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Charm Learning Shard (Worm/Exalted) (COMPLETED)
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T.01
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
- Messages
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An important note before we begin, considering the venue: THIS IS NOT PORN. THERE IS NO PORN HERE. You can let go of your dicks. It's delicious grimderp all the way down.
===
Your name is Taylor Hebert, and your life sucks.
Oh, it started out well enough, in a typical white middle class fashion. You had parents who loved you and a best friend who did likewise, and you never went hungry or had to deal with any other poverty-related issues. The worst privation you ever suffered was some of your peers occasionally getting slightly more extravagant birthday gifts.
Then your mom died, which of course sucked. But you know what? You could handle that. Sure you cried for a week straight, and you never stopped feeling sad that you'd never see the most important person in your life ever again. Your dad took it worse than you did and just stopped... caring about anything, really. In a slightly melodramatic sense it was almost as if you had lost both your parents, but you got over it, you coped. Life was still worth living.
Then your best friend decided that she'd rather be your worst enemy. That... that hurt a lot, and you still don't know why she did it. And of course she always popular in school, much more than you, so when she suddenly set out to make your life a living hell pretty much every single one of your classmates went along with it. You never figured out why the teachers also seemed okay with it, but after a while you gave up on trying to do anything about it.
Oh, after a year and change it seemed like they were starting to grow tired of it. Gradually you started getting fewer and fewer emails speculating about your sexual preferences and personal hygiene. People started to make do with hurling insults at you as they passed by, instead of trapping you in jeering crowds. They hardly ever spit on you anymore, and you could go days without get tripped or shoved or pushed down the stairs. You could eat your lunch in public without it ending up on the floor. You even started storing things in your locker again, and they didn't get stolen or vandalized or anything.
You were so hopeful. You started thinking that maybe you could get one foot off the lowest rung of the social ladder. You thought you might even start making some new friends. Because apparently you're stupid.
Of course they were just lulling you into a false sense of security. Of course the whole point was getting you to start using your locker again. Because on your first day back after Christmas, the- thing happened that you don't like to think about, because of the blood and the smell and the puking and thescreamingand-
Okay. It's okay. You got this. You specifically picked a bench facing out towards the bay when you decided to sit down and reflect on your life, so that no one would be able to see the tears.
You woke up in the psych ward. You weren't physically hurt, they explained, but you wouldn't stop screaming until they sedated you. So they were going to keep you there for a few days for observation. The way you stared blankly at them couldn't have done their opinion of your mental health any favors. Did they think you'd have a relapse of being shoved into- no, don't think about that.
Also, what the hell did they mean, not physically hurt? Yes, you did feel fine. Better than fine, even. No scrapes, no bruises. You felt strong and fit and not at all like you were dying of infection. Which you by all rights should have been, because you remembered beating your knuckles bloody while covered in filth in the darkness and some of it went in your mouth-
It's fine. You're fine. It's over. You can stop hyperventilating now. As you were saying, at this point you suspected something was up. But you were stuck in the psych ward, and typing 'did I get superpowers?' into a search engine on a hospital computer would probably raise all kinds of flags.
Luckily you had a roommate. A girl, you forget her name, about your age, who had been admitted after a suicide attempt. Well, the kind of suicide attempt that her parents probably called 'a cry for help', but could more accurately be termed 'a cry for attention'.
Seeing as she craved attention, you gave her some. You exclaimed over the dreadful wounds on her wrists (you lose more blood on a monthly basis than could possibly have seeped from those shallow scratches) and commiserated over her unbearable life (two parents, several friends, boyfriend cheated on her). In exchange she let you borrow her expensive cellphone so that you could go online. Or to more accurately describe the way she acted: She graciously bestowed her marvel of technology on the benighted, destitute underclass who couldn't afford the miracle of perpetual connectivity.
So you did some research and it turns out that yes, when you suffer the absolutely worst thing that could ever possibly happen to you, when your mind snaps and cries out for something, anything to help, to make it stop, please, anything... sometimes you get superpowers.
(Unless your parents already have powers, then it's much, much easier. Glory Girl, for example, apparently got her powers when she was hit in the face with a ball in gym class, or something like that. You were shocked to find out how much you could hate someone you'd never even met, who'd never done anything to you)
You also found the blog of a nice doctor who explained how being 'held for observation' worked. It was not that most people needed it, or were even helped by it. It was just the hospital covering its ass. There wasn't even anything wrong with you, you just had a perfectly reasonable reaction to... things. Suicide girl had her attention, she wouldn't go back to that well for a while. And the guy in the next room over, who kept screaming all night long, every night? It wasn't as if he was going to be better by the time they tossed him out to make room for new people. And the less said about his roommate, who suffered from acute anxiety, the better.
But. If some mentally unstable person was sent home right away, and did do something regrettable then and there, there would be lawsuits like you wouldn't believe. So the doctors had to balance '98% chance everything will be fine' vs. '2% chance I lose my job and house and life savings', and opted for observation every time.
As promised, after three days they let you out with a pat on the back and advice to the tune of "try not to go crazy again, there' a good girl." You thanked them for their concern, hurried home, and grabbed a knife.
Not to do anything regrettable with! You just needed to test your powers. You very, very carefully tried cutting yourself, and you weren't cut! Excited, you tried again a bit more forcefully and promptly started bleeding all over the place. But the blood stopped flowing on its own remarkably quickly. Apparently you were as knife-resistant as someone wearing a thick sweater, and as bleeding-resistant as someone with a roll of gauze in their purse.
You also tried lifting heavy things, and yes, you were much stronger than before. Why, though you had the body of a scrawny fifteen year old girl, you had the strength of... a sixteen year old boy.
And the worst thing was, it made sense. According to the internet, people generally got powers that could somehow deal with the unbearable situation they found themselves in. And you were now protected from minor cuts and bruises, (presumably) resistant to infection, and strong enough to beat up any fifteen year old girls who tried to bully you. It was exactly what you needed.
Other people in your situation would have gotten steel-rending claws, or teleportation, or something. Glory Girl, the insufferable cunt, got invulnerability. And flight, and an aura that makes everyone love and/or fear her. But of course you would get the most well-calibrated powerset in the world. You could just envision your future in the Wards:
"Go out on patrol? Why don't you just stay here at base with your amazing Brute 0 powers and work on your homework? We note that your academic results have gone to shit over the last two years, you really need to make up for that."
Now, you might think that once you ended up in the hospital, something would finally be done about the bullying. You might think that, if you were somehow born without any pattern recognition skills whatsoever.
"Did you see who did it?"
"Not specifically who shoved me in there, no, but it was almost certainly either-"
"Ah, so you don't know. A shame, that. Nothing to be done, then."
Yeah, it went pretty much like that, except with a lot more screaming and insincere regret, on your part and theirs respectively. Then of course you had to go back to school. And now Operation: Get Taylor To Use Her Locker Again was finished, and things were back to normal.
One class. You managed to make it through one class before you were cornered in the corridor and shoved to the ground. Above you stood your greatest tormentors, the people you thought of as the Trio: Sophia, the psycho bitch jock who loved physical abuse; Emma, the psycho bitch traitor who still knew you better than anyone else and loved emotional abuse; and Madison, the psycho bitch vanilla flavor, who had to make up for her lack of natural advantages with effort and inventiveness.
The details are not important. Emma was saying mean things, Sophia was technically-not-kicking-you nudging you with her foot, and you were desperately looking for a way out when the world... shifted. Everything became both darker and at the same time more colorful. The people around you seemed somehow hollow, but you couldn't understand how or why. Except Sophia. Sophia was glowing, and you instinctively knew that you were looking at another parahuman.
Brockton Bay is positively lousy with parahumans, but when you limit it to black, female, teenage parahumans there's exactly one option. Shadow Stalker, of the Wards. One of the good guys. Haha, of course your vision of life in the Wards was born of downright retarded optimism:
"Go out on patrol? Why don't you just stay here at base with your amazing Brute 0 powers and work on your homework? We'll have the entire staff of the PRT march past on your lunch break so you can check for parahuman infiltrators, but we note that your academic results have gone to shit over the last two years and you really need to make up for that. We'll assign Shadow Stalker to help you study."
"Of course I'll help, we're old school buddies after all. But I gotta warn you, Taylor has a history of ignoring her homework and accusing random people of stealing it when confronted about it."
"Thanks Shadow Stalker, you're the best!"
And there was one last niggling mystery resolved. The internet had also said that you were supposed to get mental powers from mental trauma, and you certainly had some of that to go along with your cuts and bruises and probable infection. And there was your mental power, the ability to spot dangerous people, a good defensive tool. Except parahumans weren't the goddamn problem.
Or were they? You had come up a number of theories about how the bullies kept getting away with everything. Did Emma's lawyer dad make threatening noises about unfounded accusations and slander-related lawsuits? Was Madison just that much of a teacher's pet, and you that much of a social outcast? Was Winslow High such a gigantic shithole that as long as you weren't wearing gang colors and literally stabbing each other it didn't count as a problem? As of last week, none of them seemed plausible any more. It had to take more than that. And yes, apparently it was the superheroes all along, telling the school administration to cover up anything that might reflect badly on them.
With this last revelation added to the dung heap that was your life, you couldn't take it any more. You had to get out. You managed to get your feet under you and made a dash for the exit. In your blind rush you managed to knock Madison over with your Brute 0 powers, and you knew that if/when you came back you'd pay for that thrice over. But at the time you didn't care, you kept running right out of the school and didn't slow down until several blocks later.
You were never coming back. Why did you even bother? Your life was never going to stop getting worse. Fuck everything. You might as well end it right now.
Oh, you knew the cliches. You were just in the psych ward, and you got the whole spiel by proxy, from the doctors who talked at your roommate in your presence. 'You're not thinking clearly.' Aren't you? 'Think of the people who love you.' Yeah? Like who? 'There's so much to live for.' Yeah? Like what?
Not depressed, not crazy. You just rationally concluded that there would be no point in living any more, and the all-consuming despair you were feeling was just a natural response to this realization. Even then, you promised yourself that you'd sit down and think things through calmly before taking any drastic action. Which brings you to now, and this bench.
And after due reflection, nothing has changed your mind. You need to-
You blink as a steaming paper cup is shoved in front of your face.
"Tea? You look like someone who could use a cup of tea."
===
===
Your name is Taylor Hebert, and your life sucks.
Oh, it started out well enough, in a typical white middle class fashion. You had parents who loved you and a best friend who did likewise, and you never went hungry or had to deal with any other poverty-related issues. The worst privation you ever suffered was some of your peers occasionally getting slightly more extravagant birthday gifts.
Then your mom died, which of course sucked. But you know what? You could handle that. Sure you cried for a week straight, and you never stopped feeling sad that you'd never see the most important person in your life ever again. Your dad took it worse than you did and just stopped... caring about anything, really. In a slightly melodramatic sense it was almost as if you had lost both your parents, but you got over it, you coped. Life was still worth living.
Then your best friend decided that she'd rather be your worst enemy. That... that hurt a lot, and you still don't know why she did it. And of course she always popular in school, much more than you, so when she suddenly set out to make your life a living hell pretty much every single one of your classmates went along with it. You never figured out why the teachers also seemed okay with it, but after a while you gave up on trying to do anything about it.
Oh, after a year and change it seemed like they were starting to grow tired of it. Gradually you started getting fewer and fewer emails speculating about your sexual preferences and personal hygiene. People started to make do with hurling insults at you as they passed by, instead of trapping you in jeering crowds. They hardly ever spit on you anymore, and you could go days without get tripped or shoved or pushed down the stairs. You could eat your lunch in public without it ending up on the floor. You even started storing things in your locker again, and they didn't get stolen or vandalized or anything.
You were so hopeful. You started thinking that maybe you could get one foot off the lowest rung of the social ladder. You thought you might even start making some new friends. Because apparently you're stupid.
Of course they were just lulling you into a false sense of security. Of course the whole point was getting you to start using your locker again. Because on your first day back after Christmas, the- thing happened that you don't like to think about, because of the blood and the smell and the puking and thescreamingand-
Okay. It's okay. You got this. You specifically picked a bench facing out towards the bay when you decided to sit down and reflect on your life, so that no one would be able to see the tears.
You woke up in the psych ward. You weren't physically hurt, they explained, but you wouldn't stop screaming until they sedated you. So they were going to keep you there for a few days for observation. The way you stared blankly at them couldn't have done their opinion of your mental health any favors. Did they think you'd have a relapse of being shoved into- no, don't think about that.
Also, what the hell did they mean, not physically hurt? Yes, you did feel fine. Better than fine, even. No scrapes, no bruises. You felt strong and fit and not at all like you were dying of infection. Which you by all rights should have been, because you remembered beating your knuckles bloody while covered in filth in the darkness and some of it went in your mouth-
It's fine. You're fine. It's over. You can stop hyperventilating now. As you were saying, at this point you suspected something was up. But you were stuck in the psych ward, and typing 'did I get superpowers?' into a search engine on a hospital computer would probably raise all kinds of flags.
Luckily you had a roommate. A girl, you forget her name, about your age, who had been admitted after a suicide attempt. Well, the kind of suicide attempt that her parents probably called 'a cry for help', but could more accurately be termed 'a cry for attention'.
Seeing as she craved attention, you gave her some. You exclaimed over the dreadful wounds on her wrists (you lose more blood on a monthly basis than could possibly have seeped from those shallow scratches) and commiserated over her unbearable life (two parents, several friends, boyfriend cheated on her). In exchange she let you borrow her expensive cellphone so that you could go online. Or to more accurately describe the way she acted: She graciously bestowed her marvel of technology on the benighted, destitute underclass who couldn't afford the miracle of perpetual connectivity.
So you did some research and it turns out that yes, when you suffer the absolutely worst thing that could ever possibly happen to you, when your mind snaps and cries out for something, anything to help, to make it stop, please, anything... sometimes you get superpowers.
(Unless your parents already have powers, then it's much, much easier. Glory Girl, for example, apparently got her powers when she was hit in the face with a ball in gym class, or something like that. You were shocked to find out how much you could hate someone you'd never even met, who'd never done anything to you)
You also found the blog of a nice doctor who explained how being 'held for observation' worked. It was not that most people needed it, or were even helped by it. It was just the hospital covering its ass. There wasn't even anything wrong with you, you just had a perfectly reasonable reaction to... things. Suicide girl had her attention, she wouldn't go back to that well for a while. And the guy in the next room over, who kept screaming all night long, every night? It wasn't as if he was going to be better by the time they tossed him out to make room for new people. And the less said about his roommate, who suffered from acute anxiety, the better.
But. If some mentally unstable person was sent home right away, and did do something regrettable then and there, there would be lawsuits like you wouldn't believe. So the doctors had to balance '98% chance everything will be fine' vs. '2% chance I lose my job and house and life savings', and opted for observation every time.
As promised, after three days they let you out with a pat on the back and advice to the tune of "try not to go crazy again, there' a good girl." You thanked them for their concern, hurried home, and grabbed a knife.
Not to do anything regrettable with! You just needed to test your powers. You very, very carefully tried cutting yourself, and you weren't cut! Excited, you tried again a bit more forcefully and promptly started bleeding all over the place. But the blood stopped flowing on its own remarkably quickly. Apparently you were as knife-resistant as someone wearing a thick sweater, and as bleeding-resistant as someone with a roll of gauze in their purse.
You also tried lifting heavy things, and yes, you were much stronger than before. Why, though you had the body of a scrawny fifteen year old girl, you had the strength of... a sixteen year old boy.
And the worst thing was, it made sense. According to the internet, people generally got powers that could somehow deal with the unbearable situation they found themselves in. And you were now protected from minor cuts and bruises, (presumably) resistant to infection, and strong enough to beat up any fifteen year old girls who tried to bully you. It was exactly what you needed.
Other people in your situation would have gotten steel-rending claws, or teleportation, or something. Glory Girl, the insufferable cunt, got invulnerability. And flight, and an aura that makes everyone love and/or fear her. But of course you would get the most well-calibrated powerset in the world. You could just envision your future in the Wards:
"Go out on patrol? Why don't you just stay here at base with your amazing Brute 0 powers and work on your homework? We note that your academic results have gone to shit over the last two years, you really need to make up for that."
Now, you might think that once you ended up in the hospital, something would finally be done about the bullying. You might think that, if you were somehow born without any pattern recognition skills whatsoever.
"Did you see who did it?"
"Not specifically who shoved me in there, no, but it was almost certainly either-"
"Ah, so you don't know. A shame, that. Nothing to be done, then."
Yeah, it went pretty much like that, except with a lot more screaming and insincere regret, on your part and theirs respectively. Then of course you had to go back to school. And now Operation: Get Taylor To Use Her Locker Again was finished, and things were back to normal.
One class. You managed to make it through one class before you were cornered in the corridor and shoved to the ground. Above you stood your greatest tormentors, the people you thought of as the Trio: Sophia, the psycho bitch jock who loved physical abuse; Emma, the psycho bitch traitor who still knew you better than anyone else and loved emotional abuse; and Madison, the psycho bitch vanilla flavor, who had to make up for her lack of natural advantages with effort and inventiveness.
The details are not important. Emma was saying mean things, Sophia was technically-not-kicking-you nudging you with her foot, and you were desperately looking for a way out when the world... shifted. Everything became both darker and at the same time more colorful. The people around you seemed somehow hollow, but you couldn't understand how or why. Except Sophia. Sophia was glowing, and you instinctively knew that you were looking at another parahuman.
Brockton Bay is positively lousy with parahumans, but when you limit it to black, female, teenage parahumans there's exactly one option. Shadow Stalker, of the Wards. One of the good guys. Haha, of course your vision of life in the Wards was born of downright retarded optimism:
"Go out on patrol? Why don't you just stay here at base with your amazing Brute 0 powers and work on your homework? We'll have the entire staff of the PRT march past on your lunch break so you can check for parahuman infiltrators, but we note that your academic results have gone to shit over the last two years and you really need to make up for that. We'll assign Shadow Stalker to help you study."
"Of course I'll help, we're old school buddies after all. But I gotta warn you, Taylor has a history of ignoring her homework and accusing random people of stealing it when confronted about it."
"Thanks Shadow Stalker, you're the best!"
And there was one last niggling mystery resolved. The internet had also said that you were supposed to get mental powers from mental trauma, and you certainly had some of that to go along with your cuts and bruises and probable infection. And there was your mental power, the ability to spot dangerous people, a good defensive tool. Except parahumans weren't the goddamn problem.
Or were they? You had come up a number of theories about how the bullies kept getting away with everything. Did Emma's lawyer dad make threatening noises about unfounded accusations and slander-related lawsuits? Was Madison just that much of a teacher's pet, and you that much of a social outcast? Was Winslow High such a gigantic shithole that as long as you weren't wearing gang colors and literally stabbing each other it didn't count as a problem? As of last week, none of them seemed plausible any more. It had to take more than that. And yes, apparently it was the superheroes all along, telling the school administration to cover up anything that might reflect badly on them.
With this last revelation added to the dung heap that was your life, you couldn't take it any more. You had to get out. You managed to get your feet under you and made a dash for the exit. In your blind rush you managed to knock Madison over with your Brute 0 powers, and you knew that if/when you came back you'd pay for that thrice over. But at the time you didn't care, you kept running right out of the school and didn't slow down until several blocks later.
You were never coming back. Why did you even bother? Your life was never going to stop getting worse. Fuck everything. You might as well end it right now.
Oh, you knew the cliches. You were just in the psych ward, and you got the whole spiel by proxy, from the doctors who talked at your roommate in your presence. 'You're not thinking clearly.' Aren't you? 'Think of the people who love you.' Yeah? Like who? 'There's so much to live for.' Yeah? Like what?
Not depressed, not crazy. You just rationally concluded that there would be no point in living any more, and the all-consuming despair you were feeling was just a natural response to this realization. Even then, you promised yourself that you'd sit down and think things through calmly before taking any drastic action. Which brings you to now, and this bench.
And after due reflection, nothing has changed your mind. You need to-
You blink as a steaming paper cup is shoved in front of your face.
"Tea? You look like someone who could use a cup of tea."
===
Blah blah blah, it's an Alt!Power Taylor. I tried to make it at least somewhat readable, for everyone who has read it 100 times before.
Also, please do not be alarmed by all the second person perspective happening here. This is not a misplaced quest. I love the second person for its own sake, and think it's criminally underused in regular fiction. Well, be the change you want to see, right?
Also, please do not be alarmed by all the second person perspective happening here. This is not a misplaced quest. I love the second person for its own sake, and think it's criminally underused in regular fiction. Well, be the change you want to see, right?
tfw when you exalt and only gain a single dot each in strength and stamina (you didn't actually exalt, you triggered with the parahuman power of 'I can't believe its not exalt' - it matters, in some regards)
At least you get a whole bunch of residual exalted bullshit too: Healing factor, disease resistance, bleeding control, lethal soak equal to half stamina rounded down (in your case, 1).
No wonder you think you're a shitty Brute. If only this was a Gamer fic and you could see the juicy fives elsewhere on your character sheet. Your life would be a bit less suffering that way.
At least you get a whole bunch of residual exalted bullshit too: Healing factor, disease resistance, bleeding control, lethal soak equal to half stamina rounded down (in your case, 1).
No wonder you think you're a shitty Brute. If only this was a Gamer fic and you could see the juicy fives elsewhere on your character sheet. Your life would be a bit less suffering that way.
T.02
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
- Messages
- 245
- Likes received
- 16,616
You turn to look at the person holding the cup of tea in front of your face, and see a girl maybe a few years older than you. She has freckles across her nose and blonde, shoulder-length hair poking out beneath a rather unflattering beanie. She looks serious and concerned.
Your eyes narrow with suspicion. A stranger offering a random act of kindness? To you? A likely story. The world shifts once more, and the girl is glowing.
You jerk away from her, almost spilling hot tea all over yourself. So, quick mental calculation: There is exactly one young female hero in town whose identity is not known to you, and Vista is what, twelve? Ergo, the girl next to you is a supervillain.
You're backing away from her when the glow filling her being pulses.
"You're parahuman?" she exclaims. Wait, what? That's your line.
"You're a supervillain," you shoot back. You stop backing away, but you keep the bench between you. It's enough to keep you out of range of a sudden lunge by a normal human, and if she has super speed or laser eyes or whatever running further wouldn't help anyway.
"Yeah, you got me there." She grimaces. "Doesn't make me a bad person, though."
"Really."
Her glow- her power pulses again. It's... telling her something? Wait, how could you tell that?
"So, you think being a superhero makes someone a good person?" She looks smug, as if she knows she just won the argument. Her power must have clued her in to your recent discoveries re: heroes.
"What's your power?" you ask.
"What, you can't tell? With your own power, I mean."
"Perhaps I'm just testing you to see if you'll tell the truth."
Another pulse. That would be her finding out that it's a little of column A, a little of column B, probably.
"I'm psychic."
Ah, now she's testing you.
"No you're not. Your power never reaches outside yourself when it feeds you information. Try again."
"Damn." She grins, not at all upset at being caught out. "You got me, I'm actually super Sherlock Holmes."
That... fits. You nod. "So what do you want with me, Holmes? Recruiting for your villain team?"
She holds up her hands. "I didn't even know you had powers until just now. I just saw you sitting there and my power told me you could use a cup of tea. And a friend."
God dammit. You're unreasonably sure that her power does not offer that kind of advice. Rather, it must have said something along the lines of "holy shit look at how clearly suicidal that girl is", and this supervillain-who-is-not-a-bad-person decided to stage an intervention. God fucking dammit. Just what you didn't want, pity.
On the other hand, a small treacherous part of you whispers, you kinda want a friend right now. Like, a lot. Uh, not such a small part, really. You, you might be outvoted here.
You startle as you feel a hand on your shoulder. "Let's go get another cup of tea, yeah?"
You nod silently and allow yourself to be led.
---
The conversation doesn't resume until you've ensconced yourselves at a nearby cafe and gotten your drinks. Your new friend takes a sip of her elaborate coffee-based beverage and smiles at you again.
"So, let me guess: You're pretty new at this whole thing?" Not actually a guess, most likely. You caught her power pulsing again just before she asked. Why no, you didn't stop monitoring her just because she appears to be both friendly and harmless. It's called learning from experience.
"Just found out today." You neglect to mention your Brute 0 powers, which you discovered last week.
"Okay. So, most important thing. With your magic spy powers you're going to find out secret identities left and right just walking down the street. Whatever you do, don't act on the information, or even let on that you know."
"Why not?"
"It's a whatchamacallit, an unspoken agreement. No one wants to go out and fight a villain in the afternoon only to come home to find his kids burnt to the ground in the evening. Or have the heroes try to arrest your wife as an accessory, or whatever. As long as we don't unmask each other we can avoid that whole can of worms. Keeps things civilized."
You nod along. It seems reasonable enough. Especially since it's going to leave you with an unfair advantage, a trump card. Not that you'd break the rules except in the utmost extremity, but-
"On that note: I'm Lisa, but don't tell anyone." She extends her hand to you and you shake it.
"Taylor, likewise." You frown as you recall something she said earlier. "Magic spy powers, really?"
"Well, aren't they?"
"It's silly. If you insist on calling it magic, at least be a bit more dignified about it. 'All-encompassing sorcerer's sight', maybe."
She snorts. "That's dignified, and not silly?"
"Shut up."
Her power has been lit up like a Christmas tree the whole time you've been bantering. Is she using superpowers to make sure she doesn't sass you too hard in your fragile emotional state, the considerate bitch?
"Fine. Then tell me, o wise Merlin, what doth thy Sorcerer's Sight reveal when you look at yourself?"
Huh. That's great idea, and you're ashamed that you didn't think of it yourself. But you still reflexively reply "Don't you mean 'when thou lookest at thyself?'" and Lisa sticks out her tongue at you.
You look down at your hands. They glow. Well, duh? But that's all you can tell. You cross you eyes as you try to look ins-
-ide your own head. You're floating in darkness, and you can't tell if you're looking at yourself, or the universe. Is there a difference? Luckily you're distracted from pondering such matters. There are... stars in here? Faint golden stars. One of them is pulsing. You focus your attention on it, and it fills your vision. Up close(?), what seemed like a star turns out to be an incredibly intricate web of golden light. It's... why, it's sorcerer's sight, of course. You'd recognize it anywhere.
There's where it draws power from- you feel dizzy. From things man was not meant to know, clearly. Here's the part that monitors the emanations given off by powers, this part analyses the results, here's where it hijacks your optic nerve, and here some feedback goes back into, uh, into the unspeakable. Yes of course you can tell how it works, you're using it right now. Something feels off about that logic, but it's inarguably true.
It's rather similar to what you saw of Lisa's power, now that you think about it. Not the sensor, but the analysis module and the structure of the power conduits... You absently sketch golden lines in a nearby patch of void as you ponder. Hm, no, you got the angles wrong. The conduits won't be stable. And indeed, the lines twist in on themselves and fade away. You'd have to-
Your eyes fly open and you're back in the real world.
"I can learn to do what you do," you whisper. Lisa's eyes go wide, and wider still as her power goes off and presumably backs you up on this.
"Yes, like that. Do that again." You lean forward and stare intently at your new best friend. She complies.
"Again."
"Whoa, slow down. Is this going to take long? I can't keep this pace up forever, you know."
"Sorry." You do your best to remember what you saw, and mentally sketch it out. But after a minute or so you admit defeat and look back at Lisa imploringly. She sighs and rolls her eyes, but uses her power again.
---
The rest of the day passes in a flash, though to an observer it would look incredibly boring. You stare intently at Lisa for a few seconds, then stare off into space for several minutes. Then you do it again. And again. Lisa initially tried to share amusing anecdotes involving what she discovered about the people passing by, but it was just distracting you so you asked her to stop.
---
Lisa is shaking you by the shoulder. You blink and look around. When did it get so dark?
"You'd better get home before your dad starts to worry," she says.
You realize that you haven't eaten anything since breakfast and it's- seven PM, really? Now that you're paying attention again, your bladder is quick to add its own set of complaints. A quick glance tells you that Lisa isn't doing so hot either, but she didn't say anything until now.
"Wow, uh, yeah. Where did the time go?" You don't even react to the way she said 'dad' rather than 'parents'. She's been sitting there doing nothing but figuring things out all day, after all.
"So, how close are you to done? When do I get a super-sleuth buddy?"
"Oh, that. Uh..." You consider what you've learned so far. "Twenty percent? Ish?"
Lisa can't quite hide a flinch. "It couldn't be easy, could it?"
"So, uh, same time tomorrow?" You can't quite bring yourself to meet her eyes as you say it. It belatedly occurs to you just how hard you're riding the pity train right now. But you can't stop now. Not when you're this close to getting a real power that doesn't suck.
"Yeah, ok. Let's remember to eat lunch next time, though."
---
Turns out that your estimate of twenty percent was a bit optimistic, and you weren't quite done by Friday. Just making an exact replica of her power didn't work - whenever you tried, things would just twist away from you and collapse. Different brains, or something. You had to start rebuilding things to fit you, which of course required a lot of pondering and experimentation.
You wanted to keep going just one more day, but Lisa put her foot down. She didn't become a supervillain in order to work on the weekend, she declared. You conceded the point, and left her to drink champagne on her private yacht, or whatever it is supervillains do to spend their ill-gotten gains.
You're not a supervillain, though, so you had no qualms about working on the weekend. You spent the whole time at a computer in the library, trying to find out more about powers and parahumans. You had already read all the relevant material provided by the 'official' source of all things parahuman, ParaHumans Online, during your stay in the psych ward. But the problem is right there in 'official': As official as Youtube or Wikipedia - the first, the biggest, an archetype, a de facto monopoly, whatever you want to call it, it's still owned by an unaccountable private entity with an agenda. PHO showed clear signs of twisting in the iron grip of moderators, so you decided to widen your search.
Unfortunately you quickly discovered that the only people who hosted content outside the 'official' site were the people who had been kicked out from there - and most of them had been kicked out for very good reasons.
Among other startling things, your off-PHO trawl taught you that Scion is the second coming of Jesus, that Scion is the devil pretending to be Jesus to lead people astray, and that Scion is a remote-controlled animatronic puppet run by the CIA, who are lizard people. You also learned that both the president of the United States and the chief director of the PRT are actually Eidolon, using Changer powers to secretly run the whole country.
Eidolon is also Scion, and Legend's husband. Or maybe the husband is real, and Legend is just cheating on him with Eidolon. You learned so many things about Legend's love life. The Endbringers aren't real, the government made them up to cover up nuclear and/or mind control tests on civilians. The Endbringers are demons, everyone is already dead, and this is hell.
As fun as all that was, you did learn some real things as well. You think. You learned that parahumans are born as well as made - that is, unless you're born with certain specific mutations in your brain, you will never get powers no matter how bad your life gets. There are several papers on the subject, complete with MRI images (that you lack the expertise to interpret, but no one seems to refute). Yet there is no mention of this on PHO. This fact is considered too undemocratic for public consumption, apparently.
You already knew that you can't deliberately give yourself a so called 'trigger event', nor can anyone else trigger you if you know that's what they are trying to do. No one knows why that is the case, but the PHO wiki warned about it in very big letters. What you didn't know about was the multitude of things done to more or less willing subjects by various government agencies before people figured this out, and frankly you could have done without that knowledge. The released documents contain more black bars than legible text, but still manage to make your stomach turn. When the page starts describing things that are still being done by various African warlords today, you decide drop that line of inquiry.
But there are also a lot of rumors, individually easy to dismiss but collectively convincing, of an organization, or villain team, or single villain (accounts differ on that part) that can give people powers on demand. How they do it is anyone's guess. Maybe there's a cape out there that can give other people powers permanently, maybe it's some sort of surgery or drugs to activate the previously mentioned mutant brain region, or maybe they are just that much better than anyone else at torturing people.
You also figured out who Lisa is. Apparently no one else even knows what her power is, but you were able to find her through a process of elimination: Every other possible match had known powers that didn't match Lisa's. You're pretty impressed, actually. 'Tattletale is allegedly a supervillain operating in Brockton Bay', that's the entirety of her wiki entry. She must be very new, or very clever. Oh right, she is literally superhumanly clever. Speaking of which, it's time for your final training session, then you can be superhumanly clever too! You walk right past Winslow, as you have done every day for the last week, and continue on towards the boardwalk to meet your friend.
===
Your eyes narrow with suspicion. A stranger offering a random act of kindness? To you? A likely story. The world shifts once more, and the girl is glowing.
You jerk away from her, almost spilling hot tea all over yourself. So, quick mental calculation: There is exactly one young female hero in town whose identity is not known to you, and Vista is what, twelve? Ergo, the girl next to you is a supervillain.
You're backing away from her when the glow filling her being pulses.
"You're parahuman?" she exclaims. Wait, what? That's your line.
"You're a supervillain," you shoot back. You stop backing away, but you keep the bench between you. It's enough to keep you out of range of a sudden lunge by a normal human, and if she has super speed or laser eyes or whatever running further wouldn't help anyway.
"Yeah, you got me there." She grimaces. "Doesn't make me a bad person, though."
"Really."
Her glow- her power pulses again. It's... telling her something? Wait, how could you tell that?
"So, you think being a superhero makes someone a good person?" She looks smug, as if she knows she just won the argument. Her power must have clued her in to your recent discoveries re: heroes.
"What's your power?" you ask.
"What, you can't tell? With your own power, I mean."
"Perhaps I'm just testing you to see if you'll tell the truth."
Another pulse. That would be her finding out that it's a little of column A, a little of column B, probably.
"I'm psychic."
Ah, now she's testing you.
"No you're not. Your power never reaches outside yourself when it feeds you information. Try again."
"Damn." She grins, not at all upset at being caught out. "You got me, I'm actually super Sherlock Holmes."
That... fits. You nod. "So what do you want with me, Holmes? Recruiting for your villain team?"
She holds up her hands. "I didn't even know you had powers until just now. I just saw you sitting there and my power told me you could use a cup of tea. And a friend."
God dammit. You're unreasonably sure that her power does not offer that kind of advice. Rather, it must have said something along the lines of "holy shit look at how clearly suicidal that girl is", and this supervillain-who-is-not-a-bad-person decided to stage an intervention. God fucking dammit. Just what you didn't want, pity.
On the other hand, a small treacherous part of you whispers, you kinda want a friend right now. Like, a lot. Uh, not such a small part, really. You, you might be outvoted here.
You startle as you feel a hand on your shoulder. "Let's go get another cup of tea, yeah?"
You nod silently and allow yourself to be led.
---
The conversation doesn't resume until you've ensconced yourselves at a nearby cafe and gotten your drinks. Your new friend takes a sip of her elaborate coffee-based beverage and smiles at you again.
"So, let me guess: You're pretty new at this whole thing?" Not actually a guess, most likely. You caught her power pulsing again just before she asked. Why no, you didn't stop monitoring her just because she appears to be both friendly and harmless. It's called learning from experience.
"Just found out today." You neglect to mention your Brute 0 powers, which you discovered last week.
"Okay. So, most important thing. With your magic spy powers you're going to find out secret identities left and right just walking down the street. Whatever you do, don't act on the information, or even let on that you know."
"Why not?"
"It's a whatchamacallit, an unspoken agreement. No one wants to go out and fight a villain in the afternoon only to come home to find his kids burnt to the ground in the evening. Or have the heroes try to arrest your wife as an accessory, or whatever. As long as we don't unmask each other we can avoid that whole can of worms. Keeps things civilized."
You nod along. It seems reasonable enough. Especially since it's going to leave you with an unfair advantage, a trump card. Not that you'd break the rules except in the utmost extremity, but-
"On that note: I'm Lisa, but don't tell anyone." She extends her hand to you and you shake it.
"Taylor, likewise." You frown as you recall something she said earlier. "Magic spy powers, really?"
"Well, aren't they?"
"It's silly. If you insist on calling it magic, at least be a bit more dignified about it. 'All-encompassing sorcerer's sight', maybe."
She snorts. "That's dignified, and not silly?"
"Shut up."
Her power has been lit up like a Christmas tree the whole time you've been bantering. Is she using superpowers to make sure she doesn't sass you too hard in your fragile emotional state, the considerate bitch?
Is still using her sensor power on me. Sensor power can be toggled, is deliberately keeping an eye on me.
Yep, figures. I did just admit to being a villain.
Is withholding details about her power.
No big surprise there either, I wouldn't trust myself either at this point in our relationship.
Left out details because she's embarrassed. Thinks her power is weak, pitiful.
It seems pretty good to me. Low self esteem would fit her profile, though.
Is wrong. Hasn't discovered everything her power can do.
Iiinteresting.
Yep, figures. I did just admit to being a villain.
Is withholding details about her power.
No big surprise there either, I wouldn't trust myself either at this point in our relationship.
Left out details because she's embarrassed. Thinks her power is weak, pitiful.
It seems pretty good to me. Low self esteem would fit her profile, though.
Is wrong. Hasn't discovered everything her power can do.
Iiinteresting.
"Fine. Then tell me, o wise Merlin, what doth thy Sorcerer's Sight reveal when you look at yourself?"
Huh. That's great idea, and you're ashamed that you didn't think of it yourself. But you still reflexively reply "Don't you mean 'when thou lookest at thyself?'" and Lisa sticks out her tongue at you.
You look down at your hands. They glow. Well, duh? But that's all you can tell. You cross you eyes as you try to look ins-
-ide your own head. You're floating in darkness, and you can't tell if you're looking at yourself, or the universe. Is there a difference? Luckily you're distracted from pondering such matters. There are... stars in here? Faint golden stars. One of them is pulsing. You focus your attention on it, and it fills your vision. Up close(?), what seemed like a star turns out to be an incredibly intricate web of golden light. It's... why, it's sorcerer's sight, of course. You'd recognize it anywhere.
There's where it draws power from- you feel dizzy. From things man was not meant to know, clearly. Here's the part that monitors the emanations given off by powers, this part analyses the results, here's where it hijacks your optic nerve, and here some feedback goes back into, uh, into the unspeakable. Yes of course you can tell how it works, you're using it right now. Something feels off about that logic, but it's inarguably true.
It's rather similar to what you saw of Lisa's power, now that you think about it. Not the sensor, but the analysis module and the structure of the power conduits... You absently sketch golden lines in a nearby patch of void as you ponder. Hm, no, you got the angles wrong. The conduits won't be stable. And indeed, the lines twist in on themselves and fade away. You'd have to-
Your eyes fly open and you're back in the real world.
"I can learn to do what you do," you whisper. Lisa's eyes go wide, and wider still as her power goes off and presumably backs you up on this.
"Yes, like that. Do that again." You lean forward and stare intently at your new best friend. She complies.
"Again."
"Whoa, slow down. Is this going to take long? I can't keep this pace up forever, you know."
"Sorry." You do your best to remember what you saw, and mentally sketch it out. But after a minute or so you admit defeat and look back at Lisa imploringly. She sighs and rolls her eyes, but uses her power again.
---
The rest of the day passes in a flash, though to an observer it would look incredibly boring. You stare intently at Lisa for a few seconds, then stare off into space for several minutes. Then you do it again. And again. Lisa initially tried to share amusing anecdotes involving what she discovered about the people passing by, but it was just distracting you so you asked her to stop.
---
Lisa is shaking you by the shoulder. You blink and look around. When did it get so dark?
"You'd better get home before your dad starts to worry," she says.
You realize that you haven't eaten anything since breakfast and it's- seven PM, really? Now that you're paying attention again, your bladder is quick to add its own set of complaints. A quick glance tells you that Lisa isn't doing so hot either, but she didn't say anything until now.
"Wow, uh, yeah. Where did the time go?" You don't even react to the way she said 'dad' rather than 'parents'. She's been sitting there doing nothing but figuring things out all day, after all.
"So, how close are you to done? When do I get a super-sleuth buddy?"
"Oh, that. Uh..." You consider what you've learned so far. "Twenty percent? Ish?"
Lisa can't quite hide a flinch. "It couldn't be easy, could it?"
"So, uh, same time tomorrow?" You can't quite bring yourself to meet her eyes as you say it. It belatedly occurs to you just how hard you're riding the pity train right now. But you can't stop now. Not when you're this close to getting a real power that doesn't suck.
"Yeah, ok. Let's remember to eat lunch next time, though."
---
Turns out that your estimate of twenty percent was a bit optimistic, and you weren't quite done by Friday. Just making an exact replica of her power didn't work - whenever you tried, things would just twist away from you and collapse. Different brains, or something. You had to start rebuilding things to fit you, which of course required a lot of pondering and experimentation.
You wanted to keep going just one more day, but Lisa put her foot down. She didn't become a supervillain in order to work on the weekend, she declared. You conceded the point, and left her to drink champagne on her private yacht, or whatever it is supervillains do to spend their ill-gotten gains.
Fuck sunlight. Fuck traffic noise. Fuck sensory input in general. Fuck my power, fuck Thinker migraines, fuck everything.
Fuck Taylor. Why couldn't she just lock herself in her room and listen to sad music when contemplating suicide, like a normal person? But nooo, she had to do it in public. Never sparing a single thought for how she'd be dumping shitloads of guilt on any innocent psychics that happened by, the inconsiderate bitch.
Fuck me, for thinking I could fix everything by making friends. Girl talk, shopping, all that good stuff. No, of course she turns out to have the least convenient parahuman power in the world, because fuck my life.
And if I don't show up on Monday for another marathon power abuse session, she'll just jump off a bridge right then and there.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Fuck Taylor. Why couldn't she just lock herself in her room and listen to sad music when contemplating suicide, like a normal person? But nooo, she had to do it in public. Never sparing a single thought for how she'd be dumping shitloads of guilt on any innocent psychics that happened by, the inconsiderate bitch.
Fuck me, for thinking I could fix everything by making friends. Girl talk, shopping, all that good stuff. No, of course she turns out to have the least convenient parahuman power in the world, because fuck my life.
And if I don't show up on Monday for another marathon power abuse session, she'll just jump off a bridge right then and there.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
You're not a supervillain, though, so you had no qualms about working on the weekend. You spent the whole time at a computer in the library, trying to find out more about powers and parahumans. You had already read all the relevant material provided by the 'official' source of all things parahuman, ParaHumans Online, during your stay in the psych ward. But the problem is right there in 'official': As official as Youtube or Wikipedia - the first, the biggest, an archetype, a de facto monopoly, whatever you want to call it, it's still owned by an unaccountable private entity with an agenda. PHO showed clear signs of twisting in the iron grip of moderators, so you decided to widen your search.
Unfortunately you quickly discovered that the only people who hosted content outside the 'official' site were the people who had been kicked out from there - and most of them had been kicked out for very good reasons.
Among other startling things, your off-PHO trawl taught you that Scion is the second coming of Jesus, that Scion is the devil pretending to be Jesus to lead people astray, and that Scion is a remote-controlled animatronic puppet run by the CIA, who are lizard people. You also learned that both the president of the United States and the chief director of the PRT are actually Eidolon, using Changer powers to secretly run the whole country.
Eidolon is also Scion, and Legend's husband. Or maybe the husband is real, and Legend is just cheating on him with Eidolon. You learned so many things about Legend's love life. The Endbringers aren't real, the government made them up to cover up nuclear and/or mind control tests on civilians. The Endbringers are demons, everyone is already dead, and this is hell.
As fun as all that was, you did learn some real things as well. You think. You learned that parahumans are born as well as made - that is, unless you're born with certain specific mutations in your brain, you will never get powers no matter how bad your life gets. There are several papers on the subject, complete with MRI images (that you lack the expertise to interpret, but no one seems to refute). Yet there is no mention of this on PHO. This fact is considered too undemocratic for public consumption, apparently.
You already knew that you can't deliberately give yourself a so called 'trigger event', nor can anyone else trigger you if you know that's what they are trying to do. No one knows why that is the case, but the PHO wiki warned about it in very big letters. What you didn't know about was the multitude of things done to more or less willing subjects by various government agencies before people figured this out, and frankly you could have done without that knowledge. The released documents contain more black bars than legible text, but still manage to make your stomach turn. When the page starts describing things that are still being done by various African warlords today, you decide drop that line of inquiry.
But there are also a lot of rumors, individually easy to dismiss but collectively convincing, of an organization, or villain team, or single villain (accounts differ on that part) that can give people powers on demand. How they do it is anyone's guess. Maybe there's a cape out there that can give other people powers permanently, maybe it's some sort of surgery or drugs to activate the previously mentioned mutant brain region, or maybe they are just that much better than anyone else at torturing people.
You also figured out who Lisa is. Apparently no one else even knows what her power is, but you were able to find her through a process of elimination: Every other possible match had known powers that didn't match Lisa's. You're pretty impressed, actually. 'Tattletale is allegedly a supervillain operating in Brockton Bay', that's the entirety of her wiki entry. She must be very new, or very clever. Oh right, she is literally superhumanly clever. Speaking of which, it's time for your final training session, then you can be superhumanly clever too! You walk right past Winslow, as you have done every day for the last week, and continue on towards the boardwalk to meet your friend.
===
If you ever meet the sunk cost fallacy you should give him a big sloppy kiss, because he just saved your life. If Lisa had known from the start how much of an effort saving you would be she would have walked away and eaten that guiltsicle without a moment's hesitation.
T.03
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
- Messages
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The golden web twists in your grasp. Not again! You were sure you had it this time. What did you miss? But rather than fall apart, like it has done the last, oh, fifty or so times you tried, it seems to settle in. You gingerly release the construct and there's golden flash in your minds eye as it sears itself into the fabric of your soul and/or reality.
You let out a shuddering breath. "I did it," you say softly, hardly daring to believe it. "I finally have a real power."
"About time, isn't it?" Lisa tries to keep a light tone, but you can tell that she's pretty fed up with the whole thing too. "Go on, show me. Deduce something about me, Holmes."
Ok, you will. Dear new power, why is Lisa wearing so much makeup lately? She wasn't wearing any at all when you first met, but now she's practically slathering it on. You try to activate your new power the same way you do sorcerer's sight, but nothing happens. It seems to be stuck somehow? You frown.
"It- it's not letting me turn it on."
"Seriously? Are you sure-" Lisa's power activates, and she winces. "Yeah ok, I can confirm that you really have it."
"How do you use yours?" you ask.
She shrugs. "It just happens on its own when I want it to. Or sometimes when I don't. It's never been difficult." This is clearly your cue to make a joke about some bodily function or other, but you're too distracted to come up with something funny.
"Are you still using sorcerer's sight? Maybe you can only do one thing at a time."
You turn off your magic eyes and try again. Please work, please work...
"What's my favourite color?" Lisa asks. You shake your head. "When is my birthday?" Nothing. Not a single glimmer of intuition.
"Can you really tell someone's birthday?" you ask.
"To the nearest month, sure. Let's try something else." Lisa rolls up her sleeve and puts her hand just below the table. "How many fingers am I holding up?" You realize that you're supposed to figure it out from looking at the tendons in her wrist, but it's not working.
She's starting to look worried. You can only imagine what your own face looks like right now. You could feel it becoming part of you. Why isn't it working?
"Maybe it just won't turn on its wielder. How about that guy over there? Tell me something embarrassing about him."
You glare at the poor innocent bystander and hammer at your new power, to no effect. Come on, come on... You realize that you've been clenching your jaw so hard that you're starting to feel a headache coming on. It hasn't been helping. You slump in your seat, defeated.
"Nothing." You hide your face in your hands. No. No no no no-
Lisa wants Coil dead.
"YES!" You jump out of your seat and pump your fist in victory. "Yessssssss!"
"Uh, Taylor? You're spooking the normies." Lisa says softly. She's smiling, though.
You look around, and realize that a number of other people in the cafe are staring at you. Also, that you're doing a victory dance. "Sorry," you mutter, and sit down again. But you're still shaking with adrenaline, and you can't keep a grin off your face.
"So, dish. What did you figure out?" Lisa asks.
Oh, that. "What do you have against Coil? Isn't he-" Lisa is making frantic shushing motions. She looks scared, now.
"Come on, let's go for a walk," she says.
You're confused. She has been perfectly fine with discussing your respective powers and the finer points of supervillainy in the cafe, but now she's worried. Well, maybe it makes sense. The powers that be seem to be unreasonably lenient towards costumed crime, after all, but you just graduated to discussing regular old-fashioned murder. Apparently.
You end up back at the bench where you first met.
"First up, you're never going to say that name again," Lisa says after looking around around to make sure that no one is nearby. "Second, you're going to tell me exactly what you just found out. Third, we're going to talk about the importance of pretending that none of this happened."
You frown. "Ok, so about... Pancakes. I was going to say, isn't he the guy who's LARPing as a villain?" From what you read online Coil has been seen in costume and surrounded by minions, but no one has ever caught him, or them, actually using a power or committing a crime. "Obviously not, from your reaction."
"Hell no. Pancakes is the real deal. Easily the scariest guy in town. No one has anything on him because he's just that good."
"Like you, then," you note.
"I'm nothing like him!"
You hold up your hands placatingly. "I just meant that no one knows anything about your power either, Tattletale." She gives you an 'I see what you did there' look as you casually drop her cape name.
"Oh, that. Yeah, I've been trying to keep out of the spotlight. But the Undersiders are going to become a lot more well known in the next few months. We're the hottest up and coming villain team you'll ever see." She flashes you her trademark smile.
You grin back. You figured out her name, yes, but you didn't know she was part of the Undersiders.
Lisa shakes her head ruefully as her power tells her this. "Well played," she says. "But we're getting off track. Exactly what did you find out about Pancakes?"
"You, uh, really don't like 'em." You scratch at the back of your neck and look away. There is really no nice way of putting this. "Like, you prefer your Pancakes to not be alive."
"Shit! And you thought birthdays were hard? How the hell did you get that one?"
"I don't- well, hmmm..." You do kind of have an idea, but it needs testing. "Wait here, I have to try something."
"Where are you going? We're not done talking!" Lisa tries to grab your arm, but you shake her off. You have science to do. Your new power didn't activate until you gave up and stopped trying to interact with Lisa. So, interaction first, power second.
There's a middle-aged lady coming this way. She looks safe. You walk towards her while looking out towards the bay, and bump into her slightly as you pass each other.
"Sorry." / "Sorry."
No insight. Probably needs more interaction. You notice that Lisa has been following you. Fine, she can be your assistant. You spot a likely next test subject: A well-muscled young man around twenty or so, wearing a short-sleeved shirt in January. Yeah, wringing some interaction out of this guy won't be hard. You grab Lisa by the arm and approach him.
"Excuse me? Could you help us settle a bet?" you say.
"Yes?"
"My friend here," you indicate Lisa, "claims that you must go to the gym five times a week to look that good. I said three times a week was enough."
"Ah, I'm afraid that your friend has the right of it." The way he smiles and subtly but visibly flexes as he answers makes you giggle. That's ok, being giggly increases the verisimilitude.
Lisa reaches out to squeeze his bicep, causing him to abandon subtlety and adopt a strongman pose. "See, I know these things," she says. Her tone is appropriately light, but the glare she shoots you tells you that she has opinions about the little roleplaying scenario you dragged her into.
You're not quite sure that was enough interaction, so you steel yourself for the next logical step. You're only going to want to melt into the pavement and die for a brief moment.
"So, uh, do you want to grab a coffee?" Fuck, that stings. The way he looks at you in response clearly communicates 'I enjoy the attention, but I'm so far out of your league it's not even funny'.
"Perhaps another time," he says diplomatically. You nod silently, trying to contain your blush. As he leaves, you activate your power again.
Muscle dude wants to go on a date with Miss Militia
Lisa puts a hand on your shoulder. "Don't feel too bad about it, Taylor. He prefers older women."
"I know," you say, grinning like a maniac. This must be how Lisa feels all the time.
"Ah, so you figured out how it works."
"Yeah. It's more limited than yours. I need to talk to people, and then I know their soul's price."
"You know their what?"
"You know, their deepest, most heartfelt desire? The thing that, if provided to them, would make them loyal to me."
Lisa's eyes go wide. "You turned Sherlock Holmes into a Master power!"
"It's not a Master power," you object. "It's called gratitude."
"Nuh-uh. My power says it's a Master effect. Check it with your sorcerer's sight, I bet you'll spot a little seed left in his brain that's going to make it really hard for him to be ungrateful." A look of disgust crosses her face. "Hell, check my brain."
You turn your sight back on and look after muscle dude. He's pretty far away, but you can still make out a tiny glowing speck in his otherwise hollow aura. Yeah. He may have turned you down for a date, but you still put a little bit of parahuman inside him.
It's harder to tell with Lisa. The glow of her own power makes the seed stand out less, but now that you know what you're looking for you can tell that it's there. You also notice another form of feedback, from your new power reacting to the seed it planted. "I'm standing next to a person whose soul I know the price of," it says. Don't you mean 'of whose soul I know the price?' you respond, and it sticks out its tongue at you. Ok not really, but you're trying to distract yourself from the sudden guilt.
"Sorry," you say.
"I guess it doesn't do any harm," she admits. "After all, that seed is never going to blossom. Because you're going to promise me to never mess with, uh, Pancakes, and I'm going to check to make sure you mean it."
"If-"
"Because if you don't," she continues, "we're both going to end up dead. Also your dad, and your favorite teacher, and your dog if you had one. I repeat, Pancakes don't fuck around."
Holy shit.
"Didn't you say earlier that the unwritten rules-"
"Pancakes don't give a shit about the rules, Taylor. Until and unless you copy a power that makes you - and your friends, my ass is on the line too - immune to snipers, don't even think about it."
"Yeah, I promise." You are being 100% sincere, avoiding Pancakes seems like an excellent idea. Lisa looks intently at you, then nods.
"Speaking of copying powers, exactly how does it work? How long can you hold on to it? Can you hold more than one at a time?" She pauses, then asks what you suspect is actually foremost on her mind: "If you need it again, will be faster the second time around?"
You shake your head. "It doesn't work like that. It's part of me now, exactly like sorcerer's sight." Lisa opens her mouth to speak, but you hold up your hand. "I don't think there's a limit, either. When I look at them, they are like tiny stars in an infinite void."
Lisa just stares at you for a moment, then snorts. "And this is the girl who was going 'boo hoo, woe is me, my power sucks?'" She looks thoughtful, then adds "As much as it pains me to admit it, you really should join the Wards."
"Fuck the Wards," you respond automatically.
"No, seriously. Go to the PRT and introduce yourself as the lovechild of Dauntless and Eidolon. They'll keep you safe from everything and give you new powers to eat all day, every day, forever. Then by the time you graduate you and Dauntless Original Flavor can form the second Triumvirate together. Just the two of you, a second Triumvirate, because you'll be that strong."
"Perhaps I didn't speak clearly enough. Fuck. The. Wards." Lisa tries to say something, but you keep going. "I bet if you came to them as a Thinker... seven-ish, whatever, they would keep you safe and give you lots of interesting things to think about too. Yet here you are. Do you think I want to sit around being treated like a combination house pet/nuclear weapon? To hang out with assholes and be bossed around by cunts all day long, forever?"
Did she think the prospect of free powers would make you forget about Shadow Stalker, and what her superiors let her do? You'd rather join the Slaughterhouse 9 than the Wards.
Lisa holds up her hands. "Fine, forget I said anything. But if you go independent you're going to have to keep a low profile. The lowest. If the truth gets out everyone will be after you. At the same time, you need to get more powerful fast. You're still a pure Thinker in a world full of Blasters and Brutes."
"I can handle myself, thanks." You're a Brute too. Barely.
"Not saying you can't, not saying you can't. There's just, uh, I have this friend who I could probably be convinced to let you study their power, who'll keep their mouth shut about it. Do you-"
"I said, I can handle myself." No, you're not being unreasonable or unfair to your only friend because you're angry at someone completely unrelated. Shut up, tiny voice.
"At least take this." She hands you a cellphone. "It's just a cheap burner with my number on it. In case anything comes up, or if you want to brag about your exploits, or whatever." When you inevitably get in trouble and need my help, she doesn't say, very loudly.
You nod stiffly and accept the proffered phone, because you're being reasonable. It's not like you need ever use it.
You exchange farewells, and you don't even flip the bird over your shoulder when you hear her mutter about how she's 'not letting all that effort go to waste'.
===
You let out a shuddering breath. "I did it," you say softly, hardly daring to believe it. "I finally have a real power."
"About time, isn't it?" Lisa tries to keep a light tone, but you can tell that she's pretty fed up with the whole thing too. "Go on, show me. Deduce something about me, Holmes."
Ok, you will. Dear new power, why is Lisa wearing so much makeup lately? She wasn't wearing any at all when you first met, but now she's practically slathering it on. You try to activate your new power the same way you do sorcerer's sight, but nothing happens. It seems to be stuck somehow? You frown.
"It- it's not letting me turn it on."
"Seriously? Are you sure-" Lisa's power activates, and she winces. "Yeah ok, I can confirm that you really have it."
"How do you use yours?" you ask.
She shrugs. "It just happens on its own when I want it to. Or sometimes when I don't. It's never been difficult." This is clearly your cue to make a joke about some bodily function or other, but you're too distracted to come up with something funny.
"Are you still using sorcerer's sight? Maybe you can only do one thing at a time."
You turn off your magic eyes and try again. Please work, please work...
"What's my favourite color?" Lisa asks. You shake your head. "When is my birthday?" Nothing. Not a single glimmer of intuition.
"Can you really tell someone's birthday?" you ask.
"To the nearest month, sure. Let's try something else." Lisa rolls up her sleeve and puts her hand just below the table. "How many fingers am I holding up?" You realize that you're supposed to figure it out from looking at the tendons in her wrist, but it's not working.
She's starting to look worried. You can only imagine what your own face looks like right now. You could feel it becoming part of you. Why isn't it working?
"Maybe it just won't turn on its wielder. How about that guy over there? Tell me something embarrassing about him."
You glare at the poor innocent bystander and hammer at your new power, to no effect. Come on, come on... You realize that you've been clenching your jaw so hard that you're starting to feel a headache coming on. It hasn't been helping. You slump in your seat, defeated.
"Nothing." You hide your face in your hands. No. No no no no-
Lisa wants Coil dead.
"YES!" You jump out of your seat and pump your fist in victory. "Yessssssss!"
"Uh, Taylor? You're spooking the normies." Lisa says softly. She's smiling, though.
You look around, and realize that a number of other people in the cafe are staring at you. Also, that you're doing a victory dance. "Sorry," you mutter, and sit down again. But you're still shaking with adrenaline, and you can't keep a grin off your face.
"So, dish. What did you figure out?" Lisa asks.
Oh, that. "What do you have against Coil? Isn't he-" Lisa is making frantic shushing motions. She looks scared, now.
"Come on, let's go for a walk," she says.
You're confused. She has been perfectly fine with discussing your respective powers and the finer points of supervillainy in the cafe, but now she's worried. Well, maybe it makes sense. The powers that be seem to be unreasonably lenient towards costumed crime, after all, but you just graduated to discussing regular old-fashioned murder. Apparently.
You end up back at the bench where you first met.
"First up, you're never going to say that name again," Lisa says after looking around around to make sure that no one is nearby. "Second, you're going to tell me exactly what you just found out. Third, we're going to talk about the importance of pretending that none of this happened."
You frown. "Ok, so about... Pancakes. I was going to say, isn't he the guy who's LARPing as a villain?" From what you read online Coil has been seen in costume and surrounded by minions, but no one has ever caught him, or them, actually using a power or committing a crime. "Obviously not, from your reaction."
"Hell no. Pancakes is the real deal. Easily the scariest guy in town. No one has anything on him because he's just that good."
"Like you, then," you note.
"I'm nothing like him!"
You hold up your hands placatingly. "I just meant that no one knows anything about your power either, Tattletale." She gives you an 'I see what you did there' look as you casually drop her cape name.
"Oh, that. Yeah, I've been trying to keep out of the spotlight. But the Undersiders are going to become a lot more well known in the next few months. We're the hottest up and coming villain team you'll ever see." She flashes you her trademark smile.
You grin back. You figured out her name, yes, but you didn't know she was part of the Undersiders.
Lisa shakes her head ruefully as her power tells her this. "Well played," she says. "But we're getting off track. Exactly what did you find out about Pancakes?"
"You, uh, really don't like 'em." You scratch at the back of your neck and look away. There is really no nice way of putting this. "Like, you prefer your Pancakes to not be alive."
"Shit! And you thought birthdays were hard? How the hell did you get that one?"
"I don't- well, hmmm..." You do kind of have an idea, but it needs testing. "Wait here, I have to try something."
"Where are you going? We're not done talking!" Lisa tries to grab your arm, but you shake her off. You have science to do. Your new power didn't activate until you gave up and stopped trying to interact with Lisa. So, interaction first, power second.
There's a middle-aged lady coming this way. She looks safe. You walk towards her while looking out towards the bay, and bump into her slightly as you pass each other.
"Sorry." / "Sorry."
No insight. Probably needs more interaction. You notice that Lisa has been following you. Fine, she can be your assistant. You spot a likely next test subject: A well-muscled young man around twenty or so, wearing a short-sleeved shirt in January. Yeah, wringing some interaction out of this guy won't be hard. You grab Lisa by the arm and approach him.
"Excuse me? Could you help us settle a bet?" you say.
"Yes?"
"My friend here," you indicate Lisa, "claims that you must go to the gym five times a week to look that good. I said three times a week was enough."
"Ah, I'm afraid that your friend has the right of it." The way he smiles and subtly but visibly flexes as he answers makes you giggle. That's ok, being giggly increases the verisimilitude.
Lisa reaches out to squeeze his bicep, causing him to abandon subtlety and adopt a strongman pose. "See, I know these things," she says. Her tone is appropriately light, but the glare she shoots you tells you that she has opinions about the little roleplaying scenario you dragged her into.
You're not quite sure that was enough interaction, so you steel yourself for the next logical step. You're only going to want to melt into the pavement and die for a brief moment.
"So, uh, do you want to grab a coffee?" Fuck, that stings. The way he looks at you in response clearly communicates 'I enjoy the attention, but I'm so far out of your league it's not even funny'.
"Perhaps another time," he says diplomatically. You nod silently, trying to contain your blush. As he leaves, you activate your power again.
Muscle dude wants to go on a date with Miss Militia
Lisa puts a hand on your shoulder. "Don't feel too bad about it, Taylor. He prefers older women."
"I know," you say, grinning like a maniac. This must be how Lisa feels all the time.
"Ah, so you figured out how it works."
"Yeah. It's more limited than yours. I need to talk to people, and then I know their soul's price."
"You know their what?"
"You know, their deepest, most heartfelt desire? The thing that, if provided to them, would make them loyal to me."
Lisa's eyes go wide. "You turned Sherlock Holmes into a Master power!"
"It's not a Master power," you object. "It's called gratitude."
"Nuh-uh. My power says it's a Master effect. Check it with your sorcerer's sight, I bet you'll spot a little seed left in his brain that's going to make it really hard for him to be ungrateful." A look of disgust crosses her face. "Hell, check my brain."
You turn your sight back on and look after muscle dude. He's pretty far away, but you can still make out a tiny glowing speck in his otherwise hollow aura. Yeah. He may have turned you down for a date, but you still put a little bit of parahuman inside him.
It's harder to tell with Lisa. The glow of her own power makes the seed stand out less, but now that you know what you're looking for you can tell that it's there. You also notice another form of feedback, from your new power reacting to the seed it planted. "I'm standing next to a person whose soul I know the price of," it says. Don't you mean 'of whose soul I know the price?' you respond, and it sticks out its tongue at you. Ok not really, but you're trying to distract yourself from the sudden guilt.
"Sorry," you say.
"I guess it doesn't do any harm," she admits. "After all, that seed is never going to blossom. Because you're going to promise me to never mess with, uh, Pancakes, and I'm going to check to make sure you mean it."
"If-"
"Because if you don't," she continues, "we're both going to end up dead. Also your dad, and your favorite teacher, and your dog if you had one. I repeat, Pancakes don't fuck around."
Holy shit.
"Didn't you say earlier that the unwritten rules-"
"Pancakes don't give a shit about the rules, Taylor. Until and unless you copy a power that makes you - and your friends, my ass is on the line too - immune to snipers, don't even think about it."
"Yeah, I promise." You are being 100% sincere, avoiding Pancakes seems like an excellent idea. Lisa looks intently at you, then nods.
"Speaking of copying powers, exactly how does it work? How long can you hold on to it? Can you hold more than one at a time?" She pauses, then asks what you suspect is actually foremost on her mind: "If you need it again, will be faster the second time around?"
You shake your head. "It doesn't work like that. It's part of me now, exactly like sorcerer's sight." Lisa opens her mouth to speak, but you hold up your hand. "I don't think there's a limit, either. When I look at them, they are like tiny stars in an infinite void."
Lisa just stares at you for a moment, then snorts. "And this is the girl who was going 'boo hoo, woe is me, my power sucks?'" She looks thoughtful, then adds "As much as it pains me to admit it, you really should join the Wards."
"Fuck the Wards," you respond automatically.
"No, seriously. Go to the PRT and introduce yourself as the lovechild of Dauntless and Eidolon. They'll keep you safe from everything and give you new powers to eat all day, every day, forever. Then by the time you graduate you and Dauntless Original Flavor can form the second Triumvirate together. Just the two of you, a second Triumvirate, because you'll be that strong."
"Perhaps I didn't speak clearly enough. Fuck. The. Wards." Lisa tries to say something, but you keep going. "I bet if you came to them as a Thinker... seven-ish, whatever, they would keep you safe and give you lots of interesting things to think about too. Yet here you are. Do you think I want to sit around being treated like a combination house pet/nuclear weapon? To hang out with assholes and be bossed around by cunts all day long, forever?"
Did she think the prospect of free powers would make you forget about Shadow Stalker, and what her superiors let her do? You'd rather join the Slaughterhouse 9 than the Wards.
Lisa holds up her hands. "Fine, forget I said anything. But if you go independent you're going to have to keep a low profile. The lowest. If the truth gets out everyone will be after you. At the same time, you need to get more powerful fast. You're still a pure Thinker in a world full of Blasters and Brutes."
"I can handle myself, thanks." You're a Brute too. Barely.
"Not saying you can't, not saying you can't. There's just, uh, I have this friend who I could probably be convinced to let you study their power, who'll keep their mouth shut about it. Do you-"
"I said, I can handle myself." No, you're not being unreasonable or unfair to your only friend because you're angry at someone completely unrelated. Shut up, tiny voice.
"At least take this." She hands you a cellphone. "It's just a cheap burner with my number on it. In case anything comes up, or if you want to brag about your exploits, or whatever." When you inevitably get in trouble and need my help, she doesn't say, very loudly.
You nod stiffly and accept the proffered phone, because you're being reasonable. It's not like you need ever use it.
You exchange farewells, and you don't even flip the bird over your shoulder when you hear her mutter about how she's 'not letting all that effort go to waste'.
===
This is where I head off Taylor joining the Wards, which would make for a non-story, and Taylor joining Coil, which would make for a light-hearted comedy. I need something juicier and more grimderp.
With the introductory chapters out of the way, expect another 10-15kB per day, five days per week. Or rather don't expect that, because it's a fan fiction writer telling you they'll keep to a schedule. Expect it to end suddenly and disappointingly.
With the introductory chapters out of the way, expect another 10-15kB per day, five days per week. Or rather don't expect that, because it's a fan fiction writer telling you they'll keep to a schedule. Expect it to end suddenly and disappointingly.
This is also where I reveal the basic conceit of CLS: You have your one starter Charm, and the only way to gain more is to use it to study other parahumans. All charms count as out-of-caste and cannot be learned without a 'teacher', but also ignore all prerequisites.
Charms:
Taylor: All-encompassing Sorcerer's Sight
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Quests:
John 'Test Subject' Doe: Wants a date with Miss Militia
Tattletale: Wants Coil dead
Taylor: All-encompassing Sorcerer's Sight
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Quests:
John 'Test Subject' Doe: Wants a date with Miss Militia
Tattletale: Wants Coil dead
S.01
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
- Messages
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- 16,616
You have time to cool off a bit on the way home. Lisa was just trying to help, you realize. You should probably apologize for biting her head off like that. It's what a good person would do. Yet, it seems that you really don't want to. Guess you're not a good person.
Even that aside, alienating someone so resourceful and potentially helpful - who appears to be loyal even without soul's price shenanigans - is just stupid. A simple text message saying 'sorry' would do it. Five letters and you're done. Hell, three letters would do.
Your new cellphone remains in your pocket. Guess you're not a smart person either.
Another worrying thought hits you as you enter your house. You haven't been to school in a week. You didn't even consider it an option, not when you could be getting a new power instead. Now that you have it... you're not regretting your choices, not for a moment. It's just that you've started to consider consequences again.
Your dad hasn't said anything. Surely he must know. The school must have called. You barely even talk to each other anymore, but he's still very protective. He'd especially want to protect you from yourself. Probably because he's learned firsthand how bad things can get when you just stop caring about things, you think sourly.
Yet this evening passes like any other, in that familiar uncomfortable silence, broken only by token queries and formulaic answers.
Maybe... maybe there's been a mixup at school. You only went back very briefly last Monday. There was that one roll call, yes, but maybe they think you were marked as present by mistake. After all, you didn't show up for any other classes that day. Or that week. They might think that you're still in the hospital.
If so, that's... nice, but it's going to blow up in your face any day now. But you're not going to let that bother you now. You have a brand new power itching to be used. Tomorrow is the first day of your new career.
---
A fresh new day, and you already have a plan. It's simple really, it goes something like this:
1. Find parahuman, know soul's price
2. Do huge favor, gain loyalty
3. Request favor in return: Let me study your power
You don't worry about the tiny bit of mind control that's going to help said loyalty along. Gratitude is good! The world could use more of it. Sure, someone who really wanted to could paint what you're setting out to do in a negative light, with cackling and world domination and 'all shall love me and despair'. But that's not what you're about. Yes, you're going to discover people's deepest secrets and use your knowledge to control their behavior. That sounds bad. But you're going to do it by helping them get the thing they desperately want. It's like the opposite of blackmail.
Yes, you're going to be a hero. Or, an anti-villain at worst. Slightly Morally Ambiguous Santa Claus. Though you're going to need a better cape name than that. Or, ideally, you wouldn't need one, because if everything goes perfectly no one will even realize that you're using a power on them. Hah. Yeah, you're not going to rely on everything going perfectly.
But if it does... why, everything is just going to get easier and easier as you go along. Pretend for a moment that the random dude from yesterday had been a cape. Then as soon as you helped Miss Militia, you could simply ask her to go an a date with him. Boom, two powers for the price of one.
Which is not to say that there won't be challenges to this, uh, reverse blackmail scheme. First problem: Actually interacting with people to learn their secrets. You're hardly about to walk into ABB territory and announce "hi, I'd like to have a brief conversation with Lung," you're not sui- you're not stupid.
Even heroes present a problem. You're not going to be joining the Wards (fuck the Wards), so you'd have to find some other way to get to them. You could try walking around alone in the bad parts of town at night, and hope that someone shows up to save you when you inevitably get robbed and/or raped. This is clearly a terrible idea. You could also try robbing people yourself, and then banter with the heroes when they show up to stop you. Also a terrible idea.
No, you're going to have to catch them in their civilian identity. Which in and of itself is not hard, everyone knows the Wards all go to school at Arcadia. You know better of course, but most of them probably go there. All you have to do is hang around outside Arcadia with sorcerer's sight on and you'll pick them out in no time at all. You're even too young and female to be arrested for creepily lurking outside a school all day.
But that still leaves the issue of the approach. You're going to need some extremely plausible deniability each time you do it. If they just tell to fuck off, they're busy people, that's a best case scenario. Worst case they begin to wonder why you're accosting them specifically - didn't their teammate mention that they were also being stalked by an ugly brunette the other day? - and then you wake up in an interrogation room surrounded by angry people with superpowers.
---
You spent most of high school being flat broke. Because literally everything that you brought to school would eventually end up either stolen or destroyed. Including clothes and school books. So you had to keep buying replacements. But since the... the...
The locker. You don't have to be afraid of the word any more. The locker was good. The locker gave you powers. Good powers. Deep breaths.
Since the locker plan involved several months of not ruining your shit, you were able to accumulate some modest savings. Of course nothing you stored in the locker was salvageable, but since you're not going back to school you don't need to worry about replacing it either.
First up, contact lenses. Who has ever seen a cape with glasses? You get a month's supply of disposable one-day lenses to start with.
Next, weapons. Until you get real combat powers, you'll just have to shore up your Brute 0 durability with ordinary weapons. No guns, though. Even disregarding the issues of finding someone willing to sell to a gun to a fifteen-year-old, you noticed that capes don't tend use guns. Even though cops have them and - this is the really strange part, now that you think about it - a regular handgun is actually better than the powers of several successful heroes. Another unwritten rules thing? You'll have to ask Lisa.
Instead, you end up settling for a small canister of pepper spray. You should probably get a knife as well. Problem is you don't know anything about knives.
You size up the guy manning the register. Exactly the kind of man you'd expect to see running a survival/sporting goods/self-defense store. He clearly loves the constitution, especially the second amendment. Maybe not so much thirteen through fifteen. You figure a direct approach would be best.
"Perhaps you can recommend me a good knife," you say.
"What would you be using it for?"
"If the pepper spray doesn't work, I'd like to be able to stab my attacker in the dick."
He nods approvingly at your attitude, but seems concerned about your competence. "Do you know how to use a knife?" he asks.
Turns out that 'pointy end goes in the bad guy?' is not considered sufficient expertise. So you get a lecture on the history, philosophy and morality of self defense and the act of carrying a deadly weapon. Also a brief digression on the unbearable embarrassment inherent in being stabbed to death with your own knife after the bad guy wrestles it away from you, and a scrawled note with the phone number of a guy who gives lessons in knife fighting.
Those formalities out of the way, he shows you several combat knives, discussing their relative merits at length. You end up just picking the cheapest one, though. Good knives are more expensive than you thought! You're pretty much broke again.
No matter. Perhaps you'll- holy shit is that who you think it is? It is! What are the odds? You're not even using sorcerer's sight to scan the crowd for random capes, because you thought it was too unlikely to succeed. You're not going to question it, though. You figure the universe owes you a few hundred lucky breaks.
Don't stop, don't stare. Pretend you didn't notice, circle around. You need a plan. You can't just approach directly, because a) it won't work, celebrities don't just stop and chat like that, and b) you can't be seen deliberately approaching any cape, even one with a public identity. You must avoid that pattern of behavior entirely.
Okay, you've got this. You have a plan.
---
Oh god, this is the worst plan. You can't believe you thought this was a good plan. But you have to keep going. There's your target, and there's a car, right on cue. You'll never have a better chance.
You step into the street. For a brief moment your world is full of car horn and screeching tires, then it's full of pain and you're flying through the air. You have to protect your head, she can't heal brains, you have to protect your head but you have no idea which way is up and you can't seem to move your arms properly.
By pure luck you land mostly on your butt. Your new purchases dig into your back as your backpack 'cushions' the impact, and your head hits the pavement relatively gently. The more impressionable bystanders have started screaming. You just lie there with your eyes closed, waiting for the pain to go away. Someone gently touches your neck, and it does. See, perfect plan. You don't know what you were fretting about earlier.
"Oh god, is she going to be all right?"
Your eyes snap open and fasten on an old man standing next to you, wringing his hands and generally looking terrified and miserable. Oh wait, you recognize him. It's the driver, you caught a brief glimpse of him before you became airborne.
"She just appeared right in front of me, there was nothing I could do. Please tell me she's going to be all right."
All of a sudden you're filled with guilt and shame. This wasn't part of the plan. You never considered to feelings of the driver of the car you were going to use as a prop. Or to be more precise, it didn't even occur to you that you might encounter a non-asshole who wouldn't just yell at you for denting his car with your clumsy body.
"Please-" There's a lump in our throat. "Please forgive me."
He seems taken aback. "Young lady, I-"
"It was entirely my fault," you interrupt him. "I did not watch where I was going. I deeply regret subjecting you to such a traumatic experience. Please, may I have your forgiveness?"
"She's going to be all right," Panacea interjects. "She was hurt pretty badly, but it's nothing that I can't fix."
"Was you car damaged?" you ask. "I, I can help pay for repairs." 'You totally can't, you're broke!', a small voice inside your head screams.
"No, no! There's just a bit of, uh- it wasn't damaged."
"Then please, don't let me take up any more of your time. I'm fine. I'm being tended to by the greatest healer in the world-" You break off as you realize one element that you had forgotten to account for in your plans. Panacea can only fix people. But a quick check reveals that your glasses are still on your face, still intact.
"-and I didn't even break my glasses," you finish. "If you could put this shameful incident entirely from your mind, nothing could make me happier."
Did you really just say that? Perhaps you scrambled your brains a little bit after all, because apparently your speech patterns regressed several centuries in an attempt to convey the intensity of your feelings. At least the driver seems to take it at face value. He nods awkwardly to you before returning to his vehicle.
Panacea, on the other hand, is giving you a somewhat skeptical look. "All done," she announces. She grabs your hand to help you stand up. "On your feet, victim girl."
Well, at least the unexpected genuine guilt was good practice for the next step of the plan.
"I'm so terribly sorry," you tell her. "I know you work so hard to help those in need, and here I go wasting what little free time you have with more work." Panacea still looks skeptical, but maybe a little pleased, too.
"It's no trouble", she says, "I could hardly have left you dying in the street."
"Still, I feel terrible about it." You don't actually feel terrible about it. Panacea is a second-generation cape, she can deal. "Can I make it up to you somehow? Buy you dinner?"
She shakes her head.
"A coffee, at least?" you try.
"Thanks, but I really have to go. Just try to be more careful in the future."
Panacea wants her sister to reciprocate her romantic feelings
Wow. That's, uh. Wow. Luckily, no one will think it odd if you just stand there for a while, staring after your savior like an idiot. Because that's what you're going to do.
That, that sure is a can of worms. No, you're not going to mindrape Glory Girl, that's not the issue. But if you someday got a power that could, the most ethical thing might actually be to mindrape Panacea into being less of a deranged pervert (and then reapply soul's price for a second try). After all, if there is such a power out there Panacea could try to get it from the original source, and that is Not OK.
Irregardless (you feel a need to compensate for your earlier overly formal language), that's a problem for another day. You turn away and lose yourself in the crowd.
You regret that you didn't catch her healing you with sorcerer's sight, but you couldn't risk turning it on. With every function of your body laid out for her inspection, the very last thing you wanted to hear from her was "what's going on with your optic nerve? Are you a cape?" You had to gamble on her not noticing your Brute 0 powers as it was.
You seem to have dodged that particular bullet, but you have to face the really glaringly obvious flaw in your plan that you really should have seen coming: These are people with superhuman powers you're targeting. Whatever it is that they want, that they don't already have, is going to be fucking difficult to acquire.
Especially since you entirely lack powers to help with step 2. You, uh, you should probably call up Lisa, apologize to her and ask her to hook you up with that friend she mentioned.
No! You can't just let a single setback demoralize you like that. If reverse blackmail isn't working, what else can you do? How about, reverse vigilantism? Where you patrol the streets at night, trying to not stop crime. Where instead of hunting criminals, you hunt heroes hunting criminals, and secretly study them with sorcerer's sight.
Ok, so what are the glaringly obvious flaws that you really should have seen coming with this plan?
1. Dangerous. Without combat powers, it's basically a thinly disguised version of your rejected "get mugged, hope for heroes" plan.
2. Fights don't last very long. A few minutes at most. It took you something like 50 hours to copy Lisa's power. Maybe it will be easier next time, but not that much easier.
3. Capes with Mover powers will use them for the entire duration of their patrol. But the whole point of Mover powers is that you, the (mostly) baseline human, can't keep up with them.
Yeah, you sure are glad you saw those glaringly obvious flaws in advance. So what else can you do? Why, you could infiltrate one of the existing cape groups in the city. Then you could hang out with them, and spar with them, and challenge them to power using contests. All the while, unbeknownst to them, using sorcerer's sight!
Yes, this seems like an excellent plan. Now, how to go about it?
God dammit, more glaringly obvious flaws! Fine, you'll bloody well call Lisa and apologize and ask for her help like a goddamn adult. You get your phone out, but hesitate with your finger over the call button. You still really don't want to do this. You'll text her like goddamn teenager, you decide.
> Sorry about blowing up on you yesterday. I'd like you to introduce me to your friend.
< k, will get bck 2 u w/ deets
Clearly you have some things to learn about texting like a goddamn teenager.
Still, it's done. You've got a line on a new power to help with step 2, or infiltration, or whatever it turns out to be. Yes, you're back on the pity train, but at least you didn't buy a first class ticket. All it cost you was a piece of your soul- ok, fine your actual soul has golden stars in it. A piece of your self-respect. You weren't using it anyway.
=====
Even that aside, alienating someone so resourceful and potentially helpful - who appears to be loyal even without soul's price shenanigans - is just stupid. A simple text message saying 'sorry' would do it. Five letters and you're done. Hell, three letters would do.
Your new cellphone remains in your pocket. Guess you're not a smart person either.
Another worrying thought hits you as you enter your house. You haven't been to school in a week. You didn't even consider it an option, not when you could be getting a new power instead. Now that you have it... you're not regretting your choices, not for a moment. It's just that you've started to consider consequences again.
Your dad hasn't said anything. Surely he must know. The school must have called. You barely even talk to each other anymore, but he's still very protective. He'd especially want to protect you from yourself. Probably because he's learned firsthand how bad things can get when you just stop caring about things, you think sourly.
Yet this evening passes like any other, in that familiar uncomfortable silence, broken only by token queries and formulaic answers.
Maybe... maybe there's been a mixup at school. You only went back very briefly last Monday. There was that one roll call, yes, but maybe they think you were marked as present by mistake. After all, you didn't show up for any other classes that day. Or that week. They might think that you're still in the hospital.
If so, that's... nice, but it's going to blow up in your face any day now. But you're not going to let that bother you now. You have a brand new power itching to be used. Tomorrow is the first day of your new career.
---
A fresh new day, and you already have a plan. It's simple really, it goes something like this:
1. Find parahuman, know soul's price
2. Do huge favor, gain loyalty
3. Request favor in return: Let me study your power
You don't worry about the tiny bit of mind control that's going to help said loyalty along. Gratitude is good! The world could use more of it. Sure, someone who really wanted to could paint what you're setting out to do in a negative light, with cackling and world domination and 'all shall love me and despair'. But that's not what you're about. Yes, you're going to discover people's deepest secrets and use your knowledge to control their behavior. That sounds bad. But you're going to do it by helping them get the thing they desperately want. It's like the opposite of blackmail.
Yes, you're going to be a hero. Or, an anti-villain at worst. Slightly Morally Ambiguous Santa Claus. Though you're going to need a better cape name than that. Or, ideally, you wouldn't need one, because if everything goes perfectly no one will even realize that you're using a power on them. Hah. Yeah, you're not going to rely on everything going perfectly.
But if it does... why, everything is just going to get easier and easier as you go along. Pretend for a moment that the random dude from yesterday had been a cape. Then as soon as you helped Miss Militia, you could simply ask her to go an a date with him. Boom, two powers for the price of one.
Which is not to say that there won't be challenges to this, uh, reverse blackmail scheme. First problem: Actually interacting with people to learn their secrets. You're hardly about to walk into ABB territory and announce "hi, I'd like to have a brief conversation with Lung," you're not sui- you're not stupid.
Even heroes present a problem. You're not going to be joining the Wards (fuck the Wards), so you'd have to find some other way to get to them. You could try walking around alone in the bad parts of town at night, and hope that someone shows up to save you when you inevitably get robbed and/or raped. This is clearly a terrible idea. You could also try robbing people yourself, and then banter with the heroes when they show up to stop you. Also a terrible idea.
No, you're going to have to catch them in their civilian identity. Which in and of itself is not hard, everyone knows the Wards all go to school at Arcadia. You know better of course, but most of them probably go there. All you have to do is hang around outside Arcadia with sorcerer's sight on and you'll pick them out in no time at all. You're even too young and female to be arrested for creepily lurking outside a school all day.
But that still leaves the issue of the approach. You're going to need some extremely plausible deniability each time you do it. If they just tell to fuck off, they're busy people, that's a best case scenario. Worst case they begin to wonder why you're accosting them specifically - didn't their teammate mention that they were also being stalked by an ugly brunette the other day? - and then you wake up in an interrogation room surrounded by angry people with superpowers.
---
You spent most of high school being flat broke. Because literally everything that you brought to school would eventually end up either stolen or destroyed. Including clothes and school books. So you had to keep buying replacements. But since the... the...
The locker. You don't have to be afraid of the word any more. The locker was good. The locker gave you powers. Good powers. Deep breaths.
Since the locker plan involved several months of not ruining your shit, you were able to accumulate some modest savings. Of course nothing you stored in the locker was salvageable, but since you're not going back to school you don't need to worry about replacing it either.
First up, contact lenses. Who has ever seen a cape with glasses? You get a month's supply of disposable one-day lenses to start with.
Next, weapons. Until you get real combat powers, you'll just have to shore up your Brute 0 durability with ordinary weapons. No guns, though. Even disregarding the issues of finding someone willing to sell to a gun to a fifteen-year-old, you noticed that capes don't tend use guns. Even though cops have them and - this is the really strange part, now that you think about it - a regular handgun is actually better than the powers of several successful heroes. Another unwritten rules thing? You'll have to ask Lisa.
Instead, you end up settling for a small canister of pepper spray. You should probably get a knife as well. Problem is you don't know anything about knives.
You size up the guy manning the register. Exactly the kind of man you'd expect to see running a survival/sporting goods/self-defense store. He clearly loves the constitution, especially the second amendment. Maybe not so much thirteen through fifteen. You figure a direct approach would be best.
"Perhaps you can recommend me a good knife," you say.
"What would you be using it for?"
"If the pepper spray doesn't work, I'd like to be able to stab my attacker in the dick."
He nods approvingly at your attitude, but seems concerned about your competence. "Do you know how to use a knife?" he asks.
Turns out that 'pointy end goes in the bad guy?' is not considered sufficient expertise. So you get a lecture on the history, philosophy and morality of self defense and the act of carrying a deadly weapon. Also a brief digression on the unbearable embarrassment inherent in being stabbed to death with your own knife after the bad guy wrestles it away from you, and a scrawled note with the phone number of a guy who gives lessons in knife fighting.
Those formalities out of the way, he shows you several combat knives, discussing their relative merits at length. You end up just picking the cheapest one, though. Good knives are more expensive than you thought! You're pretty much broke again.
No matter. Perhaps you'll- holy shit is that who you think it is? It is! What are the odds? You're not even using sorcerer's sight to scan the crowd for random capes, because you thought it was too unlikely to succeed. You're not going to question it, though. You figure the universe owes you a few hundred lucky breaks.
Don't stop, don't stare. Pretend you didn't notice, circle around. You need a plan. You can't just approach directly, because a) it won't work, celebrities don't just stop and chat like that, and b) you can't be seen deliberately approaching any cape, even one with a public identity. You must avoid that pattern of behavior entirely.
Okay, you've got this. You have a plan.
---
Oh god, this is the worst plan. You can't believe you thought this was a good plan. But you have to keep going. There's your target, and there's a car, right on cue. You'll never have a better chance.
You step into the street. For a brief moment your world is full of car horn and screeching tires, then it's full of pain and you're flying through the air. You have to protect your head, she can't heal brains, you have to protect your head but you have no idea which way is up and you can't seem to move your arms properly.
By pure luck you land mostly on your butt. Your new purchases dig into your back as your backpack 'cushions' the impact, and your head hits the pavement relatively gently. The more impressionable bystanders have started screaming. You just lie there with your eyes closed, waiting for the pain to go away. Someone gently touches your neck, and it does. See, perfect plan. You don't know what you were fretting about earlier.
"Oh god, is she going to be all right?"
Your eyes snap open and fasten on an old man standing next to you, wringing his hands and generally looking terrified and miserable. Oh wait, you recognize him. It's the driver, you caught a brief glimpse of him before you became airborne.
"She just appeared right in front of me, there was nothing I could do. Please tell me she's going to be all right."
All of a sudden you're filled with guilt and shame. This wasn't part of the plan. You never considered to feelings of the driver of the car you were going to use as a prop. Or to be more precise, it didn't even occur to you that you might encounter a non-asshole who wouldn't just yell at you for denting his car with your clumsy body.
"Please-" There's a lump in our throat. "Please forgive me."
He seems taken aback. "Young lady, I-"
"It was entirely my fault," you interrupt him. "I did not watch where I was going. I deeply regret subjecting you to such a traumatic experience. Please, may I have your forgiveness?"
"She's going to be all right," Panacea interjects. "She was hurt pretty badly, but it's nothing that I can't fix."
"Was you car damaged?" you ask. "I, I can help pay for repairs." 'You totally can't, you're broke!', a small voice inside your head screams.
"No, no! There's just a bit of, uh- it wasn't damaged."
"Then please, don't let me take up any more of your time. I'm fine. I'm being tended to by the greatest healer in the world-" You break off as you realize one element that you had forgotten to account for in your plans. Panacea can only fix people. But a quick check reveals that your glasses are still on your face, still intact.
"-and I didn't even break my glasses," you finish. "If you could put this shameful incident entirely from your mind, nothing could make me happier."
Did you really just say that? Perhaps you scrambled your brains a little bit after all, because apparently your speech patterns regressed several centuries in an attempt to convey the intensity of your feelings. At least the driver seems to take it at face value. He nods awkwardly to you before returning to his vehicle.
Panacea, on the other hand, is giving you a somewhat skeptical look. "All done," she announces. She grabs your hand to help you stand up. "On your feet, victim girl."
Well, at least the unexpected genuine guilt was good practice for the next step of the plan.
"I'm so terribly sorry," you tell her. "I know you work so hard to help those in need, and here I go wasting what little free time you have with more work." Panacea still looks skeptical, but maybe a little pleased, too.
"It's no trouble", she says, "I could hardly have left you dying in the street."
"Still, I feel terrible about it." You don't actually feel terrible about it. Panacea is a second-generation cape, she can deal. "Can I make it up to you somehow? Buy you dinner?"
She shakes her head.
"A coffee, at least?" you try.
"Thanks, but I really have to go. Just try to be more careful in the future."
Panacea wants her sister to reciprocate her romantic feelings
Wow. That's, uh. Wow. Luckily, no one will think it odd if you just stand there for a while, staring after your savior like an idiot. Because that's what you're going to do.
That, that sure is a can of worms. No, you're not going to mindrape Glory Girl, that's not the issue. But if you someday got a power that could, the most ethical thing might actually be to mindrape Panacea into being less of a deranged pervert (and then reapply soul's price for a second try). After all, if there is such a power out there Panacea could try to get it from the original source, and that is Not OK.
Irregardless (you feel a need to compensate for your earlier overly formal language), that's a problem for another day. You turn away and lose yourself in the crowd.
You regret that you didn't catch her healing you with sorcerer's sight, but you couldn't risk turning it on. With every function of your body laid out for her inspection, the very last thing you wanted to hear from her was "what's going on with your optic nerve? Are you a cape?" You had to gamble on her not noticing your Brute 0 powers as it was.
You seem to have dodged that particular bullet, but you have to face the really glaringly obvious flaw in your plan that you really should have seen coming: These are people with superhuman powers you're targeting. Whatever it is that they want, that they don't already have, is going to be fucking difficult to acquire.
Especially since you entirely lack powers to help with step 2. You, uh, you should probably call up Lisa, apologize to her and ask her to hook you up with that friend she mentioned.
No! You can't just let a single setback demoralize you like that. If reverse blackmail isn't working, what else can you do? How about, reverse vigilantism? Where you patrol the streets at night, trying to not stop crime. Where instead of hunting criminals, you hunt heroes hunting criminals, and secretly study them with sorcerer's sight.
Ok, so what are the glaringly obvious flaws that you really should have seen coming with this plan?
1. Dangerous. Without combat powers, it's basically a thinly disguised version of your rejected "get mugged, hope for heroes" plan.
2. Fights don't last very long. A few minutes at most. It took you something like 50 hours to copy Lisa's power. Maybe it will be easier next time, but not that much easier.
3. Capes with Mover powers will use them for the entire duration of their patrol. But the whole point of Mover powers is that you, the (mostly) baseline human, can't keep up with them.
Yeah, you sure are glad you saw those glaringly obvious flaws in advance. So what else can you do? Why, you could infiltrate one of the existing cape groups in the city. Then you could hang out with them, and spar with them, and challenge them to power using contests. All the while, unbeknownst to them, using sorcerer's sight!
Yes, this seems like an excellent plan. Now, how to go about it?
ABB
-get combat power
-be asian
--get Changer power
Merchants
-get combat power
-be addicted to drugs
--drugs are bad for you
Empire 88
-get combat power
-be white ✓
Coil
-nope nope nope nope
--pancakes are bad for you
---staying the hell away from pancakes is not just a good idea, it's also a promise
Faultline's Crew
-get combat power
-just hire them, they are mercenaries
--get money (what do mercenaries even cost?)
The Undersiders
-choo choo all aboard the pity train
Uber & Leet
-become fake gamer girl
--have tits
---get Changer power
Wards
-fuck the wards
New Wave
-get combat power
-reveal identity
-be part of the Pelham/Dallon extended family
--marry Shielder?
