Chapter 33: A Visitor's Guide to Brockton Bay - Somer's Rock has a Villain Infestation
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LazyAutumnMoon
We all need Sundancer in our life.
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The moment his boots hit concrete, Jaune was off like a shot. Out of habit, he shut down [Blank] before recalling the warning given way back when, and turned it on again. His steps never slowed.
A flare of light behind him indicated that Tattletale had come through the portal. She was shouting after him about something or other, but that can wait. He needed to see. To know.
The alley grew brighter and brighter as he neared the main street. Memories stirred, details he hadn't even realized stuck with him the first time around—a long vertical crack on the wall, the narrow section of sky that was visible, the scents of a critter (or two, or a dozen) that died and got shoved in a corner. Then he reached the end, where the alley opened up to a wide view of the city, and everything returned in unmistakable clarity.
He had stood in this exact spot before. The skyline, the signs on the buildings, the empty field—the street was familiar to a painful degree.
Well, familiar if it was 99% less wet, but he supposed that counted as an acceptable change. Anyway, this was Brockton Bay, dreary rain and all, no doubt about it.
"I'm back," he declared.
"No, you're not!" came a shout from behind him.
Tattletale skidded to a stop, huffing and puffing from her sprint down the length of the alley. She didn't look happy with him, which was fair. He rather sprung this on her at zero notice.
"Hey, my bad about—"
Her finger was in his face to cut him off.
"I was trying to tell you, but you wouldn't listen!" She stomped her foot in frustration. "The whole thing with the ABB bombing the city happened weeks prior to Leviathan attacking!"
It took him a lot longer than it should to comprehend the meaning of her words. Yes, he had been hopping through different universes, encountering magic and superheroes and whatnot, but time travel had to be a step too far, right? Because it's absurd. The idea that he was now here before he was first here created so many paradoxes that he probably shouldn't even be alive according to some of the sci-fi movies he watched. And… And…
It would mean she wasn't here, and he didn't want that.
"Maybe they're coming back for a second round?" he suggested, though his heart was already sinking.
Tattletale seemed about to berate him more, but hesitated as her eyes searched his face. With [Blank] active, she couldn't use her power on him. She still read him like a book, nevertheless, and when she spoke again, much of the anger in her voice was absent. "You won't find what you're looking for, Jaune."
He did not let slip a sad whine. Lies and slanders.
Retracting her hand, Tattletale ran it through her hair, scowling as she pondered the situation. "There's two possibilities I think are likeliest. One, we're in the past of my universe, which creates so many paradoxes that I probably shouldn't even be alive according to some of the sci-fi movies I watched." Huh. Great minds think alike. "Or, two, this is a parallel universe to my own with a temporal difference. I'm leaning toward the second theory since that fits with what we know of the portal app. Its function is to take us to other places, not as a time machine."
Jaune opened his mouth to raise an objection, any objection, but the words wouldn't come out. No matter how much he wished to call her wrong, there existed an odd incongruity within his surroundings that made sense only in the context of the theories she raised, wild as they were.
See, the city looked in better shape than on his previous visit, yet it also looked old and worn.
Grime encrusted the windows of the building next to him, while the paint on the storefront located one door down peeled in a manner requiring many seasons to effect. Overhead, the street lights flickered yellow, their aging bulbs in need of replacement. Were this a Brockton Bay in the days after Leviathan, with broken windows mended and paint freshly applied over facades damaged by flooding, would these details not appear brand new?
Little by little, he discovered more evidence of his error, until he could no longer believe this to be the world he sought. Enthusiasm drained away to leave hollow disappointment, and Jaune slumped his shoulders.
"Alright, we can go home now," he said, voice flat. "I'll just… curl up in my bed for a few days, if that's fine." Could Escha make bootleg alcohol out of the plants or mushrooms in her garden? He'd ask her. Drowning his sorrows sounded pretty nice at the moment.
Past Tattletale, he spotted said felyne scampering out of the alley. She, perhaps, deserved an apology most of all. He dropped this on her without explaining a single thing about this world and its significance. Yet, here she was, following him to provide support for his endeavors. He appreciated it.
Escha padded over to the party, turning her nose this way and that the entire time, sniffing the air. "This place smells weird," she said.
At a guess, that'd be the scent of a city. The smog of Fire and Combustion Dust burning, or whatever fuel-equivalent people use here to power their houses and cars. It was rather noticeable in the absence of a torrential downpour, and a bit more acrid than one would get with Dust.
"Yeah, it's not great," Jaune said. "Good thing is, you won't have to suffer it for long. I think we're ready to go home." Loot? Who cared about that?
Tattletale skipped back half a step, spreading her arms wide to block the alley in a theatrical display. "Now, hold on, you two. Let's not be hasty. Brockton Bay is full of opportunities for those who know where to look." She pointed at herself. "Which is me, by the way. The girl from the pseudo-future."
Okay, so maybe he did care about loot under his broody moping, because hearing that perked him right up.
"You mean, stuff we can sell? You know where we can find some?"
She listed them on her fingers. "Off the top of my head, my old boss hid caches of gear—including tinkertech rifles—around his territory, and there's a pair of villains we can raid. As for the big prize, during the ABB bombings spree, one tinker manufactured a ton of bombs with exotic effects."
Jaune winced.
Right. There's that, too. Once again, he visited a Brockton Bay embroiled in crisis, and departing meant leaving them to deal with it themselves. "How bad does it get?"
"Bad, bad. Some of the things she made were downright vile to be on the wrong end of. The ABB launched attacks throughout the city targeting major population areas, and people were scared out of their minds never knowing if their neighborhood or their kids' schools would be next."
Escha's eyes grew wide. "W-What?" She searched Tattletale's face for signs of a lie. Finding none, she shivered and peered at their surroundings with newfound trepidation, a lost expression on her face.
Jaune shared a glance with Tattletale, both of them arriving at the same conclusion. The world of Monster Hunter was the last place that'd encounter individuals like this 'tinker,' who from the sound of it seemed a real piece of work. Her methods reminded him of what occurred (was occurring?) at the Vytal festival, where the White Fang/robot assault on the event caused such terror that it attracted Grimm by the thousands to cover the sky. He hesitated to throw himself into that hell again, let alone an unprepared Escha.
So, he pointed to the depths of the alleyway, asking an unspoken question. Ditch?
Tattletale held up one finger. Wait. She turned and knelt down, drawing level with Escha. Reaching out, she started scratching the felyne under her chin to soothe her. "Don't worry, hon. That bi—awful woman won't get as far as she managed back then." She flashed a grin, and not a kind one. It had bite. "She did a real number on me the first time around, and I never quite gave her the payback she deserves for that."
Jaune, standing to the side, hummed in understanding. His partner held a grudge. "We're robbing her blind of her bombs before she can harm people with them. Aren't we?"
Escha nodded rapidly in agreement with that plan, tapping Tattletale on the arm and pointing at Jaune, eager to stop a monster in the making.
"Something like that," Tattletale replied coyly. "I can't promise the mess hasn't already kicked off, but over the course of the week this happened, I entered a few of her workshops. Depending on how early we arrive, they could still be stocked and ripe for the taking."
Jaune said, "I'm not certain that'd be enough. I distinctly remember you describing how tinkers can invent things out of scraps and garbage."
"Oh, don't you worry about that. There are people I can think of who will readily pay a handsome price for the chance to kick Bakuda's teeth in." Tattletale leveled an intense look at him, rooting him in place. "I can't leave here yet, Jaune. In this universe, history will remember Bakuda as a footnote, while we make bank off her back and put an end to her bombing spree."
That nasty glint in her eyes, why did he find it charming?
The heroic undertones, perhaps. She was going to do good, her way.
She missed his glance, too caught up in her musings. "And why stop there? How many people would get a chance like this? The PRT, the E88, Coil… I know so many juicy secrets! Every password yet to be changed, every piece of blackmail still in play, info I had but was too cautious to use—not to mention the biggest news of all." She was on a roll, a dozen plans swirling within that head of hers. "Heheheh, I'm going to turn this little corner of the world upside-down~."
Which, of course, was when the world decided to object.
A hole in space tore open without a sound. It formed the shape of a rectangle, almost like a door, that hung in midair behind the kneeling Tattletale right in her blind spot. A room could be seen on the other side, a darkened office illuminated only by the glow of a computer screen.
A woman stood in front of the—and it can't be anything else—portal, dressed in a black suit and black tie; on her head rested a fedora. Wordlessly, she reached out with a gloved hand, fingers brushing the fabric of the camouflage cloak Tattletale wore in so delicate a motion that it passed beneath the girl's notice. The hand began to close in a grip.
Off to the side, Jaune looked from the woman who hadn't even bothered to glance his way, to the arm that was extending past him, to Tattletale. Then, he smacked the arm harshly to put a stop to that nonsense.
You would have thought he shot the woman with how she reared back, her startled cry alerting Tattletale. The girl whirled around just in time to see the woman hitting the edge of an office desk and flipping over it, landing on the floor out of sight with a crash. The portal shut down.
"Who the heck was that!?" Tattletale yelped. She then proceeded to answer her own question, mind racing a mile a minute. "Abductor, about to grab me. No mask, no motif, powers don't belong to any of the Brockton Bay gangs—an outside party. Hired by Coil? Did she mistake me for my local counterpart—"
Jaune grabbed Tattletale mid-sentence, yanking her behind him as he kicked the spot she used to occupy, his heel meeting a grasping hand. A sharp crack, and he watched the woman in the fedora escape back into the new portal, cradling her arm with an expression of pain that didn't quite match her body language, far too muted for the utter panic conveyed by her scrambling to get away.
