TheatrclBarristr
Not a barrister
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It didn't sound weird to me after consuming years of police procedural TV shows like Law and Order or CSI.
- Location
- Australia
Heh. Yeah. Lady Photon is the 'good' member of New Wave, but Good Is Not Soft.
- Location
- Whadjuk Noongar boodja
1) Very true
2) Nice try pal, but this ain't my first rodeo. I (usually) know better than to click on a link that could
rkyeun
Cabbitus Maximus
- Location
- ◕ ‿‿ ◕
The central feature of Good Steel seems to be that it exists in all dimensions and has ontological inertia between them, such that you have to scratch it in the same place in all dimensions before the scratch appears in any of them (and then all at once in all of them). This is also how it stops Sting and dimensional shenanigans. There is no path through any alternate universes past it to the other side. The drawback of that is there's a minimum thickness. The worlds themselves aren't exactly aligned, and this means if your paper-thin sheet metal is off by a thickness of itself in any of the worlds, you don't have Good Steel anymore, just a lot of individual sheets in a lot of parallel worlds. So Good Steel has to be thick, to account for otherworld variance, and stack on top of itself. And you just can't do that in chain mail. You wouldn't get Good Steel rings, you'd get a four dimensional tangle puzzle made from regular steel.
Last edited:
- Location
- Europe
And they most likely have a few spares on board, as well.
- Location
- Australia
That's a really good explanation for it. I like it.
Part Forty-Five: Incoming Shitstorm
New
- Location
- Australia
Earning Her Stripes
Part Forty-Five: Incoming Shitstorm
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Boston
Accord
The last of the collapsing rubble had ceased making noise a few minutes ago. Accord listened carefully, trying to locate the sound of nearby footsteps or talking, but he could hear nothing. Part of this, he was sure, was due to his ears ringing from the explosion that had demolished the majority of his building, but that would pass. The door was also quite thick, which wouldn't help with hearing anything.
It was all the fault of the Travellers, he decided. The news of Coil's arrest may have put him on edge and made him a little more prone to immediate violence, but they had known what he was like before they entered his city. When that stupid girl pushed her way into the meeting, she had violated one of his primary creeds, and had thus earned the sword-blade through her chest.
Events had unfortunately escalated from there. Trickster had nearly killed him before he finished off the young man, but the rest of the Travellers had been alerted first. Even bereft of their leader and Sundancer, they had hit the building hard and done a huge amount of damage before Accord's forces were able to mobilise.
It was only when he realised the Case 53 that accompanied them was cloning his security service and somehow flipping them to her service that he understood that the building was lost. Most of his Ambassadors had fallen to the vengeful capes by this time, so there was just him at the top and those few of his security services that were fighting a desperate rearguard action. Most people would have given up at this point, but he was different. He had a plan.
He had a plan for everything.
Following the fighting via the few remaining intact cameras, he waited until the enemy had reached the point where he'd designed the building to funnel attackers. Then he opened the lower right drawer, tapped in the six-digit code, flipped up the cover, and pressed the large red button (because in some matters, tradition was important). In the ten-count before the explosion went off, he urged Othello and Citrine into what appeared to be an empty closet to the side of his office.
The door closed automatically, and glowing numbers showed up beneath the wood veneer. He pressed the lowest one, and the secret elevator dropped away from beneath them. While the elevator plunged downward and the other two grabbed for handholds, he stood imperturbably, facing the doors with both hands on his walking cane.
The explosion, when it came, was considerable. It was calculated to utterly destroy anything but the highest Brute level capes, in the process demolishing the load-bearing pillars that held the upper section of the building in the air. There was no point, after all, in leaving an enemy alive in order to save an already-compromised structure.
As the long, drawn-out rumble of the collapsing building sounded from above them, he exited the elevator and led them along a reinforced corridor and then up a flight of stairs, all illuminated by subdued bulbs set into the ceiling. Behind him, Othello and Citrine were conversing in low tones, presumably for privacy. He chose not to tell them that he could hear them quite well due to the tunnel's acoustics.
"Do you think anyone survived up there?" That was Citrine. "I think he blew the whole building up."
Othello was more pragmatic. "Would you rather they followed us down here? That Blaster launched Lizardtail clear across the city."
"Well, no, but … I can't help wondering if anyone survived."
"We'd better hope that they didn't. We killed two of their members. That damned case fifty-three was screaming that she was going to eat Accord alive and shit out his mask."
Accord held up his hand. "Hush." Carefully, he listened again at the steel-reinforced door. There weren't any more sounds of rubble shifting; even now, the ringing in his ears was easing off and he still couldn't hear problematic noises outside the door.
"What are we going to do now, sir?" asked Othello after waiting a respectful interval. "It will take some time to rebuild—"
Accord cut him off. "We are not rebuilding in Boston. This would put us into an unacceptably weakened position in the city."
This time it was Citrine who spoke. "Not in Boston? Where are we going then, sir?"
"Brockton Bay," He said the name with finality. "It has been cleared of all criminal gangs, leaving the way clear for me to move in and re-establish my operation."
"Understand that I'm not criticising your decision sir." Othello's tone was cautiously deferential. "But how are we going to get set up if the local capes are demonstrably capable of clearing out entrenched villain gangs?"
"The precipitating factor is a team called The Real Thing." Accord had, of course, done his research. "They only possess one Thinker, and she is limited to combat applications. Otherwise, there is a Brute and a Tinker. If they cannot locate us, they cannot oust us."
"I've heard about The Real Thing, sir." Citrine's words were measured and precise, as they should be. "The word is that the combat Thinker can't be beaten in a straight fight, the Brute is the strongest cape they've ever seen, and the Tinker's tech can't be damaged."
