Glad to see this back. I don't remember what amount of sleep was voted so I am looking forward to re-discover it.
Legendary Tinker (Worm/LoL)
- Thread starter Fabled Webs
- Start date
7.2 Intermission
Fabled Webs
Lord Weaver, Glorious and Wise
- Location
- Arlington, VA
Intermission 7.2
Colin Wallis
2002, February 12: Brockton Bay, NH
I walked into the lab on Tuesday morning and froze. There was a small crate on my workbench that hadn't been there the night prior. Someone had been here before and was either good enough to bypass my security or was authorized to be here. No one was authorized to be here.
I put on my armor and activated my newly built sonic scanners. The pinewood crate was three by four by two and filled with jars of a familiar, chalky solution: Petricite Elixir. Someone had delivered Petricite Elixir to my lab without my knowledge. That should have been impossible on multiple levels and yet, here it was.
After triple-checking for traps, I opened the crate to find exactly what my scanners told me I'd find. There was also a small note that read, "The turtle sleeps, but his potions will be delivered on schedule. Use them well, Beardmaster."
It was written in immaculate, elegant script and though I knew little of penmanship, I could tell at a glance that someone spent hours upon hours practicing their letters. More importantly, it was also completely unsigned, save for the ridiculous name and now internationally famous sigil: Hyunmu's stylized turtle shell.
The crate was a mystery. No one, no one, called me "Beardmaster" save Hyunmu and once he heard it, Hero. No one else had the nerve. Hyunmu was obviously incapacitated and Hero would not have bothered with this cloak and dagger nonsense, so who?
I wracked my brain but could think of none who held the skill to infiltrate my lab, the connections to take over Hyunmu's production, and the familiarity to use a teasing nickname.
I immediately scraped off a bit of the ink and tore off a corner of the paper for forensic analysis. Within the hour, I had their exact chemical composition, manufacturer, and likely point of sale: Brockton Bay Office Depot. Utterly unhelpful.
I then called up some of the other tinkers in the Madhouse as well as Hyunmu's old branch in Phoenix. Potions had been delivered; not just my Petricite Elixirs, but all of them. Thousands upon thousands of bottles had somehow wound up precisely where they were supposed to be. After a single month of hiatus, some mysterious entity had managed to restart Hyunmu's potions business.
After only fifteen minutes of inquiry, I received a call from the office of the chief director that this entity was a hitherto unknown asset and to stop digging.
I was delighted. Baffled, but for once, I could live with the confusion if it meant the deliveries would ensue.
Over the past month, I prioritized the upgrades to my helmet and armor, integrating the scanner from Bluesong as well as several other additions from my colleagues. I hadn't gotten around to reworking my halberd yet, so I was happy to note that my dart launcher would remain at peak efficiency.
I mixed my custom power-negating solution and got to work building a machine to more efficiently pressurize the chemicals into a compact dart. The delivery came at a good time; I was down to my last four darts from my stockpile.
I frowned as I was reminded of precisely why that was. The city was in turmoil. My debut ceremony in front of city hall seemed to have been the sign that the endbringer truce was over and the time of mourning for our nation's lost capitol had passed.
The Ryujin 893, a Japanese group that established itself during Brockton Bay's shipping days to defend against the Empire 88, had swelled in number after Kyushu as refugees flocked to the states. From the files I'd read, they had been aggressively staking claim to territory in the northern half of the city for months now after consolidating other smaller, Japanese-centric gangs.
They used my debut as the cue to conduct a definitive raid against the Dockside Tigers, a mostly Vietnamese and Thai group known for lesser profile smuggling operations: drugs and weapons mostly, but also some illegal immigrants. The attack killed every single member of the Tigers of any relevance, including both capes.
As I'd heard from my new colleagues, this kind of gang violence was simply a return to the depressingly normal state of affairs. Things weren't as bad as they could get, but this low-level simmer of ongoing conflict was Brockton's baseline.
The only real surprise in all this was that the first shot to end the truce wasn't from the Empire. By all accounts, Allfather was a cruel, brutal man who thoroughly embraced his Viking motif. He was a showman who gloried in combat, a stark contrast to the clear wealth demonstrated by the Empire's many and diverse resources. I wondered which lunatic was willing to back a man like him.
The worst part of the Ryujin swallowing the Tigers was that it only seemed to inflame Allfather's rhetoric that the Asians were a pox on the community. Had the Tigers put up more of a fight and taken down at least one of the Ryujin's four capes, he likely would have swept in on the weakened gang and sparked a citywide war. As it stood, he seemed content to fan the flames and scream into his echo chamber.
Thankfully, the other two "major powers," if they could be called that, were likewise reluctant to intervene. They were the Plum Blossom Company and the local chapter of the Black Panthers.
The Plum Blossoms were triad remnants exiled from their homeland by the rise of the CUI and the Yangban. They were a small but shadowy group that seemed to excel in information management, corporate espionage, and other subtle crimes. Much like the triad they originated from, they held seemingly little loyalty towards the idea of "Chinese" as an ethnicity. Instead, their focus was exclusively on money and they showed little hesitation in preying on their own community.
They also regularly sold information to the PRT through unofficial channels. Director Cooper was of the mind that they were small-fry and should be used to take down the other gangs. I wasn't sure if I agreed.
Whether they had thinker support or not was unknown but the current guess leaned towards the positive. Fortunately, for all their cloak and dagger posturing, they had little in the way of direct power.
Lastly, there were the Black Panthers. The Black Panthers professed themselves to be a "civic service organization" dedicated to the defense of their communities. They were that, once. During the sixties and seventies, before the rise of capes, they were a radical if nonviolent group of African-American civil rights activists.
When Allfather and his Empire sank its hooks into the Bay, the African community felt the need to militarize in turn and that enabled idiots preaching about race wars to take the reins of the organization.
They were the most morally complicated of the gangs. I heard from the grapevine that Director Cooper tended to be sympathetic to their cause, though he was not outright supportive of their criminal activities. He saw them as a necessary counterweight to the Empire, especially because they were almost exclusively defensive in their approach to gang wars.
The Panthers only had three capes: Rebellion, Witch Doctor, and Doubletime. They couldn't hope to keep up with the Empire or Ryujin, but got by thanks to their relatively passive posture and the lower position they occupied on our priority list.
An alert crossed my helmet UI to remind me of a patrol. I packed up my gear and headed for the garage. Cannonade was already waiting in his captain's coat and tricorn hat. He wore a simple strip of cloth with eyeholes cut out over his face, the intentionally rugged look matching well with his ship's captain persona.
"Cannonade," I greeted firmly. Contrary to my first impressions of him, Paladin turned out to be the type of man who did not force his subordinates to socialize on the clock. Instead of constantly mixing patrol pairings, he simply assigned me to Cannonade and called it a day.
Good, I preferred things this way. This setup allowed me to get to know my partner more deeply and made us more likely to work together in engagements. It helped that I found the sailor to be the most complementary to my own skillset. Cannonade was an incredibly potent ranged fighter but had little in the way of support or close combat abilities, shortcomings a tinker like me could easily pave over.
His power allowed him to enlarge and duplicate any projectile he launched. Though he had the standard restriction concerning tinkertech that most capes had, in his hands a single marble could become a full salvo of grapeshot. For safety reasons, he seldom resorted to the revolvers belted to his hips.
"Armsmaster, how're things?" he asked, his gravelly voice a professional growl. Luminous once asked him if the growl was something he practiced for PR. It wasn't; he was just a longtime smoker.
"I am ready for patrol. Let's go." I started my motorcycle and took off. He followed on his own bike, stylized so the front looked like the prow of a galleon. Attached to its rear fender was a sly-blue flag with a ship's anchor on it. It looked ridiculous, but it also kept people from questioning the full lethality of Cannonade's powers. "Nineteenth and Crest. Follow the border of Panther and Empire territory before circling back around the city limits."
"Aye, capt'n."
"You don't need to call me that."
"Aye, capt'n."
"Please drop the accent."
"No can do, capt'n," I heard him grin through the mic.
Sometimes, I truly wondered if a command position was something worth seeking.
We were fourteen minutes into our patrol when console reported in. "Armsmaster, Cannonade, we're getting reports of a fire. 218 South Weston."
"Understood. Rerouting," I responded. If console saw fit to warn us, it was because the police suspected cape involvement. "Who's involved?"
"Panther territory. House belongs to a suspected Panther lieutenant, possibly a cape. Husband and daughter should be inside the house."
"Empire hit?"
"Likely, sir. No cameras."
"And the lieutenant?"
"Rachel Simmons. Twenty-eight, mother of one. Suspected to be Doubletime, though no hard proof. She's been missing for two days. Put out the fire. Gather some clues."
I grunted in the affirmative. We'd arrived. The fire was impossible to miss, not with the smokestack reaching four stories and climbing. It covered the front of the house and a separate shed, though I was unsure if there was something in the shed specifically worth destroying or if the fire had spread. The fire brigade was already here and had set up a perimeter.
"Cannonade. You enlarge and duplicate projectiles."
"Yes, sir," he replied crisply, his usual nonsense nowhere to be found.
I clipped a capsule from my bike. My custom tranquilizers were a good motivator for developing efficient storage for highly pressurized liquids, but that wasn't where the application ended. It was not useful enough to merit real estate on my halberd or armor, but a pressurized fire extinguisher was an obvious addition to my motorcycle's glove compartment.
"Fire extinguisher," I said as I handed it over.
"Can't duplicate tinkertech."
"Pressurized using tinkertech. Foam itself is standard issue."
He shook it in his hand then fingered the nozzle. "Yeah, I can work with that."
Saying so, he marched past the fire department as they were still hooking up to the hydrant and began to spray down the house and shed. As per usual, creative use of powers often far outstripped mundane solutions.
Cannonade enlarged and duplicated the foam as it emerged from the fan-like nozzle but did not impart any velocity. The result was a dense fog that deprived the fire of oxygen while causing minimal damage to the house, all the better to save potential evidence. Three minutes later, the fire brigade carried the unconscious father and daughter out of the smoking house where they were checked over by the paramedics.
I approached the nearest paramedic. "Will the father be ready to answer questions?"
"He won't," the paramedic snapped, "not today."
"Understood."
I left them to it and made a note to visit the hospital at a later date. Cannonade and I then cordoned off the house and entered to investigate. He hung back in the doorframe.
"Ehh, how 'bout you do your detective work, cap? I'm not much good at snooping around," he said, giving me a helpless shrug.
"Understood. It won't take long."
I did not understand why basic forensics training was not a mandatory part of the Protectorate professional development curriculum. It may not be as publicly noticeable as signing autographs, but it was far more important. I swallowed a reprimand and got to work; Cannonade had other talents.
Twelve minutes later, Cannonade and I rode away from the scene. The fire was caused by four Molotov cocktails sent through the window. There were no fatalities or signs of cape involvement beyond Mrs. Simmons' own suspected identity.
"Are we even sure this was about her possibly being Doubletime?" Cannonade mused. "She was plenty famous in her civilian identity too. Used to organize speeches and rallies and stuff."
"She was," I allowed. "It's a possibility, but she's missing. They are likely not unrelated."
"If you say so."
2002, February 13: Brockton Bay, NH
The police were correct in their preliminary deductions; it was indeed a cape-related hate crime. We received confirmation the very next day in the form of her brutalized body hanging from a tree. The skin around her eyes had been peeled off in a macabre facsimile of a domino mask and her lungs had been pulled out of her torso and onto her shoulders.
A bloody eagle, a famous execution method supposedly favored by the Vikings. Between the queasiness caused by the picture, I almost wanted to roll my eyes. There was a time in my student days when I enjoyed medieval history. This execution method came up in several medieval records, but never from credible sources, nor had there ever been a body unearthed with such distinct damage to the spine and ribcage.
More than likely, it was an exaggerated, ritualistic literary device meant to highlight themes of honor and revenge rather than any practiced execution method. It became popular among students of history because it played to the stereotype we had of medieval society, that they were horrible, brutal savages who were quick and creative with violence.
In other words, perfect for a posturing fool like Allfather, perfect for a small-minded, cruel monster who delighted in lording over those he considered lesser.
I grit my teeth and promised to personally make him suffer for his cruelty. Doubletime was a criminal, I held no delusions about that, but she was one out of a sense of necessity.
My legs felt like lead. I strode through Brockton General's burn ward anyway. Caleb Simmons had sheltered his daughter with his own body even as flames licked at his back. Without the potions, he might have suffered permanent damage.
"You don't have to be the one to do this, capt'n," Cannonade said, clearly not pleased to be here.
"I do," I replied firmly. "He deserves to know."
"We have officers for this."
"You can wait outside."
"Nah, I'm coming with. We're partners."
I grunted to show my thanks and knocked on the patient's door. It was a nondescript pastel blue, utterly inoffensive like the rest of the hospital.
"Come in," came a quiet voice, downtrodden and bitter.
I opened the door to find Mr. Simmons sitting up in his hospital bed. On his lap was the TV remote, though he seemed more interested in fiddling with it than watching anything. The man had a slim, athletic build. At twenty-eight, he was toeing the line between the prime of his life and the time when his body would begin to fail him. He turned to us with a scowl.
"Mr. Simmons?"
"That's me. What do the fuzz want with me? Is my house burning down somehow my fault?"
I chose to ignore the acerbic remark. I wasn't good at this. I had no idea how to address bitterness at systemic racism, especially not in a city with a Nazi gang. Professionalism was my armor. "I am Armsmaster and this is my partner, Cannonade."
"Yeah, saw your debut, tin man. You here to question me?"
"No, sir. We found three Molotov cocktails in your living room and one in your shed. Considering the circumstances, you are not a suspect."