Peace and quiet returned to the deserted street, barring Tattletale babbling a string of conjectures—interspersed with swears—as she gripped onto the back of his poncho. On his part, Jaune kept his head on a swivel, not letting his guard down. He summoned Crocea Mors, wielded in one hand while leaving the other free in case he needed to move Tattletale again. Below, Escha darted back and forth, ready to pounce the moment she saw the enemy.
"Not Coil, not PRT, not Yangban, not—"
"Not important! Tattletale, stay alert!"
"I am!" she protested.
The woman appearing from the portal behind her begged to differ. Set half a block of distance back, she made no attempt to capture Tattletale this time. In her hand, a nondescript gun.
She pulled the trigger—the round slammed into Jaune who had put himself in the path of the bullet.
The woman's eyes widened a fraction, and she fired off more rounds as Jaune activated rockets to boost his sprint across the ground. The barrage was erratic at first, the bullets following a haphazard pattern that missed as much as they hit, which seemed to surprise the woman more than anyone else. But then, something shifted, and the shots began to strike him dead center.
Her eyes… they weren't looking directly at him, instead tracing the line the bullets traveled through.
As he got close, he heard her mutter under her breath.
A portal materialized between them and sheer heat roiled from the other side, forcing Jaune to slam his heels against the ground, screeching to a halt at the edge of the boundary. Ahead, all he saw was red. The woman had connected to a volcano.
"Oh come on, lady. How is that fair!?"
He didn't get an answer. The portal collapsed to show nobody there. Jaune spun around to see another portal near where Tattletale stood, out of which the woman strode.
Almost absentmindedly, she scooped her hand under a leaping Escha, pivoting to toss the yowling felyne aside before continuing to advance on Tattletale. She neatly dodged the sleep dart the girl fired from her wristbow.
Tattletale didn't bother with reloading, instead adopting a fighting stance. Her training spanned a few weeks, but that was long enough for Jaune to drill into her the basics. She snapped out a punch—thumb outside the fist! So proud!—aimed at the woman's face.
Her technique needed work still. It didn't matter much. As he taught her, Aura would both protect her hand from harm and enhance the blow to shatter teeth.
If it landed. Somehow, the woman was never there, slipping through the punches and kicks with uncanny ease until she stood almost flush against Tattletale, gun jammed under her ribs.
The gun barked, and Tattletale fell with a cry.
For a moment, the woman in the fedora made to leave. She then performed a sort of full body stutter, blinking in befuddlement. Her gaze lowered to Tattletale, alive and encased in an apple-green glow.
Enduring the pain, the girl stuck out her tongue.
That struck a nerve. The woman furrowed her brow, on the surface appearing mildly annoyed, which for her might translate to utter exasperation. Her gun rose again.
A shadowy hand closed on the gun, pulling it from her grip. Turning, she gasped in surprise. Reflected in her eyes, a blade growing ever larger to fill her vision.
A portal opened, granting access to a windowless, pitch-dark room different from the previous office, and the woman threw herself into it, clothes blending in with the shadows to obscure her from his sight. Undeterred, Jaune shoved his sword through in pursuit. He felt the slightest of resistance, a shink as steel pierced flesh, and hastily withdrew Crocea Mors as the portal shut down.
In the ensuing quiet, he studied the blood coating the tip of the sword for a bit, then shook his head. "Damn. I don't think I managed to get her for good. Sorry, Tattletale, she might only be half dead."
"That's…That's fine," came Tattletale's blithe reply from below, hiding fairly well her frayed nerves. "Not killing people is good."
The poor dear must be in shock. Jaune sighed in sympathy.
"Anyway, don't worry, Jaune. I doubt she'll be a problem for much longer."
The complete certainty in her voice prompted him to ask, "How do you know?"
"Because I figured it out!" she declared, sitting bolt upright. Escha was there a moment later, fussing over her. "The reason she was after me. How she anticipated me and Escha, but not you. She's a precog. A Thinker."
"Like you?"
Escha tugged on his pant leg, calling for a healing potion despite Tattletale suffering no actual injury. He passed her one, seeing no harm in doing so, and the cat proceeded to demand Tattletale drink it.
Between sips, the girl explained, "Precogs belong to a different classification, such that there are. They… in basic terms, they simulate the future. Think, Jaune. What was I doing just before that woman appeared?"
He opened his mouth to reply. She talked right over him, never expecting a response to the rhetorical question.
"I was planning to change events, and that must have set her off!" She slapped the ground. "She probably doesn't want us to stop Bakuda. That, or screw over Coil's operations. Or humiliate the PRT—"
"Didn't you say that's the hero organization?"
"Irrelevant." He very much wanted to disagree, but she had already moved on. "Whatever the case, she'll keep getting in our way, unless we have a counter for her power. Which we do."
He mulled on it. "If she's a Thinker, [Blank] should work?"
"Exactly. Gimme the phone."
He rummaged through his pocket, and passed the scroll to her. "Can you even buy a copy for yourself?"
"No."
He waited, then said, "Come on, you'll have to give me a little more than that."
"I'm taking a workaround." She fell quiet, focused on navigating through the scroll. The Marketplace app opened, and she began typing.
Messing up, she cursed and tried again.
She typed.
She cursed.
She typed.
She cursed.
She typed.
"This stupid search bar! What idiot designed this!?"
It took her a while longer to sift through the nigh-infinite catalog of goods, with Tattletale looking about ready to throw the scroll by the end, but she found the entry she wanted.
"Talent sharing?" Jaune asked, peering over her shoulder at the screen.
"It's a repeatable purchase, and each time you buy it, you can copy one of your store-purchased powers over to your, ah, your allies."
Jaune gawked. "What the—that sounds perfect, Tattletale! Quick, grab it before she comes back." He watched as she tapped a button, then selected [Blank] on the next screen. The confirmation box popped up along with the cost. A glance, and he pulled a face. "Erk!"
"Yeeeah, you kinda see why I haven't bothered with it. The efficiency isn't great."
A bit of an understatement, that. The price was four times the cost of the original power—a flat multiplier, as he understood it. On this occasion, it totaled 1600 Points.
Then again, it sounded extortionate (and was) but if he had two additional members to their party, he would break even. From there, it became more efficient as the number increased. Talent Sharing benefited large teams—encouraged it, in fact. Food for thought.
In this particular case, needs must when the crazy portal lady tries to ambush you.
"Buy it," he said, and Tattletale wasted no time in confirming the purchase. A soft ding emanated from the scroll. Beyond that, there was no indication of anything happening.
Yet, he knew it had worked, because Tattletale was showing a downright vindictive smile.
"I really hope she's thinking about me right now~."
And she activated her second superpower, as high as it could go.
Half an hour and a newspaper later, the party of three strolled along a street lined by dilapidated shop after dilapidated shop. With bars on windows and doors shut tight, the mood was far from welcoming, and only the occasional noise behind thick curtains indicated whether a store was still doing business this time of night.
Not that Jaune expected them to receive many, or any, customers. The street was devoid of people.
"Is the villain meeting we're looking for really on this road?" he asked, fiddling with a simple domino mask that they picked up from the same convenience store souvenir corner he bought his Poncho.
Stole. Whatever. He repaid it a few times over tonight with a gold coin left on the counter. Somewhere out there, a convenience store owner can sleep well knowing his wares just made his parallel universe self a lot of money.
By his side, Tattletale nodded. "You wouldn't think it, huh? Consider the street we're on to be natural camouflage. The heroes and cops hardly ever patrol this part of town, which makes the location ideal for the villains to have their big moot. Everybody gets to dress up in their Sunday best and strut their stuff without people giving them side-eyes."
…Were they attending a beauty contest?
You know, that wasn't too far off, the more he thought about it. The meeting had rules for what one could wear and not wear that appeared to depend entirely on aesthetics. Tattletale stated with confidence that Crocea Mors was allowed because it looked like a pretty prop, Meanwhile, his big, long gunlance was a no-go due to it being too intimidating, nevermind that the people in the room possessed superpowers to make them twice as dangerous as any weapon he deigned to carry. Themes were important, so he had a white mask to go with the ambulance motif of his poncho—he drew the line at Tattletale's suggestion of spray painting his sword and shield to match. The masks themselves constituted a form of good manners, meaning Escha wore one of her own, sized for children.
Or maybe that last one was just Tattletale playing a prank. He couldn't tell from the sweet, innocent smile she kept giving him whenever he asked.
Anywho, the whole purpose of looking good for the crowd seemed to revolve around maintaining or increasing a faction's reputation. In short, the supervillains had an informal scoring system that they unironically participated in, which was doing no favors to the beauty contest analogy.
All in all, the life of a supervillain was a strange phenomenon, crossing crimes with theatrics.
His musings ground to a halt as Tattletale held out a hand, indicating that they've arrived at their destination. Before them stood a hovel that could be called a building if one were feeling generous. A sign over the doors proclaimed the name of the establishment, Somer's Rock. What business or clientele it catered to, the store gave not a hint, and without forewarning he would have never pegged it for a bar.
