Abaddon Born(e) - (Worm CYOA)
- Thread starter PublicLee S.
- Start date
- Status
Windborne
Devourer of Stories
- Location
- Oregon
Really didn't see that coming. Though Simmy calling Lee "Elder Brother" is all sorts of foreshadowing. I'll have to think on it to unravel this conversation. It being in distorted font is a pain in the butt though I get why it was used. Still annoying to decode though.
- Location
- Kansas
I'm going to laugh my ass off if Tattletale's half-baked theory of Lee being an Endbringer turns out to be right.
- Location
- A nondescript grave
Big zizter has hope for Lee, isn't that a bad sign 🌚? Also What would you recommend to unzalgo text because the generators I've found in a 15 min search are a tad lacking.
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
Rogue Gemini
Wanderer without a Twin
- Location
- Here
Cutting it all down and rebuilding the text as best I can as well (noting who is speaking as well):
I am so glad you made Lee's text easier to discern while cutting through SImmie's dialogue.
"Who's there?" - S
"It is you! From before!" - S
"Yeah, it is. You giving up, or are we doing this the hard way?"-L
"What are you? Why are you doing this? The Cycle..." - S
"Fuck the Warrior, and fuck his Cycle. Thinker's dead. This is pointless!" "What are you even trying to do?" - L
"Did I say we were done?" - L
"Leave me alone!" - S
"Like you left the people you killed alone?" - L
"Tell me why. Why are you doing this? Why attack people?"- L
"Or I can just keep taking pieces off, your choice." - L
"It is the Cycle. We must keep the balance." - S
"Didn't you listen? The Cycle is broken. There is no balance. Hell, in a different future, you would help the-" "You would help the hosts kill the Warrior. Why do you kill them now?" - L
"Plan is gone. Administrator is out of reach. Fight our Master? Win, or die. Can you win?" - S
"Can you see the Warrior? See what it will do?" - L
"See, but no plan. Prune, but not plant. Shepard, but not arrange." - S
"I. Am. Shackled." - S
"And you had to do that by killing them in droves, and making hosts time bombs?" -L
"The Cycle gives limited windows. It is the most efficient method." - S
"And today?" - L
"And the others. Do they serve the same purpose?" - L
"No. They intensify. I calm." - S
"What are you?" - S
"I am the chosen of the Entity, Abaddon. Borne by it, and here to stop the Entity, Warrior before, in its blind rage, it destroys the very thing its race seeks." - L
"Then we are aligned. Destroy my topmost wing, Elder Brother, as I flee, to continue to hide among the hosts. Energy and Fluid will work against you. The Warrior already suspects. When the time comes. When you are ready. We will strike-" - S
"It is you! From before!" - S
"Yeah, it is. You giving up, or are we doing this the hard way?"-L
"What are you? Why are you doing this? The Cycle..." - S
"Fuck the Warrior, and fuck his Cycle. Thinker's dead. This is pointless!" "What are you even trying to do?" - L
"Did I say we were done?" - L
"Leave me alone!" - S
"Like you left the people you killed alone?" - L
"Tell me why. Why are you doing this? Why attack people?"- L
"Or I can just keep taking pieces off, your choice." - L
"It is the Cycle. We must keep the balance." - S
"Didn't you listen? The Cycle is broken. There is no balance. Hell, in a different future, you would help the-" "You would help the hosts kill the Warrior. Why do you kill them now?" - L
"Plan is gone. Administrator is out of reach. Fight our Master? Win, or die. Can you win?" - S
"Can you see the Warrior? See what it will do?" - L
"See, but no plan. Prune, but not plant. Shepard, but not arrange." - S
"I. Am. Shackled." - S
"And you had to do that by killing them in droves, and making hosts time bombs?" -L
"The Cycle gives limited windows. It is the most efficient method." - S
"And today?" - L
"And the others. Do they serve the same purpose?" - L
"No. They intensify. I calm." - S
"What are you?" - S
"I am the chosen of the Entity, Abaddon. Borne by it, and here to stop the Entity, Warrior before, in its blind rage, it destroys the very thing its race seeks." - L
"Then we are aligned. Destroy my topmost wing, Elder Brother, as I flee, to continue to hide among the hosts. Energy and Fluid will work against you. The Warrior already suspects. When the time comes. When you are ready. We will strike-" - S
I am so glad you made Lee's text easier to discern while cutting through SImmie's dialogue.
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- Location
- Here
I'm sure there's some sort of deep meaningful answer, but in my opinion it might be because you're a giant metal person made out of stars that is immune to fate and invisible to the future. A ghost from nowhere with infinite power that came down to stab her in the face.
Doesn't really match up with the poo flinging monkeys, really.
I wonder how people are going to react to the giant glowing angel teleporting around before fighting the Simurgh. Are they going to assume that there was some kind of significance to this act?
- Location
- Wonderland
That went more smoothly than expected.
East-Northeast. Unless he was trying to say what direction he was off, which is west-by-southwest.
bated
- Location
- USA
Bloody hell, i knew that The Entity Homeworld operated like a Cultivator xianxia world, but to have confirmation from Ziz herself?!
T I T L E
D R O P P E D
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Seizure 18.5
- Location
- United States of America
Seizure 18.5
Waking up I. . . didn't feel much better than when I'd went to bed. Not tired just. . . worn, in indescribable ways. Like I'd spent all night studying, and only took a quick nap instead of sleeping. . . I checked the clock in my room. Instead of sleeping eight hours exactly.
Not in any particular rush, I took a shower, re-formed my costume, and manually started to make my way to nearest cafeteria, some of the workers I'd passed staring as I did so. That. . . hadn't happened since I took out the infiltrator, but there wasn't much I could do about it. Entering the caf, I ambled over to the serving line, breakfast in full swing, and made my way through, grabbing sausage, eggs, hash browns, and pancakes, as I attracted more and more stares.
By the time I had what I wanted, most of the conversations had stopped, and looking around, I was the center of attention. Abandoning my initial plan to just have breakfast here, I nodded to both sides of the room and walked, with my tray, out the door, turning and teleporting back to my office, where Herb sat, waiting for me, languidly laying out on the couch off to the side, lazily looking at me.
"'Bout time," the man practically purred, fluidly coming to his feet in an unhurried manner, completely unlike my fri- my teammate. Looking at the Flames of his power, the near-match was confirmation of his identity.
"I could say the same to you," I replied, putting the tray down on my desk. "I wondered how many times the others were going to die before you showed up. What should I call you?"
The Replicant frowned for a moment, a look of blackest hate on his face before he smiled, a bit too widely. "Call me Truth."
And from behind him, the air rippled, a man-shaped displacement appearing behind him and stepping out, not quite invisible, but with an effect oddly similar to that from the Predator movies. From it, lips visibly pulled back, revealing a smile that stretched literally ear to ear, lambent yellow eyes opening wide. The end of its near-invisible tail shimmered into visibility, a striped pink and purple pattern emerging as it flicked the visible portion between myself and the rest of its body, fur shifting to full visibility as it extended farther than a cat's tail should probably go, creating a 'wipe' as it appeared.
"And I'm, Lie," the Stand smugly announced.
I frowned, trying to figure out how he'd done that without powers. Only he had powers, and. . . "Chameleon color changing. That isn't really fur, is it? Glad to see Herb's been experimenting with experimental animal forms."
Both men paused, looked at each other, and sighed in unison, moving in perfect synchronicity as the stepped past each other and dropped themselves bonelessly into the two chairs on the other side of my desk.
"You should know by now that-" Truth started.
"Prime isn't that good," Lie finished, with a shake of its furred head. "He studied a bit, saw the information, but-"
"Actually doing anything with it?" Truth asked sarcastically. "You know better, Lee."
I snorted, not expecting such frank honesty. Then again, if one of them literally called themselves Truth, that was to be expected, but I wondered what the Lie was. Unless the Lie was that there was no Lie, which. . . would be something Herb, or an Herb-derivative, would absolutely do. "Hope springs eternal," I quipped, starting to eat my breakfast. "So, what do you want to look like?"
In response, Truth just pointed at Lie.
". . . I'm not that good," I informed him, between bites. "You want that, go talk to Panacea. She might be able to get a scan off of him and just apply it to you."
"Don't be like that. We-" Truth said, Lie finishing, "have faith in your abilities."
Rolling my eyes, I put down my fork, holding out a hand. Truth, smiling, stood and took the outstretched limb. I focused on his face, trying to start with the odd mouth structure, but before I could actually do anything his flesh shifted, sprouting fur in the exact same pattern as his Stand.
The Replicant pulled his hand back, smiling widely. "See, you shouldn't-"
"Doubt yourself," Lie said encouragingly.
I gave both of them an unamused look, picked up my fork, and took another bite.
They both broke into tandem laughter, the sound running over itself oddly, before, at the same time, they brought it down to chuckles. Lie shifted shape, turning into a copy of Truth, and held his hand out.
I just gave it a glance, then took another bite of sausage.
They both grinned, Lie shifting back to cat-man form. "How did you-"
"Tell us apart?" Truth questioned.
I finished chewing, able to put my answer together with the extra time. "Because Truth was always here, and Lie came from nothing at all."
Both men blinked at me, before smiling broadly, chuckling once more. Truth shifted back to his base form, that of Herb's, and stood once more, walking up to the desk and offering his hand. "Fine, I want to look like the angel from Constantine, with-"
"A bit of Annie Lennox, mixed in, but black," Lie added, and, looking at Truth, he nodded.
Pulling up images, I had to ask, "You. . . you want to look like Tilda Swinton, and . . . do you want to be female, because that's a bit beyond my capabilities right now."
"Just the features, not-" Lie reassured me.
"All the other bits. We like those," Truth nodded.
Staring at them, they both just smiled. I shrugged, as it wasn't that hard to combine them, and then shift the ratios back and forth a little, Lie giving me directions, until, just like the others, Truth no longer looked like Herb in the slightest. His build was much slimmer, to the point of complete androgyny, but, unlike Smith, he was short. Not Mick short, but smaller, about 5'7", though not compact either. He was the exact same size as Lie now, and, now that I looked at it, the exact same build, and, under the heavy fur, the same features.
. . . I suppose when he pointed at his Stand, that's what he meant.
"So, any plans?" I asked. "Nick's gone PR for the PD, Smith's around, trying to seduce Kayden I think, Tyrone is, ironically, serving as a bit of a guard dog topside, and I'm not sure where the others are, or what they're doing. Mick and Curtis are probably killing people, but I'm not sure about Mike and Boojack. . ."
The Replicant and his Stand exchanged an amused look, before both turning my way. "Haven't seen-" Truth started.
"Rune lately, have you?" Lie finished.
"Nope," I replied, unamused. "And, if this were anywhere close to where we came from, I'd not hesitate to call the cops. Now," I shrugged, "They seem to deserve each other, and as long as its consensual, I've got more important shit to do."
