Auspicious Beginnings (CYOA SI) [Complete]

[Spectrum]

She'd just have to find more superpower-friendly fun activities.

Click to shrink...

And with that, we'll see everyone over at QQ!

 

[ManOfManyColors]

Have you ever tried Flare Surfing?
Sure, you need a brute rating and a sufficiently sturdy surfboard, but who else can say they have used surface of the Sun for their recreational activity?

(Suggestion ignores the Earth barrier issue, because, CYOA.)

Plus, imagine the reactions if you Tinker up a durable enough camera and livestream the whole thing!


Also, ROBing and Fey impersonation.

 

[lostAncilla]

Looks like trying to figure out the grand plan behind someone bored is proving difficult.

Maybe she could try going full-bore cosmic vacation? Hike through Titan's methane rivers, surf comets, dance across the rings of Jupiter, skim the event horizon of a black hole, explore the far past and distant future. Then come back and maybe selfie yourself against all the Endbringers just because.

 

[Anti-No]

Step 1: Check if powers can be used outside of earth orbit safely. With power manipulation, signs point to 'yes'.
Step 2: Check if you can jump around the solar system taking pictures without starting Scion. Do so if safe. Post on PHO. Knock on the doors of Nasa and ask if they want samples from somewhere or a drone or sattelite to somewhere.
Step 3: Create a sharknado. Stop a villainous plot with it, without significant collateral damage. Doesn't matter if capes or just normal villains are behind it. Make certain it's filmed and uploaded.
Step 4: Use PTV to figure out what hobby would probably make you the most happy over time, without unpleasant sideefects. Consider it carefully with morals in mind before actually trying it. (Results may not be appropriate for SV If so, ignore or cutscene. Probably best to ignore.)
Step 5: Use PTV to find people that really needs help, that it would actually be worth helping, that you morally speaking would actually want to help, and that might be interesting to know. Flip through cases and solve some of them.
Step 6: Path To Trolling: Figure out a way to ward off endbringers using public dancing. Publish.
Step 7: Visit a few concerts, stand up comedy clubs, theatres and similar. See what you like. Afterwards (NOT BEFORE), compare and contrast with a suggestion or two PTV comes up with.
Step 8: Scan the area you grew up, and any pieces of land you and/or your family owned, just to see if there is something unusual or interesting!
...and the list goes on and on...

 

[LokiTheDarkGod]

But it was unlikely that a member of the Protectorate would go against orders and say anything.

Click to shrink...

Remember Alexandria that these are people who are career Heroes not everyone is as callus as you. Some might for entirely moral reasons. Which would be poetic justice at its finest.

 

[SmartAlek]

Alternate Take: Birdcage Blues Part Five​

Auspice

One way to keep things interesting while having superpowers, was, of course, to do things that required superpowers to do at all.

For example, a casual swim at the bottom of the ocean. Not near where Leviathan was -- she didn't want to freak out the people on PHO, after all. Or start a debate on whether or not she should try to attack a dormant Endbringer, as was probably more likely. Although seeing people's arguments could be interesting… Nah, not worth it.

So, a more mundane part of the ocean floor it was. Unfortunately, none of the deep ocean creatures seemed interested in letting Auspice take a selfie with them, but the non-mobile parts of the ocean attraction were still good enough.

Auspice settled on the ocean floor so that it looked like she was standing normally, not abusing her superpowers to remain there as she actually was. She sent her phone a little ways away to take a picture, but she'd forgotten that the camera, unlike her vision, wasn't good enough to make anything out in the absolute darkness so deep into the ocean. That was fine. She altered Purity's power so that it was light without any heat or damage, then altered it a little more so that it could be maintained as a ball of light rather than flying off as a beam.

Then, with enough ambient light for the camera, she took a picture. The picture looked pretty good, too; creepier than she'd originally intended, with the white light from Purity's power filtering through the water lighting Auspice and the ocean floor in strange ways, surrounded by complete darkness in every direction.

It was perfect.