Wards 2, Arcadia Infiltrationist
-get transferred to Arcadia
--reverse blackmail school administrator
Protectorate
-get combat power
-be 18+ years old
--get Changer power
--new persona must stand up to government scrutiny
---identity theft
----stop making plans that hurt innocents
-get combat power
-be asian
--get Changer power
-get combat power
-be addicted to drugs
--drugs are bad for you
Empire 88
-get combat power
-be white ✓
-nope nope nope nope
--pancakes are bad for you
---staying the hell away from pancakes is not just a good idea, it's also a promise
Faultline's Crew
-just hire them, they are mercenaries
--get money (what do mercenaries even cost?)
-choo choo all aboard the pity train
Uber & Leet
-become fake gamer girl
--have tits
---get Changer power
-fuck the wards
-get combat power
-reveal identity
-be part of the Pelham/Dallon extended family
--marry Shielder?
Wards 2, Arcadia Infiltrationist
-get transferred to Arcadia
--reverse blackmail school administrator
-get combat power
-be 18+ years old
--get Changer power
--new persona must stand up to government scrutiny
---identity theft
----stop making plans that hurt innocents
God dammit, more glaringly obvious flaws! Fine, you'll bloody well call Lisa and apologize and ask for her help like a goddamn adult. You get your phone out, but hesitate with your finger over the call button. You still really don't want to do this. You'll text her like goddamn teenager, you decide.
> Sorry about blowing up on you yesterday. I'd like you to introduce me to your friend.
< k, will get bck 2 u w/ deets
Clearly you have some things to learn about texting like a goddamn teenager.
Still, it's done. You've got a line on a new power to help with step 2, or infiltration, or whatever it turns out to be. Yes, you're back on the pity train, but at least you didn't buy a first class ticket. All it cost you was a piece of your soul- ok, fine your actual soul has golden stars in it. A piece of your self-respect. You weren't using it anyway.
=====
Yes, Panacea now knows you're a parahuman. But she's not entirely sure whether you know, because all she saw was an active Gemma and the weakest Brute power in the entire world. Can people trigger without noticing?
Quests:
John Q. Randomguy : Wants a date with Miss Militia
Tattletale: Wants to kill her boss, but you don't know that part yet
Panacea: Wants to get in her sister's pants
John Q. Randomguy : Wants a date with Miss Militia
Tattletale: Wants to kill her boss, but you don't know that part yet
Panacea: Wants to get in her sister's pants
S.02
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
- Messages
- 245
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- 16,616
When you get back home you find your dad waiting for you. From his expression you can tell that yeah, that thing you thought could blow up in your face at any moment? You were right.
"Taylor," he says, "I got a call from the school today."
You nod. "I thought you might." You don't bother trying to deny anything.
"Why?" he asks. The word is plaintive, a plea for understanding.
"Did you think I had a good time at school?" you snarl. "You saw what they did to me, and you ask me why?"
"You can't just drop out!"
"Of course I can! People drop out of school all the time!"
He turns away from you, his hands squeezing into fists. After several deep breaths, still staring at the wall, he manages to ask "What have you been doing all day for the last week?"
You've been... hah, that's funny. "I've been studying with my friend Lisa."
Your dad turns back to you, incredulity overcoming his anger. "Studying?"
"Honest to god, I've never studied so hard in my life."
"You've been skipping school so you could study in peace." He shakes his head in disbelief and sits down on the couch. "Oh, Taylor. Annette would be so proud of you. And even angrier than I am! It doesn't work that way. Life isn't that easy."
"Yeah, I know." You sit down next to him, and for a while neither of you knows what to say next.
Oh right, you have powers now. There's no reason not to know his soul's price.
Danny wants you to be happy.
That- that makes sense. In retrospect, it's not even the least bit surprising. He's your dad. Of course he's prepared to sell his soul for you. That's just things working as intended.
Oh goddammit, you're crying now. That's not good. That's the opposite of what you're supposed to be doing. You're supposed to be happy, for your dad's sake. The knowledge that you're fucking it all up just makes you cry harder.
He's hugging you now, and making soothing noises. He's also clearly panicking because he has no idea what to say to you beyond that.
You snort, and hiccup. Things dad is prepared to do for you: Sell his soul, yes. Have a real conversation, no. That's funny. A little bit funny, and a whole lot sad. Also, if you're being honest with yourself, clearly a hereditary trait. Could you please be an adult for once?
"I- I'm sorry dad," you manage to get out. "I know you want me to be happy, but I, I don't think I can do that right now. Can we just be sadbuddies instead?"
He makes a noise halfway between a laugh and a sob. "Sadbuddies," he agrees.
"I promise I'll go back to school tomorrow," you say. "I'll try to work things out." It's not that he's convinced you of the merits of school contra the anti-villain dropout lifestyle. You were just reminded that you can use your powers on regular people too. You're going to go to school and wait for Emma to interact with you, and then you're going to figure out what the fuck her problem is.
---
Ah, Winslow. Coming back instantly fills you with anti-nostalgia.
But at least you were missed, right? "Welcome back, Taylor," Julia says sweetly as she steps out in front of you. When you try to go around her, she shoves you back. "How rude!" she exclaims in mock horror. Then she leans forward and very carefully and deliberately spits in your face. "Civilized people respond when someone greets them, you know."
You forcefully shove her aside and wipe your face on your sleeve as you walk away. She calls after you, something about you having STDs? Whatever. She's not Emma, this is not the interaction you are here for.
---
"Taylor, you don't have your books," the teacher says.
"Tough," you respond. The teacher moves on with nothing more than a mild glare. Yes, you're one of the Problem Kids now, not worth the effort. Thanks for noticing.
---
Finally. Fucking finally you're curled up in a fetal position, surrounded by people hurling abuse at you. Took them long enough. Sophia is kicking you for real this time around, because you've been sassing them back. Interaction is a two-way street, after all. Now you just need to wait for them to stop.
Sophia is the first to turn away, maybe her leg was getting tired?
Sophia wants to be able to leave the Wards without going to prison.
You can't help but to laugh. She isn't even a real hero. She's a fucking felon that they are blackmailing into fighting for them. And they're still covering for her. Fuck this city and fuck the Wards. Sideways, with a cactus.
Emma stares at you. "You're broken, Taylor," she declares. "There is something deeply wrong with you." With that rather weak finish, she too walks off.
Emma wants you to fight back, so you can be friends again.
Jesus Christ, you have got to stop being flabbergasted at every other soul's price you uncover. You almost missed Madison leaving as well.
Madison wants to marry a rich, handsome man and live in a big house and have lots of beautiful children.
It's all you can do to stop yourself from running after Madison and hugging her. Such a normal, well-adjusted desire, what is she even doing here? You do feel brief pang of worry, though. Well-adjusted people are going to be fucking impossible to reverse blackmail. A corollary of sorts to the 'can't con an honest man' rule, you guess.
Good thing that well-adjusted people appear to be few and far between. Literally 0% of the parahuman population examined so far qualify, yourself included. Which makes sense given, you know, trigger events. Though Panacea is second-gen, her trigger should have been hardly traumatic at all. Hm. You'll need to collect more data points before you present your scholarly thesis: Parahumans be fucked in the head, yo. Presented by Dr Hebert, capefuckedologist.
Speaking of fucked in the head, good thing also that your reputation around these parts is already zero. Because you sure aren't doing it any favors by lying on the floor and giggling to yourself like this.
Seriously though, what the hell Emma? What is even going on in that psycho bitch brain of yours? That shit is so fucked up, you may have to declare her an honorary parahuman. No matter how you try, you can not make sense of it.
This is going to require more research.
---
Emma lives in a much nicer part of town than you. 'Unofficial Empire territory', jealous people call it, because it's populated almost entirely by rich white people. Because of this, and because it's so far from the bad parts of down (insulated by, for example, your own neighborhood) it's very safe. So safe that a young girl would think nothing of taking a shortcut through a park on her way home, even after dark.
Which is not a very safe thing to do at all. Who knows what dangerous people might have been following her, waiting for a chance to strike?
"Taylor? What- oof!" Emma lands badly when you push her down and has the breath knocked out of her. When she tries to sit up, you kick her as hard as you can in the stomach. She rolls over on her hands and knees, retching.
"Is this what you wanted?" you ask. She doesn't answer, she just tries to crawl away from you. You throw yourself on top of her, driving her into the ground. You find yourself filled with an unexpected, savage joy. You're finally using your Brute 0 powers for their intended purpose: Beating the shit out of a fifteen year old bully.
Her struggles are entirely futile. You seat yourself on her back to keep her in place, and twist one of her arms back to make her behave.
"Am I fighting back hard enough?" you ask.
"What are- I- you- aaaah!" She doesn't seem interested in behaving, so you twist her arm harder. She doesn't make much sense, either.
"I have a knife, you know," you remark. Emma finally goes still, except for the trembling.
"Please explain to me how this works," you continue. "You wanted me to fight back, so that we could be friends. But you don't seem very friendly yet. Do I need to fight back harder? Do I need to beat you down until our positions are completely reversed? Until you are the ugly one that everyone hates? Should I mark up that pretty face of yours? Should I cut off your ears, or maybe your nose? Please tell me, Emma, because," you lean down and whisper in her ear, "I would really like to be your friend again."
"Oh god, please- I'll be your friend, Taylor, please, just- forgive me, I was wrong, oh god please forgive me!"
Well. It's good that you are friends, but she still doesn't make much sense. The crying doesn't help, maybe you should ease up on her a bit.
"What were you wrong about, friend?" you ask. You don't get up from her back, but you do release her arm.
"You were- I-" she takes a long shuddering breath. "Sophia, she said you were weak. She said I was weak too, but I could learn to be strong. I just needed to practice. To fake it till I make it."
"By preying on the weak," you supply.
"Yes! But I knew, I knew you were strong, stronger than me, you'd fight back, she'd see you were strong, and then we could all be friends."
"Only I never did."
"No! I, I started to doubt. I thought I had been wrong. I started to hate you for being weak, Taylor, for letting me down. Please forgive me! Deep down-"
"You always held out hope. Yes, I know. I could tell." Holy twisted fuckballs, you actually understand where this girl is coming from now.
You understand very well indeed.
"Do you understand why, now? Why I did it?" you ask.
"N-no..?"
You sigh. "Look at yourself, Emma. You're pathetic. You could never be strong. But you were my best friend. I played at being weak, so that you could play at being strong."
"No!"
"All that time, Emma. Every day. You wouldn't have lasted a month, in my place. Would you?"
"...no."
"But the locker was a step too far. So I decided to stop playing. I gave you one and a half years of pleasant dreams, Emma, but it's time to wake up now. And like that," you snap your fingers, "the illusion is shattered and the natural order restored. You see that now, don't you?"
"...yes."
You stand up, and help Emma do likewise.
"I'm glad we had this talk, old friend," you say.
She stares at you, then bursts into tears again. "It'll never work," she sobs. "It's been too long. Sophia would never understand. The three of us can never- never-"
"No, that's true," you agree. "But if you could go back, would you want to change it? To do it the other way around? With Sophia realizing what you are, and me by her side?"
"No." She shudders. "Thank you for sparing me that, Taylor."
"Sophia is troubling," you admit. "I won't have any more trouble from you, or those you influence-" Emma fervently shakes her head at this "-but you could not stay her in her course. Alas, there can only be one apex predator, and I do not wish to kill her. She must be allowed to keep dreaming, for now."
At the mention of killing Emma draws back from you, her face pale. "I- I should be getting home," she says.
You step forward and lay a hand on her shoulder. "One more thing before you go, friend. I require a favor."
"Of course, anything!"
"I'm going to need your books."
"My books?"
"Yes, your school books. You see, mine were all ruined in a curious accident."
If Emma was looking scared before, now she looks like she's about to throw up from sheer terror. It's a good look on her, you decide.
"If you come to school early tomorrow, I'll have them all for you," she says, stumbling over the words in her rush to get them out.
"That would be excellent. Thank you, old friend." You let go of her shoulder, and she flees into the night. When you turn on your sorcerer's sight, you manage to catch a glimpse of a nice healthy Loyalty shining inside her.
You have to admit, when you told your dad that you would go back to school and work things out, you kinda thought you were lying. You can't wait to get home and tell him the good news.
=====
"Taylor," he says, "I got a call from the school today."
You nod. "I thought you might." You don't bother trying to deny anything.
"Why?" he asks. The word is plaintive, a plea for understanding.
"Did you think I had a good time at school?" you snarl. "You saw what they did to me, and you ask me why?"
"You can't just drop out!"
"Of course I can! People drop out of school all the time!"
He turns away from you, his hands squeezing into fists. After several deep breaths, still staring at the wall, he manages to ask "What have you been doing all day for the last week?"
You've been... hah, that's funny. "I've been studying with my friend Lisa."
Your dad turns back to you, incredulity overcoming his anger. "Studying?"
"Honest to god, I've never studied so hard in my life."
"You've been skipping school so you could study in peace." He shakes his head in disbelief and sits down on the couch. "Oh, Taylor. Annette would be so proud of you. And even angrier than I am! It doesn't work that way. Life isn't that easy."
"Yeah, I know." You sit down next to him, and for a while neither of you knows what to say next.
Oh right, you have powers now. There's no reason not to know his soul's price.
Danny wants you to be happy.
That- that makes sense. In retrospect, it's not even the least bit surprising. He's your dad. Of course he's prepared to sell his soul for you. That's just things working as intended.
Oh goddammit, you're crying now. That's not good. That's the opposite of what you're supposed to be doing. You're supposed to be happy, for your dad's sake. The knowledge that you're fucking it all up just makes you cry harder.
He's hugging you now, and making soothing noises. He's also clearly panicking because he has no idea what to say to you beyond that.
You snort, and hiccup. Things dad is prepared to do for you: Sell his soul, yes. Have a real conversation, no. That's funny. A little bit funny, and a whole lot sad. Also, if you're being honest with yourself, clearly a hereditary trait. Could you please be an adult for once?
"I- I'm sorry dad," you manage to get out. "I know you want me to be happy, but I, I don't think I can do that right now. Can we just be sadbuddies instead?"
He makes a noise halfway between a laugh and a sob. "Sadbuddies," he agrees.
"I promise I'll go back to school tomorrow," you say. "I'll try to work things out." It's not that he's convinced you of the merits of school contra the anti-villain dropout lifestyle. You were just reminded that you can use your powers on regular people too. You're going to go to school and wait for Emma to interact with you, and then you're going to figure out what the fuck her problem is.
---
Ah, Winslow. Coming back instantly fills you with anti-nostalgia.
But at least you were missed, right? "Welcome back, Taylor," Julia says sweetly as she steps out in front of you. When you try to go around her, she shoves you back. "How rude!" she exclaims in mock horror. Then she leans forward and very carefully and deliberately spits in your face. "Civilized people respond when someone greets them, you know."
You forcefully shove her aside and wipe your face on your sleeve as you walk away. She calls after you, something about you having STDs? Whatever. She's not Emma, this is not the interaction you are here for.
---
"Taylor, you don't have your books," the teacher says.
"Tough," you respond. The teacher moves on with nothing more than a mild glare. Yes, you're one of the Problem Kids now, not worth the effort. Thanks for noticing.
---
Finally. Fucking finally you're curled up in a fetal position, surrounded by people hurling abuse at you. Took them long enough. Sophia is kicking you for real this time around, because you've been sassing them back. Interaction is a two-way street, after all. Now you just need to wait for them to stop.
Sophia is the first to turn away, maybe her leg was getting tired?
Sophia wants to be able to leave the Wards without going to prison.
You can't help but to laugh. She isn't even a real hero. She's a fucking felon that they are blackmailing into fighting for them. And they're still covering for her. Fuck this city and fuck the Wards. Sideways, with a cactus.
Emma stares at you. "You're broken, Taylor," she declares. "There is something deeply wrong with you." With that rather weak finish, she too walks off.
Emma wants you to fight back, so you can be friends again.
Jesus Christ, you have got to stop being flabbergasted at every other soul's price you uncover. You almost missed Madison leaving as well.
Madison wants to marry a rich, handsome man and live in a big house and have lots of beautiful children.
It's all you can do to stop yourself from running after Madison and hugging her. Such a normal, well-adjusted desire, what is she even doing here? You do feel brief pang of worry, though. Well-adjusted people are going to be fucking impossible to reverse blackmail. A corollary of sorts to the 'can't con an honest man' rule, you guess.
Good thing that well-adjusted people appear to be few and far between. Literally 0% of the parahuman population examined so far qualify, yourself included. Which makes sense given, you know, trigger events. Though Panacea is second-gen, her trigger should have been hardly traumatic at all. Hm. You'll need to collect more data points before you present your scholarly thesis: Parahumans be fucked in the head, yo. Presented by Dr Hebert, capefuckedologist.
Speaking of fucked in the head, good thing also that your reputation around these parts is already zero. Because you sure aren't doing it any favors by lying on the floor and giggling to yourself like this.
Seriously though, what the hell Emma? What is even going on in that psycho bitch brain of yours? That shit is so fucked up, you may have to declare her an honorary parahuman. No matter how you try, you can not make sense of it.
This is going to require more research.
---
Emma lives in a much nicer part of town than you. 'Unofficial Empire territory', jealous people call it, because it's populated almost entirely by rich white people. Because of this, and because it's so far from the bad parts of down (insulated by, for example, your own neighborhood) it's very safe. So safe that a young girl would think nothing of taking a shortcut through a park on her way home, even after dark.
Which is not a very safe thing to do at all. Who knows what dangerous people might have been following her, waiting for a chance to strike?
"Taylor? What- oof!" Emma lands badly when you push her down and has the breath knocked out of her. When she tries to sit up, you kick her as hard as you can in the stomach. She rolls over on her hands and knees, retching.
"Is this what you wanted?" you ask. She doesn't answer, she just tries to crawl away from you. You throw yourself on top of her, driving her into the ground. You find yourself filled with an unexpected, savage joy. You're finally using your Brute 0 powers for their intended purpose: Beating the shit out of a fifteen year old bully.
Her struggles are entirely futile. You seat yourself on her back to keep her in place, and twist one of her arms back to make her behave.
"Am I fighting back hard enough?" you ask.
"What are- I- you- aaaah!" She doesn't seem interested in behaving, so you twist her arm harder. She doesn't make much sense, either.
"I have a knife, you know," you remark. Emma finally goes still, except for the trembling.
"Please explain to me how this works," you continue. "You wanted me to fight back, so that we could be friends. But you don't seem very friendly yet. Do I need to fight back harder? Do I need to beat you down until our positions are completely reversed? Until you are the ugly one that everyone hates? Should I mark up that pretty face of yours? Should I cut off your ears, or maybe your nose? Please tell me, Emma, because," you lean down and whisper in her ear, "I would really like to be your friend again."
"Oh god, please- I'll be your friend, Taylor, please, just- forgive me, I was wrong, oh god please forgive me!"
Well. It's good that you are friends, but she still doesn't make much sense. The crying doesn't help, maybe you should ease up on her a bit.
"What were you wrong about, friend?" you ask. You don't get up from her back, but you do release her arm.
"You were- I-" she takes a long shuddering breath. "Sophia, she said you were weak. She said I was weak too, but I could learn to be strong. I just needed to practice. To fake it till I make it."
"By preying on the weak," you supply.
"Yes! But I knew, I knew you were strong, stronger than me, you'd fight back, she'd see you were strong, and then we could all be friends."
"Only I never did."
"No! I, I started to doubt. I thought I had been wrong. I started to hate you for being weak, Taylor, for letting me down. Please forgive me! Deep down-"
"You always held out hope. Yes, I know. I could tell." Holy twisted fuckballs, you actually understand where this girl is coming from now.
You understand very well indeed.
"Do you understand why, now? Why I did it?" you ask.
"N-no..?"
You sigh. "Look at yourself, Emma. You're pathetic. You could never be strong. But you were my best friend. I played at being weak, so that you could play at being strong."
"No!"
"All that time, Emma. Every day. You wouldn't have lasted a month, in my place. Would you?"
"...no."
"But the locker was a step too far. So I decided to stop playing. I gave you one and a half years of pleasant dreams, Emma, but it's time to wake up now. And like that," you snap your fingers, "the illusion is shattered and the natural order restored. You see that now, don't you?"
"...yes."
You stand up, and help Emma do likewise.
"I'm glad we had this talk, old friend," you say.
She stares at you, then bursts into tears again. "It'll never work," she sobs. "It's been too long. Sophia would never understand. The three of us can never- never-"
"No, that's true," you agree. "But if you could go back, would you want to change it? To do it the other way around? With Sophia realizing what you are, and me by her side?"
"No." She shudders. "Thank you for sparing me that, Taylor."
"Sophia is troubling," you admit. "I won't have any more trouble from you, or those you influence-" Emma fervently shakes her head at this "-but you could not stay her in her course. Alas, there can only be one apex predator, and I do not wish to kill her. She must be allowed to keep dreaming, for now."
At the mention of killing Emma draws back from you, her face pale. "I- I should be getting home," she says.
You step forward and lay a hand on her shoulder. "One more thing before you go, friend. I require a favor."
"Of course, anything!"
"I'm going to need your books."
"My books?"
"Yes, your school books. You see, mine were all ruined in a curious accident."
If Emma was looking scared before, now she looks like she's about to throw up from sheer terror. It's a good look on her, you decide.
"If you come to school early tomorrow, I'll have them all for you," she says, stumbling over the words in her rush to get them out.
"That would be excellent. Thank you, old friend." You let go of her shoulder, and she flees into the night. When you turn on your sorcerer's sight, you manage to catch a glimpse of a nice healthy Loyalty shining inside her.
You have to admit, when you told your dad that you would go back to school and work things out, you kinda thought you were lying. You can't wait to get home and tell him the good news.
=====
tfw when you exalt and gain four dots of manipulation
Quests:
Tattletale: Really hates Pancakes
Panacea: Wants some family fun times
Shadow Stalker: Wants to leave the Wards without going to jail
Minor quests:
That one guy, what is he even doing in your quest log: Wants a date with Miss Militia
Danny Hebert: Wants his daughter to be happy
Madison: Wants a good husband and many children
Completed quests:
Emma: Wanted you to fight back, so you could be friends again
Tattletale: Really hates Pancakes
Panacea: Wants some family fun times
Shadow Stalker: Wants to leave the Wards without going to jail
Minor quests:
That one guy, what is he even doing in your quest log: Wants a date with Miss Militia
Danny Hebert: Wants his daughter to be happy
Madison: Wants a good husband and many children
Completed quests:
Emma: Wanted you to fight back, so you could be friends again
S.03
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
- Messages
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- 16,616
You arrive at school half an hour early and find Emma waiting for you at the doors, looking nervous. The hallways are deserted, and no one spots you transferring the contents of her locker to yours. She then hurries off to intercept her various friends and orbiters as they arrive, presumably to spin them some tale of increased scrutiny since the locker incident. 'Good thing I got the tipoff, better go easy on Taylor for a while,' etc.
Isn't friendship great? It's amazing how one person can be the difference between hell on earth and a normal everyday...
---
...unspeakably boring school experience. This time last week you were discovering things that would leave Manton himself staring in awe, playing with the power of the gods, etching words of power into the firmament with letters of golden fire.
Algebra just doesn't measure up.
---
Well, here's a pretty puzzle to distract you. Sophia, aka Your Remaining Problem, showed up to administer your daily dose of abuse. You expected that, but the strange part is Emma, next to her, currently describing how you're so ugly that you have to wear a paper bag over your head whenever you go out to sell blowjobs, which is frequently. You could have sworn you fixed this last night.
Well, Lisa did say that resisting would be hard, not impossible, and apparently Emma feels passionately enough about the challenges you face as a part-time prostitute to fight back against your power.
She doesn't seem very sure of herself, though. When you meet her eyes and smile, she falters and quickly wraps up her narration. You'll have to do some more research tonight.
---
The way Emma keeps glancing about indicates a certain apprehension, but the way she didn't change her route home tells you she is resigned to the inevitable. She still lets out a small scream when you reveal yourself, but she is not truly surprised. She still botches the landing when you push her down, though.
"I'm confused, friend," you say.
"I didn't want to do it! I had no choice!"
"There is always a choice, friend."
"Sophia said, she wanted us to- I can't stand up to her, Taylor, I just can't."
"Ah. And since your despicable cowardice can't be helped, you shouldn't be punished for betraying me? Is that what you're saying?"
"N-no. No, I deserve it. For being weak."
You hesitate. It's not that you disagree with her conclusions (though your reasoning differs slightly). You just don't know how to do this part. 'Nothing that leaves any marks' is a cliche of a hundred gritty police dramas, but the camera generally cuts away to muffled screams from behind a locked door at that point. You never bothered to research the exact mechanics. Is that even what you want?
Various scenarios flit through your imagination, from the childish to the sickening. You could pull her hair. Make her kiss your feet. Grind her face into the dirt. Cut her. Break her arm. Pull out her fingernails. You don't know what you want. Repaying in kind one hundredth of the grief she has caused you over the years shouldn't be this hard.
But... this isn't even your enemy any more. You fixed that. This is your minion, and it disgusts you. It's not working properly, and what you really want is for it to never have been born.
For a moment there you almost forgot that the universe hates happiness. Like an idiot, you thought you could have a taste of victory without it turning into ashes in your mouth.
You have to do something. Emma is staring at you. "Taylor? Are you-"
You scream in frustration and kick her in the ribs. When she whispers "thank you", it's all you can do to keep yourself from running away right then and there. Instead you bend down and help her to her feet. You have to get back in character.
"Much of the fault is mine, friend," you tell her as you help brush the dirt from her jacket. "I should have realized what would happen."
A quick check with sorcerer's sight shows that her Loyalty is a bit battered, but essentially intact. That's good. A more worrying thought occurs to you, though. Her Loyalty is contingent on you meeting her soul's price, and there were two parts to that. You're fighting back plenty, but you've sort of been neglecting the 'friends' part. If you're not careful it might just wink out of existence completely, and then...
To be honest you have no idea what would happen then, because you don't know what mixture of unnatural servitude and all-natural bugfuck nuts is resulting in her current behavior. But better safe than sorry.
"Wanna hang out?" you ask with a smile. A much friendlier smile than the ones you've been using so far.
"What?"
"It's what friends do, isn't it?"
Emma cautiously essays a small chuckle. Meeting no retaliation, she tries a smile as well. "Yeah, it is. Let's."
---
You adjourn to her house. Her mom is happy to see you, at least. Oh Taylor, is that you, it's been so long since you were around, how tall you have grown, etc, etc. She is adorably innocent, in every sense of the word.
The rest of the evening not exactly easy or comfortable. You used to be best friends, then you were worst enemies. Now you're sort of both, but the other way around? Relationship status: It's complicated. There's a whole lot of unexplored social territory here, is what you're trying to say, that may or may not contain dragons and sea monsters.
But you've endured a lot worse (and whose fault was that?). If life insists on giving you ashes, you're going to make some goddamn ashonade. And you're going to choke down that bitter brew no matter what happens, out of sheer spite if nothing else. You hear that, uncaring forces of a materialistic universe that somehow have it out for you in particular? Fuck you!
---
Of course you didn't actually solve anything, and the very next day Emma is back to insulting you with Sophia at her side. Sophia must be really dense not to pick up on Emma's fear and unhappiness, but you guess she just doesn't know her the way you do. Aside from these obvious tells, with sorcerer's sight you're also able to see her Loyalty fraying in real time as she fights against it. At this rate it might last another week, but certainly not two.
You really, really need to come up with a permanent solution to your remaining problem. But it remains true what you said, you don't want to kill her. Well, mostly true. Kinda. You want to not want to kill her. So you won't!
You are distracted from your dark thoughts by your new phone informing you of a text message. Yes! Lisa will save you from this unbearable high school drama.
< meet @ old market aftr school
After school, she says. You shake your head. At no point did you give her any indication that you would be going back to school. Fucking Thinkers.
You let that last word bounce around in your head for a bit. Thinker. Right. You don't think her power is good enough to figure out how you met Panacea just from looking at you. Are you healthier than normal now, after she worked you over? In a noticeable-to-Sherlock-Holmes way? But, you realize with a sinking feeling, that won't even matter. Lisa clearly doesn't think you can take care of yourself (the fact that she's at least partially right really sticks in your craw), and she'd clearly disapprove of your methods.
And she'll easily spot that you know that you did something she'd disapprove of, and then she'll have opinions.
Well, there's your enthusiasm curbed, that's for sure.
---
You call Emma's house while she's still on her way home.
"Miss Barnes? It's Taylor. Is Emma home yet? Could you give her message? Tell her I know she expected us to hang out again tonight, but something important came up. I'll come by tomorrow night instead, if that's all right with you."
Yeah, you could tell that she expected you to 'hang out' again after your encounter today. At least leaving Emma stewing in dread overnight is cheering you up a little bit, you guess.
---
The old market is crowded, but spotting a parahuman in a crowd is not a problem for you. You beeline straight for the glow.
"Taylor. Good to see you again. Sorry about the delay."
You wave away her apology. "Think nothing of it. I managed to keep busy."
Lisa shakes your hand, does not go for the hug. An astute observer would probably read something into that. A very astute observer would wonder about the quick little expressions flashing across her face as she approached and greeted you.
You don't wonder. You have magic eyes, and you've studied her power enough to build your own bootleg version from scratch. You can not only see it activate, but read off each conclusion as it's presented to her. Never mind her face, her mind is an open book to you.
That curiosity is where she sees that you have something to hide. A flash of concern: She does figure out how you went about acquiring Panacea's soul price, impressive. Brief sadness as she finds out that no, you'd see an invitation to join the Undersiders for the obvious attempt to 'save you from yourself' that it would be. But thanks for being so quick to label you unsound of mind and in need of a caretaker, no really, thanks a whole fucking lot.
Now that juicy wince is when she realizes that you're getting all this, probably clued in by your own facial tics. Yeah, two can play at this game. Are we going to pretend that none of that happened? Because you'd be down with that. We are! Excellent.
Lisa leads you off towards the less scenic parts of town. Excellent lair territory, you note, since the recession has left plenty of abandoned industrial properties and workshop/studio apartments for the aspiring villain.
"There are some things you should keep in mind," Lisa tells you as you walk. "Rachel is willing to deal, she could use some help around the lair-"
"Rachel?" you interrupt. "Rachel Lindt?"
"Yeah, that's her."
"Hm," you say.
You remember her from your cape research. Rachel is a homeless person with superpowers. Well, not homeless anymore since she's apparently got a lair now, but yeah. Her villain 'career' has consisted of wandering from city to city, sleeping in the streets, stealing food and fighting off anyone who tried to bother and/or arrest her with her giant mutant dogs.
Oh and also, the reason she was homeless in the first place? She killed her foster mother. Probably some abuse going on there, trigger events don't happen on their own after all. But still. In order to keep you safe, Lisa decided to introduce you to a literal murder hobo? That's interesting.
When you think about it like that, you begin to suspect that you are in fact going to be perfectly safe - that Lisa picked Rachel, the girl with a spicy hint of dangerous psychopath, over one of her more well-groomed villain friends precisely to counteract your obvious resentment at being coddled.
You catch Lisa's power informing her of your line of thought, but she keeps her face impassive. You don't know if you guessed right or not, because your own brand of mind reading only works on things she didn't already know.
"Is it going to be a problem?" Lisa asks ambiguously.
You shrug. It's a combat power, a missing link in virtually all of your infiltration plans. You're not going to complain.
"What kind of help?" you ask instead.
"Regular manual labour, not enough for a full-time henching gig. Taking care of her dogs. She's willing to give power demonstrations in exchange. It's up to you to discuss the exact terms. There's room for negotiation, but if you push too hard she's likely to call the whole thing off.
"If you end up working for her, don't complain or argue about any task she gives you. She'll set her dogs on you if you do. But don't let her push you around on anything outside the agreement, either. She'll try, just to see how you react. Always speak plainly, don't try to be funny or clever. Oh, and don't make eye contact, she doesn't like that."
There's the spicy hint of danger, all right.
"How are you friends with this girl, again?" you ask.
Lisa grimaces slightly. "With some difficulty," she admits.
---
Rachel's 'lair' is impressively shitty. A half-finished building, open to the elements. The floor, such as it is, has of patches of bare concrete here and there, but consists mostly of dirt and scraggly grass. There are maybe a dozen dogs wandering around freely. Does she live here? You see plenty of places for dogs to sleep, but nothing resembling a human bed.
Rachel herself is, well, even further from being pretty than you are. Even without the weathering from years of hard living, there's just no helping that bone structure. If she can be said to be making a statement with her choice of clothes, that statement is 'I can sleep in the street without freezing to death'. You see a mask poking out of a coat pocket. You guess masks are just the done thing, even for someone whose identity is public knowledge.
Lisa greets her with a wave when you step inside, which she doesn't acknowledge. She stares and you, and you remember not to meet her eyes.
"Well?" she asks.
It takes you a moment to realize that she's waiting for you to offer terms. How much should you be asking for? You have no idea about the villain favor economy or common henchman wages.
Crap. Now that you consider it, you can't actually think of any deal that you'd both agree to. Rachel wouldn't go for one-for-one on time spent working versus demonstrating, she'd be no better off than doing the work herself. You wouldn't go for two-for-one, it would take weeks to get her power that way. Maybe a whole month, since you're wasting time on going to school again. Compromise? Rachel would still have very little to gain, and she doesn't strike you as person who'd appreciate more complicated fractions anyway.
Maybe... "Can you show me your power?"
Rachel crosses her arms. "If you work."
"I need to see the merchandise before I buy." That's how professional criminals do it, right? At least in the movies.
It seems to work, at any rate. Rachel calls one of her dogs over and lays her hand on its head. Spines of bone erupt from underneath its fur, then a layer of leathery flesh grows to partially cover the bone, then more bone, etc.
It's fascinating. The dog isn't really growing. The extra flesh and bone is just covering it, like some sort of biological power amor. The dog itself is cradled inside, somehow hooked up to the nervous system(?) and bloodstream(?) of the mutant beast growing around it. This is going to take so much study, you love it.
Rachel removes her hand and it stops growing. Her power doesn't maintain any sort of connection to the dog, so she's not a Master in the sense of controlling anything. But just like you hoped, the dog itself is still thrumming with power. You can tell that it's already fading, though, and will need regular topping up from Rachel. You can work with this.
"I'll work for free as long as you keep a couple of them empowered at all times," you say. How's that for an offer you can't refuse?
Rachel grunts. "Why'd you want to stare at my dogs anyway? You some kind of weird pervert?"
Good thing Lisa coached beforehand, or you would have flubbed this interview question. "None of your fucking business," you reply.
"Fine, you're hired. But if I catch you touching yourself I'll kick your ass. Come on."
Rachel wants a friend who she can understand.
Soul's price is reflexive for you at this point. Interact with parahuman, get price. And look at that, underneath her gruff exterior Rachel is just a big softie who wants a friend who underst- wait, who she can understand? Right, mental issues, of course. Not uncommon in the homeless.
You give Lisa a wry smile and a wave goodbye before you follow your new employer. You note that the Thinker hasn't said a single word since she entered the building. Which is probably her secret trick for maintaining their unlikely friendship.
When you catch up to Rachel she hands you a small shovel and a plastic bag.
"There's shit in the grass," she says.
"Empower your dogs."
She grumbles a bit, but complies. You start shoveling shit. You'd do worse things for a power like hers.
=====
Isn't friendship great? It's amazing how one person can be the difference between hell on earth and a normal everyday...
---
...unspeakably boring school experience. This time last week you were discovering things that would leave Manton himself staring in awe, playing with the power of the gods, etching words of power into the firmament with letters of golden fire.
Algebra just doesn't measure up.
---
Well, here's a pretty puzzle to distract you. Sophia, aka Your Remaining Problem, showed up to administer your daily dose of abuse. You expected that, but the strange part is Emma, next to her, currently describing how you're so ugly that you have to wear a paper bag over your head whenever you go out to sell blowjobs, which is frequently. You could have sworn you fixed this last night.
Well, Lisa did say that resisting would be hard, not impossible, and apparently Emma feels passionately enough about the challenges you face as a part-time prostitute to fight back against your power.
She doesn't seem very sure of herself, though. When you meet her eyes and smile, she falters and quickly wraps up her narration. You'll have to do some more research tonight.
---
The way Emma keeps glancing about indicates a certain apprehension, but the way she didn't change her route home tells you she is resigned to the inevitable. She still lets out a small scream when you reveal yourself, but she is not truly surprised. She still botches the landing when you push her down, though.
"I'm confused, friend," you say.
"I didn't want to do it! I had no choice!"
"There is always a choice, friend."
"Sophia said, she wanted us to- I can't stand up to her, Taylor, I just can't."
"Ah. And since your despicable cowardice can't be helped, you shouldn't be punished for betraying me? Is that what you're saying?"
"N-no. No, I deserve it. For being weak."
You hesitate. It's not that you disagree with her conclusions (though your reasoning differs slightly). You just don't know how to do this part. 'Nothing that leaves any marks' is a cliche of a hundred gritty police dramas, but the camera generally cuts away to muffled screams from behind a locked door at that point. You never bothered to research the exact mechanics. Is that even what you want?
Various scenarios flit through your imagination, from the childish to the sickening. You could pull her hair. Make her kiss your feet. Grind her face into the dirt. Cut her. Break her arm. Pull out her fingernails. You don't know what you want. Repaying in kind one hundredth of the grief she has caused you over the years shouldn't be this hard.
But... this isn't even your enemy any more. You fixed that. This is your minion, and it disgusts you. It's not working properly, and what you really want is for it to never have been born.
For a moment there you almost forgot that the universe hates happiness. Like an idiot, you thought you could have a taste of victory without it turning into ashes in your mouth.
You have to do something. Emma is staring at you. "Taylor? Are you-"
You scream in frustration and kick her in the ribs. When she whispers "thank you", it's all you can do to keep yourself from running away right then and there. Instead you bend down and help her to her feet. You have to get back in character.
"Much of the fault is mine, friend," you tell her as you help brush the dirt from her jacket. "I should have realized what would happen."
A quick check with sorcerer's sight shows that her Loyalty is a bit battered, but essentially intact. That's good. A more worrying thought occurs to you, though. Her Loyalty is contingent on you meeting her soul's price, and there were two parts to that. You're fighting back plenty, but you've sort of been neglecting the 'friends' part. If you're not careful it might just wink out of existence completely, and then...
To be honest you have no idea what would happen then, because you don't know what mixture of unnatural servitude and all-natural bugfuck nuts is resulting in her current behavior. But better safe than sorry.
"Wanna hang out?" you ask with a smile. A much friendlier smile than the ones you've been using so far.
"What?"
"It's what friends do, isn't it?"
Emma cautiously essays a small chuckle. Meeting no retaliation, she tries a smile as well. "Yeah, it is. Let's."
---
You adjourn to her house. Her mom is happy to see you, at least. Oh Taylor, is that you, it's been so long since you were around, how tall you have grown, etc, etc. She is adorably innocent, in every sense of the word.
The rest of the evening not exactly easy or comfortable. You used to be best friends, then you were worst enemies. Now you're sort of both, but the other way around? Relationship status: It's complicated. There's a whole lot of unexplored social territory here, is what you're trying to say, that may or may not contain dragons and sea monsters.
But you've endured a lot worse (and whose fault was that?). If life insists on giving you ashes, you're going to make some goddamn ashonade. And you're going to choke down that bitter brew no matter what happens, out of sheer spite if nothing else. You hear that, uncaring forces of a materialistic universe that somehow have it out for you in particular? Fuck you!
---
Of course you didn't actually solve anything, and the very next day Emma is back to insulting you with Sophia at her side. Sophia must be really dense not to pick up on Emma's fear and unhappiness, but you guess she just doesn't know her the way you do. Aside from these obvious tells, with sorcerer's sight you're also able to see her Loyalty fraying in real time as she fights against it. At this rate it might last another week, but certainly not two.
You really, really need to come up with a permanent solution to your remaining problem. But it remains true what you said, you don't want to kill her. Well, mostly true. Kinda. You want to not want to kill her. So you won't!
You are distracted from your dark thoughts by your new phone informing you of a text message. Yes! Lisa will save you from this unbearable high school drama.
< meet @ old market aftr school
After school, she says. You shake your head. At no point did you give her any indication that you would be going back to school. Fucking Thinkers.
You let that last word bounce around in your head for a bit. Thinker. Right. You don't think her power is good enough to figure out how you met Panacea just from looking at you. Are you healthier than normal now, after she worked you over? In a noticeable-to-Sherlock-Holmes way? But, you realize with a sinking feeling, that won't even matter. Lisa clearly doesn't think you can take care of yourself (the fact that she's at least partially right really sticks in your craw), and she'd clearly disapprove of your methods.
And she'll easily spot that you know that you did something she'd disapprove of, and then she'll have opinions.
Well, there's your enthusiasm curbed, that's for sure.
---
You call Emma's house while she's still on her way home.
"Miss Barnes? It's Taylor. Is Emma home yet? Could you give her message? Tell her I know she expected us to hang out again tonight, but something important came up. I'll come by tomorrow night instead, if that's all right with you."
Yeah, you could tell that she expected you to 'hang out' again after your encounter today. At least leaving Emma stewing in dread overnight is cheering you up a little bit, you guess.
---
The old market is crowded, but spotting a parahuman in a crowd is not a problem for you. You beeline straight for the glow.
"Taylor. Good to see you again. Sorry about the delay."
You wave away her apology. "Think nothing of it. I managed to keep busy."
Lisa shakes your hand, does not go for the hug. An astute observer would probably read something into that. A very astute observer would wonder about the quick little expressions flashing across her face as she approached and greeted you.
You don't wonder. You have magic eyes, and you've studied her power enough to build your own bootleg version from scratch. You can not only see it activate, but read off each conclusion as it's presented to her. Never mind her face, her mind is an open book to you.
That curiosity is where she sees that you have something to hide. A flash of concern: She does figure out how you went about acquiring Panacea's soul price, impressive. Brief sadness as she finds out that no, you'd see an invitation to join the Undersiders for the obvious attempt to 'save you from yourself' that it would be. But thanks for being so quick to label you unsound of mind and in need of a caretaker, no really, thanks a whole fucking lot.
Now that juicy wince is when she realizes that you're getting all this, probably clued in by your own facial tics. Yeah, two can play at this game. Are we going to pretend that none of that happened? Because you'd be down with that. We are! Excellent.
Lisa leads you off towards the less scenic parts of town. Excellent lair territory, you note, since the recession has left plenty of abandoned industrial properties and workshop/studio apartments for the aspiring villain.
"There are some things you should keep in mind," Lisa tells you as you walk. "Rachel is willing to deal, she could use some help around the lair-"
"Rachel?" you interrupt. "Rachel Lindt?"
"Yeah, that's her."
"Hm," you say.
You remember her from your cape research. Rachel is a homeless person with superpowers. Well, not homeless anymore since she's apparently got a lair now, but yeah. Her villain 'career' has consisted of wandering from city to city, sleeping in the streets, stealing food and fighting off anyone who tried to bother and/or arrest her with her giant mutant dogs.
Oh and also, the reason she was homeless in the first place? She killed her foster mother. Probably some abuse going on there, trigger events don't happen on their own after all. But still. In order to keep you safe, Lisa decided to introduce you to a literal murder hobo? That's interesting.
When you think about it like that, you begin to suspect that you are in fact going to be perfectly safe - that Lisa picked Rachel, the girl with a spicy hint of dangerous psychopath, over one of her more well-groomed villain friends precisely to counteract your obvious resentment at being coddled.
You catch Lisa's power informing her of your line of thought, but she keeps her face impassive. You don't know if you guessed right or not, because your own brand of mind reading only works on things she didn't already know.
"Is it going to be a problem?" Lisa asks ambiguously.
You shrug. It's a combat power, a missing link in virtually all of your infiltration plans. You're not going to complain.
"What kind of help?" you ask instead.
"Regular manual labour, not enough for a full-time henching gig. Taking care of her dogs. She's willing to give power demonstrations in exchange. It's up to you to discuss the exact terms. There's room for negotiation, but if you push too hard she's likely to call the whole thing off.
"If you end up working for her, don't complain or argue about any task she gives you. She'll set her dogs on you if you do. But don't let her push you around on anything outside the agreement, either. She'll try, just to see how you react. Always speak plainly, don't try to be funny or clever. Oh, and don't make eye contact, she doesn't like that."
There's the spicy hint of danger, all right.
"How are you friends with this girl, again?" you ask.
Lisa grimaces slightly. "With some difficulty," she admits.
---
Rachel's 'lair' is impressively shitty. A half-finished building, open to the elements. The floor, such as it is, has of patches of bare concrete here and there, but consists mostly of dirt and scraggly grass. There are maybe a dozen dogs wandering around freely. Does she live here? You see plenty of places for dogs to sleep, but nothing resembling a human bed.
Rachel herself is, well, even further from being pretty than you are. Even without the weathering from years of hard living, there's just no helping that bone structure. If she can be said to be making a statement with her choice of clothes, that statement is 'I can sleep in the street without freezing to death'. You see a mask poking out of a coat pocket. You guess masks are just the done thing, even for someone whose identity is public knowledge.
Lisa greets her with a wave when you step inside, which she doesn't acknowledge. She stares and you, and you remember not to meet her eyes.
"Well?" she asks.
It takes you a moment to realize that she's waiting for you to offer terms. How much should you be asking for? You have no idea about the villain favor economy or common henchman wages.
Crap. Now that you consider it, you can't actually think of any deal that you'd both agree to. Rachel wouldn't go for one-for-one on time spent working versus demonstrating, she'd be no better off than doing the work herself. You wouldn't go for two-for-one, it would take weeks to get her power that way. Maybe a whole month, since you're wasting time on going to school again. Compromise? Rachel would still have very little to gain, and she doesn't strike you as person who'd appreciate more complicated fractions anyway.
Maybe... "Can you show me your power?"
Rachel crosses her arms. "If you work."
"I need to see the merchandise before I buy." That's how professional criminals do it, right? At least in the movies.
It seems to work, at any rate. Rachel calls one of her dogs over and lays her hand on its head. Spines of bone erupt from underneath its fur, then a layer of leathery flesh grows to partially cover the bone, then more bone, etc.
It's fascinating. The dog isn't really growing. The extra flesh and bone is just covering it, like some sort of biological power amor. The dog itself is cradled inside, somehow hooked up to the nervous system(?) and bloodstream(?) of the mutant beast growing around it. This is going to take so much study, you love it.
Rachel removes her hand and it stops growing. Her power doesn't maintain any sort of connection to the dog, so she's not a Master in the sense of controlling anything. But just like you hoped, the dog itself is still thrumming with power. You can tell that it's already fading, though, and will need regular topping up from Rachel. You can work with this.
"I'll work for free as long as you keep a couple of them empowered at all times," you say. How's that for an offer you can't refuse?
Rachel grunts. "Why'd you want to stare at my dogs anyway? You some kind of weird pervert?"
Good thing Lisa coached beforehand, or you would have flubbed this interview question. "None of your fucking business," you reply.
"Fine, you're hired. But if I catch you touching yourself I'll kick your ass. Come on."
Rachel wants a friend who she can understand.
Soul's price is reflexive for you at this point. Interact with parahuman, get price. And look at that, underneath her gruff exterior Rachel is just a big softie who wants a friend who underst- wait, who she can understand? Right, mental issues, of course. Not uncommon in the homeless.
You give Lisa a wry smile and a wave goodbye before you follow your new employer. You note that the Thinker hasn't said a single word since she entered the building. Which is probably her secret trick for maintaining their unlikely friendship.
When you catch up to Rachel she hands you a small shovel and a plastic bag.
"There's shit in the grass," she says.
"Empower your dogs."
She grumbles a bit, but complies. You start shoveling shit. You'd do worse things for a power like hers.
=====
Quests:
Tattletale: Bring me the head of Coil
Panacea: Turn Glory Girl into an incestuous lesbian
Shadow Stalker: One get-out-of-jail-free card, please
Bitch: Wants a friend she can understand
Tattletale: Bring me the head of Coil
Panacea: Turn Glory Girl into an incestuous lesbian
Shadow Stalker: One get-out-of-jail-free card, please
Bitch: Wants a friend she can understand
S.04
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
- Messages
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- 16,616
Every dog comes up to sniff you at some point as you work, but most quickly lose interest once their curiosity has been satisfied. The exception is a young Labrador ('Bubbles', according to Rachel) who decides that you are his new best friend and that you should never leave his side again.
It probably says something depressing about you, how gratified you are to receive a scrap unconditional love like that, even bestowed randomly by a dumb animal. But you just can't help loving him back a tiny bit. He is so adorably jealous of the attention you're paying the transformed dogs ('Brutus' and 'Judas'), you can't even be annoyed at how much he's distracting you.
The monster dogs in question seem a bit bemused as they wander around, as if they are wondering why they are so big when there's no one to fight. They are keeping a wary eye on you as well, probably suspecting that you're the one they are supposed to protect their master from. But they are clearly well trained, so you don't worry about them attacking you. Unless you piss off Rachel, of course.
But never mind all that. The whole point of being here is to study monster dogs, and monster dogs are freaking weird. In the first place, if you hadn't seen them being made, 'dog' would not have been your first guess. More like 'post-apocalyptic rat-lizard hellbeast'.
The power surging through them, you quickly realize, does absolutely nothing to make them stronger or tougher. No, they seem to be exactly as strong as you'd expect a critter made out of a ton of solid muscle to be. And yes, you do mean solid. There's a reason real animals don't consist of 100% muscles, and Rachel's power is working really hard to ignore that.
You're not a biologist, so you can't name and describe every system that is being papered over with... let's just call it magic, because that's essentially what it is. But there's a lot of them. Do they eat? No, their muscles spring into being pre-loaded with, uh, muscle fuel. Do they even breathe? Uh, maybe? You'll come back to that question later.
Freed from the menial parts of dog care, Rachel spends her entire time training them. Once you're done scooping poop she has you feed and water the dogs, then groom them. She doesn't trust you to check their health, but she tells you exactly what she's doing and what she's looking for while she does it. She's clearly training you as well.
All the while, you keep studying. Brains, nervous systems? Not really. Rachel may not be Mastering her dogs, but her dogs are essentially Mastering their meat suits. Completely lacking a physical means of transmitting nerve impulses from the chewy dog center to the crunchy monster exterior, her power makes do with metaphysical means.
You also get a good look at Rachel's end of things, as she has to regularly infuse more power into the dogs to keep them monsterized. Just as planned. Villainous laughter, etc. At first she keeps calling them over and touching them to top them off, but a few hours in she grows tired of this and starts broadcasting her power across the room. You can't quite hide your surprise the first time this happens, but you don't think she noticed.
It brings up an interesting point. Even Rachel, the least sophisticated person you know, initially tried to hide the full extent of her powers even from someone trusted to know the location of her lair. Between that and Lisa keeping her power largely secret (and claiming to be psychic when you first met), you begin to wonder if sandbagging and misdirection isn't another unspoken keystone of cape life. Makes you wonder what other capes are hiding.
You're going to find out, of course.
When it becomes time to go home you ask Rachel to stop empowering the dogs, as you want to watch them return to normal before you leave. As the muscle fuel runs low, it is concentrated deeper in the body and the outermost layers of muscle are reabsorbed. Once a certain critical point is reached the whole thing falls apart and the dog itself emerges, wet with rapidly evaporating - no, vanishing - amniotic fluid(?).
The whole thing strikes you as incredibly baroque. But on the other hand, you do know enough biology to know that evolution isn't all that sexy up close. It's not inconceivable that this was the most expedient way to fulfill a sudden demand for completely reversible monster dogs, the same way that the human retina is welded on backwards.
Just how this bit of natural selection was plucked from its ancestral environment and stuffed into Rachel's brain is another question, though. It's the question in parahuman studies. All things considered, 'God exists, and he's a bit off' might be more plausible than an evolution-based explanation. Scion exists after all, and there are people that claim that he's God and/or the source of powers. He's certainly a bit off.
"Come back same time tomorrow," Rachel says, startling you out of your unproductive ruminations.
"Tomorrow is Saturday," you point out.
"So?"
"No school. I can come by much earlier if you want."
"Yeah. Do that." With that she turns away, leaving you to find your own way out.
---
"Where have you been?" your dad asks when you get home. When you get a bit closer he wrinkles his nose and furrows his brow. "What's that smell?"
"I was volunteering at a dog shelter," you say. It's almost entirely true, and an after-school activity that is unlikely to be forbidden. "Lisa knew one that needed some help and introduced me."
His relieved smile proves your assumptions correct. "Did you have a good time?"
"It has its ups and downs. And by downs I mean dog poop. I'll stick with it for a week or so at least." God damn, are you good at telling your dad the truth or what?
---
You arrive bright and early the next morning, ready for a full day of menial labour and phenomenal cosmic power acquisition. Rachel doesn't even say hello as she hands you the poop shovel, but Bubbles greets you as if you had been gone for a month. He's simultaneously unwilling to leave your side, and so excited that he can't stand still. He compromises by running in tight circles around you, bumping into your legs at least once per lap. Once again his behavior mysteriously fails to annoy you.
Taking care of a dozen dogs is not a full time job, but you don't really want to leave early when there's studying to be done. Your agreement didn't specify anything so formal as hours per day, and Rachel doesn't object as your contribution gradually shifts from working to helping with training to just plain playing with the dogs. Late in the afternoon she shakes things up, though.
"Wanna go for a ride?" she asks.
You blink in confusion before you notice that she's gesturing at Brutus and Judas. You've seen smaller horses, now that you think about it (you have not seen larger horses). You suppose they could serve as riding beasts.
"Sure," you answer. It's not like you're going to turn down quality time with her power.
Rachel climbs up on Brutus' back with practiced ease. You, uh, you had expected saddles, and reins and stuff. Which is silly, where would a homeless person get specialized tack and gear like that? Judas is looking at you expectantly, and you gaze back with a certain apprehension. There are enough bony spurs and protrusions that climbing up does not look overly difficult, but by the same token his back is not going to be very comfortable.
You mentally chastise yourself. You're not here to be comfortable. You scramble your way up and take a seat. The ground feels improbably far away, considering how short the climb was. You let out a small yelp when Judas starts moving, making his way over to Rachel and Brutus at a leisurely pace. You grab hold of some conveniently positioned bone spurs to keep yourself from falling off.
For your next trick you'll try to relax your white-knuckled grip somewhat. You can do this. A slow walk around the yard is no problem at all. When you think about it, this is no different from the pony rides you loved when you were little. Except the girl leading the ponies around the track back then wasn't a mentally unstable murderer (as far as anyone knew).
Then Rachel shouts "Up!", and Brutus gathers himself and leaps four meters straight up, clearing the half-finished back wall. Judas starts running towards the same wall.
"Waitwaitwai-oof!" Your protests are cut off as the force of the launch knocks most of the air out of your lungs. You get about half a wheeze in before the landing, predictably, finishes the job. You spend some time just lying on top of your mount, gasping for breath.
When you look up, you see Rachel grinning at you. It's not a very nice expression, for all that she's clearly amused. Seeing that you've mostly recovered she clicks her tongue, which has Brutus set out at a trot. Judas dutifully follows.
"Rachel, wait!", you shout. "I can't be seen like this! I still have a civilian identity!"
She stops long enough to hand you her mask (a cheap plastic thing, depicting a dog face), then she's off again. Halfway down the street she gives another command, and Brutus turns, leaps, clings to the side of the building, and leaps again to land on the roof opposite. You brace yourself and hold on for dear life as Judas follows suit.
Next time. Next time that happens you won't scream like a little girl.
---
You're not going to claim that it wasn't exciting, or even fun once you got used to the gut-clenching terror and bruising impacts. But when Rachel leaps off her dog still able to walk, you're prepared to grant her an honorary Brute rating.
One larger than yours, certainly. You slide off Judas and land in a heap, whimpering slightly as your butt touches the ground. Look, there's Bubbles again. You protest weakly as he walks all over your prone body in his eagerness to welcome you back.
Rachel snatches her mask off your face. "Same time tomorrow," she says. Was that humor? You're pretty sure Rachel just did a humor at you. You nod weakly at her. Bubbles takes the opportunity to start licking your face.
Eventually you summon the wherewithal to get to your feet. If you make it all the way home you'll be impressed. If you get out of bed tomorrow, you'll be amazed. You're going to go home and soak in a hot bath for hours.
Picturing the steamy bliss ahead of you gives you some comfort as you walk. Then you remember that you promised to hang out with Emma today. Fuck! Ok, home, quick shower, then up and at them again. You really shouldn't complain. Somewhere out there, other capes are having lasers shot at them right at this very moment. Your career so far has been much less stressful than theirs. Probably. Maybe.
---
Your dad looks a bit surprised at your bedraggled appearance. "Tough day at the dog shelter?" he asks.
"You have no idea," you tell him truthfully, but decline to elaborate. Shower, now.
---
On you way to Emma's place your thoughts turn back to your problem at school, and it occurs to you that you've been an idiot. Again. You've been so focused on reverse blackmail that you completely forgot about the regular kind. You had the solution in your grasp all along.
After greeting Emma and retiring to her room (and roughing her up a bit for her ongoing crimes against friendship - you didn't want to bother, but she insisted), you share your brilliant new plan.
"On Monday we're going to go see the principal," you say, "and we're going to tell her that you're willing to confess everything and rat out your friends."
Emma goes pale. "I can't, Taylor! Sophia would kill me."
"It won't come to that," you assure her.
"No, you don't understand! She's killed before. I've seen her do it!"
Huh. You knew she was headed for prison, but murder? And the heroes still found it acceptable to recruit this person. You're not even pretending to be shocked any more.
"It won't come to that," you repeat, "because you're not actually going to confess. Your friends have powerful friends, and Blackwell does not want to disappoint them. She'll offer us a deal in exchange for your silence."
Emma looks at you searchingly at the mention of powerful friends. Suspicion, not confusion, which means that she knows about Shadow Stalker. You had been wondering about that.
Emma has no further objections to your plan (that she dares voice), and proceeds to ask about your day. You spin her a tale of dog shelters, featuring cute dogs and smelly poop. Emma hesitantly asks if she could come along and experience it for herself. How gratifying, your minion is working maintain adequate friendship levels on its own.
You consider the scenario of Emma meeting Rachel. Prognosis: Fucking priceless. You promise to ask tomorrow.
---
"You trust this girl?" Rachel asks.
"Oh yes," you say. "She's supernaturally loyal." Rachel doesn't get the joke.
===
It probably says something depressing about you, how gratified you are to receive a scrap unconditional love like that, even bestowed randomly by a dumb animal. But you just can't help loving him back a tiny bit. He is so adorably jealous of the attention you're paying the transformed dogs ('Brutus' and 'Judas'), you can't even be annoyed at how much he's distracting you.
The monster dogs in question seem a bit bemused as they wander around, as if they are wondering why they are so big when there's no one to fight. They are keeping a wary eye on you as well, probably suspecting that you're the one they are supposed to protect their master from. But they are clearly well trained, so you don't worry about them attacking you. Unless you piss off Rachel, of course.
But never mind all that. The whole point of being here is to study monster dogs, and monster dogs are freaking weird. In the first place, if you hadn't seen them being made, 'dog' would not have been your first guess. More like 'post-apocalyptic rat-lizard hellbeast'.
The power surging through them, you quickly realize, does absolutely nothing to make them stronger or tougher. No, they seem to be exactly as strong as you'd expect a critter made out of a ton of solid muscle to be. And yes, you do mean solid. There's a reason real animals don't consist of 100% muscles, and Rachel's power is working really hard to ignore that.
You're not a biologist, so you can't name and describe every system that is being papered over with... let's just call it magic, because that's essentially what it is. But there's a lot of them. Do they eat? No, their muscles spring into being pre-loaded with, uh, muscle fuel. Do they even breathe? Uh, maybe? You'll come back to that question later.
Freed from the menial parts of dog care, Rachel spends her entire time training them. Once you're done scooping poop she has you feed and water the dogs, then groom them. She doesn't trust you to check their health, but she tells you exactly what she's doing and what she's looking for while she does it. She's clearly training you as well.
All the while, you keep studying. Brains, nervous systems? Not really. Rachel may not be Mastering her dogs, but her dogs are essentially Mastering their meat suits. Completely lacking a physical means of transmitting nerve impulses from the chewy dog center to the crunchy monster exterior, her power makes do with metaphysical means.
You also get a good look at Rachel's end of things, as she has to regularly infuse more power into the dogs to keep them monsterized. Just as planned. Villainous laughter, etc. At first she keeps calling them over and touching them to top them off, but a few hours in she grows tired of this and starts broadcasting her power across the room. You can't quite hide your surprise the first time this happens, but you don't think she noticed.
It brings up an interesting point. Even Rachel, the least sophisticated person you know, initially tried to hide the full extent of her powers even from someone trusted to know the location of her lair. Between that and Lisa keeping her power largely secret (and claiming to be psychic when you first met), you begin to wonder if sandbagging and misdirection isn't another unspoken keystone of cape life. Makes you wonder what other capes are hiding.
You're going to find out, of course.
When it becomes time to go home you ask Rachel to stop empowering the dogs, as you want to watch them return to normal before you leave. As the muscle fuel runs low, it is concentrated deeper in the body and the outermost layers of muscle are reabsorbed. Once a certain critical point is reached the whole thing falls apart and the dog itself emerges, wet with rapidly evaporating - no, vanishing - amniotic fluid(?).
The whole thing strikes you as incredibly baroque. But on the other hand, you do know enough biology to know that evolution isn't all that sexy up close. It's not inconceivable that this was the most expedient way to fulfill a sudden demand for completely reversible monster dogs, the same way that the human retina is welded on backwards.
Just how this bit of natural selection was plucked from its ancestral environment and stuffed into Rachel's brain is another question, though. It's the question in parahuman studies. All things considered, 'God exists, and he's a bit off' might be more plausible than an evolution-based explanation. Scion exists after all, and there are people that claim that he's God and/or the source of powers. He's certainly a bit off.
"Come back same time tomorrow," Rachel says, startling you out of your unproductive ruminations.
"Tomorrow is Saturday," you point out.
"So?"
"No school. I can come by much earlier if you want."
"Yeah. Do that." With that she turns away, leaving you to find your own way out.
---
"Where have you been?" your dad asks when you get home. When you get a bit closer he wrinkles his nose and furrows his brow. "What's that smell?"
"I was volunteering at a dog shelter," you say. It's almost entirely true, and an after-school activity that is unlikely to be forbidden. "Lisa knew one that needed some help and introduced me."
His relieved smile proves your assumptions correct. "Did you have a good time?"
"It has its ups and downs. And by downs I mean dog poop. I'll stick with it for a week or so at least." God damn, are you good at telling your dad the truth or what?
---
You arrive bright and early the next morning, ready for a full day of menial labour and phenomenal cosmic power acquisition. Rachel doesn't even say hello as she hands you the poop shovel, but Bubbles greets you as if you had been gone for a month. He's simultaneously unwilling to leave your side, and so excited that he can't stand still. He compromises by running in tight circles around you, bumping into your legs at least once per lap. Once again his behavior mysteriously fails to annoy you.
Taking care of a dozen dogs is not a full time job, but you don't really want to leave early when there's studying to be done. Your agreement didn't specify anything so formal as hours per day, and Rachel doesn't object as your contribution gradually shifts from working to helping with training to just plain playing with the dogs. Late in the afternoon she shakes things up, though.
"Wanna go for a ride?" she asks.
You blink in confusion before you notice that she's gesturing at Brutus and Judas. You've seen smaller horses, now that you think about it (you have not seen larger horses). You suppose they could serve as riding beasts.
"Sure," you answer. It's not like you're going to turn down quality time with her power.
Rachel climbs up on Brutus' back with practiced ease. You, uh, you had expected saddles, and reins and stuff. Which is silly, where would a homeless person get specialized tack and gear like that? Judas is looking at you expectantly, and you gaze back with a certain apprehension. There are enough bony spurs and protrusions that climbing up does not look overly difficult, but by the same token his back is not going to be very comfortable.
You mentally chastise yourself. You're not here to be comfortable. You scramble your way up and take a seat. The ground feels improbably far away, considering how short the climb was. You let out a small yelp when Judas starts moving, making his way over to Rachel and Brutus at a leisurely pace. You grab hold of some conveniently positioned bone spurs to keep yourself from falling off.
For your next trick you'll try to relax your white-knuckled grip somewhat. You can do this. A slow walk around the yard is no problem at all. When you think about it, this is no different from the pony rides you loved when you were little. Except the girl leading the ponies around the track back then wasn't a mentally unstable murderer (as far as anyone knew).
Then Rachel shouts "Up!", and Brutus gathers himself and leaps four meters straight up, clearing the half-finished back wall. Judas starts running towards the same wall.
"Waitwaitwai-oof!" Your protests are cut off as the force of the launch knocks most of the air out of your lungs. You get about half a wheeze in before the landing, predictably, finishes the job. You spend some time just lying on top of your mount, gasping for breath.
When you look up, you see Rachel grinning at you. It's not a very nice expression, for all that she's clearly amused. Seeing that you've mostly recovered she clicks her tongue, which has Brutus set out at a trot. Judas dutifully follows.
"Rachel, wait!", you shout. "I can't be seen like this! I still have a civilian identity!"
She stops long enough to hand you her mask (a cheap plastic thing, depicting a dog face), then she's off again. Halfway down the street she gives another command, and Brutus turns, leaps, clings to the side of the building, and leaps again to land on the roof opposite. You brace yourself and hold on for dear life as Judas follows suit.
Next time. Next time that happens you won't scream like a little girl.
---
You're not going to claim that it wasn't exciting, or even fun once you got used to the gut-clenching terror and bruising impacts. But when Rachel leaps off her dog still able to walk, you're prepared to grant her an honorary Brute rating.
One larger than yours, certainly. You slide off Judas and land in a heap, whimpering slightly as your butt touches the ground. Look, there's Bubbles again. You protest weakly as he walks all over your prone body in his eagerness to welcome you back.
Rachel snatches her mask off your face. "Same time tomorrow," she says. Was that humor? You're pretty sure Rachel just did a humor at you. You nod weakly at her. Bubbles takes the opportunity to start licking your face.
Eventually you summon the wherewithal to get to your feet. If you make it all the way home you'll be impressed. If you get out of bed tomorrow, you'll be amazed. You're going to go home and soak in a hot bath for hours.
Picturing the steamy bliss ahead of you gives you some comfort as you walk. Then you remember that you promised to hang out with Emma today. Fuck! Ok, home, quick shower, then up and at them again. You really shouldn't complain. Somewhere out there, other capes are having lasers shot at them right at this very moment. Your career so far has been much less stressful than theirs. Probably. Maybe.
---
Your dad looks a bit surprised at your bedraggled appearance. "Tough day at the dog shelter?" he asks.
"You have no idea," you tell him truthfully, but decline to elaborate. Shower, now.
---
On you way to Emma's place your thoughts turn back to your problem at school, and it occurs to you that you've been an idiot. Again. You've been so focused on reverse blackmail that you completely forgot about the regular kind. You had the solution in your grasp all along.
After greeting Emma and retiring to her room (and roughing her up a bit for her ongoing crimes against friendship - you didn't want to bother, but she insisted), you share your brilliant new plan.
"On Monday we're going to go see the principal," you say, "and we're going to tell her that you're willing to confess everything and rat out your friends."
Emma goes pale. "I can't, Taylor! Sophia would kill me."
"It won't come to that," you assure her.
"No, you don't understand! She's killed before. I've seen her do it!"
Huh. You knew she was headed for prison, but murder? And the heroes still found it acceptable to recruit this person. You're not even pretending to be shocked any more.
"It won't come to that," you repeat, "because you're not actually going to confess. Your friends have powerful friends, and Blackwell does not want to disappoint them. She'll offer us a deal in exchange for your silence."
Emma looks at you searchingly at the mention of powerful friends. Suspicion, not confusion, which means that she knows about Shadow Stalker. You had been wondering about that.
Emma has no further objections to your plan (that she dares voice), and proceeds to ask about your day. You spin her a tale of dog shelters, featuring cute dogs and smelly poop. Emma hesitantly asks if she could come along and experience it for herself. How gratifying, your minion is working maintain adequate friendship levels on its own.
You consider the scenario of Emma meeting Rachel. Prognosis: Fucking priceless. You promise to ask tomorrow.
---
"You trust this girl?" Rachel asks.
"Oh yes," you say. "She's supernaturally loyal." Rachel doesn't get the joke.
===
A note about OCs:
The idea behind this story is 'what if Taylor could learn charms from other parahumans?' What charms would they give? What would she do with them? If I could just add new parahumans willy-nilly whenever I wanted her to have a specific Charm, that would ruin the whole point. I hereby vow that this story will contain no more than two plot-relevant OCs.
Bubbles is one of them.
The idea behind this story is 'what if Taylor could learn charms from other parahumans?' What charms would they give? What would she do with them? If I could just add new parahumans willy-nilly whenever I wanted her to have a specific Charm, that would ruin the whole point. I hereby vow that this story will contain no more than two plot-relevant OCs.
Bubbles is one of them.
S.05
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
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- 245
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I can't suppress the queasy feeling as Taylor and I wait outside the Blackwell's office. Taylor is going to blackmail the principal. Taylor is going to blackmail the principal. I steal a glance at my friend. To all appearances she's still the same victim she pretended to be all this time. Dark shapeless clothing, shrunk into herself, trying to hide from the world.
"Taylor Hebert and Emma Barnes to see principal Blackwell," the secretary announces. It's far from the first time the two of us are here. In the past I always managed to get off scot free, or even shift the blame onto Taylor. This time... I have to trust that she knows what she's doing.
When Taylor mentioned powerful friends, it became clear to me. They were always protecting Sophia, I was just riding her coattails. Just a pretty face in a world full of pretty faces. Does Taylor know that Sophia is a cape? Is that why she doesn't want to confront her openly? Or did she just pick up on the protection, without discovering the reason for it?
As we're about the step into the office, she turns to me. "Let me do the talking," she says. The victim is gone. The real Taylor stands before me now, her voice perfectly calm, gazing at me like I'm a bug she could crush at will. Because I am.
I always knew deep down that I was the weak one, that pretending otherwise wasn't helping. I can admit that now. But Taylor, with her mask cast off, she takes my breath away.
For over a year, she endured the most hellish existence I could contrive, and now she's just going to cash it in, without a second thought, without even a hint of emotion. She's even willing to take pity on me and be my friend again, because it's no big deal to her.
I would do anything to stay by her side, to bask in her strength, to worship her as the person I could never be.
"Taylor Hebert and Emma Barnes to see principal Blackwell," the secretary announces. It's far from the first time the two of us are here. In the past I always managed to get off scot free, or even shift the blame onto Taylor. This time... I have to trust that she knows what she's doing.
When Taylor mentioned powerful friends, it became clear to me. They were always protecting Sophia, I was just riding her coattails. Just a pretty face in a world full of pretty faces. Does Taylor know that Sophia is a cape? Is that why she doesn't want to confront her openly? Or did she just pick up on the protection, without discovering the reason for it?
As we're about the step into the office, she turns to me. "Let me do the talking," she says. The victim is gone. The real Taylor stands before me now, her voice perfectly calm, gazing at me like I'm a bug she could crush at will. Because I am.
I always knew deep down that I was the weak one, that pretending otherwise wasn't helping. I can admit that now. But Taylor, with her mask cast off, she takes my breath away.
For over a year, she endured the most hellish existence I could contrive, and now she's just going to cash it in, without a second thought, without even a hint of emotion. She's even willing to take pity on me and be my friend again, because it's no big deal to her.
I would do anything to stay by her side, to bask in her strength, to worship her as the person I could never be.
You can tell that Blackwell is not exactly happy to see you. Oh look, it's Taylor come to whine some more about the abuse that must be covered up. What a drag. The gall of you, poking at the blackened remains of her conscience to no purpose.
You ignore the frosty reception, take a seat and pull a notebook out of your bag.
"Mrs Blackwell. I have documented here over one thousand separate incidents of bullying" - there is a slight gasp from Emma at this - "directed against me. Including, of course, the famous locker incident. Miss Barnes here has realized the error of her ways and is prepared to confess to all of them." You catch her gaze and hold it. "Including naming accomplices."
Blackwell averts her eyes from you in order to give Emma a look of disbelief, containing equal parts 'how could you do this to me?' and 'what the hell is wrong with you?' The motto of Winslow, right there.
"What do you want?" she asks through clenched teeth. She's not stupid, you'll give her that. She instantly figured out which way this conversation was going.
"Immediate transfer to Arcadia," you say.
"I don't think you realize-"
"Oh, you'll have to call in some favors I'm sure. But no one is corrupt for as long as you have been without accumulating some."
She stares at you. "You think Winslow runs net positive on favors?"
For a moment you almost empathize with her. All along, Winslow was her personal hell too.
Almost. That the devil was cast down against his will is scant comfort for the damned souls in his charge.
"I guess you'll have to go further into debt," you say with a shrug.
There is a brief staring duel. When she shows no signs of giving up, you decide to raise the stakes.
"Miss Barnes could always go straight to the media," you note. "She is consumed by remorse and will stop at nothing to make amends."
"...Fine. I will have the papers for your legal guardian to sign ready by the end of the day. The transfer itself will take at least two weeks arrange. After all," she adds when you start to object, "neither of us want to invite any special scrutiny here."
"Fair enough," you say.
"You will of course have maintain a perfect attendance record until the transfer takes effect."
Oh look, she's trying to claw out a small moral victory to salve her wounded pride. Does she get to do that? You don't think she does.
"Very funny," you say. "You meant to say, of course, that you will maintain my perfect attendance record." You grin at her. Well, you show her your teeth. "In fact, I believe you will find that any absence that was reported at the beginning of the semester was merely a clerical error."
Blackwell is clearly trying to develop laser eyes, that she might burn you to death.
"Fine. Ruin your education. See if I care. The less I have to see of you, the happier I will be. Now get the hell out of my office, both of you."
---
Once you're outside, and alone, Emma collapses against the wall, trembling.
"Holy shit, Taylor," she whispers. "I can't believe you did that."
You smile at her and squeeze her shoulder.
"I appreciate your help in this matter, friend," you say.
You leave before anyone can spot the two of you together. Once you're around the corner, and alone, you collapse against the wall, trembling. Holy shit. You can't believe you did that.
You pull yourself together and indulge in a grin that would make Lisa proud, or possibly even jealous. Your plan worked perfectly, and you solved all your problems. Not only do you no longer need to worry about Sophia, you also launched operation 'Infiltrate the Wards 2: Arcadia Boogaloo', and you scored yourself a free vacation to spend more time with Rachel's dogs. You clearly triggered with the power to own the shit out of bitches, in addition to all the other bullshit.
---
After school you meet up with Emma again and guide her to Rachel's lair. Judging by look on her face she is less than comfortable strolling through lair territory, even in daylight.
"Not everyone can afford to live in unofficial Empire territory," you chide her mildly. Heh. Now she's nervous and embarrassed.
As usual Bubbles is the first to notice your arrival, immediately launching himself towards you like he was shot from a cannon. You're ready for it. You catch him as he leaps up at you and half hug, half wrestle him to the ground and start rubbing his belly. Look at that tail go.
It takes some time before he calms down enough to notice that you brought company. By then several other dogs have come over to investigate the new arrival. Emma is taking it in good humor, letting herself be sniffed and offering head scratches to those who will accept them. You can tell that she expected a somewhat more upscale place, though.
When Bubbles rolls to his feet and approaches her, you perform introductions. "Bubbles, this is Emma. Emma, Bubbles." Emma offers her hand to sniff, but Bubbles ignores it, regarding her warily and growling softly. Good boy, excellent judgement.
"Emma is behaving herself," you tell him, "you have to tolerate her as long as she does." Hm, that might have come out a bit more autobiographical than you intended.
Then Emma yelps and practically leaps into your arms, causing Bubbles to scramble back and let out a single sharp bark. What- oh, Rachel just started turning Brutus and Judas into monsters. By touch, you note. Mugging for the fresh audience.
"What seems to be the matter, friend?" you ask. You were right, the look on her face is priceless.
"The dogs..."
"Yes?" You are the very image of polite confusion.
"That's Hellhound," she hisses.
"Yes? She runs the place, you know."
"I- you- she-" Tolerating Emma does have its high points, you must admit.
"I'm not sure what you're trying to say, friend." Emma opens her mouth to try again, but you keep going. "Are you saying that associating with a known parahuman murderer is not okay? Because that would be a very strange thing for you to say, don't you think?"
Emma slumps down and lets go of you. "...yes." Answering both your questions at once.
"Don't lose track of why we're here, friend," you say.
She just looks at you, uncomprehending. You hand her the poop shovel, as a hint.
"...oh. Right."
---
Emma never quite relaxes. She flinches away any time Brutus or Judas wanders too close, and keeps shooting nervous glances at Rachel. As you walk home through the mean streets of Brockton Bay, she clings on to your arm in a most pathetic fashion. You thought you had mastered the art of 'victim' body language, but she's showing you a few tricks you missed. Weirdly appropriate, she was the one who 'taught' you in the first place, after all.
You fight down a sudden urge to turn on her. Would it not be appropriate, to betray her trust as she is relying on you? To see the look on her face as all hope dies? You are in the perfect neighborhood for turning someone into a statistic...
You shake your head. Your minion is behaving, and must be tolerated.
Eventually you reach safer ground, and it is time for you to part ways.
"I don't think you should come back," you tell her, "Rachel didn't like you."
"Like me? She didn't talk to me once!"
"Yes, exactly. She could smell your fear." You're pretty sure Rachel can't do that, actually. It would have shown up on sorcerer's sight.
"I don't want to go back. Taylor, you never said we'd be working for a villain."
You clench your fists. You want to scream at her, about how her murderer friend, the hero, is the kind of person who would shove an innocent girl into a locker full of rotting tampons and how the fuck are those labels in any way meaningful?
But you can't. That's not who you are in this relationship. The person you are is always calm, and polite, and scary.
"You disappoint me, friend," you say instead, "but I suppose that is inevitable. Here, this is for you." You toss her your locker key. "You can have your books back. I won't be needing them."
"You meant it, then? You'll be skipping school until the transfer goes through?"
You just hold her gaze, saying nothing. The person you are right now would not say anything they did not mean to go through with. She should realize that.
"I'll, uh, I'll see you around I guess?" Emma tries.
"Yes." She guesses that. Although you probably should keep up this charade of friendship at least until you start at Arcadia, just to be safe.
---
The first thing you do when you get home is to hug your dad.
"You had a good day, I take it?" he asks.
"Oh yes. You know how I told you everything was all worked out at school? Well, that wasn't quite true. There was one girl who kept bullying me."
Danny gently pushes you out of the hug and studies you at arms length, trying to reconcile your words with your demeanor.
"But!" you continue, "Today I spoke to the principal, and she was so worried about that girl that she agreed to a school transfer. Here, you have to sign these."
He glances over the papers you hand him. "Arcadia? Taylor, that's amazing."
You nod happily. "I had Emma along to back me up. She could testify to everything that had happened, and the principal really had no choice but to agree."
The person you are right now would never tell her dad a lie.
S.06
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
- Messages
- 245
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- 16,616
For the second time you feel a power slot into place in your soul. Probably the third time really, but you have very patchy memories of anything that happened in the locker. It felt easier than last time, and tallying up the time spent you get a number closer to 40 hours than 50. You hope that means you're getting better, not just that monster dogs are easier than information processing.
Now you have a real power, and can finally get serious about your plans. Yes, you thought that last time too, but this time you mean it. Look out Brockton Bay.
...After you handle a few administrative details, that is.
"Thanks Rachel," you say.
Rachel frowns. "For what?" she asks.
"For letting me study your power."
"Oh." Rachel is quiet for a while as she mulls this over. "You won't be coming back?" She looks... sad? Did she think you were becoming friends or something? You barely spoke ten words to each other on any given day.
Which admittedly seems to be a quality Rachel looks for in a friend.
Ok yeah, maybe you were becoming friends a little bit. You even started to appreciate the dog rides from hell. But you're going to be super busy, and besides you'll be able to make your own dog rides now. Speaking of...
"I'd like to adopt Bubbles, if that's alright with you?" You know exactly who you want as your first monster. You can't even imagine any other choice.
Rachel smiles at that. "Thought you might." She finds a leash for him and hands it to you. Then she bends down in front of Bubbles, cuddling him and explaining that he's your dog now. You're not sure how much of this he understands, but he certainly seems eager to go for a walk with you, at least.
"Treat him well, or I'll kill you myself," those are Rachel's parting words. You just nod. That sort of went without saying, really.
---
You don't go very far. You just need to find someplace away from prying eyes, where you can try out your new power. Bubbles keeps darting back and forth in his eagerness to explore, trying to pull you along with him. When you tell him to heel he obeys - for several seconds at a time. Being out for a walk with his best friend is just too exciting for him to handle.
There's plenty of abandoned buildings to choose from. That one looks good, for example. Thick walls, slim doorways. It looks like it could contain an overexcited monster dog if it needed to.
You head inside and wait for Bubbles to calm down a bit.
"Sit. Sit. Hey, listen to me. Sit. Sit and stay. Stay. Good boy."
He's looking at you expectantly, his tail wagging furiously. You don't think he's going to be disappointed. You remove his collar - it would break otherwise. You then lunge forward and gather him in a hug as he tries to make a break for it.
"Stay. Okay? Good. Listen. I'm going to make you big, like Brutus and Judas. Would you like that?" No, he probably doesn't understand any of this either, but it's not like he would refuse you anything even if he did.
You try to channel your power into Bubbles. To your relief (and slight surprise) it works right away, unlike the drama you went through with soul's price. Bubbles startles a bit at the sensation, but you hug him close and make soothing sounds.
...it's working, but it's not working quickly. You can feel some sort of indescribable energy leaving you and gathering in him, and sorcerer's sight confirms what you're feeling. But nothing seems to be happening physically. One of Rachel's dogs would be the size of a small pony by now, but you don't notice any change whatsoever in Bubbles.
He's getting restless too. Experimentally you let go of him and discover that, just like Rachel, you don't actually need to be touching him to keep the power flowing. You begin a game of fetch to keep the both of you occupied.
---
Two hours later, you decide to call it a day. It's not like nothing has been happening. Bubbles is very slightly larger than he used to be, and his coat has grown out and turned from yellow to grey. His general build is changing a bit too. Is he turning into a wolf? You're pretty sure he's turning into a wolf. His ears are growing more wolf-like too, you suppose, but they are currently in a halfway state that can best be described as 'hilariously floppy'.
There's also this feeling growing inside you, that if you were to translate it into English would be something like 'I'm standing next to my spirit-tied pet'. Sure he's not very impressive right now, but you can tell that you're nowhere near the limit of what your power can do. One wrinkle is that it's an exclusive feeling - Bubbles is going to be your first and only monster. That's fine too.
Oh and unlike Rachel, what you're doing is permanent. Which complicates things considerably. Your original plan was to bring Bubbles home and have both of you make puppy-dog eyes at your dad until he agreed that you could have a pet. But if he's going to be a monster full time you can't do that. It would give away your secret identity, dad wouldn't allow it, and he wouldn't fit through the door anyway.
You're still going to go through with it. Duh. You didn't get this power in order to not turn it up to eleven, and 'my magic wolf is too awesome' is a problem you are okay with having. You just have to rethink some things. Worst case you can always come clean to Rachel and let him move back in with her.
You'll also have to spend the whole day tomorrow pumping him up, at the rate this is going. You really should try to do something more productive than playing fetch while you're at it, too. Like making a wolf-themed costume. The materials for which you'll buy, with the money that you don't have. And before that, you have to figure out what to do with him tonight.
So many problems. Well, that's what minions are for. You call Emma and tell her that you need her help. No villains involved, you promise, just wholesome adventures straight out of a Christmas movie. Oh and also you're broke and she needs to loan you some money.
Yes, you are aware that if anyone found out about that last part you'd never live it down. Sponging money off your minions, how pathetic is that? No amount of protesting that you're actually Mastering and robbing your enemies would help, either. If it ever got out you might as well change your cape name to Debt Crisis and be done with it.
It'll just have to stay your little secret. Except of course that the next time you interact with Lisa she will instantly figure out everything you're trying to hide. But if you start avoiding her, she'll just become motivated to figure out why.
You sigh. Psychic friends suck.
"Come on Bubbles, let's get you something to eat."
Bubbles perks up instantly. He understands that much English, at least.
---
Bubbles can still pass for an ill-advised husky-labrador crossbreed, so you don't have any qualms about being seen with him in public yet. You spend the last of your money on dog food and feed him in the alley behind the store. Then it's off to home.
True to your word, the planned caper is sickeningly family friendly. This poor doggie needs to stay with you overnight, but dad mustn't find out ("Why can't he stay at the dog shelter?" "You said you didn't want to be involved in that stuff, friend."). Emma goes to distract your dad, while you tell Bubbles to be very, very quiet before letting him in the back door and sneaking him up the stairs. You take care to wipe off his feet first so he doesn't leave a trail of muddy paw prints leading to your room. You've seen this Christmas movie before.
It goes off without a hitch. Not that you would mind much if it didn't, you feel confident that you could puppy dog eyes your dad into letting the funny-looking dog stay for one night. And by this time tomorrow Bubbles will hopefully have gone full wolf. Completely unrecognizable and no threat to your secret identity, in other words.
---
The feel-good hijinks continue the next morning as you have Bubbles hide under the bed, pretend to go to school and sneak back home after your dad has left for work. Then it's off to spend your ill-gotten gains.
You go on a shopping spree entirely confined to second-hand clothing and hobby stores, then you top it off by buying a mask from a dollar store. Very stereotype, much cape. If you hadn't been paying cash for everything you would no doubt have set off all kinds of red flags in dubiously legal monitoring programs.
You smile as you spot Rachel's mask on the wall next to the one you picked. Looks like you get your clothes at the same store.
Then you find another abandoned building to spend the day in, this time one that a monster dog can get out of. Man, how embarrassing would that have been, if your power had been faster and Bubbles would have been stuck there yesterday until you could widen the doorways?
You settle in for a full day of measuring, cutting, sewing and riveting. And pouring magic into your dog.
It's funny, the first skill an independent cape must learn is not martial arts, or first aid or law, but arts and crafts. Luckily you're very good at this part of the Parahumans 101 curriculum. Almost... too good? Everything you do turns out exactly the way it appeared in your head, which is distinctly different from what you remember happening in art class and home economics.
Oh goddammit, are you a Tinker 0 as well? You... You guess you don't mind. It's just weird, is all. You're both the greatest Trump and the shittiest grab-bag cape. And that's OK. Yeah. You smile as you realize that you're truly OK with everything. No trace remains of the power-self-image issues that plagued your first days as a parahuman.
You talk to Bubbles as you work. Telling him your whole sad life story, reminiscing about the good times with your mom before she died, and Emma before she became an evil bitch/brainwashed minion, that sort of thing. Perhaps you misjudged his grasp of English, because he sure seems to act like he gets the gist of it, wagging his tail at the happy bits and nuzzling you comfortingly during the sad ones. Though your tone of voice probably gives a lot away.
All the time, he is growing and turning more wolf-like. By the end of the day he'll almost match Rachel's monsters in size, you estimate. You still wouldn't bet on him in a fight against one of them, though, because to all appearances he's just becoming a big wolf, not an abomination of bone and muscle.
Fun fact about abandoned buildings: They are not very well heated. Your fingers soon start hurting from the cold and the unfamiliar work, but you ignore it, buoyed by the feeling of crafting something and having it come out right. You also start to feel a bone-deep weariness that you've never felt before. Soul-deep? Yes, you're overusing your new power as well. But you keep going, just a little bit longer, and a little bit longer still. You can feel it, the upper limit of your power. You're almost there, and you're not stopping until it's done.
With a final push you pour out the last dregs of your aching power. Bubbles, by now fully wolfed out and monster-sized, lets out a startled yelp and vanishes. Shit shit shit shit, did you accidentally your dog? Was the maximum limit actually a safety limit?
No, the feeling of connection is still there, stronger than ever. When you activate sorcerer's sight, you see a semitransparent Bubbles standing right where you left him, looking rather confused. You made an invisible monster wolf! Bubbles sniffs at your improvised work table, and his nose goes through it. He recoils, then tries again, putting his entire head through the table. You made an intangible monster wolf. That's sooo coool.
Also, convenient. You can just keep him with you at all times, and no one will ever notice. For once the universe seems to be giving you a-
Shit. You know how this part goes. Sighing with resignation, you pick up a loose board from the ground and hold it up.
"Hey, Bubbles? Can you still bite material things?" you ask, already knowing the answer.
Your loyal wolf looks up from where he was experimentally sticking his his head into the ground (how does the floor hold him up, if he can do that?) and obediently lunges for the board. His jaws phase through it harmlessly, as expected.
"Fucking figures," you mutter and toss the board away.
Bubbles lunges again - this time turning solid halfway through the motion! He catches the board in midair and bites it in half! A squeal of delight escapes your lips as you throw your arms around his neck and hug him tight.
Mmm. Turns out he is not only strong and fierce, but warm and soft as well. You could cuddle this doofus forever and not even mind that he's drooling chewed wood chips down your back.
Your wolf is amazing. Perhaps you should try being less pessimistic? Ha, no, good try there, universe. You're going to test things very carefully.
"Can you turn back into a ghost?" you ask. Then you stumble forward and almost fall over as the target of your hug vanishes.
You back off a bit - sticking your head inside translucent wolf guts is weird and unsettling. Rachel may make beasts that are dependent on her power to stay alive, but you created a beast made entirely out of power. Somehow.
"And materialize again?"
Bubbles tenses, but remains transparent. He keeps trying until he's practically vibrating in place, before finally giving up and treating you to a look of infinite sadness. He knows that he's not being a good dog right now, and he's very sorry about it.
"It's alright," you quickly reassure him. "Do you know what's wrong?"
He lies down and yawns theatrically.
"Oh, you need to rest before you can do it again?"
He nods.
"For how long?"
That's probably a shrug, as interpreted by canine shoulders.
Hang on a second. "You understand English now!?"
Another nod.
You made a selectively intangible, sapient monster wolf (that high-pitched noise in the background is you squealing with delight again). You pull out your phone and call the only number on there.
"Yeah?" Lisa answers on the third ring.
"You know how you said to call you if I wanted to brag?"
===
Now you have a real power, and can finally get serious about your plans. Yes, you thought that last time too, but this time you mean it. Look out Brockton Bay.
...After you handle a few administrative details, that is.
"Thanks Rachel," you say.
Rachel frowns. "For what?" she asks.
"For letting me study your power."
"Oh." Rachel is quiet for a while as she mulls this over. "You won't be coming back?" She looks... sad? Did she think you were becoming friends or something? You barely spoke ten words to each other on any given day.
Which admittedly seems to be a quality Rachel looks for in a friend.
Ok yeah, maybe you were becoming friends a little bit. You even started to appreciate the dog rides from hell. But you're going to be super busy, and besides you'll be able to make your own dog rides now. Speaking of...
"I'd like to adopt Bubbles, if that's alright with you?" You know exactly who you want as your first monster. You can't even imagine any other choice.
Rachel smiles at that. "Thought you might." She finds a leash for him and hands it to you. Then she bends down in front of Bubbles, cuddling him and explaining that he's your dog now. You're not sure how much of this he understands, but he certainly seems eager to go for a walk with you, at least.
"Treat him well, or I'll kill you myself," those are Rachel's parting words. You just nod. That sort of went without saying, really.
---
You don't go very far. You just need to find someplace away from prying eyes, where you can try out your new power. Bubbles keeps darting back and forth in his eagerness to explore, trying to pull you along with him. When you tell him to heel he obeys - for several seconds at a time. Being out for a walk with his best friend is just too exciting for him to handle.
There's plenty of abandoned buildings to choose from. That one looks good, for example. Thick walls, slim doorways. It looks like it could contain an overexcited monster dog if it needed to.
You head inside and wait for Bubbles to calm down a bit.
"Sit. Sit. Hey, listen to me. Sit. Sit and stay. Stay. Good boy."
He's looking at you expectantly, his tail wagging furiously. You don't think he's going to be disappointed. You remove his collar - it would break otherwise. You then lunge forward and gather him in a hug as he tries to make a break for it.
"Stay. Okay? Good. Listen. I'm going to make you big, like Brutus and Judas. Would you like that?" No, he probably doesn't understand any of this either, but it's not like he would refuse you anything even if he did.
You try to channel your power into Bubbles. To your relief (and slight surprise) it works right away, unlike the drama you went through with soul's price. Bubbles startles a bit at the sensation, but you hug him close and make soothing sounds.
...it's working, but it's not working quickly. You can feel some sort of indescribable energy leaving you and gathering in him, and sorcerer's sight confirms what you're feeling. But nothing seems to be happening physically. One of Rachel's dogs would be the size of a small pony by now, but you don't notice any change whatsoever in Bubbles.
He's getting restless too. Experimentally you let go of him and discover that, just like Rachel, you don't actually need to be touching him to keep the power flowing. You begin a game of fetch to keep the both of you occupied.
---
Two hours later, you decide to call it a day. It's not like nothing has been happening. Bubbles is very slightly larger than he used to be, and his coat has grown out and turned from yellow to grey. His general build is changing a bit too. Is he turning into a wolf? You're pretty sure he's turning into a wolf. His ears are growing more wolf-like too, you suppose, but they are currently in a halfway state that can best be described as 'hilariously floppy'.
There's also this feeling growing inside you, that if you were to translate it into English would be something like 'I'm standing next to my spirit-tied pet'. Sure he's not very impressive right now, but you can tell that you're nowhere near the limit of what your power can do. One wrinkle is that it's an exclusive feeling - Bubbles is going to be your first and only monster. That's fine too.