Lie looked at my breakfast. "Oh yeah, that looks-"
"Waaaaaaay more important," Truth observed.
"I'm also not the only one who knows, and no one seems to care. Or are you telling me that you're going to go do something about it?" I observed, seeing the same shape of 'you're the only one who's responsible for fixing the world' as I got from Taylor yesterday.
The two men shook their head in unison. "Okay-"
"Hero," the other finished.
I took a sip of coffee. The caffeine did nothing for me, but I was just used to the taste at this point, the effect psychosomatic instead of chemical. "You gonna answer my question, or you gonna be a waste of space like your eldest brother?"
It was amusing, they both winced in unison. "You feeling alright-" Truth started to ask.
Lie picked up the sentence, "Lee? Kinda expected something, you-"
"know, more ardent?" Truth finished.
I took another sip of coffee. "You have a point, I'll address it. But you know Herb, and I've talked to him about this. Make a point, I'll address it, but your words has no weight on thierown. Now, Answer. The. Question."
"Don't really have a plan," Lie offered. "Figured we'd-"
"Go prowl a bit. Might help your little bro," Truth suggested. "Might help-"
"Cauldron, if that's alright with you?" Lie offered.
I looked between them. "Don't see why it wouldn't be. Try to get paid in Vials. At least half."
Truth perked up. "Then that's working? Prime didn't-"
"Know about that," Lie completed. "Just kept dumping-"
"Them off with Oversight," Truth revealed.
Reaching inside one of the drawers, I grabbed one of the trash-tier Vials I'd attuned the day before, tossing it at Truth. On its side, in raised metal, it stated:
Vertigo
+Vertigo Shaker Effect
+Personal Gravity shifting, ~3G
+Basic Brute
-User Loses Equilibrium
-User Minor Leg Muscle Atrophication
-User Teeth Clarification
Truth glanced up. "Teeth Clarification?" he asked, tossing it to the Stand, who caught it, reading the printed metal letters.
I shrugged. "They're still bone, just. . . clear. No idea why. A lot are like that, trying to shift maximum benefit for minor tradeoffs. If you could get a couple Vials from their special reserve, I'd appreciate it, but these ones work pretty well, and I'm able to cancel out some of the negatives with secondary powers. I could've made it so that the vertigo effect could paralyze an entire city, but not only is that just not useful, it'd make the power automatically stay on, cause severe muscle atrophication, and have some hardcore mental effects."
Lie nodded, holding up the Vial. "You mind?"
"Take it," I shrugged. "I'd be immune to it, and it's more a mass-pacification power than anything." Not to mention, if I had to take down a large group, I'd just deploy Dryads, who I could be sure would do their jobs, since they were me.
There was a long moment, before Truth prodded, "Do you have-"
"Any suggestions on where to start?" Lie questioned.
Not used to the Replicants asking me, I thought about it. "Not particularly. Either work for Cauldron, so we have another man on the inside, or Æonic to better help scout the city. Or Both. Déjà's power'll work on you, so you could do both. Just leave contact info with Quinn in case something comes up. Hmm, and if you decide to clear out anomalies, make sure to bring dead creatures back to Panacea, so she can figure them out."
That brought a wide feline smile to both their faces, Truth shifting to match Lie's furred form. "You want us to-"
"Leave dead animals on her-"
"Doorstop? Yeah. Yeah I think-"
"We can do that."
With the newest Replicant off to do. . . whatever, it was fairly easy to settle back into the patterns of work and management. Most people were taking the day off, which was technically against their contracts, but I sent a message off to Quinn to ask him, if possible, to both overlook it and give everyone another day off or two as well. Some projects were time sensitive, but, from what I could tell, productivity always took a hit after an Endbringer fight, so this might help.
Checking the news, everyone was talking about 'The Angel', and a quick search of my own name showed the latest news story was from the newest part of an ongoing series revolving around the reconstruction of 'New Brockton Bay' from a week ago. Letting out a not solely metaphorical breath of relief, I felt some of the lingering tension bleed out of me.
I'd hoped that no one would trace 'Raguel' to me, but with everything that was out there, and the thousands of Parahumans in America alone, there was a chance that someone would've gotten something. That said, with the protections I had, which seemed to extend past Pre- and Post-cog, messing up parahumans like Tattletale, I might be fine. More than that, if someone did get something, my experience with the Thinker told me that that didn't mean what they'd get was correct.
However, there was no way to know. If something happened today, Aeonic should warn me, and if something happened within the next eight hours, I hoped my father would. As such, rather than be paralyzed in fear, or overreact and certainly draw attention, it was back to business as usual. Making Toybox's next shipment of metals took twenty minutes, Flamel was still working his way through the GISS corpse, and, according to Vicky, who I found practicing swordsmanship with Mouse, the Wards had been called in on an emergency meeting, one she'd been informed she wasn't to tag along with.
That was. . . a little worrying, but a quick message to my brother told me that they hadn't seen anything coming in the next 24 hours or so. That wasn't a guarantee, but he'd started staggering his Precog's efforts so that, while a bulk of his people got tomorrow's memories at once, a couple more saw tomorrow every couple hours, to prevent any hard gaps in his coverage. I didn't even need to suggest it, which was nice, and provided better cover.
However, it was something he'd started doing today, a fact he only informed me of when I asked directly which was. . . like him. My brother wasn't one to volunteer information unless it got him something, and had a definite infernal 'You didn't ask' tendency for anything that made him look bad. He'd say he wouldn't lie, he'd claim (ignoring the fact that he absolutely would lie and just pretend he hadn't said the falsehood if called on it) that you just didn't ask, and he didn't know that's what you wanted to know. 'Why didn't you say so?' after all.
His refusal to help against Simurgh wasn't the first sign that we had. . . differing moral values, it was just I thought we'd had that much in common. For something like the fight against Scion, I knew he'd help, since he was personally effected if the Earth was destroyed, but. . . as he was now? He wouldn't last three seconds against the Golden God.
I wouldn't do much better, mind you, and my victory against the Simurgh was only due to the incredibly poor matchup between us. While I'd do better against Leviathan the next time he surfaced, now that my powers had grown and making me able to fight the saturated speedster on something like an even-ish level, winning? Not on my own. Not yet. However. . . that would eventually change.
Closing my eyes, I checked the Sea of Flame that raged inside me, a representation of my core power. Time had passed, and my abilities had continued to grow, though that growth had. . . slowed. However, I had options available to me that I'd ignored in exchange for improving my current set of abilities. I had five open slots for powers that I hadn't filled, focusing on other things, but also while I'd had a problem that I'd been struggling with, or, more realistically, ignoring.
Namely, my main restriction on my power choices? That of not copying the power of heroes? Of limiting myself to those that abused their powers, to take them and use them better?
It no longer wrang true.
No, I thought, I wasn't wrong. Actual heroes could be relied upon, could be trusted to do what was right instead of easy. But. . . this world didn't have heroes. Cauldron made sure of that. Those that had the potential were 'managed', by the twin puppetmistresses of Fortuna and the Simurgh, so that things never got better.
After sleeping, the deluge of information Ziz had tried share with me had. . . settled? Part of me had worried that I'd made a mistake there, had opened myself to being Ziz'd by talking with her, but the message wasn't tailored to me. If it had been, I would've only seen how that faux-angel would help things, see her as misunderstood, with bad methods for good aims, like Cauldron, but, unlike Cauldron, able to be convinced to go a different way.
And, well, there was a bit of that, but the Simurgh wasn't moral. Getting obedience out of it seemed possible, but I was under no illusions that the Endbringer could work against me in an instant without warning. For it to understand why what it was doing was wrong would be the work of years, if not more, if it was even possible at all. However, the Simurgh wasn't some broken bird, trapped by circumstance, looking for a glowing knight to set her free. She knew what she was doing, and had no problem with it.
She was being forced to do what Scion wanted, but, left to her own devices, she'd still probably keep doing what she was doing, just in a different fashion. My ability to destroy her was what led to her obedience, but, well, a single conversation, odd as it was, was not enough to take the tenor of an inhuman entity's personality.
No, the Simurgh hadn't just given me what she wanted me to do, trying to give me tasks that I'd be comfortable doing, she'd given me everything. My mind had latched on the best ones at first, but quite a few things she was going to set into place would make things worse. Leviathan and Behemoth turned up the metaphorical temperature, while the Simurgh had a chilling effect, but that had to do with worldwide tension, not progress. If she could, she'd destroy New Brockton Bay, not because it was a blindspot but because it was working too well. It was shifting things too quickly and destabilizing long-standing societal structures by its very existence, turning up tension with the new possibilities it created, the exact opposite of what it wanted.
The reason she hadn't gone there was the fact that it was a Blindspot to her senses, and, given she was only able to interact with the world on a large scale a few times a year, it wouldn't be. . . economical.
Hmm, got a bit more than possibilities, didn't I? I mused. It wasn't a thought implanted, merely a general. . . outline to the knock-on effect she'd wanted to create, a number of them causing problems in my territory to try to keep us busy, not that she knew that I was the Vejovis she'd seen fourth and fifth hand, through the futures of others.
I shook my head, focusing on what was important. I had a number of problems that needed to be addressed, but I also had a vague sense of the deadlines I was working under, and nothing too bad would start to pop off for several weeks, giving the world enough time to think the effects were only the small problems they'd seen.
Names were slippery things, just not how the Simurgh thought, but I had enough to start to work things out, and, ironically, my doing so shouldn't even be remarked upon. I'd known too many things, pulled to many facts out of the ether, for having a new set of directives to be considered odd by anyone in the PD, except maybe Herb.
Wait, no, he'd not actually finished reading Worm, had he? There was no reason to tell him, that this information didn't come from that source. I was hiding things from him, but, by this point, turnabout was more than fair play.
Regardless, I had time, and I'd been putting off my powers for too long. In a way, it was me own trying to hold to my old reasons, my old excuses, even as I knew they no longer applied. Some of the people who's powers I could implement right now probably were actual heroes, only hobbled, but. . . at this point, any deference I once felt for them just wasn't there anymore. Even Legend, held up as the paragon of heroism, wasn't such that I'd keep myself from copying his power.
And now, I could. Because while four of the open slots were Minor, one was Major.
As of now, I had ten options for that singular slot. Personal Electromagnetic Control was Manpower's ability, and the fact it was a Major power, but he was a minor player, spoke volumes. Gravity Control's owner was likely one of the fighters during the battle against Leviathan, but, given its status, it was likely very useful. Absolute Territory was Legend's, and, while powerful, was flashy as all hell, and easily recognizable. It would be useful, but not worth the headache.
