Alteran Alternatives v2.0; Stargate Atlantis/Worm crossover
by Pyrion (much thanks to Robo Jesus for editing & putting up with my shit. Also, for the Funky Jazz Beats)
1.02
Walking at a normal pace to the Boardwalk while wearing Emma's form ended up telling me quite a lot about my former best friend. For one, as much as Emma thought of herself as fashion model material, I hadn't attracted anything in the way of lewd stares, catcalls, or anything else despite cutting a path through ABB territory to get here. It briefly made me wonder how much of her purported modeling career was due to her looks as opposed to her dad's influence.
Another thing that occurred to me was how much in the way of Brockton Bay's night-life Emma must've been missing out on. If she ever came down here, nobody seemed to recognize her, a stark contrast from just about everywhere else we used to visit together. Sure, the Boardwalk was a tourist trap, but that didn't mean locals didn't frequent the place either.
The only possible explanation was that word had gotten around that the police were out in force searching for someone, so the troublemakers were laying low. And yes, there were a few times I got looks from officers in passing police cruisers, but since I wasn't who they were looking for, and I wasn't otherwise in trouble, they had better things to do with their time. Gangs were leaving them alone, and vice-versa.
So it was with a shrug of disappointment that I walked right into the tourist trap at the height of the early evening without so much as an attempted mugging. I had no money, granted, but I couldn't help but look. Yeah, "tourist trap" is right, maybe another reason Emma avoided this place is that everything was overpriced. Though I couldn't imagine her being hard up for money.
After wasting what felt like a good hour or two looking through shop windows at things I'd likely never afford, or want to buy for that matter, and generally doing my utmost to appear lost, out of place, helpless and alone, still nothing of consequence occurred. Maybe coming here wasn't such a good idea, in retrospect; but hey, first day as a cape, what would I know?
Only after I started walking back home, again straight through ABB territory, something interesting finally happened. Hasty footfalls at the edge of my peripheral sense, approximately two city blocks ahead and slightly to my right, heading left. I quickened my walking pace, eminently aware that as my luck would have it, this was probably nothing. Were it the footfalls alone, I'd have written it off, but something else pinged and got my attention as "odd" and thus worth investigating - a single individual, seemingly
teleporting across adjoining rooftops, heading in the same direction as the aforementioned footfalls.
Their source came into view: two teenage boys, probably no older than me, running as if their lives dependent on it, knocking over trash cans, pushing bystanders into walls or out into the street if they didn't move out of the way fast enough. The lone individual on the rooftops briefly materialized at the edge of a roof, and I instantly recognized her. Shadow Stalker, a Ward probably best known for being a lone wolf. She disappeared once more, although a streak of darkness briefly illuminated by a street lamp gave her intentions away - the two teenagers suddenly found their heads smashing into Shadow Stalker's raised arms, and while the guy on the left mostly managed to deflect the blow, his buddy went straight down, groaning loudly and clutching his head.
Shadow Stalker flexed her arms and shook her head, before raising a crossbow to shoot the fleeing, disoriented teen in the back. I blinked a few times, my mind briefly seizing up on processing this as the bolt flew through air - here was a Ward, using a decidedly lethal weapon on someone whose only apparent crime was
running away? I focused my attention on the guy, sighing with a bit of relief in that he was still alive and breathing, albeit unconscious. Tranquilizer bolts, then.
My sense of relief only took a new nosedive when Shadow Stalker proceeded to kick the guy closer to her repeatedly in the chest and head, despite the fact that he was, at that point, no threat to anyone. Then I heard her laugh, and start taunting the kid.
"What the hell were you thinking, you stupid shit? Running from me?!" Another round of kicks, and the guy was now bleeding profusely from a nasty cut on his head. As much as I was shocked that a hero was mercilessly assaulting someone who couldn't fight back, my mind seized up once again with a much more pressing realization:
I know that voice.
Fuck me sideways. Shadow Stalker is Sophia Hess?!
I stopped dead in my tracks and stared, unable to wrap my head around this. In that moment, every childhood dream, every remembered bit of overpriced cape merchandise, all the idolization of heroes, the anticipation of becoming one when I got my powers, my entire world-view at that point took a nosedive at the speed of sound and cratered within my mind.
How the hell could I explain this to dad? 'Sorry dad, but the heroes are a bunch of frauds?' I couldn't join the Wards, or it'd just be more of the same, only with soulless bureaucrats ordering me to put my life in the hands of the one person most responsible for me having powers in the first place.
Sudden movement in my peripheral sense again, and suddenly Shadow Stalker went from lording her superiority over an unconscious and seriously-wounded kid to yanking me by my arms into an adjacent alleyway.
