Immortals [Worm]

[akaB]

Pretty lucky that all of the parts were there and Bonesaw didn't throw out anything.

Teenager: Yay, I'm back in my body again! ...Wait a minute, where's my penis!?

Annette: Eh, close enough.

 

[jrbless]

It's slightly SoD breaking that Taylor and Annette, after teleporting back to their house, decided it was a good idea to NOT tell Danny or the PRT/FBI agents that they were OK. I can excuse it in Taylor's case as she is a teenager, but Annette is not.

In any case, I see Piggot's mishandling of this resulting in Taylor and Annette giving the PRT the finger when it comes to recruitment offers.

 

[Xilph]

I mean really is seems like Piggot acted way too stupid here, making multiple obvious major errors for no apparent reason. I mean there should be very little cost to the PRT of treating the report of an S9 attack seriously if it's fake, and there would be system in place to punish the ones they giving the fake report, and if they don't treat it seriously they've got absolutely massive potential cost if it was a real report. Really seems like treating it as obviously a lie from the get go is an utterly insane choice.

 

[Expo Onethousandone]

Unless something, or several somethings, convinced Piggot that Taylor was lying after she was beginning to actually believe her story... It's really too bad she had to have her subordinates run the investigation (if you could call it that) while she was stuck undergoing dialysis. They really made a mess of things!

The actual chain of events that caused this mess will be at least touched on in some future chapter. I hope you don't think Taylor and Annette's night is over yet... there's still plenty of work to do for the intrepid mother/daughter duo! If you think that Taylor "Skitter" Hebert is going to rest before she sees evidence that Carlos is either dead or alive, then you're sorely mistaken.

 

[Xilph]

Investigation? You send the teams as promised, investigate whether her story is true by checking if the S9 is there, not by randomly assuming she's lying. Really not sure where the problem could arise unless someone was actively sabotaging her, which means either she was mastered into giving false orders or the orders were intercepted and altered which would mean she didn't make a mistake anyway and that should turn up.

 

[Expo Onethousandone]

I got chapters 7-9 done, finishing the first arc of this story. I'll probably post chapter 8 tomorrow or the next day after cleaning it up, but chapter 9, such as it is, isn't going up until I re-write parts of it, and then complete Interlude 1. Please let me know what you think!
​

Immortals
A Worm Fanfic
Chapter 7: Once More Into the Breach​

Our appearance on the Hospital lawn attracted a lot of attention. Two security guards had emerged from the closest door to the lawn, the emergency room entrance, as well as several orderlies and a nurse. I walked forward to meet the group of unhappy looking hospital workers, hands raised to show them that I meant no harm. The nurse eyed my improvised mask and the giant knife on my belt warily, but she didn't say anything or walk away. There was a fierceness to her gaze, and a I knew intuitively that despite the hell I'd gone through over the last few days, the middle aged woman in front of me had seen and dealt with worse in her time.

"What's going on out here? Do these people need medical attention?" she asked, gesturing to the crowd of children and counselors that Mom had healed with her power. Her voice and manner was abrupt, impatient; I could tell that she was pissed off and a little bit scared. Burly orderlies flanker her on each side, though the security guards hung back. One of them talking quietly into his radio, while the other one watched Mom and I intently, his hand hovering above the still-holstered pistol on his hip.

"These kids are all victims of the latest Slaughterhouse Nine attack... those bastards hit a summer camp. They could definitely use some clothing and probably some grief counseling, but they no longer need medical attention, thank God. Bonesaw had sewn them all together into some kind of giant flesh monster, and my partner over there healed them." I explained, doing my best to summarize while sticking to the bare essentials… I didn't have time to do more than that. There was still work to be done tonight. I continued, speaking a bit faster this time so that I could finish up and get back to work.

"Montague's a teleporter and a healer... she heals by teleporting. We didn't know if her power would work on a group of two dozen at once, especially when they were all fused together like that. She brought us here in case they still needed medical help afterward." I finished, gesturing to the embarrassed campers that my mother and I had rescued. A few of them were hiding behind the array of shrubberies on the hospital lawn by now, but the majority were simply sitting on the grass, shell shocked. Most of Bonesaw's victims were either looking around blankly or opening sobbing.

"Jesus!" hissed one of the orderlies. I didn't know if the comment was inspired by my words or by the scene in front of his eyes. The nurse shot him a dirty look, and the chastised man quietened down almost instantly. I fought down the urge to grin at almost comical display of the hardened nurse exerting her authority. My desire to smile made me feel sick; I shouldn't be allowed to experience humor, not when there were people who still needed my help.

"We'll take care of them," said the Nurse. "What do I call when I make my report?" she asked.

"I'm Capulet, I guess." I said, scratching the back of my head. It wasn't a bad name, but definitely not what I would have chosen had I my druthers.

I looked over at Mom… Montague, I guess, while she was in costume, trying to put together our next move. Obviously we needed to go back to the campground. I sincerely hoped that the flesh creatures weren't all there was left of the several hundred campers and counselors. I wouldn't be content until I had searched the entire camp, checked everywhere for survivors with my own eyes.

"Montague," I said, calling my mother over. She had given her coat to Candy, and the two of them were helping children to their feet and giving them words of encouragement. Several hospital workers had rushed out, presumably called by one of the security guards' radios. These new arrivals were busy passing out blankets and hospital gowns.

"Just a minute, Capulet," she said slowly, turning toward me after wrapping a blanket around a teenage girl's shoulders. She stared at the Nurse and her entourage as they walked away, the majority of them heading over to the group of older and younger teens. The medical workers helped the kids bundle up and, and then started carting them off into the hospital. Candy, still wearing Mom's jacket, was doing her level best to assist them. I turned to look at Mom, a serious look on my face; I was a bit surprised to find a matching expression on hers.

"I know we have to go back, sweetheart. Do you have any idea of how many more survivors might be there?" I blinked in surprise at her words. Good enough. I thought furiously, linking the memories from the evening I arrived at camp with the images of the slaughter in and out of the Great Hall that same night. There had been 417 campers that I'd observed in the Great Hall before the attack, and maybe 60-70 counselors, administrators, and support personnel… I don't think I'd seen all of them, so the number was an educated guess. I'd observed a staggering 67 people being killed that night, and we'd rescued 26 that had been melded together into the three flesh monsters; twenty-three campers and three of the teenaged cabin counselors. That meant…

"There could be as many as 390 people remaining, if the Slaughterhouse didn't kill any more people than the ones I saw die on the first night. I find that extremely unlikely, though, with the group's propensity for violence... so I'd guess fewer than that made it. Still, there might still be a lot of possible survivors." I said, rattling off information as my power went over memories and ran the numbers. Mom nodded at me, her face grim.

"Let's go find them." she said, holding out her hand. I took it, and seconds later we had become light. This time I kept my eyes open, trying to speed up my rate of perception so that I could figure out exactly how her teleportation worked. I made sure to command my eyelids not to close until I manually let them, so that I wouldn't miss anything. Oh, I had a rough idea of how her power worked, thanks to my glimpse of the incandescent shard Mom was connected to, but I wanted to see exactly how it operated if possible. The need to understand everything burned within me, like an unquenchable fire.

We became the blue light, and then hovered in the air. The next part happened in a split second, and I barely recognized that anything visible had occurred. Replaying the memories, I gasped, startled at the mechanism that my mother's power used to transport us. In front of the two of us, a round portal in space had appeared, with Camp Wanantakka visible on the other side. The two of us were sucked into it in a bare fraction of a second, the blue light flaring brightly as the portal closed.

To any outside observer, it looked as though we had simply disappeared. Even with my altered nervous system and heavily augmented eyes, I'd barely caught a glimpse of the portal. My mind was spinning due to the new information and its implications, wondering what else Mom might be able to do with her power, if she could somehow learn to manipulate the portals she created directly. I intended to talk to her in-depth about her power later, once this terrible fucking day was finally over and done with.

Mom had teleported us to the same spot we'd arrived at on our previous two trips, in the air above and to the side of the burnt out shell of the Great Hall. This time we didn't land; Mom proved that she could fly, and not merely hover, by setting out through the air across the campground. She pulled out her flashlight, tracing a path along the ground as we went. I flew beside her, connected to her only by our held hands… It was a little disconcerting to be in the air with no way to control my own body, but I trusted my mother enough that I wasn't worried. We must have looked like a pair of bright blue shooting stars as we streaked through the air. I was a little scared that someone from the Slaughterhouse Nine would find us, due to how visible we were... but they would have to be idiots to still be hanging around at this point.

I used gestures to direct Mom across the grounds in a search pattern that I hastily came up with, using my power to come up with an optimal way to search for survivors without missing anything. We'd covered maybe a quarter of the grounds, when something terrible happened. Without any action on Mom's part, we suddenly became flesh again, our unsupported bodies falling toward the ground. We were only a dozen feet above the forest floor, if that, which meant that we weren't going to die, even if we hit the ground, unless one of us landed very badly. Mom screamed as we fell, her eyes opened wide in panic.

My mind was going crazy, as if something vital had abruptly been removed from my brain. Thankfully, my massively enhanced reflexes remained, as well as my ability to compute vectors and angles. We'd been moving over a patch of trees when Mom's power failed her; I shot out my hand when I was close enough to one of them, grabbing the branch of the pine tree. Using my legs and core muscles, I swung my mother and I at just the right angle to land us on the branch below the one I'd grabbed. My arm burned from the strain I'd placed on it, but it didn't feel like I'd injured anything severely, merely overused my muscles.

Mom's body bounced off the trunk of the tree when we landed, nearly causing her to fall off of the branch. I grabbed her tightly from behind, circling my arms around her torso just under her arms while wrapping my legs around the branch I was sitting on, stabilizing the both of us. Mom whimpered softly; a glance down revealed that she had a small gouge wound from a sharp little protrusion on the trunk of the tree, right where she'd hit when she landed. The wound on her left side was quite small, and it was hardly bleeding at all. Still, it looked fairly painful. I was glad to see that it wasn't anything terribly serious. Besides the wound, Mom had been banged up quite a bit by the fall and her impact with the trunk. Her torso, butt, and legs had to be a mass of bruises where she'd impacted. One things was for sure; she wasn't going to be of any use in a fight, at least until she could teleport again and heal herself.

All of this took place in just a few seconds, though I was startled to realize that I didn't know exactly how many of them had passed. A quick mental inventory revealed that I couldn't bring up my 3D sense, or access my perfect sense of timing either. My memory was also on the friz… I thought I could recall things a little better than I'd been able to before my trigger, but the crystal clarity of my previously perfect recall was gone. My eyes, enhanced reflexes, and ability to compute distances and angles were still all there, thankfully.

'Just what in the hell is going on, here?' I wondered. I learned that I could still think extremely quickly, too, because it didn't take me long at all to guess out what had happened. Mom's powers had been turned off wholesale, and mine had been partially disabled… that meant someone or something had cancelled our powers.

Hatchet Face must be nearby. He had a power suppressing ability that worked at range, though I didn't know the specifics of how it operated. He was also a basic Brute, though not an extremely powerful one, if I recalled correctly. It was scary not to be completely sure of my memories… like something important, irreplaceable, really, had been stolen from me. I scanned the ground below, my eyes still giving me perfect night vision, looking for the source of my most recent near-death experience. Unless he had some kind of automatic area of effect power, he had to have seen us flying over the stand of trees in order to have disabled our powers. I hoped with all my might that the pieces of my power that remained wouldn't suddenly turn off like the rest of it had.

"Mom, I think your powers were turned off by Hatchet Face," I whispered into her ear. She became quiet, her body stiffening. "Some of my powers were disabled too, but not all of them. I think that either my power altered my body and that some of my abilities are actually part of my physiology now, or that Hatchet Face somehow messed up when he disabled my parahuman abilities… I didn't know which, though." I grimaced, hoping that he hadn't seen where we had landed… If he was watching us right now, then Mom and I didn't have much of a chance. I needed to get moving, get the drop on the killer before he came after me and Mom. I checked my pockets, feeling reassured to discover that none of their contents were missing. Thank god for tight jeans!

"Mom, I want you grab the trunk of the tree and hold on," I whispered softly, "I'm going to let go of you so that I can move to a different branch. I still have the gun you gave me, and the knife; if I can find Hatchet Face then I should be able to take him out." I paused. "If he spots me, I want you to run… when your power comes back, teleport out and go for help. Armsmaster, or enough regular guys with weapons should be able to beat him."

"It's too dangerous, Taylor!" she hissed. "Let me distract him, while you run-"

"No!" I whisper-yelled. "That's stupid! You're the teleporter, and I'm the one who can fight! If you go down there, then we're both dead!" I paused, my voice taking on a pleading tone. Mom, listen to me."

She turned her body and neck as much as she could, wincing when it upset her injuries. Enough of my hypercognition remained that I could tell that she'd been trying to enter her energy form for a while now with no success. Her power was still being interfered with. She caught my eye from the corner of hers, looking at me frankly. There was a frown on Moms face as she stared at me for a moment. Finally, she lowered her eyes, nodding sharply once.

"Go," she whispered, her voice filled with sadness. "But don't take any unnecessary risks, Taylor. When you see Hatchet Face, take him out as quickly as you can. If you can't hurt him, then you run!"

"I will," I said. My mother grabbed onto the trunk of the tree, and I stood up on the branch. It was a little more difficult keeping my balance without my perfect memory and timing, but it was still pretty easy.

I tiptoed softly through the tree, going around Mom's body. I slithered onto a different branch on the other side of the trunk, one with a better view of the ground. I glanced downward, looking all around for any sign of my quarry. Hatchet Face had enhanced durability, but I didn't know how enhanced it was… Would a .38 round like the ones in my revolver penetrate his skin? If not, then I would need to aim for his soft tissues, which would increase the difficulty of killing him enormously. I had no doubt that I would need to kill him in order to survive this encounter… With Mom's injury, and the diminished state of my own power, I doubted that I would be able to get my mother down from the tree she was stuck in as I was now. We would need to get her power working again if we expected to escape this mess intact.

Sweeping my eyes across another patch of bushes revealed an oddity; beneath the leaves on the far side of the shrubbery, I saw the pointed tip of a boot sticking out. The rest of the body it belonged to wasn't visible from where I was crouched in the treetops, but it was safe to say that I'd found what I'd been looking for. I hopped nimbly between half a dozen tree tops, thanking the universe that I'd taken the time to commit all of those graceful martial arts moves to my muscle memory this morning… they were the only reason I could move like this. My reflexes were still really good, but without perfect recall and timing, I sincerely doubt that I'd have been been able to move through the tree branches as smoothly and quietly as I did.

I slowly circled around my prey until the Slaughterhouse member came fully into view. He was stealthily creeping through the bushes while looking carefully around him. Hatchet Face wore no mask or costume, just regular clothes under a huge oilskin duster. His face was incredibly ugly, with an enormous, beak-like nose dominating his features. In his right hand he carried a large hand axe, and several others hung from his belt. I realized that he must have some way to see in the dark, because the black, cloudy night didn't seem to hinder his search appreciably. His movements were nearly silent, and he took care not to disturb the plant life around him as he crept through the thicket where Mom and I had come down. He didn't completely rely on his terrifying powers, I realized, he augmented them with a healthy dose of skill as well. If my powers had been taken from me wholesale, I realized abruptly, then I my mother and I would have already been dead.