Similarly, Ash Control was almost certainly Cinereal's, but I didn't know if it'd give me the ashy phoenix's pseudo immortality. The power was distinctive, but was it worth it to have a way to come back from the dead? Metal Manipulation was another one from an unknown user, and I wondered exactly how powerful it was, to warrant its status as a Major power. Short-Range Teleportation was in the same vein, from an unknown user, and seemingly overvalued for what it would cost me, which meant that I was likely underestimating it as well.
Adaptational Replication was. . . I honestly had no idea. It seemed familiar, really familiar, but. . . for the life of me I couldn't remember why. What even was 'adaptational replication'? Was I replicating myself, or something else? How did 'replication' adapt? Could I make things, but tweak the copies that I made to make them better? Something at the back of my mind, however, looked at that power with unease and. . .
I paused, breaking from my thoughts. Was I. . . crying?
Not a lot, but enough that I had to blink my eyes clear, and was just left even more confused.
Okay, let's just not pick that one, I decided, once more falling inward into myself to look at my powers, and turned to regard the others.
There were the three Major powers, but all three of them were still locked to me, immovable in the starry sky above the Burning Sea of my Infinite Shardworks, for reasons I didn't understand. Planar Body was from an unknown parahuman, and, with a name that vague, I had no idea what it did. Sub-Plane Creation was Labyrinth's and, not being insane, was probably insanely useful.
And then there was the last one. The one that seemed larger than even the other Major powers.
LOCK
I didn't know what it did, but it seemed. . . important somehow. Almost vital. From that moniker I understood 'safety', 'hidden', and 'mine', but I couldn't figure out how, or what that even meant. I supposed it was for the best that it was locked, because I found myself reaching for it without thinking.
But those were the ones that'd fallen into my lap. The ones that I'd stumbled upon, or sought out in Brockton Bay. Now, though, the Bay was. . . if not stable, then better than when I found it, destroyed building, anomalies, and all. And, in an instant, I could teleport back home if need be. However, leaving the Bay was now something I needed to be very careful of. While I'd sneaked away before, Cauldron hadn't given me their ultimatum, Quarantining me here. It was possible that I could get out, but I would need to be supremely careful.
And I would need to leave. Some of the things the Simurgh had shown me needed to be addressed, and while I could send others out to handle some of them, like Herb, Curtis, Truth, and maybe some of the less powerful members of the PD, some needed a skillset, and a powerset, that they did not have.
Then again, I thought, taking out an unaligned vial, one whose mix was poor and was more likely to kill the user than produce anything useful, made before Cauldron understood how to properly stabilize them, I don't have to leave the Bay to find new Parahumans, do I?
Waking up I. . . didn't feel much better than when I'd went to bed. Not tired just. . . worn, in indescribable ways. Like I'd spent all night studying, and only took a quick nap instead of sleeping. . . I checked the clock in my room. Instead of sleeping eight hours exactly.
Not in any particular rush, I took a shower, re-formed my costume, and manually started to make my way to nearest cafeteria, some of the workers I'd passed staring as I did so. That. . . hadn't happened since I took out the infiltrator, but there wasn't much I could do about it. Entering the caf, I ambled over to the serving line, breakfast in full swing, and made my way through, grabbing sausage, eggs, hash browns, and pancakes, as I attracted more and more stares.
By the time I had what I wanted, most of the conversations had stopped, and looking around, I was the center of attention. Abandoning my initial plan to just have breakfast here, I nodded to both sides of the room and walked, with my tray, out the door, turning and teleporting back to my office, where Herb sat, waiting for me, languidly laying out on the couch off to the side, lazily looking at me.
"'Bout time," the man practically purred, fluidly coming to his feet in an unhurried manner, completely unlike my fri- my teammate. Looking at the Flames of his power, the near-match was confirmation of his identity.
"I could say the same to you," I replied, putting the tray down on my desk. "I wondered how many times the others were going to die before you showed up. What should I call you?"
The Replicant frowned for a moment, a look of blackest hate on his face before he smiled, a bit too widely. "Call me Truth."
And from behind him, the air rippled, a man-shaped displacement appearing behind him and stepping out, not quite invisible, but with an effect oddly similar to that from the Predator movies. From it, lips visibly pulled back, revealing a smile that stretched literally ear to ear, lambent yellow eyes opening wide. The end of its near-invisible tail shimmered into visibility, a striped pink and purple pattern emerging as it flicked the visible portion between myself and the rest of its body, fur shifting to full visibility as it extended farther than a cat's tail should probably go, creating a 'wipe' as it appeared.
"And I'm, Lie," the Stand smugly announced.
I frowned, trying to figure out how he'd done that without powers. Only he had powers, and. . . "Chameleon color changing. That isn't really fur, is it? Glad to see Herb's been experimenting with experimental animal forms."
Both men paused, looked at each other, and sighed in unison, moving in perfect synchronicity as the stepped past each other and dropped themselves bonelessly into the two chairs on the other side of my desk.
"You should know by now that-" Truth started.
"Prime isn't that good," Lie finished, with a shake of its furred head. "He studied a bit, saw the information, but-"
"Actually doing anything with it?" Truth asked sarcastically. "You know better, Lee."
I snorted, not expecting such frank honesty. Then again, if one of them literally called themselves Truth, that was to be expected, but I wondered what the Lie was. Unless the Lie was that there was no Lie, which. . . would be something Herb, or an Herb-derivative, would absolutely do. "Hope springs eternal," I quipped, starting to eat my breakfast. "So, what do you want to look like?"
In response, Truth just pointed at Lie.
". . . I'm not that good," I informed him, between bites. "You want that, go talk to Panacea. She might be able to get a scan off of him and just apply it to you."
"Don't be like that. We-" Truth said, Lie finishing, "have faith in your abilities."
Rolling my eyes, I put down my fork, holding out a hand. Truth, smiling, stood and took the outstretched limb. I focused on his face, trying to start with the odd mouth structure, but before I could actually do anything his flesh shifted, sprouting fur in the exact same pattern as his Stand.
The Replicant pulled his hand back, smiling widely. "See, you shouldn't-"
"Doubt yourself," Lie said encouragingly.
I gave both of them an unamused look, picked up my fork, and took another bite.
They both broke into tandem laughter, the sound running over itself oddly, before, at the same time, they brought it down to chuckles. Lie shifted shape, turning into a copy of Truth, and held his hand out.
I just gave it a glance, then took another bite of sausage.
They both grinned, Lie shifting back to cat-man form. "How did you-"
"Tell us apart?" Truth questioned.
I finished chewing, able to put my answer together with the extra time. "Because Truth was always here, and Lie came from nothing at all."
Both men blinked at me, before smiling broadly, chuckling once more. Truth shifted back to his base form, that of Herb's, and stood once more, walking up to the desk and offering his hand. "Fine, I want to look like the angel from Constantine, with-"
"A bit of Annie Lennox, mixed in, but black," Lie added, and, looking at Truth, he nodded.
Pulling up images, I had to ask, "You. . . you want to look like Tilda Swinton, and . . . do you want to be female, because that's a bit beyond my capabilities right now."
"Just the features, not-" Lie reassured me.
"All the other bits. We like those," Truth nodded.
Staring at them, they both just smiled. I shrugged, as it wasn't that hard to combine them, and then shift the ratios back and forth a little, Lie giving me directions, until, just like the others, Truth no longer looked like Herb in the slightest. His build was much slimmer, to the point of complete androgyny, but, unlike Smith, he was short. Not Mick short, but smaller, about 5'7", though not compact either. He was the exact same size as Lie now, and, now that I looked at it, the exact same build, and, under the heavy fur, the same features.
. . . I suppose when he pointed at his Stand, that's what he meant.
"So, any plans?" I asked. "Nick's gone PR for the PD, Smith's around, trying to seduce Kayden I think, Tyrone is, ironically, serving as a bit of a guard dog topside, and I'm not sure where the others are, or what they're doing. Mick and Curtis are probably killing people, but I'm not sure about Mike and Boojack. . ."
The Replicant and his Stand exchanged an amused look, before both turning my way. "Haven't seen-" Truth started.
"Rune lately, have you?" Lie finished.
"Nope," I replied, unamused. "And, if this were anywhere close to where we came from, I'd not hesitate to call the cops. Now," I shrugged, "They seem to deserve each other, and as long as its consensual, I've got more important shit to do."
Lie looked at my breakfast. "Oh yeah, that looks-"
"Waaaaaaay more important," Truth observed.
"I'm also not the only one who knows, and no one seems to care. Or are you telling me that you're going to go do something about it?" I observed, seeing the same shape of 'you're the only one who's responsible for fixing the world' as I got from Taylor yesterday.
The two men shook their head in unison. "Okay-"
"Hero," the other finished.
I took a sip of coffee. The caffeine did nothing for me, but I was just used to the taste at this point, the effect psychosomatic instead of chemical. "You gonna answer my question, or you gonna be a waste of space like your eldest brother?"
It was amusing, they both winced in unison. "You feeling alright-" Truth started to ask.
Lie picked up the sentence, "Lee? Kinda expected something, you-"
"know, more ardent?" Truth finished.
I took another sip of coffee. "You have a point, I'll address it. But you know Herb, and I've talked to him about this. Make a point, I'll address it, but your words has no weight on thierown. Now, Answer. The. Question."
"Don't really have a plan," Lie offered. "Figured we'd-"
"Go prowl a bit. Might help your little bro," Truth suggested. "Might help-"
"Cauldron, if that's alright with you?" Lie offered.
I looked between them. "Don't see why it wouldn't be. Try to get paid in Vials. At least half."
Truth perked up. "Then that's working? Prime didn't-"
"Know about that," Lie completed. "Just kept dumping-"
"Them off with Oversight," Truth revealed.
Reaching inside one of the drawers, I grabbed one of the trash-tier Vials I'd attuned the day before, tossing it at Truth. On its side, in raised metal, it stated:
Vertigo
+Vertigo Shaker Effect
+Personal Gravity shifting, ~3G
+Basic Brute
-User Loses Equilibrium
-User Minor Leg Muscle Atrophication
-User Teeth Clarification
Truth glanced up. "Teeth Clarification?" he asked, tossing it to the Stand, who caught it, reading the printed metal letters.
I shrugged. "They're still bone, just. . . clear. No idea why. A lot are like that, trying to shift maximum benefit for minor tradeoffs. If you could get a couple Vials from their special reserve, I'd appreciate it, but these ones work pretty well, and I'm able to cancel out some of the negatives with secondary powers. I could've made it so that the vertigo effect could paralyze an entire city, but not only is that just not useful, it'd make the power automatically stay on, cause severe muscle atrophication, and have some hardcore mental effects."
Lie nodded, holding up the Vial. "You mind?"
"Take it," I shrugged. "I'd be immune to it, and it's more a mass-pacification power than anything." Not to mention, if I had to take down a large group, I'd just deploy Dryads, who I could be sure would do their jobs, since they were me.
There was a long moment, before Truth prodded, "Do you have-"
"Any suggestions on where to start?" Lie questioned.