"Emma?"
I blinked, and the nightmare got worse.
No...
"Emma? What the hell are you doing all the way out here at this time of night?!" She grabbed me by the shoulders and jolted me out of my shock, and in that brief moment it all crystallized in my mind - I was still wearing Emma's form.
"Sophia?" I answered lamely.
She chuckled. "Uhh,
yeah. No-one else wears this costume last time I checked. You alright? Having second thoughts about earlier? Buck up, even if your chewtoy breaks, I'm sure we can find new prey for you to sink your teeth into."
Much as I wanted to gut her right then and there, I reigned in my simmering anger, channeling it into doing my best Emma impression.
"No, I just had to get out of the house and away from Dad. He heard what happened to Taylor and started asking questions."
Shadow Stalker shook her head. "And so you walked halfway across town, straight through ABB territory, and there's not so much as a scratch on you? Heh, I was right about you, survivor."
'Survivor?' There's something I'm missing here...
"Anyway, I gotta bag these shits and call this in." Shadow Stalker turned around to look at her 'handiwork,' "You picked a great time to branch out, survivor, cops are out in full force over something and
most of these stupid fuckers are keeping their heads down. I'm actually kinda disappointed. Still, unless you're trying to get yourself powers, and that never works, this town gets ugly at night, cops or no cops. Get home before daddy starts to worry, I'll call you when I'm done here."
I nodded mutely, almost painfully aware that I had probably done the lamest impression of my former best friend. Sophia seemed to buy it, though - she turned back to shadow, dashed across the street and reformed, giving the unconscious kid a final swift kick in the ribs. With her back turned to me, I gritted my teeth and shifted invisible, ducking into an adjacent alleyway.
An errant thought hit me just then: what kind of a hero was I, that I'd abandoned those two guys to further abuse on Shadow Stalker's part?
A shitty one, right? If Shadow Stalker was the new benchmark, I'd probably fit right in. The thought brought me no comfort.
-----
"Control, Shadow Stalker. Finally got 'em. Idiots had to fight back, so send an ambulance."
"It's about time. Aegis is calling a meeting, something's got Piggy more pissed than usual." She rolled her eyes at that. "Whatever it is, PRT's acting like a kicked hornet's nest, BBPD's involved."
"Whatever, if they're involved, I'll hitch a ride back with them. Stalker out."
Sophia shrugged, shifted to shadow and then leapt to a perch on the nearest rooftop. She still had a few minutes to kill before the cops would show up, and she didn't feel like dashing all the way back to the PRT building for whatever bug the Director got up her ass this time. Something else nagged at her though... Emma? What the hell was she doing all the way out here anyway? She pocketed her PRT phone, dug out her personal phone and started typing a text message.
how far r u from home?
Emma: wut? been home all day, y?
The fuck?
not funny, u saw wat i did 2 thos shits
Emma: srsly, home all day, u smokin grass?
prove it
Half a minute later, she did. A pic in response, Emma at home sitting on her bed with an annoyed look on her face, flipping the bird at the camera. Sophia's eyes bugged out in realization, her heart racing as it hit her just how much she may have fucked up.
shit, think sum capes r fukin wit me, saw u out here by brdwalk, u actd funny
Emma: obv wasnt me
yet u recogd my voice
'If that wasn't Emma,' Sophia thought, 'it was someone who knows me and...' The final horror dawned on her. She knew what it took to get powers, and the coincidence was all too likely: Taylor had to have triggered, and if she was walking around looking like Emma, then she triggered as a fucking changer.
we may have fukd up hrd
Emma: we?
taylor mite hav pwrs
Emma: shit, how bad
changer, lookd n spok like u
It fit too well, Emma had acted far too shocked at the non-revelation that she was Shadow Stalker, since she had known for years. Sophia eyed a police van and ambulance approaching from the southwest, and shook her head and pocketed the phone, before shifting to shadow and leaping like her life depended on it back towards the PRT building. 'If this meeting is what I think it is, I am so fucked' was all she could think about.
-----
Armsmaster sighed in annoyance as the missing kid's father introduced himself and offered his right hand.
"Don't mind him, he's... not a people person." Piggot glared at him briefly, only to be offered a shrug in response, to which she only rolled her eyes. She gestured to her left, "Mister Hebert, Detective Jay Stanton, Brockton Bay Police." The two nodded and shook hands. "Please, sit."