I drew my pistol and moved through the trees until I was was in the perfect spot, one which had good footing and an ideal firing angle. I'd reviewed a few westens mentally this morning while practicing fighting moves, so I had a good idea of how to operate a pistol. Absent several of my mental abilities, I was worried that I'd botch my first shot. I didn't know how much recoil the gun would generate, and I didn't have a way to completely control my body anymore… Using my advanced reflexes, I should be able to compensate for any recoil or other problems that cropped up, starting with my second shot… but Hatchet Face had a ranged weapon as well, not to mention the full use of his powers. I would need to act quickly and decisively once the fight started, or else I was as good as dead.

I waited until the hawk-nosed villain raised his head to look around before firing. My back was pressed up against the trunk of the tree I crouched in, and my feet planted securely on the wide branch. The gun was held in my outstretched hands, my arms and body arranged so that the tree behind me should absorb most of the recoil from the gun. I held my breath and took aim, picking the perfect angle of attack to shoot the power suppressor directly through his left eye. Slowly exhaling, I gently pulled back the trigger of my weapon. I flinched as the gun went off; explosions from the primer and powder going off were much louder than I'd thought they would be. Hatchet Face staggered as he was hit, dropping to one knee. I stared at him in horror, my mouth agape; I'd missed his head entirely, instead shooting him in the side of the neck, just above his collarbone.

The villain slowly began rising to his feet, a nasty looking but ultimately non threatening wound visible on the side of his throat where the bullet had done nothing more than graze him. I didn't waste time staring, instead correcting for the mistake I'd made with the first shot and firing at the Brute three more times in rapid succession. This time the villain fell to the ground and didn't stir as I nailed him in both eyes and through the mouth when he opened it up to cry out. I frowned when my powers didn't immediately return, wondering what--

The world slammed back into focus so abruptly that I nearly fell out of the tree I was still crouched in. Everything around and inside of me began making sense again, and once more I understood the world on a level that had been completely unimaginable to me seconds earlier. My timing and 3D senses sprang back into existence, and my mind, which had still been fantastic even while depowered, rose to a whole new level of functionality. I looked down at Hatchet Face's corpse dispassionately, my brain recording everything about him for later review. I paused, startled, when I noticed a slight movement beneath his collapsed form.

I darted to the side, gun still drawn, as the ugly Brute flipped over onto his back, hatchet in hand. He threw it powerfully in my direction, the axe blade burying itself to the hilt in the trunk of the tree I'd been on a second earlier, exactly where I'd been standing. I aimed, snapping off the last two shots from my gun as I closed in on him. I felt my powers fade in and out as I drew closer to the dying villain. Both of the bullets from the final pair of shots had buried themselves deep inside Hatchet Face's brain, entering through his bloody, gaping eye sockets to join the first two pieces of lead I'd put there. He lay still after that, and my fluctuating power snapped fully into place. I had to make sure that he was really dead; the last thing I needed at this point was to leave a living enemy at my back. I didn't have a death wish, and any mercy I once had for the homicidal villains had been destroyed days ago, when the Nine had first attacked.

I hopped from branch to branch until I was directly above the Slaughterhouse member's prone body. I drew Dad's bowie knife and pocketing the gun, positing my body just so. I dropped the dozen feet to the ground, the hardwood handle of the knife held in both hands. Using the kinetic energy from my descent, I slammed the thick, razor sharp blade through the cape's wide open mouth and directly into his spine. I utilized the slight paunch around the Brute's belly to break my fall, my knees slamming into his stomach with enough force to bruise them and send a spray of vaporized blood flying out of his mouth and nostrils. Wiping the viscous red liquid from my face with my sleeve, I gingerly stood up. My knees ached as I rose to my feet, making me grimace… I wouldn't be using Brute class capes to cushion a fall again if I could help it. I looked down at the second man I'd killed today, wondering if or when the pointless violence would finally come to an end.

I had to use all of my enhanced strength and find the perfect angle to dislodge the bowie knife from Hatchet Face's reinforced skeleton. Crouching down, I grabbed the bladed weapon in both hands. Holding onto the handle of the knife with all of my strength, I lept up and twisted. A wet popping sound emerged from the cape's broken, blood-flecked mouth as I wrenched the blade free that'd been embedded in his spinal column free. I spun around when I heard a noise, my recently reacquired knife raised in a defensive position. I watched as mom's light based alternate form floated to the forest floor before transforming back into flesh. She immediately bent over at the waist and began throwing up at the grisly sight of Hatchet Face's body. My mind filled with worry and fear when I realized that she had probably seen the last moment or so of Hatchet Face's grisly killing. I hung my head, hoping desperately that she wouldn't hate me for what I'd had to do to protect us both from the murderous power nullifier.

When Mom's stomach was empty she wiped her mouth off with the back of her hand. She stumbled over to where I was standing stock-still, and pulled me into a hug. Hot tears slid down her cheeks as she cried, holding me so tightly that it hurt. I hugged her back desperately, only my power keeping me from totally losing my composure. We were still in hostile territory, though, and I needed to protect Mom. I refused to weaken myself by showing emotion right now... even if I really, really wanted to cry with my mother.

Mom pulled herself back together, but she didn't let me go. We became blue light again, and she teleported us to the other side of the thicket of trees we'd been standing in. My knees instantly felt better, and the muscle strains and bruises from the fall cleared themselves up. Mom turned off her powers, causing us to revert to our normal forms once again. She looked down at me, her face no longer red and puffy, her body no longer wounded.

"Taylor… I'm so sorry that you had to do that, sweetie." She paused, stroking my hair. "I think we should go home, and try to get some help. We're in over our heads here." There was fear in her eyes as she stared at me, and I realized that she was terrified that we would run into another cape; terrified that I'd have to kill again, or that I'd be the one to die. The problem was I couldn't bring myself to leave. Not when there might be other kids like me still alive. Not when we'd come this far. Not when I still had a chance to find Carlos… They deserved every effort I could give and more after I'd run out on them that first night like a coward. If the authorities had given up on them, then I would have to be the one to come to their rescue.

"Mom... I don't think the Protectorate is coming. It's been over and hour and a half since we spoke to Piggot, and someone should have been here by now. They have teleporters who could be here in seconds if they wanted to... I'm guessing that Piggot either still believes I'm lying, or that she's so invested in her fuck-up that she has no intention of letting anyone else in the PRT know what's going on, even if she does know the truth at this point." I was calm throughout my explanation, trying to make her see that we were the only hope for the people trapped by the monsters here.

Mom wouldn't meet my eyes. A lightbulb went off in my head, and I wrenched myself from her arms, darting backward less than a second before she transformed into blue light. She reverted to her human form when she realized I'd gotten away, a mix of anger and terror coloring her face.

"Taylor Hebert, you come over here right now! We are going home!" Mom voice nearly broke as she spoke, and I could see in her eyes that she was fighting down panic. I didn't think there was any way she could catch me, not unless she could fly a lot faster than I'd seen her move before. That meant the ball was in my court. I knew I'd catch hell for it later, but I had no intention of leaving the rest of the surviving campers and staff to whatever fate awaited them to placate my mom's protective instincts.

"Mom, I am not leaving until we find the rest of the survivors." I spoke with conviction, my stare as hard as diamonds. "You can go home if you want, but I'd much rather have you with me here. There aren't any other power nullifiers in the Nine, so we can use your powers to bug out at any time, if things get bad." My expression softened. "Please, Mom. I have to do this! What's the point of having powers if we can't use them to save people from monsters like the Nine?" I could tell that Mom was furious with me, but there was never any chance that she was going to leave her daughter alone in a dangerous place like this. Mom gave me a cold look, her eyes narrowed.

"You know I won't ever leave you here. When we get home, we are having a serious discussion, young lady." Mom's voice was terrifying, sending shivers down my spine. I refused to show any emotion, though, and gave her a single sharp nod. Turning around, I headed toward the area of the campground that we hadn't covered yet. We had yet to search the area of the grounds which contained the cabins the campers stayed in, as well as a few other buildings. By unspoken agreement we walked, neither of us wanting to attract any more attention with Mom's glowing blue light form. I was a bit chagrinned when I realized that I had no clue what parahumans with energy forms were called… I would need to look that up when I had a chance. 'That and a million other things,' I thought. Now that I had a perfect memory, I intended to become a walking encyclopedia as soon as I had the time to do so.

As we moved, I kept my eyes peeled, my super senses taking in everything. Mom had lost her flashlight during the fall so she walked close behind me, following my lead. Eventually we reached the little stand of cabins that served as dormitories. The little rustic houses were laid out in a rough circle. In the middle of the ring of cabins lay a much larger log building; I recalled that a few of the returning campers had called it "The Hangout". I plumbed my infallible memory for information on the structure, but other than its name I had nothing. I guessed that it was exactly what the name implied; a place for campers to hang out and socialize. Mom and I stared at the building, our eyes meeting afterward as we shared a concerned look.

There were lights on in The Hangout.

 

[Nightgazer]

I really hope Piggot gets fired over this and replaced with someone who's less prejudiced/stupid/moronic.

 

[Kurotanbo]

They should teleport with hatchet faces body to the touring center in the PRT. That way Piggot can't deny her fuck up.

 

[Kolarthecool]

They should teleport with hatchet faces body to the touring center in the PRT. That way Piggot can't deny her fuck up.

Click to shrink...

Will that heal him back to life?

 

[Nightgazer]

Will that heal him back to life?

Click to shrink...

I don't think the teleport restores dead.

 

[jrbless]

Will that heal him back to life?

Click to shrink...

I don't think the teleport restores dead.

Click to shrink...

I think it is inconclusive based on what we have seen so far.

If they took just his head, he would probably stay dead. Evidence for this is that all natural fibers in Taylor's and Anne's clothes did not spontaneously turn back into sheep (if they were wool) along with the food they ate not turning back into cows. This implies that it is necessary to have all (or almost all) of the biomass of what is being teleported for it to be healed.

That teleporting also restores clothing (which is not alive) to a healed/cleaned/undamaged state presents interesting possibilities for teleporting a whole dead body. It can either result in a dead/clean body on the other end, or it can result in a clean/alive/pissed body on the other end.

 

[Expo Onethousandone]

I've finished the first drafts of chapter 9 and Interlude 1, so here's Chapter 8! I have to re-write chapter 9 and then edit it, so it'll probably a few days before I post the next one. The Interlude marks the end of Arc One of this story, bringing the journey of miserableness that our heroine's had to go through to a close. Poor Taylor... most people's trigger event is the worst days of their lives, but hers was smack-dab in the middle of the worst three days of her life. Please ready and review!

Immortals
A Worm Fanfic
Chapter 8: Coming Full Circle​

Mom and I watched the building for a few more moments, our bodies crouched behind a row of short bushes. We were hiding around two hundred feet from The Hangout and the rest of the cabins; I hoped that our distance and stealth would prevent anyone down there from detecting us.. Besides the camp cabins and the Great Hall, the building we were observing was the only structure of note on the entire campus… at least that I knew of. It would make sense if the rest of the nine were holed up here.

Walking a little ways around the circle of buildings revealed that two of the smaller cabins had lights on inside of them as well… clearly someone or something was here. Either that, or someone wanted us to think that the lit structures were inhabited. I frowned; would the Nine be obvious enough to turn the lights on in the middle of the night? Was this some kind of trap? I really needed more information before Mom and I acted.

"Mom, how does the targeting for your teleportation work?" I asked. Ideas swirled through my head like a maelstorm.

"I…" she paused, a look of frustration coming over her face. "Sorry honey, I'm not sure how to explain it. I guess I just think about where I want to teleport to, and I can sort of 'feel' if it's safe to go there. I don't really get any information about where I'm trying to teleport to, I can just kind of tell if it's a good idea to transport over or not." As my mother struggled to explain her innate ability, a plan of action began to coalesce in my mind.

"Do you think you can teleport into the big building, the one that's in the middle of those other cabins? I have a strong suspicious that when you're in your blue light form, there's not much that can harm you. If you can get in and out of the building in less than five seconds, I don't think any of the Slaughterhouse members would be able to hurt you." I frowned, my mind bending in strange directions as my power worked furiously. "Maybe Winter could do something, but according to all the information I have on her, her Shaker power is supposed to take time to build up before it's really effective."

Mom looked startled, concentrating for a moment as she mulled over my plan. Her next words revealed that she'd used whatever supersensory power that she possessed to see if my idea was viable.

"Yeah, there's enough space inside of that building to teleport inside. Are you sure this is a good idea, sweetheart?" Mom was clearly nervous about the idea of possibly coming face to face with more Slaughterhouse Nine members. I didn't blame her for the caution; the two that I'd faced had been terrifying, even if I did win on both occasions.

"I think it's the only chance we have of finding out if that," I said, pointing at the group of buildings below, "is a trap… at least without dying," I told her grimly. My mother winced, her face paler than normal in the wan moonlight. She nodded.

"What should I do?" she asked, ceding control of the situation to me.

"I can see through the windows right there," I said pointing, "The second floor is a loft, and there doesn't appear to be much up there; it looks like the entire building has a completely open floor plan. I can make out a railing that overlooks the first floor, right next to a set of stairs there. I think your best chance of getting in and out without being seen is to appear in the loft area, right next to the railing. When you transport in, don't land or change out of your light form… Just take a quick peek, and then pop right back over here so you can share what's going on. You should be completely immune to any biological agents or physical injuries while in your alternate state, so there's not much of anything the remaining members of the Nine can do to hurt you." Mom nodded along as I explained my plan, indicating that she understood what to do.

"Wish me luck," she said. I mumbled and agreement before giving my mother a quick hug. She switched to her alternate form, and then disappeared. I watched through the windows in The Hangout as Mom reappeared a fraction of a second after she winked out. She was hovering a few inches off the ground, exactly where I'd asked her to teleport to. I saw her disappear again after observing the interior of the building for 6.53 seconds, before reappearing beside me once again. Mom lowered herself to the ground, her body transitioning back to normal as she landed. She looked shaken.

"Bonesaw's inside." She practically barked out her words. "And she's working on something… on someone." Her eyes were wild. "I had a clear view of nearly the entire interior, and there weren't any other parahumans that I could see... " She hesitated before continuing. "There were more things in there, Taylor. Smaller ones, and quite a few of them… maybe ten or twenty. It looks like she turned some of the campers into monsters." My power cranked away furiously as I formulated a plan, trying to come up with the safest way possible of rescuing the poor souls that Bonesaw had twisted using her prodigious Tinker power.

"There's more, sweetheart," said Mom quietly. I looked back up at her, surprised. "I think the person Bonesaw's working on is Jack Slash." I paled; could Bonesaw actually bring people back from the dead!? Jack Slash coming back to life was a nightmare scenario.

