Sandworm [Worm OC- Sands of Time theme]

Meanwhile in Brockton Bay

Like spunk in a condom, he thought. Like a power chord on mainstream radio, the bite softened by static. A numb, lifeless, tame existence. He couldn't call it life.

He breathed deep - containment foam tightened on his chest - and reached out. He found smoke and shadows. Lazy, lifeless people were sleeping, eating, watching TV, and being ordinary. If he could strike a chord in them - get them moving - he'd ride the energy wave back and forth until a storm whipped up and washed all the scum off the streets.

The van trundled out of range before he could do more than fantasize.

Inside the van, the feelings were clearer, but no better. Small movements on the steering wheel, on the gear stick, in a heartbeat, in a lung's sigh. Tiny movements and tiny feelings. Barely anything. Maybe enough. His own heart could beat a little faster, if he was careful, and took just a little...

"Bad Nazi, no Twinkie."

Assault's kick was a love tap, just hard enough to rattle Krieg's ankle chains. A reminder he couldn't kick back, or do anything. Krieg's arms were buried in confoam and there was a leash - a literal fucking leash - tying him to the wall of the van.

"Sorry, sir. My power has a mind of its own." Krieg opened his eyes and smiled. Prison yard charm. Ordinary people love compliments. "Seems we're taking the long way around. Keeping me away from people? That's clever, but what could I possibly do with you here?"

"Don't talk to the shitbag, he'll try to psyche you out," Challenger said over her shoulder. Krieg had almost forgotten she was in the front cabin. Her power was trained on him. It made her mute to his sixth sense and perhaps smarter, because she was not wrong.

Getting rid of her would make it easier to work on Assault. "This your new boyfriend, Challenger? Funny, I thought you were a dyke." Barely an eye roll from her. He changed targets. "Assault, what happened to your old woman? B-something. Bratty? Booby? Bra-lass? Yeah, that sound right. She wore spandex on cold days."

The van slowed a moment, three hundred horsepower redirected into a single kick. Krieg was waiting for it and leeched some of the force before it could break bones. Colors popped into the world. He cried out, half in pain and half in ecstasy.

"Hey Assault, no assaulting," Challenger said, mechanically.

"Do me a favor, C. Close the screen."

The older woman met Assault's eyes and refusal died on her lips. "Just don't kill him. Our rep's still shaky."

An opaque, black plastic film rolled over the dividing screen. LEDs cast both hero and villain in shades of grey.

"I apologize," Krieg said. "I just wanted to talk in private. We're not so different, you and I."

"Wow. I did Nazi that coming, Anne Frankly I'm fuhrerious you'd think a bad cliche would work on me," Assault said in deadpan. "Shut up and concentrate on your camp banter. Your execution is terrible."

"Funny, but powers don't lie. It's your soul laid bare and guys like us? We take the power we need."

"Correction: I give energy a new target. You suck it out the people around you, in every meaning."

"And you're better 'cause people and objects are all the same to you? Deflect and redirect, that's what you're about. But wake up. Drop the hero mask and get real. I know who you are. You're no joke."

"You want real? Sure." Assault grabbed Krieg's neck, pinning him to the wall. The van wobbled from the impact. "I really will break your neck if you don't shut up for two minutes and thirty seconds. Don't screw this up."

The hand at Krieg's throat had a calculated pressure. Tight enough to make breathing and speaking harder. Not tight enough to cut blood flow. Krieg leeched the strength from it, but the van's engine only roared louder as Assault pulled more strength from the engine. Their powers effectively countered each other. Not the kind of high Krieg was hoping for.

Without powers, they were just two ordinary men - one chained up and the other at his throat - for two minutes and thirty long seconds.

Then the van stalled as Assault snapped the harness and threw Krieg through the dead bolted back door.

Krieg's confoam cocoon saved his life, absorbing the impact through unearthly physics. But it also bound his arms to his chest. He could do nothing but roll out of control. Finally, a targeted gust of wind slowed his momentum, and a man-sized metal claw of knives and fishhooks pressed into the foam, bringing him to a dizzying stop.

The rest of the world was slow to stop spinning. When he could focus, Krieg heard a male voice booming over a medieval battlefield. Hookwolf's voice, filtered through blades.

"Number Man handled the money, but didn't give us a card."

"It went to an old account."

"Really? You have hidden depths, my man. You know, if you're breaking bad, we could work out another deal."

"This was a one time thing," Assault said. "And I'm not your man."

