Gotta Trump Them All (Worm CYOA) (Hiatus)

[SavicusVonde]

Working for the PRT isn't as exciting as one might expect. Like most law enforcement, there's a lot more sitting around waiting for something to happen than there was something actually happening. I'd spent more time sitting at my desk than doing anything useful for the little over a year that I'd been here, and that was after the two yearlong academy course. Coming out of a degree on Parahuman Studies they'd sold the job to me on the premise of seeing powers up close and in person. That, combined with an overwhelming lack of any interesting or in any way fulfilling job opportunities, left me with no other choice but to sign right up. With that and my dad, a retired PRT man himself, constantly egging me on, I couldn't really say no, could I?

What he didn't tell me anything about was the physical torture they called a 'school', the copious amount of paperwork that they would bury me under once I finally got out of that hellhole. And all of that before I could even touch a gun let alone get near any combat with power usage. Sure, I'd seen the Wards from time to time, seen reports that they'd signed off on, and I'd heard stories of Assault shooting the shit with my colleagues that had been lucky enough to get sent out to the field with him while I was stuck working the desk. Stupid rookie hazing.

Finally, after months of filling out forms and firearm training, I was allowed out to see my first taste of parahuman action! And nothing happened.

When I'd been told to suit up and get ready for action I'd naturally been hyped. Three years of studying, more than half a year of paperwork all just to get close to any parahuman action.

Okay yes, maybe you could call me a cape groupie and be mostly correct but could you blame me? I still remembered my dad showing me his old comic book collection from before… well, everything. He'd shown me his old favourites that had all stopped publishing soon after actual real-life superpowers started to pop up and Scion turned up. Who would read Superman or Batman when you've got glowing and golden flying around saving kittens?

But when we got there it was just to see Mush, a literal moving pile of garbage slinking away from the frustrated team that had gotten there before us. Luckily nobody had been hurt, a few knocks here and there from the villain's detritus but the PRT standard issue armour protected them well enough that they could walk it off. They were frustrated because they hadn't caught him, I was frustrated because I'd barely gotten a glimpse of the parahuman before he'd gotten away. Seriously? Almost a full year of waiting just for that…

The palpable aura of disappointment around me got me some funny looks from the first response team, and only slightly mocking chuckles from my squad leader. I'd been surprised to learn that there was lot more anti-parahuman sentiments thrown around inside the response teams than I had expected, but I probably shouldn't have been. They prepare every day to go out and take them down, if that didn't breed some kind of resentment then they'd practically have to be saints. Nobody in the unit was as 'obsessed' (their words not mine) with capes as I was, and I had a feeling that the rookie hazing I faced was even worse for it.

So life at the PRT settled into a monotonous loop of paperwork and doing nothing. The glorious Parahuman Response Desk Jockies didn't roll of the tongue quite as well. That isn't to say there was no action, but most of the time it came down to our capes versus their capes while us normal people shot at each other. Not to say that that wasn't terrifying exciting, definitely got my adrenaline pumping but it wasn't what I'd signed up for.

I didn't doubt that something would happen eventually. It was an inevitability being part of a PRT team, let alone one in Brockton Bay. There was a certain tension that hung over everybody that I knew at the PRT, all of them were members of a rapid response team like me, and all of them knew the danger that could come every day. And would come eventually. You don't live or work in a city like the Bay without knowing how much of a shithole it is. Maybe if we were from the posh upper class whose entire view of the city came down to the nice downtown shops and streets, but we were all working class.

We all knew there were some areas you don't go too, some streets you don't walk down at night or, hell, any time of day. It shouldn't have shocked me as much as it did when I joined that we were told- ordered not to push too far into those places. Even though it was our job to help the people there, to enforce the law. But nobody wanted to poke the sleeping dragons of the gangs, literally for the ABB. It was practically open knowledge that Brockton Bay was as much controlled by the gangs as it was the PRT, even if no-one at HQ liked to say it. I'd only tried to ask about it once, about why we hadn't been allocated more men or funds or more anything to push the gangs harder. We had the Triumvirate for goodness sake, what could the metal Nazi do against them? All I got was a round of stony-faced silence from some, bitter laughs from others and a curt dismissal.

All in all, the PRT wasn't what I expected when I joined, but I still believed in what we were doing. That we were right and just. If I had to choose when that began to change? I would say it would have to be the worst day of my life, when everything changed.

And it all started when Hookwolf came flying through a wall.

-o-​

"What're we doing here again?" Peter asked for what had to have been the hundredth time.

"Seriously? Do you ever actually read any of the briefings?" Kieran, our squad lead said, the crackle of his voice over the radio accompanied by a deep sigh that had long since become familiar whenever Peter said anything stupid.

"That's what we have you for though?" I saw Peter's head cock from the other side of the street, honestly confused by Kieran's frustration. We'd come out of the academy together and I was still confused how he'd made it. He was loveable and sweet, and when I'd asked about why he'd joined up he just laughed and said 'it sounded like fun'. It's not like I could mock him for it, my reasons weren't much better.

If we were in any other situation I would've sworn that the dull thud I heard was my squad lead smacking Peter's head against the wall.

"Moron," Kieran bit out of the radio, I wasn't sure if he'd turned it on on purpose, "Hookwolf and Oni Lee were seen fighting and coming this way. Miss M and Armsmaster are in pursuit. We sit here, we wait, we take either of them down if we see the opportunity."

He spoke like he was talking to a group of children.

"How the fuck are we meant to take either of them?" Sandra spoke up, breaking her normal taciturn silence. I didn't need the radio to hear her, surrounded on both sides as I was by her and Davis, "One of them is made of metal, the other teleports and I have a pea-shooter."

"That's what the containment foam is for dumbass." Kieran growled.

"Oh I'll just ask them to stand still shall I?" Davis said, sarcasm dripping from every word, "Let's see, 'excuse me Mister Hookwolf sir, Mister Lee sir, could you possibly stop moving around so much? I'm trying to shoot you, you see,' sorry sir I don't have much after that. Since I'll be dead and all. Better yet, we could send James in to fangirl over them! Maybe that would confuse them enough to stay still and not rip me to pieces."

Ouch, okay. It wasn't like I would actually act like that, they were villains not heroes! Like if it was any of the Triumvirate then sure maybe but a Nazi and a teleporting terrorist bomber? No, not likely. I could think about how cool their powers are without complimenting them as people thank you very much.

"Davis?" Kieran said.

"Yes sir?"

"Shut up," Our squad leader bit out through clenched teeth, but we could all imagine the corners of his mouth twitching upwards to fight against his ever present frown, "You're going to shoot him, and you better pray that one of you hits him or you best believe there'll be hell to pay when we get back to HQ."

I shivered. As much as Kieran pretended to be a hard ass all the time, I knew that he meant that. If there was ever a day where my body wasn't aching all over from one drill or another then I didn't remember it.

"Aye aye, Captain," Davis droned, fearless in the face of more practice.

It was quiet then, apart from the rustling or clinking of boots and armour. We were stationed inside two houses on opposite sides of a derelict side street near the docks, me, Davis and Sandra in one with Kieran and Peter in the other. Below us in the street the other squads had set up a barricade, and I knew that the neighbouring buildings were likewise occupied. Decrepit houses and long abandoned store fronts populated this area of the city, and there were no owners to speak of to complain to the PRT about it.

Standard operating procedure for engaging parahumans was to set up a defensible position, and unless we know the that the target's power-set was something not overly threatening, we wait for them to come to us. Normally that would be surrounding the building or area that they're in but it's not uncommon for a situation like this to happen. In a city with a literal dragon or big metal dog, fights don't tend to stick to one place so we're forced to try and cut them off and curtail the property damage. I wasn't sure who would care if these buildings got damaged, they were halfway gone already, but those were the rules. They were designed for the better cities, like Boston or New York and were mainly there to try and keep bystanders out of the way. Here, the signature purple-striped black vans of the PRT and quickly erected barricades looked more out of place than anything and was probably the busiest this street had been in a long time.

Nobody said anything but there was no way that roadblock would stop either of them. Hookwolf would roll right through and the ABB lieutenant would just telefrag (literally, what is up with this city?) past it. Our only hope was to either hit them with the containment foam grenade launchers we all carried while they were hopefully distracted with each other, or just pray to slow them down enough for the Protectorate leader and good old Miss M to catch up. The man's motorbike was fast but Hookwolf had a tendency to just go through things that it couldn't quite match.

The quiet quickly grew tense, as one minute became two then three then five. It was only broken by the faint popping sounds that were steadily growing louder, and closer. Grenades, experience told me, Oni Lee's favourite weapons. Soon it was accompanied by scratching roars and crunching that started as whispers on the wind that rapidly grew into thudding shakes I could feel in the floor beneath me.

As much as I complained that I'd never gotten near the action, nor seen any heroes up close and personal, it hadn't sunk in until right then that I was getting what I wanted. And I was terrified.

"Contact incoming," It wasn't Kieran that spoke, but the platoon leader down in the street. I saw him reach up and touch his earpiece, "Through the buildings? Charlie Squad, Delta get out of the buildings!"

"No time! Brace," Kieran barked at the same time, voice crackling inside my helmet, "Brace! They're heading right for you, get down!"

I didn't get more than a second to digest what either of them said, as the building around me exploded outwards. The previously empty room apart from me and Davis suddenly occupied by flying debris and twisting, shifting metal. Hookwolf had burst through the wall, carrying all his momentum with him. I was vaguely aware of Davis' startled scream and Sandra's panicked yell, before a piece of what had previously been the wall slammed into me and everything went black.

When I came to, everything was blurry and my ears were ringing but I could still hear the constant piercing cracks of gunfire and booms of explosions. My helmet was smashed, the visor in pieces that I could just about make out on the floor. As my vision cleared, I came face to face with my reflection in the dirtied reflective material.

Short brown hair that held the faintest hint of curls after I'd had it shaved for training camp, a wide face and flat nose flanked on either side by dull green eyes. I'd never been called handsome by anyone other than my mother, just plain. There was a shallow cut on my forehead, light enough that I only felt it stinging now that I knew it was there but enough to send a curtain of blood trailing down my forehead. Shit, that was going to obscure my vision. Below my body armour was mostly intact, if dirty and my tag still clearly read 'J. Stanton'.

I wiped what was there away quickly and struggled to my feet. My balance was still wobbly and there was still a shrill piercing note in my ears but I was up. Luckily, Hookwolf had vacated the room and Oni Lee was nowhere in sight. More like he eviscerated the building I thought, looking around at the half-destroyed room. Two of the four walls had been completely demolished, one hole where a wall should have been showed a similar trail of destruction left in the Empire Eighty-Eight cape's wake, while the other opened the building to the open air. Apparently Hookwolf wanted it to be a balcony instead.

There was no sign of Davis, and my helmet was only providing bursts of static from the radio. Broken. Even as I looked around the building wobbled, teetering on its axis. I turned just in time to see Sandra pull herself upright with a hand on the door frame connecting the room she'd been stationed in to the one Davis and I had been in, before the world turned horizontal with a violent crash.

The building spilt over into the street like a Lego house thrown by a petulant child. I had just enough clarity of mind to hear the urgent yelling of 'get away' from down below before I impacted.

My head slammed against the ground, already broken visor shattering completely with a distant sounding tinkle. A multitude of heavy objects hit all over me, my hands, arms, legs and back, and I felt more than heard the dull cracks that came from my body.

And then there was silence. Or at least I thought there was, my ears were still ringing and I was more busy screaming in pain than listening for anything. Any slight twitch sent me into spasms of pain, which set off even more. I could barely feel my legs but what I could hurt like hell and wouldn't move at all, my arms weren't much better. The only light came from a few shafts peaking through the rubble above me, but even with only that I could see a bone sticking out of my left forearm. At least my right was somehow, miraculously, okay. Relatively speaking at least, it still hurt like a bitch but I could move it freely.

Gunshots continued to patter above me and I could hear and feel grenade explosions thrumming through the ground and debris, sending flakes of dust floating down on top of me. Eventually my ears stopped ringing and I tried to heave myself out of the ruined building, I didn't get very far without my legs and any movement sent me into excruciating pain but I made a little progress. With my good arm I tried to push away some of the bricks and chunks of walls in-front of me away, but only succeeded in almost getting my hand crushed under more falling pieces.

After a while the gunfire stopped, and I heard the squeal of tires driving… away? And something else, a single high-powered engine coming towards me? That could be right. They wouldn't just leave me here. Or Sandra or Davis, I didn't know what happened to them. Hookwolf and Oni Lee were still fighting, I could still hear the mask wearing villain's grenades going off and the deep scratching of Hookwolf's twisted metal moving.

Then there were voices but muffled as they were through the wrecked building I couldn't make anything out. Suddenly, another thumping boom ended whatever conversation whoever out there was having, followed by another explosion. A rocket launcher?

My thoughts were interrupted when the hulking form of Hookwolf came rolling through the rubble, clearing away most of the debris in front and on top of me. One of his many hooks sunk deeply into my shoulder, and I found myself dragged out of the rubble and alongside him as he righted himself. My feet dangled in the air below me as I was suspended above the ground from my shoulder. Back in the open air I could see that they weren't as bad as my left arm was, with no clearly visible breaks.