"We've got to move quickly," I bit out. I knew on some level that if Bonesaw managed to resurrect Jack, that nothing my mother or I could do would be enough to take him out. He'd survived too many encounters with powerful heroes, gotten away clear from so many traps… His blade projection didn't sound like a very powerful parahuman power, but Jack Slash had survived having a kill order on his head for almost twenty years for a reason. He was slippery, and by all accounts luckier than the devil himself. Besides the evil that he would do, there was an even more important reason that I couldn't let him be revived… I didn't want Carlos's achievement to be meaningless. The boy I'd barely known, who I thought could have been a friend shortly, had done something amazing when he defeated a monstrous cape without even possessing a power of his own. I wanted to preserve that achievement, to make sure that it continued to mean something. I was ready to do whatever it took to make sure that Jack Slash remained dead and gone. Mom interrupted my thoughts with a simple statement.

"Taylor, we are not going in there until you've come up with a damned good plan. There's over a dozen monsters, and I'm sure several of those spiders things you told me about are lurking somewhere as well." I could tell that she was completely serious; unless I had a way to level the playing field there was no way she was going to let me get close to The Hangout. It's a good thing for me that I already knew what to do. I gave my mother a dangerous smile.

"I've already got a plan," I told her. "Help me gather some branches." I began searching the ground underneath a nearby stand of hardwood trees. "Long thin ones," I told my mother, holding up a long, thin one that I had found as an example. A collection of broken branches began to accumulate in my arms as Mom joined me in my search. Soon enough we had nearly as much kindling as we could carry. I took off my coat and zipped it up, tying the sleeves just so to form a holster for the sticks.

"Mom, I want you to convert one of the sticks into blue light and throw it at that tree," I said, pointing at the trunk I wanted her to target. Mom's power might be similar to Legend's… but she just didn't have the firepower that the famous Blaster did. Despite the astounding level of utility her power brought to the table, it was a little light on 'out of the box' offensive ability. If things worked out as expected, though, my idea should make up for her lack of lasers… at least to a degree. If I have my way, then with my help Mom will eventually be stronger than Legend.

"Alright honey," she said, not even bothering to argue. Mom shifted just her hand to blue light this time, and then converted the stick that she was holding. She threw the glowing blue stick at the tree I'd indicated. I smiled when her eyes opened wide in astonishment as the stick punched through the pine tree's trunk like it wasn't even there. Under the effects of Mom's power the piece of wood she'd thrown bored a hole through the tree and flew out the other side. It hadn't been slowed down in the slightest. I had a feeling that they would be able to punch through anything, no matter what material impediments were made up of.

The projectile continued to travel in a straight line through the air for exactly 2.78 seconds from the moment she'd thrown it. While it flew, the mostly straight stick had ignored gravity and inertia, mass and friction. When mom's power faded from the piece of wood the small branch was passing through yet another tree. We both rushed over to see what had happened. We found the broken piece of a tree branch stuck tight, apparently melded with the tree it had been passing through. I walked over to examine the curious sight; it looked like the matter composing the stick had merged perfectly with the trunk perfectly, causing the two separate objects to form a new, denser material than either of the originals. 'Now doesn't that have applications!' I thought gleefully. I couldn't wait to study Mom's power further.

I was pretty sure that Mom's power had a component that allowed her to avoid destructive interactions herself when she touched people or objects in her light form. My own power had informed me that a thrown or otherwise launched object might have allowed her to bypass that restriction, thus the test we'd just performed. I'd smiled grimly when my power was proven correct.

I pulled out my revolver, which I had reloaded during our walk from the thicket to the ring of cabins. I had mom phase phase me for the next test. I looked back and forth between my weapon and the perforated tree trunk that we'd used previously, before lining up the shot and firing my revolver. The bullet shot from my pistol noiselessly, as everything was under my mom's power, before going straight through the trunk. The round continued on a completely straight course through the air without dipping or slowing visibly for exactly 2.78 seconds, just like the stick had.

The tiny bit of lead went through everything in its path like the objects weren't even there, and much faster and more precisely than Mom's through piece of wood had. I grinned ferally, my canine teeth shining in the nearly nonexistent moonlight. Suddenly, the enemies in The Hangout didn't seem like that much of an obstacle. I reloaded the gun while Mom and I talked strategy for a moment, getting our plan completely straight. Four minutes and forty-one seconds after she'd returned from scouting, we winked out of existence.

We reappeared five feet behind Bonesaw, who was working on the body in front of her feverishly. I looked at her work, my eyes widening when I realized that it really was Jack Slash on her operating table. The tiny Tinker didn't notice our presence, didn't slow down her work at all. My roving eyes noticed something else… Next to where she was working, invisible from the angle my mom had observed Bonesaw from earlier, was a second body. I looked into the glassy, pain filled eyes of Carlos, my mind filled with shock. His head wasn't attached to his body. It was mated to a Tinkertech device, with the rest of his body parts being stored in a glass aquarium that had yet another piece of Bonesaw's work attached to it.

The hispanic boy's body appeared to have been messily disassembled. His head was alive, connected to a crude Tinkertech device which I my power told me was a life support machine. It also appeared to do something else, something that reminded me of the crystalline shards I'd seen in space earlier in the evening when Mom triggered. Something to do with powers? Carlos's eyes stared at my glowing blue face, both of them opening wide in surprise. A vicious grin erupted across his face, and I nodded at him, letting him know that we were here to help.

One of the people-things in the room, a misshapen two-headed creature that might have been a pair of teenage girls at one point, let out a horrendous screech when it spotted the two of us hovering in the air. The tiny Tinker spun around, her eyes darting wildly around the room until they landed on Mom and I. Were were still in Mom's energy from, floating in the air together, connected to one another by our held hands. I barely needed my power at all to realize how dangerous fighting Bonesaw would have been, had we been susceptible her cadre of biological tricks. My power informed me that Mom's power should be proof against biological agents and standard physical attacks.

I was surprised to see the sorry looking state the golden haired parahuman was in. The Tinker's eyes were bloodshot, and there were huge, dark bags underneath them. Her face was way too pale, and I could see a plethora of cuts and bruises on the exposed portions of her hands and arms. The body she'd been working on was a mess as well… Between the bio-spider mechs I'd seen three days ago and the work I was looking at now, my power had a pretty good grasps on Bonesaw's Tinkertech. Enough, at least, to recognize that Jack Slash's body was nearly unsalvageable. It looked like she'd performed at least a dozen operations on it; there were seventeen separate devices keeping his brain oxygenated and the tissues fresh… All the things necessary to resurrect him, like some kind of Frankenstein's monster. The problem, it appeared, was not his body, which should be able to sustain life, but his brain.

Jack Slash's exposed brain, which had been run through by Carlos using the psycho's own knife, had tissue from at least a dozen different sources grafted onto it. I learned in that moment that my eyes were sensitive enough to notice details like that… The slightly different coloration, grain, and patterns on the various sections of hastily connected neural tissue was enough for my power to inform me that they'd come from several different individuals. It made my blood boil when I realized that this disgusting parody of a child had killed at least twelve people to try to bring her piece of shit, murderer of a boss back to life. I nearly killed her right there, but I held myself back.

I'd been smart enough to realize that Bonesaw's had probably set up some kind of biological booby trap that would go off when she died. I was counting on Mom's power to fix that… Once the Tinker been teleported, any viruses, bacteria, or other harmful organisms on or around her body should be neutralized... as well as any implants she had in her body. A useful byproduct of restoring her body to 'optimal' health. We'd have to be careful going forward when transporting Tinkers and the like… anything they'd implanted in their own bodies would probably be removed when they were reintegrated from energy to matter.

Mom and I each drew a stick, preparing for the onslaught of Bonesaw's creatures. Under the effects of my mother's power, we must have looked like glowing angels with fiery blue swords. I didn't want to kill the creatures, as we might be able to revert them to human with Mom's power. If it came down to it, though, Mom and I had agreed that even that would be preferable to having Jack Slash brought back to life. We hovered in the air in front of the murderous little girl and her pack of twisted creations, waiting for the inevitable attack. Over a minute passed without anything at all happening; a lifetime in battle. I was ready to start the fight myself, only wariness of some kind trap or hidden surprise holding me back. Mom and I continued to stare down at the little Tinker warily.

The fight never came. The dozen ogre-like creatures didn't attack. Bonesaw just stared up at us with her jaw quivering, looking so, so tired. I noticed that she was using the edge of the table that contained Jack's body to support herself, her short legs trembling like they could barely support her megre weight. The dress she wore was absolutely filthy, it and the apron she had over it caked in oil and gore. Finally, the preteen cape broke the strange deadlock.

"You're not Lengend," she accused, her speech slightly slurred. "Who are you? Why haven't you killed me yet?" She let go of the table, dropping onto her butt on the blood splattered floor. Under my incredulous gaze she actually began to cry. I had no clue what to do.

"I wish Mr. Jack was here," the blond girl sobbed, fat tears rolling down her pale cheeks. "But I can't get his brain working! Not even when I connected his body to that mean regenerator guy who killed him…" she stared at the floor, as she sniveled, her little hands twisting and pulling on the hem of her disgusting apron. I had no trouble believing that she'd been trying to resurrect the leader of her gang since the very moment he'd been killed… The little girl was so bone weary that I doubt she properly understood what was going on around her.

Mom looked at me, my power helping me read her expression through the obfuscation caused by her energy state. I shook my head no, grief and hatred warring with simple human compassion in my heart as I took in the piteous form on the tiny monster in front of me which wore the disguise of a sad little girl. Mom cocked her head, the parts of her face which were usually eyes and mouth shifting slightly. I nodded 'no' again, more vehemently this time. Mom shrugged her shoulders, and then blatantly ignored our previous plan as she disobeyed the instructions I'd just given her. I had no way to stop her, no way to disagree; my body only had as much freedom as she allowed it to while under the influence of her power.

Mom drifted over to Bonesaw and bent down. She lifted the unresisting child using her free arm, converting the Tinker into blue light as she picked her up. When she hugged the tiny blonde girl to her chest, I was shocked to see a look of contentment come across the child's face when my mother embraced her, just before she was converted fully into energy. Bonesaw clung to Mom as if her life depended on it, the outline of her small body completely still. I fumed in silence, as I had to, shocked and worried at my mom's actions.

Mom gestured to Carlos's severed head and detached body with her head; I nodded 'yes'. I was absolutely furious at her over her betrayal, but I wasn't about to leave him behind. I slowly picked up the pieces of Carlos' body, which had been kept fresh, if not alive, by a type of Tinkertech invigoration field. I tucked each piece of his body under my arm, thankful for their lack of mass as they were converted into blue light. I picked up his bewildered looking head last, holding it in such a way that it was kept in contact with all the other sections of his body. I hadn't missed the significance of Bonesaw's words; evidently my acquaintance had triggered as well, as some kind of regenerator. I guess the device that had been keeping his head alive had also suppressed his powers; either that, or his regeneration was limited enough that it couldn't cope with the loss of the rest of his body. We hadn't used Mom's power to heal someone whose body was dead before… I hoped Carlos's living head would allow the other parts of his body to re-integrate with it successfully, despite their non-living state.

When I was done collecting my friend, I signaled Mom. I slowed down my perception of time again, finding it slightly easier this time to view her portal forming. I actually caught a glimpse of the event horizon of the circular opening before we were sucked in and spat out on the other side. I replayed my memory of the event, delighting in the extra information I'd gleaned this time. As we landed, this time in a small park that was a mile or two from my house, I combined my knowledge of Mom's power with several pieces of Armsmaster and Bonesaw's technology using my 3D technology power, trying to see if I could use my store of information to creating a machine to replicate Mom's power. I put the thought exercise on hold when we returned to flesh. I prepared body and mind once more for a fight, not sure if Bonesaw was planning to attack us once we were vulnerable.

As Carlos's repaired body tumbled to the ground, I drew my revolver and pointed it at Bonesaw. I was hoping that the murderous little girl would give me an excuse to kill her… After all of the terrible things she'd done, she simply didn't deserve to live. Carlos climbed to his feet, looking at the sleeping blonde girl with contempt in his eyes as my mom cradled her limp body to her chest. Mom glared at the gun I was pointing at the little girl's head until I put it away. I snorted in derision; I didn't like killing, but as far as I was concerned Bonesaw had it coming to her, due to her evil actions. I should have realized what would happen when she eventually came across Bonesaw, knowing how Mom felt about kids… It still hurt, though, knowing that my mother was willing to let the villain live, even after she'd seen the horrifying things she'd done to all those people.

"Not that I'm ungrateful for the rescue and the healing, but I'd really like to know what's going on here." said Carlos. He kept looking down at his body, which by all measures was perfectly intact and working once again. He was flexing his arms and legs and twitching his fingers between giving my mother and I searching looks. He studiously ignored Bonesaw, taking pains not to set eyes directly on her unconscious form. I was surprised that he hadn't attacked her, or even Mom, after what had been done to him. I know that I would have in his place. I was a little unsure of what to say to the boy who I'd thought killed over two days ago, but I had a good idea where to start. Pulling down the bandanna covering my lower face and tossing back the hood or my jacket, I turned to smile at the surprised looking boy.

"Hi Carlos." I said shyly. "It's me, Ta-" I didn't get to finish, because the wide-eyed teen rushed forward, moving so quickly that his form blurred. I braced myself for a punch or a kick, figuring that he would rightly be furious at me for abandoning everyone that first night. No attack came. Instead, strong arms wrapped around my body, and the tall latin boy pressed his face into my shoulder as he began to sob.

"Taylor…" he whispered, pulling back after a moment. His eyes were still wet. "You came back for me." he said, his words filled with significance. I managed a timid nod. I was pleased to note that he kept his arms around my waist after the initial embrace. So many different emotions and thoughts were going through my head that I didn't know what to do or think. Mom cleared her throat loudly, reminding the two of us that she was still present. Carlos let go of me and took a step back, his face a little red. He gave me a quick smile, which I returned, before the two of us turned to see what my mother wanted.

"We still have some unfinished business," she said. "I'd like to get some information from this one," she said, gesturing down to the little girl in her arms. "Once we know whether or not there are more members of the Nine back at camp, we need to either head back and finish rescuing the survivors, or call in reinforcements." she said.

"I'm really grateful to you both, but where in the world was the Protectorate?" asked Carlos. He had a baffled look on his face. I felt a sudden surge of anger.

"When I finally escaped that hellhole earlier today, I contacted the PRT first thing. The bitch Director here in Brockton Bay didn't believe that the Slaughterhouse really attacked camp," I spat. Carlos looked incredulous.

"Seriously? They didn't even send someone up there to take a look?" he looked sick as he finished his sentence, like he couldn't believe what I was saying. I nodded, staring at the ground. It hurt to meet his eyes afterward. Mom piped in.

"As soon as we've done all we can back at the camp, I'll be having words with the PRT," she said. Her tone was venomous enough to cause Carlos to stiffen slightly.

"So, you triggered too, I take it?" I asked the young man beside me casually. He'd taken a seat on a nearby park bench that the three of us had drifted over to. The well built young man was flexing his legs while running his hands over his calves. A strange look came over Carlos's face at my question, his eyes appearing to look through me.

"Yeah." He said, chuckling humorlessly. "I can regenerate from anything, and I'm really strong and fast. I can also jump really well…" He paused for a second, his tone going flat. "It seems like every time I regenerate from an injury, I get a little faster or stronger… and I can jump a little higher, or further," he finished slowly. I winced; there was no good way to find that out.