She let herself drift upwards as she posted it on PHO. Her earlier adventures and the pictures she'd posted had gotten surprisingly popular -- maybe because capes didn't usually show off their powers so casually. Whatever the reason, there were a lot of people already on her thread, and the new picture got several replies almost immediately.


► Aiming_Low
Replied on January 22, 2011:

@Auspice How did you take a picture at the bottom of the ocean? OK, you have powers, but why isn't your phone being crushed by the pressure? Or bothered by the fact that it's underwater?


There were other comments along those lines. Surprisingly few people were willing to just accept cool pictures; they had to question them. Auspice didn't mind.


► Auspice (Original Poster) (Verified Cape)
Replied on January 22, 2011:

Well, there's two possibilities. One, Tinkertech, or two, magic. Take your pick


As long as nobody else minded that she never gave a clear answer, anyway. Actually, that was a lie. The fact that everybody got upset whenever she gave a silly response was half the fun.

Still laughing as her thread exploded with people complaining and theorizing, Auspice moved on to her next big show: the moon.

Space was really pretty. The Earth was pretty, too, from space. But it really looked like a picture, even though she was seeing it for herself. It was just too remote. Like many things, it got boring surprisingly quickly.

Auspice didn't even need Thinker powers to see the accusations of pulling the picture from the Internet, but, standing on the surface of the moon, she took a picture -- not a selfie -- of the Earth and posted it to PHO anyway.


► namesarehard
Replied on January 22, 2011:

looks fake

► DigaWell
Replied on January 22, 2011:

Selfie version please


And those two weren't the only ones along those lines. Auspice laughed. It was exactly what she'd expected. Obligingly, she turned around and levitated her phone away from her to take a picture of her with the moon visible at her feet and the Earth in the background. By the time she went to post it, there was another comment that deserved its own response.


► Nakyak (Cape Geek)
Replied on January 22, 2011:

@Auspice, how did you get to the moon, though?? What is your power!? Please explain!


People asking about Auspice's power opened the best opportunities for messing with people -- both the poor people on PHO and the PRT.


► Auspice (Original Poster) (Verified Cape)
Replied on January 22, 2011:

Moon-Selfie.jpg

@Nakyak

How did I get to the moon, you ask? It was pretty easy, actually. Legend's power can fly ridiculously fast, so it didn't even take that long.


That was a lie, of course. Auspice could literally teleport, and that was how she'd gotten to the moon. But where was the fun in saying that? Anyway, there were no iconic teleporters like Legend where she could namedrop them so easily and have them be recognized immediately.


► Nakyak (Cape Geek)
Replied on January 22, 2011:

@Auspice WHAT. Legend's power?? That is NOT HELPFUL! You can't just say that! EXPLAIN.

► namesarehard
Replied on January 22, 2011:

@Auspice Seriously, you come back here. Don't ignore us, I know you're reading these replies. What do you mean by 'Legend's power'?


Auspice cackled to herself and didn't respond as the thread devolved further. She'd have to make a new thread soon, with all of the new comments. People guessed surprisingly close to her power very quickly, although of course none of them expected the scale of it, and they usually added restrictions like 'three powers at a time'. Auspice was willing to bet the PRT, who were absolutely stalking her on PHO, were pitching a fit about it.

Good. It was her power and she'd tell people about it if she wanted to.

---------------​

It took Auspice less than two weeks to get tired of the Worm verse. She'd decided basically as soon as she got sent to the Birdcage that she was too pissed off to stick around any longer than necessary, and honestly after that nothing had really changed her mind.

Without being careful of anybody's feelings or expectations, it was easy to take out most of the world's major villains within those two weeks, plus all of the people and things that might not technically count as villains. Between that and handling the Endbringers and Scion before she went, Earth Bet and the Worm verse as a whole would probably be fine. They didn't need her and she didn't want to stick around, so…

Since Auspice was done, she set about handling all of the leftover money she still had from the Slaughterhouse Nine's bounties -- donating it to various charities and whatnot. She used a little bit of the money to anonymously set up a fund to pay for Taylor to attend Arcadia and made sure Taylor would be told it was a scholarship.