"Mister Hebert, as I told you on the phone earlier, your daughter's been involved in an incident at school that we believe resulted in her gaining parahuman powers. Are you aware of or have heard anything about 'trigger events?'" He shook his head. "Alright, in layman's terms, parahuman powers are dormant until a particularly traumatic event in their lives causes these powers to manifest. We call these events 'triggers,' and between the incident itself and its immediate aftermath, we have good reason to believe your daughter triggered late this morning, about fifteen minutes before lunch break at Winslow."
"You keep calling it an 'incident,' what the hell happened to her?"
Piggot glanced to her left. "Detective?"
He took a deep breath. "Someone, or possibly a group of someones, filled your daughter's school locker with used tampons, presumably after school the previous day, or early in the morning. Your daughter was shoved into and locked inside her locker for a period of approximately four hours." Danny's face began to redden as he clenched his fists in anger, tears beginning to run down his cheeks.
"In that time, judging from the damage to the inside of the locker, she struggled to escape, or at least call for help, but nobody helped. At eleven-forty in the morning, the school administration called the police, with initial reports of an explosion in a student's locker. Winslow High was placed in lockdown, a SWAT team cleared the hallways and found no explosives, so the bomb squad that had been called out proved unnecessary. The SWAT team reported extensive damage to the locker, particularly its door, and on further investigation we found considerable amounts of fingerprints both inside the locker, and on both sides of the locker door, including prints on the lock itself. Before you ask, we have no initial suspects, and it's going to take at least a few days to process the prints."
Danny sighed. "By no initial suspects, you mean nobody's come forward as a witness, right?"
"Correct, and for Winslow's student body, it's not surprising. Most of those kids are gang members, some even openly carry weapons onto the premises, and the school's main concern is preventing fights from breaking out. According to them, your daughter's only really notable due to her excessive truancy--"
"Truancy?! What?" Danny shook his head. "That makes no sense, she'd always tell me school was going fine, and I've never gotten calls from the administration that suggested otherwise."
Detective Stanton nodded. "It's the only thing that makes your daughter particularly memorable as far as the administration is concerned. It's likely she's been on the receiving end of a bullying campaign for a while, hence the excessive truancy. Bullied kids tend to fall into one of two categories: either they fight back, in which case the parents and school administration find out about it quickly, or they keep it bottled up and don't tell anybody, in which case nobody hears about it until something major, like this, happens."
"It also explains the powers we believe your daughter now possesses," Piggot interjected. "Parahuman powers tend to follow a theme related to whatever traumatic event causes their powers to awaken in the first place. We've initially classified your daughter as a 'Brute-Stranger,' 'Brute' meaning enhanced strength, 'Stranger' meaning invisibility or the like. Powerful enough to escape, and then remain hidden."
"Officially, this is being treated as a felony aggravated assault case. Your daughter going and remaining missing has, consequently, put the department on alert. Now we don't know for certain if she actually has triggered, but the evidence fits that assumption, hence the PRT's involvement." Jay shrugged. "It's just as well, really. More people looking for your daughter, and they know how to handle parahumans in such a way that nobody ends up seriously injured or killed."
Piggot nodded. "Our involvement here is twofold. One, finding your daughter and ensuring her safety, up to and including getting her medical attention if necessary. Two, if both she and you accept, we'd offer her a place in the Wards." Danny glanced up at her, half-puzzled and half-incensed. She brought both hands up in a calming gesture. "Mister Hebert, I'm sorry to have to bring it up, it's a requirement of my job, unfortunately. The problem with parahuman triggers is that, statistically, most of them happen in childhood, and of those that gain powers, they're three times more likely to become villains rather than heroes. I know what you're thinking of saying, your daughter would never do that, unfortunately, the statistics disagree with you and most parents of parahumans. Hence our early involvement, the sooner we find her, the lower the chances she turns toward villainy, particularly if she feels she has no other choice. The other problem, more specific to this case, is that this is about as public a trigger can get without anyone having actually witnessed it. That's not going to stop people from coming to that conclusion. We're not going to be the only people looking for your daughter, and the others that will don't have you or your daughter's best interests at heart."
Armsmaster's helmet communicator beeped, and he sighed in audible relief. "I gotta take this, excuse me Director." He stepped out quickly, not wanting to be present one more second than necessary.
"Colin."
He smiled, faintly. "Dragon. Something I can do for you?"
"Yes, actually. Go down to the Boardwalk branch of the Brockton Bay Public Library, I'll explain on the way."
He stepped into a secure elevator, and jabbed the button for the garage sub-level. "This related to our missing teen case?"
"It might be, it might not. Either way, it's considerably more serious, and concerns one of your Wards."
He stepped out onto the secured garage floor, and marched to his motorcycle. "Who?"
"Shadow Stalker. Her identity is compromised."