Not used to the Replicants asking me, I thought about it. "Not particularly. Either work for Cauldron, so we have another man on the inside, or Æonic to better help scout the city. Or Both. Déjà's power'll work on you, so you could do both. Just leave contact info with Quinn in case something comes up. Hmm, and if you decide to clear out anomalies, make sure to bring dead creatures back to Panacea, so she can figure them out."
That brought a wide feline smile to both their faces, Truth shifting to match Lie's furred form. "You want us to-"
"Leave dead animals on her-"
"Doorstop? Yeah. Yeah I think-"
"We can do that."
<AB>
With the newest Replicant off to do. . . whatever, it was fairly easy to settle back into the patterns of work and management. Most people were taking the day off, which was technically against their contracts, but I sent a message off to Quinn to ask him, if possible, to both overlook it and give everyone another day off or two as well. Some projects were time sensitive, but, from what I could tell, productivity always took a hit after an Endbringer fight, so this might help.
Checking the news, everyone was talking about 'The Angel', and a quick search of my own name showed the latest news story was from the newest part of an ongoing series revolving around the reconstruction of 'New Brockton Bay' from a week ago. Letting out a not solely metaphorical breath of relief, I felt some of the lingering tension bleed out of me.
I'd hoped that no one would trace 'Raguel' to me, but with everything that was out there, and the thousands of Parahumans in America alone, there was a chance that someone would've gotten something. That said, with the protections I had, which seemed to extend past Pre- and Post-cog, messing up parahumans like Tattletale, I might be fine. More than that, if someone did get something, my experience with the Thinker told me that that didn't mean what they'd get was correct.
However, there was no way to know. If something happened today, Aeonic should warn me, and if something happened within the next eight hours, I hoped my father would. As such, rather than be paralyzed in fear, or overreact and certainly draw attention, it was back to business as usual. Making Toybox's next shipment of metals took twenty minutes, Flamel was still working his way through the GISS corpse, and, according to Vicky, who I found practicing swordsmanship with Mouse, the Wards had been called in on an emergency meeting, one she'd been informed she wasn't to tag along with.
That was. . . a little worrying, but a quick message to my brother told me that they hadn't seen anything coming in the next 24 hours or so. That wasn't a guarantee, but he'd started staggering his Precog's efforts so that, while a bulk of his people got tomorrow's memories at once, a couple more saw tomorrow every couple hours, to prevent any hard gaps in his coverage. I didn't even need to suggest it, which was nice, and provided better cover.
However, it was something he'd started doing today, a fact he only informed me of when I asked directly which was. . . like him. My brother wasn't one to volunteer information unless it got him something, and had a definite infernal 'You didn't ask' tendency for anything that made him look bad. He'd say he wouldn't lie, he'd claim (ignoring the fact that he absolutely would lie and just pretend he hadn't said the falsehood if called on it) that you just didn't ask, and he didn't know that's what you wanted to know. 'Why didn't you say so?' after all.
His refusal to help against Simurgh wasn't the first sign that we had. . . differing moral values, it was just I thought we'd had that much in common. For something like the fight against Scion, I knew he'd help, since he was personally effected if the Earth was destroyed, but. . . as he was now? He wouldn't last three seconds against the Golden God.
I wouldn't do much better, mind you, and my victory against the Simurgh was only due to the incredibly poor matchup between us. While I'd do better against Leviathan the next time he surfaced, now that my powers had grown and making me able to fight the saturated speedster on something like an even-ish level, winning? Not on my own. Not yet. However. . . that would eventually change.
Closing my eyes, I checked the Sea of Flame that raged inside me, a representation of my core power. Time had passed, and my abilities had continued to grow, though that growth had. . . slowed. However, I had options available to me that I'd ignored in exchange for improving my current set of abilities. I had five open slots for powers that I hadn't filled, focusing on other things, but also while I'd had a problem that I'd been struggling with, or, more realistically, ignoring.
Namely, my main restriction on my power choices? That of not copying the power of heroes? Of limiting myself to those that abused their powers, to take them and use them better?
It no longer wrang true.
No, I thought, I wasn't wrong. Actual heroes could be relied upon, could be trusted to do what was right instead of easy. But. . . this world didn't have heroes. Cauldron made sure of that. Those that had the potential were 'managed', by the twin puppetmistresses of Fortuna and the Simurgh, so that things never got better.
After sleeping, the deluge of information Ziz had tried share with me had. . . settled? Part of me had worried that I'd made a mistake there, had opened myself to being Ziz'd by talking with her, but the message wasn't tailored to me. If it had been, I would've only seen how that faux-angel would help things, see her as misunderstood, with bad methods for good aims, like Cauldron, but, unlike Cauldron, able to be convinced to go a different way.
And, well, there was a bit of that, but the Simurgh wasn't moral. Getting obedience out of it seemed possible, but I was under no illusions that the Endbringer could work against me in an instant without warning. For it to understand why what it was doing was wrong would be the work of years, if not more, if it was even possible at all. However, the Simurgh wasn't some broken bird, trapped by circumstance, looking for a glowing knight to set her free. She knew what she was doing, and had no problem with it.
She was being forced to do what Scion wanted, but, left to her own devices, she'd still probably keep doing what she was doing, just in a different fashion. My ability to destroy her was what led to her obedience, but, well, a single conversation, odd as it was, was not enough to take the tenor of an inhuman entity's personality.
No, the Simurgh hadn't just given me what she wanted me to do, trying to give me tasks that I'd be comfortable doing, she'd given me everything. My mind had latched on the best ones at first, but quite a few things she was going to set into place would make things worse. Leviathan and Behemoth turned up the metaphorical temperature, while the Simurgh had a chilling effect, but that had to do with worldwide tension, not progress. If she could, she'd destroy New Brockton Bay, not because it was a blindspot but because it was working too well. It was shifting things too quickly and destabilizing long-standing societal structures by its very existence, turning up tension with the new possibilities it created, the exact opposite of what it wanted.
The reason she hadn't gone there was the fact that it was a Blindspot to her senses, and, given she was only able to interact with the world on a large scale a few times a year, it wouldn't be. . . economical.
Hmm, got a bit more than possibilities, didn't I? I mused. It wasn't a thought implanted, merely a general. . . outline to the knock-on effect she'd wanted to create, a number of them causing problems in my territory to try to keep us busy, not that she knew that I was the Vejovis she'd seen fourth and fifth hand, through the futures of others.
I shook my head, focusing on what was important. I had a number of problems that needed to be addressed, but I also had a vague sense of the deadlines I was working under, and nothing too bad would start to pop off for several weeks, giving the world enough time to think the effects were only the small problems they'd seen.
Names were slippery things, just not how the Simurgh thought, but I had enough to start to work things out, and, ironically, my doing so shouldn't even be remarked upon. I'd known too many things, pulled to many facts out of the ether, for having a new set of directives to be considered odd by anyone in the PD, except maybe Herb.
Wait, no, he'd not actually finished reading Worm, had he? There was no reason to tell him, that this information didn't come from that source. I was hiding things from him, but, by this point, turnabout was more than fair play.
Regardless, I had time, and I'd been putting off my powers for too long. In a way, it was me own trying to hold to my old reasons, my old excuses, even as I knew they no longer applied. Some of the people who's powers I could implement right now probably were actual heroes, only hobbled, but. . . at this point, any deference I once felt for them just wasn't there anymore. Even Legend, held up as the paragon of heroism, wasn't such that I'd keep myself from copying his power.
And now, I could. Because while four of the open slots were Minor, one was Major.
As of now, I had ten options for that singular slot. Personal Electromagnetic Control was Manpower's ability, and the fact it was a Major power, but he was a minor player, spoke volumes. Gravity Control's owner was likely one of the fighters during the battle against Leviathan, but, given its status, it was likely very useful. Absolute Territory was Legend's, and, while powerful, was flashy as all hell, and easily recognizable. It would be useful, but not worth the headache.
Similarly, Ash Control was almost certainly Cinereal's, but I didn't know if it'd give me the ashy phoenix's pseudo immortality. The power was distinctive, but was it worth it to have a way to come back from the dead? Metal Manipulation was another one from an unknown user, and I wondered exactly how powerful it was, to warrant its status as a Major power. Short-Range Teleportation was in the same vein, from an unknown user, and seemingly overvalued for what it would cost me, which meant that I was likely underestimating it as well.
Adaptational Replication was. . . I honestly had no idea. It seemed familiar, really familiar, but. . . for the life of me I couldn't remember why. What even was 'adaptational replication'? Was I replicating myself, or something else? How did 'replication' adapt? Could I make things, but tweak the copies that I made to make them better? Something at the back of my mind, however, looked at that power with unease and. . .
I paused, breaking from my thoughts. Was I. . . crying?
Not a lot, but enough that I had to blink my eyes clear, and was just left even more confused.
Okay, let's just not pick that one, I decided, once more falling inward into myself to look at my powers, and turned to regard the others.
There were the three Major powers, but all three of them were still locked to me, immovable in the starry sky above the Burning Sea of my Infinite Shardworks, for reasons I didn't understand. Planar Body was from an unknown parahuman, and, with a name that vague, I had no idea what it did. Sub-Plane Creation was Labyrinth's and, not being insane, was probably insanely useful.
And then there was the last one. The one that seemed larger than even the other Major powers.
LOCK
I didn't know what it did, but it seemed. . . important somehow. Almost vital. From that moniker I understood 'safety', 'hidden', and 'mine', but I couldn't figure out how, or what that even meant. I supposed it was for the best that it was locked, because I found myself reaching for it without thinking.
But those were the ones that'd fallen into my lap. The ones that I'd stumbled upon, or sought out in Brockton Bay. Now, though, the Bay was. . . if not stable, then better than when I found it, destroyed building, anomalies, and all. And, in an instant, I could teleport back home if need be. However, leaving the Bay was now something I needed to be very careful of. While I'd sneaked away before, Cauldron hadn't given me their ultimatum, Quarantining me here. It was possible that I could get out, but I would need to be supremely careful.
And I would need to leave. Some of the things the Simurgh had shown me needed to be addressed, and while I could send others out to handle some of them, like Herb, Curtis, Truth, and maybe some of the less powerful members of the PD, some needed a skillset, and a powerset, that they did not have.
Then again, I thought, taking out an unaligned vial, one whose mix was poor and was more likely to kill the user than produce anything useful, made before Cauldron understood how to properly stabilize them, I don't have to leave the Bay to find new Parahumans, do I?
- Location
- Here
Hoo boy! Time for some super power upgrades! This is always my favorite part of these stories, the synergies! The new areas of exploration, the science!
Yeah for a story where the focus is power manipulation, I really expect this to be a larger portion of it!
Maybe he'll extend some of his other powers, or dedicate his major power to a new focus and have the minor ones supporting it!?