"Welcome to Somer's Rock," Tattletale declared grandly. "Seedy pub by day, seedy villain cape meetup spot by night. Sometimes."
"It looks ready to collapse," he remarked.
Tattletale waggled her hand, "Ehhh, fifty-fifty shot in the next year. Termites got into the supports. And on that happy note, let's head inside."
How about no, he wanted to say. Structural integrity aside, a den of dastardly villains awaited within, dozens against their three. Not just petty thieves like Tattletale, either, but the whole gamut of drug lords and mass murderers and worse, all empowered with various abilities. Including slavers.
What would they do after seeing his pretty face?
Tattletale had been adamant, however, ever since she checked the date printed on the newspaper. In her original timeline, the villains of Brockton Bay brokered a truce here, and marched in force the next day to comb the city for Bakuda, because even hardened criminals could not abide the bomber's reign of destruction. It would be war in the street, and chaos in the neighborhoods that their party intended to visit.
They could either become known entities, or get attacked once someone caught them skulking around. And no better place and time existed to announce themselves than Somer's Rock tonight.
He suggested burning down the bar. Tattletale said no.
As he pushed open the doors, every head turned his way, and Jaune got his first look at the colorful cast of villains calling this city home. There were a good two dozen or so of them scattered among the tables and booths of the run-down pub, orienting on one large table where a discussion seemed to be ongoing, at least before the interruption. Under the dim lights, he must admit that they did their profession proud. Wolf masks and skull helmets, metal armor and monstrous shapes, the occupants of the room exuded a menacing air, coiled like springs from the moment he took a step inside. He recognized the signs—the flexing of hands, the shifting of body balance—for the prelude to violence they were. The villains had been unprepared for his entrance, and they enjoyed it not one bit.
Before anyone could speak, Tattletale strutted into the room, causing the villains to all perform a double-take. Multiple cricks could be heard as people snapped their heads around toward one of the booths set along the wall. There, an identical girl in purple sat with mouth agape.
Tattletale waved to Tattletale. Tattletale stared at Tattletale. In the midst of this surreal scene, a fluffy white cat walking on two legs almost went beneath notice.
Almost, but not quite.
"Ohmigosh, she's wearing a little mask…" a soft voice murmured in awe, audible only due to the near total silence that had overtaken the pub.
Upon hearing that voice, Jaune lost his breath. He recognized it. Recognized her.
Her. Her. Her.
She sat in a booth clear on the opposite side of the room to where everybody was looking, partly blocked from view by a strange gorilla creature in a vest squatting on the floor. The flickering overhead bulbs cast the costume she wore in a much darker shade, the red nearly black.
She was unmistakable.
Jaune bounded across the room in three strides, the steps more akin to leaps as rockets propelled him faster and further than a normal man can hope to imitate. In his wake, noise broke out at the tables he passed by, people rising from their seats. Questions flew after him, demanding to know who he was and what he was doing. As he landed before the booth, the gorilla-thing slapped its long claws over his chest in warning.
It didn't matter. None of them, or any of the other villains, mattered, because she was here in front of him. His friend. The girl he made a promise to. Her.
He reached across the table, taking her hands in his. Completely over the moon, a grin stretched wide on his face, he shouted her name.
"Sundancer!"
…
…
"...Who are you?"
The world fell away.
A daze struck him and Jaune stumbled, his knees feeling weak. Unable to come up with a response, he just stared at Sundancer, his jaw flapping open and shut.
Somewhere within the fog of his mind, a little voice of reason whispered a reminder. He stood in a different Worm universe, remember? There were two Tattletales present in the same place, remember? Jaune slowly flushed as he realized that, oh, this Sundancer wasn't his Sundancer.
They were so alike, it hurts. The delicate curve of her face, the slight tilt as she peered up at the taller him, each small detail painted a memory. Who could blame him for the teardrops pooling at the corner of his eyes.
Sundancer looked down to their joined hands, then up at him again. "Um…"
Right about that point, it registered to him just how long he had been standing there, gazing moonstruck at her. Hastily, he released her hands and backed up from the table.
Coughing into a fist, he said, "Sorry, wrong person."
"Bullshit!" accused a villain in a top hat seated at the central table. He had twisted in his chair, one elbow on the backrest, to scowl at Jaune. "You shouted her name to the whole room! What, is there another Sundancer running around town we don't know about?" An odd moment passed where his eyes—widening with terror—flickered to Sundancer, the girl furiously shaking her head in reply. That calmed him some, and he said to Jaune, "I don't remember ever seeing you before. How do you know her?"
Jaune spouted the first excuse that came to him, "It's a common name where I came from!" Then, because every good excuse was improved by connecting it to a string of excuses, he continued, "Coincidences happen! And maybe there is another one of her—look at them!" He gestured at the Tattletales. "What is this, an interrogation?"
Yeees. Turn it back on the questioner. That always worked.
The top-hatted villain tilted his head, sneering. "Might be. You did barge into a rather important meeting without announcing yourself." He swept a hand to indicate the other people at the table, who did not seem to appreciate how thoroughly Jaune had destroyed the serious atmosphere they had going. "Read the mood, friendo."
A very good point, and Jaune raised his hands in a placating motion.
"Okay, look, I'll get to that, and what I have to say will be worth it, I promise. Just…give me a second?" he said, before turning back to Sundancer.
In truth, he had no idea of where to go from here, or how to salvage the situation. This was Sundancer, but not Sundancer, and now she's staring at him like he had three heads. Should he say something? Maybe he could explain?
Grasping at straws, he ended up with: "So, hey, are you doing anything later?"
"Aaalright, casanova." Tattletale appeared at his side, snagging his arm. "Let me stop you right there."
"But—"
She shushed him. "Entertaining as this is, it's not what we're here for. Come along."
She tugged him away from the booth with an insistent grip, and after a moment of hesitation, Jaune relented, somewhat grateful for the chance to exit the hole he had dug for himself.
Of course, that didn't prevent him from throwing glances over his shoulder the whole way. It took Sundancer's teammates little time since his departure to pounce on her, pelting a barrage of questions. His heart melted seeing her fidgeting under the attention.
The gorilla, surprisingly, had quite a feminine voice.
"Mar-Sundancer! Who is this guy? Did you…"
"I-I don't…"
The rest of the conversation faded into the general din of the room. Tattletale had wanted to make an entrance, and he supposed they did. Whispers flung back and forth between the various groups, with hurried offers being made for information that nobody there truly had. The people at the central table feigned a stoic demeanor, except not even they were immune to the sudden development, doing their subtle best to communicate with allies. Everything took a decided frantic pace as Tattletale led Jaune and Escha to said table, which was apparently a big deal in the view of the villains in attendance.
Not one person stopped them. Not yet. The general consensus, as Jaune gauged it, was to wait for another group to put their necks out and test the waters. Because if their party thought they deserved a seat at the table, then that could very well mean they knew something others did not. The villains had a reputation to uphold; they weren't willing to look like fools.
The peace shattered once Jaune pulled out chairs near the top-hatted villain to sit down.
"Oh, so now you're all fine and dandy with handing out the fucking seats?" snarled a man at a booth. He had stood up, fists clenched and glaring, flanked by two others. As a group, the three villains shared the themes of bad teeth and stained costumes. "Why do those nobodies get the invite when I didn't, huh? They sure as shit don't hold any territory."
"Skidmark and his Merchants, a small-time gang," Tattletale murmured in his ear. "Drug peddlers with superpowers."
That's the guy? 'Strips of momentum that can stack until they toss a person to the horizon' Skidmark? Wooow.
Accelerator might just kill this guy for giving vector-control abilities a bad reputation.
"What do we do?" he asked, palm resting on the hilt of his sword. Hint, hint.
"Easy there. I got this." She raised her voice. "I guess if my friends and I are not welcome, then we can walk out the door with all the information we have on Bakuda."
And sure enough, with the magic word spoken, somebody else cut in almost at once.
"There we go, Skidmark. Do you have anything of value to bring forward? Hm? And at least they would not stain the seats after sitting in them. Skid. Mark." The villain at the head of the table, fully armored and donning a crown of blades, stressed the other man's name with distaste, drawing chuckles throughout the room. The mockery held an edge that the Merchants heard loud and clear. Muttering curses, they affected disinterest to save face, sliding back into their booth.
Meanwhile, Jaune was thinking hard. Something was familiar about the crowned villain and the way only half of him was visible above the table's edge, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.
"That there is Kaiser. He's—" Tattletale cut off her words as the now-named Kaiser turned to them. The man swept a hand at two chairs that were closer to his end of the table.
"We've already started, but you are welcome to join us," he said in a rather polite, charming voice. "I expect your presence shall be… enlightening."
Before Jaune could respond, Tattletale answered, "Thanks ever so much!" And she took the seat she was already at, far away from Kaiser. Jaune glanced at her, receiving a subtle side-eye.
Got it. Not a nice guy.
Casually, he placed a palm on the hilt of his sword. Hint, hint.
The side-eye became a pointed glare until he retracted his hand.
A semblance of normality reasserted upon Somer's Rock as Jaune sat down, insofar that a group which included a gorilla in a vest, a neon orange man, a snake-themed man talking to thin air, and a human lightbulb could be normal.
Then Escha, after pondering between her choices, jumped onto Tattletale's lap where she could bask in scritches. Activity ground to halt again as the villains were reminded of their third member.