He slammed to a halt, and sighed. "Why am I not surprised?"
"I can't answer that, Colin."
He straddled the bike, fired up the engine and sped out. "I know. Still, why the library?"
"Someone performed a rapid series of searches on Parahumans Online, totaling less than three minutes of activity. On its own, aside from the volume of information accessed, none of it is notable. One search was flagged high enough that it got my attention, though. The search string was 'Sophia Hess.'"
"On Parahumans Online?" He blew through a red light, unconcerned. "The forum, or the wiki?"
"Both, at nearly the same time. No results, obviously, but somebody out there knows Sophia is a cape. Coincidentally, the first searches performed by this individual were on Shadow Stalker."
"What else?"
"Let's see..." she paused for several seconds, "major and minor villains of Brockton Bay, profiles on every Ward and Protectorate cape, some information on the Endbringers, usual stuff. Aside from that one search, nothing stands out, aside from the long delay between those searches, and the search that was flagged." Another pause. "You there yet?"
He nodded, more to himself. "Parking lot."
To Armsmaster's complete lack of surprise, the library was devoid of activity and visitors, only a sole librarian at a desk manning the place. She did a double-take at his entrance, and stood nervously. "Is... there something I can help you with?"
A curt nod in response. "Not half an hour ago, someone used a computer terminal at this branch."
A statement, not a question. The librarian tilted her head to the right slightly, and then nodded. "Yeah, teenage girl, tall, thin, dark hair with curls. She's here frequently, so I didn't think anything of it."
Armsmaster squinted in thought, even as Dragon piped in from the open comm channel, "That sounds like your missing teen, Colin." He pulled out his PRT-issued smartphone, tapped it twice and showed it to the librarian. "Is this her?"
"Yeah, that's her. Is she in trouble?"
He frowned. "Possibly," then turned around and glanced at the ceiling. "You have security cameras. I'll need access to their footage."
The librarian nodded and shrugged. "Right, fine, this way." She led him up a flight of stairs and into a cramped office. "It's all here, call if you need me."
"Colin," Dragon chimed in, sounding amused to herself at the sound of him sitting and typing at the terminal, "it would be nice if I could see what you're seeing."
He paused, sighed, and tapped a hidden control on the side of his helmet. "Yes, better! Thank you."
Half a minute of silence, aside from the occasional tapping of keys. "There, exterior camera aimed at the entrance." Armsmaster frowned. "That's not her. Hair's wrong, different clothes, slightly shorter."
"Colin, roll the camera back a few seconds." More tapping. "There, pause it. See that, right at the edge of the camera?"
He squinted and leaned in. "What the hell? Her body's... silver?"
"Step the frames forward. Yes, see that, her whole body comes into focus as silver very briefly and then everything shifts. Step it forward more. More. Whoa, stop, looks like some kind of cascading energy wave? Step it forward, slowly."
"Covers her from head to toe, but doesn't appear to do anything."
"She leaves the coverage of the camera here, switch to the entrance. Now, normal playback."
Armsmaster leaned back in the chair in thought. "She turns left and heads straight to the women's restroom. Why?"
Dragon chuckled over the line. "Maybe she needs to go?" He rolled his eyes in response to her joke. "More seriously, and for obvious reasons, there aren't any cameras there. Alright, she disappears out of view. Keep playing." Dead silence for a few seconds. "Seventeen seconds from when she disappears to when your missing girl reappears... Huh. Colin, you noticing this?"
"Hmm?" He leaned in once more.
"She's walking with the same stride, same intent. Even the annoyed look on her face is the same. Colin, I think your missing girl's a changer."
It took him a moment to process this, and then nod. "Shit."
"Yeah. She's a damn good one too, if she can change forms on-the-fly in such a short amount of time. Okay, she goes straight to a computer, facing this camera. Is there one from an opposite perspective?"
He switched through camera feeds, finally settling on one behind and to the girl's right.
"There, yes. Now, she fires up the browser and... wow, she's a fast typist. Loads Parahumans Online, loads multiple tabs for the search page... Colin, how fast do you type, out of curiosity?"
"Eighty-five words per minute. Why?"
"I've seen you type, and it's nowhere near this fast. She has to be doing over two hundred easily. Maybe even two-fifty."
He frowned. "That's relevant how?"
A sigh on the other end. "Now look at how fast she's reading, if she's reading at all. She skims the first page, then... huh. Why the delay and the shake of the head?"
"First time? She's had her powers less than a day." He took a deep breath.