Then, her last order of business before she went to go assassinate Scion: the Endbringers. Auspice hadn't wanted to do anything with them too early because, according to Path to Victory and her other precog powers, Scion was, in fact, aware enough that he'd notice something wrong with the Endbringers, so if she did anything to them, it wouldn't be long before Scion started being ridiculous. Apparently, he was actually really worried about what the Entities considered one of the worst possible scenarios -- their test subjects rebelling -- so he'd just go on his rampage, start Gold Morning early. It seemed over the top, but who was Auspice to judge a literal alien.

In any case, it didn't matter anymore. She was ready to go anyway, so she'd just go straight from handling the Endbringers to killing Scion, and then her win condition would be completed and she'd be able to go home.

Auspice could just kill the Endbringers. In most situations, she probably would. She didn't feel particularly affectionate towards the mass-murdering monsters. In this case, however, she'd decided to get in one last act of trolling the inhabitants of Earth Bet. Of course, just killing the Endbringers while they were dormant would freak people out pretty badly, when they started missing their scheduled attacks.

But that wouldn't be fun enough.

Instead, Auspice used Eidolon's power and tweaked the Endbringers. Basically, they were now programmed to act like Scion; they would travel around being 'heroes', saving people and so on. Of course, she had to add in a ton of restrictions on their actions -- no killing unless absolutely necessary, minimal property damage, no leaving areas radioactive or mindraping people. Thanks to Path to Victory foreseeing issues that Auspice herself wouldn't have thought of, the Endbringers were soon proper heroes, with morals and everything.

The other seventeen Endbringers would continue appearing slowly over time, but Auspice added the same changes to their programming so that all twenty of them would be heroes.

Finally, Auspice ran a Path to Killing Scion Without Anyone Knowing.

...And then she corrected it to Killing Scion Without Anyone Seeing. That was better. She didn't need to go to all of the effort to make sure nobody -- Cauldron included -- would ever notice she'd killed Scion.

And then, finally finished, all of her stuff collected in hammerspace, Auspice returned to her home universe.



PoV Not Found

When it first happened, all three Endbringers appearing in different places at the same time, the world panicked. The Endbringer sirens went off. The Protectorate scrambled to get responding heroes to each site. By the time any of them got there, however, the Endbringers had moved on, causing each team of capes to have to chase an Endbringer around the world.

It didn't take long for it to become apparent that the Endbringers were not following their usual M.O. All three of them -- especially Behemoth -- were being far less destructive than they usually were, not to mention the lack of the Simurgh's scream and Behemoth's Kill Zone. None of them were killing anyone. Even when capes attacked them directly, they would carefully stop that person from being able to attack without hurting them.

Although it didn't work out very well at first due to people's reasonable fear of them, it appeared that the Endbringers were acting as heroes. They would rescue kittens from trees, stop muggings, interfere in cape battles. Pretty much any crime or act of cruelty might get a sudden Endbringer interrupt. Villains and non-parahuman criminals were, of course, horrified. The warlords of Africa were likely quite upset, as their affairs, basically their entire empires, were disrupted by the Endbringers.

Everyone, parahuman or not, discussed how to handle this new development. In the end, however, they were forced to come to an undesirable conclusion: there was nothing they could do. If the Endbringers suddenly wanted to play at being heroes, they couldn't stop them.

A lot of people were seeing the Endbringers for the first time. With their new levels of activity, the Endbringers were in a lot more places a lot more often. It was almost impossible for people to avoid running into one at some point. Of course, even so, it would probably be years before anybody could encounter one of the Endbringers without being more afraid of the Endbringer than whatever situation they had been in before, but they would all just have to deal with it. Because that was the only thing they could do. They'd get used to it eventually.

And, well, at least the Endbringers weren't killing anybody anymore. They were actually horrifyingly effective as heroes. They were so overwhelmingly powerful that nobody stood a chance against them, so once they decided to stop a crime, that crime got stopped.

In light of the new risk of Endbringer, criminal activity across the globe dropped.