Kaiser stared for a bit, before clearing his throat.
"Is that a cat?"
"She's a Case 53," Tattletale gave their prepared answer.
According to her, a Case 53 was the designation that tended to be used for 'monstrous' capes. The gorilla thing over by Sundancer might count as one, and compared to that person, Jaune somewhat saw Tattletale's point about how a cat would be downright mundane.
To emphasize further, she pointed at Escha's face. "See? Mask."
"...Of course," said Kaiser, sounding like he still had many questions.
A waitress emerged from behind the bar, where a pair of men—twins—were working, coming around the table to place a notepad and pen in front of their party. Tattletale quickly wrote down an order for her (tea, black) and for Escha (milk), then passed the pen to him. He followed her lead, writing down 'beer.'
Throughout the process, the villains observed the three of them, scrutinizing each loop and stroke of the pen they made. The following minute waiting for their drinks was likewise an uncomfortable, awkward, and just plain weird experience Jaune never wish to relive. Soon, though, he had his beer, which he sipped from while wondering if someone would comment on the snake-themed villain to his left who continued to insist on doing his own thing.
But then, that was one among the many elephants in the room.
The woman in a welder's mask sitting opposite Tattletale stared at the cat in her lap. Next to the woman, a man in biker leather and a skull-painted motorcycle helmet was alternating his gaze between the snake-themed man, Tattletale, and Tattletale. The Tattletale by the booth was still focused on the Tattletale over here, except now she seemed to be suffering a splitting headache—and oh wow was that Skitter next to her? The one in the top hat won't stop giving Jaune looks of suspicion, with glances over to the Tattletales. Kaiser sat in silence with finger steepled; the people at his back emoted enough for his share, most of them also looking at Tattletale.
Hmmm. Call him crazy, but someone in this entire mess stood out from the rest.
And she reveled in it.
"Turn that frown upside-down, Kaiser. You really need to learn how to roll with things. As for you, Faultline, I'll thank you to cease your fascination with my kitty."
That was directed toward the woman in the welder's mask, who snapped her head up. Tattletale made eye contact, and grinned before moving on.
"Nice evening, isn't it, Trickster? Hope the Travelers had a smooth trip in from Boston."
The top-hatted villain parsed her words, searching for a trick. Finding none only worsen his worry.
"Coil… Bahahahahaha!"
The snake-themed villain gave no reply. Or rather, no reply to anybody present.
"...I suggest we establish a truce. Not just everyone here, but between ourselves and the law…"
Tattletale nudged Jaune. "Give him a poke for me?"
Jaune obliged her, tapping Coil on the arm, and when nothing happened he changed it to a light shove.
That woke him. With a yelp, Coil jerked in his seat so hard that the chair tipped onto the two rear legs, the villain windmilling his arm to keep balance until Jaune caught the chair and helped to plant it firmly back on the floor.
The mask Coil wore had no eye-holes, yet Jaune did not miss the dumbfounded stare leveled at him. Frantically scanning his surroundings as if he had never been in a pub before, the villain's gaze ended at the snickering girl next to Jaune, whose laughter was mirrored by her local counterpart over in the booth, the two sharing the same pitch and cadence in uncanny synchronicity.
"Tattletale," Coil growled.
"Coil," Tattletale growled back playfully, throwing the man off. "Man, what a time to experience a Thinker misfire. Can you quit it? We're busy people and can't waste our night waiting for you."
"I—" He noticed the level of attention on him, how the many villains were unamused by his episode, and he shifted his posture to present a calmer image. It didn't save his waning credibility. "Excuse my lapse, everyone. It has been a trying day, as we all know."
Tattletale nodded in false sympathy. "Then it's a good thing for you that I'm here to hand Bakuda over on a silver platter." The atmosphere of the pub sharpened. At last, they were cutting to the quick of the matter. "Buuut that's no reason to be impolite." Ignoring the sudden hostility directed at her, Tattletale turned to the last person at the table. "Hi, Grue!"
"Tattletale, what the fuck!?" Grue, in the skull helmet, blurted out, composure cracking under the one-two(-three-four-five-six) combo of surprises rearing their heads one after the other. "What did you— How are you—" He waved his arms wildly, trying to convey a dozen questions through body language since words have failed him.
Poor guy would never survive the multiverse.
Tattletale jerked a thumb over her shoulder at her twin. "Oh, you mean her? Yeah, I can't believe you didn't realize it, Grue. Aren't we teammates? She's a clone or something."
"The hell!?" the local Tattletale squawked. She whirled on the person next to her. "No, Skitter, don't just believe her!"
"Shouldn't she?" Tattletale asked, turning around in her seat. "If you were the original, you would have had Thinker powers, meaning you would have said I was the clone instead of sitting there twiddling your thumbs." Tattletale waved her hand dismissively. "Whatever. Quiet in the peanut gallery, please. If you're not at the table, clearly you're not important."
Local Tattletale launched out of the booth, but found herself held around the waist by Skitter, who had latched on to keep her from charging at her twin. The two struggled back and forth, egged on by a boy in a ruffled shirt sitting with them.
Jaune took a long draught of his beer.
Ahhhh. Nice and cold.
Should he be reining in Tattletale right now? Probably.
…He drank his beer.
In his defense, she seemed to be done, anyway, and he trusted her to have a handle on matters. Super-intuition meant she could read the mood of those around them, and knew how far to push the joke without turning the room on their party. At the moment, they held the card of 'information on Bakuda.' It's valuable, thus allowing some leeway, but they were approaching the time to get serious.
Drinking her tea, Tattletale studied her fellow villains with more care. "Huh. Some are missing. That's different," she idly murmured. Nobody understood what she was on about except for Jaune and (maybe) Escha. People present at the meeting in her timeline were absent today.
"Who is?" he asked.
"You wouldn't know them. Some affiliated, some independents. Sucks for Rune, she missed out. You're, like, her dreamboat."
"Because I'm pretty?"
She rolled her eyes. "Sure, that. Plus the little nazi bought into the hype hard, and you're the blondest blond that ever blonded."
Chair legs scraped on the wooden floor as Jaune leaned over to look Tattletale in the eye. "Wait, wait, back up a bit. The nazis are here?" He caught the glances around the room and where they were directed. He jabbed a finger at one end of the table, at Kaiser. "That's these guys? They're nazis? Why are we working with them?"
There was an intake of breath, and Tattletale hurried to speak. Kaiser got there first.
"Is there a problem?" he asked. His voice sounded charming, but Jaune was no longer fooled. The man, and the people behind him, could only be the E88.
"Uh, duh. You're literally demon worshipers!"
Confused faces all around, at least those that could be seen. Jaune didn't understand why. What he said wasn't crazy! An arcade machine in Japan told him so!
Over in her booth, Skitter was heard muttering, "I don't think you know what 'literally' means..."
A gradual silence overtook the pub, tense and ready to snap. People looked at each other, watching for who might chime in. Kaiser's capes were all glaring at Jaune. Tattletale had her face in her hands.
Then, just as the tension began to ebb, Grue couldn't resist the urge to say, "But is he that far off the mark, though?"
A woman glowing pure white scoffed. Kaiser, meanwhile, chuckled as if he heard a great joke.
"I know not what rumors are flying about, but I assure you that you have an entirely wrong impression of us."
Trickster joined in on the conversation. "I dunno. Killing millions does kinda give that blood ritual feel." He mock-shivered, flashing a smirk as the boy in the ruffled shirt piled on.
"Although I think if they were trying to call up Cthulhu or something, then you can still claim they had a purpose. Instead of, well, that."
An E88 cape wearing a gas mask pushed forward. He slammed a fist on the table. "Do not dare to impugn the actions taken by the fatherland. Historically, the troubles of Germany draws a direct line—"
"To them getting whooped the first time around! Then the Nazis came around for seconds—"
"Fighting for the people oppressed between the heavy hand of the foreigners and the hidden hand of the Jews! We had no—"
"What's this 'we' business? Most of you are Americans—"
"The Aryan cause transcends borders—"
"What, you're saying it immigrated over here? Listen to yourself—"
From there, the argument exploded, growing faster than a wildfire to embroil everybody with an opinion. The E88 were shouting, Skitter was shouting, The Travelers were shouting. It reached a volume where people couldn't even hear themselves speak, and were more so adding their voices to a preferred side so that it can drown out the other.
Strangely enough, Kaiser attempted to steer things back on track for a while before becoming a part of the screaming match, at which point a switch flipped and the man went all in, threatening to take his capes and leaving if anyone dared to raise another objection. That didn't go over well, fanning the flames further since everyone else took the declaration as an attempt to assert dominance, and reacted with ultimatums of their own.
Sitting in the middle of the mess he instigated, Jaune scratched his cheek.
"Oops?"
On one side, Tattletale patted him on the shoulder. "All according to plan."
Jaune could not help but notice the stiffness to her grin.
On his other side, Tattletale sneered. "That's a lie! I can tell you're panicking that the E88 are bailing on us!"
"Oh? You sure sound confident for someone without powers, faker."
"You are literally copying me I know what my face looks like!"
An utterly forgotten Jaune sipped at his beer as the two identical girls spat insults at each other.
His eyes panned over the various ongoings of the pub, catching Sundancer's gaze by chance. She had been sneaking glances at him.
He gave an uncertain wave of his hand.
Sundancer looked away.
Author's notes: Sundanceeeer!