"She then goes back to it, only even faster now. No surprise on her face, just... it's almost like she's archiving all of this for later. Wow, she's not even using the scroll wheel anymore, she's just holding page-down. Superhuman reading comprehension on top of a way-beyond-normal typing speed? Your missing girl might be a mid-level thinker as well."
Silence on his end, content to let Dragon make all the observations. "Colin, I just did a facial recognition database search on the other girl. She's another Winslow High student, name of 'Emma Barnes.' I think there might be a connection here, both between her and our changer here, and her with Shadow Stalker."
He blinked in surprise and comprehension, some of the pieces starting to fit together. "Explain."
"All three of them are the same age, same grade level, at the same school. Notable that Sophia's the only Ward at Winslow, and the administration is on file as being aware of her status as a parahuman. Emma Barnes is listed as the younger of two daughters of an 'Alan Barnes'... huh. He shows up, flagged, in the PRT database as the attorney representing Sophia at her probation hearings. Doing a search on Mister Barnes, however, his listed occupation is 'divorce attorney.' Colin, what's a divorce attorney doing representing a parahuman minor at a criminal probationary hearing?"
He squinted in thought once more. "Favor for a friend, probably." He blinked, "but that would mean--"
"Emma Barnes has been aware of Sophia Hess' status as a parahuman for a long time. Colin, I have a hunch here."
"So do I, but let's hear yours first."
"Alright. All three of these girls attend the same high school, Emma and Sophia are obviously long-time friends. Taylor is the odd-one out here. Now, something dreadful happens to Taylor in school today, she gets her powers from it, she's a changer on top of everything else, and maybe she realizes people are looking for her. So she picks a disguise that she's familiar enough with, but won't attract the kind of attention that she would, at least from the police, PRT forces, et-cetera. It still attracts attention, though, and maybe that's intentional on her part. If Taylor Hebert wasn't previously aware of Sophia Hess being Shadow Stalker, how does she find out, and why is it relevant to her?"
"Hold that thought, Dragon, I think I know the answer, let me just confirm it. I'll call you back."
He tapped his smartphone a few times, placing another call. "Aegis, Armsmaster. Who's running control for the patrols today? Okay." More taps, another call. "Vista, Armsmaster. Has Shadow Stalker ended her patrol yet? She has? Where? Confirm that, the Boardwalk, and she called in late? Understood." A shake of the head, while muttering "damn that girl," before returning Dragon's call.
"Dragon, got a possible answer for you. Shadow Stalker completed her evening patrol outside of the Boardwalk district, but she called in ten minutes late."
"Ten minutes is more than enough time to talk with a friend."
Armsmaster nodded, gritting his teeth in growing anger. "Except that 'friend' is our missing girl in disguise."
"Yes, so she beelines straight to the library, changes back to her normal form, and starts doing all the research she can on Shadow Stalker, among other topics. She looks pissed off too. So what's the connection there?"
"Her trigger event." Armsmaster finishes, shaking his head. "Shadow Stalker is somehow connected to Taylor Hebert's trigger event."
-----
So, my first night out as a cape wasn't a total bust. No fights, although I had to restrain the urge to
start one upon learning that Sophia was Shadow Stalker. Research at the library taught me another useful aspect of my power: I could read and type a hell of a lot faster than normal, and any information taken in could be fully recalled with an errant thought. On this front, at least, I felt like I was only skimming the surface of what I could really do, but experimenting in a well-lit public place, even one as devoid of activity as a public library? Not ideal. I'd probably learn far more about my power in far less time if I joined the Wards, but... no. Not with Sophia there.
Going home and confronting Dad was at the top of my mind, only because I didn't really know what else to do. I had no place else to stay for the night, although curiously I was neither tired nor hungry - two feelings I probably wouldn't miss in retrospect. He'd want to call the PRT to confirm my safe arrival home, and then I'd have to confront them with what I know. Absolute best-case? Sophia gets thrown in juvie, Emma and Madison as well, and I become a superhero. Fat chance, right? More than likely outcome? The PRT covers for Sophia's crap, she remains a Ward,
maybe they transfer her to a different city if I'm lucky, Emma and Madison get away with it, and I end up having to take orders from the same people that likely allowed Sophia to use me as a fucking punching bag for two years.
I sighed loudly to myself. If nothing else, this train of thought gave me ample ideas for arguments to use on Dad if he'd try to convince me to join the Wards, and I'm sure he'd try. Telling him "No, I don't want to be a Ward" or "no, I can't be a Ward" would break his heart, but there was no going back with that conversation not taking place.
Fucking PRT.
With the Boardwalk closing down for the night and nothing else even remotely interesting happening here, I shrugged, and started walking home, now fully aware that Sophia had been right about one thing: Brockton Bay does get ugly at night. The looks I attracted in Emma's form, by and large, now held barely-constrained malevolence, mixed with the stench of several varieties of fermented plant byproducts.