Accord had heard similar things before. "It's fortunate, then, that our strategies don't depend on straight fights or matching strength with strength."
Alexandria
Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown had been in charge of the PRT for the entirety of the eighteen years that it had been in existence, and she'd been a superhero in her other identity for years before that. In all that time, she'd been exposed to a vast number of truly stupid ideas, some of which were rammed through against her strenuous opposition.
This one, she decided as she carefully schooled her expression to reflect 'this is an interesting idea and I need to think it over' instead of 'what the goddamn living fuck have you been smoking, you utter moron', had to be in the top five, maybe the top one or two.
Of course, it was a politician who'd come up with it, which made it less surprising overall, but diminished its sheer blind idiocy not in the slightest.
"So," she began in the blandest tone she could muster. "Let me see if I've got this straight. Your argument is that keeping Butcher in her current manacles, or even in stringent solitary conditions, is an affront to her human rights, and she deserves the same freedoms that every other convicted criminal is afforded."
"That's correct." It wasn't Charles who'd come up with this. He was too smart. Though she couldn't help noticing that he wasn't actually opposing the idea. The idiot of the moment was apparently a self-described conservative libertarian who had somehow weaselled his way into a high enough government salary that he could inflict his ideas of how the world should work on far more people than actually deserved it. "You're about to say she's too dangerous to be around people. This is also true, but it doesn't detract from the fact that her human rights are being abrogated on an hourly basis."
Through truly superhuman self-control, Rebecca neither sighed nor pinched the bridge of her nose. "I would personally say that the original Butcher abrogated those same rights when he chose to become the leader of the Teeth, and murder his way across the United States. Every successive Butcher merely added to the danger he or she poses toward the public. And let's face it: our laws literally do not cover this kind of situation."
"Again, I agree." The over-promoted idiot puffed himself out proudly. "Unusual problems demand unusual solutions. Which is why I've proposed Operation Inheritance. Normally, someone like Butcher would be convicted, placed on Death Row, and executed." He held up a hand. "Which, you're going to say, we shouldn't do because it would cause the Butcher entity to jump to the responsible cape, or the nearest cape if one wasn't responsible. Yes, I've read the report."
"And I've read your proposal." Rebecca had never been so tempted to call for a small Doorway, just so she could reach through the computer link and strangle the delusional fool, but she restrained herself. "I believe there are factors that you have not yet taken into account, when it comes to putting Butcher into someone's head." Translation: it's sheer self-congratulatory bullshit from end to end.
He managed to look affronted all the same. "Ms Costa-Brown—"
"Chief Director," she corrected him firmly. "I've earned that title, sir, and I'll thank you to use it."
He looked and sounded annoyed at the interruption. "Very well, then. Chief Director Costa-Brown, I have consulted experts in the field at every step of the way. I truly believe this has a chance of working, and of ridding us forever of the menace of Butcher while not simply disposing of her like a wild animal."
In Rebecca's opinion, Butcher should have been long since disposed of like a wild animal, if only someone could make it stick. "Experts in the field? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Alexandria's one of the leading experts in the field, and I don't believe she was consulted. Nor have any of the other experts of my acquaintance."
He had the sheer effrontery to give her a smug look. "You are, of course, biased where it comes to Butcher. My sources were chosen to be more balanced in their opinions." And more in line with my own, he didn't have to say.
"And they all agreed that this was the optimum course of action? Unequivocally?"
"Well, of course. A volunteer cape, given extensive training in maintaining his mental fortitude against all internal or external influences, should be capable of keeping the other Butchers in line."
"Every other Butcher thought the same thing," she gritted. "They either fell into line themselves or went insane and got themselves killed. You're proposing giving the Butchers a new set of powers, plus insider knowledge into how we operate. This is a very bad idea."
"I don't believe so, and I've got the funding to make it happen." The smug look had only intensified. "If this works—and I don't see why it can't—we'll have a cape with all those powers working for good, and the Teeth will no longer be a problem."
"How much training are you giving your volunteer?" Rebecca's bad feeling about Operation Inheritance was steadily ascending into the stratosphere. If he'd come up with this whole idea in the short time since Butcher had been captured, the interval between locating an appropriate volunteer and prepping him had to be minimal.
"He's receiving intensive immersion in the required mental skills as we speak." Again, he spoke with what she recognised as the pure confidence available only to the utterly ignorant and the supremely deluded. "He should be ready in a week."
Perhaps Platonic dialogue would work instead. If she asked him questions that he couldn't answer, maybe he would reconsider this whole cockamamie scheme. "Okay, then. Exactly what skills will render him able to withstand fifteen voices screaming at him, twenty-four-seven? When he's trying to eat, sleep, whatever?"
"I'm no expert in this sort of thing, but he's apparently receiving training in meditation, lucid dreaming and several related disciplines. Initial reports are very encouraging."
Rebecca wanted to facepalm so very badly, but she felt it would look unprofessional. "By which you mean, he's managing to ignore one person shouting at him. Do you have fifteen people willing to badger him nonstop for a week, night and day, just to see how he handles it?"
By the look on his face, she'd intuited his testing situation exactly. "Not until he's further advanced in his training. We don't want to sabotage this operation before it ever gets off the ground. Is that what you're trying to do?" He gave her a suspicious look.
"No, of course not." Hell, yes. In a hot second. "I just want to make sure that he's sufficiently prepared for the ordeal in front of him." I want you to realise that there's literally no way on Earth to prep him for something like that. He'd have to be blind, deaf and brain-dead …
She slowly blinked. With no other reaction did she show anything of the epiphany that had just presented itself to her. It was unethical as fuck, but it also offered a way out of the problem.