.
Who's that lady in the fedora?
Probably nobody important.
.
Villains—We're here to put aside our differences and work together, no distractions.
Jaune—*drops political topic on the table*
A flare of light behind him indicated that Tattletale had come through the portal. She was shouting after him about something or other, but that can wait. He needed to see. To know.
The alley grew brighter and brighter as he neared the main street. Memories stirred, details he hadn't even realized stuck with him the first time around—a long vertical crack on the wall, the narrow section of sky that was visible, the scents of a critter (or two, or a dozen) that died and got shoved in a corner. Then he reached the end, where the alley opened up to a wide view of the city, and everything returned in unmistakable clarity.
He had stood in this exact spot before. The skyline, the signs on the buildings, the empty field—the street was familiar to a painful degree.
Well, familiar if it was 99% less wet, but he supposed that counted as an acceptable change. Anyway, this was Brockton Bay, dreary rain and all, no doubt about it.
"I'm back," he declared.
"No, you're not!" came a shout from behind him.
Tattletale skidded to a stop, huffing and puffing from her sprint down the length of the alley. She didn't look happy with him, which was fair. He rather sprung this on her at zero notice.
"Hey, my bad about—"
Her finger was in his face to cut him off.
"I was trying to tell you, but you wouldn't listen!" She stomped her foot in frustration. "The whole thing with the ABB bombing the city happened weeks prior to Leviathan attacking!"
It took him a lot longer than it should to comprehend the meaning of her words. Yes, he had been hopping through different universes, encountering magic and superheroes and whatnot, but time travel had to be a step too far, right? Because it's absurd. The idea that he was now here before he was first here created so many paradoxes that he probably shouldn't even be alive according to some of the sci-fi movies he watched. And… And…
It would mean she wasn't here, and he didn't want that.
"Maybe they're coming back for a second round?" he suggested, though his heart was already sinking.
Tattletale seemed about to berate him more, but hesitated as her eyes searched his face. With [Blank] active, she couldn't use her power on him. She still read him like a book, nevertheless, and when she spoke again, much of the anger in her voice was absent. "You won't find what you're looking for, Jaune."
He did not let slip a sad whine. Lies and slanders.
Retracting her hand, Tattletale ran it through her hair, scowling as she pondered the situation. "There's two possibilities I think are likeliest. One, we're in the past of my universe, which creates so many paradoxes that I probably shouldn't even be alive according to some of the sci-fi movies I watched." Huh. Great minds think alike. "Or, two, this is a parallel universe to my own with a temporal difference. I'm leaning toward the second theory since that fits with what we know of the portal app. Its function is to take us to other places, not as a time machine."
Jaune opened his mouth to raise an objection, any objection, but the words wouldn't come out. No matter how much he wished to call her wrong, there existed an odd incongruity within his surroundings that made sense only in the context of the theories she raised, wild as they were.
See, the city looked in better shape than on his previous visit, yet it also looked old and worn.
Grime encrusted the windows of the building next to him, while the paint on the storefront located one door down peeled in a manner requiring many seasons to effect. Overhead, the street lights flickered yellow, their aging bulbs in need of replacement. Were this a Brockton Bay in the days after Leviathan, with broken windows mended and paint freshly applied over facades damaged by flooding, would these details not appear brand new?
Little by little, he discovered more evidence of his error, until he could no longer believe this to be the world he sought. Enthusiasm drained away to leave hollow disappointment, and Jaune slumped his shoulders.
"Alright, we can go home now," he said, voice flat. "I'll just… curl up in my bed for a few days, if that's fine." Could Escha make bootleg alcohol out of the plants or mushrooms in her garden? He'd ask her. Drowning his sorrows sounded pretty nice at the moment.
Past Tattletale, he spotted said felyne scampering out of the alley. She, perhaps, deserved an apology most of all. He dropped this on her without explaining a single thing about this world and its significance. Yet, here she was, following him to provide support for his endeavors. He appreciated it.
Escha padded over to the party, turning her nose this way and that the entire time, sniffing the air. "This place smells weird," she said.
At a guess, that'd be the scent of a city. The smog of Fire and Combustion Dust burning, or whatever fuel-equivalent people use here to power their houses and cars. It was rather noticeable in the absence of a torrential downpour, and a bit more acrid than one would get with Dust.
"Yeah, it's not great," Jaune said. "Good thing is, you won't have to suffer it for long. I think we're ready to go home." Loot? Who cared about that?
Tattletale skipped back half a step, spreading her arms wide to block the alley in a theatrical display. "Now, hold on, you two. Let's not be hasty. Brockton Bay is full of opportunities for those who know where to look." She pointed at herself. "Which is me, by the way. The girl from the pseudo-future."
Okay, so maybe he did care about loot under his broody moping, because hearing that perked him right up.
"You mean, stuff we can sell? You know where we can find some?"
She listed them on her fingers. "Off the top of my head, my old boss hid caches of gear—including tinkertech rifles—around his territory, and there's a pair of villains we can raid. As for the big prize, during the ABB bombings spree, one tinker manufactured a ton of bombs with exotic effects."
Jaune winced.
Right. There's that, too. Once again, he visited a Brockton Bay embroiled in crisis, and departing meant leaving them to deal with it themselves. "How bad does it get?"
"Bad, bad. Some of the things she made were downright vile to be on the wrong end of. The ABB launched attacks throughout the city targeting major population areas, and people were scared out of their minds never knowing if their neighborhood or their kids' schools would be next."
Escha's eyes grew wide. "W-What?" She searched Tattletale's face for signs of a lie. Finding none, she shivered and peered at their surroundings with newfound trepidation, a lost expression on her face.
Jaune shared a glance with Tattletale, both of them arriving at the same conclusion. The world of Monster Hunter was the last place that'd encounter individuals like this 'tinker,' who from the sound of it seemed a real piece of work. Her methods reminded him of what occurred (was occurring?) at the Vytal festival, where the White Fang/robot assault on the event caused such terror that it attracted Grimm by the thousands to cover the sky. He hesitated to throw himself into that hell again, let alone an unprepared Escha.
So, he pointed to the depths of the alleyway, asking an unspoken question. Ditch?
Tattletale held up one finger. Wait. She turned and knelt down, drawing level with Escha. Reaching out, she started scratching the felyne under her chin to soothe her. "Don't worry, hon. That bi—awful woman won't get as far as she managed back then." She flashed a grin, and not a kind one. It had bite. "She did a real number on me the first time around, and I never quite gave her the payback she deserves for that."
Jaune, standing to the side, hummed in understanding. His partner held a grudge. "We're robbing her blind of her bombs before she can harm people with them. Aren't we?"
Escha nodded rapidly in agreement with that plan, tapping Tattletale on the arm and pointing at Jaune, eager to stop a monster in the making.
"Something like that," Tattletale replied coyly. "I can't promise the mess hasn't already kicked off, but over the course of the week this happened, I entered a few of her workshops. Depending on how early we arrive, they could still be stocked and ripe for the taking."
Jaune said, "I'm not certain that'd be enough. I distinctly remember you describing how tinkers can invent things out of scraps and garbage."
"Oh, don't you worry about that. There are people I can think of who will readily pay a handsome price for the chance to kick Bakuda's teeth in." Tattletale leveled an intense look at him, rooting him in place. "I can't leave here yet, Jaune. In this universe, history will remember Bakuda as a footnote, while we make bank off her back and put an end to her bombing spree."
That nasty glint in her eyes, why did he find it charming?
The heroic undertones, perhaps. She was going to do good, her way.
She missed his glance, too caught up in her musings. "And why stop there? How many people would get a chance like this? The PRT, the E88, Coil… I know so many juicy secrets! Every password yet to be changed, every piece of blackmail still in play, info I had but was too cautious to use—not to mention the biggest news of all." She was on a roll, a dozen plans swirling within that head of hers. "Heheheh, I'm going to turn this little corner of the world upside-down~."
Which, of course, was when the world decided to object.
A hole in space tore open without a sound. It formed the shape of a rectangle, almost like a door, that hung in midair behind the kneeling Tattletale right in her blind spot. A room could be seen on the other side, a darkened office illuminated only by the glow of a computer screen.
A woman stood in front of the—and it can't be anything else—portal, dressed in a black suit and black tie; on her head rested a fedora. Wordlessly, she reached out with a gloved hand, fingers brushing the fabric of the camouflage cloak Tattletale wore in so delicate a motion that it passed beneath the girl's notice. The hand began to close in a grip.
Off to the side, Jaune looked from the woman who hadn't even bothered to glance his way, to the arm that was extending past him, to Tattletale. Then, he smacked the arm harshly to put a stop to that nonsense.
You would have thought he shot the woman with how she reared back, her startled cry alerting Tattletale. The girl whirled around just in time to see the woman hitting the edge of an office desk and flipping over it, landing on the floor out of sight with a crash. The portal shut down.
"Who the heck was that!?" Tattletale yelped. She then proceeded to answer her own question, mind racing a mile a minute. "Abductor, about to grab me. No mask, no motif, powers don't belong to any of the Brockton Bay gangs—an outside party. Hired by Coil? Did she mistake me for my local counterpart—"
Jaune grabbed Tattletale mid-sentence, yanking her behind him as he kicked the spot she used to occupy, his heel meeting a grasping hand. A sharp crack, and he watched the woman in the fedora escape back into the new portal, cradling her arm with an expression of pain that didn't quite match her body language, far too muted for the utter panic conveyed by her scrambling to get away.