"Alright." Hookwolf's enormous iron muzzle pointed at Challenger. Her one evil eye glared at the villains around her - Stormtiger, Cricket, Hookwolf, Krieg, and Assault - but her axe stayed hefted on her shoulder. Behind her knelt a PRT trooper, hands on his head. "She gonna be a problem?"

"No. I'll stay with her until you're clear."

"Then our business is concluded. Always a pleasure."

Knives and fishhooks flowed around Krieg, nicking his unprotected legs and face. Kaiser likely suggested he be roughed up a bit as punishment for his failure. It was a minor annoyance. He'd go to another branch of the clan and reinvent himself. He'd done it before.

Hookwolf took a lumbering step towards the dark alleyways. Krieg saw a last snippet of Assault and Challenger.

Challenger was saying "what the hell do I tell the new director?"

Assault shrugged, took his mask off, and let it drop.

---

You step back from the fire. The cold barrel of a shotgun presses on your spine.

"Other way, boy," says the crone.

"Join us," says Michelle. The circle of women begin to chant. Join us. Join us.

The golden pyre pulsates in chorus. Snow flurries pass through without melting. This fire doesn't burn matter. Its fuel is fate and something ineffable inside you - something warmed by cold flames. Feels like a spark about to blaze.

Control over time might allow you to fight fate to an extent. But if you lose that fight, Nikos could knock you out and take your power. He'd gain another layer of immortality, one that allowed him to learn from his mistakes.

Imagine minions strengthened by both Sand and Fire, their tactics honed by ten second warnings, following strategic visions of the far future. Nikos' horde might become unstoppable.

For now, Nikos is weak. His loyal minions are irreplaceable assets. Assets that must be denied.

"I... I'm sorry," you say. There's one thing you haven't tried yet, though heroes who came before you must have.

You spin and elbow the shotgun off target. It barks bright and hot in the night, burying a slug in the woman opposite. You spray confoam on the trigger, gluing the crone's hands together.

She laughs and shakes her hands free. Containment foam - the PRT's weapon of choice - crumbles to dust at her touch, aging a day every second. Confoam only holds for twenty-four hours or so. Your last hope for a nonlethal solution crumbles with it.

You once begged the Dagger of Time to age a steel door into rust. What does it mean if Nikos was given that power instead?

You rewind time until the shotgun barks. You slide the dagger up the barrel and through the crone's neck.
[ Scraps from my own table. ]
She collapses in a cloud of snow and sand. The gash at her neck grows until only a thin line of bone connects head to body.

"Voilà, le roi des cons," says the matron. Her fixed smile tries to be condescending. "Only a fool would resist. Love is life. We cannot die while Nikos loves us. Watch as He rejects death and revives Celine."

Your severed wrist throbs with each breath. One, two, three tense breaths.

Snowflakes gather on the crone's corpse. Old Celine does not revive.

"Sorry," you say again. "I really wanted to save everyone."

Nikos roars. You see it in the collective flinch of his harem, just before the circle breaks into a charge. A screaming mob of tools, guns, and tears that glow like embers.

You raise the dagger to meet them, but they circle around, out of reach. They want Narwhal.

You cannot allow Nikos to claim more power. You reverse the hourglass and join the race with a head start. Narwhal is helpless on her platform, wracked by micro-seizures in an unnatural fever dream.

The horde nips at your heels and fingernails scratch your arms. A beam of distorted space teleports you behind the harem. You reverse time and roll to avoid the blast, come up with the dagger raised, ready to fall on Narwhal.

Narwhal's eyes roll down to focus on you. Nikos released her from nightmares of past and future.

You hesitate. She says "I saw everything. He's in the police station. Hurry."

She freezes, forced into a time lock by Nikos. He expected Narwhal to defend herself. She didn't. She knows you can't save her. Assets must be denied.

Hands and nails dig into your left arm, trying to pull you away. Your right arm descends. The Dagger of Time slides into the gap between Narwhal's ribs, sinking eagerly up to your confoam cast.
[ At last you reciprocate my polydoria. ]
Narwhal explodes into golden Sand that floods towards the blade. The Dagger of Time vibrates painfully as it feeds on Narwhal's disintegrating remains. Nothing is left of her body. Her last forcefield fades with her.

This thing all things devours.

The harem cry out in agony and shame as Nikos screams in their minds. Some crumble, sobbing into the snow, terrified of his disapproval. The hands holding you go slack.