Carlos was bending his toes now, flexing each individual joint as he did so. I was very glad Bonesaw had left the tattered remnants of his clothing on his body; having the boy I was crushing on appear naked in my arms on top of everything else would have been beyond embarrassing. His shirt and pants had been repaired just as thoroughly as his body had. His feet had been bare, hence the lack of shoes.

"I'm mainly a Thinker, though I got a handful of other little powers as well." I told him, reciprocating. Carlos looked at me curiously; apparently he wasn't acquainted with the PRT shorthand for superpowers. Heck, the only reason that I knew the little that I did was due to the bits and pieces of information I'd heard or seen over the years being put together into usable information using my power-given perfect memory.

"Thinkers have mostly mental powers, or enhanced senses." I explained to him. "I can see really well, even in the dark. Thanks to my powers, I'm also smarter than I ever imagined a human being could be. My reflexes are ridiculous, and I'm a lot stronger than a normal girl my age has any right to be, though my strength isn't really 'superhuman'." I took a breath, and then continued explaining.

"I have a perfect memory, and I can easily pick up new skills and fighting moves in seconds. Also…" I paused… wondering if I should I tell him about my 3D technology power. Would Carlos dislike me if he knew that I had something in common with Bonesaw? After a long second II decided to go for it; he had been truthful with me about his own powers, after all.

"I also think that I might be a Tinker, like Armsmaster… Every time I see a machine or a piece of Tinkertech, all the parts of it I can see sort of get scanned into my head in the form of a three dimensional blueprint. Afterward, I can understand what the machine's purpose is, and how it was built. I think that with enough information I should be able to actually construct the machines I've scanned in… but I haven't really had time to build anything yet."

Carlos looked at me appraisingly. "That sounds like a really cool power, Taylor. I sounds a lot more interesting than mine." The handsome boy grinned at me while scratching the back of his head sheepishly. I shot him a quick smile in return, before shifting back into business mode. I turned to Mom and asked her an important question that had been weighing on my mind since we'd captured the little Tinker that she was holding.

"What are we going to do with Bonesaw after she answers your questions?" I asked Mom. She looked down at the little girl thoughtfully for a moment, a frown on her face. She didn't give me an answer right away… I didn't know if she had one. Carlos scowled, turning his head away.

"That monster pretending to be little girl killed most of the people at camp, you know." He spoke casually, refusing to meet my eyes. "Either that, or turned them into those things that you saw back there in her workshop. Her and Crawler are the one who made me get powers." He scowled, angrily continuing his story.

"I was able to get away after I killed Jack Slash…" His eyes were distant; I could tell that Carlos was reliving the memories of what had happened to him as he spoke. "I was running through the woods when Crawler and about a dozen of those spiders of hers started chasing after me. They were playing with me, running me down like some kind of fucking animal. I tripped, and I thought I was done. I was laying there, praying to Jesus," he said, pronouncing it 'hey-soos'. "Suddenly I'm climbing to my feet again, and this time I could really move. I was running faster than I could go on my bike, maybe as fast as a car." Carlos appeared a little excited as he recounted the details of discovering his powers for the first time, but eventually excitement gave way to anger and fear.

"There was a patch of bushes were in my way, and I jumped clear over them! I cleared ten feet of air, easy, and like... twenty, twenty-five feet of distance in one jump." He continued to stare down at his legs, going quiet for a few seconds. "That's when Crawler quit playing with me. He'd been laying down for some reason, but he got to his feet quick. He was a lot faster than me... caught up to me in about a second and tore off both of my legs." He shuddered at the horrific experience he'd gone through. I gave him a small smile and squeezed the tall boy's shoulder reassuringly.

"The fucker ate em'." Carlos said softly while wiggled his toes, as if to reassure himself that they were still there. "Bonesaw's spiders were all over me about a second after that. One of them injected me with some kinda drug, but it didn't do nothing to me. The spider started picked me up and started hauling me back to camp… only my legs grew back in like a minute or two. I hit the spider once, hard, and the fucking thing shattered to pieces." He smacked a fist into his palm, generating a surprisingly loud sound. "There was a human head inside of it. Every one of those spiders is a person that she killed, and that little bitch has dozens of them." He was staring right at my mom when he recounted the last part, his face hard.

"They kept playing with me for hours. Crawler would run me down, or a spider would tear off a piece of me, maybe a finger, maybe a foot… They'd let me grow it back, and then they'd be after me again. When they were finally finished with their little game, Crawler ate my whole body, everything from the neck down. Fucker bit my head right off, but it didn't kill me. Then little bitch had one of her spiders do something to me, hooked me up to some kind of machine that kept my regeneration from working." The anger drained from his face, replaced by fear and revulsion.

"She'd been taking apart the other kids and the adults from camp… Trying to put that puta I killed back together using pieces of their bodies. When Crawler brought me to her, I realized she hadn't even been there when her spiders were chasing me… she'd been remote controlling them while she was working. Like tearing me apart and chasing me all over the woods was some kind of fucking up video game." He seemed angrier about Bonesaw's absence than Crawler's cannibalism… I guess that the casual inhumanity she'd displayed really pushed his buttons for some reason. I sat down on the park bench next to Carlos and put and arms around him. He leaned into me, putting his head on my shoulder. He kept speaking, needing to tell us what had been done to him. Carlos' voice was softer than before when he continued his tale.

"When Bonesaw got her hands on me she stopped killing the others for parts, at least. She did something to make it so that I couldn't move, and then cut pieces of my body off, making me re-grow them over and over… Little bitch was farming me for body parts. It was really bad, but I think I'm immune to pain now or something, because it didn't really hurt. That's something, at least. After a while, she hooked me up to her puta boss with some wires and shit. I think she was trying to get my regeneration to work on him." Carlos stared through me, an odd look etched onto his face.

"She had the phones at camp set to ring in her workshop. A couple hours ago there was a phone call, and after that Crawler and the others all bugged out... all of them except little bitch and Hatchet Face… I think she has some kind of control over him… I saw her giving him orders like she did to her spiders and the monsters she had in her workshop. She had him fetching and carrying for her, shit like that. When the rest of the Nine took off, little Bitch wouldn't leave. I think she was scared that her boss-man, or daddy, or whatever he was to her, would've died for good."

Done telling his story, Carlos deflated, pushing his face further into the space between my neck and shoulder. I held him a tight as I could, hugging the boy with my full strength now that I knew he was a more powerful Brute than I was. I wanted to let him feel something other than the fucked up emotions I knew were running through his head… I'd felt the same way just after I got home. He needed to know that he wasn't alone anymore; that there was someone who cared about him and wanted him to feel better.

Mom stared down at the little girl in her arms as I held Carlos, her face inscrutable. I could tell by the little girl's heart rate and respiration that Bonesaw was still unconscious... or else she was doing an amazing job of faking it. I was glad to note that there were no overt signs of Tinker technology or artificial enhancements present in her body. There had been quite a bit of internal Tinkertech integrated into her body back at camp. It looked my power-assisted conclusion had been correct, and that Mom's teleportation had removed any implants or upgrades that Bonesaw had built into herself. I don't know if it would've even been possible to safely contain her, had her upgrade still existed. Maybe after I'd spent a while studying them, but definitely not on short notice. On the other hand, if she'd been a ticking time bomb, then Mom might have been forced to kill her, rather than to treat her like an ordinary child, and not the mass-murdering supervillain that she actually was.

I wanted to end Bonesaw even more than I had previously, now that I'd heard the details of what she'd done to so many innocent people. The problem with that was the my traitorous mind kept replaying the memory of a sad little girl sobbing on the floor, looking so incredibly broken. At that moment, I desperately wished that my power had some way of helping decide what the moral thing to do in my situation was. Was Bonesaw beyond truly redemption? I didn't know. What I did know was that giving her the benefit of the doubt could potentially result in hundreds or thousands of innocent people dying in agony and terror.

According to the government Bonesaw's life was already forfeit; the 'kill order' on her head meant that legally, for all intents and purposes, the child was already dead. All that was left was for her execution to take place; afterward her killer would not only be praised for the deed, but would also be given a fat bounty for doing what law enforcement could not. I stared at her. Bonesaw's heinous actions were completely at odds with the image she presented now, as she lay sleeping peacefully in my mother's arms. Mom cradled the curly, blonde haired child like she was actually a normal little girl, and not someone who the entire country feared and wanted dead. I stared at the peaceful expression on her face, uncertainty filling me from head to toe.

Carlos ended our embrace and rose to his feet, his face looking unsteady despite the fact that the formally clumsy boy's balance was now picture perfect. The young cape looked around the night-time landscape of the small park we were currently resided, his eyes roaming around the dimly lit playground equipment standing in a pit of bark chips nearby. He looked downward for a moment, once more staring at his hands. Clenching his fists tightly, he lifted up his head. His chocolate eyes bored into my own, before moving on to meet Mom's.

"I want to go home so bad I can taste it... but I wouldn't be able to live with myself if we didn't rescue the other people who are still back at camp. You said earlier that you were going back… I want to come with you." The well muscled teen continued to stare at Mom while he made his request, knowing that she'd been the one to teleport us here. There was no getting back with her, I knew, at least not in an actionable timeframe. I remembered my mother's earlier words about us needing help, and the way I had bullied her into continuing our self-appointed mission after I'd had to kill Hatchet Face. I honestly didn't know how she was going to respond. To my surprise, Mom immediately nodded to him in affirmation.

"You're sure the rest of the Slaughterhouse has gone, Carlos?" Mom asked her question in a no-nonsense tone. I was surprised that my mother was handling the rapid, life-altering changes that had happened to her as well as she was. The poor woman had just triggered a few hours before, after having some kind of terrible, fucked up breakdown. Since then, the events that had taken place had been nothing short of violent and chaotic, any one of them enough to send most people into a bout of depression or existential quandary.

I built a mental model of my mother's mind using the staggering amount of information I had on her, using my power-granted hypercognition. According to my power, she should not be doing nearly as well as she was. I thought about her power, and it's ability to restore her body to perfect health every time she teleported… Was that the reason why she she seemed to be so mentally and emotionally stable? Mom had made several reckless, sub-par decisions that night, but that was nothing at all compared to the mental problems that should have been cropping up from the traumatic experiences that she'd experienced.

I added everything I'd observed about the matter repairing function of Mom's power to my mental model of the situation. Of course! Her power was probably fixing any chemical imbalances that it found. Every time her body reintegrated from an energy state her powers were likely removing stress hormones and restoring instabilities in her serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine levels. I blinked; if it was restoring her chemical levels back to normal, then there was no reason to think that her power wasn't likewise 'fixing' errors and problems on the cellular level as well… The ramifications of that were pretty crazy, especially if telomere deterioration counted as an error that needed to be fixed. 'That is something to think about later,' I told myself. The long and the short of the situation was, if Mom hadn't been using her power so much, then she'd likely be back at home in bed, crying her eyes out or having a panic attack.

I was once more incredibly grateful to have a Thinker power that allowed me to understand so much, and the ability to completely control my own bodily functions. 'My power is basically an amazingly effective coping mechanism,' I realized. I guess Mom's power was too, at least to an extent.

'None of the people that Mom teleported had been quite as upset as they probably should have been,' I realized in retrospect. Perfect healing is an utterly bullshit power. I hoped that Carlos was able to hold it together as well; the trauma he'd been through sounded even worse than what Mom and I had experienced. Hopefully his regeneration would turn out to be just as broken as mine and my mother's' powers. Still, he should be alright for tonight at least; thanks to the healing aspect of Mom's power, he would experience the same mood-balancing effects as we did.

"I'm pretty sure most of the Slaughterhouse members are gone. A couple of those psychos tried to get Bonesaw to go with them, especially that freak Mannequin, but she wouldn't budge. I haven't seen the Siberian in awhile though, not since yesterday… That means she's either still at camp or that she left even before the others did. I know for a fact that Hatchet Face is still hanging around somewhere. That means the only two we have to worry about are him, and maybe the Siberian."

"We don't have to worry about either of them." I told Carlos haltingly. "Hatchet Face and the Siberian are both dead." Shame and regret burned through my mind and heart at the confession. Remembering the terrible, bloody way I'd had had to end the pair of Slaughterhouse members made me feel sick to my stomach. The only comfort that I had was that they'd both deserved it, and that both times I had at least been acting to save a life other than my own. I wasn't like them; I hadn't toyed with either of the villains, or made them needlessly suffer. I was never going to be like them. I intended to be a Hero, and nothing would stand in my way of achieving that goal.

"No shit?" Carlos asked, appearing impressed. "You'll have to tell me all about that at some point. If they're both dead, then little bitch there was the last member of the Nine still at camp," He explained, gesturing toward Bonesaw. He suddenly looked unsure. "What are we supposed to do with her, anyway? We can't really take her back there, and she might be able to escape if we try to stash her somewhere."

"Should we turn her over to the PRT?" I found myself asking. Fifteen minutes earlier I'd wanted to put a bullet through her brain, but after a little contemplation and self reflection I was no longer completely sure. I knew that turning her into the authorities would be tantamount to murdering her ourselves, thanks to the pre-signed kill order on her head. Evidently Mom had known about that as well, because she began shaking her head 'no' as soon as the words came out of my mouth.

"We are not handing her over to those incompetent bunglers." said the older woman definitively. My mouth was set in a grim line when I next spoke. I was struggling to make sense of the moral dilemma the three of us faced, but I was incapable of forgetting the terrible things she'd done. I hoped that my mother wasn't so caught up with the fact that Bonesaw was a young child that she was forgetting the atrocities the diminutive Tinker had committed.

"What do you think you're doing, Mom?" I asked her. Carlos blinked, looking back and forth between us. Confusion evident on his face, he idly scratched the back of his head. I blinked, realizing what I'd just revealed. Oops. I guess Mom hadn't actually introduced herself to the teenaged boy, or even taken off her ad-hoc mask. Before my hasty comment, the only thing that might have given away our relationship was the similarity in our hair. My mother and I both had long dark hair that was cascaded it's wavy way down our backs. Had Mom been trying to keep her identity secret from Carlos? Well, it wasn't like the boy was some unsuspecting member of the public or a villain. Carlos had also had his own identity exposed to the both of us… it seemed only fair that he knew our identities, really.

"Tu madre?" the latin teen muttered quietly under his breath. Bits and pieces of the Spanish language that I'd seen and heard over the years started coming together in my mind. Information that I didn't even know that I had flowed together, quickly snapping into place to form cohesive whole. Thanks to the Spanish classes I'd taken in the sixth and seventh grades, as well as Mrs. Barnes' penchant for Telemundo soap operas, I was able to gain a moderate understanding of the Spanish language in seconds. And all of it was set into motion just so that I could translate two lousy words. 'My power is totally bullshit.' I thought while blinking in surprise at my new multilingualism.