Peace and quiet returned to the deserted street, barring Tattletale babbling a string of conjectures—interspersed with swears—as she gripped onto the back of his poncho. On his part, Jaune kept his head on a swivel, not letting his guard down. He summoned Crocea Mors, wielded in one hand while leaving the other free in case he needed to move Tattletale again. Below, Escha darted back and forth, ready to pounce the moment she saw the enemy.
"Not Coil, not PRT, not Yangban, not—"
"Not important! Tattletale, stay alert!"
"I am!" she protested.
The woman appearing from the portal behind her begged to differ. Set half a block of distance back, she made no attempt to capture Tattletale this time. In her hand, a nondescript gun.
She pulled the trigger—the round slammed into Jaune who had put himself in the path of the bullet.
The woman's eyes widened a fraction, and she fired off more rounds as Jaune activated rockets to boost his sprint across the ground. The barrage was erratic at first, the bullets following a haphazard pattern that missed as much as they hit, which seemed to surprise the woman more than anyone else. But then, something shifted, and the shots began to strike him dead center.
Her eyes… they weren't looking directly at him, instead tracing the line the bullets traveled through.
As he got close, he heard her mutter under her breath.
A portal materialized between them and sheer heat roiled from the other side, forcing Jaune to slam his heels against the ground, screeching to a halt at the edge of the boundary. Ahead, all he saw was red. The woman had connected to a volcano.
"Oh come on, lady. How is that fair!?"
He didn't get an answer. The portal collapsed to show nobody there. Jaune spun around to see another portal near where Tattletale stood, out of which the woman strode.
Almost absentmindedly, she scooped her hand under a leaping Escha, pivoting to toss the yowling felyne aside before continuing to advance on Tattletale. She neatly dodged the sleep dart the girl fired from her wristbow.
Tattletale didn't bother with reloading, instead adopting a fighting stance. Her training spanned a few weeks, but that was long enough for Jaune to drill into her the basics. She snapped out a punch—thumb outside the fist! So proud!—aimed at the woman's face.
Her technique needed work still. It didn't matter much. As he taught her, Aura would both protect her hand from harm and enhance the blow to shatter teeth.
If it landed. Somehow, the woman was never there, slipping through the punches and kicks with uncanny ease until she stood almost flush against Tattletale, gun jammed under her ribs.
The gun barked, and Tattletale fell with a cry.
For a moment, the woman in the fedora made to leave. She then performed a sort of full body stutter, blinking in befuddlement. Her gaze lowered to Tattletale, alive and encased in an apple-green glow.
Enduring the pain, the girl stuck out her tongue.
That struck a nerve. The woman furrowed her brow, on the surface appearing mildly annoyed, which for her might translate to utter exasperation. Her gun rose again.
A shadowy hand closed on the gun, pulling it from her grip. Turning, she gasped in surprise. Reflected in her eyes, a blade growing ever larger to fill her vision.
A portal opened, granting access to a windowless, pitch-dark room different from the previous office, and the woman threw herself into it, clothes blending in with the shadows to obscure her from his sight. Undeterred, Jaune shoved his sword through in pursuit. He felt the slightest of resistance, a shink as steel pierced flesh, and hastily withdrew Crocea Mors as the portal shut down.
In the ensuing quiet, he studied the blood coating the tip of the sword for a bit, then shook his head. "Damn. I don't think I managed to get her for good. Sorry, Tattletale, she might only be half dead."
"That's…That's fine," came Tattletale's blithe reply from below, hiding fairly well her frayed nerves. "Not killing people is good."
The poor dear must be in shock. Jaune sighed in sympathy.
"Anyway, don't worry, Jaune. I doubt she'll be a problem for much longer."
The complete certainty in her voice prompted him to ask, "How do you know?"
"Because I figured it out!" she declared, sitting bolt upright. Escha was there a moment later, fussing over her. "The reason she was after me. How she anticipated me and Escha, but not you. She's a precog. A Thinker."
"Like you?"
Escha tugged on his pant leg, calling for a healing potion despite Tattletale suffering no actual injury. He passed her one, seeing no harm in doing so, and the cat proceeded to demand Tattletale drink it.
Between sips, the girl explained, "Precogs belong to a different classification, such that there are. They… in basic terms, they simulate the future. Think, Jaune. What was I doing just before that woman appeared?"
He opened his mouth to reply. She talked right over him, never expecting a response to the rhetorical question.
"I was planning to change events, and that must have set her off!" She slapped the ground. "She probably doesn't want us to stop Bakuda. That, or screw over Coil's operations. Or humiliate the PRT—"
"Didn't you say that's the hero organization?"
"Irrelevant." He very much wanted to disagree, but she had already moved on. "Whatever the case, she'll keep getting in our way, unless we have a counter for her power. Which we do."
He mulled on it. "If she's a Thinker, [Blank] should work?"
"Exactly. Gimme the phone."
He rummaged through his pocket, and passed the scroll to her. "Can you even buy a copy for yourself?"
"No."
He waited, then said, "Come on, you'll have to give me a little more than that."
"I'm taking a workaround." She fell quiet, focused on navigating through the scroll. The Marketplace app opened, and she began typing.
Messing up, she cursed and tried again.
She typed.
She cursed.
She typed.
She cursed.
She typed.
"This stupid search bar! What idiot designed this!?"
It took her a while longer to sift through the nigh-infinite catalog of goods, with Tattletale looking about ready to throw the scroll by the end, but she found the entry she wanted.
"Talent sharing?" Jaune asked, peering over her shoulder at the screen.
"It's a repeatable purchase, and each time you buy it, you can copy one of your store-purchased powers over to your, ah, your allies."
Jaune gawked. "What the—that sounds perfect, Tattletale! Quick, grab it before she comes back." He watched as she tapped a button, then selected [Blank] on the next screen. The confirmation box popped up along with the cost. A glance, and he pulled a face. "Erk!"
"Yeeeah, you kinda see why I haven't bothered with it. The efficiency isn't great."
A bit of an understatement, that. The price was four times the cost of the original power—a flat multiplier, as he understood it. On this occasion, it totaled 1600 Points.
Then again, it sounded extortionate (and was) but if he had two additional members to their party, he would break even. From there, it became more efficient as the number increased. Talent Sharing benefited large teams—encouraged it, in fact. Food for thought.
In this particular case, needs must when the crazy portal lady tries to ambush you.
"Buy it," he said, and Tattletale wasted no time in confirming the purchase. A soft ding emanated from the scroll. Beyond that, there was no indication of anything happening.
Yet, he knew it had worked, because Tattletale was showing a downright vindictive smile.
"I really hope she's thinking about me right now~."
And she activated her second superpower, as high as it could go.
-o-
Half an hour and a newspaper later, the party of three strolled along a street lined by dilapidated shop after dilapidated shop. With bars on windows and doors shut tight, the mood was far from welcoming, and only the occasional noise behind thick curtains indicated whether a store was still doing business this time of night.
Not that Jaune expected them to receive many, or any, customers. The street was devoid of people.
"Is the villain meeting we're looking for really on this road?" he asked, fiddling with a simple domino mask that they picked up from the same convenience store souvenir corner he bought his Poncho.
Stole. Whatever. He repaid it a few times over tonight with a gold coin left on the counter. Somewhere out there, a convenience store owner can sleep well knowing his wares just made his parallel universe self a lot of money.
By his side, Tattletale nodded. "You wouldn't think it, huh? Consider the street we're on to be natural camouflage. The heroes and cops hardly ever patrol this part of town, which makes the location ideal for the villains to have their big moot. Everybody gets to dress up in their Sunday best and strut their stuff without people giving them side-eyes."
…Were they attending a beauty contest?
You know, that wasn't too far off, the more he thought about it. The meeting had rules for what one could wear and not wear that appeared to depend entirely on aesthetics. Tattletale stated with confidence that Crocea Mors was allowed because it looked like a pretty prop, Meanwhile, his big, long gunlance was a no-go due to it being too intimidating, nevermind that the people in the room possessed superpowers to make them twice as dangerous as any weapon he deigned to carry. Themes were important, so he had a white mask to go with the ambulance motif of his poncho—he drew the line at Tattletale's suggestion of spray painting his sword and shield to match. The masks themselves constituted a form of good manners, meaning Escha wore one of her own, sized for children.
Or maybe that last one was just Tattletale playing a prank. He couldn't tell from the sweet, innocent smile she kept giving him whenever he asked.
Anywho, the whole purpose of looking good for the crowd seemed to revolve around maintaining or increasing a faction's reputation. In short, the supervillains had an informal scoring system that they unironically participated in, which was doing no favors to the beauty contest analogy.
All in all, the life of a supervillain was a strange phenomenon, crossing crimes with theatrics.
His musings ground to a halt as Tattletale held out a hand, indicating that they've arrived at their destination. Before them stood a hovel that could be called a building if one were feeling generous. A sign over the doors proclaimed the name of the establishment, Somer's Rock. What business or clientele it catered to, the store gave not a hint, and without forewarning he would have never pegged it for a bar.
"Welcome to Somer's Rock," Tattletale declared grandly. "Seedy pub by day, seedy villain cape meetup spot by night. Sometimes."
"It looks ready to collapse," he remarked.
