to face the woman being escorted away from the closest tent at gunpoint.

Her face was bloody and bruised, but the tears streaming down her face evidently weren't for her, judging by the cadaver that was being lifted out by a pair of soldiers. Armed men stood watch by the tents mouth, and it drew open, a beleaguered-looking young woman in scrubs poking her head out.

"Next!"

Like clockwork, the line ahead of the tent stepped forward in smooth unison, like some great puppeteer had dragged them all forward at once. Men clutching burned and bloated children, women bearing strange abrasions and swollen feet, and some people too grotesquely deformed and mutated by whatever strange explosions aftershock had struck them to decipher their sex.

The next in line stepped forward, tilting her head to the side for the woman and closest soldier to inspect.

Cole saw her tongue flex in anticipation.

He saw it because her left cheek was transmutated into a pane of clear, pristine glass that was dyed red at its edges as her body failed to displace it. Her gums were raw and bloody, and her mouth was filled with abscess's of infection as her body tried and failed to cope with the changes. The doctor gave one look and shook her head.

The soldiers at her side shifted their weapons in place in obvious warning.

The woman nodded her head, jaw clenching, and Cole saw that glass cut into her slightly with the motion.

She stepped away for the next in line.

He shuddered.

That could have been me.

"Next!"

Someone bumped into him from behind.

Cole jolted, stumbling forward a pace, then whirled around.

A pair of glowing eyes bored into him.

He stared-

-andstaredandstaredandstartedandstaredandstaredandstartedandstaredandstaredandstaredandthestarsweresobright-

Cole blinked, a warmth trickling down his nose.

The girl's eyes were shut.

"Next!"

Cole whirled around and stepped forward. Bad Luck, kiddo.

A man with hands covered in a sort of grey-green ooze stood in front of him, conversing with a very serious-looking woman sitting at a desk that had been carried out into the field. The entire park they were standing in had been converted into a sort of mix between FEMA camp and military outpost. Armed Soldiers and armed Doctors roamed about freely, tending to the injured and shooting down any and all troublemakers.

When martial law had been announced, many had tried testing the will of the newly arrived National Guardsmen.

The heaps of burning bodies sequestered away at the edge of the park showed their seriousness.

The sheer amount of dead and dying had overwhelmed the local morgues and hospitals, what few that even remained in operation, and the local authorities had extensively argued about what to do.

The Army shrugged its shoulders and decided to light them all on fire.

Cole bet it had something to do with the bombs. They had done strange things. No one wanted to find out if those things could linger on in their bodies, or if more surprises were waiting for them in those same bodies.

It was widely decried, and by more than just Brockton Bay at that.

Everyone in the country was talking about what had just happened. It was national news overnight.

The worst terror attack in the country's history was quite a hot topic, naturally.

The president was set to make a speech about it tomorrow, so said the rumors in camp.

There were lots of those floating around. People speculating about where the next bombs would strike, who would stop it all, if the local villains would band together to stop them, if they would take advantage, if the bombings would cause Taurus to switch gears or double down on the Empire in the chaos.

The only thing anyone did know for a fact was that it was gonna get worse before it was gonna get better.

"Next!"

Cole blinked out of his reverie and stepped forward, eyeballing the woman with the Parahuman Response Team badge on her lapel in mistrust.

She sighed, obviously bored. "Have you experienced, or believe yourself to have experienced, a trigger event and developed associated Parahuman abilities?"

Cole nodded his head.

"ID Please."

Cole fished his ID out of his pocket and handed it over.

The woman eyed it critically, not sparing him a glance. "Please repeat your date of birth for me."

"4\19\63."

The woman looked at the picture on his ID, then back at him, one brow raised.

"Whatever the hell happened to me, it winded back the clock."

The woman sighed again, turning the card over in her fingers.

Cole had a feeling this was going to take a while.

(X)

The world sounded underwater.

Shapes and sounds made no sense. There was no depth to anything, no rhythm to movement.

Sabah's temple throbbed.