Contessa

"Scion is gone?" Alexandria repeated disbelievingly.

Contessa nodded, a little annoyed by the disbelief. Keeping track of Scion was one of her self-appointed duties, and it was the one she took the most seriously. "He disappeared two days ago, sometime in the morning. I haven't been able to find him."

"That explains why nobody else has noticed yet," Eidolon said. "Nobody else keeps close enough track of him. What now, then?"

"We have to continue as usual," Doctor Mother said. "We can't afford to assume that he is no longer an issue if we're wrong."

"But we have no idea what could have caused his disappearance?" said Eidolon.

Contessa shook her head.

"Actually," Alexandria said slowly, and Contessa raised her eyebrows.

"You didn't even know he was missing until now," she said, miffed by the idea that Alexandria might know why he was gone when Contessa herself didn't.

"No, I know. It's just that Auspice -- the power copier," Alexandria clarified unnecessarily; as though any of them didn't know that person by name. "She had been posting on PHO near constantly, posting pictures and talking to people. But she hasn't posted anything or been seen in two days. Her last post was that morning, too," she added.

"You think their disappearances are related?" Contessa said.

Alexandria nodded and spread her hands like, well. "It's a little too coincidental for both of them to have disappeared at about the same time, otherwise."

That was true.

"All right. Then, assuming for now that their disappearances are related, what does that mean?" Doctor Mother said. "What are the possibilities for why it happened?"

"Best case scenario, they got into a fight and killed each other off," Alexandria said dryly.

"Worst case scenario, they teamed up and are planning something together," Contessa said.

Although, that wasn't necessarily any worse than Scion alone, except that it halved the chance that Cauldron's actions would save humanity. From 0.1% chance to 0.05% chance.

"It seems more likely that they would fight each other than team up. Their actions so far are very different," Eidolon said. "But if they had fought to the death, surely there would be signs of the battle. It couldn't have gone completely unnoticed."

"It might have, if it didn't happen on this Earth," Alexandria said.

"Wouldn't the Clairvoyant have noticed?" Eidolon said.

"No," Doctor Mother said. "Something about Auspice seems to interfere with his power, as with other Thinker powers."

Like Path to Victory, Contessa thought grumpily.

"Which may also mean that Auspice has extended her immunity to the Clairvoyant's power to Scion," Contessa said. "Allowing them both to hide."

"For whatever reason they might be doing that," Eidolon said, but thoughtfully, not aggressively.

Contessa just shrugged. How were any of them to know the reasons Scion might do anything? And Auspice, despite seemingly being human, was hardly any better.

They were quiet for long enough that Doctor Mother spoke.

"Then, essentially, we know nothing about the situation regarding either of them, nor why it happened," she said, and sighed. "In that case, we --"

A piece of paper appeared in midair, then fluttered down to settle on the table between them, writing visible on the side that faced up. They exchanged glances.

"I can't tell anything about it," Contessa said, annoyed.

It must have had something to do with Scion or Auspice, then.

"It's facing me," Doctor Mother said, standing to read it without touching it. She let out a startled breath. "It says, 'To Cauldron, Stop being evil. Scion is dead, and I'm not sticking around, so you have nothing to worry about anymore. I fixed the Case 53s in your basement. You're welcome. You should let them go. I know that you have no reason to believe me, but consider: I have no reason to lie. With --'" She squinted at it. "I believe it says 'love', but crossed out so that it actually says 'With apathy, Auspice'."

Doctor Mother looked up at them. There was a moment of silence.

Alexandria put her head in her hands. "What the hell," she said.

That summed it up well. To have worked towards possibly defeating Scion for thirty years, only for the next biggest threat they'd ever encountered to so cavalierly dismiss them and their efforts. There were not many other ways to respond to that.

But that wasn't even the biggest problem they had.

"She's watching us," Contessa said. "Not only does she know of us and our actions, but she must be currently aware of us in some way, for that letter to be so well timed."