Booze, I corrected myself. Wait, what? Shaking my head, I focused more on practical matters, like my surroundings.
If I had a heart, the beating kind at least, I'm sure it'd be racing by now. I played up the fear angle for what it was worth, looking over my shoulder, wringing my hands together, increasing my walking speed, and finally dashing to my right into an alley that my peripheral sense had already mapped out as a dead end. Four young men of predominantly asian heritage followed with grins clearly defined on their faces. Perfect.
"Fuck!" I spoke aloud, faking surprise at finding a dead end, then turned around to continue faking fear, drawing them in so they surrounded me.
"Hey, that sounded like a suggestion, or an offer, eh D?" The one on my right announced with a chuckle.
The one in the center, full alpha male body language dominating his approach, smirked in response, then leaned in to get a closer look at me. "Yeah, this one's got money written all over her." He briefly glanced down at my breasts, grinning. Yup, for better or worse, this was going to be educational. "Shit, are those for real?"
I shrugged. "They're as real as I need them to be." Entirely truthful, and yet entirely too suggestive.
"So what's a pretty thing like you doing the fuck way out here? Your boyfriend leave you high and dry, that it?" He leaned in closer, forcing my back up against the center wall.
"Practice, actually." I smirked. "It's my first night out, and I need all the practice I can get if I'm gonna make it big as a cape."
The drunk's grin only got wider, obviously not having processed all of that fast enough. "Yeah, well, we can-- wait..." It dawned on him, barely a second before I kneed him in the crotch, grabbed him by the throat with my right arm and threw him aside, back-first, at the side wall. I dropped all pretenses at that point, along with Emma's form - I hadn't even thought of a costume to wear as a cape, but instead recalled the featureless statue-like form I started out with since I got my powers.
I lashed out at the closest drunk to my right, letting my arm twist out, forming a tendril, wrapping around his neck and pulling him towards me. He reached up with both hands to his neck, trying in futility to pull it off, choking all the while. The other two tripped over themselves in surprise, and in their drunken state neither looked cognizant enough to get up and run. I let go of the guy in my grasp, flinging him behind me and to my right, wincing as he ran head-first into the center wall and stayed on the ground moaning in pain. I let my arm re-assume its normal shape, and by then one of the remaining punks managed to stand, precariously, while struggling with a pocket knife in his right hand.
Good grief, as practice goes, this wasn't even worth my time. I walked right past the two idiots, glanced down to my left at the guy with the knife, and shook my head. He got the hint, dropping the knife, and wetting his pants in the process as he backed himself against the wall, and slid down in fear to the ground and away from me.
Pitiful, that's all I could think, walking out of the alley in statue-form. All that lead-up to trap a bunch of drunks who were more of a danger to themselves than anyone else. At this rate, it'd be months before I'd gain enough experience as a solo hero to actually have a clue what I was doing, and as far as finding danger was concerned, maybe I was just doing it--
My peripheral senses pinged with activity. Three blocks to my right and one behind, barely audible shouting and gunshots. Much more like it. I cloaked and ran towards the commotion, the streets thankfully being devoid of any further distractions. On approach, both the gunshots and the shouting had largely been snuffed out, and the cause was obvious: a cloud of pitch-black darkness obscuring everything within an alleyway running between two warehouses. My peripheral senses had the area mapped out: three buildings close together surrounded by a chain-link fence, yet I was getting absolutely nothing from the areas covered by the darkness. Instantly recalling the research I had done earlier, the cloud of darkness was Grue's power, so I could at least expect the presence of Regent and Tattletale, the three known members of a small villain gang called the 'Undersiders,' though Parahumans Online had very little of substance on any of them beyond the apparent rivalry between Grue and Shadow Stalker.
I circled the fence, gathering as much information on the layout of the place as I could despite the darkness, and slipped through a gap that had obviously been cut recently - whoever did it had even left the wire-cutters on the ground nearby - then waded into the thick of the cloud momentarily. My peripheral sense seemed to shut off altogether at this point, I was detecting nothing beyond the ground under my feet, and I backed out quickly to regain my bearings and consider my alternatives.