"Yeah," I said, replying to his semi-rhetorical question, "This is my Mom, Annette Hebert. Mom has a thing about hurting kids… I don't think she's going to let us do anything that'll cause the little monster over there to come to harm." The instant the words left my mouth I regretted them. I didn't want to hurt my mom... I was just pissed off that she was treating Bonesaw like she was some kind of victim, and not the incredibly dangerous cape that she so obviously was. It didn't take a Thinker to imagine all of the horrifying way things might go wrong if Mom tried to 'rehabilitate' her, or something along those lines. Bonesaw wasn't merely some poor, misguided kid who'd been led down the wrong path; the little psycho murdered people for spare parts, for Christ's sake. Doing anything but turning her over to the PRT, or killing her ourselves invited all sorts of risks.

"Keep a civil tongue in your head, young lady," snapped Mom. I winced. "This little girls is maybe ten years old. Have you stopped to think about what kinds of things the other members of the Nine must have done to her to make her like this? Do you see other parahuman children lining up to join the Slaughterhouse Nine?" Mom looked at me searchingly for a moment, causing me to lower my eyes. I felt bad for the way I'd been acting, but I don't think there was anything that my mother could say that would cause me to trust Bonesaw. Mom continued speaking, her voice full of passion.

"I've read quite a few news stories, and even a few crime novels about the Nine, Taylor. They kidnapped this child, and slowly twisted her into what she is now. The minute Jack Slash had his hands on her she never had a chance. I'm not going to kill her, or be a party to murdering her for the crime of being mentally abused until she was so broken that she thought doing all of those terrible things was right." I blinked, my mind sorting through what Mom had just said. She did have a point, but I doubted reforming Bonesaw would be as simple as showing her a little compassion. Based on what I'd witnessed, I honestly doubted that Bonesaw had any value at all for human life. 'How do you even interact with someone like that?' I wondered.

"What happens the first time she kills again?" asked Carlos. I could tell that he was holding back his anger, trying to converse civilly with my mother. "How many people are you let her dissect before you turn her in? One? Ten?" The teenage boy's voice had a note of panic in it, but he was able to keep his hotly burning emotions under control. Mom stared down at the small child's sleeping face, which was partially obscured by a strand of curly blonde hair. She looked up and met Carlos's angry expression with a look of determination.

"I am not going to let that happen," she stated. Her voice was like steel. I didn't know what to think at that point. I didn't know what was right or wrong when it came to dealing with Bonesaw. The only thing I did know, was that we needed Mom's help to transport the rest of Nine's prisoners back from Camp. We definitely needed Mom to help the people Bonesaw had turned into ogre-like monsters, if they could be helped. Now was not the time to get into a pointless debate, or to discuss what the long term plan for Bonesaw should be. All of that could be settled later.

"I know how we can secure her for a few hours," I said, addressing the both of them. "We can settle this after we've rescued the rest of the survivors at Camp Wanantakka." Mom and Carlos looked at me for a moment, and then back at each other. Mom gave the handsome teenager a nod, which he returned. At least we all agreed about one thing. I took a moment to explain to Carlos how Mom's teleportation worked. The three of us joined hands to form a circle, and Mom activated her power. We slowly rose into the air, until we hovered three feet from the pavement walkway we had been standing on. A completely silent flash of blue light heralded our departure as we teleported away.

It was the work of only a few minutes to lock up the tiny BioTinker. I'd had Mom teleport us to her her office at the college, which I figured would be a good place to hold the little girl for a few hours.
I judged it highly unlikely that the PRT or the police would show up at my mother's workplace for any reason at this point. The three of us secured Bonesaw as best I could using our various abilities. I tied her up using a roll of duct tape to start with.

I then asked Carlos to tear the legs off of an old steel-frame chair and twist the steel bars into a set of heavy manacles. Next, I walked Mom through using her power to merge the solid-looking manacles with the cement subfloor. When the manacles transformed from energy back to regular matter, the restraints, and Bonesaw, were solidly attached to the floor of her office. Studying the still sleeping child with my power, I estimated that it would take at least a mid-level Brute to break her loose. I decided that she was imprisoned well enough for the moment.

After a quick talk, Mom popped into a closed corner store and grabbed a package of Tylenol PM's. She left a twenty dollar bill on the little shop's counter, near the register, with a note detailing what she had taken. I crushed two of the sleeping pills before dissolving the resultant white powder into a coffee mug that I'd poured a little water into. Pinching the unconscious girl's nose while dripping the medicinal slurry into her mouth caused Bonesaw to swallow it down reflexively. My deft reflexes and precise fingers did their job so quickly and gently that the little girl didn't even stir.

At Mom's insistence, I had made up a soft bed on the floor using couch cushions from the sofa in her office before laying Bonesaw down on it. Her right arms hung just over the edge of the middle cushion, her wrist bolted to the floor by one of the steel manacles. Her left leg was similarly restrained. The young child drooled a bit as she slept peacefully; I had an idea that she'd been under an enormous amount of stress for the last three days, and that she wasn't going to wake up any time soon. The Tylenol PM's were for peace of mind more than anything else, though they might keep her asleep if it took longer than normal for us to come back for the little bio-Tinker we had captured.

Once the drugs hit her, I figured the benedryl in the pills should keep the little kid knocked out for at least six hours, possibly even longer than that. Without her little Tinker tricks, Bonesaw should be just as vulnerable to sedatives as any other ten year old. With the villain was adequately restrained, it was time to finally finish the job back at camp. In seconds the sole occupant of the English teacher's office was an unconscious ten year old girl.

 

[jrbless]

Going for a "Riley redemption" story as well? I sort of understand why with Annette's being unwilling to kill children.

It's nice to see an upgraded Aegis. I suspect he won't be joining the Wards for the same reason as Taylor, and is likely to join Team Hebert instead. That'll make it at least three new capes that Piggot's mishandling of the S9 cost the Protectorate. Who knows if other campers triggered as well?

The remaining members of the 9 bugging out is slightly ominous. Crawler, Winter, Skinslip(?), and Burnscar are probably on their way to Brockton Bay. Without Jack's leadership, I would half expect them to self destruct as a group. The problem will be the people caught in the explosion as that happens.

 

[Xilph]

Modified Aegis, while they seem like they would be more powerful over all they definitely took a hit to their mover rating for the upgraded brute power, and dropping from flight to super leaping really is a significant drop. The improved brute power is definitely very good though.

Heading to BB entirely depends if they have any reason to, which would only happen if whoever manipulated Piggot or intercepted her orders had the S9 told on the call presumably.

 

[Prince Charon]

Modified Aegis, while they seem like they would be more powerful over all they definitely took a hit to their mover rating for the upgraded brute power, and dropping from flight to super leaping really is a significant drop. The improved brute power is definitely very good though.

Heading to BB entirely depends if they have any reason to, which would only happen if whoever manipulated Piggot or intercepted her orders had the S9 told on the call presumably.

Click to shrink...

I'm kind of thinking Cauldron, as Coil wouldn't be ready to replace her at this point (and thus would have reason to do this), but that runs into the problem that I don't think they'd want to contaminate their experiment like that. Mainly, I'm thinking of them because canon made them the overarching conspiracy of the setting - and because I'm drawing a blank on who else would be both willing and able to do this.

 

[rooster]

"Here's what going to happen," explained the Director, her voice all business, "I'm going to dispatch a rapid response team to the site of the alleged attack, at Camp Wanantakka, and I'm going to send a forensics team to your home. If I find out that even a single detail of your daughter's story is a lie, I'm not only going to bill you for all of the man hours involved, I'm going to make it my personal mission to jail both you and your daughter for as long as the law allows." she snarled, her voice furious. "And if the body in that van is not a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine, then you're going down as an accomplice to murder!"

Click to shrink...

What.

That's the response she gives to the victims? No professionalism at all.

Fuck this shit I'm out.

I'll probably come back later when I have nothing to do, but for today I'll stop reading here and read the rest of the chapters later.

 

[lostRelative]

So basically this is memetic cape hater piggot. Or a cauldron plot to undermine BB PRT? Either way, something idiotic.

Other than that, I really like this so far. Taylor with 2 living parents? Annette with powers? Yeeeesssss please!

 

[Drak4806]

Wasn't the idea at the time was that everyone thought Bonesaw made herself look like a little kid to freak people out?

 

[Expo Onethousandone]

Immortals
A Worm Fanfic
Chapter 9: Endings and Beginnings​

Without parahuman opposition, it wasn't all that difficult to rescue everyone who was still alive. After capturing Bonesaw, it only took a couple of hours to finish our self-appointed mission. We learned that two camper cabins were where the majority of the survivors were located. All told, the Nine had forced ninety-three people into the two tiny structures.Thankfully, none of them were suffering from anything more than minor injuries injuries. As we returned them to Brockton Bay in small, manageable groups, my mother's teleportation handily took care of whatever scrapes and bruises the trapped people had accumulated when they were manhandled by Bonesaw's minions or the other members of the Nine.

The worst injury that we saw belonged to a girl who I thought might had been in my cabin; she had a badly sprained ankle. I later learned that the people who had suffered greater injuries had been either Tinkered on by Bonesaw or used as 'entertainment' by other members of the Slaughterhouse Nine when they were feeling bored. I promised myself at that moment that eventually, when I was ready, I would hunt down the other members of the Nine and and either end them myself or turn them into the PRT. I discluded Bonesaw from my vow, as I didn't know where she fitted into things yet. Was she just as much as victim as the people we had just rescued? 'Only time will tell,' I thought to myself.

Mom dropped the survivors off back at the hospital in groups of twenty to twenty-five at a time. It hadn't taken much to drive off the creatures guarding the survivors. An even dozen of Bonesaw's spiders had proven less than able to fight off three pissed off parahumans; the little cyborgs had scurried off at the first display of our powers, moving so quickly and stealthily that we were unable to capture any of them, unless we were prepared to chase the terrifying little abominations around camp all night. After a quick discussion we decided to leave them for law enforcement to clean up when we could get someone to actually check out the camp.

When Carlos tore the lock off of the first cabin's door, the terrified children and adults inside had nearly attacked us on first sight. After a little cajoling and a short explanation they'd backed down, thankfully. Mom and Carlos had taken pains to act friendly and approachable as I explained that were were heroes, and that each and every member of the Slaughterhouse Nine was either dead, or had left camp hours ago. The last thing I had wanted to do was to harm people who'd been through the same thing Carlos and I had, without even the benefit of superpowers. Once the survivors understood that were were there to rescue them, we were quickly able to effect their rescue.

The revelation that they were not going to die terrible, pointless deaths had caused nearly the entire group to break down in joy, many of them crying relieved tears and thanking the three of us profusely. Chaining arms, Mom was able to transport them all back to Brockton Bay General Hospital in only four trips. Each time she transported a group of nearly two dozen people, she complained of a strain of some kind being placed on her body, or her power… possibly both. It was a good thing that her healing ability seemed to clear up the strain each time she reintegrated her body from its energy state. Carlos and I alternated staying behind to guard the remainder of the survivors each time Mom teleported a group; even without the Nine present, there were still Bonesaw's spiders and Ogres to contend with.

After the final load of people was dropped off, we went back for Hatchet Face's body. He was exactly where I remembered leaving him, and a quick teleport had him safely stored in Mom's office. A glance at the Tinker reassured me that Bonesaw was still asleep. Despite my worries to the contrary, Mom's teleportation did not bring the power nullifier back to life. It did, however, repair the damage I'd done to the villain's body, leaving his corpse sparkling fresh and completely undamaged. I felt a little silly for teleporting the body with the muzzle of my gun pressed right up against his ruined eye socket, but I suppose the only bad precaution is the one that you don't take. We decided to turn in Hatchet Face and Jack Slash's bodies after everything else was done, as that was sure to garner a large amount of attention, countering any trumped-up charges or accusations the PRT might try to level against Mom or me.

My power hadn't been able to tell me conclusively if the healing/repair function of Mom's power could bring the dead back to life before we moved Hatchet Face… I just hadn't had enough information. After transporting his body, though, I was able to get a better handle on how her ability differentiated between animate and inanimate matter. It seemed to use energy as a measure of whether or not something was alive. I was mostly sure that it was neural energy that was used as a measure of life in the case of humans and other mammals. When we'd transported Carlos's head, Mom's power hadn't cared that the rest of his body was effectively dead, because his brain was still alive, busily transmitting electrical impulses between its neurons.

I had a pretty good feeling that a freshly dead person, one whose brain still had a good amount of electrical activity, might result in a different outcome altogether. Mom would need to work fast, though… I had no idea what the threshold was for her power to consider a brain either living or nonliving. I was also curious what would have happened if I'd run a low-voltage current through Hatchet Face's brain before we moved him… Would that have caused Mom's power to see him as alive enough to 'heal', and not just to clean up and 'repair'? If so, would the portions of his brain that had been ruined by bullets have had the information stored on it restored somehow, or would they have regenerated 'blank', with no stored memories? So many questions.

I also wondered about people who had been dead for a while. If Mom first 'repaired' a body and then we somehow re-energized their brain, would a subsequent teleportation bring them fully back to life? I had a lot of thinking to do before I brought up these thoughts with Mom… I didn't want her to completely freak out if it turned out that she could bring people who were unequivocally dead back to life. The first question I planned to think on would have to be 'Should I go down this road at all?'. Would it be a good idea to tell Mom that she might have the capacity for resurrection?

Now that it looked like I was both going to survive the night and be able to avoid being imprisoned I was really starting to Think about my future. The next few months should be incredibly interesting.

With the relatively unharmed civilians evacuated, we moved on to more difficult tasks. Things started to go wrong when we arrived back at Bonesaw's hastily assembled workshop in The Hangout. To my shock and horror, Jack Slash's body was gone. Carlos, Mom, and I looked everywhere in the building, thinking that one of Bonesaw's Ogres or spiders might have carried the corpse off for some reason. It didn't matter where we looked; neither hide or hair of the criminal's body could be found. I closely examined the ground near the workbench that the body had rested on, looking for clues. I was able to discern absolutely no trace of footprints that matched Jack Slash's shoe type or size, or even his bare feet; impressions of Bonesaw's tiny mary janes were everywhere. If Jack Slash had somehow returned to life, then he hadn't gotten away by walking out. Rather than making a special trip to locate the Blaster's body, we resolved to look for him as searched the rest of Camp Wanantakka for any additional survivors.

The next problem arose when we tried healing the first Ogre. The Tinkertech monstrosity was surprisingly docile, letting us direct and manhandle it without a fight. The problem arose when Mom's teleportation failed to heal or separate the two bodies that the monster was comprised of. I had carlos carry one of them over to the empty workbench, where I closely examined the patchwork creature using some of Bonesaw's own instruments. It was much easier than I thought it would be to use her Tinkertech tools after scanning them into my mind.

My examination of the poor wretch revealed that both of its twins heads were technically braindead. That is to say, there was no living brain matter inside of them. The monstrosity's dual heads were filled with Tinkertech implants rather than their original living brains, creating a sort of cyborg that had none of the memories or personality of the people that had died to create it. With none of the original brain matter left intact, there was no way to save the people that had been used to create the Ogres. I used a Tinkertech scanning tool that I picked up to take readings from each of the creatures, just in case the one I'd examined had been atypical. Now that I knew what to look for, it took only a few moments to confirm that they all shared the same design.