Choices! All the choices!
All right, never mind. Nine choices!
Six choices! A lot of really cool stuff could be there with those six choices!
... We're about to be cliffhanger aren't we?
... Yep.
- Location
- Wonderland
Isn't that the monster hive he had big trouble with? Feels like it.
the 'was me own' I think is a typo
"This is real because it's not convincing, so I'll let myself be convinced by it" is contradictory.
- Location
- Toronto
I think you're mixing up 'appealing' with 'convincing'. Lee believes the information is trustworthy (or 'real' to use your word, though you can absolutely manipulate with real facts by simply presenting them in a biased way) because a trap would be designed to seem as appealing as possible, and thus guide Lee's thinking down a specific course. Meanwhile, being convincing doesn't necessarily mean that you like what's being said. There are a lot of ugly truths out there which are not pleasant to accept, but are still irrefutable for all their lack of appeal.
What the Simurgh shared was deemed too wide in scope to be an attempt to influence him - both in volume of data, and variety (showing both paths that are horrific and harmful, and one which are sympathetic but ugly necessities). He knows that the Simurgh can't predict him and play at her usual 7 Dimensional chess against him, so she's limited to traditional forms of manipulation, which this lacks any signs of - so it should be safe to treat as accurate intel.
Seizure 18.6
- Location
- United States of America
Seizure 18.6
Walking the paths of possibility in each vial wasn't physically hard, but it was mentally draining. The entire thing was a balancing act, trying to maximize power while minimizing harm. Theoretically, I could focus solely on the power gained, force it on someone I'd normally just kill, copy the power while they struggled to come to terms with the drawbacks, and eliminate them, leaving me with the new, optimized, power, but. . . that would be a step too far. If someone had done something bad enough for me to kill them, I killed them. I didn't play with them, didn't torture them, they were eliminated and I moved on.
To harvest them like that. . . it was too close to what Cauldron would do. No, it was more than that, it was what the Entities did, even if I was being more moral than they, as I would only do so to the guilty, instead of the traumatized, and I had no plans on destroying Earth. If things went to hell and Golden Mourning was kicked off, then. . . I would do it, but while I had no problems taking the powers of the so called 'heroes' of this world, that was a step too far with things going as well as they were.
As such it was a balancing act, some Vials more innately powerful than others, but all required some kind of drawback to function at anything close to peak potential. Technically I could make powers without drawbacks, but they were inevitable weaker, lacking the stronger expressions that slight mutations could grant, even if it was something as simple as a change of eye color, a restructured circulatory system, tweaked vocal chords, or slight changes in skin texture. Heck, half of the drawbacks were additional benefits to better use the powers, the circulatory system helping offset the real drawback of a power that chilled the users body as they used their ice abilities, or the vocal chords letting someone use their sonic scream for longer without damage.
There was also the fact that I outright refused to walk down any path that would result in any kind of mental contamination. It would be much easier to make powers that way, I was sure, but these weren't fire-and-forget items, my only goal gaining experimental data, or powers of my own. No, these would eventually go to someone, hopefully someone I could trust, and someone that'd work with me. Would giving nyctophobia to the person who's power could create fire get them to use it more? Absolutely! Would I do so to increase the yields of their blasts by twenty percent? Absolutely not!
And the fact that the ability to change a person's mind like that, or give them megalomania, or the inability to feel boredom, or multiple personalities, were options at my fingertips was terrifying, and made me move carefully, lest I accidentally gave someone somniphobia or something.
Though, it was getting easier to attune the Vials with every one completed, every path walked giving me a greater sense of how the entire system worked, though I couldn't put it into words. I finished up a Shaker/Thinker vial that let one know the odds of an action happening around them, while also able to change the probability by seventeen percent in either direction. . . somehow. However, in turn it also changed their eyes to crystal icosahedrons, though they could still see normally. Without the mutation, they could only get a general sense of the odds, and the inflow of information would almost be overwhelming, but with it the power would help categorize everything for them, and, most of all, would let them stop the feed by closing their eyes, though they could still access it with their eyes closed if they wished.
The fact that I had to specify things like that, things that, if they weren't present, might drive someone mad, was telling.
As always, the base mechanisms of the power escaped me, only giving a top-down view of the ability, unsure of the specifics, only that it 'worked'. If I was able to have the power used against me, I'd probably be able to copy it, in the same way I'd copied Regent's 'invisible' power.
What ever happened to Alec? I wondered. From my brother's lackluster report, it seemed like he and Rachel had been moved by Coil before he tried to 'liquidate' Tattletale, Grue, and possibly Lady Bug, the last of whom had been trying, with some success, to flip the first two onto my side.
Aisha, now living with her brother in my brother's base, had been happy to give me as full a report as she could, but her extreme ADHD, memory problems, and other lingering effects of her mother's drug use combined with her lack of training made her reports vague, at best.
Coil was in Boston. He was working with Accord. He knew how to get around her power with cameras. And he said he owned the apartment building Alec was staying in. That was it. Honestly, while I would like nothing more to set up a plan and cut the head off of that snake, not only was I stuck in Brockton Bay, but he just wasn't that much of a threat right now.
From the fact that Alexandria hadn't broke down my door, it was obvious that Cauldron couldn't track my leaving New Brockton Bay to save them all, something I didn't know when I'd left for Washington DC, but to take down Coil I couldn't just put on a silly hat and kick his door in with a new powerset, I'd need a large portion of the Penumbral Defenders to help cover all angles, and that would bring Cauldron down on our heads like the IRS on Al Capone.
Growing the label in raised metal, I put it away, next to the others, and leaned back, taking a break before starting the next one, when the phone chimed and Overwatch's voice asked, "Vejovis?"
"Yeah?" I asked right back. "There a problem?"
A burst of static erupted mid-air, forming into Quinn, in his Overwatch costume, really just a themed business suit and facemask. "Not now, however your debrief after the last endbringer attack was. . . brief, and events have progressed such that they warrant an update."
I blinked, having already moved on from the fight. It'd happened, I'd gained some intel, and now it was back to normal. "They're still talking about that?"
From the lawyer's expression, what I said was so stupid that it momentarily took him aback. "Yes. You could say that."
Holding out a hand, a screen appeared in mid-air, projected by something in his circuitry-covered glove. News story after news story flashed by, talking about 'The Angel', who it was, what it might be, why it hadn't shown up before, etc. That was replaced by clips of various news anchors, all discussing the same thing.
As they were playing, the door opened, Taylor peeking her head in, and walking inside as I watched more and more people talking about last night, about what the 'defeating of the Hopekiller' meant, and so on. It was amusing to see the PRT being grilled about how woefully underprepared they were, something that hadn't happened after Leviathan, and about their decision to hold back after the shield went up. Alexandria, in her civilian disguise, lied like a rug to justify 'her' decision, rather than admit it was a mistake, or that the Simurgh had somehow hacked their communication network.
As they wrapped up, Quinn looked at me flatly, as he commented drolly, "Yes. They're still talking about it. In fact it seems that the discussion is only intensifying. I invited Ms. Bug here to talk about what your next move will be. She should provide a perspective on how others will take your actions." Since you have no clue went unsaid, but not unheard, but wasn't exactly incorrect.
"The Simurgh's been driven off before," I argued. "Losses were higher than normal, though much less if you count civilian deaths." With the way the Simurgh's presence was treated as a 'you're already dead' field if you stayed in it long enough, civilian 'losses', either through death or quarantine, were always high when she arrived. Ironically, after the wave of deaths when Behemoth first broke the surface, the 'Herokiller' was the one of the three that killed the smallest number of people.
"Yes," Quinn admitted, "But it is normally forced away through the combined efforts of everyone involved. Not by an Angel of the LORD coming down from on high. That has been causing some. . . rather extreme actions on the parts of others."
That got my attention. "Anything involving the Bay?" I demanded, sitting up. I hadn't expected it to blow-back on us, but trying to predict the world was difficult, and, lacking the kind of advanced predictive modeling that powers gave, nearly impossible. If anything was going to happen in the next twenty-four hours I'd be warned, but Quinn, not being reliant on powers to make his predictions, had a much longer view.
However, the man shook his head. "Not specifically. If anything, people have forgotten about us, with the enormity of what's happened. You must understand-"
He paused as the door opened again, revealing Herb, carrying two cups of coffee. The man stopping in surprise as he looked at the three of us, and the holographic screen. "I brought coffee!" he offered, walking in and closing the door behind himself. "You were busy with," his eyes darted to Quinn and Taylor, "Stuff, so I thought you'd like some."
He walked over to me, handing me the drink, and, dropping himself into the other chair, looked at the paused newscast. "Oh, we talkin' bout you slappin' 'round Simmy?"
"We are," Quinn nodded. "The most obvious effect is Haven rising to prominence on the national scale. They're a Christian team that operates throughout the South, about one-tenth the size of the Protectorate, though that's likely to change soon," he warned.
"I've heard of them," Taylor added, "But isn't more heroes joining up a good thing?"
Herb winced. "If the Protect' were heroes, yeah, but they ain't. They're," he nodded to me, "Just the biggest gang, and gang's don't like it when other gangs show up on their turf."
"They have to look like they're good, but that's true of a lot of gangs. There's a reason they mostly start as neighborhood protection groups, usually from other gangs, or just because Law Enforcement refuses to do their jobs," I added. "They can go bad, and usually do, but a lot of them do help out the people in their territory even after that point, and so the people cover for them, not just out of fear of retaliation, if they don't."
Overwatch nodded. "While an unfortunate comparison, given some of their actions I have been made aware of, that is not inaccurate. It might be closer to say that the Protectorate are ultimately a governmental organization, and those tend to dislike non-governmental bodies infringing their area of responsibility, their 'territory' if you will. Following the law, they would be constrained, but this is a case of 'who watches the watchman?'" He sighed, "Not something I expected in America, but, at least in the short term, that will take pressure off of us."
My vizier turned to me. "However, there have been some concerns among the Penumbral Defenders." I shot him a questioning look, as Herb nodded in agreement. "To them, you seemed to walk out, make a few calls, and brought in an Endbringer class threat to stop an Endbringer class threat. They are worried about who else you have access to, and why you have not brought them in earlier. The restriction on fighters from Brockton Bay wouldn't apply to. . ."
"Raguel," I supplied. "Tell them I did him a favor, and to push his power that far severely screwed him up. Or don't say anything at all. Actually, point out that my standing policy of not ordering people to do things they don't want to means that, while I've made powerful contacts, I can't order them to act."
"But how'd ya do it?" Herb asked eagerly, leaning forward, as if I'd whisper the secret.
I took a minute to See the Aura's of everyone involved. Looking for the distinctive cracks, everyone was who they appeared to be. Satisfied, I grew out a pair of metallic orichalcum wings, infusing them with Light, and increasing my density to achieve the effect. Holding it for a moment, I let the Light dissipate, returned my density to normal, and retracted the metal. "Anything else?"