Mentally, she snorted in harsh amusement. If I had a quarter for every time that exact sentence has gone through my head, and we've done it anyway …
On the screen, he had no idea of what she was thinking. She knew damn well none of it was showing in her face. "So, you have no other objections to Operation Inheritance?"
"None whatsoever." She gave him her blandest look. "I'll probably be busy when you put it into practice, but I'll contact Alexandria and ask her to observe the process."
"That would be excellent." For a second, she thought he might have accidentally expressed humility. "She might actually learn something." Nope, nope, he hadn't.
"Well, don't let me keep you." She ended the call, then hit the intercom. "No interruptions for the next ten minutes. Even if it's an Endbringer. Understood?"
"Yes, ma'am." Her PA had heard it all before.
Standing up from her desk, she stepped away from her chair and faced the wall. "Doorway to Doctor Mother."
The portal opened with zero fuss or bother, and she stepped through. Doctor Mother was seated at her desk, tapping away at the computer; she looked up as Rebecca appeared.
"There's a problem," she said immediately. "I can always tell."
The only reason she could tell was that Rebecca wasn't bothering to hide how pissed-off she was, but Rebecca chose not to point this out. "Yes, there's a problem. Some idiot wants to decant Butcher into a prepped volunteer's head."
Doctor Mother frowned. "Didn't we look at that option before?"
"We did. Contessa could find no path that would make such a ploy viable."
Doctor Mother folded her hands together. "So, what are you going to do? Disappear him? From the sounds of it, you've tried to convince him not to, and he doesn't convince easily."
"No." Rebecca set her jaw. "Our mistake was not considering all variables."
That actually shocked Doctor Mother out of her amused complacency. "Contessa always considers all the variables!"
"She considers all the variables we give her." Rebecca took a deep breath. "Contessa?"
A Doorway opened, and Contessa stepped out of it. Distantly, Rebecca heard crackling flames and the odd scream. "Please don't disturb me. I'm in the middle of something. And the answer is yes, it will work." She disappeared back through the Doorway, which popped out of existence a moment later.
Rebecca spread her hands. "And there you have it."
Doctor Mother raised her eyebrows. "Well, okay then. Now I want to know how you figured out something that Contessa didn't."
Rebecca's lips thinned in something that wasn't quite a smile. "As I said, I changed the variables. I'm going to need you to prep a cape for me …"
Genesis
The explosion was the last thing Jess' projection heard before it was obliterated from existence. She jerked awake, opening her eyes in the RV, even as she registered the beginnings of the headache that always happened when her projections got killed. "Guys!" she shouted reflexively. "Guys! Shit!"
Then she heard the rumble, going on from outside, and a chill etched its way down her spine. Sitting up, she swung her legs over the side of the narrow bed then reached down and grabbed her folding wheelchair. While her legs might be atrophied, she had plenty of core strength, and she had it open and ready for use in short order.
Once seated in the chair, she wheeled it along the narrow passageway until she reached the front of the RV. Oliver was already sitting in the passenger seat. He looked around as she came up. "What happened?" he asked. "Why are you awake?" But his expression told her that he already knew.
Staring out the windows, she saw Accord's building … or what was left of it. It was still subsiding as she watched, the last bits of rubble raising huge clouds of dust and possibly smoke as they crashed to the ground. "Shit," she said again, her voice barely above a whisper.
Coming to Boston had been a mistake, she realised. And it hadn't been the only one they'd made, not by a long shot. The Travellers had been formed around chaos, and spread it everywhere they went.
How the fuck did Krouse even think we'd have a chance to operate in Accord's town?
Then Cody tried to kill Noelle—mistake—which generated a bunch of Cody clones. She hoped they'd been destroyed by now. Marissa had gone to tell Krouse, and had apparently busted in on the meeting with Accord, so he'd killed her.
Then Krouse made the mistake of attacking Accord rather than rejoining the team. He was good, but Accord was better. And finally, they'd decided that Accord had to die (more for Marissa's sake than Krouse's, if she was being honest) and that had been a monumental blunder as well.
And now, they're all dead. What the fuck am I supposed to do now?
She breathed deeply, staring at the tremendous pile of rubble that held her hopes and dreams of the future crushed beneath it. What had happened, she wasn't even sure. They'd fought their way down a corridor until the only thing blocking the way up to the next floor was a solid steel door. Luke had stepped up to it past the cloned security, holding his hand out to make contact.
What was supposed to happen next was that the door would be launched into orbit, and she'd power on through in the form of her six-armed gorilla projection, and punch out as many of Accord's flunkies as she could find. Instead, just as Luke laid his hands on the door, the sides of the corridor disintegrated in flame and flying shrapnel. Caught on all sides with no chance of escape, her projection had been destroyed, and she could only assume the worst for the other three.
Tears burned in her eyes, blurring her vision and rolling down her cheeks. The rest of the Travellers had been her friends as well as her teammates. They hadn't always agreed with each other, and in fact they'd argued more often than not, but that didn't matter. Over the year-and-a-bit they'd been meandering across Earth Bet, they'd become closer to each other than many families got.
And now, only she and Oliver remained.
Everything that she'd counted as being good and true in the world was dead; where her heart had once resided, a gaping hole in her chest now sucked away all the joy and happiness she'd ever felt. She clenched her hands until her nails bit into her palms as the harsh sobs wrenched their way out of her throat, shaking her body with their primal intensity. The pain of loss overwhelmed her, and she wailed her anguish to the heavens.
She didn't register the side door on the RV opening until hands shook her shoulders. "Hey! Jess! Snap out of it!"