Oh and unlike Rachel, what you're doing is permanent. Which complicates things considerably. Your original plan was to bring Bubbles home and have both of you make puppy-dog eyes at your dad until he agreed that you could have a pet. But if he's going to be a monster full time you can't do that. It would give away your secret identity, dad wouldn't allow it, and he wouldn't fit through the door anyway.
You're still going to go through with it. Duh. You didn't get this power in order to not turn it up to eleven, and 'my magic wolf is too awesome' is a problem you are okay with having. You just have to rethink some things. Worst case you can always come clean to Rachel and let him move back in with her.
You'll also have to spend the whole day tomorrow pumping him up, at the rate this is going. You really should try to do something more productive than playing fetch while you're at it, too. Like making a wolf-themed costume. The materials for which you'll buy, with the money that you don't have. And before that, you have to figure out what to do with him tonight.
So many problems. Well, that's what minions are for. You call Emma and tell her that you need her help. No villains involved, you promise, just wholesome adventures straight out of a Christmas movie. Oh and also you're broke and she needs to loan you some money.
Yes, you are aware that if anyone found out about that last part you'd never live it down. Sponging money off your minions, how pathetic is that? No amount of protesting that you're actually Mastering and robbing your enemies would help, either. If it ever got out you might as well change your cape name to Debt Crisis and be done with it.
It'll just have to stay your little secret. Except of course that the next time you interact with Lisa she will instantly figure out everything you're trying to hide. But if you start avoiding her, she'll just become motivated to figure out why.
You sigh. Psychic friends suck.
"Come on Bubbles, let's get you something to eat."
Bubbles perks up instantly. He understands that much English, at least.
---
Bubbles can still pass for an ill-advised husky-labrador crossbreed, so you don't have any qualms about being seen with him in public yet. You spend the last of your money on dog food and feed him in the alley behind the store. Then it's off to home.
True to your word, the planned caper is sickeningly family friendly. This poor doggie needs to stay with you overnight, but dad mustn't find out ("Why can't he stay at the dog shelter?" "You said you didn't want to be involved in that stuff, friend."). Emma goes to distract your dad, while you tell Bubbles to be very, very quiet before letting him in the back door and sneaking him up the stairs. You take care to wipe off his feet first so he doesn't leave a trail of muddy paw prints leading to your room. You've seen this Christmas movie before.
It goes off without a hitch. Not that you would mind much if it didn't, you feel confident that you could puppy dog eyes your dad into letting the funny-looking dog stay for one night. And by this time tomorrow Bubbles will hopefully have gone full wolf. Completely unrecognizable and no threat to your secret identity, in other words.
---
The feel-good hijinks continue the next morning as you have Bubbles hide under the bed, pretend to go to school and sneak back home after your dad has left for work. Then it's off to spend your ill-gotten gains.
You go on a shopping spree entirely confined to second-hand clothing and hobby stores, then you top it off by buying a mask from a dollar store. Very stereotype, much cape. If you hadn't been paying cash for everything you would no doubt have set off all kinds of red flags in dubiously legal monitoring programs.
You smile as you spot Rachel's mask on the wall next to the one you picked. Looks like you get your clothes at the same store.
Then you find another abandoned building to spend the day in, this time one that a monster dog can get out of. Man, how embarrassing would that have been, if your power had been faster and Bubbles would have been stuck there yesterday until you could widen the doorways?
You settle in for a full day of measuring, cutting, sewing and riveting. And pouring magic into your dog.
It's funny, the first skill an independent cape must learn is not martial arts, or first aid or law, but arts and crafts. Luckily you're very good at this part of the Parahumans 101 curriculum. Almost... too good? Everything you do turns out exactly the way it appeared in your head, which is distinctly different from what you remember happening in art class and home economics.
Oh goddammit, are you a Tinker 0 as well? You... You guess you don't mind. It's just weird, is all. You're both the greatest Trump and the shittiest grab-bag cape. And that's OK. Yeah. You smile as you realize that you're truly OK with everything. No trace remains of the power-self-image issues that plagued your first days as a parahuman.
You talk to Bubbles as you work. Telling him your whole sad life story, reminiscing about the good times with your mom before she died, and Emma before she became an evil bitch/brainwashed minion, that sort of thing. Perhaps you misjudged his grasp of English, because he sure seems to act like he gets the gist of it, wagging his tail at the happy bits and nuzzling you comfortingly during the sad ones. Though your tone of voice probably gives a lot away.
All the time, he is growing and turning more wolf-like. By the end of the day he'll almost match Rachel's monsters in size, you estimate. You still wouldn't bet on him in a fight against one of them, though, because to all appearances he's just becoming a big wolf, not an abomination of bone and muscle.
Fun fact about abandoned buildings: They are not very well heated. Your fingers soon start hurting from the cold and the unfamiliar work, but you ignore it, buoyed by the feeling of crafting something and having it come out right. You also start to feel a bone-deep weariness that you've never felt before. Soul-deep? Yes, you're overusing your new power as well. But you keep going, just a little bit longer, and a little bit longer still. You can feel it, the upper limit of your power. You're almost there, and you're not stopping until it's done.
With a final push you pour out the last dregs of your aching power. Bubbles, by now fully wolfed out and monster-sized, lets out a startled yelp and vanishes. Shit shit shit shit, did you accidentally your dog? Was the maximum limit actually a safety limit?
No, the feeling of connection is still there, stronger than ever. When you activate sorcerer's sight, you see a semitransparent Bubbles standing right where you left him, looking rather confused. You made an invisible monster wolf! Bubbles sniffs at your improvised work table, and his nose goes through it. He recoils, then tries again, putting his entire head through the table. You made an intangible monster wolf. That's sooo coool.
Also, convenient. You can just keep him with you at all times, and no one will ever notice. For once the universe seems to be giving you a-
Shit. You know how this part goes. Sighing with resignation, you pick up a loose board from the ground and hold it up.
"Hey, Bubbles? Can you still bite material things?" you ask, already knowing the answer.
Your loyal wolf looks up from where he was experimentally sticking his his head into the ground (how does the floor hold him up, if he can do that?) and obediently lunges for the board. His jaws phase through it harmlessly, as expected.
"Fucking figures," you mutter and toss the board away.
Bubbles lunges again - this time turning solid halfway through the motion! He catches the board in midair and bites it in half! A squeal of delight escapes your lips as you throw your arms around his neck and hug him tight.
Mmm. Turns out he is not only strong and fierce, but warm and soft as well. You could cuddle this doofus forever and not even mind that he's drooling chewed wood chips down your back.
Your wolf is amazing. Perhaps you should try being less pessimistic? Ha, no, good try there, universe. You're going to test things very carefully.
"Can you turn back into a ghost?" you ask. Then you stumble forward and almost fall over as the target of your hug vanishes.
You back off a bit - sticking your head inside translucent wolf guts is weird and unsettling. Rachel may make beasts that are dependent on her power to stay alive, but you created a beast made entirely out of power. Somehow.
"And materialize again?"
Bubbles tenses, but remains transparent. He keeps trying until he's practically vibrating in place, before finally giving up and treating you to a look of infinite sadness. He knows that he's not being a good dog right now, and he's very sorry about it.
"It's alright," you quickly reassure him. "Do you know what's wrong?"
He lies down and yawns theatrically.
"Oh, you need to rest before you can do it again?"
He nods.
"For how long?"
That's probably a shrug, as interpreted by canine shoulders.
Hang on a second. "You understand English now!?"
Another nod.
You made a selectively intangible, sapient monster wolf (that high-pitched noise in the background is you squealing with delight again). You pull out your phone and call the only number on there.
"Yeah?" Lisa answers on the third ring.
"You know how you said to call you if I wanted to brag?"
===
The charm Spirit-Tied Pet creates a familiar bond. Familiars start out at one dot, power level 'literally just a dog that likes you'. You can then add up to two dots each of 'big, dangerous' and 'smart, magical'. Vanilla 'magical' lets the familiar act as a tiny essence battery, but when your juice comes from a direct connection to a staggeringly vast fragment of an alien god rather than conventional essence pools, that would be useless to you.
I've always felt that the solar Familiar background needed buffing anyway, so this improved version of Spirit-Tied Pet borrows from the sidereal charm Spirit-Shape Companion, with that last dot turning the familiar into a spirit.
The 'Tinker 0' thing is simply how Taylor interprets/describes her not-exaltation's generic stat buffs including dots in Craft.
I've always felt that the solar Familiar background needed buffing anyway, so this improved version of Spirit-Tied Pet borrows from the sidereal charm Spirit-Shape Companion, with that last dot turning the familiar into a spirit.
The 'Tinker 0' thing is simply how Taylor interprets/describes her not-exaltation's generic stat buffs including dots in Craft.
Charms:
Taylor: All-encompassing Sorcerer's Sight
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
Taylor: All-encompassing Sorcerer's Sight
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
S.07
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
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"I believe the boat graveyard is traditional for such things. I'll bring lunch. Ok, see you."
I pocket my phone and return to the common room. Brian and Rachel turn towards me expectantly. They know what a private phone call usually signifies. Alec, of course, remains focused on his video game.
"New job?" Rachel asks.
"No, just a friend who wanted to have lunch together. Your new minion in fact."
Rachel's face clouds over. "She quit," she says.
Taylor would have cut ties as soon as she got what she wanted, my power informs me. I really should have figured that out on my own, and kept quiet. But the way Rachel said that...
"You miss her," I realize. Out loud. Dammit.
"Fuck you!" She reacts exactly as expected. This is why I try to keep my mouth shut around Rachel.
"Aw, the big bad Bitch is a cuddly-wuddly little softie on the inside," Alec observes.
Rachel stands up and leaves without another word. But the set of her jaw - and the way she slams the door behind her - makes it clear that she's genuinely upset, even to mundane observers.
"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone you ran off to cry," Alec calls after her. But he does it quietly enough that she won't make out the words through the door, because he doesn't want to to get mauled by dogs.
Brian glares at him. "You're not helping," he says.
"Wasn't trying to!" is his cheerful response.
I sigh. Sure, as friends go Taylor leaves a lot to be desired, but it's not as if I'm spoiled for choice.
I pocket my phone and return to the common room. Brian and Rachel turn towards me expectantly. They know what a private phone call usually signifies. Alec, of course, remains focused on his video game.
"New job?" Rachel asks.
"No, just a friend who wanted to have lunch together. Your new minion in fact."
Rachel's face clouds over. "She quit," she says.
Taylor would have cut ties as soon as she got what she wanted, my power informs me. I really should have figured that out on my own, and kept quiet. But the way Rachel said that...
"You miss her," I realize. Out loud. Dammit.
"Fuck you!" She reacts exactly as expected. This is why I try to keep my mouth shut around Rachel.
"Aw, the big bad Bitch is a cuddly-wuddly little softie on the inside," Alec observes.
Rachel stands up and leaves without another word. But the set of her jaw - and the way she slams the door behind her - makes it clear that she's genuinely upset, even to mundane observers.
"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone you ran off to cry," Alec calls after her. But he does it quietly enough that she won't make out the words through the door, because he doesn't want to to get mauled by dogs.
Brian glares at him. "You're not helping," he says.
"Wasn't trying to!" is his cheerful response.
I sigh. Sure, as friends go Taylor leaves a lot to be desired, but it's not as if I'm spoiled for choice.
"Dad, is it alright if I sleep in the basement?" You wring your hands and look suitably embarrassed about making such a strange request.
Your father looks suitably confused. Everyone is behaving as they should, how nice. "Why?" he asks. "It's a mess down there."
"I'll clean it! It's just..." You look down at your feet. "It would make me feel safer." Boom, right in the fatherly instincts. You suffered severe mental trauma not all that long ago, remember?
He sweeps you into a hug in response. "Taylor. Would it help if you could talk to someone? A therapist? We could afford to find one for you."
You're pretty sure that last part is a lie, actually. Dad doesn't like to talk about work much (or about anything, really), but it's glaringly obvious that it's been a bad couple of years for the Dockworker's Union.
"Dad, no. It's no big thing. I can cope. But-"
"-you'd cope better in the basement," he finishes. "Alright. There should be sleeping bags somewhere down there. Let's go find them."
You spend the next couple of hours cleaning the basement together. Much more thoroughly than would be needed just to create a sleeping space, but you both agree that you may as well do a proper job of it while you're at it. There's fond reminiscences when you uncover artifacts of your childhood, and painful silences when you come across mom's stuff. As always, it hits your dad the hardest. You remain relatively cheerful throughout: You can't help but smile whenever your gaze happens across the translucent wolf dozing in the corner.
Then you set up a makeshift bedroom: A sleeping bag on a pile of blankets, a night light and your alarm clock on a box nearby.
As soon as your dad has wished you good night and closed the basement door behind him, you call softly to Bubbles and ask him to materialize again. You initiated this whole thing because you didn't think the floor upstairs could take his weight in solid form.
You sigh happily as you cuddle up to a thousand pounds of lean muscle, sharp fangs, warm fur, unconditional love. You weren't lying. You feel super safe right now.
---
Of course you had to set your alarm extra early to make sure you would wake up and shoo Bubbles back into the spirit realm before your dad could come down and check on you, but you don't mind that at all. You take the opportunity to get breakfast started, and greet your dad with bacon, eggs, a hug and a kiss on the cheek when he comes down.
"You're up early," he notes. "Did you sleep well?"
"It was lovely down there," you assure him.
Soon enough it's time for him to leave for work, and you for
---
The boat graveyard. A monument to Brockton's economic situation. Once things started going bad, some genius decided that blocking off the main harbor was a good form of protest. Long story short, they did it a little too well. Now the coast is a mess of rusting and half-sunken hulks, and the surrounding docks abandoned to the point that not even the gangs are interested in the territory.
According to Lisa, it's also where new capes go to test out the less subtle aspects of their powers. It offers relative privacy, and no one gets upset about property damage. You don't really care right now, one abandoned building is much like another. You find a relatively intact warehouse by the waterfront and set up shop. You notice that one of the walls has several neat holes punched out of it. Rune's telekinesis, maybe, or Skidmark's acceleration fields? Or some sort of Tinker cannon, whatever.
Bubbles claims to remember Lisa ("the girl who came with me the day we first met"), so you set him to patrol, keeping a lookout for her while you resume work on your costume.
---
Bubbles predictably returns to report success around lunchtime, and you carefully stow your costume and equipment before you go to meet your friend. Rather than getting used to it, your fingers are cramping up even worse than yesterday. But you're almost done.
Lisa is carrying a plastic bag, presumably containing the promised lunch. As soon as she sees you, her power goes into action. There's something you're hiding, check. You mastered someone, check. Something you did to that person-
"There's something more important you really should be focusing on," you say, derailing her.
Her eyes instantly fasten on the patch of empty air that only you can see contains a giant wolf. "We're not alone here," she says. "Invisibility?"
You whisper "come forth" and Bubbles appears, tail wagging and eager to greet a new friend. Turns out that fending off a friendly dog that wants to lick your face is pretty difficult when it's taller than you are.
You smile at the antics, but eventually take pity on your friend. Also, Lisa's power was telling her something there, but a magic wolf was blocking your view so you couldn't make out what it was. "Bubbles. Lie down, roll over, and the nice lady will give you belly rubs."
Bubbles obeys instantly, but Lisa takes a while to stop sputtering and wiping at her face. "If she doesn't come through with the belly rubs, you are allowed to resume licking her," you add.
Lisa shoots you a dirty look, but kneels down and fulfills her part of bargain. Once more giving you an unobstructed view to read out what her power is telling her. Things such as...
"He understands English. You created a human-level intelligence!"
"I know, right? He's awesome." Bubbles' tail speeds up even more at the praise, kicking up dirt as it sweeps back and forth along the ground. The way Lisa is using her power to give a better belly rub isn't hurting either.
"Well, more or less human-level," she amends. "He's not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, is he?"
"Hey!" Is she badmouthing your magic wolf? "Enjoying a good belly rub has nothing to do with intelligence or lack thereof. Bubbles, demonstrate."
"What are you- no, stop!" Bubbles rolls back to his feet and springs up, knocking Lisa over in the process. He then proceeds to nuzzle the everloving shit out of her stomach, eliciting a storm of shrieks and giggles. "Don't- aah, tickles! Bad wolf! Eeeee! No, stop! Bad touch, bad touch! I'm sorry, ok? I'm sorry I- ahahaha- I'm sorry I called you stupid!"
Bubbles stops and looks back at you questioningly, and you motion for him to back off. Lisa gets to her feet, red-faced and panting.
"Holy shit," she gasps, "he's terrifying. And he turns invisible- wait, intangible too? Fuck me."
"The phasing is strictly limited," you protest. "Besides, don't you Undersiders ride around on monster dogs all the time? You should be used to it."
"Yeah, but I never truly appreciated how scary they would be when you're on the receiving end." She shakes her head. "And this guy can use his definitely 100% human-level intelligence to plan ambushes, and leap at you out of nowhere when you least expect it? Trust me, terrifying.
"Well, except maybe the name," she adds. She holds up her hands placatingly when Bubbles huffs and starts advancing on her. "It's a perfectly good name! Just not very scary, you know."
"I've got a new name in mind for him," you say. "But I can't tell you what it is right now, because then you'd figure out all my plans."
Then she figures out all you plans anyway, because Thinkers.
---
Lunch turns out to be takeout Chinese. And one can of dog food.
"Sorry Bubbles," Lisa says, "I expected you to be able to shrink down like Rachel's dogs."
"Oh, Bubbles doesn't need to eat anymore," you say. One of several inconvenient biological functions that ghost wolves no longer have to worry about, you established last night.
"Need, no. Enjoy, yes," she responds. And her power backs her up on it. You feel a lump forming in your stomach. When you asked him if he needed to eat and he just shook his head, he must have heard the worry in your voice. He was being a Good Dog.
You jump up and hug him. "I'm so sorry," you whisper. "I'll make it up to- uh..." Shit, shit, shit! "Actually I'm super broke right now, but as soon as I have some money you'll feast like a king, I promise! Ok?"
He gently shakes you off and backs up a bit, and for a moment you are terrified that he's rejecting you. But then he licks your face and everything is alright with the world.
---
"There's one thing I don't understand," you say.
"Only one?" Lisa counters instantly. "Sorry, reflex. Ask away."
"Cape fights."
"What about 'em?"
"How do they even exist? With the huge range of power levels, and the fact that most capes are glass cannons, and, you know..." You make vague hand gestures to indicate your confusion. "The odds of any given confrontation not being over instantly is tiny!"
"One on one, sure, it's often quick and unfair. It's when you have big teams facing off against each other that things get interesting," she says. "Defensive powers, offensive powers, odd power interactions. That's when you get a proper fight, and cleverness can turn the tide. And believe me, everyone is trying to be clever. When you put on a silly costume and go out looking for a fight, you are admitting that you want to be the protagonist in your own comic book."
You nod. Thus the sandbagging, too. So you can reveal your true power level and save the day when dramatically appropriate.
"Ok, but how are the losers not wiped out, regardless? There's lasers and explosions and people getting punched through walls and, and huge monster dogs biting people, and stuff. Lethal stuff."
"Ah." She nods sagely. "The old 'why doesn't Hookwolf just kill everyone' question. To answer that, you need to answer another question: Why don't you kill people? You could get your hands on a gun, with some effort."
"Not an amoral psychopath?"
"And?"
"And... I don't want to get shot by the police," you say slowly, realization dawning. "Just like Hookwolf wants to avoid PRT airstrikes."
"Yeah. Hookwolf actually has a pretty inconvenient power, because he has to be so careful when not fighting high-level Brutes. Don't get me wrong, he's racked up quite the body count over the years. But he doesn't kill people indiscriminately-"
"-you can tell by how there are still some left," you finish for her.
"Right. He's careful enough that the heroes are still trying to capture him and send him to the Birdcage. No kill order."
"So the best power for winning fights would actually be something less lethal, like... farting knockout gas?"
"Well, kind of. But once Roland the Farter makes a name for himself, everyone is going to wear hazmat suits when they go to fight him. And then he really wants to be friends with Hookwolf, who can carefully cut their suits open, and we're back to team fights and synergies.
"But anyway, everyone pulls their punches, and retreats early if things start to go bad." She grimaces. "Less so in Brockton Bay than elsewhere, because the heroes have Panacea, the Empire has Othala, and the ABB is Lung, so injuries are usually a lot less lethal or career-ending here. Which is not super great for those of us who are not heroes, nazis or dragons."
You shake your head. "People still die though, as you said. On both sides. Accidents, carelessness, deliberate malice, whatever. But the heroes still play along?" You pause and consider the words that just came out of your mouth. "No, never mind the heroes, heroes are assholes. What about the police? Politicians? The military?"
"Two reasons for that. No, three. First off, consider our fair city. Famously cape-heavy, notoriously villain-dense. But run the numbers and you end up with roughly one villain per ten thousand people." She leans back and gestures grandly. "The forces of law and order love us. Our effect on the overall crime rate is negligible, but we're celebrities. And when they catch a celebrity criminal they look really good to the public, completely out of proportion to the effect they're actually having."
Ok, yes, you knew heroes were assholes. But, um. Yeah. You're going with 'um'. Lisa kindly waits for your worldview to stop spinning before she continues.
"You know pre-Scion comic books?" she asks.
"Not very well."
"Well, they basically predicted the current situation almost perfectly. And a lot of nerds criticized that. They claimed that it was ridiculous, that you couldn't possibly give so many people random superpowers and have society remain the same except for a light sprinkling of people occasionally dressing up and shooting lasers at each other. Super unrealistic." She grins at you.
You snort. "Boy were they wrong."
"No," Lisa says, all traces of mirth suddenly gone. "They weren't. It is ridiculous. But when powers started appearing for real, well. The people in charge, the real movers and shakers, they didn't like it. If the world changed too much, why, they might end up not being in charge anymore. Luckily for them there was a model for how things could stay more or less the same, already embedded in the public consciousness. A self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.
"You would not believe the effort that goes into maintaining the status quo," she continues, stabbing the air with her chopsticks to emphasize her point. "Parahumans that decide to commit flashy crimes are subtly encouraged by lax law enforcement and insecure prisons, and parahumans that try to go into politics or business are brazenly shut down by blatant legislative and judicial corruption. The whole hero versus villain thing is a charade, designed to prop up a society based on the notion that all men are born equal in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary."
Once again you take a moment to process things. Sure, it sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory. But. Only a very few people are born with the potential to become parahuman. This is well known and apparently uncontroversial in the scientific community, yet you've never seen it mentioned in any form of media or school book. You yourself only know because you went looking for cape facts in the weird corners of the internet.
Hell, you read most of a 150-page thread on PHO speculating on the source of powers. It had all sorts of theories that would be instantly debunked by this one simple fact, and it was never brought up once. It was like watching a bunch Flat-Earthers discussing the best way to launch a satellite. There is clearly some heavy-duty social engineering going on somewhere.
"What's the third reason?" you ask with some trepidation.
"It's worth keeping us around just on the chance that we help out against the really bad stuff. Can't fight S-class threats if you're in prison, you know? We get to live in a comic book, as long as we die in an Endbringer fight."
Last edited:
S.08
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
- Messages
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- 16,616
You've figured out the problem with your plans. When you come up with them they are entirely brilliant, because it's up to Future Taylor to carry them out. But when the time to act finally rolls around, Future Taylor still hasn't shown up to take over from you.
You're currently dressed in your new costume. Most of it is fairly mundane: Riding breeches, boots, gloves. The thing that took so much work was the chest piece, a black 'leather scale mail' that you assembled from several old jackets. It's almost entirely useless as actual armor, being more of a really thick t-shirt. But between the bronze-colored rivets holding the scales in place and the curly decorations you made from scraps of copper wire you could pass for a Viking warrior, if the warrior in question was working as an extra in a B movie.
Really, the only historically accurate part of the outfit is the knife and purse on your belt. Well, the sheath at least. The knife is very modern (the purse also contains pepper spray).
Your cheap plastic mask depicts an insufferably smug man with a thin beard and mustache, and your head is otherwise bare. You also, er, padded your costume a bit in the front, to suggest the presence of a bust. Also in the, uh, in the area around the hips. It's not vanity! Obfuscating your stick-like figure will help protect your secret identity! Also, you didn't want anyone look at the male face on the mask and draw the wrong conclusions. In case your long curly hair wasn't enough of a clue. Or your voice.
Alright, fine, it's vanity. Moving on.
It's still February, and walking around in a glorified t-shirt is fucking cold. But that's all part of the plan. That way, when you raise your arm to greet the three skinheads in front of you, your skin color is readily apparent. Well, you assume they are all skinheads: Two of them are sensible enough to wear hats in this climate. One of the hat-wearers has a walkie-talkie, and is speaking into it.
"Number two patrol, reporting," he's saying. He listens to something you can't make out, then continues. "Encountered unknown parahuman, appears non-hostile." Another garbled communication. "Roger that. Out."
He returns the walkie-talkie to his belt. You can't exactly say that he turns his attention to you, because all three of them have been watching you warily the whole time. But he raises his arm to return your greeting.
"Can we help you, miss?" See, he correctly identified your gender before you opened your mouth. This totally validates the padding! The speaker wears an expression of polite indifference fitting his query, the guy on the left glares at you suspiciously, and the guy on the right looks faintly annoyed. Though to be fair he looked annoyed even before they spotted you, and hasn't changed expression since - he might just be annoyed that his ears are cold. They are very prominent.
"I'd like to join the Empire," you say. The three of them relax somewhat.
"I'll call it in. Your name?"
"Low Key." You picked your name and costume specifically for this moment. Nazis: For all that they loudly proclaim to hate faggots, they are every single one of them gay for Norse mythology.
"I'm Mike. This is Sven and Alex." He shakes you hand, then gestures to each companion in turn. "Excuse me." He turns away and raises the walkie-talkie again. Sven-the-suspicious and Alex-the-annoyed offer you handshakes as well.
"Pretty sure Loki was a guy," Alex observes.
"Tell that to Sleipnr," you say.
He nods thoughtfully. "Piece of advice, though: People who fuck horses don't get to join our club."
"I'll keep that in mind," you promise. See, he got the reference! You totally called it, gay for Norse mythology.
Mike finishes up his conversation on the walkie-talkie and turns back to you. "Kaiser will meet you at the foundry. Alex will guide you there."
Sven passes his headgear to Alex. It's like a badge, you realize: At least one shaved head per patrol must be visible at all times.
"Why me?" Alex asks.
"Because I trust you to be diplomatic and not scare off the new recruit before she even gets to Kaiser. Sven not so much."
"At least I can be trusted not to marry a jew!" Sven counters.
Mike turns to face him. "Really, we're doing this? You'd do this to me? In front of the new brass? Fight me!" He puts up his hands in a boxer's stance and throws a punch - a slow, playful punch clearly not intended to connect.
Sven puts up his dukes and deflects it, before responding in kind. They get really quite into their footwork as they continue to not-quite-shadowbox against each other. You and Alex flee before the sheer amount of male bonding in the air reaches toxic levels.
---
You and Alex walk in silence for a while, until finally you can't keep a lid on your curiosity any more.
"Did he actually-"
"Tragic story, really," Alex says. "Got married before he found out about the JQ, then he was trapped between the vows of matrimony and the fourteen words."
At this point you realize your mistake: You thoroughly researched the nazi capes, but completely neglected to study their technical vocabulary. Yes, like every other Brockton Bay native you are aware that the '8's in 'Empire 88' refer to the eighth letter of the alphabet, and that the resulting 'HH' stands for 'Heil Hitler' (the whole thing always struck you as a bit silly, a 'no girls allowed in my treehouse club' level of secret code). But that's all you know, and you didn't even consider that there would be more of that sort of stuff. Which, in retrospect, is somewhat like trying to infiltrate the Merchants without knowing the street names for heroin. Which probably also prominently feature the letter H now that you think about it.
No, focus. You need to take this more seriously. Right, uh, J is another easy letter, must be jew-something-or-other, and the fourteen words are probably something like 'fuck niggers and kikes, the holocaust didn't happen but I wish it did'. Was that fourteen? You understood the gist of his statement, at least. You hope.
"So what happened?" you ask.
"Tried to hide his wife from his friends and his politics from his wife," Alex says. He shakes his head sadly. "That shit never works long term. Always gets out sooner or later. She divorced him, of course. Huge scandal too, almost got him thrown out of the Empire." He pauses, looking thoughtful. "Some people still think he should have been."
"But not you?"
"Nah, honest mistake. Guy ended up in a bad situation, no good way out."
You nod along, doing your best to appear calm. His conviction that secrets inevitably get revealed is not exactly doing wonders for your peace of mind right now. But there's no turning back. You'll just have to make sure that by the time you get found out, you'll have nicked enough powers to make it out alive. Gotta step up your game.
On that note, what is your soul's price, Alex the Surprisingly Reasonable Nazi?
Alex wants to secure the survival of his people and a future for white children.
Hm. After due consideration, you'll have to reluctantly file him in the 'too well-adjusted to Master' bin. Unfortunate.
---
Turns out that 'the foundry' is not the name of a club or a pub, nor is it an abandoned industrial property turned villain lair. It's an actual, active foundry, full of workers and molten steel and everything.
The sudden heat is quite welcome, since you apparently lack the sense to dress yourself properly. You still stop in the doorway and blink in surprise as the true import of what you're seeing dawns on you, though. Non-bankrupt heavy industry, in your city? Either the fascists really do make the trains run on time, or Kaiser is using gang money to prop up an otherwise hopeless business for reasons of his own. Putting the socialist in national socialist, as it were.
Then you blink again. The sight of molten steel is filling your brain with all kinds of ideas. The wonders you could forge, if you had a magma smelter, and- You shake your head to get rid of the images. Ok, so you're a Tinker >0, that's cool and all, but not what's important right now.
You're led to a secluded section in the back, where Kaiser is waiting for you. He sits on a metal throne behind a metal desk, wearing an ornate suit of metal armor covering his whole body. It seems to fit him perfectly, and you marvel at how each joint of his gauntlet moves as he raises a hand to beckon you closer. You could make even better armor, if- no, focus.
Kaiser has the power to create and control metal. The message behind him holding this meeting mere yards away from several tons of molten steel is not lost on you. Nor are his bodyguards: Two tall, blonde valkyries. And by tall you mean roughly 12 feet (by 'valkyries', you mean that they are wearing viking-themed outfits considerably more expensive than your own, but just as historically accurate). Fenja and Menja, twins who apparently shared the same trigger event.
That they're only double human size right now is also a message. If they were regular unpowered criminals they would have their guns in hand, but pointing away from you, with their fingers off the trigger.
"Low Key, was it? I'm told you wish to join us." Kaiser speaks up. His is the voice of a man completely confident in his position. Yes, he could kill you in three different ways right now, but if you were in his shoes you'd be at least a little bit worried about a parahuman with unknown powers standing so close. Guess that's why you're not a gang leader.
"Yes, sir," you reply.
Kaiser puts his hand on his chin and tilts his head, a deliberately exaggerated motion to make up for his full-face helmet. "With that name... Let me guess, Thinker?"
"No." You shake your head.
"Stranger?"
"No."
"Master, then."
"Yyyes, but not in the way you're thinking."
"Then by all means, demonstrate!" He bows slightly in his seat and indicates that the floor is yours with another exaggerated gesture.
"Come forth," you whisper, and the room contains significantly more wolf. Fenja and Menja both startle, but if Kaiser reacts at all it is subtle enough for his armor to hide it.
"Meet Fenrir," you announce calmly. Conjuring a giant wolf out of thin air is no big deal for you, clearly. Unfortunately the wolf himself rather undermines the impression you're going for with his wagging tail, panting grin and general air of being delighted to meet new friends. Hmph. Next time you'll explicitly tell him to look aloof and threatening. It might even work.
One of the Enjas - the one with the spear, not the sword, you can't for the life of you remember which is which - cautiously approaches the wolf, shooting questioning glances at both you and her boss. When neither of you object, she reaches out and runs her hand through Fenrir's fur. Tail wagging intensifies. Encouraged, she proceeds to scratch behind his ears, and the situation quickly degenerates from there. Before long Fenrir is flat on his back, accepting belly rubs and assurances that he's a good boy.
You and Kaiser share a look. Even with both your faces completely covered, the sentiment is communicated clearly. 'Fucking minions, am I right? No sense of gravitas whatsoever.'
"Do you have snake as well, for Fenja to fawn over?" he asks with a certain asperity. Menja completely fails to get the hint.
(Also, still called it. Every one of them, gay for the norsemen)
"'Fraid not," you say.
"A shame. You may dismiss it now. Menja, do try to control yourself."
Menja reluctantly gets up and resumes her position at his side, and you whisper "begone". Fenrir takes the time to give you a wounded look before he dematerializes, but obeys. He is a good boy, after all.
There's no reason be more nervous now than before, you tell yourself. Kaiser can still kill you in three different ways, the fact that Fenrir won't be able to materialize again for several hours makes no difference.
"You power appears adequate," Kaiser notes. "How is your martial arts?"
Oh. Clearly your sweet Viking costume has convinced Kaiser that you've already mastered the first required cape skill, so he goes straight to asking about the second. Which might be a problem.
"...nonexistent?"
"Hookwolf holds classes. You will attend those until he judges your skills sufficient. We don't expect you to take down Armsmaster in single combat, but we do expect you to be able to hold your own against a Ward. Do you know first aid?"
And there goes the third skill. You shake your head.
"Well. It's almost time for the annual refresher course anyway. We'll hold it a bit earlier than usual."
"Don't you have Othala for that?" you ask.
"Othala can't be everywhere," he says, his disapproval clear in his voice. "Everyone who gets injured in the line of duty will be treated by her, but someone may need to keep them from bleeding to death until she arrives, and that someone may be you."
"Understood, sir."
"It's quite early still. I think we'll send you on the introductory patrol right away."
"Oh. You should have said earlier, now I can't."
"Explain."
"It's my power, see. After I dismiss Fenrir it takes quite a while before I can call him back."
"How long?"
"I'm not sure, it seems to vary," you answer honestly. "I'll definitely be ready by Monday," you continue, still truthful but considerably less honest. But it's what's expected of you as a cape. ABS: Always Be Sandbagging.
"Unfortunate. Very well. Monday and Friday patrol, Tuesday and Thursday martial arts, Wednesday first aid - make a note, Wednesdays for the refresher course - to be replaced with more patrol on completion, your power permitting. Schedule subject to change in case of unusual circumstances, e.g. jailbreaks, gang wars." Kaiser does not lose his businesslike, faintly bored tone as his spiel meanders over to felonies and grave risk of bodily harm. "You're still in school?"
You nod.
"Untrained, working part time. Your salary will be one thousand dollars a month. With bonuses for parahuman combat, the size of which will depend on danger and results."
"You expect me to break people out of jail for a thousand bucks a month?" you scoff. "The Wards make more than that, once you factor in the scholarship fund."
"And if you cared more about money than about doing the right thing, you would be joining them instead of us," Kaiser counters.
You turn away from him and lock eyes with Menja. "Can you believe this shit?" you ask her. "The Kaiser is jewing me."
She bursts out laughing, then quickly claps her hands over her mouth. Even Kaiser is chuckling softly as you turn back to him.
"Very well," he says. "I will cover your college tuition as well, assuming you remain with the Empire that long."
"Because giving my boss an incentive to make sure I become part of the cape longevity statistics sounds like an excellent idea," you say. "Tell you what, why don't you take advantage of the fact that I'm young, foolish and broke and instead offer me a generous - but ultimately much smaller - signing bonus?"
Kaiser chuckles again. "You drive a hard bargain, miss Low Key. Are you sure you're not a Thinker?"
No, you're a Tinker, as you found out just now. You have a brain full of ideas, and getting them out of there and into the real world is going to cost a fortune.
===
You're currently dressed in your new costume. Most of it is fairly mundane: Riding breeches, boots, gloves. The thing that took so much work was the chest piece, a black 'leather scale mail' that you assembled from several old jackets. It's almost entirely useless as actual armor, being more of a really thick t-shirt. But between the bronze-colored rivets holding the scales in place and the curly decorations you made from scraps of copper wire you could pass for a Viking warrior, if the warrior in question was working as an extra in a B movie.
Really, the only historically accurate part of the outfit is the knife and purse on your belt. Well, the sheath at least. The knife is very modern (the purse also contains pepper spray).
Your cheap plastic mask depicts an insufferably smug man with a thin beard and mustache, and your head is otherwise bare. You also, er, padded your costume a bit in the front, to suggest the presence of a bust. Also in the, uh, in the area around the hips. It's not vanity! Obfuscating your stick-like figure will help protect your secret identity! Also, you didn't want anyone look at the male face on the mask and draw the wrong conclusions. In case your long curly hair wasn't enough of a clue. Or your voice.
Alright, fine, it's vanity. Moving on.
It's still February, and walking around in a glorified t-shirt is fucking cold. But that's all part of the plan. That way, when you raise your arm to greet the three skinheads in front of you, your skin color is readily apparent. Well, you assume they are all skinheads: Two of them are sensible enough to wear hats in this climate. One of the hat-wearers has a walkie-talkie, and is speaking into it.
"Number two patrol, reporting," he's saying. He listens to something you can't make out, then continues. "Encountered unknown parahuman, appears non-hostile." Another garbled communication. "Roger that. Out."
He returns the walkie-talkie to his belt. You can't exactly say that he turns his attention to you, because all three of them have been watching you warily the whole time. But he raises his arm to return your greeting.
"Can we help you, miss?" See, he correctly identified your gender before you opened your mouth. This totally validates the padding! The speaker wears an expression of polite indifference fitting his query, the guy on the left glares at you suspiciously, and the guy on the right looks faintly annoyed. Though to be fair he looked annoyed even before they spotted you, and hasn't changed expression since - he might just be annoyed that his ears are cold. They are very prominent.
"I'd like to join the Empire," you say. The three of them relax somewhat.
"I'll call it in. Your name?"
"Low Key." You picked your name and costume specifically for this moment. Nazis: For all that they loudly proclaim to hate faggots, they are every single one of them gay for Norse mythology.
"I'm Mike. This is Sven and Alex." He shakes you hand, then gestures to each companion in turn. "Excuse me." He turns away and raises the walkie-talkie again. Sven-the-suspicious and Alex-the-annoyed offer you handshakes as well.
"Pretty sure Loki was a guy," Alex observes.
"Tell that to Sleipnr," you say.
He nods thoughtfully. "Piece of advice, though: People who fuck horses don't get to join our club."
"I'll keep that in mind," you promise. See, he got the reference! You totally called it, gay for Norse mythology.
Mike finishes up his conversation on the walkie-talkie and turns back to you. "Kaiser will meet you at the foundry. Alex will guide you there."
Sven passes his headgear to Alex. It's like a badge, you realize: At least one shaved head per patrol must be visible at all times.
"Why me?" Alex asks.
"Because I trust you to be diplomatic and not scare off the new recruit before she even gets to Kaiser. Sven not so much."
"At least I can be trusted not to marry a jew!" Sven counters.
Mike turns to face him. "Really, we're doing this? You'd do this to me? In front of the new brass? Fight me!" He puts up his hands in a boxer's stance and throws a punch - a slow, playful punch clearly not intended to connect.
Sven puts up his dukes and deflects it, before responding in kind. They get really quite into their footwork as they continue to not-quite-shadowbox against each other. You and Alex flee before the sheer amount of male bonding in the air reaches toxic levels.
---
You and Alex walk in silence for a while, until finally you can't keep a lid on your curiosity any more.
"Did he actually-"
"Tragic story, really," Alex says. "Got married before he found out about the JQ, then he was trapped between the vows of matrimony and the fourteen words."
At this point you realize your mistake: You thoroughly researched the nazi capes, but completely neglected to study their technical vocabulary. Yes, like every other Brockton Bay native you are aware that the '8's in 'Empire 88' refer to the eighth letter of the alphabet, and that the resulting 'HH' stands for 'Heil Hitler' (the whole thing always struck you as a bit silly, a 'no girls allowed in my treehouse club' level of secret code). But that's all you know, and you didn't even consider that there would be more of that sort of stuff. Which, in retrospect, is somewhat like trying to infiltrate the Merchants without knowing the street names for heroin. Which probably also prominently feature the letter H now that you think about it.
No, focus. You need to take this more seriously. Right, uh, J is another easy letter, must be jew-something-or-other, and the fourteen words are probably something like 'fuck niggers and kikes, the holocaust didn't happen but I wish it did'. Was that fourteen? You understood the gist of his statement, at least. You hope.
"So what happened?" you ask.
"Tried to hide his wife from his friends and his politics from his wife," Alex says. He shakes his head sadly. "That shit never works long term. Always gets out sooner or later. She divorced him, of course. Huge scandal too, almost got him thrown out of the Empire." He pauses, looking thoughtful. "Some people still think he should have been."
"But not you?"
"Nah, honest mistake. Guy ended up in a bad situation, no good way out."
You nod along, doing your best to appear calm. His conviction that secrets inevitably get revealed is not exactly doing wonders for your peace of mind right now. But there's no turning back. You'll just have to make sure that by the time you get found out, you'll have nicked enough powers to make it out alive. Gotta step up your game.
On that note, what is your soul's price, Alex the Surprisingly Reasonable Nazi?
Alex wants to secure the survival of his people and a future for white children.
Hm. After due consideration, you'll have to reluctantly file him in the 'too well-adjusted to Master' bin. Unfortunate.
---
Turns out that 'the foundry' is not the name of a club or a pub, nor is it an abandoned industrial property turned villain lair. It's an actual, active foundry, full of workers and molten steel and everything.
The sudden heat is quite welcome, since you apparently lack the sense to dress yourself properly. You still stop in the doorway and blink in surprise as the true import of what you're seeing dawns on you, though. Non-bankrupt heavy industry, in your city? Either the fascists really do make the trains run on time, or Kaiser is using gang money to prop up an otherwise hopeless business for reasons of his own. Putting the socialist in national socialist, as it were.
Then you blink again. The sight of molten steel is filling your brain with all kinds of ideas. The wonders you could forge, if you had a magma smelter, and- You shake your head to get rid of the images. Ok, so you're a Tinker >0, that's cool and all, but not what's important right now.
You're led to a secluded section in the back, where Kaiser is waiting for you. He sits on a metal throne behind a metal desk, wearing an ornate suit of metal armor covering his whole body. It seems to fit him perfectly, and you marvel at how each joint of his gauntlet moves as he raises a hand to beckon you closer. You could make even better armor, if- no, focus.
Kaiser has the power to create and control metal. The message behind him holding this meeting mere yards away from several tons of molten steel is not lost on you. Nor are his bodyguards: Two tall, blonde valkyries. And by tall you mean roughly 12 feet (by 'valkyries', you mean that they are wearing viking-themed outfits considerably more expensive than your own, but just as historically accurate). Fenja and Menja, twins who apparently shared the same trigger event.
That they're only double human size right now is also a message. If they were regular unpowered criminals they would have their guns in hand, but pointing away from you, with their fingers off the trigger.
"Low Key, was it? I'm told you wish to join us." Kaiser speaks up. His is the voice of a man completely confident in his position. Yes, he could kill you in three different ways right now, but if you were in his shoes you'd be at least a little bit worried about a parahuman with unknown powers standing so close. Guess that's why you're not a gang leader.
"Yes, sir," you reply.
Kaiser puts his hand on his chin and tilts his head, a deliberately exaggerated motion to make up for his full-face helmet. "With that name... Let me guess, Thinker?"
"No." You shake your head.
"Stranger?"
"No."
"Master, then."
"Yyyes, but not in the way you're thinking."
"Then by all means, demonstrate!" He bows slightly in his seat and indicates that the floor is yours with another exaggerated gesture.
"Come forth," you whisper, and the room contains significantly more wolf. Fenja and Menja both startle, but if Kaiser reacts at all it is subtle enough for his armor to hide it.
"Meet Fenrir," you announce calmly. Conjuring a giant wolf out of thin air is no big deal for you, clearly. Unfortunately the wolf himself rather undermines the impression you're going for with his wagging tail, panting grin and general air of being delighted to meet new friends. Hmph. Next time you'll explicitly tell him to look aloof and threatening. It might even work.
One of the Enjas - the one with the spear, not the sword, you can't for the life of you remember which is which - cautiously approaches the wolf, shooting questioning glances at both you and her boss. When neither of you object, she reaches out and runs her hand through Fenrir's fur. Tail wagging intensifies. Encouraged, she proceeds to scratch behind his ears, and the situation quickly degenerates from there. Before long Fenrir is flat on his back, accepting belly rubs and assurances that he's a good boy.
You and Kaiser share a look. Even with both your faces completely covered, the sentiment is communicated clearly. 'Fucking minions, am I right? No sense of gravitas whatsoever.'
"Do you have snake as well, for Fenja to fawn over?" he asks with a certain asperity. Menja completely fails to get the hint.
(Also, still called it. Every one of them, gay for the norsemen)
"'Fraid not," you say.
"A shame. You may dismiss it now. Menja, do try to control yourself."
Menja reluctantly gets up and resumes her position at his side, and you whisper "begone". Fenrir takes the time to give you a wounded look before he dematerializes, but obeys. He is a good boy, after all.
There's no reason be more nervous now than before, you tell yourself. Kaiser can still kill you in three different ways, the fact that Fenrir won't be able to materialize again for several hours makes no difference.
"You power appears adequate," Kaiser notes. "How is your martial arts?"
Oh. Clearly your sweet Viking costume has convinced Kaiser that you've already mastered the first required cape skill, so he goes straight to asking about the second. Which might be a problem.
"...nonexistent?"
"Hookwolf holds classes. You will attend those until he judges your skills sufficient. We don't expect you to take down Armsmaster in single combat, but we do expect you to be able to hold your own against a Ward. Do you know first aid?"
And there goes the third skill. You shake your head.
"Well. It's almost time for the annual refresher course anyway. We'll hold it a bit earlier than usual."
"Don't you have Othala for that?" you ask.
"Othala can't be everywhere," he says, his disapproval clear in his voice. "Everyone who gets injured in the line of duty will be treated by her, but someone may need to keep them from bleeding to death until she arrives, and that someone may be you."
"Understood, sir."
"It's quite early still. I think we'll send you on the introductory patrol right away."
"Oh. You should have said earlier, now I can't."
"Explain."
"It's my power, see. After I dismiss Fenrir it takes quite a while before I can call him back."
"How long?"
"I'm not sure, it seems to vary," you answer honestly. "I'll definitely be ready by Monday," you continue, still truthful but considerably less honest. But it's what's expected of you as a cape. ABS: Always Be Sandbagging.
"Unfortunate. Very well. Monday and Friday patrol, Tuesday and Thursday martial arts, Wednesday first aid - make a note, Wednesdays for the refresher course - to be replaced with more patrol on completion, your power permitting. Schedule subject to change in case of unusual circumstances, e.g. jailbreaks, gang wars." Kaiser does not lose his businesslike, faintly bored tone as his spiel meanders over to felonies and grave risk of bodily harm. "You're still in school?"
You nod.
"Untrained, working part time. Your salary will be one thousand dollars a month. With bonuses for parahuman combat, the size of which will depend on danger and results."
"You expect me to break people out of jail for a thousand bucks a month?" you scoff. "The Wards make more than that, once you factor in the scholarship fund."
"And if you cared more about money than about doing the right thing, you would be joining them instead of us," Kaiser counters.
You turn away from him and lock eyes with Menja. "Can you believe this shit?" you ask her. "The Kaiser is jewing me."
She bursts out laughing, then quickly claps her hands over her mouth. Even Kaiser is chuckling softly as you turn back to him.
"Very well," he says. "I will cover your college tuition as well, assuming you remain with the Empire that long."
"Because giving my boss an incentive to make sure I become part of the cape longevity statistics sounds like an excellent idea," you say. "Tell you what, why don't you take advantage of the fact that I'm young, foolish and broke and instead offer me a generous - but ultimately much smaller - signing bonus?"
Kaiser chuckles again. "You drive a hard bargain, miss Low Key. Are you sure you're not a Thinker?"
No, you're a Tinker, as you found out just now. You have a brain full of ideas, and getting them out of there and into the real world is going to cost a fortune.
===
This story is a work of fiction and any resemblance to real nazis living or dead is a coincidence.
On an unrelated note, did you know that 'coincidence' is nazi slang for 'jewish plot'?
On an unrelated note, did you know that 'coincidence' is nazi slang for 'jewish plot'?
Minor quests:
Muscles McExtra: Wants a date with Miss Militia
Danny Hebert: Wants his daughter to be happy. Clearly did not read the source material
Madison: Wants a happy and unassuming life, the bitch
Alex the Friendly Skinhead: Wants to secure the survival of his people and a future for white children
Muscles McExtra: Wants a date with Miss Militia
Danny Hebert: Wants his daughter to be happy. Clearly did not read the source material
Madison: Wants a happy and unassuming life, the bitch
Alex the Friendly Skinhead: Wants to secure the survival of his people and a future for white children
S.09
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
- Messages
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You make your way home, your backpack containing not only your Low Key costume, but also phat stacks of cash. Kaiser hinted not so subtly that trying to run off with your signing bonus would be a tremendously bad idea. You were not fazed in the least. When the Empire eventually comes howling for your blood, money will be the last thing on their minds.
In addition to the money, your new boss also unwittingly provided you with his soul's price. Shockingly, it turned out to be both morally acceptable and potentially doable. Sort of. Maybe.
Kaiser wants his son to become a worthy heir.
All you have to do is to discover Kaiser's secret identity to find his son, figure out what's wrong with the kid, and get some sort of power that can fix it. It's a long-term project, okay?
Your loyal companion, The Wolf Formerly Known As Bubbles, is not at your side. Since he won't be able to re-materialize for several hours yet you sent him off to lair territory to scout out a good place for a Tinker workshop. He's much better suited to it than you: He can just walk through walls and fences instead of having to figure out a way to break into each disused property. If he finds something matching the criteria you gave him he'll just guide you right there tomorrow.
God you love having a sapient magical wolf for a friend.
---
You come home to find the kitchen table full of empty beer cans. As is the coffee table in front of the TV, and several window sills.
"Dad?" you call out hesitantly.
"Taylor!" Danny's cheerful voice comes from the basement. He comes bounding up the stairs, then stops as he sees you staring at the Great Beer Massacre of 2011. "It's not what it looks like," he says sheepishly. You sort of guessed that much, given the way he's still conscious. "I used the beer to lure in a herd of wild dockworkers, and fooled them into doing physical labour! Come look!" His voice regains its enthusiasm as he goes, and he beckons you into the basement.
You follow him and crane your neck to see- oh. Gone is the pile of blankets and makeshift nightstand. In their stead, your entire bedroom has been transplanted into the basement. Just because you said... he went to all this effort... You feel tears coming to your eyes. Danny wants you to be happy.
You hug your dad with great enthusiasm, causing him to sway dangerously on the stairs. There's also a certain quality to his breath that you can't help but notice at this range.
"Skittish creatures, dockworkers," you note mischievously. "They wouldn't trust the beer unless you demonstrated that it was safe to drink first, yeah?"
Danny chuckles. "Something like that. I- I did the right thing, didn't I? You said-"
"It's perfect," you interrupt him. You take a step back up the stairs and use the height advantage to muss his hair. Then you pause and purse your lips. "Almost. Hang on."
You locate a screwdriver and remove the legs from your bed, letting the mattress rest directly on the floor. Danny helps you without making any wisecracks about monsters hiding under the bed. You make sure to hug him again before you turn in for the night.
Despite the assurances you gave, you spend some time tossing and turning, drifting in and out of sleep. But at some point during the night the bedsprings make a sound of protest as your bed becomes full of fur and safety, and you drift off peacefully.
---
While discussing plans last night Bubbles/Fenrir assured you that he's a light enough sleeper that he would notice your dad approaching in time to dematerialize, so you didn't bother to set an alarm this time. Instead you wake up from the sun streaming in through the one small window, but simply turn over and go back to sleep with a contented sigh. This repeats itself several times as you exult in the fact that it's Saturday and you don't need to pretend to go to school, but eventually the smell of frying bacon lures you out of bed.
After enjoying a thoroughly unhealthy breakfast (more of a brunch, really) you finally start getting ready for the day. Being lazy is nice and all, but you also have things to do that will help you not die.
"Heading out?" Danny asks as you leave the basement with your backpack.
"Yeah. Gonna take a walk, do some shopping, maybe visit the library."
"When will you be back?"
"Dunno. Don't wait up for me?"
Danny looks pained. "I don't like the way you've been staying out late at night lately. It's not safe. Not in this city."
"Dad, I-"
"Look, I don't want to- are you still working at the dog shelter?"
No. Yesterday I met the most powerful neo-nazi in North America and called him a jew to his face. He was so impressed he offered me a job. "Yes."
"I don't want to stop you from doing something you enjoy. But-"
"Dad. Listen. I know it's not safe. That's why I got this." You show him the pepper spray you bought. You don't show him the knife though, you don't think that would actually make him any less worried. "I also signed up for self-defense classes starting Tuesday."
Danny smiles ruefully and places an identical can of pepper spray on the table. "Looks like you're way ahead of me as usual, kiddo."
"No, no, this is great. Now I'll be twice as safe." You snatch up the second can and start dashing around, making 'pssshhht' noises as you pretend to pepper spray invisible assailants all over the kitchen. Once all enemies have fallen to your might, you holster (pocket) your weapons with flourish. "See?"
"I'm convinced." Danny nods solemnly. "Have fun out there." He's clearly still worried about you. But he's pretending everything is fine, which is close enough in this household.
---
"Well, did you find anything good?" you ask the empty air next to you as you get off the bus. "That's great, show me!" Some people look at you oddly, because they didn't see the empty air nod. You hurry off. You should probably get a hands-free set for your cellphone and wear it conspicuously, so that people just think you're an asshole, not a crazy person.
Fenrir guides you to a particular building. It's locked up, so it hasn't been completely given up on. Someone is feeling unreasonably optimistic about the future of the Brockton Bay real estate market, it seems. But not all that optimistic, because a closer look shows that the building has been broken into at least once already - and rather than replace the busted lock, the owner just welded a pair of steel rings to the door and stuck on a padlock. Clearly no one would mind (read: notice) if you borrowed the place for a while.
Making sure that no one is around, you take a set of heavy bolt cutters from your backpack and attack the padlock. Good thing you cleaned the basement recently, or you'd never have found these.
Inside, you find everything you could have hoped for: A skylight and a glass blowing furnace. The room is a mess, with ceramic trays, metal rods and oddly shaped tools strewn all over the floor. Not much of a black market for glass blowing equipment, you guess. The furnace is going to need some maintenance too - it may have been too big to steal, but they ripped out the gas burner meant to heat the thing. Nothing Tinker 0 powers can't handle.
Still, there's other equipment you need to borrow as well. Yes, borrow. You're going to put it back when you're done. You turn to Fenrir.
After giving Fenrir his instructions, you catch a bus back downtown to begin another shopping spree. First a hardware store, for spare parts and tools that you couldn't find in your basement. And a new lock, you don't want anyone else waltzing in. But mostly a whole bunch of hollow section steel bars, to serve as the framework for the focusing array.
The store does not usually offer home delivery, but you're able come to an arrangement where you pay a relative of the owner for the use of his private vehicle. It means one person who can tie your appearance to the location of your lair, but you could not possibly lug that much steel across town on your own. The lair's only temporary, anyway.
You make small talk as he drives, enough to get an idea of his character, and also the price of his soul.
Geoffrey wants to become a professional baseball player (and make millions of dollars).
Considering his thinning hair and prominent gut... you just keep reaching for those stars, buddy. Not something you can fulfill, but he seems like a reliable sort otherwise.
So you pay him extra to lug everything inside for you while you replace the lock.
"This place is a mess," he remarks. He does not make any comment about the broken lock or ask for proof that you're the rightful owner of the building. You knew he was reliable.
"It's a bit up a fixer-upper," you agree. "Can I call you if we need more things delivered?" He agrees, and gives you his number.
Speaking of the focusing array though, why do you even need natural sunlight anyway? Couldn't you just get an UV lamp or something? Nope, says your power. Suck it up and buy mirrors. At least mirrors are pretty cheap when you don't care about shape or size or pretty frames, just price per square foot.
The optics are another matter. Even if you could afford to order custom-made lenses, you can't wait for them to be ground. You're on a schedule here. Instead you end up buying a bunch of cheap toy binoculars to disassemble. It will have to do.
Your deliveryman does raise an eyebrow when you have him pick up all those mirrors, so you raise his hourly wage. "The boss appreciates a man who doesn't ask awkward questions," you say. Understanding dawns in his eyes, and he mimes zipping his lips shut.
That's the sunlight taken care of - or it will be, once you assemble everything. But then there's the magma to consider. Why, power, why? The magma won't even touch the metal, how could it possibly have an effect on the process? Because fuck you, that's how. Now buy some magma. Luckily you're able to find a gardening store selling magma by the pound (though the receipt calls it 'decorative basalt gravel'). You make yet another trip back to the forge, with a backpack full of rocks.
Next order of business is fuel for the furnace. Annoyingly, your Tinker power insists that the heat should should be provided by the volcano you're obviously getting your magma from, and gives you no idea of how much fuel you'll need. You jot down the manufacturer and serial number from a faded sticker. Off to the library to look up the specs online, then.
The bus to the library passes by an invisible wolf, weaving slightly as it drags an invisible set of oxyacetylene tanks perched on top of an invisible portable generator down the road. Huh. You didn't know he could do that. Who would have thought that the sneakiest cat burglar in town would be a guy without opposable thumbs, who can't even fit through regular doors?
You smile. He really is the Best Dog. You spend an enjoyable few minutes contemplating the counterfactual exploits of Dog Burglar, gentleman thief. It's a shame you're going to be too busy nazi-ing around to make it reality any time soon.
Then you frown as you realize that you were thinking of committing crimes because it would be neat. That's not cool. You're infiltrating the Empire to steal their powers. To make yourself stronger. You're borrowing this equipment for the same reason. But just stealing things for fun? No. Sure you'd fucking kill yourself before joining the Wards, possibly literally, but you're not a bad guy.
Uh, yeah, about that... This project is going to eat through most of your advance, and you still owe Emma money. Which means that you still won't be able to feed Best Dog properly, as you promised to do. Yes, he'll forgive you. He's forgiving you right now, and you haven't even asked him yet. That's the thing aboutundeserved unconditional love. Doesn't stop you from feeling like a heel.
Looking up the specs of the furnace and the relevant melting points paints a bleak picture, economically speaking. You'll have to run it around the clock to keep the magma molten, and keep the glory hole open all day to let the sunlight in. Yes, yes, 'keeping the glory hole open all day' is something Emma has previously accused you of doing. You're simply going to ignore all the double entendres there, because you're pretty sure glassblowers invented the term first. The point is, that's going to let heat escape as well. It'll add up to hundreds upon hundreds of dollars worth of propane by the time you're done.
At least propane is something of a household good, and modestly-sized tanks of it can be bought with no questions asked. When you first started having metallurgical Tinker ideas you were worried you'd have to somehow track down coke dealer. The kind of coke that goes in a blast furnace, you mean, not the kind that goes up your nose. You imagine the latter kind would be fairly easy to find around here.
By the time you get back Fenrir is resting next to his intangible loot, gathering energy to materialize it and himself. Once your deliveryman has unloaded your propane and left you make sure to inform Fenrir as to your opinions re: the identity of Best Dog. Also your intentions towards said entity, should he become tangible enough for belly rubs.
In the meantime you repair the furnace, rig up some lights, and buy gas for the generator to power them. Between it, the furnace and the welding torch you'll be burning three separate hydrocarbons, which seems sort of... suboptimal? If you were Armsmaster, you'd no doubt have come up with some brilliant contraption that siphons waste heat from the magma to power the blah, blah, blah. You're not Armsmaster, you're some sort of weird inconvenient alchemist-metallurgist.
As soon as the welder has been returned to the material realm, you give copious belly rubs. Because you promised. Then you start working on the focusing array. First you cut and weld together a framework of steel, then you carefully break the mirrors apart, angling the pieces to create a parabolic reflector as you glue them to the framework. Well, mostly parabolic. Parabolic-ish. It's not perfect, but it's no worse than the shitty plastic prisms and lenses you'll use for the final focusing stage.
Yes, it's terrible, but it's the best you can do on a shoestring budget. By the time you've rigged up a frame for the first mirror and gotten the optics set up correctly the sun has already gone down. Can't test it until tomorrow. No problem, you'll have to let the magma melt overnight anyway. You load the furnace up with gravel and fire it up. The empty shells of a dozen gutted binoculars crunch under your feet as you leave.
Only one thing left to do today, which is to recruit a minion. Someone has to wake up in the middle of the night and switch propane tanks, and it's not going to be you. Nor would Emma's parents agree to perpetual 'sleepovers'.
Luckily lair territory doesn't just contain lairs, it also sports a fair crop of naturally-occurring minions, aka homeless people. Now most capes would spurn this resource, reasoning that if they were in any way reliable they probably wouldn't be sleeping on the street in the first place. But that just means that you're hitting an untapped market. A bit of Loyalty will fix that reliability issue right up, you figure. They can't have ambitions all that lofty, either, and they are unlikely to object to a brief conversation in exchange for spare change.
---
Good lord but interviewing the homeless is depressing. As it turns out, quite a few souls have prices you are not able to meet.
Pete wants to see his kids again.
Hilda wants to stop coughing up blood.
Believe it or not, that's only the second most depressing category. By far the most common prices are alcohol and heroin. Not, mind you, a lifetime supply. These people will sell their soul for the next hit. Even if you were prepared to offer that, you don't think even Loyalty would be enough to make those people reliable.
Your latest candidate is not off to the most promising start either as he introduces himself as Funny Jim, 'because of the voices, see.'
"Do the voices tell you to do things, Jim?" you ask.
He nods. "But I don't do what they says. They are right assholes, they are." He suddenly whips his head around and addresses the wall to your right. "Like that! I'd never do that! This poor girl never done anything to me!"
You take a step back and grab your pepper spray, but he calms down quickly and offers you a reassuring(?) smile. Wow. If you were him, your soul's price would be a trip to the dentist. Wait no, the pharmacy. Definitely antipsychotics over dental work.
"Are you all right?" you ask.
"Yeah. Yeah. No problem. That's the funny part, right? When I argue with them. Real funny..." He trails off, muttering to himself.
Jim wants somewhere warm to sleep.
Okay. Despite the rocky start, this guy is clearly your best bet so far, and it's getting late. Beggars can't be choosers, even when they are choosing among beggars.
"Come along, Jim," you say. "I have a place for you to sleep, if you help me out a bit."
===
In addition to the money, your new boss also unwittingly provided you with his soul's price. Shockingly, it turned out to be both morally acceptable and potentially doable. Sort of. Maybe.
Kaiser wants his son to become a worthy heir.
All you have to do is to discover Kaiser's secret identity to find his son, figure out what's wrong with the kid, and get some sort of power that can fix it. It's a long-term project, okay?
Your loyal companion, The Wolf Formerly Known As Bubbles, is not at your side. Since he won't be able to re-materialize for several hours yet you sent him off to lair territory to scout out a good place for a Tinker workshop. He's much better suited to it than you: He can just walk through walls and fences instead of having to figure out a way to break into each disused property. If he finds something matching the criteria you gave him he'll just guide you right there tomorrow.
God you love having a sapient magical wolf for a friend.
---
You come home to find the kitchen table full of empty beer cans. As is the coffee table in front of the TV, and several window sills.
"Dad?" you call out hesitantly.
"Taylor!" Danny's cheerful voice comes from the basement. He comes bounding up the stairs, then stops as he sees you staring at the Great Beer Massacre of 2011. "It's not what it looks like," he says sheepishly. You sort of guessed that much, given the way he's still conscious. "I used the beer to lure in a herd of wild dockworkers, and fooled them into doing physical labour! Come look!" His voice regains its enthusiasm as he goes, and he beckons you into the basement.
You follow him and crane your neck to see- oh. Gone is the pile of blankets and makeshift nightstand. In their stead, your entire bedroom has been transplanted into the basement. Just because you said... he went to all this effort... You feel tears coming to your eyes. Danny wants you to be happy.
You hug your dad with great enthusiasm, causing him to sway dangerously on the stairs. There's also a certain quality to his breath that you can't help but notice at this range.
"Skittish creatures, dockworkers," you note mischievously. "They wouldn't trust the beer unless you demonstrated that it was safe to drink first, yeah?"
Danny chuckles. "Something like that. I- I did the right thing, didn't I? You said-"
"It's perfect," you interrupt him. You take a step back up the stairs and use the height advantage to muss his hair. Then you pause and purse your lips. "Almost. Hang on."
You locate a screwdriver and remove the legs from your bed, letting the mattress rest directly on the floor. Danny helps you without making any wisecracks about monsters hiding under the bed. You make sure to hug him again before you turn in for the night.
Despite the assurances you gave, you spend some time tossing and turning, drifting in and out of sleep. But at some point during the night the bedsprings make a sound of protest as your bed becomes full of fur and safety, and you drift off peacefully.
---
While discussing plans last night Bubbles/Fenrir assured you that he's a light enough sleeper that he would notice your dad approaching in time to dematerialize, so you didn't bother to set an alarm this time. Instead you wake up from the sun streaming in through the one small window, but simply turn over and go back to sleep with a contented sigh. This repeats itself several times as you exult in the fact that it's Saturday and you don't need to pretend to go to school, but eventually the smell of frying bacon lures you out of bed.
After enjoying a thoroughly unhealthy breakfast (more of a brunch, really) you finally start getting ready for the day. Being lazy is nice and all, but you also have things to do that will help you not die.
"Heading out?" Danny asks as you leave the basement with your backpack.
"Yeah. Gonna take a walk, do some shopping, maybe visit the library."
"When will you be back?"
"Dunno. Don't wait up for me?"
Danny looks pained. "I don't like the way you've been staying out late at night lately. It's not safe. Not in this city."
"Dad, I-"
"Look, I don't want to- are you still working at the dog shelter?"
No. Yesterday I met the most powerful neo-nazi in North America and called him a jew to his face. He was so impressed he offered me a job. "Yes."
"I don't want to stop you from doing something you enjoy. But-"
"Dad. Listen. I know it's not safe. That's why I got this." You show him the pepper spray you bought. You don't show him the knife though, you don't think that would actually make him any less worried. "I also signed up for self-defense classes starting Tuesday."
Danny smiles ruefully and places an identical can of pepper spray on the table. "Looks like you're way ahead of me as usual, kiddo."
"No, no, this is great. Now I'll be twice as safe." You snatch up the second can and start dashing around, making 'pssshhht' noises as you pretend to pepper spray invisible assailants all over the kitchen. Once all enemies have fallen to your might, you holster (pocket) your weapons with flourish. "See?"
"I'm convinced." Danny nods solemnly. "Have fun out there." He's clearly still worried about you. But he's pretending everything is fine, which is close enough in this household.
---
"Well, did you find anything good?" you ask the empty air next to you as you get off the bus. "That's great, show me!" Some people look at you oddly, because they didn't see the empty air nod. You hurry off. You should probably get a hands-free set for your cellphone and wear it conspicuously, so that people just think you're an asshole, not a crazy person.
Fenrir guides you to a particular building. It's locked up, so it hasn't been completely given up on. Someone is feeling unreasonably optimistic about the future of the Brockton Bay real estate market, it seems. But not all that optimistic, because a closer look shows that the building has been broken into at least once already - and rather than replace the busted lock, the owner just welded a pair of steel rings to the door and stuck on a padlock. Clearly no one would mind (read: notice) if you borrowed the place for a while.
Making sure that no one is around, you take a set of heavy bolt cutters from your backpack and attack the padlock. Good thing you cleaned the basement recently, or you'd never have found these.
Inside, you find everything you could have hoped for: A skylight and a glass blowing furnace. The room is a mess, with ceramic trays, metal rods and oddly shaped tools strewn all over the floor. Not much of a black market for glass blowing equipment, you guess. The furnace is going to need some maintenance too - it may have been too big to steal, but they ripped out the gas burner meant to heat the thing. Nothing Tinker 0 powers can't handle.
Still, there's other equipment you need to borrow as well. Yes, borrow. You're going to put it back when you're done. You turn to Fenrir.
I wait expectantly as she looks around. It was really hard to find this place. There were a great many houses with roof windows, and some with big ovens, but this was the only one with both. I hope she is pleased.
She tells me that she needs more things, and starts explaining about strange machines. That means she is pleased, right? I am good at finding things, that's why she wants me to find more things. I listen very carefully to the descriptions. I am a Good Dog.
I don't remember any machines like the ones she wants from last night. She tells me that a good place to search is half-done houses like the one where I lived with all the other dogs. But newer, without any grass growing in them. I'll have to go further away then. All the houses around here are very old, with much grass.
---
She was right, of course. I find both machines in a small house next to a big half-house. I know she doesn't want me to materialize on my own, but I have a great idea. I just know she's going to like it. Since there is no one in there, no one will be able to tell. Unless she asks me to materialize soon and I'm too tired to do it. Oops.
Oh well, too late now, already materialized. I spend some time convincing the machines to come with me. They are not very talkative, but don't seem opposed to the notion. I touch them both while I dematerialize and they come along without complaint. Now I can just take them with me through the walls!
Both machines have wheels, but I don't think I can grab them both at the same time. I don't want to make two trips either, the roof window house is really far from here. Maybe... The smaller machine has a convenient handle, and if I grab that with my mouth (bleh, tastes like oil and metal), I am able to lift it off the ground. Then I climb up with my front paws on the bigger one and gently set it down on top of it. Clank! Wow, that was really loud. Maybe I was not so gentle. But only dematerialized people would be able to hear it, so that's okay.
...I hope I didn't break anything. Ah, but I'm sure she can fix it if I did. Yep. Nothing to worry about.
---
Navigating properly while walking backwards and dragging strange machines around sure is hard! But I can walk through walls when I back into a building, and the cars just zoom right through me when I stray onto the road. The powers she gave me are the best! She is the best!
She tells me that she needs more things, and starts explaining about strange machines. That means she is pleased, right? I am good at finding things, that's why she wants me to find more things. I listen very carefully to the descriptions. I am a Good Dog.
I don't remember any machines like the ones she wants from last night. She tells me that a good place to search is half-done houses like the one where I lived with all the other dogs. But newer, without any grass growing in them. I'll have to go further away then. All the houses around here are very old, with much grass.
---
She was right, of course. I find both machines in a small house next to a big half-house. I know she doesn't want me to materialize on my own, but I have a great idea. I just know she's going to like it. Since there is no one in there, no one will be able to tell. Unless she asks me to materialize soon and I'm too tired to do it. Oops.
Oh well, too late now, already materialized. I spend some time convincing the machines to come with me. They are not very talkative, but don't seem opposed to the notion. I touch them both while I dematerialize and they come along without complaint. Now I can just take them with me through the walls!
Both machines have wheels, but I don't think I can grab them both at the same time. I don't want to make two trips either, the roof window house is really far from here. Maybe... The smaller machine has a convenient handle, and if I grab that with my mouth (bleh, tastes like oil and metal), I am able to lift it off the ground. Then I climb up with my front paws on the bigger one and gently set it down on top of it. Clank! Wow, that was really loud. Maybe I was not so gentle. But only dematerialized people would be able to hear it, so that's okay.
...I hope I didn't break anything. Ah, but I'm sure she can fix it if I did. Yep. Nothing to worry about.
---
Navigating properly while walking backwards and dragging strange machines around sure is hard! But I can walk through walls when I back into a building, and the cars just zoom right through me when I stray onto the road. The powers she gave me are the best! She is the best!
After giving Fenrir his instructions, you catch a bus back downtown to begin another shopping spree. First a hardware store, for spare parts and tools that you couldn't find in your basement. And a new lock, you don't want anyone else waltzing in. But mostly a whole bunch of hollow section steel bars, to serve as the framework for the focusing array.
The store does not usually offer home delivery, but you're able come to an arrangement where you pay a relative of the owner for the use of his private vehicle. It means one person who can tie your appearance to the location of your lair, but you could not possibly lug that much steel across town on your own. The lair's only temporary, anyway.
You make small talk as he drives, enough to get an idea of his character, and also the price of his soul.
Geoffrey wants to become a professional baseball player (and make millions of dollars).
Considering his thinning hair and prominent gut... you just keep reaching for those stars, buddy. Not something you can fulfill, but he seems like a reliable sort otherwise.
So you pay him extra to lug everything inside for you while you replace the lock.
"This place is a mess," he remarks. He does not make any comment about the broken lock or ask for proof that you're the rightful owner of the building. You knew he was reliable.
"It's a bit up a fixer-upper," you agree. "Can I call you if we need more things delivered?" He agrees, and gives you his number.
Speaking of the focusing array though, why do you even need natural sunlight anyway? Couldn't you just get an UV lamp or something? Nope, says your power. Suck it up and buy mirrors. At least mirrors are pretty cheap when you don't care about shape or size or pretty frames, just price per square foot.
The optics are another matter. Even if you could afford to order custom-made lenses, you can't wait for them to be ground. You're on a schedule here. Instead you end up buying a bunch of cheap toy binoculars to disassemble. It will have to do.
Your deliveryman does raise an eyebrow when you have him pick up all those mirrors, so you raise his hourly wage. "The boss appreciates a man who doesn't ask awkward questions," you say. Understanding dawns in his eyes, and he mimes zipping his lips shut.
That's the sunlight taken care of - or it will be, once you assemble everything. But then there's the magma to consider. Why, power, why? The magma won't even touch the metal, how could it possibly have an effect on the process? Because fuck you, that's how. Now buy some magma. Luckily you're able to find a gardening store selling magma by the pound (though the receipt calls it 'decorative basalt gravel'). You make yet another trip back to the forge, with a backpack full of rocks.
Next order of business is fuel for the furnace. Annoyingly, your Tinker power insists that the heat should should be provided by the volcano you're obviously getting your magma from, and gives you no idea of how much fuel you'll need. You jot down the manufacturer and serial number from a faded sticker. Off to the library to look up the specs online, then.
The bus to the library passes by an invisible wolf, weaving slightly as it drags an invisible set of oxyacetylene tanks perched on top of an invisible portable generator down the road. Huh. You didn't know he could do that. Who would have thought that the sneakiest cat burglar in town would be a guy without opposable thumbs, who can't even fit through regular doors?
You smile. He really is the Best Dog. You spend an enjoyable few minutes contemplating the counterfactual exploits of Dog Burglar, gentleman thief. It's a shame you're going to be too busy nazi-ing around to make it reality any time soon.
Then you frown as you realize that you were thinking of committing crimes because it would be neat. That's not cool. You're infiltrating the Empire to steal their powers. To make yourself stronger. You're borrowing this equipment for the same reason. But just stealing things for fun? No. Sure you'd fucking kill yourself before joining the Wards, possibly literally, but you're not a bad guy.
Uh, yeah, about that... This project is going to eat through most of your advance, and you still owe Emma money. Which means that you still won't be able to feed Best Dog properly, as you promised to do. Yes, he'll forgive you. He's forgiving you right now, and you haven't even asked him yet. That's the thing about
Looking up the specs of the furnace and the relevant melting points paints a bleak picture, economically speaking. You'll have to run it around the clock to keep the magma molten, and keep the glory hole open all day to let the sunlight in. Yes, yes, 'keeping the glory hole open all day' is something Emma has previously accused you of doing. You're simply going to ignore all the double entendres there, because you're pretty sure glassblowers invented the term first. The point is, that's going to let heat escape as well. It'll add up to hundreds upon hundreds of dollars worth of propane by the time you're done.
At least propane is something of a household good, and modestly-sized tanks of it can be bought with no questions asked. When you first started having metallurgical Tinker ideas you were worried you'd have to somehow track down coke dealer. The kind of coke that goes in a blast furnace, you mean, not the kind that goes up your nose. You imagine the latter kind would be fairly easy to find around here.
By the time you get back Fenrir is resting next to his intangible loot, gathering energy to materialize it and himself. Once your deliveryman has unloaded your propane and left you make sure to inform Fenrir as to your opinions re: the identity of Best Dog. Also your intentions towards said entity, should he become tangible enough for belly rubs.
In the meantime you repair the furnace, rig up some lights, and buy gas for the generator to power them. Between it, the furnace and the welding torch you'll be burning three separate hydrocarbons, which seems sort of... suboptimal? If you were Armsmaster, you'd no doubt have come up with some brilliant contraption that siphons waste heat from the magma to power the blah, blah, blah. You're not Armsmaster, you're some sort of weird inconvenient alchemist-metallurgist.
As soon as the welder has been returned to the material realm, you give copious belly rubs. Because you promised. Then you start working on the focusing array. First you cut and weld together a framework of steel, then you carefully break the mirrors apart, angling the pieces to create a parabolic reflector as you glue them to the framework. Well, mostly parabolic. Parabolic-ish. It's not perfect, but it's no worse than the shitty plastic prisms and lenses you'll use for the final focusing stage.
Yes, it's terrible, but it's the best you can do on a shoestring budget. By the time you've rigged up a frame for the first mirror and gotten the optics set up correctly the sun has already gone down. Can't test it until tomorrow. No problem, you'll have to let the magma melt overnight anyway. You load the furnace up with gravel and fire it up. The empty shells of a dozen gutted binoculars crunch under your feet as you leave.
Only one thing left to do today, which is to recruit a minion. Someone has to wake up in the middle of the night and switch propane tanks, and it's not going to be you. Nor would Emma's parents agree to perpetual 'sleepovers'.
Luckily lair territory doesn't just contain lairs, it also sports a fair crop of naturally-occurring minions, aka homeless people. Now most capes would spurn this resource, reasoning that if they were in any way reliable they probably wouldn't be sleeping on the street in the first place. But that just means that you're hitting an untapped market. A bit of Loyalty will fix that reliability issue right up, you figure. They can't have ambitions all that lofty, either, and they are unlikely to object to a brief conversation in exchange for spare change.
---
Good lord but interviewing the homeless is depressing. As it turns out, quite a few souls have prices you are not able to meet.
Pete wants to see his kids again.
Hilda wants to stop coughing up blood.
Believe it or not, that's only the second most depressing category. By far the most common prices are alcohol and heroin. Not, mind you, a lifetime supply. These people will sell their soul for the next hit. Even if you were prepared to offer that, you don't think even Loyalty would be enough to make those people reliable.
Your latest candidate is not off to the most promising start either as he introduces himself as Funny Jim, 'because of the voices, see.'
"Do the voices tell you to do things, Jim?" you ask.
He nods. "But I don't do what they says. They are right assholes, they are." He suddenly whips his head around and addresses the wall to your right. "Like that! I'd never do that! This poor girl never done anything to me!"
You take a step back and grab your pepper spray, but he calms down quickly and offers you a reassuring(?) smile. Wow. If you were him, your soul's price would be a trip to the dentist. Wait no, the pharmacy. Definitely antipsychotics over dental work.
"Are you all right?" you ask.
"Yeah. Yeah. No problem. That's the funny part, right? When I argue with them. Real funny..." He trails off, muttering to himself.
Jim wants somewhere warm to sleep.
Okay. Despite the rocky start, this guy is clearly your best bet so far, and it's getting late. Beggars can't be choosers, even when they are choosing among beggars.
"Come along, Jim," you say. "I have a place for you to sleep, if you help me out a bit."
===
Technically you just did what Lisa told you not to do, and attracted Coil's attention. From his 'misc notes' document:
Theft of equipment from building site above base, lock not forced. Parahuman related?
I'd say it's slightly below 'alphabetize record collection' on his list of priorities, except everything he owns is already perfectly alphabetized. Not that he has OCD, but sometimes he has nothing better to do while waiting for events to play out in the other timeline. And whenever his plan falls through, it stays alphabetized.
Theft of equipment from building site above base, lock not forced. Parahuman related?
I'd say it's slightly below 'alphabetize record collection' on his list of priorities, except everything he owns is already perfectly alphabetized. Not that he has OCD, but sometimes he has nothing better to do while waiting for events to play out in the other timeline. And whenever his plan falls through, it stays alphabetized.
Why was Fenrir trying to talk to inanimate objects back there? Inborn spirit instincts.
You can only bring items you personally own along with you when you dematerialize. In Creation (the Exalted setting), ownership is determined by what the spirit of the object thinks. So any thief who wants to dematerialize with his swag first needs to convince the spirits of the stolen objects that he's their rightful owner (how euphemistic 'convince' becomes in this context is up to the individual thief).
It's a lot easier on Earth Bet. Fenrir is the only spirit in the world, so every incorporeal heist just works by default.
You can only bring items you personally own along with you when you dematerialize. In Creation (the Exalted setting), ownership is determined by what the spirit of the object thinks. So any thief who wants to dematerialize with his swag first needs to convince the spirits of the stolen objects that he's their rightful owner (how euphemistic 'convince' becomes in this context is up to the individual thief).
It's a lot easier on Earth Bet. Fenrir is the only spirit in the world, so every incorporeal heist just works by default.
Quests:
Tattletale: Wants Coil dead
Panacea: Wants the same thing quite a lot of people who've met Glory Girl want
Shadow Stalker: Wants to go back to those carefree vigilante days
Bitch: Wants a friend who is like a dog, but not actually a dog
Kaiser: Wants his son to become a worthy heir
Minor quests:
Seriously, I'm going to remove this guy, you'll never meet him again: Wants a date with Miss Militia
Danny Hebert: Wants you to be happy. Is... actually doing pretty well in his effort to achieve this? Huh.
Alex the Friendly Skinhead: Wants a future for white children. Genocide of the untermenschen strictly optional
Madison: Also wants a future with white children, but has a more concrete plan for how to go about it
Delivery NPC #1: Wants to become a baseball star.
Whole bunch of homeless people: You know what, let's just stop tracking minor quests at all.
Completed quests:
Emma: Challenged you to a 'crazy bitch'-off, lost
Jim: Wanted somewhere warm to sleep
Tattletale: Wants Coil dead
Panacea: Wants the same thing quite a lot of people who've met Glory Girl want
Shadow Stalker: Wants to go back to those carefree vigilante days
Bitch: Wants a friend who is like a dog, but not actually a dog
Kaiser: Wants his son to become a worthy heir
Minor quests:
Seriously, I'm going to remove this guy, you'll never meet him again: Wants a date with Miss Militia
Danny Hebert: Wants you to be happy. Is... actually doing pretty well in his effort to achieve this? Huh.
Alex the Friendly Skinhead: Wants a future for white children. Genocide of the untermenschen strictly optional
Madison: Also wants a future with white children, but has a more concrete plan for how to go about it
Delivery NPC #1: Wants to become a baseball star.
Whole bunch of homeless people: You know what, let's just stop tracking minor quests at all.
Completed quests:
Emma: Challenged you to a 'crazy bitch'-off, lost
Jim: Wanted somewhere warm to sleep
S.10
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
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Unlike yesterday, this morning you're out of bed, dressed, breakfasted and out the door before the sun has even risen. Can't waste any daylight. Literally, your Tinker power informs you that you need all the daylight you can get for your project.
You also need gold. Because of course artificial magma and natural sunlight wasn't inconvenient enough already. You do have some gold, though. There was a small box in the back of your closet, containing your mother's jewelry. Yours, now. Some of it was made of gold.
When dad handed you the box after the funeral, you had no idea what to do with it. He would be incredibly upset if you sold it, obviously. But he would be almost as upset if he saw you wearing it. Worse really, because it would be the kind of upset where he would have to pretend that he wasn't. You would be upset if you wore it. So you just put it away and never looked at it again. In the years since then, neither of you mentioned its existence even once.
It felt like desecration, taking it. Grave robbing. Even though mom would want you to melt it down. 'Better to get some use of it than to let it sit around forgotten', she'd say. But that line of thinking isn't about to cheer you up any time soon. There's quite a few things mom would say, if she could see you and dad now.
(It wasn't pure gold, of course, they don't make jewelry out of that. But compared to the contraption you're building in your lair, taking care of that little detail barely pinged your Tinker radar. A bit of copper, a bit of lead, a bit of acid, done.)
Dad isn't up yet, so you leave a note detailing your mostly fictitious plans for the day. You suspect that most teenagers would be facing serious suspicion and scrutiny right about now, but the stark contrast with your previous life of helpless moping is working out in your favor. Between Danny's obvious relief at your newfound initiative and his general failure as a parent, you should be safe for a while yet.
At the forge, you hustle Jim out with instructions to return after sunset. As long as he doesn't see you working the furnace you have the barest, most threadbare fig leaf of deniability that you're just another henchperson, subcontracting the boring/uncomfortable bits of working for the mystery Tinker known as, uh, Smith? Yeah, sure, your new cape name is Smith.
Then dawn breaks and you're far too busy to think about anything else. Quick, gold into the crucible, crucible into the magma. Mirror into position. Doesn't do much until the sun rises high enough to shine directly through the skylight, but every little bit helps. You make minor adjustments to the lenses to maximize the amount of light hitting the gold, then get to work on building the next mirror.
The day passes in a blur after that. You constantly have to switch between constructing more mirrors and adjusting the existing ones as the sun moves across the sky, and every finished mirror means another change to the improvised mess of optics focusing the light into the glory hole and holy shit it's like a sauna in here yeah duh magma and now the sun has gone down and you haven't eaten anything all day or drunk anything either and you've sweated enough that you might actually have passed out and died if not for your Brute 0 powers and is Tinkering always like this for everyone?
Even Jim comments on your bedraggled appearance when he arrives. Which is fair, he clearly has his shit together better than you do right now, and probably smells better too. You leave him to keep the furnace going overnight and stagger home for a shower.
But of course the day isn't over yet. You have to visit Emma, to pay back the loan and maintain your relationship. No, it's not villain money, you promise. You quit at the dog shelter, you're henching for a Rogue now. Let's watch a movie and exchange gossip! Please god let the school transfer go through soon so you can drop this charade and focus on nicer, saner minions, like the guy who hears voices telling him to do unspecified terrible things to underage girls.
---
Monday, and once more you're up unreasonably early. You told dad that you're going out jogging before school, to get in better shape. And to be fair, you were in terrible shape before you triggered. Pretending to exercise is actually a good cover for your increased physical capabilities.
With the majority of the construction done, things are much calmer at the forge today. Even though you need to regularly adjust the mirrors and optics to keep up with the sun, and work the furnace to keep the magma at just the right temperature, you still have plenty of time to sit down and sketch out potential improvements for when you have a real budget. The fact that you remembered to pack a lunch and a water bottle today doesn't hurt either.
The day passes uneventfully, and Jim turns up right on time once more. Score one for Loyalty-based reliability. You set off towards Empire territory for your first day at work.
The address you were given turns out to be a bar. A front, obviously, but when you step inside you see that it is a back and a middle as well, so to speak. It really is a bar. Very cozy, with the dim lighting, rough-hewn wooden beams in the ceiling and dark green and brown decor. Very much how you imagine a place where no-nonsense working class people would go for a drink after work, where everyone knows their name. And should a person whose name isn't known show up, everyone would go silent and stare balefully at the intruder. Like what is happening to you right now.
You stop just inside the door and consider what to do next. You weren't told who you were supposed to report to specifically, but this is clearly the right place. You can tell by the way almost everyone is sporting the same fashionable haircut.
"Low Key! Over here!" someone calls out. The atmosphere relaxes considerably and conversations gradually resume as people turn away from you. You recognize Alex waving you over.
As you make your way over to his table, another detail catches your eye. For a working class bar, they seem to be serving an unusual amount of soft drinks. Almost as if the patrons were maintaining a state of readiness or something. Funny that.
Alex is sitting with Mike and Sven (Sven is still glaring at you suspiciously, or maybe that's just how his face looks), who both offer you monosyllabic greetings and curt nods. You respond in kind. Rather than offer you a seat, Alex stands up and guides you to a back room. Here finally all pretenses fall away. This is clearly an op center. The walls are covered with whiteboards showing schedules, and maps showing patrol routes. Several people with headsets are manning computers.
You are given a burner phone, instructions to only use it to call this place, some recognition codes to memorize, a pat on the back and a swift kick in the rear. Metaphorically speaking. Alex is hustling you back out before you can even check that the phone is programmed with the number to the op center. He then keeps hustling you all the way out into the street. Mike gets up and follows you. Ok, apparently your shift is starting right away, and you're taking Sven's place.
"Sooo... what are we doing, exactly?" you ask.
---
When you decided to infiltrate a gang, you made peace with the fact that you would end up having to commit crimes.
The Merchants mostly deal drugs, with a minor bit of prostitution on the side, mostly to help their customers afford their product. The ABB mostly deal with sex trafficking, with a minor bit of drug business on the side, mostly to help keep their chattel under control. Yes, the ABB also runs a bunch of illegal gambling, and all gangs no doubt dabble in illegal weapons. But the point is, you had mentally filed drugs and whores as the typical gang-related stuff, and expected to be put to work guarding or assisting in the distribution of one or the other.
You completely failed to account for the fact that your new employers were a nazi gang. You know, right wing extremists? The far right, in case anyone forgot, tends to strongly disapprove of extramarital sex. Nor does addiction go well with the ideal of the Nietzschean übermensch, you suppose. 'Degenerates' (i.e. people who sleep around and/or do drugs) are in fact third on their list of least favorite people, right below non-whites and non-heterosexuals.
What you're trying to say is, you went in expecting to become a criminal. You did not expect to become a police officer.
---
The Empire (Mike explains, and you mentally translate), while nominally occupied territory (part of the United States), enjoys an unusual degree of freedom as a de facto independent nation (police no-go zone). Yes, the vile Zionist Occupation Government (the regular US government) still demands tribute (taxes) from their subject population, but they are allowed (see above re: no-go zone) to maintain their own border security (thugs who beat up non-whites) and police force (thugs who beat up whites). Today you'll be acting in the latter capacity.
Since it's your first day (he continues), the patrol will be the milkiest of milk runs, in the heart of the Empire. There's unlikely to be any trouble, since the citizenry is generally law-abiding (citation needed) and not even niggers are dumb enough to venture that deeply into Empire territory (probably true). But just in case, here's how it works:
If you catch a criminal in the act, there's no need for a trial to establish guilt (you feel that you should have an objection to this logic, but can't think of one) and punishment is administered on the spot. If you are instead presented with an accusation, call it in and the op center boys will take it from there.
The penalty for breaking the law typically takes the form of corporal punishment (assault & battery), and perhaps a fine is levied (robbery). The Empire does not have a prison system (kidnapping), since it considers such punishments cruel and unusual (and, you suspect, unfeasibly impractical and expensive). Nor are its patrolmen authorized to dispense the death penalty (murder). It has happened that individual officers (thugs) elected to mete out capital punishment on their own initiative (flew off the handle and killed someone). Even should the resulting investigation deem that their judgement was justified -
"Wait, what?" you interrupt. "Justified?"
"Kid toucher, most recently," Alex says.
"Oh. Yeah, okay."
- the Empire can only offer limited protection against the agents of ZOG (actual police) in these cases.
You nod your understanding. If you strip out their peculiar issues with the government, they are basically just asking you to perform masked vigilantism. Which is surprisingly legal and uncontroversial these days. You will have nothing to feel guilty about as long as you ignore your colleagues patrolling the outskirts of the Empire, performing hate crimes so that you don't have to.
---
Your patrol takes place in an inner-city neighborhood, but it's non-euphemistically inner city. The zoning density is high, but everything is clean and in good repair, and the only graffiti is E88 logos. Which, since the Empire apparently fancies itself a government, is more like official signage than graffiti. In short, it has none of the usual warning signs that makes people go 'inner city, it's not safe here'. It actually looks like a decent place to live.
Though if you are being completely honest with yourself, one of the warning signs that everybody looks for but no one ever admits to is the presence of black people. So, uh, yeah.
The patrol is uneventful as promised, with your companions often stopping to greet and chat with people they know. You try not to fidget too much. Turns out masked vigilantism in a good neighborhood is unbelievably boring. There's not even any capes around to study.
Two hours in, the most exciting thing yet happens as you come across a group of obviously drunk young men.
"Is public intoxication a crime?" you ask hopefully.
"Not as long as they behave themselves," Mike says.
"We're behaving, offsicer!" one of them calls out cheerfully, having overheard you.
His companions turn around and notice you as well, which sets off an excited babble in the group.
"Hey Alex!"
"Is that a new cape?"
"It is!"
"Is it a boy or a girl? I can't tell."
"I think it's a girl."
"Show us your tits!"
Oh look, they stopped behaving. "Come forth," you whisper, pointing at the last person to speak. "Fetch."
Fenrir appears with his jaws already snapping shut in front of your target's chest, grabbing a large mouthful of jacket. He throws his head back, lifting the man off his feet. The other drunks scatter.
"Shit shit shit shit!"
"Sorry! I'm sorry!"
"I'm not with him!"
"Good dog," you say out loud. He performed the fetch exactly as instructed, down to the ongoing rumbling growl as he holds the guy aloft. Well, there's a small trickle of blood, so he probably scraped the skin with his teeth while getting a grip. But that's okay. Speaking of trickles, looks like someone wet himself in fear. Ew.
"Release him," Mike commands. He does not sound happy.
Fine. He probably learned his lesson. With another whispered command, Fenrir drops him and trots back to your side. Alex moves to help the guy, while Mike proceeds to lecture you.