"Church attendance has spiked," Quinn explained, without comment on my display. "New Rome has declared that, while they believe the Angel is a servant of God, the Catholic Church did not call him, nor could they in the future, only pray to God for guidance. They have maintained that the reason that their country has been untouched is the protection of God, though Arabia claims the same thing."
"New Rome?" I echoed.
That got me a confused look. "Yes, New Rome. After Naples was attacked, the newest Pope, Metatron the first, led a theocratic revolution, dissolving the Italian government within a year and founding 'New Rome'. He is almost certainly a Master, but after the destruction of North Korea, national matters are national."
I held up a hand, "Assume I've been living under a rock. North Korea's gone?"
Quinn frowned, then looked to Herb, who was equally as confused, and brought up several news stories. "North Korea attacked South Korea two weeks after Leviathan attacked Busan in nineteen ninety-seven, gaining territory before a new demilitarized zone was established. They were told not to do so again. They did so again in nineteen ninety-nine, when Leviathan attacked Japan and the world was distracted. No one is sure what happened, but the entire country of North Korea disappeared, to about two thousand feet below the ground, as if dug out of the ground and taken somewhere. The North Korean soldiers who had invaded South Korea surrendered, but they had no idea what happened. Given the nature of North Korean society, this was not unexpected."
The man paused, turning to look to Herb. "It was a mystery, however, given your part time employers, Break, could it have been them?"
"Could be," the black man shrugged. "They don't tell me that much. Seems kinda big for 'em, though. If they had somethin' that could do that, they prolly woulda used it on an Endbringer by now."
"So we've got a Para-Pope, but he's not claiming to have done it. Okay," I stated, getting us back on track. "And Herb's right, if Cauldron had a trump card like that, they would've used it." If only to stop Khonsu. "What else?"
"The issue of why you didn't call this 'Raguel' sooner," Quinn stated, starting to say something else but Taylor interrupted.
"Why did you wait? To let those people die, when you could've. . ." she trailed off.
"When I could've what, Taylor?" I asked archly, having made my point about this issue, at length, but it seemed to not have stuck.
"When you could've saved those heroes!" the teenage girl demanded.
My expression settled into unamused annoyance. "One. Not heroes. Two. I was told not to fight on pain of death. Three. I didn't know it would go that well. And four? I only stepped in when everyone would've died, loosing half their number like they did? That's on them. What part of this have I not already told you?"
"Just because you said it before doesn't make it right-" she started to argue, but stopped, as Herb held up a hand.
He looked to Taylor, then at me. "You did this dance before?"
"Yes," I stressed. "As I said then, Legend himself told me not to come, so I didn't. To her, that puts me on the level of my brother, who refused to come when I asked for his help, and Cauldron, because we both 'kill people to get what we want', or something equally stupid," I informed him, trying not to sneer.
"Because you are," the teen insisted, as Quinn sighed.
Herb gave me an indecipherable look, before he turned to Taylor. "He's being a dick, but he's not wrong, and you're bein' kind of a bitch."
"I'm what?" she demanded, offended.
"You're bein' kind of a bitch," he repeated. "LB, I'm on this team 'cause I believe in Lee, but I work for Cauldron. They ain't the same. Not savin' someone from their own dumbassery ain't killin' 'em because they're blockin' Contessa's view. Or kidnappin' people to experiment on. Or because they'll do something later on and it's easier to kill 'em than talk to 'em. Or killing people because they've figured out too much and are gonna go public. Hell, they'd probably have tried to hire me to kill you guys if they could see what we're doing. What was I sayin'? Oh, right, yeah, lots of killin', and not like Lee at all, which is why, as soon as we can get away with it I'll be killin' them too!"
"And you work for them?" Taylor demanded, scandalized.
"Until we can kill 'em, yeah," Herb nodded in agreement, happy she understood.
"Why?"
It was Quinn who interceded. "Because, and correct me if I'm wrong, they would do what they were doing regardless, and this way we can position ourselves in a way to stop them."
"Yeah, what he said," the Cauldron double-agent smiled. "Everytime I drop by their Thinker, I out Thinker her so she's Thinkering the way I want her to Thinker 'cept she thinks she's Thinkering me to think she's not Thinkering me at all, or for me to think to let her think for me 'cause she's a Thinker and she thinks I'm not a Thinker, cause I've out Thinkered her so much!"
I followed that, but the other two weren't quite so used to Herb-speak, so it took them a moment, the lawyer getting through it first, which made sense. "You are referring to their Precog? The one who is a Thinker 12, if she were assigned a rating?"
"Yep!" Her grinned. "'Cept 'round her I'm lucky thirteen!"
"Thirteen is an unlucky number, Herb," I had to point out, which just caused him to smile wider.
"It is for them!" he crowed, before his smile slowly dropped. "So, yeah. You sayin' he's like them? Kinda bitch move, LB. Like, I know he messes up a lot, but Lee means well. He's just kind of a dick 'bout it if you don't talk all fancy-like. Or yell at him. Or call him evil."
"I," Taylor paused, glancing my way. "I wasn't calling you evil!"
"Yes, you were," I disagreed, not angrily, but also not willing to budge on this. "You said I was as bad as Cauldron. Cauldron is evil, in a 'road to hell' kind of way. Therefore, you called me evil. Lying about it now isn't going to help."
"I, I didn't mean to call you that. Just. . ." she trailed off.
I lifted an eyebrow, "What you meant doesn't matter, just as what I meant doesn't seem to. What matters is-"
Herb held up a forestalling hand, and I considered continuing, but if she wouldn't listen to me, maybe she'd listen to him.
"Like I said, bit of a dick when you call him shit he ain't," Herb shrugged. "Can't really blame him, but it's the same reason I trust 'em. Dude's got no give on the shit that matters. Your pissed that he let heroes die, right?"
Taylor opened her mouth to respond, but closed it, nodding instead.
"You think he ain't? And don't say somethin' like 'then he shoulda stopped it', cause that's not how this works. If he could bitch-slap everyone to hell and back, sure, but while his pimp hand be strong, it ain't that strong, and he doesn't want to lose anyone if he can, right?" Herb asked, looking to me, and I nodded.
"If I may?" Quinn requested, and Taylor turned to face him. "Not stepping in until the losses were catastrophic is something that you will find that both Break and I, as well as many others, would support Vejovis on, if they knew the full context. Most of those who would back your statement that, regardless of the consequences, you must do the right thing, have likely never suffered consequences. In law, I might know that a person has committed a crime, and should, by the law, be charged with it, but if I cannot prove it, nothing is done, and justice is not served. It is often better to charge one with a lesser crime, one that can be proven, instead. The punishment will be lesser, but they will still be punished."
"And what does that have to do with this? We can't punish Cauldron so we're punishing heroes?" she demanded, but without anger, just frustration.
Quinn shook his head. "No, only that what you want to do isn't possible, so it is often best to prioritize what you can do. Vejovis, if you could destroy the Endbringers today, without risking the lives of others, would you?"
"If it was the only way to stop them from killing people, yes," I replied without hesitation. "I'd prefer if I could find some way to make them stop, as I'm fairly certain they're intelligent but controlled by Scion, but if I had to, I would." Unfortunately, it wasn't so easy as killing Eidolon, Mastering him, or maybe just getting him into some goddamn therapy. I'd Seen his power, and Scion's words to him, about Eidolon being responsible for the Endbringers because 'he needed worthy opponents' hadn't been a revelation of truth.
No, the Warrior, the Entity with over a Billion powers, had found an obstacle he couldn't just golden beam to death, so he'd used a Thinker power, like Tattletale's, and destroyed his opponent psychologically instead. And it worked. I didn't remember the last few arcs clearly, but I was fairly certain he was killed shortly after, then collected by Glaistig Uaine.
No, from what I could tell something else was controlling the Endbringers. Maybe it was the Warrior. Maybe they were following orders from the Thinker, before she got killed by Fortuna. Maybe it was an internal mechanism. Maybe they just were brainwashed, or the equivalent.
In the end, it didn't matter.
"And if half the heroes in the world have to die to make that happen?" Quinn inquired.
"If they volunteered to fight, then yes. It's better than everyone dying, and they knew that going in. If I forced them to fight?" I glanced towards Taylor. "I'd do everything I could to avoid it, and I'd look like hell for an alternate option, but yes. Because if we don't then everyone dies. In that, Cauldron and I agree, the only difference is they've found an option and stopped looking for better ones. And because of that they will fail."
"Whether they will this time, or not, is not the point," the lawyer redirected. "The point is that not saving someone does not mean you are responsible for their deaths, unless it was your duty to protect them. Duty, to be clear, does not mean it is the right thing to do, it means that you are responsible for their protection," he clarified, as the teen started to object. "It means that you are receiving something in return for taking on that responsibility. What did Vejovis receive in return for protecting every hero in an Endbringer confrontation?" Quinn asked, sounding honestly interested in her answer.
Taylor, looking at him, worked her lip, finally answering, "It's not about being paid."
"Legally it is, and my specialty is Parahuman Law," he replied. "Otherwise every member of the Protectorate, if they saw a crime being committed when they were out of costume, would be held responsible for not stopping it. Furthermore, they are paid to stop crime. It would be equivalent of you being held responsible for every crime that happens within the radius of your power. That by, not doing anything, you could be sent to jail."
"But then people would know who I was!" Taylor argued. "They'd be able to figure it out by. . . this is different!" she stated, realizing the problem in her argument, but not willing to admit it.
"In scale, yes, in law, no," Quinn disagreed. "The Endbringer Truce does exist, but unofficially. There is no formal law preventing wanted villains from being arrested the second the fighting ends, or even during the fighting. Furthermore, resisting arrest is unlawful, so the PRT could come and arrest you, right now, if they had a warrant, no matter how fraudulently issued. From there, you would be taken into holding, as Vejovis was, and who knows what would happen to you there. Legally, they should be punished if they break the law, but, unfortunately, we have seen how that turns out with Vejovis."
Herb nodded gravely, "If you were a small timer, or playin' by the rules, nuthin'd prolly happen. But you're with the high-rollers now. Shit's different, and not in a good way. That's why they come for us, we come for them. That's why Legend came to talk to Lee 'bout not coming personally, 'stead of some mook."
"And to bring us back to our original point, we are now powerful enough that our actions are enough to shake the foundations of society. New Brockton Bay was doing so already, but 'Raguel' was a shock to the system, and the system very much does not like shocks." Quinn turned to me. "Are you planning any more?"
I nodded. "Yes. Tonight."
That got all three to turn and look at me. "Dude, the question was rhetorical," Herb prompted.
"It's something that I've been putting off, but I'm running out of time," I told them. "Overwatch, are my suns well known?" I questioned, holding out a hand and creating a blood-red star. He shook his head. "Good. Hopefully this won't make more than a few news stories, compared to Angelic Intervention."