"No fucking shit. Well, what do you want then? My statement? Gave it to some pig already, go chase him down."
"We are not here for your statement, sir. I am sure what you told the detective will suffice in conjunction with security footage around the area."
He glared at me. I didn't take it personally; enough stress could cause a man to seek any possible outlet. "Then fuck off and let me see my daughter."
I breathed deeply. Hero once told me that he insisted on visits such as these to remind himself of why he fought. He professed to being as socially awkward as I was but felt a need to sympathize, to take their resentment if need be.
I decided it would be best to rip the band-aid off without delay. "Your wife is dead."
Silence. Silence as his brain registered the words but his mind failed to process them. "What?" he whispered.
"Sir, Rachel Simmons, your wife, has passed away. Her body was found hanging with signs of Empire-"
"THEN FUCK OFF AND CATCH THEM!" he roared. He grabbed the remote and threw it at me. It bounced harmlessly against my chestplate. "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE? YOU HERE TO TELL ME SHE DESERVED WHAT SHE GOT? HUH? WELL FUCK YOU, YOU GODDAMNED PIG!"
"That is not our inte-"
"FUCK YOUR INTENT! FUCK YOUR CONDOLENCES! FUCK YOUR SORRIES! MY WIFE IS DEAD! SHE'S DEAD BECAUSE YOU FUCKERS COULDN'T BE ASSED TO DO YOUR MOTHERFUCKING JOBS!"
He lunged out of the bed to grab me by my collar. He exploded into motion as he punched me and tried to topple me, but my power armor stood unmoved. He was doing more to shake himself than anything.
Then, as suddenly as it came, his anger washed away and he slumped like a marionette with its strings cut. I saw the desperate fire leave his eyes as he fell to his knees.
"She can't be gone," he whispered.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Simmons," I said, more for lack of anything else I could say. How did you go about comforting a stranger amidst mind-shattering grief?
"She's gone…"
"She is, sir. I can only express my condolence and resolve to bring the Empire to justice."
"She's gone…"
I knelt to face him. "Mr. Simmons. Please look at me." He did so and I wanted to look away. Those were the eyes of a broken man. I'd seen their like in Hyderabad. Instead, I said, "You have a daughter. You have a reason to be strong."
"Tanya…"
"Yes. You are her father. You will not break down. You will be there for her."
"Oh, God. What do I tell her?"
My mind went blank. I didn't know; I had no children of my own. I endeavored to spend as little time with them as possible. The only child I spent any measurable amount of time with was Andy and Andy… I couldn't rightly call him a child. What did I know about teaching a little girl about death? What advice could I possibly offer to console a girl who'd never see her mother again?
Nothing. Not. One. Fucking. Thing.
I defaulted to procedure and wished I had a tenth of Hero's charisma.
"The truth, Mr. Simmons, the truth as best she can understand it. Please contact a funeral home of your choice. You will sign a release form allowing the medical examiner to release your wife's body to said funeral home. She will be returned to you to fulfill the last rites of whichever faith you ascribe to within one to two days."
"Tanya… What do I tell Tanya?" he moaned. I doubted he even heard me. I left a paper with similar instructions on dealing with the city morgue on the hospital table before heading out.
As I gently closed the door behind me, I wondered what it'd be like to empathize. I wasn't sure that this was what Hero had in mind.
Author's Note
All I know about Brockton Bay prior to Lung is that there were several Asian gangs. I just pulled a few names out of my ass.
Ryujin 893 means "dragon god yakuza." The word "yakuza" comes from a gambling game called oichokabu, which is basically Japanese blackjack. The game is played by adding the smallest digits. 8 + 9 + 3 = 20 and since you only count the smallest digit, 20 = 0, which means you score zero points that round. "Yattsu," "ku," and "san" were shortened to "ya-ku-san" or "ya-ku-za." The word was used to mean a worthless person, literally "someone whose prospects add to zero," but got adopted by criminals who ended up embracing the label.
Once again, I don't do grief well. I think this is the part of my writing that's weakest.
As always, thank you to my patrons:
Colin Wallis
2002, February 12: Brockton Bay, NH
I walked into the lab on Tuesday morning and froze. There was a small crate on my workbench that hadn't been there the night prior. Someone had been here before and was either good enough to bypass my security or was authorized to be here. No one was authorized to be here.
I put on my armor and activated my newly built sonic scanners. The pinewood crate was three by four by two and filled with jars of a familiar, chalky solution: Petricite Elixir. Someone had delivered Petricite Elixir to my lab without my knowledge. That should have been impossible on multiple levels and yet, here it was.
After triple-checking for traps, I opened the crate to find exactly what my scanners told me I'd find. There was also a small note that read, "The turtle sleeps, but his potions will be delivered on schedule. Use them well, Beardmaster."
It was written in immaculate, elegant script and though I knew little of penmanship, I could tell at a glance that someone spent hours upon hours practicing their letters. More importantly, it was also completely unsigned, save for the ridiculous name and now internationally famous sigil: Hyunmu's stylized turtle shell.
The crate was a mystery. No one, no one, called me "Beardmaster" save Hyunmu and once he heard it, Hero. No one else had the nerve. Hyunmu was obviously incapacitated and Hero would not have bothered with this cloak and dagger nonsense, so who?
I wracked my brain but could think of none who held the skill to infiltrate my lab, the connections to take over Hyunmu's production, and the familiarity to use a teasing nickname.
I immediately scraped off a bit of the ink and tore off a corner of the paper for forensic analysis. Within the hour, I had their exact chemical composition, manufacturer, and likely point of sale: Brockton Bay Office Depot. Utterly unhelpful.
I then called up some of the other tinkers in the Madhouse as well as Hyunmu's old branch in Phoenix. Potions had been delivered; not just my Petricite Elixirs, but all of them. Thousands upon thousands of bottles had somehow wound up precisely where they were supposed to be. After a single month of hiatus, some mysterious entity had managed to restart Hyunmu's potions business.
After only fifteen minutes of inquiry, I received a call from the office of the chief director that this entity was a hitherto unknown asset and to stop digging.
I was delighted. Baffled, but for once, I could live with the confusion if it meant the deliveries would ensue.
Over the past month, I prioritized the upgrades to my helmet and armor, integrating the scanner from Bluesong as well as several other additions from my colleagues. I hadn't gotten around to reworking my halberd yet, so I was happy to note that my dart launcher would remain at peak efficiency.
I mixed my custom power-negating solution and got to work building a machine to more efficiently pressurize the chemicals into a compact dart. The delivery came at a good time; I was down to my last four darts from my stockpile.
I frowned as I was reminded of precisely why that was. The city was in turmoil. My debut ceremony in front of city hall seemed to have been the sign that the endbringer truce was over and the time of mourning for our nation's lost capitol had passed.
The Ryujin 893, a Japanese group that established itself during Brockton Bay's shipping days to defend against the Empire 88, had swelled in number after Kyushu as refugees flocked to the states. From the files I'd read, they had been aggressively staking claim to territory in the northern half of the city for months now after consolidating other smaller, Japanese-centric gangs.
They used my debut as the cue to conduct a definitive raid against the Dockside Tigers, a mostly Vietnamese and Thai group known for lesser profile smuggling operations: drugs and weapons mostly, but also some illegal immigrants. The attack killed every single member of the Tigers of any relevance, including both capes.
As I'd heard from my new colleagues, this kind of gang violence was simply a return to the depressingly normal state of affairs. Things weren't as bad as they could get, but this low-level simmer of ongoing conflict was Brockton's baseline.
The only real surprise in all this was that the first shot to end the truce wasn't from the Empire. By all accounts, Allfather was a cruel, brutal man who thoroughly embraced his Viking motif. He was a showman who gloried in combat, a stark contrast to the clear wealth demonstrated by the Empire's many and diverse resources. I wondered which lunatic was willing to back a man like him.
The worst part of the Ryujin swallowing the Tigers was that it only seemed to inflame Allfather's rhetoric that the Asians were a pox on the community. Had the Tigers put up more of a fight and taken down at least one of the Ryujin's four capes, he likely would have swept in on the weakened gang and sparked a citywide war. As it stood, he seemed content to fan the flames and scream into his echo chamber.
Thankfully, the other two "major powers," if they could be called that, were likewise reluctant to intervene. They were the Plum Blossom Company and the local chapter of the Black Panthers.
The Plum Blossoms were triad remnants exiled from their homeland by the rise of the CUI and the Yangban. They were a small but shadowy group that seemed to excel in information management, corporate espionage, and other subtle crimes. Much like the triad they originated from, they held seemingly little loyalty towards the idea of "Chinese" as an ethnicity. Instead, their focus was exclusively on money and they showed little hesitation in preying on their own community.
They also regularly sold information to the PRT through unofficial channels. Director Cooper was of the mind that they were small-fry and should be used to take down the other gangs. I wasn't sure if I agreed.
Whether they had thinker support or not was unknown but the current guess leaned towards the positive. Fortunately, for all their cloak and dagger posturing, they had little in the way of direct power.
Lastly, there were the Black Panthers. The Black Panthers professed themselves to be a "civic service organization" dedicated to the defense of their communities. They were that, once. During the sixties and seventies, before the rise of capes, they were a radical if nonviolent group of African-American civil rights activists.
When Allfather and his Empire sank its hooks into the Bay, the African community felt the need to militarize in turn and that enabled idiots preaching about race wars to take the reins of the organization.
They were the most morally complicated of the gangs. I heard from the grapevine that Director Cooper tended to be sympathetic to their cause, though he was not outright supportive of their criminal activities. He saw them as a necessary counterweight to the Empire, especially because they were almost exclusively defensive in their approach to gang wars.
The Panthers only had three capes: Rebellion, Witch Doctor, and Doubletime. They couldn't hope to keep up with the Empire or Ryujin, but got by thanks to their relatively passive posture and the lower position they occupied on our priority list.
An alert crossed my helmet UI to remind me of a patrol. I packed up my gear and headed for the garage. Cannonade was already waiting in his captain's coat and tricorn hat. He wore a simple strip of cloth with eyeholes cut out over his face, the intentionally rugged look matching well with his ship's captain persona.
"Cannonade," I greeted firmly. Contrary to my first impressions of him, Paladin turned out to be the type of man who did not force his subordinates to socialize on the clock. Instead of constantly mixing patrol pairings, he simply assigned me to Cannonade and called it a day.
Good, I preferred things this way. This setup allowed me to get to know my partner more deeply and made us more likely to work together in engagements. It helped that I found the sailor to be the most complementary to my own skillset. Cannonade was an incredibly potent ranged fighter but had little in the way of support or close combat abilities, shortcomings a tinker like me could easily pave over.
His power allowed him to enlarge and duplicate any projectile he launched. Though he had the standard restriction concerning tinkertech that most capes had, in his hands a single marble could become a full salvo of grapeshot. For safety reasons, he seldom resorted to the revolvers belted to his hips.
"Armsmaster, how're things?" he asked, his gravelly voice a professional growl. Luminous once asked him if the growl was something he practiced for PR. It wasn't; he was just a longtime smoker.
"I am ready for patrol. Let's go." I started my motorcycle and took off. He followed on his own bike, stylized so the front looked like the prow of a galleon. Attached to its rear fender was a sly-blue flag with a ship's anchor on it. It looked ridiculous, but it also kept people from questioning the full lethality of Cannonade's powers. "Nineteenth and Crest. Follow the border of Panther and Empire territory before circling back around the city limits."
"Aye, capt'n."
"You don't need to call me that."
"Aye, capt'n."
"Please drop the accent."
"No can do, capt'n," I heard him grin through the mic.
Sometimes, I truly wondered if a command position was something worth seeking.
X
We were fourteen minutes into our patrol when console reported in. "Armsmaster, Cannonade, we're getting reports of a fire. 218 South Weston."
"Understood. Rerouting," I responded. If console saw fit to warn us, it was because the police suspected cape involvement. "Who's involved?"
"Panther territory. House belongs to a suspected Panther lieutenant, possibly a cape. Husband and daughter should be inside the house."
"Empire hit?"
"Likely, sir. No cameras."
"And the lieutenant?"
"Rachel Simmons. Twenty-eight, mother of one. Suspected to be Doubletime, though no hard proof. She's been missing for two days. Put out the fire. Gather some clues."
I grunted in the affirmative. We'd arrived. The fire was impossible to miss, not with the smokestack reaching four stories and climbing. It covered the front of the house and a separate shed, though I was unsure if there was something in the shed specifically worth destroying or if the fire had spread. The fire brigade was already here and had set up a perimeter.
"Cannonade. You enlarge and duplicate projectiles."
"Yes, sir," he replied crisply, his usual nonsense nowhere to be found.
I clipped a capsule from my bike. My custom tranquilizers were a good motivator for developing efficient storage for highly pressurized liquids, but that wasn't where the application ended. It was not useful enough to merit real estate on my halberd or armor, but a pressurized fire extinguisher was an obvious addition to my motorcycle's glove compartment.
"Fire extinguisher," I said as I handed it over.
"Can't duplicate tinkertech."
"Pressurized using tinkertech. Foam itself is standard issue."
He shook it in his hand then fingered the nozzle. "Yeah, I can work with that."
Saying so, he marched past the fire department as they were still hooking up to the hydrant and began to spray down the house and shed. As per usual, creative use of powers often far outstripped mundane solutions.
Cannonade enlarged and duplicated the foam as it emerged from the fan-like nozzle but did not impart any velocity. The result was a dense fog that deprived the fire of oxygen while causing minimal damage to the house, all the better to save potential evidence. Three minutes later, the fire brigade carried the unconscious father and daughter out of the smoking house where they were checked over by the paramedics.
I approached the nearest paramedic. "Will the father be ready to answer questions?"
