Left-Handed Hero

[Wirbelwind]

Left-Handed Hero​

This story is dedicated to the corpse of the girl who only killed most of my friends and family.
​

What is it?

Left-Handed Hero is a crossover of indefinite length dedicated to my love of the works Worm and Design, a web serial and sadly abandoned Creepypasta series (well, more short horror novel) respectively.

It will probably metaphorically butcher the characters and universes of both settings involved. Literal, in story butchery will also be featured, so this is the warning for graphic violence. Of course, fans of both probably are pretty used to such things.

Knowledge of Worm is assumed, and spoilers will happen (duh). Due to its obscurity, age, niche appeal and the desire to not make anyone sit through several hours of (extremely well written) horror fiction, no knowledge of Design is required beyond what is provided below. Spoilers for Design will also be mentioned.​

Who is Subject 12?

Subject 12 is the reanimated half-corpse of a girl named Kali Aimes which has been turned by the Left-Hand parasite on her spinal cord into a telekinetic engine of destruction. Despite the name, the "parasitic" entity possesses little consciousness of its own and has been entirely subsumed into Kali's own damaged mind. Further augmented to hunt and kill her own kind, Subject 12 is classed as a Weapon of Mass Destruction, the trauma, torture, and imprisonment at the hands of a secretive government organization only honing what was once an extremely troubled high schooler into a nightmare of iron and blood.

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1.1
Emergence
​

Tattletale

15 minutes pre arrival

Light split the dark skies above Brockton Bay as a bolt of thunder shot from the heavens and landed with tremendous force somewhere further ahead in the city.

For a moment, Tattletale ceased speaking, taking her eyes off the hectic scramble below to sweep the skies instead.

Unusual weather phenomena, unknown cause.

Very useful, that bit of power derived insight. Maybe the fact it was clear skies all around with no hint of rain could have tipped her off.

Something below exploded with a dull thump, and her attention returned to the "fight". It was more of a skirmish, all things considered, consisting of half a dozen ABB thugs trying not to outright break and run, Grue and Regent giving them further motivation to do so, and a trio of monstrous dogs directed by Bitch trying to play wack-a-mole with Oni Lee, who, was spending nearly as much time exploding or crushed as he did trying to stab or shoot at the dogs.

Still, as the unnatural darkness and total pandemonium broke the will of the mundane gangers, allowing for the entire combat might of the Undersiders to be brought upon the teleporter, he wisely decided to cut his losses and retreat, teleporting from building to building until he was out of sight, blood dripping from a major gnash on his leg.

"Good work. TT, get down, we need to keep moving."

Grue's deep voice came over her earpiece, and the blonde put on a smirk that was only partially exaggerated as she delicately dropped from the rafters of the shanty hut she had used as a perch.

"Why, you really that eager for death?"

Regent voiced his displeasure with the current course of action.

Tattletale could tell that Grue was smiling beneath his skull mask.

"No, but I would rather get this done quickly than be slow roasted."

She didn't need her power to tell her that this morose humor was more to cover his genuine concern than from any actual comedic value.

It was still sort of funny.

Something in the distance boomed again, and the rest of the Undersiders, now freed from the deafening influence of Grue's power and the distraction of combat, were quick to look towards the direction it came from.

Tattletale could barely make out plumes of smoke rising into the air, conveniently in the same direction they were heading before their pit stop with Lee.

A fire, definitely. Natural? Not likely, unless that phantom lightning bolt had hit something important. Artificial? Possibly.

Lung related?

Gunfire carried on the wind, along with a faint bestial roar.

Significant possibility Lung has engaged other parahuman. Significant probability fight is not concluded.

Right.

Grue seemed to pick on this was well. Regent probably was coming to the same conclusion, but he wasn't the one to speak up.

"I th-"

Tattletale interrupted.

"Yeah, we should probably crash the party. If we are lucky, someone will have already dealt with Lung for us!"

Now that was… well, not really a joke.

One of the dogs, this one having greater resemblance to a rhino than anything canine, keeled slightly to let her get on. Bitch and Grue took it, and so Tattletale was forced to ride behind Regent on the second.

Riding one of these dogs was surprisingly, if not comfortable, not entirely horrible to experience. Sort of like what she imagined dirt biking off road would feel like.

Certainly not a smooth ride, but once you figured out how to sit properly, not particularly unpleasant. It absolutely beat walking.

The beasts lunged forward, eyes fixed ahead of them as they moved with grace unsuited for their bulk to swerve through alleyways, leap fences, and eventually climb outright up onto the roofing of the row of downtrodden apartments.

As the fire drew nearer, one of the dogs moved ahead of the pack, Bitch giving it an order that Tattletale couldn't quiet hear but didn't need to as it shot like a rocket towards the flaming form of what must have been Lung, currently stalking across a rooftop, shooting jets of flame like a human flamethrower.

Lung spun with inhuman speed, but almost seemed to take a moment to get his bearings before unleashing a wall of fire that was easily dodged by the dog.

Flames singed the roof but failed to touch any of the Undersiders before the first monster dog had gotten into melee, the vicious brawl sending both man and monster off the building and into the streets below.

The pair acting as mounts leapt, covering the twenty feet between buildings with ease. As they came to a stop, Grue and Bitch slid off neatly, and so Tattletale and Regent followed.

Shakily standing before them was a girl, a tall stick figure covered in a costume that seemed to be a mix of dirty yellow-brown fabric and darker, more solid pieces of something that couldn't be readily identified.

She pressed further with her power.

Silk. Durable, flexible. Purchased? No, too expensive, homegrown.

Tattletale took a moment to glance off the roof towards Lung, who was now entangled with all three dogs at Bitch's command.

He was slowing, sloppy, occasionally rumbling in frustration as the beasts acted as a team to keep him off balanced long enough to get in a good hit or two.

Crippled, suffering from severe envenomation/chemical assault. Mixture of Pepper Spray, wasp, spider, and ant stings. Likely fatal if not for enhanced healing. Will recover.

Huh.

She turned back to the new girl, sizing her up as she trembled. Grue was busy explaining the situation to her, which seemed to be doing little to reassure the cape.

It must be her first night out, something collaborated by Tattletale's power.

Seeing an opportunity to butt in, Grue's questioning was answered by her before the cape actually responsible for taking on Lung could speak.

"Pepper spray, wasp and bee stings, fire ants and spider bites, he's not holding up too well. Gonna feel a helluvalot worse tomorrow."

Tattletale made sure to grin.

Grue began introductions as she continued to pick at the girl with her power.

Young, 14 – 16. First night out. Panicked, not damage. Assumes we are the kids Lung was planning on killing. Assumes correctly.

Seems like she overheard something and decided to play hero.

Well, good for them, the Undersiders were slippery but could only run for so long.

Something loud crashed into metal on the street below.

Turning, Tattletale found that Lung had tossed a dog through a dumpster, trash and fouler things splattering across the pavement. The dog responded with a charge that sent the pyrokinetic slamming into a brick wall.
He fell limp.

Her heart leapt into her chest, a weight lifting from her shoulders as she turned back towards the group proper.

They had actually done it. Well, they had done very little, but it still counted. They hadn't just survived Lung; they had outright beaten him.

"The reason she's not introducing herself isn't because she's hurt, It's because she's shy."

Grue didn't need to have an excuse to try to drag in strays.

A dull drone came over the horizon.

Armsmaster. Will arrive shortly. Will attempt to subdue all villains found.

"Heads up. We've gotta scram."

Bitch whistled and the dogs rapidly climbed the building, landing with dull thumps.

"Hey, what's your name?"

The girl didn't reply.

Unlikely to provide real name, hasn't decided upon cape name.

Kids these days, going out before they even had a name to call themselves.

Now facing the girl again, Tattletale decided upon Bug. It fit.

"I don't… I haven't picked one yet."

Resisting the urge to point out that she had already figured it out, Tattletale instead chose to dispense some hard-won wisdom, flashing a winning smile while doing so.

"Well, Bug, a cape is gonna show up in less than a minute. You did us a solid by dealing with Lung, so take my advice. Someone from the Protectorate shows up, finds two bad guys duking it out, they're not going to let one walk away. You should get out of here,"

With that, she mounted her dog, and held on as they leapt off into the night.

She could tell that Grue was about to speak before he did so and didn't need her power to tell her what about.

"Huh. Strange thing. Lucky, but still strange."

Another phantom lighting bolt shot overhead, coming down something in the buildings beside them.

Not particularly strange comparatively.

Her grin vanished.

That was… odd. Very odd, actually. It wasn't unknown for her power to decide that she had best know something without any prompting, but normally it was far more… direct. Robotic. Deciphering its wisdom was more about putting the pieces together than trying to figure out what shape they were specifically.

"Damn. What's the chances of us running into two new capes in one night?"

Regent voiced every one's thought.

No additional parahumans will be encountered.

She blinked, almost falling off the dog as gunfire erupted somewhere below them, followed by horrific screams.

The dogs immediately stopped, noses to the sky.

Regent grumbled something, Grue tried to take a look around, and Tattletale's mind raced as her power force fed her information, pain blossoming deep within her.

Several automatic weapons. Wielded by remnants from battle with Lung.

Half of the many screams cut off suddenly, as did half the gunfire.

Something popped, the sound ringing through the streets louder than even the gunfire.

Grue gestured to Bitch who whistled, the dogs shifting to change course towards the sound.

Tattletale wanted to speak but couldn't focus through the pain.

All ABB personnel disabled or destroyed. Hostile contact with entity responsible will result in death. Avoiding contact with entity responsible will result in mass civilian casualties. Friendly contact with entity will result in injury or death.

The pain was now ear splitting as the group came down hard in a back alleyway.

Someone cursed aloud.

Regent chuckled morosely.

Tattletale slid off the dog, scraping something on one of its bony plates as the migraine began to lighten up. She almost wished it didn't, almost.

The alleyway, lit only by several abandoned flashlights and the moon, was straight from a nightmare.

A thin red-white paste coated its entirety, splattered across both walls and road like someone had dropped a titanic water balloon.

She didn't need to know what that was, but she was told anyways.

Source of popping sound. ABB ganger, deceased.

No shit.

Her eyes seemed to move on their own as Grue took a moment to step back, the dogs growling and circling their owner protectively.

Further down the street were… bodies. Or rather, what was left of them. Entrails and viscera slathered the ground as half a dozen indeterminable piles of what might have been humans lay lumped.

Source of automatic gunfire. ABB gangers, deceased. Massive lacerations, gunfire, and exposure to intense heat instantly fatal.

Further down the alleyway, something moved in the shadows.

A young man, dressed in the colors of the Bad Boyz, scrambled from around a corner. He was covered in blood not his own, panicked, and swearing colorfully in Japanese.

Grue raised his hands defensively, one of the dogs growled, and Tattletale eyed one of the abandoned guns on the ground, noting the small piles of spent casings beside three of the corpses.

Gunfire ineffective against entity responsible.

"Hey, what the hell is happ-"

Grue was cut off.

A lance of darkness swung around the corner, air distorting as it swung deftly to catch the ganger by one leg. He screamed in agony as what appeared to be a solid iron chain, vibrating and shimmering with heat, wrapped itself around his leg several times and tore him off his feet.

It didn't drag him around corner and out of sight, as the thing it was attached to had come into the open.

Interference will result in death. Attempting to flee will result in death. Entity unable to be harmed by current capabilities.

Grue began to lung forward, darkness appearing at his fingertips, but Tattletale used all of her might to slam into him.

"No, don't! No one move!"

He whirled on her, words in his mouth, before stopping. Regent lowered his taser from the overhead slam he had begun to line up on her as he caught sight of the creature proper.

Tattletale looked up just in time to see a second chain thread its way between the hapless criminal's leg, then force itself through his back and out his chest, clothing burning away and flesh scorching black as he was lifted off the ground to face the monster responsible eye to eye.

It looked like a girl, something her powers partially collaborated, but the thing before the Undersiders seemed more corpse than person, pale skin flashing in the moonlight as the air around it distorted with invisible energy.

Barely more than 5 foot 5 or so, deathly thin, and covered in visible bruises and lacerations, the black-haired girl suspended before them shouldn't have been particularly intimidating.

But even without her powers telling her how dangerous she was, even without the corpses strewn across the alleyway, Tattletale felt a flush of terror as she began to take in further detail. Stretching from the spine of the girl were two pairs of hooked tendrils, chains of wrought iron that extended several times her own body length.

Two of them were holding up the ganger, two were anchored to something further in the alleyway, held taught to keep the body of th-

Not parahuman. Not parahuman. Hostile confrontation means death. Fleeing means death.

The pain that split her head was enough to prevent Tattletale from considering the exact implications of the information given but wasn't enough to prevent her from seeing what happened next.

Taking notice of them, the girl's face split unnaturally wide with a cruel smile, red saliva dripping from bared teeth.

As if to say, "watch this", it nodded slightly towards the man. With a horrendous sound of tearing flesh and boiling blood, the outer layer of clothing and skin covering his left arm simply fell away into vaporous chunks, skin, meat, and then bone vanishing entirely as the thing seemed to flay the entire limb into nonexistent.

An agonizing second later, the tendril through his chest sliced upward, while the one around his leg yanked with tremendous force, functionally ripping the body into three steaming chunks.

The girl lurched forward; two chain-limbs raised above its head.

Regent moved faster, swinging his arm no doubt intending to trip the monster, but slight panic appeared on his face as nothing happened.

Unable to control dead nerves. Entity has not realized what he attempted. Death can still be avoided.

Avoided? What the fuck kind of direction was that?

Thinking quickly, Tattletale forced through the terror and yelled.

"EVERYONE, STOP!"

The Undersiders, beginning to break from the shock and into fight or flight, were halted in their tracks. Two of the dogs stumbled backwards, while the third put itself between Bitch and the monster shaped like a girl.

Focusing with all her might, Tattletale plied her power for something, anything to use as leverage.

Likes dogs. Recently deceased. Panicked, emotionally compromised. Parasite still wounded.

Only two of those were potentially useful, but not enough to be actually applied right now. The other two were just exceptionally worrying.

Is aware of surroundings. Is aware of self, of recent events. Emotionally compromised, grieving, scared. Unaware of current location. Unaware of how she arrived or survived.

That… could potentially work.

Could be reminded of sole friendly contact. Likes hero complexes.

Good, this was actionable intel. Worrying, but still useful.

"Please, I know you are scared and confused."

The girl hissed audibly and raised her hand.

Tattletale fought the instinct to duck for cover.

Flight will result in death.

"But we can help you! We are heroes, and we just got done with something that helps you!"

This stopped it from doing… whatever it was about to do.

Regent seemed to pick up on her plan and spoke, attempting to be comforting.

"Yeah, yeah, if it wasn't for us, you would have been fighting four times more guys-"

It scoffed, as if insulted.

"And a literal dragon."

This got its attention.

Unaware of parahumans. In disbelief. Considering violence.

"He isn't lying. You are a long way fro-"

Mentioning home will result in death.

Tattletale decided to change her choice in wording.

"Where you were before. This is a different place, with different rules, an-"

Bitch began to whistle.

Conflict will result in death.

The thing focused its gaze upon her, then upon the dogs which came to heel, growling defensively.

It spoke, voice hoarse but clear.

"Those your dogs?"

Bitch stopped. The dogs did as well.

"Yeah. Why?"

The thing's eyes gleamed slightly.

Attempted to blink. Cannot blink. Eyelids surgically removed.

Jesus Christ. If she hadn't been outright told that this wasn't something parahuman related, a fact that she hadn't entirely internalized yet, Tattletale would have assumed that this thing must be the result of the Nine or similarly screwed up individuals playing God.

Condition is partially artificial, partially natural.

It muttered softly.

"I like dogs. They seem to like you."