The three of us rounded up the docile cybernetic creatures and led them into the basement storage area of The Hangout.. The PRT would know how to handle them when we could finally convince them to come here and do their damn jobs. Talking to Carlos afterward, I learned that the Ogres had been created from the bodies of the two dozen or so children and adults that Bonesaw had killed to try and repair Jack's brain. She had apparently recycled the dead bodies of her victims, using their brainless shells to create a kind of fleshy robot. Since the creatures didn't have any brain activity at all, Mom's power treated them as non-living. They had simply been cleaned and repaired them rather than having their brain matter regenerated. I doubted that it would have helped them if her power had regenerated their brains; it beggared belief that my mother's power would have the information on hand to recreate their memories… At best, we would have ended up with a bunch of mental infants with brains completely empty of knowledge. Depending on whether that included the information normally hard coded into the human brain, they might not even have had autonomic functions. If they couldn't breath or regulate their own heartbeats, it would have led to the immediate deaths of the regenerated people.

We were all pretty depressed after that, but that didn't stop me from grabbing every single piece of Bonesaw's Tinkertech that I could. Mom teleported it all over to an abandoned warehouse near Dad's workplace in the docks so that we could retrieve it later. We left behind all of the gory bits and human remains for the forensic investigators who would inevitably turn up, once we made our report to a branch of the PRT that actually gave a shit about people's lives. I was feeling a bit bitter about the PRT and Protectorate completely failing us, and it showed.

I had a feeling that it would be a very long time before I would be able to trust anyone from either of the sister organizations. Later conversations would reveal that Carlos and Mom felt the same way. Once we were done helping everyone we could, and looting every piece of Tinkertech that was fit to steal, we headed back to the hospital with Hatchet Face's corpse to check on the people we'd dropped off throughout the night. After that, Mom planned to try to talk to the Brockton Bay PRT one more time. She was looking pretty angry when she told me that we were going to give them one more chance to do the right thing, but I think she understood how long it would take to get law enforcement from out of town to help and take statements from the dozens of people we had rescued. The last thing any of us wanted to do was to make things harder for the Slaughterhouse's victims.

The last time we'd been back to Brockton Bay General, there hadn't been a big law enforcement presence. It was incredibly odd that no one from the PRT seemed to care that we'd dropped off over a hundred people over the course of the night. Transporting them via teleportation, no less. A pair of police officers had been sitting in their squad car in the parking lot of the hospital, but that was it. The two officers hadn't approached us, hadn't even exited their car. I'd seen one of them talking on his radio, but neither of them seemed to be too concerned. I shook my head. 'What brand of insanity has taken over Brockton Bay?' I wondered. Our last drop off had been around an hour ago, just before our failed healing of the Ogres and my appropriation of Bonesaw's Tinkertech... before we'd found Jack Slash missing and spent much of the remaining time searching for him.

Our search was a failure, of course. Someone had spirited the killer's body away, someone who knew when it was just the right time to do it. I shook my head; hopefully it was just a precog, or some other type of Thinker, looking to cash in on his bounty. I couldn't lie to myself any more; I did not believe that the body's theft had so benign a purpose. I fully expected to confront a living Jack Slash at some point in the future, even if I didn't immediately share my dark thoughts with Mom and Carlos. There would be time enough to talk to them about it later.

Having done everything we could, and having found no other survivors, we gathered up Hatchet Face's body and teleported back to the hospital.

. . .

Mom, Carlos, and I arrived in the air, floating twenty feet above the hospital's lawn, just as we had on our previous arrivals. This time, however, everything was different. High in the air, half a dozen helicopters circled, stenciled with the logos of new stations from all over the eastern seaboard. NWWC in New York, KRBT in Boston, even Channel 5 from right here in Brockton Bay… all of those and more were in the air, just waiting for us to come back so they could videotape the three of us.

As we landed, I spotted a police cordon around the lawn below our slowly descending forms. There were over a dozen police and PRT officers holding back an enormous crowd. Reporters and civilians jockeyed for position behind the barricade, each of them trying to get closer, to get a better look or picture. Many of the civilians had cell phones or digital cameras out, their lenses pointed in our direction. The three of us shared a look as we touched down, just as Mom cut off her power. The sun was rising in the eastern sky, the red light of dawn shining over the busy hospital grounds. The new light illuminated the spectacle, as well as the people who had evidently been tasked to meet us. I stared at the people inside of the cordon, my eyes narrowed in anger.

In the middle of the lawn stood Armsmaster and Legend of the Protectorate. There were also a trio of uniformed PRT officers standing behind the two heroes, seemingly guarding their backs. Ground-based reporters and cameramen swung their long-range parabolic microphones in our direction, trying to pick up the first words out of our mouths. My 3D sense chewed on the designs of all the technology around me as I tried to figure out what exactly was going on here. The PRT must have been busy before now, I realized, too busy to respond to our actions throughout the night. They'd tried to contain the situation once they had gotten a handle on whatever problem had tied up the majority of their officers and resources, but they had been far too late to do anything truly effective.

The side of the police cordon that faced the staff parking lot of the hospital was lightly peopled compared to the rest. It looked like it was a spot set aside for the media, as most of the cameras were located there. I could tell that several of the reporters there were already recording, and several were broadcasting directly. 'We're on live TV.' I realized. I stopped my body from trembling, kept my face from turning red from the embarrassment I felt. I was suddenly extremely glad that we'd found a tattered dinosaur mask made of cardboard in The Hangout to cover Carlos's face; if we hadn't thought of that little detail then his identity would have already been blown wide open.

Legend and Armsmaster started walking toward us, neither of them looking very happy. I was suddenly filled with rage; where in the hell had they been all night? Why hadn't the PRT or the Protectorate showed up at camp to help? Even counting whatever problem that the Brockton Bay branch of the PRT was going through, there were still innumerable other branches of the organization that could have helped. I clenched my fists until my knuckles popped; they had better have a damn good explanation.

Three days ago, I would have given anything to meet Armsmaster or Legend… now, however, I wanted nothing more to punch the both of them square in the eye. A glance in Mom's direction revealed that if anything, she was even angrier than I was. Mom stepped forward quickly, rushing to meet the heroes closer to where the cameramen were stationed then I think they'd wanted to be. My mother spoke first, not letting either of the heroes, or the PRT officers behind them, get a word in edgewise. I winced at her tone; this was going to be bad.

"You had better have a damned good reason for the PRT and Protectorate ignoring an attack on a summer camp by the Slaughterhouse Nine!" she said loudly, well within earshot of the waiting reporters. Oh, yeah; she was pissed. Legend looked bewildered at her words and I saw Armsmaster go pale. On the ground maybe a dozen meters behind us, Hatchet Face's body lay in full view. I had no doubt that his famously ugly visage would have already been identified by one of the observers or news reporters. Legend turned to stare at Armsmaster, his face filled with incredulity. I processed that for a second; it would seem that the local leader of the Protectorate hadn't told him boss everything that had happened last night. I smirked under the bandanna acting as my mask; this should be interesting. Armsmaster snapped off a quick reply to his superior's question.

"Earlier this evening, the PRT received a report about a possible Slaughterhouse Nine sighting from a newly triggered cape. At the time, we thought that it was a false report. The PRT investigated, though I don't know the exact details, and--" he said gesturing toward me. I bristled, about to respond to the accusation, when my mom beat me to the punch.

"Don't you DARE!" she snarled, causing Armsmaster to flinch and rock back on his heels. "We gave a comprehensive statement, and showed you proof of their attack! We gave you the fucking Siberian's body, for christ's sake!" Legend stared at my mother in shock. His exposed lower face was filled with surprise. The leader of the Protectorate turned to look at Armsmaster, a severe frown appearing on his normally jovial face.

"Armsmaster… Just what in the hell is going on here?" he asked, whispering furiously. "I was called to Brockton Bay by the head of the PRT herself, to evaluate a possible Master/Stranger scenario, and only now are you telling me that earlier tonight a Slaughterhouse Nine attack was reported? I find myself wondering if perhaps my team wasn't too hasty when they assured me that you were clear of any influence, earlier." Legend didn't get loud, but his voice carried a raw, primal intensity that nearly made me shiver. He was always depicted as such a nice guy, but right now he was terrifying. Armsmaster paused, and then by all signs made to continue defending himself.

"I didn't-" he began, before Legend cut him off.

"Not right here, and definitely not right now, Armsmaster. We will discuss this back at PRT building." The famous hero turned toward us, a smile on his face. "Would you folks mind coming to the PRT building to discuss this matter with me there? I give you my word that I will listen to your story, and deal fairly with whatever complaints that you may have." I studied Legend intently; I still couldn't read people perfectly, but I was pretty sure that he was telling the truth.

"I think that we should talk with him." I told my mom.

"I don't know…" she replied, giving Legend an assessing look. "I have a lot of respect for the Triumvirate, you especially," she said coolly, "but tonight the PRT and Protectorate both have demonstrated a level of incompetence that was truly staggering." She turned to face the cameras, projecting her voice as if she were addressing one of her classes.

"The three of us all triggered within the last seventy-two hours... we were definitely not ready for the horrible things we just had to go through. Because no one in the PRT or Protectorate could be bothered to actually investigate our reports of the Slaughterhouse Nine murdering children at a summer camp, the three of us, two teenagers and a school teacher, were forced to fight and kill three members of the Slaughterhouse Nine. We were ones who had to rescue over a hundred people people from a truly terrible fate, because you," she said, pointing at Armsmaster, "refused to!" Armsmaster stopped in his tracks, a look of rage passing over the exposed portion of his face. The PRT people standing behind the heroes looked shaken. Legend grimaced at her words, though I thought that I detected a hint of shame in his demeanor.

I stared at Mom as she proceeded to do worse than merely giving the pair of heroes a black eye, by recounting what had happened to us in a manner that cast the Protectorate in the worst possible light. I was a little awed by her speech; I don't think I could have done any better if I'd had an hour to prepare, and I have a Thinker rating. People were always saying that Tinkers were bullshit, but I'll bet that's only because they'd forgotten about English teachers.

. . .

Eventually we did end up going to the PRT building, where we were met by a Lawyer that my dad had called on our behalf; he told us later that he had been in the crowd at the hospital. After mom's little speech, he'd been concerned that the Protectorate was going to try and arrest us, or something crazy like that. The lawyer, some up and comer named Quin Calle, made sure to not only be present for our little talk with the PRT (the term 'interrogation' was not used), but he recorded it as well. Dad had given him a rundown of what had happened earlier in the evening, and he'd already served some kind of papers to the PRT on our behalf, which had caused the officers still lingering at our house clean up their gear and depart.

Mr. Calle made sure to get a list of all the officers and heroes who had been involved in the 'investigation' that happened before the PRT sent their teams to my house. He said that he wanted to know who to blame if the PRT continued to ignore the terrorist situation that they had wantonly ignored. There was talk of congressional hearings, and checking to see if the US Attorney General wanted to prosecute any of them for gross incompetence. If the PRT had dislike Mr. Calle when he first arrived, then they outright hated him by the time he left.

Thanks to Mr. Calle, we learned that each of the Slaughterhouse Nine members carried an enormous bounty. Thanks to the terrible publicity they had suffered, the PRT was practically forced to pay us for the members of the Nine we'd killed, even without Jack Slash's body. I was aghast to learn that for killing the Siberian and Hatchet Face, I was due a staggering eighty-six million dollars. Carlos was elated when he was told that he would be cut a check for fifty-two million for killing Jack Slash. We had to wait for verification of the kills, but it wouldn't be too long before we were given our money; Mr. Calle assured us of that.

We had originally thought that without a body, the PRT would have given Carlos trouble over Jack Slash's bounty. Mr. Calle assured us that with over a hundred witnesses to the kill, that wouldn't be a problem. None of us mentioned that Bonesaw had been trying to resurrect Jack Slash. None of us mentioned Bonesaw at all. It was assumed by the PRT that she had fled with the rest of the Nine, and that only Hatchet Face had chosen to remain behind.

There was one last thing; I never got and chance to tell the PRT my cape name. I assumed they'd already gotten it from one of the people we had saved, so I didn't bother bringing it up when they didn't bother asking me. They had a name all right, but it wasn't one that I'd picked out. It wouldn't be until later in the day that I'd discover what the world had been calling me.

Before we left the hospital parking lot, we'd been accosted by a mob of reporters. Mom and Carlos had acquitted themselves just fine, taking care to ignore both cameras and questions. I hadn't done so well, unfortunately. When a friendly looking female reporter had asked me my name, I'd panicked. Not really wanting to be saddled with something ridiculous like 'Capulet', I had answered her question vaguely.

"I'm just a hero," I'd told the woman. I thought the line I gave her sounded cool, and that it would give me a chance to come up with a better name eventually. Later that evening I was in for a surprise when my parents and I settled in to watch the news coverage of our escapades. I don't know if the reporter had edited the footage, or if some other sound had overpowered part of my quiet reply to her question... but the sound bite that played was definitely not what I had said.

"I'm... Hero," I heard my own voice say. I gulped as my parents shared an inscrutable look with one another. Bonesaw grinned gleefully from her place on my mother's lap; Dad and I eyed her warily.

It seemed I had some big shoes to fill.

 

[TheAkashicTraveller]

Taylor with 2 living parents?

Click to shrink...

You do realise that a there are a fair few S9 members around and they may well know who she is?

 

[OGatsu10]

Heh, Siberian kills Hero Mk1.

Hero Mk2's first act as a hero is to kill the Siberian.

That's poetic justice for you.

 

[Expo Onethousandone]

With Interlude 1 posted, Arc One of 'Immortals' is officially brought to a close. This chapter should clear up at a few of the mysteries from the last few chapters, but not all of them. Some things are being intentionally left vague or unsolved for now. This is done on purpose... for reasons. Hopefully you will enjoy this Interlude. Please let me know what you think.

Immortals
A Worm Fanfic
Interlude 1: Various​

Emily Piggot​

Emily Piggot awoke at dawn, as always, feeling terrible. She'd been forced by the PRT's chief medical officer to go through dialysis the night before, after having to push the necessary treatment back two days in a row due to an ongoing war between the new Asian gang and the Empire 88. For a third night in a row, yet another crisis had fallen into her lap when some teenage punk with a two-bit Thinker power had claimed that her summer camp had been attacked by the Slaughterhouse Nine. After her treatment she'd been so tired she could barely stand up. She'd had her personal assistant drive her home, and the fatigued woman had almost immediately collapsed in bed.

The worst part of last night's interruption was Emily had actually believed the girl's claims... at least at first. She still felt a bit like an idiot for falling for the girl's story, but she took comfort in the fact that soon enough Taylor Hebert, and possibly her mother Annette, would be behind bars. Emily looked forward to discovering the details of the investigation she'd set into motion the night before from her dialysis chair in the PRT building's medical bay. She hadn't been able to see it through to the end, but she trusted the competence of her people to finish the work in her absence.