"Wh-wh-what?" It took effort to choke back the sobs, but once she blinked away the tears, the initial recognition was confirmed. Cody stood before her; costume torn and covered in concrete dust, but alive all the same. "C-Cody? You're alive?" Blazing hope flared up in her chest. "Is-is Noelle—Luke—?"
He shook his head sombrely, obliterating the new supposition aborning. "Sorry, no. Just me. I managed to rewind to before the explosion, but every time I tried to warn them, it went off before they could get out. As it was, I nearly didn't get out myself."
"Shit." She dropped her head. "Krouse is dead. Noelle's dead. Marissa's dead. Luke's dead. We're all that's left. What do we do now?"
He took his hands off her shoulders and leaned against the back of the driver's seat. "Well, I know what we're not going to be doing."
Jess frowned. "Okay, you've lost me. What aren't we going to be doing?" There were many things they weren't going to be doing, she knew, so she had no idea where he was going with this.
Cody's jaw hardened. "Letting that piece of shit Accord get away with murdering Noelle and Marissa and Luke."
She noticed that he hadn't mentioned Krouse's name; then again, she would've called him out on it if he had. His dislike of Trickster hadn't even been an open secret within the team. Everyone had known about it (and why), but it was one more thing that they just allowed for.
Of course, this wasn't going to stop her from calling him out for other reasons. "Cody, no! Bad idea! We just tried that, and lost two of our strongest members!"
"Yeah!" agreed Oliver.
"But he had to blow up his building to stop us." Cody spread his hands as though the conclusion was foregone. "He doesn't have any booby traps left. He planned to kill us all, and failed. So, we're going to kill him. And if we can grab some of his money first, all the better."
"So, what are we going to do?" Her voice was bitter, matching her mood. "Just hang about in Boston until he sticks his head up again?"
He shook his head. "He's not staying in Boston. Too many other players who'd be willing to hit him while he's down. He'll be moving on."
"And where to, genius?" She spread her hands, parodying his gesture from earlier. "Are we going to be trailing him across the United States until he stops?"
"We don't have to." He grinned. "Remember how we were talking about Brockton Bay, and how they've just cleaned up their villains? That's where he'll go, just like he moved into Boston, back in the day. I read up on that bastard before we ever got here." His expression darkened. "Not that Krouse ever fucking listened to me. Marissa would be alive right now if—"
She'd caught some of his anger, and now she prodded him hard in the chest. "If you hadn't generated those clones with Noelle, you mean? You were always all about how Krouse needed to own his mistakes. Well, you need to own yours, too."
"Okay, yeah, maybe that wasn't my finest hour," he admitted. "But tell me I'm wrong about this."
Her anger ebbed away as she thought about it. "I can't. It's where he'd definitely go."
"Are we honestly doing this?" asked Oliver. "Seriously?"
"Yeah, we are." Swinging around into the driver's seat, Cody pulled the keys out of the centre console. "Once we beat him there, we can set up our ambush. As far as he knows, we're all dead. So, he won't even have a chance to plan against us."
Jess nodded slowly. There wasn't anything else she could really plan for right now, and wreaking bloody vengeance against the man who'd murdered her friends sounded as good as anything else right now. "Yeah. Let's do this."
Tattletale
The remote clicked, shutting off a news story about an office building in Boston that had mysteriously exploded and collapsed. In the foreground, a battered RV passed in front of the camera then vanished offscreen. Lisa leaned back on the sofa, her mind whirling with the information that her power had just supplied to her.
"Well, shit," she murmured. "That's going to get interesting."
End of Part Forty-Five
Part Forty-Five: Incoming Shitstorm
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Boston
Accord
The last of the collapsing rubble had ceased making noise a few minutes ago. Accord listened carefully, trying to locate the sound of nearby footsteps or talking, but he could hear nothing. Part of this, he was sure, was due to his ears ringing from the explosion that had demolished the majority of his building, but that would pass. The door was also quite thick, which wouldn't help with hearing anything.
It was all the fault of the Travellers, he decided. The news of Coil's arrest may have put him on edge and made him a little more prone to immediate violence, but they had known what he was like before they entered his city. When that stupid girl pushed her way into the meeting, she had violated one of his primary creeds, and had thus earned the sword-blade through her chest.
Events had unfortunately escalated from there. Trickster had nearly killed him before he finished off the young man, but the rest of the Travellers had been alerted first. Even bereft of their leader and Sundancer, they had hit the building hard and done a huge amount of damage before Accord's forces were able to mobilise.
It was only when he realised the Case 53 that accompanied them was cloning his security service and somehow flipping them to her service that he understood that the building was lost. Most of his Ambassadors had fallen to the vengeful capes by this time, so there was just him at the top and those few of his security services that were fighting a desperate rearguard action. Most people would have given up at this point, but he was different. He had a plan.
He had a plan for everything.
Following the fighting via the few remaining intact cameras, he waited until the enemy had reached the point where he'd designed the building to funnel attackers. Then he opened the lower right drawer, tapped in the six-digit code, flipped up the cover, and pressed the large red button (because in some matters, tradition was important). In the ten-count before the explosion went off, he urged Othello and Citrine into what appeared to be an empty closet to the side of his office.
The door closed automatically, and glowing numbers showed up beneath the wood veneer. He pressed the lowest one, and the secret elevator dropped away from beneath them. While the elevator plunged downward and the other two grabbed for handholds, he stood imperturbably, facing the doors with both hands on his walking cane.
The explosion, when it came, was considerable. It was calculated to utterly destroy anything but the highest Brute level capes, in the process demolishing the load-bearing pillars that held the upper section of the building in the air. There was no point, after all, in leaving an enemy alive in order to save an already-compromised structure.