Tattletale seized the momentum.

"Yeah, she rescued them, trained them, gets along with them better than people. Raids dogfighting rings all across the city in her free time."

Now it locked onto her, green eyes flashing with cruel intellect.

Grue spoke now.

"Yeah, we aren't exactly heroes, but aren't exactly villains."

It actually laughed, a deep, chocked laugh that echoed in the night air.

"Heroes? Villains?"

It must have truly found that hilarious, doubling over, forcing air from its lungs in bursts.

"What, like some sort of comic book?"

From a world without heroes, villains. Without parahumans.

"Yes, actually." Tattletale spoke up.

"Very much so like a comic book. This city alone has several superheroes and many more supervillains."

Does not believe you. Considers this assuming. Considering sparing you.

"Don't laugh. Actually, we were just on the way to base from encountering a real nasty piece of work. Lung, leader of a gang, shapeshifter and pyrokinetic."

It recoiled again, laughing.

"You… you're serious?"

She broke out her best smug grin, projecting an illusion of confidence and control.

"Yeah, welcome to Earth Bet."

Tattletale turned to Grue, keeping the thing in the corner of her eye as it began to examine them intently, eyes widening as it took note of the dogs.

She wasn't sure why it didn't realize that the "dogs" were less canine, more giant rhino monster earlier.

Emotionally compromised. Registers body language and nature before appearance. Is now internalizing visual stimuli.

Quite a lot of trauma to register the monsters well enough to pick up on them being dogs, but not actually register that they are giant mutated dogs.

Sufficiently compromised to trigger several times over if it were biologically possible.

Well, that would explain it.

More concerning information aside, it didn't really matter why. What mattered is what, and if that what could be used for the task at hand of not dying, and then preventing others from dying.

She gestured to Grue who was staring with clenched fists at the thing as it began to properly examine its surroundings, slowly lowering itself to the ground.

He didn't notice, but Regent did, and gestured slightly, causing Grue to look towards her.

"What th-"

She interrupted him, mouthing "use your power, just a little bit".

He stared intently.

Scared. Confused. Believes position as leader and protector in peril. Doesn't know if he should trust you, but will still obey.

He slowly exhaled, letting loose a cloud of unnatural darkness that floated a few feet above the ground.
The thing snapped its head and body to face it, eyes fixing on the sphere of black like a hawk would upon a mouse.

Its face slowly slipped into confusion, shock.

Did not believe you could back your claim. Is considering course of action.

Tattletale chose to press the attack. Making sure to keep her mask of confidence tight, she sauntered forward.

Approaching further will result in death.

Right, anything that wouldn't result in death?

Off balance, alone, in need of emotional and practical anchor. Scared, confused, grieving.

Already figured that out, but I guess the original plan is still a go.

"We are the Undersiders, villains with hearts of gold who were dealt a bad hand in life but have refused to give up!"

Regent chuckled slightly. Grue almost looked embarrassed through the fear.

The girl snapped to Tattletale now, eyes alight with a mix of wonder and disbelief.

"Our leader here, Grue, produces darkness, Bitch over there-"

She gestured.

"Can boost the strength, size, and speed of dogs, Regent can… well, not you, apparently, but normally can cause little muscle spams."

Each word seemed to entrap the girl further.

Still not entirely convinced. Considers this viable distraction. Distraction will not last much longer.

"And… I can tell that you have, if not a similar story, a similar situation currently. But we are good people, with no master plan. We are here for fun and profit."

In the distance, a familiar hum began to approach.

Armsmaster. Delayed by Lung. Firefight drew attention.

Tattletale swept the alleyway, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw no onlookers or windows.

Armsmaster will attempt to take her in. Will result in mass casualties.

Lovely.

She needed to finish up. Well, not finish up, but at the very least get this deranged lunatic out of the streets.

Tattletale took out her phone and began texting, holding it so that it was partially obscured.

With a low ping, the message sent.

Grue took a moment to get out his own.

The creature tracked him with her eyes.

Knows she is intimidating, dangerous. Revels in this.

The message sent back from Grue was simple.

"Why not just cut and run? And what about the boss?"

Of course, she had already considered that. None of the Undersiders particularly wanted for people to suffer horribly while they could intervene, even if Bitch would never admit this.

But it seemed that everyone here was under no illusions that they should try to tangle with whatever the hell this was.

Indeed, if she didn't know that would result in their messy demises, Tattletale would have been the first to suggest flight.

She sent back a reply.

"If we try to run, she will kill us and everyone in the area. I will-

Awareness of Coil's involvement in this moment will result in death.

"not tell her about the boss because she seems to not particularly like him. Either way, Armsmaster is about to show up, and if they meet, lots of people are going to die."

The fear of God visibly entered Grue, plain to see despite his mask. He probably concluded that this was someone who their boss had dealt with before.

Not an unreasonable assumption, but one that was apparently entirely false.

Grue decided to take initiative.

"You don't need to make a decision now, in fact, we probably want a bit to mull it over ourselves. But until then, we can give you shelter, food, rest, and information."

Now it was her turn to pipe up.

"On one condition, just one. As long as you are with us, no killing. You can leave whenever you want, stay as long as you want, but we don't want to get a kill order on our heads, and you don't either."

Believes self already target of kill order. Still sees logic in avoiding additional attention.

Bitch climbed onto one of the dogs while the other two perked their scaled ears up as sirens began to approach.

Encountering law enforcement will result in mass casualties. Subject is extremely hostile to anything perceived as governmental in nature.

The thing's eyes darkened as it lowered itself to the ground, the radiating heat shimmering the air to distort its frames. One of the chains snaked its way across the ground and arched defensively, while the other three fell limp with dull clatters.

"Fine. I will go with you. But if this is a trap, a trick, or something else…"

It grinned.

"I will peel away your ribcage and eat your heart."

Is capable and willing to do so.

Tattletale hid the nervous gulp. Regent seemed to find this situation all too funny, but wasn't actually laughing.

Grue tried to regain control.

"Got it, we don't plan on betraying you. After all, they will want our heads as well."

Perhaps not literally, but the creature seemed to take it as such.

Has forgotten life before kill order.

He split an awkward grin and extended his hand.

She spoke.

"You… most of you, remind me of someone I knew."

The girl smiled, a true, proper smile this time, with a hint of sadness. Her chains rattled, air distorting, blood coating boiling away until the lengths of metal were spotless.

Now walking, well, more shambling, on her human legs, the girl approached and took his hand, eyes wide as if she could scarcely believe what was happening.

Had entirely lost hope. Still not sure if she can start again. If she should start again.

Grue gripped the offered limb, and a slight blush crept onto her face.

Of course she was one of those types.

Easily attached. Emotionally vulnerable.

He shook her hand, and Tattletale knew from experience it would be a tight grip. The girl didn't even flinch. Certain aspects of her body language, or rather, seeming lack of it in certain respects, came together in Tattletale's mind.

Paralyzed from the neck down. Mobile only via telekinetically moving limbs and chains as if a puppet.

That is probably why Regent couldn't do anything to her.

"Now that we have all decided not to kill each other, I think we should be going."

Regent pulled himself up onto one of the dogs. Bitch seemed to relax, or perhaps, accept the reality of the situation, and the dogs immediately followed suit.

Grue nodded and lightly dragged the girl along.

"You probably want to hold on tight. It isn't as scary as it looks, but they are fast."

Realizing what he meant, the girl planted her feet into the ground.

He stopped and looked down at her.

Sirens drew closer.

"Unless you can reach highway speeds, you are gonna want to get on the friendly pooch."

As Tattletale spoke, the girl fixed her gaze on her, replying simply. "My warning extends to you as well."

Intends to make good on promise.

Yeah, yeah.

The girl probably wasn't expecting her to merely smile and nod in return. Tattletale wasn't exactly a bad actor, even in such stressful situations, and she was sure that the girl with the chains wasn't in any condition to be doing deep psychological analysis.

With a huff, she stopped holding herself in place, letting Grue bring her to the side of one of the dogs. The creature in question took a moment to sniff her, before she put her hand on its hand and dragged it down its flank as she followed Grue to its side.

He mounted it with practiced grace. The girl seemed to prepare herself, concentration obvious in her expression.

Suppressing urge to avoid physical contact. Uncomfortable with placing self into vulnerable position.

From what she had seen so far, Tattletale felt that the girl shouldn't be the one worried about being in a vulnerable position. Sure, the dogs would probably be the best bet at tangling with her should the need arise, but her own power told Tattletale that this thing had them entirely outclassed.

Even if that wasn't true, even if did stand a chance, those chain-tendrils had the reach and flexibility to spear any of them before the dogs could even respond.

The girl gripped onto the ridges in the dogs back tightly, as opposed to holding onto Grue. Her chains still fell onto the ground in coils of black metal.

Bitch spoke, startling the girl.

"Your chains."

The girl snapped her head around to meet the gaze, then brought her own down to the chains in question.

Tattletale chose to put it more nicely then however Bitch was going to explain it.

"She wants you to pick up or hold your chains. Bitch isn't really a people person, but she knows the dogs like the back of her hand, and doesn't want to risk you tripping them."

Tattletale wasn't exactly sure what response she expected. Half of her prepared to leap to the ground to try and dodge a spear of superheated metal, even if logically such a minor request was unlikely to set the human time bomb off.

She didn't expect the girl to flush slightly with remorse and lower her head, long black hair covering her face from view.

Without a word, the chains began to snake their way up themselves to lay in a tangle on her lap. Tattletale could see the heat radiating off the black metal, see the girl's pants begin to hiss as the splattered blood began to boil away.

Use of telekinetic abilities generates significant waste heat. Moving own body requires scalding herself.

The dog didn't seem to care in the slightest beyond curiously watching the metal move itself, thick bony hide insulating them well.

Of course, they had held up to Lung's own fire just minutes earlier, so this wasn't particularly surprising.

"You ready?"

Grue looked back to her. She nodded.

Bitch whistled a short sequence. This was one of the more simple commands.

"Home."

The dogs launched into motion, the girl letting out half a squeal of fear and excitement before cutting herself off.

It took mere seconds for the Undersiders to leave the gore coated alleyway behind. Tattletale could feel the gaze from the rest of the team occasionally falling on her. When they got back, there would be many questions, but she felt confident that they would agree.

Well, maybe not Bitch, but the others would likely decide they made the right call in trusting her when the phrase "mass casualty event" left her mouth.

Behind them, several police cars probably came to a screeching halt, as did a distinctive motorcycle rode by the leader of the Brockton Bay Protectorate.

Tattletale didn't need powers to know that, for one reason or another, this night would be one to shake the city to its core.

 

[Wirbelwind]

1.2
Emergence
​

Grue

45 minutes post arrival

"Lisa, what the fuck?"

He sighed. While Alec put it rather crudely, he was just saying what everyone was thinking. Including himself.

"Yeah, wouldn't put it like that, but you need to explain yourself."

Lisa's grin fell. He could scarcely believe his eyes as fear began to creep across her face.

"I-"

Tears actually began to appear at the corners of her eyes. Brian stepped forward, offering a comforting hug, but was waved off immediately.

"I needed to get that thing out of the public."

Probably a good call.

She continued.

"You guys don't know what I do."

That went without saying, of course, but everyone here could plainly see that the new girl was dangerous, unstable. Incredibly so, despite the fact that she had slipped into a sort of calm trance upon being led into the Redmond Welding building the Undersiders had claimed as their base.

In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that she had walked herself in, Brian could have been convinced that the consciousness left her eyes far before she collapsed on the couch in the other room.

"We know she is a crazy psycho murderer who took the idea of chain mail way too far."

Alec spoke, shifting slightly to readjust how he was leaning against the corner of the storage closet. One arm was propping him up, the other idly messing with a piece of junk.

Lisa huffed, tears momentarily drying up before she let loose a small half-sob.

Alec seemed to realize exactly how serious this was, at least to her, and lowered his voice.

"Sorry."

Lisa waved him off.

"It's fine, you don't know. This… the girl, she… my power has been telling me things." with a sniffle and slight adjustment of the bit of blonde hair which had gotten into one of her eyes, Lisa continued.

'That girl isn't from here. At all. As in, not from Bet."

Brian gasped slightly.

"You mean to say that she is from another dimension?"

She nodded, then continued.

"Not Aleph either. I don't know if I want to believe it, but I don't think she is a parahuman at all."

Alec scoffed slightly, then immediately tried to cover.

"Sorry, got a… cough. You sure? She certainly seems to have powers."

Lisa nodded faintly, gaze distant.

"Yes. I know what I know. I know it is absurd. But I want to trust my own powers, and my powers tell me that this isn't normal. That this is wrong."

"Is she a construct? Some kind of projection?"

Lisa looked at Brian now, cold, stalwart intent in her green eyes.

"No. She is flesh and blood, at least partially. My power claims she isn't even from a dimension with parahumans at all."

While he wouldn't claim to know exactly how anyone's powers truly functioned, let alone Lisa's, Brian considered that a bit more than superhuman intuition.

"I know what you are thinking. Very literally. It isn't normal for me either."

Stress and fear now dominated her face.

"But my abilities are very… direct, when it comes to her specifically. At least, in certain aspects. I blatantly know, for example, that if she was to come into contact with law enforcement, a lot of people would die."

He gestured for her to continue, understanding spreading on his face.

"Which is why we needed to get her off the streets. The term mass casualty event was provided repeatedly."

Alec stepped forward, awkwardly maneuvering around the still silent Rachael, taking care to avoid any of the miscellaneous objects which remained in the partially cleared storage closet.

He propped open the door before Lisa could stop him, peaking out for half a second before closing it.

"So, you are saying that you intentionally brought what is basically a humanoid time bomb directly into our house?"

Lisa nodded slowly, wiping the tears from her eyes. She seemed to have recovered partially, but her face was still pale.

Brian had no doubt his own had gone several shades lighter.

"Yes. Until we can be sure that she isn't liable to go on a killing spree, the only option that doesn't have the potential to result in mass death is keeping her with people who are able to keep her control. Not physically-"

She sent a gaze towards Rachael.

"-because we are entirely outclassed as far as I am aware."

Alec let out a sort of low, humorless chuckle.

"So, we need to emotionally manipulate her into not being a psychopath. Got it."

It tracked pretty well that he wasn't going to be entirely comfortable with that, but Alec didn't seem to actually be suggesting doing otherwise.

"No matter what, she is hurting." Brian tried to swing the conversation to a more positive, constructive side of things. "We can help. If this so happens to also prevent a slaughter, then fine. But even without that consideration, if what you say is true, she doesn't exactly have anyone to rely on, and wouldn't do well in conventional society."

"Ah, taking in strays? I thought that was Rachael's thing."

Alec grinned slightly as the girl in question turned to look at him.

Brian ignored this.

"So yes, while I disagree with you thrusting this upon us with no prior explanation, I do agree with the ultimate conclusion. Bring her here was the right call."

Lisa grinned slightly, a small modicum of life returning to her.

"The boss isn't going to like this, but he will survive. Especially if I try to spin it as adding additional firepower."

Her grin faded.

"But really, villains with hearts of gold? You trying to give the impression we are straight out of a bad Saturday Morning cartoon?"

He smiled slightly, shaking his head.

Lisa shrugged.

"She seems to have a thing for the sappy. Reminds her of the past, or rather, the sole positive thing she can remember."

She turned to Alec.

"Looks like you have a bit of competition."

He muttered something and made a rude gesture, then seemed to remember something himself.

"Right, so if she isn't parahuman related, then what the hell is she? Normal people can't levitate, and don't have tangles of metal coming out of their back like."

Lisa frowned.

"I don't know. Her condition doesn't seem to be entirely natural, but you don't need me to tell you that. I am not sure if I would ask her about this either, at least for now. It might be a bit of a touchy subject."