Tattletale waggled her hand, "Ehhh, fifty-fifty shot in the next year. Termites got into the supports. And on that happy note, let's head inside."
How about no, he wanted to say. Structural integrity aside, a den of dastardly villains awaited within, dozens against their three. Not just petty thieves like Tattletale, either, but the whole gamut of drug lords and mass murderers and worse, all empowered with various abilities. Including slavers.
What would they do after seeing his pretty face?
Tattletale had been adamant, however, ever since she checked the date printed on the newspaper. In her original timeline, the villains of Brockton Bay brokered a truce here, and marched in force the next day to comb the city for Bakuda, because even hardened criminals could not abide the bomber's reign of destruction. It would be war in the street, and chaos in the neighborhoods that their party intended to visit.
They could either become known entities, or get attacked once someone caught them skulking around. And no better place and time existed to announce themselves than Somer's Rock tonight.
He suggested burning down the bar. Tattletale said no.
As he pushed open the doors, every head turned his way, and Jaune got his first look at the colorful cast of villains calling this city home. There were a good two dozen or so of them scattered among the tables and booths of the run-down pub, orienting on one large table where a discussion seemed to be ongoing, at least before the interruption. Under the dim lights, he must admit that they did their profession proud. Wolf masks and skull helmets, metal armor and monstrous shapes, the occupants of the room exuded a menacing air, coiled like springs from the moment he took a step inside. He recognized the signs—the flexing of hands, the shifting of body balance—for the prelude to violence they were. The villains had been unprepared for his entrance, and they enjoyed it not one bit.
Before anyone could speak, Tattletale strutted into the room, causing the villains to all perform a double-take. Multiple cricks could be heard as people snapped their heads around toward one of the booths set along the wall. There, an identical girl in purple sat with mouth agape.
Tattletale waved to Tattletale. Tattletale stared at Tattletale. In the midst of this surreal scene, a fluffy white cat walking on two legs almost went beneath notice.
Almost, but not quite.
"Ohmigosh, she's wearing a little mask…" a soft voice murmured in awe, audible only due to the near total silence that had overtaken the pub.
Upon hearing that voice, Jaune lost his breath. He recognized it. Recognized her.
Her. Her. Her.
She sat in a booth clear on the opposite side of the room to where everybody was looking, partly blocked from view by a strange gorilla creature in a vest squatting on the floor. The flickering overhead bulbs cast the costume she wore in a much darker shade, the red nearly black.
She was unmistakable.
Jaune bounded across the room in three strides, the steps more akin to leaps as rockets propelled him faster and further than a normal man can hope to imitate. In his wake, noise broke out at the tables he passed by, people rising from their seats. Questions flew after him, demanding to know who he was and what he was doing. As he landed before the booth, the gorilla-thing slapped its long claws over his chest in warning.
It didn't matter. None of them, or any of the other villains, mattered, because she was here in front of him. His friend. The girl he made a promise to. Her.
He reached across the table, taking her hands in his. Completely over the moon, a grin stretched wide on his face, he shouted her name.
"Sundancer!"
…
…
"...Who are you?"
The world fell away.
A daze struck him and Jaune stumbled, his knees feeling weak. Unable to come up with a response, he just stared at Sundancer, his jaw flapping open and shut.
Somewhere within the fog of his mind, a little voice of reason whispered a reminder. He stood in a different Worm universe, remember? There were two Tattletales present in the same place, remember? Jaune slowly flushed as he realized that, oh, this Sundancer wasn't his Sundancer.
They were so alike, it hurts. The delicate curve of her face, the slight tilt as she peered up at the taller him, each small detail painted a memory. Who could blame him for the teardrops pooling at the corner of his eyes.
Sundancer looked down to their joined hands, then up at him again. "Um…"
Right about that point, it registered to him just how long he had been standing there, gazing moonstruck at her. Hastily, he released her hands and backed up from the table.
Coughing into a fist, he said, "Sorry, wrong person."
"Bullshit!" accused a villain in a top hat seated at the central table. He had twisted in his chair, one elbow on the backrest, to scowl at Jaune. "You shouted her name to the whole room! What, is there another Sundancer running around town we don't know about?" An odd moment passed where his eyes—widening with terror—flickered to Sundancer, the girl furiously shaking her head in reply. That calmed him some, and he said to Jaune, "I don't remember ever seeing you before. How do you know her?"
Jaune spouted the first excuse that came to him, "It's a common name where I came from!" Then, because every good excuse was improved by connecting it to a string of excuses, he continued, "Coincidences happen! And maybe there is another one of her—look at them!" He gestured at the Tattletales. "What is this, an interrogation?"
Yeees. Turn it back on the questioner. That always worked.
The top-hatted villain tilted his head, sneering. "Might be. You did barge into a rather important meeting without announcing yourself." He swept a hand to indicate the other people at the table, who did not seem to appreciate how thoroughly Jaune had destroyed the serious atmosphere they had going. "Read the mood, friendo."
A very good point, and Jaune raised his hands in a placating motion.
"Okay, look, I'll get to that, and what I have to say will be worth it, I promise. Just…give me a second?" he said, before turning back to Sundancer.
In truth, he had no idea of where to go from here, or how to salvage the situation. This was Sundancer, but not Sundancer, and now she's staring at him like he had three heads. Should he say something? Maybe he could explain?
Grasping at straws, he ended up with: "So, hey, are you doing anything later?"
"Aaalright, casanova." Tattletale appeared at his side, snagging his arm. "Let me stop you right there."
"But—"
She shushed him. "Entertaining as this is, it's not what we're here for. Come along."
She tugged him away from the booth with an insistent grip, and after a moment of hesitation, Jaune relented, somewhat grateful for the chance to exit the hole he had dug for himself.
Of course, that didn't prevent him from throwing glances over his shoulder the whole way. It took Sundancer's teammates little time since his departure to pounce on her, pelting a barrage of questions. His heart melted seeing her fidgeting under the attention.
The gorilla, surprisingly, had quite a feminine voice.
"Mar-Sundancer! Who is this guy? Did you…"
"I-I don't…"
The rest of the conversation faded into the general din of the room. Tattletale had wanted to make an entrance, and he supposed they did. Whispers flung back and forth between the various groups, with hurried offers being made for information that nobody there truly had. The people at the central table feigned a stoic demeanor, except not even they were immune to the sudden development, doing their subtle best to communicate with allies. Everything took a decided frantic pace as Tattletale led Jaune and Escha to said table, which was apparently a big deal in the view of the villains in attendance.
Not one person stopped them. Not yet. The general consensus, as Jaune gauged it, was to wait for another group to put their necks out and test the waters. Because if their party thought they deserved a seat at the table, then that could very well mean they knew something others did not. The villains had a reputation to uphold; they weren't willing to look like fools.
The peace shattered once Jaune pulled out chairs near the top-hatted villain to sit down.
"Oh, so now you're all fine and dandy with handing out the fucking seats?" snarled a man at a booth. He had stood up, fists clenched and glaring, flanked by two others. As a group, the three villains shared the themes of bad teeth and stained costumes. "Why do those nobodies get the invite when I didn't, huh? They sure as shit don't hold any territory."
"Skidmark and his Merchants, a small-time gang," Tattletale murmured in his ear. "Drug peddlers with superpowers."
That's the guy? 'Strips of momentum that can stack until they toss a person to the horizon' Skidmark? Wooow.
Accelerator might just kill this guy for giving vector-control abilities a bad reputation.
"What do we do?" he asked, palm resting on the hilt of his sword. Hint, hint.
"Easy there. I got this." She raised her voice. "I guess if my friends and I are not welcome, then we can walk out the door with all the information we have on Bakuda."
And sure enough, with the magic word spoken, somebody else cut in almost at once.
"There we go, Skidmark. Do you have anything of value to bring forward? Hm? And at least they would not stain the seats after sitting in them. Skid. Mark." The villain at the head of the table, fully armored and donning a crown of blades, stressed the other man's name with distaste, drawing chuckles throughout the room. The mockery held an edge that the Merchants heard loud and clear. Muttering curses, they affected disinterest to save face, sliding back into their booth.
Meanwhile, Jaune was thinking hard. Something was familiar about the crowned villain and the way only half of him was visible above the table's edge, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.
"That there is Kaiser. He's—" Tattletale cut off her words as the now-named Kaiser turned to them. The man swept a hand at two chairs that were closer to his end of the table.
"We've already started, but you are welcome to join us," he said in a rather polite, charming voice. "I expect your presence shall be… enlightening."
Before Jaune could respond, Tattletale answered, "Thanks ever so much!" And she took the seat she was already at, far away from Kaiser. Jaune glanced at her, receiving a subtle side-eye.
Got it. Not a nice guy.
Casually, he placed a palm on the hilt of his sword. Hint, hint.
The side-eye became a pointed glare until he retracted his hand.
A semblance of normality reasserted upon Somer's Rock as Jaune sat down, insofar that a group which included a gorilla in a vest, a neon orange man, a snake-themed man talking to thin air, and a human lightbulb could be normal.
Then Escha, after pondering between her choices, jumped onto Tattletale's lap where she could bask in scritches. Activity ground to halt again as the villains were reminded of their third member.
Kaiser stared for a bit, before clearing his throat.
"Is that a cat?"
"She's a Case 53," Tattletale gave their prepared answer.