Something pinched in her left ear, and there was a crash, like rolling thunder, that had her shaking in place before the world erupted into a cacophonous roar of noise and fire that had her clutching at her head.

It stopped as soon as it came.

Her aunt squeezed her hand and the doctor fiddled with the device again.

He whispered something in her mother's ear as she approached. Sabah could not make out the words.

She saw her mother nod in reply and kneel back into prayer.

More static, static, like knives digging around in her brain, before another loud roar bounced around the room.

Then it subsided.

Sabah heard words. Could not understand them.

Her temple throbbed again.

Sabah blinked in confusion.

"هل تَسْتَطيعُ أنْ تَسْمَعَني الآنَ؟"

"نَعَمْ." She replied on instinct, before her mind had even caught up to and fully translated the words.

Sabah felt a pair of arms encircle her, her Mothers's relief palpable. "The Doctor said nothing could be done for your right ear, but I knew, I knew, and I prayed, and God delivered us, for your left shall heal."

A slow rolling fog made her head feel heavy and strange. Sabah searched for her tongue and spoke back. She repeated the words four times before they came out in English. "My right ear?"

"You were near enough to the initial explosion that your eardrums detonated themselves almost instantly. You have four stitches in the back of your head from where you must have fallen on it. A concussion, a mild one. Your right eardrum is destroyed utterly. Your left is perforated and burst, but shall heal in good time. You will need an aid for the rest of your life and may go deaf when you grow old, but you shall live. We are blessed. More than most."

Blessed, she thought.

Blessed.

"You must call your friend and bring him here. You told us he was the one who had protected you."

She had? When?

Her mother frowned.

Sabah blinked. Had she said that out loud or not?

"I would wish to meet him, to know he is safe from harm." The tone of her voice implied she was itching to play matchmaker.

"I don't.."

Her mother frowned further. "Don't what?"

She remembered the world black and red. The moon was high in the sky at high noon time. The blood that dripped from her ears burning bright enough and hot enough to scald her skin and leave strange trails of chafed flesh behind where they fell and dripped down.

The blood on the TV screen, on her phone on the forums, on his gloves and in the bucket, on the bodies at the warehouse, on the gun in his hands, waved about in a panic that morning.

The blood, the blood, the blood.

Blood in the sky, blood on his hands.

The last thing she remembered seeing on his face was that strange, detached fury. The blankness of his expression but the strange curl to his lips.

Not a smile, not a grimace, not a scowl.

It was the only expression she'd seen on him that looked wholly natural.

"Where is he? Is he safe?"

Sabah wondered who would be seeing it next.

(X)

The bell dinged.

He sighed. What bougie motherfucker is trying to get into a hotel after what just happened?

He dropped the luggage he was handling and turned around, talking back to the front desk, doing his best to mask his annoyance.

"How can I-"

He stopped.

Everyone in the hotel lobby was frozen stock still. Some in shock, some in fear, and some in rapture. A few braver souls had their phones out and were recording.

The source of the commotion was idly bent down over the help desk running a finger across its bronze bell in apparent disinterest. A pair of swords, one black, one gilded, sat at his hip. His outfit was covered by a grey-tattered shawl. His head, and the gleaming horns that were atop it, were free to be gawked at.

Taurus tilted his head to the side, and that pale bone mask he wore sent a shiver down his spine.

That idle finger ceased its movement. It marked its path in fast-spreading rust that began consuming the bell. "Lousy customer service. So far, I can't see how this place is worth five stars. I've killed men in far better places."

He shuddered. Taurus not-quite-smiled, teeth bared. "Don't worry, I'm not here for you. I need a room number that belongs to a pair of twins. I'm sure you know the ones."

He did.

He happily divulged that.

Taurus left him and made his way toward the elevator, leaving behind a pair of hundred-dollar bills and a rough pat on the shoulder.

Asher pocketed them both before dialing 9-1-1.

After a change of pants, of course.

Last edited: Dec 31, 2023

244

MasterDuplicator

Dec 30, 2023

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