That didn't help the piercing pain in my shoulder though, and I screamed, my voice hoarse and broken. Nobody moved. Hookwolf finally seemed to realise that he had me dangling from his side, his head screeched as it turned to look at me. Miss Militia, with her signature scarf of the American flag wrapped around the lower half of her face and wearing her custom army fatigues stood with a green and black rocket launcher supported on her shoulder. Next to her, the tall form of the Protectorate leader Armsmaster stood in his equally famous blue-silver power armour, long sci-fi looking halberd clasped in both hands, pointing towards the villain.

"Oh?" A voice emanated from the creature I was speared to, scratchy and ringing with metallic tones, "Looks like I've caught a stray."

The side of the vaguely wolf-shaped head that I could see twisted with something. An emotion that didn't make sense on its animalistic, spiked face. Oni Lee was nowhere to be seen, though the ground was nearly completely covered in the white dust his clones left behind.

"How about this, I'll walk away and you won't try and stop me," a paw the size of my torso reached up towards me. Two claws that were long enough to be blades of a longsword placing themselves on either side of my throat, "and I won't cut this little shit's head off."

Neither of the heroes said anything, but both tensed up. I saw Miss Militia's eyes widen and flick towards Armsmaster, surprisingly expressive for someone with most of her face covered. The rocket launcher wavered downwards slightly before coming back up. The Tinker hero's shoulders were shaking in rage? Frustration? I couldn't tell but his jaw was locked with his teeth grinding tightly.

I wanted to scream. To yell at them to shoot him, be the hero like in all of dad's old movies. But I… I didn't want to die. I wasn't special, I didn't get powers like any of these people. If those claws even flinched that was it. Game over. Instead of saying anything heroic, instead of doing anything I felt tears pool in my eyes.

The blades inched closer. A shard of light reflected off of them and into my eyes. I closed them, not wanting to see it coming. Not like this.

I just wanted to be like them. A hero. No not even a hero.

Just somebody.

-o-​

It was silent. The breeze blowing on my skin was gone. The pain was gone. Was this what dying was like?

I opened my eyes and saw stars.

And there was s̸o̶m̶e̸t̴h̶i̵n̴g̴ í̴̟n̴͓̐-̵̧̚b̸̙̉e̵̘͌t̷͈̓w̴̦͠e̵̱͆e̵̝͊n̷̠̏ t̶͕̽́̊̀͠h̵̠̝̒ę̸̖̘̣͌̆̋̈́m̸̛̗̭̈̂̎̐.

Spoiler: Note

Yes, another Worm CYOA. This one is using V5 version Gimel and also quite heavily inspired by the 'Abaddon Born(e)' fanfiction that I've been reading a lot of recently. My other thing, E(U)TSW for the sake of brevity, isn't cancelled. However I think that if I'm going to continue it then I'm going to want to rewrite all of it, as I've come to realise that I would much prefer the main character to not know the plot of Worm and stuff. I just find it more enjoyable to write and plan without that, probably because I'm not big brain enough to think through and plan around that. That and I'd probably remake it in this CYOA version instead. Even for a power fantasy, the main character starts off basically unbeatable and that combined with knowing decently well how the original plot would go just meant that I felt like there weren't really any stakes.

While this will also very likely also quickly become a power fantasy, the MC shouldn't just become invincible right off the bat. I've got a bit more planned for this one so I'm planning to keep going with this one for a while, then seeing about rewriting E(U)TSW. Mainly, having multiple projects on the go at once gives more of a chance for my muse to give me inspiration for something at least.

I'm also thinking about trying to start a quest because it sounds very interesting!

The thread description is likely to change, I just couldn't immediately think of anything better and wanted to get the first chapter out.

 

[SavicusVonde]

It was… something. An overflowing lattice of reflecting panes of light, that were there and weren't. It hurt my head just looking at it but I couldn't look away. The being, and it was alive, was so huge I couldn't see where it began and where it ended, its form flickering and distorting in ways the human mind wasn't meant to see or understand. Sometimes it would look like there was only one of it, bending and twisting, other times it would be everywhere all at once moving faster than I had ever seen anything move. Was this how astronauts had felt, before the Simurgh appeared, when we'd been 'allowed' out of orbit and walked the moon? How the astronaut's had felt looking up at Earth, so infinitely large yet far away?

Whatever it was, something happened to it as it fractured, the pieces of light that comprised its body broke away. Was it dying? There were so many it was almost like it was turning to dust, leaving a trail and falling apart into an uncountable number of pieces. I couldn't give any estimate of the number, more than anything I'd ever seen, or imagined. It would be like counting grains of sand at the beach, only the beach went on forever.

One of the dust-like flakes grew bigger than the others. Not bigger, I realised, just getting closer. It started as a dot an unfathomable distance away, but rapidly grew to the size of a van, then a train car. There was no doubt about it, it was going to hit me.

But I couldn't move, stuck in place watching it rush at me. I saw glimpses of images of shifting metal and weapons, blueprints and outlines, a never ending view of an instant. It never reached me.

Something crashed into it, although there was no sound. If the 'being' and the parts it was falling apart into were glowing with light, than this new thing was dark. So dark that it was more like a hole in the universe, the only way I could tell that there was something there was the absence of stars. The plane of light that was on a collision course cracked and bounced away. Whatever they were, the images stopped scrolling across the original one and it floated for a moment. The way it wobbled back and forwards, like a nervous schoolgirl trying to work up the courage to approach her crush… was it confused? It was hard to pick up the emotions of whatever it was, even if I did get the idea that it was alive too.

Q̸̙̫̍͂Ǘ̷̢̇E̶̗̒͘R̶̛̠̜̣̽Y̵̫͒̓

The plane of light vibrated, its glow fluctuating. It hadn't spoken out-loud, or at all, and it wasn't 'talking to me' but I had heard it anyway. I had no idea what was going on. One second I was about to be… killed by Hookwolf and the next I was here, wherever here was. I could still feel his metal claws making contact with my neck. Cold metal bit into my skin like shards of ice.

The black shard didn't 'say' anything back, but I thought I got a vague sense of smug amusement. That was all I got though before it came crashing into me propelled by what could have been an engine trailing ungodly amounts of energy, filling my vision until I could see nothing but a dark expanse that went on forever.

-o-​

"-riggered."

I blinked slowly, daylight peeked through my eyelids making me wince. Bits of broken stone and bricks dug into my back. The first thing that really hit me was the lack of piercing pain, where previously there had been a gaping hole there was now only a much smaller one. Even as I watched it shrunk again, slowly knitting itself back together. It was so slow that I wouldn't have noticed any difference if I hadn't been watching it closely.

Someone coughed from next to me, trying to get my attention. I turned, and found myself confronted with a male figure bathed in a cool blue and silver light. It glowed brightest around his head and thinner over the rest of his body, it momentarily blinded me before I blinked again and the glow disappeared like it had never been there. I felt something inside of me reach out to him, an invisible hand tried to grab the light but couldn't. It wrapped around him, analysing him and whatever it found it either didn't like or couldn't do anything with, and let him go. A pressure on my eyes that I hadn't realised was there dissipated with it. The figure was Armsmaster, his armour the same colours as the light had been.

As it went, and the light went with it, something whispered in my ear. He was a Tinker specialising in miniaturisation and efficiency. Everyone knew that the man was a Tinker, but I hadn't known anything about his specialisation other than the speculation from PHO of it being something to do with equipment, what with his power armour, halberd and motorbike. More importantly, what was that voice? It hadn't spoken aloud as neither of the heroes had reacted and it hadn't even sounded like a voice, maybe more of a direct stream of information. If anything, it reminded me of that dream…

"Are you alright?" He asked. His voice was warm and patient, like he hadn't been fighting a van sized metal wolf however long ago that had been. A wolf that was nowhere to be seen. Had he gotten away while I was passed out? "Triggering can be a… trying experience."

Triggering? I wasn't sure what he meant. The world still looked like it was spinning around my head, I could barely hear what the Protectorate leader had said to me over the harsh pumping of my heart that thundered through my ears.

"Alright?" I repeated, my voice cracked. Alright? What did that even mean in this scenario? My first actual encounter with a cape and this happens, what a joke. I reached up to rub my eyes, only to come into contact with some kind of form fitting material that hadn't been there before. When I pulled my hand away again, my fingers were covered in rough white dust. Oh right, Oni Lee.

I pushed myself to my feet, ignoring how my body groaned and my hands dug into the same white powder. Around us, the street was in ruins. I'd barely gotten a glimpse of it before, more focused on the spike impaling me than taking in how much taxpayer money it would take to fix the street. Only the building that Davis, Sandra and I had been stationed in had collapsed completely, the debris of it obstructed most of the street. The others were covered in blackened holes or partially broken brickwork, as much evidence of Oni Lee and Hookwolf duking it out as the ash and giant paw shaped imprints in the road.

The two villains who had apparently gotten away, a trail of the same tracks led away down the road steadily growing smaller and further apart. Had he shrunk down to a lighter form to get away faster? There was no point in looking around for the teleporting ABB lieutenant.

As I was looking around my reflection in one of the few unbroken windows caught my attention. A basic domino mask, like the ones I knew so well from my dad's comics, surrounded my eyes and an American flag styled scarf had been wrapped around the lower half of my face, reminiscent of how Miss Militia wore hers. It was the eyes I saw in the reflection that really drew my gaze though. Mine were green, a perfectly normal, ordinary colour. These were not my eyes.

There were no pupils at all, or sclera, instead there was just a mass of what looked like rusted gears. Proper gears like you'd see on the inside of some old-fashioned machine in a cartoon. Even in the gaps between them I could just about make out more of them, like they were in the background.

"What," I hesitated, "What is this?"

I tried to keep the panic from my voice but from the comforting hand Miss Militia placed on my shoulder I don't think I succeeded.

"The mask?" Armsmaster stepped up beside me, heavy boots crunching a trail through the ash, "Identity protection. You're a parahuman now, even if you don't pursue a cape career protecting your identity is important. Speaking of which, you're going to want to remove the name tag from your armour."

I stared at him, confused, until he pointed down at my chest. 'J. Stanton' was still mockingly displayed on the front of the dirty bulletproof chest armour. A secret identity huh? That was something that the heroes always had, and I knew the PRT took protecting their heroes' civilian identities seriously. I hadn't heard of anybody that knew a heroes real name, let alone who they really were. Other than New Wave it was all kept tightly under wraps and I'd heard people around the office throwing around the 'unwritten rules' when discussing it, whatever they were.

And everyone knew what had happened to New Wave. Fleur's death wasn't something that was quickly, or ever, forgotten much less how or why she'd been killed. Needless to say, any hopes for other heroes to unmask had died with her and secret identities had become completely sacrosanct to both them and villains.

Was this my first step to becoming a hero? I fingered the sewn on edge of the label, toying with it between my fingertips. Why then did it feel so wrong? Some part of me hated the idea. Even though it wasn't like I was actually throwing it away never to be used again, I knew heroes on average probably spent more of their times out of costume than in them. Even then, my gut roiled at the idea of taking it off. I'd worked hard, to graduate the training academy, to learn what I needed to learn, to get my own suit of standard issue armour with my name on.

Was I really so proud of a damn name tag?

Miss Militia let out an exasperated sigh. It sounded put upon but I could feel the fondness in it too.

"I think he meant his eyes Armsmaster," Her eyes crinkled in the reflection, and I was sure that if she was less professional she would've rolled her eyes, "Sometimes triggering… changes you. Normally its a side effect of your power, or an aspect of it manifesting."

Why did she make it sound like she was giving me 'The Talk'. And what the hell did having gears for eyes have to do with my power?

When I turned to look at her instead of her reflection though I was distracted again by her light. She glowed with a green and black twisting energy, it coiled around her and into the blur of light that I knew was visible for everyone else. Her power, Armamentarium the 'voice' told me, was the ability to create any modern weapon.

Just like with Armsmaster I felt something reach towards her, cradling around the light. Unlike what happened then, instead of withdrawing without doing anything it pulled. Green and black funnelled towards me in a braid of energy and I heard the sound of a gun cylinder spinning. My fingers twitched and I knew without thinking that I could summon forth the light myself now, her light.

"Triggering?" I asked, my voice was unsteady but I realised the silence had started to stretch, "You said that before but… I don't understand. I've, I've got powers? Like you?"

I knew I sounded desperate, almost pleading. If anyone was watching they'd probably wince at how pathetic it sounded, hell if I was watching I probably would too. But this situation was just surreal. Just like any other child I'd lost count of how much time I'd wasted staring at a water bottle or TV remote trying to move it with my mind, but nothing had ever happened.

Miss Militia nodded.

"There's no doubt about it," Her voice had a faint accent, though I couldn't place from where. Somewhere around Turkey perhaps, "Trigger events are… well, the worst moments of a parahuman's life. They're how we get our powers."

There was no need for her to expand on what mine had been. It almost made me feel like laughing again. All of that waiting, and all it had taken was almost getting decapitated by Hookwolf.

"They also knock-out all nearby parahumans," Armsmaster supplied, "Hookwolf got away just before you woke up."

"So you're saying it's my fault he got away?" I asked morosely, heart sinking into my gut. Even when I was getting superpowers I messed it up.

"No," Miss Militia was shaking her head before I'd even finished talking, "The alternative was him taking you hostage, either way he gets away or you die."