It was obvious that Doctor Mother had been about to conclude that they could do nothing but continue as they had been and wait until something changed. Evidently, Auspice disapproved.

"So it's a threat," Eidolon said darkly. "'I know where you are, and I can get to you at any time.'"

"But she basically said it herself. If she's powerful enough for that -- and she must be -- then she has no reason to lie about her intentions," Alexandria said. She scoffed quietly. "This is a woman who has been playing tag with the entirety of the PRT for more than a week, treating it as some kind of fun vacation. We can't do anything about her. We haven't been able to so far."

"What, then? We take it at face value that, for some reason, she killed Scion, and then just decided to leave?" Eidolon said.

"What else can we do?" said Contessa. The others fell silent. "We know that she has your power, Eidolon. Given that she's capable of teleporting an object directly into our base, she's probably copied Path to Victory, too -- not to mention hundreds more powers. She's as terrible an enemy as Scion; I can't use Path to Victory on her, and we have such a miniscule chance of being able to defeat her that it's almost pointless to try. The one advantage we had over Scion was that he didn't know we exist, and Auspice clearly already does. There is nothing we can do. We've already lost this fight.

Eidolon stayed silent, impossible to read through his mask. Alexandria's mouth was set in a thin, unhappy line. It wasn't like Contessa was happy about this, either.

"Then, what are you proposing, Contessa? It's not like you to give up," Doctor Mother said.

"I think we should believe that she has, in fact, killed Scion. There are few other reasons he might have disappeared, and altruistic or not, Auspice has reason to want him gone," Contessa said. "Then, since Scion is no longer an issue and Auspice already knows about us, I think we should continue our established plan of building up as high a parahuman population as possible in the hopes of fighting Auspice if necessary, but act more overtly. Without the need for secrecy, we could achieve a lot more."

"And if we were being more open about it, we could do a lot more to stabilize society," Alexandria said. "Try to get more people to become heroes, and try for less parahuman deaths overall."

Contessa wasn't surprised that Alexandria, and likely Eidolon as well, were already on board. They had all done and condoned terrible things, and some of them felt worse about it than others, but all of them wished they could do more good and less evil.

"Auspice did say in her letter to 'stop being evil'," Doctor Mother murmured when nobody spoke for a long moment. "Well then. Do you all agree that this is the best course of action?"

"I don't see any other options, so yes, I agree," Eidolon said.

Alexandria nodded. "I agree, as well."

Cauldron's new path was decided. And Contessa hadn't even needed Path to Victory.

Spoiler: Author's Note

With this, the alternate take is finally over. A little abrupt, but I did not intend for it to be this long in the first place. A couple thousand word one-shot, I said. It'll be quick, I said. There won't be that many conversations, I said. And then it ended up being half the length of the entire original story. I did want there to be more scenes of Auspice vacationing and the PRT reacting to her, but it's already so long as it is and the scenes got repetitive, so I decided not to add any more.

 

[FactorySmith]

Thanks for the story, SmartAlek!
I've been looking for another Worm curbstomp fic, because the setting so very much deserves one, and now you've written two of them!
I've got a question, while we saw Auspice setting up revenge on Piggot, we didn't see the fallout of it. Was it just she called M/S on herself and most of the building once she saw the cake?

 

[ManOfManyColors]

Oh, look!
An excuse to bump up the sidestory word count even further with an epilogue!
(Preferably one a few years after the Exodus)

 

[AoshimaMichio]

One particular thing I like about this fic is that it proves Taylor isn't necessary at all to kill Scion. All one needs is Fletchette, some stealth, and lots of firepower.

 

[Mr. Cloak]

Nice ending- but since we don't yet have a superhero yet, your targeting may have been off a little.
Short and sweet- I usually don't like fics of this type, but this one was good.

 

[Boothnat]

This is def one of my favourite worm fics put there. Sure, it's stompy, but it doesn't drag things out-it does the fun stuff and only the fun stuff and doesn't faff around, the comedy is great, and it makes sense and feels like it respects the characters involved. I've never seen an Si go this route, and I'm really glad I got to in such a well written fic.