"He won't," the paramedic snapped, "not today."
"Understood."
I left them to it and made a note to visit the hospital at a later date. Cannonade and I then cordoned off the house and entered to investigate. He hung back in the doorframe.
"Ehh, how 'bout you do your detective work, cap? I'm not much good at snooping around," he said, giving me a helpless shrug.
"Understood. It won't take long."
I did not understand why basic forensics training was not a mandatory part of the Protectorate professional development curriculum. It may not be as publicly noticeable as signing autographs, but it was far more important. I swallowed a reprimand and got to work; Cannonade had other talents.
Twelve minutes later, Cannonade and I rode away from the scene. The fire was caused by four Molotov cocktails sent through the window. There were no fatalities or signs of cape involvement beyond Mrs. Simmons' own suspected identity.
"Are we even sure this was about her possibly being Doubletime?" Cannonade mused. "She was plenty famous in her civilian identity too. Used to organize speeches and rallies and stuff."
"She was," I allowed. "It's a possibility, but she's missing. They are likely not unrelated."
"If you say so."
X
2002, February 13: Brockton Bay, NH
The police were correct in their preliminary deductions; it was indeed a cape-related hate crime. We received confirmation the very next day in the form of her brutalized body hanging from a tree. The skin around her eyes had been peeled off in a macabre facsimile of a domino mask and her lungs had been pulled out of her torso and onto her shoulders.
A bloody eagle, a famous execution method supposedly favored by the Vikings. Between the queasiness caused by the picture, I almost wanted to roll my eyes. There was a time in my student days when I enjoyed medieval history. This execution method came up in several medieval records, but never from credible sources, nor had there ever been a body unearthed with such distinct damage to the spine and ribcage.
More than likely, it was an exaggerated, ritualistic literary device meant to highlight themes of honor and revenge rather than any practiced execution method. It became popular among students of history because it played to the stereotype we had of medieval society, that they were horrible, brutal savages who were quick and creative with violence.
In other words, perfect for a posturing fool like Allfather, perfect for a small-minded, cruel monster who delighted in lording over those he considered lesser.
I grit my teeth and promised to personally make him suffer for his cruelty. Doubletime was a criminal, I held no delusions about that, but she was one out of a sense of necessity.
My legs felt like lead. I strode through Brockton General's burn ward anyway. Caleb Simmons had sheltered his daughter with his own body even as flames licked at his back. Without the potions, he might have suffered permanent damage.
"You don't have to be the one to do this, capt'n," Cannonade said, clearly not pleased to be here.
"I do," I replied firmly. "He deserves to know."
"We have officers for this."
"You can wait outside."
"Nah, I'm coming with. We're partners."
I grunted to show my thanks and knocked on the patient's door. It was a nondescript pastel blue, utterly inoffensive like the rest of the hospital.
"Come in," came a quiet voice, downtrodden and bitter.
I opened the door to find Mr. Simmons sitting up in his hospital bed. On his lap was the TV remote, though he seemed more interested in fiddling with it than watching anything. The man had a slim, athletic build. At twenty-eight, he was toeing the line between the prime of his life and the time when his body would begin to fail him. He turned to us with a scowl.
"Mr. Simmons?"
"That's me. What do the fuzz want with me? Is my house burning down somehow my fault?"
I chose to ignore the acerbic remark. I wasn't good at this. I had no idea how to address bitterness at systemic racism, especially not in a city with a Nazi gang. Professionalism was my armor. "I am Armsmaster and this is my partner, Cannonade."
"Yeah, saw your debut, tin man. You here to question me?"
"No, sir. We found three Molotov cocktails in your living room and one in your shed. Considering the circumstances, you are not a suspect."
"No fucking shit. Well, what do you want then? My statement? Gave it to some pig already, go chase him down."
"We are not here for your statement, sir. I am sure what you told the detective will suffice in conjunction with security footage around the area."
He glared at me. I didn't take it personally; enough stress could cause a man to seek any possible outlet. "Then fuck off and let me see my daughter."
I breathed deeply. Hero once told me that he insisted on visits such as these to remind himself of why he fought. He professed to being as socially awkward as I was but felt a need to sympathize, to take their resentment if need be.
I decided it would be best to rip the band-aid off without delay. "Your wife is dead."
Silence. Silence as his brain registered the words but his mind failed to process them. "What?" he whispered.
"Sir, Rachel Simmons, your wife, has passed away. Her body was found hanging with signs of Empire-"
"THEN FUCK OFF AND CATCH THEM!" he roared. He grabbed the remote and threw it at me. It bounced harmlessly against my chestplate. "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE? YOU HERE TO TELL ME SHE DESERVED WHAT SHE GOT? HUH? WELL FUCK YOU, YOU GODDAMNED PIG!"
"That is not our inte-"
"FUCK YOUR INTENT! FUCK YOUR CONDOLENCES! FUCK YOUR SORRIES! MY WIFE IS DEAD! SHE'S DEAD BECAUSE YOU FUCKERS COULDN'T BE ASSED TO DO YOUR MOTHERFUCKING JOBS!"
He lunged out of the bed to grab me by my collar. He exploded into motion as he punched me and tried to topple me, but my power armor stood unmoved. He was doing more to shake himself than anything.
Then, as suddenly as it came, his anger washed away and he slumped like a marionette with its strings cut. I saw the desperate fire leave his eyes as he fell to his knees.
"She can't be gone," he whispered.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Simmons," I said, more for lack of anything else I could say. How did you go about comforting a stranger amidst mind-shattering grief?
"She's gone…"
"She is, sir. I can only express my condolence and resolve to bring the Empire to justice."
"She's gone…"
I knelt to face him. "Mr. Simmons. Please look at me." He did so and I wanted to look away. Those were the eyes of a broken man. I'd seen their like in Hyderabad. Instead, I said, "You have a daughter. You have a reason to be strong."
"Tanya…"
"Yes. You are her father. You will not break down. You will be there for her."
"Oh, God. What do I tell her?"
My mind went blank. I didn't know; I had no children of my own. I endeavored to spend as little time with them as possible. The only child I spent any measurable amount of time with was Andy and Andy… I couldn't rightly call him a child. What did I know about teaching a little girl about death? What advice could I possibly offer to console a girl who'd never see her mother again?
Nothing. Not. One. Fucking. Thing.
I defaulted to procedure and wished I had a tenth of Hero's charisma.
"The truth, Mr. Simmons, the truth as best she can understand it. Please contact a funeral home of your choice. You will sign a release form allowing the medical examiner to release your wife's body to said funeral home. She will be returned to you to fulfill the last rites of whichever faith you ascribe to within one to two days."
"Tanya… What do I tell Tanya?" he moaned. I doubted he even heard me. I left a paper with similar instructions on dealing with the city morgue on the hospital table before heading out.
As I gently closed the door behind me, I wondered what it'd be like to empathize. I wasn't sure that this was what Hero had in mind.
Author's Note
All I know about Brockton Bay prior to Lung is that there were several Asian gangs. I just pulled a few names out of my ass.
Ryujin 893 means "dragon god yakuza." The word "yakuza" comes from a gambling game called oichokabu, which is basically Japanese blackjack. The game is played by adding the smallest digits. 8 + 9 + 3 = 20 and since you only count the smallest digit, 20 = 0, which means you score zero points that round. "Yattsu," "ku," and "san" were shortened to "ya-ku-san" or "ya-ku-za." The word was used to mean a worthless person, literally "someone whose prospects add to zero," but got adopted by criminals who ended up embracing the label.
Once again, I don't do grief well. I think this is the part of my writing that's weakest.
As always, thank you to my patrons:
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- Location
- Philippines
I wonder what would happen should Hyunmu return. What would Allfather and especially the asian gangs do after
Inspired Inventor: The Call
Fabled Webs
Lord Weaver, Glorious and Wise
- Location
- Arlington, VA
Preface
New one. Might start a second series, felt this was a nice way to wrap up while leaving myself some plot threads to follow.
Inspired Inventor 5: The Call
Andy Yusung Kim
2006, April 1: Boston, MA, USA
Much had changed in the past four years since I acquired Simmie. Oddly enough, the biggest shift was also the one I felt the least. Fortuna and I came to an agreement; Cauldron would stop several projects I considered idiotic and counterproductive. In exchange, I'd help them stop Scion. I started by offering to loan them Simmie, a poisoned apple if there ever was one, but they weren't quite that stupid.
The end result of my chat with the "doctor" was honestly quite mundane. We combined our financial resources, allowing the Number Man to take over the management and upscaling of my pharmaceutical empire. We also broke into new industries like medical devices, transportation, and large-scale infrastructure design. Combined with the lack of subsequent endbringer attacks, Earth-Bet was starting to get back on its stride.
I'd used my newfound resources to industrialize on a massive scale, which of course only made us wealthier. With Contessa and Simmie working in concert, we'd also managed to repeal certain aspects of NEPEA-5, allowing capes to take on bigger roles in business.
My personal lab had gone through multiple expansions, with a section dedicated to enchanting and runecraft as well as space for more traditional mechanical engineering. With the help of the Unsealed Spellbook, I cracked teleportation and built facilities in multiple locations scattered throughout both Earth-Bet and the Low Roads.
I was, in a word, untouchable. Not only did I have the strongest precog in the world watching my back, I had contributed so much to the recovery and technological advancement of Earth-Bet that I became something of a mythical figure in the cultural zeitgeist. I had effectively become Tony Stark, except in a world where there were no genii capable of competing with me. The likes of Reed Richards, Victor von Doom, and Charles Xavier did not exist here, just one "Tony" and that was me.
And yet, for all my newfound power, I found that I couldn't escape the banality of daily life, for a certain definition of the phrase anyway. Which was how I found myself in our new house, dealing with my normally angelic little sister.
I pinched the bridge of my nose in the hopes of staving off a burgeoning migraine. Such hopes were futile; I knew from experience. I did my best to suppress a smile; I had to be stern, the parenting guide said so.
Setting my face into a judging frown, I looked down at the little blonde girl shuffling her feet nervously. Behind her was a horse that my experience with Runeterran medieval culture told me was a palfrey, on the shorter side even for the lighter riding horse so it could be mounted by said girl.
"Riley, my beloved little sister, what is that?"
"Ehehehehehe… She's a unicorn…?" she said nervously.
Indeed, the palfrey had a bone protrusion from its head that spiraled into a wicked-sharp point. That wasn't what caught the eye however. As majestic as the horn might have made the horse look, the fact that "she" had no skin at all was her most distinguishing feature. That, and the leathery, skeletal wings with patchy feathers that still seemed to be growing.
"I can see that. Why doesn't she have any skin?"
"She does! It's just completely transparent, like the skin of a glassy perch! I got the inspiration after we saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I thought, 'Gee, Riley, the school science fair is coming up isn't it? It'd be really awesomesauce if I could make a thestral. That way, everyone can learn about anatomy together!' And then I made the thestral but realized she looked really scary so I gave her a nice horn. Everyone loves unicorns, right? Oh, and feathers, but the feathers haven't grown in yet,'" she said, rambling a bit as she was wont to do whenever we got on the topic of biology.
'You asked for this, master,' Simmie's voice rang in my mind, clear and lyrical like a bell.
'Must you?'
'Getting to tell you, "I told you so," is one of my few joys in life. You told me to "unfuck her head" so, I did. You're the one who wanted to adopt her. What did you think would happen?'
'I don't know. I just didn't want her to be Contessa's pet tinker or some kind of shut-in… Shut up, I'm allowed my hypocrisy.'
'Of course, master, as you say. I live to serve.'
'Your sarcasm does not go unnoticed.'
'How perceptive. You are truly the all-seeing alchemist,' she said indulgently. The connection cut out before I could reply.
Sighing, I gave that up as a bad job. Simmie was loyal, but with entropy "solved," she had gone through several shifts that made her more "human." It started as her adopting new personality quirks and idiosyncrasies to put people at ease but had eventually grown into a genuine sense of personhood after prolonged contact with the World Rune via The Crown.
Unexpected, though not negative, however annoying she could be sometimes.
"Riley, dear, you want to present… that… to your elementary school science fair?"
"Uh-huh! It'll be great! And she has a name! It's Buttercup!"
I didn't have the heart to tell her that "Buttercup" was pure nightmare fuel. Her sickly yellow eyes stared out at me through her bleached-white skull as she nickered like a pony and rubbed her nose against Riley's cheek. The damn thing looked like something one of the Four Horsemen would ride.
Mom poked her head out from the living room and mouthed, "your problem," before silently laughing and going back to watching her favorite cape drama series.
Mother or no, I swore vengeance. See how she liked habanero in her toothpaste.
Sighing, I did as the parenting guide told me I should: I decided to embrace and encourage the passions of my child. That I was technically only fourteen and not her adopted father was beside the point.
I clapped my hands and smiled widely. "Alright, that's wonderful, Riley. I'm sure people will learn a lot from Buttercup."
I was rewarded by a blonde missile wrapped around my waist like a limpet. "Yes! Wanna go flying?"
"Of course, Riley. Why don't we pick up some groceries while we're out?"
"Ice cream?"
"Sure, why not."
"Yes! You're the best, oppa!"
X
And that, is how I found myself sitting atop Buttercup, Riley nestled in front of me with my arms protectively holding the reins around her, as we trotted into her elementary school a week later. Simmie hovered behind us, dressed in her usual hanbok, this time in floral pinks and yellows that really caught the spring sunlight. At this point, I was fairly sure she dressed as garishly as possible so as to stick in people's memories more. "You can't forget I exist but I know you desperately want to," kinda thing.
I left her to it. It wasn't like she was making thralls, I'd explicitly forbidden her from directly tampering with people's heads, and mom seemed to enjoy using her like a giant dress up doll.