Armsmaster stayed silent but looked like he wanted to object. Whether that was to it not being my fault, or whether Hookwolf would've gotten away I didn't know. Either way I knew it was my fault, and it was pretty clear he did too.

"Oni Lee?"

"Left before Hookwolf got hold of you," The Protectorate leader pointed up at a nearby rooftop, there was a trace of the same white dust that covered the street trailing down from the outer lip.

"And," I hesitated, sinking my teeth into my lower lip, "And the rest of my squad?"

I hadn't seen any of them after the building went down, but Kieran and Peter had been on the other side of the street. The shop they'd been stationed above was still standing and with less damage than most of the others. The only sign that the cape fight had happened at all was a blackened scorch mark near one of the upstairs windows.

Armsmaster raised his hand to his ear, waited then nodded.

"Squad lead Kieran Riley and officer Peter Langley are unharmed. Officer Sandra Garnett only has superficial injuries. Officer Davis…" He trailed off, clearly catching up with what he was hearing.

My heart froze. Mechanically, I turned towards the rubble that I had been buried under when the building fell. Was he somewhere under there? There was no sign of movement but the last time I'd seen him he'd been falling like me. Instinctual, I reached out to something, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say I reached inwards for something.

There were two pools of power inside of me that I could feel so naturally it was like they had always been there, one was the power I guess I 'copied' from Miss Militia which felt like it had filled a vault in an endless bank corridor. The familiarly coloured energy flickering and twirling while every other slot remained empty. It confirmed that whatever my power had tried to do to both of the heroes, it had only worked on Miss Militia.

The other was like a fully loaded revolver cylinder, if it had over a hundred chambers. Most were already filled with different powers, ranging from Mover powers to Stranger all except for Trump which the 'cylinder' itself would count as. Some of the chambers were loaded but inactive, with abilities that I couldn't quite grasp though I got the vague sense that they were much more powerful than the others.

I spun it without thinking, grabbing for anything that could help me get rid of the debris. When it stopped spinning after only a split-second had passed in real time, the metaphorical hammer slammed into place. Information came flooding in a second later, touch based decay of animate or inanimate objects.

Without saying anything, I reached down and grasped the largest piece of rubble. Within moments it started to crumble inwards, solid rock turned to dust and it scattered across the ground mingling with the remains of the ABB villain's clones. The two heroes said nothing, not to me at least though I noted Armsmaster either noting something to himself or to Miss Militia. One piece of broken masonry became two, then three, each piece rotted away quickly. There was no noticeable drain on the power. In fact it felt like it had grown just the slightest bit stronger, only a marginal difference that would've been unnoticeable if I wasn't looking for it.

Instead I barely noticed it, too focused on removing the rubble and searching for any sign of Davis. It only took a few minutes, if that, but it felt like hours. Any sign of the destruction that had covered the street and sidewalk had disappeared. Lighter than Oni Lee's white ash it floated away on the slight breeze, leaving only the cracks and dents in the ground as evidence it had ever been there. My head felt like it had been submerged in water, I thought that Miss Militia might have said something but it was distant and almost echoed.

Davis was halfway into one of the larger craters, or part of him was. Below his torso was just… gone. Blood had pooled in the hole and been smeared around him. It covered his hands and I could see hand prints scattered across the ground, there was trail up the side of the crater. He'd tried to pull himself away, frantically groping for any leverage. When I looked harder, horrified and unable to move, the small pit itself was more similar to the tracks Hookwolf had left behind when he fled. It was bigger and more dramatic in how much force had been applied, deliberately done like a stomp. That bastard…

Maybe, maybe there was something I could do. At least one of the the powers held in the chambers had to be healing. I reached, the cylinder spun and with the click of the hammer it loaded in. It wasn't true healing, I knew that instantly, instead I could 'store' an injury and transfer it to myself or someone else. If I didn't within a week after taking it, then I'd be forced to put it on myself.

I shook myself from the frost that had covered me and stumbled over to him, heart hammering when I pressed my hand onto him just above his waist. There was nothing. No recognition from my power, no way to heal him. Even though I still wore my padded gloves and the tattered remains of his armour still covered him, he felt cold to the touch. Maybe that was just me.

He was gone, and Hookwolf had killed him.

-o-​

I didn't remember how I'd gotten to the Rig. Any other day, any other time and I would've been ecstatic to finally get to cross the glimmering forcefield over the bay. I couldn't count the number of times I'd dreamed about joining the Protectorate on their (in)famous floating repurposed oil rig.

But instead of happiness I only felt numb, a mixture of incredulous joy at having actual honest to god powers and equally incredulous 'how dare you feel happy' with flashes of a bloodstained torso and missing legs. I thought I vaguely remembered Armsmaster's hand squeezing my shoulder and later a gentle push when sirens started approaching. I was sure Miss Militia tried to comfort me but everything was just a cold blur.

The only thing I did remember was Armsmaster reaching over and taking off my name tag. It came away without any resistance, though Miss Militia shot him an annoyed look. I guess I took too long to remove it, we were about to go through their base after all and anyone there could see it and know my soon to be secret identity.

Eventually I found myself in a large office room, with a heavy oak desk and windows that took up an entire wall giving a panoramic view of the bay. I absently noted the folded down turrets in the corners of the room, the PRT HQ in the city had the same thing, containment foam dispensers for any hostile parahumans that made their way inside. I wondered if it would even work on me, I had multiple mover powers that shouldn't be inhibited by containment foam but I was in no hurry to find out.

I sat, flanked on either side by the two heroes who stayed standing just over each of my shoulders, in front of the desk that dominated the room. It was intimidating having them both stood just in my periphery, but I tried to ignore it. Across from us sat the rather overweight form of Emily Piggot the Director of the PRT East-North-East and someone that had always intimidated me. Her straight bleached blonde hair hung in a bob-cut just above her shoulder, and her grey eyes appraised us steadily.

"So you're why I've been called out here?" She gestured to the room, a note of accusing in her voice. Normally she stayed in the PRT HQ in the Downtown area, the same place where the Wards were based. I wasn't sure why, the Rig was much more defensible and had more experienced heroes stationed within.

"Yes," Armsmaster answered before I could say anything, "He triggered during the altercation between Hookwolf and Lung."

Apparently he'd managed to make a report to her while we were riding back without me noticing. I'm not sure whether that was a testament to how out of it I was or how good either his tinkertech was or how good he'd gotten at giving reports. Both?

Piggot gave me a long, considering look. I wondered whether she recognised me, somehow, even though the closest we'd ever come to meeting was a speech she gave at some event where I was in the guard detail. No, there was something in her gaze and it wasn't recognition. It was distrust, and it wasn't only when she was looking at me, she had pinned both Armsmaster and Miss Militia with the same looks she was giving me.

"And you had to bring both of us here instead of the PRT Headquarters because..?" She trailed off.

"We need to put him through power testing, and we needed him to meet you too. It was more efficient to have the meeting here where we can do the testing too."

He was talking like I wasn't even there. I guess he was the leader of the local team so it made sense that he was used to explaining everything and giving the briefing, but it felt like I couldn't even get a word in edge wise.

"I see." She didn't say either way whether she was happy about his decision or not, though from her tone I was leaning towards the latter. But from what I could gather, that was just her normal tone of voice, "And? What great power did you get?"

Piggot practically spat the word out like it revolted her on a personal level. Having never had the chance to talk to her before, I was somewhat surprised by how vehemently she seemed to dislike capes and parahumans in general. From all my encounters with civilians (and was I already thinking of myself as different to them?) that held any significant amount of animosity towards capes it normally came from a bad personal interaction. It wasn't like that was rare in Brockton Bay, with at least three parahuman ran gangs around at any one time there were more people that had suffered at their hands than not, directly or indirectly.

Her question left me at an impasse though. At the Academy the dangers of each classification of powers had been hammered endlessly into our heads. Arguably the worst of which were the Strangers, Tinkers and especially the Trumps and Masters.

Strangers were a nightmare for any kind of security detail. We'd been regaled with stories of how many bases and operations had been dismantled from the inside and nobody knew how. Nice Guy, formerly of the Slaughterhouse Nine, was the go to example at the academy. The idea of someone just being able to walk up and do anything to you without you realising anything was wrong is horrifying.

Tinkers were a point of contention. Perhaps more than any other type of cape, everyone was scared shitless by them and everyone wanted them. A force multiplier unlike any other, capable of bringing to bear unimaginable technology and often able to supply it to whatever gang or group they joined. String Theory threatened to bring down the moon, even the Simurgh was classified as a Tinker.

Trumps were worse for almost a similar reason. While Tinkers could potentially give especially significant power-ups to non-powered mooks in the form of equipment, Trumps could potentially boost their cape compatriots' powers. Or mess with their opponents'. Or, well the list goes on. In my case the ability to seemingly permanently copy the majority of powers, though I wasn't aware of what had stopped me copying Armsmaster's, would be invaluable. And feared.

Let alone the huge selection of powers I had in the chambers, eight from each classification of powers apart from Trump, which the cylinder itself would probably count as, and one less from Brute for some reason. A total of eighty seven different superpowers. I had a brief moment where I wondered if this was how Eidolon felt at the sheer breadth of his power.

That of course included the Master subset which was… horrifying. Some of them were okay, non-morally offensive powers, like being able to make and control inanimate constructs, or being able to control all nearby technology. Others were not. One would allow me to completely dominate the mind of a single person at a time, making them incapable of not being totally loyal to me with just a look. It didn't even have to be in person, just a photo would be enough.

If the PRT got any hint of me having that kind of power I didn't know what they'd do. No that's a lie, I knew. It was only last year that the singer Paige Mcabee was arrested for what she did to her ex. If you believed the rumour mill on PHO then it had only been an accident, a horrible case of an insult taking hold with a Master power. That particular rumour had gotten a lot of support and had surprisingly not been taken down by any of the mods.

I really didn't want to lie to the PRT, they were the good guys right? But I didn't want to be arrested either, I couldn't do anything from a jail cell. It still felt like I was just reaching for excuses to lie.

"I can turn things to dust if I touch them, or well, accelerate their decay rate to that point extremely quickly. I'm not sure what else really," How many powers was it normal for a cape to have? Eidolon only used three at a time so maybe best to go with that. Three was a reasonable number right? "I think I might be able to fly too," I continued. Come on, who doesn't want to fly, "And there's something else, I'm not sure what though. Sorry ma'am."

I apologised quickly seeing Director Piggot's frown pull down even further. Armsmaster shifted in place to my left, and his boss' eyes flickered to him then back to me before I could look over my shoulder at him too.

"And you want to join the Protectorate?"

That was a loaded question and, as much as my thoughts were going 'Say yes! Say yes! Say yes!' I hesitated. It was a big decision but ultimately not a hard one. Honestly the only reason I took a few seconds to think about it was to make sure I wasn't dreaming up the situation. Again. No, the memories of a half gone body allayed that fear.

"Yes ma'am," I answered. It was easier to default back to military speak, had it drilled into us to show respect to our superiors, which Piggot would be twice over now.

"Good. Legally speaking you were a probationary member as soon as you triggered," she let out a chuckle at my shocked look though it came out more sarcastic and biting than humorous, "People really should stop signing contracts without reading them. You're not to leave the base until you work out what all your powers are, we'll see about introducing you to the team and the Public Image department once that's done."

I saw Armsmaster shudder out of the corner of my eye and Director Piggot chuffed out another cynical laugh. What was so bad about that? I'd finally get to design my own costume! Also, meeting the team meant more powers! Things were looking up already.

She pulled a folder out of a drawer on the other side of the desk and opened it on the desk. I couldn't see what was in it but I wondered if I was meant to say anything when the silence started to stretch. Finally, she looked up at me like she was frustrated that I had the temerity to still be there.

"That means you're dismissed. Wait outside until I've finished debriefing Armsmaster, he'll take you to power testing."

Oh, right then.

-o-​

Emily Piggot was not having a good day.

It started when she got a report that Oni Lee and Hookwolf were going at it in the Docks, tearing through property and the occasional unfortunate civilian bystander alike. She'd deployed Armsmaster and Miss Militia to handle the situation, but the two were forced to follow roads and go around buildings while the two villains seemed to prefer to just go through them. Well, Lee teleported and the giant metal wolf charged through them.

Fucking capes.

Not only that but she apparently had a newly triggered parahuman thrown into the mix, one from one of her own damn squads. From the report in front of her that she'd had someone hastily put together, James Stanton had never been anything other than ordinary. Ordinary grades from elementary school all the way through to university, according to his reports he'd only joined the PRT because of his father, a retired Deputy Director himself.

But it wasn't an ordinary man that had sat across that desk just a moment ago. Now he could turn things to dust just by touching it, near instantly according to Armsmaster's report. He professed to being able to fly which was common enough and had a mystery third power.

"He lied about something then?" She asked the armoured hero. Miss Militia didn't seem surprised at the question either, having spent enough time around the emotionally challenged man to read his social cues.

He nodded, lips twitching downwards into a frown. All of the PRT capes had emotive faces that could be easily read even when most of it was covered. Emily should know, she'd been the one to force the man across from her to go to the mandatory acting classes.

"Not about wanting to join the Protectorate," Armsmaster noted, "but about his powers. It's possible he can't fly, or he does know what his third power is but didn't want to say for some reason."