She'd been furious at being fooled, after a little digging by her second in command had revealed that the Nine had last been spotted near Boise, Idaho, only a day before the Hebert girl had claimed they made their attack on her summer camp. Experience had taught Emily Piggot that a group like the Nine didn't cross thousands of miles without attacking someone, somewhere… It was rare that the Slaughterhouse Nine crossed a hundred miles without going on some kind of murder spree. She'd had her deputy dispatch a quick-response team to the summer camp just in case, wanting to cover all of their bases. She already knew what they would have found, however; nothing. There had been no call last night, no follow up from her subordinates. That meant the Hebert girl was lying, and that she was already in custody, either for filing a false report, or for murder. Maybe if the girl's power was valuable enough, she would offer her a place in the Wards; she couldn't wait to read Armsmaster and Renick's reports.

Emily had also added a young PRT officer that she'd been training personally to the investigation, to try and ferret out what the girl's game really was. Parahumans always had an agenda, and the PRT Director was curious to find out what the Hebert girl's plan had been. Personally, she figured it was money; the Siberian's bounty was almost as large as that of Jack Slash. If she had actually believed her story, then the PRT would have been obligated to pay her a lot of money. Agent Leek was a real up and comer, someone that Pigot thought might go places in the future; someone who would be sure to make sense of the recently triggered girl's tall tales. The PRT ENE's FBI liaison, Samson Cole, had also tagged along with her. She wasn't exactly happy about that, but he was a long-serving law enforcement officer; the rotund woman figured his presence might help to balance out some of Leek's inexperience.

Emily didn't dislike Cole, per se, but he had a way of getting under her skin. He often ignored protocol in favor of 'being nice', and he was distressingly informal with her subordinates. If he'd been one of hers, then Piggot would have demoted or fired him long ago. She sat down with the watered down, decaffeinated swill that her doctor insisted she drink as she turned on her Smartphone, eager to find out what the investigation last night had turned up. The heavyset blonde woman frowned when the phone wouldn't turn on.

The unhappy Director tried holding the power button down, and then plugged the phone into it's charger when that didn't work. The little battery symbol didn't come up on the screen when it was on the charger, causing her to conclude that something was definitely wrong with the device. She shrugged; she'd have the tech department look at it when she went into the office in a few hours. Idly, she flipped on the TV. The morning news appeared to be showing a live view of Brockton Bay General; the cameraman had his camera pointed into the air for some reason, centered on a spot a little ways above the hospitals lawn, which looked like it had seen better days. The grass appeared to have been trampled, muddy patches of footprints tracked through it untidily. Emily snorted; the hospital really needed to get a better groundskeeping staff.

As she watched, a blue blob of light popped into existence above the lawn, the camera immediately correcting its angle to focus on the new arrival. Emily frowned; what in the hell was going on? This was clearly something to do with parahumans, but she had no idea who the individuals slowly heading toward the ground were. She could make out a quartet of shapes now, as she stared at the screen. It looked like whoever this new cape was, he had some kind of non-Manton limited Breaker power; an extreme rarity among parahumans.

The blue light disappeared under her thoughtful eyes, revealing a woman and two youngsters, all of them wearing handkerchiefs or scarves in place of actual masks. Whoever they were, these capes were extremely new, or else they would have something better than that. Capes had a near-religious fetish for their costume; even the lowest parahuman wouldn't be caught dead in a getup like that if they had any other choice available. The fourth form was lowered to the ground by the male teen, who she immediately pegged as having a Brute power; he handled the larger body far too easily. She frowned; the fourth figure wasn't moving, and now that she thought about it, he looked quite familiar. She racked her memory, trying to put a name to the face.

Emily paled, her face becoming ashen when she realized that the fourth figure was a fucking corpse, and that it belonged to one of the cape community's biggest boogeymen; Hatchet Face, late of Slaughterhouse Nine. She paled even further, when she realized the implications of his body being present, and the news focusing on this event. She'd been wrong about the Slaughterhouse Nine's attack, and for some reason no one from the PRT had contacted her last night to let her know what was going on.

Emily Piggot didn't exactly know what Taylor Hebert looked like, but she would bet anything that she was the teenage girl on the television screen in front of her. That the girl with the shitty, thrown together disguise (there was no way Piggot would ever call something like that a costume) was the source of what she had thought was a hoax the night before. Scrambling to her feet, she raced over to the landline phone she kept for emergencies. She pulled the cordless handset from its charger, and attempted to call her Deputy Director's private line. Renick should be able to give her a quick sitrep. The bottom dropped out of her stomach when she realized that like her cell phone, the handset wouldn't turn on.

'Had there been a power surge the night before?' wondered Emily, as she scrambled to put on her clothes and shoes. That was probably what had caused the two phones to fail, but she couldn't rule out sabotage just yet. She'd made a lot of enemies over the years, and there were several people who'd like nothing more than to see her get embroiled in a scandal like the one that was sure to follow the events she'd seen happening on TV. She picked up her worthless cellphone, putting it into the pocket of her suit jacket as she ran toward her car as fast as her crippled body would allow her. She had to get to the PRT building as soon as possible so that she could find out just what in the hell was going on.

. . .​

Armsmaster / Colin Wallis​

Colin Wallis scanned the spot where FBI Agent Cole had indicated the Hebert women had vanished into thin air, after achieving some kind of glowing blue Breaker state. There was no doubt in his mind that Annette Hebert had triggered thirty-five minutes ago. He had been knocked unconscious in the wake of someone's trigger event, and the emotionally charged outburst that Cole had described matched the conditions necessary for a parahuman trigger to a 'T'. He was currently trying to gain some insight into how Mrs. Hebert's power functioned.

This particular trigger event was interesting to Colin for a number of reasons. First, in over a decade as a cape, Colin had never heard of a parent triggering after a child. Second generation capes were definitely a thing, but he'd thought that if a parent was capable of triggering, then they would definitely have done so before their children. He was also interested in the fact that the English professor was apparently some kind of teleporter; capes who could move from point A to point B without crossing the intermediate space were extraordinarily rare, nearly as rare as the highly coveted parahuman healers who cropped up no more than five or six times a decade.

He grunted in surprise when his sensors picked up absolutely nothing. Teleporters usually left some evidence of their passage; a patch of slightly warped space, a little bit of exotic radiation… Apparently Mrs. Hebert's power had none of the common tells; he would have to look into studying her ability when she got back from wherever she'd transported herself and her daughter to. The idea of a getting his hands on a cape with a non-harmful, completely undetectable teleportation power was an enticing one to the efficiency Tinker.

Colin mused that it might be a little difficult to get the new trigger to agree to power testing after they arrested her daughter. He toyed with the thought of offering the younger Hebert clemency in return for the cooperation of the elder; he would need to speak with Director Piggot about that come tomorrow. There was no question in his mind that Taylor Hebert was lying about the Slaughterhouse Nine, and that the man they'd found with a perforated skull was not actually the Siberian. Her story made no sense, and his colleagues in the PRT had found absolutely no evidence earlier when they'd followed up on it.

Armsmaster didn't know the actual details of what the PRT had done to discover that Taylor's statement was false, but he trusted his unpowered colleagues in most situations. The hero resolved to collect some information about the investigation in few hours, as it would help provide leverage if he was allowed to offer both female Heberts places in the Protectorate and Wards respectively, rather than jail. They both had valuable powers, doubly so for the girl's mother. The high-level Tinker had been wanting to study a teleporter for a while now; if he could eventually replicate her powers and create a Tinkertech teleportation device, then he would be able to improve his mobility and decrease travel times by more than an order of magnitude. That could be just the thing to bring his slowly stagnating skills to the next level.

Finished wasting his time taking sensor reading that provided him with absolutely nothing, Armsmaster strode out the Heberts front door. A crew of PRT techs who'd been waiting to examine the scene themselves entered the Hebert home in his wake, using their own tools and equipment to gather information. Armsmaster snorted; if his Tinkertech hadn't found a trace of Annette's power, then what use was mundane technology? The Protectorate leader hopped on his motorcycle, and without a word to anyone, headed to the PRT building so that he could find out what had caused Renick and his men to dismiss Miss Hebert's claims with such finality.

. . .​

Charles Renick


Deputy Director Charles Renick was a "by the book" kind of guy. He simultaneously suffered from a lack of imagination and self direction, while possessing a superior intellect and extremely robust work ethic. These traits combined made him the perfect middle manager; Renick was a veritable machine when it came to paperwork, and given a sufficiently defined task, he would carry it out with a speed and precision that bordered on the preternatural. He'd been tested for a corona gemma, the sign of an active parahuman power, no less than three times by bewildered superiors who'd each convinced themselves the small, unassuming man had triggered with a Thinker power that facilitated office work. Each of these tests had proven that Renick was a normal human who was just that good.

Tonight the good Deputy Director had precious little opportunity to demonstrate the skill that had allowed him to rise to his vaunted position at a mere twenty-nine years old. He'd been given a task that he was ill suited for by his Boss, Emily Piggot. The PRT Director had been unable to handle the troublesome problem herself, as she normally would have on any other occasion, due to her health problems. Renick, for no one used his first name anymore, not even himself, even in his own thoughts, was certain that the Boss would perform her job better if she would just allow the new healer in town to cure her defunct kidneys. He'd even scheduled an appointment with the girl, Panacea, but Piggot had angrily declined.

The short dark haired man shook his head at Piggot's remembered obstinance; if she had just allowed herself to be healed, then Renick wouldn't be in the position of having to actually come up with an entire plan of action right now, all by himself. Still, blaming others for his failings wouldn't get the job done, so he got to work. The Director had acquainted him with the situation at hand, at least; a new parahuman had triggered, a Taylor Hebert, and she was claiming that the summer camp she'd attended had been attacked by the Slaughterhouse Nine, who were purportedly still there. She had also claimed to have killed the Siberian, and that she was in position of his body… because the Siberian was supposedly a projection, and she had killed the Master controlling her. Renick smiled; it would be nice if it were true; a monster of the Siberian's caliber being taken off the streets was cause for celebration.

It was his job to find out if Taylor Hebert could be telling the truth, and quickly, too. Piggot wanted him to dispatch a team to her home shortly, and to let her know in the next five minutes if he thought her allegations had merit. The Deputy Director signed into his terminal and got to work. He called up the PRT's S-Class tracking database, a collaborative project with several organizations and individuals including Dragon. He queried the Slaughterhouse Nine's last known position. It looks like they had been spotted in Boise, Idaho four days previously. He jotted down the information the pad he habitually carried around with him, alongside the other information he'd written there during his conversation with the Director a few minutes earlier.

The sheer amount of distance that the group of serial murderers would have had to cross without any reported sightings was a strike against the new parahuman's story, but it wasn't the final nail in the coffin. Stranger things had happened, after all, thought Renick's subpar imagination couldn't conjure any up at the moment. He picked up the receiver on his desk phone, and dialed the East-North-West Protectorate branch, who he had asked to send their rapid response team to the campground a little over five minutes earlier. He'd had his assistant Duane Ruffalo make the request while he was still meeting with Piggot. The phone rang and rang, the WNE officer who Duane had spoken to failing to pick up her telephone. Renick scowled, then dialed the number for Director Cann of the ENW PRT branch; she was a former boss of his, so he had her personal number; she would be sure to know the status of the rapid response team.

Before the phone could finish ringing, the line went dead, and the lights in his office went out. Renick blinked in the dark, wondering why the backup generator and Tinkertech batteries hadn't kicked in. When the searing blue portal opened in thin air less than ten feet from where he was sitting, the young Deputy Director began fumbling through his top right drawer for the automatic pistol that he kept there. He'd just placed his hand on the weapon when a woman stepped out of the tear in space. Renick stared at the intruder, baffled that the alert klaxons weren't going off, wondering if he was about to die.

At least his executioner was well dressed, he mused; being killed by someone in rags would have been undignified. The woman's wholly unremarkable figure was clothed in an expensive suit, complete with a stylish fedora sitting on top of her long, dark hair at a jaunty angle. The woman was pretty without being beautiful, though she had a certain exotic cast to her features. Renick made to raise his gun, only for the woman to raise an eyebrow at him.

'Really?' her expression seemed to ask. Renick lowered the gun; he had a feeling that it wouldn't do him any good here.

"What do you want?" he asked. He doubted the woman wanted him dead; the gun her left hand would have made short work of him if she'd intended to end his life.

"Follow these instructions," said the woman, stepping forward to hand Renick a piece of paper. He glanced down, sharp eyes taking in the words on the page in seconds. He stared at mysterious woman intently, a frown on his face.

"I am not doing this," he stated definitively. He wasn't about to lie to the Director, to compromise his morals and betray the organization that he'd been serving faithfully for nearly a decade. Renick knew that this cape, for she had to be a parahuman, was capable of taking his life… but nothing she could do could shake his implacable morals.

"Theodore and Luigi," she spoke softly. Renick winced, dropping his gaze to the office floor. How had she known?

"Fine, have it your way," he grumbled. The woman nodded, and then stepped back through the portal, the anomaly closing behind her.

Renick sat down in his chair heavily, a sigh escaping his full lips. He would gladly die for the PRT, but some there were some things that were sacred... inviolable. Things worse than death. A quick check of his computer showed that there had been no alarms, not notice of the power in his office going out, or of the unknown parahuman's arrival or exit. He played back the last minute of security footage from his office. The timestamp on the video was correct, but it showed an empty room; even his own chair was unoccupied. The amount of trouble that the woman in the suit had to have gone through to deliver her ultimatum had to have been fantastic.

'How had she learned about Theodore and Luigi?' he wondered. His coworkers didn't know about them… nor did his mother or sister. Renick didn't really have friends, and the last time he'd gone out on a date h'd been a teenager. He was practically married to his job. Still, he wasn't going to risk the two most important things in his life, not even for the PRT. Picking up the phone and the instructions he'd been given, he called Emily Piggot.

"Report," snapped Piggot.

She was always grouchy while undergoing dialysis, Renick knew. He wasn't uncharitable enough to hold it against her; the youngish man figured that having all the blood removed from her body and cleaned by some machine had to be incredibly unpleasant. Besides, Piggot was a good administrator and an even better Boss. To the best of his knowledge, she'd never failed to have one of her people's backs in a crisis. He suddenly felt doubly bad for what he was about to do.

"The rapid response team from ENW reported that everything was normal at the campground you asked me to investigate. After the report I called the camp director personally, and she confirmed that nothing was amiss. I asked if they had any campers that didn't show up; sure enough, Taylor Hebert's name was on the list of children who never arrived." Renick read from the pre prepared speech that the well dressed woman had given him as naturally as he could. Thankfully, his years of dictating notes and semi-public speaking held him in good stead. Several turns of phrase on the paper were things that he'd said before, enough so that a shiver went down the Deputy's spine; the woman had really done her homework on him.

Piggott was silent for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was heavy with restrained rage. Pretty much everyone in the local PRT and Protectorate branches was aware of her temper, but she took pains not to inflict it on anyone who wasn't deserving. Renick winced, realizing that the Hebert girl was really going to be in for it when she was dragged in. If all went well, then he would be long gone and beyond retribution for his part in what was looking more and more like a frame job of epic proportions by the time that happened.