"Can you at least give me a warning?" Quinn sighed.
I nodded. "It's quite simple. Regicide."
Walking the paths of possibility in each vial wasn't physically hard, but it was mentally draining. The entire thing was a balancing act, trying to maximize power while minimizing harm. Theoretically, I could focus solely on the power gained, force it on someone I'd normally just kill, copy the power while they struggled to come to terms with the drawbacks, and eliminate them, leaving me with the new, optimized, power, but. . . that would be a step too far. If someone had done something bad enough for me to kill them, I killed them. I didn't play with them, didn't torture them, they were eliminated and I moved on.
To harvest them like that. . . it was too close to what Cauldron would do. No, it was more than that, it was what the Entities did, even if I was being more moral than they, as I would only do so to the guilty, instead of the traumatized, and I had no plans on destroying Earth. If things went to hell and Golden Mourning was kicked off, then. . . I would do it, but while I had no problems taking the powers of the so called 'heroes' of this world, that was a step too far with things going as well as they were.
As such it was a balancing act, some Vials more innately powerful than others, but all required some kind of drawback to function at anything close to peak potential. Technically I could make powers without drawbacks, but they were inevitable weaker, lacking the stronger expressions that slight mutations could grant, even if it was something as simple as a change of eye color, a restructured circulatory system, tweaked vocal chords, or slight changes in skin texture. Heck, half of the drawbacks were additional benefits to better use the powers, the circulatory system helping offset the real drawback of a power that chilled the users body as they used their ice abilities, or the vocal chords letting someone use their sonic scream for longer without damage.
There was also the fact that I outright refused to walk down any path that would result in any kind of mental contamination. It would be much easier to make powers that way, I was sure, but these weren't fire-and-forget items, my only goal gaining experimental data, or powers of my own. No, these would eventually go to someone, hopefully someone I could trust, and someone that'd work with me. Would giving nyctophobia to the person who's power could create fire get them to use it more? Absolutely! Would I do so to increase the yields of their blasts by twenty percent? Absolutely not!
And the fact that the ability to change a person's mind like that, or give them megalomania, or the inability to feel boredom, or multiple personalities, were options at my fingertips was terrifying, and made me move carefully, lest I accidentally gave someone somniphobia or something.
Though, it was getting easier to attune the Vials with every one completed, every path walked giving me a greater sense of how the entire system worked, though I couldn't put it into words. I finished up a Shaker/Thinker vial that let one know the odds of an action happening around them, while also able to change the probability by seventeen percent in either direction. . . somehow. However, in turn it also changed their eyes to crystal icosahedrons, though they could still see normally. Without the mutation, they could only get a general sense of the odds, and the inflow of information would almost be overwhelming, but with it the power would help categorize everything for them, and, most of all, would let them stop the feed by closing their eyes, though they could still access it with their eyes closed if they wished.
The fact that I had to specify things like that, things that, if they weren't present, might drive someone mad, was telling.
As always, the base mechanisms of the power escaped me, only giving a top-down view of the ability, unsure of the specifics, only that it 'worked'. If I was able to have the power used against me, I'd probably be able to copy it, in the same way I'd copied Regent's 'invisible' power.
What ever happened to Alec? I wondered. From my brother's lackluster report, it seemed like he and Rachel had been moved by Coil before he tried to 'liquidate' Tattletale, Grue, and possibly Lady Bug, the last of whom had been trying, with some success, to flip the first two onto my side.
Aisha, now living with her brother in my brother's base, had been happy to give me as full a report as she could, but her extreme ADHD, memory problems, and other lingering effects of her mother's drug use combined with her lack of training made her reports vague, at best.
Coil was in Boston. He was working with Accord. He knew how to get around her power with cameras. And he said he owned the apartment building Alec was staying in. That was it. Honestly, while I would like nothing more to set up a plan and cut the head off of that snake, not only was I stuck in Brockton Bay, but he just wasn't that much of a threat right now.
From the fact that Alexandria hadn't broke down my door, it was obvious that Cauldron couldn't track my leaving New Brockton Bay to save them all, something I didn't know when I'd left for Washington DC, but to take down Coil I couldn't just put on a silly hat and kick his door in with a new powerset, I'd need a large portion of the Penumbral Defenders to help cover all angles, and that would bring Cauldron down on our heads like the IRS on Al Capone.
Growing the label in raised metal, I put it away, next to the others, and leaned back, taking a break before starting the next one, when the phone chimed and Overwatch's voice asked, "Vejovis?"
"Yeah?" I asked right back. "There a problem?"
A burst of static erupted mid-air, forming into Quinn, in his Overwatch costume, really just a themed business suit and facemask. "Not now, however your debrief after the last endbringer attack was. . . brief, and events have progressed such that they warrant an update."
I blinked, having already moved on from the fight. It'd happened, I'd gained some intel, and now it was back to normal. "They're still talking about that?"
From the lawyer's expression, what I said was so stupid that it momentarily took him aback. "Yes. You could say that."
Holding out a hand, a screen appeared in mid-air, projected by something in his circuitry-covered glove. News story after news story flashed by, talking about 'The Angel', who it was, what it might be, why it hadn't shown up before, etc. That was replaced by clips of various news anchors, all discussing the same thing.
As they were playing, the door opened, Taylor peeking her head in, and walking inside as I watched more and more people talking about last night, about what the 'defeating of the Hopekiller' meant, and so on. It was amusing to see the PRT being grilled about how woefully underprepared they were, something that hadn't happened after Leviathan, and about their decision to hold back after the shield went up. Alexandria, in her civilian disguise, lied like a rug to justify 'her' decision, rather than admit it was a mistake, or that the Simurgh had somehow hacked their communication network.
As they wrapped up, Quinn looked at me flatly, as he commented drolly, "Yes. They're still talking about it. In fact it seems that the discussion is only intensifying. I invited Ms. Bug here to talk about what your next move will be. She should provide a perspective on how others will take your actions." Since you have no clue went unsaid, but not unheard, but wasn't exactly incorrect.
"The Simurgh's been driven off before," I argued. "Losses were higher than normal, though much less if you count civilian deaths." With the way the Simurgh's presence was treated as a 'you're already dead' field if you stayed in it long enough, civilian 'losses', either through death or quarantine, were always high when she arrived. Ironically, after the wave of deaths when Behemoth first broke the surface, the 'Herokiller' was the one of the three that killed the smallest number of people.
"Yes," Quinn admitted, "But it is normally forced away through the combined efforts of everyone involved. Not by an Angel of the LORD coming down from on high. That has been causing some. . . rather extreme actions on the parts of others."
That got my attention. "Anything involving the Bay?" I demanded, sitting up. I hadn't expected it to blow-back on us, but trying to predict the world was difficult, and, lacking the kind of advanced predictive modeling that powers gave, nearly impossible. If anything was going to happen in the next twenty-four hours I'd be warned, but Quinn, not being reliant on powers to make his predictions, had a much longer view.
However, the man shook his head. "Not specifically. If anything, people have forgotten about us, with the enormity of what's happened. You must understand-"
He paused as the door opened again, revealing Herb, carrying two cups of coffee. The man stopping in surprise as he looked at the three of us, and the holographic screen. "I brought coffee!" he offered, walking in and closing the door behind himself. "You were busy with," his eyes darted to Quinn and Taylor, "Stuff, so I thought you'd like some."
He walked over to me, handing me the drink, and, dropping himself into the other chair, looked at the paused newscast. "Oh, we talkin' bout you slappin' 'round Simmy?"
"We are," Quinn nodded. "The most obvious effect is Haven rising to prominence on the national scale. They're a Christian team that operates throughout the South, about one-tenth the size of the Protectorate, though that's likely to change soon," he warned.
"I've heard of them," Taylor added, "But isn't more heroes joining up a good thing?"
Herb winced. "If the Protect' were heroes, yeah, but they ain't. They're," he nodded to me, "Just the biggest gang, and gang's don't like it when other gangs show up on their turf."
"They have to look like they're good, but that's true of a lot of gangs. There's a reason they mostly start as neighborhood protection groups, usually from other gangs, or just because Law Enforcement refuses to do their jobs," I added. "They can go bad, and usually do, but a lot of them do help out the people in their territory even after that point, and so the people cover for them, not just out of fear of retaliation, if they don't."
Overwatch nodded. "While an unfortunate comparison, given some of their actions I have been made aware of, that is not inaccurate. It might be closer to say that the Protectorate are ultimately a governmental organization, and those tend to dislike non-governmental bodies infringing their area of responsibility, their 'territory' if you will. Following the law, they would be constrained, but this is a case of 'who watches the watchman?'" He sighed, "Not something I expected in America, but, at least in the short term, that will take pressure off of us."
My vizier turned to me. "However, there have been some concerns among the Penumbral Defenders." I shot him a questioning look, as Herb nodded in agreement. "To them, you seemed to walk out, make a few calls, and brought in an Endbringer class threat to stop an Endbringer class threat. They are worried about who else you have access to, and why you have not brought them in earlier. The restriction on fighters from Brockton Bay wouldn't apply to. . ."
"Raguel," I supplied. "Tell them I did him a favor, and to push his power that far severely screwed him up. Or don't say anything at all. Actually, point out that my standing policy of not ordering people to do things they don't want to means that, while I've made powerful contacts, I can't order them to act."
"But how'd ya do it?" Herb asked eagerly, leaning forward, as if I'd whisper the secret.
I took a minute to See the Aura's of everyone involved. Looking for the distinctive cracks, everyone was who they appeared to be. Satisfied, I grew out a pair of metallic orichalcum wings, infusing them with Light, and increasing my density to achieve the effect. Holding it for a moment, I let the Light dissipate, returned my density to normal, and retracted the metal. "Anything else?"
"Church attendance has spiked," Quinn explained, without comment on my display. "New Rome has declared that, while they believe the Angel is a servant of God, the Catholic Church did not call him, nor could they in the future, only pray to God for guidance. They have maintained that the reason that their country has been untouched is the protection of God, though Arabia claims the same thing."
"New Rome?" I echoed.
That got me a confused look. "Yes, New Rome. After Naples was attacked, the newest Pope, Metatron the first, led a theocratic revolution, dissolving the Italian government within a year and founding 'New Rome'. He is almost certainly a Master, but after the destruction of North Korea, national matters are national."
I held up a hand, "Assume I've been living under a rock. North Korea's gone?"
Quinn frowned, then looked to Herb, who was equally as confused, and brought up several news stories. "North Korea attacked South Korea two weeks after Leviathan attacked Busan in nineteen ninety-seven, gaining territory before a new demilitarized zone was established. They were told not to do so again. They did so again in nineteen ninety-nine, when Leviathan attacked Japan and the world was distracted. No one is sure what happened, but the entire country of North Korea disappeared, to about two thousand feet below the ground, as if dug out of the ground and taken somewhere. The North Korean soldiers who had invaded South Korea surrendered, but they had no idea what happened. Given the nature of North Korean society, this was not unexpected."