Brian interrupted before she could continue thinking aloud.

"Doesn't matter. We can still treat her as a parahuman, just a strange, damaged one. What is important is having something to call her beyond 'the girl' or 'chains'."

Lisa seemed to take a moment to think, eyes slowly moving to the doorknob.

"Well, we can ask her."

With that, she moved to open the door, pushing past Alec.

Brian turned to Rachael who looked at him with a bit of confusion, before gradually realizing what he was asking without words.

"I am fine with this."

He blinked. The door opened and the other two left, leaving him and Rachael. Without needing prompting, she continued, explaining very simply that "The dogs like her, I understand her.".

That made a bit of sense, and Rachael was the main person he was worried about. She always protested the most when the topic of adding members to the group came up.

The pair left the closet, at least one of them privately glad to be out of the claustrophobic and stuffy space. He dodged the large shelf rack they had dragged out of the closet to make room for their meeting and turned to face the lounge to find that Alec had placed himself lengthwise down one of the couches.

Lisa was typing something frantically onto her computer, occasionally glancing to the other couch.

Rachael had beelined to her own room, and he heard the dogs bark and jump with excitement at their master's return.

Finally, there was the girl.

She was now awake, sitting upright, partially hunched over, chains wrapped around herself like some sort of metallic blanket.

With one hand she held the TV remote, while the other laid limply by her side.

With wide eyes, she swapped through the channels at a manic pace, stopping only occasionally to skim the subtitles of something particularly interesting.

The room as mostly silent, other than the hum of the generator. He wasn't sure how long she had been awake, watching the television, as it was clearly entirely muted.

With a slight gasp of breath, the girl spun to face the Undersiders, wide eyes brimming with tears and shell shock.

"You… you weren't lying."

She then returned to the television, which was now playing a special on the discovery of Scion and the rise of Heroes.

One trembling hand was raised to point at the golden man floating serenely above the Atlantic.

"Superheroes exist."

 

[TopHatWearer]

I'm surprised and excited to see a fanfic involving one of Liam Vickers stories. Looking forward to more ^_^.

 

[Wirbelwind]

1.3
Emergence​

Miss Militia

1 hour 30 minutes post arrival

When she got the call that Lung was actively in custody, having been taken by Armsmaster himself, she thought it was probably going to be the single most important event of the week.

It still might be, but now it was surpassed when it came to most viscerally disturbing one, and she had already seen the preliminaries on where exactly Lung had been stung by every dangerous insect in the state and some from out of it.

Before her, lit up by a dozen spotlights and swarming with PRT officers, forensic examiners, and a rare few paramedics, were the grisly remains of a dozen gangers.

As she stepped out from behind the door of the armored van, she also noticed the foul yellow stain of vomit splattered across the gore coated cement.

It seemed that one of the first responders had lost their dinner. Not exactly an unwarranted response. She could feel the bile rising in her own throat, especially as the scent of death hit her like a tidal wave.

Still, Miss Militia had been war refugee before hero, and was all too familiar with this sort of scene. Even as she approached the lead examiner, her mind was racing with information, trying to reconstruct what had happened here.

Most notable was the thin layer of pasted flesh and bone coating a full half of the alleyway, painting the floor and walls. This was, unfortunately, not entirely unknown to her.

She immediately recognized it as the remnants of some tremendous blast, one that must have happened internally, turning its poor victim into a sort of soup.

The purée like consistency and uniform thickness of the paste suggested it all came from the same source, and that whatever did this produced truly immense amounts of overpressure.

The lack of obvious crater or significant shrapnel damage implied the blast was unconventional in nature. Sufficiently large bombs could produce similar effects, but such a weapon would have surely blown away much of the alley and shook the ground for hundreds of meters.

More explainable were the other, more intact bodies. Calling them intact was, of course, a bit of an overstatement. The most complete corpse she could see was decapitated and heavy lacerated, lying in a limp heap against a dented dumpster.

All the other bodies were missing one or more limbs, in two notable cases having been entirely bisected, upwards and sideways respectively.

"Hello. Captain Adams, I am Miss Militia from the Protectorate. I have been assigned to help with your investigation in any way possible while also providing escort."

The man before her looked up from his notebook, eyes red with distress. He was average in stature and wore the uniform of the Brockton Bay PD's Homicide Division exactly according to the book, but his brown eyes glinted with intelligence and resolve.

This was a man who had seen the worst of humanity and refused to break.

He gritted his teeth, but the frustration wasn't aimed at her. Taking a moment to breathe deeply, he spoke.

"Thank you. I suppose this means they think this is parahuman related?"

She nodded.

"Walk with me. We have mostly reconstructed the series of events, even if how those events happened is still a mystery. The term escort implies you haven't actually caught whatever sick son of a bitch is responsible for this, and I don't want to be the next victim."

Very crude.

They made their way deeper into the alleyway, dodging hazard tape, a few tents set up over particularly gruesome remains, and teams of examiners who were busy preparing bodies to transit.

"I know a little bit about you, so I am guessing you know better than I do what exactly we are looking at when it comes to weapons."

Compliments were always nice.

Hannah followed his gaze, which fell upon the twisted remnants of a AKM still gripped in a disembodied arm. The barrel was warped from heat.

She took a moment to crouch and inspect the weapon, then the nearest body.

"The thermal damage is external." She pointed from the gun to the head of the victim, which was partially hollowed out in a recognizable fashion. "And that wound is consistent with 7.62mm."

The man nodded.

"Yeah, and that is the only gun in that caliber here."

Miss Militia moved her gaze to a series of bullet holes in the concrete wall above the corpse.

"These are also consistent with 7.62mm ammunition."

A small gleam of brass caught her eye.

"But I only see spent casing around the body."

She looked down the alleyway, finding other casings, but none of the right size or shape.

The Captain made a noise of agreement.

"Yes, we have 3 fatalities from gunfire. All straight to the head. But we have no evidence of the perpetrator themselves firing a weapon, just the victims."

Hannah moved over to another corpse, this one laying in a heap. A stained but otherwise intact Glock 17 lay in the pile of red.

She took care to avoid actually touching the body, leaning over it and finding the red flag marking an individual death had been placed right next to the skull.

The victim had suffered a single 9mm shot directly above the left eye, no doubt fatal, but then had been flayed, the skin and flesh entirely removed from their face.

"And here is the final gun victim."

Adams pointed to the upper torso of a man laying slumped on top of a bag of trash. Once again, single gunshot wound to the head, consistent with the weapon he was clutching in cold, dead hands.

She turned to face the Captain.

"These are all self-inflicted."

He nodded, slowly.

"You sure? We are dealing with some kind of mind controller?"

She shook her head.

"No. More likely some sort of redirection ability." She pointed to the lines of gunshots embedded in the walls and floor behind each of the victims. "It seems that the shots on target were immediately sent back at the shooter. One of them was tossed back through their skull, the others were merely redirected into the walls behind them."

Then she pointed to the scattered bullet holes further in the alleyway, these ones wildly spaced apart as opposed to the neat linear patterns the redirected shots had left.

"You can tell because the actual accuracy of the victims deviates from the accuracy of the redirected shots, and because the impact holes are deeper. Some of the bullet's energy must have been bled off by whatever process turned them around."

The man nodded.

"Well, I am glad you are here. We wouldn't have picked up on that, and that has implications."

Hannah voiced her agreement.

"Perhaps, but I believe you, and your team, still have a better understanding of what might have happened then I do."

Adams moved his hands behind his back and looked around nervously, seemingly both flattered and made uncertain by her comment.

"Yeah, yeah, they are good at their jobs. We already have a preliminary timeline of events."

He brought up his notebook and began to read it.

"We believe that contact was made between the victims, who are known members of the ABB, and the unsub around an hour and 15 minutes ago. That is when the first gunfire was reported, and the first fatalities occurred."

He pointed at the first gunman.
"This man died almost instantly. The fatal blow came from his own weapon, as you said."

He moved his figure to another body, which was both missing an arm, leg, and had its chest ripped open. Cauterized and ruptured organs still oozed foul fluid that fell through the opening in the torso, pooling on the hard concrete.

"They were the second victim, followed by the gunman with the pistol."

The man stepped back towards the mouth of the alley.

"It seems that, at this point, panic must have taken over, as it looks like the group made a mad dash to escape. That man" he pointed to a corpse with a shattered leg, whose entrails spilled onto the ground behind him. "Was tripped, or yanked, or otherwise stopped by something that is no longer here. His leg was broken and burned, while the actual death was the result of massive lacerations to the stomach and heat shock."

Once again, a combination of brute force, something very sharp, and intense heat. A rather unusual combo, one that almost brought Lung to mind.

"Next, the third gunman spun around to shoot at their attacker, dying when his shots were redirected."

She nodded as he continued.

"The last few bodies are in such a shape that determining exact cause and times of death is… difficult. It seems that whatever they were running from caught up with them and…"

His faced turned a shade of green, before he swallowed and forced himself to continue.

"Popped one of them. The final victim is there, near the very mouth of the alleyway."

Several people looked up as they walked past.

"In all, the encounter seemed to have lasted a minute and a half at most. Much of the mutilation on the first few victims seems to have been entirely redundant, and postmortem, even if all the victims were killed several times over."

She nodded, then turned to face Captain Adams.

"What about the drag marks, the craters?"

He nodded, turning to look at the four streaks of suspiciously uncaked concrete, as if someone had dragged a large group of ropes across the ground for around 10 feet or so.

Even more bizarre were the intermediate impact craters in the walls and floor, each one easily several inches deep and wide.

"We aren't really sure. There doesn't seem to be much pattern to the craters, and the drag marks are only visible in areas caked with…"

He frowned.

"Well, person. We still can't figure out what exactly was dragged."

She nodded.

"I might recommend bringing in a Protectorate Thinker."

The man frowned. The relationship between the PRT and conventional law enforcement was always strained, but what was downright hostile was the interactions between Thinkers and conventional intelligence groups.

One saw the other as talent-less, only carried by their powers, the other saw the former as stuck up, obsolete, arrogant.

It was telling that Captain Adams didn't protest.

"Yeah… what else are you going to put up the chain?"

She took a moment to think about that.

"All of it. This is extremely concerning, very clearly parahuman related, and the level of violence is consistent with that displayed by certain threats which have Kill Orders."

The officer paled.

"And… we have something like that running around in our city?"

Hannah chose to avoid mentioning that many parahumans, herself included, could trivially cause similar levels of death if they really wanted to.

"Yes. I would recommend keeping it on the down low until we figure out how to best respond. Rest assured; we will bring whoever did this to justice."

She offered a comforting smile before stepping away, back towards her own transport.

Behind her, the grim work continued.

The weight of her hip shifted to something larger as she relaxed her grip on her power. With a slightly trembling hand, she raised her radio to her head and spoke.

"This is Miss Militia requesting direct line to Director Piggot, Priority Alpha."

Without hesitation, the operator on the other end sent her to the direct line to Piggot with a slight click.

She wouldn't be happy to be called at this hour, but this seemed to be pressing, and out of all the capes to interact with, the Director seemed to like Miss Militia the most. Besides, she was probably already awake.

The voice on the other end was only slightly groggy, more annoyed then tired.

"Speak. I want to know everything you know."

Miss Militia began to do so.

 

[Wirbelwind]

1.4
Emergence​

Grue
16 hours post arrival

The girl didn't do much. If what Tattletale, well, Lisa, had said was true, he would have expected a flurry of activity.

Questions, research, panic, and all the things associated with falling into another dimension. Either that, or some response to the massacre that she had committed last night.

But instead, beyond a few whimpers and scarce tears during the night, the girl was… dead. Cold, empty. She sat in the same place she had placed herself over 14 hours ago, staring into the TV as it played some rerun of Legends of the Triumvirate.

Occasionally she would slip a slight smile onto her pale lips, or perhaps shift her head slightly as she changed the television channel, but otherwise the girl might as well be a corpse.

Alec tried to talk with her when he first woke up, but a slight rattling of her chains, now sprawled across the couch, was more than enough to turn him away.

Lisa was off doing something, likely talking with the Boss.

Rachael sat on the other couch, dogs surrounding her.

At one point one of them, a large rottweiler named Brutus, had left the side of her master to try and sniff at the girl.

When this garnered no reaction, the mutt gradually crept up to lay by her side, spending some 30 minutes simply resting its head on her lap before returning to Rachael.

Sighing slightly, Brian stepped down onto the carpet covering the lounge and slowly approached the girl.

Her pale green eyes flashed to meet his, some indeterminable mix of relief and sadness churning within them.

One of the chains shifted, clearing a spot for him to sit.

He grinned and accepted the invitation.

"Good morning."

She simply nodded.

"Look, I don't want to be blunt, but we need something to call you. My name is Brian, but I go by Grue in costume."

It was a little late to avoid trusting her with their secret identities, but it seemed that she didn't exactly have anyone to rat them out to anyways.

A slight feeling of heat radiated off her body as she raised one pale hand to wipe the hair partially obscuring her face to the side.

She forced a slight grin, one that came off more creepy than friendly.

"Kali."



He strained to hear.

"Can you repeat that?"

She did, audible enough to understand this time, if just barely.

"My name… is Kali. Kali Aimes."

Her smile widened, the glint in her eyes now threatening.

He shifted back slightly.

Kali flushed as she seemed to realize the effect she was having, smile disappearing before being replaced with a slight grin that was far less unsettling.

Brian chose to ignore the slight hint of derangement that still flickered behind her green eyes.

"Beyond me, there is Lisa, Alec, and Rachael. They go by Tattletale, Regent, and Bitch respectively."

The girl giggled slightly.

"What, that funny to you?"

She nodded.

"It is still... very silly to me. That you actually run around in costumes."

That, to some extent, implied that she didn't before she came here. Then again, beyond perhaps wearing a backpack, her nature as something beyond normality would be significantly harder to conceal than his own.

In fact, if he was correct in his assumption that the idea of publicly known parahumans, or whatever equivalent she was, wasn't actually the norm in her world, that might explain the starvation she was clearly suffering. Being forced to hide away from civilized society, scavenge for whatever scraps you could find... it wasn't exactly something unknown on Bet either, but he still regretted that fact.

"You want something to eat?"

Her eyes widened.

The look on her face plainly said yes, as did the fact her clothes hanged limply against a form that might have once been well filled out but was now approaching skeletal levels of frailness.

He had asked Lisa about seeing her to a hospital, but the response of "she is healthish, will recover, and would probably kill several dozen people if you did that" was more than enough to convince him otherwise.

"Don't worry, we can more than cover any food costs."

With a slight wobble of her mouth, she replied.

"…Yes. "

He turned to get up.

"So, what do you want? We have cereal, fruit, a bunch of microwaveables, leftover Pizza at his behest"

He shot a glare at Alec who had chosen to use one of the portable video game consoles left sprawled around the lounge as opposed to trying to wrestle the TV from Kali's iron grip.

Seemingly taken aback, Kali took a moment to relax before replying.

"Anything is fine…"

The second part was barely whispered, escaping her mouth like sludge from a gutter.

"...thank you."

He brought back a mix of cheese and crackers, a breakfast burrito, and some apple slices.

Alec cursed at his video game and then looked up.

"Damn, you never wait on me."

Brian ignored him.

Kali looked from one to the other, then to the plate of food. He offered it to her.

A slight wave of heat rippled outward as the girl moved her hands to grasp it, limbs moving in a strange sort of jerking fashion.

Still, the plate was taken, and with only a half second's hesitation, Kali began to obliterate the food in a fashion more suitable for Rachael's dogs than any human.

Alec laughed slightly.

"Guess she is hungry."

Brian shot him a look.

"Yeah, yeah, I can tell. I have eyes, after all."