According to her, a Case 53 was the designation that tended to be used for 'monstrous' capes. The gorilla thing over by Sundancer might count as one, and compared to that person, Jaune somewhat saw Tattletale's point about how a cat would be downright mundane.
To emphasize further, she pointed at Escha's face. "See? Mask."
"...Of course," said Kaiser, sounding like he still had many questions.
A waitress emerged from behind the bar, where a pair of men—twins—were working, coming around the table to place a notepad and pen in front of their party. Tattletale quickly wrote down an order for her (tea, black) and for Escha (milk), then passed the pen to him. He followed her lead, writing down 'beer.'
Throughout the process, the villains observed the three of them, scrutinizing each loop and stroke of the pen they made. The following minute waiting for their drinks was likewise an uncomfortable, awkward, and just plain weird experience Jaune never wish to relive. Soon, though, he had his beer, which he sipped from while wondering if someone would comment on the snake-themed villain to his left who continued to insist on doing his own thing.
But then, that was one among the many elephants in the room.
The woman in a welder's mask sitting opposite Tattletale stared at the cat in her lap. Next to the woman, a man in biker leather and a skull-painted motorcycle helmet was alternating his gaze between the snake-themed man, Tattletale, and Tattletale. The Tattletale by the booth was still focused on the Tattletale over here, except now she seemed to be suffering a splitting headache—and oh wow was that Skitter next to her? The one in the top hat won't stop giving Jaune looks of suspicion, with glances over to the Tattletales. Kaiser sat in silence with finger steepled; the people at his back emoted enough for his share, most of them also looking at Tattletale.
Hmmm. Call him crazy, but someone in this entire mess stood out from the rest.
And she reveled in it.
"Turn that frown upside-down, Kaiser. You really need to learn how to roll with things. As for you, Faultline, I'll thank you to cease your fascination with my kitty."
That was directed toward the woman in the welder's mask, who snapped her head up. Tattletale made eye contact, and grinned before moving on.
"Nice evening, isn't it, Trickster? Hope the Travelers had a smooth trip in from Boston."
The top-hatted villain parsed her words, searching for a trick. Finding none only worsen his worry.
"Coil… Bahahahahaha!"
The snake-themed villain gave no reply. Or rather, no reply to anybody present.
"...I suggest we establish a truce. Not just everyone here, but between ourselves and the law…"
Tattletale nudged Jaune. "Give him a poke for me?"
Jaune obliged her, tapping Coil on the arm, and when nothing happened he changed it to a light shove.
That woke him. With a yelp, Coil jerked in his seat so hard that the chair tipped onto the two rear legs, the villain windmilling his arm to keep balance until Jaune caught the chair and helped to plant it firmly back on the floor.
The mask Coil wore had no eye-holes, yet Jaune did not miss the dumbfounded stare leveled at him. Frantically scanning his surroundings as if he had never been in a pub before, the villain's gaze ended at the snickering girl next to Jaune, whose laughter was mirrored by her local counterpart over in the booth, the two sharing the same pitch and cadence in uncanny synchronicity.
"Tattletale," Coil growled.
"Coil," Tattletale growled back playfully, throwing the man off. "Man, what a time to experience a Thinker misfire. Can you quit it? We're busy people and can't waste our night waiting for you."
"I—" He noticed the level of attention on him, how the many villains were unamused by his episode, and he shifted his posture to present a calmer image. It didn't save his waning credibility. "Excuse my lapse, everyone. It has been a trying day, as we all know."
Tattletale nodded in false sympathy. "Then it's a good thing for you that I'm here to hand Bakuda over on a silver platter." The atmosphere of the pub sharpened. At last, they were cutting to the quick of the matter. "Buuut that's no reason to be impolite." Ignoring the sudden hostility directed at her, Tattletale turned to the last person at the table. "Hi, Grue!"
"Tattletale, what the fuck!?" Grue, in the skull helmet, blurted out, composure cracking under the one-two(-three-four-five-six) combo of surprises rearing their heads one after the other. "What did you— How are you—" He waved his arms wildly, trying to convey a dozen questions through body language since words have failed him.
Poor guy would never survive the multiverse.
Tattletale jerked a thumb over her shoulder at her twin. "Oh, you mean her? Yeah, I can't believe you didn't realize it, Grue. Aren't we teammates? She's a clone or something."
"The hell!?" the local Tattletale squawked. She whirled on the person next to her. "No, Skitter, don't just believe her!"
"Shouldn't she?" Tattletale asked, turning around in her seat. "If you were the original, you would have had Thinker powers, meaning you would have said I was the clone instead of sitting there twiddling your thumbs." Tattletale waved her hand dismissively. "Whatever. Quiet in the peanut gallery, please. If you're not at the table, clearly you're not important."
Local Tattletale launched out of the booth, but found herself held around the waist by Skitter, who had latched on to keep her from charging at her twin. The two struggled back and forth, egged on by a boy in a ruffled shirt sitting with them.
Jaune took a long draught of his beer.
Ahhhh. Nice and cold.
Should he be reining in Tattletale right now? Probably.
…He drank his beer.
In his defense, she seemed to be done, anyway, and he trusted her to have a handle on matters. Super-intuition meant she could read the mood of those around them, and knew how far to push the joke without turning the room on their party. At the moment, they held the card of 'information on Bakuda.' It's valuable, thus allowing some leeway, but they were approaching the time to get serious.
Drinking her tea, Tattletale studied her fellow villains with more care. "Huh. Some are missing. That's different," she idly murmured. Nobody understood what she was on about except for Jaune and (maybe) Escha. People present at the meeting in her timeline were absent today.
"Who is?" he asked.
"You wouldn't know them. Some affiliated, some independents. Sucks for Rune, she missed out. You're, like, her dreamboat."
"Because I'm pretty?"
She rolled her eyes. "Sure, that. Plus the little nazi bought into the hype hard, and you're the blondest blond that ever blonded."
Chair legs scraped on the wooden floor as Jaune leaned over to look Tattletale in the eye. "Wait, wait, back up a bit. The nazis are here?" He caught the glances around the room and where they were directed. He jabbed a finger at one end of the table, at Kaiser. "That's these guys? They're nazis? Why are we working with them?"
There was an intake of breath, and Tattletale hurried to speak. Kaiser got there first.
"Is there a problem?" he asked. His voice sounded charming, but Jaune was no longer fooled. The man, and the people behind him, could only be the E88.
"Uh, duh. You're literally demon worshipers!"
Confused faces all around, at least those that could be seen. Jaune didn't understand why. What he said wasn't crazy! An arcade machine in Japan told him so!
Over in her booth, Skitter was heard muttering, "I don't think you know what 'literally' means..."
A gradual silence overtook the pub, tense and ready to snap. People looked at each other, watching for who might chime in. Kaiser's capes were all glaring at Jaune. Tattletale had her face in her hands.
Then, just as the tension began to ebb, Grue couldn't resist the urge to say, "But is he that far off the mark, though?"
A woman glowing pure white scoffed. Kaiser, meanwhile, chuckled as if he heard a great joke.
"I know not what rumors are flying about, but I assure you that you have an entirely wrong impression of us."
Trickster joined in on the conversation. "I dunno. Killing millions does kinda give that blood ritual feel." He mock-shivered, flashing a smirk as the boy in the ruffled shirt piled on.
"Although I think if they were trying to call up Cthulhu or something, then you can still claim they had a purpose. Instead of, well, that."
An E88 cape wearing a gas mask pushed forward. He slammed a fist on the table. "Do not dare to impugn the actions taken by the fatherland. Historically, the troubles of Germany draws a direct line—"
"To them getting whooped the first time around! Then the Nazis came around for seconds—"
"Fighting for the people oppressed between the heavy hand of the foreigners and the hidden hand of the Jews! We had no—"
"What's this 'we' business? Most of you are Americans—"
"The Aryan cause transcends borders—"
"What, you're saying it immigrated over here? Listen to yourself—"
From there, the argument exploded, growing faster than a wildfire to embroil everybody with an opinion. The E88 were shouting, Skitter was shouting, The Travelers were shouting. It reached a volume where people couldn't even hear themselves speak, and were more so adding their voices to a preferred side so that it can drown out the other.
Strangely enough, Kaiser attempted to steer things back on track for a while before becoming a part of the screaming match, at which point a switch flipped and the man went all in, threatening to take his capes and leaving if anyone dared to raise another objection. That didn't go over well, fanning the flames further since everyone else took the declaration as an attempt to assert dominance, and reacted with ultimatums of their own.
Sitting in the middle of the mess he instigated, Jaune scratched his cheek.
"Oops?"
On one side, Tattletale patted him on the shoulder. "All according to plan."
Jaune could not help but notice the stiffness to her grin.
On his other side, Tattletale sneered. "That's a lie! I can tell you're panicking that the E88 are bailing on us!"
"Oh? You sure sound confident for someone without powers, faker."
"You are literally copying me I know what my face looks like!"
An utterly forgotten Jaune sipped at his beer as the two identical girls spat insults at each other.
His eyes panned over the various ongoings of the pub, catching Sundancer's gaze by chance. She had been sneaking glances at him.
He gave an uncertain wave of his hand.
Sundancer looked away.
Author's notes: Sundanceeeer!
.
Who's that lady in the fedora?
Probably nobody important.
.
Villains—We're here to put aside our differences and work together, no distractions.
Jaune—*drops political topic on the table*