Blah blah blah disproportionate response blah blah excessive force blah blah militarized police as a symptom of a sick society blah blah only necessary to keep the lesser races in line blah blah climate of fear blah. Fine, whatever. You get it. Inner patrol wears kid gloves, because white supremacy. As Alex demonstrates while Mike goes on and on, the proper punishment for disrespecting an officer of the law is apparently a clip around the ear and a quick scolding ("you live in a white society, fucking act like it!").
"Now dismiss your wolf," Mike finishes.
"Can't," you say sullenly. "Cape reasons."
"Jesus. All right, fine." He hands you a bottle of water from his pack. "At least clean the blood off its muzzle. We're not in fucking Africa."
You do as you're told. At least you get to spend the rest of the patrol mounted instead of walking. It's a lot more comfortable than riding a giant canine bareback has any right to be, and you have no idea whether that's another one from your incomprehensible grab-bag of powers or something innate to Fenrir.
You continue much like before, except more people stare at you and the conversations include more allusions to how much trouble newbie capes are. Allusions like 'house breaking'. You spend the rest of the patrolsulking showing the proper humility.
When you try to head home, though, the others insist that you come with them back to the bar. Apparently there's a ceremony for anyone finishing their first patrol.
You meet Sven on the way back, returning from a patrol of his own. His normal suspicious glare gives way to surprise when he sees you mounted/openly displaying parahuman powers.
"Did you encounter some rambunctious youths?" he asks with a smile.
"A couple," you say, "but Mike didn't approve of how roughly I treated them."
"Wha- really?" He gets the most peculiar facial expression. Alex bursts out laughing.
You look between them, uncomprehending. "I don't get it?"
Mike sighs. "He meant 'youths' as in 'black criminals,'" he explains patiently. "You know, like in the newspapers? 'Old lady robbed and beaten by a gang of youths.'"
"'Five youths hospitalized after E88 hate crime,'" Alex adds helpfully.
Not to be outdone, Sven starts loudly explaining his own (fairly predictable) feelings towards the 'jewish media'. Again, you get it already. Also, you really need to get around to finding a dictionary of nazi slang.
---
The ceremony is quite simple. Mike and Alex are given huge mugs of beer, 'for putting up with the newbie'. You are given an equally large mug full of milk, 'for completing the milk run'.
The fuck happened to your life, that you'd find yourself in a bar, in gang territory, holding a quart of milk, surrounded by skinheads chanting "chug, chug, chug"? After being scolded for police brutality by a literal jackbooted fascist thug?
No, you know exactly what happened. Powers happened. And really, would you rather be stuck in your old life? Still going to Winslow, still helpless before the trio? No. A thousand times no.
Hitching your mask up just enough to uncover your mouth, you chug.
===
You also need gold. Because of course artificial magma and natural sunlight wasn't inconvenient enough already. You do have some gold, though. There was a small box in the back of your closet, containing your mother's jewelry. Yours, now. Some of it was made of gold.
When dad handed you the box after the funeral, you had no idea what to do with it. He would be incredibly upset if you sold it, obviously. But he would be almost as upset if he saw you wearing it. Worse really, because it would be the kind of upset where he would have to pretend that he wasn't. You would be upset if you wore it. So you just put it away and never looked at it again. In the years since then, neither of you mentioned its existence even once.
It felt like desecration, taking it. Grave robbing. Even though mom would want you to melt it down. 'Better to get some use of it than to let it sit around forgotten', she'd say. But that line of thinking isn't about to cheer you up any time soon. There's quite a few things mom would say, if she could see you and dad now.
(It wasn't pure gold, of course, they don't make jewelry out of that. But compared to the contraption you're building in your lair, taking care of that little detail barely pinged your Tinker radar. A bit of copper, a bit of lead, a bit of acid, done.)
Dad isn't up yet, so you leave a note detailing your mostly fictitious plans for the day. You suspect that most teenagers would be facing serious suspicion and scrutiny right about now, but the stark contrast with your previous life of helpless moping is working out in your favor. Between Danny's obvious relief at your newfound initiative and his general failure as a parent, you should be safe for a while yet.
At the forge, you hustle Jim out with instructions to return after sunset. As long as he doesn't see you working the furnace you have the barest, most threadbare fig leaf of deniability that you're just another henchperson, subcontracting the boring/uncomfortable bits of working for the mystery Tinker known as, uh, Smith? Yeah, sure, your new cape name is Smith.
Then dawn breaks and you're far too busy to think about anything else. Quick, gold into the crucible, crucible into the magma. Mirror into position. Doesn't do much until the sun rises high enough to shine directly through the skylight, but every little bit helps. You make minor adjustments to the lenses to maximize the amount of light hitting the gold, then get to work on building the next mirror.
The day passes in a blur after that. You constantly have to switch between constructing more mirrors and adjusting the existing ones as the sun moves across the sky, and every finished mirror means another change to the improvised mess of optics focusing the light into the glory hole and holy shit it's like a sauna in here yeah duh magma and now the sun has gone down and you haven't eaten anything all day or drunk anything either and you've sweated enough that you might actually have passed out and died if not for your Brute 0 powers and is Tinkering always like this for everyone?
Even Jim comments on your bedraggled appearance when he arrives. Which is fair, he clearly has his shit together better than you do right now, and probably smells better too. You leave him to keep the furnace going overnight and stagger home for a shower.
But of course the day isn't over yet. You have to visit Emma, to pay back the loan and maintain your relationship. No, it's not villain money, you promise. You quit at the dog shelter, you're henching for a Rogue now. Let's watch a movie and exchange gossip! Please god let the school transfer go through soon so you can drop this charade and focus on nicer, saner minions, like the guy who hears voices telling him to do unspecified terrible things to underage girls.
---
Monday, and once more you're up unreasonably early. You told dad that you're going out jogging before school, to get in better shape. And to be fair, you were in terrible shape before you triggered. Pretending to exercise is actually a good cover for your increased physical capabilities.
With the majority of the construction done, things are much calmer at the forge today. Even though you need to regularly adjust the mirrors and optics to keep up with the sun, and work the furnace to keep the magma at just the right temperature, you still have plenty of time to sit down and sketch out potential improvements for when you have a real budget. The fact that you remembered to pack a lunch and a water bottle today doesn't hurt either.
The day passes uneventfully, and Jim turns up right on time once more. Score one for Loyalty-based reliability. You set off towards Empire territory for your first day at work.
The address you were given turns out to be a bar. A front, obviously, but when you step inside you see that it is a back and a middle as well, so to speak. It really is a bar. Very cozy, with the dim lighting, rough-hewn wooden beams in the ceiling and dark green and brown decor. Very much how you imagine a place where no-nonsense working class people would go for a drink after work, where everyone knows their name. And should a person whose name isn't known show up, everyone would go silent and stare balefully at the intruder. Like what is happening to you right now.
You stop just inside the door and consider what to do next. You weren't told who you were supposed to report to specifically, but this is clearly the right place. You can tell by the way almost everyone is sporting the same fashionable haircut.
"Low Key! Over here!" someone calls out. The atmosphere relaxes considerably and conversations gradually resume as people turn away from you. You recognize Alex waving you over.
As you make your way over to his table, another detail catches your eye. For a working class bar, they seem to be serving an unusual amount of soft drinks. Almost as if the patrons were maintaining a state of readiness or something. Funny that.
Alex is sitting with Mike and Sven (Sven is still glaring at you suspiciously, or maybe that's just how his face looks), who both offer you monosyllabic greetings and curt nods. You respond in kind. Rather than offer you a seat, Alex stands up and guides you to a back room. Here finally all pretenses fall away. This is clearly an op center. The walls are covered with whiteboards showing schedules, and maps showing patrol routes. Several people with headsets are manning computers.
You are given a burner phone, instructions to only use it to call this place, some recognition codes to memorize, a pat on the back and a swift kick in the rear. Metaphorically speaking. Alex is hustling you back out before you can even check that the phone is programmed with the number to the op center. He then keeps hustling you all the way out into the street. Mike gets up and follows you. Ok, apparently your shift is starting right away, and you're taking Sven's place.
"Sooo... what are we doing, exactly?" you ask.
---
When you decided to infiltrate a gang, you made peace with the fact that you would end up having to commit crimes.
The Merchants mostly deal drugs, with a minor bit of prostitution on the side, mostly to help their customers afford their product. The ABB mostly deal with sex trafficking, with a minor bit of drug business on the side, mostly to help keep their chattel under control. Yes, the ABB also runs a bunch of illegal gambling, and all gangs no doubt dabble in illegal weapons. But the point is, you had mentally filed drugs and whores as the typical gang-related stuff, and expected to be put to work guarding or assisting in the distribution of one or the other.
You completely failed to account for the fact that your new employers were a nazi gang. You know, right wing extremists? The far right, in case anyone forgot, tends to strongly disapprove of extramarital sex. Nor does addiction go well with the ideal of the Nietzschean übermensch, you suppose. 'Degenerates' (i.e. people who sleep around and/or do drugs) are in fact third on their list of least favorite people, right below non-whites and non-heterosexuals.
What you're trying to say is, you went in expecting to become a criminal. You did not expect to become a police officer.
---
The Empire (Mike explains, and you mentally translate), while nominally occupied territory (part of the United States), enjoys an unusual degree of freedom as a de facto independent nation (police no-go zone). Yes, the vile Zionist Occupation Government (the regular US government) still demands tribute (taxes) from their subject population, but they are allowed (see above re: no-go zone) to maintain their own border security (thugs who beat up non-whites) and police force (thugs who beat up whites). Today you'll be acting in the latter capacity.
Since it's your first day (he continues), the patrol will be the milkiest of milk runs, in the heart of the Empire. There's unlikely to be any trouble, since the citizenry is generally law-abiding (citation needed) and not even niggers are dumb enough to venture that deeply into Empire territory (probably true). But just in case, here's how it works:
If you catch a criminal in the act, there's no need for a trial to establish guilt (you feel that you should have an objection to this logic, but can't think of one) and punishment is administered on the spot. If you are instead presented with an accusation, call it in and the op center boys will take it from there.
The penalty for breaking the law typically takes the form of corporal punishment (assault & battery), and perhaps a fine is levied (robbery). The Empire does not have a prison system (kidnapping), since it considers such punishments cruel and unusual (and, you suspect, unfeasibly impractical and expensive). Nor are its patrolmen authorized to dispense the death penalty (murder). It has happened that individual officers (thugs) elected to mete out capital punishment on their own initiative (flew off the handle and killed someone). Even should the resulting investigation deem that their judgement was justified -
"Wait, what?" you interrupt. "Justified?"
"Kid toucher, most recently," Alex says.
"Oh. Yeah, okay."
- the Empire can only offer limited protection against the agents of ZOG (actual police) in these cases.
You nod your understanding. If you strip out their peculiar issues with the government, they are basically just asking you to perform masked vigilantism. Which is surprisingly legal and uncontroversial these days. You will have nothing to feel guilty about as long as you ignore your colleagues patrolling the outskirts of the Empire, performing hate crimes so that you don't have to.
---
Your patrol takes place in an inner-city neighborhood, but it's non-euphemistically inner city. The zoning density is high, but everything is clean and in good repair, and the only graffiti is E88 logos. Which, since the Empire apparently fancies itself a government, is more like official signage than graffiti. In short, it has none of the usual warning signs that makes people go 'inner city, it's not safe here'. It actually looks like a decent place to live.
Though if you are being completely honest with yourself, one of the warning signs that everybody looks for but no one ever admits to is the presence of black people. So, uh, yeah.
The patrol is uneventful as promised, with your companions often stopping to greet and chat with people they know. You try not to fidget too much. Turns out masked vigilantism in a good neighborhood is unbelievably boring. There's not even any capes around to study.
Two hours in, the most exciting thing yet happens as you come across a group of obviously drunk young men.
"Is public intoxication a crime?" you ask hopefully.
"Not as long as they behave themselves," Mike says.
"We're behaving, offsicer!" one of them calls out cheerfully, having overheard you.
His companions turn around and notice you as well, which sets off an excited babble in the group.
"Hey Alex!"
"Is that a new cape?"
"It is!"
"Is it a boy or a girl? I can't tell."
"I think it's a girl."
"Show us your tits!"
Oh look, they stopped behaving. "Come forth," you whisper, pointing at the last person to speak. "Fetch."
Fenrir appears with his jaws already snapping shut in front of your target's chest, grabbing a large mouthful of jacket. He throws his head back, lifting the man off his feet. The other drunks scatter.
"Shit shit shit shit!"
"Sorry! I'm sorry!"
"I'm not with him!"
"Good dog," you say out loud. He performed the fetch exactly as instructed, down to the ongoing rumbling growl as he holds the guy aloft. Well, there's a small trickle of blood, so he probably scraped the skin with his teeth while getting a grip. But that's okay. Speaking of trickles, looks like someone wet himself in fear. Ew.
"Release him," Mike commands. He does not sound happy.
Fine. He probably learned his lesson. With another whispered command, Fenrir drops him and trots back to your side. Alex moves to help the guy, while Mike proceeds to lecture you.
Blah blah blah disproportionate response blah blah excessive force blah blah militarized police as a symptom of a sick society blah blah only necessary to keep the lesser races in line blah blah climate of fear blah. Fine, whatever. You get it. Inner patrol wears kid gloves, because white supremacy. As Alex demonstrates while Mike goes on and on, the proper punishment for disrespecting an officer of the law is apparently a clip around the ear and a quick scolding ("you live in a white society, fucking act like it!").
"Now dismiss your wolf," Mike finishes.
"Can't," you say sullenly. "Cape reasons."
"Jesus. All right, fine." He hands you a bottle of water from his pack. "At least clean the blood off its muzzle. We're not in fucking Africa."
You do as you're told. At least you get to spend the rest of the patrol mounted instead of walking. It's a lot more comfortable than riding a giant canine bareback has any right to be, and you have no idea whether that's another one from your incomprehensible grab-bag of powers or something innate to Fenrir.
You continue much like before, except more people stare at you and the conversations include more allusions to how much trouble newbie capes are. Allusions like 'house breaking'. You spend the rest of the patrol
When you try to head home, though, the others insist that you come with them back to the bar. Apparently there's a ceremony for anyone finishing their first patrol.
You meet Sven on the way back, returning from a patrol of his own. His normal suspicious glare gives way to surprise when he sees you mounted/openly displaying parahuman powers.
"Did you encounter some rambunctious youths?" he asks with a smile.
"A couple," you say, "but Mike didn't approve of how roughly I treated them."
"Wha- really?" He gets the most peculiar facial expression. Alex bursts out laughing.
You look between them, uncomprehending. "I don't get it?"
Mike sighs. "He meant 'youths' as in 'black criminals,'" he explains patiently. "You know, like in the newspapers? 'Old lady robbed and beaten by a gang of youths.'"
"'Five youths hospitalized after E88 hate crime,'" Alex adds helpfully.
Not to be outdone, Sven starts loudly explaining his own (fairly predictable) feelings towards the 'jewish media'. Again, you get it already. Also, you really need to get around to finding a dictionary of nazi slang.
---
The ceremony is quite simple. Mike and Alex are given huge mugs of beer, 'for putting up with the newbie'. You are given an equally large mug full of milk, 'for completing the milk run'.
The fuck happened to your life, that you'd find yourself in a bar, in gang territory, holding a quart of milk, surrounded by skinheads chanting "chug, chug, chug"? After being scolded for police brutality by a literal jackbooted fascist thug?
No, you know exactly what happened. Powers happened. And really, would you rather be stuck in your old life? Still going to Winslow, still helpless before the trio? No. A thousand times no.
Hitching your mask up just enough to uncover your mouth, you chug.
===
For the people who don't know anything about Exalted and are really confused right now, by alloying gold with sunlight in a magma forge you create orichalcum, one of the 'five magical materials'. Specifically the one associated with solar exalts, which is why Taylor instinctively knows how make it.
Orichalcum is unique among the five magical materials in that you can actually make some on Earth Bet. Elemental jade and moonsilver are naturally occurring substances (in Creation) that can't be synthesized (edit: unless you're either a god or a dwarf [fucking dwarves]). And to make soulsteel you need, well, souls. Now maybe one of Glaistig Uaine's faeries would count as a soul for forging purposes, but aside from the obvious logistical problems there, the 'steel' part also needs the ore to be mined in the Underworld (the land of the dead). Which also doesn't exist in your current universe. You hope.
You could technically make some starmetal right now, but, uh. You really wouldn't want to.
(starmetal is made from dead spirits)
Orichalcum is unique among the five magical materials in that you can actually make some on Earth Bet. Elemental jade and moonsilver are naturally occurring substances (in Creation) that can't be synthesized (edit: unless you're either a god or a dwarf [fucking dwarves]). And to make soulsteel you need, well, souls. Now maybe one of Glaistig Uaine's faeries would count as a soul for forging purposes, but aside from the obvious logistical problems there, the 'steel' part also needs the ore to be mined in the Underworld (the land of the dead). Which also doesn't exist in your current universe. You hope.
You could technically make some starmetal right now, but, uh. You really wouldn't want to.
(starmetal is made from dead spirits)
Last edited:
S.11
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
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Compared to yesterday's disappointment, self defense classes promise to be amazing. There are no less than four capes in the building when you arrive. Also a whole bunch of unpowered skinheads, whatever. Most of them are paired up and sparring, though a few are doing other exercises.
Of the capes, three of them - Hookwolf, Cricket and Victor - are acting as instructors, while the last - Othala - sits off to the side.
Othala is clearly the best dressed of the lot: A traditional skintight body suit, deep red with a black symbol in a white circle on the chest. A rune of some sort? You're not norse-gay enough to identify it.
Victor is also dressed in black and red, but he is using your approach to a costume: Regular street clothes plus a cheap mask and a custom chest piece, in his case a domino and a breastplate. Hookwolf and Cricket even skip the custom chest piece, making do with just the masks. Custom-made metal ones, at least, that no doubt cost a pretty penny. Respectively depicting a wolf and a... hockey goalkeeper?
In Hookwolf's case he is literally skipping the chest piece: He is bare-chested. Many of his unpowered disciples are following his example. It's quite the feast for the eyes, if you're into big, sweaty, muscular men. Which you kind of are, but the amount of swastika tattoos on display is a bit of a turn-off.
To understand the way they are sparring, it is necessary to understand Othala: Othala is probably the most important person in the Empire. She can grant a variety of powers with a touch, but only one person and power at a time. Normally this would make her a versatile and decently powerful backline support type, but one of the powers she can grant is regeneration, which elevates her from 'support' to 'healer-with-benefits'.
Healers are incredibly rare, and the few teams lucky enough to have one enjoy enormous strategic advantages. The impact of having your members recover in minutes from injuries that would normally take weeks or months to heal - or even be permanently crippling - cannot be overstated.
Not to mention the various side benefits, like the unusually realistic sparring matches you are witnessing right now. Those skinheads are beating the shit out of each other, confident that any damage can be fixed right up.
---
At first you're assigned to Victor, who starts teaching you the fundamentals of martial arts. Apparently the fundamentals are 'how to fall over without breaking your own neck'.
Victor is an excellent teacher, which is unsurprising considering his power is being good at things. Or rather, becoming good at things. A subtle but important distinction. He literally sucks the skills right out of people's brains, like some sort of psychic vampire. This obviously means that he is not going to be using his power while teaching people, which leaves your sorcerer's sight with nothing to study.
You glance over at Hookwolf. He's not using his power either. Seeing as how his power makes him transform into a giant monster made of chainsaws, his doing so would be even more counterproductive than Victor's.
Cricket, now. Her power is more modest - enhanced dexterity and situational awareness - and not at all out of place in a sparring match. She is, in fact, using it constantly.
Which brings you back to Othala. She spends most of her time making cow eyes at Victor, but there is a steady enough stream of injured skinheads passing by that you could study her power as well. This leaves you with a choice: Which power do you go for first?
Othala's is undoubtedly more useful, and powerful. But it requires a team. A real team that you can trust with your true nature, not just one you're infiltrating for their powers. If you'd taken Lisa up on her unspoken invitation to join the Undersiders, contented yourself with only learning four other powers - really only two, since Lisa and Rachel gave you theirs regardless - and wasted your life on petty supercrime... Sure. Then you would have had a use for this power, that you wouldn't have learned in the first place.
No, it has to be Cricket. Her power, while modest, is excellent for 'not dying', an activity you plan to do a lot of in the future.
It's a good thing Victor is such a good teacher, because you are an awful student. He frequently has to repeat himself, as you are too immersed in plotting golden circuits in your soul to pay attention.
---
Victor eventually judges that you have the basics down - either that or he gives up in disgust, you can't really tell. At any rate he passes you off to Hookwolf, who starts you on the proper stances. When you don't pay attention, he breaks your arm.
Your scream of pain draws only brief attention from the rank and file.
"Go get that fixed," Hookwolf says. He gives you a shove in the direction of Othala. Unprepared, you trip over your own feet and and land on your broken arm. This time around no one even glances at you as you scream. Hookwolf's teaching methods are clearly well known and uncontroversial.
You manage to roll over on your back. There's a giant invisible wolf looming over you, looking at you with obvious concern.
"I'm fine," you whisper between sobbing breaths. "Everything's fine." You make vague shooing motions with your good arm. The last thing you need is for this to turn into a real cape fight.
"I don't have all day," Hookwolf growls. He pulls back a foot, threatening a kick to your broken arm.
Okay, okay. Fuck. Ow. You never appreciated how useful having two functional arms was until you tried to get to your feet with just the one. You try to wipe the tears out of your eyes, but your mask is in the way.
Othala already has a patient when you arrive, but the skinhead in question gives up his spot for you. Who says chivalry is dead?
"We all went thought this," Othala tells you as your arm mends. "Just pay more attention next time. He won't punish you as long as you try your best."
"'Harsh but fair', eh?"
"Yes. As difficult as that might be to believe right now."
You keep making small talk on autopilot, your attention still focused on Cricket. After a few minutes she tells you that your arm should be fine. Some careful stretches and flexes confirms this, and you return to your lesson with Hookwolf.
You still don't pay attention. Hookwolf breaks your other arm.
---
You leave Hookwolf's dojo (note to self: never call it that to his face) with three soul prices, roughly one tenth of a new power, and a newfound appreciation for how convenient intact limbs are. If you thought getting to your feet with a broken arm was difficult, try crawling across a room with two broken legs (Hookwolf explicitly forbade anyone from helping you).
The soul prices are unlikely to be useful, unfortunately.
Hookwolf wants to find and kill the cunt who has been attacking his fighting pits.
You are not cool with murder, so that's a no-go.
Othala wants Victor to love her as much as she loves him.
Victor wants to love Othala as much as she loves him.
Christ, these crazy nazis are practically giving you diabetes here. Forget fixing Panacea, this is how you ethically use romantic mind-rape powers. Unfortunately no one in Brockton Bay has any such power for you to borrow, so those two lovebirds will have to manage on their own for the foreseeable future.
All in all, well... You learned a lot, almost everyone was nice to you, and you were only ever hurt as punishment for things that were unquestionably your own fault. It was a lot better than high school, is what you're trying to say.
---
Just like cleaning up after Rachel's dogs, tending the forge is the kind of mindless repetitive work that would be a perfect backdrop for power study. It's too bad you can't just kidnap Cricket and keep her tied up in the corner.
When you accidentally knock over a mirror and break it, you're almost grateful for having something to do again. Almost. If your dad could hear the language you use as you hot-glue hundreds of mirror fragments back together, he would personally punch in the face every dock worker who ever talked to his little girl.
At least it will be over soon. You got a letter informing you that your transfer was approved and that you would be starting at Arcadia on Monday. No more sunlight hours for metallurgy then, instead a brand new school. With no bullies, and lots of delicious capes.
In the evening you learn first aid. Or you would, except Cricket is also taking the class. And she uses her sensory power - a form of echolocation, you figured out - even in a quiet classroom full of her allies. You silently give thanks for her paranoia as you completely ignore everything Alex is trying to teach you about saving lives.
Yes, your old buddy Alex is teaching the class. Turns out that he's not just a jack-booted thug, he also has a day job as a nurse. Take that, gender stereotypes?
---
You're going to need more binoculars, you conclude the next morning. Your shitty plastic optics have been going ever so slightly melty in the heat of the furnace, and have finally deformed into uselessness. Oh well, you needed to go buy more propane anyway.
---
When you arrive at the dojo (don't call it that to his face), Hookwolf drags you off to a side room. For the first time since you met him, he seems less than perfectly sure of himself.
"Do you know how they do it in the military?" he asks softly.
"...you want me to salute?" You have no idea what he's talking about, so you take a wild guess.
"No. I mean, about homos."
What? Is he- But he's- what?
"Homos aren't allowed in the military," he continues when you don't respond. "But as long as they pretend to be straight, everyone plays along. That's official policy."
You don't- Ohhhh. He saw the way you kept looking at Cricket, and drew conclusions. And now he's trying to be sensitive about it. This is giving you an all new appreciation for the fact that your dad never tried to give you The Talk.
"I'm not gay," you say firmly. Hookwolf immediately relaxes when he sees that he's made himself understood.
"Then fucking pay attention to what I'm trying to teach you." Yep, he's back to normal alright.
You return to the main floor and start sparring. Glance, glance, go your eyes. Power, power, goes your brain. Snap, snap, go your bones.
Once again, the experience is extremely educational. For example, you just learned that (for injuries that are not themselves mechanically disabling) the anticipation of pain is more debilitating than pain itself, performance-wise. Which is not to say that not anticipating pain is the answer - you almost fell over the first time you tried putting your weight on that foot. But once you bite down and just accept that every step is going to hurt like a motherfucker and there's nothing you can do about that, your Othala-bound hobble speeds up considerably.
"The hell you're not gay," Hookwolf says at the end of the session. "Maybe if you could keep your eyes off your dream girlfriend for five fucking minutes I would believe you."
"You don't understand," you protest. "I want to be like her, not with her." It's the truth! Why can't he be more like your dad, who never tries to talk to you about sex and always believes you when you say things that are technically true?
"Hmph. Fine. Next week you'll be sparring with her directly, then. Leave your costume at home, wear something you don't mind getting ruined."
Oh. Great. Cricket teaches armed combat. And thanks to your - how to put it? - your power-related learning disabilities, you still have only the barest inkling of how to handle yourself even in unarmed combat. Out of the frying pan...
Well, no, you don't actually know which is the frying pan and which is the fire here. Maybe being stabbed hurts less than having your bones broken? You have no idea.
But you'll find out on Tuesday.
===
Of the capes, three of them - Hookwolf, Cricket and Victor - are acting as instructors, while the last - Othala - sits off to the side.
Othala is clearly the best dressed of the lot: A traditional skintight body suit, deep red with a black symbol in a white circle on the chest. A rune of some sort? You're not norse-gay enough to identify it.
Victor is also dressed in black and red, but he is using your approach to a costume: Regular street clothes plus a cheap mask and a custom chest piece, in his case a domino and a breastplate. Hookwolf and Cricket even skip the custom chest piece, making do with just the masks. Custom-made metal ones, at least, that no doubt cost a pretty penny. Respectively depicting a wolf and a... hockey goalkeeper?
In Hookwolf's case he is literally skipping the chest piece: He is bare-chested. Many of his unpowered disciples are following his example. It's quite the feast for the eyes, if you're into big, sweaty, muscular men. Which you kind of are, but the amount of swastika tattoos on display is a bit of a turn-off.
To understand the way they are sparring, it is necessary to understand Othala: Othala is probably the most important person in the Empire. She can grant a variety of powers with a touch, but only one person and power at a time. Normally this would make her a versatile and decently powerful backline support type, but one of the powers she can grant is regeneration, which elevates her from 'support' to 'healer-with-benefits'.
Healers are incredibly rare, and the few teams lucky enough to have one enjoy enormous strategic advantages. The impact of having your members recover in minutes from injuries that would normally take weeks or months to heal - or even be permanently crippling - cannot be overstated.
Not to mention the various side benefits, like the unusually realistic sparring matches you are witnessing right now. Those skinheads are beating the shit out of each other, confident that any damage can be fixed right up.
---
At first you're assigned to Victor, who starts teaching you the fundamentals of martial arts. Apparently the fundamentals are 'how to fall over without breaking your own neck'.
Victor is an excellent teacher, which is unsurprising considering his power is being good at things. Or rather, becoming good at things. A subtle but important distinction. He literally sucks the skills right out of people's brains, like some sort of psychic vampire. This obviously means that he is not going to be using his power while teaching people, which leaves your sorcerer's sight with nothing to study.
You glance over at Hookwolf. He's not using his power either. Seeing as how his power makes him transform into a giant monster made of chainsaws, his doing so would be even more counterproductive than Victor's.
Cricket, now. Her power is more modest - enhanced dexterity and situational awareness - and not at all out of place in a sparring match. She is, in fact, using it constantly.
Which brings you back to Othala. She spends most of her time making cow eyes at Victor, but there is a steady enough stream of injured skinheads passing by that you could study her power as well. This leaves you with a choice: Which power do you go for first?
Othala's is undoubtedly more useful, and powerful. But it requires a team. A real team that you can trust with your true nature, not just one you're infiltrating for their powers. If you'd taken Lisa up on her unspoken invitation to join the Undersiders, contented yourself with only learning four other powers - really only two, since Lisa and Rachel gave you theirs regardless - and wasted your life on petty supercrime... Sure. Then you would have had a use for this power, that you wouldn't have learned in the first place.
No, it has to be Cricket. Her power, while modest, is excellent for 'not dying', an activity you plan to do a lot of in the future.
It's a good thing Victor is such a good teacher, because you are an awful student. He frequently has to repeat himself, as you are too immersed in plotting golden circuits in your soul to pay attention.
---
Victor eventually judges that you have the basics down - either that or he gives up in disgust, you can't really tell. At any rate he passes you off to Hookwolf, who starts you on the proper stances. When you don't pay attention, he breaks your arm.
Your scream of pain draws only brief attention from the rank and file.
"Go get that fixed," Hookwolf says. He gives you a shove in the direction of Othala. Unprepared, you trip over your own feet and and land on your broken arm. This time around no one even glances at you as you scream. Hookwolf's teaching methods are clearly well known and uncontroversial.
You manage to roll over on your back. There's a giant invisible wolf looming over you, looking at you with obvious concern.
"I'm fine," you whisper between sobbing breaths. "Everything's fine." You make vague shooing motions with your good arm. The last thing you need is for this to turn into a real cape fight.
"I don't have all day," Hookwolf growls. He pulls back a foot, threatening a kick to your broken arm.
Okay, okay. Fuck. Ow. You never appreciated how useful having two functional arms was until you tried to get to your feet with just the one. You try to wipe the tears out of your eyes, but your mask is in the way.
Othala already has a patient when you arrive, but the skinhead in question gives up his spot for you. Who says chivalry is dead?
"We all went thought this," Othala tells you as your arm mends. "Just pay more attention next time. He won't punish you as long as you try your best."
"'Harsh but fair', eh?"
"Yes. As difficult as that might be to believe right now."
You keep making small talk on autopilot, your attention still focused on Cricket. After a few minutes she tells you that your arm should be fine. Some careful stretches and flexes confirms this, and you return to your lesson with Hookwolf.
You still don't pay attention. Hookwolf breaks your other arm.
---
You leave Hookwolf's dojo (note to self: never call it that to his face) with three soul prices, roughly one tenth of a new power, and a newfound appreciation for how convenient intact limbs are. If you thought getting to your feet with a broken arm was difficult, try crawling across a room with two broken legs (Hookwolf explicitly forbade anyone from helping you).
The soul prices are unlikely to be useful, unfortunately.
Hookwolf wants to find and kill the cunt who has been attacking his fighting pits.
You are not cool with murder, so that's a no-go.
Othala wants Victor to love her as much as she loves him.
Victor wants to love Othala as much as she loves him.
Christ, these crazy nazis are practically giving you diabetes here. Forget fixing Panacea, this is how you ethically use romantic mind-rape powers. Unfortunately no one in Brockton Bay has any such power for you to borrow, so those two lovebirds will have to manage on their own for the foreseeable future.
All in all, well... You learned a lot, almost everyone was nice to you, and you were only ever hurt as punishment for things that were unquestionably your own fault. It was a lot better than high school, is what you're trying to say.
"Tell me about Low Key," Kaiser says.
"She has the potential to become a great warrior," I respond. "Terrible fucking student, though. Same reason. Fearless, impossible to cow."
"Overly aggressive?" Kaiser asks.
"Not so you'd notice."
"Interesting. I have here the report from her first patrol," he indicates a document on his desk, "and it says, I quote, please keep this crazy bitch away from civilians, unquote." Sounds like Mike, old bleeding-heart libertarian that he is. Always a soft touch on inner patrol.
I shake my head. "I didn't notice anything of the sort. The opposite, if anything. Too passive. I kept breaking her bones, but she just. Would. Not. Pay. Attention. Whenever she wasn't staring off into space, she was sneaking glances at Cricket."
"Hm. Homosexual?"
"It's... possible," I allow. "Though frankly I doubt even a dyke could find Cricket attractive."
"At least that would mean she isn't a spy," Kaiser muses. "No one would be so foolish as to-"
I laugh. "Are you kidding me? Expecting a homo to be able to keep it in their pants is exactly the kind of mistake our enemies would make."
"Perhaps you are right. Overestimating your enemies can be almost as dangerous as underestimating them." He tilts his head to the side, making a show of thinking things over. "We've been stretched too thin for our territory ever since Purity left. Tell her that we're prepared to do a 'don't ask, don't tell' in her case. Subtly and politely, please, in case we're wrong about her."
I nod. At least dykes are nowhere near as disgusting as faggots. And as a cape, she's already damaged goods. It's unlikely that she would be able to have a normal family regardless.
"Keep giving her a hard time, though," he continues. "Even if, as you say, she herself does not mind it, the PRT would not let a Ward be treated like that. If she is spying for them, they'll pull her out soon enough."
I nod again, distracted. Speaking of damaged goods, poor Cricket. What man could possibly want her? No, I decide, if it ever turns out that she does want children, I would help her out with that. It would be the least I could do for an old comrade in arms. Besides, all women look the same with the lights off.
I smile. Yes, I should bring that up with her sometime soon. She's not getting any younger.
"She has the potential to become a great warrior," I respond. "Terrible fucking student, though. Same reason. Fearless, impossible to cow."
"Overly aggressive?" Kaiser asks.
"Not so you'd notice."
"Interesting. I have here the report from her first patrol," he indicates a document on his desk, "and it says, I quote, please keep this crazy bitch away from civilians, unquote." Sounds like Mike, old bleeding-heart libertarian that he is. Always a soft touch on inner patrol.
I shake my head. "I didn't notice anything of the sort. The opposite, if anything. Too passive. I kept breaking her bones, but she just. Would. Not. Pay. Attention. Whenever she wasn't staring off into space, she was sneaking glances at Cricket."
"Hm. Homosexual?"
"It's... possible," I allow. "Though frankly I doubt even a dyke could find Cricket attractive."
"At least that would mean she isn't a spy," Kaiser muses. "No one would be so foolish as to-"
I laugh. "Are you kidding me? Expecting a homo to be able to keep it in their pants is exactly the kind of mistake our enemies would make."
"Perhaps you are right. Overestimating your enemies can be almost as dangerous as underestimating them." He tilts his head to the side, making a show of thinking things over. "We've been stretched too thin for our territory ever since Purity left. Tell her that we're prepared to do a 'don't ask, don't tell' in her case. Subtly and politely, please, in case we're wrong about her."
I nod. At least dykes are nowhere near as disgusting as faggots. And as a cape, she's already damaged goods. It's unlikely that she would be able to have a normal family regardless.
"Keep giving her a hard time, though," he continues. "Even if, as you say, she herself does not mind it, the PRT would not let a Ward be treated like that. If she is spying for them, they'll pull her out soon enough."
I nod again, distracted. Speaking of damaged goods, poor Cricket. What man could possibly want her? No, I decide, if it ever turns out that she does want children, I would help her out with that. It would be the least I could do for an old comrade in arms. Besides, all women look the same with the lights off.
I smile. Yes, I should bring that up with her sometime soon. She's not getting any younger.
---
Just like cleaning up after Rachel's dogs, tending the forge is the kind of mindless repetitive work that would be a perfect backdrop for power study. It's too bad you can't just kidnap Cricket and keep her tied up in the corner.
When you accidentally knock over a mirror and break it, you're almost grateful for having something to do again. Almost. If your dad could hear the language you use as you hot-glue hundreds of mirror fragments back together, he would personally punch in the face every dock worker who ever talked to his little girl.
At least it will be over soon. You got a letter informing you that your transfer was approved and that you would be starting at Arcadia on Monday. No more sunlight hours for metallurgy then, instead a brand new school. With no bullies, and lots of delicious capes.
In the evening you learn first aid. Or you would, except Cricket is also taking the class. And she uses her sensory power - a form of echolocation, you figured out - even in a quiet classroom full of her allies. You silently give thanks for her paranoia as you completely ignore everything Alex is trying to teach you about saving lives.
Yes, your old buddy Alex is teaching the class. Turns out that he's not just a jack-booted thug, he also has a day job as a nurse. Take that, gender stereotypes?
---
You're going to need more binoculars, you conclude the next morning. Your shitty plastic optics have been going ever so slightly melty in the heat of the furnace, and have finally deformed into uselessness. Oh well, you needed to go buy more propane anyway.
---
When you arrive at the dojo (don't call it that to his face), Hookwolf drags you off to a side room. For the first time since you met him, he seems less than perfectly sure of himself.
"Do you know how they do it in the military?" he asks softly.
"...you want me to salute?" You have no idea what he's talking about, so you take a wild guess.
"No. I mean, about homos."
What? Is he- But he's- what?
"Homos aren't allowed in the military," he continues when you don't respond. "But as long as they pretend to be straight, everyone plays along. That's official policy."
You don't- Ohhhh. He saw the way you kept looking at Cricket, and drew conclusions. And now he's trying to be sensitive about it. This is giving you an all new appreciation for the fact that your dad never tried to give you The Talk.
"I'm not gay," you say firmly. Hookwolf immediately relaxes when he sees that he's made himself understood.
"Then fucking pay attention to what I'm trying to teach you." Yep, he's back to normal alright.
You return to the main floor and start sparring. Glance, glance, go your eyes. Power, power, goes your brain. Snap, snap, go your bones.
Once again, the experience is extremely educational. For example, you just learned that (for injuries that are not themselves mechanically disabling) the anticipation of pain is more debilitating than pain itself, performance-wise. Which is not to say that not anticipating pain is the answer - you almost fell over the first time you tried putting your weight on that foot. But once you bite down and just accept that every step is going to hurt like a motherfucker and there's nothing you can do about that, your Othala-bound hobble speeds up considerably.
"The hell you're not gay," Hookwolf says at the end of the session. "Maybe if you could keep your eyes off your dream girlfriend for five fucking minutes I would believe you."
"You don't understand," you protest. "I want to be like her, not with her." It's the truth! Why can't he be more like your dad, who never tries to talk to you about sex and always believes you when you say things that are technically true?
"Hmph. Fine. Next week you'll be sparring with her directly, then. Leave your costume at home, wear something you don't mind getting ruined."
Oh. Great. Cricket teaches armed combat. And thanks to your - how to put it? - your power-related learning disabilities, you still have only the barest inkling of how to handle yourself even in unarmed combat. Out of the frying pan...
Well, no, you don't actually know which is the frying pan and which is the fire here. Maybe being stabbed hurts less than having your bones broken? You have no idea.
But you'll find out on Tuesday.
===
This episode featuring Good Guy Hookwolf, being considerate towards women.
On an unrelated note: Congratulations! It's now been a month since you triggered, and you're still alive. Or in other words, Contessa's monthly 'path to nipping freshly triggered problems in the bud' did not find you objectionable. Let's all have a nice big sigh of relief.
Spoilers for the fact that you won't be fucking Cauldron's shit up, I guess.
Unless somehow an encounter with a PtV-immune entity severely changes your life goals and/or circumstances, but what are the odds of that?
On an unrelated note: Congratulations! It's now been a month since you triggered, and you're still alive. Or in other words, Contessa's monthly 'path to nipping freshly triggered problems in the bud' did not find you objectionable. Let's all have a nice big sigh of relief.
Spoilers for the fact that you won't be fucking Cauldron's shit up, I guess.
Unless somehow an encounter with a PtV-immune entity severely changes your life goals and/or circumstances, but what are the odds of that?
Quests:
Hookwolf: Wants to find and kill the cunt who has been attacking his fighting pits. Or should I say, the bitch?
Othala & Victor: *kissy faces*
Tattletale: ...
You know what, I think the quest log goof has pretty much run its course entirely. Which is code for 'I considered the number of soul prices that will be learned but never be cashed in, contemplated having to phrase every one one of them in a novel, mildly humorous way every time a new one showed up, and went "NOPE!"'
Hookwolf: Wants to find and kill the cunt who has been attacking his fighting pits. Or should I say, the bitch?
Othala & Victor: *kissy faces*
Tattletale: ...
You know what, I think the quest log goof has pretty much run its course entirely. Which is code for 'I considered the number of soul prices that will be learned but never be cashed in, contemplated having to phrase every one one of them in a novel, mildly humorous way every time a new one showed up, and went "NOPE!"'
S.12
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
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- 16,616
This time around your reception at the Empire bar/ready room is considerably warmer. People barely glance your way before returning to their conversations. There are some muttered comments you can't make out, though, and scattered laughter. Mike must have been talking behind your back.
You ignore the giggly racists and head over to the bar, where the bartender is waving to you.
"You're meant to be on outer patrol with Rune tonight, but she's running late," he says. "Have one on the house while you wait."
He hands you a bottle of coke sporting what would, in any other circumstance, be an oversized novelty straw. Here and now it's an ingenious device allowing you to drink without adjusting your full-face mask. You take a seat and look around while you sip.
You don't spot Mike or his crew anywhere, they either aren't working tonight, or have already left on patrol. Most of the clientele is engaged in a lively discussion about the relative merits of different races (of course!), but there are two guys sitting off by themselves, reading. As an old introverted bookworm yourself (before you triggered and became too busy to indulge), you can't help butsnoop take an interest.
Oh, it's Mein Kampf (of course!). The guy notices you looking, and responds by smiling and holding up the book so you can see it better. Which lets you notice that he's reading it in the original German. That's some major signaling right there. He might as well have brought a neon sign saying 'look at my giant brain'.
The other reader, by contrast, has a copy of Cape Glamour Weekly, featuring Glory Girl and her boyfriend on the cover. Really? Isn't that a bit... vapid and girly? And you're saying that as a fifteen year old girl. Is he mocking Mr Big Brain? Is it his job to scour the gossip rags for valuable cape intel? Or perhaps he's counter signaling his big balls? 'I'm so manly that not even this magazine can detract from it'?
You shake your head and turn your attention to the main discussion. Picking up on the more esoteric points of white supremacy can only improve your cover. Currently they seem to be debating whether Germans are superior to Scandinavians.
"One word: Vikings," says a man you suspect might have some Scandinavian ancestry.
"Sure they were Vikings back then, but nowadays they're a bunch of kebab-loving pansies," is the response, surely coming from a completely impartial fellow with no German blood whatsoever.
"Yeah? Because Germany definitely isn't a giant self-loathing mess right now."
"Fuck you, you try having the entire jew-controlled world gang up on you and conquer you! Twice!" the German counters. "You're not even a real Swede, you're like a quarter Irish. Everyone knows Irishmen are the niggers of white people."
"Look at this guy, thinking the Irish are even white," some other, presumably non-Irish person says. "You need to get woke on the Irish Question, bro."
"Actually," Big Brain interjects, looking up from his book, "the naturalization act of 1790 restricted citizenship to 'white persons of good character', and Irishmen were able to become citizens. Q.E.D."
"Yeah, well, people where primitive and ignorant back then," Not-Irish counters. "Science wasn't very advanced. We've since become more enlightened and realized the truth about potato niggers."
"Who even cares about the Irish?" another man asks. "At least they're not Italians!"
"True, true."
"I hate those swarthy Mafia faggots."
"Fucking spaghetti niggers."
"No one thinks Italians are white."
At least one of the people nodding along to these pronouncements, you can't help but notice, is clearly Italian. The person next to him puts a hand on his shoulder. "Sorry Johnny," he says solemnly. "You can't be in our gang anymore. Whites only."
Johnny accepts this pronouncement with good cheer. "Alright," he says. "Will someone buy me one last beer before I go join the Merchants?" This prompts three separate people to order him a beer, and several more to laugh and slap him on the back.
You can't help but feel a certain... schoolmarmish disapproval. These are the foot soldiers of a self-styled nazi regime. Their racism is the single most important aspect of their worldview and how it shapes their lives! Shouldn't they be taking it at least somewhat seriously?
A wizard walks into a bar. That is, Rune finally appears. Her costume is a green robe and cowl embroidered with golden runes, see. As you get up to meet her the discussion around you returns to the Germans vs Scandinavians debate, the spaghetti nigger question having been resolved to everyone's satisfaction.
"Sorry I'm late," she says. "Didn't mean to leave you stranded with these insufferable nerds." She raises her voice at the last part, to make sure the nerds in question overhear. They respond with laughter, blown kisses and calls of "Love you too, Rune!"
As the door swings shut behind you, you just barely make out someone asserting "Anglos are the jews of white people!"
Looks like Rune parked her favorite rock outside. Seriously. According to her wiki article she usually makes do with urban debris, like chunks of concrete, dumpsters and wrecked cars. But this is unmistakably a naturally-occurring rock, maybe 20 feet in diameter, mostly flat but with several indentations forming rough seats. Some of the indentations contain smaller rocks, presumably ammunition. Apparently she decided to bring out the limousine of telekinetic conveyances today. You're flattered.
You're also delighted. The rock is thrumming with power to your sorcerer's sight, with a tether leading back to Rune. She'll be using her power throughout the night, and she's inviting you onto her rock just like that. You can just sit there and study her to your heart's content. You could not ask for a more perfect evening.
But, the idea occurs to you, you could make it more perfect. When the rock clears the roof of the bar you step off and call forth your wolf. Your time with Rachel made you develop a taste for rooftop monster rides, and you haven't had a chance to indulge since you parted ways.
"What are you- oh. You wanna show off too?" You get the distinct impression that Rune is grinning behind her mask. "Try to keep up!"
---
You did not think this through. Oh, Fenrir can leap between rooftops easily enough, as long as they are roughly the same height. Rachel's monsters have the unnatural muscle density and elongated claws to let them climb up the side of a building, but Fenrir is just a really big wolf. And wolves? Not nature's finest climbers even without the square-cube law kicking in them in nuts.
What frequently ends up happening is that you have to call for Rune to double back and help you out. Which she does without complaint. Oh, she doesn't complain.
"Of course, dear," she chirps. "Anything to help a colleague out."
"This rock sure is comfy. And convenient!"
"Are you sure you wouldn't rather ride with me? It's no trouble, there's plenty of space."
That condescending faux helpfulness is exactly like some of the girls in your class. So much for the Empire being nicer than Winslow. But no matter what, you're not going to give in and accept her offer. Fuck her and the rock she rode in on. You're committed now, and admitting that you made a mistake would be even worse than the repeated humiliation of asking for help.
Oh, this time around she spotted an upcoming problem spot on her own and stopped in front of the taller building to wait for you. How gracious of her. How helpful. You silently grind your teeth as Fenrir once more steps out onto the flying rock.
"Going up?" Rune asks innocently. God you want to grind this bitch into paste. As an added insult, her power is super difficult to understand. Which means you're going to have to put up with her for a good, long time. Really, world? Lifting a rock is more complicated than extracting the soul price from a human brain?
And! And, just like Madison, Rune's own soul price is a good life well lived, so you can't even use Loyalty to make her behave.
No, she isn't secretly Madison. Madison doesn't have powers. Their soul prices are subtly different too:
Rune wants to find a man worthy of her.
Unlike Madison, Rune is sufficiently secure in her own sexual market value that her soul doesn't even bother to specify that he should reciprocate her feelings. Of course he'll be taken with her and they'll live happily ever after. Not even worth mentioning.
Bitch.
---
An indeterminate time of you steeping in a bath of rage and embarrassment later, Rune gets a phone call. She brings her rock to a stop, and you ride up next to her to listen in.
"Rune."
...
"On his own? Is he high? Forget I said that. Where?"
...
"On it."
She turns to you. "Mush has been spotted approaching our territory. We're going to explain to him why that's a bad idea."
"On his own?" you echo her earlier incredulity.
"I know right? Fucking Merchants." She shakes her head. "Hop on. For real this time, we don't have time to fuck around."
The rock doesn't even quiver as Fenrir steps on. Rune sets off back the way you came, considerably faster than she'd been going before.
You spot Mush from several blocks away, a humanoid mass of garbage standing head and shoulders above the surrounding buildings. They are only three stories tall around here, but still. You did not think he could get that big.
"Fuck me," Rune says. "He must have spent all day collecting that shit."
When you get close, she swoops closer to the roof and slows down. "Get off," she says. "I'm going to have to hit him with our ride."
Fenrir jumps off, and you spur him on towards your foe. Not that you have any idea what you should do once you arrive, but it seems to be what's expected of you. This is exactly what you meant when you asked Lisa about cape fights. Maybe you can distract him while Rune throws rocks? At least the buildings here are all uniform height, so you'll be able to maneuver without trouble.
The rock you just vacated goes flying past you to strike Mush in the head. It sends garbage flying every which way, but doesn't impair him at all.
Unsurprising. Through sorcerer's sight you see thin tendrils of his power all throughout the mass, radiating like veins from a glowing centre just below where the heart would be on a human. That must be where his actual body is located. Oh yeah, you can help by pointing that out.
"The head is a decoy!" you shout. "Go for centre mass! No, not you! Stop! Shit!"
You flatten yourself against Fenrir's back and hold on tight as your idiot steed launches himself off the edge of the roof, going straight for the glowing weak point. He has enough inertia to plow right through the mass of garbage and out the other side.
On one hand, that probably just ended the fight in a single blow. On the other, you're currently falling off a three-story building amidst several tons of garbage.
Fenrir hits the ground with a loud whuff as all the air is forcibly propelled from his lungs. The fact that he doesn't splatter is mildly astonishing, but you don't have the capacity to think about that right now. Whatever bullshit magic makes him so comfortable to ride is not nearly strong enough to handle this. Speaking of physics kicking you in the nuts...
"Gah. Fuck," you summarize as you tumble off his back. Another spike of pain shoots through you as you hit the ground. You think you broke your butt. Uh, pelvic fracture? You'll just lie here for a while.
At least the leap carried you clear of most of the garbage, which ended up in a giant pile behind you. Someone should go over there and try to dig Mush out, see if he survived. He- oh, gross. Those weren't tendrils of power you saw, those were actual tendrils of Mush's flesh. With the golem collapsed they are exposed, like someone dug up a disgusting alien root system. The way they're still twitching at least indicates that you didn't kill him, but it also makes you want to puke.
The smell isn't helping either.
Rune returns to ground level in a more sensible manner, clinging to the largest of her 'ammunition' rocks. She's laughing and whooping as she lands next to you.
"That was awesome!" she exclaims.
"That was the worst," you correct her. Things are really starting to hurt, now that the adrenaline is wearing off.
"What are you talking about? You- oh hey." She interrupts herself when she sees Victor come flying down, carrying Othala. "You guys missed the party. Did you know New Girl here is a stone cold badass?"
"Are you alright?" Othala asks. "We saw you jump off the roof."
"No I'm not fucking alright." You swat Fenrir's nose away when he tries to nuzzle you. "If this retard had jumped from any higher up, I'd have needed a gynecologist to recover his vertebrae."
Victor seems to be choking on something, while Rune almost falls over laughing. Othala, thankfully, just walks over and grants you regeneration. At least one person here is competent (it's not you).
"Rune," Victor says, "can you dig Mush out?"
"Nah, my power can't get a grip on this shit. Too mushy." Victor just rolls his eyes at this attempted witticism. "You go ahead. Our girl talk is clearly too spicy for your sensitive manly ears anyway."
Victor sighs. "Fine. You call this in. Othala? Some super strength would be lovely, once you're done with Low Key."
"Of course, love."
Victor goes off to root through the garbage. You just lie around waiting for the pain to go away. At least Hookwolf trained you to deal with this situation, even if nothing else stuck. Silver linings.
Rune, meanwhile, has turned her attention to Fenrir: "Don't listen to that meanie, you did great. You're not retarded, you're the best wolf ever. ...Sorry, no belly rubs until you take a bath."
Presently you feel better, and Othala leaves to assist her beau.
"Hey," Rune says as she helps you to your feet. "Sorry about being such a bitch earlier. Seriously. If this is what comes of you riding around the rooftops, I'll be your elevator any day."
You look at her suspiciously. She sounds sincere. And not having every patrol suck for weeks on end until you finally steal her power would be nice. "Seriously," she repeats. You nod.
"Weren't you supposed to call this in?" you ask her.
"Oh yeah!" She brings out her phone, dials.
"Rune here. Mush is down, you guys can go back to bed."
...
"Yeah, piece of cake. New Girl took him out just like that. Pow! Oh hey, Victor just dug him out. He looks gross as fuck, let me tell you."
...
"Really? OK."
She puts the phone away. She wasn't kidding. While Mush's tendrils (eugh) have mostly retracted by now, that's emphasis on mostly. He looks like a plate of spaghetti, with extra ketchup. While Rune was talking, Othala briefly touched Mush, then touched Victor again. Carefully calibrated regeneration, you figure. Enough to stabilize him, not enough to wake him up.
"Guys, we got Wards incoming," Rune says. "Ops says to clear out and leave Mush for them to collect."
"Wards?" you say. "We should leave a note."
Victor, as it turns out, has paper and pencil in his pocket. You dictate the note you want to leave, which makes Rune giggle and Victor nod in approval.
You ignore the giggly racists and head over to the bar, where the bartender is waving to you.
"You're meant to be on outer patrol with Rune tonight, but she's running late," he says. "Have one on the house while you wait."
He hands you a bottle of coke sporting what would, in any other circumstance, be an oversized novelty straw. Here and now it's an ingenious device allowing you to drink without adjusting your full-face mask. You take a seat and look around while you sip.
You don't spot Mike or his crew anywhere, they either aren't working tonight, or have already left on patrol. Most of the clientele is engaged in a lively discussion about the relative merits of different races (of course!), but there are two guys sitting off by themselves, reading. As an old introverted bookworm yourself (before you triggered and became too busy to indulge), you can't help but
Oh, it's Mein Kampf (of course!). The guy notices you looking, and responds by smiling and holding up the book so you can see it better. Which lets you notice that he's reading it in the original German. That's some major signaling right there. He might as well have brought a neon sign saying 'look at my giant brain'.
The other reader, by contrast, has a copy of Cape Glamour Weekly, featuring Glory Girl and her boyfriend on the cover. Really? Isn't that a bit... vapid and girly? And you're saying that as a fifteen year old girl. Is he mocking Mr Big Brain? Is it his job to scour the gossip rags for valuable cape intel? Or perhaps he's counter signaling his big balls? 'I'm so manly that not even this magazine can detract from it'?
You shake your head and turn your attention to the main discussion. Picking up on the more esoteric points of white supremacy can only improve your cover. Currently they seem to be debating whether Germans are superior to Scandinavians.
"One word: Vikings," says a man you suspect might have some Scandinavian ancestry.
"Sure they were Vikings back then, but nowadays they're a bunch of kebab-loving pansies," is the response, surely coming from a completely impartial fellow with no German blood whatsoever.
"Yeah? Because Germany definitely isn't a giant self-loathing mess right now."
"Fuck you, you try having the entire jew-controlled world gang up on you and conquer you! Twice!" the German counters. "You're not even a real Swede, you're like a quarter Irish. Everyone knows Irishmen are the niggers of white people."
"Look at this guy, thinking the Irish are even white," some other, presumably non-Irish person says. "You need to get woke on the Irish Question, bro."
"Actually," Big Brain interjects, looking up from his book, "the naturalization act of 1790 restricted citizenship to 'white persons of good character', and Irishmen were able to become citizens. Q.E.D."
"Yeah, well, people where primitive and ignorant back then," Not-Irish counters. "Science wasn't very advanced. We've since become more enlightened and realized the truth about potato niggers."
"Who even cares about the Irish?" another man asks. "At least they're not Italians!"
"True, true."
"I hate those swarthy Mafia faggots."
"Fucking spaghetti niggers."
"No one thinks Italians are white."
At least one of the people nodding along to these pronouncements, you can't help but notice, is clearly Italian. The person next to him puts a hand on his shoulder. "Sorry Johnny," he says solemnly. "You can't be in our gang anymore. Whites only."
Johnny accepts this pronouncement with good cheer. "Alright," he says. "Will someone buy me one last beer before I go join the Merchants?" This prompts three separate people to order him a beer, and several more to laugh and slap him on the back.
You can't help but feel a certain... schoolmarmish disapproval. These are the foot soldiers of a self-styled nazi regime. Their racism is the single most important aspect of their worldview and how it shapes their lives! Shouldn't they be taking it at least somewhat seriously?
A wizard walks into a bar. That is, Rune finally appears. Her costume is a green robe and cowl embroidered with golden runes, see. As you get up to meet her the discussion around you returns to the Germans vs Scandinavians debate, the spaghetti nigger question having been resolved to everyone's satisfaction.
"Sorry I'm late," she says. "Didn't mean to leave you stranded with these insufferable nerds." She raises her voice at the last part, to make sure the nerds in question overhear. They respond with laughter, blown kisses and calls of "Love you too, Rune!"
As the door swings shut behind you, you just barely make out someone asserting "Anglos are the jews of white people!"
Looks like Rune parked her favorite rock outside. Seriously. According to her wiki article she usually makes do with urban debris, like chunks of concrete, dumpsters and wrecked cars. But this is unmistakably a naturally-occurring rock, maybe 20 feet in diameter, mostly flat but with several indentations forming rough seats. Some of the indentations contain smaller rocks, presumably ammunition. Apparently she decided to bring out the limousine of telekinetic conveyances today. You're flattered.
You're also delighted. The rock is thrumming with power to your sorcerer's sight, with a tether leading back to Rune. She'll be using her power throughout the night, and she's inviting you onto her rock just like that. You can just sit there and study her to your heart's content. You could not ask for a more perfect evening.
But, the idea occurs to you, you could make it more perfect. When the rock clears the roof of the bar you step off and call forth your wolf. Your time with Rachel made you develop a taste for rooftop monster rides, and you haven't had a chance to indulge since you parted ways.
"What are you- oh. You wanna show off too?" You get the distinct impression that Rune is grinning behind her mask. "Try to keep up!"
---
You did not think this through. Oh, Fenrir can leap between rooftops easily enough, as long as they are roughly the same height. Rachel's monsters have the unnatural muscle density and elongated claws to let them climb up the side of a building, but Fenrir is just a really big wolf. And wolves? Not nature's finest climbers even without the square-cube law kicking in them in nuts.
What frequently ends up happening is that you have to call for Rune to double back and help you out. Which she does without complaint. Oh, she doesn't complain.
"Of course, dear," she chirps. "Anything to help a colleague out."
"This rock sure is comfy. And convenient!"
"Are you sure you wouldn't rather ride with me? It's no trouble, there's plenty of space."
That condescending faux helpfulness is exactly like some of the girls in your class. So much for the Empire being nicer than Winslow. But no matter what, you're not going to give in and accept her offer. Fuck her and the rock she rode in on. You're committed now, and admitting that you made a mistake would be even worse than the repeated humiliation of asking for help.
Oh, this time around she spotted an upcoming problem spot on her own and stopped in front of the taller building to wait for you. How gracious of her. How helpful. You silently grind your teeth as Fenrir once more steps out onto the flying rock.
"Going up?" Rune asks innocently. God you want to grind this bitch into paste. As an added insult, her power is super difficult to understand. Which means you're going to have to put up with her for a good, long time. Really, world? Lifting a rock is more complicated than extracting the soul price from a human brain?
And! And, just like Madison, Rune's own soul price is a good life well lived, so you can't even use Loyalty to make her behave.
No, she isn't secretly Madison. Madison doesn't have powers. Their soul prices are subtly different too:
Rune wants to find a man worthy of her.
Unlike Madison, Rune is sufficiently secure in her own sexual market value that her soul doesn't even bother to specify that he should reciprocate her feelings. Of course he'll be taken with her and they'll live happily ever after. Not even worth mentioning.
Bitch.
---
An indeterminate time of you steeping in a bath of rage and embarrassment later, Rune gets a phone call. She brings her rock to a stop, and you ride up next to her to listen in.
"Rune."
...
"On his own? Is he high? Forget I said that. Where?"
...
"On it."
She turns to you. "Mush has been spotted approaching our territory. We're going to explain to him why that's a bad idea."
"On his own?" you echo her earlier incredulity.
"I know right? Fucking Merchants." She shakes her head. "Hop on. For real this time, we don't have time to fuck around."
The rock doesn't even quiver as Fenrir steps on. Rune sets off back the way you came, considerably faster than she'd been going before.
You spot Mush from several blocks away, a humanoid mass of garbage standing head and shoulders above the surrounding buildings. They are only three stories tall around here, but still. You did not think he could get that big.
"Fuck me," Rune says. "He must have spent all day collecting that shit."
When you get close, she swoops closer to the roof and slows down. "Get off," she says. "I'm going to have to hit him with our ride."
Fenrir jumps off, and you spur him on towards your foe. Not that you have any idea what you should do once you arrive, but it seems to be what's expected of you. This is exactly what you meant when you asked Lisa about cape fights. Maybe you can distract him while Rune throws rocks? At least the buildings here are all uniform height, so you'll be able to maneuver without trouble.
The rock you just vacated goes flying past you to strike Mush in the head. It sends garbage flying every which way, but doesn't impair him at all.
Unsurprising. Through sorcerer's sight you see thin tendrils of his power all throughout the mass, radiating like veins from a glowing centre just below where the heart would be on a human. That must be where his actual body is located. Oh yeah, you can help by pointing that out.
"The head is a decoy!" you shout. "Go for centre mass! No, not you! Stop! Shit!"
You flatten yourself against Fenrir's back and hold on tight as your idiot steed launches himself off the edge of the roof, going straight for the glowing weak point. He has enough inertia to plow right through the mass of garbage and out the other side.
On one hand, that probably just ended the fight in a single blow. On the other, you're currently falling off a three-story building amidst several tons of garbage.
Fenrir hits the ground with a loud whuff as all the air is forcibly propelled from his lungs. The fact that he doesn't splatter is mildly astonishing, but you don't have the capacity to think about that right now. Whatever bullshit magic makes him so comfortable to ride is not nearly strong enough to handle this. Speaking of physics kicking you in the nuts...
"Gah. Fuck," you summarize as you tumble off his back. Another spike of pain shoots through you as you hit the ground. You think you broke your butt. Uh, pelvic fracture? You'll just lie here for a while.
At least the leap carried you clear of most of the garbage, which ended up in a giant pile behind you. Someone should go over there and try to dig Mush out, see if he survived. He- oh, gross. Those weren't tendrils of power you saw, those were actual tendrils of Mush's flesh. With the golem collapsed they are exposed, like someone dug up a disgusting alien root system. The way they're still twitching at least indicates that you didn't kill him, but it also makes you want to puke.
The smell isn't helping either.
Rune returns to ground level in a more sensible manner, clinging to the largest of her 'ammunition' rocks. She's laughing and whooping as she lands next to you.
"That was awesome!" she exclaims.
"That was the worst," you correct her. Things are really starting to hurt, now that the adrenaline is wearing off.
"What are you talking about? You- oh hey." She interrupts herself when she sees Victor come flying down, carrying Othala. "You guys missed the party. Did you know New Girl here is a stone cold badass?"
"Are you alright?" Othala asks. "We saw you jump off the roof."
"No I'm not fucking alright." You swat Fenrir's nose away when he tries to nuzzle you. "If this retard had jumped from any higher up, I'd have needed a gynecologist to recover his vertebrae."
Victor seems to be choking on something, while Rune almost falls over laughing. Othala, thankfully, just walks over and grants you regeneration. At least one person here is competent (it's not you).
"Rune," Victor says, "can you dig Mush out?"
"Nah, my power can't get a grip on this shit. Too mushy." Victor just rolls his eyes at this attempted witticism. "You go ahead. Our girl talk is clearly too spicy for your sensitive manly ears anyway."
Victor sighs. "Fine. You call this in. Othala? Some super strength would be lovely, once you're done with Low Key."
"Of course, love."
Victor goes off to root through the garbage. You just lie around waiting for the pain to go away. At least Hookwolf trained you to deal with this situation, even if nothing else stuck. Silver linings.
Rune, meanwhile, has turned her attention to Fenrir: "Don't listen to that meanie, you did great. You're not retarded, you're the best wolf ever. ...Sorry, no belly rubs until you take a bath."
Presently you feel better, and Othala leaves to assist her beau.
"Hey," Rune says as she helps you to your feet. "Sorry about being such a bitch earlier. Seriously. If this is what comes of you riding around the rooftops, I'll be your elevator any day."
You look at her suspiciously. She sounds sincere. And not having every patrol suck for weeks on end until you finally steal her power would be nice. "Seriously," she repeats. You nod.
"Weren't you supposed to call this in?" you ask her.
"Oh yeah!" She brings out her phone, dials.
"Rune here. Mush is down, you guys can go back to bed."
...
"Yeah, piece of cake. New Girl took him out just like that. Pow! Oh hey, Victor just dug him out. He looks gross as fuck, let me tell you."
...
"Really? OK."
She puts the phone away. She wasn't kidding. While Mush's tendrils (eugh) have mostly retracted by now, that's emphasis on mostly. He looks like a plate of spaghetti, with extra ketchup. While Rune was talking, Othala briefly touched Mush, then touched Victor again. Carefully calibrated regeneration, you figure. Enough to stabilize him, not enough to wake him up.
"Guys, we got Wards incoming," Rune says. "Ops says to clear out and leave Mush for them to collect."
"Wards?" you say. "We should leave a note."
Victor, as it turns out, has paper and pencil in his pocket. You dictate the note you want to leave, which makes Rune giggle and Victor nod in approval.
"They left a note," Gallant says from where he's kneeling down by the unconscious Mush.
"Really? What's it say?" I ask.
He picks up the scrap of paper, looks at it. Turns it over. Hands it to me without a word.
HOW IS THE PROTECTORATE LIKE NASA?
(turn over for answer)
I turn it over.
THEY BOTH NEED NAZIS TO DO THEIR JOB FOR THEM
"Really? What's it say?" I ask.
He picks up the scrap of paper, looks at it. Turns it over. Hands it to me without a word.
HOW IS THE PROTECTORATE LIKE NASA?
(turn over for answer)
I turn it over.
THEY BOTH NEED NAZIS TO DO THEIR JOB FOR THEM
S.13
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
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Once you're clear, Rune initiates another phone conversation. Apparently she wants to leave work early. Ops seem to have other ideas.
"I brought out my good rock for this! I need to go wash it."
...
"Easy for you to say. You can't smell the wolf. Our everything needs washing."
("I don't mind going on", you say. "Of course you don't, you stink too," she replies)
"No seriously, if you haven't fought Mush yourself you have no idea how bad we smell right now. Is this the image you want the Empire to project?"
...
"Fine. But you're paying overtime for this."
...
"No! Half a goddamn shift of overtime!"
...
"Argh!"
She hangs up, and shoves the phone in a pocket with a violent motion.
"No luck?" you ask.
"None. You know what they say about anti-semites."
Uhh... "No?"
"You'll hear it soon enough if you keep hanging around the rank and file. 'The only thing more tight-fisted than a jew is an anti-semite.'"
"Sounds like Kaiser," you agree.
"Anyway, they want to keep us out here, in case the rest of the Merchants show up. I don't suppose you can do something about the wolf?"
"He has a name, you know. As do I."
"Sorry, New Girl." She holds up her hands when you glare at her. "Joking, joking! Uh, Low Key, right?" She pauses, scratches the back of her head. "They didn't tell me you named your projection."
"Fenrir."
"Right. Should'a guessed. Can we just hose him off a bit before we continue?"
You look at Fenrir, who shakes his head emphatically.
"You're welcome to try." You don't attempt to hide the mirth in your voice. Rune elects not to try.
---
Despite ops's concerns, your patrol ends without further excitement. Rune flies off to dunk her rock in the bay, you head for home. You tell Fenrir in no uncertain terms that you're not letting him in your bed until he takes a bath, but he just shakes his head again.
When he dematerializes he leaves a wolf-shaped cloud of garbage juice hanging in the air for an instant. You almost step back in time to avoid any of it splashing on your shoes as it hits the ground. Now he looks smug, the intangible bastard. You sigh, then smile. Your power keeps throwing you these curveballs. Self-cleaning wolf, sure, why not.
You pause in front of your door to put on your glasses (you're still wearing contacts, but you're not touching your eyes until you've washed your hands. Twice).
"Don't hug me, I stink," you announce to your dad as you enter.
He sniffs the air. "You really do," he agrees. "What happened?"
"There was an incident with an overeager dog and a bag of garbage." You grimace. "Several bags, actually." It's a risk, telling your dad the truth all the time, but you don't think anyone got any footage of the fight. He won't see anything on the news that will let him connect the dots.
"Ouch. Let's get you cleaned up, shall we?"
He has you hand him the dirty clothes so he can wash them right away. A nice gesture you suppose, but unnecessary. You were going to wash them along with your costume anyway, after he had gone to sleep.
---
The next day, you do some sewing while tending the forge. Hookwolf expects you to show up in regular gym clothes on Tuesday, so you make yourself several sets of padded underwear to maintain a 'Low Key' figure even without your strategically padded costume. You're not proud of this, alright? But your vanity put you on this path, and you're just going to have to keep walking it.
You're interrupted by a text message to your Empire phone.
< Come to the usual place for payment
You stare at it blankly for a while until you remember: Right, you get bonuses for cape fights! Scaling with danger and performance. The danger involved in yesterday's fight is debatable - you did fall off a roof and break your butt, but to be fair that was mostly your own fault. But your performance was definitely A+, if you do say so yourself. One hit KO.
You did forget all about that - you're in this for the powers. But you're not going to pass up free money.
> I'll swing by later tonight
You don't specify 'after sunset', because that could theoretically link you to a not-yet-emerged Tinker who requires sunlight to work. You don't feel the same impulse towards honestly with your employer that you do with your dad.
---
The benefits of using mass-produced plastic crap in your cape outfit: Rather than head home to grab your kit (and figuring out something to tell your dad about where you're going that doesn't involve 'nazi friends', 'blood money' or 'bar'), you just buy another mask on your way. You have your new padded underwear right here, and if Hookwolf can get away with civvies and a mask all the time, you can do the same for one evening when you're not even on the clock.
There's a cheer as you enter the bar. You can't tell if anyone you know is present, because without glasses or contacts every face is a blur (and every hairstyle, identical). Well, you recognize Rune. The robe stands out a bit. She's at the bar, slouching over her drink. She's made it clear that she doesn't think much of spending time with the rank and file. Was she waiting for you?
Apparently so. "God, finally. Let's get this over with."
The bartender/contact person reaches under the bar and retrieves several bundles of bills.
"For exemplary work in service of the Empire," he says pompously. But he's smiling as he says it, self-aware. At least you think so. Again: Blurry faces.
You pick up a bundle, riffle through it (bring it close enough to make out the denomination). Some mental math says: Four thousand dollars.
"We split this?" you ask Rune.
"Technically, yeah. By rights it's all yours. You take it."
"Really?"
"Yeah. You took him down, I just drove you there." She pushes the cash towards you.
You're speechless for a moment (the peanut gallery, not so much: "Rune is being nice to someone?" "Who spiked my drink? Because I'm hallucinating!" "Well, she is a fellow cape. Not like us mortals"). Rune really does want to be your friend. Wants it enough to pass up two grand. Are... are you touched? You're touched.
Wordlessly you split off a few hundred and pass it back to her. She tries to wave it off.
"I said-"
"I know, I did all the work. But what kind of asshole doesn't tip the serving staff?"
At that, there's more cheers, and laughter, and then everyone wants to slap you on the back and buy you a drink. Non-alcoholic drinks only, the bartender assures/admonishes you. Right, underage drinking is for degenerates, no doubt.
Rune inclines her head, acknowledging a point scored, and accepts the money.
"I told them I wanted to be your regular patrol partner, if that's all right with you?" she says.
"Sure!" Even at two patrols per week, figuring out her power is going to take ages. If you split your attention, forget about it. "Are you sure you can afford it, though?" (peanut gallery: "Ooooh!" "Shots fired!")
She snorts. "They told me all about your performance issues. Some of us can get it up more than twice a week, you know."
More laughs from the peanut gallery, and you bow your head in turn. Point to her.
"How'd you know where to hit him, anyway?" she asks. Oh, right. In your attempt to be at all useful in the fight, you may have given some things away. How to deflect this?
"...wolf senses," you settle on. A nice, vague answer that sounds like it explains things without actually committing you to any specific mechanics. Hell, it doesn't even specify whose senses, yours or Fenrir's.
Come to think of it, Fenrir hit Mush dead on, way more accurately that your instruction of 'center mass' should have allowed. Maybe he does have wolf senses. You'll have to ask him later.
"Shame it didn't matter in the end, huh?" Rune interrupts your thoughts.
"What do you mean?"
"You didn't hear? Squealer and Skidmark were also out and about, just running late. They hit the Wards and freed Mush before they could even return to base."
"Yeesh," you say. "At least NASA got to the moon eventually."
Rune giggles. "Oh, that's good. Do you mind if I use that one? I'm using that one."
She pulls out her cellphone and swipes at the screen a few times. You recognize the color scheme of the PHO forums when you lean over to see what she's doing, but she puts the phone away without typing anything. "I'm using it as soon as my ban wears off," she amends. "Anyway, I'm off. See you on Monday."
"Monday."
She leaves, but you think you'll stay for a bit. Accept some of those non-degenerate drinks. Being surrounded by people who like and respect you is... strange. And nice. Strange and nice.
---
Facts about nazis: Nazis are mammals. Nazis fight all the time (with each other, about minor points of doctrine). Nazis are hilarious.
You admit that you didn't expect that last part. But it makes sense: Offensive jokes are funny. There, that's all there is to it. And unsurprisingly, once someone stands up and proclaims that Hitler was a swell guy who did nothing wrong, political correctness no longer has any power over them. These people pop holocaust jokes like they're dad jokes. Which leaves someone with your more tender sensibilities helpless with guilt-tinged mirth. You'll never be able to look at a lampshade with a straight face again. Also, you're going to hell.
The less said about the resident shock jock, who goes for jokes considered offensive even by this crowd, the better. "Because it's not pedophilia if you kill the babies first!" he delivers the punchline. Yeah. In his case the jokes are less funny than the reactions of the audience, as hardened thugs cringe and groan and cry out in protest: "I'm eating here!" "Jesus, why?" "Please stop." You're personally so shocked your hand freezes in midair in a position that could unfortunately be mistaken for offering him a high five. That's your story, and you're sticking to it.
This asshole isn't returning your high five, though.
"Why you leave me hanging, bro?" you ask plaintively. "Do I look black to you?" A touch of lynching humor convinces him to reciprocate. Yep, you're definitely going to hell. On the plus side, your infiltration of the E88 is going great.
With everyone so cheerful and talkative, you easily collect a whole bunch of soul prices. More out of curiosity than any plans to use them. Which is a good thing, because pretty much all of them are useless. Many just repeat the fourteen words. Yes, you did look those up.
Mike wants to secure the survival of his people and a future for white children.
Sven wants to secure the survival of his people and a future for white children.
Others are basically that, but less abstract:
Otto wants to build a real country for his children to grow up in.
Jonas wants to deport all jews to Israel. Or possibly Madagascar.
Steve wants to find a good woman to settle down with and have some kids.
There's the odd wants a million dollars type soul prices here and there too (that you obviously can't help with either), but by and large they're just so un-Master-ably sincere, the bastards. Which makes sense, when you think about it. The reason you find smiling sociopaths at charity dinners is because being seen as charitable has social benefits. Being seen as a nazi has the opposite of benefits. Consequently, it doesn't attract people with ulterior motives. Except you, you suppose.
---
If Fenrir was actually as limited as the Empire believes, you'd be a lot more nervous changing your underwear in an alley in the middle of the night. Just saying. Really, the whole thing ran a bit later than you'd planned. A lot later. No, you're not drunk. The bartender remained adamant on that point. "Providing alcohol to a minor is a crime," he'd firmly remind anyone who tried to buy you a 'real drink'. "And crimes are for black people."
Sobriety notwithstanding, you're practically asleep on your feet by the time you get home. Only to find the lights still on, and your dad waiting for you.
"Where have you been, young lady?" His stern tone does a terrible job of hiding his worry.
"Party," you answer. Close enough, right?
"A party." He crosses his arms, tries to reinforce his stern look.
"Yeah, party." Your tired brain tries to figure out why he'd object to that. "No drinking. Adults present." You yawn. "Ran late. Sleepy."
"Uh huh. Let me smell your breath."
You walk over and blow in his face.
"Okay, you haven't been drinking," he admits. "You should still have told me. I would have come to pick you up. It's not safe-"
"Pshhhffft," you reply, waving your hand in his face. You were never in any danger. "Pepper spray." Magic wolf.
"That's-"
Before he can come up with any further silliness, you lean into him and reach up to place a finger over his lips. "Sleepy," you remind him. "G'night."
He sighs. "We'll talk about this tomorrow, Taylor."
"Mmhmm."
You stagger down to the basement, and then proceed to hide your shit. Never mind the three-thousand-and-change dollars. Yes, it was more at the start of the evening. You might have bought a round for everyone at the bar once or thrice. Five times, tops. Dad is still not going to believe you saved it up by mowing lawns. Him finding out that you're a part-time supervillain would be bad, but survivable.
If he found out that you went to a party in homemade padded underwear, your life would be over. Because you'd have died of embarrassment.
===
"I brought out my good rock for this! I need to go wash it."
...
"Easy for you to say. You can't smell the wolf. Our everything needs washing."
("I don't mind going on", you say. "Of course you don't, you stink too," she replies)
"No seriously, if you haven't fought Mush yourself you have no idea how bad we smell right now. Is this the image you want the Empire to project?"
...
"Fine. But you're paying overtime for this."
...
"No! Half a goddamn shift of overtime!"
...
"Argh!"
She hangs up, and shoves the phone in a pocket with a violent motion.
"No luck?" you ask.
"None. You know what they say about anti-semites."
Uhh... "No?"
"You'll hear it soon enough if you keep hanging around the rank and file. 'The only thing more tight-fisted than a jew is an anti-semite.'"
"Sounds like Kaiser," you agree.
"Anyway, they want to keep us out here, in case the rest of the Merchants show up. I don't suppose you can do something about the wolf?"
"He has a name, you know. As do I."
"Sorry, New Girl." She holds up her hands when you glare at her. "Joking, joking! Uh, Low Key, right?" She pauses, scratches the back of her head. "They didn't tell me you named your projection."
"Fenrir."
"Right. Should'a guessed. Can we just hose him off a bit before we continue?"
You look at Fenrir, who shakes his head emphatically.
"You're welcome to try." You don't attempt to hide the mirth in your voice. Rune elects not to try.
---
Despite ops's concerns, your patrol ends without further excitement. Rune flies off to dunk her rock in the bay, you head for home. You tell Fenrir in no uncertain terms that you're not letting him in your bed until he takes a bath, but he just shakes his head again.
When he dematerializes he leaves a wolf-shaped cloud of garbage juice hanging in the air for an instant. You almost step back in time to avoid any of it splashing on your shoes as it hits the ground. Now he looks smug, the intangible bastard. You sigh, then smile. Your power keeps throwing you these curveballs. Self-cleaning wolf, sure, why not.
You pause in front of your door to put on your glasses (you're still wearing contacts, but you're not touching your eyes until you've washed your hands. Twice).
"Don't hug me, I stink," you announce to your dad as you enter.
He sniffs the air. "You really do," he agrees. "What happened?"
"There was an incident with an overeager dog and a bag of garbage." You grimace. "Several bags, actually." It's a risk, telling your dad the truth all the time, but you don't think anyone got any footage of the fight. He won't see anything on the news that will let him connect the dots.
"Ouch. Let's get you cleaned up, shall we?"
He has you hand him the dirty clothes so he can wash them right away. A nice gesture you suppose, but unnecessary. You were going to wash them along with your costume anyway, after he had gone to sleep.
---
The next day, you do some sewing while tending the forge. Hookwolf expects you to show up in regular gym clothes on Tuesday, so you make yourself several sets of padded underwear to maintain a 'Low Key' figure even without your strategically padded costume. You're not proud of this, alright? But your vanity put you on this path, and you're just going to have to keep walking it.
You're interrupted by a text message to your Empire phone.
< Come to the usual place for payment
You stare at it blankly for a while until you remember: Right, you get bonuses for cape fights! Scaling with danger and performance. The danger involved in yesterday's fight is debatable - you did fall off a roof and break your butt, but to be fair that was mostly your own fault. But your performance was definitely A+, if you do say so yourself. One hit KO.
You did forget all about that - you're in this for the powers. But you're not going to pass up free money.
> I'll swing by later tonight
You don't specify 'after sunset', because that could theoretically link you to a not-yet-emerged Tinker who requires sunlight to work. You don't feel the same impulse towards honestly with your employer that you do with your dad.
---
The benefits of using mass-produced plastic crap in your cape outfit: Rather than head home to grab your kit (and figuring out something to tell your dad about where you're going that doesn't involve 'nazi friends', 'blood money' or 'bar'), you just buy another mask on your way. You have your new padded underwear right here, and if Hookwolf can get away with civvies and a mask all the time, you can do the same for one evening when you're not even on the clock.
There's a cheer as you enter the bar. You can't tell if anyone you know is present, because without glasses or contacts every face is a blur (and every hairstyle, identical). Well, you recognize Rune. The robe stands out a bit. She's at the bar, slouching over her drink. She's made it clear that she doesn't think much of spending time with the rank and file. Was she waiting for you?
Apparently so. "God, finally. Let's get this over with."
The bartender/contact person reaches under the bar and retrieves several bundles of bills.
"For exemplary work in service of the Empire," he says pompously. But he's smiling as he says it, self-aware. At least you think so. Again: Blurry faces.
You pick up a bundle, riffle through it (bring it close enough to make out the denomination). Some mental math says: Four thousand dollars.
"We split this?" you ask Rune.
"Technically, yeah. By rights it's all yours. You take it."
"Really?"
"Yeah. You took him down, I just drove you there." She pushes the cash towards you.
You're speechless for a moment (the peanut gallery, not so much: "Rune is being nice to someone?" "Who spiked my drink? Because I'm hallucinating!" "Well, she is a fellow cape. Not like us mortals"). Rune really does want to be your friend. Wants it enough to pass up two grand. Are... are you touched? You're touched.
Wordlessly you split off a few hundred and pass it back to her. She tries to wave it off.
"I said-"
"I know, I did all the work. But what kind of asshole doesn't tip the serving staff?"
At that, there's more cheers, and laughter, and then everyone wants to slap you on the back and buy you a drink. Non-alcoholic drinks only, the bartender assures/admonishes you. Right, underage drinking is for degenerates, no doubt.
Rune inclines her head, acknowledging a point scored, and accepts the money.
"I told them I wanted to be your regular patrol partner, if that's all right with you?" she says.
"Sure!" Even at two patrols per week, figuring out her power is going to take ages. If you split your attention, forget about it. "Are you sure you can afford it, though?" (peanut gallery: "Ooooh!" "Shots fired!")
She snorts. "They told me all about your performance issues. Some of us can get it up more than twice a week, you know."
More laughs from the peanut gallery, and you bow your head in turn. Point to her.
"How'd you know where to hit him, anyway?" she asks. Oh, right. In your attempt to be at all useful in the fight, you may have given some things away. How to deflect this?
"...wolf senses," you settle on. A nice, vague answer that sounds like it explains things without actually committing you to any specific mechanics. Hell, it doesn't even specify whose senses, yours or Fenrir's.
Come to think of it, Fenrir hit Mush dead on, way more accurately that your instruction of 'center mass' should have allowed. Maybe he does have wolf senses. You'll have to ask him later.
"Shame it didn't matter in the end, huh?" Rune interrupts your thoughts.
"What do you mean?"
"You didn't hear? Squealer and Skidmark were also out and about, just running late. They hit the Wards and freed Mush before they could even return to base."
"Yeesh," you say. "At least NASA got to the moon eventually."
Rune giggles. "Oh, that's good. Do you mind if I use that one? I'm using that one."
She pulls out her cellphone and swipes at the screen a few times. You recognize the color scheme of the PHO forums when you lean over to see what she's doing, but she puts the phone away without typing anything. "I'm using it as soon as my ban wears off," she amends. "Anyway, I'm off. See you on Monday."
"Monday."
She leaves, but you think you'll stay for a bit. Accept some of those non-degenerate drinks. Being surrounded by people who like and respect you is... strange. And nice. Strange and nice.
Welcome to the Parahumans Online Message Boards
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♦ Private message from modmail:
modmail: You received a 7 day suspension for your post in the thread: Boards > Places > America > Brockton Bay > Brockton Bay voted most dangerous city in America second year running
♦Topic: Brockton Bay voted most dangerous city in America second year running
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
Posted by: GreatAtuin (Veteran member)
Posted on February 4, 2011
(Showing Page 4 of 12)
► Nondescriptr
Replied on February 4, 2011:
:(
► seeing_eye_dog
Replied on February 4, 2011:
At least we're the best at something, right?
► Jitor
Replied on February 4, 2011:
What are the heroes even doing?
► Assault (Verified Cape) (Protectorate ENE)
Replied on February 4, 2011:
We're doing our best, as you'll no doubt see a press release stating soon.
Armsmaster may or may not have thrown his helmet across the room when he heard the news. There may or may not be a dent in the wall.
► rrqn
Replied on February 4, 2011:
Keep it up, guys. Let's go for the hat trick!
► Rune (Verified Cape) (Temp-banned)
Replied on February 4, 2011:
I wonder what it would show if you only counted the votes of americans, not invaders and obsolete farm equipment.
-User received a suspension for this post. Reason: Have another vacation on Racist Island, Rune.
► seeing_eye_dog
Replied on February 4, 2011:
@Assault
Ha ha, really?
► naval_gazer
Replied on February 4, 2011:
**** you, nazi *****!
-User received a warning for this post. Reason: Language, language.
► John Elliot
Replied on February 4, 2011:
Watch it, naval_gazer. I don't disagree, but the mods don't like that sort of language.
Edit: See?
► Sir Robin
Replied on February 4, 2011:
It's a good question when you think about it. How much of BB being shit is because of the E88? A third? Half? More than half?
End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ... 10 , 11, 12
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■
♦ Private message from modmail:
modmail: You received a 7 day suspension for your post in the thread: Boards > Places > America > Brockton Bay > Brockton Bay voted most dangerous city in America second year running
■
♦Topic: Brockton Bay voted most dangerous city in America second year running
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
Posted by: GreatAtuin (Veteran member)
Posted on February 4, 2011
(Showing Page 4 of 12)
► Nondescriptr
Replied on February 4, 2011:
:(
► seeing_eye_dog
Replied on February 4, 2011:
At least we're the best at something, right?
► Jitor
Replied on February 4, 2011:
What are the heroes even doing?
► Assault (Verified Cape) (Protectorate ENE)
Replied on February 4, 2011:
We're doing our best, as you'll no doubt see a press release stating soon.
Armsmaster may or may not have thrown his helmet across the room when he heard the news. There may or may not be a dent in the wall.
► rrqn
Replied on February 4, 2011:
Keep it up, guys. Let's go for the hat trick!
► Rune (Verified Cape) (Temp-banned)
Replied on February 4, 2011:
I wonder what it would show if you only counted the votes of americans, not invaders and obsolete farm equipment.
-User received a suspension for this post. Reason: Have another vacation on Racist Island, Rune.
► seeing_eye_dog
Replied on February 4, 2011:
@Assault
Ha ha, really?
► naval_gazer
Replied on February 4, 2011:
**** you, nazi *****!
-User received a warning for this post. Reason: Language, language.
► John Elliot
Replied on February 4, 2011:
Watch it, naval_gazer. I don't disagree, but the mods don't like that sort of language.
Edit: See?
► Sir Robin
Replied on February 4, 2011:
It's a good question when you think about it. How much of BB being shit is because of the E88? A third? Half? More than half?
---
Facts about nazis: Nazis are mammals. Nazis fight all the time (with each other, about minor points of doctrine). Nazis are hilarious.
You admit that you didn't expect that last part. But it makes sense: Offensive jokes are funny. There, that's all there is to it. And unsurprisingly, once someone stands up and proclaims that Hitler was a swell guy who did nothing wrong, political correctness no longer has any power over them. These people pop holocaust jokes like they're dad jokes. Which leaves someone with your more tender sensibilities helpless with guilt-tinged mirth. You'll never be able to look at a lampshade with a straight face again. Also, you're going to hell.
The less said about the resident shock jock, who goes for jokes considered offensive even by this crowd, the better. "Because it's not pedophilia if you kill the babies first!" he delivers the punchline. Yeah. In his case the jokes are less funny than the reactions of the audience, as hardened thugs cringe and groan and cry out in protest: "I'm eating here!" "Jesus, why?" "Please stop." You're personally so shocked your hand freezes in midair in a position that could unfortunately be mistaken for offering him a high five. That's your story, and you're sticking to it.
This asshole isn't returning your high five, though.
"Why you leave me hanging, bro?" you ask plaintively. "Do I look black to you?" A touch of lynching humor convinces him to reciprocate. Yep, you're definitely going to hell. On the plus side, your infiltration of the E88 is going great.
With everyone so cheerful and talkative, you easily collect a whole bunch of soul prices. More out of curiosity than any plans to use them. Which is a good thing, because pretty much all of them are useless. Many just repeat the fourteen words. Yes, you did look those up.
Mike wants to secure the survival of his people and a future for white children.
Sven wants to secure the survival of his people and a future for white children.
Others are basically that, but less abstract:
Otto wants to build a real country for his children to grow up in.
Jonas wants to deport all jews to Israel. Or possibly Madagascar.
Steve wants to find a good woman to settle down with and have some kids.
There's the odd wants a million dollars type soul prices here and there too (that you obviously can't help with either), but by and large they're just so un-Master-ably sincere, the bastards. Which makes sense, when you think about it. The reason you find smiling sociopaths at charity dinners is because being seen as charitable has social benefits. Being seen as a nazi has the opposite of benefits. Consequently, it doesn't attract people with ulterior motives. Except you, you suppose.
---
If Fenrir was actually as limited as the Empire believes, you'd be a lot more nervous changing your underwear in an alley in the middle of the night. Just saying. Really, the whole thing ran a bit later than you'd planned. A lot later. No, you're not drunk. The bartender remained adamant on that point. "Providing alcohol to a minor is a crime," he'd firmly remind anyone who tried to buy you a 'real drink'. "And crimes are for black people."
Sobriety notwithstanding, you're practically asleep on your feet by the time you get home. Only to find the lights still on, and your dad waiting for you.
"Where have you been, young lady?" His stern tone does a terrible job of hiding his worry.
"Party," you answer. Close enough, right?
"A party." He crosses his arms, tries to reinforce his stern look.
"Yeah, party." Your tired brain tries to figure out why he'd object to that. "No drinking. Adults present." You yawn. "Ran late. Sleepy."
"Uh huh. Let me smell your breath."
You walk over and blow in his face.
"Okay, you haven't been drinking," he admits. "You should still have told me. I would have come to pick you up. It's not safe-"
"Pshhhffft," you reply, waving your hand in his face. You were never in any danger. "Pepper spray." Magic wolf.
"That's-"
Before he can come up with any further silliness, you lean into him and reach up to place a finger over his lips. "Sleepy," you remind him. "G'night."
He sighs. "We'll talk about this tomorrow, Taylor."
"Mmhmm."
You stagger down to the basement, and then proceed to hide your shit. Never mind the three-thousand-and-change dollars. Yes, it was more at the start of the evening. You might have bought a round for everyone at the bar once or thrice. Five times, tops. Dad is still not going to believe you saved it up by mowing lawns. Him finding out that you're a part-time supervillain would be bad, but survivable.
If he found out that you went to a party in homemade padded underwear, your life would be over. Because you'd have died of embarrassment.
===
Next chapter Taylor finally starts at Arcadia. Over/under on the number of Excellent Life Choices™ she makes there?
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Daniel Snuts
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The conversation the next morning is as tedious as it is predictable. Yes, dad. No, dad. I thought you had already gone to bed like a sensible person, dad. I'll be sure to keep you better informed in the future, dad.
He comes away mollified, but quietly concerned that your new friend 'June' may be a bad influence. He's... not exactly wrong. Though privately you think your new friend 'Bookwolf' might be worse.
As soon as you can extricate yourself you head for the forge. You're so excited you run right past the bus stop and keep going. The gold should have finished cooking by now. You can't wait to see how it turned out! Also you have money and a bunch of powers lined up for study and tomorrow you start at Arcadia which is also full of powers!
And you have Fenrir, the best wolf in the whole wide world. Sure he threw you off a building the other day, but you forgive him. That's how unconditional love works, you know. You smile fondly at the invisible doofus running in the road by your side. He has no trouble keeping up with you, of course, and amuses himself by dodging every oncoming car instead of letting them pass through him.