Within merely half a minute, the food had vanished and Kali was looking up awkwardly, crumbs covering her face.

Another wave of heat radiated from her, the air bending slightly, and said crumbs floated off and turned to smoldering vapor before his eyes.

"Convenient."

She looked at him.

"Faster than using napkin."

He nodded.

"I can see that. I would offer you more, but we should best gradually up portions to avoid your body rejecting it."

Her eyes narrowed slightly. He noticed what was wrong with them. At first, he thought they were just comically wide open, another mark on the list of things that made Kali creepy.

Now, however, he realized that they couldn't close at all. Her eyelids were missing, removed with almost surgical precision. The faintest scarring told him this wasn't her natural condition.

Rather than ask about something that was certainly traumatic, he sat down on a chair.

"The way I see it, you should best stay here for a few days, at least until you have recovered your strength."

Kali slipped into a nervous grin, then nodded.

"I will, if you keep treating me so well."


"Sure, as long as you don't kill anyone or call the police on us."

Her grin grew wider, before she turned back to the TV, dialing the volume up as a commercial for some Endbringer Relief Charity began to play, her eyes narrowing dangerously as grainy footage of Behemoth played while an impassioned voice asked for money.

"You have Endbringers where you are from?"

Alec had taken Brian's spot on the couch, climbing over from the back of it and laying down in a sprawl.

Kali's chains moved themselves to avoid contact, and Alec smiled when he felt the heat they radiated had clung to the couch.

"Huh, kept it nice and warm for me."

She shook her head.

"No, and no, I didn't. Matter distortion just generates heat."

Alec smiled regardless.

"Matter distortion?"

Her face grew dark.

"Got it. Sensitive subject. So no Endbringers?"

She shook her head.

"No, but… similar things."

Seeing the conversation turning sour, Brian intervened.

"Knock it off."

Alec grinned and left the couch.

"Sure thing big guy. I will be in my room if anyone needs me."

Several hours passed. Brian tried to spar with Alec for a bit once he came out into the main room again, Kali watching with mild interest every time her channel went onto commercial break.

Very little was actually accomplished, with Alec continually stopping to argue about the actual utility of hand-to-hand combat. When he asked for her opinion on the matter, Kali just smiled cheekily and raised one of her chain tendrils to stretch across the entire room, wrapping it around a mostly decorative flowerpot and watching the plants inside begin to smolder.

Point made, she returned to the TV, some documentary about Case 53s that seemed to hold her attention well.

Lisa entered the room, Rachael in tow, just as he thought that Alec was starting to learn something. A sly grin was plastered across her face, one hand holding a phone to her ear.

"Pull up your socks, boys, because we're robbing a bank."

 

[Wirbelwind]

1.5
Emergence​

Regent

2 days post arrival


"No, hold it more like… this."

Alec carefully adjusted the controller as it was gripped loosely by a long tendril of black metal, taking care to avoid brushing any part of it.

While the level of heat generated was seemingly entirely dependent upon the telekinetic distortion applied, even levels of force half that of a human grip was sufficient to render the chains unbearably hot to touch.

Indeed, the pair of partially melted controllers lying in a bag next to the couch were proof enough that despite her raw power, Kali struggled with fine control of her abilities.

Still, the girl was grinning, eyes wide as saucers, another controller in her human hands.

With all four chains and two human hands, he was certain she could operate two controllers and thus two characters at once. One chain to hold the controller, two to operate the sticks, one to press the triggers. That Kali seemed to be excellent at multitasking just verified his theory.

Well, it would, if they could get the positioning of everything down.

Brian entered the room, and immediately scoffed.

"Seriously? You are using her to cheat on video games?"

Alec flashed his own smile.

"Hey, this boss would be a lot easier with three players. Lisa is out doing something, you aren't interested, and I am pretty sure that Rachael doesn't know what a video game is."

He thought for a second.

"Besides, it isn't like I can cheat on her."

Someone might expect that finding the newest and most terrifying addition to their living situation also happened to be entirely immune to your powers would be unnerving.

Fortunately, while Kali's might be dead, Alec's own weren't very easily shaken.

Brian was pretty worried when Lisa had broached the fact that Kali was technically entirely paralyzed, and was then more worried when she informed him that trying to take the chained girl to the hospital to fix this would probably kill everyone involved.

Alec personally didn't mind too much. Everyone had skeletons in their closets, and while unstable, Kali seemed to be happy enough even without feeling in her limbs.

"I see. So you either cheat or cheat with. And you wonder why I don't play these things with you."

He feigned injury.

"Kali, can you believe this?"

She responded simply, smile on her face.

"Yes."

Brian chuckled.

"Well, good to see you two getting along fine. But unfortunately, I am going to need to cut this play date short. We have a job to do, and it is best if we get along with it."

Kali's smile faded, eyes narrowing with dangerous intent.

"Are you sure?"

The question was dripping with venom.

Brian refused to stand down, even as Alec shifted slightly from the nearest chain tip as it rattled softly.

"Yes. I know you are worried, but we are experts at this, and as Lisa explained to you, heroes don't kill. It is a major no-no, even during a bank robbery."

She had been in the room for the planning session, and while Alec wasn't sure how much she had bothered to listen in on, it seemed to have been enough for her to understand they were hitting a hard target.

If it wasn't for their Boss's supposed comical support of the endeavor, going along with everything Lisa requested with no arguments, he doubted that Brian would have even agreed to chance it.

"I… remember that. I remember the last time someone told me they would be okay as well..."

Brian's face softened.

"I know."

Alec intervened.

"He doesn't, but he understands."

The girls green eyes flashed from Brian to Alec, puffy and agitated.

"I promise, we will be fine."

Kali frowned.

"Let me come with you."

Brian shook his head sadly.

"No, we already have a plan, and you aren't in any position to be fighting. Emotionally or physically."

She scoffed, raising from the couch in one smooth motion.

Lisa came out of her own room, cocky grin on her face.

"I sense some tension between the lovers."

Brian flipped her the bird, which only caused her to cackle.

Seemingly taken aback, Kali turned her gaze to the blonde thinker and crossed her arms below her chest, huffing.

"I am not into any of you like that."

Lisa seemed to focus for half a second.

"Huh, you really aren't."

Kali's frown deepened.

"Don't read me like a book."

Lisa shot her a smile.

"Sorry, can't help it." Seeming to realize exactly how dangerous such a statement was, she immediately backpedaled. "But I will try, and don't worry, your secrets will be kept."

Kali nodded approvingly, then turned back to Brian who looked away from her.

"Next job you can come."

Lisa whipped to face him.

"What!?"

Alec wasn't too happy with that executive decision either.

"Really? Just going to declare that? You may be lead, but we all get a vote."

He preempted Kali.

"Not you, not yet."

As he turned to face her, he felt a little stupid. She very clearly wasn't intending on saying that she did.

With a huff, she let herself collapse back onto the couch.

"Fine. If you keep me in contact."

One chain raised itself and pointed towards the stack of equipment that was now dominating the dinner table.

"Give me a radio, let me listen in. If something goes wrong, I will be coming."

Lisa waved her hand.

"Done."

Now it was Brian's turn to look shocked. Then, after a second or so of simply standing there, he slowly nodded.

"Fine. But we aren't going to be in contact unless things go south."

Kali fumed, chains beginning to rattle.

Alec plucked his precious remaining controllers from where they lay. No use having them be damaged.

"I know it will be hard, but please. We can't risk anyone tracing the transmission back to you, back to our home base."

While the logic was clearly resonating with her, Kali continued to glower, chains slowly returning to dormancy. The smell of burnt fabric began to fill the air and Lisa cursed.

"Come on, we just replaced that couch!"

Seemingly pleased at making her displeasure known physically, Kali turned back to Alec.

"Controller, please. While you are out, I will do something useful."

He obliged, but made sure to add in.

"Sure, but if you really want to be useful…"

His glance to Lisa sprung her into action.

"You can begin clearing out the storage closet. We had discussed it previously," she shot a glare to Brian. "But if you are going to be staying here, you deserve your own fully furnished room, free of charge. Especially if you plan on helping more directly in the future."

Kali muttered something to herself, visibly shutting down partially, slight tears at the edges of her eyes.

"Yeah, we would do that for you. You are, if not a friend, close to being one."

The grin on Lisa's face shifted, going from a sort of cocky smirk that promised you she was the smartest in the room, to a genuine, comforting one.

Kali muttered again; this time louder.

"Thank you."

Lisa turned, grabbing several pieces of equipment off the table before heading for the door.

"But you need to promise us you will stay put until we get back, okay?"

Kali grumbled.

"I am not a child."

Brian began to follow Lisa out the door.

"That isn't a promise."

Alec quickly threw together his own necessities, leaving the room before Brian who was still waiting at the door.

Still, he could faintly hear as Kali responded.

"I… promise."

 

[Wirbelwind]

1.6
Finale​

Coil

2 days post arrival

Thomas Calvert watched as two very similar scenes played out. In one, the Undersiders went off to rob a bank, in the other, the same team did in the same fashion, but happened to leave the door unlocked at his request.

Well, specifically, Tattletale did after he reminded her of the power imbalance in their relationship. She was a tricky one to maneuver around, smart, too smart. Even without her abilities, he considered her one of the few people who might eventually be able to figure out his game.

Of course, that would be if he wasn't able to snuff any such attempts out before they even began. Even 12 hours ago, in a timeline long discarded, she proved canny enough to resist giving any truly valuable information on the newest… asset.

At least, until he had her pulled into an abandoned warehouse and interrogated. Even after that, it took the use of crueler methods than anticipated to get the actual truth from her bloodied mouth.

A truth that he wasn't sure how to feel about. He was certain it was, at least, from her perspective, the truth. The drugs flooding her broken body would have made sure of it.

But the idea was still… absurd. But the powers possessed by this new element were very real. So real, that one of the timelines currently active was dedicated to studying them.

In the timeline where the Undersiders hadn't unknowingly betrayed their new contact, the girl continued to drag the contents of the storage closet out into the main room.

In the other, she did as well, but stopped.

One of the Calvert's frowned, mask preventing anyone in the command room from seeing his displeasure.

Just as the door opened, the girl whipped around, one hand reaching to catch the radio that flung itself from across the room into her hand.

"Jam it."

One of the Captains on the ground responded with the affirmative.

The heart rate monitor on Calvert's screen marked him as Senegal.

Out of the three teams assigned to the operation, they was perhaps the most important should things go south. They were tasked with keeping any hint of the ongoing operation from reaching the outside world, and for potentially reinforcing one of the other two teams should the girl manage to break through.

As her radio failed to connect, the girl swept the room with her vision. She was visibly panicking, the lengths of chain that protruded from her back extending.

To his disgust, her torso actually began to thin slightly as over 20 feet of black iron pooled on the ground behind her.

In another reality, Thomas Calvert, PRT operative, received an alert as the Undersiders went into action. He payed minor attention to that one. While certainly important, especially as it was vital to the acquisition of his newest asset, everything was going as he predicted.

Tattletale was smart, after all, and she was given all she needed to make the heist go smoothly and loudly.

In the other timeline, the girl went still as the staircase began to groan under the weight of Team 1, half a dozen fully armored men thundering up it at speed.

Her chains began to rattle, lifting themselves off the ground within a corona of warped air.

"Hello?"

She called out, voice split between nervousness and excitement. When she got no reply, the tone changed to one dripping with venom.

"You aren't supposed to be here. Leave."

The wall behind her exploded as Team 2 made their entrance.

In half an instant, so many things happened. Calvert struggled to keep track of it all.

Team 1 kicked down the main door, already firing the net launcher they were equipped with.

At the same time, three of the members of Team 2 raised their tinkertech weapons and fired, bolts of stunning energy leaping out at hypersonic speed.

Then began the screaming.

With a flash of unlight, an invisible wall met the incoming projectiles as the girl whirled impossibly quickly to face Team 2.

The acrid bolts of light distorted, bent, and broke into a thousand pieces.

At the same, the net from Team 1, heavily weighted and coated in anesthetic, hit home, entangling both girl and her chains in a self tightening grip.

It seemed to be overkill when it was being planned, but Calvert had tested it on some volunteers to ensure that it wouldn't be lethal.

Now, however, the excessive nature of the ambush was all that spared the mercenaries. At least for a moment.

Like flashes of lightning, one of the chains shot out of the squirming ball and came within inches of decapitating the leader of Team 2, only barely held down by the net.

Seeing that their quarry was still active, they returned fire, all 6 members letting loose stunning bolts that bent and stretched to miss their target.

Team 1's leader yelled "flash" and tossed a grenade, all the mercenaries already shielding themselves.

Luckily, the camera installed above the Undersider's room automatically compensated. It was good to know that the money was well spent.

When the camera shut itself back on, it did so onto a scene from a horror story.

Standing upright, flaming net falling in several pieces from her bruised and burnt body, was the girl. Letting loose a howl more animal than human, she fixed her eyes on the mercenary with the net gun.

Ignoring the hail of stun bolts that crashed against her invisible shield, the girl raised her hand and squeezed.

With a dull pop, the head of the armored figure caved itself in and ruptured like a grape hit with a sledgehammer.

"Live ammo authorized, kill the bitch!"

Coil would have been disappointed, but it was clear that the girl wasn't being taken alive anyways. While not as valuable as taking her in intact, this would still give him vital information on her, for use in the timeline he planned to keep.

In said alternative reality, the girl lay down on a couch and began idly flicking through the TV.

Beams of light erupted from half of the guns in the other reality, slicing clean through whatever barrier she possessed and scything across her body.

She screamed in agony as one arm was removed, then part of a chain.

With blinding speed, the other three chains extended and whipped, super heated metal wrapping itself around three of the laser rifles and yanking both them and their wielders in close.

At the same time, the girl tossed herself to the side, neatly avoiding the remaining beams.

One man was brought in close, and with a glance his own weapon exploded into a thousand splinters that then forced themselves through his chest and out his mouth.

At the same time, another entangled mercenary dropped their weapon and drew their side arm, only to be cut down by friendly fire as the other soldiers finished cooling their weapons.

Laughing maniacally, the girl threaded a chain through the chest of the third gunmen and then back around through his neck, tearing the poor soul into smoldering pieces as the barbed iron straightened itself out to slice the hands off another soldier.

A pair of flashbangs were thrown but were caught and crushed within invisible hands as the girl…

Her missing arm began to grow back, flesh knitting itself back together just in time for the newly reformed hand to catch a discarded rifle.

Cursing, some of the soldiers took cover or sought to increase their distance.

With a flash, two were cut down as she swept the beam across their knees, leaving them flailing on the ground in agony.

"Team 3, get in here! We are being slaughtered!"

The Captain of Team 2 didn't get to hear a response as the table he was hiding behind exploded into super heated splinters. His armor held up to that well, allowing him to raise his rifle and blow away the girl's arm clenching the stolen weapon.

She lunged, several beams of light struggling to track her. One of the chains was sliced off entirely.

Then, as if jerked by invisible puppet strings, which he supposed was true, the girl was hurled back, gaze sweeping from one group of soldiers to the other, her hand gesturing as if she was pulling something.

At first, it seemed as if nothing had happened. Then one of the mercenaries realized that every pin on every grenade in the room had been telekinetically yanked off.

The resulting explosion blew out the upper floor of the factory and instantly cut the video feed.

The backup video feed from a hidden camera across the street caught the shape of the nightmare in human skin as she floated from the inferno, bare flesh warped by flame and shrapnel beyond recognition.

As he watched, the shrapnel forced itself out of her body and clattered onto the floor, then flesh and skin began to pull itself into existence as the injuries rapidly disappeared beneath new tissue. Shattered limbs forced themselves back into proper position, bone and flesh and blood slithering like serpents against gravity to make her whole again.