"Call in Sheila Leek and brief her on the situation. Have her interview Taylor and Annette Hebert... Tell her to find out what the hell their game is! That fibbie Samson Cole has also been sniffing around, when he got word that the Nine were mentioned; he's asked to tag along, so make sure Leek knows that she's babysitting him. And if there actually is a stolen van with a body in it, I want the both the mother and the daughter behind bars unless the corpse has tits and stripes!" Piggot sounded both angry and exhausted, causing Renick to wince.

"Certainly, Director Piggot. I'll take care of everything, ma'am," said the dark haired Deputy, continuing to read from the page.

"Thank you, Renick. You're a good man," said Piggot before disconnecting the call.

Rennick did as he was told, and called Leek and Special Agent Cole into his office to brief them. He made sure to stress that Piggot didn't believe the pair, and as the paper commanded, he lied to them and claimed that she hadn't actually ordered a quick response team to be dispatched. When he was done winding them up, the pair of officers left his office with the distinct impression that Taylor Hebert was an attention seeking liar, and that the new Thinker might have actually killed some poor unfortunate to further her plot, whatever that might be. Sheila Leek strode purposefully from his office with a determined look on her face, Samson Cole following behind while sporting a thoughtful expression.

Renick scowled at their backs; he hadn't like that at all. He still had one more task to perform before his left the PRT office for the last time. He checked his watch; by now, Piggot would have finished her dialysis, and she'd either be home or well on her way there. With the Director out, Deputy Director Charles Renick had several special powers that went above and beyond what he was normally able to do with his boss present. He intended to use one of them in just a few moments.

The thin, dark haired man took the elevator down to the lobby, occasionally glancing at his watch along the way. The note said that he would have to time everything exactly, or it wouldn't work. He'd already memorized and destroyed the paper as instructed; he hoped that his fallible human memory was up to the task of remembering all the minute details of what he was about to do. When he exited the elevator on the ground floor, he checked his watch. He tapped a special code into his secure PRT issue smartphone, he finger hovering above the "accept" button. He continued strolling casually.

He nodded at the guard in the lobby as he walked toward the exit. Another look at his watch confirmed that it was time to act. 'Ten seconds,' he thought to himself. He approached the door, nearly there. 'Six seconds.' He was moving too fast; he slowed down just a bit, making the guard look at him oddly. Renick's anus clenched, but he gave no outward sign of the panic that he was feeling. 'Four seconds.' He opened the door slowly, stepping out. As the door swung closed behind him, his watch informed him that there was just one seconds remaining.

'Time.' he thought, pressing his thumb down. Several things happened in quick succession. As he continued to walk away from the building, Renick head the loud 'thump' of the door's magnetic lock engaging, and the Tinkertech glass on the door and windows of the first floor polarized, obstructing the view in and out of the building. He heard a high-pitched siren go off in the PRT building as well; the Deputy knew that a second alarm and lockdown had also taken place at the Protectorate headquarters on the repurposed oil rig in the bay. Both buildings would be completely locked down, with no communications allowed in or out until a sufficiently high-ranking individual or office from the Protectorate or PRT verified that the emergency Master/Stranger infiltration and foothold alert he'd just sent out was indeed false.

Every member of the PRT and the Protectorate would need to be screened for M/S influence. The worst, most time consuming part was that because the specific type of alert he'd sent indicated a foothold situation, the people in the PRT building and The Rig would need to undergo a disgusting, horribly invasive set of screenings that would normally take days to clears each of them, unless pains were taken to speed up the process. The lockdown he'd initiated could normally only be done by the PRT's commanding officer, and only from inside the building. The woman's instructions had allowed him to avoid becoming trapped, thankfully, or else he would have had to go through the procedure as well. Had that come to pass, Renick knew that his treason would have been exposed.

He intended to make use of the distraction and 'get while the gettin was good' as his grammy used to say. Rennick hopped into his Ford Fiesta and drove home, to the small house that he'd purchased, in the good part of town. Once inside he packed quickly, taking only the essentials. When his car was loaded, he proceeded to secure the precious cargo that he'd traded his career for.

Charles Renick smiled happily as he gently placed two beautiful himalayan cats into a spacious pet carrier, making sure to put a few of their favorite toys and a pinch of catnip inside so that the journey would be as pleasant as possible. He placed the carrier in the front passenger seat, carefully securing it with the seat belt. The dark haired twenty-something placed the carrier so that his beloved cats could see him during the long drive, so that they wouldn't get scared. They weren't used to traveling by car.

"Luigi... Theodore… you would not believe the day I just had!" Renick said to the ones most precious to him in the entire world.

. . .​

Doctor Mother / Brandy LeBlanc​

The nominal head of Cauldron watched in bewilderment as her adopted daughter tromped through the small section of their base that the shadowy organization's upper management resided in. Brandy was a bit peeved at Fortuna; she had completely blown off their weekly movie night a few hours earlier, with nary an explanation or apology. She had tried to enjoy the action/adventure movie she'd intended them to watch together on her own, but she had been interrupted no less than six times as the young woman came and went, using Doormaker's portals to skip in and out of existence as she carried out whatever vitally important task she'd spurned her poor old mother's company to accomplish.

Just as the heroine in the movie was about to kiss her major love interest, raised voices and a loud bumping sound coming from Fortuna's room completely ruined the moment for Brandy. Growling, she got up quickly from the couch and marched to her wayward daughter's bedroom. She didn't ask the girl for much, maybe a day out or to join her for a movie night once or twice a month. She'd taken the poor Thinker in after she'd been stranded in a dimension and culture that she didn't understand, taught the young girl the ways of the world... and this is how she repaid her?

Admonishments poised on the tip of her tongue, the woman known as Doctor Mother threw open the door to her daughter's room. The guilt-inducing words she'd prepared died on her lips as Brandy took in the scene in front of her. One of doormaker's portals was hanging open in the middle of the room. The dimensional rift led to what looked like the inside of a hall closet in a lower middle-class household. On the other side of the portal, his frail body wedged into the tight space, was Doormaker. The Case 53's skinny, mutated body was pressed tightly against that of Legend's as the two struggled to fit in the closet. They were horribly squashed together, the two very different looking men both appearing to be highly uncomfortable with the situation.

There would have been more than enough room for the pair to fit in the closet, Brandy mused, if it weren't for all the coats and bric-a-brac inside. She held in a bout of hysterical laughter that threatened to escape when she noticed that one of the coats in the closet was covered in leaves and moss. It looked as if dozens of still-living plants had been glued or sewn onto the light jacket's exterior. The coat was hanging next to where Legend stood, the nasty-looking plants rubbing all over his costumed body. Both of the men looked extremely uncomfortable as they struggled in vain not to invade one another's personal space. Legend pushed a plume of what looked like spanish moss out of his face, his eyes growing wide as they met those of Doctor Mother's. He gave her a little wave, a sheepish smile appearing as his cheeks colored slightly. Neither of the men offered her a word of explanation.

Fortuna was laying on her bed, apparently unconcerned with the activities of the two men on the other side of the portal in her bedroom. The young woman was lying on her stomach with her legs in the air, ignoring the world as she wrote on a plain sheet of paper. Brandy recognized from their long association that her adopted daughter was deep in the throes of her power. The motions she made as she wrote were too smooth, her actions a little too controlled. At least that meant that there was some legitimate reason for this insanity. Still, it was best not to inquire. Early on, some of the organization's best and brightest had been driven mad trying to understand the Path to Victory. Looking at each of the people in the room once more, the head of Cauldron slowly backed away from the strange scene she'd just witnessed.

"Carry on," said Doctor Mother. Legend nodded politely to her, but the other two ignored her words completely. The 40-something took another step backward and gently closed Fortuna's bedroom door. She retrieved her half-eaten popcorn and glass of iced tea from the living room and headed into the kitchen. Brandy threw the popcorn away and rinsed the bowl out, setting it aside to wash later.

Sighing at the strange, surreal life that she lived, the tall dark skinned woman grabbed an enormous spoon from her utensil drawer before removing a half-gallon of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream from the freezer. Pulling out a bottle of vodka she'd cleverly hidden in the vegetable crisper, she dumped half of her iced tea into the sink and filled the empty space in the tall drinking glass from the bottle.

Doctor Mother took a long pull directly from the half-handle before putting it back in the fridge. Juggling the tub of ice cream and her glass of improved tea, she made her way to the ensuite bathroom adjacent to her bedroom. Brandy decided that a bath sounded lovely right about now.

. . .​

Tricia Takanawa

​

"This is roving correspondent Tricia Takanawa with channel 5 news, reporting from Brockton Bay, Rhode Island. I'm here in front of Brockton Bay General Hospital, where the famous cape city has been set ablaze by the actions of a daring trio of super powered do-gooders. Earlier this morning, the three heroes rescued over a hundred civilians from the latest Slaughterhouse Nine attack. The new team of independent heroes reportedly killed three members of the infamous gang in the process, including notorious ringleader Jack Slash." The Japanese-American journalist swept her arm across the ruined mess of the hospital's lawn as she continued speaking.

"The is the spot where earlier today the three heroes teleported scores of people, rescued children and staff from a summer camp, bringing the victims of the Slaughterhouse Nine to safety. The trio were seen to come and go multiple time, returning time and again to the dangerous base of the Slaughterhouse Nine, risking life and limb to secure the helpless prisoners' safety."

"The member of the heroic team that was first identified is a female teleporter of considerable ability. The energy-based Mover," she said, a picture of a humanoid shaped silhouette made of blue light appearing in the corner of the screen, "is tentatively being called 'Silent Sparrow' for her soundless mid-air teleportation and flight. According to experts, Silent Sparrow could be the next coming of Strider, the well know world-hopping teleporter who was first made famous for his assistance transporting capes from all over the world to Endbringer fights. Silent Sparrow appears to have at least an inter-city teleportation range, and a huge capacity to transport passengers. At one point, witnesses onsite reported seeing her teleporting as many as two dozen people at a time." The reporter cleared her throat before continuing.

"During interviews with the people she helped rescue, it was revealed that Silent Sparrow's unique brand of teleportation includes an extremely powerful healing effect, strong enough to counteract damage done to the victims of Bonesaw, one of the most fearsome members of the Slaughterhouse Nine. Truly, the city of Brockton Bay has been blessed to have a such a powerful and versatile cape as one of the heroes defending it." The raven haired woman swept her hair back, and gestured to a picture of a teenage boy wearing a haphazard costume that appeared on the screen behind her, replacing the glowing blue form of Silent Sparrow.

"The next member of the trio is a young man who has been nicknamed 'Raptor' by one of the youngsters he rescued. The teenaged cape has demonstrated enhanced speed, as well as amazing jumping skills when he and his teammates departed this morning. It's rumored that he may have enhanced strength and durability, but as of yet no one is certain as to the extent of his powers. According to a statement released by the PRT, Raptor is the member of the trio credited for defeating Jack Slash of the Slaughterhouse Nine, the terrorist who was listed as number one on the FBI's most wanted list for over a decade." Tricia smiled fetchingly.

"While the PRT has not disclosed the exact amount of the bounty Raptor will receive for defeating Jack Slash, our experts at Channel 5 estimate it to be in excess of twenty-five million dollars. With such an explosive start to his career, the sky's the limit for this young parahuman!" Tricia smiled at the camera. Slowly, however her face became serious.

"Finally, we come to the third and final member of the this outstanding trio of heroes." A picture of a young girl in an improvised costume appeared in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, replacing the image of Raptor. "And hero is the right word to use to describe this girl, as this reporter learned during her short interview outside of Brockton Bay General this morning."

The picture shifted, showing the same location, but much earlier in the day. The three heroes had just stepped off of the hospital's lawn, where they'd been speaking with PRT and Protectorate leadership. Another reporter, a blonde with a wide smile, approached the teenage girl with the slapdash costume. There were other reporters crowding around the trio and yelling out questions, but the teen ignored them. She stopped, however, when she was approached by the blonde journalist.

"Miss, can I please get your name?" asked the reporter.

"I'm... Hero," said the girl simply, before walking off. The blonde woman stood stock still for a moment, as did the rest of the reporters present. Whispers and hushed voiced echoed back and forth among the people in the crowd, confirming that 'yes, she really did say that.'. Seconds later the crowd went crazy.

The trio of heroes left the scene, the two female capes holding hands and transforming into blue light, before streaking into the air and flying off. Their male companion leapt after them, easily keeping pace as he jumped over nearby vehicles, and even some of the shorter buildings. Slowly the picture faded, revealing Tricia Takanawa's serene looking face once again.

"What name could possibly be more fitting for the group's presumptive leader, and the parahuman who finally succeeded in slaying the Siberian, than 'Hero'? Her powers are completely unknown at this time, but cape experts have speculated that she may either have a mental power, or that she could possibly even be a Tinker like the original parahuman to bear her name. To the young Hero, the girl who defeated both Hatchet Face and the Siberian, I think I speak for us all when I say: Thank you… and good luck in all your future endeavors." The young Asian-American woman wiped a single tear from her eye before once more addressing the camera.

"This is roving correspondent Tricia Takanawa for Channel Five News, signing off."

 

[Syqadelic]

You know, "Hero" is actually a pretty appropriate association for her. Besides the Taylor>Siberian>Hero schema, there's also the fact that Taylor can apparently study, comprehend, and possibly reverse-engineer Tinker-tech. IIRC, Hero's specialty of Wavelength Manipulation allowed him to somewhat fake being a "Universal Tinker", while Taylor may legitimately be able to pull it off.

Also, cats, Renick? Seriously? I was expecting adopted kids.

 

[SamueLewis]

Path to victory, indeed. Two cats and now you crippled work of entire ENE region )

 

[jrbless]

This makes Piggot's mishandling of the situation look much more believable, at the cost of "it's all Contessa's fault". These events are taking place early enough that a certain Thomas Calvert should not be in Brockton Bay yet, so I wonder what Cauldron is changing concerning their "parahuman feudalism" experiment. At the least, this speeds up the timetable by quite a bit and works to discredit the PRT/Protectorate as a whole.

 

[FreshwaterPlimpie]

Goddamnit Contessa! If you weren't so cute, I'd be really cross with you!

 

[Xilph]

Who says it has anything to do with parahuman feudalism? Could simply be a result of wanting to use the S9 members at a future date combined with wanting to make Taylor and Co be more independent for whatever reason, it's the walking plot device, whatever the author says has to be correct as they can write the story in such a way that it was correct.

 

[Expo Onethousandone]

Who says it has anything to do with parahuman feudalism? Could simply be a result of wanting to use the S9 members at a future date combined with wanting to make Taylor and Co be more independent for whatever reason, it's the walking plot device, whatever the author says has to be correct as they can write the story in such a way that it was correct.

Click to shrink...

Fortuna's cape name really should have been 'Deus Ex Machina'.

 

[Xilph]

Fortuna's cape name really should have been 'Deus Ex Machina'.

Click to shrink...

They're not quite so blatant about it in Worm.

Now in Grrl Power you've got the character called Deus who has a very distinctive X shaped mark covering their face and is head of Machina Industries and who also has a condition that makes them laugh maniacally to the point where they built something that can call a lightning background at will? That's a bit more overt about it.

 

[Prince Charon]

Fortuna's cape name really should have been 'Deus Ex Machina'.

Click to shrink...

That's not a good thing, though.