What noise there was came from within the buildings themselves, so the darkness likely hadn't extended that far in. All three buildings had doors facing the outside, though they were blocked off with wooden planks, as were the few exterior-facing windows. The building I stood next to had lingering infrared traces giving me the impression of a barracks with an attached kitchen and dining area, but it was devoid of people and the shouting was considerably more muffled here. The smaller of the two adjoining buildings had a considerable amount of heat built up, and my enhanced senses started registering the presence of a long list of... chemicals, I suppose. I had no idea what any of this stuff was, so my mind settled on the simplest explanation where villains were involved: drugs. Only one individual was moving around the place, with two waiting outside on the edge of the cloud. The third building was similarly lacking in activity, and the impression I had was of a storage shed or machine shop. Possibly an armory, but what would I know?
Back to the alleys, the cloud of darkness had started to dissipate, but still not enough that I could make out the forms of anyone caught within it. An idea struck me then, and I held out both arms before wading into the cloud. Predictably, my senses condensed into feeling the ground, air and little else, but as I walked forward and counted my steps, something eventually hit one of my arms. I backed off, only to take a glancing blow from a swung tire iron as its wielder struck out blindly at anything entering his range. Idiot. I grinned, then plunged forward at his last-known position, grabbing hold of his chest with enough feeling from my left hand that I could predict where his arms were in relation to the rest of his body. It still took a few seconds of moving my right arm frantically to find his right arm and the tire iron, and I knew there had to be a better way of doing this.
I pulled the tire iron free from his grip and tossed it behind me, before blindly grabbing at the man's neck. Found it, balled my hand into a fist, and decked him. He collapsed to the ground, curled into a ball and groaning, and I moved on. Different approach this time though - I released my form altogether, collapsing into a puddle of liquid metal, and flowed along the ground, tracing the edges of the alley's walls as well as anything in my way. Two more thugs, and the positions of their feet gave me enough of an idea where the rest of their bodies were. One was easy enough, he had apparently tripped on something, banged his head on a side wall and was lying on the ground, conscious but dazed. The other was like the first guy, but leaning on a side wall with one hand and slowly tracing his way forward. He had a sawed-off shotgun in his other hand, something I snatched away with a tendril and no trouble at all. I yanked his hand away from the wall, and used several tendrils to haphazardly guide him on a collision course with his buddy lying on the ground behind me.
Made it to the intersection, and spread out further, dead end to my right, nothing there. I continued on, and found my sense returning as the cloud washed away behind a portion of me. In clear view, Regent and Grue stood atop a trash dumpster lying on its side, adjacent to an open door of the building that had the drugs in it. I flowed out of the cloud, and drew myself upward, reassuming my statue-form to their obvious amazement and intimidation.
"Shit! Tattletale, we got company!" Grue shouted to his right.
"Almost done here. Is it Lung or Oni Lee? Please don't let it be--" 'Tattletale' stepped out, holding a leather briefcase by its handle with her left hand, and a lit Molotov cocktail in her right hand. She tossed the bottle behind her, before glancing at me. "Oh. Good. Just what I needed." She blinked a few times and leaned forward, clutching her forehead.
The cloud had dissipated by now, revealing my handiwork. 'Regent,' whose costume looked like it came straight out of a Renaissance fair, nodded and grinned. "Nice, he...she...it took care of them for us." He shrugged. "What are you, anyway?"
Tattletale shook her head. "It's a she. New cape, just got her powers. Shapeshifter, and... fuck." She glared at me. "She's a hero."
"Great." Regent gestured with the scepter in his hand. "The fuck?" He gestured more wildly, and I turned to stare at him. Grue did the same.
"What's up?"
"It's not working! My power's not fucking working on her!"
At that, I formed my right arm into a blade. I had no idea what Regent's power was - hell, Parahumans Online was similarly lacking in that information, but in my mind, his words just constituted a
threat. The three villains flinched back slightly at this.
"Whoa, wait!" Grue started. "No killing! Regent, apologize."
Regent looked at Grue like he'd grown a second head. "Me, apologize? For what? My power doesn't work on her."
"What
is your power?" I demanded.
"Like I'm gonna fucking--" Tattletale interrupted him. "He's a body controller. Gestures with his hands, makes you do things like trip over yourself, or prematurely fire a gun. And Grue's right, no killing. It's against the rules."
My head snapped to her direction. "Rules?
What rules?"
She looked back in the building, and winced as the fire began spreading. "I'd love to tell you, I really would, but not here." She shook her head. "They made methamphetamines here, and this building's about to be blown sky-high. We don't want to be here when that happens."
I nodded. "Fine, you can tell me at a safe distance." With that, I cloaked.
Tattletale sighed. "Changer-stranger. Just our fucking luck. Come on guys."