Yes, against all odds life is actually pretty great right now. You can' help but laugh out loud as you run. Everything's coming up Taylor.
---
About halfway to your destination you slow down to a walk, huffing and puffing. Note to self: Brute 0 is not enough to let you run all the way across town on its own. Actual exercise may still be useful.
---
You carefully lift the crucible out of the magma and give it a once-over with sorcerer's sight. Verdict: It's shit. The process should theoretically be able to transmute 100% of the material in a week, but that assumes a real volcano and a lot more sunlight and proper mirrors that focus it better and don't break halfway through and, you know, not leaving it in the hands of a random bum overnight and hoping for the best. As it is, your sample consists of roughly 90% impurities (where 'impurities' is understood to mean '24-carat gold').
This 'pig orichalcum' is completely useless, your power helpfully informs you, having none of the properties that makes the pure stuff valuable. You don't have time to let it cook any longer, tough. You'll have to figure out some way to extract the good stuff. Uh, Tinker power? Hello? Anything?
---
Your solution ends up involving a dematerialized Fenrir, clutching in his mouth a dematerialized monkey wrench. The wrench grasps a single dematerialized wolf hair, which he slowly and carefully whisks through the molten gold, over and over again.
For reasons that are as obvious to you as they are impossible to articulate in English, the perfectly solid, material orichalcum reacts to the immaterial hair in ways that the mundane gold doesn't. The orichalcum gradually separates out and clings to the hair, forming a cylinder less than an inch long and thin enough that it could fit in a mechanical pencil.
Meanwhile the hair (and wolf) remain entirely unaffected by the heat from both the gold itself and the welding torch you rigged up to keep it liquid, because consistent physics are for people without superpowers.
While Fenrir handles that, you carefully clean the magma out of the glass oven. You're just borrowing it after all, and it wouldn't do to leave it in worse shape than you found it. You're in fact leaving it in considerably better shape, since you had to fix it up before you could use it at all. That's pretty fair rent for a week's use, you think. You have nothing to feel guilty about.
The sun is still up when you're done and the next step will have to wait until Jim arrives, so you head downtown for a while. As you promised yourself, you buy a proper smartphone with internet access. Then you head to the library again anyway, because there are some preparations you need to do online that you don't want traced back to your personal phone.
When you finally meet up with Jim, you give him a letter to transcribe. You don't know that the intended recipient has tinkertech handwriting analysis tools, but better safe than sorry.
You glue the scrap of orichalcum to the letter, as was the plan all along. Even if you had managed to transmute the full amount it wouldn't have been enough to craft anything useful with. If anything the thin piece you ended up with is even more impressive than a bigger sample would have been, since the point is to show off its indestructibility.
Along with the letter you include the promised blueprints, drafted by you and annotated by Jim at your direction. The first set details what is essentially your current setup, except done properly and scaled up to produce meaningful weekly yields. The second is more fanciful, depicting a factory-cathedral built into an active volcano. You don't expect they'll go for that, but you included it anyway to make the first option seem reasonable in comparison.
Every little bit helps, you figure, when you write someone out of the blue and ask if they can spare a literal ton of gold.
At your direction Jim writes 'Attn: Armsmaster, Re: Tinkering' on the back of the envelope. You briefly debate adding 'NB: Not a tinker-bomb', but ultimately decide against it. It would ensure that no one else would open the letter until Armsmaster could examine it, but it would also make a rather unfavorable impression on the people you're trying to do business with.
You then send Jim off on his final mission for you: Put on this domino mask, walk into the PRT building and hand the letter to the receptionist at the front desk, then leave without answering any questions.
Fenrir, who you sent to shadow him the whole way, reports that he pulled it off perfectly. You shake his hand, give him a hundred bucks and regretfully inform him that Hotel Glass Oven is closed and he'll have to find somewhere else to sleep from now on. Your sorcerer's sight shows his Loyalty crumbling away to nothing over the course of a few seconds.
You send Fenrir on one last mission, and go to bed early. Break's over, school tomorrow.
(You buried the leftover gold in a park on your way home. It still contains trace amounts of orichalcum, and you don't want to leave it lying around where it can be connected to you.)
---
Dad wakes you up extra early for your first day at Arcadia. He frowns at you as you shuffle your way towards breakfast, even more zombielike than the early hour should account for.
"Trouble sleeping?" he asks. "Nervous about the new school?"
"A bit," you say. Not really. It's just that it took Fenrir all night to return the stuff youstole borrowed from the building site, and it's amazing how quickly you became dependent on wolf cuddles for a proper night's sleep. "Mostly excited." Capes! Powers!
You nap during the drive there, and arrive a full hour before the first class starts. The two of you wander through empty corridors looking for the office of the person you're supposed to meet.
"Looks nice," your dad comments. It does, doesn't it? It's uncanny. It's clearly a school, so where is the graffiti, the peeling paint and general air of decay? You walk past an entire row of lockers, and none of them has been broken into and left hanging open. They're not even dented. What sorcery is this?
Similarly eerie, the woman who handles your paperwork doesn't look like she hates her life, or even teenagers. There must have been an error in your paperwork - you were meant to go to Arcadia, not Stepford High.
You're presented with your schedule, a locker number and combination, as well as several papers to sign. You skim through the school rules. No drugs, no weapons, no gang-affiliated clothing or accessories. No running, no shouting, no public displays of affection. No vandalism, no bullying, no truancy. Whatever, it's all pointless. Not because you're intending to break the rules, it's just... Winslow had almost exactly the same set of rules. It's clearly not the rules that make a difference.
Your dad leaves for work, and you're given a quick tour of the buildings to let you make sense of the letters and numbers on your schedule. It wraps up just as the other students start to arrive, and you ensconce yourself near the main entrance to spot any arriving capes.
A red-haired boy, a bit older than you. Probably Clockblocker or Kid Win going by his general build. Or some non-Ward keeping a low enough profile to stay off the PHO wiki, you guess.
A hispanic boy, long-haired and well muscled. You almost jump out of your skin when his power activates as he steps inside, but he doesn't even glance in your direction. The light surges through his body, but does not reach outside. You'd say Changer, except he doesn't, you know, change. Still, it's clearly doing something to his body, just not anything visible to the naked eye. So... Brute? That would make him Aegis.
Yet another boy (caucasian, short dark hair), whose power is already active when you spot him. It's also the wrong color? Every single cape you've seen so far has had the same color glow, except this guy. Not that there are words in English for either color, but still, weird. You wonder what it means.
Who the hell is this guy, then? The activity is concentrated around the eyes... You keep squinting at him as he walks past. It looks a lot like sorcerer's sight, actually, except it's not sensing powers, it's- Shit! Shit, fuck, shit. Emotions. Gallant shoots emotion blasts. Apparently he also senses emotions, but doesn't tell people about that part.
You are incredibly glad he wasn't looking your way when you figured that out. This is going to be a real problem. If he senses your peculiar interest in a few specific people and puts two and two together, you are so fucked. No, never mind, you're fucked anyway. Just the fact that you know about him and the threat he poses to your cover means that you're going to broadcast a spike of anxiety every time your paths cross. There's no way he won't start wondering what's up with that.
Can you cultivate your Zen enough to honestly not be worried about this? Or maybe you can pretend that you're still in Winslow, method acting well enough that you're a nervous wreck full time and startle at every sound and movement? Ugh. People with sensory powers are the worst.
Your attempt at humor isn't cheering you up much either.
You're knocked out of your funk by another cape walking by. Another dark-haired boy, but closer to your own age. His power isn't active, but there's a secondary glow coming from inside his backpack. Sorcerer's sight can spot tinkertech then, you'd been wondering about that. This must be Kid Win, you can tell that the two glows have the same... texture? Polarization? They match, anyway. Which means that it's his own tech.
Waaaiiit a minute. You focus on the glowing backpack, trying to make out the shape inside...
Oh for fuck's sake. This is Arcadia, famously the good school in Brockton Bay. And the very first thing you see, on your first day, is a kid bringing a gun to school. Heroes ruin everything they touch, don't they?
You shadow Kid Win to his locker, where he stashes his gun. You memorize the number and send Lisa a text.
> Can you figure out a locker combination?
Not that you expect a reply right away, she's probably still asleep.
Despite these distractions, you manage to find your way to your first class in time, if barely. A quick glance shows no capes. A thought occurs to you and you take another look. Huh. You're not sure which is whiter, this classroom or the E88 bar/ready room. As in, genuinely not sure, you'd have to go back and count the Italians. No wonder they don't have any problems with ethnic gangs here: No demand for them.
You settle down and consider strategy. There's nothing you can do about the gun until Lisa gets back to you. Clockblocker is hardly about to use his power in public. You're going to stay the hell away from Gallant. By process of elimination, that leaves Aegis. Hopefully his power activating on its own like that wasn't a fluke. Some careful stalking will clear that up in short order.
Unfortunately you didn't follow Aegis to his locker, and the size of the school and your unfamiliarity with it works against you. You still haven't caught sight of him by the time Lisa responds.
< dials b4 & aftr, pics or vid of opening
At lunch you finally catch sight of Aegis again, and are happy to discover that his power use wasn't a fluke. His Brute rating appears to come from constant biological adaptation, and you do mean constant. As he starts eating his guts remodel themselves for maximum efficiency. When he gets up, his butt shifts from its previous optimal sitting form to a mode better suited for walking.
You're not even worried about Gallant catching you as you follow Aegis out of the cafeteria. In this particular instance, you've got an alibi. Aegis is not a bad-looking dude, staring at his butt is entertaining for multiple reasons.
As you follow him around, you note that it only takes a few minutes for his turbo-charged intestines to finish their job and fold themselves back up into a compact low-energy configuration. Unfortunately you can't stick around to watch him much longer, you have heroics to do. Or possibly prevent? The word 'hero' doesn't carry the same meaning for you that it used to.
When Kid Win returns to his locker you're ready and waiting. Just a girl leaning against the wall fiddling with her cellphone. Nothing suspicious here, no sir. Definitely not recording anything.
Apparently he took the gun out of the locker at some point, because he's putting it back now. That's not worrying or anything.
Once he's gone you make note of the new position of the dial and send everything to Lisa. She texts you back before you even make it to class.
< 5834 wanna brag abt it l8r?
Hm, do you? You'll take that one under consideration. You're pretty sure she's already figured out what's going on, meaning that this is just another thinly veiled attempt to check up on you.
Halfway through your next class you ask to be excused to go to the bathroom. It's granted, of course. No teacher would deny that request from a teenage girl, should she look mortified enough. Which you make sure you do. You hurry to Kid Win's locker, open it up - you didn't doubt for a second that Lisa could do it - and grab the gun. You take an extra few seconds to make sure you reset the dial to the same numbers as before.
Well, that was part one. But now you're the kid with a gun. You hide it under your sweater and make your way to a bathroom. You scoped this place out earlier, making sure that there were no cameras, and that the space between the cubicles and the sinks was wide enough for a wolf.
"Come forth," you whisper, and Fenrir appears. He has, of course, been following you around all day, as always. It not worth mentioning at this point. He's been dozing during classes and excitedly sniffing about every new place you've gone, though you can't imagine what he could possibly have been smelling. His nose can't interact with solid matter! Or maybe- his feet can, sort of, since he's neither flying nor sinking through the ground. Maybe his nose also... never mind.
"Hold this," you tell him, handing him the gun to grip in his mouth. "Begone." Fenrir dematerializes again, taking the gun with him.
"Put it next to my bed, but don't materialize it." You're going to check it very carefully for tracking devices before you let it back into the material world anywhere near your house. "Then go to the bar and wait for me there." Fenrir nods and leaps through the wall. His feet don't interact with the material world that much. Again, better not to think about it too hard.
The rest of the day passes without incident. You get introduced to a whole bunch of unpowered people, classmates and such. They seem nice enough, you guess? You didn't really pay much attention. There's a base level of interest-in-novel-thing ("Where are you from?" "Winslow." "My condolences.") but they don't really have a reason to care whether you live or die. Which is an improvement! None of them spit on you or hit you or even insulted you, what more can you ask?
You catch Aegis leaving, and once again see his entire body update itself as he passes through the doors. Optimizing for the ambient temperature, you realize. You're tempted to follow him home, but you want to get to the bar early today. You've got promises to keep.
===
He comes away mollified, but quietly concerned that your new friend 'June' may be a bad influence. He's... not exactly wrong. Though privately you think your new friend 'Bookwolf' might be worse.
As soon as you can extricate yourself you head for the forge. You're so excited you run right past the bus stop and keep going. The gold should have finished cooking by now. You can't wait to see how it turned out! Also you have money and a bunch of powers lined up for study and tomorrow you start at Arcadia which is also full of powers!
And you have Fenrir, the best wolf in the whole wide world. Sure he threw you off a building the other day, but you forgive him. That's how unconditional love works, you know. You smile fondly at the invisible doofus running in the road by your side. He has no trouble keeping up with you, of course, and amuses himself by dodging every oncoming car instead of letting them pass through him.
Yes, against all odds life is actually pretty great right now. You can' help but laugh out loud as you run. Everything's coming up Taylor.
---
About halfway to your destination you slow down to a walk, huffing and puffing. Note to self: Brute 0 is not enough to let you run all the way across town on its own. Actual exercise may still be useful.
---
You carefully lift the crucible out of the magma and give it a once-over with sorcerer's sight. Verdict: It's shit. The process should theoretically be able to transmute 100% of the material in a week, but that assumes a real volcano and a lot more sunlight and proper mirrors that focus it better and don't break halfway through and, you know, not leaving it in the hands of a random bum overnight and hoping for the best. As it is, your sample consists of roughly 90% impurities (where 'impurities' is understood to mean '24-carat gold').
This 'pig orichalcum' is completely useless, your power helpfully informs you, having none of the properties that makes the pure stuff valuable. You don't have time to let it cook any longer, tough. You'll have to figure out some way to extract the good stuff. Uh, Tinker power? Hello? Anything?
---
Your solution ends up involving a dematerialized Fenrir, clutching in his mouth a dematerialized monkey wrench. The wrench grasps a single dematerialized wolf hair, which he slowly and carefully whisks through the molten gold, over and over again.
For reasons that are as obvious to you as they are impossible to articulate in English, the perfectly solid, material orichalcum reacts to the immaterial hair in ways that the mundane gold doesn't. The orichalcum gradually separates out and clings to the hair, forming a cylinder less than an inch long and thin enough that it could fit in a mechanical pencil.
Meanwhile the hair (and wolf) remain entirely unaffected by the heat from both the gold itself and the welding torch you rigged up to keep it liquid, because consistent physics are for people without superpowers.
While Fenrir handles that, you carefully clean the magma out of the glass oven. You're just borrowing it after all, and it wouldn't do to leave it in worse shape than you found it. You're in fact leaving it in considerably better shape, since you had to fix it up before you could use it at all. That's pretty fair rent for a week's use, you think. You have nothing to feel guilty about.
The sun is still up when you're done and the next step will have to wait until Jim arrives, so you head downtown for a while. As you promised yourself, you buy a proper smartphone with internet access. Then you head to the library again anyway, because there are some preparations you need to do online that you don't want traced back to your personal phone.
When you finally meet up with Jim, you give him a letter to transcribe. You don't know that the intended recipient has tinkertech handwriting analysis tools, but better safe than sorry.
Dear Sir
Allow me to introduce myself: I am a Tinker, in which capacity I have chosen the name Smith. I recently discovered a process for creating a hitherto unknown metal, which I have elected to call orichalcum. It has several remarkable properties, foremost among which is that it can be rendered indestructible.
I have no doubt that you can see the great opportunities this presents, both in your line of business and others. Unfortunately I personally lack the funds for both the equipment and the raw materials required to produce this substance in useful quantities. Nor do I wish, at this point in time, to join the Protectorate, as I lack both the inclination and the training to take the type of active role in its operations that you and other Tinkers in the organization do.
Instead I would like to propose an arrangement wherein the Protectorate would provide me with a workshop and and raw materials, and in return receive the bulk of the finished product (exact details to be negotiated). Please find enclosed schematics for the type of equipment and materials that would be required.
Also enclosed, attached to this letter, is a small sample of orichalcum produced using less efficient methods. I urge you to test this sample to verify my claims as to its properties.
You may contact me by leaving a message for Gold_Smith at PHO. Eagerly looking forward to your response, I remain
faithfully yours,
Smith
Allow me to introduce myself: I am a Tinker, in which capacity I have chosen the name Smith. I recently discovered a process for creating a hitherto unknown metal, which I have elected to call orichalcum. It has several remarkable properties, foremost among which is that it can be rendered indestructible.
I have no doubt that you can see the great opportunities this presents, both in your line of business and others. Unfortunately I personally lack the funds for both the equipment and the raw materials required to produce this substance in useful quantities. Nor do I wish, at this point in time, to join the Protectorate, as I lack both the inclination and the training to take the type of active role in its operations that you and other Tinkers in the organization do.
Instead I would like to propose an arrangement wherein the Protectorate would provide me with a workshop and and raw materials, and in return receive the bulk of the finished product (exact details to be negotiated). Please find enclosed schematics for the type of equipment and materials that would be required.
Also enclosed, attached to this letter, is a small sample of orichalcum produced using less efficient methods. I urge you to test this sample to verify my claims as to its properties.
You may contact me by leaving a message for Gold_Smith at PHO. Eagerly looking forward to your response, I remain
faithfully yours,
Smith
You glue the scrap of orichalcum to the letter, as was the plan all along. Even if you had managed to transmute the full amount it wouldn't have been enough to craft anything useful with. If anything the thin piece you ended up with is even more impressive than a bigger sample would have been, since the point is to show off its indestructibility.
Along with the letter you include the promised blueprints, drafted by you and annotated by Jim at your direction. The first set details what is essentially your current setup, except done properly and scaled up to produce meaningful weekly yields. The second is more fanciful, depicting a factory-cathedral built into an active volcano. You don't expect they'll go for that, but you included it anyway to make the first option seem reasonable in comparison.
Every little bit helps, you figure, when you write someone out of the blue and ask if they can spare a literal ton of gold.
At your direction Jim writes 'Attn: Armsmaster, Re: Tinkering' on the back of the envelope. You briefly debate adding 'NB: Not a tinker-bomb', but ultimately decide against it. It would ensure that no one else would open the letter until Armsmaster could examine it, but it would also make a rather unfavorable impression on the people you're trying to do business with.
You then send Jim off on his final mission for you: Put on this domino mask, walk into the PRT building and hand the letter to the receptionist at the front desk, then leave without answering any questions.
Fenrir, who you sent to shadow him the whole way, reports that he pulled it off perfectly. You shake his hand, give him a hundred bucks and regretfully inform him that Hotel Glass Oven is closed and he'll have to find somewhere else to sleep from now on. Your sorcerer's sight shows his Loyalty crumbling away to nothing over the course of a few seconds.
You send Fenrir on one last mission, and go to bed early. Break's over, school tomorrow.
(You buried the leftover gold in a park on your way home. It still contains trace amounts of orichalcum, and you don't want to leave it lying around where it can be connected to you.)
---
Dad wakes you up extra early for your first day at Arcadia. He frowns at you as you shuffle your way towards breakfast, even more zombielike than the early hour should account for.
"Trouble sleeping?" he asks. "Nervous about the new school?"
"A bit," you say. Not really. It's just that it took Fenrir all night to return the stuff you
You nap during the drive there, and arrive a full hour before the first class starts. The two of you wander through empty corridors looking for the office of the person you're supposed to meet.
"Looks nice," your dad comments. It does, doesn't it? It's uncanny. It's clearly a school, so where is the graffiti, the peeling paint and general air of decay? You walk past an entire row of lockers, and none of them has been broken into and left hanging open. They're not even dented. What sorcery is this?
Similarly eerie, the woman who handles your paperwork doesn't look like she hates her life, or even teenagers. There must have been an error in your paperwork - you were meant to go to Arcadia, not Stepford High.
You're presented with your schedule, a locker number and combination, as well as several papers to sign. You skim through the school rules. No drugs, no weapons, no gang-affiliated clothing or accessories. No running, no shouting, no public displays of affection. No vandalism, no bullying, no truancy. Whatever, it's all pointless. Not because you're intending to break the rules, it's just... Winslow had almost exactly the same set of rules. It's clearly not the rules that make a difference.
Your dad leaves for work, and you're given a quick tour of the buildings to let you make sense of the letters and numbers on your schedule. It wraps up just as the other students start to arrive, and you ensconce yourself near the main entrance to spot any arriving capes.
A red-haired boy, a bit older than you. Probably Clockblocker or Kid Win going by his general build. Or some non-Ward keeping a low enough profile to stay off the PHO wiki, you guess.
A hispanic boy, long-haired and well muscled. You almost jump out of your skin when his power activates as he steps inside, but he doesn't even glance in your direction. The light surges through his body, but does not reach outside. You'd say Changer, except he doesn't, you know, change. Still, it's clearly doing something to his body, just not anything visible to the naked eye. So... Brute? That would make him Aegis.
Yet another boy (caucasian, short dark hair), whose power is already active when you spot him. It's also the wrong color? Every single cape you've seen so far has had the same color glow, except this guy. Not that there are words in English for either color, but still, weird. You wonder what it means.
Who the hell is this guy, then? The activity is concentrated around the eyes... You keep squinting at him as he walks past. It looks a lot like sorcerer's sight, actually, except it's not sensing powers, it's- Shit! Shit, fuck, shit. Emotions. Gallant shoots emotion blasts. Apparently he also senses emotions, but doesn't tell people about that part.
You are incredibly glad he wasn't looking your way when you figured that out. This is going to be a real problem. If he senses your peculiar interest in a few specific people and puts two and two together, you are so fucked. No, never mind, you're fucked anyway. Just the fact that you know about him and the threat he poses to your cover means that you're going to broadcast a spike of anxiety every time your paths cross. There's no way he won't start wondering what's up with that.
Can you cultivate your Zen enough to honestly not be worried about this? Or maybe you can pretend that you're still in Winslow, method acting well enough that you're a nervous wreck full time and startle at every sound and movement? Ugh. People with sensory powers are the worst.
Your attempt at humor isn't cheering you up much either.
You're knocked out of your funk by another cape walking by. Another dark-haired boy, but closer to your own age. His power isn't active, but there's a secondary glow coming from inside his backpack. Sorcerer's sight can spot tinkertech then, you'd been wondering about that. This must be Kid Win, you can tell that the two glows have the same... texture? Polarization? They match, anyway. Which means that it's his own tech.
Waaaiiit a minute. You focus on the glowing backpack, trying to make out the shape inside...
Oh for fuck's sake. This is Arcadia, famously the good school in Brockton Bay. And the very first thing you see, on your first day, is a kid bringing a gun to school. Heroes ruin everything they touch, don't they?
You shadow Kid Win to his locker, where he stashes his gun. You memorize the number and send Lisa a text.
> Can you figure out a locker combination?
Not that you expect a reply right away, she's probably still asleep.
Despite these distractions, you manage to find your way to your first class in time, if barely. A quick glance shows no capes. A thought occurs to you and you take another look. Huh. You're not sure which is whiter, this classroom or the E88 bar/ready room. As in, genuinely not sure, you'd have to go back and count the Italians. No wonder they don't have any problems with ethnic gangs here: No demand for them.
You settle down and consider strategy. There's nothing you can do about the gun until Lisa gets back to you. Clockblocker is hardly about to use his power in public. You're going to stay the hell away from Gallant. By process of elimination, that leaves Aegis. Hopefully his power activating on its own like that wasn't a fluke. Some careful stalking will clear that up in short order.
Unfortunately you didn't follow Aegis to his locker, and the size of the school and your unfamiliarity with it works against you. You still haven't caught sight of him by the time Lisa responds.
< dials b4 & aftr, pics or vid of opening
At lunch you finally catch sight of Aegis again, and are happy to discover that his power use wasn't a fluke. His Brute rating appears to come from constant biological adaptation, and you do mean constant. As he starts eating his guts remodel themselves for maximum efficiency. When he gets up, his butt shifts from its previous optimal sitting form to a mode better suited for walking.
You're not even worried about Gallant catching you as you follow Aegis out of the cafeteria. In this particular instance, you've got an alibi. Aegis is not a bad-looking dude, staring at his butt is entertaining for multiple reasons.
As you follow him around, you note that it only takes a few minutes for his turbo-charged intestines to finish their job and fold themselves back up into a compact low-energy configuration. Unfortunately you can't stick around to watch him much longer, you have heroics to do. Or possibly prevent? The word 'hero' doesn't carry the same meaning for you that it used to.
When Kid Win returns to his locker you're ready and waiting. Just a girl leaning against the wall fiddling with her cellphone. Nothing suspicious here, no sir. Definitely not recording anything.
Apparently he took the gun out of the locker at some point, because he's putting it back now. That's not worrying or anything.
Once he's gone you make note of the new position of the dial and send everything to Lisa. She texts you back before you even make it to class.
< 5834 wanna brag abt it l8r?
Hm, do you? You'll take that one under consideration. You're pretty sure she's already figured out what's going on, meaning that this is just another thinly veiled attempt to check up on you.
Halfway through your next class you ask to be excused to go to the bathroom. It's granted, of course. No teacher would deny that request from a teenage girl, should she look mortified enough. Which you make sure you do. You hurry to Kid Win's locker, open it up - you didn't doubt for a second that Lisa could do it - and grab the gun. You take an extra few seconds to make sure you reset the dial to the same numbers as before.
Well, that was part one. But now you're the kid with a gun. You hide it under your sweater and make your way to a bathroom. You scoped this place out earlier, making sure that there were no cameras, and that the space between the cubicles and the sinks was wide enough for a wolf.
"Come forth," you whisper, and Fenrir appears. He has, of course, been following you around all day, as always. It not worth mentioning at this point. He's been dozing during classes and excitedly sniffing about every new place you've gone, though you can't imagine what he could possibly have been smelling. His nose can't interact with solid matter! Or maybe- his feet can, sort of, since he's neither flying nor sinking through the ground. Maybe his nose also... never mind.
"Hold this," you tell him, handing him the gun to grip in his mouth. "Begone." Fenrir dematerializes again, taking the gun with him.
"Put it next to my bed, but don't materialize it." You're going to check it very carefully for tracking devices before you let it back into the material world anywhere near your house. "Then go to the bar and wait for me there." Fenrir nods and leaps through the wall. His feet don't interact with the material world that much. Again, better not to think about it too hard.
The rest of the day passes without incident. You get introduced to a whole bunch of unpowered people, classmates and such. They seem nice enough, you guess? You didn't really pay much attention. There's a base level of interest-in-novel-thing ("Where are you from?" "Winslow." "My condolences.") but they don't really have a reason to care whether you live or die. Which is an improvement! None of them spit on you or hit you or even insulted you, what more can you ask?
You catch Aegis leaving, and once again see his entire body update itself as he passes through the doors. Optimizing for the ambient temperature, you realize. You're tempted to follow him home, but you want to get to the bar early today. You've got promises to keep.
===
You saved the day, yay!
Of course a hero would twist your actions into stomping all over the unwritten rules and stealing government-owned tinkertech. But fuck heroes, amirite?
Of course a hero would twist your actions into stomping all over the unwritten rules and stealing government-owned tinkertech. But fuck heroes, amirite?
S.15
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
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Crap. Crap. Crap. I'm screwed. I'm so screwed it's not even funny. I finish searching through my entire locker for the second time. Where is it? Did I leave it somewhere? I didn't have it with me to math class. Did I? I could have sworn I only took it out at lunch. But then again I could have sworn that I put it back, too. Oh god, Piggy is going to kill me if I left it lying around where anyone could find it.
I try to retrace my steps. Did I go to the library, or was that last week? I can't remember. I was tinkering, I don't notice things when I'm tinkering. Did I drop it somewhere? Which way did I go?
As my search refuses to bear fruit, I begin to resign myself to not finding it. The question then becomes what to do about it. Can I cover up that I lost it? Of course I can. My workshop is a mess. No one will notice. If someone asks me 'hey Kid Win, what happened to that gun you were working on?', I can just tell them that I had another idea and took it apart for spare parts. They'll believe me, because I do that all the time.
And if they ask to see the new project, I'll tell them it didn't end up working out. They'll believe that too, for the same reason.
Empty-handed, I return to search through my locker a third time, already knowing that it won't help.
I try to retrace my steps. Did I go to the library, or was that last week? I can't remember. I was tinkering, I don't notice things when I'm tinkering. Did I drop it somewhere? Which way did I go?
As my search refuses to bear fruit, I begin to resign myself to not finding it. The question then becomes what to do about it. Can I cover up that I lost it? Of course I can. My workshop is a mess. No one will notice. If someone asks me 'hey Kid Win, what happened to that gun you were working on?', I can just tell them that I had another idea and took it apart for spare parts. They'll believe me, because I do that all the time.
And if they ask to see the new project, I'll tell them it didn't end up working out. They'll believe that too, for the same reason.
Empty-handed, I return to search through my locker a third time, already knowing that it won't help.
Several people greet you cheerfully when you enter the bar. It's weird, now that you think about it, that the only other parahuman you've seen here is Rune, and then only to meet you. Apparently the way these people divide themselves into the 'brass' and the 'rank and file' is not just a clever turn of phrase, and you're somewhat unique in your level of... fraternization? Well, no matter. It would be nice if Krieg and Stormtiger wandered by to say hello and give you their soul prices, but you've got other things on your mind right now.
"Does anyone know where I can buy a sheep, no questions asked?" you inquire of the room.
"I didn't know you were Welsh!" some asshole - wait, you recognize him, that's Fake Swede from the other day - calls out.
"A dead sheep," you clarify, before the room can devolve into another European ancestry dick measuring competition. "Dog food," you clarify further, as you see his lips shaping the 'k' in 'kinky'.
"My cousin is a butcher," one guy offers.
"See, now that's a good, helpful answer. Take note, Fake Swede." Oops. You didn't mean to let slip your personal name for the guy, but it seems to meet with general approval.
("My name is Jonas," Fake Swede complains. "Not anymore it isn't," the guy next to him says)
"Does he deliver?" you ask. "I'm not sure he'd appreciate me coming over in work clothes."
"You kiddin' me? The crazy bitch who took down Mush in a single blow? He'd be stoked to meet'cha. C'mon."
Well. You'll try to take that comment in the spirit it was given. You think. You're not crazy, though. You just... jumped off a three-story building to get at your enemy. Ahem.
The guy ('Eric', you file his name in the circular cabinet) leads you outside to his pickup. Yeah, yeah, you know what they say about getting into cars with strange men. That advice is for people who can't sic a giant wolf on perverts. Fenrir rides in the back, intangible yet somehow deciding that his position is static relative to the truck now.
Alone with you in these less festive circumstances, Eric seems to become aware of the fact that you're not actually 'one of the lads' - there's an awkward age and gender gap that conversation will have to lunge across.
"So, uh, how's school treating you?" he asks as the silence threatens to become uncomfortable.
"Pretty fucking awesome, actually," you answer, silently marveling at how you're not lying about that.
"Not making you write essays on the horrors of the holocaust, then?" He uses a high-pitched, whiny voice for that word in particular, just in case there was any doubt about his opinion on its realness attribute.
You shake your head. "That was last year." You pause, thinking back. "And three years ago. Also, uh, five years ago, I think? But we had to make a collage then, not an essay."
He grunts the satisfied grunt of a man having his biases confirmed by facts and logic. "It's a bit funny, isn't it?"
"How so?" you ask, bracing for more Endlösung-based humor.
"When they teach you about the romans, they tell you that you can never trust contemporary historians, because the winners write the history books. Then when they get to the most recent big war, that they won, they tell you that the enemy just so happened to be the most cartoonishly evil villains in all of history."
"That is a bit funny," you agree politely.
The butcher is, as promised, stoked to meet you. "It's great to see more youngsters standing up and fighting for their people," he says as he vigorously shakes your hand. "If there were more people like you we wouldn't be in nearly the same mess."
It almost makes you feel guilty about being an infiltrator. Especially when he gives you a discount. You could almost afford to feed Fenrir twice a week at this rate (that sounds sort of bad, doesn't it?), even without taking cape fight bounties into account. Except... living hand-to-mouth is not a very good idea. And you need to save up money to hire Faultline at some point, that's still on the table. So it's purely up to your conscience how well you treat your wolf. Yay. What are the odds that you'll settle on an equilibrium that doesn't involve a certain set point of guilt?
You have whatsisname - Eric, right - load up the carcass 'to go'. His cousin was a fan, sure, but having a giant carnivore feast right outside his shop is a bit much. You have Fenrir materialize in the alley behind the bar and feed him there. Some of the patrons come out to have a look at their new mascot(s?), but only briefly. Watching him tear flesh and crunch bones is not all that pleasant. You stay, though, happy to see him happy.
When the sheep is all gone, he shows his appreciation by licking your face. Well, trying to. Your face is shielded, so he just leaves sheep juices smeared all over your mask. At which point Rune shows up.
"Wow," she says. "That's sure, uh, gonna strike fear into the hearts of your enemies, but..."
"Yeah, yeah." You've heard it all before. Blood-spattered capes are bad optics.
You get both of you cleaned up and board the rock. Rune stops and hovers at roof level, but you make no move to get off and ride.
"I told you I didn't mind elevator duty, right?" Rune asks.
"Yeah, but it took jumping off a roof to make you stop being a bitch about it. I'm not going to spend that goodwill all at once."
She snorts, equally amused and annoyed, and takes off without further argument.
Absolutely nothing happens for the next four hours.
You're not complaining - you're here for the powers, not the fighting - but it's not what you expected, given what happened last time.
"Is this normal?" you ask.
"Huh? Yeah. The Merchants won't act up again so soon after getting smacked down, and the japs keep to themselves, mostly."
"What about... mundane problems?" The people you're supposed to perform hate crimes on, you mean.
"It's winter," she says, her tone clearly indicating that it's an explanation. You nod, frowning beneath your mask. Is she implying that... people of African descent prefer to stay indoors when it's cold out? Yeah, okay. That makes sense, and it's far from the most racist thing you've heard since you joined.
---
Kid Win's gun is lying dematerialized next to your bed. You study it where it lies. From what you can tell it shoots the typical colorful, slow-moving concussive blasts everyone calls 'lasers'. Slow-moving, that is, as compared to regular bullets or actual laser beams, you wouldn't want to try dodging them. Still, it's nothing interesting. Concussive blasts with accompanying light-show is literally the most common superpower, not just in tinkertech but also among actual Blasters.
Considerably more interesting is the unfinished secondary system set into the grip. It looks like the gun is supposed to be able to vanish and reappear. Not dematerialize - immaterial objects still occupy a position in space - but really vanish. Go 'elsewhere', enter a state without a physical position, and as such become simultaneously adjacent to every location.
Your sorcerer's sight lets you figure all that out, and you're pretty sure you could replicate the effect with orichalcum, but you can't grasp it in a way that would let you turn it into a power.
A shame. When you realized you could see tinkertech you had entertained the idea that you would be able to drop all the stalking and infiltration and what-not and just find a Tinker to team up with to learn All The Powers. Not seriously, of course, since that would involve the universe wanting to make your life simple, but still. A shame.
---
The next morning you have a nasty fright as you almost run into Gallant again. Immediately followed by a much worse fright, as you suddenly realize that you're an idiot: Fenrir has emotions holy shit you should have thought of that earlier! Luckily he doesn't look your way this time either, but you cannot keep relying on luck here.
He may or may not be able to make out the shape of a wolf and out you as Low Key... but if all he sees is a shapeless cloud of love and obedience floating around next to you and occasionally overlapping your classmates, well... the conclusions he'd draw from that are arguably worse.
"See that guy?" you whisper to Fenrir. "You must never, ever let him see you, even when you're immaterial. Especially when you're immaterial. You can't-" You were about to say 'come to school with me any more', but Fenrir interrupts you by nodding and walking right up behind Gallant. "Jesus Christ what are you doing?" you hiss.
Fenrir sniffs Gallant carefully, starting at the back of his neck and slowly working all the way down to his feet. If he were to turn around at any point during this... but he doesn't. Fenrir looks back at you and nods again before leaping through the wall, out of sight. Okay, so he's... got the scent now, you guess, enough to smell him coming in time to make himself scarce?
"Good dog," you whisper as you sag against the wall. Is this what a heart attack feels like?
In less terrifying news, you find out that you share English class with your favorite aspiring school shooter. The class is otherwise terribly boring. Which suits you just fine, because it means Kid Win is bored enough to stop listening and start sketching plans for some sort of tinkertech. Not that you can see his notebook from where you're sitting, but the way his power lights up is a definite clue. Score!
When you go looking for Aegis at lunch, you instead happen across Glory Girl and Panacea. Right, they go to Arcadia too. You were so focused on discovering the secret identities of the Wards that you completely forgot about the public identities of New Wave.
This is the first time you've seen Panacea for real, as the last time you met you deliberately kept sorcerer's sight turned off. And what you see leaves you staring in awe. Regular capes have a steady glow suffusing them, that pulses and twists when they use their powers. Panacea sparkles.
Healer, you realize. She's killing or denaturing every single bacterium that touches her skin, causing millions of microscopic flashes of power every second.
It's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen.
It's also completely useless. As far as studying her power goes, it's like staring into a screen full of static. Pretty, pretty static.
You really should stop staring and go do something useful.
...Just a little bit longer, yeah?
"Don't look now, but there's a girl behind you who's totally checking you out."
I'm already reaching out to her as I speak, and gently catch her head between my hands to keep her from twisting it around.
"I literally said 'don't look,'" I chide her, causing her to blush slightly. "At least try to make it look natural. Turn your head just a little bit. There, in the corner of your eye. Curly hair, glasses, beanpole figure?"
"Oh, her. She's not checking me out, Vicky. I healed her a while back. She appreciated it."
She adds that last part almost as an afterthought, causing me to snort in amusement. "Of course she appreciated it! Who doesn't appreciate being healed?"
"No, it's like... People are happy, sure, but they are happy that they got their turn at the healing dispenser. Sometimes they're so happy they break down crying..." She stops briefly and swallows before continuing on. "Quite often actually. But they never... they never wonder, 'what if the healing dispenser had something else she wanted to do today?'"
I- I don't know what to say. I had no idea she felt like that. She's been looking a bit worn out lately, but- Oh. Oh no.
"I do that, don't I?" I whisper. "I take you for granted."
"Little bit, yeah," she says, but the way she can't quite maintain a smile as she says it screams 'more like a whole freaking lot, you big dummy!'
"Oh Ames." I gather her up in a hug. "You know I love you right? I'm going to be a better sister from now on."
And the very first thing I'm going to do for her is set her head straight about this girl who's obviously checking her out, holy shit.
"So, this girl who appreciates you," I say with a smile as I let go of her, "tell me about her."
"I was on my way home when she was hit by a car, practically in front of me. I healed her, of course, and she apologized for creating work for me." She smiles. "She even apologized to the driver for traumatizing him."
"Bull. Shit. Nobody is that nice."
"Vicky, you know that I can pretty much read people's emotions while I'm healing them."
I nod. She's explained it before. Heart rate, hormones, galvanic skin wossname... Stuff like that, she sees it all.
"Well, I'm telling you the girl was mortified at being a bother. She offered to buy me dinner to make up for it, too."
"She offered-" My palm hits my face with enough force that nearby people startle at the sound. "She was asking you out, you dolt! On a date!"
She opens her mouth to retort, but I keep going. "When you turned her down, what did she do?"
"Well, she wanted to buy me coffee instead-" Her eyes widen as she hears what she's saying and sees my growing grin. "No! You're imagining things, Vicky. I swear I caught her checking Carlos out yesterday."
Oh my god is it really that difficult for her to believe that someone might like her? "I'm not saying she doesn't swing both ways, I- look, I've got this, okay."
I pull out my phone and call my boyfriend.
"Hey Dean. Guess what? There's this girl who's totally hot for my sister, but Amy refuses to believe me when I tell her. I need you to come over and read her emotions and prove that I'm right." My left arm easily suffices to fend Amy off as she sputters and tries to grab the phone.
That put-upon sigh is not how you should react to your girlfriend calling you. Dick. "We've talked about respecting people's privacy, Victoria," he says tiredly.
I roll my eyes. "Sorry, I meant to say 'New Wave would like to formally request the assistance of the Wards in evaluating the threat presented by a potential stalker.'"
He sighs again, but I recognize this one as his 'I'm just going to do what you want instead of arguing' sigh.
"Great! We're in the usual spot, come quickly before she runs off."
"Why are you doing this to me?" Amy asks.
"It's for your own good. All part of being a better sister!"
"I see her," Dean says through the phone. "The lanky brunette with the glasses, right?"
"Yeah. What's the word?"
"I'd call it 'awestruck by beauty.' With an undertone of-"
"Hah! Dean says I'm totally right."
"What? Give me that!" I relinquish my phone with a smirk. "Tell me exactly what you are seeing." Amy demands.
...
"...oh." Amy slumps in defeat, and I reclaim my phone from her nerveless fingers.
"Thanks Dean, you're the best," I chirp before I hang up. Then I turn my attention to my sister. She seems unreasonably sad for someone who has just been told she's beautiful. "Are you alright?"
"I feel terrible," she says. "She feels that way about me, but I- I don't find her attractive at all."
"Hey. No. That's not something you get to feel bad about. We can't help who we like. I'll just tell her you're not interested."
"Wait, don't-"
I zip past my sister and fly across the room to hover in front of her admirer.
"Hey."
Her eyes, which had been glued to Amy the whole time, snap to me. They quickly travel all the way down my body and back up. Real subtle there, girl.
"What?" Her tone is hostile, but her eyes keep flicking down to points of interest on my body.
"I'm afraid my sister doesn't return your feelings."
"What?" This time around she's confused, perhaps alarmed. I hold up my hands.
"There's nothing wrong with it. She's just not the one for you. I'm sure that someday you'll find a girl who-"
"I'm not gay!"
"Bitch, please. You're checking me out as we speak." Admittedly she's looking at me like I'm a piece of meat where she was looking at Amy like she's a work of art, but still. This much denial comes with complimentary pyramids. It can't possibly be healthy. I flare my aura, just a little. It's not that I want her slobbering over me, but if I can just get her to admit-
Instead she hisses. She gets right up in my personal space, but her eyes are narrowed in anger instead of wide with awe.
"If you don't turn your aura off right now, I'll break my fist on your perfect fucking face so hard you'll never get my blood out of your shirt."
I can't help it, I flinch and float backwards a few feet. She follows in lockstep, raising her fist. The crazy bitch isn't bluffing! I quickly clamp down on my aura again. Dammit, I screwed that up. Now she's going to blame the aura for the whole thing. I consider arguing further, but I can tell it's pointless. I showed weakness, and she knows it. She won, even though I'm right. I fly off without another word.
When I rejoin Amy, Dean is sitting next to her. He's giving me a very disapproving look.
"Well, that could have gone better," I say. I try for a nonchalant shrug, but he isn't having it.
"Victoria, that girl hates you. What did you do?"
"Nothing?" He definitely isn't having it. I sigh. "That girl is so deep in the closet she's eating out the White Witch. I just tried to get her to come out. She didn't take it very well."
"Not very well? She- Look, just leave her alone, okay? We don't know what she's going through, but you're clearly not helping."
"Yeah, yeah." I wave him off, but then something occurs to me, something incredibly important that I can't believe I missed.
"Amy!" I spin to face my sister. "You said you 'didn't find her attractive'. Not that you weren't attracted to girls. Are you-"
Amy turns red and buries her face in her hands. She is. I hear Dean sighing again behind me, but I ignore him. This calls for all the hugs.
"It's fine," I tell her as I gather her in my arms. "You should have told me. You know I'd never judge you, right?" Another thought occurs to me, and I laugh. "Oh god, those dates I tried to set you up with, that never worked out? I'll do better this time around, I promise. What's your type? Do you-"
"Please stop trying to help."
I'm already reaching out to her as I speak, and gently catch her head between my hands to keep her from twisting it around.
"I literally said 'don't look,'" I chide her, causing her to blush slightly. "At least try to make it look natural. Turn your head just a little bit. There, in the corner of your eye. Curly hair, glasses, beanpole figure?"
"Oh, her. She's not checking me out, Vicky. I healed her a while back. She appreciated it."
She adds that last part almost as an afterthought, causing me to snort in amusement. "Of course she appreciated it! Who doesn't appreciate being healed?"
"No, it's like... People are happy, sure, but they are happy that they got their turn at the healing dispenser. Sometimes they're so happy they break down crying..." She stops briefly and swallows before continuing on. "Quite often actually. But they never... they never wonder, 'what if the healing dispenser had something else she wanted to do today?'"
I- I don't know what to say. I had no idea she felt like that. She's been looking a bit worn out lately, but- Oh. Oh no.
"I do that, don't I?" I whisper. "I take you for granted."
"Little bit, yeah," she says, but the way she can't quite maintain a smile as she says it screams 'more like a whole freaking lot, you big dummy!'
"Oh Ames." I gather her up in a hug. "You know I love you right? I'm going to be a better sister from now on."
And the very first thing I'm going to do for her is set her head straight about this girl who's obviously checking her out, holy shit.
"So, this girl who appreciates you," I say with a smile as I let go of her, "tell me about her."
"I was on my way home when she was hit by a car, practically in front of me. I healed her, of course, and she apologized for creating work for me." She smiles. "She even apologized to the driver for traumatizing him."
"Bull. Shit. Nobody is that nice."
"Vicky, you know that I can pretty much read people's emotions while I'm healing them."
I nod. She's explained it before. Heart rate, hormones, galvanic skin wossname... Stuff like that, she sees it all.
"Well, I'm telling you the girl was mortified at being a bother. She offered to buy me dinner to make up for it, too."
"She offered-" My palm hits my face with enough force that nearby people startle at the sound. "She was asking you out, you dolt! On a date!"
She opens her mouth to retort, but I keep going. "When you turned her down, what did she do?"
"Well, she wanted to buy me coffee instead-" Her eyes widen as she hears what she's saying and sees my growing grin. "No! You're imagining things, Vicky. I swear I caught her checking Carlos out yesterday."
Oh my god is it really that difficult for her to believe that someone might like her? "I'm not saying she doesn't swing both ways, I- look, I've got this, okay."
I pull out my phone and call my boyfriend.
"Hey Dean. Guess what? There's this girl who's totally hot for my sister, but Amy refuses to believe me when I tell her. I need you to come over and read her emotions and prove that I'm right." My left arm easily suffices to fend Amy off as she sputters and tries to grab the phone.
That put-upon sigh is not how you should react to your girlfriend calling you. Dick. "We've talked about respecting people's privacy, Victoria," he says tiredly.
I roll my eyes. "Sorry, I meant to say 'New Wave would like to formally request the assistance of the Wards in evaluating the threat presented by a potential stalker.'"
He sighs again, but I recognize this one as his 'I'm just going to do what you want instead of arguing' sigh.
"Great! We're in the usual spot, come quickly before she runs off."
"Why are you doing this to me?" Amy asks.
"It's for your own good. All part of being a better sister!"
"I see her," Dean says through the phone. "The lanky brunette with the glasses, right?"
"Yeah. What's the word?"
"I'd call it 'awestruck by beauty.' With an undertone of-"
"Hah! Dean says I'm totally right."
"What? Give me that!" I relinquish my phone with a smirk. "Tell me exactly what you are seeing." Amy demands.
...
"...oh." Amy slumps in defeat, and I reclaim my phone from her nerveless fingers.
"Thanks Dean, you're the best," I chirp before I hang up. Then I turn my attention to my sister. She seems unreasonably sad for someone who has just been told she's beautiful. "Are you alright?"
"I feel terrible," she says. "She feels that way about me, but I- I don't find her attractive at all."
"Hey. No. That's not something you get to feel bad about. We can't help who we like. I'll just tell her you're not interested."
"Wait, don't-"
I zip past my sister and fly across the room to hover in front of her admirer.
"Hey."
Her eyes, which had been glued to Amy the whole time, snap to me. They quickly travel all the way down my body and back up. Real subtle there, girl.
"What?" Her tone is hostile, but her eyes keep flicking down to points of interest on my body.
"I'm afraid my sister doesn't return your feelings."
"What?" This time around she's confused, perhaps alarmed. I hold up my hands.
"There's nothing wrong with it. She's just not the one for you. I'm sure that someday you'll find a girl who-"
"I'm not gay!"
"Bitch, please. You're checking me out as we speak." Admittedly she's looking at me like I'm a piece of meat where she was looking at Amy like she's a work of art, but still. This much denial comes with complimentary pyramids. It can't possibly be healthy. I flare my aura, just a little. It's not that I want her slobbering over me, but if I can just get her to admit-
Instead she hisses. She gets right up in my personal space, but her eyes are narrowed in anger instead of wide with awe.
"If you don't turn your aura off right now, I'll break my fist on your perfect fucking face so hard you'll never get my blood out of your shirt."
I can't help it, I flinch and float backwards a few feet. She follows in lockstep, raising her fist. The crazy bitch isn't bluffing! I quickly clamp down on my aura again. Dammit, I screwed that up. Now she's going to blame the aura for the whole thing. I consider arguing further, but I can tell it's pointless. I showed weakness, and she knows it. She won, even though I'm right. I fly off without another word.
When I rejoin Amy, Dean is sitting next to her. He's giving me a very disapproving look.
"Well, that could have gone better," I say. I try for a nonchalant shrug, but he isn't having it.
"Victoria, that girl hates you. What did you do?"
"Nothing?" He definitely isn't having it. I sigh. "That girl is so deep in the closet she's eating out the White Witch. I just tried to get her to come out. She didn't take it very well."
"Not very well? She- Look, just leave her alone, okay? We don't know what she's going through, but you're clearly not helping."
"Yeah, yeah." I wave him off, but then something occurs to me, something incredibly important that I can't believe I missed.
"Amy!" I spin to face my sister. "You said you 'didn't find her attractive'. Not that you weren't attracted to girls. Are you-"
Amy turns red and buries her face in her hands. She is. I hear Dean sighing again behind me, but I ignore him. This calls for all the hugs.
"It's fine," I tell her as I gather her in my arms. "You should have told me. You know I'd never judge you, right?" Another thought occurs to me, and I laugh. "Oh god, those dates I tried to set you up with, that never worked out? I'll do better this time around, I promise. What's your type? Do you-"
"Please stop trying to help."
What is it with parahumans and wacky misunderstandings about your sexuality? Ugh. So annoying. The most annoying part is how well it worked out for you. Glory Girl is no doubt telling her boyfriend (whose arrival you completely missed - at least Fenrir made himself scarce as instructed) all about what happened just now. And just like that, you have an alibi. Your fascination with Panacea, your intense dislike of Glory Girl (luckiest bloody second-gen cape in the world that she is), that juicy fear-of-discovery every time you catch sight of Gallant? It all has a perfectly innocent explanation now.
All you have to do is spend the rest of high school pretending to be a lesbian pretending to be straight.
It's funny, you were so focused on Gallant's power that you never got a proper look at his face. It wasn't until you saw them together that you realized that he was actually whatshisname, Glory Girl's rich boy-toy from the cover of that gossip rag. If you had, you'd have tried to avoid Glory Girl and Panacea too, and ironically been worse off right now.
You even got a soul price out of it.
Glory Girl wants her boyfriend to stop being such a dick all the time.
Makes sense. You recall hearing that they break up all the time, but invariably get back together again after a week or two. Once you get past your reflexive 'celebrities gonna celeb' response, that indicates a fundamentally unhealthy relationship.
The hero calling himself Gallant is treating his girlfriend badly. You remember when you would have found that revelation startling.
===
That almost turned into a regular old interlude. I can't help it, Victoria is just so much fun to write. Being Glory Girl means never having to worry about being in the wrong!
"Why does everyone think I'm gay?" Taylor complained plaintively, not realizing she's the female protagonist of a fanfic written by a man. Of course everyone assumes she's going to be gay, canon be damned.
"Why does everyone think I'm gay?" Taylor complained plaintively, not realizing she's the female protagonist of a fanfic written by a man. Of course everyone assumes she's going to be gay, canon be damned.
S.16
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
- Messages
- 245
- Likes received
- 16,616
At the dojo (don't call it that out loud) Hookwolf barely glances your way, just gesturing towards Cricket.
Cricket is... weird. Up close, her metal cage of a mask barely hides her face at all. She was maybe pretty once, it's hard to tell beneath all the scars. Her throat is damaged to the point that she's using an artificial larynx to speak. To reiterate: She's suffering from a crippling injury, with Othala sitting right there. She clearly has a thing about 'honorable battle scars'. Despite this, she hands you a real knife to spar with.
Not that her confidence is misplaced. Distracted as you are, you don't manage to tag her even once. Meanwhile she's putting plenty of holes in you. Compared to sparring with Hookwolf, it's a wash. Broken bones hurt more, but Cricket makes you keep fighting even after you're injured, cutting you over and over until you keel over from blood loss (you deliberately suppress your ability to stop bleeding so as to not give away your Brute rating, turns out that's a thing you can do).
Then Othala fixes you up, and the process starts over. Cricket is clearly punishing you - she didn't go this hard on any of her other students - but throughout it all her expression never changes. You sort of miss the way Hookwolf took obvious pleasure in hurting you. At least that way one of you was having a good time. To top it off, she doesn't even speak enough for you to get a read on her soul's price.
You toss your clothes straight in the trash afterwards. Add to your projected expenses: Two sets of gym clothes per week. Until you get assigned a new sparring partner, they will not be salvageable.
---
School starts to settle into a routine. Now that you know it's possible, the next time you spot Aegis you have Fenrir sniff him as well. With your wolf tracking both him and Gallant, stalking the one while avoiding the other becomes a lot easier. You keep going after school too, working together with your invisible wolf to inconspicuously tail him to his home.
You look at the apartment building in question, vague notions of climbing up to his window to stare at him while he's sleeping dancing in your head. You feel a teensy bit uncomfortable with being this much of a creep, but console yourself with the thought that he's a hero. He probably deserves it.
Before you can creep yourself out too much, it's time for your first aid class. Cricket is there again, you're happy to note, and you proceed to once again ignore the lecture in favor of staring at her. All of the power study, none of the stabbing!
---
The next morning you wake up alone, which is weird. There should be either wolf cuddles, or your dad telling you to get up. He must have checked in on you earlier and decided to let you sleep. You activate sorcerer's sight and look around for your wolf.
There he is, sitting in the corner and- you spin around to face the other way, your cheeks burning. Right, dogs do that. Because, as the saying goes, they can. It's just a lot more awkward to catch them doing it when they are also sapient. You'll- you'll just go have breakfast, he'll catch up with you when he's, er, done.
You're halfway up the stairs when the realization hits you.
He's been licking your face with that tongue.
At least the rest of the day brings no further surprises. School, stalking, stabbings, in chronological order. And inverse order of educational... ness. Educationalness. Yes, that's definitely a word.
---
Friday, and Rune is fashionably late as always. The conversation in the bar is a loud argument about whether the Army or the Marine Corps produces the manliest men. Loud, but fundamentally good-natured: Whatever their differences, the soldiers and marines are united by their utter contempt for the Air Force (pronounced 'Chair Force').
Then one of the non-serving members points out that manliness is all well and good, but when was the last time the US was engaged in a just war, exactly? Is anyone here going to pretend that foreign policy isn't completely controlled by you-know-who? He'd rather not get his ass shot off in a desert fighting Israel's enemies, thank you very much - and the less said about WWII, the better. Boy did that torpedo the mood in hurry. What a party pooper.
The patrol itself is just as boring as last time. You take the opportunity to convince Rune to show off a bit: How small a rock can she control?
The answer, it turns out, is that it has to large enough that she can legibly trace her runes on it with a fingernail. Apparently her cape name isn't just a generic norse-sounding word, you hadn't realized that. Your theory of 'magic is real, deal with it' as an explanation for parahuman powers is looking better every day.
It's not just a great help towards understanding her power, you also make sure to pocket the pebbles afterwards. Sorcerer's sight shows that her inscribed objects don't lose their 'charge' just because she stops paying attention, and you just scored a potential power source for your tinkertech.
---
Villains and heroes may take the weekend off, but there's no rest for the rogues. Is that what you are? You've technically joined the Empire, but not for real, and you haven't actually done anything villainous. Taking down Mush was perfectly legal vigilantism! Getting paid for it probably involved some sort of tax code violation though, now that you think about it.
Oh right, Emma. Forgot about her for a moment. That's assault with a parahuman ability, and regular assault (and battery, mustn't forget the other half of the dynamic duo). She deserved it, though. You idly wonder what happened to her brain when you ghosted her and the Loyalty wore off. Probably didn't make her less crazy. There's Blackwell too, you guess (also super deserved). Was that even illegal? You helped her cover up a bunch of crimes, but all them were against you, so that's really just 'not pressing charges', right? Oh, and the business with the gun the other day was technically theft, possibly of government property.
Yep, definitely a rogue.
Aaanyway, the reason you know that heroes get the weekend off is that, surprise, you've been stalking Aegis again. He spent most of Saturday hanging out with friends at the mall, the actions of a perfectly normal teenager. Or so Hollywood tells you, you haven't had a chance to try out the teenager + friends combo yourself.
When your copy of his power actually sticks to your soul, you're so surprised you almost fall over. That was way faster than either of your previous attempts! Then you stumble and almost fall over again, as you feel your guts churn and every bone in your body tingle.
The feeling passes after a few seconds, and you feel... sturdier? Yes. Somewhat. Your flesh still yields when you poke yourself, and bending a finger backwards still hurts. But you also have a conviction, a deep feeling like you get from your other powers, saying 'I am harder to kill'. You'll have to wait for Hookwolf and Cricket to review the changes, but you feel comfortable calling yourself a Brute 1 now.
Although... you poke at the golden construct in your soul. There is no off-switch. No user-serviceable parts inside. Nor can you modify, break or otherwise remove it (you didn't try with your earlier powers, but this one was easy enough to get that you didn't mind experimenting). Okay. So. Turns out that you can acquire powers that permanently change your physical body, and there are no take-backs. That's good to know, and you're incredibly grateful that you learned this from Aegis and not, say, Gregor the Snail.
In fact, you wish everyone was more like Aegis. Flaunting their power wherever they go, never looking behind them, and easy to copy!
---
On Sunday you finally check the status of your latest cape identity, the Tinker. You wanted to get around to it earlier, but for all that Aegis was quick by power acquisition standards, by the time you got his power yesterday the library had already closed.
When you log in to your Tinker account, you find not one but two messages waiting for you. Your heart sinks as you read the first.
You can't help but smile at the parenthetical. Looks like your HoboMail delivery service was enough to cause a stir on its own, even without a mention of tinker-bombs in the address field. At least they seem to have taken it in relatively good humor.
Not that you have any ideas for other metals anyway. It's orichalcum or nothing, your power insists. You can't really complain, it's a discount power that came free with sorcerer's sight and doesn't even show up in your soul. You've also got about 2 hours of Kid Win study already, just from him sketching tinkertech blueprints in class. Maybe that will lead to something.
You're so caught up in your thoughts that you almost miss the postscript. Dragon, as in Greatest Tinker in the World Dragon? Your breath hitches when you see that yes, the second message is indeed from Dragon.
Your heart starts beating faster as you read. Dragon, the greatest (and richest) Tinker in the world? Endbringers? You knew that your power would eventually take you into the big leagues - unlimited growth does that to a person - but you didn't expect it to happen less than two months in, with only three powers learned.
It then skips a few beats when a small notification appears in the corner of the screen.
Dragon (Verified Cape) has initiated a private conversation
Smith. Saw that you were online. Do you have time to talk?
Your body notices that something tremendously exciting just happened, and helpfully floods itself with adrenaline. You take take a few deep breaths and try to explain to it that it's not in the ancestral environment anymore, you have all sorts of exciting things that don't require an immediate fight-or-flight response nowadays.
It is only moderately successful, and your fingers tremble a little as you type a response.
Gold_Smith: I can spare a few moments.
Dragon: Excellent. Let me slip into something more comfortable, like this cryptographically secure private chatroom: https://drg.ca/9aw769os
You blink. Is... is Dragon flirting with you? You click on the link.
Welcome to private chatroom f3eb22, your handle is 8344ac
(8344ac) has entered the room, 0 slots remaining
Room is now sealed
(a7e659) has renamed (a7e659) to (Dragon)
(Dragon) has renamed (8344ac) to (Smith)
Dragon: Welcome to my lair.
Smith: Very cozy. Let's talk about orichalcum.
Dragon: I'm afraid I'm fresh out of volcanoes, but I can refit one of my factories to accommodate your more modest design in short order. You did not include any notes as to the synthesis process itself, however. Intuitive?
Smith: Very. I will have to be personally present for the full week to ensure everything goes smoothly.
Dragon: It takes a week to synthesize?
Smith: Roughly, yes. Perhaps slightly more. There may be some variation depending on the quality of the equipment. Is that a problem?
Dragon: Not as such, no. It just makes it unlikely that it will be ready before the next endbringer attack.
Smith: There will always be more attacks.
Dragon: That's what we're trying to change here!
Smith: As you say, dear lady. Can you have the factory ready by next weekend? I can take a week off then, but after that my schedule is full for the foreseeable future.
Dragon: That should be doable. Are we agreed, then?
Smith: We haven't discussed how to split the loot.
Dragon: Ah. I... had assumed that it would all go towards the project. I will be providing both the factory and the materials, after all.
Smith: I do have certain obligations myself, I cannot afford to work completely for free.
You proceed to haggle. You can't claim to know who came out on top. You'd like to say that orichalcum is invaluable, but who is to say that the time and effort of the World's Greatest Tinker is not? In the end you agree that you'll get two kilos of orichalcum to take home from the first batch, and that Dragon will join you during the tedious smelting process. Together you'll design the combat drone that is to be constructed from her share.
No, you're not deluded enough to think that you could possibly improve on any design Dragon comes up with. Your 'assistance' is part of her payment to you, and you both know it. It is, of course, an excuse for you to study her power, but it's not the least bit suspicious. There is not a Tinker on earth who is not gay for Dragon, and collaborating with her on a project is the equivalent of a writer getting co-authorship credit with Shakespeare.
You did previously go to some effort to keep the true age, gender, etc of Smith obscured, but such concerns went straight out the window as soon as you realized that was on the table. Dragon's power: Worth it, for any conceivable value of 'it'. Hell, if orichalcum was any quicker to make you'd pretend it took a week just to get more study time.
Dragon agrees to provide transport to the factory (it's in Canada, naturally) and you promise to get back to her with details of exactly when and where to pick you up.
As you sign off the computer, there is a part of you that wants to jump up and down and shout 'Jackpot!'. The librarians would not appreciate that, though, so you settle for leaning back in your chair with a quiet, self-satisfied smile. Okay, you panicked a bit at the start there, but you brought it home in the end. Goddamn Dragon is offering up her power to you, ripe for the picking. Are you awesome or what?
Speaking of smug, time to call Lisa. You are, unfortunately, going to need some help on this one.
===
Cricket is... weird. Up close, her metal cage of a mask barely hides her face at all. She was maybe pretty once, it's hard to tell beneath all the scars. Her throat is damaged to the point that she's using an artificial larynx to speak. To reiterate: She's suffering from a crippling injury, with Othala sitting right there. She clearly has a thing about 'honorable battle scars'. Despite this, she hands you a real knife to spar with.
Not that her confidence is misplaced. Distracted as you are, you don't manage to tag her even once. Meanwhile she's putting plenty of holes in you. Compared to sparring with Hookwolf, it's a wash. Broken bones hurt more, but Cricket makes you keep fighting even after you're injured, cutting you over and over until you keel over from blood loss (you deliberately suppress your ability to stop bleeding so as to not give away your Brute rating, turns out that's a thing you can do).
Then Othala fixes you up, and the process starts over. Cricket is clearly punishing you - she didn't go this hard on any of her other students - but throughout it all her expression never changes. You sort of miss the way Hookwolf took obvious pleasure in hurting you. At least that way one of you was having a good time. To top it off, she doesn't even speak enough for you to get a read on her soul's price.
You toss your clothes straight in the trash afterwards. Add to your projected expenses: Two sets of gym clothes per week. Until you get assigned a new sparring partner, they will not be salvageable.
---
School starts to settle into a routine. Now that you know it's possible, the next time you spot Aegis you have Fenrir sniff him as well. With your wolf tracking both him and Gallant, stalking the one while avoiding the other becomes a lot easier. You keep going after school too, working together with your invisible wolf to inconspicuously tail him to his home.
You look at the apartment building in question, vague notions of climbing up to his window to stare at him while he's sleeping dancing in your head. You feel a teensy bit uncomfortable with being this much of a creep, but console yourself with the thought that he's a hero. He probably deserves it.
Before you can creep yourself out too much, it's time for your first aid class. Cricket is there again, you're happy to note, and you proceed to once again ignore the lecture in favor of staring at her. All of the power study, none of the stabbing!
---
The next morning you wake up alone, which is weird. There should be either wolf cuddles, or your dad telling you to get up. He must have checked in on you earlier and decided to let you sleep. You activate sorcerer's sight and look around for your wolf.
There he is, sitting in the corner and- you spin around to face the other way, your cheeks burning. Right, dogs do that. Because, as the saying goes, they can. It's just a lot more awkward to catch them doing it when they are also sapient. You'll- you'll just go have breakfast, he'll catch up with you when he's, er, done.
You're halfway up the stairs when the realization hits you.
He's been licking your face with that tongue.
At least the rest of the day brings no further surprises. School, stalking, stabbings, in chronological order. And inverse order of educational... ness. Educationalness. Yes, that's definitely a word.
"You wanted to see me?"
I briefly wonder if Kaiser's perfectly clean metal desk is just for show, meant to give him an executive air. Between meetings, does he remove the gauntlets and take out the paperwork? Maybe he has a laptop hidden in a drawer? No, focus.
"It's about Low Key," I say. "Can you tell Hookwolf and Cricket not to be so hard on her?"
"I make it a policy not to micromanage the affairs of my subordinates. Hookwolf's training methods are his domain. If you have a complaint, take it up with him."
"He wouldn't listen to me. Please! I- I think she genuinely has a learning disability. ADD or something. But they just keep punishing her, and it isn't working."
He hesitates briefly before speaking. "I'll take that under consideration," he says. My shoulders slump. That means 'no', I can tell.
"Will that be all?" he continues. A clear dismissal. He knows that I'm in no position to bargain. Someone else could threaten to leave unless they got their way, perhaps. I can say without bragging that I am vitally important to the smooth functioning of the Empire. But I could never leave, not while Victor remains. And Victor would not leave, not for my sake, not over something like this.
I can't even go on strike. I've just demonstrated that I'm moved by the suffering of my fellow man. For all that Low Key suffers (without complaint - I shudder to think what her home life must be like that she would accept such treatment) the effect of withholding my services would result in far worse harm. All they would have to do is parade the wounded soldiers in front of me, and I would cave and resume my duties.
I turn away before Kaiser can see the tears forming in my eyes. God, I wish there was something I could do for that girl other than just patch her up again and again.
I briefly wonder if Kaiser's perfectly clean metal desk is just for show, meant to give him an executive air. Between meetings, does he remove the gauntlets and take out the paperwork? Maybe he has a laptop hidden in a drawer? No, focus.
"It's about Low Key," I say. "Can you tell Hookwolf and Cricket not to be so hard on her?"
"I make it a policy not to micromanage the affairs of my subordinates. Hookwolf's training methods are his domain. If you have a complaint, take it up with him."
"He wouldn't listen to me. Please! I- I think she genuinely has a learning disability. ADD or something. But they just keep punishing her, and it isn't working."
He hesitates briefly before speaking. "I'll take that under consideration," he says. My shoulders slump. That means 'no', I can tell.
"Will that be all?" he continues. A clear dismissal. He knows that I'm in no position to bargain. Someone else could threaten to leave unless they got their way, perhaps. I can say without bragging that I am vitally important to the smooth functioning of the Empire. But I could never leave, not while Victor remains. And Victor would not leave, not for my sake, not over something like this.
I can't even go on strike. I've just demonstrated that I'm moved by the suffering of my fellow man. For all that Low Key suffers (without complaint - I shudder to think what her home life must be like that she would accept such treatment) the effect of withholding my services would result in far worse harm. All they would have to do is parade the wounded soldiers in front of me, and I would cave and resume my duties.
I turn away before Kaiser can see the tears forming in my eyes. God, I wish there was something I could do for that girl other than just patch her up again and again.
---
Friday, and Rune is fashionably late as always. The conversation in the bar is a loud argument about whether the Army or the Marine Corps produces the manliest men. Loud, but fundamentally good-natured: Whatever their differences, the soldiers and marines are united by their utter contempt for the Air Force (pronounced 'Chair Force').
Then one of the non-serving members points out that manliness is all well and good, but when was the last time the US was engaged in a just war, exactly? Is anyone here going to pretend that foreign policy isn't completely controlled by you-know-who? He'd rather not get his ass shot off in a desert fighting Israel's enemies, thank you very much - and the less said about WWII, the better. Boy did that torpedo the mood in hurry. What a party pooper.
The patrol itself is just as boring as last time. You take the opportunity to convince Rune to show off a bit: How small a rock can she control?
The answer, it turns out, is that it has to large enough that she can legibly trace her runes on it with a fingernail. Apparently her cape name isn't just a generic norse-sounding word, you hadn't realized that. Your theory of 'magic is real, deal with it' as an explanation for parahuman powers is looking better every day.
It's not just a great help towards understanding her power, you also make sure to pocket the pebbles afterwards. Sorcerer's sight shows that her inscribed objects don't lose their 'charge' just because she stops paying attention, and you just scored a potential power source for your tinkertech.
---
Villains and heroes may take the weekend off, but there's no rest for the rogues. Is that what you are? You've technically joined the Empire, but not for real, and you haven't actually done anything villainous. Taking down Mush was perfectly legal vigilantism! Getting paid for it probably involved some sort of tax code violation though, now that you think about it.
Oh right, Emma. Forgot about her for a moment. That's assault with a parahuman ability, and regular assault (and battery, mustn't forget the other half of the dynamic duo). She deserved it, though. You idly wonder what happened to her brain when you ghosted her and the Loyalty wore off. Probably didn't make her less crazy. There's Blackwell too, you guess (also super deserved). Was that even illegal? You helped her cover up a bunch of crimes, but all them were against you, so that's really just 'not pressing charges', right? Oh, and the business with the gun the other day was technically theft, possibly of government property.
Yep, definitely a rogue.
Aaanyway, the reason you know that heroes get the weekend off is that, surprise, you've been stalking Aegis again. He spent most of Saturday hanging out with friends at the mall, the actions of a perfectly normal teenager. Or so Hollywood tells you, you haven't had a chance to try out the teenager + friends combo yourself.
When your copy of his power actually sticks to your soul, you're so surprised you almost fall over. That was way faster than either of your previous attempts! Then you stumble and almost fall over again, as you feel your guts churn and every bone in your body tingle.
The feeling passes after a few seconds, and you feel... sturdier? Yes. Somewhat. Your flesh still yields when you poke yourself, and bending a finger backwards still hurts. But you also have a conviction, a deep feeling like you get from your other powers, saying 'I am harder to kill'. You'll have to wait for Hookwolf and Cricket to review the changes, but you feel comfortable calling yourself a Brute 1 now.
Although... you poke at the golden construct in your soul. There is no off-switch. No user-serviceable parts inside. Nor can you modify, break or otherwise remove it (you didn't try with your earlier powers, but this one was easy enough to get that you didn't mind experimenting). Okay. So. Turns out that you can acquire powers that permanently change your physical body, and there are no take-backs. That's good to know, and you're incredibly grateful that you learned this from Aegis and not, say, Gregor the Snail.
In fact, you wish everyone was more like Aegis. Flaunting their power wherever they go, never looking behind them, and easy to copy!
---
On Sunday you finally check the status of your latest cape identity, the Tinker. You wanted to get around to it earlier, but for all that Aegis was quick by power acquisition standards, by the time you got his power yesterday the library had already closed.
When you log in to your Tinker account, you find not one but two messages waiting for you. Your heart sinks as you read the first.
From: Armsmaster (Verified cape)
Smith,
I regret to inform you that the Protectorate is not interested in your services at the current time. Rest assured that this is not due to any flaws in the material, as I have personally tested the sample and verified not just its durability but also several intriguing thermal and optical properties. I would personally love nothing more than to have access to a supply of this orichalcum of yours, but alas, it is not up to me.
Despite my recommendation, it was deemed too expensive for the benefits provided. The Protectorate simply does not have the budget to armor its people in gold. Do not let this discourage you, it is a far more common result than people think. Several of my own projects have met the same fate.
If you come up with a more economical method of synthesis, or any other interesting materials, please do not hesitate to contact me again. Either by PM, or by calling me at 555-276774663 (if at all possible, avoid physical letters that set off the metal detectors, delivered by someone who rushes out of the building immediately afterwards).
Regards,
Armsmaster
PS: I took the liberty of forwarding a copy of your letter and the results of my tests to my good friend Dragon of the Guild. Hopefully our Canadian compatriots will be more receptive to your offer.
Smith,
I regret to inform you that the Protectorate is not interested in your services at the current time. Rest assured that this is not due to any flaws in the material, as I have personally tested the sample and verified not just its durability but also several intriguing thermal and optical properties. I would personally love nothing more than to have access to a supply of this orichalcum of yours, but alas, it is not up to me.
Despite my recommendation, it was deemed too expensive for the benefits provided. The Protectorate simply does not have the budget to armor its people in gold. Do not let this discourage you, it is a far more common result than people think. Several of my own projects have met the same fate.
If you come up with a more economical method of synthesis, or any other interesting materials, please do not hesitate to contact me again. Either by PM, or by calling me at 555-276774663 (if at all possible, avoid physical letters that set off the metal detectors, delivered by someone who rushes out of the building immediately afterwards).
Regards,
Armsmaster
PS: I took the liberty of forwarding a copy of your letter and the results of my tests to my good friend Dragon of the Guild. Hopefully our Canadian compatriots will be more receptive to your offer.
You can't help but smile at the parenthetical. Looks like your HoboMail delivery service was enough to cause a stir on its own, even without a mention of tinker-bombs in the address field. At least they seem to have taken it in relatively good humor.
Not that you have any ideas for other metals anyway. It's orichalcum or nothing, your power insists. You can't really complain, it's a discount power that came free with sorcerer's sight and doesn't even show up in your soul. You've also got about 2 hours of Kid Win study already, just from him sketching tinkertech blueprints in class. Maybe that will lead to something.
You're so caught up in your thoughts that you almost miss the postscript. Dragon, as in Greatest Tinker in the World Dragon? Your breath hitches when you see that yes, the second message is indeed from Dragon.
From: Dragon (Verified cape)
I hope I'm not being too forward contacting you like this, but Armsmaster shared the details of your new material with me and I simply could not pass up the opportunity. I've been working on potential anti-Endbringer weaponry lately, and several designs would benefit greatly from improved armor. Please contact me if you are interested in collaboration.
-Dragon
I hope I'm not being too forward contacting you like this, but Armsmaster shared the details of your new material with me and I simply could not pass up the opportunity. I've been working on potential anti-Endbringer weaponry lately, and several designs would benefit greatly from improved armor. Please contact me if you are interested in collaboration.
-Dragon
Your heart starts beating faster as you read. Dragon, the greatest (and richest) Tinker in the world? Endbringers? You knew that your power would eventually take you into the big leagues - unlimited growth does that to a person - but you didn't expect it to happen less than two months in, with only three powers learned.
It then skips a few beats when a small notification appears in the corner of the screen.
Dragon (Verified Cape) has initiated a private conversation
Smith. Saw that you were online. Do you have time to talk?
Your body notices that something tremendously exciting just happened, and helpfully floods itself with adrenaline. You take take a few deep breaths and try to explain to it that it's not in the ancestral environment anymore, you have all sorts of exciting things that don't require an immediate fight-or-flight response nowadays.
It is only moderately successful, and your fingers tremble a little as you type a response.
Gold_Smith: I can spare a few moments.
Dragon: Excellent. Let me slip into something more comfortable, like this cryptographically secure private chatroom: https://drg.ca/9aw769os
You blink. Is... is Dragon flirting with you? You click on the link.
Welcome to private chatroom f3eb22, your handle is 8344ac
(8344ac) has entered the room, 0 slots remaining
Room is now sealed
(a7e659) has renamed (a7e659) to (Dragon)
(Dragon) has renamed (8344ac) to (Smith)
Dragon: Welcome to my lair.
Smith: Very cozy. Let's talk about orichalcum.
Dragon: I'm afraid I'm fresh out of volcanoes, but I can refit one of my factories to accommodate your more modest design in short order. You did not include any notes as to the synthesis process itself, however. Intuitive?
Smith: Very. I will have to be personally present for the full week to ensure everything goes smoothly.
Dragon: It takes a week to synthesize?
Smith: Roughly, yes. Perhaps slightly more. There may be some variation depending on the quality of the equipment. Is that a problem?
Dragon: Not as such, no. It just makes it unlikely that it will be ready before the next endbringer attack.
Smith: There will always be more attacks.
Dragon: That's what we're trying to change here!
Smith: As you say, dear lady. Can you have the factory ready by next weekend? I can take a week off then, but after that my schedule is full for the foreseeable future.
Dragon: That should be doable. Are we agreed, then?
Smith: We haven't discussed how to split the loot.
Dragon: Ah. I... had assumed that it would all go towards the project. I will be providing both the factory and the materials, after all.
Smith: I do have certain obligations myself, I cannot afford to work completely for free.
You proceed to haggle. You can't claim to know who came out on top. You'd like to say that orichalcum is invaluable, but who is to say that the time and effort of the World's Greatest Tinker is not? In the end you agree that you'll get two kilos of orichalcum to take home from the first batch, and that Dragon will join you during the tedious smelting process. Together you'll design the combat drone that is to be constructed from her share.
No, you're not deluded enough to think that you could possibly improve on any design Dragon comes up with. Your 'assistance' is part of her payment to you, and you both know it. It is, of course, an excuse for you to study her power, but it's not the least bit suspicious. There is not a Tinker on earth who is not gay for Dragon, and collaborating with her on a project is the equivalent of a writer getting co-authorship credit with Shakespeare.
You did previously go to some effort to keep the true age, gender, etc of Smith obscured, but such concerns went straight out the window as soon as you realized that was on the table. Dragon's power: Worth it, for any conceivable value of 'it'. Hell, if orichalcum was any quicker to make you'd pretend it took a week just to get more study time.
Dragon agrees to provide transport to the factory (it's in Canada, naturally) and you promise to get back to her with details of exactly when and where to pick you up.
As you sign off the computer, there is a part of you that wants to jump up and down and shout 'Jackpot!'. The librarians would not appreciate that, though, so you settle for leaning back in your chair with a quiet, self-satisfied smile. Okay, you panicked a bit at the start there, but you brought it home in the end. Goddamn Dragon is offering up her power to you, ripe for the picking. Are you awesome or what?
Speaking of smug, time to call Lisa. You are, unfortunately, going to need some help on this one.
===
Armsmaster, AKA 'a civil servant', wept bitter Tinker tears at the opportunity he'd never have. "My budget..."
Dragon, AKA 'the parahuman prison-industrial complex', was overjoyed. "A duranium substitute that only costs slightly more than its weight in gold!?"
Dragon, AKA 'the parahuman prison-industrial complex', was overjoyed. "A duranium substitute that only costs slightly more than its weight in gold!?"
Charms:
Taylor: All-encompassing Sorcerer's Sight
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
Aegis: Ox-Body Technique
Taylor: All-encompassing Sorcerer's Sight
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
Aegis: Ox-Body Technique
Last edited:
S.17
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
- Messages
- 245
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- 16,616
"'sup Merlin," Lisa greets you. "Learn any cool spells lately?"
"They're not spells," you insist. You raise your hand to forestall her reply. "Spells need incantations and eye of newt and stuff. They're more like... cantrips? Charms."
Lisa is undeterred, and seamlessly switches tracks. "You realize your pedantry just gave me even more material, right? You've been working your charms across the Empire, have you?"
"Shut up." You pout at her.
"Aw, no results yet? No luck playing the field?" She waggles her eyebrows gratuitously. "Are you sure monogamy is not right for you after all? What we had was beautiful, and actually gave results after a week. ...There's a joke about making babies in there somewhere, with your powers being the offspring."
"You are the worst, you know that right?" You understand the point she's making, but you're not going to play along. Why did you agree to come here and be Lisa'd at, again? Oh wait, it was your own idea. Shit.
"I try. How's the dog?" Her eyes flicker to the side, demonstrating that she can figure out where Fenrir is from watching your body language. "Are you taking care of his needs?"
Your mind flashes back to what you saw the other day. While you were able to take her earlier teasing with grudging amusement, this sally has you blushing beet red and speechless. Did she seriously just imply-
Lisa stares at you for a second, then lets out a startled laugh. "Christ, Taylor. I meant whether you'd started feeding him. Not- sorry."
"I have," you mutter, trying to regain your composure. As you desperately cast about for some way to change the subject, a hero appears to save you.
"Wanna see something funny?" you ask. "Behind you, five o'clock."
Lisa twists around just in time to see Glory Girl come swooping down out of the sky, landing next to Panacea. She gives her sister a hug, then sweeps her up in a bridal carry and flies off with her. You observe Lisa's power making all the relevant connections.
"Huh," she says. "That sure is a thing. How'd you- soul's price, right?"
"Yeah. Thinker dibs, by the way."
"What?"
"I figured it out first, I call dibs on using it."
Lisa seems slightly taken aback. "Would you actually-"
"Eeh." You make a weighing motion with your hand. "Probably not. Blackmail material if nothing else. Dibs."
"Fair enough."
You stare after the receding dot that is the New Wave sisters, lost in thought. "I wonder about that girl, you know. Is she even second generation? Her power is nothing like her family, and she's certainly fucked up enough for a proper trigger event."
You catch a flash of power from the corner of your eye, but don't manage to turn back in time to catch what Lisa just figured out.
"Oh," she says. "You're half right."
"Second generation, but adopted?" you hazard, and Lisa nods. "Who are her real parents?"
"I don't think I should tell you. Thinker dibs, you know."
"Hey, I told you mine!"
"Technically you just pointed it out, I had to use my own power to figure it out. I guess if you ever meet someone whose soul price is the death of all New Wave except Panacea, you'll figure it out too."
"Wait, they fucking abducted her from her parents? What the fuck is wrong with heroes?" Seriously, it's like as soon as someone starts calling themselves a hero they lose all sense of right and wrong.
"Mhmm. No more clues for you, I think." Lisa gives no sign of being outraged, but then she's been in the game longer than you. You're clearly still green if you get worked up over little things like kidnapping a child for her potential future powers.
"Speaking of heroes," Lisa continues, "how's Arcadia?" She tries her trademark grin on for size, but you shut that down.
"Nope. Nuh-uh. You don't get to be smug about that one, I literally sent you a picture of the place."
"Fine, fine. So, gonna brag about the swag or what?" That she's asking about what you stole, and not whose locker it was or why you wanted in there, indicates that she's figured those out herself. Which incidentally means that she knows what Kid Win looks like under the mask, since his face was visible in the video you sent her. Neither of you mention the fact. Unwritten rules, paper thin but still present.
"Obtaining the swag wasn't really the point," you demur. "Um..." You hesitate, but you do need to get to the point sooner or later. "The reason I called was that I need your help." You desperately try not to grimace as you admit it.
Lisa leans forward. "Do tell."
"I need an alibi, sort of." Lisa elects not to use her power to jump ahead in the conversation, and simply gestures for you to go on. Probably wants to enjoy your discomfort for as long as possible. "I need to leave town over winter break. Dad would never let me go on my own, but if he could meet my friend Lisa, who invited me along on her skiing vacation..."
"I see," Lisa says, drawing out the 'see' into a sentence all of its own. She leans back in her chair and crosses her arms. "Four hundred bucks."
"Excuse me?" You're not bothering to hide your shock. She's never asked you for money before.
"Oh? Are you telling me you've resolved your stupid fucking issues about accepting 'pity' from your friends? Are you maybe ready to come hang out with Rachel and me instead of..." her power goes off and her voice rises as she hears what it says "...letting Hookwolf abuse you? Instead of being used as a child soldier by a fucking nazi regime? I'm not even going to mention whatever hare-brained scheme you're leaving town for-" because she hasn't been able to figure out any details, you think smugly "-but let's not pretend that I'm not doing you a favor by not doing this as a favor."
You slap four hundred dollars on the table. Her power tells her that you're grateful.
---
Convincing your dad to go along with the plan is incredibly easy. Not surprising: Your happiness is his soul's price. Lisa makes an excellent impression too, being all 'mister Hebert' this, and 'I've been doing my best to keep Taylor out of trouble' that. Bitch. She has more trouble convincing him that he doesn't need to help pay for anything.
He does try to make you promise to call him every day. You haggle him down to every other day, Christ, you're not nine years old. You have been out of the house before. He and Lisa share a smarmy adult laugh at your irritation.
"I like her. She seems like a good influence," he says after she leaves.
"I'm so glad you approve of my friends." You roll your eyes, every inch the sullen teenager, and get your hair mussed up in return. Yes dad, you certainly put one over on your daughter there, and not the other way around.
---
Of course the very next day the universe decides it's time to take all your plans and throw them out the window. But for once, it does so in a nice way.
There's a new parahuman in school. You stop and stare, causing one of your classmates to bump into you from behind.
"Hey, what are-" She follows your gaze. "Pretty nice. But do watch where you're going, eh?" She gives you a sly grin and a nudge.
Hm? You suppose the view is nice, when you take the time to look beneath the glow. A football player's build, tall and well muscled. Nice face, strong jaw. Just the way you like them. Then you're distracted from his physical appearance when his glow starts pulsing. Actively using his power! Just the way you like them.
But who is he? The Wards are all accounted for. Unless that's Triumph? You've read that Wards are usually promoted to full Protectorate some months before or after their actual birthday, to obscure their identities. It's plausible that Triumph could still be in school. Except Triumph's power is weaponized shouting, and that's not what this guy is doing.
More importantly, how the hell did you miss him for an entire week? Maybe he's a transfer student? He does look a bit lost, unless that's just him concentrating on his power. No, when you think about it you definitely recall seeing him before, only he wasn't glowing then.
Oh. Fresh trigger. You wince in sympathy. No wonder he's looking lost. And experimenting with his power in public. Must be a subtle one, then. You re-focus on the glow, trying to make out- autobiokinesis! Change all the plans, you must have this man!
Ok, focus. You're approaching a handsome older boy with amorous intent. Last time didn't exactly go great, but you weren't really trying then. This time around, failure is not an option. You spend a minute making preparations on your phone, then move in for the kill. Class is going to start any minute.
"You look a bit lost," you tell him as an opener.
"Hm? Yeah, I suppose." He doesn't even turn to look at you.
"I know something that could help with that."
"Oh?" The monosyllable is barely even a question, but at least he shifts his attention in your general direction.
"What you need is a brainless action movie, with a pretty girl on your arm." You make a show of looking around. "Shit, looks like there aren't any around. You'll have to make do with me."
"Hey-"
He lifts a hand and starts to object, but you wave him off. "No, no. No need for empty flattery, I already agreed to go out with you. Five o'clock at the Bayside Cinema work for you?" You hold up your phone, showing two tickets to Hard Capes 3: Revengeance just waiting for a press of the 'confirm' button.
"Uh... Sure."
"Great!" You tap the button with a flourish. "I'm Taylor, by the way."
"Cliff." He takes your offered hand just as the bell rings.
"See you there!"
Soul's price? Yes, that counted as an interaction.
Cliff wants to understand why. Why anything? Why everything.
Wow, that guy sure is out of it. Not that you blame him, because see above re: trigger event. You're just happy that you're in a position to help him feel better and/or take advantage of his emotional vulnerability.
---
As soon as the first class ends, you start working on everything else that must change to accommodate this development.
"Trouble?" Lisa answers her phone. Of course she knows who's calling. Of course she knows it's not a social call.
"Meet me right after school. No wait, during lunchtime. I'll be outside." You hang up. She'll figure out that it isn't an emergency, just urgent.
Then you put away your phone, and take out your other phone. Your Empire phone.
"What's up, Low Key?" You don't recognize the voice, but you don't know everyone in ops yet.
"Two hundred and eighty-three."
"Fifty-three. You know you don't need to use recognition codes when calling from your own phone, right?"
"Oh, uh, sorry. I forgot. I just wanted to say, I won't be available for patrol this week or the next."
"Kaiser will not be happy to hear that, especially on such short notice."
"You tell Schlomo he can dock my pay however much he wants, there's nothing I can do about it. When mom declares a family vacation, I don't get a say in the matter. I'm not the head of the household, yeah?"
You can hear the guy on the other side turn his head and relay this information to the rest of the room. Someone shouts "fuck!", presumably the guy in charge of patrol schedules.
"Acknowledged." He hangs up. Yeah, you made the nazis a bit grumpy, but all else has to bend in service of this opportunity.
---
"I need to get in touch with Toybox," you greet Lisa. "Yesterday, preferably."
"Are you doing this deliberately because I- you're not. Another cape? I guess you're just a busy, busy bee."
You shrug. "You know how it is. No rest for the rogues."
"Is that what you are?" she asks, amusement clear in her voice as she echoes your thoughts from the other day.
You shrug again. "I don't dress up in spandex and rob banks, so I'm not a villain. And I don't hurt innocents, so I'm not a hero."
"Fair enough. But for the record, I don't rob banks either. Too high profile."
"About Toybox..."
"Sure, sure. I guess it's on the house, since it's part of your vacation package." A few taps on her phone, and you hear the beep of a message notification from your pocket. "There. You simply must tell me how it all went when you get back."
As soon as Lisa leaves, you're on the line negotiating a rush order with a collective of mercenary Tinkers. They're indifferent at first, but become eager to please when you mention that you might be willing to part with some experimental dimension-phasing tinkertech that fell off the back of a Protectorate truck.
You're feeling a bit frazzled, but you would be lying if you claimed you weren't enjoying every minute of it. It contains fewer soul prices than expected, but this is exactly the fast-paced, interlocking shenanigans you wanted from the morally-ambiguous-Santa-Claus lifestyle.
Oh shit, you almost forgot to call your dad.
"Dockworker's Union, Hebert speaking."
"Hi dad."
"Taylor! Is something wrong?"
"No, no. Just wanted to let you know not to wait up for me tonight."
"Another party? It's good that you're telling me, but-"
"Not a party, a date."
"Well then I'm definitely setting a curfew." His tone is light and teasing, but you can tell that he's 100% serious underneath. "Be home by ten o'clock, or else. And I had better approve of this young man!"
"Yyyeah no not going to do that." You're going to maximize access to Cliff's power regardless of all other considerations, he'll just have to deal.
"Taylor-"
"Dad! I'm not going to put out on the first date!"
Your exclamation draws a few amused glances from passersby, but it's worth it for the spluttering sounds coming through the phone.
"That is what a curfew is meant to prevent, isn't it?" you continue at a more subdued volume. "Please have a little faith in me."
"It's not- It's not just that. You know I don't like you running about late at night."
"Oh, you don't have to worry about that, you should see the muscles on Cliff. Such delicious muscles. That I'm definitely not going to sleep with tonight."
He sighs. "This is what I get for telling you that I approve of your friends, isn't it?"
"Yep. Real dumb move, that. See you tomorrow!"
With that, you hang up. He's either going to grin and bear it or come storming into school and cause a huge scene. 80/20, you'd say.
===
"They're not spells," you insist. You raise your hand to forestall her reply. "Spells need incantations and eye of newt and stuff. They're more like... cantrips? Charms."
Lisa is undeterred, and seamlessly switches tracks. "You realize your pedantry just gave me even more material, right? You've been working your charms across the Empire, have you?"
"Shut up." You pout at her.
"Aw, no results yet? No luck playing the field?" She waggles her eyebrows gratuitously. "Are you sure monogamy is not right for you after all? What we had was beautiful, and actually gave results after a week. ...There's a joke about making babies in there somewhere, with your powers being the offspring."
"You are the worst, you know that right?" You understand the point she's making, but you're not going to play along. Why did you agree to come here and be Lisa'd at, again? Oh wait, it was your own idea. Shit.
"I try. How's the dog?" Her eyes flicker to the side, demonstrating that she can figure out where Fenrir is from watching your body language. "Are you taking care of his needs?"
Your mind flashes back to what you saw the other day. While you were able to take her earlier teasing with grudging amusement, this sally has you blushing beet red and speechless. Did she seriously just imply-
Lisa stares at you for a second, then lets out a startled laugh. "Christ, Taylor. I meant whether you'd started feeding him. Not- sorry."
"I have," you mutter, trying to regain your composure. As you desperately cast about for some way to change the subject, a hero appears to save you.
"Wanna see something funny?" you ask. "Behind you, five o'clock."
Lisa twists around just in time to see Glory Girl come swooping down out of the sky, landing next to Panacea. She gives her sister a hug, then sweeps her up in a bridal carry and flies off with her. You observe Lisa's power making all the relevant connections.
"Huh," she says. "That sure is a thing. How'd you- soul's price, right?"
"Yeah. Thinker dibs, by the way."
"What?"
"I figured it out first, I call dibs on using it."
Lisa seems slightly taken aback. "Would you actually-"
"Eeh." You make a weighing motion with your hand. "Probably not. Blackmail material if nothing else. Dibs."
"Fair enough."