As the long, drawn-out rumble of the collapsing building sounded from above them, he exited the elevator and led them along a reinforced corridor and then up a flight of stairs, all illuminated by subdued bulbs set into the ceiling. Behind him, Othello and Citrine were conversing in low tones, presumably for privacy. He chose not to tell them that he could hear them quite well due to the tunnel's acoustics.
"Do you think anyone survived up there?" That was Citrine. "I think he blew the whole building up."
Othello was more pragmatic. "Would you rather they followed us down here? That Blaster launched Lizardtail clear across the city."
"Well, no, but … I can't help wondering if anyone survived."
"We'd better hope that they didn't. We killed two of their members. That damned case fifty-three was screaming that she was going to eat Accord alive and shit out his mask."
Accord held up his hand. "Hush." Carefully, he listened again at the steel-reinforced door. There weren't any more sounds of rubble shifting; even now, the ringing in his ears was easing off and he still couldn't hear problematic noises outside the door.
"What are we going to do now, sir?" asked Othello after waiting a respectful interval. "It will take some time to rebuild—"
Accord cut him off. "We are not rebuilding in Boston. This would put us into an unacceptably weakened position in the city."
This time it was Citrine who spoke. "Not in Boston? Where are we going then, sir?"
"Brockton Bay," He said the name with finality. "It has been cleared of all criminal gangs, leaving the way clear for me to move in and re-establish my operation."
"Understand that I'm not criticising your decision sir." Othello's tone was cautiously deferential. "But how are we going to get set up if the local capes are demonstrably capable of clearing out entrenched villain gangs?"
"The precipitating factor is a team called The Real Thing." Accord had, of course, done his research. "They only possess one Thinker, and she is limited to combat applications. Otherwise, there is a Brute and a Tinker. If they cannot locate us, they cannot oust us."
"I've heard about The Real Thing, sir." Citrine's words were measured and precise, as they should be. "The word is that the combat Thinker can't be beaten in a straight fight, the Brute is the strongest cape they've ever seen, and the Tinker's tech can't be damaged."
Accord had heard similar things before. "It's fortunate, then, that our strategies don't depend on straight fights or matching strength with strength."
<><>
Alexandria
Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown had been in charge of the PRT for the entirety of the eighteen years that it had been in existence, and she'd been a superhero in her other identity for years before that. In all that time, she'd been exposed to a vast number of truly stupid ideas, some of which were rammed through against her strenuous opposition.
This one, she decided as she carefully schooled her expression to reflect 'this is an interesting idea and I need to think it over' instead of 'what the goddamn living fuck have you been smoking, you utter moron', had to be in the top five, maybe the top one or two.
Of course, it was a politician who'd come up with it, which made it less surprising overall, but diminished its sheer blind idiocy not in the slightest.
"So," she began in the blandest tone she could muster. "Let me see if I've got this straight. Your argument is that keeping Butcher in her current manacles, or even in stringent solitary conditions, is an affront to her human rights, and she deserves the same freedoms that every other convicted criminal is afforded."
"That's correct." It wasn't Charles who'd come up with this. He was too smart. Though she couldn't help noticing that he wasn't actually opposing the idea. The idiot of the moment was apparently a self-described conservative libertarian who had somehow weaselled his way into a high enough government salary that he could inflict his ideas of how the world should work on far more people than actually deserved it. "You're about to say she's too dangerous to be around people. This is also true, but it doesn't detract from the fact that her human rights are being abrogated on an hourly basis."
Through truly superhuman self-control, Rebecca neither sighed nor pinched the bridge of her nose. "I would personally say that the original Butcher abrogated those same rights when he chose to become the leader of the Teeth, and murder his way across the United States. Every successive Butcher merely added to the danger he or she poses toward the public. And let's face it: our laws literally do not cover this kind of situation."
"Again, I agree." The over-promoted idiot puffed himself out proudly. "Unusual problems demand unusual solutions. Which is why I've proposed Operation Inheritance. Normally, someone like Butcher would be convicted, placed on Death Row, and executed." He held up a hand. "Which, you're going to say, we shouldn't do because it would cause the Butcher entity to jump to the responsible cape, or the nearest cape if one wasn't responsible. Yes, I've read the report."
"And I've read your proposal." Rebecca had never been so tempted to call for a small Doorway, just so she could reach through the computer link and strangle the delusional fool, but she restrained herself. "I believe there are factors that you have not yet taken into account, when it comes to putting Butcher into someone's head." Translation: it's sheer self-congratulatory bullshit from end to end.
He managed to look affronted all the same. "Ms Costa-Brown—"
"Chief Director," she corrected him firmly. "I've earned that title, sir, and I'll thank you to use it."
He looked and sounded annoyed at the interruption. "Very well, then. Chief Director Costa-Brown, I have consulted experts in the field at every step of the way. I truly believe this has a chance of working, and of ridding us forever of the menace of Butcher while not simply disposing of her like a wild animal."
In Rebecca's opinion, Butcher should have been long since disposed of like a wild animal, if only someone could make it stick. "Experts in the field? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Alexandria's one of the leading experts in the field, and I don't believe she was consulted. Nor have any of the other experts of my acquaintance."
He had the sheer effrontery to give her a smug look. "You are, of course, biased where it comes to Butcher. My sources were chosen to be more balanced in their opinions." And more in line with my own, he didn't have to say.
"And they all agreed that this was the optimum course of action? Unequivocally?"
"Well, of course. A volunteer cape, given extensive training in maintaining his mental fortitude against all internal or external influences, should be capable of keeping the other Butchers in line."