I followed from close behind as the three minor villains ran back to the gap in the fence. Tattletale tossed the briefcase to Grue, and then crouched to grab the wire-cutters. I held the fence aside for them to pass through, earning a puzzled look from Tattletale at the sight of the fence seeming to hold itself open mid-air. We ran, or rather they ran and I jogged at a slow pace, across the street and into another alleyway, out across another street, down yet another alleyway and through a hastily kicked-down door into an abandoned warehouse.
The three stopped to catch their breath, and I decloaked, again not the least bit winded. They stared at me as I retracted the blade and folded my arms, energy cascading over my form. "So, you were saying something about rules?"
The building shook as a gust of air blew in, filling the room with dust and bits of broken glass falling from overhanging windows. The three villains reflexively ducked, but nobody was injured. Tattletale recovered first, forcing the door closed while gasping for breath.
"That didn't affect you?" She started. I shrugged my shoulders in response. "Huh. I think I see why. Okay, newbie, yes, we're villains and you're a hero, in the grand scheme of things, that just means we do things our own way rather than doing things society expects of us. The rules..." she took a deep breath, "...are pretty simple actually. No killing, and that one's a no-brainer. You kill, you're playing for keeps, and that means the rest of the rules don't apply to you. You have family? Yeah, you have family, single father, no mother nor siblings. They're off-limits, unless you break the rules, so you can probably see why that's important. You don't go out of your way to discover a cape's civilian identity, and if you do happen upon it, you keep it to yourself. Yeah, I see that look on your face, you know something about a cape and oh dear, they're responsible for you getting your powers?"
I glared at her in response. "How the hell do you know all of this?"
She grinned momentarily, before coughing from all the dust in the air. "It's my power. Tells me things, even things I don't necessarily want to know." She stood upright, and extended her right hand. "Call me Tattletale."
"I... actually haven't picked a name yet." The absurdity of the scene threw me off. Me, a hero, being offered a handshake by a villain, and I wasn't reacting?
Her grin turned into a smirk. "Yeah, that's not surprising. Still, pretty impressive for your first day, if you could work around Grue's power and be immune to Regent's. Maybe a low-level trump as well? Anyway," she gestured to the other two, "as you've probably figured out, ren-faire guy is Regent, skull-mask is Grue, I'd introduce you to Bitch but I don't know what the hell she got up to, just as well, she's... not a people person. She'd probably order her dogs to attack you, and then you'd rip her dogs new assholes, and then she'd go ballistic and we'd have to break up the fight, she'd be useless and you'd be pissed... sorry, I'm rambling, aren't I?"
Grue hesitantly approached me, right hand extended. I just glared at him in response. "You're villains." I repeated.
He shrugged. "
Good villains, if you'd believe it possible. All that just a few minutes ago," tilting his head to his right, "used to be a meth lab run by the Merchants 'til the ABB kicked them out and took it over. We shut that shit down, get it off the streets, bloody the ABB's noses a bit, make them think twice before ruining peoples' lives."
"Don't forget the loot," Regent chimed in. At my glare, he shrugged. "What, you think all of us have homes and family to go back to? We do what we have to to survive, being able to enjoy it's just a bonus."
"Regent has a point." Tattletale sighed. "You have a home and a loving, worried-sick father to go back to at the end of the day. For most of us, that's actually pretty rare. We're all damaged goods in one way or another. Some of us more than others."
"Why are you telling me all of this?"
She frowned. "Well, the rules were self-explanatory. You're new, and somebody needed to explain them to you before you'd end up as bad as Shadow Stalker." I locked eyes with her, and her grin returned. "Yeah, as heroes go, she's the worst. She's killed in the past, everyone knows it, yet the Protectorate keeps her on for some reason, even if the rest of the Wards hate her guts. I'm guessing she's the reason you haven't gone to the Wards yet."
I sighed and broke eye contact. "I know who Shadow Stalker is, and yes, she's the reason I have powers."
Tattletale nodded knowingly. "As I said, keep it to yourself. The rest of the rules are mainly about playing fair, letting your rivals withdraw if you've trounced them, keeping collateral damage to a minimum, so you don't go about destroying large swaths of the city for example. We have enough problems with Endbringers as it is. Oh, yeah, that's the final thing: when the Endbringer sirens sound, truce rules are in effect. If you're fighting villains, you stop, whatever grudges you're holding against another cape, you don't act upon them. You don't capitalize at all during a truce, because if the truce is broken..."
"Then neither side can trust the other, and fighting off the Endbringers becomes that much harder." I finished for her.
"Fast learner." She nodded. "So, since you're obviously having second thoughts about becoming a hero, particularly as you can't join the Wards with Shadow Stalker being present... wanna join us?"
A/N: Yes, cliffhanger! I hate them too! Well, I hate it when
I am suffering them, but making others suffer?