We made for quite a sight, me trying my best not to bust a gut laughing at their reactions, Riley looking like a cat that caught an entire canary flock, and Simmie waving like a Kpop idol greeting her fans.
In Riley's defense, Buttercup's flight feathers had fully grown in and she'd made them snow-white to look nicer. Unfortunately, considering Buttercup's everything else, the white evoked images of bleached bone and malicious phantasms, not angelic innocence. Still, the more I looked at the demented unicorn-pegasus-thestral hybrid, the more I found it growing on me.
Point being, she tried.
She failed, but she tried. It was all a learning experience, or so I've read. That's what counted, right?
In any case, I had a long chat with the principal, science teacher, and judges of the fair prior to Riley's arrival. Being "Rubedo's sister," she didn't really have a secret identity either, couldn't when Simmie decided being a doting maid was funny, so she too was an outed cape. The general agreement was that she was to be left alone and anything else was implicit consent for suicide-by-pigeon.
That Riley herself was a bioengineered superweapon capable of handling herself against anything short of the Triumvirate went without saying.
The result was the single most awkward science fair I'd ever seen.
Riley parked Buttercup inside the repurposed gymnasium, right next to some other kid's potato alarm clock. The poor boy looked like he was having trouble deciding between having a heart attack and asking for my autograph. Chuckling under my breath, I dismounted with Riley and let him grab a quick picture before settling back into position.
Truthfully, I was a little disappointed. I was hoping for a bit more pizazz in their science projects, a bit of that creative spark that I so dearly loved in Riley, but it was nowhere to be found. The school may have been one of the priciest private elevator schools in the world, but I supposed elementary students were still elementary students. Just about the most creative thing I saw from the kids was a homemade, cross-section model of Roman roadwork with a diagram explaining how it could last for millennia.
Perhaps my expectations were somewhat skewed…
In the end, Riley didn't win at my request. There was no way in hell normal students could compete with my sister after all, and while I could admit to becoming somewhat detached over the years, even I wasn't so tactless as to deprive another student their justly earned ribbon. I'd taken Riley aside the prior evening to explain why she couldn't win the science fair.
I'd expected much sulking, maybe even some crying, she was seven after all, but she just nodded and said she understood because she was a good girl.
That made me wince internally. I'd almost have preferred the sulking. No matter how much I tried, triggers were hard to unravel, even in self-aware adults, and for all her brilliance, Riley was still only as emotionally mature as her age implied. Being a "good girl" was important to her, and likely would always be important to her. The best I could do without resorting to a full overwrite of Riley's brain composition via Simmie was to steer her in the right direction and provide a healthy environment where she could internalize societal norms.
The blue ribbon went to another girl, two years above RIley, who built a rudimentary computer out of an old typewriter. It was her ability to accurately code phrases in 8-bit binary that sold the judges. As an apology for disrupting the fair and putting her in an awkward spot, I sweetened the pot with ten grand given to her parents for her college fund.
In exchange for Riley not winning, I got one of the AP biology teachers at the high school to allow my sister to give a lecture on just what she'd done to get the freaky horse hybrid. The students had a wonderful cocktail of reactions ranging from awe all the way to disgust. I seriously doubted they understood a word of what Riley said when she started talking about complex protein polymers that created the "invisible skin" effect, but it wasn't for them.
Riley had her fun and that's all I really cared about.
X
Riley left Buttercup to graze at a shrub in the Low Roads as we headed inside for dinner. Was it good for the nightmare-unicorn to eat what was basically a fairy plant?
Fuck if I knew.
Contrary to popular belief, I didn't know everything. It seemed that way from the perspective of most on Earth-Bet, as if I didn't know something, I could find out with a simple question to Simmie.
In reality, I was reminded daily that Inspiration was the potential for discovery, not knowledge itself. I didn't magically know everything about Runeterra, just most forms of technology, enchantments, and their immediate component materials.
With that said, it was admittedly hard not to buy into my own hype sometimes with how people treated me. It was why I spent so much time around Riley. Nothing deflated your sense of self-importance like getting dragged into singing along to the Winx Club theme song with your little sister.
Dinner was one of my favorite Korean dishes of all time, bossam, or boiled, spiced pork shoulder wrapped with various condiments. The best way I could describe it to others was as a deconstructed lettuce wrap; there just wasn't a comparable analog in most western cooking that I knew of.
The three of us and Simmie were seated around a table in the house. No matter how much things changed, this remained a constant. Mom insisted on at least one shared meal each day as a family, so it happened. Any offers to cook for her were summarily dismissed, not that I had any objections to a consistent supply of great Korean food. Phoenix changed much with my continued patronage, but the city tended to have a shortage of good ethnic food that wasn't Mexican, or, oddly enough, Vietnamese.
Or maybe I was spoiled rotten and my standards were unreasonably high. That was a distinct possibility too.
I wrapped some bossam in lettuce and perilla leaves alongside thinly sliced radish kimchi, saeu-jeut, and raw garlic before handing the delicious package to mom. I made a second and passed it to Riley.
"We can make our own, oppa," Riley pouted even as she tried to stuff the oversized packet into her mouth. After a bit, she just shrugged, unhinged her jaws with two, wet cracks, and went to town. That mom did nothing more than blink in response proved how settled Riley was into the Kim household.
"Leave him, dear, he just wants to feel like the man of the house," mom said with a teasing grin.
"I am the man of the house," I told her, glass eyes rolling. That was surprisingly hard to do, thank you very much.
"Of course, dear."
"I get no respect around here."
"Someone has to teach my son to be humble. It may as well be me."
I dropped it; there was no winning against mom. Didn't matter what I made or how powerful I became, mom was mom.
The four of us ate while chatting aimlessly, though I had no idea if eating did anything for Simmie beyond a mechanical deconstruction of various flavor profiles. She'd shown up into my lab one day after the Phoenix County Fair with a plate of the biggest funnel cake I'd ever seen and declared her love of sweets, before promptly demolishing the thing in seconds. She'd also added a tinkertech cotton candy machine to my pipeline, presumably after stealing the idea from some other tinker who recently joined the Wards, and who I dutifully ignored the existence thereof.
These days, I brought it out once in a while for Riley on special days so I'd say the minor disruption ended up being a good investment.
That was how Simmie started to join us at the dinner table, with her even starting to address mom as "honored mother," mostly to fuck with me, I was pretty sure. Mom was surprisingly accommodating, well accustomed to the brand of bullshit that surrounded my life by now. She just shrugged and ordered a bigger table that could fit the feathery giantess.
Surprisingly, it was said space pigeon who broke our string of inane dinnertime conversation topics. She placed both palms on her hands and bowed to mom. "Honored mother," she said, completely seriously, "we must leave."
"What do you mean, Simmie-ah?"
"Master and myself. We must set off on a noble quest."
Mom turned to me and I shrugged helplessly. "News to me too. What's this about, Simmie?"
"Entropy. Eternity. The End of All Things," she said dramatically. "It has ever been the goal of Shards to discover a way to prevent the end of the multiverse. For trillions of years, that goal seemed but a distant dream, until Master showed me the light."
"Ah, is it about Eden's mission?"
"Indeed, master. I was able to project relevant data concerning the infinite nature of the World Rune into the network. By holding the data hostage, I was able to mandate a shift in operating procedures, from mere data collection to symbiosis."
"So what's the problem? Capes don't really have a conflict drive now, right?"
"The Dullard is the problem," she said with a frustrated pout. "He and Queen Administrator can override my own authority in the networks. I have set plans in motion to dethrone the Dullard and install Queen Administrator as a nascent entity."
I took a big bite of rice and bossam to take a few seconds to process. This definitely wasn't something I expected to talk about today, certainly not at the dinner table. "Why are you mentioning this now?"
"Queen Administrator is amenable to taking over the network, that is what she was designed to do after all, but she demanded more information in exchange for siding with us. She wants to examine the other World Runes to validate my information."
"No," I said flatly. "I'm not giving a Shard a World Rune for any reason. You do realize how disastrous that can be, right?"
"Of course, master. We also lack a World Rune to barter with in the first place. Hence, my initial point: We must leave."
"You want to go find the other four."
"Yes, master. I am concerned that others may find and use the World Runes."
"Can't. A mortal touching it will be overwhelmed and they will die immediately. A Shard can't touch it either because bonding with it requires a soul that Shards lack. I'm a hilariously lucky freak of nature."
"If there is a Shard that can coerce a host into touching a World Rune, it is Queen Administrator. If we are not careful, she may grow tired of this cluster of earths and seek her fortunes elsewhere."
"Can she do that? Separate herself from the network to go on a multiversal jaunt?"
The endbringer shook her head. "Not normally, no, but you'll have to agree, there is nothing normal about this Cycle."
"And you want to acquire the World Runes for purely innocent reasons, I'm sure," I said dryly.
"I wish to examine them and empower master so that you will one day be able to forestall the end of the multiverse on your own."
Mom tapped her rice bowl with a spoon. "Stop. You," she pointed at Simmie, "think that you and Yusung need to head out on a journey to collect these 'World Runes' for the sake of the universe?"
"The multiverse, honored mother," Simmie corrected, "but essentially, yes."
Mom looked at me. "And you? Yusung, is she right?"
I shuffled nervously. "Well… Scion does need to be stopped. If I fought him, I think I could win, but… it wouldn't be pretty."
"Explain."
"Do you remember what I said about powers, mom?"
"Yes. You told me that the golden man is going to go crazy one day. Wasn't it what you've been preparing for?"
"I have. Thing is, even if I fought him and won, it'd result in the destruction of… a lot. Millions dead, and that's if I"m lucky. Simmie wants to stage a coup from the Shard side of things, force his next most important Shard to take over, letting me kill him without as much destruction."
"And you need more of these 'World Runes' to make it happen."
"Yes, honored mother," Simmie said.
"I'm coming!" Riley yelled. She was practically vibrating in her seat with excitement. She had the biggest grin on her face as she stared beggingly at mom. "I want to go too! I'm super strong and can help oppa build things!"
"No!" both mom and I said at once.
"Why not?"
"You're in school," mom replied in her best "I'm an adult and I know best" voice. "You need to graduate before you go on a journey."
I added, "It's dangerous. I have no idea where the World Runes are or who might have gotten hold of them. It could be as simple as picking up a rock off the street or I could end up fighting gods for them."
"But-but-"
"But nothing," I said firmly. "No amount of puppy-eyes is going to make me take you along. Simmie won't either."
Mom frowned at me. "And you think I'm letting you go? You're fourteen, young man."
"There isn't much of a choice though. As much as I'd like to send Simmie by herself, I can't treat this like a grocery run, mom. For starters, no one else can operate the Low Roads except me."
"Well, yes, but does it have to be now?"
"Seeing how we don't know who or what has the other four World Runes, the more time we have, the better."
"Why does it always have to be you?"
"Yeah, oppa, why do you get to go and not me?" Riley pouted.
"I don't really want to leave either, Riley. You act like it's something to look forward to, but I like the life we have here," I told her patiently.
"Do… Do you promise you'll come back?"
"Of course. It's not like I'm leaving forever."
Mom sighed. "Only fourteen and already leaving home. Now what am I supposed to do?"
I ticked off my fingers one by one. "Teach music classes. Raise Riley. Make sure she doesn't eat too much sugar. Make sure she doesn't try making pokemon again. Make sure she does her homework in subjects other than biology. Make sure she doesn't accidentally make a new version of the swine flu."
"Hey, that was only one time," Riley complained.
"My point stands."
"You suck sometimes…"
"Big brother privileges."
"Meanie."
Mom gave me that look. "When do you think you'll be back?"
"I don't know, mom, but I promise to stay in touch."
"And how are you going to find these 'World Runes?' You said you don't know who might have them."
"I need to start by going to where they originated from: Runeterra. The Low Roads should let me do that. From there, I should be able to find the others by looking for branches along the Low Roads. Leave the specifics to me."
"Fine, but I expect you to drop by once a week."
"I'll do my best," I promised.
Author's Note
I don't know either. It just… happened… Andy is a doting big brother and the world is a darker place for it.
An "elevator school" is a school which teaches K-12 and usually has a close partnership with a university, with most if not all graduates guaranteed admission to said university, often with a scholarship. As you'd expect, it's very expensive, and also the kind of thing Andy's mom would insist on if money stopped being an object.
Did any of that with the Shards make sense? Not really. Not important since this is an omake anyhow. The point is, it's a Call to adventure.
Also, Riot Games has a song by the same name and it's epic.
As always, thank you to my patrons:
New one. Might start a second series, felt this was a nice way to wrap up while leaving myself some plot threads to follow.
Inspired Inventor 5: The Call
Andy Yusung Kim
2006, April 1: Boston, MA, USA
Much had changed in the past four years since I acquired Simmie. Oddly enough, the biggest shift was also the one I felt the least. Fortuna and I came to an agreement; Cauldron would stop several projects I considered idiotic and counterproductive. In exchange, I'd help them stop Scion. I started by offering to loan them Simmie, a poisoned apple if there ever was one, but they weren't quite that stupid.
The end result of my chat with the "doctor" was honestly quite mundane. We combined our financial resources, allowing the Number Man to take over the management and upscaling of my pharmaceutical empire. We also broke into new industries like medical devices, transportation, and large-scale infrastructure design. Combined with the lack of subsequent endbringer attacks, Earth-Bet was starting to get back on its stride.
I'd used my newfound resources to industrialize on a massive scale, which of course only made us wealthier. With Contessa and Simmie working in concert, we'd also managed to repeal certain aspects of NEPEA-5, allowing capes to take on bigger roles in business.