You stare after the receding dot that is the New Wave sisters, lost in thought. "I wonder about that girl, you know. Is she even second generation? Her power is nothing like her family, and she's certainly fucked up enough for a proper trigger event."
You catch a flash of power from the corner of your eye, but don't manage to turn back in time to catch what Lisa just figured out.
"Oh," she says. "You're half right."
"Second generation, but adopted?" you hazard, and Lisa nods. "Who are her real parents?"
"I don't think I should tell you. Thinker dibs, you know."
"Hey, I told you mine!"
"Technically you just pointed it out, I had to use my own power to figure it out. I guess if you ever meet someone whose soul price is the death of all New Wave except Panacea, you'll figure it out too."
"Wait, they fucking abducted her from her parents? What the fuck is wrong with heroes?" Seriously, it's like as soon as someone starts calling themselves a hero they lose all sense of right and wrong.
"Mhmm. No more clues for you, I think." Lisa gives no sign of being outraged, but then she's been in the game longer than you. You're clearly still green if you get worked up over little things like kidnapping a child for her potential future powers.
"Speaking of heroes," Lisa continues, "how's Arcadia?" She tries her trademark grin on for size, but you shut that down.
"Nope. Nuh-uh. You don't get to be smug about that one, I literally sent you a picture of the place."
"Fine, fine. So, gonna brag about the swag or what?" That she's asking about what you stole, and not whose locker it was or why you wanted in there, indicates that she's figured those out herself. Which incidentally means that she knows what Kid Win looks like under the mask, since his face was visible in the video you sent her. Neither of you mention the fact. Unwritten rules, paper thin but still present.
"Obtaining the swag wasn't really the point," you demur. "Um..." You hesitate, but you do need to get to the point sooner or later. "The reason I called was that I need your help." You desperately try not to grimace as you admit it.
Lisa leans forward. "Do tell."
"I need an alibi, sort of." Lisa elects not to use her power to jump ahead in the conversation, and simply gestures for you to go on. Probably wants to enjoy your discomfort for as long as possible. "I need to leave town over winter break. Dad would never let me go on my own, but if he could meet my friend Lisa, who invited me along on her skiing vacation..."
"I see," Lisa says, drawing out the 'see' into a sentence all of its own. She leans back in her chair and crosses her arms. "Four hundred bucks."
"Excuse me?" You're not bothering to hide your shock. She's never asked you for money before.
"Oh? Are you telling me you've resolved your stupid fucking issues about accepting 'pity' from your friends? Are you maybe ready to come hang out with Rachel and me instead of..." her power goes off and her voice rises as she hears what it says "...letting Hookwolf abuse you? Instead of being used as a child soldier by a fucking nazi regime? I'm not even going to mention whatever hare-brained scheme you're leaving town for-" because she hasn't been able to figure out any details, you think smugly "-but let's not pretend that I'm not doing you a favor by not doing this as a favor."
You slap four hundred dollars on the table. Her power tells her that you're grateful.
---
Convincing your dad to go along with the plan is incredibly easy. Not surprising: Your happiness is his soul's price. Lisa makes an excellent impression too, being all 'mister Hebert' this, and 'I've been doing my best to keep Taylor out of trouble' that. Bitch. She has more trouble convincing him that he doesn't need to help pay for anything.
He does try to make you promise to call him every day. You haggle him down to every other day, Christ, you're not nine years old. You have been out of the house before. He and Lisa share a smarmy adult laugh at your irritation.
"I like her. She seems like a good influence," he says after she leaves.
"I'm so glad you approve of my friends." You roll your eyes, every inch the sullen teenager, and get your hair mussed up in return. Yes dad, you certainly put one over on your daughter there, and not the other way around.
---
Of course the very next day the universe decides it's time to take all your plans and throw them out the window. But for once, it does so in a nice way.
There's a new parahuman in school. You stop and stare, causing one of your classmates to bump into you from behind.
"Hey, what are-" She follows your gaze. "Pretty nice. But do watch where you're going, eh?" She gives you a sly grin and a nudge.
Hm? You suppose the view is nice, when you take the time to look beneath the glow. A football player's build, tall and well muscled. Nice face, strong jaw. Just the way you like them. Then you're distracted from his physical appearance when his glow starts pulsing. Actively using his power! Just the way you like them.
But who is he? The Wards are all accounted for. Unless that's Triumph? You've read that Wards are usually promoted to full Protectorate some months before or after their actual birthday, to obscure their identities. It's plausible that Triumph could still be in school. Except Triumph's power is weaponized shouting, and that's not what this guy is doing.
More importantly, how the hell did you miss him for an entire week? Maybe he's a transfer student? He does look a bit lost, unless that's just him concentrating on his power. No, when you think about it you definitely recall seeing him before, only he wasn't glowing then.
Oh. Fresh trigger. You wince in sympathy. No wonder he's looking lost. And experimenting with his power in public. Must be a subtle one, then. You re-focus on the glow, trying to make out- autobiokinesis! Change all the plans, you must have this man!
Ok, focus. You're approaching a handsome older boy with amorous intent. Last time didn't exactly go great, but you weren't really trying then. This time around, failure is not an option. You spend a minute making preparations on your phone, then move in for the kill. Class is going to start any minute.
"You look a bit lost," you tell him as an opener.
"Hm? Yeah, I suppose." He doesn't even turn to look at you.
"I know something that could help with that."
"Oh?" The monosyllable is barely even a question, but at least he shifts his attention in your general direction.
"What you need is a brainless action movie, with a pretty girl on your arm." You make a show of looking around. "Shit, looks like there aren't any around. You'll have to make do with me."
"Hey-"
He lifts a hand and starts to object, but you wave him off. "No, no. No need for empty flattery, I already agreed to go out with you. Five o'clock at the Bayside Cinema work for you?" You hold up your phone, showing two tickets to Hard Capes 3: Revengeance just waiting for a press of the 'confirm' button.
"Uh... Sure."
"Great!" You tap the button with a flourish. "I'm Taylor, by the way."
"Cliff." He takes your offered hand just as the bell rings.
"See you there!"
Soul's price? Yes, that counted as an interaction.
Cliff wants to understand why. Why anything? Why everything.
Wow, that guy sure is out of it. Not that you blame him, because see above re: trigger event. You're just happy that you're in a position to help him feel better and/or take advantage of his emotional vulnerability.
---
As soon as the first class ends, you start working on everything else that must change to accommodate this development.
"Trouble?" Lisa answers her phone. Of course she knows who's calling. Of course she knows it's not a social call.
"Meet me right after school. No wait, during lunchtime. I'll be outside." You hang up. She'll figure out that it isn't an emergency, just urgent.
Then you put away your phone, and take out your other phone. Your Empire phone.
"What's up, Low Key?" You don't recognize the voice, but you don't know everyone in ops yet.
"Two hundred and eighty-three."
"Fifty-three. You know you don't need to use recognition codes when calling from your own phone, right?"
"Oh, uh, sorry. I forgot. I just wanted to say, I won't be available for patrol this week or the next."
"Kaiser will not be happy to hear that, especially on such short notice."
"You tell Schlomo he can dock my pay however much he wants, there's nothing I can do about it. When mom declares a family vacation, I don't get a say in the matter. I'm not the head of the household, yeah?"
You can hear the guy on the other side turn his head and relay this information to the rest of the room. Someone shouts "fuck!", presumably the guy in charge of patrol schedules.
"Acknowledged." He hangs up. Yeah, you made the nazis a bit grumpy, but all else has to bend in service of this opportunity.
---
"I need to get in touch with Toybox," you greet Lisa. "Yesterday, preferably."
"Are you doing this deliberately because I- you're not. Another cape? I guess you're just a busy, busy bee."
You shrug. "You know how it is. No rest for the rogues."
"Is that what you are?" she asks, amusement clear in her voice as she echoes your thoughts from the other day.
You shrug again. "I don't dress up in spandex and rob banks, so I'm not a villain. And I don't hurt innocents, so I'm not a hero."
"Fair enough. But for the record, I don't rob banks either. Too high profile."
"About Toybox..."
"Sure, sure. I guess it's on the house, since it's part of your vacation package." A few taps on her phone, and you hear the beep of a message notification from your pocket. "There. You simply must tell me how it all went when you get back."
As soon as Lisa leaves, you're on the line negotiating a rush order with a collective of mercenary Tinkers. They're indifferent at first, but become eager to please when you mention that you might be willing to part with some experimental dimension-phasing tinkertech that fell off the back of a Protectorate truck.
You're feeling a bit frazzled, but you would be lying if you claimed you weren't enjoying every minute of it. It contains fewer soul prices than expected, but this is exactly the fast-paced, interlocking shenanigans you wanted from the morally-ambiguous-Santa-Claus lifestyle.
Oh shit, you almost forgot to call your dad.
"Dockworker's Union, Hebert speaking."
"Hi dad."
"Taylor! Is something wrong?"
"No, no. Just wanted to let you know not to wait up for me tonight."
"Another party? It's good that you're telling me, but-"
"Not a party, a date."
"Well then I'm definitely setting a curfew." His tone is light and teasing, but you can tell that he's 100% serious underneath. "Be home by ten o'clock, or else. And I had better approve of this young man!"
"Yyyeah no not going to do that." You're going to maximize access to Cliff's power regardless of all other considerations, he'll just have to deal.
"Taylor-"
"Dad! I'm not going to put out on the first date!"
Your exclamation draws a few amused glances from passersby, but it's worth it for the spluttering sounds coming through the phone.
"That is what a curfew is meant to prevent, isn't it?" you continue at a more subdued volume. "Please have a little faith in me."
"It's not- It's not just that. You know I don't like you running about late at night."
"Oh, you don't have to worry about that, you should see the muscles on Cliff. Such delicious muscles. That I'm definitely not going to sleep with tonight."
He sighs. "This is what I get for telling you that I approve of your friends, isn't it?"
"Yep. Real dumb move, that. See you tomorrow!"
With that, you hang up. He's either going to grin and bear it or come storming into school and cause a huge scene. 80/20, you'd say.
===
If Browbeat has a canon name I'm not aware of, please do tell me. If not, his name is Cliff.
Knowing the Soul's Price explicitly guarantees that everyone has a soul's price to take advantage of, and implicitly guarantees that it's something theoretically achievable. Which means that, for example, it will never be 'resurrect their dead lover' because in the Exalted cosmology true resurrection is impossible.
(Good thing too, or Danny's soul price would have been a lot more depressing)
So apparently in this cosmology, there must exist an answer to life, the universe and everything? Neat.
(Good thing too, or Danny's soul price would have been a lot more depressing)
So apparently in this cosmology, there must exist an answer to life, the universe and everything? Neat.
S.18
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
- Messages
- 245
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- 16,616
What you'd like to do after school is to rush home and shower and panic over the fact that you don't have the first idea about how makeup works. Not that anything short of cosmetic surgery could make you pretty. Well either that or, you know, autobiokinesis. A catch 22.
You don't have time for panic, though. Cliff will have to put up with you as you are. You have to get to the library.
You clearly need a better method of communicating with Dragon, but you're not going to contact the greatest Tinker in the world from your private phone. That's just asking for trouble. Which is why you stop to buy another phone on your way to the library. This won't get confusing in any way. After all, you're only carrying around a Low Key phone, a Smith phone, a Taylor phone, and a Santa Claus phone right now.
In addition to giving Dragon Smith's number, you arrange your rendezvous. You already set a time and a place to take delivery from Toybox, so you tell Dragon to pick you up a few minutes later and a few blocks away from that spot.
Of course there is a slight issue in that the time is on Friday and the place is in Boston. Turns out Toybox doesn't deliver to Brockton Bay. You don't mind as such, obfuscating your home town a bit to Dragon doesn't hurt at all, but you're sort of meant to be in school on Fridays. You have brand new squeaky clean academic record at Arcadia that could survive a dent or two, but the dad situation is a bit volatile right now.
You'll bring it up in a day or two, when he's calmed down a bit. Something something Lisa wants to leave early to avoid the holiday rush.
---
Turns out you didn't need to worry about your slovenly appearance, because Cliff shows up at the cinema still wearing his school clothes. He may or may not have sat around staring at the wall until it was time to go.
The movie is entirely forgettable. Probably. If, against all odds, it had some hidden spark of artistic merit in there, neither of you would be able to tell. You're both entirely focused on his power. Cliff stares at nothing, you stare at him. He occasionally glances your way, and you offer him a (hopefully non-creepy) smile each time. Don't worry buddy, the staring is from infatuation. Nobody has discovered that you're parahuman.
You're vaguely aware from musical cues that the hero of the movie just got the girl when you feel a pair of lips against yours. You jerk back in shock. You were so focused on recreating a particularly tricky bit of his power that you didn't even notice him move.
"Sorry," Cliff says. "I just thought... the way you were looking at me..."
Shit! Damage control time. "No, no! I don't mind! You just startled me, that's all. Um, please try again?"
He does. It's... nice? He's an adequate kisser, you guess? Not that you're any judge (having never been kissed before), but you don't feel any of the world-shaking, breath-taking sensations that romance novels claim should go along with the experience.
Actually, there is a certain warm, fluttery excitement developing in your chest and stomach. A certain urge to, well, kiss him back. So you do. You wrap your arms around him and pull yourself into his lap.
Oh god, you hope you're an adequate kisser.
He doesn't complain, at least. By the time you pull away you're flushed and breathing heavily. Okay, maybe you were a bit quick to judge. It definitely got better as it went on, and ended up a lot better than 'adequate'.
The movie goes back to less romantic imagery as the girl is kidnapped by the villain and the vengeful hero starts tearing his way through dozens of hapless mooks. You try to get your head back in the game and focus on power theft.
---
When the villain is defeated and the girl saved (you assume - at least, the credits roll) Cliff insists on buying you dinner, since you paid for the tickets. You let him. It's nothing fancy, a burger and fries that isn't fast food. In the language of restaurants, 'I like you, but I'm not planning on marrying you any time soon.'
Neither of you is much of a talker, but whenever the silence threatens to become awkward you just lean over and kiss him again. No reason not to combine business and pleasure. You don't do it too often, though, as that has a tendency to make him forget about his power and focus on you for a while.
Heh. Lucky bastard, isn't he? He found a date who actively wants him to not pay attention to her.
When he does speak, it mostly brief but thoughtful statements on the nature of, well, just about anything that catches his attention. How many people eat Worcestershire sauce without knowing where Worcestershire is, or even that it's a place rather than brand name. Pithy observations about how the Great Plains and cattle farming influenced the American diet. How many people were involved in the supply chain leading to creation of his chair, and how many chairs must be produced for that to make economic sense.
It's the sort of things you had never bothered to consider, but you suppose they serve as a foundation for someone trying to understand the meaning/purpose of life? Maybe?
At one point he does seem to get inspired, and goes on an extended philosophical inquiry/rhetorical question about why kissing evolved to be pleasurable. It's obvious why certain other activities did, but kissing is technically entirely optional as far as procreation is concerned.
"I could stop if you want," you say teasingly. "Since it's optional."
He completely misses the chance to flirt back with something like 'no, I must collect more data', of course, and just goes on speculating. It is sort of romantic in its own way, you suppose. At least until he starts contrasting it to how birds feed each other, ie by puking into each others' mouths.
"Have you considered the hypothesis that we were created by a benevolent God that wants us to be happy?" you ask.
"Yes," he says, dead serious. You laugh, and kiss him again.
It's amazing how long you can keep a boy's attention with nothing but inexpert small talk and sporadic makeouts. After the meal you go for a walk, then walk some more to find a place that serves coffee that's still open. By the time you finally get home, it's after midnight.
Cliff insists on driving you home rather than letting you walk on your own. You'd probably be safer walking even if you weren't parahuman, because Cliff doesn't stop focusing on his power just because he's behind the wheel. You make sure your seatbelt is secure and keep on studying him. By now his constant shapeshifting experiments have given him a Brute rating almost as good as your own. Flimsy as Brutes go, in other words, but easily enough to, say, walk away more or less unharmed from a car accident at city driving speeds.
He walks you to your door, and you kiss him goodnight even though your dad is watching through the window. He stayed up waiting for you despite you explicitly telling him not to do that, because of course he did.
"Still a virgin!" you announce after shutting the door behind you. "Now go to bed, you have work tomorrow."
Danny opens his mouth, then closes it again. Your sudden usurpation of the scolding high ground seems to have put him off his stride. He spends a few moments debating whether he ought to become angry before finally chuckling and shaking his head.
"Try not to hate your old man too much for worrying about you, okay?"
"'kay." You give him a quick hug before heading towards your room.
"I will want to meet him before too long, though," he calls behind you.
"Do the same thing tomorrow, but invite him in this time? Can do, dad!" You skip down the steps with a song in your heart.
---
The next morning in school you make a beeline for Cliff - you had Fenrir take a sniff of him yesterday so you would always be able to track him down. It's not creepy stalking if you're actually dating the guy!
You greet him with a hug and a kiss. "So, did it help?" you ask, and frown at his blank look. "Well, maybe we didn't get the dosage right. Wanna try again today?" you ask.
"I have practice today."
"Oh." You could always back off and make do with the Aegis method, ie regular old-fashioned stalking. But that's nowhere near as efficient, and your schedule is touch and go as it is. "Can I come watch?"
"Sure, if you want." The shrug is apparent in his voice, if not his body language.
---
Somewhat to your surprise, practice turns out to be baseball rather than football. But on further consideration, it suits him.
It's not that you hate baseball or anything (you'd have to emigrate in shame), but when you get right down to it it's a sport where the majority of players spend the majority of their time not actually doing anything. And no one is better at standing around lost in thought than Cliff.
Okay, that sounded sort of mean, even in your own head. You mentally apologize to boyfriend and baseball both. You wonder whether you'd have had a thought like 'the fundamental nature of baseball is standing around waiting for something to happen' before yesterday. Cliff must be rubbing off on you, if you've started analyzing things like that. You certainly rubbed yourself against him enough last night.
(In practice it's actually more 'jumping in place to keep warm' than 'standing around', because February is still a thing right now)
"Did you have fun?" he asks afterwards. You get the feeling that he's less interested in your mental state and more interested in modeling the entertainment value of chilly baseball practice.
"I could watch all day," you answer truthfully.
"You're a lucky guy, Cliff!" one of his teammates calls. "I wish my girlfriend was interested in baseball."
"Yeah, me too!" another one agrees.
"I wish I had a girlfriend at all," a third boy says.
"Maybe if you did something about the way you smell, you'd get one."
"Well, that and your stupid face."
"And your tiny dick!"
"Man, fuck you guys."
"With a dick that tiny, we wouldn't notice if you did!"
Ah, teenage boys.
"Do you want to come over to my place?" you ask Cliff, to general approving noises. "Not the way they think. My dad wants to meet you."
"Oh man, the bait and switch. She's heartless!"
"Run, Cliff! Run while you still can."
"Yeah, okay," Cliff says. To you, not the guy telling him to run away. Possibly because running away would take more effort.
---
"He seems nice, but a little... off?" is Danny's verdict, once Cliff has left and you're washing up after dinner.
"Yeah, he had a traumatic experience recently," you say.
"Oh. Is that why you- no, never mind. Forget I said anything."
"...yes. Yes, that's why I." What can you say? It's completely true. The reason you're together is that you both had trigger events.
"Sorry."
"Please don't bring it up in front of him. It's a touchy subject." Also Cliff doesn't know that you know.
---
To your dismay, Cliff isn't working on his biokinesis any more when you find him the next day. Instead he's subtly playing with... telekinesis? Nothing visible, just creating a layer of repelling force next to his skin. You can't be sure without closer study, but you suspect that his Brute rating just shot straight past yours and well into 'combat viable' territory.
So, he got a double ticket in the power lottery. Some people have all the luck. Not as much luck as you, of course, but the people with that kind of power luck can be counted on the fingers of one thumb (the thumb is named Eidolon).
Unfortunately, telekinesis is not what you want out of this relationship. But you can fix this.
You press yourself up against him and whisper in his ear, "I swear you get more handsome every day." You pretend not to notice as he panics, drops the shield and frantically sends his power roving through his body, looking for anything out of place, any forgotten alteration or visible sign of his internal remodeling.
Finding nothing, he starts reversing his Brute improvements anyway, just to be safe. Because when your girlfriend tells you that something is different, you don't stop looking just because you're 99% sure she's having you on. Though usually it's her own appearance she's commenting on.
---
You catch Glory Girl giving you the stink-eye during lunch, as you sit snuggled up against Cliff. You smirk at her in return. Your sudden and overly affectionate attachment to Cliff in no way invalidates the narrative playing out in her head. Her theory about your closet status has the benefit of being almost entirely unfalsifiable. You can almost see the little countdown timer to acrimonious relationship collapse ticking away behind her eyes. She'll feel so validated when it turns out she was right all along.
"So," you ask Cliff, "what do you want to do today?"
"You could come over to my place," he says, unexpectedly showing a modicum of initiative. Is he actually getting better?
"My turn to meet your parents, eh?"
"My parents won't be home."
Well then! When this guy finally does takes the initiative, he sure doesn't drop it halfway!
"Okay," you say.
---
So. Your boyfriend, who's a bit older than you, has invited you back to his place, where his parents are conspicuously absent. If this was an educational movie, this would be the part where he tries to pressure you into doing something that you're not ready for, and you break up with him and find a nice boy your own age who is willing to take things slow.
Cliff is a total gentleman, though. He lets you take the lead, and in no way tries to make you... well, okay, total personal honesty time? You're not sure there is anything you're not prepared to do in order to get your hands on autobiokinesis. But you're grateful to Cliff for not making you find out! He's perfectly happy just to take a leisurely stroll over to second base and settle down there for the evening.
Heh, baseball metaphors.
Due to certain distractions on both your parts, you don't get as much power study in as you'd like. You almost had it on that last attempt, though. Tomorrow for sure.
You've also clearly proven that powers vary in complexity. Aegis was easier than Rachel was easier than Lisa, but Cliff is definitely harder than Aegis (though still easier than Rachel). So it's not you getting better over time, there's some other factor at play. You'll need more powers to establish a pattern, though.
---
Just as expected, you get his power on your very next try on Thursday, before you even have a chance to say hello.
===
You don't have time for panic, though. Cliff will have to put up with you as you are. You have to get to the library.
You clearly need a better method of communicating with Dragon, but you're not going to contact the greatest Tinker in the world from your private phone. That's just asking for trouble. Which is why you stop to buy another phone on your way to the library. This won't get confusing in any way. After all, you're only carrying around a Low Key phone, a Smith phone, a Taylor phone, and a Santa Claus phone right now.
In addition to giving Dragon Smith's number, you arrange your rendezvous. You already set a time and a place to take delivery from Toybox, so you tell Dragon to pick you up a few minutes later and a few blocks away from that spot.
Of course there is a slight issue in that the time is on Friday and the place is in Boston. Turns out Toybox doesn't deliver to Brockton Bay. You don't mind as such, obfuscating your home town a bit to Dragon doesn't hurt at all, but you're sort of meant to be in school on Fridays. You have brand new squeaky clean academic record at Arcadia that could survive a dent or two, but the dad situation is a bit volatile right now.
You'll bring it up in a day or two, when he's calmed down a bit. Something something Lisa wants to leave early to avoid the holiday rush.
---
Turns out you didn't need to worry about your slovenly appearance, because Cliff shows up at the cinema still wearing his school clothes. He may or may not have sat around staring at the wall until it was time to go.
The movie is entirely forgettable. Probably. If, against all odds, it had some hidden spark of artistic merit in there, neither of you would be able to tell. You're both entirely focused on his power. Cliff stares at nothing, you stare at him. He occasionally glances your way, and you offer him a (hopefully non-creepy) smile each time. Don't worry buddy, the staring is from infatuation. Nobody has discovered that you're parahuman.
You're vaguely aware from musical cues that the hero of the movie just got the girl when you feel a pair of lips against yours. You jerk back in shock. You were so focused on recreating a particularly tricky bit of his power that you didn't even notice him move.
"Sorry," Cliff says. "I just thought... the way you were looking at me..."
Shit! Damage control time. "No, no! I don't mind! You just startled me, that's all. Um, please try again?"
He does. It's... nice? He's an adequate kisser, you guess? Not that you're any judge (having never been kissed before), but you don't feel any of the world-shaking, breath-taking sensations that romance novels claim should go along with the experience.
Actually, there is a certain warm, fluttery excitement developing in your chest and stomach. A certain urge to, well, kiss him back. So you do. You wrap your arms around him and pull yourself into his lap.
Oh god, you hope you're an adequate kisser.
He doesn't complain, at least. By the time you pull away you're flushed and breathing heavily. Okay, maybe you were a bit quick to judge. It definitely got better as it went on, and ended up a lot better than 'adequate'.
The movie goes back to less romantic imagery as the girl is kidnapped by the villain and the vengeful hero starts tearing his way through dozens of hapless mooks. You try to get your head back in the game and focus on power theft.
---
When the villain is defeated and the girl saved (you assume - at least, the credits roll) Cliff insists on buying you dinner, since you paid for the tickets. You let him. It's nothing fancy, a burger and fries that isn't fast food. In the language of restaurants, 'I like you, but I'm not planning on marrying you any time soon.'
Neither of you is much of a talker, but whenever the silence threatens to become awkward you just lean over and kiss him again. No reason not to combine business and pleasure. You don't do it too often, though, as that has a tendency to make him forget about his power and focus on you for a while.
Heh. Lucky bastard, isn't he? He found a date who actively wants him to not pay attention to her.
When he does speak, it mostly brief but thoughtful statements on the nature of, well, just about anything that catches his attention. How many people eat Worcestershire sauce without knowing where Worcestershire is, or even that it's a place rather than brand name. Pithy observations about how the Great Plains and cattle farming influenced the American diet. How many people were involved in the supply chain leading to creation of his chair, and how many chairs must be produced for that to make economic sense.
It's the sort of things you had never bothered to consider, but you suppose they serve as a foundation for someone trying to understand the meaning/purpose of life? Maybe?
At one point he does seem to get inspired, and goes on an extended philosophical inquiry/rhetorical question about why kissing evolved to be pleasurable. It's obvious why certain other activities did, but kissing is technically entirely optional as far as procreation is concerned.
"I could stop if you want," you say teasingly. "Since it's optional."
He completely misses the chance to flirt back with something like 'no, I must collect more data', of course, and just goes on speculating. It is sort of romantic in its own way, you suppose. At least until he starts contrasting it to how birds feed each other, ie by puking into each others' mouths.
"Have you considered the hypothesis that we were created by a benevolent God that wants us to be happy?" you ask.
"Yes," he says, dead serious. You laugh, and kiss him again.
It's amazing how long you can keep a boy's attention with nothing but inexpert small talk and sporadic makeouts. After the meal you go for a walk, then walk some more to find a place that serves coffee that's still open. By the time you finally get home, it's after midnight.
Cliff insists on driving you home rather than letting you walk on your own. You'd probably be safer walking even if you weren't parahuman, because Cliff doesn't stop focusing on his power just because he's behind the wheel. You make sure your seatbelt is secure and keep on studying him. By now his constant shapeshifting experiments have given him a Brute rating almost as good as your own. Flimsy as Brutes go, in other words, but easily enough to, say, walk away more or less unharmed from a car accident at city driving speeds.
He walks you to your door, and you kiss him goodnight even though your dad is watching through the window. He stayed up waiting for you despite you explicitly telling him not to do that, because of course he did.
"Still a virgin!" you announce after shutting the door behind you. "Now go to bed, you have work tomorrow."
Danny opens his mouth, then closes it again. Your sudden usurpation of the scolding high ground seems to have put him off his stride. He spends a few moments debating whether he ought to become angry before finally chuckling and shaking his head.
"Try not to hate your old man too much for worrying about you, okay?"
"'kay." You give him a quick hug before heading towards your room.
"I will want to meet him before too long, though," he calls behind you.
"Do the same thing tomorrow, but invite him in this time? Can do, dad!" You skip down the steps with a song in your heart.
---
The next morning in school you make a beeline for Cliff - you had Fenrir take a sniff of him yesterday so you would always be able to track him down. It's not creepy stalking if you're actually dating the guy!
You greet him with a hug and a kiss. "So, did it help?" you ask, and frown at his blank look. "Well, maybe we didn't get the dosage right. Wanna try again today?" you ask.
"I have practice today."
"Oh." You could always back off and make do with the Aegis method, ie regular old-fashioned stalking. But that's nowhere near as efficient, and your schedule is touch and go as it is. "Can I come watch?"
"Sure, if you want." The shrug is apparent in his voice, if not his body language.
---
Somewhat to your surprise, practice turns out to be baseball rather than football. But on further consideration, it suits him.
It's not that you hate baseball or anything (you'd have to emigrate in shame), but when you get right down to it it's a sport where the majority of players spend the majority of their time not actually doing anything. And no one is better at standing around lost in thought than Cliff.
Okay, that sounded sort of mean, even in your own head. You mentally apologize to boyfriend and baseball both. You wonder whether you'd have had a thought like 'the fundamental nature of baseball is standing around waiting for something to happen' before yesterday. Cliff must be rubbing off on you, if you've started analyzing things like that. You certainly rubbed yourself against him enough last night.
(In practice it's actually more 'jumping in place to keep warm' than 'standing around', because February is still a thing right now)
"Did you have fun?" he asks afterwards. You get the feeling that he's less interested in your mental state and more interested in modeling the entertainment value of chilly baseball practice.
"I could watch all day," you answer truthfully.
"You're a lucky guy, Cliff!" one of his teammates calls. "I wish my girlfriend was interested in baseball."
"Yeah, me too!" another one agrees.
"I wish I had a girlfriend at all," a third boy says.
"Maybe if you did something about the way you smell, you'd get one."
"Well, that and your stupid face."
"And your tiny dick!"
"Man, fuck you guys."
"With a dick that tiny, we wouldn't notice if you did!"
Ah, teenage boys.
"Do you want to come over to my place?" you ask Cliff, to general approving noises. "Not the way they think. My dad wants to meet you."
"Oh man, the bait and switch. She's heartless!"
"Run, Cliff! Run while you still can."
"Yeah, okay," Cliff says. To you, not the guy telling him to run away. Possibly because running away would take more effort.
---
"He seems nice, but a little... off?" is Danny's verdict, once Cliff has left and you're washing up after dinner.
"Yeah, he had a traumatic experience recently," you say.
"Oh. Is that why you- no, never mind. Forget I said anything."
"...yes. Yes, that's why I." What can you say? It's completely true. The reason you're together is that you both had trigger events.
"Sorry."
"Please don't bring it up in front of him. It's a touchy subject." Also Cliff doesn't know that you know.
---
To your dismay, Cliff isn't working on his biokinesis any more when you find him the next day. Instead he's subtly playing with... telekinesis? Nothing visible, just creating a layer of repelling force next to his skin. You can't be sure without closer study, but you suspect that his Brute rating just shot straight past yours and well into 'combat viable' territory.
So, he got a double ticket in the power lottery. Some people have all the luck. Not as much luck as you, of course, but the people with that kind of power luck can be counted on the fingers of one thumb (the thumb is named Eidolon).
Unfortunately, telekinesis is not what you want out of this relationship. But you can fix this.
You press yourself up against him and whisper in his ear, "I swear you get more handsome every day." You pretend not to notice as he panics, drops the shield and frantically sends his power roving through his body, looking for anything out of place, any forgotten alteration or visible sign of his internal remodeling.
Finding nothing, he starts reversing his Brute improvements anyway, just to be safe. Because when your girlfriend tells you that something is different, you don't stop looking just because you're 99% sure she's having you on. Though usually it's her own appearance she's commenting on.
---
You catch Glory Girl giving you the stink-eye during lunch, as you sit snuggled up against Cliff. You smirk at her in return. Your sudden and overly affectionate attachment to Cliff in no way invalidates the narrative playing out in her head. Her theory about your closet status has the benefit of being almost entirely unfalsifiable. You can almost see the little countdown timer to acrimonious relationship collapse ticking away behind her eyes. She'll feel so validated when it turns out she was right all along.
"So," you ask Cliff, "what do you want to do today?"
"You could come over to my place," he says, unexpectedly showing a modicum of initiative. Is he actually getting better?
"My turn to meet your parents, eh?"
"My parents won't be home."
Well then! When this guy finally does takes the initiative, he sure doesn't drop it halfway!
"Okay," you say.
---
So. Your boyfriend, who's a bit older than you, has invited you back to his place, where his parents are conspicuously absent. If this was an educational movie, this would be the part where he tries to pressure you into doing something that you're not ready for, and you break up with him and find a nice boy your own age who is willing to take things slow.
Cliff is a total gentleman, though. He lets you take the lead, and in no way tries to make you... well, okay, total personal honesty time? You're not sure there is anything you're not prepared to do in order to get your hands on autobiokinesis. But you're grateful to Cliff for not making you find out! He's perfectly happy just to take a leisurely stroll over to second base and settle down there for the evening.
Heh, baseball metaphors.
Due to certain distractions on both your parts, you don't get as much power study in as you'd like. You almost had it on that last attempt, though. Tomorrow for sure.
You've also clearly proven that powers vary in complexity. Aegis was easier than Rachel was easier than Lisa, but Cliff is definitely harder than Aegis (though still easier than Rachel). So it's not you getting better over time, there's some other factor at play. You'll need more powers to establish a pattern, though.
---
Just as expected, you get his power on your very next try on Thursday, before you even have a chance to say hello.
I see Taylor approaching, and remember to smile this time. Little things. Work on the little things, until they become automatic once more. Taylor never seems to mind when I forget, though. I like that about her.
However, she does not greet me with her usual enthusiasm today. Instead she stops at arm's length and looks me over critically. Perhaps she prefers that I don't smile?
"It's not helping, is it?" she asks. I don't understand what she means.
She sighs, then moves up to kiss me on the cheek. "Good luck," she says as she turns to leave.
She's breaking up with me, I suddenly realize. She did offer that first date as a means of helping me recover. Everything that followed as well, clearly.
I want to call out, to stop her. But she's right. It wasn't helping. She offered me a kindness, gave it her best shot, and it failed. I have no further claim to her time.
I reach up to touch my face where she kissed me. It wasn't helping, but it was nice. I wouldn't have minded- no, I would've liked for it to continue.
Alas.
However, she does not greet me with her usual enthusiasm today. Instead she stops at arm's length and looks me over critically. Perhaps she prefers that I don't smile?
"It's not helping, is it?" she asks. I don't understand what she means.
She sighs, then moves up to kiss me on the cheek. "Good luck," she says as she turns to leave.
She's breaking up with me, I suddenly realize. She did offer that first date as a means of helping me recover. Everything that followed as well, clearly.
I want to call out, to stop her. But she's right. It wasn't helping. She offered me a kindness, gave it her best shot, and it failed. I have no further claim to her time.
I reach up to touch my face where she kissed me. It wasn't helping, but it was nice. I wouldn't have minded- no, I would've liked for it to continue.
Alas.
===
In my original outline I had Taylor learn shapeshifting from Oliver, after she ran into him at a butcher shop (her buying meat for Fenrir, him for Noelle). Then I realized that the Travelers don't come to Brockton Bay until after Dinah gets kidnapped.
After having spent a fair few minutes swearing over having to throw the whole thing out and start over, I suddenly remembered Browbeat. It's not just a meme, I had honestly forgotten that Browbeat existed. It's not a perfect solution, but having his mental issues reach their tipping point in February instead of early March can safely be blamed on butterflies.
After having spent a fair few minutes swearing over having to throw the whole thing out and start over, I suddenly remembered Browbeat. It's not just a meme, I had honestly forgotten that Browbeat existed. It's not a perfect solution, but having his mental issues reach their tipping point in February instead of early March can safely be blamed on butterflies.
Charms:
Taylor: All-encompassing Sorcerer's Sight
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
Aegis: Ox-Body Technique
Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form
Taylor: All-encompassing Sorcerer's Sight
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
Aegis: Ox-Body Technique
Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form
Shaping the Ideal Form is a 1e charm, even though I'm using 2e otherwise. That's because in 2e, not even lunars can shapeshift. Sure, they can eat people to steal their form, but freeform shapeshifting? No.
The closest thing is an abyssal charm that lets you walk through a field of corpses, absorbing and resculpting them and replacing an arbitrary amount of your own flesh with theirs. Side effects may include changing your creature type from 'human' to 'magical zombie' (but usually no one notices this, because abyssals are already magical zombies).
That doesn't mean that exalts are bad at disguising themselves. Whether it's making mundane disguises supernaturally convincing, or reaching into the Matrix to edit your own metadata headers directly, or wrapping yourself in the unspeakable shadow of the prince of all lies... Most exalted methods of making people think you're someone else are better than the humble Shaping the Ideal Form.
But that's not what Browbeat does, so I'm using StIF. It's not OP or anything - in function it's a more limited version of the solar charm Flawlessly Impenetrable Disguise: FID makes a disguise that's impossible to see through because a solar says so and reality will just have to deal, while StIF makes one that's impossible to see through because that's really what you look like now.
The closest thing is an abyssal charm that lets you walk through a field of corpses, absorbing and resculpting them and replacing an arbitrary amount of your own flesh with theirs. Side effects may include changing your creature type from 'human' to 'magical zombie' (but usually no one notices this, because abyssals are already magical zombies).
That doesn't mean that exalts are bad at disguising themselves. Whether it's making mundane disguises supernaturally convincing, or reaching into the Matrix to edit your own metadata headers directly, or wrapping yourself in the unspeakable shadow of the prince of all lies... Most exalted methods of making people think you're someone else are better than the humble Shaping the Ideal Form.
But that's not what Browbeat does, so I'm using StIF. It's not OP or anything - in function it's a more limited version of the solar charm Flawlessly Impenetrable Disguise: FID makes a disguise that's impossible to see through because a solar says so and reality will just have to deal, while StIF makes one that's impossible to see through because that's really what you look like now.
Someone snuck a note into my locker. The message is short and unambiguous, yet incredibly confusing.
Don't join the wards
- a friend
Someone knows. Who? A friend, ostensibly. Why does this friend not identify themselves?
Who does know? My parents. My psychiatrist. Any number of people at the hospital, who might have noticed my unnaturally speedy recovery. The PRT, if the hospital contacted them. I can rule out the PRT, they would not dissuade me from joining the Wards. Unless... the Wards are being treated badly, and this is a whistleblower of sorts? That would explain the subterfuge.
Assume it's not a friend. A villain would obviously be interested in preventing the rise of more heroes. But if a villain knows enough to find my locker, there are more direct ways to deal with me. Perhaps they fear my power, and do not feel confident in victory? Are they hoping to recruit me? Why not include a recruitment pitch, then?
Unless-
Don't join the wards
- a friend
Someone knows. Who? A friend, ostensibly. Why does this friend not identify themselves?
Who does know? My parents. My psychiatrist. Any number of people at the hospital, who might have noticed my unnaturally speedy recovery. The PRT, if the hospital contacted them. I can rule out the PRT, they would not dissuade me from joining the Wards. Unless... the Wards are being treated badly, and this is a whistleblower of sorts? That would explain the subterfuge.
Assume it's not a friend. A villain would obviously be interested in preventing the rise of more heroes. But if a villain knows enough to find my locker, there are more direct ways to deal with me. Perhaps they fear my power, and do not feel confident in victory? Are they hoping to recruit me? Why not include a recruitment pitch, then?
Unless-
S.19
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
- Messages
- 245
- Likes received
- 16,616
Autobiokinesis! The ability to change your appearance at will! There is no single greater boon for a cape trying to juggle multiple identities.
That's what you were telling yourself when you prioritized its acquisition above everything else.
What actually happens once you get it is that you rush home and use your newest superpower to give yourself the oldest superpower.
That's a euphemism for 'tits', in case there was any confusion on that point.
Your vanity has already been established, okay? You're not ashamed. You're only doing what any 'late bloomer' (judging by your mom, closer to 'never' than 'late') in your situation would do, no matter how much they'd lie about it if asked.
Nor are you ashamed of going to the internet for help when it turns out that tits are more complicated than they look. Bigger is better, yeah? But 'saggy' is definitely bad, while 'perky' is highly sought after. Yet merciless gravity conspires to foil your attempts at having the best of both worlds. There must be some trick to it, right?
But searching for 'breast physics' on your phone mostly brings up a lot of video games you have no particular interest in playing.
None of the technical anatomy resources you find help either, being focused on function (and dysfunction - you learn more about breast cancer than you ever wanted to know) over form. You're reduced to trial and error, standing in front of the bathroom mirror and repeatedly growing, shrinking and reshaping your bosom.
At some point in this process you realize another important criteria for an attractive mammary, and 'how to spot fake tits' enters your search history. Not ashamed.
At least here the internet is helpful, providing you with a huge list of 'don'ts' with plentiful illustrations.
You eventually get the hang of it, you think, and start producing good-looking results. Although... as a heterosexual female you're not really the target audience here.
You do another search, this time for 'best-looking breasts'. Not. Ashamed.
Unsurprisingly, the internet has your back here as well. You find a quaint little forum where boob lovers from across the globe gather to share, discuss and rate the very finest pictures of breasts.
Those guys really know their business, too. Looking at the top-rated entries, even you can tell that those are some amazing fucking knockers.
Inspired, you resume shaping the ideal form with renewed vigor. Only to be interrupted by your dad banging on the bathroom door.
"Taylor? Are you alright? You've been in there forever."
Crap.
"Be right out!" you yell. You hurriedly slurp your new tits back into your chest and wriggle back into your shirt. Wow, changing that quickly takes a lot out of you. You feel as if you just ran a hundred-meter dash. Better not do that again.
You barge outside, almost catching your dad with the door. "Sorry!"
It's not until he clears his throat and looks away that you realize your mistake. You're fully dressed, but... after being called out, you left the bathroom instantly without any flushing or running water, out of breath and with your face bright red.
Nope. Nope nope nope nope, you're not thinking about what he's thinking you were doing in there, nope. You're running straight to your room and burying your face in your pillow and hoping to die.
That's quite enough excitement for one night. Yep. You're done.
You don't strip off your shirt and keep experimenting. Nope. Not down here were Fenrir can see you.
You definitely don't take a picture of the results and upload it to the boob lover forum before you go to sleep, and it doesn't get 627 views and an average rating of 8.6/10 by the time you wake up.
Of course not. That would imply that you went to sleep, as opposed to staying up all night to prepare for your business trip. You know, the stuff you had planned to do earlier in the evening, before you succumbed to the siren song of breast augmentation.
Danny makes no attempt to hide his amusement when you show up at breakfast.
"Too excited to sleep?" You grunt in the affirmative. "I suppose it's an improvement compared your first summer camp. As I recall, quite a bit of kicking and screaming was involved in getting you out the door then. What was it you said when we dropped you off? 'You can force me to go, but I refuse to have fun.' Even though it was your own idea in the first place!"
It's a good attempt, but between the lack of an audience and your semi-conscious state this tale of youthful indiscretions fails to achieve the proper sting of mortification. You zombie your way through breakfast until the honking of a car horn outside signals that it's time to leave. A glance through the window shows Lisa waving at you from the driver's seat of a dinged-up white van.
You try to make your way outside through a storm of last-minute fussing. "Did you remember to pack everything?", "Don't forget to call!", "Try to break at most one leg!", "Love you!".
"Love you too," you say before shutting the door in his face and dragging your suitcase to the street.
"Is there a reason you didn't come into the driveway?" you ask Lisa as you get in the passenger seat.
"Didn't want your dad to get a look at the plates, just in case."
You take a second to digest this statement. "You stole a car to cover for me?"
"No, I borrowed it from Rachel. Who, admittedly, stole it." Ah, that's what the smell is. "Now, where do I drop you off? Bus terminal?"
"That works."
---
Lisa stops the car. You fish a backpack out of your overstuffed suitcase.
"Hold on to this for me?" The suitcase contains everything that would make dad suspicious if you didn't bring, not things you actually need. Not that you expect him to rifle through your drawers in your absence, but better safe than sorry.
"I should be charging extra for this," Lisa says. You reach into a pocket and toss a couple of crumpled twenties at her.
"That was a joke," she protests, but she makes no move to hand the money back.
"Was it." You quite deliberately leave out the question mark.
Lisa sighs and rolls her eyes at you, and on that note you part ways.
You have one errand to run before you get on the bus, though. You quickly locate a suitable hair salon. Not one of the fancy ones that other Arcadia kids might go to, but rather a cozy little establishment whose understated, handwritten signage almost makes you think it's trying to hide itself - probably from the IRS.
"I need you to wax me a bald spot," you tell the proprietor.
"Excuse me?"
"I lost a bet, all right?" If there's one upside to being a teenager, it's that no one doubts you when you claim to have made terrible life choices.
"Shouldn't you be in school?"
"Be hard for me to pay you if I was."
---
Freshly shorn beneath your hoodie, you catch the next bus for Boston. Fenrir comes along, of course, though if everything goes well he'll materialize exactly once over the next week. The wolf walks into the bus with his feet still on the asphalt. From inside the bus it looks for all the world like he's wading, head and shoulders sticking up from the floor (well, for all the world except you it doesn't look like anything at all, because he's invisible).
Then he gathers himself and jumps straight up, landing lightly on the floor of the bus itself - but still phasing through the seats, as he's too big to fit in the aisle. Clearly the physics of his intangibility is just 'whatever is most convenient at the time' scribbled on a napkin.
You settle down in the back of the bus, hunch down to let your hoodie hide your face, and prepare to do the scariest thing you've ever done: You're about to turn into a completely different person.
What if you can't turn back? What if you forget what you used to look like? Yes, one of your cellphones now holds more than a hundred pictures of yourself, from every possible angle. But you didn't bring it with you. The peace of mind was not worth all the wacky hijinks that would ensue if Smith (ostensibly male, fifty-ish) was found to be in possession of naked pictures of a 15 year old girl.
What if something happens to that cellphone while you're gone?
You grit your teeth, and get down to business. Ever so slowly your hands start to grow, your dainty girl fingers replaced by the meaty paws of a man with a lifetime of manual labor behind him. Your forearms swell to match, then your upper arms, followed by a widening of your shoulders. Unlike Cliff you don't actually gain any muscle mass this way, you just spread what you have across a larger space. A pity, but you've come to terms with such degradation in copied powers.
Your hair becomes short and speckled with gray. Experimentation showed that you can modify your hair freely, but not remove it. Which is why you had to contract out your male pattern baldness. You do what you can with the rest of your body hair, lengthening, thickening and darkening it to make it look denser than it really is. You'll be wearing long sleeves anyway.
Making doubly sure no one is paying attention to you, you pull out a small hand mirror and start working on your face. First you sculpt a handsome manly jaw, then you hide it behind jowls and sagging flesh. Add some faint wrinkles to taste, a bit of sunburn and general weathering. A liver spot or two? Best not to go overboard. Grow the eyebrows out a bit, though.
Then you work your way downwards, removing what little feminine curves you posses and adding that most masculine of curves, the beer belly. A slight thickening of your legs follows. Finally you exchange your shoes for an old pair of your dad's and grow your feet to match.
You don't even try to modify the downstairs plumbing. You're not crazy. A padded jockstrap will do just fine.
After somewhat less than three hours you arrive at your destination and take a moment to stretch your legs. You would have loved to sleep on the bus, but your experience yesterday taught you that shapeshifting is best done slowly and deliberately. As expected, no one paid enough attention to you to notice that the person that got on the bus was not quite the same as the one that left. Not that it's all that noticeable, underneath the loose, baggy clothing you wear.
Ironic, that your depressing wardrobe still comes in handy even after you got the power to deal with the body image issues that inspired it. Is that irony? People are so picky about that...
Once again you find yourself changing underwear in an alley, though this set is padded in quite the opposite way from the ones you usually wear.
You also change into the rest of your Smith costume. It's not much of a costume, really: One of your dad's old shirts, worn enough that it's only used for yard work anymore, and a matching pair of pants. Gloves, because while you could make yourself a new set of fingerprints, you don't trust your ability to put the old ones back correctly. Finally a leather apron that you found lying on the floor of your appropriated forge, even more battered than the rest of the outfit.
It's very authentically blue collar, you'll give it that.
You also switch your glasses for another, less girly pair. Technically these also belonging to your dad, but he got a new pair years ago. They're not quite your prescription, but close enough.
At your command Fenrir materializes briefly and drops off the gun he's been carrying the whole time. Dog Burglar's Smuggling Company: Accept no substitutes when moving unregistered weapons across state lines. You hand him a bag of incriminatingly girl-specific clothing to dematerialize.
Next order of business, thankfully, is a nap. You deliberately arrived early to give Fenrir a chance to recharge after giving you the gun, just in case Toybox tries anything. You don't expect them to, they have a reputation to maintain after all. But again, better safe than sorry.
---
You arrive at the designed meeting point - a quiet area behind some industrial properties - five minutes early with a scarf wrapped around your face. Two minutes before the appointed time two people pop into existence with nothing but a faint breeze of displaced air.
Sorcerer's sight confirms their parahuman status, as if their fashion sense wasn't clue enough.
The larger figure is wearing fully enclosed power armor. Where Armsmaster's tech is sleek and futuristic, this suit is bulky and industrial, and none too clean. The unpainted metal is generously adorned with oil stains and scorch marks. They are empty-handed, for all that that matters when their augmented grip could crush your skull like a grape.
The other - a woman - is technically wearing a light blue bodysuit, but mostly she's wearing tinker-tech. The bandoliers crossing her chest, her belt and even some sort of half holster, half garter arrangements on her thighs are all dangling with devices, less than half of which are (obvious) weapons. Her mask is a plain white number, with an attached hood hiding her hair.
On spotting you, she grabs one of the non-weapon devices and points it at you. It goes 'ding'.
"He's armed," she says. "Basic concussive projector."
Moving slowly, you pull out Kid Win's gun from behind your apron, gripping the barrel between your thumb and forefinger.
"That would be the merchandize," her companion says. The speaker system of his armor isn't the best, but he sounds male beneath the buzzing and crackling. You suspect that it's an affectation, because anyone with the technical knowledge and resources to make goddamn power armor could certainly get a better speaker system than that.
You nod, and approach to hand the gun over to the woman.
"Why the heck would anyone build a phasing system into a gun?" she asks rhetorically.
"Not everyone is as enthusiastic about carrying their gear around as you are, Glace."
She scoffs, but takes the gun from you. She reaches down to her belt and detaches what you now recognize as your order.
"Here, look it over while we do the same," she tells you.
The thing she hands you is a mask, black with metallic highlights. You requested that it look 'like I didn't care about how it looks', and they followed your instructions to a T. You suspect that your friend in the power armor is responsible for the design, as it has the same heavy industrial aesthetic.
When worn it will wrap all the way around your head, covering your nose, mouth and cheeks, curving up to cover your ears (with slots to accommodate glasses) and cradling the back of your skull.
Good thing it's a lot lighter than it looks, or it would be incredibly uncomfortable.
Clamped in the hinge is the instruction manual, three loose A4 pages of printed text.
You ignore the other features for now and look for the voice changer function, the whole reason you wanted a tinkertech mask in the first place.
The controls turn out to be a set of physical sliders hidden behind a panel that would normally rest against your left cheek. You slide the top one, that the manual designates 'pitch/gender' all the way to the right, leaving 'distortion' and 'reverb' in place. Then you reconsider, and instead slide it all the way to the left. It's only natural to try out the most extreme setting first. And for Smith, who obviously has a deep male voice...
You turn away from the Tinkers, unwrap your scarf and put on the mask. Not that you care whether anyone sees Smith's totally real and not at all brand new face, but verisimilitude demands shyness.
"Testing, testing," you say. Your voice always sounds different to yourself, but with the 'calibration' switch enabled the built-in headphones play back what it sounded like to others.
What it sounded like was five year old girl, if the girl in question had been held down and forced to breathe helium until she triggered with chipmunk powers.
You try again with the slider at the other extreme, and your voice becomes an almost incomprehensible bass rumble. They certainly didn't scrimp on the range, though the precision leaves a bit to be desired as a result.
The Tinkers are hunched over the screen of some sort of diagnostic tool Glace has attached to the gun. They are so engrossed that they don't even look up as you doff and don the mask several times, fiddling with the settings.
"I'm satisfied," you announce in your new voice. When that gets no reaction, you walk over and wave your hand in front of Glace's face.
"Hm? Oh. Yeah. Your goods check out as well." She heaves a sigh. "God, what I wouldn't give to work under Armsmaster. This stuff is crazy."
"How's the fit?" her companion asks you.
"It's fine." It was a bit iffy at first, but you quickly adjusted your face to make it more comfortable. "How long does the battery last?"
"RTFM," Glace says. Her companion gives her a light nudge. Light by power armor standards, it still sends her stumbling back.
"About a month, longer if you turn off the phone system," he says politely.
"Pleasure doing business with Toybox." You shake hands with both of them.
"Likewise, Smith. Don't hesitate to contact us again should you find something else of this quality." He hesitates a moment, then adds "You're a pretty trusting guy, coming here alone and essentially unarmed. Most of our customers are a lot more paranoid."
You laugh, and the voice changer does a surprisingly good job of turning your laughter masculine while still conveying your genuine glee (mostly at passing as a 'guy').
"You think your little scan found all my weapons. That's adorable."
Rather than take offense at the implied insult to her tech, Glace nudges her friend back (he of course does not budge an inch). "Hear that, Toy? You're adorable."
Toy nods. "I am adorable."
"See you around," Glace says.
With that they take a few steps back, and vanish as quickly as they appeared.
That's what you were telling yourself when you prioritized its acquisition above everything else.
What actually happens once you get it is that you rush home and use your newest superpower to give yourself the oldest superpower.
That's a euphemism for 'tits', in case there was any confusion on that point.
Your vanity has already been established, okay? You're not ashamed. You're only doing what any 'late bloomer' (judging by your mom, closer to 'never' than 'late') in your situation would do, no matter how much they'd lie about it if asked.
Nor are you ashamed of going to the internet for help when it turns out that tits are more complicated than they look. Bigger is better, yeah? But 'saggy' is definitely bad, while 'perky' is highly sought after. Yet merciless gravity conspires to foil your attempts at having the best of both worlds. There must be some trick to it, right?
But searching for 'breast physics' on your phone mostly brings up a lot of video games you have no particular interest in playing.
None of the technical anatomy resources you find help either, being focused on function (and dysfunction - you learn more about breast cancer than you ever wanted to know) over form. You're reduced to trial and error, standing in front of the bathroom mirror and repeatedly growing, shrinking and reshaping your bosom.
At some point in this process you realize another important criteria for an attractive mammary, and 'how to spot fake tits' enters your search history. Not ashamed.
At least here the internet is helpful, providing you with a huge list of 'don'ts' with plentiful illustrations.
You eventually get the hang of it, you think, and start producing good-looking results. Although... as a heterosexual female you're not really the target audience here.
You do another search, this time for 'best-looking breasts'. Not. Ashamed.
Unsurprisingly, the internet has your back here as well. You find a quaint little forum where boob lovers from across the globe gather to share, discuss and rate the very finest pictures of breasts.
Those guys really know their business, too. Looking at the top-rated entries, even you can tell that those are some amazing fucking knockers.
Inspired, you resume shaping the ideal form with renewed vigor. Only to be interrupted by your dad banging on the bathroom door.
"Taylor? Are you alright? You've been in there forever."
Crap.
"Be right out!" you yell. You hurriedly slurp your new tits back into your chest and wriggle back into your shirt. Wow, changing that quickly takes a lot out of you. You feel as if you just ran a hundred-meter dash. Better not do that again.
You barge outside, almost catching your dad with the door. "Sorry!"
It's not until he clears his throat and looks away that you realize your mistake. You're fully dressed, but... after being called out, you left the bathroom instantly without any flushing or running water, out of breath and with your face bright red.
Nope. Nope nope nope nope, you're not thinking about what he's thinking you were doing in there, nope. You're running straight to your room and burying your face in your pillow and hoping to die.
That's quite enough excitement for one night. Yep. You're done.
You don't strip off your shirt and keep experimenting. Nope. Not down here were Fenrir can see you.
You definitely don't take a picture of the results and upload it to the boob lover forum before you go to sleep, and it doesn't get 627 views and an average rating of 8.6/10 by the time you wake up.
Of course not. That would imply that you went to sleep, as opposed to staying up all night to prepare for your business trip. You know, the stuff you had planned to do earlier in the evening, before you succumbed to the siren song of breast augmentation.
Danny makes no attempt to hide his amusement when you show up at breakfast.
"Too excited to sleep?" You grunt in the affirmative. "I suppose it's an improvement compared your first summer camp. As I recall, quite a bit of kicking and screaming was involved in getting you out the door then. What was it you said when we dropped you off? 'You can force me to go, but I refuse to have fun.' Even though it was your own idea in the first place!"
It's a good attempt, but between the lack of an audience and your semi-conscious state this tale of youthful indiscretions fails to achieve the proper sting of mortification. You zombie your way through breakfast until the honking of a car horn outside signals that it's time to leave. A glance through the window shows Lisa waving at you from the driver's seat of a dinged-up white van.
You try to make your way outside through a storm of last-minute fussing. "Did you remember to pack everything?", "Don't forget to call!", "Try to break at most one leg!", "Love you!".
"Love you too," you say before shutting the door in his face and dragging your suitcase to the street.
"Is there a reason you didn't come into the driveway?" you ask Lisa as you get in the passenger seat.
"Didn't want your dad to get a look at the plates, just in case."
You take a second to digest this statement. "You stole a car to cover for me?"
"No, I borrowed it from Rachel. Who, admittedly, stole it." Ah, that's what the smell is. "Now, where do I drop you off? Bus terminal?"
"That works."
---
Lisa stops the car. You fish a backpack out of your overstuffed suitcase.
"Hold on to this for me?" The suitcase contains everything that would make dad suspicious if you didn't bring, not things you actually need. Not that you expect him to rifle through your drawers in your absence, but better safe than sorry.
"I should be charging extra for this," Lisa says. You reach into a pocket and toss a couple of crumpled twenties at her.
"That was a joke," she protests, but she makes no move to hand the money back.
"Was it." You quite deliberately leave out the question mark.
Lisa sighs and rolls her eyes at you, and on that note you part ways.
You have one errand to run before you get on the bus, though. You quickly locate a suitable hair salon. Not one of the fancy ones that other Arcadia kids might go to, but rather a cozy little establishment whose understated, handwritten signage almost makes you think it's trying to hide itself - probably from the IRS.
"I need you to wax me a bald spot," you tell the proprietor.
"Excuse me?"
"I lost a bet, all right?" If there's one upside to being a teenager, it's that no one doubts you when you claim to have made terrible life choices.
"Shouldn't you be in school?"
"Be hard for me to pay you if I was."
---
Freshly shorn beneath your hoodie, you catch the next bus for Boston. Fenrir comes along, of course, though if everything goes well he'll materialize exactly once over the next week. The wolf walks into the bus with his feet still on the asphalt. From inside the bus it looks for all the world like he's wading, head and shoulders sticking up from the floor (well, for all the world except you it doesn't look like anything at all, because he's invisible).
Then he gathers himself and jumps straight up, landing lightly on the floor of the bus itself - but still phasing through the seats, as he's too big to fit in the aisle. Clearly the physics of his intangibility is just 'whatever is most convenient at the time' scribbled on a napkin.
You settle down in the back of the bus, hunch down to let your hoodie hide your face, and prepare to do the scariest thing you've ever done: You're about to turn into a completely different person.
What if you can't turn back? What if you forget what you used to look like? Yes, one of your cellphones now holds more than a hundred pictures of yourself, from every possible angle. But you didn't bring it with you. The peace of mind was not worth all the wacky hijinks that would ensue if Smith (ostensibly male, fifty-ish) was found to be in possession of naked pictures of a 15 year old girl.
What if something happens to that cellphone while you're gone?
You grit your teeth, and get down to business. Ever so slowly your hands start to grow, your dainty girl fingers replaced by the meaty paws of a man with a lifetime of manual labor behind him. Your forearms swell to match, then your upper arms, followed by a widening of your shoulders. Unlike Cliff you don't actually gain any muscle mass this way, you just spread what you have across a larger space. A pity, but you've come to terms with such degradation in copied powers.
Your hair becomes short and speckled with gray. Experimentation showed that you can modify your hair freely, but not remove it. Which is why you had to contract out your male pattern baldness. You do what you can with the rest of your body hair, lengthening, thickening and darkening it to make it look denser than it really is. You'll be wearing long sleeves anyway.
Making doubly sure no one is paying attention to you, you pull out a small hand mirror and start working on your face. First you sculpt a handsome manly jaw, then you hide it behind jowls and sagging flesh. Add some faint wrinkles to taste, a bit of sunburn and general weathering. A liver spot or two? Best not to go overboard. Grow the eyebrows out a bit, though.
Then you work your way downwards, removing what little feminine curves you posses and adding that most masculine of curves, the beer belly. A slight thickening of your legs follows. Finally you exchange your shoes for an old pair of your dad's and grow your feet to match.
You don't even try to modify the downstairs plumbing. You're not crazy. A padded jockstrap will do just fine.
After somewhat less than three hours you arrive at your destination and take a moment to stretch your legs. You would have loved to sleep on the bus, but your experience yesterday taught you that shapeshifting is best done slowly and deliberately. As expected, no one paid enough attention to you to notice that the person that got on the bus was not quite the same as the one that left. Not that it's all that noticeable, underneath the loose, baggy clothing you wear.
Ironic, that your depressing wardrobe still comes in handy even after you got the power to deal with the body image issues that inspired it. Is that irony? People are so picky about that...
Once again you find yourself changing underwear in an alley, though this set is padded in quite the opposite way from the ones you usually wear.
You also change into the rest of your Smith costume. It's not much of a costume, really: One of your dad's old shirts, worn enough that it's only used for yard work anymore, and a matching pair of pants. Gloves, because while you could make yourself a new set of fingerprints, you don't trust your ability to put the old ones back correctly. Finally a leather apron that you found lying on the floor of your appropriated forge, even more battered than the rest of the outfit.
It's very authentically blue collar, you'll give it that.
You also switch your glasses for another, less girly pair. Technically these also belonging to your dad, but he got a new pair years ago. They're not quite your prescription, but close enough.
At your command Fenrir materializes briefly and drops off the gun he's been carrying the whole time. Dog Burglar's Smuggling Company: Accept no substitutes when moving unregistered weapons across state lines. You hand him a bag of incriminatingly girl-specific clothing to dematerialize.
Next order of business, thankfully, is a nap. You deliberately arrived early to give Fenrir a chance to recharge after giving you the gun, just in case Toybox tries anything. You don't expect them to, they have a reputation to maintain after all. But again, better safe than sorry.
---
You arrive at the designed meeting point - a quiet area behind some industrial properties - five minutes early with a scarf wrapped around your face. Two minutes before the appointed time two people pop into existence with nothing but a faint breeze of displaced air.
Sorcerer's sight confirms their parahuman status, as if their fashion sense wasn't clue enough.
The larger figure is wearing fully enclosed power armor. Where Armsmaster's tech is sleek and futuristic, this suit is bulky and industrial, and none too clean. The unpainted metal is generously adorned with oil stains and scorch marks. They are empty-handed, for all that that matters when their augmented grip could crush your skull like a grape.
The other - a woman - is technically wearing a light blue bodysuit, but mostly she's wearing tinker-tech. The bandoliers crossing her chest, her belt and even some sort of half holster, half garter arrangements on her thighs are all dangling with devices, less than half of which are (obvious) weapons. Her mask is a plain white number, with an attached hood hiding her hair.
On spotting you, she grabs one of the non-weapon devices and points it at you. It goes 'ding'.
"He's armed," she says. "Basic concussive projector."
Moving slowly, you pull out Kid Win's gun from behind your apron, gripping the barrel between your thumb and forefinger.
"That would be the merchandize," her companion says. The speaker system of his armor isn't the best, but he sounds male beneath the buzzing and crackling. You suspect that it's an affectation, because anyone with the technical knowledge and resources to make goddamn power armor could certainly get a better speaker system than that.
You nod, and approach to hand the gun over to the woman.
"Why the heck would anyone build a phasing system into a gun?" she asks rhetorically.
"Not everyone is as enthusiastic about carrying their gear around as you are, Glace."
She scoffs, but takes the gun from you. She reaches down to her belt and detaches what you now recognize as your order.
"Here, look it over while we do the same," she tells you.
The thing she hands you is a mask, black with metallic highlights. You requested that it look 'like I didn't care about how it looks', and they followed your instructions to a T. You suspect that your friend in the power armor is responsible for the design, as it has the same heavy industrial aesthetic.
When worn it will wrap all the way around your head, covering your nose, mouth and cheeks, curving up to cover your ears (with slots to accommodate glasses) and cradling the back of your skull.
Good thing it's a lot lighter than it looks, or it would be incredibly uncomfortable.
Clamped in the hinge is the instruction manual, three loose A4 pages of printed text.
You ignore the other features for now and look for the voice changer function, the whole reason you wanted a tinkertech mask in the first place.
The controls turn out to be a set of physical sliders hidden behind a panel that would normally rest against your left cheek. You slide the top one, that the manual designates 'pitch/gender' all the way to the right, leaving 'distortion' and 'reverb' in place. Then you reconsider, and instead slide it all the way to the left. It's only natural to try out the most extreme setting first. And for Smith, who obviously has a deep male voice...
You turn away from the Tinkers, unwrap your scarf and put on the mask. Not that you care whether anyone sees Smith's totally real and not at all brand new face, but verisimilitude demands shyness.
"Testing, testing," you say. Your voice always sounds different to yourself, but with the 'calibration' switch enabled the built-in headphones play back what it sounded like to others.
What it sounded like was five year old girl, if the girl in question had been held down and forced to breathe helium until she triggered with chipmunk powers.
You try again with the slider at the other extreme, and your voice becomes an almost incomprehensible bass rumble. They certainly didn't scrimp on the range, though the precision leaves a bit to be desired as a result.
The Tinkers are hunched over the screen of some sort of diagnostic tool Glace has attached to the gun. They are so engrossed that they don't even look up as you doff and don the mask several times, fiddling with the settings.
"I'm satisfied," you announce in your new voice. When that gets no reaction, you walk over and wave your hand in front of Glace's face.
"Hm? Oh. Yeah. Your goods check out as well." She heaves a sigh. "God, what I wouldn't give to work under Armsmaster. This stuff is crazy."
"How's the fit?" her companion asks you.
"It's fine." It was a bit iffy at first, but you quickly adjusted your face to make it more comfortable. "How long does the battery last?"
"RTFM," Glace says. Her companion gives her a light nudge. Light by power armor standards, it still sends her stumbling back.
"About a month, longer if you turn off the phone system," he says politely.
"Pleasure doing business with Toybox." You shake hands with both of them.
"Likewise, Smith. Don't hesitate to contact us again should you find something else of this quality." He hesitates a moment, then adds "You're a pretty trusting guy, coming here alone and essentially unarmed. Most of our customers are a lot more paranoid."
You laugh, and the voice changer does a surprisingly good job of turning your laughter masculine while still conveying your genuine glee (mostly at passing as a 'guy').
"You think your little scan found all my weapons. That's adorable."
Rather than take offense at the implied insult to her tech, Glace nudges her friend back (he of course does not budge an inch). "Hear that, Toy? You're adorable."
Toy nods. "I am adorable."
"See you around," Glace says.
With that they take a few steps back, and vanish as quickly as they appeared.
S.20
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
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When Dragon gives you a ride, you ride in style. Heads turn up and down the street as a small jet plane swoops down towards the empty parking lot where you're waiting. The nose tilts up and four engine nacelles decorated to look like stubby legs twist to point forward, killing its momentum. The 'legs' then turn back to point straight down, leaving it hovering perhaps fifteen feet off the ground.
The paintjob is suitably draconic, of course. The wings are painted to resemble bat-like dragon wings while the fuselage sports a metallic scale pattern, with a mouth and eyes in the appropriate places up front. The effect is only further enhanced when it starts to descend: The wings fold up onto its back and landing gear shaped like claws sprout from the 'feet'.
The whole thing is lit up to sorcerer's sight, but that sort of goes without saying. Of course it's all tinkertech, duh! Dragon being Dragon, she probably only sacrificed a few percent efficiency to make it look that good - well worth it in your opinion.
The plane touches down gently enough that you can't hear it over the (remarkably silent) engines. Folded up like that, it only takes up two parking spaces.
The mirrored canopy opens to reveal an empty cockpit. Remote controlled, then. No wonder, there's certainly not room for two people in there. No ladder appears to be forthcoming, so you grab the edge of the cockpit and (after a couple of embarrassing false starts) manage to to vault/scramble your way inside. Fenrir jumps up to ride on top of the plane, ignoring any and all physical and logical problems with this course of action.
The cockpit is certainly snug. You're somewhat regretting making Smith this broad-shouldered. You have no idea how Dragon fits in here - as far as you know she never leaves the house without power armor. With another couple of false starts you manage to figure out how to buckle yourself in, too.
There's a flight stick, but instead of the countless dials and meters you'd expect from a cockpit, the dashboard is made up of a single blank screen. Just as you're wondering what to do next, the screen lights up and Dragon's face appears.
"Smith! Hello."
"Dragon. A pleasure to meet you, in image if not in the flesh just yet."
Not even that, really. The face before you is no more real than your voice. It's clearly computer generated, and it elects to stop short of the uncanny valley instead trying to bridge it.
"Likewise. Are you ready to leave?"
"Certainly."
The cockpit seals shut and you hear the engines start back up. You carefully keep your hands away from the flight stick as the plane gently rises into the air. Dragon's face moves up into the corner of the screen as the rest fills with a lot of information you don't know how to parse. You briefly make out 'landing gear retracted' before you're pushed back into your seat by sudden acceleration.
That Fenrir remains entirely unperturbed by this sequence of events goes without saying. Air resistance is for tangible people.
"Is it even legal to land a plane in the middle of a city like that?" you ask.
"Ah." Judging by the sudden blush spreading across Dragon's cheeks, you'd guess her face is no less real than your voice either - computer generated, but based on a real video feed. "This vehicle is registered as power armor, which legally makes it a pedestrian when piloted within city limits."
Huh. You guess you can get away with a lot when you hold the majority of all Tinker-related government contracts on the continent. You say as much, and Dragon blushes again. Oh well, another one for the 'all heroes are corrupt' column. But at least in her case it's only traffic violations, and she even has the decency to be embarrassed about it.
"The trip should take 3 hours 23 minutes," Dragon says. "I'm afraid the entertainment options are limited, but I could play you some music?"
"Thanks, but I'll just take a nap. Haven't been getting enough sleep lately." You could stay up and study the tinker-tech surrounding you, but there's little point. You have no desire to build an airplane of your own, even should you somehow manage to procure enough orichalcum to do it.
"As you wish. Sleep well, Smith." The video feed vanishes, leaving more indecipherable instrumentation in its place. You close your eyes and let the engine noise lull you to sleep.
---
You wake up with the nagging sense that something is out of place. You blink groggily and look around trying figure out what it is.
As far as you can tell, nothing looks different. A glance outside shows that you're approaching a city, but you have no idea which one. The instruments are still unhelpful, but you manage to locate a clock. Hm, either you slept for less than an hour, or you've passed through a timezone or two.
Oh, there it is. There's a faint high-pitched noise underlying the soft roar of the engines. That could be bad.
Another hunt through the instruments reveals no flashing red items, at least.
"Dragon?" you ask.
Her face immediately appears on screen again. "Yes?"
"Do you hear that?"
"No? Hear what?"
"There's this faint high-pitched sound." You frown in concentration. "I think it's getting louder, and it's... warbling a bit? Yeah."
"Hm. Diagnostic telemetry does not show anything wrong, and I can can't hear anything over the audio link either. Are you sure?"
"Yes, it's definitely getting louder."
"Okay. I believe you. The range on the cockpit mike is not the best." As she speaks, the engine noise lessens and the plane banks and starts losing altitude. "I'm landing the plane. Once it's on the ground, I'll walk you through an inspect- oh no!"
The plane suddenly pulls into a spinning, twisting evasive maneuver. Through heroic effort, you do not puke into your mask as the world flips end over end.
"What's happening!? Dragon?"
Dragon yells something back, but the channel is sudden filled with static and you only make out the final word: "*crackle* *crackle* Simurgh!"
Oh. The noise - the scream - reaches a crescendo and you see a flash of white outside the cockpit, then there's the terrible screeching sound of tearing metal. The violent evasive maneuvers turn into an even more violent tumble and several different alarms start blaring through the cockpit. Three quarters of the instrumentation turns red in an instant.
Most relevant to your interests would be the large flashing letters spelling out 'EJECTION MECHANISM JAMMED', which is the last thing you see before foam fills your vision.
---
This time you're jarred awake by liquid hitting your face. Not water, you catch a faint whiff of solvent as it seeps underneath your mask. Your eyes are held shut by some sticky substance, but after a few moments it gives way and you get a look at your surroundings. The plane - or what remains of it - is on the ground, surrounded by greenery. It's too well-manicured to be a wilderness, though. You'd guess a park, somewhere in the city you were approaching.
The cockpit is filled with bright orange foam, which is slowly dissolving into liquid as a set of nozzles spray it with solvent. This must be Dragon's famous containment foam, the number one tool for non-lethal parahuman takedowns and, apparently, high-speed impact cushioning. Given the miraculous way you're still alive you rate it 10/10, would be encased in while falling out of the sky again.
When you try move, though, you quickly discover that your everything hurts. Note to self, upgrade Brute rating before crashing another airplane. Nothing feels outright broken, though.
Which is good, because you have to get out of here. You can still hear the scream in the back of your mind, though it's a lot fainter than it was before. Everyone knows what happens if you hear that for too long. Melt faster, foam!
Your phone chirps, indicating an incoming message. You have to wait a few seconds for the foam to recede from your pocket before you can check it. You don't recognize the sender, but Dragon is the only person who has Smith's number.
< If you survived the crash, you have until 1407 to get out of range.
The clock on your phone reads 1:54 PM.
The foam finally gives up its hold on your legs, letting you pull yourself out of the cockpit. You take all of one second to admire the wreck - one wing and three engines are unaccounted for, lost either in the initial attack or during impact.
Once that second has elapsed, you take off running in a random direction. That's the problem, you don't actually know where the Simurgh is in relation to you right now. Maybe sorcerer's sight shows a faint aura of her power all around you, maybe that's just your imagination. If it's there at all, it's too faint to make out a gradient.
If the scream grows stronger, you'll turn around and hope you didn't waste too much time.
Fenrir is nowhere to be found, either. He must have fallen off during the evasive maneuvers. You're sufficiently confident in his physics-ignoring bullshit that you're not really worried about him sticking the landing. Hopefully he'll turn up soon.
...Come to think of it, shouldn't you be panicking right about now? You're lost and alone and you're about to have your mind subverted by the scariest being on earth. That seems like the sort of situation that ought to induce panic.
Maybe you're in shock? If so, you don't see why shock gets such a bad rap. This detached, analytical mindset seems quite nice, if the alternative is sensibly freaking the fuck out, or maybe curling up from the pain you're curiously unconcerned about right now.
As you reach the edge of the park, your choice of direction is vindicated. The street is full of people fleeing in roughly the same direction as you were going. It's a relatively sparsely populated area, so the streets are not entirely clogged.
Encouraged by the sign that you're going in the right direction, you put on a burst of speed. You should be getting winded too, but if anything you're feeling lighter on your feet than when you started running. Your stride is lengthening with every step, and-
The sight of dust and grit rising out from between the slabs of pavement clues you in just in time. You lunge for the closest lamppost and wrap your arms and legs around it.
All around you, people slight slower on the uptake are shouting in panic as they start rising slowly into the air. A lucky few manage to grab onto a street light or the side of a building on the way up.
It's not just the people who are affected, it's everything. Dropped objects are following their owners into the sky, garbage is rising out of a nearby trashcan... Even the cars are lifting off. Though your grip on the lamppost is secure, you feel your clothes striving to pull away from you. Good thing your glasses are securely attached to your mask.
You suppress a giggle as the phrase 'I went to a Simurgh fight, and all I got was an atomic wedgie' flashes across your mind. You unnatural calm notwithstanding, you realize that hysteria is right there, waiting for you to take a single step in its direction.
Good news, the levitating force does not seem to be getting stronger. You could easily hang on here all day. Bad news, you really need to be running away right now. As if in response to your thoughts, the scream gets ever so slightly louder.
Why is she doing this, anyway? She's supposed to rip entire buildings from the ground and throw them at people. Why haven't the heroes shown up to distract her from bullying the civilian population yet?
The scream changes pitch briefly, making a sort of interrogative noise. 'Ah-hah?'
You count as part of the civilian population, all right? You're not here to fight, you don't have any powers that would even scratch her. You don't want to be here at all!
The scream changes again, and you're probably literally going crazy but you swear it sounds reassuring. 'There, there.'
Could this please not be happening?
The scream rises in volume, seeming to build towards something, before it abruptly cuts out completely. The levitating force vanishes at the same moment, causing you to fall on your ass.
You get off easy. Shouts and sobs turn into wordless screams as people plunge out of the sky to splatter against the pavement. Most of those who found a handhold on the way up suffer the same fate, as they were not prepared for gravity to return to normal. One poor bastard manages to land safely, only to be crushed beneath a falling car.
You're numb to the horror of it, preoccupied by a much more cerebral horror: Soul's price just went off.
Simurgh wants daddy to spank her more often.
So. Either that really counted as a conversation, and the Endbringers are alien kids acting out for attention... Or she's already hacked your brain enough to spoof your powers. Even though - you check you phone - you still have nine minutes left according to Dragon.
You're reevaluating the pros and cons of hysteria when Fenrir shows up, running full tilt towards you. Not only is he unharmed, he's still carrying your dematerialized luggage. See, you knew he'd stick the landing.
Right, focus. You can do this. You can still get out in time. In time? The scream is gone, which means that your escape has already either succeeded or failed. No, don't think about that. You still need to get out of the city before the barricades go up.
Just take it one step at a time. Next problem: Cameras. You take a look around, ignoring what's on the ground, completely ignoring what's covering the ground.
Your gaze fastens on a young woman who survived by wedging herself in a doorway. She looks a bit like you, when you don't look like an old man. Not so much the face (no glasses, either) but the hair is similar.
You make your way over, trying not to step in anything too horrible. She's - understandably, given the circumstances - hugging herself and crying, but her face lights up with hope when she sees you approaching and she manages to get control of herself.
"A-are you a hero?"
"A rogue, technically, but close enough. What's your name?"
"Uh... Marie. It's Marie."
"And what city is this?"
"You don't know? It's Ottawa. Uh, in Canada. On Earth Bet."
"Have you lived here long, Marie?"
"Why? Why are you asking so many questions? Get me out of here!"
"All in good time."
"Three years! Please! I moved here three years ago. Help me, please!"
"Shhh, everything's going to be all right." You place a finger against her lips.
Marie wants to be saved from the Simurgh.
Yes, you guessed that already. But you have to hear it, or the magic won't take.
You hand her the scarf you used in place of a mask earlier today. "Here, wrap yourself up in this. No matter what happens, don't let anyone see your face."
"O-okay." She wipes eyes with her sleeve, and some unladylike snorting noises indicate that she's trying to avoid getting snot on your scarf.
"Come forth," you whisper once she's done. Let there be wolf.
Marie shies away from Fenrir when he appears. "Up you go," you tell her. When she doesn't react, you gently but firmly push her in the right direction. She doesn't resist, but just looks back helplessly when she fetches up against the wolf.
Fenrir obediently lies down at your gesture, and you manage to coax Marie to get astride him. You mount up behind her with considerably less hassle.
"Now, what's the fastest way out of the city?" you ask.
"Back that way." She points in the direction everyone was already going, and Fenrir takes off at a sprint. Marie yelps in shock and flails about, but between your arms around her waist and Fenrir's bullshit riding wolf magic she doesn't even come close to falling off.
"You're steering," you tell her. "Just tell him which way to turn."
Aside from her directions, you ride in somber silence. Don't think about what's on the ground. After a couple of blocks you leave the killing fields behind. You're not sure whether the levitation field was localized around your particular area, or if it covered the entire city out to here. Don't think about it.
"How can you stand it?" Marie asks.
"Is not that uncomfortable a ride," you reply, vaguely insulted on Fenrir's behalf.
"Not the wolf, the scream!"
Oh. She can still hear the scream. It only stopped for you, personally.
"Hearing protection in my mask," you lie, tapping the metal covering your ears. "Is it getting fainter?"
"...yes." She brightens up. "We're escaping!"
You emerge onto the freeway, which can best be described as a giant traffic jam interrupted by occasional pileups. And most of the space not taken up by cars is taken up by pedestrians, as everyone abandoned their car and started running the moment they realized that they weren't going anywhere. Fenrir has to slow down significantly to avoid trampling people.
This isn't working. You could try to double back and find another route, but you're on a timer here. "Fuck property damage," you tell Fenrir. He stops avoiding the stalled cars and starts going over them instead, buckling metal and scratching paint as he leaps from one to the next. The ride becomes a lot less smooth, but he is able to maintain an unreasonably fast pace nonetheless. You silently say a prayer to whatever gods might be listening, giving thanks for bullshit physics.
A majority of the people you pass call out to you, trying to get you to bring them with you. You can't afford the time to stop and pick anyone up, though. You don't know how quickly the quarantine goes up when the Simurgh attacks a city, but you can't take any chances. Saving Marie is your absolute priority.
You get your phone out, mostly out of curiosity - you've entirely lost faith in the official guidelines. Four minutes, by that count. Probably a bit more for Marie, assuming Dragon started counting from when you first called her about the noise.
The road crests a small hill, and you look behind you to see if you can make out anything useful from this higher vantage point. What you see is a second sun in the sky. An angel-shaped... you frantically shut down sorcerer's sight. It may be closing the barn doors after the horse already burned down, but you're not giving her another high-bandwidth channel into your brain.
Between the distance and your bad glasses, you can't make out much in the way of details. She appears to be hovering upside down, with her wings flapping and fluttering erratically. She has, in fact, started throwing buildings at people.
Probably because she's being engaged by the Triumvirate. You think. There's a small black streak that's probably Alexandria, a blue streak emitting giant beams of light that's unquestionably Legend, and a glowing green dot that's almost certainly Eidolon.
Large jagged black shapes are forming in the air around Eidolon. As each one grows to be half the size of the Simurgh, he launches it at her. Most are blocked by flying buildings, or deflected by the flick of a wing.
Then one of them strikes her right in the torso, and sticks there. Instantly her wings go still, her arms and legs splay out and her back arches as she throws her head back.
Yes, daddy! Harder!
The black shard falls out of her chest a moment later, and she resumes her previous pose as if nothing happened. That's the last thing you see before Fenrir's path down the other side of the hill cuts off your vision. But you're not really thinking about the fight anymore.
That came in over soul's price. Again. You are undoubtedly compromised, and the Simurgh is using her all-access pass to your brain to mess with you instead of (or, you know, in addition to) making you go nuts and murder your friends and family.
Is it some weird dominance display? Look at what I could do to you, should I desire? You've never heard of her doing that before.
No, think positive. It's possible that the official numbers are right, and she only managed to hijack the verbal channel of soul's price in the time she had. Except for that part where she seemingly read your mind... No, you paid attention in computer class. Read access is not write access! You'll just keep telling yourself that.
"I can't hear the scream anymore," Marie says. "We made it!"
"We still need to get out before the quarantine goes up," you remind her. Fenrir doesn't slow down.
"There!" Marie shouts a little later. People in military uniforms have set up across the freeway up ahead. They are clearly preparing to block it off, but they don't try to shoot you as you ride past. You made it!
You take out your phone again, just in time to see 2:06 PM change into 2:07 PM. You type out a quick 'made it' to Dragon. Actually, better get some independent verification on that. Overexposure can result in summary execution. Another little technically non-secret fact that PHO doesn't want you to talk about, that you uncovered back when you were researching parahumans.
You direct Fenrir to turn around and approach one of the soldiers.
"Excuse me, sir?"
"Yes?" He regards you with a certain caution. Well, you are riding a giant wolf.
"Parahumans Low Key and Smith," you tell him. "Please log our presence outside the danger zone at 1407 hours." Marie, having no idea what you're talking about, sensibly remains silent.
"Ah." Understanding dawns across his face. "Will do!" He finds a pen, scrawls a note on his hand. But he verifies the time on his own watch first.
"Thank you. Now, which way to the rallying point?"
"Clear on the other side of the city, I'm afraid. You'll have to circle around." He indicates a clockwise direction. "Or I could radio for someone to come pick you up once it's all over."
"We'll get back to you on that."
A nudge of your knee has Fenrir turning away. You guide him several blocks away and out of sight before you dismount and help Marie do likewise.
Just some minor administrative details to take care of. You turn sorcerer's sight back on to verify that yes, Loyalty is in place.
"Ok, here's what happened," you tell her. "We never met. You never saw a wolf. In fact, you weren't even in the city. Through sheer dumb luck, you happened to be gone on some errand or other when the Simurgh attacked. The names Low Key and Smith mean nothing to you."
"Uh... okay? Sure. I don't know what's going on, but I won't tell anyone. It's the least I could do." She hugs you, squeezing tightly. "You saved my life, you know? Thank you."
You do know. You were counting on that enhanced gratitude to keep your secrets all along. You gently peel her away from you and accept your scarf back. That's definitely incriminating evidence now, so it joins your shoes and panties in the evidence bag. A quick "begone" and the bag vanishes along with the wolf.
You leave Marie behind and stroll back towards the military blockade. You hear shots ring out before you arrive. Looks like quarantine is in effect now, and someone didn't listen when told to turn back.
The soldiers look a lot grimmer on your return - no wonder, they just shot their first maybe-a-Simurgh-bomb civilian. It's unlikely to be their last.
"You're back."
"Yes. The young lady elected to make her own way, but I think I'll take you up on that ride. Just between you and me, sitting on a wolf was not all that comfortable." Fenrir gives an invisible snort of disgust at your vile slander. It's all right, he knows you didn't mean it.
"I'll call it in."
"Thank you."
You find a comfortable piece of concrete to rest your back against, and sit down to wait. You're sort of half expecting an emotional collapse now that everything is over, you've heard that's a thing that happens.
No? Nothing? Guess you're just a natural-born stone-cold badass. Yep, that's you. Smith the Tinker, born with brass balls and definitely not wearing a padded jockstrap. A small giggle escapes you. You try to clap your hands over your mouth to stop it, but of course end up bashing your hands against your mask - which just makes everything even funnier.
You just can't seem to stop giggling. You fumble for the audio cutoff switch on your mask. Mustn't disturb the nice men gunning down unarmed civilians. The, the funniest part is that none of that is sarcastic, they really are nice men, and they're- no, stop, that's not funny, it's horrible. Why is it so funny?
A small detached part of you notes that you are in fact having that emotional breakdown you were worried about. At least you're having fun with it? Yes indeedy, nothing like watching hundreds of people die horribly and having to spend the rest of your life worrying about whether you're a psychic bomb just waiting to go off and kill the people you love.
And now you're crying. Good job, Taylor. Some badass you are. Guess you lack balls after all!
The paintjob is suitably draconic, of course. The wings are painted to resemble bat-like dragon wings while the fuselage sports a metallic scale pattern, with a mouth and eyes in the appropriate places up front. The effect is only further enhanced when it starts to descend: The wings fold up onto its back and landing gear shaped like claws sprout from the 'feet'.
The whole thing is lit up to sorcerer's sight, but that sort of goes without saying. Of course it's all tinkertech, duh! Dragon being Dragon, she probably only sacrificed a few percent efficiency to make it look that good - well worth it in your opinion.
The plane touches down gently enough that you can't hear it over the (remarkably silent) engines. Folded up like that, it only takes up two parking spaces.
The mirrored canopy opens to reveal an empty cockpit. Remote controlled, then. No wonder, there's certainly not room for two people in there. No ladder appears to be forthcoming, so you grab the edge of the cockpit and (after a couple of embarrassing false starts) manage to to vault/scramble your way inside. Fenrir jumps up to ride on top of the plane, ignoring any and all physical and logical problems with this course of action.
The cockpit is certainly snug. You're somewhat regretting making Smith this broad-shouldered. You have no idea how Dragon fits in here - as far as you know she never leaves the house without power armor. With another couple of false starts you manage to figure out how to buckle yourself in, too.
There's a flight stick, but instead of the countless dials and meters you'd expect from a cockpit, the dashboard is made up of a single blank screen. Just as you're wondering what to do next, the screen lights up and Dragon's face appears.
"Smith! Hello."
"Dragon. A pleasure to meet you, in image if not in the flesh just yet."
Not even that, really. The face before you is no more real than your voice. It's clearly computer generated, and it elects to stop short of the uncanny valley instead trying to bridge it.
"Likewise. Are you ready to leave?"
"Certainly."
The cockpit seals shut and you hear the engines start back up. You carefully keep your hands away from the flight stick as the plane gently rises into the air. Dragon's face moves up into the corner of the screen as the rest fills with a lot of information you don't know how to parse. You briefly make out 'landing gear retracted' before you're pushed back into your seat by sudden acceleration.
That Fenrir remains entirely unperturbed by this sequence of events goes without saying. Air resistance is for tangible people.
"Is it even legal to land a plane in the middle of a city like that?" you ask.
"Ah." Judging by the sudden blush spreading across Dragon's cheeks, you'd guess her face is no less real than your voice either - computer generated, but based on a real video feed. "This vehicle is registered as power armor, which legally makes it a pedestrian when piloted within city limits."
Huh. You guess you can get away with a lot when you hold the majority of all Tinker-related government contracts on the continent. You say as much, and Dragon blushes again. Oh well, another one for the 'all heroes are corrupt' column. But at least in her case it's only traffic violations, and she even has the decency to be embarrassed about it.
"The trip should take 3 hours 23 minutes," Dragon says. "I'm afraid the entertainment options are limited, but I could play you some music?"
"Thanks, but I'll just take a nap. Haven't been getting enough sleep lately." You could stay up and study the tinker-tech surrounding you, but there's little point. You have no desire to build an airplane of your own, even should you somehow manage to procure enough orichalcum to do it.
"As you wish. Sleep well, Smith." The video feed vanishes, leaving more indecipherable instrumentation in its place. You close your eyes and let the engine noise lull you to sleep.
---
You wake up with the nagging sense that something is out of place. You blink groggily and look around trying figure out what it is.
As far as you can tell, nothing looks different. A glance outside shows that you're approaching a city, but you have no idea which one. The instruments are still unhelpful, but you manage to locate a clock. Hm, either you slept for less than an hour, or you've passed through a timezone or two.
Oh, there it is. There's a faint high-pitched noise underlying the soft roar of the engines. That could be bad.
Another hunt through the instruments reveals no flashing red items, at least.
"Dragon?" you ask.
Her face immediately appears on screen again. "Yes?"
"Do you hear that?"
"No? Hear what?"
"There's this faint high-pitched sound." You frown in concentration. "I think it's getting louder, and it's... warbling a bit? Yeah."
"Hm. Diagnostic telemetry does not show anything wrong, and I can can't hear anything over the audio link either. Are you sure?"
"Yes, it's definitely getting louder."
"Okay. I believe you. The range on the cockpit mike is not the best." As she speaks, the engine noise lessens and the plane banks and starts losing altitude. "I'm landing the plane. Once it's on the ground, I'll walk you through an inspect- oh no!"
The plane suddenly pulls into a spinning, twisting evasive maneuver. Through heroic effort, you do not puke into your mask as the world flips end over end.
"What's happening!? Dragon?"
Dragon yells something back, but the channel is sudden filled with static and you only make out the final word: "*crackle* *crackle* Simurgh!"
Oh. The noise - the scream - reaches a crescendo and you see a flash of white outside the cockpit, then there's the terrible screeching sound of tearing metal. The violent evasive maneuvers turn into an even more violent tumble and several different alarms start blaring through the cockpit. Three quarters of the instrumentation turns red in an instant.
Most relevant to your interests would be the large flashing letters spelling out 'EJECTION MECHANISM JAMMED', which is the last thing you see before foam fills your vision.
---
This time you're jarred awake by liquid hitting your face. Not water, you catch a faint whiff of solvent as it seeps underneath your mask. Your eyes are held shut by some sticky substance, but after a few moments it gives way and you get a look at your surroundings. The plane - or what remains of it - is on the ground, surrounded by greenery. It's too well-manicured to be a wilderness, though. You'd guess a park, somewhere in the city you were approaching.
The cockpit is filled with bright orange foam, which is slowly dissolving into liquid as a set of nozzles spray it with solvent. This must be Dragon's famous containment foam, the number one tool for non-lethal parahuman takedowns and, apparently, high-speed impact cushioning. Given the miraculous way you're still alive you rate it 10/10, would be encased in while falling out of the sky again.
When you try move, though, you quickly discover that your everything hurts. Note to self, upgrade Brute rating before crashing another airplane. Nothing feels outright broken, though.
Which is good, because you have to get out of here. You can still hear the scream in the back of your mind, though it's a lot fainter than it was before. Everyone knows what happens if you hear that for too long. Melt faster, foam!
Your phone chirps, indicating an incoming message. You have to wait a few seconds for the foam to recede from your pocket before you can check it. You don't recognize the sender, but Dragon is the only person who has Smith's number.
< If you survived the crash, you have until 1407 to get out of range.
The clock on your phone reads 1:54 PM.
The foam finally gives up its hold on your legs, letting you pull yourself out of the cockpit. You take all of one second to admire the wreck - one wing and three engines are unaccounted for, lost either in the initial attack or during impact.