The man paused, turning to look to Herb. "It was a mystery, however, given your part time employers, Break, could it have been them?"
"Could be," the black man shrugged. "They don't tell me that much. Seems kinda big for 'em, though. If they had somethin' that could do that, they prolly woulda used it on an Endbringer by now."
"So we've got a Para-Pope, but he's not claiming to have done it. Okay," I stated, getting us back on track. "And Herb's right, if Cauldron had a trump card like that, they would've used it." If only to stop Khonsu. "What else?"
"The issue of why you didn't call this 'Raguel' sooner," Quinn stated, starting to say something else but Taylor interrupted.
"Why did you wait? To let those people die, when you could've. . ." she trailed off.
"When I could've what, Taylor?" I asked archly, having made my point about this issue, at length, but it seemed to not have stuck.
"When you could've saved those heroes!" the teenage girl demanded.
My expression settled into unamused annoyance. "One. Not heroes. Two. I was told not to fight on pain of death. Three. I didn't know it would go that well. And four? I only stepped in when everyone would've died, loosing half their number like they did? That's on them. What part of this have I not already told you?"
"Just because you said it before doesn't make it right-" she started to argue, but stopped, as Herb held up a hand.
He looked to Taylor, then at me. "You did this dance before?"
"Yes," I stressed. "As I said then, Legend himself told me not to come, so I didn't. To her, that puts me on the level of my brother, who refused to come when I asked for his help, and Cauldron, because we both 'kill people to get what we want', or something equally stupid," I informed him, trying not to sneer.
"Because you are," the teen insisted, as Quinn sighed.
Herb gave me an indecipherable look, before he turned to Taylor. "He's being a dick, but he's not wrong, and you're bein' kind of a bitch."
"I'm what?" she demanded, offended.
"You're bein' kind of a bitch," he repeated. "LB, I'm on this team 'cause I believe in Lee, but I work for Cauldron. They ain't the same. Not savin' someone from their own dumbassery ain't killin' 'em because they're blockin' Contessa's view. Or kidnappin' people to experiment on. Or because they'll do something later on and it's easier to kill 'em than talk to 'em. Or killing people because they've figured out too much and are gonna go public. Hell, they'd probably have tried to hire me to kill you guys if they could see what we're doing. What was I sayin'? Oh, right, yeah, lots of killin', and not like Lee at all, which is why, as soon as we can get away with it I'll be killin' them too!"
"And you work for them?" Taylor demanded, scandalized.
"Until we can kill 'em, yeah," Herb nodded in agreement, happy she understood.
"Why?"
It was Quinn who interceded. "Because, and correct me if I'm wrong, they would do what they were doing regardless, and this way we can position ourselves in a way to stop them."
"Yeah, what he said," the Cauldron double-agent smiled. "Everytime I drop by their Thinker, I out Thinker her so she's Thinkering the way I want her to Thinker 'cept she thinks she's Thinkering me to think she's not Thinkering me at all, or for me to think to let her think for me 'cause she's a Thinker and she thinks I'm not a Thinker, cause I've out Thinkered her so much!"
I followed that, but the other two weren't quite so used to Herb-speak, so it took them a moment, the lawyer getting through it first, which made sense. "You are referring to their Precog? The one who is a Thinker 12, if she were assigned a rating?"
"Yep!" Her grinned. "'Cept 'round her I'm lucky thirteen!"
"Thirteen is an unlucky number, Herb," I had to point out, which just caused him to smile wider.
"It is for them!" he crowed, before his smile slowly dropped. "So, yeah. You sayin' he's like them? Kinda bitch move, LB. Like, I know he messes up a lot, but Lee means well. He's just kind of a dick 'bout it if you don't talk all fancy-like. Or yell at him. Or call him evil."
"I," Taylor paused, glancing my way. "I wasn't calling you evil!"
"Yes, you were," I disagreed, not angrily, but also not willing to budge on this. "You said I was as bad as Cauldron. Cauldron is evil, in a 'road to hell' kind of way. Therefore, you called me evil. Lying about it now isn't going to help."
"I, I didn't mean to call you that. Just. . ." she trailed off.
I lifted an eyebrow, "What you meant doesn't matter, just as what I meant doesn't seem to. What matters is-"
Herb held up a forestalling hand, and I considered continuing, but if she wouldn't listen to me, maybe she'd listen to him.
"Like I said, bit of a dick when you call him shit he ain't," Herb shrugged. "Can't really blame him, but it's the same reason I trust 'em. Dude's got no give on the shit that matters. Your pissed that he let heroes die, right?"
Taylor opened her mouth to respond, but closed it, nodding instead.
"You think he ain't? And don't say somethin' like 'then he shoulda stopped it', cause that's not how this works. If he could bitch-slap everyone to hell and back, sure, but while his pimp hand be strong, it ain't that strong, and he doesn't want to lose anyone if he can, right?" Herb asked, looking to me, and I nodded.
"If I may?" Quinn requested, and Taylor turned to face him. "Not stepping in until the losses were catastrophic is something that you will find that both Break and I, as well as many others, would support Vejovis on, if they knew the full context. Most of those who would back your statement that, regardless of the consequences, you must do the right thing, have likely never suffered consequences. In law, I might know that a person has committed a crime, and should, by the law, be charged with it, but if I cannot prove it, nothing is done, and justice is not served. It is often better to charge one with a lesser crime, one that can be proven, instead. The punishment will be lesser, but they will still be punished."
"And what does that have to do with this? We can't punish Cauldron so we're punishing heroes?" she demanded, but without anger, just frustration.
Quinn shook his head. "No, only that what you want to do isn't possible, so it is often best to prioritize what you can do. Vejovis, if you could destroy the Endbringers today, without risking the lives of others, would you?"
"If it was the only way to stop them from killing people, yes," I replied without hesitation. "I'd prefer if I could find some way to make them stop, as I'm fairly certain they're intelligent but controlled by Scion, but if I had to, I would." Unfortunately, it wasn't so easy as killing Eidolon, Mastering him, or maybe just getting him into some goddamn therapy. I'd Seen his power, and Scion's words to him, about Eidolon being responsible for the Endbringers because 'he needed worthy opponents' hadn't been a revelation of truth.
No, the Warrior, the Entity with over a Billion powers, had found an obstacle he couldn't just golden beam to death, so he'd used a Thinker power, like Tattletale's, and destroyed his opponent psychologically instead. And it worked. I didn't remember the last few arcs clearly, but I was fairly certain he was killed shortly after, then collected by Glaistig Uaine.
No, from what I could tell something else was controlling the Endbringers. Maybe it was the Warrior. Maybe they were following orders from the Thinker, before she got killed by Fortuna. Maybe it was an internal mechanism. Maybe they just were brainwashed, or the equivalent.
In the end, it didn't matter.
"And if half the heroes in the world have to die to make that happen?" Quinn inquired.
"If they volunteered to fight, then yes. It's better than everyone dying, and they knew that going in. If I forced them to fight?" I glanced towards Taylor. "I'd do everything I could to avoid it, and I'd look like hell for an alternate option, but yes. Because if we don't then everyone dies. In that, Cauldron and I agree, the only difference is they've found an option and stopped looking for better ones. And because of that they will fail."
"Whether they will this time, or not, is not the point," the lawyer redirected. "The point is that not saving someone does not mean you are responsible for their deaths, unless it was your duty to protect them. Duty, to be clear, does not mean it is the right thing to do, it means that you are responsible for their protection," he clarified, as the teen started to object. "It means that you are receiving something in return for taking on that responsibility. What did Vejovis receive in return for protecting every hero in an Endbringer confrontation?" Quinn asked, sounding honestly interested in her answer.
Taylor, looking at him, worked her lip, finally answering, "It's not about being paid."
"Legally it is, and my specialty is Parahuman Law," he replied. "Otherwise every member of the Protectorate, if they saw a crime being committed when they were out of costume, would be held responsible for not stopping it. Furthermore, they are paid to stop crime. It would be equivalent of you being held responsible for every crime that happens within the radius of your power. That by, not doing anything, you could be sent to jail."
"But then people would know who I was!" Taylor argued. "They'd be able to figure it out by. . . this is different!" she stated, realizing the problem in her argument, but not willing to admit it.
"In scale, yes, in law, no," Quinn disagreed. "The Endbringer Truce does exist, but unofficially. There is no formal law preventing wanted villains from being arrested the second the fighting ends, or even during the fighting. Furthermore, resisting arrest is unlawful, so the PRT could come and arrest you, right now, if they had a warrant, no matter how fraudulently issued. From there, you would be taken into holding, as Vejovis was, and who knows what would happen to you there. Legally, they should be punished if they break the law, but, unfortunately, we have seen how that turns out with Vejovis."
Herb nodded gravely, "If you were a small timer, or playin' by the rules, nuthin'd prolly happen. But you're with the high-rollers now. Shit's different, and not in a good way. That's why they come for us, we come for them. That's why Legend came to talk to Lee 'bout not coming personally, 'stead of some mook."
"And to bring us back to our original point, we are now powerful enough that our actions are enough to shake the foundations of society. New Brockton Bay was doing so already, but 'Raguel' was a shock to the system, and the system very much does not like shocks." Quinn turned to me. "Are you planning any more?"
I nodded. "Yes. Tonight."
That got all three to turn and look at me. "Dude, the question was rhetorical," Herb prompted.
"It's something that I've been putting off, but I'm running out of time," I told them. "Overwatch, are my suns well known?" I questioned, holding out a hand and creating a blood-red star. He shook his head. "Good. Hopefully this won't make more than a few news stories, compared to Angelic Intervention."
"Can you at least give me a warning?" Quinn sighed.
I nodded. "It's quite simple. Regicide."
He's going to kill Nilbog isn't he?
- Location
- Here
Are you going to kill all royalty or is there an actual God damn Target!?
Because I'll be honest here this sounds like a plan Herb would make.
Pethrai Darkos
Murder Ensued
Gold Morning. What you write may be descriptive of it but it's not what it's called.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I may be losing track but I'm pretty sure the Goblin King (Nilbog) is going to get euthanized. By sunshine.
assuming that's all that there is to the plan rather than him playing his cards close to his chest
inevitably
You're pissed
- Location
- Toronto
Seems likely - Ciara is the only other individual I can think of with a royalty theme or name attached to them, and I don't know any good reason Lee would want to take her on, or that Sundancer's power would be terribly useful against her. Meanwhile atomic fire is a pretty solid method of clearing out Ellisburg.
- Location
- Auckland
Unless Nilbog has made a version of the Andromeda Strain.....
- Status