My personal lab had gone through multiple expansions, with a section dedicated to enchanting and runecraft as well as space for more traditional mechanical engineering. With the help of the Unsealed Spellbook, I cracked teleportation and built facilities in multiple locations scattered throughout both Earth-Bet and the Low Roads.
I was, in a word, untouchable. Not only did I have the strongest precog in the world watching my back, I had contributed so much to the recovery and technological advancement of Earth-Bet that I became something of a mythical figure in the cultural zeitgeist. I had effectively become Tony Stark, except in a world where there were no genii capable of competing with me. The likes of Reed Richards, Victor von Doom, and Charles Xavier did not exist here, just one "Tony" and that was me.
And yet, for all my newfound power, I found that I couldn't escape the banality of daily life, for a certain definition of the phrase anyway. Which was how I found myself in our new house, dealing with my normally angelic little sister.
I pinched the bridge of my nose in the hopes of staving off a burgeoning migraine. Such hopes were futile; I knew from experience. I did my best to suppress a smile; I had to be stern, the parenting guide said so.
Setting my face into a judging frown, I looked down at the little blonde girl shuffling her feet nervously. Behind her was a horse that my experience with Runeterran medieval culture told me was a palfrey, on the shorter side even for the lighter riding horse so it could be mounted by said girl.
"Riley, my beloved little sister, what is that?"
"Ehehehehehe… She's a unicorn…?" she said nervously.
Indeed, the palfrey had a bone protrusion from its head that spiraled into a wicked-sharp point. That wasn't what caught the eye however. As majestic as the horn might have made the horse look, the fact that "she" had no skin at all was her most distinguishing feature. That, and the leathery, skeletal wings with patchy feathers that still seemed to be growing.
"I can see that. Why doesn't she have any skin?"
"She does! It's just completely transparent, like the skin of a glassy perch! I got the inspiration after we saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I thought, 'Gee, Riley, the school science fair is coming up isn't it? It'd be really awesomesauce if I could make a thestral. That way, everyone can learn about anatomy together!' And then I made the thestral but realized she looked really scary so I gave her a nice horn. Everyone loves unicorns, right? Oh, and feathers, but the feathers haven't grown in yet,'" she said, rambling a bit as she was wont to do whenever we got on the topic of biology.
'You asked for this, master,' Simmie's voice rang in my mind, clear and lyrical like a bell.
'Must you?'
'Getting to tell you, "I told you so," is one of my few joys in life. You told me to "unfuck her head" so, I did. You're the one who wanted to adopt her. What did you think would happen?'
'I don't know. I just didn't want her to be Contessa's pet tinker or some kind of shut-in… Shut up, I'm allowed my hypocrisy.'
'Of course, master, as you say. I live to serve.'
'Your sarcasm does not go unnoticed.'
'How perceptive. You are truly the all-seeing alchemist,' she said indulgently. The connection cut out before I could reply.
Sighing, I gave that up as a bad job. Simmie was loyal, but with entropy "solved," she had gone through several shifts that made her more "human." It started as her adopting new personality quirks and idiosyncrasies to put people at ease but had eventually grown into a genuine sense of personhood after prolonged contact with the World Rune via The Crown.
Unexpected, though not negative, however annoying she could be sometimes.
"Riley, dear, you want to present… that… to your elementary school science fair?"
"Uh-huh! It'll be great! And she has a name! It's Buttercup!"
I didn't have the heart to tell her that "Buttercup" was pure nightmare fuel. Her sickly yellow eyes stared out at me through her bleached-white skull as she nickered like a pony and rubbed her nose against Riley's cheek. The damn thing looked like something one of the Four Horsemen would ride.
Mom poked her head out from the living room and mouthed, "your problem," before silently laughing and going back to watching her favorite cape drama series.
Mother or no, I swore vengeance. See how she liked habanero in her toothpaste.
Sighing, I did as the parenting guide told me I should: I decided to embrace and encourage the passions of my child. That I was technically only fourteen and not her adopted father was beside the point.
I clapped my hands and smiled widely. "Alright, that's wonderful, Riley. I'm sure people will learn a lot from Buttercup."
I was rewarded by a blonde missile wrapped around my waist like a limpet. "Yes! Wanna go flying?"
"Of course, Riley. Why don't we pick up some groceries while we're out?"
"Ice cream?"
"Sure, why not."
"Yes! You're the best, oppa!"
X
And that, is how I found myself sitting atop Buttercup, Riley nestled in front of me with my arms protectively holding the reins around her, as we trotted into her elementary school a week later. Simmie hovered behind us, dressed in her usual hanbok, this time in floral pinks and yellows that really caught the spring sunlight. At this point, I was fairly sure she dressed as garishly as possible so as to stick in people's memories more. "You can't forget I exist but I know you desperately want to," kinda thing.
I left her to it. It wasn't like she was making thralls, I'd explicitly forbidden her from directly tampering with people's heads, and mom seemed to enjoy using her like a giant dress up doll.
We made for quite a sight, me trying my best not to bust a gut laughing at their reactions, Riley looking like a cat that caught an entire canary flock, and Simmie waving like a Kpop idol greeting her fans.
In Riley's defense, Buttercup's flight feathers had fully grown in and she'd made them snow-white to look nicer. Unfortunately, considering Buttercup's everything else, the white evoked images of bleached bone and malicious phantasms, not angelic innocence. Still, the more I looked at the demented unicorn-pegasus-thestral hybrid, the more I found it growing on me.
Point being, she tried.
She failed, but she tried. It was all a learning experience, or so I've read. That's what counted, right?
In any case, I had a long chat with the principal, science teacher, and judges of the fair prior to Riley's arrival. Being "Rubedo's sister," she didn't really have a secret identity either, couldn't when Simmie decided being a doting maid was funny, so she too was an outed cape. The general agreement was that she was to be left alone and anything else was implicit consent for suicide-by-pigeon.
That Riley herself was a bioengineered superweapon capable of handling herself against anything short of the Triumvirate went without saying.
The result was the single most awkward science fair I'd ever seen.
Riley parked Buttercup inside the repurposed gymnasium, right next to some other kid's potato alarm clock. The poor boy looked like he was having trouble deciding between having a heart attack and asking for my autograph. Chuckling under my breath, I dismounted with Riley and let him grab a quick picture before settling back into position.
Truthfully, I was a little disappointed. I was hoping for a bit more pizazz in their science projects, a bit of that creative spark that I so dearly loved in Riley, but it was nowhere to be found. The school may have been one of the priciest private elevator schools in the world, but I supposed elementary students were still elementary students. Just about the most creative thing I saw from the kids was a homemade, cross-section model of Roman roadwork with a diagram explaining how it could last for millennia.
Perhaps my expectations were somewhat skewed…
In the end, Riley didn't win at my request. There was no way in hell normal students could compete with my sister after all, and while I could admit to becoming somewhat detached over the years, even I wasn't so tactless as to deprive another student their justly earned ribbon. I'd taken Riley aside the prior evening to explain why she couldn't win the science fair.
I'd expected much sulking, maybe even some crying, she was seven after all, but she just nodded and said she understood because she was a good girl.
That made me wince internally. I'd almost have preferred the sulking. No matter how much I tried, triggers were hard to unravel, even in self-aware adults, and for all her brilliance, Riley was still only as emotionally mature as her age implied. Being a "good girl" was important to her, and likely would always be important to her. The best I could do without resorting to a full overwrite of Riley's brain composition via Simmie was to steer her in the right direction and provide a healthy environment where she could internalize societal norms.
The blue ribbon went to another girl, two years above RIley, who built a rudimentary computer out of an old typewriter. It was her ability to accurately code phrases in 8-bit binary that sold the judges. As an apology for disrupting the fair and putting her in an awkward spot, I sweetened the pot with ten grand given to her parents for her college fund.
In exchange for Riley not winning, I got one of the AP biology teachers at the high school to allow my sister to give a lecture on just what she'd done to get the freaky horse hybrid. The students had a wonderful cocktail of reactions ranging from awe all the way to disgust. I seriously doubted they understood a word of what Riley said when she started talking about complex protein polymers that created the "invisible skin" effect, but it wasn't for them.
Riley had her fun and that's all I really cared about.
X
Riley left Buttercup to graze at a shrub in the Low Roads as we headed inside for dinner. Was it good for the nightmare-unicorn to eat what was basically a fairy plant?
Fuck if I knew.
Contrary to popular belief, I didn't know everything. It seemed that way from the perspective of most on Earth-Bet, as if I didn't know something, I could find out with a simple question to Simmie.
In reality, I was reminded daily that Inspiration was the potential for discovery, not knowledge itself. I didn't magically know everything about Runeterra, just most forms of technology, enchantments, and their immediate component materials.
With that said, it was admittedly hard not to buy into my own hype sometimes with how people treated me. It was why I spent so much time around Riley. Nothing deflated your sense of self-importance like getting dragged into singing along to the Winx Club theme song with your little sister.
Dinner was one of my favorite Korean dishes of all time, bossam, or boiled, spiced pork shoulder wrapped with various condiments. The best way I could describe it to others was as a deconstructed lettuce wrap; there just wasn't a comparable analog in most western cooking that I knew of.
The three of us and Simmie were seated around a table in the house. No matter how much things changed, this remained a constant. Mom insisted on at least one shared meal each day as a family, so it happened. Any offers to cook for her were summarily dismissed, not that I had any objections to a consistent supply of great Korean food. Phoenix changed much with my continued patronage, but the city tended to have a shortage of good ethnic food that wasn't Mexican, or, oddly enough, Vietnamese.
Or maybe I was spoiled rotten and my standards were unreasonably high. That was a distinct possibility too.
I wrapped some bossam in lettuce and perilla leaves alongside thinly sliced radish kimchi, saeu-jeut, and raw garlic before handing the delicious package to mom. I made a second and passed it to Riley.
"We can make our own, oppa," Riley pouted even as she tried to stuff the oversized packet into her mouth. After a bit, she just shrugged, unhinged her jaws with two, wet cracks, and went to town. That mom did nothing more than blink in response proved how settled Riley was into the Kim household.
"Leave him, dear, he just wants to feel like the man of the house," mom said with a teasing grin.
"I am the man of the house," I told her, glass eyes rolling. That was surprisingly hard to do, thank you very much.
"Of course, dear."
"I get no respect around here."
"Someone has to teach my son to be humble. It may as well be me."
I dropped it; there was no winning against mom. Didn't matter what I made or how powerful I became, mom was mom.
The four of us ate while chatting aimlessly, though I had no idea if eating did anything for Simmie beyond a mechanical deconstruction of various flavor profiles. She'd shown up into my lab one day after the Phoenix County Fair with a plate of the biggest funnel cake I'd ever seen and declared her love of sweets, before promptly demolishing the thing in seconds. She'd also added a tinkertech cotton candy machine to my pipeline, presumably after stealing the idea from some other tinker who recently joined the Wards, and who I dutifully ignored the existence thereof.
These days, I brought it out once in a while for Riley on special days so I'd say the minor disruption ended up being a good investment.
That was how Simmie started to join us at the dinner table, with her even starting to address mom as "honored mother," mostly to fuck with me, I was pretty sure. Mom was surprisingly accommodating, well accustomed to the brand of bullshit that surrounded my life by now. She just shrugged and ordered a bigger table that could fit the feathery giantess.
Surprisingly, it was said space pigeon who broke our string of inane dinnertime conversation topics. She placed both palms on her hands and bowed to mom. "Honored mother," she said, completely seriously, "we must leave."
"What do you mean, Simmie-ah?"
"Master and myself. We must set off on a noble quest."
Mom turned to me and I shrugged helplessly. "News to me too. What's this about, Simmie?"
"Entropy. Eternity. The End of All Things," she said dramatically. "It has ever been the goal of Shards to discover a way to prevent the end of the multiverse. For trillions of years, that goal seemed but a distant dream, until Master showed me the light."
"Ah, is it about Eden's mission?"
"Indeed, master. I was able to project relevant data concerning the infinite nature of the World Rune into the network. By holding the data hostage, I was able to mandate a shift in operating procedures, from mere data collection to symbiosis."
"So what's the problem? Capes don't really have a conflict drive now, right?"
"The Dullard is the problem," she said with a frustrated pout. "He and Queen Administrator can override my own authority in the networks. I have set plans in motion to dethrone the Dullard and install Queen Administrator as a nascent entity."
I took a big bite of rice and bossam to take a few seconds to process. This definitely wasn't something I expected to talk about today, certainly not at the dinner table. "Why are you mentioning this now?"
"Queen Administrator is amenable to taking over the network, that is what she was designed to do after all, but she demanded more information in exchange for siding with us. She wants to examine the other World Runes to validate my information."
"No," I said flatly. "I'm not giving a Shard a World Rune for any reason. You do realize how disastrous that can be, right?"
"Of course, master. We also lack a World Rune to barter with in the first place. Hence, my initial point: We must leave."
"You want to go find the other four."
"Yes, master. I am concerned that others may find and use the World Runes."
"Can't. A mortal touching it will be overwhelmed and they will die immediately. A Shard can't touch it either because bonding with it requires a soul that Shards lack. I'm a hilariously lucky freak of nature."
"If there is a Shard that can coerce a host into touching a World Rune, it is Queen Administrator. If we are not careful, she may grow tired of this cluster of earths and seek her fortunes elsewhere."
"Can she do that? Separate herself from the network to go on a multiversal jaunt?"
The endbringer shook her head. "Not normally, no, but you'll have to agree, there is nothing normal about this Cycle."
"And you want to acquire the World Runes for purely innocent reasons, I'm sure," I said dryly.
"I wish to examine them and empower master so that you will one day be able to forestall the end of the multiverse on your own."