"I'm not sure why he'd lie though," Miss Militia spoke up, unusual in that she rarely interrupted debriefings, preferring to follow procedure, "He seemed like a good kid."

"We know that your tech could be wrong," Emily pointed out. Armsmaster grumbled like he'd taken offence but couldn't refute it. She took more happiness than she probably should have done from seeing the cape's displeasure, "Not that I think it was. He's terrible at lying, I could see without your lie detector that he was at least omitting something."

"I don't think he's dangerous," Armsmaster said. Emily barely held back a dark laugh at that. There wasn't a single parahuman in the world who wasn't dangerous, "And again, he did genuinely want to join up."

Miss Militia said nothing, but she'd all but thrown her support behind the potential new recruit earlier. Emily was inclined to agree. Stanton had joined up to the PRT as an ordinary civilian, that more than anything vouched for the man in her mind. People wanting to make a name for themselves a dime a dozen, and given superpowers any ordinary person could go to the Protectorate looking to be the next Alexandria, Eidolon or Legend. It felt much rarer to see someone join up without powers, even though she knew they still held the numerical advantage.

"I want him under constant surveillance. Especially during that power testing. Armsmaster I'll be trusting you to try and get as much out of him as possible," she paused for a moment to look at the other hero in the room, "On second thought, you go with them too."

Sending someone with a more… personable nature would likely help get additional information.

"Understood," the woman in question nodded once. Honestly, Emily couldn't decide whether she found it admirable or irritating that the woman followed orders to the letter. Yes, it meant she was being strictly obeyed, but Militia should have been a shoe in for a leadership position a long time ago. Instead she shirked responsibility, seemingly content to play a supporting role in Brockton Bay instead of maximising her potential.

"Get to it," She dismissed both of them without looking at them, instead flicking through Armsmaster's transcribed report.

The gangs were getting bolder with every passing day. Fighting in broad daylight? The ABB had reported recruited a bomb tinker too…

To Emily it felt as if the city was slipping through her fingers. There was something in the air, something big was happening. She could only hope that this new cape would help more than cause more trouble. She did not need their own version of PHO's 'affectionately' named Collateral Damage Barbie. The city was going to hell and she didn't have enough power to do anything about it. The best she could hope for was that she could keep the city in a stalemate until she could somehow gather enough political capital to call in reinforcements from other branches.

Emily closed the reports and looked out over the bay. Already the sun was moving down in the sky and she knew that she'd have to get ready for her dialysis for the evening. She almost imagined that she could see the crumpled buildings that the fight had caused, so reminiscent of Ellisburg.

Instead she drew herself away from the view with a sigh, taking out the next report from underneath Stanton's file. Officer Davis' family would have to informed of his passing, and how they'd want to make sure he had a closed casket funeral. Just another casualty at the hands of a parahuman with delusions of grandeur.

Fucking Capes.

Spoiler: Note

This was a bit of a pain to write but still fun. If there are any issues with spelling or grammar please point them out, I'll try and go back and edit them later. I just wanted to get this out there and posted first. As a side note, the MC is very naïve at the moment and just got his first real life taste of the kind of damage and death that can come from parahumans through the death of Davis. Can't save them all I guess. My personal goal for this fic going forward is the development of the character into something different than what he is now without it being a sudden and direct change. Hooray for character development! As such just because he's (trying) to join the PRT currently, doesn't mean it'll stay that way or that it's what I chose in the CYOA...

Also, because it is an Abaddon shard the powers are actually stronger than they appear in the CYOA. As you've probably picked up by now his main powers are: Power sight, Unlimited Shard Works (second trigger) and Paramount (second trigger). I'm mainly applying to to Paramount, where it no longer has the 15 minute cooldown between using powers (but he can still only use one Paramount power at a time) and, eventually, he might be able to use powers that have a cost higher than 7 points. So being too weak isn't going to be an issue, but still shouldn't be completely broken at least at first. Still has to go up against Endbringers and such though.

 

[SavicusVonde]

I was only left waiting for a few minutes outside Director Piggot's office before Armsmaster and Miss Militia stepped out the door. It clicked closed behind them, the translucent window with 'DIRECTOR' printed across it in bold capital letters reducing Piggot's rotund form to a blur.

Neither of their faces showed any sign as to what she'd wanted to talk to them about. I had a feeling that I'd been the subject of discussion, but I wasn't sure if that was a genuine suspicion or just that horrible social feeling of worrying that people are talking about you behind their back. I hoped I'd fooled them about my powers even though I doubted it. They were fully trained professional heroes who, if their training was anything like the PRT's had been, were fully equipped for interrogation and reading micro-expressions and I 'couldn't lie for shit' according to… Davis. Needless to say being the training dummy for questioning practice had been an interesting experience. The repetition of the academy had never managed to fix that problem.

Instead of leaving like I'd expected, I was surprised when Miss Militia followed along behind us when Armsmaster started leading me to the testing area.

"So you think you can fly too?" The gun toting hero started, "I must admit I'm quite jealous. All I get is this," she gestured down at the flowing stream of energy hovering an inch or so off of her hip. It had solidified into a small combat knife that vibrated slightly in place. I'd heard that it changed form by itself, depending on how much danger she subconsciously thought she was in or what she thought adequate force would be. Nobody was quite sure, and the Protectorate was naturally tight lipped on the specific intricacies of their Capes' powers.

She could do more.

I was surprised by the thought but I knew it was true. My vision flickered back to what I was quickly starting to call my 'Power Sight'. There was a sort of intimately familiar tint to her power now, I had to assume that was because it rested inside me now too, ready to come at a moment's call. More importantly it whispered to me how she wasn't using it to its fullest potential, like it was alive. Its voice was tinged with disappointment, sad that it knew it could be used in more varied ways. There was a ray of hope there too, now that it was 'talking' to me.

Militia had latched onto the idea of a weapon as a handheld piece of equipment that's primary purpose was damage. Naturally, as humans, our minds first go to guns, then bigger guns and then, if we're feeling particularly violent on the day, a big fuck off stick. What she didn't know, and I somehow did, was that she was only half correct. The energy could only form into something that could cause damage, but there was no restriction on how that damage was applied. For instance, a motorcycle going at a fast speed crashing into somebody would kill someone just as well as a gun would. Hell if she took a jump on one it would probably count as a ballistic missile. Other than that, the only other drawback was the entire thing had to be able to be used by one person.

Luckily her power also gave her an innate ability to understand and use the 'weapons' she can create. She'd have no problem using anything she constructed with her power, even if she was using that king of equipment for the first time.

What that essentially boiled down to was that she could make nearly any one manned vehicle as long as it had the capability to go fast enough to cause a lot of damage. She might be able to make herself a mini one-man tank where the speed didn't really matter so much, or a jet since she wanted to fly. She'd just never tried because she was convinced it didn't count as a weapon and therefor that she couldn't make it.

"Have you," I hesitated. Was it really a good idea to ask? How did I even go about doing it without drawing attention to myself? I took a deep breath. Screw it, I was a hero now, one of the team or I would be anyway. That made helping my teammates my responsibility just like it had been before… "Have you tried?"

"Have I tried flying?" She asked. The corners of her eyes crinkled and I knew she was laughing at me, "I can't say I have, but it seems like something I'd know by now."

I flushed. Miss Militia had been part of the Inaugural Wards Team, along with Chevalier and Mouse Protector. There was no private information about any of the Protectorate Capes available online but it was likely that she'd had powers or even been working as a Cape for longer than I'd been alive. Maybe I was being silly, or presumptuous and she did know what was best.

There was that nagging voice at the back of my head though, saying that I knew that the information my Power Vision was giving me was correct. That Miss Militia was wrong about her own power that she'd had for decades.

"No, you're right," I spluttered, "forget I said anything."

God I must've looked like an idiot. She hummed for a second, stepping up beside me and eyeing me curiously.

"No no, go ahead," She sounded curious at least, genuinely so and not just looking for an opportunity to mock me. Armsmaster didn't look back, but I got the feeling he was watching us closely.

"I didn't mean flying flying," I stopped at the raised eyebrow she sent me. I wave my hand batting away her obvious amusement, "like Alexandria flying. Or Glory Girl for a local example. Are guns and knives the only thing you can make?"

She started to say something before her expression clouded over with confusion and she looked away. The armoured hero in front of us stopped suddenly and turned to look at her, surprise evident even on his half-covered face. I almost kept walking into his back before I realised he'd stopped moving.

"Miss Militia?" He asked.

"I'm not sure," She frowned but not at either of us.

Her voice trailed off absently. Neither of them could see what I could though. Her power had lit up like a Christmas tree, glowing and buzzing and whirling around the hero. If it was any more animated I would almost say it was jumping for joy. Even with my normal vision her power seemed more agitated than normal, its buzzing louder and its appearance as a knife flickering in places to brightly glowing energy.

"I've never tried…"

She looked down at the ground, a contemplative look crossed her face.

"All the better that we get to Power Testing immediately then," Armsmaster's lips quirked up slightly, "And apparently not just for the officer Stanton."

Instead of looking put out by the teasing, Miss Militia only grew more excited. When she turned to me though there was a glint of something else in her eyes, not quite suspicion but a lot of curiosity. Aggressive curiosity?

"How did you know?" She asked.

I chuckled nervously. Great going James, way to not rouse suspicions.

"I wouldn't say I knew anything," I deflected, rubbing the back of my head awkwardly. Armsmaster stiffened slightly, "We don't even know if I'm right or anything yet."

Militia hummed noncommittally, though I saw her gaze flicker towards her fellow hero's tensed shoulders. The gleam in her eyes sharpened slightly before it disappeared like it had never been there. They crinkled, clearly smiling at me again. I wasn't sure if I was reading into things that weren't there, but this time the emotion seemed a bit forced. As she gestured for me to keep moving I saw that Armsmaster had already started walking again and was almost around the next corner already. Oops.

-o-​

The power testing facility wasn't much like I expected it to be. To be fair, I'd gone in with the expectation of some tinkertech ridden room full of monitors and expensive looking equipment. Instead, it was a simple large wide open room, the only thing of note was how the walls seemed to be one solid block. There were no seams between stone blocks, the lights were built into the ceiling instead of hanging down. The surface was completely smooth, behind us even the door seemed to vanish into the wall leaving the same blank stone.

"This isn't a proper testing centre," Armsmaster must have seen my face fall, "The only one nearby is just outside of Brockton Bay. This is just for preliminary testing, our main priority today is working out what your powers are, not what their limits are."

That made sense. Don't test your Capes' capabilities when they're going all out in the same place they sleep, or on an extremely expensive floating base.

"We already saw your ability to turn objects to dust. You said it was touch based and more accelerated decay correct?" He continued.

I nodded, slightly nervous. My powers were simultaneously awe inspiring and terrifying, even to me. The only Cape that I could think of with a similar breadth of powers to me was Eidolon or maybe Glaistig Uaine, two people I never thought that I would be in the same sentence as. Even though I wasn't a Cape at the time, I still remembered the waves of sheer panic her power becoming known had sent through the Cape community. The ability to kill with a touch wasn't what had caused it, even the seemingly innocuous powers often deadly. No, it was the harvesting of powers that made everyone terrified of her.

And what was my power but the same, only easier to do. I didn't even have to touch a Cape to copy their power, only see them. Or something like that, there were clearly restrictions and requirements of some kind that I didn't know or understand yet. I hadn't been able to take Armsmaster's Tinker ability, I was missing something though I was left with the distinct impression that I could, somehow. Just had to work out how. The significant upside, the only thing that made it less likely that whole teams of parahumans would be sent after me if my power came to light, was that the parahuman I copied from didn't die and (perhaps more importantly to some) judging by Miss Militia they didn't lose anything from their own power when I did it.

Should I tell them?

Armsmaster was staring at me. Right, I hadn't answered the question. I could worry about it later, just get through the basic questions first.

"Yeah, I mean, yes," I stumbled with my words, trying to sound professional, "I touch something and it ages much, much faster than normal."

He nodded and I wondered if he was making a note of it somewhere. Or if someone else was watching us. Looking around I couldn't see any windows or cameras but that didn't mean much. The cameras in the PRT base in the city were so well hidden and disguised as part of the walls or ceiling that even if you knew they were there they were still impossible to see. Tinkertech did some cool stuff.

"Are you able to differentiate between objects that you can and can't affect by touch?"

I considered it for a moment. When I'd touched the broken pieces of building I'd known that it would work. The power itself told me that it would work on just about anything, even things that normally wouldn't turn to dust when they aged. As long as they aged at all then it would work.

But I hadn't worked out how accurate the description I got from my powers yet, or to what extent I could trust it. Some of the chambers were weird, mostly the Thinker powers. I could set the chamber ready but it wouldn't fire. All I'd get back was a slight headache and gibberish followed by nonsensical flashes of images. Some of them worked fine, like Presence letting me sense anything inside of roughly one and a half kilometres. That had been disorientating.

"I think so?" I shrugged, giving a safe answer, "I've only tried it on one thing so far."

A door slid open on the opposite side of the room, from a place that I was certain had been seamless wall before. It revealed a small storage room full of a wide variety of items with no visible rhyme or reason. A trolley wheeled itself out of it, seemingly on its own accord as there was no-one pushing it. On it there was a selection of objects ranging from a phone, to a wooden box to a steel girder.