"Every other Butcher thought the same thing," she gritted. "They either fell into line themselves or went insane and got themselves killed. You're proposing giving the Butchers a new set of powers, plus insider knowledge into how we operate. This is a very bad idea."
"I don't believe so, and I've got the funding to make it happen." The smug look had only intensified. "If this works—and I don't see why it can't—we'll have a cape with all those powers working for good, and the Teeth will no longer be a problem."
"How much training are you giving your volunteer?" Rebecca's bad feeling about Operation Inheritance was steadily ascending into the stratosphere. If he'd come up with this whole idea in the short time since Butcher had been captured, the interval between locating an appropriate volunteer and prepping him had to be minimal.
"He's receiving intensive immersion in the required mental skills as we speak." Again, he spoke with what she recognised as the pure confidence available only to the utterly ignorant and the supremely deluded. "He should be ready in a week."
Perhaps Platonic dialogue would work instead. If she asked him questions that he couldn't answer, maybe he would reconsider this whole cockamamie scheme. "Okay, then. Exactly what skills will render him able to withstand fifteen voices screaming at him, twenty-four-seven? When he's trying to eat, sleep, whatever?"
"I'm no expert in this sort of thing, but he's apparently receiving training in meditation, lucid dreaming and several related disciplines. Initial reports are very encouraging."
Rebecca wanted to facepalm so very badly, but she felt it would look unprofessional. "By which you mean, he's managing to ignore one person shouting at him. Do you have fifteen people willing to badger him nonstop for a week, night and day, just to see how he handles it?"
By the look on his face, she'd intuited his testing situation exactly. "Not until he's further advanced in his training. We don't want to sabotage this operation before it ever gets off the ground. Is that what you're trying to do?" He gave her a suspicious look.
"No, of course not." Hell, yes. In a hot second. "I just want to make sure that he's sufficiently prepared for the ordeal in front of him." I want you to realise that there's literally no way on Earth to prep him for something like that. He'd have to be blind, deaf and brain-dead …
She slowly blinked. With no other reaction did she show anything of the epiphany that had just presented itself to her. It was unethical as fuck, but it also offered a way out of the problem.
Mentally, she snorted in harsh amusement. If I had a quarter for every time that exact sentence has gone through my head, and we've done it anyway …
On the screen, he had no idea of what she was thinking. She knew damn well none of it was showing in her face. "So, you have no other objections to Operation Inheritance?"
"None whatsoever." She gave him her blandest look. "I'll probably be busy when you put it into practice, but I'll contact Alexandria and ask her to observe the process."
"That would be excellent." For a second, she thought he might have accidentally expressed humility. "She might actually learn something." Nope, nope, he hadn't.
"Well, don't let me keep you." She ended the call, then hit the intercom. "No interruptions for the next ten minutes. Even if it's an Endbringer. Understood?"
"Yes, ma'am." Her PA had heard it all before.
Standing up from her desk, she stepped away from her chair and faced the wall. "Doorway to Doctor Mother."
The portal opened with zero fuss or bother, and she stepped through. Doctor Mother was seated at her desk, tapping away at the computer; she looked up as Rebecca appeared.
"There's a problem," she said immediately. "I can always tell."
The only reason she could tell was that Rebecca wasn't bothering to hide how pissed-off she was, but Rebecca chose not to point this out. "Yes, there's a problem. Some idiot wants to decant Butcher into a prepped volunteer's head."
Doctor Mother frowned. "Didn't we look at that option before?"
"We did. Contessa could find no path that would make such a ploy viable."
Doctor Mother folded her hands together. "So, what are you going to do? Disappear him? From the sounds of it, you've tried to convince him not to, and he doesn't convince easily."
"No." Rebecca set her jaw. "Our mistake was not considering all variables."
That actually shocked Doctor Mother out of her amused complacency. "Contessa always considers all the variables!"
"She considers all the variables we give her." Rebecca took a deep breath. "Contessa?"
A Doorway opened, and Contessa stepped out of it. Distantly, Rebecca heard crackling flames and the odd scream. "Please don't disturb me. I'm in the middle of something. And the answer is yes, it will work." She disappeared back through the Doorway, which popped out of existence a moment later.
Rebecca spread her hands. "And there you have it."
Doctor Mother raised her eyebrows. "Well, okay then. Now I want to know how you figured out something that Contessa didn't."
Rebecca's lips thinned in something that wasn't quite a smile. "As I said, I changed the variables. I'm going to need you to prep a cape for me …"
<><>
Genesis
The explosion was the last thing Jess' projection heard before it was obliterated from existence. She jerked awake, opening her eyes in the RV, even as she registered the beginnings of the headache that always happened when her projections got killed. "Guys!" she shouted reflexively. "Guys! Shit!"
Then she heard the rumble, going on from outside, and a chill etched its way down her spine. Sitting up, she swung her legs over the side of the narrow bed then reached down and grabbed her folding wheelchair. While her legs might be atrophied, she had plenty of core strength, and she had it open and ready for use in short order.
Once seated in the chair, she wheeled it along the narrow passageway until she reached the front of the RV. Oliver was already sitting in the passenger seat. He looked around as she came up. "What happened?" he asked. "Why are you awake?" But his expression told her that he already knew.
Staring out the windows, she saw Accord's building … or what was left of it. It was still subsiding as she watched, the last bits of rubble raising huge clouds of dust and possibly smoke as they crashed to the ground. "Shit," she said again, her voice barely above a whisper.
Coming to Boston had been a mistake, she realised. And it hadn't been the only one they'd made, not by a long shot. The Travellers had been formed around chaos, and spread it everywhere they went.