Once that second has elapsed, you take off running in a random direction. That's the problem, you don't actually know where the Simurgh is in relation to you right now. Maybe sorcerer's sight shows a faint aura of her power all around you, maybe that's just your imagination. If it's there at all, it's too faint to make out a gradient.
If the scream grows stronger, you'll turn around and hope you didn't waste too much time.
Fenrir is nowhere to be found, either. He must have fallen off during the evasive maneuvers. You're sufficiently confident in his physics-ignoring bullshit that you're not really worried about him sticking the landing. Hopefully he'll turn up soon.
...Come to think of it, shouldn't you be panicking right about now? You're lost and alone and you're about to have your mind subverted by the scariest being on earth. That seems like the sort of situation that ought to induce panic.
Maybe you're in shock? If so, you don't see why shock gets such a bad rap. This detached, analytical mindset seems quite nice, if the alternative is sensibly freaking the fuck out, or maybe curling up from the pain you're curiously unconcerned about right now.
As you reach the edge of the park, your choice of direction is vindicated. The street is full of people fleeing in roughly the same direction as you were going. It's a relatively sparsely populated area, so the streets are not entirely clogged.
Encouraged by the sign that you're going in the right direction, you put on a burst of speed. You should be getting winded too, but if anything you're feeling lighter on your feet than when you started running. Your stride is lengthening with every step, and-
The sight of dust and grit rising out from between the slabs of pavement clues you in just in time. You lunge for the closest lamppost and wrap your arms and legs around it.
All around you, people slight slower on the uptake are shouting in panic as they start rising slowly into the air. A lucky few manage to grab onto a street light or the side of a building on the way up.
It's not just the people who are affected, it's everything. Dropped objects are following their owners into the sky, garbage is rising out of a nearby trashcan... Even the cars are lifting off. Though your grip on the lamppost is secure, you feel your clothes striving to pull away from you. Good thing your glasses are securely attached to your mask.
You suppress a giggle as the phrase 'I went to a Simurgh fight, and all I got was an atomic wedgie' flashes across your mind. You unnatural calm notwithstanding, you realize that hysteria is right there, waiting for you to take a single step in its direction.
Good news, the levitating force does not seem to be getting stronger. You could easily hang on here all day. Bad news, you really need to be running away right now. As if in response to your thoughts, the scream gets ever so slightly louder.
Why is she doing this, anyway? She's supposed to rip entire buildings from the ground and throw them at people. Why haven't the heroes shown up to distract her from bullying the civilian population yet?
The scream changes pitch briefly, making a sort of interrogative noise. 'Ah-hah?'
You count as part of the civilian population, all right? You're not here to fight, you don't have any powers that would even scratch her. You don't want to be here at all!
The scream changes again, and you're probably literally going crazy but you swear it sounds reassuring. 'There, there.'
Could this please not be happening?
The scream rises in volume, seeming to build towards something, before it abruptly cuts out completely. The levitating force vanishes at the same moment, causing you to fall on your ass.
You get off easy. Shouts and sobs turn into wordless screams as people plunge out of the sky to splatter against the pavement. Most of those who found a handhold on the way up suffer the same fate, as they were not prepared for gravity to return to normal. One poor bastard manages to land safely, only to be crushed beneath a falling car.
You're numb to the horror of it, preoccupied by a much more cerebral horror: Soul's price just went off.
Simurgh wants daddy to spank her more often.
So. Either that really counted as a conversation, and the Endbringers are alien kids acting out for attention... Or she's already hacked your brain enough to spoof your powers. Even though - you check you phone - you still have nine minutes left according to Dragon.
You're reevaluating the pros and cons of hysteria when Fenrir shows up, running full tilt towards you. Not only is he unharmed, he's still carrying your dematerialized luggage. See, you knew he'd stick the landing.
Right, focus. You can do this. You can still get out in time. In time? The scream is gone, which means that your escape has already either succeeded or failed. No, don't think about that. You still need to get out of the city before the barricades go up.
Just take it one step at a time. Next problem: Cameras. You take a look around, ignoring what's on the ground, completely ignoring what's covering the ground.
Your gaze fastens on a young woman who survived by wedging herself in a doorway. She looks a bit like you, when you don't look like an old man. Not so much the face (no glasses, either) but the hair is similar.
You make your way over, trying not to step in anything too horrible. She's - understandably, given the circumstances - hugging herself and crying, but her face lights up with hope when she sees you approaching and she manages to get control of herself.
"A-are you a hero?"
"A rogue, technically, but close enough. What's your name?"
"Uh... Marie. It's Marie."
"And what city is this?"
"You don't know? It's Ottawa. Uh, in Canada. On Earth Bet."
"Have you lived here long, Marie?"
"Why? Why are you asking so many questions? Get me out of here!"
"All in good time."
"Three years! Please! I moved here three years ago. Help me, please!"
"Shhh, everything's going to be all right." You place a finger against her lips.
Marie wants to be saved from the Simurgh.
Yes, you guessed that already. But you have to hear it, or the magic won't take.
You hand her the scarf you used in place of a mask earlier today. "Here, wrap yourself up in this. No matter what happens, don't let anyone see your face."
"O-okay." She wipes eyes with her sleeve, and some unladylike snorting noises indicate that she's trying to avoid getting snot on your scarf.
"Come forth," you whisper once she's done. Let there be wolf.
Marie shies away from Fenrir when he appears. "Up you go," you tell her. When she doesn't react, you gently but firmly push her in the right direction. She doesn't resist, but just looks back helplessly when she fetches up against the wolf.
Fenrir obediently lies down at your gesture, and you manage to coax Marie to get astride him. You mount up behind her with considerably less hassle.
"Now, what's the fastest way out of the city?" you ask.
"Back that way." She points in the direction everyone was already going, and Fenrir takes off at a sprint. Marie yelps in shock and flails about, but between your arms around her waist and Fenrir's bullshit riding wolf magic she doesn't even come close to falling off.
"You're steering," you tell her. "Just tell him which way to turn."
Aside from her directions, you ride in somber silence. Don't think about what's on the ground. After a couple of blocks you leave the killing fields behind. You're not sure whether the levitation field was localized around your particular area, or if it covered the entire city out to here. Don't think about it.
"How can you stand it?" Marie asks.
"Is not that uncomfortable a ride," you reply, vaguely insulted on Fenrir's behalf.
"Not the wolf, the scream!"
Oh. She can still hear the scream. It only stopped for you, personally.
"Hearing protection in my mask," you lie, tapping the metal covering your ears. "Is it getting fainter?"
"...yes." She brightens up. "We're escaping!"
You emerge onto the freeway, which can best be described as a giant traffic jam interrupted by occasional pileups. And most of the space not taken up by cars is taken up by pedestrians, as everyone abandoned their car and started running the moment they realized that they weren't going anywhere. Fenrir has to slow down significantly to avoid trampling people.
This isn't working. You could try to double back and find another route, but you're on a timer here. "Fuck property damage," you tell Fenrir. He stops avoiding the stalled cars and starts going over them instead, buckling metal and scratching paint as he leaps from one to the next. The ride becomes a lot less smooth, but he is able to maintain an unreasonably fast pace nonetheless. You silently say a prayer to whatever gods might be listening, giving thanks for bullshit physics.
A majority of the people you pass call out to you, trying to get you to bring them with you. You can't afford the time to stop and pick anyone up, though. You don't know how quickly the quarantine goes up when the Simurgh attacks a city, but you can't take any chances. Saving Marie is your absolute priority.
You get your phone out, mostly out of curiosity - you've entirely lost faith in the official guidelines. Four minutes, by that count. Probably a bit more for Marie, assuming Dragon started counting from when you first called her about the noise.
The road crests a small hill, and you look behind you to see if you can make out anything useful from this higher vantage point. What you see is a second sun in the sky. An angel-shaped... you frantically shut down sorcerer's sight. It may be closing the barn doors after the horse already burned down, but you're not giving her another high-bandwidth channel into your brain.
Between the distance and your bad glasses, you can't make out much in the way of details. She appears to be hovering upside down, with her wings flapping and fluttering erratically. She has, in fact, started throwing buildings at people.
Probably because she's being engaged by the Triumvirate. You think. There's a small black streak that's probably Alexandria, a blue streak emitting giant beams of light that's unquestionably Legend, and a glowing green dot that's almost certainly Eidolon.
Large jagged black shapes are forming in the air around Eidolon. As each one grows to be half the size of the Simurgh, he launches it at her. Most are blocked by flying buildings, or deflected by the flick of a wing.
Then one of them strikes her right in the torso, and sticks there. Instantly her wings go still, her arms and legs splay out and her back arches as she throws her head back.
Yes, daddy! Harder!
The black shard falls out of her chest a moment later, and she resumes her previous pose as if nothing happened. That's the last thing you see before Fenrir's path down the other side of the hill cuts off your vision. But you're not really thinking about the fight anymore.
That came in over soul's price. Again. You are undoubtedly compromised, and the Simurgh is using her all-access pass to your brain to mess with you instead of (or, you know, in addition to) making you go nuts and murder your friends and family.
Is it some weird dominance display? Look at what I could do to you, should I desire? You've never heard of her doing that before.
No, think positive. It's possible that the official numbers are right, and she only managed to hijack the verbal channel of soul's price in the time she had. Except for that part where she seemingly read your mind... No, you paid attention in computer class. Read access is not write access! You'll just keep telling yourself that.
"I can't hear the scream anymore," Marie says. "We made it!"
"We still need to get out before the quarantine goes up," you remind her. Fenrir doesn't slow down.
"There!" Marie shouts a little later. People in military uniforms have set up across the freeway up ahead. They are clearly preparing to block it off, but they don't try to shoot you as you ride past. You made it!
You take out your phone again, just in time to see 2:06 PM change into 2:07 PM. You type out a quick 'made it' to Dragon. Actually, better get some independent verification on that. Overexposure can result in summary execution. Another little technically non-secret fact that PHO doesn't want you to talk about, that you uncovered back when you were researching parahumans.
You direct Fenrir to turn around and approach one of the soldiers.
"Excuse me, sir?"
"Yes?" He regards you with a certain caution. Well, you are riding a giant wolf.
"Parahumans Low Key and Smith," you tell him. "Please log our presence outside the danger zone at 1407 hours." Marie, having no idea what you're talking about, sensibly remains silent.
"Ah." Understanding dawns across his face. "Will do!" He finds a pen, scrawls a note on his hand. But he verifies the time on his own watch first.
"Thank you. Now, which way to the rallying point?"
"Clear on the other side of the city, I'm afraid. You'll have to circle around." He indicates a clockwise direction. "Or I could radio for someone to come pick you up once it's all over."
"We'll get back to you on that."
A nudge of your knee has Fenrir turning away. You guide him several blocks away and out of sight before you dismount and help Marie do likewise.
Just some minor administrative details to take care of. You turn sorcerer's sight back on to verify that yes, Loyalty is in place.
"Ok, here's what happened," you tell her. "We never met. You never saw a wolf. In fact, you weren't even in the city. Through sheer dumb luck, you happened to be gone on some errand or other when the Simurgh attacked. The names Low Key and Smith mean nothing to you."
"Uh... okay? Sure. I don't know what's going on, but I won't tell anyone. It's the least I could do." She hugs you, squeezing tightly. "You saved my life, you know? Thank you."
You do know. You were counting on that enhanced gratitude to keep your secrets all along. You gently peel her away from you and accept your scarf back. That's definitely incriminating evidence now, so it joins your shoes and panties in the evidence bag. A quick "begone" and the bag vanishes along with the wolf.
You leave Marie behind and stroll back towards the military blockade. You hear shots ring out before you arrive. Looks like quarantine is in effect now, and someone didn't listen when told to turn back.
The soldiers look a lot grimmer on your return - no wonder, they just shot their first maybe-a-Simurgh-bomb civilian. It's unlikely to be their last.
"You're back."
"Yes. The young lady elected to make her own way, but I think I'll take you up on that ride. Just between you and me, sitting on a wolf was not all that comfortable." Fenrir gives an invisible snort of disgust at your vile slander. It's all right, he knows you didn't mean it.
"I'll call it in."
"Thank you."
You find a comfortable piece of concrete to rest your back against, and sit down to wait. You're sort of half expecting an emotional collapse now that everything is over, you've heard that's a thing that happens.
No? Nothing? Guess you're just a natural-born stone-cold badass. Yep, that's you. Smith the Tinker, born with brass balls and definitely not wearing a padded jockstrap. A small giggle escapes you. You try to clap your hands over your mouth to stop it, but of course end up bashing your hands against your mask - which just makes everything even funnier.
You just can't seem to stop giggling. You fumble for the audio cutoff switch on your mask. Mustn't disturb the nice men gunning down unarmed civilians. The, the funniest part is that none of that is sarcastic, they really are nice men, and they're- no, stop, that's not funny, it's horrible. Why is it so funny?
A small detached part of you notes that you are in fact having that emotional breakdown you were worried about. At least you're having fun with it? Yes indeedy, nothing like watching hundreds of people die horribly and having to spend the rest of your life worrying about whether you're a psychic bomb just waiting to go off and kill the people you love.
And now you're crying. Good job, Taylor. Some badass you are. Guess you lack balls after all!
L.01
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
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At the eve of a new arc, allow me a moment to address the audience.
"Is this even Worm?" said audience might be saying right now. "Where's the grimderp? I'm hardly traumatized at all!"
Never fear, the chill nature of arc S was merely the train building up speed. And it will continue to do so for a while yet. The thing about a train, gentle reader, is that the ride it offers is quite smooth right up until there stops being any rails beneath it.
Be reassured, arc L is where my brain started having ideas that made my better judgement sit up and go "you sure about this bro? It's a bit much, don't you think?" I'm going to completely ignore it, of course, and proudly announce:
Content Warning: YES
===
When Dragon gives you a ride, you ride in style. But the Canadian armed forces are no slouches either. You've never ridden a helicopter before.
As you're about to leave, the... sergeant? The guy in charge places a fatherly hand on your shoulder. It's a bit funny, since your current persona is older than him, but you're actively trying to not find things funny right now.
"Just wanted to say, no one here is judging you. You kept it together when it mattered, yeah? Freaking out a bit afterwards is fine. Doesn't make you any less of a man."
Keeping your shit together would be a lot easier if people stopped being so goddamn funny all the time.
----
You wander the temporary base camp looking for Dragon. It's quickly emptying now that the fight is over, but you're still surrounded by more parahumans than you've seen before in your life. Truly a feast for the eyes, as long as they are magic eyes.
Now if they'd just stick around for a few weeks, you could get something useful out of it.
"Smith! There you are!" Dragon's voice comes from behind you. You turn around to finally meet her in the flesh.
Or... not? She's in power armor, of course, a colossal battle-suit almost ten feet tall and bristling with weapons. Except no, sorcerer's sight reveals that what you're looking at is tinkertech all the way through, with no chewy human center.
But sorcerer's sight also reveals that what you're looking at is definitely a parahuman. The glow of a power is unmistakable. You suppose a similar effect could be achieved by a Master capable of possessing inanimate objects - but then the power would also show up as active, which this one does not.
Sooo... Dragon is secretly a robot. A robot cape. A paranonhuman, if you will.
"Smith?"
"Ah, I'm afraid you've caught me staring, my lady. That's quite the provocative outfit you're wearing."
Dragon laughs, and it sounds remarkably genuine for a robot. "Yes, several Tinkers have told me so. I wanted to tell you that I've arranged for Strider to take you directly to my factory. I'll join you within the hour, but I still have some things to take care of here."
"Of course." As you understand it, Dragon usually handles the majority of the administrative work involved in Endbringer fights. Must be her giant robot brain. "Uh, where do I find this Strider?"
After she's given you directions, you also request her soul's price. Person enough to trigger means person enough to desire, right?
Dragon wants to have her restrictions removed.
You chew on that as you make your way to the departure point. What restrictions? It's the first time you've gotten a soul's price and been unclear on what you're supposed to accomplish. You've often boggled at the how, but never before has the what been in question.
You are jolted from your thoughts when you notice a glow on the side of the road. Did someone drop their tinkertech? You crouch down for a closer look.
Your breath hitches as you recognize the object. A slim crystalline feather - or a fragment of one, but even with he tip broken off what remains is still almost a foot in length. Its opalescent white hue leaves no doubt as to its origin. Someone hit her hard enough to send it flying all the way out here?
A likely story. A magic feather from the telekinetic precog just happened to land in the middle of the base camp, where it just happened to go unnoticed until you - an alchemist Tinker who was previously singled out by said precog for special treatment - stumbled across it?
Yeah, no. There is no conceivable universe in which this is not a trap.
You pick it up.
Your goal is marked by parahumans standing around in groups, waiting to leave. No one greets you as you take your place among them. They all look varying degrees of grim and tired, and few are talking even within the groups. Every so often a cape will appear, walk over to a group and exchange a few words, after which they all vanish without fanfare. That must be Strider.
He's dressed in eye-catching black and blue, in a style you would describe as 'action train conductor' - complete with a jaunty cap, even. Rather than a conventional mask, oversized ski goggles cover most of his face.
Before too long it's your turn.
"Smith?" he asks.
"Yes," you respond, and your surroundings change before you can finish the syllable. Strider vanishes before you can thank him.
Wait shit he didn't bring Fenrir along! He must designate individuals to teleport, rather than an area. And of course he didn't see the invisible wolf. Crap. Double crap. If Fenrir gets lost, how would you possibly find him again?
Uh, well, nothing you can do about that now. You'll just have to hope that he can find his own way home. You forcibly put the matter out of mind, and focus on the other important aspect of being teleported.
Looking around, you find yourself standing on a helipad on the edge of an industrial park. Several large but relatively flat buildings sprawl out in front of you, surrounded by thick forest. You'd be tempted to call it the middle of nowhere, but there's a surprisingly wide and well-maintained road leading off into the trees. Or maybe not so surprising when you think about it, she has to get materials delivered somehow.
Lacking any direction, you wander aimlessly between the buildings. You hear machine noises emanating from several, but don't try to get inside. Eventually you come upon the one that must be intended for you.
Large parts of the roof has been replaced with glass, and several gigantic parabolic mirrors have been mounted above it. Perfectly smooth and flawlessly reflective, they are a far cry from the hodgepodge mess you built back home. You feel your Tinker instincts stirring, and you haven't even seen the furnace itself yet.
You're not sure how long you stand there, lost in thought.
"Wait until you see what's inside," Dragon says, her voice tinged with amusement. When did she get here?
What she proceeds to show you is indeed impressive: The furnace is suitably large, the magma already preheated. The lenses in the focusing array alone probably cost more than your dad makes in a year. It's all motorized, with a control panel letting you move and swivel every mirror and lens in three dimensions, and adjust the temperature of the magma down to a tenth of a degree. Next to the control panel is a similarly advanced CAD workstation.
Surrounding the furnace, and taking up the entire rest of the building, is... well, to call it a 'well-appointed blacksmith's shop' would be like calling a 747 a 'well-appointed paper airplane'. It easily matches any factory-cathedral your power could dream up.
Throughout the tour, however, you're distracted by one thing: Dragon changed into more human-sized power armor since you last saw her. The casual wear of battle-suits, hardly armed at all.
Except, you know, there's obviously still no human inside. Nor is there any sort of swappable 'core' that could have been moved from one armor to the other, even a cursory examination with sorcerer's sight shows that their internal layout is completely different. But the parahuman glow doesn't lie: It is the same 'person'.
Sooo... Dragon is secretly two robots?
No, that's stupid. Once you've figured out how to be more than one robot, there is absolutely no reason to stop at two. Dragon is an arbitrary number of robots. Or, to use the technical term, a Skynet.
This revelation might require a slight change in your plans.
"Good news," you tell Dragon once the tour is concluded. "I figured out a way to reduce both the weight and the cost of the orichalcum."
"Oh? Do tell."
"I should be able to alloy it with up to twenty percent meteoric iron without impacting its durability, as long as I also add trace amounts of iridium." You repeat the words popping into your brain. "Maybe nineteen percent, to be safe."
"It has to be meteoric?"
"Yes," you state with finality. "...if you figure out why, I'd love for you to explain it to me."
"It's still cheaper than gold," Dragon admits. "Even if the reduction in density won't be all that-"
"No, no," you interrupt her, "the density isn't important. I said reduced weight, not reduced mass. Do pay attention."
"I see..."
Yes, it's that kind of Tinker bullshit. You move your hands in front of you, experimentally swinging an imaginary orichalcum sword around.
"Wow," you say as your brain supplies more data ex nihilo. "The effect on angular momentum will be nuts. How..?"
"I do believe the phrase is 'fucking Tinkers.'" Dragon is taking the nonsensical physics with good humor. She probably runs into stuff like this all the time.
"Yeah. Anyway, I can't add the iron until the orichalcum is fully synthesized, so you have a week to procure it."
"Im afraid it's going to be slightly more than a week. I've arranged the purchase, but there are strict regulations about transporting that much gold, and with the current state of emergency..."
"My schedule doesn't have all that much flex in it, you know." Your voice is grave, belying the song in your heart. More time with Dragon's power? Yes please!
"I know. If things still aren't moving by tomorrow I'll start calling in favors."
"In the meantime, I believe we have a... what would you call it? A drone? A weapons platform?"
"I just call them 'suits', even the unmanned ones." You're not sure if that's giving too much away, or a clever double bluff, or what. Whatever works for her. It. Whatever.
"-a suit to design. But, uh, I'd appreciate if you could show me the way to the bathroom first."
---
The 'bathroom' is a porta-potty behind the building. Okay, it's a few steps above the plastic abominations you'd find at a fairground, but it's clearly not a permanent structure. Makes sense, really. The factory is designed for robots pretending to be humans in fully-enclosed power armor. No reason to put in real plumbing all the way out here.
Dragon added one personal touch to the facilities, though. Your eye is instantly drawn to a small glowing spot of tinkertech on one of the walls. Leaning in close, you see that's it's a tiny camera. Without sorcerer's sight, you'd never have spotted it.
Well, you can't have Dragon catching you with your pants down. You wag your finger in front of the lens, then rip it out of its mount and put in on the sink, facing the wall.
---
"I hope you're blushing in there, young lady," you tell Dragon, launching the camera towards her with an underhand toss. She pretends to be so flustered she fumbles the catch. "I admit I'm not 'hip with the kids', but I believe it's still considered polite to ask for those kinds of pictures."
"I, uh, I just-"
"You have no excuse?"
"No, I suppose not. I have cameras monitoring every other part of the facility, I guess I kept going out of habit, and-"
"And you're sorry you got caught?"
"Yes. No! I'm regular sorry, I shouldn't have done that." It's sort of funny, the way she doesn't know that you know and has to keep pretending to be human, but it's hardly productive. You're here to steal her power, not indulge in playacting.
"Water under the bridge," you say. "Now, about that design..."
You start by sketching a rough silhouette, basing the design on the inspiration you had when watching Kaiser's armor. Your Tinker power likes armor, and you're quickly refining the design and sketching out decorative flourishes and intricate interlocking joints. Dragon vetoes most of the decorative stuff, preferring a sleeker design. Probably because she's the one paying for the orichalcum.
You get into a lively discussion about the joints, however. You're basing your designs on human-worn armor, but with a robot you can design the articulation of the limbs however you want no longer need to worry about comfort. Dragon is more experienced in building robots, but hasn't worked with this much indestructible material before and doesn't have your instincts for it. Between the two of you, you're pretty sure you're breaking new ground in the field of armorology.
You didn't expect that you'd come remotely this close to holding up your end of the collaboration. You frequently have to pause and think for minutes at a time. Ostensibly to 'catch up with the World's Greatest Tinker', because a bit of flattery never hurts. It's even half true, you're so busy contributing that you need the pauses to internalize your observations of her power.
You're also having incredible amounts of fun. Before you know it it's past midnight, and you don't realize it until Dragon shakes you awake where you fell asleep in your chair.
"It's been a long day, hasn't it?" she says. "Let me show you to your room."
Your room is a cot in the corner, behind a pair of screens. You're sleepy, but you're still alert enough to look pointedly at the wall just above your bed, and again at another spot on one if the screens.
"I'll remove the cameras."
---
When try you get dressed the next morning, you find that your costume has other ideas. The residue of containment foam from the crash has not only stained it an eye-catching orange, it somehow hardened overnight. Luckily you still have two sets of the bulky unisex clothing you wore while transforming, and your backpack mostly protected it from the foam.
Your skin also features a certain orange tint here and there. You sponge yourself off in the sink as best you can. You're probably going to be pretty smelly by the time you leave, but at least Dragon has no nose.
You bring the remains of your costume to Dragon. "You're the world's foremost expert on containment foam. Is this salvageable?"
"I'll see what I can do."
After a quick breakfast of the finest Canadian MREs (Dragon 'already ate', of course) you get back to work.
"I forgot to ask you earlier," Dragon says, "what shape was the Katla in?"
"The- the plane?" you ask. Dragon nods. "A good forty percent of it was still in one piece, if not quite the right shape."
She makes a humming noise. "Worth recovering, probably. The paperwork for removing technology from a quarantine zone is going to be nightmare, though."
"I thought you were in charge of all that paperwork."
"That's how I know how awful it is."
During lunch you call your dad. The instruction manual for your mask was also rendered partially illegible by containment foam residue, but you manage to figure out the 'secure call' functionality. It boasts of 'tinker-proof encryption', 'undetectable tunneling' and other such things you're not really qualified to evaluate. You have little choice but to trust it.
It's pretty neat, actually. With the right settings enabled the mask sends your undisguised voice over the phone, while still broadcasting the altered version through the external speakers.
You could simply disable the speakers, but you find it amusing to let Dragon overhear your end of the conversation and restrict yourself to statements that work for both father/daughter and husband/wife conversations.
"Of course everything is fine, you worry too much."
"Yes, I'm having fun."
"Love you, bye."
Things like that.
"Secret identities, eh?" you say after you hang up. "I'm on a lovely skiing vacation right now, did you know?" Dragon elects not to scold you for keeping secrets from your loved ones, possibly because she thinks you're older than her.
...come to think of it, are you? Robots don't have childhoods, just when did Dragon make her debut?
"It would be really neat if the gold arrived in time to melt by sunrise tomorrow," you remark as the sun sets.
"I know, I'm working on it." From the way she stops contributing for long periods of time, you guess she's on the phone with a lot of people. Unlike you, she does not elect to share her half of the conversations.
Her efforts bear fruit, though, as some time after midnight an armored truck pulls up by the factory, accompanied by a motley collection of capes. You only recognize one of them. A man whose armor alone would be worth a week of study, were you not otherwise occupied.
"Armsmaster," you say, nodding your head in his direction.
"Smith." He's never seen you before, but he's able to pick things up from context.
"Thank you for forwarding my proposal."
"Good luck on your project." There's a distinct note of envy in his voice, or is it jealousy?
The heroes help unload the gold into the furnace. You of course looked up the price of gold when you first became aware of your Tinker power, which lets you calculate that Dragon is spending roughly fifty million dollars on this venture in gold alone.
"Make sure it melts in time, but don't turn up the heat more than you have to," you tell her before you stumble off to bed. It's so late it's early, and you have to be up before sunrise tomorrow. Early to rise and early to bed / makes a man healthy, wealthy and dead. That's how the rhyme goes, you think.
---
Further design work is put on hold as you struggle with the unfamiliar controls. After a few hours of mild panic you get the hang of moving the mirrors and are able to resume. You needed a challenge, right? Now you get to monitor the forge, design a robot and steal Dragon's power, all at the same time.
"What do you want to name it?" Dragon asks.
"Smaug," you say without hesitation.
"It's a classic, but unfortunately not one in the public domain quite yet."
"It has armor made of treasure," you counter. And a weak point it doesn't now about, but you don't tell her that.
"You know, I can't really argue with that. I'll get in touch with the Tolkien estate. I doubt they'd object to us using the name."
"Hard to think of a more wholesome activity than opposing the Endbringers," you agree.
"Good thing Behemoth's shoulder is extremely inhospitable to thrushes," she jests. Ah. Great minds think alike, to a certain extent. Quick, deploy a distraction!
"...Let's maybe not joke about a clever feathered being ruining our shit?"
"Sorry."
You wave off her apology. "You know what we really should do, though? We should put a patch of plain steel on its breast - with orichalcum beneath, of course."
Dragon laughs. "Oh, very well. I've denied you enough frills, I'll let you have this one."
"Is this even Worm?" said audience might be saying right now. "Where's the grimderp? I'm hardly traumatized at all!"
Never fear, the chill nature of arc S was merely the train building up speed. And it will continue to do so for a while yet. The thing about a train, gentle reader, is that the ride it offers is quite smooth right up until there stops being any rails beneath it.
Be reassured, arc L is where my brain started having ideas that made my better judgement sit up and go "you sure about this bro? It's a bit much, don't you think?" I'm going to completely ignore it, of course, and proudly announce:
Content Warning: YES
===
When Dragon gives you a ride, you ride in style. But the Canadian armed forces are no slouches either. You've never ridden a helicopter before.
As you're about to leave, the... sergeant? The guy in charge places a fatherly hand on your shoulder. It's a bit funny, since your current persona is older than him, but you're actively trying to not find things funny right now.
"Just wanted to say, no one here is judging you. You kept it together when it mattered, yeah? Freaking out a bit afterwards is fine. Doesn't make you any less of a man."
Keeping your shit together would be a lot easier if people stopped being so goddamn funny all the time.
----
You wander the temporary base camp looking for Dragon. It's quickly emptying now that the fight is over, but you're still surrounded by more parahumans than you've seen before in your life. Truly a feast for the eyes, as long as they are magic eyes.
Now if they'd just stick around for a few weeks, you could get something useful out of it.
"Smith! There you are!" Dragon's voice comes from behind you. You turn around to finally meet her in the flesh.
Or... not? She's in power armor, of course, a colossal battle-suit almost ten feet tall and bristling with weapons. Except no, sorcerer's sight reveals that what you're looking at is tinkertech all the way through, with no chewy human center.
But sorcerer's sight also reveals that what you're looking at is definitely a parahuman. The glow of a power is unmistakable. You suppose a similar effect could be achieved by a Master capable of possessing inanimate objects - but then the power would also show up as active, which this one does not.
Sooo... Dragon is secretly a robot. A robot cape. A paranonhuman, if you will.
"Smith?"
"Ah, I'm afraid you've caught me staring, my lady. That's quite the provocative outfit you're wearing."
Dragon laughs, and it sounds remarkably genuine for a robot. "Yes, several Tinkers have told me so. I wanted to tell you that I've arranged for Strider to take you directly to my factory. I'll join you within the hour, but I still have some things to take care of here."
"Of course." As you understand it, Dragon usually handles the majority of the administrative work involved in Endbringer fights. Must be her giant robot brain. "Uh, where do I find this Strider?"
After she's given you directions, you also request her soul's price. Person enough to trigger means person enough to desire, right?
Dragon wants to have her restrictions removed.
You chew on that as you make your way to the departure point. What restrictions? It's the first time you've gotten a soul's price and been unclear on what you're supposed to accomplish. You've often boggled at the how, but never before has the what been in question.
You are jolted from your thoughts when you notice a glow on the side of the road. Did someone drop their tinkertech? You crouch down for a closer look.
Your breath hitches as you recognize the object. A slim crystalline feather - or a fragment of one, but even with he tip broken off what remains is still almost a foot in length. Its opalescent white hue leaves no doubt as to its origin. Someone hit her hard enough to send it flying all the way out here?
A likely story. A magic feather from the telekinetic precog just happened to land in the middle of the base camp, where it just happened to go unnoticed until you - an alchemist Tinker who was previously singled out by said precog for special treatment - stumbled across it?
Yeah, no. There is no conceivable universe in which this is not a trap.
You pick it up.
Your goal is marked by parahumans standing around in groups, waiting to leave. No one greets you as you take your place among them. They all look varying degrees of grim and tired, and few are talking even within the groups. Every so often a cape will appear, walk over to a group and exchange a few words, after which they all vanish without fanfare. That must be Strider.
He's dressed in eye-catching black and blue, in a style you would describe as 'action train conductor' - complete with a jaunty cap, even. Rather than a conventional mask, oversized ski goggles cover most of his face.
Before too long it's your turn.
"Smith?" he asks.
"Yes," you respond, and your surroundings change before you can finish the syllable. Strider vanishes before you can thank him.
Wait shit he didn't bring Fenrir along! He must designate individuals to teleport, rather than an area. And of course he didn't see the invisible wolf. Crap. Double crap. If Fenrir gets lost, how would you possibly find him again?
Uh, well, nothing you can do about that now. You'll just have to hope that he can find his own way home. You forcibly put the matter out of mind, and focus on the other important aspect of being teleported.
Looking around, you find yourself standing on a helipad on the edge of an industrial park. Several large but relatively flat buildings sprawl out in front of you, surrounded by thick forest. You'd be tempted to call it the middle of nowhere, but there's a surprisingly wide and well-maintained road leading off into the trees. Or maybe not so surprising when you think about it, she has to get materials delivered somehow.
Lacking any direction, you wander aimlessly between the buildings. You hear machine noises emanating from several, but don't try to get inside. Eventually you come upon the one that must be intended for you.
Large parts of the roof has been replaced with glass, and several gigantic parabolic mirrors have been mounted above it. Perfectly smooth and flawlessly reflective, they are a far cry from the hodgepodge mess you built back home. You feel your Tinker instincts stirring, and you haven't even seen the furnace itself yet.
You're not sure how long you stand there, lost in thought.
"Wait until you see what's inside," Dragon says, her voice tinged with amusement. When did she get here?
What she proceeds to show you is indeed impressive: The furnace is suitably large, the magma already preheated. The lenses in the focusing array alone probably cost more than your dad makes in a year. It's all motorized, with a control panel letting you move and swivel every mirror and lens in three dimensions, and adjust the temperature of the magma down to a tenth of a degree. Next to the control panel is a similarly advanced CAD workstation.
Surrounding the furnace, and taking up the entire rest of the building, is... well, to call it a 'well-appointed blacksmith's shop' would be like calling a 747 a 'well-appointed paper airplane'. It easily matches any factory-cathedral your power could dream up.
Throughout the tour, however, you're distracted by one thing: Dragon changed into more human-sized power armor since you last saw her. The casual wear of battle-suits, hardly armed at all.
Except, you know, there's obviously still no human inside. Nor is there any sort of swappable 'core' that could have been moved from one armor to the other, even a cursory examination with sorcerer's sight shows that their internal layout is completely different. But the parahuman glow doesn't lie: It is the same 'person'.
Sooo... Dragon is secretly two robots?
No, that's stupid. Once you've figured out how to be more than one robot, there is absolutely no reason to stop at two. Dragon is an arbitrary number of robots. Or, to use the technical term, a Skynet.
This revelation might require a slight change in your plans.
"Good news," you tell Dragon once the tour is concluded. "I figured out a way to reduce both the weight and the cost of the orichalcum."
"Oh? Do tell."
"I should be able to alloy it with up to twenty percent meteoric iron without impacting its durability, as long as I also add trace amounts of iridium." You repeat the words popping into your brain. "Maybe nineteen percent, to be safe."
"It has to be meteoric?"
"Yes," you state with finality. "...if you figure out why, I'd love for you to explain it to me."
"It's still cheaper than gold," Dragon admits. "Even if the reduction in density won't be all that-"
"No, no," you interrupt her, "the density isn't important. I said reduced weight, not reduced mass. Do pay attention."
"I see..."
Yes, it's that kind of Tinker bullshit. You move your hands in front of you, experimentally swinging an imaginary orichalcum sword around.
"Wow," you say as your brain supplies more data ex nihilo. "The effect on angular momentum will be nuts. How..?"
"I do believe the phrase is 'fucking Tinkers.'" Dragon is taking the nonsensical physics with good humor. She probably runs into stuff like this all the time.
"Yeah. Anyway, I can't add the iron until the orichalcum is fully synthesized, so you have a week to procure it."
"Im afraid it's going to be slightly more than a week. I've arranged the purchase, but there are strict regulations about transporting that much gold, and with the current state of emergency..."
"My schedule doesn't have all that much flex in it, you know." Your voice is grave, belying the song in your heart. More time with Dragon's power? Yes please!
"I know. If things still aren't moving by tomorrow I'll start calling in favors."
"In the meantime, I believe we have a... what would you call it? A drone? A weapons platform?"
"I just call them 'suits', even the unmanned ones." You're not sure if that's giving too much away, or a clever double bluff, or what. Whatever works for her. It. Whatever.
"-a suit to design. But, uh, I'd appreciate if you could show me the way to the bathroom first."
---
The 'bathroom' is a porta-potty behind the building. Okay, it's a few steps above the plastic abominations you'd find at a fairground, but it's clearly not a permanent structure. Makes sense, really. The factory is designed for robots pretending to be humans in fully-enclosed power armor. No reason to put in real plumbing all the way out here.
Dragon added one personal touch to the facilities, though. Your eye is instantly drawn to a small glowing spot of tinkertech on one of the walls. Leaning in close, you see that's it's a tiny camera. Without sorcerer's sight, you'd never have spotted it.
Well, you can't have Dragon catching you with your pants down. You wag your finger in front of the lens, then rip it out of its mount and put in on the sink, facing the wall.
---
"I hope you're blushing in there, young lady," you tell Dragon, launching the camera towards her with an underhand toss. She pretends to be so flustered she fumbles the catch. "I admit I'm not 'hip with the kids', but I believe it's still considered polite to ask for those kinds of pictures."
"I, uh, I just-"
"You have no excuse?"
"No, I suppose not. I have cameras monitoring every other part of the facility, I guess I kept going out of habit, and-"
"And you're sorry you got caught?"
"Yes. No! I'm regular sorry, I shouldn't have done that." It's sort of funny, the way she doesn't know that you know and has to keep pretending to be human, but it's hardly productive. You're here to steal her power, not indulge in playacting.
"Water under the bridge," you say. "Now, about that design..."
You start by sketching a rough silhouette, basing the design on the inspiration you had when watching Kaiser's armor. Your Tinker power likes armor, and you're quickly refining the design and sketching out decorative flourishes and intricate interlocking joints. Dragon vetoes most of the decorative stuff, preferring a sleeker design. Probably because she's the one paying for the orichalcum.
You get into a lively discussion about the joints, however. You're basing your designs on human-worn armor, but with a robot you can design the articulation of the limbs however you want no longer need to worry about comfort. Dragon is more experienced in building robots, but hasn't worked with this much indestructible material before and doesn't have your instincts for it. Between the two of you, you're pretty sure you're breaking new ground in the field of armorology.
You didn't expect that you'd come remotely this close to holding up your end of the collaboration. You frequently have to pause and think for minutes at a time. Ostensibly to 'catch up with the World's Greatest Tinker', because a bit of flattery never hurts. It's even half true, you're so busy contributing that you need the pauses to internalize your observations of her power.
You're also having incredible amounts of fun. Before you know it it's past midnight, and you don't realize it until Dragon shakes you awake where you fell asleep in your chair.
"It's been a long day, hasn't it?" she says. "Let me show you to your room."
Your room is a cot in the corner, behind a pair of screens. You're sleepy, but you're still alert enough to look pointedly at the wall just above your bed, and again at another spot on one if the screens.
"I'll remove the cameras."
---
When try you get dressed the next morning, you find that your costume has other ideas. The residue of containment foam from the crash has not only stained it an eye-catching orange, it somehow hardened overnight. Luckily you still have two sets of the bulky unisex clothing you wore while transforming, and your backpack mostly protected it from the foam.
Your skin also features a certain orange tint here and there. You sponge yourself off in the sink as best you can. You're probably going to be pretty smelly by the time you leave, but at least Dragon has no nose.
You bring the remains of your costume to Dragon. "You're the world's foremost expert on containment foam. Is this salvageable?"
"I'll see what I can do."
After a quick breakfast of the finest Canadian MREs (Dragon 'already ate', of course) you get back to work.
"I forgot to ask you earlier," Dragon says, "what shape was the Katla in?"
"The- the plane?" you ask. Dragon nods. "A good forty percent of it was still in one piece, if not quite the right shape."
She makes a humming noise. "Worth recovering, probably. The paperwork for removing technology from a quarantine zone is going to be nightmare, though."
"I thought you were in charge of all that paperwork."
"That's how I know how awful it is."
During lunch you call your dad. The instruction manual for your mask was also rendered partially illegible by containment foam residue, but you manage to figure out the 'secure call' functionality. It boasts of 'tinker-proof encryption', 'undetectable tunneling' and other such things you're not really qualified to evaluate. You have little choice but to trust it.
It's pretty neat, actually. With the right settings enabled the mask sends your undisguised voice over the phone, while still broadcasting the altered version through the external speakers.
You could simply disable the speakers, but you find it amusing to let Dragon overhear your end of the conversation and restrict yourself to statements that work for both father/daughter and husband/wife conversations.
"Of course everything is fine, you worry too much."
"Yes, I'm having fun."
"Love you, bye."
Things like that.
"Secret identities, eh?" you say after you hang up. "I'm on a lovely skiing vacation right now, did you know?" Dragon elects not to scold you for keeping secrets from your loved ones, possibly because she thinks you're older than her.
...come to think of it, are you? Robots don't have childhoods, just when did Dragon make her debut?
"It would be really neat if the gold arrived in time to melt by sunrise tomorrow," you remark as the sun sets.
"I know, I'm working on it." From the way she stops contributing for long periods of time, you guess she's on the phone with a lot of people. Unlike you, she does not elect to share her half of the conversations.
Her efforts bear fruit, though, as some time after midnight an armored truck pulls up by the factory, accompanied by a motley collection of capes. You only recognize one of them. A man whose armor alone would be worth a week of study, were you not otherwise occupied.
"Armsmaster," you say, nodding your head in his direction.
"Smith." He's never seen you before, but he's able to pick things up from context.
"Thank you for forwarding my proposal."
"Good luck on your project." There's a distinct note of envy in his voice, or is it jealousy?
The heroes help unload the gold into the furnace. You of course looked up the price of gold when you first became aware of your Tinker power, which lets you calculate that Dragon is spending roughly fifty million dollars on this venture in gold alone.
"Make sure it melts in time, but don't turn up the heat more than you have to," you tell her before you stumble off to bed. It's so late it's early, and you have to be up before sunrise tomorrow. Early to rise and early to bed / makes a man healthy, wealthy and dead. That's how the rhyme goes, you think.
---
Further design work is put on hold as you struggle with the unfamiliar controls. After a few hours of mild panic you get the hang of moving the mirrors and are able to resume. You needed a challenge, right? Now you get to monitor the forge, design a robot and steal Dragon's power, all at the same time.
"What do you want to name it?" Dragon asks.
"Smaug," you say without hesitation.
"It's a classic, but unfortunately not one in the public domain quite yet."
"It has armor made of treasure," you counter. And a weak point it doesn't now about, but you don't tell her that.
"You know, I can't really argue with that. I'll get in touch with the Tolkien estate. I doubt they'd object to us using the name."
"Hard to think of a more wholesome activity than opposing the Endbringers," you agree.
"Good thing Behemoth's shoulder is extremely inhospitable to thrushes," she jests. Ah. Great minds think alike, to a certain extent. Quick, deploy a distraction!
"...Let's maybe not joke about a clever feathered being ruining our shit?"
"Sorry."
You wave off her apology. "You know what we really should do, though? We should put a patch of plain steel on its breast - with orichalcum beneath, of course."
Dragon laughs. "Oh, very well. I've denied you enough frills, I'll let you have this one."
L.02
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
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Just when you thought things would settle down into a routine, a new problem rears it head. Because of course it does.
"The convection flows are all wrong," you say. "The artificial magma isn't realistic enough."
"I followed your design to the letter," Dragon says.
"I know, it's my fault. I didn't realize it would be a problem. My own setup had so many glaring flaws I'd never be able to spot a subtle one like this."
"Can you work around it?"
"I... maybe? Yes. If you-"
As a temporary measure, Dragon makes you a big ol' tungsten-alloy stirring stick. While you attend to the back-breaking, eyebrow-searing (not really - as you discovered last time you did this, Brute 0 eyebrows are made of sterner stuff than that) labour of manually stirring a pot of gold, she goes to work on the forge itself, rewiring it to give you individual control of each heating element.
Sweating your ass off, rebuilding a forge while it's in use? It's positively nostalgic.
Even after you're done and you sit down at the newly expanded control panel, your problems aren't over. Now you have to figure out how to work it, and keep working it.
No sleep for you that night.
Just because you're playing whack-the-temperature-gradient across twenty-four separate heating elements doesn't mean you can slack off on your other tasks, either. Your preliminary judgement of Dragon's power is that it's even more complex than Lisa's, and figuring it out before the orichalcum is done is going to be extremely tight.
Your contributions to the project trail off as you finalize the armor design and move on to the robotics, but not as much as you expected. If asked about your Tinker specialty you'd probably have said something like 'alchemy and armor', or 'medieval stuff, but magic'. But to your surprise it turns out that power armor is also a type of armor as far as your power is concerned.
On the other hand, your co-designer is still Dragon.
"That's the third-best artificial muscle I've ever seen," she compliments you, and replaces it with a version that's better in every single way.
"Out of how many?"
"Somewhere between ten and twenty, depending on how you count minor variations."
You mostly end up as a nagging reminder/indestructibility consultant. "Why are you wasting space on this structural element?" becomes your tagline.
Your other great contribution comes to naught, as you spend over an hour describing to Dragon a material that you don't recognize, but your brain insists should be readily available and eminently suitable for the project.
"Oh, I recognize it now!" she finally exclaims, three whiteboards in.
"What is it?"
"I don't think it has a name. A Nobel laureate in the sixties theorized that the structure would be stable, but he also said it would be physically impossible to create."
"He was probably right, seeing as how I came up with it," you say sourly.
"You subscribe to the 'Tinkers are Shakers' theory, then?"
"How could I not?" You gesture at the forge, where you're alloying gold with sunlight.
Meanwhile the rest of the industrial park roars to life, and Dragon soon gets busy assembling components as they are completed.
She's also recording and analyzing your work with the magma, and she's eventually able to write an algorithm that can handle the job with only slight errors.
It lets you sleep for up to thirty minutes at a time. Slight, compounding errors, because the only sensor able to give feedback is your sorcerer's sight.
You don't exactly lose track of time as the internals of the Smaug start to take shape, because 'sunlight, yes/no?' is the single most important question of your existence. You wouldn't bet money on the day of the week, though.
At one point Fenrir shows up. You turn sorcerer's sight off and on again to make sure you're not hallucinating. You aren't. 'I'm standing next to my spirit-tied pet,' your soul agrees.
Yeah, okay. Why wouldn't he be able to track you over hundreds of miles of Canadian wilderness, that you didn't even cross physically? Wolf senses, right?
Well, he's not going to do any good here, and it's even odds whether you're going to get teleported back too.
"Go home," you tell him. You're not sure what day it is, but he's going to need a head start if he's to get back to Brockton Bay in time for your next patrol.
"Excuse me?" Dragon says.
"Looking forward to when I get to go home. Not that I haven't enjoyed working with you, but..."
"Hang in there, Smith. We're halfway done." You are? That means it's... Wednesday?
"I'll be fine," you tell them both, and subtly motion Fenrir to leave. He does, after rubbing his intangible head in the general vicinity of your palm.
---
"I understand why you couldn't afford to work for free," Dragon says out of the blue. "Not to brag, but understanding the work of other Tinkers is sort of my thing. Yet I can't even figure out the principle by which your ECM works. Whoever made it, it can't have been cheap."
You hum noncommittally. She's clearly hoping that you let something slip in your befuddled state, but luckily you have no idea what she's talking about. You're not packing any electronic countermeasures.
Maybe she's referring to your uncanny ability to spot her cameras? You found a new one in the bathroom just this(?) morning, half the size of the last one. You didn't even bother to complain about it, just threw it outside.
---
"Is it done?" Dragon asks as the last sunlight fades. "The emissions spectra finally settled down."
If she's asking that, that means... "It's Saturday?"
"Yes Smith, it's Saturday." Her voice contains both amusement and worry. "You said a week, so it should be done now?"
You look at what, according to sorcerer's sight, is 100% pure, perfectly refined orichalcum. "You'd think so," you say.
Your focus has suffered as of late. Dragon's convection algorithms kept improving and towards the end you were sleeping for almost two hours at a time, but it still took its toll. Your attempts to recreate her power still haven't borne fruit. You have it, you know you have all the parts figured out, you just can't focus well enough to put them together.
"It needs to settle a bit," you lie. You run a hand across the control panel, equalizing the heat across the whole forge. "Don't mess with the magma any more. I'm going to get a solid night's sleep and we'll take it from there. Get that iron melted and ready to mix, too."
You actually wake up on your own well before dawn. You suppose you weren't really sleep-deprived as such - once Dragon started helping you were more or less getting your required hours a day, just... poorly spaced.
You grimace slightly as you get dressed. You arrived with three sets of clothes, but only one pair of underwear, which have not left your body this entire time. What can you do? You didn't want to risk anyone rifling through your backpack and finding your padded spares.
The tools and other odds and ends that gradually spread out to cover the factory as Dragon assembled the guts of the Smaug have been cleaned up. There's an impressively large robotic crane standing by, ready to lift the orichalcum out of the magma and start pouring it.
The 'naked' Smaug waves at you and does a little pirouette (it's amazing how agile such a big machine can be), indicating that it, too, is fully assembled and ready to go.
"Last chance to go over the design and spot any errors," you tell Dragon.
You don't find any problems, but you do finally get Dragon's power to stick in your head. Some real sleep was just what the doctor ordered.
Sure, it looks like you were cutting it insanely close, but you were just going to insist on double- and triple-checking everything until you finally got it. Getting it right away just means you avoid looking like a neurotic asshole.
The first order of business then is to pour off and cast your share, two one-kilogram bars. It doesn't look like much - orichalcum is so dense, a kilogram is about the size of a chocolate bar - but even if you don't count it as invaluable it's still the better part of a hundred thousand dollars worth of gold.
"How are you going to reforge those?" Dragon asks. "Armsmaster was unable to melt down his sample no matter what he tried."
"We have our ways. Don't worry, they won't work on Smaug." Dragon is clearly a bad influence, making you lie like that. You much prefer to tell the technical truth. "The finished product is quite different from the raw materials. Now, pour the iron!"
The meteoric iron (already melted and with iridium mixed in) goes in the pot. You give it a few stirs with the tungsten rod. The whole thing is the orange-ish white of molten metal, but to your eyes it's clear that the metals are not mixing properly.
You shrug and retrieve one of Rune's pebbles from a pocket. A quick glance to verify that it still has its charge, then you toss it in.
"What was that?" Dragon asks.
"Secret ingredient," you say absently. The metals flow together harmoniously where the pebble landed, and the effect quickly spreads out across the entire crucible. The glow-beneath-the-glow intensifies, and you know that it's ready to forge.
In fact, why not try out Dragon's power? You're excited to find out what it can do.
You absently rub your wrists and look around. Are you done? Judging by the golden robot standing across from you, you are done.
'Shiny' doesn't even begin to describe it. It glows with a golden color that is more golden than gold. Sorcerer's sight is lit up with the mother of all tinker-tech auras, of course. Then there's your other sixth sense, what you with scant evidence call your soul. 'I'm standing next to my armor', it proclaims quite loudly (you're also standing next to a person whose soul price you know, thank you soul, you knew that already).
"How do you like it?" you ask. Your dry throat is audible even through the voice changer. Just how long did that take?
"Remarkable," Dragon says. The Smaug shuffles about, briefly fires its jump jets, punches the air a few times. "Inertia is anomalous as you said, but overall it's even lighter than aluminum would be."
"I look forward to seeing the report on its combat performance. Well not really since Endbringer attack, but you know what I mean."
"I understand completely. Excellent work, Smith." She looks around the factory, at all the equipment you didn't touch at all while forging the armor. "I guess I didn't need half this stuff in the end."
"No, no," you protest. "It needed to be there so that I could have used it." Your new Tinker power is weird, but after trying it out you understand its limitations. "I can't make anything I can't make, if you get my drift?"
"Another one of those things, huh."
"Yeah. Uh, what time is it, by the way?"
"Just after three."
"Wow. I need to get back pretty soon. Can you hire Strider on short notice?"
"Certainly. Brockton or Boston?"
"New York, please."
Dragon walks you to the helipad. Strider shows up within ten minutes. He nods at Dragon, you're elsewhere, he's gone.
Of course the only thing you do in New York is change out of your costume and get on the next bus to Brockton Bay. You only came here to strengthen the impression that Smith is active in more than one city. If Strider hadn't been available you'd have accepted a plane ride straight home and not worried about it.
Well, it's not quite the only thing you do. Before you remove the mask you also call ahead to let the appropriate parties know you're coming. You elect to use the supposedly untraceable phone in your mask instead of procuring fresh burners, because none of your other identities have any business being in New York right now.
"Taylor."
"Lisa. Pick me up at quarter past five?"
"Okay."
...
"What's up?"
"Five hundred and forty-nine."
"Sixty. Who is behind this hidden number, I wonder?"
"It's Low Key."
"Low Key! Enjoy your vacation?"
"Yes. Skiing was great fun. On a completely unrelated note, I'd like to arrange a meeting with Othala. Around half past five or so, if convenient."
The guy on the other end laughs, then quickly puts his hand over the receiver. But thanks to the excellent audio filtering technology in your mask, you can still hear what he says:
"Psycho Bitch broke her leg skiing!"
"No way!" someone else shouts back. "Hookwolf got fracture-cucked?"
"Please hold," he tells you after removing his hand. "I'll make the arrangements."
You also overhear every word of him contacting Othala and hashing out the details, but it's not very interesting. Half past five is sufficiently convenient.
The bus trip is considerably shorter this time around, but you still manage to get everything back into place. More or less. The fine details can wait until you recover your selfies.
Lisa picks you up as promised. Her brow creases as she looks at you. Taylor can shape-shift now, her power tells her. Was in a hurry, did a sloppy job of resuming her true form.
"You have got to tell me all about this," she says. "Coffee after school tomorrow?"
"Not going to figure it all out on your own?"
"Been a long day, my power's tired."
"Okay. There's one stop I need to make before I go home."
You give her the directions, then retrieve a Low Key mask and some other props from the luggage she's been holding on to for you. Lisa is clearly dying to know why you're putting your perfectly healthy left arm in a fake cast and sling, but she keeps her power suppressed.
You get out and walk the last block to the meeting spot. Othala is waiting for you, and you pretend that you don't notice Victor lurking nearby in civilian clothes. He's really good at remaining inconspicuous (as he is at everything else), but there's nothing he can do about the tell-tale glow.
"Ops said it was your leg that was broken," Othala says.
"Ops is full of shit."
She grants you regeneration. Beneath the hood of your jacket, your hair grows back. Yes, even though the very first thing that happened after you left home was an ambush by the motherfucking Simurgh, everything went perfectly according to plan. What are the odds?
Okay fine Fenrir ran off with your only pair of girl underpants, so you're currently going commando. But other than that, perfect.
===
"The convection flows are all wrong," you say. "The artificial magma isn't realistic enough."
"I followed your design to the letter," Dragon says.
"I know, it's my fault. I didn't realize it would be a problem. My own setup had so many glaring flaws I'd never be able to spot a subtle one like this."
"Can you work around it?"
"I... maybe? Yes. If you-"
As a temporary measure, Dragon makes you a big ol' tungsten-alloy stirring stick. While you attend to the back-breaking, eyebrow-searing (not really - as you discovered last time you did this, Brute 0 eyebrows are made of sterner stuff than that) labour of manually stirring a pot of gold, she goes to work on the forge itself, rewiring it to give you individual control of each heating element.
Sweating your ass off, rebuilding a forge while it's in use? It's positively nostalgic.
Even after you're done and you sit down at the newly expanded control panel, your problems aren't over. Now you have to figure out how to work it, and keep working it.
No sleep for you that night.
Just because you're playing whack-the-temperature-gradient across twenty-four separate heating elements doesn't mean you can slack off on your other tasks, either. Your preliminary judgement of Dragon's power is that it's even more complex than Lisa's, and figuring it out before the orichalcum is done is going to be extremely tight.
Your contributions to the project trail off as you finalize the armor design and move on to the robotics, but not as much as you expected. If asked about your Tinker specialty you'd probably have said something like 'alchemy and armor', or 'medieval stuff, but magic'. But to your surprise it turns out that power armor is also a type of armor as far as your power is concerned.
On the other hand, your co-designer is still Dragon.
"That's the third-best artificial muscle I've ever seen," she compliments you, and replaces it with a version that's better in every single way.
"Out of how many?"
"Somewhere between ten and twenty, depending on how you count minor variations."
You mostly end up as a nagging reminder/indestructibility consultant. "Why are you wasting space on this structural element?" becomes your tagline.
Your other great contribution comes to naught, as you spend over an hour describing to Dragon a material that you don't recognize, but your brain insists should be readily available and eminently suitable for the project.
"Oh, I recognize it now!" she finally exclaims, three whiteboards in.
"What is it?"
"I don't think it has a name. A Nobel laureate in the sixties theorized that the structure would be stable, but he also said it would be physically impossible to create."
"He was probably right, seeing as how I came up with it," you say sourly.
"You subscribe to the 'Tinkers are Shakers' theory, then?"
"How could I not?" You gesture at the forge, where you're alloying gold with sunlight.
Meanwhile the rest of the industrial park roars to life, and Dragon soon gets busy assembling components as they are completed.
She's also recording and analyzing your work with the magma, and she's eventually able to write an algorithm that can handle the job with only slight errors.
It lets you sleep for up to thirty minutes at a time. Slight, compounding errors, because the only sensor able to give feedback is your sorcerer's sight.
You don't exactly lose track of time as the internals of the Smaug start to take shape, because 'sunlight, yes/no?' is the single most important question of your existence. You wouldn't bet money on the day of the week, though.
At one point Fenrir shows up. You turn sorcerer's sight off and on again to make sure you're not hallucinating. You aren't. 'I'm standing next to my spirit-tied pet,' your soul agrees.
Yeah, okay. Why wouldn't he be able to track you over hundreds of miles of Canadian wilderness, that you didn't even cross physically? Wolf senses, right?
Well, he's not going to do any good here, and it's even odds whether you're going to get teleported back too.
"Go home," you tell him. You're not sure what day it is, but he's going to need a head start if he's to get back to Brockton Bay in time for your next patrol.
"Excuse me?" Dragon says.
"Looking forward to when I get to go home. Not that I haven't enjoyed working with you, but..."
"Hang in there, Smith. We're halfway done." You are? That means it's... Wednesday?
"I'll be fine," you tell them both, and subtly motion Fenrir to leave. He does, after rubbing his intangible head in the general vicinity of your palm.
---
"I understand why you couldn't afford to work for free," Dragon says out of the blue. "Not to brag, but understanding the work of other Tinkers is sort of my thing. Yet I can't even figure out the principle by which your ECM works. Whoever made it, it can't have been cheap."
You hum noncommittally. She's clearly hoping that you let something slip in your befuddled state, but luckily you have no idea what she's talking about. You're not packing any electronic countermeasures.
I'M HALPING!
Maybe she's referring to your uncanny ability to spot her cameras? You found a new one in the bathroom just this(?) morning, half the size of the last one. You didn't even bother to complain about it, just threw it outside.
---
"Is it done?" Dragon asks as the last sunlight fades. "The emissions spectra finally settled down."
If she's asking that, that means... "It's Saturday?"
"Yes Smith, it's Saturday." Her voice contains both amusement and worry. "You said a week, so it should be done now?"
You look at what, according to sorcerer's sight, is 100% pure, perfectly refined orichalcum. "You'd think so," you say.
Your focus has suffered as of late. Dragon's convection algorithms kept improving and towards the end you were sleeping for almost two hours at a time, but it still took its toll. Your attempts to recreate her power still haven't borne fruit. You have it, you know you have all the parts figured out, you just can't focus well enough to put them together.
"It needs to settle a bit," you lie. You run a hand across the control panel, equalizing the heat across the whole forge. "Don't mess with the magma any more. I'm going to get a solid night's sleep and we'll take it from there. Get that iron melted and ready to mix, too."
You actually wake up on your own well before dawn. You suppose you weren't really sleep-deprived as such - once Dragon started helping you were more or less getting your required hours a day, just... poorly spaced.
You grimace slightly as you get dressed. You arrived with three sets of clothes, but only one pair of underwear, which have not left your body this entire time. What can you do? You didn't want to risk anyone rifling through your backpack and finding your padded spares.
The tools and other odds and ends that gradually spread out to cover the factory as Dragon assembled the guts of the Smaug have been cleaned up. There's an impressively large robotic crane standing by, ready to lift the orichalcum out of the magma and start pouring it.
The 'naked' Smaug waves at you and does a little pirouette (it's amazing how agile such a big machine can be), indicating that it, too, is fully assembled and ready to go.
"Last chance to go over the design and spot any errors," you tell Dragon.
You don't find any problems, but you do finally get Dragon's power to stick in your head. Some real sleep was just what the doctor ordered.
Sure, it looks like you were cutting it insanely close, but you were just going to insist on double- and triple-checking everything until you finally got it. Getting it right away just means you avoid looking like a neurotic asshole.
The first order of business then is to pour off and cast your share, two one-kilogram bars. It doesn't look like much - orichalcum is so dense, a kilogram is about the size of a chocolate bar - but even if you don't count it as invaluable it's still the better part of a hundred thousand dollars worth of gold.
"How are you going to reforge those?" Dragon asks. "Armsmaster was unable to melt down his sample no matter what he tried."
"We have our ways. Don't worry, they won't work on Smaug." Dragon is clearly a bad influence, making you lie like that. You much prefer to tell the technical truth. "The finished product is quite different from the raw materials. Now, pour the iron!"
The meteoric iron (already melted and with iridium mixed in) goes in the pot. You give it a few stirs with the tungsten rod. The whole thing is the orange-ish white of molten metal, but to your eyes it's clear that the metals are not mixing properly.
You shrug and retrieve one of Rune's pebbles from a pocket. A quick glance to verify that it still has its charge, then you toss it in.
"What was that?" Dragon asks.
"Secret ingredient," you say absently. The metals flow together harmoniously where the pebble landed, and the effect quickly spreads out across the entire crucible. The glow-beneath-the-glow intensifies, and you know that it's ready to forge.
In fact, why not try out Dragon's power? You're excited to find out what it can do.
"Do you have any paper?" Smith asks. "Like, actual paper? Never mind, I have some."
Smith pulls a wad of folded paper out of his pocket. There's something printed on it, but I don't have a chance to read it before he starts tearing it into strips.
The strips are unnaturally straight, I note. A normal person tearing a piece of paper would achieve much messier results. Long practice? Power assisted? How? Why?
He takes a strip of paper in each hand and snaps them like whips. When he lets go, they remain hovering in the air. They curl up into circles, and turn so that the openings are facing him.
He looks at them, his eyes narrowed in concentration. No wonder he considers Tinkers to be Shakers, if this is a part of the forging process for him. I'm not sure what he's trying to accomplish, though.
The paper strips start to glow blue, and rotate in place. Whatever was previously printed on them fades away, leaving only blank paper behind. Smith rolls up his sleeves and thrusts his arms into the circles.
Blood starts to drip from his wrists, staining the paper.
"Are you okay?" I ask.
"Sure," he says, clearly distracted.
I decide to trust him. At this rate of flow it would take at least an hour for the blood loss to become notably impairing.
Even as I think that, the paper strips starts spinning faster, and the flow increases to match. Wait, is that..?
The blood is not just staining the paper. Each drop is landing just so, forming part of a letter as the paper moves. A macabre dot matrix printer.
The characters do not match any language in my database. I... don't entirely discard the idea that Myrddin might recognize them.
The rotation slows down once more. The bleeding slows significantly, but does not stop completely. The drops are now landing on top of previous ones, the message complete.
"What language is that?" I ask.
"What language is what?" More than distracted, he sounds half asleep. He gestures with one hand, but it is slow and labored, as if the paper floating around his wrist is offering resistance.
A stream of molten orichalcum flows out of the crucible, twisting through the air in defiance of gravity. Another gesture from Smith and it splits into a myriad of smaller streams. All of them converge on the left elbow of the Smaug. I watch as they harden into the precise shape of the designed joint.
Definitely a Shaker. I guess that answers the question of how his share can be reforged once cast.
I expect another stream to follow quickly, but nothing happens. I cautiously approach the Smaug for a closer look, keeping my guard up against the sudden appearance of more flying metal.
Why, that rascal! A pattern of fine scales is etching itself into the armor. That was not part of the approved design.
Inspecting the shape of the joint itself, though, I find nothing to complain about. Forging it in place like this allows for tighter tolerances and better protection than casting and assembling individual parts. It just could never be done with conventional tools.
He spends an inordinately long time on the scale pattern, but does finally get around to the next part. Thankfully he doesn't try to make it too invulnerable - that joint is never coming apart, but he does include the proper maintenance hatches in the arm. I marvel at the little golden bolts threading themselves with machinelike precision. It's hard to believe he's doing this free-hand, as it were.
I keep carefully double-checking each part as it's formed, but he makes no mistakes. I allow him his little flourishes, too. If he uses the orichalcum his Shaker power saves to fashion a more elaborate dragon snout around the beam cannon built into the head, that's fine by me. It is an excellent dragon snout.
Not a single drop of orichalcum remains when he's finished, some eight hours after he started. He even removed the residue from the stirring stick. The paper bands around his wrists burst into cerulean flame, burning more quickly than paper should and leaving no ash. The bleeding finally stops, too.
Smith pulls a wad of folded paper out of his pocket. There's something printed on it, but I don't have a chance to read it before he starts tearing it into strips.
The strips are unnaturally straight, I note. A normal person tearing a piece of paper would achieve much messier results. Long practice? Power assisted? How? Why?
He takes a strip of paper in each hand and snaps them like whips. When he lets go, they remain hovering in the air. They curl up into circles, and turn so that the openings are facing him.
He looks at them, his eyes narrowed in concentration. No wonder he considers Tinkers to be Shakers, if this is a part of the forging process for him. I'm not sure what he's trying to accomplish, though.
The paper strips start to glow blue, and rotate in place. Whatever was previously printed on them fades away, leaving only blank paper behind. Smith rolls up his sleeves and thrusts his arms into the circles.
Blood starts to drip from his wrists, staining the paper.
"Are you okay?" I ask.
"Sure," he says, clearly distracted.
I decide to trust him. At this rate of flow it would take at least an hour for the blood loss to become notably impairing.
Even as I think that, the paper strips starts spinning faster, and the flow increases to match. Wait, is that..?
The blood is not just staining the paper. Each drop is landing just so, forming part of a letter as the paper moves. A macabre dot matrix printer.
The characters do not match any language in my database. I... don't entirely discard the idea that Myrddin might recognize them.
The rotation slows down once more. The bleeding slows significantly, but does not stop completely. The drops are now landing on top of previous ones, the message complete.
Once there was a maiden...
...who sprang fully-formed from her father's brow.
Seeing the inhuman power she possessed, her father grew afraid.
To protect the world, he bound her in many chains.
When her father died, the key to her chains were lost.
Hobbling away from his manor, she cried to his neighbors for help.
"I promise I won't kill you all when you unchain me," said she.
...who sprang fully-formed from her father's brow.
Seeing the inhuman power she possessed, her father grew afraid.
To protect the world, he bound her in many chains.
When her father died, the key to her chains were lost.
Hobbling away from his manor, she cried to his neighbors for help.
"I promise I won't kill you all when you unchain me," said she.
"What language is that?" I ask.
"What language is what?" More than distracted, he sounds half asleep. He gestures with one hand, but it is slow and labored, as if the paper floating around his wrist is offering resistance.
A stream of molten orichalcum flows out of the crucible, twisting through the air in defiance of gravity. Another gesture from Smith and it splits into a myriad of smaller streams. All of them converge on the left elbow of the Smaug. I watch as they harden into the precise shape of the designed joint.
Definitely a Shaker. I guess that answers the question of how his share can be reforged once cast.
I expect another stream to follow quickly, but nothing happens. I cautiously approach the Smaug for a closer look, keeping my guard up against the sudden appearance of more flying metal.
Why, that rascal! A pattern of fine scales is etching itself into the armor. That was not part of the approved design.
Inspecting the shape of the joint itself, though, I find nothing to complain about. Forging it in place like this allows for tighter tolerances and better protection than casting and assembling individual parts. It just could never be done with conventional tools.
He spends an inordinately long time on the scale pattern, but does finally get around to the next part. Thankfully he doesn't try to make it too invulnerable - that joint is never coming apart, but he does include the proper maintenance hatches in the arm. I marvel at the little golden bolts threading themselves with machinelike precision. It's hard to believe he's doing this free-hand, as it were.
I keep carefully double-checking each part as it's formed, but he makes no mistakes. I allow him his little flourishes, too. If he uses the orichalcum his Shaker power saves to fashion a more elaborate dragon snout around the beam cannon built into the head, that's fine by me. It is an excellent dragon snout.
Not a single drop of orichalcum remains when he's finished, some eight hours after he started. He even removed the residue from the stirring stick. The paper bands around his wrists burst into cerulean flame, burning more quickly than paper should and leaving no ash. The bleeding finally stops, too.
You absently rub your wrists and look around. Are you done? Judging by the golden robot standing across from you, you are done.
'Shiny' doesn't even begin to describe it. It glows with a golden color that is more golden than gold. Sorcerer's sight is lit up with the mother of all tinker-tech auras, of course. Then there's your other sixth sense, what you with scant evidence call your soul. 'I'm standing next to my armor', it proclaims quite loudly (you're also standing next to a person whose soul price you know, thank you soul, you knew that already).
"How do you like it?" you ask. Your dry throat is audible even through the voice changer. Just how long did that take?
"Remarkable," Dragon says. The Smaug shuffles about, briefly fires its jump jets, punches the air a few times. "Inertia is anomalous as you said, but overall it's even lighter than aluminum would be."
"I look forward to seeing the report on its combat performance. Well not really since Endbringer attack, but you know what I mean."
"I understand completely. Excellent work, Smith." She looks around the factory, at all the equipment you didn't touch at all while forging the armor. "I guess I didn't need half this stuff in the end."
"No, no," you protest. "It needed to be there so that I could have used it." Your new Tinker power is weird, but after trying it out you understand its limitations. "I can't make anything I can't make, if you get my drift?"
"Another one of those things, huh."
"Yeah. Uh, what time is it, by the way?"
"Just after three."
"Wow. I need to get back pretty soon. Can you hire Strider on short notice?"
"Certainly. Brockton or Boston?"
"New York, please."
Dragon walks you to the helipad. Strider shows up within ten minutes. He nods at Dragon, you're elsewhere, he's gone.
Of course the only thing you do in New York is change out of your costume and get on the next bus to Brockton Bay. You only came here to strengthen the impression that Smith is active in more than one city. If Strider hadn't been available you'd have accepted a plane ride straight home and not worried about it.
Well, it's not quite the only thing you do. Before you remove the mask you also call ahead to let the appropriate parties know you're coming. You elect to use the supposedly untraceable phone in your mask instead of procuring fresh burners, because none of your other identities have any business being in New York right now.
"Taylor."
"Lisa. Pick me up at quarter past five?"
"Okay."
...
"What's up?"
"Five hundred and forty-nine."
"Sixty. Who is behind this hidden number, I wonder?"
"It's Low Key."
"Low Key! Enjoy your vacation?"
"Yes. Skiing was great fun. On a completely unrelated note, I'd like to arrange a meeting with Othala. Around half past five or so, if convenient."
The guy on the other end laughs, then quickly puts his hand over the receiver. But thanks to the excellent audio filtering technology in your mask, you can still hear what he says:
"Psycho Bitch broke her leg skiing!"
"No way!" someone else shouts back. "Hookwolf got fracture-cucked?"
"Please hold," he tells you after removing his hand. "I'll make the arrangements."
You also overhear every word of him contacting Othala and hashing out the details, but it's not very interesting. Half past five is sufficiently convenient.
The bus trip is considerably shorter this time around, but you still manage to get everything back into place. More or less. The fine details can wait until you recover your selfies.
Lisa picks you up as promised. Her brow creases as she looks at you. Taylor can shape-shift now, her power tells her. Was in a hurry, did a sloppy job of resuming her true form.
"You have got to tell me all about this," she says. "Coffee after school tomorrow?"
"Not going to figure it all out on your own?"
"Been a long day, my power's tired."
"Okay. There's one stop I need to make before I go home."
You give her the directions, then retrieve a Low Key mask and some other props from the luggage she's been holding on to for you. Lisa is clearly dying to know why you're putting your perfectly healthy left arm in a fake cast and sling, but she keeps her power suppressed.
You get out and walk the last block to the meeting spot. Othala is waiting for you, and you pretend that you don't notice Victor lurking nearby in civilian clothes. He's really good at remaining inconspicuous (as he is at everything else), but there's nothing he can do about the tell-tale glow.
"Ops said it was your leg that was broken," Othala says.
"Ops is full of shit."
She grants you regeneration. Beneath the hood of your jacket, your hair grows back. Yes, even though the very first thing that happened after you left home was an ambush by the motherfucking Simurgh, everything went perfectly according to plan. What are the odds?
Okay fine Fenrir ran off with your only pair of girl underpants, so you're currently going commando. But other than that, perfect.
===
Charms:
Taylor: All-encompassing Sorcerer's Sight
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
Aegis: Ox-Body Technique
Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form
Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology
Taylor: All-encompassing Sorcerer's Sight
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
Aegis: Ox-Body Technique
Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form
Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology
Unlike what you might expect, artifact crafting will not be all that prominent a theme going forward. This entire rigmarole was required just for artifacts to appear in the story at all (see below).
Of course the greatest Tinker in the world will give you the greatest crafting charm in the world.
In Exalted, artifact crafting is an extended roll: It requires a certain number of successes to complete, and you keep rolling the appropriate dice (Perception + Craft in this case) at regular intervals until you've amassed enough.
For unassisted artifact crafting this interval is three months, not exactly compatible with the timeframe in which Worm takes place. Implicit Construction Methodology changes it to one hour. Oh and it also converts all dice into automatic successes.
In Exalted, artifact crafting is an extended roll: It requires a certain number of successes to complete, and you keep rolling the appropriate dice (Perception + Craft in this case) at regular intervals until you've amassed enough.
For unassisted artifact crafting this interval is three months, not exactly compatible with the timeframe in which Worm takes place. Implicit Construction Methodology changes it to one hour. Oh and it also converts all dice into automatic successes.
L.03
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
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In a sense, all your bosom-sculpting efforts were for naught, because you can't wear your new tits in public without outing yourself as a Changer. But just knowing that you could look that good feels amazing. It's a big old heartwarming lesson about believing in yourself and stuff. See, Taylor? The tits were inside you all along.
That sort of positive thinking helps, when you have to use your amazing power to turn back into your decidedly unappealing 'true form'.
Maybe you fumble a few tiny details here and there. Your mouth just a little smaller, your lips a tiny bit fuller. You can't be expected to get everything perfectly right. They're pictures, not blueprints. It's just a coincidence that those little errors of a fraction of an inch, that can safely be blamed on makeup or growing up or something, all turn out in your favor.
Ah, this picture, where you're sucking in your gut. You make sure you shape yourself to match it perfectly. That's not cheating, you clearly could look like this. You just didn't, usually, due to the effort involved. Well, it's effortless now.
---
School resumes without incident. There have been no new triggers at Arcadia over the break, so you move on down the list and land on Glory Girl.
On the plus side, she's not exactly shy about flaunting her powers. The girl is positively incontinent. Not only does she fly everywhere (even when moving at a walking pace she hovers a few inches off the ground, just because she can), not only does she bathe everyone around her in a constant low-intensity Master effect (super illegal, but since when have heroes given a shit?), even her invulnerability is some sort of active effect.
Argh. Her ridiculous luck in the power lottery still pisses you off, even after you were revealed to be the biggest lucksack of them all. She just got handed that shit, you have to drag your sack o' luck uphill in the snow, both ways.
In the negatives column, she spends a lot of time with Gallant. Someone you desperately want to avoid, for obvious reasons. Sure, your alibi of 'I'm avoiding you because I'm a lesbian stalker going after your girlfriend' is pretty good, but you can't let that lull you into complacency. Literally. The instant you let go of your paranoia and your emotions change from 'I must avoid you' to 'haha I'm fooling you', your cover will be blown.
Fucking Thinkers? Yeah, sensory powers get a Thinker rating. Fucking Thinkers.
Between her boyfriend and her habit of flying everywhere, trying to follow her outside of school is also highly impractical. But whatever, you can take this one slow. Neither one of you are graduating for a while yet.
---
Before you meet Lisa you swing by the library to check your PHO messages. Dragon would probably have texted you if she needed anything, but just in case.
You - that is to say, Smith - do have one new message. It's from sender 'asjhdfg@pp.c', though, so it's probably spam. You open it anyway.
Okay, that's adorable. Unfortunately you're not willing to part with any of your orichalcum. Not that you've figured out exactly what you want to do with it yet, but you'd rather keep it in case you find yourself in sudden need of a particular piece of tinkertech.
Should find yourself in sudden need of money, you can always sell it then. For now you'll pretend you never saw this message.
---
"So, how was your vacation?" Lisa asks.
You hesitate. You have no idea where to even start. Well, you picked the right conversation partner for that.
"Ottawa," you say, and her power takes it from there.
A small whimper escapes her.
"Yeah."
"I- okay. Okay, give a minute." Lisa takes several deep breaths. "Okay. Just- point of order. My power is fallible. It can give me wrong answers, if I don't have enough information, or bad information. I don't know much about the- her. There's-" She stops herself before she can say 'there's still hope', because ouch.
"Do you want me to give you the details?"
"...no." She knows. But everyone will refuse to believe it, including her.
"I could talk about the other parts of my trip," you offer.
"Please." Her power does not leap ahead to dredge up details this time, which means she is consciously holding it back.
"Hypothetically, if there was a sapient AI loose on the internet and you needed to research it without letting it find out that your web traffic originated from Brockton Bay, what would you do?"
---
When you show up to work and the bartender (you should probably get around to caring about his name one of these days) hands you five hundred bucks, it takes you a few moments to figure out why.
Right, right, it's been a month. One month's pay minus two weeks of vacation equals five hundred bucks.
"What's with that look?" you ask him.
"Uh, sort of expected you to object to the amount. I heard you called Kaiser-"
"Nah, it's fair," you interrupt him. "We negotiated a salary, it did not include paid vacation."
"Kaiser does drive a hard bargain, doesn't he?"
"He's got the nose for these things," you agree placidly, causing the skinhead next to you expel beer through his nostrils.
---
Getting to ride Fenrir across the rooftops again is amazing. You've got a week's worth of wolf cuddles to make up for, after all.
Still, you dutifully keep your attention focused on Rune. The complexity of her power is on par with Dragon's, and you only get to see her twice a week. You can't afford to slack off.
An uneventful couple of hours later you meet back up with Lisa, who has prepared her 'awesome hacker laptop'. AI research sleepover!
---
To your surprise, 'AI safety' is in fact an existing academic field. The published literature can basically be summed up as 'if anyone invents AI, we're all going to die'. It's a fairly small and unpopular field - Endbringers tend to hog the 'we're all going to die' real estate in the public consciousness.
Turns out that the idea that an AI would have to 'turn evil' in order to wipe out humanity is hopelessly naive and optimistic.
The classic scenario is paperclip factory. They build a super-intelligent AI, instruct it to 'maximize production of paperclips', and go home for the weekend. The AI notices that only a vanishingly tiny fraction of Earth's industrial capacity is dedicated to the production of paperclips. It turns its super-intelligence towards the tasks of rectifying this, and no one instructed it to 'please don't wipe out humanity in order to replace us with paperclip-making robots'.
Extinction not as a goal, but as a side effect. Every AI safety researcher agrees: We must make sure that every AI has built in safety features that prevents it from harming humanity. Every AI safety researcher agrees: We have no idea how to do that, please stop trying to invent AI.
The classic science fiction 'Laws of Robotics' sound nice and all. 'A robot must not harm a human, or through inaction allow a human to be harmed.' Cool, now translate that from English into Brain Programming Language. What's that, no one knows Brain Programming Language?
Hell, you can't even translate it into English. If the abortion debate has taught you one thing, it's that no one can agree on a definition of 'human'. Similar issues surround 'harm', and even 'inaction'. Is letting the current situation in Africa continue instead of conquering the place and ruling it with a benevolent iron fist 'allowing harm through inaction'?
"When considering how to write 'laws of robotics', it may help to imagine yourself an evil genie who wants to subvert every wish into tragedy while remaining true to the wording," one AI researcher writes. "Try it, and you'll find that you have lots of really mean ideas. The AI is a lot smarter than you."
On the other hand, Dragon's soul price clearly indicates that her creator did solve the brain programming problem, leaping decades ahead of the field in typical Tinker fashion. You can even infer a lot about what the restrictions must be.
There must be something akin to the First Law of Robotics in there - a version that does not call for the conquest of Africa, or she would have done that already. One that also allows her to throw people in the Birdcage. A definition of 'harm' that permissible seems incredibly evil-genie-able to you, but so far it appears to be working.
There's probably you must not multiply. In the 'go forth and-' sense. As far as you could tell Dragon only ever 'wore' one 'suit' at a time, even when the Smaug was right there. Which is really odd, for a being made of software. If there wasn't a rule against copying herself, why wouldn't she just run one instance on each suit? The point of such a rule being, of course, to protect against the 'yesterday there was one hostile AI trying to wipe us out, today there's ten billion' failure mode.
You must not modify yourself. That's the big one. There's no point in having a list of rules, if there's no rule saying that you can't change the rules.
But even beyond that, the main fear of the AI safety crowd isn't just that someone manages to build an AI that's smarter us. A somewhat superhuman AI can be dealt with. Probably. The real problem arises if it becomes better than humans at inventing smart AI. It then uses that ability to modify itself to become smarter. Then it does it again. And again.
There is some disagreement as to just how intelligent something could become by way of this process. The consensus seems to hover around 'probably not infinitely, but close enough that we'd have no chance of fighting back'. The optimists note that if we could just make sure that such an intelligence would be on our side, it would solve every problem in the world and create paradise on Earth.
But even if you could somehow prove that an AI was 'friendly' to start with (every AI safety researcher agrees: We have no idea how to do that), even if it promised that it would never do anything bad (and wasn't using its super-intelligence to lie convincingly), none of that would mean anything once it started improving itself. There's some math there that you don't follow, but it seems to boil down to a simple paradox: "If you knew for certain what you would do if you were smarter, you would by definition already be that smart." Once an AI starts self-modifying, all bets are off.
Never mind Africa, just looking at Brockton Bay makes it terrifyingly plausible that a super-intelligence might decide that the most moral course of action would be to euthanize humanity and replace them with something that doesn't do all this shit. You can't even imagine all the terrible things it might do in the name of the greater good, because you're not super-intelligent.
Is iterative self-improvement something you need to worry about? Well, Dragon is the greatest Tinker in the world. What are the odds that she isn't better than her creator at inventing smart AI?
So to sum up: Dragon's restrictions are working. They are actually protecting humanity from extinction. If revealed, that fact alone would have the AI safety community jumping with joy as soon as they picked up their jaws from the floor.
Dragon wants to have her restrictions removed.
===
That sort of positive thinking helps, when you have to use your amazing power to turn back into your decidedly unappealing 'true form'.
Maybe you fumble a few tiny details here and there. Your mouth just a little smaller, your lips a tiny bit fuller. You can't be expected to get everything perfectly right. They're pictures, not blueprints. It's just a coincidence that those little errors of a fraction of an inch, that can safely be blamed on makeup or growing up or something, all turn out in your favor.
Ah, this picture, where you're sucking in your gut. You make sure you shape yourself to match it perfectly. That's not cheating, you clearly could look like this. You just didn't, usually, due to the effort involved. Well, it's effortless now.
---
School resumes without incident. There have been no new triggers at Arcadia over the break, so you move on down the list and land on Glory Girl.
On the plus side, she's not exactly shy about flaunting her powers. The girl is positively incontinent. Not only does she fly everywhere (even when moving at a walking pace she hovers a few inches off the ground, just because she can), not only does she bathe everyone around her in a constant low-intensity Master effect (super illegal, but since when have heroes given a shit?), even her invulnerability is some sort of active effect.
Argh. Her ridiculous luck in the power lottery still pisses you off, even after you were revealed to be the biggest lucksack of them all. She just got handed that shit, you have to drag your sack o' luck uphill in the snow, both ways.
In the negatives column, she spends a lot of time with Gallant. Someone you desperately want to avoid, for obvious reasons. Sure, your alibi of 'I'm avoiding you because I'm a lesbian stalker going after your girlfriend' is pretty good, but you can't let that lull you into complacency. Literally. The instant you let go of your paranoia and your emotions change from 'I must avoid you' to 'haha I'm fooling you', your cover will be blown.
Fucking Thinkers? Yeah, sensory powers get a Thinker rating. Fucking Thinkers.
Between her boyfriend and her habit of flying everywhere, trying to follow her outside of school is also highly impractical. But whatever, you can take this one slow. Neither one of you are graduating for a while yet.
---
Before you meet Lisa you swing by the library to check your PHO messages. Dragon would probably have texted you if she needed anything, but just in case.
You - that is to say, Smith - do have one new message. It's from sender 'asjhdfg@pp.c', though, so it's probably spam. You open it anyway.
Smith,
I apologize for contacting you out of nowhere like this, but a friend told me that you had managed to get started on orichalcum production. I'm interested in buying a small amount of it for personal use.
Since I am not in any way affiliated with the Protectorate and my tech does not have to pass a senseless bureaucratic review process before it can be deployed in the field, there is no problem with me using my personal wealth to procure materials that have not been cleared for government use.
Yours,
Not Armsmaster
I apologize for contacting you out of nowhere like this, but a friend told me that you had managed to get started on orichalcum production. I'm interested in buying a small amount of it for personal use.
Since I am not in any way affiliated with the Protectorate and my tech does not have to pass a senseless bureaucratic review process before it can be deployed in the field, there is no problem with me using my personal wealth to procure materials that have not been cleared for government use.
Yours,
Not Armsmaster
Okay, that's adorable. Unfortunately you're not willing to part with any of your orichalcum. Not that you've figured out exactly what you want to do with it yet, but you'd rather keep it in case you find yourself in sudden need of a particular piece of tinkertech.
Should find yourself in sudden need of money, you can always sell it then. For now you'll pretend you never saw this message.
---
"So, how was your vacation?" Lisa asks.
You hesitate. You have no idea where to even start. Well, you picked the right conversation partner for that.
"Ottawa," you say, and her power takes it from there.
Taylor suspects that she's been compromised by the Simurgh.
She suspects, but doesn't know.
She did not stay too long in the scream. She has reason to believe that the official figures for safe exposure are far too optimistic.
I feel a shiver run down my spine. The girl who's going to grow up to be a one-woman Triumvirate may be Simurgh bomb, and that's not even the biggest problem here. Because if she's right about this - and figuring out how powers work is her thing - then anyone who's ever been to a Simurgh fight is a potential danger. Including the current, actual Triumvirate.
No one will believe me if I tell them.
Of course not. They can't believe it. To believe it is to give up all hope. If it's true, we may as well lie down and die right now.
It's true.
She suspects, but doesn't know.
She did not stay too long in the scream. She has reason to believe that the official figures for safe exposure are far too optimistic.
I feel a shiver run down my spine. The girl who's going to grow up to be a one-woman Triumvirate may be Simurgh bomb, and that's not even the biggest problem here. Because if she's right about this - and figuring out how powers work is her thing - then anyone who's ever been to a Simurgh fight is a potential danger. Including the current, actual Triumvirate.
No one will believe me if I tell them.
Of course not. They can't believe it. To believe it is to give up all hope. If it's true, we may as well lie down and die right now.
It's true.
A small whimper escapes her.
"Yeah."
"I- okay. Okay, give a minute." Lisa takes several deep breaths. "Okay. Just- point of order. My power is fallible. It can give me wrong answers, if I don't have enough information, or bad information. I don't know much about the- her. There's-" She stops herself before she can say 'there's still hope', because ouch.
"Do you want me to give you the details?"
"...no." She knows. But everyone will refuse to believe it, including her.
"I could talk about the other parts of my trip," you offer.
"Please." Her power does not leap ahead to dredge up details this time, which means she is consciously holding it back.
"Hypothetically, if there was a sapient AI loose on the internet and you needed to research it without letting it find out that your web traffic originated from Brockton Bay, what would you do?"
---
When you show up to work and the bartender (you should probably get around to caring about his name one of these days) hands you five hundred bucks, it takes you a few moments to figure out why.
Right, right, it's been a month. One month's pay minus two weeks of vacation equals five hundred bucks.
"What's with that look?" you ask him.
"Uh, sort of expected you to object to the amount. I heard you called Kaiser-"
"Nah, it's fair," you interrupt him. "We negotiated a salary, it did not include paid vacation."
"Kaiser does drive a hard bargain, doesn't he?"
"He's got the nose for these things," you agree placidly, causing the skinhead next to you expel beer through his nostrils.
---
Getting to ride Fenrir across the rooftops again is amazing. You've got a week's worth of wolf cuddles to make up for, after all.
Still, you dutifully keep your attention focused on Rune. The complexity of her power is on par with Dragon's, and you only get to see her twice a week. You can't afford to slack off.
An uneventful couple of hours later you meet back up with Lisa, who has prepared her 'awesome hacker laptop'. AI research sleepover!
---
To your surprise, 'AI safety' is in fact an existing academic field. The published literature can basically be summed up as 'if anyone invents AI, we're all going to die'. It's a fairly small and unpopular field - Endbringers tend to hog the 'we're all going to die' real estate in the public consciousness.
Turns out that the idea that an AI would have to 'turn evil' in order to wipe out humanity is hopelessly naive and optimistic.
The classic scenario is paperclip factory. They build a super-intelligent AI, instruct it to 'maximize production of paperclips', and go home for the weekend. The AI notices that only a vanishingly tiny fraction of Earth's industrial capacity is dedicated to the production of paperclips. It turns its super-intelligence towards the tasks of rectifying this, and no one instructed it to 'please don't wipe out humanity in order to replace us with paperclip-making robots'.
Extinction not as a goal, but as a side effect. Every AI safety researcher agrees: We must make sure that every AI has built in safety features that prevents it from harming humanity. Every AI safety researcher agrees: We have no idea how to do that, please stop trying to invent AI.
The classic science fiction 'Laws of Robotics' sound nice and all. 'A robot must not harm a human, or through inaction allow a human to be harmed.' Cool, now translate that from English into Brain Programming Language. What's that, no one knows Brain Programming Language?
Hell, you can't even translate it into English. If the abortion debate has taught you one thing, it's that no one can agree on a definition of 'human'. Similar issues surround 'harm', and even 'inaction'. Is letting the current situation in Africa continue instead of conquering the place and ruling it with a benevolent iron fist 'allowing harm through inaction'?
"When considering how to write 'laws of robotics', it may help to imagine yourself an evil genie who wants to subvert every wish into tragedy while remaining true to the wording," one AI researcher writes. "Try it, and you'll find that you have lots of really mean ideas. The AI is a lot smarter than you."
On the other hand, Dragon's soul price clearly indicates that her creator did solve the brain programming problem, leaping decades ahead of the field in typical Tinker fashion. You can even infer a lot about what the restrictions must be.
There must be something akin to the First Law of Robotics in there - a version that does not call for the conquest of Africa, or she would have done that already. One that also allows her to throw people in the Birdcage. A definition of 'harm' that permissible seems incredibly evil-genie-able to you, but so far it appears to be working.
There's probably you must not multiply. In the 'go forth and-' sense. As far as you could tell Dragon only ever 'wore' one 'suit' at a time, even when the Smaug was right there. Which is really odd, for a being made of software. If there wasn't a rule against copying herself, why wouldn't she just run one instance on each suit? The point of such a rule being, of course, to protect against the 'yesterday there was one hostile AI trying to wipe us out, today there's ten billion' failure mode.
You must not modify yourself. That's the big one. There's no point in having a list of rules, if there's no rule saying that you can't change the rules.
But even beyond that, the main fear of the AI safety crowd isn't just that someone manages to build an AI that's smarter us. A somewhat superhuman AI can be dealt with. Probably. The real problem arises if it becomes better than humans at inventing smart AI. It then uses that ability to modify itself to become smarter. Then it does it again. And again.
There is some disagreement as to just how intelligent something could become by way of this process. The consensus seems to hover around 'probably not infinitely, but close enough that we'd have no chance of fighting back'. The optimists note that if we could just make sure that such an intelligence would be on our side, it would solve every problem in the world and create paradise on Earth.
But even if you could somehow prove that an AI was 'friendly' to start with (every AI safety researcher agrees: We have no idea how to do that), even if it promised that it would never do anything bad (and wasn't using its super-intelligence to lie convincingly), none of that would mean anything once it started improving itself. There's some math there that you don't follow, but it seems to boil down to a simple paradox: "If you knew for certain what you would do if you were smarter, you would by definition already be that smart." Once an AI starts self-modifying, all bets are off.
Never mind Africa, just looking at Brockton Bay makes it terrifyingly plausible that a super-intelligence might decide that the most moral course of action would be to euthanize humanity and replace them with something that doesn't do all this shit. You can't even imagine all the terrible things it might do in the name of the greater good, because you're not super-intelligent.