Seeing me looking Armsmaster supplied, "Normally these would be used to test for something like a Brute rating. I want you to try to… decay these items but try to tell if you can first before starting," he seemed uncertain what to call my power. Or one of my powers.

"Alright." Sounded simple enough, no more difficult than what I'd done to the remains of the building earlier today.

I went for the phone first. It was an old model, a couple of years old at this point and its screen was practically smashed in. The cylinder spun, Accelerated Decay's chamber locked in and fired. New senses slotted into place, I could feel how long ago the phone had been made, how age had set into it. I could also feel how easy it would be for me to push it further.

"Yeah I can do it. Do you want me to?"

He waved me on bruskly, head turned downwards towards my hand. Probably making notes. He certainly seemed the type.

With a sight mental nudge I pushed time into the phone. There wasn't really any better way to describe it than that. I wasn't taking time from somewhere else, nowhere here at least as far as my new senses could tell, just shoving it into the handheld device until it reached the point where it just started falling apart. Then further still and in a matter of moments what had once been a broken down, reasonably old phone had turned to a fine dust that fell between my fingers.

"Fascinating," Armsmaster murmured. I could only assume that he had some method of taking notes without talking inside his tinkertech armour, he'd made that report to Director Piggot while driving after all. Eventually he gestured to the other items on the trolley.

They all suffered the same fate as the phone, the bigger objects taking longer but only a small margin. Soon there was a small pile of dust gathered in front of my feet. Once all the items had been removed, the trolley reversed itself back out of the room again, the doors sliding shut behind it leaving a pristine unmarked wall like nothing had ever happened.

"Excellent. All initial sensor readings correspond with your description." He said. Miss Militia had been quiet the whole time, content to move some distance off and stare at the manifestation of her power. She seemed to be making significant progress as before our eyes the energy swirled into a familiar sleek motorbike. Apparently she'd gone for the most familiar vehicle for her first attempt, recreating the motorcycle that she was often seen riding around the city on patrol. It was pretty famous, but rather overshadowed by Armsmaster's tinkertech vehicle. As usual with her power, instead of the normal military style paintwork the actual vehicle had the formed bike was black, green and vibrating gently almost akin to a cat's purr.

Said hero had joined me in staring at it, mouth slightly open. Even though it was my own power that had told me it was possible, I still hadn't really believed it. There was some surreal about seeing the famous hero mounting a bike made from her own power and knowing that I had caused it. For her part, Miss Militia seemed incredibly happy sat on her new mount and looked on the verge of giggling like a giddy schoolgirl. Her professionalism kicked into place though, as she kicked off of the energy projection letting it flow back into the knife she'd had it set as before.

Armsmaster coughed lightly, regaining my attention.

"You said you thought you could fly?" I could tell that the majority of his attention was still on his colleague, and that he was likely restraining himself from questioning her about her newfound ability.

I blinked at the rapid subject change but shrugged mentally and spun the cylinder, reaching for the chamber that I remembered feeling from earlier. There. It slotted into place just as easily as Accelerated Decay had and was simply enough named 'Flight'. Was it weird that my powers already came with names?

"Yeah," I shot up from the ground, Miss Militia hardly seemed to notice as engrossed as she was in staring at the motorcycle turned knife, and Armsmaster didn't even look surprised although he did nod to himself, "I think I can only do one thing at a time though. Like, no decaying things when I'm flying."

I didn't know if that was unusual or not. Capes with a wide variety of powers were rare, with the most prominent one being Eidolon who could use three at once. Or more, the internet gave very conflicted returns on his powers. Some thought he had a hard restriction of three, others thought he could use more at once but they all got weaker like his power was being spread out between them equally. I wouldn't know unless I got the opportunity to see him with my Power Vision I guess. Or, well, I did have some Tinker powers that actually seemed like they would work…

"Interesting," Armsmaster interrupted my thoughts, "We've already got you down as a Brute from earlier-"

"Earlier?" I asked confused.

He just pointed at the PRT standard issue armour that I was still wearing, or more specifically at the hole over my shoulder where Hookwolf had stabbed me. In my panic about Davis I had quickly dismissed it, but I remembered seeing it slowly close up. Now the only thing visible through the roughly torn body armour was clear unblemished skin.

"Oh, that. I honestly don't know how I forgot."

Armsmaster's lips twitched downwards, like my lack of attention had offended him personally. The body language I was picking up from the guy was all over the place, sometimes his tone would come off as warm but he was always stiff and unchanging. It was strange, hearing one thing but seeing another.

"Shock and adrenaline likely stopped you from feeling the worst of it, and by the time that had worn off it was already partly healed. You didn't notice it happening? It didn't require deliberate action on your part?"

"No," I shook my head, "I barely realised it was happening at all to tell you the truth."

He nodded like that was what he expected to hear.

"Minor regeneration then. You said you felt that there was something else?"

And I was right back to being tense again.

"Maybe that was what I was feeling, the regeneration I mean." Even through his helmet I could tell he was doubtful or just plain disbelieving. Miss Militia looked up at us too, drawn away from whatever she was doing because of the answer that I clearly hadn't thought through properly! That seemed to be a running theme.

Armsmaster let out a deep sigh, a sound that almost caused me physical pain. Here he was, the leader of the local Protectorate branch, a man who I'd idolised and looked up to for as long as I could remember, and I was lying to him. I was sure he knew it too, so I didn't know why he wasn't pushing me harder on it.

I just had no idea whether revealing the true extent of my powers was a good idea or not. The only permanent power copier that I knew of, and I knew my copy of Miss Militia's power was permanent, was locked up in the Birdcage. And Masters… I didn't want them to think I was the next Heartbreaker, even if the power told me it could only control one person at a time.

"Dishonesty will impede the process," It honestly did sound like the main thing that bothered him about my lying was how it effected the efficiency of the testing. That seemed like him, somehow. Looking at his power, Miniaturization and Efficiency, I wondered how much of that was him and how much was his power. Whatever the case, in their fondness for efficiency at least they seemed well suited for each other.

"What Armsmaster is trying to say," Miss Militia butted in, walking back over to join us, "Is that we're here to help you but we need you to work with us. You want to join the team, being honest with us is an important first step."

They made it sound so easy and logical, and they did know what they were talking about, both of them having played an important role in the local Protectorate branch for a number of years. And I wanted to tell them, I hated lying in general but especially to heroes. Maybe, maybe just the powers in the chambers? No matter how I spun it, power copying seemed like an extremely big deal and one that I could see the reveal of it easily going wrong.

"Even," My voice hitched and quaked even though I tried my best to keep it steady, "Even if some of your powers are bad?"

God that sounded pathetic, but the reassuring look in Miss Militia's eyes helped a lot to quell my panic. They didn't even take a second to think about it before responding.

"Especially if your powers are dangerous. It's important that we know everything we can about our teammates' abilities, both powered and otherwise before we send them into any situation," Armsmaster's voice was firm, allowing for no argument.

"And no power is bad," Miss Militia was softer and her fingers trailed along the handle of the glowing green and black knife by her side, "It's about how you use it."

I could see that. From an outsiders perspective hearing about a Cape who's only ability revolved around the creation and wielding of weapons, especially guns, you'd think that their only strategy would be going in lethal. Instead, she had developed the ability to make non-lethal weaponry and adapted technology she couldn't generate like containment foam to help her. I'd even heard that she used rubber bullets because her power made them for her with very little need to reload.

"I have a, uh, a lot of powers," I began shakily. I reached for the cylinder, taking the time to examine it a bit more closely, "Somewhere around eighty?"

Armsmaster just nodded like he was completely unfazed, but his jaw and shoulders tensing gave him away, like it was taking a physical effort to not react further. His colleague was slightly less refrained, her eyes bulged comically for a second.

"And you know what all of them do?" The power armour wearing hero asked. His voice was steady, but I thought it was slightly more distanced than it was before. It was almost clinical now.

"Yeah at least vaguely. I've got a bunch of almost every type, one less Brute though. I think because I already have the regeneration? And Trump, which has none. The Thinker powers are strange too, I'm having trouble loading some of them."

I was rambling, trying to avoid the elephant in the room. I wasn't sure if he was taking pity on me or actually that invested in the power testing, but Armsmaster powered through any awkwardness.

"'Loading them'?" He asked. Why did he sound more bothered by my terminology than the fact I was admitting I could just take over a human being? Or was he trying to take my attention off of his fellow hero?

"Sorry, that's just how I imagine it. Like a revolver's cylinder with a lot of chambers," I answered quickly, it was getting easier now that I was talking about it without worrying as much.

I'd expected a lot more… judgment I suppose, or condemnation. Or just to be instantly attacked honestly. God I was an idiot, walking right into the Rig, not telling them the truth from the beginning and then just blurting it out? How stupid could I be?

"That includes Master stuff, you know? Actual, human controlling Master stuff. And I don't want to use it and I won't and I haven't but that's why I didn't say anything and lied about my powers and I'm sorry," I rushed out damn near in a single breath.

There were a few beats of silence, neither of them sure how to proceed. Both of them knew I had been lying at least somewhat about my powers, I thought, there was no way they wouldn't have reacted worse if they hadn't. However it was equally clear that neither of them had expected this.

"While I can understand why you didn't want to say anything," the scarf wearing hero said while stepping away slightly. For a second it looked like she wanted to come closer again afterwards, but chose instead to hang back well out of reach and began retreating further out of my vision. Her power burst back into its default formless energy state before reforming into a large, much more dangerous looking revolver, "for something like a Master power you really should have said something."

I bit back the instant response that reactions like this were exactly why I hadn't said anything. Master powers, or specifically human controlling Master powers, aren't something easy to get over. Once you know that somebody has them, there'll always be a nagging sensation at the back of your mind that they could just take you over at any moment, like a trust fall where you could never trust your partner. It was why Armsmaster was suddenly so tense and Miss Militia who had previously come off as so warm seemed ready to draw a gun on me with the slightest provocation.

"To confirm, you haven't used any of these powers since you triggered earlier today?" He asked.

"No," I vehemently denied while shaking my head, "never. I've never even loaded them, or any of the ones I haven't shown you. I don't even want to use them."

There was a tense silent for a moment, before he nodded to Miss Militia. Both of their hands that had been reaching towards their famous weapons relaxed slightly, though I noticed that they still stayed within easy reach of them. What was that? Was he that good at reading people or was I just that readable?

"We believe you," she said comfortingly. Still didn't make any movement to get closer or back in front of me though, "it just complicates matters slightly."

Uh oh.

"So I can't join?" I asked morosely.

"No no," she waved her hands quickly like she was brushing away the idea, "Nothing like that."

The look the two of them shared didn't do anything to reassure me.

"Your Master power, what is it?" He asked.

"Master powers," I repeated, emphasising the plural, "There are eight of them just like most of the others. Only two are… bad though. One lets me set rules I guess? Like laws, and whoever I set them for has to obey them."

"Restrictions?" His voice was back to clinical but colder than his earlier questioning had been.

"Uh right, well I can set as many as I want," I was examining the power as closely as I could without locking it in. There was no way I was going to do that, not now and not ever. Lawgiver, my power helpfully chimed in the name of the power, "The only thing I can 'feel' is that I can't just order them to obey me, I don't think I could just order someone to just die or something like that either. Oh, I need to be able to see them too to set it, but it will stay in place as long as I have the power loaded."

"That's," Miss Militia hesitated, "mildly worrying."

Her tone of voice implied it was anything but mildly. Armsmaster didn't even seem to listen to her before continuing.

"And the other?"

My lips felt like they'd been sewn together, the words wouldn't come. The other power was horrible, it was called Suzerain. It was like every story I'd heard about the worst Masters, like Heartbreaker. People that could just take away your will, completely suborn your control of your body and actions. I'd had nightmares about them, back when mum had still been alive, my dad had told me about them. She'd gotten angry at him for it, sayin that it was too distressing a topic to broach with your pre-teen child, but he'd been a Vice Director of the PRT. As much as no-one liked to talk about it, there was always a threat to relations of important people even if they're a part of the PRT. So my father had looked resigned, a foreign emotion in his eyes that I hadn't recognised while he sat me down and explained just how fucked up the world was.

"James?" the military themed Cape broke into my musings. There was no sympathy or gentleness to his voice, just a demand for answers

I shook myself out of it, my throat felt oddly dry.

"The second one, right," I croaked before coughing, "I can make someone absolutely loyal to me. Like a servant. It's, I think it's permanent. I'm not sure it would go away even if I loaded another power, or if I could break it off myself."

You could've heard a pin drop.

"What are the limits?" Even Armsmaster sounded like he was shaken, the normally stoic hero's voice slightly off.

"I have to see someone to do it, and it can only affect one person at a time. That might be the only way to stop it. Using it on someone else I mean."

It wasn't a relief. These powers were a line I wouldn't cross, Suzerain especially. If I did there'd be no going back, maybe quite literally at that. A dark corner of my mind whispered what I could do with this power, the difference I could make. For myself if nothing else. All I'd need to do would be to get myself close enough to the President and I could be set for life. Or Chief Director Costa-Brown. I pushed those thoughts away violently, there was no way I was doing that.

Besides there was at least one Thinker backed team created specifically to stop that kind of thing.