How the fuck did Krouse even think we'd have a chance to operate in Accord's town?
Then Cody tried to kill Noelle—mistake—which generated a bunch of Cody clones. She hoped they'd been destroyed by now. Marissa had gone to tell Krouse, and had apparently busted in on the meeting with Accord, so he'd killed her.
Then Krouse made the mistake of attacking Accord rather than rejoining the team. He was good, but Accord was better. And finally, they'd decided that Accord had to die (more for Marissa's sake than Krouse's, if she was being honest) and that had been a monumental blunder as well.
And now, they're all dead. What the fuck am I supposed to do now?
She breathed deeply, staring at the tremendous pile of rubble that held her hopes and dreams of the future crushed beneath it. What had happened, she wasn't even sure. They'd fought their way down a corridor until the only thing blocking the way up to the next floor was a solid steel door. Luke had stepped up to it past the cloned security, holding his hand out to make contact.
What was supposed to happen next was that the door would be launched into orbit, and she'd power on through in the form of her six-armed gorilla projection, and punch out as many of Accord's flunkies as she could find. Instead, just as Luke laid his hands on the door, the sides of the corridor disintegrated in flame and flying shrapnel. Caught on all sides with no chance of escape, her projection had been destroyed, and she could only assume the worst for the other three.
Tears burned in her eyes, blurring her vision and rolling down her cheeks. The rest of the Travellers had been her friends as well as her teammates. They hadn't always agreed with each other, and in fact they'd argued more often than not, but that didn't matter. Over the year-and-a-bit they'd been meandering across Earth Bet, they'd become closer to each other than many families got.
And now, only she and Oliver remained.
Everything that she'd counted as being good and true in the world was dead; where her heart had once resided, a gaping hole in her chest now sucked away all the joy and happiness she'd ever felt. She clenched her hands until her nails bit into her palms as the harsh sobs wrenched their way out of her throat, shaking her body with their primal intensity. The pain of loss overwhelmed her, and she wailed her anguish to the heavens.
She didn't register the side door on the RV opening until hands shook her shoulders. "Hey! Jess! Snap out of it!"
"Wh-wh-what?" It took effort to choke back the sobs, but once she blinked away the tears, the initial recognition was confirmed. Cody stood before her; costume torn and covered in concrete dust, but alive all the same. "C-Cody? You're alive?" Blazing hope flared up in her chest. "Is-is Noelle—Luke—?"
He shook his head sombrely, obliterating the new supposition aborning. "Sorry, no. Just me. I managed to rewind to before the explosion, but every time I tried to warn them, it went off before they could get out. As it was, I nearly didn't get out myself."
"Shit." She dropped her head. "Krouse is dead. Noelle's dead. Marissa's dead. Luke's dead. We're all that's left. What do we do now?"
He took his hands off her shoulders and leaned against the back of the driver's seat. "Well, I know what we're not going to be doing."
Jess frowned. "Okay, you've lost me. What aren't we going to be doing?" There were many things they weren't going to be doing, she knew, so she had no idea where he was going with this.
Cody's jaw hardened. "Letting that piece of shit Accord get away with murdering Noelle and Marissa and Luke."
She noticed that he hadn't mentioned Krouse's name; then again, she would've called him out on it if he had. His dislike of Trickster hadn't even been an open secret within the team. Everyone had known about it (and why), but it was one more thing that they just allowed for.
Of course, this wasn't going to stop her from calling him out for other reasons. "Cody, no! Bad idea! We just tried that, and lost two of our strongest members!"
"Yeah!" agreed Oliver.
"But he had to blow up his building to stop us." Cody spread his hands as though the conclusion was foregone. "He doesn't have any booby traps left. He planned to kill us all, and failed. So, we're going to kill him. And if we can grab some of his money first, all the better."
"So, what are we going to do?" Her voice was bitter, matching her mood. "Just hang about in Boston until he sticks his head up again?"
He shook his head. "He's not staying in Boston. Too many other players who'd be willing to hit him while he's down. He'll be moving on."
"And where to, genius?" She spread her hands, parodying his gesture from earlier. "Are we going to be trailing him across the United States until he stops?"
"We don't have to." He grinned. "Remember how we were talking about Brockton Bay, and how they've just cleaned up their villains? That's where he'll go, just like he moved into Boston, back in the day. I read up on that bastard before we ever got here." His expression darkened. "Not that Krouse ever fucking listened to me. Marissa would be alive right now if—"
She'd caught some of his anger, and now she prodded him hard in the chest. "If you hadn't generated those clones with Noelle, you mean? You were always all about how Krouse needed to own his mistakes. Well, you need to own yours, too."
"Okay, yeah, maybe that wasn't my finest hour," he admitted. "But tell me I'm wrong about this."
Her anger ebbed away as she thought about it. "I can't. It's where he'd definitely go."
"Are we honestly doing this?" asked Oliver. "Seriously?"
"Yeah, we are." Swinging around into the driver's seat, Cody pulled the keys out of the centre console. "Once we beat him there, we can set up our ambush. As far as he knows, we're all dead. So, he won't even have a chance to plan against us."
Jess nodded slowly. There wasn't anything else she could really plan for right now, and wreaking bloody vengeance against the man who'd murdered her friends sounded as good as anything else right now. "Yeah. Let's do this."
<><>
Tattletale
The remote clicked, shutting off a news story about an office building in Boston that had mysteriously exploded and collapsed. In the foreground, a battered RV passed in front of the camera then vanished offscreen. Lisa leaned back on the sofa, her mind whirling with the information that her power had just supplied to her.
"Well, shit," she murmured. "That's going to get interesting."