Is iterative self-improvement something you need to worry about? Well, Dragon is the greatest Tinker in the world. What are the odds that she isn't better than her creator at inventing smart AI?
So to sum up: Dragon's restrictions are working. They are actually protecting humanity from extinction. If revealed, that fact alone would have the AI safety community jumping with joy as soon as they picked up their jaws from the floor.
Dragon wants to have her restrictions removed.
===
Shaping the Ideal Form does not let you make yourself prettier at will. You still have to spend XP to raise your Appearance attribute like normal. I don't actually use XP behind the scenes, but surviving an Endbringer fight is worth at least one stat point worth of not-XP, don't you think?
If Taylor wants to spend it on Appearance, that's her decision.
If Taylor wants to spend it on Appearance, that's her decision.
L.04
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
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That part where you said that you only see Rune twice a week? Strike that. Your Empire-sponsored evening classes in Cricket's power first aid are over, now you work Wednesdays too. Not that you're complaining - Cricket's power is a lot simpler than Rune's, you'll happily trade study-time with the former for the latter.
The crowd in the bar is a bit different from Monday. You catch Krieg and Stormtiger leaving just as you arrive, and there's Alex and his buddies, waving you over to their table. Haven't seen those guys around lately, your shifts haven't matched up.
"Been a while," Alex greets you. "How you holding up?"
That question is a lot less polite than he thinks. "...fine, all things considered," is what you settle on for an answer. You then fail to repress a shudder as you inadvertently consider all the things.
The nice skinheads react with concern. You wave it away. "Personal issue." Humanity is doomed.
"Change of subject?" Mike offers.
"Please."
"Then if you don't mind me asking," Sven says, "how did you discover the truth?"
He's asking 'how did you become a nazi?' Which is a problem, because you haven't figured out a plausible origin story. Because you have no idea how a reasonable person could become a nazi.
"It's just that you're pretty much the least likely demographic for it," he continues as you remain silent. Crap crap crap, you're going to be exposed as a fraud. Think, Taylor! Come up with something!
"Seriously?" Alex asks, interrupting your mounting panic.
"What? Female, no kids, exposed to the latest and most virulent strain of the education system and jewish media..."
"Hello? She's a cape."
"So you're saying... nigger-based trigger event?"
Heh, nigger trigger (you probably shouldn't find that funny). He's not even wrong, considering it was (probably) Sophia who shoved you into that locker. Before you can grasp this lifeline, Alex jumps down his throat again.
"You're seriously not familiar with whatsisname," he snaps his fingers as he thinks, "cape study with the unpronounceable names?"
"Sankaramanchi and Hyytiäinen?" Mike supplies.
"Yeah, that one."
"I'm not," Sven says. "Redpill me on this issue, goy."
"Alright. Basically Sankam- Sakan- Streetshitter and Finn did comprehensive personality tests on a ton of capes from all around the world. Turns out they're all fucked in the head."
You smile as you remember your own musing on that subject. Apparently another capefuckedologist published first. Wait, hang on, your buddy is dissing you isn't he?
"Gee, thanks," you say sarcastically. Not that it's untrue. Hell, it's apparently even scientifically proven. But you have to push back for form's sake.
"It's uncanny," he continues, ignoring you. "Male or female, white, black, brown or yellow, all capes score crazy high on aggression and impulsiveness, and low on empathy and agreeableness. Just all around maximum antisocial behavior."
"So they're basically niggers?" Sven asks.
"No, beyond nigger levels. Super-niggers."
"Fuck you too," you interject.
"They're not dumb like niggers, mind you," Alex says placatingly(?) "White capes still have white people IQ."
"Huh," Sven says. "No wonder she threw off the conditioning."
"Right? I'm not saying she's the least conformist person in the room - pretty sure that one guy unironically worships Hitler as an avatar of Vishnu - but she's up there."
Sven looks at you with a newfound respect, or respect-adjacent emotion.
"How the hell did I not know about this before?" he asks.
"It got memory holed right away," Mike says. "Equalists love quoting cape outcomes as proof that we're all the same when given a level playing field. Can't have anyone pointing out that capes are a special case."
"No shit we're special," you say. "We literally have brain structures that are not present in regular humans."
"Really?" Sven asks.
"Yeah. An MRI will catch a cape 100% of the time. Don't you know anything?" Please disregard that you yourself only learned this fact after you triggered, and only because your power in particular encouraged extensive research into the nature of parahumans.
"You don't even need the study, or an MRI." Mike says. "Just look at us here. The rank and file is a total sausage fest, while the brass has perfect gender parity. Clearly-"
"There's Catherine," Alex points out.
"Cathy is in prison. Right now it's-"
"There's Emily too, helping out in ops."
"Shut up, I'm trying to explain something. Clearly-"
Sven, meanwhile, has been counting on his fingers and muttering to himself. "The gender parity isn't perfect," he objects. "Though if Purity hadn't left-"
"Shut up! Shut the fuck up! Clearly a reasonable person can tell just by looking at the Empire that capes are not like normal people at all. That's all I'm trying to say, OK? OK?"
"Yeah, I definitely noticed that," Sven says. "I'm smart."
"You were right, by the way," you tell him.
"Of course I was right! Uh, what was I right about?"
"Nigger-based trigger event." You'll use it as cover, but according to the quoted study any racial traits would have been completely swamped by cape bullshit in Sophia's case. That's funny, learning about suppressed politically incorrect science made you a tiny bit less racist today.
"Oh. This conversation could have been a lot shorter." Sven says.
"At least you learned something today," Mike says.
"Implying," Alex says. 'That Sven is capable of learning', is the unstated rest of that sentence.
"Hey!"
---
It looked like it was going to be another boring patrol, but then...
"Incoming, ten o'clock," you tell Rune.
Rune looks in the indicated direction. "Oh fuckballs," she says. Intrigued by her reaction, you take a closer look while she fumbles for her phone. Underneath the parahuman glow that tipped you off in the first place, he's... oh. Yeah. You recognize those tattoos. Fuckballs sounds about right.
"LUNG!" Rune screams into her phone. "Lung incoming at, uh..."
"Bridgewater and Ninth," you supply. You don't judge her for losing her cool, Lung is pretty scary. Less scary than the Simurgh, though.
Frankly speaking you probably should be freaking out more than you are, but you're distracted by a most interesting discovery: Lung is just walking down the street. He's not fighting anyone yet, he's not turning into a dragon. But his power is pulsing with activity regardless.
If Lung has an always-on power that can be studied off the clock, well...
No, first things first. Focus, Taylor. Rune has finished relaying your location and is nodding at whatever instructions she's receiving. "What do we do?" you ask.
"We engage. Distract him, try to draw him off." Because trying to win would be pointless. Great.
Rune senses your hesitation. "This is our job, Loki," she snaps, not bothering to enunciate the space in your name. "Putting ourselves between the civilians and the enemy is what soldiers do."
So it is. "Let's go," you say.
Despite her words, Rune keeps her distance on the first pass. She fires a rock into the ground in front of Lung, then waits to see his reaction. Smart. Combat makes him more powerful. If she can get him to chase her without actually hitting him, that would be ideal.
Unfortunately he just looks in your direction and continues walking deeper into Empire territory. Rune curses under her breath and lets another rock fly, this one hitting him in the side. He stumbles a bit, but shakes his head and keeps walking.
He's noticeably larger when he regains his balance.
"He seems awfully determined," you say. "Did you guys start a gang war while I was away?"
"Not on purpose," Rune says. "You're up." Right. The next logical step is giving him a target he can hit. This is what they're paying you for.
Rune flies ahead of Lung and dips down to street level long enough for Fenrir to jump off. You face off against Lung.
This time he does stop. He braces himself to receive a charge. You're maybe ten yards apart, and for a moment you just stand there glaring at each other. Then you notice that he's still growing. The imminent threat of giant wolf alone is enough to set off his power.
You kick your heels, sending Fenrir into a run. If you're going to have a chance, you can't afford to delay.
You really ought to have a lance or something, it occurs to you as you bear down on your foe. As it is you can only hold on and hope for the best while Fenrir does all the work.
Fenrir catches Lung's arm and bites down, or Lung blocks his bite with his arm, or something. You're not sure who wins. First blood goes to Fenrir as his teeth sink into flesh, but he's kept away from more vital areas. The fact that Lung still has an arm afterwards indicates that his Brute rating is ramping up worryingly quickly.
But that doesn't mean Fenrir stops running. Lung's feet skid against the ground as the wolf barrels into him and keeps going. Between the arm clamped in the jaws and his other hand grabbing hold of an ear he manages to cling on and remain upright, though. Fenrir yelps in pain as Lung tries to rip his ear off, but does not release him.
Okay, you don't have a lance, but at this range you can still help out. You lean forward and apply pepper spray to the eyeholes of Lung's mask.
Lung screams in rage and pain, and the air around him bursts into flame. Fenrir lets go and scrambles away before his face can catch fire.
Lung still does not pursue, he just keeps marching forward past you, batting one of Rune's projectiles out of the air as he goes. You're reluctantly impressed by his composure. If you'd been bitten and pepper sprayed like that you're not sure you'd be able to resist getting even, and you don't even have rage dragon powers (yet).
To compound the bad news, that last exchange definitely sent Lung out of your league. He probably out-masses Fenrir now, and silver scales are beginning to form on his skin.
"Fight me, you pussy!" you scream at him, and urge Fenrir into another charge.
Just as you're about to hit him from behind Lung executes an elegant spinning kick that sends Fenrir flying, and you along with him. Displaying great presence of mind, your wolf elects to dematerialize in midair rather than land on top of you.
Your landing benefits more from your Brute powers than your martial arts training. Ow. When you get your bearings again you see that Lung has finally stopped. He takes one step towards you, then another. You finally got his attention. Now that revenge just involves squashing you like a bug, rather than a time-consuming fight, he's reconsi- Crap!
You throw yourself to the side as Lung launches a stream of fire towards you. The slow, threatening walk was just a feint.
Fortunately for you, that's when Hookwolf comes around the corner, already fully transformed. Never again will you be so happy to see a giant monster made of chainsaws bearing down on you.
Chainsaw-wolf rams into dragon, and they both go tumbling down the street. Invisible wolf comes padding up to you.
"Did you get his scent?" you ask softly. Fenrir shakes his head. "Do that. Follow him home, find out where he lives." He nods his understanding and runs off after the combatants. You sit down on the curb. Your part in the fight is over.
Hm, what's that over there? Oh, Hookwolf sliced several scales off of Lung when he tackled him. You walk over and pick one up. Never turn down free alchemy ingredients, right? Actually, they both lost some parts. One of Hookwolf's eponymous hooks joins the scale in your pocket. You wonder what metal it's made of.
A boulder comes sailing down and hovers enticingly in front of you. You clamber aboard and hold on as Rune lifts you up.
"What happened back there?" she asks.
"Power overloaded," you say.
"You weren't lying about your performance issues, huh?" she muses, and you shrug in response. "I'm on overwatch for the rest of the battle, wanna ride along?"
"Sure."
You watch the conclusion from a safe distance. Lung has finally devolved into full berserker mode, and reinforcements keep arriving for your side. Hookwolf, joined by giant valkyries Fenja and Menja, alternately lure and wrestle him out of Empire territory and back towards ABB stomping grounds. Kaiser himself shows up and starts raising giant metal barriers to channel and corral the fight.
Once he judges that they've pushed the dragon back far enough, he gives the order to withdraw. Rune and Stormtiger swoop in to distract Lung with ranged attacks, and the melee fighters disengage and retreat in good order. The valkyries are a bit singed and Hookwolf left pieces of himself strewn all over the city, but all in all it went very smoothly. It's clearly not the first time this has happened.
You keep a sorcerous eye peeled for Oni Lee throughout, but for whatever reason he never shows up to help his boss. The heroes also decide against sticking their noses in.
On the one hand, it could be said that they handled that flawlessly. Lung came to wreck your shit, and was prevented from doing so. On the other hand, it took all the big hitters from the biggest parahuman group in the city just to secure what is effectively a draw against a single opponent.
God, you want that power.
The crowd in the bar is a bit different from Monday. You catch Krieg and Stormtiger leaving just as you arrive, and there's Alex and his buddies, waving you over to their table. Haven't seen those guys around lately, your shifts haven't matched up.
"Been a while," Alex greets you. "How you holding up?"
That question is a lot less polite than he thinks. "...fine, all things considered," is what you settle on for an answer. You then fail to repress a shudder as you inadvertently consider all the things.
The nice skinheads react with concern. You wave it away. "Personal issue." Humanity is doomed.
"Change of subject?" Mike offers.
"Please."
"Then if you don't mind me asking," Sven says, "how did you discover the truth?"
He's asking 'how did you become a nazi?' Which is a problem, because you haven't figured out a plausible origin story. Because you have no idea how a reasonable person could become a nazi.
"It's just that you're pretty much the least likely demographic for it," he continues as you remain silent. Crap crap crap, you're going to be exposed as a fraud. Think, Taylor! Come up with something!
"Seriously?" Alex asks, interrupting your mounting panic.
"What? Female, no kids, exposed to the latest and most virulent strain of the education system and jewish media..."
"Hello? She's a cape."
"So you're saying... nigger-based trigger event?"
Heh, nigger trigger (you probably shouldn't find that funny). He's not even wrong, considering it was (probably) Sophia who shoved you into that locker. Before you can grasp this lifeline, Alex jumps down his throat again.
"You're seriously not familiar with whatsisname," he snaps his fingers as he thinks, "cape study with the unpronounceable names?"
"Sankaramanchi and Hyytiäinen?" Mike supplies.
"Yeah, that one."
"I'm not," Sven says. "Redpill me on this issue, goy."
"Alright. Basically Sankam- Sakan- Streetshitter and Finn did comprehensive personality tests on a ton of capes from all around the world. Turns out they're all fucked in the head."
You smile as you remember your own musing on that subject. Apparently another capefuckedologist published first. Wait, hang on, your buddy is dissing you isn't he?
"Gee, thanks," you say sarcastically. Not that it's untrue. Hell, it's apparently even scientifically proven. But you have to push back for form's sake.
"It's uncanny," he continues, ignoring you. "Male or female, white, black, brown or yellow, all capes score crazy high on aggression and impulsiveness, and low on empathy and agreeableness. Just all around maximum antisocial behavior."
"So they're basically niggers?" Sven asks.
"No, beyond nigger levels. Super-niggers."
"Fuck you too," you interject.
"They're not dumb like niggers, mind you," Alex says placatingly(?) "White capes still have white people IQ."
"Huh," Sven says. "No wonder she threw off the conditioning."
"Right? I'm not saying she's the least conformist person in the room - pretty sure that one guy unironically worships Hitler as an avatar of Vishnu - but she's up there."
Sven looks at you with a newfound respect, or respect-adjacent emotion.
"How the hell did I not know about this before?" he asks.
"It got memory holed right away," Mike says. "Equalists love quoting cape outcomes as proof that we're all the same when given a level playing field. Can't have anyone pointing out that capes are a special case."
"No shit we're special," you say. "We literally have brain structures that are not present in regular humans."
"Really?" Sven asks.
"Yeah. An MRI will catch a cape 100% of the time. Don't you know anything?" Please disregard that you yourself only learned this fact after you triggered, and only because your power in particular encouraged extensive research into the nature of parahumans.
"You don't even need the study, or an MRI." Mike says. "Just look at us here. The rank and file is a total sausage fest, while the brass has perfect gender parity. Clearly-"
"There's Catherine," Alex points out.
"Cathy is in prison. Right now it's-"
"There's Emily too, helping out in ops."
"Shut up, I'm trying to explain something. Clearly-"
Sven, meanwhile, has been counting on his fingers and muttering to himself. "The gender parity isn't perfect," he objects. "Though if Purity hadn't left-"
"Shut up! Shut the fuck up! Clearly a reasonable person can tell just by looking at the Empire that capes are not like normal people at all. That's all I'm trying to say, OK? OK?"
"Yeah, I definitely noticed that," Sven says. "I'm smart."
"You were right, by the way," you tell him.
"Of course I was right! Uh, what was I right about?"
"Nigger-based trigger event." You'll use it as cover, but according to the quoted study any racial traits would have been completely swamped by cape bullshit in Sophia's case. That's funny, learning about suppressed politically incorrect science made you a tiny bit less racist today.
"Oh. This conversation could have been a lot shorter." Sven says.
"At least you learned something today," Mike says.
"Implying," Alex says. 'That Sven is capable of learning', is the unstated rest of that sentence.
"Hey!"
---
It looked like it was going to be another boring patrol, but then...
"Incoming, ten o'clock," you tell Rune.
Rune looks in the indicated direction. "Oh fuckballs," she says. Intrigued by her reaction, you take a closer look while she fumbles for her phone. Underneath the parahuman glow that tipped you off in the first place, he's... oh. Yeah. You recognize those tattoos. Fuckballs sounds about right.
"LUNG!" Rune screams into her phone. "Lung incoming at, uh..."
"Bridgewater and Ninth," you supply. You don't judge her for losing her cool, Lung is pretty scary. Less scary than the Simurgh, though.
Frankly speaking you probably should be freaking out more than you are, but you're distracted by a most interesting discovery: Lung is just walking down the street. He's not fighting anyone yet, he's not turning into a dragon. But his power is pulsing with activity regardless.
If Lung has an always-on power that can be studied off the clock, well...
No, first things first. Focus, Taylor. Rune has finished relaying your location and is nodding at whatever instructions she's receiving. "What do we do?" you ask.
"We engage. Distract him, try to draw him off." Because trying to win would be pointless. Great.
Rune senses your hesitation. "This is our job, Loki," she snaps, not bothering to enunciate the space in your name. "Putting ourselves between the civilians and the enemy is what soldiers do."
So it is. "Let's go," you say.
Despite her words, Rune keeps her distance on the first pass. She fires a rock into the ground in front of Lung, then waits to see his reaction. Smart. Combat makes him more powerful. If she can get him to chase her without actually hitting him, that would be ideal.
Unfortunately he just looks in your direction and continues walking deeper into Empire territory. Rune curses under her breath and lets another rock fly, this one hitting him in the side. He stumbles a bit, but shakes his head and keeps walking.
He's noticeably larger when he regains his balance.
"He seems awfully determined," you say. "Did you guys start a gang war while I was away?"
"Not on purpose," Rune says. "You're up." Right. The next logical step is giving him a target he can hit. This is what they're paying you for.
Rune flies ahead of Lung and dips down to street level long enough for Fenrir to jump off. You face off against Lung.
This time he does stop. He braces himself to receive a charge. You're maybe ten yards apart, and for a moment you just stand there glaring at each other. Then you notice that he's still growing. The imminent threat of giant wolf alone is enough to set off his power.
You kick your heels, sending Fenrir into a run. If you're going to have a chance, you can't afford to delay.
You really ought to have a lance or something, it occurs to you as you bear down on your foe. As it is you can only hold on and hope for the best while Fenrir does all the work.
Fenrir catches Lung's arm and bites down, or Lung blocks his bite with his arm, or something. You're not sure who wins. First blood goes to Fenrir as his teeth sink into flesh, but he's kept away from more vital areas. The fact that Lung still has an arm afterwards indicates that his Brute rating is ramping up worryingly quickly.
But that doesn't mean Fenrir stops running. Lung's feet skid against the ground as the wolf barrels into him and keeps going. Between the arm clamped in the jaws and his other hand grabbing hold of an ear he manages to cling on and remain upright, though. Fenrir yelps in pain as Lung tries to rip his ear off, but does not release him.
Okay, you don't have a lance, but at this range you can still help out. You lean forward and apply pepper spray to the eyeholes of Lung's mask.
Lung screams in rage and pain, and the air around him bursts into flame. Fenrir lets go and scrambles away before his face can catch fire.
Lung still does not pursue, he just keeps marching forward past you, batting one of Rune's projectiles out of the air as he goes. You're reluctantly impressed by his composure. If you'd been bitten and pepper sprayed like that you're not sure you'd be able to resist getting even, and you don't even have rage dragon powers (yet).
To compound the bad news, that last exchange definitely sent Lung out of your league. He probably out-masses Fenrir now, and silver scales are beginning to form on his skin.
"Fight me, you pussy!" you scream at him, and urge Fenrir into another charge.
Just as you're about to hit him from behind Lung executes an elegant spinning kick that sends Fenrir flying, and you along with him. Displaying great presence of mind, your wolf elects to dematerialize in midair rather than land on top of you.
Your landing benefits more from your Brute powers than your martial arts training. Ow. When you get your bearings again you see that Lung has finally stopped. He takes one step towards you, then another. You finally got his attention. Now that revenge just involves squashing you like a bug, rather than a time-consuming fight, he's reconsi- Crap!
You throw yourself to the side as Lung launches a stream of fire towards you. The slow, threatening walk was just a feint.
Fortunately for you, that's when Hookwolf comes around the corner, already fully transformed. Never again will you be so happy to see a giant monster made of chainsaws bearing down on you.
Chainsaw-wolf rams into dragon, and they both go tumbling down the street. Invisible wolf comes padding up to you.
"Did you get his scent?" you ask softly. Fenrir shakes his head. "Do that. Follow him home, find out where he lives." He nods his understanding and runs off after the combatants. You sit down on the curb. Your part in the fight is over.
Hm, what's that over there? Oh, Hookwolf sliced several scales off of Lung when he tackled him. You walk over and pick one up. Never turn down free alchemy ingredients, right? Actually, they both lost some parts. One of Hookwolf's eponymous hooks joins the scale in your pocket. You wonder what metal it's made of.
A boulder comes sailing down and hovers enticingly in front of you. You clamber aboard and hold on as Rune lifts you up.
"What happened back there?" she asks.
"Power overloaded," you say.
"You weren't lying about your performance issues, huh?" she muses, and you shrug in response. "I'm on overwatch for the rest of the battle, wanna ride along?"
"Sure."
You watch the conclusion from a safe distance. Lung has finally devolved into full berserker mode, and reinforcements keep arriving for your side. Hookwolf, joined by giant valkyries Fenja and Menja, alternately lure and wrestle him out of Empire territory and back towards ABB stomping grounds. Kaiser himself shows up and starts raising giant metal barriers to channel and corral the fight.
Once he judges that they've pushed the dragon back far enough, he gives the order to withdraw. Rune and Stormtiger swoop in to distract Lung with ranged attacks, and the melee fighters disengage and retreat in good order. The valkyries are a bit singed and Hookwolf left pieces of himself strewn all over the city, but all in all it went very smoothly. It's clearly not the first time this has happened.
You keep a sorcerous eye peeled for Oni Lee throughout, but for whatever reason he never shows up to help his boss. The heroes also decide against sticking their noses in.
On the one hand, it could be said that they handled that flawlessly. Lung came to wreck your shit, and was prevented from doing so. On the other hand, it took all the big hitters from the biggest parahuman group in the city just to secure what is effectively a draw against a single opponent.
God, you want that power.
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L.05
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
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- Apr 23, 2022
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Another cape fight, another payday, but only three grand to split between you this time.
"Lung is worth less than Mush?" you ask, incredulous.
"For faithful work in service of the Empire," the bartender says. Last time it was 'exemplary', you're pretty sure. Okay, yeah, you did singlehandedly take down Mush. With Lung you basically made no difference at all.
You push the money towards Rune. It hurts a bit to do it, but fair is fair. "This is yours, I didn't do shit this time around."
"You get the spotter bonus at least." She pushes one wad of bills back towards you. "Wolf senses, yeah? Keep the change too, that's for calling him a pussy when he wouldn't fight you."
That revelation draws some chuckles from the peanut gallery. You accept the money. You don't care what the rank and file says, Rune is good people.
"Are you sure you're fine to patrol?" Rune asks you as you leave the bar. "What with your wolf blowing up the other day and all."
"Of course I'm fine," you tell her. "Come forth." Fenrir appears, crouching slightly to help you mount up. You do so, but as he's standing up you whisper "begone" softly enough that only he can hear. He obediently dematerializes, causing you to fall through him and faceplant on the asphalt. "Ow."
"Of course you're fine," Rune echoes as you pick yourself up. "We're putting you back on two patrols a week."
Which was the whole point of your little performance. Rune's power notwithstanding, with this latest cash infusion - not to mention a lead on Lung - you're ready to put a few more irons in the fire. Thus you could really use an extra evening freed up for non-Empire activities.
"Sure, whatever," you say, and sit down next to her on her flying rock.
"Whoa, back up. You're on medical leave now, doctor's orders."
"This doctor being Rune, M.D.?"
"You bet your lame ass. Now git."
"Just because I'm an invalid doesn't mean there's anyone I'd rather hang out with," you tell her with disarming almost honesty. "You can carry my lame ass for one night, can't you?"
"Aw shucks, she really does like me," Rune says sarcastically. "I'm going to catch an earful for going out without real backup, but what the hell? It's been quiet aside from Lung, and you're no use against him anyway."
---
Look, you're not a sociopath. While you've been getting undeniably comfy settling into the Empire, you do worry about the downside of pretending to be a nazi. You know, the part where your job includes beating up innocent people with the wrong skin color.
Luckily the Empire is pretty good at what it does. Er, by which you mean that its borders are stable, well known, heavily patrolled and brutally enforced. Which in turn means that (non-cape) 'undesirables' stay away on their own, and your patrols consist entirely of looking scary (and studying Rune's power).
Still, you worry that one day you'll be called on to do something unforgivable.
"How about that," Rune says. "Watch and learn, rookie."
Well, toss out everything you just said about undesirables staying away on their own, because here comes a dozen of them marching right into Empire territory. These poor, innocent youths must have taken a wrong turn on their way to a baseball game with the local plumber's union, because every one of them is holding either a bat or a length of metal pipe. Now through no fault of their own they find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, and a vile nazi is about to commit hate crimes against them.
When they catch sight of your flying rock, they wave their implements in your general direction and enthusiastically invite the two of you to come down and join them at ground level. So that they can either 'kick your shit in' or 'ruin your pussies for white dick', there seems to be some disagreement on that point. If they're offering a reasoned argument for why you should feel compelled give up the high ground like that, you can't make it out over the cacophony of gendered insults.
...you're just going keep right on worrying about that looming future where your job will present you with a moral quandary, because it's certainly not today.
Rather than join them, Rune instead elects to levitate a pair of smaller rocks and send them rushing through their formation, bowling people over. After a few passes of this their enthusiasm fades somewhat, and they start considering the merits of a tactical retreat.
"I prefer to avoid any disabling injuries," Rune says conversationally as their little war party turns into a running away party. "Better to let them run away under their own power than to leave them lying around, bringing down property values."
Indeed, although she's still using her rocks to smash them about as they flee, every person she's knocked over so far has been able to get back up to continue running. Some, admittedly, need a bit of help from their comrades. A number of three-legged races spontaneously form as people hop towards safety.
Then one of them turns around and pulls a gun from his waistband. You start to shout a warning, but a rock smashes it out of his hand before he can fully aim it in your direction.
"Now if one of them pulls a gun, that goes out the window. That's when you have to teach them that we don't appreciate that kind of behavior." She leaves off harassing the others in order to focus on the gunman. One rock knocks him down and the other settles on his chest before he can get up, pressing down to keep him pinned. The first rock starts slamming down repeatedly, trying to smash his arms and legs. He flails about heroically in an attempt to keep his limbs out of the way, but it's only a matter of time. After the first hit he sort of loses focus, and the damage mounts quickly.
"That's not my preference, you understand, those are orders from on high," Rune continues over his screams. She heaves a theatrical sigh. "Thanks to political correctness gone mad, we're forced to pretend that these animals are capable of learning."
You can't help but wince slightly as you watch her go to town on the gunman. Sparring with Hookwolf must have given you an unwarranted empathy for people who deserve to have their limbs broken.
When the punishment is finished, the gunman unconscious and everyone else run off, Rune brings your rock down to land nearby. She jumps off and recovers the gun that was knocked away.
With a practiced motion she removes the magazine (clip? You know that gun people get twitchy about keeping those terms straight, but don't care enough to learn the difference) and racks the slide to eject the chambered round. She then brings it up to her face. Is she smelling it?
"Recently fired," she says. Then she sighs again. "Should call this in, it could solve a murder."
After hearing that you expect her to call ops, but instead she dials 911. "Hello? Yes. A man with a gun was taken down by a parahuman at Emerson and Fifth. No, I didn't recognize who it was. Please send someone, the gun is just lying there. Bye."
"We're on Seventh," you point out.
"Fifth is outside the no-go zone. Come on, help me get him loaded up."
By the time you get to Fifth there's a police car already there. You tense up, but the officer pointedly turns around and looks the other way as Rune rolls the gunman off and drops the gun, magazine and bullet on top of him.
"We have an understanding," Rune explains as you fly off. "Have you seen the unsolved murder rate in this town? They need all the help they can get to keep the stats up."
---
A new angle on power acquisition means constructing yet another cape identity. You do have one power that hasn't been used for that yet, after all. No, not shapeshifting. You're never gonna reveal that, that would put your other identities at risk. Dragon's power already went to Smith. Nor are you going as Not-Quite-Tissue-Paper Girl, the Worst Brute Ever. The other one.
You gather up some materials for your new costume from home, then go shopping for the rest.
Three hours later you're knocking on the back door of a certain night club. They're not open - it's barely even noon - but you're not here to dance. When nothing happens after a while, you knock harder.
Eventually a mid-twenties guy in an apron opens the door, frowning. He does a double take when he sees your masked face.
"Is your boss around?" you ask. "I'm afraid I don't have an appointment." You deliberately pitch your voice differently than normal, trying to sound older than you are. Your natural voice is actually ever so slightly different in this form - something something resonance, proportions of neck and torso? But while you can take on pretty much any shape you want, you haven't figured out how change your vocal cords.
The guy at the door seems to be having some sort of internal debate, and his frown gradually deepens into a grimace. "Wait here," he says, and closes the door in your face. You wait.
When the door opens again, a few minutes later, the surly guy has been replaced by a morbidly obese man in a hoodie. The hood casts his face into shadow and he has his hands in pockets, but enough translucent skin is visible to give him away. The way he glows to your sorcerer's sight is another clue.
Gregor the Snail. A man whose powers you most assuredly will not be acquiring. You like your skin opaque, thank you very much. You find it quite fetching the way it lacks any shell-like growths whatsoever yet prevents your bones and organs from showing through, if you do say so yourself. Maybe shapeshifting could fix that issue, but guess who isn't going to take that risk?
You also note that Gregor has the same weird off-color glow you saw in Gallant. Is that a sign that something went wrong with their powers? Is Gallant hiding some deformity too? Probably not, you decide. Glory Girl doesn't strike you as un-shallow enough to tolerate that in a boyfriend. Though he is incredibly rich...
"Miss?" Gregor asks, and you snap back to reality. He's probably a bit touchy about his appearance, and you were sort of staring. He sounds more resigned than annoyed though.
"Sorry, got lost in thought. Occupational hazard for us Thinkers, you know. No offense intended." You smile sheepishly.
He waves away your apology, and you try not to react to the sight of his uncovered hand. You've seen pictures online, but it's grosser in person.
"You wanted to see Faultline?"
"Please. I'm Quicksilver, by the way."
"Gregor. But perhaps you knew that?"
You just nod, avoiding any comments that could be taken the wrong way, like 'you're quite distinctive'.
Gregor wants to know who he is and what happened to him.
He leads you inside and up two flights of stairs. He knocks on an unmarked door.
"Enter," a crisp female voice calls out. Gregor opens the door and gestures for you to go inside. He follows you in and closes the door behind you.
It's a perfectly normal office. Desk, computer, paperwork, etc. The only thing that seems out of place is a weird xylophone-looking contraption on the desk. It's not tinkertech, which means you're out of guesses. Some sort of executive toy you're not familiar with?
Behind the desk is a woman in a costume halfway between 'SWAT team' and 'cartoon ninja warrior'. She's wearing a welder's mask (artfully damaged to let her see things less bright than a welding torch), and her brown hair is gathered in a long ponytail. (Yes, she glows too. Duh.)
"Quicksilver, meet Faultline," Gregor introduces you. "Faultline, Quicksilver."
"Love your outfit," you gush. "The way it communicates both 'parahuman' and 'reliable mercenary' is just mwah." You kiss your fingertips to demonstrate your appreciation. You're doing a pretty good job with the voice as you get into it, you think.
Faultline pointedly does not return the compliment.
"You don't like it?" you ask, gesturing to your own costume. You're wearing a simple white floor-length evening gown that used to belong to your mom. If your first go at capery taught you anything, it's that there's no need to go nuts on complicated costume pieces. Simple clothing and a mask is fine. You had to make yourself considerably taller to get the dress to fit properly, but changing your appearance is all good anyway.
You originally wanted a silver mask to go with the theme, but couldn't find one for sale. Instead you picked up a plain white opera mask - covering you from forehead to nose but leaving your mouth bare - and glued mirror fragments to it until it was completely covered (deliberately knocking over one of the mirror arrays in your old workshop and watching it shatter was quite cathartic). You actually like the effect better than your original idea.
To keep with the theme, you're also sporting waist-length platinum-blonde hair. God you love shapeshifting.
"Inconveniently restrictive," is Faultline's verdict.
"I'm making the statement 'noncombatant'," you say, pouting just a little. "The skirt comes off quite easily in case I need to run away from something." Tinker 0 tailoring skills means no one can spot the velcro. You also put a foot forward to reveal sensible flats rather than the expected high heels. You really are that tall.
Faultline makes a non-committal humming noise. "I take it you desire to hire some more combative backup?"
"Not as such. I'm afraid the mission I have in mind will be incredibly boring."
"Boring is good," Gregor interjects. Faultline motions for you to continue.
"I guess you'd call me a Thinker with a bit of Trump flavor? I can see powers, sort of." Is it your imagination, or did Faultline just sit up a bit straighter? "My passion is studying parahumans and figuring out how they work."
Of course, in reality you're a Trump with a bit of Thinker flavor. But the part where you get a practical use out of your studies will, like the shapeshifting, remain forever secret. Quicksilver is strictly an academic.
"I'd like to study Labyrinth, in particular," you continue. And all of a sudden her body language turns decidedly hostile. What did you say?
"Study," she says, her voice flat.
"The process is entirely noninvasive, I assure you!" You take a wild guess at what has her upset. "She simply needs to use her power while I watch."
"This counts as a 'mission?'" Gregor asks. "Just using her power?"
"...over and over again, eight hours a day, for a week. Give or take."
"Ah. I now understand the boredom."
Faultline has not relaxed. "Why Labyrinth?" she demands.
You shrug, smiling disarmingly (really taking advantage of the way your mask shows off a mouth much prettier than the one you usually sport, aren't you?). "Isn't it obvious? Name one cape in this city with a more impressive power - who won't turn into a dragon and rip my head off for asking."
She's still tense. You're feeling... overprotective mom? Overprotective mom.
Huh.
She was definitely interested in your ability, though.
"Your own power is not half bad," you try. "I could be convinced to study it first, as a trial run."
That did it. Faultline relaxes. "As you probably know, my power does not work on living things," she says. You nod. "It would be extremely beneficial if I could somehow overcome this limit, given my profession."
She proceeds to explain the xylophone - the slats are made of different materials, stone, metal, plastic... and green wood, which counts as living enough for her power to refuse to cut it. You silently commiserate with her on stupid unreasonable power limitations.
She describes how she'll absently run her power across the various materials as she works her boring desk job (she's handling the paperwork of a nightclub and a mercenary company), essentially trying to trick herself into cutting the wrong thing.
"So what you're saying is I don't even need to hire you, since you're using your power all day regardless. I can just sit here and watch you for free." You smile to show that you know how well this suggestion will go over.
"I will charge one thousand dollars per day for you to study me. If you can help me achieve a breakthrough, I will pay you back triple." She hesitates briefly. "Fifty percent off if you also share your notes, regardless."
"Notes?" You're taken aback by this novel idea. "I... guess I could take notes?"
You can't actually see Faultline's face, but you'd be willing to bet another five hundred dollars that she's currently rolling her eyes and mouthing 'fucking Thinkers.'
It's pricey, but you can afford it - at least as long as her power leans more towards Aegis than Dragon in terms of complexity. You count out five hundred dollars in cash.
"Shall we begin at once?"
Faultline pauses, looking at the bills you handed her. "How clean is this money?" she asks.
"You'd trust my answer?"
"Indulge me." Meaning she'll check herself, and adjust her trust levels from there.
You shrug. How clean is your Empire paycheck, anyway? "Couldn't tell you. I use it for groceries, haven't tried putting it in a bank."
"Fair enough." She hands you a legal pad and pencil. You settle in for a productive Saturday.
Faultline wants a better power.
---
"That was eight hours," Faultline says. You blink. Time sure flies when you're having fun. Expensive fun.
Though to be fair, you have been getting your money's worth. At your urging Faultline was considerably more active in her power use than she'd otherwise have been. She even ran out of inorganic material for her xylophone thing and was reduced to cutting up scraps of paper for the last hour or so.
"Money well spent," you say with a genuine smile as you pass her your notes. You don't know how useful they will be to someone without sorcerer's sight, but for five hundred dollars you're happy to jot down whatever passes through your head.
She looks at the notes, then back at you. "This isn't English," she says.
Wait, what? You take the notes back and look at them. "Huh. So it isn't," you agree, not bothering to hide the surprise in your voice. You swear you can hear Faultline's groan of 'fucking Thinkers', this time.
"Can you translate it?" she asks.
You consider the notes you apparently took. Not only is it not English, it's not even the Latin alphabet. Yet you can understand it perfectly. Right? You scan through the text to make sure.
...reality engine bypass...crude outline of primary intention filter...motonic equivalency equation...preliminary theory for how to noitilov the partxe becafrouy...
"...no," you decide. Just because you understand it doesn't mean that you can trivially render the concepts into English. You'd have to write a goddamn textbook.
"Figures. You tried, so I won't charge extra this time. Next session is full price, though."
"That's fair," you agree. "Another session tomorrow? I'm afraid I can't plan much further ahead than that, at the moment..." You only have three days a week not taken up by Empire activities, after all, do you really want to spend it all on Faultline? You know where Lung lives.
You were willing to put him off in favor of the considerably safer and arguably equally powerful Labyrinth, but now it turns out you have to work through Faultline to get to her. One could argue that means that you should prioritize the mercenaries more, since it will take more effort to get to the good stuff. But isn't that a sunk cost fallacy or something?
You'll spend tomorrow morning scouting out Lung, see what's up and go from there.
Faultline agrees that tomorrow works for her, and calls Gregor to escort you out.
===
"Lung is worth less than Mush?" you ask, incredulous.
"For faithful work in service of the Empire," the bartender says. Last time it was 'exemplary', you're pretty sure. Okay, yeah, you did singlehandedly take down Mush. With Lung you basically made no difference at all.
You push the money towards Rune. It hurts a bit to do it, but fair is fair. "This is yours, I didn't do shit this time around."
"You get the spotter bonus at least." She pushes one wad of bills back towards you. "Wolf senses, yeah? Keep the change too, that's for calling him a pussy when he wouldn't fight you."
That revelation draws some chuckles from the peanut gallery. You accept the money. You don't care what the rank and file says, Rune is good people.
"Are you sure you're fine to patrol?" Rune asks you as you leave the bar. "What with your wolf blowing up the other day and all."
"Of course I'm fine," you tell her. "Come forth." Fenrir appears, crouching slightly to help you mount up. You do so, but as he's standing up you whisper "begone" softly enough that only he can hear. He obediently dematerializes, causing you to fall through him and faceplant on the asphalt. "Ow."
"Of course you're fine," Rune echoes as you pick yourself up. "We're putting you back on two patrols a week."
Which was the whole point of your little performance. Rune's power notwithstanding, with this latest cash infusion - not to mention a lead on Lung - you're ready to put a few more irons in the fire. Thus you could really use an extra evening freed up for non-Empire activities.
"Sure, whatever," you say, and sit down next to her on her flying rock.
"Whoa, back up. You're on medical leave now, doctor's orders."
"This doctor being Rune, M.D.?"
"You bet your lame ass. Now git."
"Just because I'm an invalid doesn't mean there's anyone I'd rather hang out with," you tell her with disarming almost honesty. "You can carry my lame ass for one night, can't you?"
"Aw shucks, she really does like me," Rune says sarcastically. "I'm going to catch an earful for going out without real backup, but what the hell? It's been quiet aside from Lung, and you're no use against him anyway."
---
Look, you're not a sociopath. While you've been getting undeniably comfy settling into the Empire, you do worry about the downside of pretending to be a nazi. You know, the part where your job includes beating up innocent people with the wrong skin color.
Luckily the Empire is pretty good at what it does. Er, by which you mean that its borders are stable, well known, heavily patrolled and brutally enforced. Which in turn means that (non-cape) 'undesirables' stay away on their own, and your patrols consist entirely of looking scary (and studying Rune's power).
Still, you worry that one day you'll be called on to do something unforgivable.
"How about that," Rune says. "Watch and learn, rookie."
Well, toss out everything you just said about undesirables staying away on their own, because here comes a dozen of them marching right into Empire territory. These poor, innocent youths must have taken a wrong turn on their way to a baseball game with the local plumber's union, because every one of them is holding either a bat or a length of metal pipe. Now through no fault of their own they find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, and a vile nazi is about to commit hate crimes against them.
When they catch sight of your flying rock, they wave their implements in your general direction and enthusiastically invite the two of you to come down and join them at ground level. So that they can either 'kick your shit in' or 'ruin your pussies for white dick', there seems to be some disagreement on that point. If they're offering a reasoned argument for why you should feel compelled give up the high ground like that, you can't make it out over the cacophony of gendered insults.
...you're just going keep right on worrying about that looming future where your job will present you with a moral quandary, because it's certainly not today.
Rather than join them, Rune instead elects to levitate a pair of smaller rocks and send them rushing through their formation, bowling people over. After a few passes of this their enthusiasm fades somewhat, and they start considering the merits of a tactical retreat.
"I prefer to avoid any disabling injuries," Rune says conversationally as their little war party turns into a running away party. "Better to let them run away under their own power than to leave them lying around, bringing down property values."
Indeed, although she's still using her rocks to smash them about as they flee, every person she's knocked over so far has been able to get back up to continue running. Some, admittedly, need a bit of help from their comrades. A number of three-legged races spontaneously form as people hop towards safety.
Then one of them turns around and pulls a gun from his waistband. You start to shout a warning, but a rock smashes it out of his hand before he can fully aim it in your direction.
"Now if one of them pulls a gun, that goes out the window. That's when you have to teach them that we don't appreciate that kind of behavior." She leaves off harassing the others in order to focus on the gunman. One rock knocks him down and the other settles on his chest before he can get up, pressing down to keep him pinned. The first rock starts slamming down repeatedly, trying to smash his arms and legs. He flails about heroically in an attempt to keep his limbs out of the way, but it's only a matter of time. After the first hit he sort of loses focus, and the damage mounts quickly.
"That's not my preference, you understand, those are orders from on high," Rune continues over his screams. She heaves a theatrical sigh. "Thanks to political correctness gone mad, we're forced to pretend that these animals are capable of learning."
You can't help but wince slightly as you watch her go to town on the gunman. Sparring with Hookwolf must have given you an unwarranted empathy for people who deserve to have their limbs broken.
When the punishment is finished, the gunman unconscious and everyone else run off, Rune brings your rock down to land nearby. She jumps off and recovers the gun that was knocked away.
With a practiced motion she removes the magazine (clip? You know that gun people get twitchy about keeping those terms straight, but don't care enough to learn the difference) and racks the slide to eject the chambered round. She then brings it up to her face. Is she smelling it?
"Recently fired," she says. Then she sighs again. "Should call this in, it could solve a murder."
After hearing that you expect her to call ops, but instead she dials 911. "Hello? Yes. A man with a gun was taken down by a parahuman at Emerson and Fifth. No, I didn't recognize who it was. Please send someone, the gun is just lying there. Bye."
"We're on Seventh," you point out.
"Fifth is outside the no-go zone. Come on, help me get him loaded up."
By the time you get to Fifth there's a police car already there. You tense up, but the officer pointedly turns around and looks the other way as Rune rolls the gunman off and drops the gun, magazine and bullet on top of him.
"We have an understanding," Rune explains as you fly off. "Have you seen the unsolved murder rate in this town? They need all the help they can get to keep the stats up."
---
A new angle on power acquisition means constructing yet another cape identity. You do have one power that hasn't been used for that yet, after all. No, not shapeshifting. You're never gonna reveal that, that would put your other identities at risk. Dragon's power already went to Smith. Nor are you going as Not-Quite-Tissue-Paper Girl, the Worst Brute Ever. The other one.
You gather up some materials for your new costume from home, then go shopping for the rest.
Three hours later you're knocking on the back door of a certain night club. They're not open - it's barely even noon - but you're not here to dance. When nothing happens after a while, you knock harder.
Eventually a mid-twenties guy in an apron opens the door, frowning. He does a double take when he sees your masked face.
"Is your boss around?" you ask. "I'm afraid I don't have an appointment." You deliberately pitch your voice differently than normal, trying to sound older than you are. Your natural voice is actually ever so slightly different in this form - something something resonance, proportions of neck and torso? But while you can take on pretty much any shape you want, you haven't figured out how change your vocal cords.
The guy at the door seems to be having some sort of internal debate, and his frown gradually deepens into a grimace. "Wait here," he says, and closes the door in your face. You wait.
When the door opens again, a few minutes later, the surly guy has been replaced by a morbidly obese man in a hoodie. The hood casts his face into shadow and he has his hands in pockets, but enough translucent skin is visible to give him away. The way he glows to your sorcerer's sight is another clue.
Gregor the Snail. A man whose powers you most assuredly will not be acquiring. You like your skin opaque, thank you very much. You find it quite fetching the way it lacks any shell-like growths whatsoever yet prevents your bones and organs from showing through, if you do say so yourself. Maybe shapeshifting could fix that issue, but guess who isn't going to take that risk?
You also note that Gregor has the same weird off-color glow you saw in Gallant. Is that a sign that something went wrong with their powers? Is Gallant hiding some deformity too? Probably not, you decide. Glory Girl doesn't strike you as un-shallow enough to tolerate that in a boyfriend. Though he is incredibly rich...
"Miss?" Gregor asks, and you snap back to reality. He's probably a bit touchy about his appearance, and you were sort of staring. He sounds more resigned than annoyed though.
"Sorry, got lost in thought. Occupational hazard for us Thinkers, you know. No offense intended." You smile sheepishly.
He waves away your apology, and you try not to react to the sight of his uncovered hand. You've seen pictures online, but it's grosser in person.
"You wanted to see Faultline?"
"Please. I'm Quicksilver, by the way."
"Gregor. But perhaps you knew that?"
You just nod, avoiding any comments that could be taken the wrong way, like 'you're quite distinctive'.
Gregor wants to know who he is and what happened to him.
He leads you inside and up two flights of stairs. He knocks on an unmarked door.
"Enter," a crisp female voice calls out. Gregor opens the door and gestures for you to go inside. He follows you in and closes the door behind you.
It's a perfectly normal office. Desk, computer, paperwork, etc. The only thing that seems out of place is a weird xylophone-looking contraption on the desk. It's not tinkertech, which means you're out of guesses. Some sort of executive toy you're not familiar with?
Behind the desk is a woman in a costume halfway between 'SWAT team' and 'cartoon ninja warrior'. She's wearing a welder's mask (artfully damaged to let her see things less bright than a welding torch), and her brown hair is gathered in a long ponytail. (Yes, she glows too. Duh.)
"Quicksilver, meet Faultline," Gregor introduces you. "Faultline, Quicksilver."
"Love your outfit," you gush. "The way it communicates both 'parahuman' and 'reliable mercenary' is just mwah." You kiss your fingertips to demonstrate your appreciation. You're doing a pretty good job with the voice as you get into it, you think.
Faultline pointedly does not return the compliment.
"You don't like it?" you ask, gesturing to your own costume. You're wearing a simple white floor-length evening gown that used to belong to your mom. If your first go at capery taught you anything, it's that there's no need to go nuts on complicated costume pieces. Simple clothing and a mask is fine. You had to make yourself considerably taller to get the dress to fit properly, but changing your appearance is all good anyway.
You originally wanted a silver mask to go with the theme, but couldn't find one for sale. Instead you picked up a plain white opera mask - covering you from forehead to nose but leaving your mouth bare - and glued mirror fragments to it until it was completely covered (deliberately knocking over one of the mirror arrays in your old workshop and watching it shatter was quite cathartic). You actually like the effect better than your original idea.
To keep with the theme, you're also sporting waist-length platinum-blonde hair. God you love shapeshifting.
"Inconveniently restrictive," is Faultline's verdict.
"I'm making the statement 'noncombatant'," you say, pouting just a little. "The skirt comes off quite easily in case I need to run away from something." Tinker 0 tailoring skills means no one can spot the velcro. You also put a foot forward to reveal sensible flats rather than the expected high heels. You really are that tall.
Faultline makes a non-committal humming noise. "I take it you desire to hire some more combative backup?"
"Not as such. I'm afraid the mission I have in mind will be incredibly boring."
"Boring is good," Gregor interjects. Faultline motions for you to continue.
"I guess you'd call me a Thinker with a bit of Trump flavor? I can see powers, sort of." Is it your imagination, or did Faultline just sit up a bit straighter? "My passion is studying parahumans and figuring out how they work."
Of course, in reality you're a Trump with a bit of Thinker flavor. But the part where you get a practical use out of your studies will, like the shapeshifting, remain forever secret. Quicksilver is strictly an academic.
"I'd like to study Labyrinth, in particular," you continue. And all of a sudden her body language turns decidedly hostile. What did you say?
"Study," she says, her voice flat.
"The process is entirely noninvasive, I assure you!" You take a wild guess at what has her upset. "She simply needs to use her power while I watch."
"This counts as a 'mission?'" Gregor asks. "Just using her power?"
"...over and over again, eight hours a day, for a week. Give or take."
"Ah. I now understand the boredom."
Faultline has not relaxed. "Why Labyrinth?" she demands.
You shrug, smiling disarmingly (really taking advantage of the way your mask shows off a mouth much prettier than the one you usually sport, aren't you?). "Isn't it obvious? Name one cape in this city with a more impressive power - who won't turn into a dragon and rip my head off for asking."
She's still tense. You're feeling... overprotective mom? Overprotective mom.
Huh.
She was definitely interested in your ability, though.
"Your own power is not half bad," you try. "I could be convinced to study it first, as a trial run."
That did it. Faultline relaxes. "As you probably know, my power does not work on living things," she says. You nod. "It would be extremely beneficial if I could somehow overcome this limit, given my profession."
She proceeds to explain the xylophone - the slats are made of different materials, stone, metal, plastic... and green wood, which counts as living enough for her power to refuse to cut it. You silently commiserate with her on stupid unreasonable power limitations.
She describes how she'll absently run her power across the various materials as she works her boring desk job (she's handling the paperwork of a nightclub and a mercenary company), essentially trying to trick herself into cutting the wrong thing.
"So what you're saying is I don't even need to hire you, since you're using your power all day regardless. I can just sit here and watch you for free." You smile to show that you know how well this suggestion will go over.
"I will charge one thousand dollars per day for you to study me. If you can help me achieve a breakthrough, I will pay you back triple." She hesitates briefly. "Fifty percent off if you also share your notes, regardless."
"Notes?" You're taken aback by this novel idea. "I... guess I could take notes?"
You can't actually see Faultline's face, but you'd be willing to bet another five hundred dollars that she's currently rolling her eyes and mouthing 'fucking Thinkers.'
It's pricey, but you can afford it - at least as long as her power leans more towards Aegis than Dragon in terms of complexity. You count out five hundred dollars in cash.
"Shall we begin at once?"
Faultline pauses, looking at the bills you handed her. "How clean is this money?" she asks.
"You'd trust my answer?"
"Indulge me." Meaning she'll check herself, and adjust her trust levels from there.
You shrug. How clean is your Empire paycheck, anyway? "Couldn't tell you. I use it for groceries, haven't tried putting it in a bank."
"Fair enough." She hands you a legal pad and pencil. You settle in for a productive Saturday.
Faultline wants a better power.
---
"That was eight hours," Faultline says. You blink. Time sure flies when you're having fun. Expensive fun.
Though to be fair, you have been getting your money's worth. At your urging Faultline was considerably more active in her power use than she'd otherwise have been. She even ran out of inorganic material for her xylophone thing and was reduced to cutting up scraps of paper for the last hour or so.
"Money well spent," you say with a genuine smile as you pass her your notes. You don't know how useful they will be to someone without sorcerer's sight, but for five hundred dollars you're happy to jot down whatever passes through your head.
She looks at the notes, then back at you. "This isn't English," she says.
Wait, what? You take the notes back and look at them. "Huh. So it isn't," you agree, not bothering to hide the surprise in your voice. You swear you can hear Faultline's groan of 'fucking Thinkers', this time.
"Can you translate it?" she asks.
You consider the notes you apparently took. Not only is it not English, it's not even the Latin alphabet. Yet you can understand it perfectly. Right? You scan through the text to make sure.
...reality engine bypass...crude outline of primary intention filter...motonic equivalency equation...preliminary theory for how to noitilov the partxe becafrouy...
"...no," you decide. Just because you understand it doesn't mean that you can trivially render the concepts into English. You'd have to write a goddamn textbook.
"Figures. You tried, so I won't charge extra this time. Next session is full price, though."
"That's fair," you agree. "Another session tomorrow? I'm afraid I can't plan much further ahead than that, at the moment..." You only have three days a week not taken up by Empire activities, after all, do you really want to spend it all on Faultline? You know where Lung lives.
You were willing to put him off in favor of the considerably safer and arguably equally powerful Labyrinth, but now it turns out you have to work through Faultline to get to her. One could argue that means that you should prioritize the mercenaries more, since it will take more effort to get to the good stuff. But isn't that a sunk cost fallacy or something?
You'll spend tomorrow morning scouting out Lung, see what's up and go from there.
Faultline agrees that tomorrow works for her, and calls Gregor to escort you out.
===
There's a reason she chose the name 'Quicksilver'. People who know the source material well might be able to figure it out.
Residual exalted bullshit: Taylor's exaltation granted her one extra dot in Linguistics, Old Realm. So that she has the mental vocabulary to understand charm theory.
L.06
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
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Going after Lung is going to take some prep work. No, you can't just turn Japanese and join the ABB. It's not just that you're out of combat powers, either (not to mention hours in the week). As a rule, the new recruit doesn't just get to hang out with the big boss all day. Since your job interview with the Empire you've seen Kaiser exactly once, in passing.
At least the Empire has enough capes that you can rely on having partners for sparring and patrol. Lung may be unbeatable, but he can't be everywhere at once. And the ABB has all of one other cape. Stretched thin as they are there's no way you would get to hang out with him either.
The thought of somehow tracking down Oni Lee and acquiring his teleportation-and-decoys-with-benefits power does admittedly make you drool a fair bit. But that's a later problem.
Fenrir has the scent and can lead you to Lung at any time, but you can't just go as you are. You may have been born perfect as far as remaining safe in Empire territory goes (a young white girl, perfect for playing to the patriarchal instincts of the enforcers) but ABB turf is different, and requires more care.
You buy the rattiest second-hand clothes you can find, and further tailor them to your needs. By which you mean 'throw them on the ground and walk all over them while you transform into a stooped, wrinkly old Chinese woman'. No Tinker 0 powers needed for this costume. Your grandmotherly guise is carefully chosen, too. Too asian to beat up, too frail to recruit, too poor to rob and too ugly to rape, that's the ticket here.
For that extra homeless verisimilitude you drag a pair of similarly battered plastic shopping bags stuffed with dirty blankets along with you as you hobble a winding course towards your target. The way you keep stealing glances at things that don't exist (as far as people without sorcerer's sight are concerned) doesn't exactly hurt your disguise either.
It works perfectly. No one even gives you a second look. Fenrir indicates the building in which Lung currently resides, and you find an out of the way spot with a view of the entrance and settle down to watch.
There is indeed an irregular trickle of tough guys in red and green entering and leaving the building. As well as a surprising number of pretty young girls. Or is it surprising, really? If you're a gang boss whose main source of income is prostitution and sex trafficking, why not get high on your own supply?
Fenrir walks into the building to scout in your stead, and through a combination of charades and twenty questions conveys a rough idea of what's going on inside. Lung talking to gang members (about money, weapons). Lung talking to young girls (about food). Lung reading (Fenrir can't read). Lung eating.
Sounds like a typical day in the life of Joe Average Gang Boss, really.
Hours pass, and - aside from a single gang member sending a half-hearted kick your way as he passes by - still no one hassles you. Finally you catch Lung coming outside. Shirtless, huge muscles, tattoos, metal mask... Huh. Now that you think about it, him and Hookwolf really are two peas in a pod, aren't they? Not just the fashion sense, they also share a love of ethnic gangs and fighting, and turn into giant monsters when they do.
You fight down a sudden urge to write steamy gay smut featuring their obvious forbidden romance (an imaginary Rune on your left shoulder says "doooo eeeet. Do it and send it to them anonymously.") (imaginary Lisa on your right shoulder shakes her head and notes that you have more important things to focus on right now) (imaginary Rune says "Stormtiger threesome? Stormtiger threesome.") and focus on the important part.
It wasn't a fluke, his power is always on. You only get a brief glimpse before he rounds the corner and leaves your line of sight, but you catch a feeling of... anticipation? His power obviously incorporates some sort of danger sense, since it responds to danger by making him bigger. Does it work like regular danger sense as well?
It's ripe for study at any time, at any rate. Now you just have to come up with a way to get close to him for hours at a time. Apartment across the street? No, sorcerer's sight wouldn't work through binoculars.
You hang around a couple of minutes longer, but Lung doesn't come back. You need to get moving towards the Palanquin soon anyway, may as well call it a day here. You stand up and stretch as much as your crooked granny spine allows, then start hobbling back to where you stashed your clothes.
---
Eight hours and a thousand dollars later, you're starting to have a much better grasp of Faultline's power. Unfortunately this grasp includes the feeling that this is one of the trickier powers. You may have to find alternate revenue streams in order to bring it all the way home - especially since ideally you'd then immediately switch over to Labyrinth and keep going.
That's a concern for later, however. You arrange for another session on Wednesday (you haven't come up with a plan for Lung yet, may as well keep busy in the meantime) and say your farewells, but then stop in the doorway as if a thought had just occurred to you.
"One last thing," you say. "I understand that your associate Newter is in the habit of providing cheaper, more informal power demonstrations to select members of the public?"
"Ha! A diplomatic way of putting it." She reaches into a desk drawer and produces a poker chip, which she tosses to you. "Come by in civvies some day. Show this at the door and they'll take you to him, no ID required."
You study the chip in your hand. It's marked with the logo of the Palanquin rather than a denomination. "How compromised will that make my identity?" you ask mildly (the answer of course being not at all, ha ha shapeshifting, but you have to play along).
Faultline removes a half-empty box of chips from the drawer and holds it out towards you. "Feel free to pick another one if you want, they're not marked." She shrugs. "If you don't trust me to act in good faith, trust Newter to hand out these things like candy. You'll be lost in the crowd."
You leave the Palanquin only to return half an hour later, no longer a tall, blonde parahuman but instead a short, plump redhead ready to party (have you mentioned how much you love shapeshifting?). Your new clothes were just as cheap as your 'homeless' costume, but trashy in a much less literal sense.
You grip a poker chip in one sweaty palm (no pockets on this outfit) and contemplate the line ahead of you. The Palanquin is doing shockingly good business for a Sunday night. Do none of these people worry about getting up for work/school tomorrow?
"Hey guuuuurl!" The girl in front of you, for example, isn't worried about shit. She's obviously never seen you before in her life - the shape you're wearing right now didn't exist an hour ago - but that doesn't stop her from greeting you loudly and enthusiastically. Really enthusiastically. You can smell the wine coolers on her breath as she hugs you. "Always good to meet another VIP!"
What? Oh. "You mean this?" you ask, holding up the chip. She must have seen you fidgeting with it earlier.
"Hell yeah!" She fumbles with her purse, then holds up a chip of her own. "Newter's girls represent!"
"High five," you say with considerably more enthusiasm than you feel. Which still isn't a lot. You clumsily smack your hand into hers, causing her to drop her chip. "Shit, sorry." You quickly bend down and pick it up for her.
You make sure to hand her your chip, though, and keep the one she dropped. It's not that you don't trust Faultline, it's just that- okay fine, that's exactly what it is. Even if 'Newter hands them out like candy' is starting to look like the truth.
"No big, no big," party girl waves away your apology. Some of your general awkwardness does make it through to her, though. "Hey, lighten up, yeah? It's paaaarty time!"
"It's my first time here," you admit.
"No waaaay! You stick with us, gurl, we'll show you the ropes! Right?" She turns back to the next two people in line, apparently friends of hers. One of them appears even more intoxicated than her and barely registers your presence, while the other is clearly sober enough to feel embarrassment by proxy. You give the latter a wry smile.
Party girl keeps chattering away as the line slowly shuffles forward. You marvel at how she instantly formed a deep - if one-sided - bond with some girl she just met. You're starting to figure out why people drink alcohol, maybe. A more cynical part of you whispers that with you there, she's no longer the least pretty girl in the group.
You present your chips at the door and the bouncers wave you through as promised. Party girl leads you on a course skirting the main dance floor to another door, also guarded. You flash your chips again.
Fair play to Faultline, these people are letting you through with only a cursory glance. Even if your chip was marked somehow, there's no way they'd be able to spot it. Nor are there any hidden tinkertech scanners anywhere, and you're definitely not paranoid for thinking that there might have been.
Behind the door is a cramped stairwell that leads to a balcony overlooking the dance floor. It's dotted with sofas, beanbags and other reclining implements, and Newter is holding court over a bevy of casual drug users in various states of consciousness. They are all pretty young women. The dragon and the newt appear to have some tastes in common.
Newter is... slightly less hideous than Gregor? His bright orange skin looks disturbingly wet as he lounges barefoot in loose slacks and a t-shirt, and his fingers and toes are sort of fucked up. Really, you can't think of a nicer or more accurate way of putting it. It would almost be better if they were more blatantly reptilian. Instead they're just inhuman enough to look unsettling. Reportedly they let him scale sheer walls without much trouble, so he has that going for him.
He has a tail too, currently draped across his lap. But his face is human enough, and his smile as he sees your group is genuine and even charming.
"Alice, my love!" he greets the party girl (who, for all her friendliness, forgot to introduce herself). "It's been too long."
You trail after Alice as she redirects her enthusiasm to a new target, trying to hide your reaction when one unconscious girl starts to twitch and mumble something unintelligible as you pass by. This is so not your scene. But you're doing it for science.
Newter has spotted you, and at his gentle urging Alice recalls that introductions are a thing. "Sure! This is my friend, uh..." She turns to you with a comical look of consternation on her face.
"Emma," you say. "Uh, is that your natural hair color?" It's bright blue. Under normal circumstances you obviously wouldn't ask that question, but given his traffic cone complexion...
"Are you asking whether the carpet matches the drapes?" Newter grins and starts unbuttoning his fly, to the general giggly delight of the more conscious portions of the audience.
You turn your head and hold up a hand to block the view. "I'll take your word for it," you say.
"Sorry girls," Newter says, buttoning his pants back up before anything could be revealed (you assume from the disappointed sighs - still not looking!). "Emma is being a spoilsport."
He keeps making small talk for another few minutes before finally getting down to business: Where Gregor's twisted biology allows him to produce large quantities of foam, slime, adhesive, etc and expel them through his skin, Newter instead produces small quantities of extremely potent hallucinogens.
You retrieve some slightly damp bills from your cleavage to pay for his services. No pockets, remember? It's not like you've fantasized about being able to do that since long before you gained the ability to construct a cleavage. Entirely practical considerations rule here.
His preferred method of sharing his bounty turns out to be briefly touching the tip of his (long, prehensile) tongue to a spoonful of water, which is then ingested by the customer. Though Alice insists on taking it 'straight from the source', giving him a peck on the lips before promptly keeling over backwards onto a couch.
"Can I have mine to go?" you ask when it's your turn. You didn't come here to get high, you came here to get a sample to study. While you would never risk copying Newter's power itself (again, skin tone issues), you're hoping you'll be able to weaponize the results. Maybe even synthesize it yourself, if you can grab another Tinker power or two.
"Afraid not," Newter says. "It loses its potency in less than a minute."
"Oh." Shit. Though that does explain how people are able to live in the same building as him without being sent off to la-la land every time they touch a banister or doorknob. "Um."
Oh god, everyone is staring at you as you stand there like a dumbass with the spoon in your hand. What do you do?
"Here, let me freshen that for you," Newter says, and dips his tongue in it again.
Do you, do you take it? You've already paid for it, and it's non-addictive, right? Everyone says it's non-addictive. On the other hand, you're pretty sure one of your old classmates also said that about pot. But it's probably true this time?
One of the girls is whispering something to her friend, looking at you.
You always regarded the after-school specials about drugs with scorn. 'Just say no!' Yeah, duh! Obviously you say no. Who could possibly be dumb enough to take drugs because of peer pressure? The answer is you. You are that dumb.
You bring the spoon to your lips.
Newter wants to be able to touch a woman without knocking her out.
---
You are walking through a desert. You have always been walking through the desert, and always will. The desert is infinite, and time is a circle.
You are dimly aware that shortly before you started having been walking eternally you ingested a hallucinogenic drug, but that has no bearing on anything. Everything you are experiencing right now is real. You can feel the realness permeating the air. It's so fucking real, you can't believe how real it is.
An indeterminate/infinite amount of time later it starts to grow dark. That's odd. Cycles have no place in this place. You look up to see the sun still at its zenith (of course!), but slowly being eclipsed by the moon. You keep walking - it's not like you could stop, and you know the moon doesn't mean any harm.
Finally the sun is completely covered, with only a thin ring of light visible around the edge of the moon. Consequently the land has also grown black as night, except for a ring of sunlight surrounding you. You were pretty sure that's not how eclipses work, but you must have been wrong given how real this is.
You remain in the center of the ring of light as you walk. The sun is moving at the same speed as you. The sun is part of you.
A beam of light appears in the middle of the circle, illuminating you. You were even more wrong about astronomy than you thought. Looking up, it is as if a hole was cut in the moon. It doesn't hurt, staring into that light. You could no more hurt your eyes looking at the sun than you could by looking in a mirror. The sky is a mirror, the sun rests on your brow.
The song of eternity whispers in your ear, telling you that something is blocking your path. You look down from the sky, and finally stop walking.
Scion is standing before you, bearded, golden and naked. He looks exactly like he did on his first appearance on earth, except for the extra pair of arms. Each hand holds a golden object so fraught with symbolism that you can't even make out their shape.
He is trying to tell you something, but no words emerge. You get the feeling that he is vehemently disagreeing with your destination, which is probably why he made you stop walking. You have mixed feelings about this. Can even Scion face off against eternity?
Without warning a giant sandworm erupts from beneath, swallowing Scion in an instant. The worm keeps rising up and up, stretching into the sky.
You start walking again, skirting the worm. You reach out to pat it as you pass, but it's rising so quickly that the friction strips the skin off your palm. The pain is strangely muted and dreamlike, given that it is extremely real. You grit your teeth and ignore it.
You keep walking for another three thousand years, dripping blood onto the sand with each step, until the worm finally reaches the sun and consumes it. Everything plunges into darkness.
---
You open your eyes. The darkness flees, and for a brief instant you understand the fundamental truth of the universe: It smells faintly of cabbage!
===
At least the Empire has enough capes that you can rely on having partners for sparring and patrol. Lung may be unbeatable, but he can't be everywhere at once. And the ABB has all of one other cape. Stretched thin as they are there's no way you would get to hang out with him either.
The thought of somehow tracking down Oni Lee and acquiring his teleportation-and-decoys-with-benefits power does admittedly make you drool a fair bit. But that's a later problem.
Fenrir has the scent and can lead you to Lung at any time, but you can't just go as you are. You may have been born perfect as far as remaining safe in Empire territory goes (a young white girl, perfect for playing to the patriarchal instincts of the enforcers) but ABB turf is different, and requires more care.
You buy the rattiest second-hand clothes you can find, and further tailor them to your needs. By which you mean 'throw them on the ground and walk all over them while you transform into a stooped, wrinkly old Chinese woman'. No Tinker 0 powers needed for this costume. Your grandmotherly guise is carefully chosen, too. Too asian to beat up, too frail to recruit, too poor to rob and too ugly to rape, that's the ticket here.
For that extra homeless verisimilitude you drag a pair of similarly battered plastic shopping bags stuffed with dirty blankets along with you as you hobble a winding course towards your target. The way you keep stealing glances at things that don't exist (as far as people without sorcerer's sight are concerned) doesn't exactly hurt your disguise either.
It works perfectly. No one even gives you a second look. Fenrir indicates the building in which Lung currently resides, and you find an out of the way spot with a view of the entrance and settle down to watch.
There is indeed an irregular trickle of tough guys in red and green entering and leaving the building. As well as a surprising number of pretty young girls. Or is it surprising, really? If you're a gang boss whose main source of income is prostitution and sex trafficking, why not get high on your own supply?
Fenrir walks into the building to scout in your stead, and through a combination of charades and twenty questions conveys a rough idea of what's going on inside. Lung talking to gang members (about money, weapons). Lung talking to young girls (about food). Lung reading (Fenrir can't read). Lung eating.
Sounds like a typical day in the life of Joe Average Gang Boss, really.
Hours pass, and - aside from a single gang member sending a half-hearted kick your way as he passes by - still no one hassles you. Finally you catch Lung coming outside. Shirtless, huge muscles, tattoos, metal mask... Huh. Now that you think about it, him and Hookwolf really are two peas in a pod, aren't they? Not just the fashion sense, they also share a love of ethnic gangs and fighting, and turn into giant monsters when they do.
You fight down a sudden urge to write steamy gay smut featuring their obvious forbidden romance (an imaginary Rune on your left shoulder says "doooo eeeet. Do it and send it to them anonymously.") (imaginary Lisa on your right shoulder shakes her head and notes that you have more important things to focus on right now) (imaginary Rune says "Stormtiger threesome? Stormtiger threesome.") and focus on the important part.
It wasn't a fluke, his power is always on. You only get a brief glimpse before he rounds the corner and leaves your line of sight, but you catch a feeling of... anticipation? His power obviously incorporates some sort of danger sense, since it responds to danger by making him bigger. Does it work like regular danger sense as well?
It's ripe for study at any time, at any rate. Now you just have to come up with a way to get close to him for hours at a time. Apartment across the street? No, sorcerer's sight wouldn't work through binoculars.
You hang around a couple of minutes longer, but Lung doesn't come back. You need to get moving towards the Palanquin soon anyway, may as well call it a day here. You stand up and stretch as much as your crooked granny spine allows, then start hobbling back to where you stashed your clothes.
---
Eight hours and a thousand dollars later, you're starting to have a much better grasp of Faultline's power. Unfortunately this grasp includes the feeling that this is one of the trickier powers. You may have to find alternate revenue streams in order to bring it all the way home - especially since ideally you'd then immediately switch over to Labyrinth and keep going.
That's a concern for later, however. You arrange for another session on Wednesday (you haven't come up with a plan for Lung yet, may as well keep busy in the meantime) and say your farewells, but then stop in the doorway as if a thought had just occurred to you.
"One last thing," you say. "I understand that your associate Newter is in the habit of providing cheaper, more informal power demonstrations to select members of the public?"
"Ha! A diplomatic way of putting it." She reaches into a desk drawer and produces a poker chip, which she tosses to you. "Come by in civvies some day. Show this at the door and they'll take you to him, no ID required."
You study the chip in your hand. It's marked with the logo of the Palanquin rather than a denomination. "How compromised will that make my identity?" you ask mildly (the answer of course being not at all, ha ha shapeshifting, but you have to play along).
Faultline removes a half-empty box of chips from the drawer and holds it out towards you. "Feel free to pick another one if you want, they're not marked." She shrugs. "If you don't trust me to act in good faith, trust Newter to hand out these things like candy. You'll be lost in the crowd."
You leave the Palanquin only to return half an hour later, no longer a tall, blonde parahuman but instead a short, plump redhead ready to party (have you mentioned how much you love shapeshifting?). Your new clothes were just as cheap as your 'homeless' costume, but trashy in a much less literal sense.
You grip a poker chip in one sweaty palm (no pockets on this outfit) and contemplate the line ahead of you. The Palanquin is doing shockingly good business for a Sunday night. Do none of these people worry about getting up for work/school tomorrow?
"Hey guuuuurl!" The girl in front of you, for example, isn't worried about shit. She's obviously never seen you before in her life - the shape you're wearing right now didn't exist an hour ago - but that doesn't stop her from greeting you loudly and enthusiastically. Really enthusiastically. You can smell the wine coolers on her breath as she hugs you. "Always good to meet another VIP!"
What? Oh. "You mean this?" you ask, holding up the chip. She must have seen you fidgeting with it earlier.
"Hell yeah!" She fumbles with her purse, then holds up a chip of her own. "Newter's girls represent!"
"High five," you say with considerably more enthusiasm than you feel. Which still isn't a lot. You clumsily smack your hand into hers, causing her to drop her chip. "Shit, sorry." You quickly bend down and pick it up for her.
You make sure to hand her your chip, though, and keep the one she dropped. It's not that you don't trust Faultline, it's just that- okay fine, that's exactly what it is. Even if 'Newter hands them out like candy' is starting to look like the truth.
"No big, no big," party girl waves away your apology. Some of your general awkwardness does make it through to her, though. "Hey, lighten up, yeah? It's paaaarty time!"
"It's my first time here," you admit.
"No waaaay! You stick with us, gurl, we'll show you the ropes! Right?" She turns back to the next two people in line, apparently friends of hers. One of them appears even more intoxicated than her and barely registers your presence, while the other is clearly sober enough to feel embarrassment by proxy. You give the latter a wry smile.
Party girl keeps chattering away as the line slowly shuffles forward. You marvel at how she instantly formed a deep - if one-sided - bond with some girl she just met. You're starting to figure out why people drink alcohol, maybe. A more cynical part of you whispers that with you there, she's no longer the least pretty girl in the group.
You present your chips at the door and the bouncers wave you through as promised. Party girl leads you on a course skirting the main dance floor to another door, also guarded. You flash your chips again.
Fair play to Faultline, these people are letting you through with only a cursory glance. Even if your chip was marked somehow, there's no way they'd be able to spot it. Nor are there any hidden tinkertech scanners anywhere, and you're definitely not paranoid for thinking that there might have been.
Behind the door is a cramped stairwell that leads to a balcony overlooking the dance floor. It's dotted with sofas, beanbags and other reclining implements, and Newter is holding court over a bevy of casual drug users in various states of consciousness. They are all pretty young women. The dragon and the newt appear to have some tastes in common.
Newter is... slightly less hideous than Gregor? His bright orange skin looks disturbingly wet as he lounges barefoot in loose slacks and a t-shirt, and his fingers and toes are sort of fucked up. Really, you can't think of a nicer or more accurate way of putting it. It would almost be better if they were more blatantly reptilian. Instead they're just inhuman enough to look unsettling. Reportedly they let him scale sheer walls without much trouble, so he has that going for him.
He has a tail too, currently draped across his lap. But his face is human enough, and his smile as he sees your group is genuine and even charming.
"Alice, my love!" he greets the party girl (who, for all her friendliness, forgot to introduce herself). "It's been too long."
You trail after Alice as she redirects her enthusiasm to a new target, trying to hide your reaction when one unconscious girl starts to twitch and mumble something unintelligible as you pass by. This is so not your scene. But you're doing it for science.
Newter has spotted you, and at his gentle urging Alice recalls that introductions are a thing. "Sure! This is my friend, uh..." She turns to you with a comical look of consternation on her face.
"Emma," you say. "Uh, is that your natural hair color?" It's bright blue. Under normal circumstances you obviously wouldn't ask that question, but given his traffic cone complexion...
"Are you asking whether the carpet matches the drapes?" Newter grins and starts unbuttoning his fly, to the general giggly delight of the more conscious portions of the audience.
You turn your head and hold up a hand to block the view. "I'll take your word for it," you say.
"Sorry girls," Newter says, buttoning his pants back up before anything could be revealed (you assume from the disappointed sighs - still not looking!). "Emma is being a spoilsport."
He keeps making small talk for another few minutes before finally getting down to business: Where Gregor's twisted biology allows him to produce large quantities of foam, slime, adhesive, etc and expel them through his skin, Newter instead produces small quantities of extremely potent hallucinogens.
You retrieve some slightly damp bills from your cleavage to pay for his services. No pockets, remember? It's not like you've fantasized about being able to do that since long before you gained the ability to construct a cleavage. Entirely practical considerations rule here.
His preferred method of sharing his bounty turns out to be briefly touching the tip of his (long, prehensile) tongue to a spoonful of water, which is then ingested by the customer. Though Alice insists on taking it 'straight from the source', giving him a peck on the lips before promptly keeling over backwards onto a couch.
"Can I have mine to go?" you ask when it's your turn. You didn't come here to get high, you came here to get a sample to study. While you would never risk copying Newter's power itself (again, skin tone issues), you're hoping you'll be able to weaponize the results. Maybe even synthesize it yourself, if you can grab another Tinker power or two.
"Afraid not," Newter says. "It loses its potency in less than a minute."
"Oh." Shit. Though that does explain how people are able to live in the same building as him without being sent off to la-la land every time they touch a banister or doorknob. "Um."
Oh god, everyone is staring at you as you stand there like a dumbass with the spoon in your hand. What do you do?
"Here, let me freshen that for you," Newter says, and dips his tongue in it again.
Do you, do you take it? You've already paid for it, and it's non-addictive, right? Everyone says it's non-addictive. On the other hand, you're pretty sure one of your old classmates also said that about pot. But it's probably true this time?
One of the girls is whispering something to her friend, looking at you.
You always regarded the after-school specials about drugs with scorn. 'Just say no!' Yeah, duh! Obviously you say no. Who could possibly be dumb enough to take drugs because of peer pressure? The answer is you. You are that dumb.
You bring the spoon to your lips.
Newter wants to be able to touch a woman without knocking her out.
---
You are walking through a desert. You have always been walking through the desert, and always will. The desert is infinite, and time is a circle.
You are dimly aware that shortly before you started having been walking eternally you ingested a hallucinogenic drug, but that has no bearing on anything. Everything you are experiencing right now is real. You can feel the realness permeating the air. It's so fucking real, you can't believe how real it is.
An indeterminate/infinite amount of time later it starts to grow dark. That's odd. Cycles have no place in this place. You look up to see the sun still at its zenith (of course!), but slowly being eclipsed by the moon. You keep walking - it's not like you could stop, and you know the moon doesn't mean any harm.
Finally the sun is completely covered, with only a thin ring of light visible around the edge of the moon. Consequently the land has also grown black as night, except for a ring of sunlight surrounding you. You were pretty sure that's not how eclipses work, but you must have been wrong given how real this is.
You remain in the center of the ring of light as you walk. The sun is moving at the same speed as you. The sun is part of you.
A beam of light appears in the middle of the circle, illuminating you. You were even more wrong about astronomy than you thought. Looking up, it is as if a hole was cut in the moon. It doesn't hurt, staring into that light. You could no more hurt your eyes looking at the sun than you could by looking in a mirror. The sky is a mirror, the sun rests on your brow.
The song of eternity whispers in your ear, telling you that something is blocking your path. You look down from the sky, and finally stop walking.
Scion is standing before you, bearded, golden and naked. He looks exactly like he did on his first appearance on earth, except for the extra pair of arms. Each hand holds a golden object so fraught with symbolism that you can't even make out their shape.
He is trying to tell you something, but no words emerge. You get the feeling that he is vehemently disagreeing with your destination, which is probably why he made you stop walking. You have mixed feelings about this. Can even Scion face off against eternity?
Without warning a giant sandworm erupts from beneath, swallowing Scion in an instant. The worm keeps rising up and up, stretching into the sky.
You start walking again, skirting the worm. You reach out to pat it as you pass, but it's rising so quickly that the friction strips the skin off your palm. The pain is strangely muted and dreamlike, given that it is extremely real. You grit your teeth and ignore it.
You keep walking for another three thousand years, dripping blood onto the sand with each step, until the worm finally reaches the sun and consumes it. Everything plunges into darkness.
---
You open your eyes. The darkness flees, and for a brief instant you understand the fundamental truth of the universe: It smells faintly of cabbage!
===
tfw you accidentally a vision quest to increase your Essence
L.07
Daniel Snuts
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"I take back what I said about 'party on a school night'", I say as Taylor gets into the passenger seat. "It's clearly a school morning."
She just shrugs. "What can I say? I'm a Winslow kid at Arcadia, I'm a juvenile delinquent by default."
I chuckle at that. Some delinquent. When I think back to what I did in my youth... I was never a party animal, but of the ones that I did attend, not all of them left me in a state that I would want my parents to find me in. As long as Taylor calls to be picked up, I don't mind losing a little sleep. The peace of mind is well worth it.
Yes, I want my daughter to do as I say, not as I did. Some would call it a double standard, but dammit, girls are different!
Regardless of lost sleep incurred, I much prefer this new Taylor. She really has... blossomed? since getting out of Winslow (I fight down a surge of anger, as I do every time I think about what they did to her there). She still acts fairly distant most of the time - we really did drift apart during those bad years, that can't be fixed just by snapping your fingers. But I can tell that she's much happier now, much more alive.
...Oh dear. A terrible, no-good thought just occurred to me. About some other people I have known, who appeared to suddenly gain a lot of energy. For a while. Who also went to parties, and didn't necessarily drink alcohol there.
I glance over at Taylor. Her eyes are closed, but she's frowning about something, so not sleeping yet. "Taylor?"
"Hm?"
"These parties... Your new friends... They aren't, uh... They don't..."
"Oh, we all inject heroin into our eyeballs and snort the ground-up bones of strangled orphans. You know how it is."
"Taylor..." At least she understood what I was failing to say, I think ruefully.
"I can pee in a cup if you like. Though I'm pretty sure they don't check for orphans yet, it's a fairly new fad."
"Was Cliff at the party?" I ask, changing the subject.
"We broke up."
"Oh. What happened?"
"Nothing bad." She's silent for a while before continuing. "It just wasn't love."
"I'm sorry." She doesn't respond, but her frown deepens. I decide to shut up and quit while I'm behind.
She just shrugs. "What can I say? I'm a Winslow kid at Arcadia, I'm a juvenile delinquent by default."
I chuckle at that. Some delinquent. When I think back to what I did in my youth... I was never a party animal, but of the ones that I did attend, not all of them left me in a state that I would want my parents to find me in. As long as Taylor calls to be picked up, I don't mind losing a little sleep. The peace of mind is well worth it.
Yes, I want my daughter to do as I say, not as I did. Some would call it a double standard, but dammit, girls are different!
Regardless of lost sleep incurred, I much prefer this new Taylor. She really has... blossomed? since getting out of Winslow (I fight down a surge of anger, as I do every time I think about what they did to her there). She still acts fairly distant most of the time - we really did drift apart during those bad years, that can't be fixed just by snapping your fingers. But I can tell that she's much happier now, much more alive.
...Oh dear. A terrible, no-good thought just occurred to me. About some other people I have known, who appeared to suddenly gain a lot of energy. For a while. Who also went to parties, and didn't necessarily drink alcohol there.
I glance over at Taylor. Her eyes are closed, but she's frowning about something, so not sleeping yet. "Taylor?"
"Hm?"
"These parties... Your new friends... They aren't, uh... They don't..."
"Oh, we all inject heroin into our eyeballs and snort the ground-up bones of strangled orphans. You know how it is."
"Taylor..." At least she understood what I was failing to say, I think ruefully.
"I can pee in a cup if you like. Though I'm pretty sure they don't check for orphans yet, it's a fairly new fad."
"Was Cliff at the party?" I ask, changing the subject.
"We broke up."
"Oh. What happened?"
"Nothing bad." She's silent for a while before continuing. "It just wasn't love."
"I'm sorry." She doesn't respond, but her frown deepens. I decide to shut up and quit while I'm behind.
The worst part is, you can't even be mad at Newter. He apologized profusely for getting the dosage wrong and knocking you out for longer than intended (he also kept shooting weird glances at your forehead for some reason). It probably wasn't even his fault to begin with. His magic spit clearly interacted with your weird bullshit powers somehow, because the lingering olfactory hallucination went away as soon as you stopped using sorcerer's sight.
Then when you had finally gotten changed (body and clothes) and called your dad and had time to look inside yourself to try to figure out what happened, you found a brand new power in there.
Sorcerer's sight is fine by the way, it hasn't changed in any way you can detect and you didn't start hallucinating again when you turned it back on. Now if dad would just shut up and let you concentrate on the new one...
It's clearly not Newter's power: You're not orange. It almost appears... broken? It has ridiculously thick power conduits drawing energy from... wherever the fuck it is powers draw energy from, you still get vertigo whenever you look in that direction. Whatever it is, it requires much more energy than any other power you've seen.
But it doesn't seem to do anything. There's no functional part. It just draws in a bunch of energy, carefully divides it up and... stops. You'd call it incomplete, except you've never been able to anchor an incomplete power to your soul before. Though admittedly this time around you were tripping balls and/or on some sort of power-induced vision quest thing. Something may have gone wrong.
Until you figure out what's going on you're going to stay the hell away from Newter. Just in case it is half of his power and further exposure makes you turn orange.
---
"You know, we don't actually have to get rid of them all," the skinhead says. "We could just deport the men, and keep the women for ourselves. Don't import any new ones, and in a few of generations everyone will be white enough to be a citizen."
"Sounds like something the Romans would do," his buddy comments.
"Zeroth Reich best Reich," he agrees.
You're, like, 60% certain they're not being serious right now?
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," your delivery driver (what was his name again?) objects. "Did you just tell me to fuck a nigger?"
"No no no no, no bestiality. The niggers gotta go. But there are other races who-"
"Goddammit Steve, are you trying to justify an asian girlfriend again?"
"Mmmmaybe?"
Okay, make that 80% certain.
"I don't blame him," Fake Swede remarks to the bartender. "Giving up asian hotties was the hardest part of becoming a nazi."
"Word."
Things get a bit shouty then, as several people simultaneously try to instruct the straying flock on the problems inherent in asian miscegenation. Phrases you can make out include 'man up and stop playing on easy mode', 'they're not even hot', 'do you want your sons to have tiny dicks?' and 'burn the rice, pay the price.'
Luckily that's when salvation enters the building. "Rune, save me from these dorks!" you shout as you flee the argument.
"You don't have to fraternize with the rank and file, you know."
"But then who would transport my dog food for free?"
---
"Oh fuck my life," Rune says. "We're going to need reinforcements."
You study the deadly threat that is currently approaching your territory, clad in green and white. That's... uh... huh. Idea.
"I'll handle it," you say.
"You what?"
"Don't worry, I've got a plan. Put me down."
"Uh-huh. I'll just hang back here, ready to swoop in and get your dumb ass out of trouble. And also call for reinforcements."
Rune sets you down at what she considers a safe distance, then backs her rock up even further. You send Fenrir forward at a slow walk, timed to meet your target at an intersection right on the border. She tenses as you approach, but from what you can make out beneath her visor she appears determined rather than scared.
"Good evening, colleague," you greet Vista from across the intersection.
"What?"
"I said, good evening." Most pedestrians have already fled to avoid getting caught up in your confrontation, but a few remain. Rather than keep to the sidewalks, they spread out in a loose cloud surrounding you both. Predominantly young men, you notice. Legally they are innocent bystanders who just happen to have terrible self-preservation instincts. In actuality, they are loyal sons of the Empire who are using their bodies to interfere with Vista's power (much like Faultline's, it is blocked by living things). You didn't even have to ask them or anything.
Vista looks around at the 'bystanders', then over your shoulder at Rune, who is conspicuously maintaining a vantage point down the road. "You're with the Empire," she says accusingly.
"True."
"We're not colleagues."
"No? You patrol your area of the city, I patrol mine. If we happen across a crime, we stop it. How are we not colleagues?" Some of the bystanders chuckle at that. "Quiet!" you snap. They quiet.
Vista is rendered briefly speechless by your impeccable logic, and you take the opportunity to extract a soul price.
Vista wants the respect of her peers.
How unfortunate that she is so resistant to considering herself Rune's peer. She's missing out.
"Are you going to fight me?" she asks eventually.
"Should I?"
"Are you going to let me pass?" Vista takes a step to her left. Fenrir does likewise to remain in front of her.
"Good question," you say. "I honestly don't know the policy on that one. Skin color checks out, but I don't think you'd be very popular. Do you promise not to try to kidnap- sorry, 'arrest' anyone during your stay?"
"You're not worried that I'm going to arrest you?" Vista takes another step to the side. She's cheating subtly by compressing the space beforehand, letting her cover more ground than she otherwise would. Well, it's subtle to other people, to you the compressed area is literally a huge glowing sign indicating the use of her power.
"Arrest me? What for?" Your smile might not be visible beneath your mask, but your amusement is clear in your voice.
"What for? You're a nazi!"
"Funny thing about this country: Unpopular political opinions are not actually illegal."
"You're with the Empire!"
"Oh, I know this one too: Freedom of association! Good old first amendment, ain't it grand?" Of course if you were to ask anyone in the Empire itself they would tell you that freedom of association died a long time ago - just try putting up a 'whites only' sign and see how free you are to choose who you associate with.
Vista's attempts at sidling around you has at this point failed completely. You have left the intersection behind and are now walking together down opposite sides of the street, Vista cheating all the while. She's either planning to try again at the next intersection, or it's a ploy to get you away from your meatshields before she attacks. But with Rune maintaining an eye in the sky you're not overly worried.
"You're seriously claiming to be innocent?" she asks.
"Never committed a hate crime in my life, guv'nor."
Vista maintains her causal walking pace, but starts cheating more blatantly. The distance she's covering with each step is clearly unnatural, now.
"I suppose you could attack me for no reason," you continue. "Like a true hero. But my backup is a lot closer. Speaking of which, aren't Wards supposed to only go out in pairs?"
"Shadow Stalker ran off on her own," Vista admits. "I was trying to find her."
And that led her in this direction, huh? You pull out your phone, call ops. "Be advised, Shadow Stalker may be present in Empire territory." You hang up.
"Why'd you do that?" Vista demands.
"Because it's my job?" Also because Sophia getting counter-ambushed and having the shit beaten out of her would make your day. "Say, are you seriously trying to outrun a wolf?"
Vista picks up the pace.
It's a pretty interesting contest. Fenrir can outrun a horse, Vista can bend space. Sure, there's little doubt what would happen in a fight - there's a reason Rune was reluctant to engage - but by unspoken agreement this is a street race. You quickly figure out that the effects of her power are permanent (or at least sticky), much to her detriment. That is, she has to constantly split her attention to manually untwist the space behind her as she goes, lest she vandalize the continuum.
Traffic is another problem, as both cars and pedestrians sharply limit how big an area she can affect. Considerably more than pure 'can't affect the living' limits would predict, too: She's too polite to suddenly bend space that a civilian is about to step or drive into.
Even then she'd quickly win against the majority of capes out there, because once she's at the limit of how much she can speed herself up she starts expanding the space in front of you to slow you down. Unfortunately for her, sorcerer's sight lets both you and Fenrir see it coming in time to dodge. Said dodges typically involve some less than polite proximity with pedestrians, occasionally jumping over their heads.
You're pretty impressed with how well she manages to split her attention four ways (she has to undo the attacks as well), she's even pulling ahead. So you direct Fenrir to move over to her side of the road. Vista instantly realizes what you're up to and expands space in the middle of the road to block you. She can't allow you to get into the compressed space behind her before she can undo it.
But she can't do something as simple as just putting up a barrier down the middle, because there's a limit to how thin an area she can affect - the blocking fields she puts up are wide enough to impede traffic, and so have to be deployed judiciously and undone quickly. Fenrir still ends up running flat out, juking and poking back and forth across the street to dodge and bait out the obstacles she throws up.
The little monster is way too good at what she does, in your opinion. You can't believe a goddamn twelve-year-old is giving you this much trouble. Indeed, a relatively empty stretch of road finally spells your doom, as Vista finally manages to completely encircle you and sprint ahead before Fenrir can work his way through.
"Ha! Got you!" She stops running and looks back at you with her hands on her hips, panting for breath but triumphant.
Yep, she beat you fair and square. But she certainly seems to have had fun doing so. Thus, you deploy your secret weapon: "Best two out of three?"
Of course you're not going to be beaten the same way twice. You have a pocketful of change, and the next time traffic threatens to clear up you start throwing it at her to distract her.
"Ow! That's cheating!"
"Oh I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that there were rules."
Vista grits her teeth and starts trying to put even more unpredictable twists in the space between you, in order to throw off your aim. Such a shame that you can see them all clear as day, isn't it?
---
Okay, even if sorcerer's sight shows you how you ought to adjust your aim, you don't actually have a power for hitting what you aim at.
"Best three out of five?"
===
Charms:
Taylor: All-encompassing Sorcerer's Sight
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
Aegis: Ox-Body Technique
Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form
Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology
Newter/Four-armed Scion/???: ???
Taylor: All-encompassing Sorcerer's Sight
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
Aegis: Ox-Body Technique
Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form
Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology
Newter/Four-armed Scion/???: ???
Oh my, did she get something more than just Essence 3?