A wild swing of the dagger leaves a brief streak of gold in the air and takes fingers. You scramble before they recover, sliding around a station wagon just as handguns and rifles spit thunder at you.

From there you sprint between houses and through gardens, under trees, over ice, into the cover of night.

The horde doesn't follow. Nikos is afraid of you now. You're the monster.

---

Twenty minutes later, you can't keep running. Your lungs burn with every frozen breath and your wounds ache with each step. You need to stop, before exhaustion stops you.

On the left, wall to wall town houses huddle for warmth. A random door creaks open into a dark corridor. There are no foot prints on the path outside, except your own.

The owner left the door unlocked before evacuating to the shelter. Did they forget? Don't they worry about looters? Or is this a kind soul offering shelter?

Whatever their reasoning, they were lied to. Told the storm would destroy power lines and freeze pipes, that only the shelters were safe and warm. The truth is civilians had to be removed from a potential large scale cape fight. They had to be protected from the likes of you.

Slowly, quietly, the door shuts behind you. This house is full of shadows cast by sodium yellow streetlights. Keep the room lights off, they might betray your position. Slowly, carefully, you check each room. Floorboards creak under foot. Windows rattle in the wind.

On the ground floor, a living room leads into a kitchen, then to a small, white garden. The living room has a gas fire. You set it to full blast. Upstairs is a bathroom, study and beds. All compact and cozy.

Framed photos on the wall center on a smiling old couple, in the middle of friends and family. Kind of hurts to look at. Your family had a wall of photos like this, back in England, before... everything.

Nothing hides under the bed, or in the closet, behind the fridge, or beneath the sofa.

You start to relax. It cascades into a full shutdown. The sofa catches you in a hug like a dear old friend.

You see yourself as PR demands. Sinbad-esque chic, red and blue cloth wrapped around white armor - cut to suggest rags without being ragged - claw and dagger in hand.

Only the eyes are wrong. No iris or pupil, just sclera bright enough to burn.

The claw hand hooks under jaw and peels your face off. Underneath is Coil's hissing white snake. The snake mouth unhinges and opens wide. Inside is Narwhal's thin, bare face. She's disappointed; you didn't save her. They all have eyes like white suns.

A whisper rumbles from within. "[ You cannot escape your fate. ]"

Narwhal stabs you with the Dagger of Time.

Pain jabs you awake. A fortress of pillows has grown around you, each soft brick laid in blind sleep. The dagger caught on fabric and shot twisting agony up your arm.

It's only been an hour or two. The night is deep now. Even the storm slumbers, snorting the occasional gale.

You try the PRT radio. There's no answer. It seems to be working, but no one replies. Long range comms must have gone down when the Tinker who maintained them - Dragon - was attacked by Nikos.

Shit, does Nikos have Dragon's power? He could be listening. You reverse time and turn the radio off.

Your mind races. Dragon is gone. Narwhal is gone. Nikos can see the future of his thralls, he will prepare for you. You need to prepare too.

First, you raid the medicine cabinet, holding the plastic bottles up to the window to read tiny, multilingual labels in the yellow street light. You prepare a double dose of anything that says anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, or pain relief.

The bathroom mirror is haunted by your ghost. There are bags under his eyes, dirt on his everything, too many scratches, and an empty notch in his shoulder. A light armour vest sticks to his chest, stuck in place by water, sweat, and blood. Under his mask is a patch of clean skin stretching from ear to ear. His turban thumps on the counter, hard and heavy from a helmet under tattered red and blue rags.

His hands are inhuman. One ends in steel claws. The other is a gray lump with a curved blade, like a wasp sting protruding from the abdomen. With your hand in a foam cast, you can't tell where the dagger ends and you begin.

You thoroughly ruin a towel in an attempt to clean up.

That shoulder needs stitches, but it's already scabbed over. You awkwardly wrap a bandage around it. When you get home, you will inform the PR department that claws are inconvenient for everything except tearing off faces. Do they want you to tear off faces? No? Then redesign the glove.

You could take the glove off by pulling the straps with your teeth, but you'd never get it back on again. Not with one hand.

Next, the fridge. It almost breaks you.

Inside the fridge is a bag of milk. A plastic bag. Of milk. The weirdness strikes hard. You are a stranger in a strange land, all alone, and that nagging worm in your hindbrain says this is all your fault. You failed. You can't save anyone. You just repeat the same mistakes over and over again, unable to even die.

For a full minute, you press the cool squishy bag to your eyes. Then you compose yourself.