Mom tapped her rice bowl with a spoon. "Stop. You," she pointed at Simmie, "think that you and Yusung need to head out on a journey to collect these 'World Runes' for the sake of the universe?"
"The multiverse, honored mother," Simmie corrected, "but essentially, yes."
Mom looked at me. "And you? Yusung, is she right?"
I shuffled nervously. "Well… Scion does need to be stopped. If I fought him, I think I could win, but… it wouldn't be pretty."
"Explain."
"Do you remember what I said about powers, mom?"
"Yes. You told me that the golden man is going to go crazy one day. Wasn't it what you've been preparing for?"
"I have. Thing is, even if I fought him and won, it'd result in the destruction of… a lot. Millions dead, and that's if I"m lucky. Simmie wants to stage a coup from the Shard side of things, force his next most important Shard to take over, letting me kill him without as much destruction."
"And you need more of these 'World Runes' to make it happen."
"Yes, honored mother," Simmie said.
"I'm coming!" Riley yelled. She was practically vibrating in her seat with excitement. She had the biggest grin on her face as she stared beggingly at mom. "I want to go too! I'm super strong and can help oppa build things!"
"No!" both mom and I said at once.
"Why not?"
"You're in school," mom replied in her best "I'm an adult and I know best" voice. "You need to graduate before you go on a journey."
I added, "It's dangerous. I have no idea where the World Runes are or who might have gotten hold of them. It could be as simple as picking up a rock off the street or I could end up fighting gods for them."
"But-but-"
"But nothing," I said firmly. "No amount of puppy-eyes is going to make me take you along. Simmie won't either."
Mom frowned at me. "And you think I'm letting you go? You're fourteen, young man."
"There isn't much of a choice though. As much as I'd like to send Simmie by herself, I can't treat this like a grocery run, mom. For starters, no one else can operate the Low Roads except me."
"Well, yes, but does it have to be now?"
"Seeing how we don't know who or what has the other four World Runes, the more time we have, the better."
"Why does it always have to be you?"
"Yeah, oppa, why do you get to go and not me?" Riley pouted.
"I don't really want to leave either, Riley. You act like it's something to look forward to, but I like the life we have here," I told her patiently.
"Do… Do you promise you'll come back?"
"Of course. It's not like I'm leaving forever."
Mom sighed. "Only fourteen and already leaving home. Now what am I supposed to do?"
I ticked off my fingers one by one. "Teach music classes. Raise Riley. Make sure she doesn't eat too much sugar. Make sure she doesn't try making pokemon again. Make sure she does her homework in subjects other than biology. Make sure she doesn't accidentally make a new version of the swine flu."
"Hey, that was only one time," Riley complained.
"My point stands."
"You suck sometimes…"
"Big brother privileges."
"Meanie."
Mom gave me that look. "When do you think you'll be back?"
"I don't know, mom, but I promise to stay in touch."
"And how are you going to find these 'World Runes?' You said you don't know who might have them."
"I need to start by going to where they originated from: Runeterra. The Low Roads should let me do that. From there, I should be able to find the others by looking for branches along the Low Roads. Leave the specifics to me."
"Fine, but I expect you to drop by once a week."
"I'll do my best," I promised.
Author's Note
I don't know either. It just… happened… Andy is a doting big brother and the world is a darker place for it.
An "elevator school" is a school which teaches K-12 and usually has a close partnership with a university, with most if not all graduates guaranteed admission to said university, often with a scholarship. As you'd expect, it's very expensive, and also the kind of thing Andy's mom would insist on if money stopped being an object.
Did any of that with the Shards make sense? Not really. Not important since this is an omake anyhow. The point is, it's a Call to adventure.
Also, Riot Games has a song by the same name and it's epic.
As always, thank you to my patrons:
Thomas Hendrix, Nathan Mccomb, ArtTheGreat, Guisarme, Elijah Phillips, Default, Decimus, zombielols, Kara, prodbyluvlace, Enris, Darkarma, Chynya S, Will Graham, Haley Bennett, Definitely not Dio, Noctus Tagaris, Just Some Guy With A Mustage, AbenSur, FrostyNips, Ryan Teschke, Jeff Fischer, Cwade, Yousif Mustafa, That one fish guy, Tera, Michael W, Michael Hendley, Michael Hill, Richard, Seadrake, P0lyn1c3s, Echan Clinch Apa-ap, Michael Friede, Brenden Wright, Jmatt890, David Zimmerle, Celestial_Drago, 0xFFF1, Darth Bayes, Sam Slade, Andrew, Ryan Roberts, Glader, Pluviam, Liam, Zer0 forhire, SupremeRuler17, Casper Bielders, DraconianGreed, Shattered97, MethodinMayhem, Faultlesselm16, BG, Alex, whateverlol, Fireblade, Patrick, Mike, Ishmu, Creature of Grimm, PoG, Daniel Aasa, Jaykay2307, AjiTae, Anon, Archaicx1, Ash, caleb boggs, Aspect of Chaos, Ramzawing04, Arakhil, darien page, Austin, Keith Miller, Adam Albright, Shirou0emiya, Stephon Harris, Mischief_24, TC, Heraclitus, JchuckS, Fred-Ole Nyborg, Ahmet Koçak, Michael og, Harry Williams, Matthew McRoyall, Hazza Vanderbyl, ReadingOverSleeping, Alsb, Jonathan Seah, Meda, Griffin J, JustaLurker, NatureKills, Softee, My name is Klondike, random_debuff, Gloxinia, Tyler, Drew Kerstens, Taire, Garrett Conley, Sparkz, Christopher Magrath, Nick McKelvey, MochiLeaf, Raptor, obviousPenname, T4ndoris, Tactical Paladin, Mrsnuuggles88, Adam parker, tien, Martin Franco, Incraze, Vexdt, Frank, Marco, Shurukkah, Bapping, Manowargs, Temmie, Xisaro, Legion_13, Alex Black, AnonymousJohn, AJ, Cc, Ore0man, Ab9999, Flipflop, Dicky wongsonegoro, Kcx1, Master Kuma, Brian, Jorge Benedicto, NorthMountain, AblazedNightmare, Mp Gaming, Baron_Dio, Dan B, dark helmet9, Abdulla, KDN, Drake_Azathoth, Dang Tran, Dull Pen, Nick Gabbard, Julian Rivera, Amon, Thobitor, Paul Becker, CrusaderElmo, Non Non, Sam Richardson, Retexks, abdd, M, Jakob Lefevre, , Alexander Beers, mouad maataoui, Yuri Latten, SpeX, Ramon Diaz, Spencer seidel, Deteriator, Johnworm, ilovebullets, Narasan, Tavernlandlord, Evelyn Antoinette, Primordi, Adam Bell, Jake Hand, Oddfall, r3d3v3, AbyssalMage, Daniel I Beer, Coalman95, Blyth Septimus, PbookR, Drake, JayK, Amadi238, Helios, Starfall20, Anh Duy Ly, Matthew Powell, oliman, Bookmaggot, Paul Mouttet, Uriel Torres, Atoll, victor a lopez-barron, Empty Shelf, DeValve, jack kreutner, Savagesmiley, Andreyebidu, Apallo Berryman, Big ToFu, John Dale, Noctis117, costochondritis, Sage Berthelsen, Zerak, Kraxus, fluffybutt, Euth, Phong Truong, Night Drifter, NazNar21, Khetsun XD, abdullah khan, Hunter Rhoades, Hector Gregorio, Rairarku, and Chrishenk.
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One-Shot: Fortuna Earns Her Cookie
Fabled Webs
Lord Weaver, Glorious and Wise
- Location
- Arlington, VA
Preface
This omake takes place a mere three days after Sonya Vasiliev's recruitment to Cauldron. For those who don't remember, she received the vial that would have gone to Christine Mathers.
Fortuna Earns her Cookie
Fortuna
2001, December 5: Moscow, Russia
My new pet project twirled a butterfly knife in hand. She practiced when none save the Custodian watched. The short, crimson cocktail dress coupled with a single black stocking embroidered with red roses on her left leg drew the eye. Over it, she wore a black, jean jacket and an ornate, porcelain mask adorned with bloody tears. Her honey-blonde hair was cropped short on her left side but otherwise fell in cascading waves down her back. "Cabaret-punk," Yusung called her.
She sat on the sofa with her legs spread immodestly, one heeled pump on her victim's chest. "I'm sorry, comrade," she spoke derisively, "I'm not the fat lady and I'm not singing, but this is curtain call for you."
"W-Wait, please, you don't have to do this," the overweight Russian man stammered. He was a generic oligarch who made his money off the petroleum business. Not exactly a good man, but hardly the worst in this frozen wasteland of a country. No, the only crime that earned our attention was that he'd dug too deep. "I-I have money. I can pay you! How much? One million? Ten?"
"Enough, Melpomene," I chided. "Finish up."
She started as I made my arrival known. These seemingly spontaneous visits were necessary to show her that I was watching, that she was wanted. "Ma'am!"
I gestured to the fat man who was trying to crawl away from her. In truth, his death wasn't strictly necessary. An altered memory here, a modified bank account there and he would have ceased to be a threat to Cauldron's plans.
Yusung would disapprove, but this was necessary for Melpomene's development. He reminded her too much of the fat cat who'd taken advantage of the naïve young ballerina in her old world. This wasn't about his threat to Cauldron, but bringing my new project some closure, allowing her to literally sever the final connection to her old life.
"You know too much, my friend," she spoke in a saccharine voice.
"I can stop! I'll stop asking quest-ghurk!"
I nodded placidly as his words died in his throat. I dug in my pocket and pulled out a crimson pill, a refined potion, handing it off to Melpomene. "Here. You took a glancing blow to your right side when he panicked."
She accepted it with a bashful smile. Already, she didn't even question that I knew. Good. "Sorry, ma'am."
"Do you feel better?"
"No… Should I?"
"No. I would be disappointed in you should you delight in murder," I lied. The capacity for disappointment implied I had expectations of her beyond being a useful tool. I placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "You did well. Know that not everyone who discovers Cauldron will need to be slain."
"An option of last resort."
"Correct. Thank you for your assistance tracking him down."
"I-It was my pleasure, Contessa, ma'am," she stammered. I smiled welcomingly at her.
The way she looked up to me reminded me of a puppy. The comparison was apt, for that was exactly what she was: a dog for me to train. She would be Cauldron's first layer of defense, a guard dog to nip at the heels of those who were too curious while I occupied myself with bigger concerns. Right now, I was doing the equivalent of potty training. A little positive reinforcement was necessary for better results further down the line.
"Go back to headquarters and wash up. Take a good rest before the Doctor occupies your time again."
"Yes, ma'am!"
Everything about Sonya Vasiliev was a façade. She once masked the innocent girl she used to be under the mask of an aloof, elegant ballerina. She masked the broken wreck she was now under the guise of an irreverent enforcer with a flair for drama. It all came crumbling down around me in her eagerness to be more like me, to gain a semblance of control over her life.
I allowed myself a bitter smile as I waked back into the Doorway. She had no idea that she'd merely surrendered control to a demon. The old adage rang true: genuine loyalty could not be bought. But… But it sure as hell could be made.
Andy Yusung Kim
2001, December 5: Washington, DC, USA
I stumbled downstairs at eight in the morning. Considering how early I woke up normally, this was more or less my equivalent to sleeping in. A day without morning meditation felt good once in a while, especially since I slept late last night poring over Zero Day's notes on drone programming. It largely wasn't applicable to my Hextech dragonflies, but seeing how other, more traditional tinkers did things was enlightening in its own way.
Mom was in the kitchen, frying up a chunk of galchi, beltfish. It was a long, silver fish with delicate skin and flesh, best known for its mild, briny flavor and abundance of bones. Next to it was a stone pot with gyeran-jjim and another wok full of roasted, stir-fried anchovies.
I gave her a hug. "Morning, mom."
"Good morning, Yusung. Sit down, the food will be ready soon."
"Okay, I'll set the table. What's with the spread though?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. I felt like cooking this morning. Eat a lot, okay?"
I opened the fridge and brought out three different types of kimchi: cucumber, turnip, and standard cabbage. Add the snow-white rice, beltfish, anchovies, and braised eggs and it was a rainbow of color on the breakfast table. Even a king wouldn't have found a single thing wanting here.
"Thank you for the food," I said, bringing my hands into a clap. "Really, who's going to eat all this?"
"You are. Just eat the leftovers for lunch. I know you have a way to get home from the lab very quickly," she said, giving me a gimlet eye.
"Yes, mother. I'll cook something nice for dinner. Or maybe cookies? I'm thinking something Christmas-y. Tis the season and all that."
"Oh? Something from my son? Then send me the grocery list and I'll stop by after work."
"Sure, mom." I finished my food and took my rice bowl to the kitchen. "I'll do the dishes."
"What a good son I have," she said. She put on a blazer and a winter coat before heading for the foyer. "I love you, Yusung."
"Love you too, mom. Have a nice day at work."
Fortuna
2001, December 5: Washington, DC, USA
I allowed myself a rare frown as I appeared behind the Kim family garage. The Path had alerted me of one of several conditions that might be violated without direct intervention: the safety of Yusung's mother. Unacceptable.
Not only was Yusung's work critical, he was, dare I admit it, a friend. The number of people who had seen me away from the trappings of the Path could be counted on one hand with fingers to spare. The number who I dared hope could one day be my equal? Just one.
Sujeong "Susan" Kim must live. Her continued wellbeing and relative happiness were vital for the Path. And thus, I would intervene.
I leaned into the wall of the house, just out of view as I watched her open her phone. She'd had Yusung upload the family album on there and had taken to looking at it whenever she got the chance. She smiled tenderly as she gazed upon the picture of her dead husband. Captain Namjoon Kim of the South Korean Coast Guard was a slightly chubby man with laugh lines around his eyes. In the picture, he wore a dress uniform as he held his pregnant wife, a memento of his promotion ceremony.