With every awkward lull in conversation I became more convinced that it was mistake to tell them. What if they were lying? There was no way they'd let me join now, not when they knew what I could. Not when letting me would mean placing me into a work environment with the underage heroes in the form of the Wards. Even if what they knew wasn't actually all of it. If there was one thing to be happy about it was that I hadn't told them about my ability to copy powers.

Oh god what if they did send me to the Birdcage?

"I'd never use them though," I repeated, "either of them."

Miss Militia eyes were soft, at a stretch without being able to see the rest of her face I'd say she looked understanding. Armsmaster's face seemed as if it was cast from stone, completely emotionless and cold.

"It's okay, we just need to understand your capabilities. Although I think we'll skip the power testing for those."

Her attempt at a joke fell flat but I appreciated the sentiment.

"Yes that would be best."

Apparently the power armoured Tinker didn't get it. Militia sighed a sigh full of exasperation and her shoulders relaxed slightly, sinking into the familiarity of a coworker dealing with an odd quirk of her friend. I couldn't tell if it was faked to get me to lower my guard. She still hadn't moved from where she stood.

"As both of your significant human Master abilities require line of sight you'll need to stay facing away from us for the remaining duration," he continued.

"I can do that," I nodded, turning slightly so that neither of them were in my vision at all.

"Now that we know your full capabilities we'll quickly work through each safe power to work out a baseline. Both of our schedules have been cleared so we have plenty of time."

I just about managed to withhold the wince that automatically came at the reminder of my lie. They didn't know nearly my full powerset, not even close. A large part of me hoped they never would.

-o-​

"You're telling me you brought a Master, a human controlling Master onto the base. Not only that, but you brought him to meet me?"

Emily Piggot was seething over the call. She was sat in her bed, propped up not unlike a patient would be in a hospital bunk. An image not helped by the flurry of cables and wires that wrapped around and into the large woman's arm, connecting her to the whirring machine next to her. Colin had chosen to wake her immediately to make a report, deeming it important enough to interrupt her sleep.

"That's correct," His voice was completely unaffected by the almost palpable rage on the other end of the call. Both he and Hannah were unmasked, their line secure from his lab.

"And you're now going to tell me why you're not in M/S screening? And why he's still walking free on our base?"

"He didn't use any human affecting Master powers and he's under constant surveillance. In fact, he was perfectly understanding when I asked him to temporarily stay in a cell while we made this report. We followed procedure when interacting with a non-hostile parahuman of unknown strength."

Hannah shook her head from beside him. 'Perfectly understanding' was one way to put it, another would be 'on the verge of a panic attack'. Her leader had just accepted the man's agreement at face value and skipped over the pale face and shaking. Even Colin wasn't normally this bad but he'd been so focused on the notes he'd taken during the initial power evaluation process that he hadn't looked into it at all.

The normal procedure Colin had mentioned was simple enough, it basically came down to 'be ready but don't antagonize'. The rest of it was about recruitment, but since Stanton had explicitly stated his desire to join it wasn't as important.

"The open cell, Armsmaster. A Master, and a high rating one from your report, is sitting in an open cell. And how exactly do you know he didn't use any powers?"

"My lie detector-" he started.

"Your prototype tinkertech, which is still wrong almost as often as it is right," Hannah couldn't remember the last time she'd seen the Director so livid. Another machine beeped rapidly from off camera and she watched Emily take a deep breath before letting it out in one deep, bone-weary sigh.

"You said yourself that he wasn't skilled at lying," Colin reminded her, prompting another calming intake, "And he was no more skilled when we were going through his powers."

They'd gotten through the vast majority of his powers, a truly staggering amount. If it wasn't so damn scary, Hannah would almost find it comical how this absurdly powerful bundle of powers was more of a bundle of nerves at the moment. The screen next to the one the call was happening on was constantly focused on Stanton's form in the cell.

Just like Piggot had said the cell door was wide open, and the man who really seemed more like a boy was able to leave at any time. Even without the door being open, having gone through and at least heard what all of the boy's powers were, she wasn't convinced that the cell would have been able to hold him if the door was closed and he decided he wanted to leave anyway.

"He could be acting," Emily pinched the bridge of her nose, "But since you brought it up, his powers. Are you absolutely certain this is accurate?"

She lifted up a digital pad and waved it in the air disbelievingly.

"To an acceptable margin," he answered, "He demonstrated a significant number of powers, enough to support his claims."

They hadn't been able to get even close to demonstrating all of the ones Stanton had told them about. For one, a lot of his Thinker powers wouldn't 'load'. Hannah had almost thought that the metaphor was for her benefit but it genuinely seemed to be how Stanton thought of his powers. They also stayed well clear of the human Master powers and most of the other powers from that category in general, though he'd demonstrated the ability to duplicate himself twice over and the ability to control technology. A power that even extended to tinkertech, as they had amusingly learned when he made Colin's power armour take itself on a short shuffle with the man still inside. His displeasure had only lasted as long as it took them to get to Stanton's Tinker powers.

The smile those got from Colin were tantamount to a giggle of boundless excitement from a child waking up on Christmas Day.

"You said you had to stop because it was having an 'adverse effect'?" Emily asked after a few seconds of silence. Hannah could practically hear the woman counting to ten in her head.

Colin nodded.

"I observed a noticeable emotional impact on officer Stanton," It was already written in the report, but Emily had a tendency to want to hear about important aspects in more depth and directly from whoever made the report, "When asked he said it was disconcerting. The best he could describe it was as if he'd had cold water dumped over himself, or his emotions."

Hannah almost wondered if Colin could relate. For as long as she'd known him he'd had trouble with human interaction and especially emotions. He got better results from his technology and maths. People were too intricate, he'd once confided in her. There was a time, he said, where he remembered understanding at least slightly better but ever since he got his powers it had only gotten worse. He himself wouldn't call it worse of course, just more efficient. She hadn't pressed when they'd gotten to his trigger event, nobody ever did.

"Great, so it's not just a Master on the base, it's a mentally unstable Eidolon with Master powers too."

"Eidolon can use three or more powers at once, although statistically speaking at least one of his possible powers must be a Master power," Colin coughed and stopped when Emily glared at him for trying to correct her. At least he could pick up on that.

The Director turned her head slightly to make it clear she was talking to Hannah instead.

"Do you also think he's 'safe'?" she spat the word like it had offended her somehow. Hannah let it wash over her, used to Emily's distrustful nature and more than willing to sink into the rigid nature of debriefing to support herself.

"Yes Ma'am. He's newly triggered, and clearly still in some manner of shock. What happened to his teammate…" She trailed off for a second, wading through memories of her friends blown apart on a minefield, "I believe he can be trusted enough to at least try out a probationary role, the idea he gave me about my power was quite significant."

"I read about that, he made a suggestion about your power usage. Did it work?"

Hannah nodded professionally.

"I've already been able to recreate my motorcycle," she felt her power buzz at her almost eagerly, like it was ready and more than willing to transform into it again at a moment's notice, "I'll need to do some more testing and get a lot more practice before I find out the true extent of the changes. More importantly, officer Stanton needs help and we can give him that."

"And we get a powerful Cape in the process," Emily grunted with a very slight tinge of approval, "I don't like it. Honestly, I hate it and think it's a terrible idea. But," she paused significantly, looking like she was trying to calm herself again, "But the higher ups have already heard about him. They got the report almost the same time as I did. And they think we're not in a position where we can turn away a parahuman of his potential usefulness. Hell they said there's even a precedent, what with Shadow Stalker."

There was only really one higher up that could pull the strings that quickly. Costa-Brown had gotten involved already? Hannah wondered how she'd known so quickly to check for something like this. A Cape fight in Brockton Bay wasn't a rare occurrence, there was no reason for her to have been notified about this one over any of the others, let alone that quickly. Something felt off here, but it was above her pay-grade. What the Chief Director concerned herself with wasn't her business.

"And they're not wrong. What with the new Bomb tinker the ABB have recruited, things are only going to get worse. Frankly, I have a bad feeling that we're going to need every able body we can get to throw at them."

Neither Colin or Hannah said anything, both of them very aware of the dangers that having a Tinker in a villainous gang would cause. Especially one with that kind of specialisation. They could even see it happening already. There'd been multiple sightings and encounters with Oni Lee where he'd displayed a terrifying number of explosives with an even worse variety of effects. including the fight with Hookwolf earlier today that had led to this whole mess.

"I want him confined to the base until I say otherwise. No matter what happens, as much as we need more hands on deck we can't afford a new rogue element. Especially one as potentially powerful as Stanton," Emily just sounded resigned, "We'll pick this up in the morning. Make sure nothing happens until then, god forbid I get a good night's sleep in this city."

"Yes Ma'am," the two heroes chorused.

Emily didn't bother dismissing them, just ending the call a moment later leaving Hannah and Colin in the silent lab. Somehow she got the feeling that the peace and quiet wouldn't last long.

Spoiler: Note

I'm not entirely happy with this, I found it really hard to capture Armsmaster and Miss Militia's responses to the reveal. James isn't a super genius, or any kind of genius, at least not without activating any of his Thinker or Tinker powers, he's also still only just come out of his trigger event and is still very shaken from it. The decisions he makes aren't necessarily the correct ones, or the smart ones just what he felt was right. This chapter might get changed later but I wanted to get it posted tonight.

Also from now on I'm going to try and make a concerted effort to capitalise things like 'Cape' or classifications like 'Tinker'. It just looks nicer to me.

Again, I'm not sure how happy I am with this chapter.

 

[SavicusVonde]

Working for the PRT isn't as exciting as one might expect. Like most law enforcement, there's a lot more sitting around and waiting for something to happen than their something actually happening. I'd spent more time sitting at my desk than doing anything useful for the little over a year that I'd been here, and that was after the yearlong academy course. Coming out of a degree on Parahuman Studies they'd sold the job to me on the idea of cleaning up the Bay's streets and putting away the Villains that had ruined it. That, combined with an overwhelming lack of any interesting or in any way fulfilling job opportunities left me with no other choice but to sign up. With that and my dad, a retired PRT man himself, constantly egging me on, I couldn't really say no could I?

What he didn't tell me anything about was the physical torture they called an 'academy' and the copious amount of paperwork that they would bury me under once I finally got out of that hell-hole. And all of that before I was even given a gun let alone be allowed near any combat situation involving a parahuman threat. For the longest time the closest I ever got to a parahuman was seeing the images on the projector screen, their names on reports and on the rarest occasions I got to see the Wards from a distance in person. Or being constantly regaled by my more senior division mates about their heroics in fights 'too numerous to count' and how they'd 'shot the shit' with Assault.

Finally, after months of filling out forms and additional firearm and engagement training my squad and I were sent out in response to a report of parahuman action!

When I'd been told to suit up and get ready for action I'd naturally been a vibrating bundle of nerves and excitement. Finally, after three years of studying and more than half a year of staring at briefings and reports I'd finally get to actually contribute to my home city.

There was a time when I was younger when I could've been called a Cape groupie. Could you blame me? I remembered my dad showing me his old comic book collection from before… well, everything. He'd shown me his old favourites that had all stopped publishing soon after actual real life superpowers started to pop up and Scion appeared. Who would read Superman or Batman when you've got Mister Glowing and Golden flying around saving kittens?

But then Villains had started to appear. I was barely a year old when the Slaughterhouse Nine first formed, not old enough to remember it happening. What I did remember was how they'd shattered any conceptions I held on the world of superheroes and supervillains. Before it had always had a certain mystique to them, when I thought of them I thought of brightly coloured comic strips with emphatic noises like 'Blam' or 'Pow' when they punched the bad guys and they stayed down, like they were something removed from real life.

Instead we were in a world where whole towns were wiped off the map and eradicated in the wake of a roaming band of psychopathic Villains. They weren't the only ones that had debuted around that time, just the ones that burned in my mind the most.

And then it got worse.

Behemoth tore itself from the earth and when it did it started to bring down any hope that the world had. The Endbringers had come. They'd shown photos and short clips of him on TV, though I'd only seen them when I got home. At the time we hadn't known what it meant. We learnt quickly.

From there everything had gone downhill, and it felt like my home got the worst of all of it. With Leviathan's appearance sea trade dropped to nothing and Brockton Bay's economy fell apart. Faced with either leaving the city or turning to more nefarious kinds of work, the population did both in great numbers. Nowadays we had the highest villain per capita of any city in America, or at least it felt like we did.

So yes, when my squad was given the green light to deploy I'd been looking forward to finally getting to push back some of the decay that had set in to my city. Except nothing happened.

By the time we got to the scene it was just in time to see Mush, a literal moving pile of garbage slinking away from the frustrated team that had gotten there before us accompanied by Armsmaster. Luckily nobody had been too hurt, a few knocks here and there from the Villain's detritus but the PRT standard issue armour protected them well enough that they could walk it off. They were frustrated because they hadn't caught him, the shifting mass of trash was hard to damage and even harder to stop once it got moving. Shooting him with containment foam didn't do much unless you managed to get his actual body, he'd just drop any of his makeshift body that you caught and pick up more, or shift where his real body was if you hit the centre.

I was frustrated because I'd barely gotten a glimpse of the Villain, let alone been able to try and capture him myself.