Her face, which had momentarily lost all traces of humanity, stitched itself together, a wide grin splitting now spotless white skin, hair extending out of a scalp that shifted back into existence.

But the thing which came from the fire, while visually more human than ever, was anything but. Calvert felt a strange tinge of something as its eyes, dilated beyond belief, swept over the camera by chance.

Those black pits felt like they wanted to reach through the screen, through time and space itself, and tear his soul from his body.

In that moment he almost wanted to close the timeline, to end the horror now. But something else asked him to keep it open, a sort of sick fascination coming over his mind as he watched the slaughter continue.

More importantly, the lives of those dying meant nothing compared to the data that would be gained, and once he had learned enough, the timeline, and all the death it contained, would be gone, only the information in his own head surviving.

Team 3 opened fire from their concealed positions across the ruined buildings on all sides of the factory, but this time the beams of light bent impossibly to avoid touching the creature.

With a smirk on its hideously beautiful face, all but one of the mercenaries instantly flat lined on their vital monitors as the beams snapped around as if they had struck a mirror, cleanly striking their own creators.

The remaining one, Senegal, stopped firing and tried to flee.

With trivial ease, the creature sent a rope of red-hot metal through the wall of the building he had been firing from. As said wall exploded and melted itself away, the screaming man was carried bodily in front of the monster, chain constricting and scorching his midsection.

Another crushed the gun in his hand, and the final intact chain smashed his body cam.

He flailed and looked around, finding the camera in his vision, eyes pleading. The monster wearing human skin followed his gaze and smiled, and the feed cut out.

Coil looked to the clock. Less than 60 seconds had passed since first contact.

In both timelines, the Undersiders were on track.

In one timeline, the body camera of one of the more intact members of Team 3 caught an unnaturally large and dense swarm of insects flying overhead.

Another cape? He had been informed of this "Bug", and it made sense that she would be attracted by the blast.

Someone in the command room vomited.

Coil himself was certainly nauseous, but he had survived Nilbog.

While certainly powerful, compared to an S Class self replicating threat, the girl with the chains was… lacking. She was an anomaly to be sure, a powerful threat, but also potentially a powerful asset. But that was for the future.

He shifted his attention to the current, far more important acquisition he was making, resolving to close the timeline where he attacked the girl once Senegal's vitals flatlined. It seemed the girl liked to play with her food, and knowing the extents of her sadism would be useful.

He had certainly earned the loyalty of vital members of his organization by allowing them to indulge in similar dark desires before.

A grin split his face as his team sent to acquire his newest, and perhaps most valuable, asset reported initial success in both realities.

Thomas Calvert glanced at his phone, checking on the message left by his plant near the bank.

"3 capes responding to the heist. Clockblocker, Aegis, Vista."

That was about what he anticipated, and what the Undersiders had planned for. Thomas Calvert took a chance to walk around his office on his way to a conveniently timed bathroom break, happening to glance through the door to another room just in time to catch a glimpse of the current distribution of the Wards throughout the city.

Indeed, 3 were at the bank. Interestingly, while still in the center of Brockton Bay, 4 of them were moving at speed away from from the bank with purpose, seeming to have split off halfway. He would need to look into that afterwards, but they were of no consequence.

In another timeline, Coil shifted in his bunker, selecting the video feed from the same plant.

Dammit.

There were 7 Wards this time. Far more than anticipated, far more than the Undersiders could handle.

Comically outnumbered, the Undersiders failed to make a break for it in the timeline he attacked the girl. It was hard to make out any details of the fight due to the clouds of darkness Grue had generated, but after 10 or so minutes of struggling, all were captured.

A significant setback, especially because staging a breakout for the two with confirmed body counts would be difficult.

He checked back on the reason this timeline was still opened. The mercenaries vitals showed he was still alive. Coil considered trying to activate the mercs body cam, but found that it had been destroyed or otherwise rendered inoperable.

In the other timeline, they escaped with little trouble, simply engulfing Vista with darkness until they made their escape.

"Sir…"

An aide nervously interrupted his concentration.

They were looking anxiously at a secondary monitor, the one displaying the positions of his various assets across the city. At first, he didn't know what exactly he was looking for, until he realized the names currently moving at a swift ten or so miles per hour through downtown was Senegal.

Looking to the vital monitor, he found that the man was still alive, but fading.

Things got significantly more complex when he realized that Senegal's course would have him arriving at…

His own base.

"Call, and tell him to adhere to standard return procedures."

The aide nodded and did so. No one picked up.

Senegal's pace only increased, now firmly in the realm of the superhuman. This… wasn't how it was supposed to go.

To his horror, the other timeline began to show similar signs of deviation from his plans. While the Undersiders had entirely escaped in this one, and one of his seemingly incapacitated mercenaries wasn't moving at speed directly to his position, what was happening could be argued to be even worse.

As Thomas Calvert moved back to his office in the PRT headquarters, he overhear the Wards Dispatcher speaking.

"You sure? Got it, hold position, keep the independent hero in place. Rerouting a response team to collect the girl right now, ETA 5 minutes."

They were too busy to see his face contort in rage, and in his Coil persona his mask shielded his expressions from the others in the room.

He searched through his recollections of the last thirty minutes, trying to identify the deviation. While the battle against the girl in the docks was certainly very attention grabbing, it shouldn't have impacted the Wards in the slightest, being firmly in the realm of business for the actual Protectorate or non-parahuman law enforcement, if it was even noticed at all.

They should have all been at the bank heist. No, something else must have happened.

Thomas Calvert approached the Dispatch Operator, taking care to keep his voice steady.

"What is the situation?"

They glanced at him dismissively. His blood began to boil.

"Some independent hero happened to be in the area and apparently chanced upon a kidnapping. Mayor's own niece, right out of their home, if you can believe it. Says they tracked them with bugs and forced the driver of the van off the road."

The woman chuckled slightly.

"No idea what the idiots were thinking, nabbing a kid in broad daylight, but it gave me a hell of time trying to coordinate two groups of Wards at the same time. Everything is under control now."

Before he could react, an aide in his bunker, with trembling voice, switched the main view on the display screen to one of the cameras overlooking the entrance to his base.

His blood ran cold and rage reached a tipping point. This wasn't possible. This isn't how things were supposed to go.

Several plants around the Parking Garage that concealed his facility had begun trying to contact him, red lights and buzzing alarms filling the command room, but that wasn't important. He knew what they were going to tell him, because he was looking at it.

Standing, or rather, hovering, suspended by distorted air, was the girl. Held a good ten feet off the ground, wrapped within a pair of chains, was Senegal, who was pleading silently with the creature as she seemed to consider the vault door leading into the underground facility.

She turned, chains constricting and scalding the man's skin as she met the eyes of the terrified mercenary.

He had ratted him out. To save himself.

Wisps of smoke and steam lazily rose from the bands of red hot iron, blood turning to vapor on their superheated skin. They loosened, letting the man fall to the ground in a clump. While still breathing, Coil could see the bands of constricted, scorched flesh from where his combat armor had been burnt or torn away.

The girl nodded at him, and turned to the camera.

It would taken heavy ordinance or concentrated effort from a top tier parahuman to get through the heavy steel door leading to his facility. The damn thing was rated to resist Endbringers, at least to the extent that any man made object could.

With a slavering grin more suited to animal than human, she gestured and the feed cut out.

A dull thump rang out through the halls of the facility, and alarms immediately followed.

The aide screamed in terror, Coil flipping to an internal camera covering the entrance in time to see the boiling entrails of a security guard force themselves out through their own mouth.

With a crunch, the body was twisted into a mass of boneless flesh that the girl sliced in half with her chains. Blood filled the air as she advanced into the hall proper, the rest of her metal tendrils lashing wildly, steel walling warping and breaking upon contact with them.

Another guard opened fire with his weapon, only to be instantly cut down as their own shots bent and curved in the air to come back around at them.

He had seen enough.

With a roar of anger, Coil shut the timeline. The Wards Dispatcher barely even registered Thomas Calvert storming away, fists clenched to the point of pain.

He split the remaining timeline. In one, he slammed his hand into the wall hard enough to break it. In the other, he calmly began to create an excuse to leave the building.

Perhaps something could still be salvaged. He still had the Undersiders, still had the girl blissfully unaware of the benefactor of her supposed friends. Three combat teams were intact, alive.

And there wasn't a tornado of blood and iron tearing its way into his base, murder flashing in its dead, black, eyes.

But he didn't have Dinah. Several full months of planning, thousands upon thousands of dollars in equipment costs, all of it was wasted. Entirely ruined, by simple lack of information.

Unfortunately, he was no longer in his Coil persona, so he couldn't call in Tattletale to vent on her. That still might be something to consider for later.

He closed the timeline where he lost control of himself, then split again.

In one, he gritted his teeth and returned to work. In the other, he headed directly for Piggot's office, planning on ensuring that no rogue element would escape his notice.

This failure would not be repeated.

 

[Wirbelwind]

2.1
Discovery​

Tattletale

3 days post arrival

"This is a bad idea."

Lisa's groaned.

"We know. You have told me repeatedly. That isn't changing anything."

Brian narrowed his eyes.

"Fine, then maybe this will. I order this to stop."

Is not willing to change course. Misunderstands, does not truly believe you.

Lisa pouted, making a show of it.

"Come on, you can't keep her cooped up forever. We don't even need to do it today. After all, we still have some money to deliver."

Alec shrugged.

"Guess I can't go then."

She whirled on him, betrayed.

"Don't look at me like that, I said I would go if it was a proper team thing, if Brian was there."

Considers Brian's darkness potential counter to Kali. Fears Kali.

Lisa didn't bother to tell him that with or without cover, if Kali cracked, the girl turned weapon would wipe them out in seconds. She did, however, change tactics on Brian.

"I thought you liked her."

He snorted.

"She likes me, and I have talked with her a bit. That doesn't mean I haven't forgotten how we found her, and that you specifically told me she was a living weapon with bare vestiges of humanity. A few days of good behavior isn't enough to erase that."

Curses.

Lisa liked it when people listened to her. After all, she was often the smartest person in the room. She didn't like it when people listened to her close enough to immediately turn those words back upon her.

"Look, I am the thinker, I got us through the heist yesterday, the one you said was a bad idea" Alec left the pair, heading inside the Redmond Welding building "so maybe you should trust me.".

Finds situation amusing. Will likely tell Kali.

Brian opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by Lisa processing that last bit of information.

"Fuck. Looks like this isn't a private matter anymore."

He immediately turned to yell for Alec to stop. It was clearly too late, the spry man having likely already flounced up into the main room and begun to spill their secrets.

Of course, it wasn't much of a secret, and telling Kali that they wanted to take her out for a team dinner to unwind, spend their well earned cash, and discuss the future would probably be something she took positively.

But Lisa felt he would focus less on her own ideas, and more the fact that their leader was firmly against the idea.

Both of them began pursuit, swiftly moving through the dilapidated first floor to the old factory.

A glint caught Lisa's eye.

Hidden camera. Planted by Coil. Likely decoy.

Interesting.

She certainly knew that he kept tabs on them, that the concept of invasion of privacy was a foreign one to him just as it might possibly be for her.

But it was odd for him to see fit to so blatantly show that.

Wants to keep watch of Kali.

That went without saying, of course. She was honestly surprised he hadn't contacted them about her yet, or even acknowledged her existence.

As far as she was aware, he didn't have knowledge of her participation in what the newspapers reported as a particularly violent bout of gang warfare, but what had rapidly spread through the ABB as "The Bloody 10th".

A new parahuman was always cause for concern, especially when they were living in his team's base without prior warning. She had hoped, vainly, that Kali's existence could be kept secret for at least a little longer, but that was forlorn hope from the beginning.

Lisa turned the corner of the stairwell to find the door open, Brian standing stock still, staring into the main room.

In the corner, Rachael stood fascinated, the dogs by her side tilting their heads in utter confusion.

Alec was similarly staring, but with a grin on his face.

In the center of the recreational area was Kali, suspended by a pair of chains that gripped a pair of the metal cross beams that supported the roof. The other pair floated serenely at her side, as if suspended in water. Perhaps not water, they would sink, but some other thick liquid.

Her brow furrowed in concentration, eyes the closet they could be to closed, Kali stared deeply at the bag of popcorn as it began to expand, hovering in air, held by phantom hands.

The air distorted around her, a slight shimmer of heat flowing into the bag. With obvious effort, the bag opened itself as every single kernel popped simultaneously.

Alec cautiously approached, plastic bowl at the ready. He hissed from the heat as he got too close to one of the floating chains, but deftly maneuvered himself around the tendril of iron to bring the bowl beneath the floating bag.

With a grin on her face, Kali let loose the pressure on one side of the bag, letting it fall over in air to spill its contents into the bowl.

Alec carefully let go of it, and the bowl began to slowly, shakily hover itself over to the futon, gently dropping onto it once it was close enough.

With a bending of air, the empty bag immolated itself and vanished into embers that themselves fell out of existence.

Looking up, face relaxing, Kali turned to Brian.

Demonstrating fine control.

"Huh."

Lisa laughed slightly.

"This change your mind?"

Brian shook his head, bewildered.

"No? Why… should it?"

Kali frowned.

"I know she has great control over her powers. That…"

He turned to her.

"I am sorry, but you understand, right?"

Her face turned sour.

Considering options. Considering violence. Violent confrontation will resort in death.

"Yes."


"I mean, you haven't caused any trouble for us since we brought you here, but…"

Lisa interjected, trying to defuse the semi-metaphorical time bomb.

"She isn't going to fly off the handle without provocation."

Kali is emotionally unstable. May see provocation where others do not.

She already knew that, of course, but she also knew that they couldn't keep her locked up forever, that the very concept of being held prisoner would certainly provoke her.

"No, I understand" Kali's voice carried a hint of sadness. "I am… frightening. And you know I have hurt people, even if you don't know even half of it."

Questions if redemption is possible. Thinking about past sins, and event that sent her here.

Brian's expression softened slightly.

"Then you know my concerns are valid."

Kali let herself fall back against the couch.

"They are. And I will not make any promises."

A sort of steel grew in her voice, the type of tone that revealed that whatever she was saying, she truly believed it.

"I… have killed many people. Many people who were innocent. Many who didn't deserve it in the slightest."

Suppressed emotional connection to victims. Friends? Family?

Brian sighed and sat down.

"But the person who gave their life for me, who freed me from my captors."

Lisa shut down the urge to begin chronicling this properly, to grab her laptop. The girl was an enigma, and while she knew far more about her than anyone else on Bet, even her powers had limits.

Any little crumb of detail could potentially be used to bake a whole crumb cake. That is how her power worked, after all, taking information and using to make more information.

Physical condition is not natural. Powers are natural, but not native to her.

Tears began to cloud the edges of her emerald eyes.

"He thought I could be better, at least pretend to be so, at least for a time. Do you think he was right?"

The pleading look on her face was entirely human, the animalistic nightmare they had seen on the night of the massacre entirely absent.

No, not entirely absent, there was still a slight flicker of primal fire within her irises. Something that, somehow, let Lisa know that this thing wasn't just human.

Something that activated a long buried instinct to flee. She suppressed it, instead concentrating on her power.

Fear response is entirely natural.

The genuine question seemed to take Brian by surprise.

He slowly stood up, breathing in deeply.

"Yes."

It was a simple word, but one which carried immense emotion.

Her green eyes lit up, but the smile that grew on Kali's face was sad, a sort of forlorn grin that told Lisa that while the girl before them might believe the words, she didn't truly believe they would matter in the end.

Is attempting to convince herself that he could be correct.

Lisa chose this moment to intervene.

"We won't pretend to understand what you have been through, to know what you have done, but we all have sins in our closets. We aren't good people, but I wouldn't say we are particularly bad people either."