End of Part Forty-Five
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GreydonCreed
Man of Culture
- Location
- United States
Nature really abhors an vacuum, doesn't it? As soon as one group of villains gets cleared from Brockton Bay another jumps in. It's almost like digging a hole in the sand at the waterline at the beach. 😅
I am reminded of Albert Einstein's quote - "There are only two things that are infinite, the universe and human stupidity. And I'm not quite sure about the first."
I am reminded of Albert Einstein's quote - "There are only two things that are infinite, the universe and human stupidity. And I'm not quite sure about the first."
- Location
- The Midlands.
Well, he's not actually wrong about that, is he? His proposed solution is utterly terrible, to be sure, but the idea of keeping someone permanently locked up and restrained like that is utterly horrible no matter what they're guilty of.
- Location
- The Internet?
Good update, I enjoyed it, thank you for sharing!
RIP Marissa.
I sure am glad WE aren't living in a dystopia like this universe. 
"You're incorrectly thinking of a Cabinet position, and that's wrong,-"
"-but let me explain something to you about parahumans... and would it kill you to smile more?"
Teeth that could grind down diamond pressed firmly against each other, "No, but it might kill you."
"What was that?"
"I said, I'll keep that in mind, sir."
*I mean, not fine, fine, but you know what I mean. Like physically.
This is giving, "You can't get mad at him, he's autistic" vibes. And like, bro, you can be autistic, or in Accord's case 'murderously OCD,' and still be a dick. People contain multitudes.
RIP Marissa.
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face, and Accord my man, you're gonna have people lined up around the block to take their turn.
Chucking Assault into the Bay is a tradition that's extended out of the bay.
This smart guy sure is good at making bad decisions, huh?
Now I know it's fiction. As though such a clown could ever climb so high in an actual functional society.
I sure am glad WE aren't living in a dystopia like this universe. "My friend Clark is actually a very reputable journalist, who is handsome, and I think you should give him an exclusive when he reaches out for your comment," Superman said before flying away.
The problem, Alexandria decided, with 'bashing your head into walls,' was that the walls were not durable enough to provide the catharsis of an unyielding impact. Floating up from the rubble of the final building in the abandoned ghost town, she shook to get most of the plaster and dust off of her person, having left no wall standing. "Doorway back to my office." And then she was gone.
"Honey, I know you're the president's secretary or whatever-"
"You're incorrectly thinking of a Cabinet position, and that's wrong,-"
"-but let me explain something to you about parahumans... and would it kill you to smile more?"
Teeth that could grind down diamond pressed firmly against each other, "No, but it might kill you."
"What was that?"
"I said, I'll keep that in mind, sir."
Hey! Noelle's probably fine*
*I mean, not fine, fine, but you know what I mean. Like physically.
This is Oliver erasure, and I will not stand for it!
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M. H. Fuzzball
Aperture Science-certified Horrible Person
- Location
- Sector 2814
Jess is Genesis, Sundancer was Marissa.
- Location
- The Internet?
I have no idea what you're talking about, if you go back and look, you'll see that it says Marissa, has always said Marissa, and anyone telling you to look at the edit history is clearly a stranger trying to Master you into believing fake news.
But yes, thank you.
- Location
- Australia
You saw nothing.
- Location
- The Internet?
Of course not, because we're both two people who can keep track of all of the Travelers and keep their names straight, as the last few posts in this thread have demonstrated.
- Location
- America
Wait why was Marissa breaking accord rules.
- Location
- The Internet?
Because Cody was doing 'bad touch' with Noelle.
- Location
- Australia
Okay, I hinted at this, but here's the deal.
In canon, Sundancer burst in on the meeting because Cody had pulled his shit with Noelle and there were clones running around.
Accord told Trickster that she had to die.
He managed to get her to show Accord that she could do 'orderly' by performing a ballet act.
In this, Accord had just learned of Coil's arrest, and he was on edge, so when she burst in, he stood up, pulled his sword cane, and stabbed her.
Everything escalated from there.
For some reason, I see Jess joining The Real Thing at the end of this cluster fuck.
- Location
- The Internet?
She can't do that! Her whole power is making The Fake Thing!
Raved Thrad
Your Friendly Neighborhood Curmudgeon
- Location
- The Other Side of the Screen
And this is why I love a well-written Accord...
...except he just fell victim to one of the Claththic Blunderth, the most famous of which is "Never get involved in a land war in Asia." The most horrific, however, for the victim, at least, is "Never look at Taylor Hebert and go, 'meh, I can take her.'"
*scrolls back up the page* I see that this chapter could easily have also been titled, "Idiot Balls Abound."
...and the idiot balls continue to bounce around! Does UnconcernedFox exist in this iteration of Brockton Bay? Because if so, I'm buying them some popcorn.
ThrawnCA
Carbon-based biped
- Location
- Australia
I'm sure the public will be thrilled to hear that their elected constituents choose to deal with an intractable human rights problem by executing the subject. And hoping it sticks.
That calls for a joke about the size of the politician's, but Rebecca can't afford to be that crass in public.
- Location
- USA
I can see the logic behind not using the Slug here. There is a non zero chance that the Butcher shard might see that as a death strike and jump to the Slug. Which would remove a very critical power from Cauldron, its an unlikely result yes but its a potential reason to avoid using that sort of power on the Butcher.
rkyeun
Cabbitus Maximus
- Location
- ◕ ‿‿ ◕
Perhaps. But neither Butcher nor Slug are blind spots. Have Contessa check to see if it works before you do it. There, no risk.
- Location
- Australia
They haven't done it, so there's a very good chance that it wouldn't work.