It's too late to save most of Heartbreaker's victims. But Heartbreaker can still be stopped. There is hope, if Nikos Vasil dies tonight.

You wash the pills down with milk and raid the fridge for calories.

For warmth, you steal a large fur coat. Your cast won't fit in the sleeves, so you drape it over your shoulders and hold it closed. You'll need to drop it to fight. And you will fight.

You leave a note to the people you just robbed. French is a distant fourth language and they didn't teach Canadian French in school. The lessons were mandatory, the teacher didn't care, and you spent most classes looking up bad words in the dictionary.

You try your best.

Scrawled with your off hand, your polite suggestion to 'bill the PRT for losses' looks written by a serial killer. Hopefully "j'emmerde le PRT s'il vous plaît" is legible. You pin it to the fridge with a magnet.

Now, out the door. Storm winds rips at your fur coat. This time you avoid the main roads. Streetlights don't illuminate the alleys and rooftops.

Nikos can see everything through his thralls, even the past and future. But he won't see you until you let him.

---

The police station is a small, hard brick building. Floodlights mounted over the doors crosshatch the ground with glowing snow and black shadows.

Even high up and across the street, you see signs of Nikos' thralls. Their body heat left perfect, bare footprints in the snow, both coming and going.

You slide down a drainpipe to ground level. Circle wide around to the back of the station. The cameras are large, fixed models jutting from stands over the car park and entrance. You trust the external cameras to be iced over and blurry. Still, you avoid them.

Snow outside the garage is untouched, and there, in the corner, a security door stands open. Either all legends of Canadian hospitality are true, or Nikos left an open invitation.

You creep up to the door - careful not to let your shadow cross the threshold - and count to ten.

Then you drop your stolen coat and run inside - counting backwards - to see how far you get.

Pretty far.

A security desk sits at the end of a short corridor leading past the motor pool. A woman leans on the desk, watching the doors and windows. She is armed and armoured with a service sidearm cradled in both hands - cop style - and a stab resistant vest over bunny pajamas.

You knock her down and keep running. It costs a second. Six left. A bullet flies over your shoulder.

Past the desk are offices with glass windows. You dash for the double doors - five seconds left - and into the main hallway. Ignore the guards turning towards you. Scan the door labels and guess the meanings. "L' évidence" is easy enough.

You kick off the wall as you turn the corner. Four seconds.

Screams for help lure you towards the center. The double doors lie open and you peek into a holding area. Two large barred cells on the right hold half naked women. The back and left walls have small holes ripped in them, and the doors are blocked by tables.

One second. Time springs back. You are pulled outside where - as far as the world knows - you haven't moved.

You repeat the process for every entrance you can find, abusing time travel to avoid detection. You get a good idea of the layout. The entrances are lightly guarded with only one or two women, or even just a camera.

The guards are armed with police gear. Heartbreaker liked to target female cops. You have to assume anyone with a gun knows how to use it.

Bolt action hunting rifles don't worry you, you can dodge the first shot and strike before the second. The scary stuff is swat gear looted from the police armory - Beretta 93R sidearms and HK MP5 submachine guns, riot shields and non-lethal deterrents. Not many of them, it's a small town, but a few.

None of the guards try to nut you with a hammer. They know what you can do up close.

You can't check every office within a ten second limit. Nikos and more armed thralls could be hiding any where, even in another building. He won't reveal himself until you take a risk.

More concerning are the unarmed women in the cells who cry for help when you're seen. A siren's call to tug a hero's heart. Your brain says it's a trap. Your heart says they can be saved. Your gut says you can fight whatever fate throws at you. Your arse says make a decision before it freezes off.

Your hindbrain says you caused this. This is all your fault. You tell it to shush.

---

Sit Rep

• The harem has been armed and are waiting for you. They will assist Nikos and not roll separately.
• Nikos has a rating of 9, the Dagger of Time negates 2 defensive powers, so he rolls 7 dice with target 4 with harem assistance (7d6t4).
• Paradox is injured and will roll 4 dice at target 5 to reflect powers, and 1 dice at target 4 to reflect PRT training. (4d6t5 + 1d6t4) He will roll twice and take the best result due to time travel.
• An unarmed group is being kept in the central cells.
• Armed guards patrol the main corridors and may hide in offices.
• Paradox has a ten second head start.
• The Dagger of Time has been fed.

Choices


Listen to your arse. Make a decision. How are you going to find Nikos?

[][Style] Be aggressive.
- Kill any and all guards you can.
- Deny Nikos his assets.