"You'd be so proud of your son, beloved," I read on her lips.
I did as the Path instructed and allowed it to briefly fall away. Emotions that were almost foreign washed over me. What was it like to have a family? To have loved ones? I barely remembered my own. Those were things I'd turned my back on, all in the name of survival, but… but then why did I feel the need to watch a woman mourn her dead husband? Why did my chest feel tighter?
My presence here was not necessary. I could have arrived at her moment of need. And yet, the Path nudged me here before urging me to feel again. I frowned. The Path to befriending Yusung… demanded that I be human again…
Tears stung my eyes as Sujeong drove off to work. Was the loss of a husband and father the same as a loss of self? Would it be right for me to mourn something I willfully threw away?
For the first time in a long while, I was disappointed in myself, in who I'd become. What did it say about me that I needed the Path to even begin to relate to another?
"I'm a monster," I whispered, a truth I'd already known.
I appeared out of a Doorway in the blindspot of a gas station camera, just below the mounted nest. The Path was fully in control again and there was not the slightest hint of my personal turmoil on my face. I walked down the street, suit pressed to perfection and a confident smirk on my lips.
Sujeong would drive past this corner in seventeen seconds. A random bus driver would lose control of his vehicle, traction lost in a puddle leftover from last night's rain, and drive into the intersection during his red light. He would crash into Sujeong's driver-side door, crushing her beneath the wreckage. The sheer mass would overwhelm her ring of protection, breaking the barrier and killing her before the healing and teleportation rings could take effect.
That could not be allowed to happen. I stole a paperclip from some office clerk at a nearby bus stop and bent it in my hands before tossing it into the street.
A third vehicle, a shuttle car, drove over it in just the right way with a slightly faulty tire, puncturing said tire with a deafening bang. The driver startled and lost control, sliding into the intersection. The bus and shuttle met as both sides slammed the breaks. When they met, the shuttle's comparable mass kept the bus from proceeding further, allowing Sujeong's much smaller car to drive by seconds later.
She'd be concerned but would let the authorities handle the matter. Good enough.
I had to intervene for a second time in one day. I emerged from a Door in an overlooked corner of a parking lot before heading to the Korean bank where she worked. It would be robbed while she was teller. A gun would not penetrate her shield, but the trauma coupled with the obvious tinkertech would ruin her normal life. In turn, it would provide a large source of distraction and worry for Yusung.
Unacceptable.
It would have been a simple matter to quietly end the three would-be robbers. For a moment, I was tempted; it was the swiftest way to remove obstacles to the path. And yet, I refrained.
If he knew, Yusung would want them alive; death was not a fitting punishment for their crimes in this modern world. He would have also demanded they be arrested with undeniable evidence of their crimes so that they could harm no one else.
I looked down the Path and saw that I had ten minutes to spare. Plenty of time to indulge him, annoying as his morals could be.
I released a frustrated sigh and entered the bank, allowing the Path to set the stage according to my stipulations.
As I walked, I gently jostled the elbow of an old man, making him spill coffee onto a younger man's pants. I whirled and stared at him with wide, soulful eyes and pouty lips. I bowed deeply at the waist and apologized in fluent Korean, something I knew would stand out given my obviously Caucasian complexion. "I'm so sorry, sir, I was just in such a hurry that I didn't see you there!"
The younger man, who had been getting ready to berate his elder, was reminded by my interruption that he was in the middle of a very public space. Seeing that he'd now unexpectedly become the center of attention, he tried to diffuse the situation as quickly as possible to avoid being seen yelling at both an elder and a pretty woman. It took him seconds to reassure us with empty platitudes before heading off to the nearest bathroom to dry his pants.
The guard who had abruptly stood ready to intervene, sat down again. A small, plastic container of Tic-Tac fell from his pocket and was kicked by an unknowing passerby near the marble benches.
Precisely two minutes and sixteen seconds later, three men rushed into the building, each donning a black mask over their heads shaped like a snarling dog. They were the Hounds of War, a thoroughly unimpressive gang that failed to live up to their name.
"Hands in the air!" the leader shouted as his two followers knocked out the security guard with a stolen taser. This was how they remained the only gang in Annandale, by knowing not to resort to firearms first and being largely not worth the effort. The three of them then drew their pistols, showing everyone that they were armed. "In and out, no one needs to get hurt!"
The leader motioned for his two flunkies to spread out across the building. He then withdrew a bag and made to approach the teller. That was when everything went wrong for them.
The first flunky passed the restroom and was briefly surprised as the man I'd spilled coffee on walked out. They stared at each other before he began to wave his gun about and order the man towards the center where the rest of us hostages were gathered.
At the same time, the second flunky moved past the marble benches and tripped on the case of Tic-Tac. He yelled as his foot slid out from beneath him. His head crashed into marble, knocking him unconscious. His windmilling arm still held the pistol, and by freak accident, knocked into the bench and discharged the gun.
That single bullet struck the first flunky through the hand, ruining the pistol and allowing the man in coffee-stained pants to disable him.
In seconds, the leader was alone, his men dispatching themselves like something out of a Three Stooges skit. I saw his mind struggle to process what just happened and rolled my eyes.
Amateur.
His path towards Sujeong brought him in arms reach of me so I reached out and tapped his throat with one hand while the other gripped his pistol just so and twisted. His instinct to flinch back coupled with my own grip and weight did the work for me. The bones in his knuckles and wrist dislocated with a series of audible pops.
Before he could even begin to scream, I stalked forward with a knee to his groin, hard enough to take his breath away and every man in the vicinity to close their legs in sympathetic agony. One final tap to his chin knocked him out for the foreseeable future.
"You know what?" I said, pulling my fedora just far down enough to hide my face from the security cameras. "I think I can come back later."
I walked out, the guard only now stirring from the floor and everyone else trying to process what just transpired. I was long gone by the time police arrived.
I had to admit, if only in the confines of my own mind, beating up some poor schmuck was unexpectedly therapeutic. Perhaps I was more stressed than expected.
My restored good cheer lasted only until Sujeong got off work. I had to intervene for an unprecedented third time in one day. This time, I found myself in the bathroom of the local Giant, a bog-standard grocery store common in the Arlington area.
I located Sujeong in short order. She was pushing a shopping cart laden with salmon, spinach, cream cheese, butter, shallots, garlic, and powdered sugar. Yusung made some puff pastry the night prior, so dinner was likely salmon en croûte, salmon stuffed in puff pastry with creamed spinach, with some sort of sweet dessert. I felt a small pang of jealousy and made a note to demand my fair share.
I rolled my eyes as Sujeong passed by a wet floor sign without paying attention. She could do no wrong in Yusung's eyes, but that woman was far too forgetful.
I snatched a tea cozy and flipped it in her direction before ducking out of sight. She was prevented from slipping when the cozy landed just below her foot, giving her some much needed friction. She'd survive a bad fall, but anything that would trigger her shield in public was to be avoided if at all possible. I left as she picked it up and apologized to an employee before offering to buy the now ruined product.
I felt the irritated twitching in my eyebrow smooth out as my Path took hold. I was in the middle of assisting the Doctor in fashioning a new vial when the Path called me to intervene yet again. For the fourth time today, I stepped out into a random street corner in Arlington.
Had I been anyone else, I would have started to suspect enemy action, but I was Contessa. The Path ensured that should any dare target Sujeong Kim, either I or Yusung would be informed and they would be dealt with accordingly.
Hiding my irritation, I straightened my blazer and turned the corner into the gas station parking lot Sujeong was refueling at.
There, I saw the reason the Path triggered. A freight truck was parked at the pump directly across from her. Should I leave the situation alone, the driver would light a cigarette to take the edge off a seven-hour marathon drive, not realizing that his pump was not secured properly. The gas station would promptly combust, overloading Sujeong's shield and immolating her.
I had no intention of being seen by Sujeong; she'd already seen me once at the bank and seeing me a second time here would raise questions neither I nor Yusung would want to answer.
I walked up to a different car and picked up a rock. I'd be unobserved for four more seconds. I took aim at the side mirror and smashed it clean off the joint, sending the car alarm blaring.
That caused a cat that was lying beneath the car to panic and dash out of its hiding place. It let out a fearful yowl and dashed up a tree.
Its panicked dash in turn scared a squirrel, who then immediately jumped to a different tree to escape a perceived predator.
The squirrel jumped to a tree that was closer to the trucker. In its haste, it didn't see the beehive. The jostled hive fell to the gas station floor and rolled until the trucker, pacing back and forth, kicked it absentmindedly. He didn't even get to reach for his lighter before the bees were on him with a vengeance.
I smiled as Sujeong drove off, completely oblivious to the chaos left in her wake.
Andy Yusung Kim
2001, December 5: Washington, DC, USA
Dinner was excellent and the salmon en croûte turned out wonderfully. It was buttery and crisp on the outside with a wonderful, herby interior that didn't at all smell fishy. Mom wasn't a huge fan of French cuisine, but I thought I'd won her over tonight, just a little.
I wasn't sure I could call myself Christian under my current circumstances, but I couldn't deny being infected by a bit of holiday cheer. Most people celebrated by going gift shopping. I decided testing interesting recipes for fancy cookies was a lot more amusing.
I hummed happily as I filled the last Linzer cookie with homemade strawberry jam. Linzer cookies were an Austrian dessert commonly seen around the holidays. They were sandwich cookies with the top layer being donut-shaped. The cookies themselves had a wonderfully nutty flavor thanks to ground almonds mixed directly into the dough while the filling could vary widely depending on the baker's preference. A thin layer of powdered sugar was sprinkled on top to finish the look.
I left the cookies on the counter to wait for the jelly to set and went about cleaning up. When I turned back, it was to find Fortuna with one cookie in her mouth.
"Oh, hey, Fortuna. Great to see you. Please, help yourself to the cookies, it's not like I spent two hours on those things or anything, thanks for asking," I drawled sarcastically. She wordlessly picked up the tray and walked into a Doorway. "Oi! At least leave a few!"
She stopped and whirled, meeting my eyes with hers. There was genuine irritation there, an expression of emotion that I didn't think I'd ever see on the world's deadliest thinker. Staring me down, she shoved another two cookies into her mouth and gave them a loud chew.
"I. Deserve. These. Cookies," she growled.
The Door closed, leaving me confused as all hell.
"… Huh…?"
Author's Note
This omake came about because everyone kept telling me Andy's mom is too sweet. I've had multiple people tell me they expected her to die half a dozen times with all the death flags she's been raising. I decided to see how many I could cram into one scene: unexpected, excessive kindness, bouts of "I love you," future promise that might not be kept, reminiscing about dead people, etc.
As for that intro with Sonya Vasiliev? It's a good contrast, I think. It's good to remember that as fluffy as she is with Andy, Fortuna is not that kind of woman 99% of the time.
As always, thank you to my patrons:
This omake takes place a mere three days after Sonya Vasiliev's recruitment to Cauldron. For those who don't remember, she received the vial that would have gone to Christine Mathers.
Fortuna Earns her Cookie
Fortuna
2001, December 5: Moscow, Russia
My new pet project twirled a butterfly knife in hand. She practiced when none save the Custodian watched. The short, crimson cocktail dress coupled with a single black stocking embroidered with red roses on her left leg drew the eye. Over it, she wore a black, jean jacket and an ornate, porcelain mask adorned with bloody tears. Her honey-blonde hair was cropped short on her left side but otherwise fell in cascading waves down her back. "Cabaret-punk," Yusung called her.
She sat on the sofa with her legs spread immodestly, one heeled pump on her victim's chest. "I'm sorry, comrade," she spoke derisively, "I'm not the fat lady and I'm not singing, but this is curtain call for you."
"W-Wait, please, you don't have to do this," the overweight Russian man stammered. He was a generic oligarch who made his money off the petroleum business. Not exactly a good man, but hardly the worst in this frozen wasteland of a country. No, the only crime that earned our attention was that he'd dug too deep. "I-I have money. I can pay you! How much? One million? Ten?"
"Enough, Melpomene," I chided. "Finish up."
She started as I made my arrival known. These seemingly spontaneous visits were necessary to show her that I was watching, that she was wanted. "Ma'am!"
I gestured to the fat man who was trying to crawl away from her. In truth, his death wasn't strictly necessary. An altered memory here, a modified bank account there and he would have ceased to be a threat to Cauldron's plans.
Yusung would disapprove, but this was necessary for Melpomene's development. He reminded her too much of the fat cat who'd taken advantage of the naïve young ballerina in her old world. This wasn't about his threat to Cauldron, but bringing my new project some closure, allowing her to literally sever the final connection to her old life.
"You know too much, my friend," she spoke in a saccharine voice.
"I can stop! I'll stop asking quest-ghurk!"
I nodded placidly as his words died in his throat. I dug in my pocket and pulled out a crimson pill, a refined potion, handing it off to Melpomene. "Here. You took a glancing blow to your right side when he panicked."
She accepted it with a bashful smile. Already, she didn't even question that I knew. Good. "Sorry, ma'am."
"Do you feel better?"
"No… Should I?"
"No. I would be disappointed in you should you delight in murder," I lied. The capacity for disappointment implied I had expectations of her beyond being a useful tool. I placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "You did well. Know that not everyone who discovers Cauldron will need to be slain."
"An option of last resort."
"Correct. Thank you for your assistance tracking him down."
"I-It was my pleasure, Contessa, ma'am," she stammered. I smiled welcomingly at her.