The palpable aura of disappointment around me got me some funny looks from the first response team, and only slightly mocking chuckles from my squad leader. It'd been no surprise to me that there was a lot of anti-parahuman sentiment thrown around inside the PRT squads, especially not in Brockton Bay. We prepare every day to go out and take them down, the people that were at least one of, if not the contributing factor to how truly fucked up the city was. If that didn't breed some kind of resentment then we'd practically have to be saints. My own (admittedly mixed) feelings on Capes let me almost fit right in, though it didn't seem to make the rookie hazing any lighter.

So life at the PRT settled into a monotonous loop of paperwork and doing nothing again. The glorious Parahuman Response Desk Jockies didn't roll of the tongue quite as well. That isn't to say there was no action, but none of it had warranted sending my squad out again apparently so we were left twiddling our thumbs at the base downtown or helping the police with petty crimes. It still felt good, to be helping at least somewhat, but it wasn't what I'd signed up for.

I didn't doubt that something would happen eventually though. It was an inevitability what with being part of a PRT squad, let alone one in Brockton Bay. There was a certain tension that hung over everybody that I knew that worked there, all of them were members of a rapid response team like me, and all of them knew the danger that could come everyday. And would come eventually. You don't live in a city like the Bay without knowing how much of a shithole it is. Maybe if we were from the posh upper class who's entire view of the city came down to the nice downtown streets, the Boardwalk and the shopping malls, but we were all working class.

We all knew there were some areas you just don't go too, some streets you don't walk down at night or, hell, at any time of day. It shouldn't have shocked me as much as it did when I joined that we were told- ordered not to push too far into those parts of the city. Even though it was our to job to help the there, to enforce the law. But nobody wanted to poke the sleeping dragons of the gangs, literally for the ABB. It was practically open knowledge that Brockton Bay was as much controlled by the criminal underbelly as it was the PRT, even if no-one at HQ liked to say it. I'd only tried to ask about it once near when I'd first started here, about why we hadn't been allocated more men or funds or more anything to push the gangs back. We had the Triumvirate for goodness sake, what could the metal Nazi do against them? All I got was a round of stony-faced silence from some, bitter laughs from others and a curt dismissal.

All in all the PRT wasn't exactly what I expected when I joined, but I still believed in what we were doing and that this was my best shot at helping my city. That we were right and just. But if I had to choose when that began to change? I would say it would have to be the worst day of my life, when everything changed.

And it all started when Hookwolf came flying through the wall.

-o-​

A bullet whizzed past my head, slamming into the worn-down wall behind me and spraying tiny chunks of brick over my back.

"Why the fuck do they care so much about some restaurant?" The radio in my headpiece crackled, Davis' angry voice coming through clearly.

We were crouched behind our truck, black with pale purple stripes and thankfully bulletproof, parked a near distance away from eastern Asian restaurant, the name of which had been shot off some time ago. The darkness of the night was only broken by the occasional flickering streetlight and the rotating green and white emergency lights of our vans. Half an hour ago the police had received reports of an ongoing firefight between ABB and E88 forces. It took ten more minutes for them to argue between themselves who had the jurisdiction to respond to the call.

Brockton Bay was in an even worse state than almost any other city with a high Cape count. The ratio of Heroes to Villains was bad when taken on a global average, somehow unsurprisingly it was even worse here. And because all the major gangs were led by Capes their everyday operations were so intertwined with parahuman action that almost any gang activity fell under the PRT's mandate. Any prolonged engagement with a significant number of unpowered gang members ran the risk of attracting a Cape response. The issue was that we didn't have enough men or resources to respond to all of them so the police had to take some, and the departmental rivalry was very real there.

My thoughts were interrupted by more gunshots plinking against van, its sturdy armour stopping the low calibre rounds from penetrating. Didn't make it any less stressful though.

"I doubt it's the food they're fighting over," I shot back.

The restaurant itself was right on the outskirts of the downtown area, not quite in the Docks but also not enough to be considered part of the wealthier district. It was enough I suspected that the Empire viewed it as encroaching on their territory, the heavily entrenched positions of the ABB gang members suggested they'd been ready for a fight for a while.

On the opposite side of the street to the ABB camped in the restaurant, the Empire had occupied several of the buildings and stationed their men at the windows. On the bright side that meant they weren't all shooting at us, but we also couldn't advance towards either without being caught in the crossfire. While we all wore the standard bulletproof armour, none of us were in a rush to test them out.

"It's quite nice actually," Someone else said over comms, Peter, "The food I mean. I hope they don't go out of business."

"That's what you're worried about?" Sandra snorted. My only female squad mate was crouched behind another squad's van to my right. She took a deep breath, visible in the rise of her shoulders, before poking her head out and shooting a staccato burst towards the restaurant. Somewhere there was a scream and one of the red and green clad figures in the window collapsed backwards. As per protocol we were all using non-lethal rubber bullets, but they'd still cause enough damage to knock someone out or hopefully at least enough to put someone out of the fight.

"Sure," I could almost hear Peter nodding along as he spoke, "not enough good places to eat anymore."

That was Peter for you. We'd come out of the academy together and I was still confused how he'd made it. He was loveable and sweet, not what you'd expect from a PRT member clad in the dark SWAT-like body armour. When I'd asked about why he'd joined p he just laughed and said 'it sounded like fun'. It was telling that that didn't surprise me.

If we were in any other situation I would've sworn that the dull thud I heard was my squad lead smacking Peter's head against the van.

"Moron," Kieran bit out, voice carrying clearly over the radio, I wasn't sure if he'd turned it on purpose, "Worry about that when we're not being shot at. And cut the chatter."

He spoke like he was talking to a child, even though we were in live combat.

"How are we meant to handle this?" I saw Davis poke his head out to take another look before quickly lowering down again when a stream of bullets was directed towards him, "We try and push up and we'll end up more like Swiss cheese than those cars."

Down both sides of the roads numerous cars and vans were lined up, presumably how either of the gangs got here in the first place. Some of them were nondescript vehicles painted in every day colours, others were ones that would never leave the gang territory, painted in the green and red of the ABB or covered in stenciled renditions of the Empire's symbol. Nearly every single one of them was riddled with more bullet holes than the roads in the Docks had potholes. None of them were going to be used to get away in a hurry.

"We could move the trucks down the middle of the street," I suggested.

"Then we'd have no cover and they'd be forced to focus on us," Kieran, the squad lead, quickly shot my idea down, "Reinforcements are on the way, we wait for them and attack from both sides."

"Wait?" Sandra half asked half roared over the gunfire, even though she didn't need to over the radio. A grenade went off underneath one of the other vans. It rocked, heavy enough that it wasn't sent flying or too badly damaged but it looked on the verge of teetering over. The troopers behind it weren't as lucky, they were flung out of cover, sprawling over the ground. Seeing the opportunity, some of both gangs' members turned and unloaded towards them. Some were able to quickly scramble back towards the van, other weren't. "We can't wait! They're escalating too fast, permission to use containment foam?"

Kieran didn't say anything for a moment, but his hand went up to his ear. Someone was telling him something over the longer distance radio.

"Negative," Even he sounded frustrated. The famous foam was our number one (relatively) non-lethal response to Cape conflict, the yellow-tinged liquid that rapidly hardened into a breathable foam strong enough to even hold back most Brutes. We weren't allowed to use it in standard non-parahuman conflict under normal circumstances. It was tinkertech, a piece of equipment beyond our normal scientific understanding that couldn't be replicated by a normal scientist. Dragon had designed it, and had to maintain our launchers for it too, so even though it was mass-produced it was still too expensive to use against anybody but parahumans. Even then, it was only to be the first response when the parahuman in question's powerset was too dangerous to take down through normal means, "We wait for backup."

"Fuck!" Davis yelled as another grenade landed by his van, thought it looked vastly different than the previous standard fragmentation grenade. It looked like it had been thrown right out of an old sci-fi movie, all gleaming silver and a perfect sphere only broken by a blinking red light.

Davis instantly dived away, landing on his front beside the vehicle Sandra and I were taking cover behind and leaving him open. It wasn't a moment too soon as the thrown grenade blew up just a split second after he moved.

Instead of the explosion and shrapnel we'd braced ourselves for, the world turned bright white forcing me to close my eyes against the searing light. When I opened them again, I had to blink the stars out of them, even through my eyelids my vision had been thrown off. I didn't need perfect vision to see what had happened though.

The van and the surrounding ground in a perfect circle had been turned completely to glass. There was no differentiation between where the asphalt started and what had once been the van began. Its wheels connected to the ground in a smooth line and the whole thing was see through. I could see the spare guns and equipment in the back, the silly bobble head caricature of Armsmaster on the front dashboard, everything was the same clear glass. Including another PRT soldier, I couldn't make out his name. The nametag was just as transparent as everything else, but my heart still froze.

He'd been captured in his final moments, hands slightly raised as he'd started to try and jump away like Davis but had just been a second too slow. Beneath what had once been his opaque mask I could just about make out the contours of a face scrunched up in panic.

The street went dead quiet, even the ABB in the restaurant windows looked shocked from what I could make out. Bullet casings clattered to the ground faintly in the background.

Suddenly the street erupted into a commotion again and someone roared out.

"Those motherfuckers have tinkertech!"

Honestly I wasn't sure if it was one of us or a skinhead from up in a window. Might've been both.

"Where in the actual fuck did they get tinkertech grenades?" Sandra bellowed. I was as confused as she was. The ABB wasn't meant to have a Tinker. In fact, they were the outlier of all the gangs in that they only had two Capes in their entire organisation.

Hurriedly, I grabbed Davis under his shoulders and half dragged half threw him behind our van. He slumped against it with a clang, limp and not moving.

"Davis?"

He didn't respond. His chest rose and fell in unsteady gulping breaths while he just stared at the frozen sculpture that had once been a coworker.

Gunfire followed swiftly after the brief lull in action. Most of the shots were wild though, panicked at the escalation to Tinker made weaponry. The glassed vehicle cracked and fell, broken apart by bullets from both sides of the gang fight, the poor man followed soon after. Someone shot his knee, followed by multiple bullets slamming into his falling chest and shoulder.

He shattered when he hit the ground, pieces flying everywhere. Some of what had been his head slid over to rest right next to us with a screech of jagged glass on concrete. We stared at it, filled with revulsion. I thought I was going to be sick, the way my stomach churned like I had eaten something bad.

"Tinkertech equipment confirmed to be present," Kieran spoke urgently into his radio, voice shaking slightly through his obviously forced calm, "I repeat, they have tinkertech grenades."

None of us said anything while we waited for a response. It was strange how that moment felt silent, staring at the pieces of a teammate flickering green and white in the emergency lights of our vans in a street roaring with muzzle flashes and gunfire.

Finally, after a moment that stretched for hours Kieran nodded.

"Pull back!" He yelled, and I saw the ripple through our forces as the message was distributed by the other squad leaders too. He turned back to us, "Now! We need to get out of range of any grenades. Protectorate forces are inbound."

Even as he spoke another grenade went off, though this one had been thrown at one of the buildings the Empire had occupied. It swallowed the whole downstairs section of the outer wall, just gone like it had never been there. There hadn't even been any noise from the explosion, merely a bright flash.

I saw a forearm and hand flop onto the ground, trailing blood and still clenching a pistol in twitching fingers. On closer inspection there were more body pieces littered just outside the spherical section of the world that had disappeared. A leg there, another there, I had to look away when I saw half a head sliding down the crater.

The building shook for a moment, it groaned and shivered. Upstairs the neo-Nazi gangsters yelled in shock as it tilted on its axis. For a moment it looked like it would stay standing, the inside of what had a long time ago been a living room visible from outside and the upstairs like a strange balcony overhanging it.

But then it did, rolling over with all the inevitability of an avalanche. Bricks smashed into the street almost as loudly as the guns firing. A few of the Empire thugs tried to jump out the window before it fell, none of them made it, disappearing between one blink and the next under tonnes of debris.

When the dust settled half the street was obscure by the collapsed building. The ABB hadn't stopped firing though, and the other structures the Empire had captured were being rapidly evacuated leaving them right in the firing line. They were practically running straight to their deaths, but I guess that was preferable to being a sitting duck while tinkertech grenades were launched at you.

I'd thought I was ready, even though I'd only been in a few live fire situations before tonight, but never anything like this. They'd been petty small conflicts between only a couple on either side, where just one squad was enough of a response. Nothing could have prepared me for this. It couldn't be compared to the images we'd been shown in training or in after actions reports, seeing it in person was something else. A stark, vivid view of what this scale of gang action could do and did to my city.

Someone grabbed my shoulder roughly and pushed me back away from the gunfight.

"I said pull back!" Kieran yelled in my ear and over the radio. I'd been staring at the destruction for too long, most of the ABB were turning their attention back towards us now that the Empire weren't providing anything other than target practice and badly aimed potshots as they tried to get farther away. Oddly enough they didn't seem to be fleeing completely, just relocating to outside of throwing range like they were waiting for something.

Luckily the formation we'd parked the vans in in the street not only provided us cover against fire from both sides, it also allowed us to re-enter them relatively safely. Most of the other troopers were already back in theirs, some were overcrowded due to the loss of the glassed vehicle. The backdoors to my van were already wide open, providing a shield to get back inside. My squad mates were waiting already seated, Davis was still trembling and seated at the back. Sandra was gesturing angrily at me while Peter peeked back out over the top of the van, standing on the seat to do so and providing covering fire.