She looked to Brian, who simply nodded.

"If you can promise me you won't seek out conflict, if you won't kill random innocents, if you will stay with us…"

Lisa smirked, drinking in the realization crossing Brian's face.

He finished the sentence for her.

"…I will consider Lisa's proposal."

Kali's face lit up, legitimate joy flashing for half a second before she forcibly resumed her more intimidating, cryptic expression.

Then she scoffed.

Unsure of how to feel about legitimately desiring approval to leave, spend time with group.

"You know, you couldn't stop me if I tried to leave."

Confidence is well founded.

With a flash of annoyance on her pale face, the remaining tears fell diagonally from her eyes and then turned to vapor.

Unwilling to risk damage to eyesight by evaporating tears while they remain on face.

Alec legitimately laughed.

"Wow, you really have no idea how to handle this sort of emotional business. And I thought Rachael had issues."

Brian shook his head.

"Alec, you probably shouldn't be playing with fire like that."

Lisa just grinned at the two and approached the couch, taking the Brockton Bay Tourist Departments map of local eateries and carefully moving it into Kali's face, who merely shrunk back.

"And really? I said I would consider it, and I will amend that statement: I will consider it for tomorrow. We have a job to do."

At the mention of that, Rachael turned and left without a word, almost certainly heading for the drop off point.

Wishes to get business over with.

Already knew that.

Lisa shrugged.

"Best to plan it sooner then later."

Despite what those who lived on the outskirts of the city might expect, the Bay was actually a fairly popular tourist destination. Its unique climate particularly made it attractive to snow birds who didn't want to truly flee south for the winter.

Kali stared at the map for a few seconds before looking up to Lisa.

"I wouldn't know what any of this means. You should choose."

Brian groaned.

"You are new here, so you don't know. But we don't let Lisa choose our dinning spots. She has expensive tastes, and we probably want to avoid big purchases immediately after a job, that is the sort of thing that cops and capes will be keeping track of."

Lisa waved him off.

"If they aren't consistent with previous spending. I do actually know about you, but I personally spend quite a bit, quite often, and would be willing to handle the bill on behalf of our cute friend here."

Possesses little self esteem beyond talent for violence. Unable to process compliment.

Yeah, that's why I said it.

Kali flushed slightly, then giggled.

"Capes."

Lisa raised an eyebrow, more for the sake of the others in the room. She already knew what was so funny, of course.

"Sorry, but it is still pretty funny to me that you actually have superheroes here."

Alec stood up straight, flicking off the TV and heading for his own room, turning back to speak as he walked.

"Honestly, it would be simpler if we didn't. Aleph doesn't and look at them."

Kali shook her head sadly.

"No, I don't think it would be. I think the problems would be different, but not reduced."

Lisa decided to prevent the conversation from going back down a dark path.

"Hmm, we gotta go to Fugly Bob's."

Kali seemed taken aback.

Considers name crude.

"It's a sort of Brocktonian classic. If you stay here for any period, you need to eat there at least once."

Brian disagreed.

"Maybe we should start with something… lighter. Less likely to cause your veins to clot."


"Then what do you think, O wise team leader?"

He then took a moment to think.

"There is pretty nice place down 14th, makes some good fish and chips."

14th was firmly in the Docks, something that wasn't lost on the pair of true Undersiders in the room, but clearly meant nothing to Kali.

"Nah, we might as well go to Fugly Bobs. How about the Italian place up by town hall?

Brian fixed her with a glare. Kali held back a bit of laughter.

"No. Too risky, Acapulco."

She countered.

It took only two more suggestions and rejections for Lisa to figure out his game.

She mouthed to him, taking care to position herself so Kali couldn't read her lips.

"You just don't want her going Downtown."

He frowned and nodded solemnly.

"You know what is it in the Market instead? And what won't require arguing for the next ten minutes? Remember, we are still on the clock, gotta deliver the goods."

Defeated, he shook his head and announced to the sole individual not involved in the conversation in the room

"We are going to Fugly Bobs."

He should have know that Tattletale always won. Most of the time. If you ignored when she failed. But she was on a role, she could feel it.

Lisa went to and opened one of the various large plastic storage bins Kali had taken out of the closet while they were busy with the bank job.

She looked inside and smiled, picking something up and turning to hand it to Kali, who had begun to awkwardly shift onto her feet.

"Here."

It was a small backpack, pink and blue, with some children's mascot decorating it.

Kali frowned.

"Cut a few holes in this sucker and you can hide your chains perfectly. For tomorrow."


"I know that. I used the concept before…"

Her eyes became slightly cloudy.

A mix of bad and good memories.

"It worked then, until I ruined it."

She took the backpack, a single chain tip slicing several neat holes into its inner surface. The resulting loose fabric was warped away in an instant.

The pair watched in sick fascination as the chains began to move themselves, slowly feeding deeper into her body with a slight wet sound. Now merely 10 feet long or so, each tendril hung limply.

"I… can't put it on. Not without burning or tearing it."

Brian nodded and moved over to help her.

It took a bit of fidgeting, but eventually he managed to feed the chains into the backpack. Kali looked at him and grinned toothily.

"Now take it off."

He did so, then looked to Alec as he walked out of his room, fully costumed.

Just a bit more business, then they could get to enjoy their hard stolen riches.

"Looks like you are all set. Me and Lisa will be ready quickly, you start heading out."

Alec nodded and continued.

Both changed rapidly, their own get ups not nearly as elaborate. On the way out, Lisa dropped one half of the radio set next to Kali.

She smiled thankfully and turned to the TV, the remote shifting slightly as an invisible force turned it on.

They left the Redmond Welding facility just as the sun faded below the horizon, unaware of the trap they were walking into.

 

[qelvish]

This is such a darkly cute story about redemption... I love it, I want her happy even though I don't know kali's character at all.

 

[meloa789]

You forgot the threadmark.

 

[Wirbelwind]

2.2
Discovery​

Kali

3 days post arrival

The thing wearing a girl's body woke up, stirring from her unsleep to find the room as empty as it had been when she entered recovery mode. At first, she didn't realize what exactly had triggered her automatic awaking.

After all, she had long stopped caring for comfort, even before she lost feeling in her body.

But the reason for her reactivation was clear. There was a buzzing sound, mechanical in origin. At first she didn't realize what it was, and so she ignored it, focusing on more practical matters.

The damage report was the same as it had been since she arrived… here.

Superficial scarring to 73% of surface tissue, total loss of nerve based interface with torso and extremities. Whatever process had led to her arrival had functionally reset her physical state to what it was during her escape from the facility.

Why exactly was far beyond her ability to speculate. She didn't even pretend to understand how exactly 104 sent her here, or if 104 meant for that to happen at all.

After all, the last thing she remembered was her death being ordered by a voice cold as ice, and a face contorted in grief, one she would kill to see again.

But that wasn't here. That wasn't now.

Now there was silence, beyond the slight humming.

She pulled herself upright on invisible strings of distorted air, head snapping forwards. The radio set. Yes, she remembered that. It was left here by her… caretakers. To let her keep in contact while they were on a job.

When she was first brought here, one of them, the big one, Brian, had questioned her. Asked if she was going to cause issues, if she could handle living with career criminals.

That made her laugh.

If only they knew…

Faint sensations, sights of blood and iron and death filled her mind momentarily, before she cast them aside.

Yes. The radio. Her port-forward chain wrapped around her torso to gently tap the "receive" button.

A voice came over the airwaves, scrambled and with a hint of panic. It muffled unnaturally at certain points, fading into nothingness before returning to its previous volume in an instant.

It was feminine, familiar… Lisa? Right, Tattletale. Kali grinned, the concept of costumed superheroes and villains still deeply amusing to her.

First came a string of what sounded like coordinates. Two times, actually, the first one cutting off halfway through.

Something in her recognized them. Longitude-Latitude.

Then came words.

"My second phone, in room with lips. Password is currentl-"

And explosion cut her off momentarily. Someone screamed close to the radio.

Luckily, the string of numbers came through clearly.

"Come here now. Bad- crazy bomb lady. Detonators on her toes, not sure whi-"

A horrid sucking, rending sound came over the radio before the transmission cut out.

Kali moved without hesitation, one chain leaping to life, riding waves of distorted matter. The fabric of reality shifted and burned beneath her will, the couch parting without resistance to let the tangle of barbed iron fly through it and anchor itself into her target.

With only the slightest effort, her chain retracted, rending the door from its hinges and turning it to splinters against one of the brick walls.

Behind it was Tattletale's room. Some might have taken this opportunity to inspect the contents, to search for secrets.

Kali did not. There was no time, no need. For her new 'friends' to call her out willingly meant that they were in lethal peril.

Sure, they claimed to understand her situation, to feel empathy for her, and maybe some of them even got close to it. But they still looked at her with well deserved apprehension. Not like he did, even when he tried to force himself to.

But that wasn't now. That was then. Now there was something threatening the only humans on this entire chunk of rock that Kali might have valued.

Her human form lurched forwards on stick thin legs, one hand jerking upwards to catch the phone as it hurled itself from its resting spot on a nightstand.

She frowned. Typing, or writing, was… difficult. Telekinetically moving each individual finger was a chore. Still, she managed, glad that her dead nerves insulated her mind from the no doubt intense pain as every motion seared her flesh.

The phone opened, then immediately displayed a temperature warning. Of course.

At this moment, she wished that she had picked up on a bit more flesh distortion techniques from that bitch from her past. She also wished she had just painted the room with the annoying little monster when she had the chance as opposed to implanting her, but that ship had long since sailed.

While able to partially control her own biology, making changes on the level required to restore nerve functionality would be time consuming, and involve a significant amount of trouble shooting. While nightmarish to the average person, Kali wasn't anywhere near the top of her own species' totem pole, a fact that she had learned painfully.

Still, she managed to open… not google maps, but some equivalent program.

Typing in the coordinates was… frustrating. It took several tries after she fumbled a digit and had to go back and retype it. Every second spent on this damn phone was one wasted.

For a moment, she considered simply throwing the phone out the window, shattering the silicon and glass rectangle into a million pieces and then obliterating those with an errant glance.

She forced herself to breath deeply, compressing her lungs with her power to mimic the effects of a normal human doing so.

Now calmer, Kali watched as the map directed her further south, past what the map referred to as "The Boardwalk". She smiled faintly.

They must have been in serious trouble to tell to pass through what was surely one of the most densely populated areas without a handler.

She made a mental note to reward their trust, and almost considered slipping on the backpack to hide her chains.

Almost.

But that would take time, and she was far faster when able to use all of her limbs.

A glance shattered once of the windows overlooking the barren street below. With a "running" jump, the girl turned weapon tossed herself out, chain limbs catching her fall and launching her further into the night, the air shimmering with heat in her wake.

They needed her, and it sounded like they needed her to kill someone.

That was fine. After all, she was designed to destroy.

 

[Wirbelwind]

Bit of a warning for this one. While not on par with certain scenes in Design in terms of overall brutality, or from Worm in terms of visceral distressfulness, this one gets pretty graphic. Consider this a reiteration of the warning at the beginning of the thread.
Discovery
2.3​

Tattletale

3 days post arrival


"-and if any of you try to do anything, especially YOU" the crazed bomber pointed at Tattletale, unaware that the waves of agony coursing through her rendered her voiceless, "I am going to detonate this little number!"

Baduka strolled up to where Grue was hanging, bound to a pole by thick tangles of rope.

"This is two-twenty-seven, a sort of flesh deforming charge. Everything made of meat in three feet is stretched, warped, but still connected. You will remain alive, even after it reduces you to a pile of tumors and organs."

She cackled, drinking in the fear in their eyes.

Grue shifted a little, but stopped as the madwoman used a pair of metal pliers to bring the inch long metallic pill up into his nose. From her own captive position, Tattletale could barely make out Regent similarly bound, further down the row of crumbled storage units.

Fuck.

The pain from whatever Bakuda had hit her with slowly began to dissipate, and she felt the blessed but agonizing return of her abilities as a migraine split her head, somehow elevated even beyond the suffering she had already felt.

Pain bomb. Stimulates pain response in every nerve in body.

For a moment, she wished her nerves were as dead as… Kali's.

Right.

The girl.

Tattletale desperately wanted to open her mouth, to laugh and spit at Bakuda, to tell her that their own little matter distorting bomb on legs was inbound.

But she didn't.

Speaking will result in death.

Bakuda laughed again, gesturing with her grenade launcher to one of the conscripts in the crowd of soldiers behind her.

"How about you. You want to shoot one, or do you want to end up like stain over there?"

She jerked her helmeted head towards the still moving puddle of something red a few feet away, all that remained of the previous conscript to be given direct attention.

The current victim, an average looking man wearing a previously fine suit, nodded frantically.

Incorrect response.

"Oh, you do? Or do you want to shoot them?"

He scrambled to explain, tears welling up in his eyes.

"Shoot them, definitely shoot them."

Bakuda nodded.

"You see, control is based on fear. And the city…" she leaned back as if to sit on an imaginary throne, stopping at the last second to surge forwards. "the city, the ABB, they all fear me!"

The man exploded, or rather imploded. Screams rang out from the crowd.

"Now, you, shoot them. Start with the hands, then the legs, then the feet."

She gestured towards one of the ABB regulars, the man holding some assault rifle that looked like it had been stolen from a scrapyard.

AK-47. Modified. Cut down stock.

The man, clearly only slightly less demented than the woman ordering him, raised the gun to his shoulder.

Something whistled in the distance, the sound of displaced air loud enough to barely be made out over the sounds of whimpering from the conscripts.

Just as he took aim at Grue's hand, the wall behind him ruptured inward as the flaming mass of Bakuda's jeep forced itself through the thin concrete to come with upon him and a pair of nearby conscripts, turning the former to paste and knocking the latter aside.

Kali. ABB regular deceased, conscripts bruised and burnt.

The surface of the jeep hissed, hot air radiating off it. Tattletale could even see where the paint had peeled off from the heat, the metal warping and running like molasses.

For a moment, everyone was still, staring on in shock.

Bakuda reacted fastest, whirling to bring her launcher to bear on the opening.

The villain screamed.

"SHOW YOURSELF SO YOU CAN WATCH YOUR FRIENDS DIE!"

A pair of chain heads snaked their way from behind the rubble, slithering and probing like living things.

Attached to them came Kali, clad in her tattered medical gown, a grin too wide to be human literally splitting her face.

Tattletale felt a wave of fear course through her, even if it was barely noticeable above the pain from power and bomb as the former went haywire.

Not parahuman. Not human. Human body? Yes. Instinctual response in human mind. Prior experience? Ancestral memory, instinctual fear of entity. Entity is not human.

Her eyes were… black. Dead, no trace of soul within them. Lisa wasn't particularly religious, but if you told her that the black pits in Kali's dead face were portals straight to the depths of the underworld, in that moment, she wouldn't have argued.

Something lurked within them, a flicker of cruel intellect, of primal hunger. The grin widened despite its impossibly.

A hushed panic filled the crowd.

Fight or flight activated by instinctual recognition. Response consistent with prey encountering natural predator.

Bakuda pulled the trigger on her launcher, only for space to bend impossibly and the grenade stretch itself into an inert cube of half-metal midflight, then hurl itself through the ceiling.

One of the men yelled and opened fire. Tattletale looked away but still caught fragments of bone and brain matter streaking across the room from the corner of her eye.

Now focusing on Bakuda, she caught a shift in the mad bombers body language. Fear, concern, confusion, but most importantly the deep uncertainty from losing control of a situation you should dominate.

Will attempt to detonate explosives once she realizes she is outmatched. Detonation will kill all in room.


Good to know the monster isn't immortal, at least.

Bakuda was fast, blisteringly so. Her body was only slightly behind her mind, and while earlier Tattletale had expressed the opposite, she needed to admit that the demolitions woman was indeed a genius.