[][Style] Be stealthy.
- shadow the guards and get as far in as possible
- You will be detected eventually. There are cameras and each person can see what the others see.
- Abusing time travel is pretty good for stealthy scouting.

[][Style] Be a trooper.
- Loot and use guns and gear.
- Guns, pepperspray and flashbangs won't kill anyone, but they will delay them so you can search room to room.

[][Style] Be audacious.
- There's a motor pool. Steal the biggest car and drive it through the door.
- Improvise in the chaos.
- Walls can't hide people if they fall down.

[][Style] Be humble.
- Nikos is expecting you. Just ask for him.
- Your guts says you can fight through any trap.

[][Style] Be a write in.
- This is a secret test of character vote.
- Combo the above, or choose your own modus operandi.



The Dagger of Time has fed on Narwhal. You have one unit of Sand.

Do you allow the Sands of Time to change you?

[][Sand] No. Keep the Sand for later.
- keep the Sand in reserve for the next update.
- If you lose against Nikos, the Sand can save you, or return you to the trigger event
- If you stab Nikos with the Dagger of Time, you choose 4 perks later.
- Remember you are injured and lose 1 Brute dice. Most perks won't fix that.


[][Sand] Yes. Gain a perk now.

-[] The Water Sword
- - Your personal time field gained by Sort the Grains - AKA your body of sand - becomes larger and more controlled. By manipulating your personal time, you can charge up or degrade attacks.
- - Gain bullet time. Time slows down when you focus, allowing truly superhuman feats of strength and agility.
- - Gain 2 more Brute dice. A total Brute rating of 4, and a PRT rating of 8.
- - Immune to bullets as long as there is room to dodge.
- - Focus to charge up attacks that can break a brick wall.
- - Combined with the inviolate Dagger of Time, penetrate all but extreme, tank-like defences - i.e. penetrate up to a foot (30cm) of steel.
- - Do math. Manipulate the Time part of Speed and Force equations.

- Control the Flow
- - You grasp the timeline of others. You cannot stop the river, but becomes a torrent or a trickle at your whim.
- - This perk has been used for another purpose.

-[] The Tie That Binds
- - Give another a copy of your powers.
- - You do not control the target, but the Sands of Time may change them, body and mind.
- - Gain a Trump rating.
- - You don't gain the chain or daggertail, you already have the dagger.

-[] From Dust to Dust
- - Gain a touch range Striker power that ages matter until it disintegrates.
- - Gain immunity to containment foam and a way to escape most restraints, including barred cells and PRT paddy wagons.
- - The dagger focuses this power, allowing it to cut through most physical objects.
- - Can be used without the dagger, through touch, in a slower, wider, less focussed form.
- - Gain 2 Striker dice and a PRT rating of 8.

-[] Fever Dreams
- - Dream of your future and your past.
- - Can only be used in short bursts while asleep, may be used offscreen.
- - Tends to show you dying or disasters. Expect more disturbed sleep.
- - Precognition is subject to interference, including from your own powers.
- - Your past extends further back than this iteration of you.
- - Gain 2 more Thinker dice for a total PRT rating of 8.
- - Shows your dice results for the next chapter, but not your reroll from Reverse the Glass.

-[] Warrior Within
- - There are many paths before you, take them all.
- - Combines the skills, but not memories, of your other lives.
- - Mechanically, all rolls have a target of 4, assuming there are no complications that make rolls harder.
- - No extra powers, but you are better at using them.
- - Overlaps with the Resourceful trait. You keep the 1d6t4 dice that represent the tools the PRT give you - mostly your radio and confoam. If you lose these tools, you lose that dice.

-[] Release the Sands
- - Do you have regrets? Give up on defeating Nikos and empty the hour glass.
- - Time rewinds back to your trigger event. There are no other advantages, except foreknowledge.
- - Where does the old sand go? There may be unforeseen consequences.
- - Lose the Resourceful trait until you get some tools back. New PRT rating will be 5.
- - You can keep this in reserve if you Keep the Sand.

-[] Diamonds in the Rough.
- - Gain the power to enhance and suppress your senses.
- - Gain 1 Thinker/Brute dice. Total PRT rating of 7.
- - In addition, you can sense parahumans, parahuman candidates, and some highly advanced Tinker devices or persistent parahuman effects.
- - You are immune to attacks on the senses, such as flashbangs, pain, pepperspray, tear gas, etc.
- - No injury penalty. Restores 1 Brute dice. You are still injured, but you suppress the pain.