There was a low rumble in the distance, like the sound of a plane turbine or an extremely powerful motor. Something else was layered over the top of it though and coming from the opposite direction behind where the E88 had evacuated, a metallic scratching that pierced my ears and dull thuds that I could feel thrumming even through the asphalt.

"Move it James!"

I stumbled towards the van, tripping over a partially broken brick. I regained my footing quickly and rushed to get in, making sure not to step on the shattered remains of the unfortunate trooper caught in the first Tinker made grenade.

Just as I was about to step up into the van, the outer wall of the building to my left exploded outwards. From it came a hulking, twisting mass of metal spikes and hooks the size of my arm. Hookwolf burst into the street unhindered by the weight of the stone he'd just barrelled through like they weren't even there.

What momentum he'd carried with him didn't stop as he kept charging forward almost directly for us. Even on all fours in his metallic caricature of a wolf his elongated head towered over the PRT vehicles. One of them had enough quick thinking to activate one of the containment foam launchers, but it didn't have enough time to do anything before Hookwolf ran right into it. It folded around his front leg, almost like he'd kicked it, before it practically flew away and crashed into ours.

I had just enough time to throw my hands up and feel Kieran trying to push me inside again before the rapidly spinning side of the van rushed around to meet me. There was a brief moment of weightlessness before my vision went black.

When I came to, everything was blurry and my ears were ringing. Blearily, I looked around. It took me a moment to remember what had happened but the constant piercing cracks of gunfire and course yelling that I could still hear reminded me. I was sprawled on my back, head up against the sidewalk. Had I hit my head? That would explain why I felt so woozy.

On second thought, everything hurt and I was pretty sure at least one of my arms was broken. It was kind of… bent the wrong way. I tried to move it and had to bite down on a scream of agony. Definitely broken.

My helmet was smashed, the visor in pieces all over the sidewalk around me. As my vision cleared, I came face to face with my reflection in the dirtied reflective material, the emergency light giving an ominous sickly cast to what I was sure was already a pale face.

Short brown hair that held the faintest hint of curls after I'd had it shaved for training camp, a wide face and flat nose flanked on either side by dull green eyes. I'd never been called handsome by anyone other than my mother, just plain. There was a shallow cut on my forehead, light enough that I only felt it stinging now that I knew it was there but enough to send a curtain of blood trailing down my forehead. Shit, that was going to obscure my vision. Below my body armour was mostly intact, if dirty and my tag still clearly read 'J. Stanton'.

I wiped what was there away quickly, and struggled to my feet. My balance was still wobbly and there was still a shrill piercing note in my ears but I was up. Hookwolf was nowhere to be seen but I could see shallow paw shaped impressions into the asphalt leading into the restaurant. That combined with the bestial metallic roar I could hear from inside and the gaping hole to the side of the entrance that hadn't been there before I got knocked out told me enough.

The street itself was completely torn up. PRT vans were strewn all over, many were crumpled like the first one Hookwolf had ran into. One was halfway through the building behind me. There weren't enough there that he'd gotten all of them, hopefully some had managed to get away.

Mine hadn't though. It was further down the street, a trail of blackened asphalt showed how it had spun away with screeching tires. The side had buckled inwards and was pockmarked with fist sized holes from where Hookwolf had hit it. I stumbled towards it, legs feeling like jelly and still flaring up in pain.

There was no sign of anyone else moving outside on the street, PRT or gang affiliated. Bodies still littered the entrance to the buildings where the E88 members had been largely gunned down, and there were a few PRT troopers scattered around. I was tempted to check on them, but I couldn't focus on anything other than checking on my team.

Between one step and the next a figure appeared on top of the van. Clad in an all-black bodysuit, bandoleers were slung over both of his shoulders though they and his belt were barely visible beneath the grenades and knifes strapped to them. Most damning of all, his face was covered in a bright crimson mask in the visage of a leering demon with green stripes going down both sides and sharp looking fangs jutting out between the grinning lips. Shadows stretched and moved across his face with the swirling of the emergency light turning the sneer even more sinister. Oni Lee.

The Villain reached up to unhook one of the grenades in a quick and efficient movement. Had he been here the whole time? Was he the one with the tinkertech grenades?

No that made no sense. The grenades on the bandoleers looked like normal grenades, and if he'd been part of the defending ABB forces they never would have been pushed as far as they had been. That, and the gang would rule the whole city by now if he'd been a Tinker the whole time.

My uninjured hand snapped down to the sidearm at my waist, tugging it free in a practice motion. Before I could even aim at him a polished halberd came flying through the Cape's chest. Instead of trailing blood, it blew a hole in him like he was a sand sculpture made at beach, white ash floating in the air behind the thrown weapon. A moment later the rest of him fell apart too like dust in the wind.

I recognised the halberd of course; it was sleek and futuristic like it had jumped straight out of a movie. It cracked the asphalt and quivered in the ground from the force it had been thrown with. Armsmaster strode onto the scene with all the grace and surety of an action hero, the blue of his iconic power armour faded into black in the dimly lit street, silver off and harsh in the still swirling emergency lights.

Normally the sight of the local Protectorate leader gave me… mixed feelings. I was five when the PRT was formed, and I remembered being so happy when a branch was established right at home in the Bay. This was after the Villain population had boomed, when superpowered assholes saw the economy of the city struggle after Leviathan shut down sea trade as a golden opportunity. Surely with real life Heroes around crime rate would drop!

It didn't. Not really.

Instead it just escalated. Villains that had been perfectly happy making a relatively incognito profit were suddenly faced with a violent response at every turn. Forced to fight back the city became the backdrop to ever worsening Cape fights until finally, eventually, it stabilised into the modern stalemate after The Teeth were broken; ironically, not by the PRT or the Protectorate but by the Slaughterhouse Nine.

Now though all I could feel behind the pain was a bone deep sense of relief and it was all I could do stop myself from sinking to the ground again. Only the thought of my squad kept me upright. I moved towards the van in heaving steps, swaying to and fro like wheat in the wind.

Armsmaster barely glanced at me for more than a second, I couldn't see his eyes behind the visor and helmet that covered most of his face, but I got the distinct impression of being instantly dismissed beneath notice. His fingers flexed and the halberd flickered out of existence, reappearing a split second later back in his hand as if it had been there all along, only the deep groove in the ground evidence that it had been thrown at all.

I couldn't hear anything over my heart thundering in my ears like a tidal wave crashing into me. It was all I could do to move myself towards the van, closer to dragging myself forwards than walking.

The Tinker was saying something behind me, presumably something like the standard cease and desist order to Oni Lee. Or pre-fight banter though Armsmaster didn't seem the type.

Finally I reached the PRT vehicle, its lights still swirled dimly while the engine sputtered. The rear door was still open when Hookwolf had impacted the van and although it had deformed slightly from the force it had been thrown around with, it still was. The interior lights at the back were off or broken but I could still just about make out the three forms slumped inside. I couldn't see anything more though. Was that shape breathing or was I imagining things? And only three… where was the fourth?

Footsteps behind me pulled me away before I could consider climbing inside to make sure my team, my friends, were okay. Miss Militia, signature scarf and custom army fatigues passed by me with a green and black rocket launcher supported on her shoulder. Just like Armsmaster she barely glanced at me before moving on. Even though her face was only visible from around the eyes and up she was almost unrecognisable. The only time I'd seen her in person before had been at events or on the television, and her bright green eyes had always come off as warm and welcoming. Now they were professional, maybe even detached as they swept over the scene with the cool clinical nature of a soldier that I recognised from the veterans of the unit.

"Get to safety," She ordered. Her words held a faint accent, though I couldn't place from where, and they swept over me with their steadiness. A lifeline.

But… run away? Somehow that didn't sit right with me. I was tired, dizzy and steadfastly trying to ignore the piercing pain from my arm but more importantly I was angry. Angry at the gangs constantly fighting and ruining the city, angry at the inhabitant for not doing anything, at myself for not doing enough. At the PRT and Protectorate for the same damn thing. Suddenly running away didn't seem like an option anymore, especially not when my squad where insensate in the back of a van clearly too damaged to move.

Any thought of retreating fled my mind when Hookwolf lumbered back out of the restaurant, his monstrous bulk bringing down even more of the brickwork as he exited. I felt it before I saw him, the thumping vibrations in the ground getting more and more violent. The shifting mass of metal spike and hooks was easier to see this time, now that he wasn't charging towards me I had the opportunity to actually observe him.

Where previously he had been pristine, other than the dust from bursting through a wall, now viscera and deep crimson trails of blood flowed over the matte surface. Whatever had happened inside, clearly the Empire Cape had won.

Oni Lee had seemingly vanished, not that that was difficult for the teleporter to do nor was it surprising. The ABB Villain was well known to vanish rather than engage in any situation where he didn't have a clear advantage. That, or he was lying in wait looking for an opportunity. The thought wasn't comforting as my gaze flicked around the rundown houses and the many dark windows.

Hookwolf swung to face us, recognising the bright power armour and glowing weapon of the Protectorate Capes instantly in the dimly lit street. My determination faltered. Sure, I didn't want to run but what could I do against that? The spike on the Nazi's back reached higher than the ceiling of the ground floor of the building. Bullets wouldn't do anything, the pieces of torn apart ABB gangsters clinging to his form told that story clearly enough.

As he turned though, it became clear that the gang members weren't the only victims of his rampage. Something clawed its way up my throat, somewhere between a ragged yell and a sob as I saw the body that was pinned to the side of a leg that had been facing away from us. It shook slightly with every rumbling step the Villain took, but it didn't fall, impaled as it was over and over again through the PRT armour.

I couldn't look away, and Kieran's face stared back. Or what was left of it. A thick spike of metal with a vicious curve at the end that could barely be called a hook had punched through the back of his head. His helmet had either already been knocked off or did nothing against the force of the Brute. I almost didn't recognise him; except I could see the shock of his short cut red hair faded in amongst the grey matter and blood congealed on the metal behind him.

My brain hung. I was vaguely aware of the grinding of the Villain saying something, like metal plates being scraped together. It rumbled through my bones even though I wasn't, couldn't be, listening. There was no way this was happening. He should've been safe, gotten out of the way.

But he'd pushed me out instead. If I'd just listened to orders, or moved faster, would he still be alive?

What had even happened? Hookwolf hadn't been going directly for us, I'd only been hit as collateral damage of the van he sent flying. Kieran shouldn't have been in the way and had enough time to get far enough away that he wasn't in any danger. Unless… unless pushing me out of the way had left him in the path. His eyes were cast in the shadows of the streetlights but I could still imagine them glaring at me filled with accusation.

Suddenly the street exploded into action. Hookwolf and Armsmaster rushed to meet each other, while Miss Militia's power fuzzed into a mist before reforming into some kind of grenade launcher. She flipped it open with practised ease, ramming in a round she'd pulled out of her military fatigues.

The only thing I saw was the body.

Armsmaster met the Villain in a titanic clash of strength, his halberd parrying aside the incoming claws and swinging back in a blur of motion. Hookwolf rocked backwards. It barely moved him, but Kieran flapped outwards slightly. His legs kicked in some cruel mimicry of movement and for a second I let myself hope that he was, somehow, still alive.

I wanted to rush forward, bodily throw myself at the Nazi. Just do something to slow him down, to help to get this scum out of my city. But I was frozen, unable to move as I just watched the corpse dangle for a moment. Even when the streetlight fully illuminated the mess it had made of my squad leader's, my friend's, face I couldn't look away.

Then it fell. And for all the noise in the street I couldn't hear anything other than the wet, meaty thwack Kieran made when he fell face first onto the asphalt.

I tried to fall back on my training, deep breaths. Focus on the next step, the next task. Compartmentalise, I thought to myself, move on for now. Deal with it when you have the opportunity. My breath caught on an inhale.

He'd fallen with his face looking towards me. The side facing the sky was somehow relatively undamaged. He looked at me without seeing, eyes glazed over and blood splattered on the ground around him.

Something inside me broke. My eyes screwed themselves shut and I screamed and-

-o-​

It was silent. The breeze blowing on my skin was gone. The pain was gone. The terror and rage was gone. Was this what dying was like?

I opened my eyes and saw stars.

And there was s̸o̶m̶e̸t̴h̶i̵n̴g̴ í̴̟n̴͓̐-̵̧̚b̸̙̉e̵̘͌t̷͈̓w̴̦͠e̵̱͆e̵̝͊n̷̠̏ t̶͕̽́̊̀͠h̵̠̝̒ę̸̖̘̣͌̆̋̈́m̸̛̗̭̈̂̎̐

Spoiler: Note

Well, I finally finished the rewrite of the first chapter. Trying to work on a different personality for the main character and it works out as almost twice as long as the original. As per usual, there are probably plenty of grammar and spelling mistakes but I wanted to get this out there. Neither of my fics are abandoned, though the other is also likely pending a rewrite. Getting through this was a pain, I struggled a lot around the halfway mark, and have spread myself thin doing other things. Managed to push through it eventually though and get this posted.

Hopefully this comes across a bit better and is more enjoyable? Also as per usual I don't like it myself so can never tell. Let me know what you think. I can always tweak some stuff, or go back to the original.

I'll delete the original threadmarks when I get through all three of the original chapters.