Kali was faster still.

A lance of metal blackness shot from beside her as the girl lurched forwards, the other three chains raising and rattling as she advanced, gunfire erupting to little effect, heads exploding in the crowd.

Bakuda screamed and fell, launching a pair of grenades as she did that sailed cleanly over Kali and into the sky. They exploded with dull blue flashes somewhere deeper in the storage facility.

A second tendril lunged forward and caught the grenade launcher in air, wrapping around the weapon's and crumbling its rear mechanism before yanking it free of her arm, and a third lashed out to slam its wielder into the ground with bone breaking force.

It took a moment for Tattletale to register what had happened as Bakuda attempted to crawl back from Kali, who was now mere feet away. A trail of blood dragged behind each of Bakuda's stump legs, and realization hit her.

Kali had cut off her legs.

A crude but simple solution. Despite its horrific nature, Tattletale grinned and began to struggle free as the mob of people fled in terror, having either realized that their captors weren't going to or were unable to stop them.

Some of the remaining ABB regulars tried to halt the tide, but were merely swept away in turn.

"I knew people like you. Many people."

A chain snaked its way around Bakuda's waist, the fabric of her costume hissing and smoldering as the scorching hot surface of the black metal forced itself deep into her skin, constricting her as if it was a snake.

Bloody saliva dripped profusely from Kali's maw, and Bakuda howled in rage and agony as the chain lifted her off the ground began to squeeze.

Something popped, and she flailed more, trying to strike at Kali's face.

"They all died the same way. Screaming."

The monster turned to face the Undersiders, and for a moment Tattletale thought she was dead, to be torn apart by their savior turned murderer.

Glad to see you are intact. Planning on making up failure to keep in contact via death of Bakuda.

Blood began to seep from the tinker's waist, but instead of falling to the ground, the red liquid seemed to flow upward.

"I am tired of screaming. I think I will let you die gurgling instead."

Bakuda's lips peeled themselves away, jaw shattering as her mouth pried itself open. The trickle of blood turned into a torrent, and formed a sphere that began to churn and boil as it floated towards its original owner's open throat.

"Stop!"

Brian had gotten free. One hand held a blood and snot covered pellet of metal, the other other braced him against a wall.

"She has rigged everyone you saw with her with bombs, if she dies, they all die! Most of them are innocent!"

Kali sneered viciously, saliva flowing from teeth slightly sharper than was normal.

"Why do I care?"

Death of Bakuda will cause significant setback in restoring target's humanity. Actions are mostly instinctual, can be changed. Will result in mass casualties.

"You said you wanted to be better, you would try to be better. Please! This is your chance."

The thing wearing the corpse cocked its head to one side, looking to Grue with an almost curious expression.

Tears of pain and stress ran from Grue's eyes as he hobbled over a piece of rubble.

"Kali, please, you promised!"

A single watery tear fell from one of her black eyes.

Considering sparing those in room. Reminded of past. Of good and bad memories.

"Remember your old friend. The one who freed you. What would he say right now?"

Tattletale added her voice to the equation.

This caused Kali to recoil, one hand raising to clutch her temple and the other falling limply. The chain around Bakuda's waist loosened.

"Destiny and design…"

Lisa barely made out the words, but smiled despite the situation.

"You can still be a good person. Just… drop her. She isn't a threat to anyone anymore."

Incorrect. With sufficient resources, Bakuda could regain full capabilities within two weeks.

She really didn't think Kali needed to hear that right now.

A flicker of hope appeared in the girl's dead eyes. The chain loosened more.

Alec saw what was coming and, despite the gnash on his leg, threw himself forward to just barely catch the limp, unconscious body of Bakuda as it fell to the ground.

Kali herself followed, lowering herself from her previous height of five feet above the surface below. Her skin blistered and blackened in places.

Hovering in such emotional state, without haptic feedback, resulting in massive thermal damage to limbs.

Unfortunate, but at least Bakuda…

Her chest was still rising and falling, but with the amount of blood pooling around her, and the shock of… everything else, that wouldn't be the case for long.

If that heart stopped, every bomb...

Thinking quickly, Tattletale scrambled to the grenade launcher and pried open the revolving magazine, dumping the contents onto the floor.

Thermal grenade. Unknown grenade. Enhanced concussive grenade.

Dammit.

She scrambled over to the body of the tinker herself, noting that Grue was trying to comfort Kali, with surprisingly luck based upon the lack of violence.

The body was… horrific, to say the least. Her waist was crumpled inward, shards of bone forcing their way out of blistered, burnt skin. The helmet covering her face was partially melted inward, exposing the shattered jaw that hung limply by scraps of flesh.

It almost looked as if the skin and meat had been flayed off, then the gruesome wounds pressed against an active oven for good measure.

Wounds invariably fatal without immediate treatment.

Wrenching her gaze from the injuries, Tattletale focused on the grenades strapped to the fallen villains body, trying to make them out. Her head ached as Lisa pushed her power to the limit.

Glass conversion grenade. Guided Shrapnel grenade. Incendiary Clusterbomb.

No luck on that side.

Temporal distortion grenade. Biological stasis grenade.

Last one is promising.

She ripped the deceptively light munition from its holster and blinked away the pain as her power fed her more information.

Blast radius of two meters. Biological material within effect will be placed in functional stasis for twelve hours, locked at current state. Will prevent death until effect wears off, at which point Bakuda has half a minute at most to live.

Lisa pulled the pin on the weapon and left it, rolling back out of range.

With a slight pop, Bakuda's body was encased in a strange, skintight, semi-transparent mist.

A hand fell on Tattletale's should and she whipped around to find Alec, worry on his face.

"Got it?"

She nodded.

Grue stepped up from here he was kneeling next to Kali, the girl curled on the ground into a ball, weeping.

"Damn."

He probably didn't need to continue, but did anyways.

"Really did a number on that one."

Tattletale nodded.

"She will live. At least for twelve hours. Luckily…"

Sirens approached.

"The authorities will be here quickly. I am going to write a little note, leave it on the body, but then we need to scram."

She looked towards Kali.

Partially catatonic. In no state to move.

"Grue, can you carry her?"

He winced but nodded, and went to scoop up the girl, beginning to half walk, half jog deeper into the storage facility.

Attempting to decrease chances of contact with authorities. Will likely succeed.

Bitch climbed out from one of the storage lockers, teeth bared, looking around wildly.

Was knocked into locker while restrained. Broke free.

The girl looked at the mess before her.

"This Kali?"

Alec nodded.

"Good. I like her."

Without another word, she whistled. One of her dogs came soaring into the room from God knows where.

Well, actually, Tattletale knew where. She had ordered them away before she was ambushed, and the loyal pooches had kept hidden until summoned again.

As she watched, flesh and bone and gristle began to coat the dog, swelling into a sort of meaty suit of all-encompassing armor. The dog growled happily and looked at its master.

Bitch walked to it, stroking its side before hoping on and turning to face Alec and Lisa.

"Get on."

They did, escaping into the back alleys just as the first PRT marked armored van came around a corner and slid to a stop.

 

[Wirbelwind]

2.4
Discovery​

Grue

3 days post arrival

A sort of cruel relief filled Brian's aching muscles. They were alive. Well, the Undersiders were.

Sure, they had been pretty badly bruised and beaten, and Alec might be limping for the next few days, but they had once again gone up against the heaviest hitters of one of the Big Three gangs and not only survived, but decisively come out on top.

But this satisfaction was soured by the knowledge that this had not only been the result of freak circumstance, but that it had, at least this time, directly resulted in human lives lost.

Many lives. He hadn't exactly stopped to count, but he had seen at least five headless corpses strewn across the lot as they made their escape.

Add one or two crushed beneath the improvised projectile, at least one killed by Bakuda herself, and any who died in the stampede to escape or from the no doubt brutal wounds left from the fight, and you would have more fatalities in one night than he felt comfortable with causing for an entire decade.

Or two.

Of course, parahuman related deaths even in Brockton Bay were anything but rare, despite the shiny clean version of "cops and robbers" that normally filled the local airwaves.

He had even personally encountered quite a few people who were down family from the depredations of the major gangs, or collateral from some big cape brawl.

The difference was simple. He was, in part, personally responsible for this.

They all were.

Sirens screamed in the distance. No doubt the PRT had already arrived on scene. After all, they were on high alert after the so called Bloody 10th.

He wondered if they would connect the two events. Almost certainly, of course. They might even start to think that someone had it out specifically for the ABB.

Two nights of slaughter, two major players in the gang brutalized.

The individual responsible stirred slightly in his arms, her cold body warming slightly as the weapon wearing a girls skin moved her unblinking eyes to look him in his own.

He forced a grin.

She responded with her own, but it didn't reach her emerald eyes.

They had known that this girl, this weapon, was dangerous, unpredictable, but to see that power in action was something different from stumbling upon the immediate aftermath of her bloody work.

Tattletale had, of course, explained in great detail why exactly they couldn't just turn her loose, or turn her in to the authorities.

Brian had, of course, believed her. He had, after all, seen the remnants of Kali's supposed "arrival" to not only Brockton, but their dimension as a whole. He had heard the low, sad, stressed tone in her voice whenever the girl's emotions began to flare up, when her mask of indifference or cockiness slipped.

How her lidless eyes twitched slightly, how the light within them would fade or vanish entirely as she caught the sight of blood, even if it was merely on a television screen.

She wasn't human. He needed to keep reminding himself. While to anyone else, she would just be a slightly power altered cape, not even near the top of the list of "parahumans whose bodies were changed by their abilities", to those in the know, she was a new, frightening reality.

Not human.

Lisa still wasn't sure what exactly she was, but the one thing that the thinker had made sure to drive home was that no matter what she looked like at a glance, Kali Aimes wasn't a human.

He hadn't really believed her, of course, but seeing her tonight, suspended on warped air, maniacal grin as she went to grisly work, it caused something deep within his primal subconsciousness to scream affirmation for that impossible fact.

The massive form of one of Bitch's empowered dogs leapt down from a shanty building before him, trio of individuals on its carapaced back.

"Need a lift?"
Tattletale smiled down at him. Kali waved one chain tip.

Regent snickered.

"Nah, looks like those two are find keeping in touch."

He frowned, and slowly began to lay Kali down, who weakly protested before realizing what the implication was and ceasing resistance.

"No, I think I would like a lift actually."

Bitch whistled and another dog crept from somewhere behind him. Kali jerked to her feet, torso being dragged upright by invisible puppet strings. Her already seared flesh hissed in agony, but the expression on her face was entirely neutral, slightly flushed from the earlier comment.

The dog approached, massive head lowered as it sniffed her cautiously.

Brian ignored this and mounted up, muscles crying out in relief. The girl was deceptively heavy for her size, almost certainly owing to the several dozen meters of wrought iron that extended from her back.

It was exceptionally disturbing to feel that not only was her tight skin slightly scorched from her own abilities, that the thin muscle below it was functionally dead, inert, but that her back and torso seemed… hollowed.

As if someone had scooped out part of her insides to make room for the cold metal. There was something else there, too, on the small of her back. Just below the hideous scarring that surrounded the exit point of her chains was a sort of small metallic mass just below the skin. He would need to ask about that.

The dog seemed to accept her new scent, and Kali gently pat its head with one hand as her chains began to slide into their "retracted" state, loops of black iron vanishing into her back with a sound that was thankfully made inaudible beneath the distance sirens.

She walked to the side of the creature and raised one arm.

Brian sighed slightly and hoisted her up.

He felt Tattletale grinning at him from the other dog.

That she was still so cavalier after what had just happened merely reminded him exactly how different each member of the team was.

"We had best be going now. While none of our wounds are life threatening, I don't personally want to get an infection, and this isn't exactly the cleanest of locals. Plus" her tone turned slightly dangerous, "we need to talk. About her."

He knew she was looking at Kali.

Elephant in the room and all.
The girl in question shifted awkwardly behind him.

"Yes…" she agreed, words spilling forth like sludge from a drain, like blood from a wound. "We need to talk."

The ride back to their second home (and Kali's first) was blissfully uneventful, the night sky of Brockton Bay as cloudy and dimly lit as always. Bakuda had clearly intended on continuing on with her campaign of terror after she was "finished" with them, but it seemed that once she had been removed from the picture, all of her surviving subordinates had decided to instead lick their wounds and stay low.

Good, there was no telling what would have happened if the bomb happy freak had actually been able to put her plan into action.

Both dogs skidded to a stop as the Redmond Welding building entered view, and the Undersiders slid noiselessly from them.

He turned to find that Kali had already disembarked, and was now walking quickly towards the door.

Body language was always tricky with her. If you couldn't see her face, her paralyzed torso and limbs rarely communicated her mood unless she was actively making them. The chains were a safer bet, seeming to be far more connected to her inhuman mind subconsciously, but now they just dragged behind her, leaving a slight trail of crimson.

"Hey, watch the blood."

Tattletale gestured as she passed the humanoid weapon.

Kali nodded slowly, and the chains began to lift themselves off the ground, vibrating and heating up visibly. The scent of vaporized blood filled the air and she flash dried them, then let them collapse in tangles to the ground.

Unlike most capes, she seemed to operate under no equivalent of the Manton Limit.

While watching her take apart Bakuda, he realized with some horror that the "popping" sound they had heard on their first encounter with her was likely very literal, the sound of some poor soul being flash boiled from the inside out.

The group filed into the building and up the stairs. Ahead of him, Tattletale cursed and Regent chuckled.

"Really?"

He frowned as the reason became apparent.

"You do know I made sure to keep it unlocked, right?"

Kali shrugged.

"This was is faster."

Tattletale groaned and approached her now entirely open room, inspecting the warped, twisted door frame.

"You are going help fix this, you know."

Kali nodded.

"Sure. Doors can be replaced." One of her chains lightly prodded Tattletale's side, causing her to turn to face the girl.

"Friends cannot."

Despite the actual meaning of those words, something about the sly, calculated, almost sharp delivery sent a chill down his spine.

Friends. He wasn't going to argue, and this was certainly better than being considered her enemies, but that word help implications.

Of course, this was exactly the sort of relationship he at least had been trying to build, and he knew what that might entail, but it still was worrying to see Kali just as aware of the deeper meaning behind such a thing.

Then again, she clearly had walked this sort of gradual path of trust before, and she had just saved their lives.

Tattletale took off her mask, revealing her freckled face as she smiled, genuinely.

"Yes, friends. Which is why I am not really angry, just… annoyed, that this had to happen."

Kali nodded excitedly. He moved around to stand beside Lisa, and noted that Kali's green eyes had dilated slightly too far.

Bitch walked through the semi-metaphorical standoff without much care, dogs at her heels.

"You alright?"

She stopped.

"Yes"

She continued.

He didn't have time for two emotionally stunned, exceptionally dangerous individuals.

Regent exited his room, already out of costume.

Make that three.

But at least this one seemed to be entirely in control of himself, as was to be expected.

"Wow. Bit of tension here."

Kali frowned, eyes returning to normal.

"You sure you want to have the talk right now?"

Lisa nodded.

"Very sure. Brian?"

He did as well.

"No use putting this off."

Kali seemed to shy back, eyes flashing from person to person.

With a sigh, Brian began.

"We have been talking in private, about your situation."

Her chains began to shift slightly.

"And we have come to a decision. You are…"

Tension filled the air. Lisa starred into the back of his skull. Alec moved a bit further from Kali. He even noticed that Bitch was now standing within her doorway, watching on.

"-officially invited to join us. The Undersiders. If not, our previous agreement stands, and you may stay here as long as you would like."

Kali began to cry.

It was a low, strained thing, the type you could immediately feel within you as an expression of genuine emotion.

What emotion that was seemed to be a bit harder to determine, a strange sort of smile on her face as she collapsed backwards, coughing and sputtering.
With a slight rattle, the chains tearing from her back began to encircle, coil around her almost protectively.

He was surprised to see that Rachael was the first to move in, kneeling next to her and simply laying a hand on her side.

She looked at him, almost offended at his shock.

Lisa nudged him and mouthed "She is stunted, not stupid."

He supposed that was fair enough.

Kali stirred, but didn't attempt to stand up.

Not at first.

Brian sat as well, brushing some shards of wood from Lisa's door off one of the couches. Specifically, the cough that hadn't been sliced into several heat scarred chunks.

They would need to replace quite a lot of furniture today. They were lucky that a fire hadn't started.

Going over her destructive tendencies would need to wait however.

Lisa crouched down, speaking softly.

"It's ok. Let it out. You don't need to hide yourself anymore."

She chocked out a laugh, a sad smile crossing her face. This one reached her eyes, which were filled with a mix of relief and disbelief.

"I… don't understand. Why are you so nice to me? Why?"

Brian spoke, taking care to keep a level voice despite the fact he felt the beginnings of tears on his own eyes. Dammit, this sort of thing wasn't in the job description.

If he wanted to feel his heart ripped from his chest, he could always just think about Aisha back at his flat.

"Because we… care about you, Kali. We want to see you at your best."

Alec nodded, then opened his mouth to respond before shutting it as Lisa shot him a look, taking advantage of Kali's current focus on Brian.

"I… don't know if I believe that. People are like that. Humans aren't like that."

The girls chains slowly began to drag themselves into a pool on her lap.

He winced as wisps of smoke climbed on the distorted air from her seared flesh.

"Then maybe you aren't giving humans enough credit. Maybe people are better than you think."

Lisa nodded, and he caught her glancing at Alec, who followed her example with a bit of a grin on his face.

"Yeah, maybe people can be just as good as they are terrible."

To his surprise, it was Alec who said this. The continuation was a bit more to be expected.

"And believe me, I have seen the latter."

Kali shook her head.

"I… see. But I have only known one person who treated me like this before, even after..."

Lisa smiled, a genuine smile.

"Well, maybe he was crazy to do so, but so are we. And whether by fate or design, you are here with us on this little mudball."

Kali broke into tears again, happy ones but still undercut with a trace of past sorrow.

Lisa extended her arms, and Kali hugged her, clamping on tightly and wrapping her arms around the girl, who gritted her teeth and gave a pained nod to Brian.

He moved closer and placed his hand on Kali's shoulder comfortingly, only to find the cause for Lisa's discomfort as his palm immediately screamed in slight pain from the temperature of Kali's skin.

Still, the burning wasn't too intense to bear, merely extraordinarily uncomfortable, and so he forced himself to avoid jerking his hand back.

Alec sort of chuckled and winked at him, heading for the kitchen.

One of the chains lightly laced its way around Brian's waist and pulled him closer.

They sat like that for a while.

 

[Xenomorph]

1.2 is missing a Threadmark.

I am always a sucker for Redemption stories. I have 0 Knowledge about Design, but I like what I see.

 

[Wirbelwind]

2.5
Discovery​

Glory Girl

4 days post arrival


Victoria Dallon enjoyed simple things. Her boyfriend, the wind in her hair as she shot through the sky, the feeling of a nazi's nose crunching against her invulnerable fist.

Similarly, she had simple dislikes.

Standing in the middle of some dilapidated hellhole on the outskirts of Brockton Bay while her sister stared in bewilderment and slight grotesque curiosity at the thing the man in the suit told her was formerly the villain known as Bakuda wasn't exactly simple, but certainly was something she disliked.

"We… did our best to clear away the rubble and tend to those we could handle."

The PRT officer gestured towards one of the various splotches of discoloration on the concrete floor, specifically the one that looked like someone had jellied something red and yellow and meaty and ground it into the floor with immense force.

"But… there isn't anything conventional medicine can do for her. We can't exactly let her die either. Beyond the need for a full legal trial" the man almost spat that part out, "per the note left by TT, she has an unknown amount of tinkertech bombs placed throughout the city set to blow upon her death."

Damned tinkers. Well, specifically, damn this one tinker in particular. Of course, it rather looked like Bakuda had already been to hell and met the devil.

"I… then it is good that you called me here."

From her position hovering slightly above the ground, thus avoiding the worst of what grime remained, Victoria could see the slump in her sister's form vanish.

Seemed that this was something that was actually worthy of Panacea's time.

"Do we know what… did this?"

Victoria followed Amy's gaze, holding back the urge to vomit at the sight of their patient.

Laying encasing in a now rapidly fading bubble of almost silky, solid light was Bakuda. It was a bit hard to make out anything specific, owing to the copious amount of blood and fleshy, bony fragments that covered the woman's bodysuit, but Victoria began to realize that the villain's jaw was hard to spot because it was missing.

Her waist was almost caved in from all directions, shards of bone poking out through the thinner sections of the costume.

Where it could be seen, her skin was seared black, flesh trapped halfway through peeling itself from the scorched stumps of her legs.

Frankly, it is was amazing that, suspended animation or not, the individual in front of them was even technically alive.

Amy knelt down and gently tried to poke through the suspension field, finding it to be as solid as iron.

"No, not really. But we are looking into possible connections with a similar event on the 10th , no survivors from that one."

Lovely. Someone or something was horribly murdering random people in Brockton Bay and no one had any clue who or why.

Normally she would have said something about this being the best people it could have happened to, and while possibly correct, Victoria began to feel a simmering distaste for whoever was responsible for this grow within her heart.

There was a difference between a little bit of mostly exaggerated unnecessary force and slaughtered dozens, leaving the only survivor in a state worse than death.

"Any idea who TT is?"

This was her own question, and the man scrambled to face her.

"Yes, actually. Tattletale, a relatively minor villain from a relatively minor gang called The Undersiders."

She raised an eyebrow. Minor? Maybe in numbers and previous reputation.

"They are best known for their heist of the Central Bank two days ago. We believe per reports from an independent cape-"

That would be Bug. While she hadn't met the hero personally, the aptly named cape seemed to be good people, if a bit underwhelming on the power side.

"-That they were also in the area at the time of the previous incident. It just doesn't at all fit their known motivations and capabilities to do anything like this."

She wasn't so sure about that. Hellhound was a murderer, after all. But the bit about abilities held up. They didn't seem to have any pyrokinetics, and while monstrous, being mauled by one of their pet beasts wouldn't have left this sort of injury.

While not nearly to the level of Amy even without use of powers, Victoria had a fair bit of knowledge about human anatomy and how it came apart.

Even from her not exactly ideal angle to inspect the body, Bakuda didn't look like she had been trampled or bitten.

More… squeezed by something hot and thin. Pulled apart, brutally but selectively.

"I see. Please ready the containment foam, I believe the stasis is lifting."

While not at all in a position to do more than sputter and die, Victoria still lowered herself to the ground, arms crossed, guarding Amy as she watched the field surrounding Bakuda begin to fray and disappear.

With a slight popping sound, the semi-transparent membrane vanished from existence.

Bakuda weakly flailed for half a second before falling limp. Blood spurted from her throat and half a dozen cuts across her body.

Amy moved quickly, only to be stopped as a man in a thick suit of tinkertech blast armor stepped forward and used pair of long, reinforced mechanical clapser to quickly collect the remaining ordinance strapped to the villain's costume.

To Victoria's disgust and Amy's indifference, the last few grenades needed to be literally peeled from melted fabric that had adhered to Bakuda's seared flesh.

After what had to be only three seconds or so, but what seemed to be eternity, the last bomb was dropped into a large silvery bag and the EOD tech stepped back, giving a thumbs up.

Amy quickly began her own part of this.

While she had seen it a thousand times before, it was still pretty neat to watch her sister work. Victoria starred as flesh began to knit itself together, blood absorbing into body and skin growing to cover wounds that would surely be fatal.

When her jaw had reformed enough to be called attached, Bakuda tried to speak, but only managed a wet gurgling.

Amy took off her hand.

"She is… stable. But not for long. Just enough to get to an intensive care unit. I patched up everything immediately life threatening as best I am able, but there isn't enough body left to actually rebuild everything. Its like… something flayed her apart, at a molecular level."

The words sent a slight chill down Victoria's spine.

A pair of armored PRT medical officers rushed to Bakuda and lifted her carefully onto a stretcher, which was quickly ferried into the back of a massive armored car.

Said vehicle roared to life and spun around, then began to lumber with surprising speed towards the closest actual road, tires crushing several bits of splintered storage locker.

The man in charge turned and began yelling at the other agents still on the scene, and Amy turned to watch as the person in the bomb suit picked up the inert casing from the stasis grenade and placed it in a green bag.

Victoria approached her sister and tapped her on the shoulder.

"We done here?"

Amy seemed to consider this, but the officer waved her off.

"We can take it from here. Once again, you have no idea how thankful we are for you."

He smiled, genuinely.

Victoria nodded.

"Yeah, careful with that praise, it'll go to her head."

Amy didn't return either of their smiles, merely gentled tugging on Victoria's arm.

"I should be the one thanking you for offering me yet another chance to help. Vicky, we should go."

The flight back home was pretty short, but Amy's silence told Victoria that this would be longer than normal. She liked talking with her in the air, and reveled in the few times she managed to make her sister actually light up like a child from the feeling of flight.

After all, what wasn't to enjoy?

Apparently, something, from how Amy clutched tightly around her waist, taking care to avoid Victoria's chest while still holding her with a vice grip.

"Whats wrong? Too gnarly for you this time?"

Amy muttered something.

Victoria came to a stop in air, then lowered herself onto the roof of some decaying warehouse.

"Come on, share. You know I hate it when you are upset."

Amy let go and stepped back, a mix of her usual simmering frustration and something new on her face.

Worry? Fear?

Victoria almost flared her aura, but stopped when she remembered that Amy couldn't feel it anymore.

Her sister met her gaze, eyes harsh.

"You really want to know?"

She was serious, deathly so. This sort of actual emotional honesty, while not unheard of, was growing increasingly rare between Amy and the rest of the family.

As such, Victoria took the bait.

"Yes. Surprise me."

Amy huffed slightly.
"...fine. But it is probably stupid."

Vicky tried to give a reassuring smile.

Amy just looked away, suddenly finding interest in a bit of ventilation that sprawled across the brick roof.

"The bodies, they had me look at some of them. Something about it driving one of their special Thinkers crazy."

Victoria wasn't sure what that meant.

"What bodies?"

Amy flashed with anger and frustration before calming down.

"Right, you wouldn't care about this sort of thing."

Victoria's smile slumped slightly at the utterly defeated tone of voice, one that told her that Amy truly believed what she said.

"The bodies from the massacre. On the tenth. Then they had me look at some of the survivors from the incident yesterday."

Her voice grew cold, and a flicker of fear appeared in her eyes. Victoria felt a slight tinge of pain and confusion in her chest.

Amy had done more for more people than most entire hospitals would do over their entire operating life. She had fixed everything from cancer to bullet wounds to degenerative bone disease.

She had been across the world, seen truly horrific things, and become intimately familiar with how the human body came apart.

A sort of sadness grew with her as Victoria contemplated for a moment on just what her adoptive sister had gone through, was constantly going through.

For this to be actively disturbing her so viscerally… it was either the straw that broke the camels back, the last bit of weight needed to cause her mental defenses to crumble to dust, or it was something truly horrific.

From Bakuda, it seemed like it would be a mix of both, but Vicky knew that while grisly, that sort of brutalization wasn't at all as uncommon as the TV shows would make it out to be.

Amy continued her explanation, fiddling with her robe.

"The damage, some of it was normal. Relatively so. Bullet wounds, directly to the skull, instantly fatal. Some of it was the expected abrasions and bruises from combat, from people running and falling. And of course there was plenty of preexisting conditions."

She sighed.

"But… the rest? It was… unique. Now, of course, that is to be expected from parahumans. So when I found that the very molecular structure of the tissue was frayed, torn, distorted, I didn't think much of it. I didn't really care about the fact that heat had permeated every bit of distorted flesh, ensuring complete cell death."

Victoria felt a bit of relief begin to course through her. After all, Amy had said it was probably stupid, and it sounded like she was just straining under the pressure.

"The strange part was fact that their clothing was distorted in the same fashion. Of course, you know about the Manton Effect."

She nodded, opening her mouth but stopping when Amy raised a hand.

"Not done. Typically, powers only effect inorganic or organic, one or the other. Its why most telekinetics can't just squeeze your brain into a pulp. This… this was different. The damage done, as far as I could tell, was the same no matter the material. Regardless of things like differing compositions, metal vs meat, it was all the same. And some of it was internal."

Victoria understood what she meant, but not why it was so distressing.

"So? There are plenty of capes who don't follow the rules. We kinda break rules by existing, actually."

Amy shook her head.

"No. Well, yes, you are right, but what I am worried about is the fact that, for whatever reason, the ability used to kill these people, it doesn't care about the Manton Effect. One of the first victims was cooked from the inside out…"

Oh.

That… was bad.

Victoria finished the sentence for her.

"...Like Behemoth?"

She nodded.

"Like Behemoth. And whatever this is, it is loose in this city, and has already killed several dozen people in truly horrific ways with no signs of stopping. And it is seemingly associated with the Undersiders. You do know I originally planned to go to the bank on the day they robbed it. What if I had, what if you had come to save me?"

A bit of a chill went down her spine.

"If you prevented them from running, so instead they chose to fight…"

Despite the common knowledge surrounding her, Victoria wasn't actually invulnerable, a fact both she and Amy were ocassionally reminded up.

Her forcefield was immensely durable, able to make lethal blows feel as if nothing more than light rain, but it wasn't a perfect defense.

Normally, the lack of actual durability of her insides wasn't exactly too big of a deal. The Manton Effect prevented someone like Kaiser from growing shards of metal inside of her lungs, and the shield was close enough to providing immunity from almost all external threats.

But if something was capable of manifesting energy, distorting matter, inside of her own body without actually needing to get through the shield.

For a moment, the thought gnawed its way at her mind, at her confidence. But then she shook her head and grinned.

"Aw, you are worried about me. And you claim you don't care!"

She aggressively threw an arm around Amy's shoulder and squeezed her, taking care to avoid actually causing damage.

Amy grumbled incoherently, then managed to speak intelligible words.

"Yeah, yeah, I just don't want your big dumb butt going and getting yourself hurt."

She laughed.

"Don't worry, you are going to be seeing this dumb butt for quite a while longer. I will be careful."

Amy just smiled sadly.

"Please do so. This… thing, whatever it is, has only left a single survivor, and that seems to have been a mistake. It has gone out of its way to kill everyone who has encountered it, with numerous fatal wounds inflicted on each individual."

She sighed.

"And it seems to have a thing for obliterating the brain. I… can't fix that."

Victoria avoided frowning. She wouldn't fix it, but still… her sisters worry was probably justified.

"Like I said, I will be careful Ames. But if you are really this worried, you should probably tell mom about it."

Amy frowned. Both knew exactly how strained the relationship within the family was, even if Victoria wasn't yet sure why exactly this was the case. It was certainly a mute request, even if Carol could probably pull some strings to get all information the PRT and police currently had on this serial killer.

Then Amy replied, steel in her voice.

"Yes. I think I will."

 

[Engineer455]

this looks neat.
Not exactly familiar with Design, though I am very familiar with most of Liam's other stuff.
All things considered, in terms of "reanimated corpse with telekinetic powers originating from a parasite" there are worse options the Undersiders could've run into.
Though thankfully so far it seems like that fucking thing needs some form of AI as a host so no worries about it showing up-wait a minute Dragon exists.

...Oh no.