The way she looked up to me reminded me of a puppy. The comparison was apt, for that was exactly what she was: a dog for me to train. She would be Cauldron's first layer of defense, a guard dog to nip at the heels of those who were too curious while I occupied myself with bigger concerns. Right now, I was doing the equivalent of potty training. A little positive reinforcement was necessary for better results further down the line.
"Go back to headquarters and wash up. Take a good rest before the Doctor occupies your time again."
"Yes, ma'am!"
Everything about Sonya Vasiliev was a façade. She once masked the innocent girl she used to be under the mask of an aloof, elegant ballerina. She masked the broken wreck she was now under the guise of an irreverent enforcer with a flair for drama. It all came crumbling down around me in her eagerness to be more like me, to gain a semblance of control over her life.
I allowed myself a bitter smile as I waked back into the Doorway. She had no idea that she'd merely surrendered control to a demon. The old adage rang true: genuine loyalty could not be bought. But… But it sure as hell could be made.
X
Andy Yusung Kim
2001, December 5: Washington, DC, USA
I stumbled downstairs at eight in the morning. Considering how early I woke up normally, this was more or less my equivalent to sleeping in. A day without morning meditation felt good once in a while, especially since I slept late last night poring over Zero Day's notes on drone programming. It largely wasn't applicable to my Hextech dragonflies, but seeing how other, more traditional tinkers did things was enlightening in its own way.
Mom was in the kitchen, frying up a chunk of galchi, beltfish. It was a long, silver fish with delicate skin and flesh, best known for its mild, briny flavor and abundance of bones. Next to it was a stone pot with gyeran-jjim and another wok full of roasted, stir-fried anchovies.
I gave her a hug. "Morning, mom."
"Good morning, Yusung. Sit down, the food will be ready soon."
"Okay, I'll set the table. What's with the spread though?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. I felt like cooking this morning. Eat a lot, okay?"
I opened the fridge and brought out three different types of kimchi: cucumber, turnip, and standard cabbage. Add the snow-white rice, beltfish, anchovies, and braised eggs and it was a rainbow of color on the breakfast table. Even a king wouldn't have found a single thing wanting here.
"Thank you for the food," I said, bringing my hands into a clap. "Really, who's going to eat all this?"
"You are. Just eat the leftovers for lunch. I know you have a way to get home from the lab very quickly," she said, giving me a gimlet eye.
"Yes, mother. I'll cook something nice for dinner. Or maybe cookies? I'm thinking something Christmas-y. Tis the season and all that."
"Oh? Something from my son? Then send me the grocery list and I'll stop by after work."
"Sure, mom." I finished my food and took my rice bowl to the kitchen. "I'll do the dishes."
"What a good son I have," she said. She put on a blazer and a winter coat before heading for the foyer. "I love you, Yusung."
"Love you too, mom. Have a nice day at work."
X
Fortuna
2001, December 5: Washington, DC, USA
I allowed myself a rare frown as I appeared behind the Kim family garage. The Path had alerted me of one of several conditions that might be violated without direct intervention: the safety of Yusung's mother. Unacceptable.
Not only was Yusung's work critical, he was, dare I admit it, a friend. The number of people who had seen me away from the trappings of the Path could be counted on one hand with fingers to spare. The number who I dared hope could one day be my equal? Just one.
Sujeong "Susan" Kim must live. Her continued wellbeing and relative happiness were vital for the Path. And thus, I would intervene.
I leaned into the wall of the house, just out of view as I watched her open her phone. She'd had Yusung upload the family album on there and had taken to looking at it whenever she got the chance. She smiled tenderly as she gazed upon the picture of her dead husband. Captain Namjoon Kim of the South Korean Coast Guard was a slightly chubby man with laugh lines around his eyes. In the picture, he wore a dress uniform as he held his pregnant wife, a memento of his promotion ceremony.
"You'd be so proud of your son, beloved," I read on her lips.
I did as the Path instructed and allowed it to briefly fall away. Emotions that were almost foreign washed over me. What was it like to have a family? To have loved ones? I barely remembered my own. Those were things I'd turned my back on, all in the name of survival, but… but then why did I feel the need to watch a woman mourn her dead husband? Why did my chest feel tighter?
My presence here was not necessary. I could have arrived at her moment of need. And yet, the Path nudged me here before urging me to feel again. I frowned. The Path to befriending Yusung… demanded that I be human again…
Tears stung my eyes as Sujeong drove off to work. Was the loss of a husband and father the same as a loss of self? Would it be right for me to mourn something I willfully threw away?
For the first time in a long while, I was disappointed in myself, in who I'd become. What did it say about me that I needed the Path to even begin to relate to another?
"I'm a monster," I whispered, a truth I'd already known.
X
I appeared out of a Doorway in the blindspot of a gas station camera, just below the mounted nest. The Path was fully in control again and there was not the slightest hint of my personal turmoil on my face. I walked down the street, suit pressed to perfection and a confident smirk on my lips.
Sujeong would drive past this corner in seventeen seconds. A random bus driver would lose control of his vehicle, traction lost in a puddle leftover from last night's rain, and drive into the intersection during his red light. He would crash into Sujeong's driver-side door, crushing her beneath the wreckage. The sheer mass would overwhelm her ring of protection, breaking the barrier and killing her before the healing and teleportation rings could take effect.
That could not be allowed to happen. I stole a paperclip from some office clerk at a nearby bus stop and bent it in my hands before tossing it into the street.
A third vehicle, a shuttle car, drove over it in just the right way with a slightly faulty tire, puncturing said tire with a deafening bang. The driver startled and lost control, sliding into the intersection. The bus and shuttle met as both sides slammed the breaks. When they met, the shuttle's comparable mass kept the bus from proceeding further, allowing Sujeong's much smaller car to drive by seconds later.
She'd be concerned but would let the authorities handle the matter. Good enough.
X
I had to intervene for a second time in one day. I emerged from a Door in an overlooked corner of a parking lot before heading to the Korean bank where she worked. It would be robbed while she was teller. A gun would not penetrate her shield, but the trauma coupled with the obvious tinkertech would ruin her normal life. In turn, it would provide a large source of distraction and worry for Yusung.
Unacceptable.
It would have been a simple matter to quietly end the three would-be robbers. For a moment, I was tempted; it was the swiftest way to remove obstacles to the path. And yet, I refrained.
If he knew, Yusung would want them alive; death was not a fitting punishment for their crimes in this modern world. He would have also demanded they be arrested with undeniable evidence of their crimes so that they could harm no one else.
I looked down the Path and saw that I had ten minutes to spare. Plenty of time to indulge him, annoying as his morals could be.
I released a frustrated sigh and entered the bank, allowing the Path to set the stage according to my stipulations.
As I walked, I gently jostled the elbow of an old man, making him spill coffee onto a younger man's pants. I whirled and stared at him with wide, soulful eyes and pouty lips. I bowed deeply at the waist and apologized in fluent Korean, something I knew would stand out given my obviously Caucasian complexion. "I'm so sorry, sir, I was just in such a hurry that I didn't see you there!"
The younger man, who had been getting ready to berate his elder, was reminded by my interruption that he was in the middle of a very public space. Seeing that he'd now unexpectedly become the center of attention, he tried to diffuse the situation as quickly as possible to avoid being seen yelling at both an elder and a pretty woman. It took him seconds to reassure us with empty platitudes before heading off to the nearest bathroom to dry his pants.
The guard who had abruptly stood ready to intervene, sat down again. A small, plastic container of Tic-Tac fell from his pocket and was kicked by an unknowing passerby near the marble benches.
Precisely two minutes and sixteen seconds later, three men rushed into the building, each donning a black mask over their heads shaped like a snarling dog. They were the Hounds of War, a thoroughly unimpressive gang that failed to live up to their name.
"Hands in the air!" the leader shouted as his two followers knocked out the security guard with a stolen taser. This was how they remained the only gang in Annandale, by knowing not to resort to firearms first and being largely not worth the effort. The three of them then drew their pistols, showing everyone that they were armed. "In and out, no one needs to get hurt!"
The leader motioned for his two flunkies to spread out across the building. He then withdrew a bag and made to approach the teller. That was when everything went wrong for them.
The first flunky passed the restroom and was briefly surprised as the man I'd spilled coffee on walked out. They stared at each other before he began to wave his gun about and order the man towards the center where the rest of us hostages were gathered.
At the same time, the second flunky moved past the marble benches and tripped on the case of Tic-Tac. He yelled as his foot slid out from beneath him. His head crashed into marble, knocking him unconscious. His windmilling arm still held the pistol, and by freak accident, knocked into the bench and discharged the gun.
That single bullet struck the first flunky through the hand, ruining the pistol and allowing the man in coffee-stained pants to disable him.
In seconds, the leader was alone, his men dispatching themselves like something out of a Three Stooges skit. I saw his mind struggle to process what just happened and rolled my eyes.
Amateur.
His path towards Sujeong brought him in arms reach of me so I reached out and tapped his throat with one hand while the other gripped his pistol just so and twisted. His instinct to flinch back coupled with my own grip and weight did the work for me. The bones in his knuckles and wrist dislocated with a series of audible pops.
Before he could even begin to scream, I stalked forward with a knee to his groin, hard enough to take his breath away and every man in the vicinity to close their legs in sympathetic agony. One final tap to his chin knocked him out for the foreseeable future.
"You know what?" I said, pulling my fedora just far down enough to hide my face from the security cameras. "I think I can come back later."
I walked out, the guard only now stirring from the floor and everyone else trying to process what just transpired. I was long gone by the time police arrived.
I had to admit, if only in the confines of my own mind, beating up some poor schmuck was unexpectedly therapeutic. Perhaps I was more stressed than expected.
X
My restored good cheer lasted only until Sujeong got off work. I had to intervene for an unprecedented third time in one day. This time, I found myself in the bathroom of the local Giant, a bog-standard grocery store common in the Arlington area.
I located Sujeong in short order. She was pushing a shopping cart laden with salmon, spinach, cream cheese, butter, shallots, garlic, and powdered sugar. Yusung made some puff pastry the night prior, so dinner was likely salmon en croûte, salmon stuffed in puff pastry with creamed spinach, with some sort of sweet dessert. I felt a small pang of jealousy and made a note to demand my fair share.
I rolled my eyes as Sujeong passed by a wet floor sign without paying attention. She could do no wrong in Yusung's eyes, but that woman was far too forgetful.
I snatched a tea cozy and flipped it in her direction before ducking out of sight. She was prevented from slipping when the cozy landed just below her foot, giving her some much needed friction. She'd survive a bad fall, but anything that would trigger her shield in public was to be avoided if at all possible. I left as she picked it up and apologized to an employee before offering to buy the now ruined product.
X
I felt the irritated twitching in my eyebrow smooth out as my Path took hold. I was in the middle of assisting the Doctor in fashioning a new vial when the Path called me to intervene yet again. For the fourth time today, I stepped out into a random street corner in Arlington.
Had I been anyone else, I would have started to suspect enemy action, but I was Contessa. The Path ensured that should any dare target Sujeong Kim, either I or Yusung would be informed and they would be dealt with accordingly.
Hiding my irritation, I straightened my blazer and turned the corner into the gas station parking lot Sujeong was refueling at.
There, I saw the reason the Path triggered. A freight truck was parked at the pump directly across from her. Should I leave the situation alone, the driver would light a cigarette to take the edge off a seven-hour marathon drive, not realizing that his pump was not secured properly. The gas station would promptly combust, overloading Sujeong's shield and immolating her.
I had no intention of being seen by Sujeong; she'd already seen me once at the bank and seeing me a second time here would raise questions neither I nor Yusung would want to answer.
I walked up to a different car and picked up a rock. I'd be unobserved for four more seconds. I took aim at the side mirror and smashed it clean off the joint, sending the car alarm blaring.
That caused a cat that was lying beneath the car to panic and dash out of its hiding place. It let out a fearful yowl and dashed up a tree.
Its panicked dash in turn scared a squirrel, who then immediately jumped to a different tree to escape a perceived predator.
The squirrel jumped to a tree that was closer to the trucker. In its haste, it didn't see the beehive. The jostled hive fell to the gas station floor and rolled until the trucker, pacing back and forth, kicked it absentmindedly. He didn't even get to reach for his lighter before the bees were on him with a vengeance.
I smiled as Sujeong drove off, completely oblivious to the chaos left in her wake.
X
Andy Yusung Kim
2001, December 5: Washington, DC, USA
Dinner was excellent and the salmon en croûte turned out wonderfully. It was buttery and crisp on the outside with a wonderful, herby interior that didn't at all smell fishy. Mom wasn't a huge fan of French cuisine, but I thought I'd won her over tonight, just a little.
I wasn't sure I could call myself Christian under my current circumstances, but I couldn't deny being infected by a bit of holiday cheer. Most people celebrated by going gift shopping. I decided testing interesting recipes for fancy cookies was a lot more amusing.
I hummed happily as I filled the last Linzer cookie with homemade strawberry jam. Linzer cookies were an Austrian dessert commonly seen around the holidays. They were sandwich cookies with the top layer being donut-shaped. The cookies themselves had a wonderfully nutty flavor thanks to ground almonds mixed directly into the dough while the filling could vary widely depending on the baker's preference. A thin layer of powdered sugar was sprinkled on top to finish the look.
I left the cookies on the counter to wait for the jelly to set and went about cleaning up. When I turned back, it was to find Fortuna with one cookie in her mouth.
"Oh, hey, Fortuna. Great to see you. Please, help yourself to the cookies, it's not like I spent two hours on those things or anything, thanks for asking," I drawled sarcastically. She wordlessly picked up the tray and walked into a Doorway. "Oi! At least leave a few!"
She stopped and whirled, meeting my eyes with hers. There was genuine irritation there, an expression of emotion that I didn't think I'd ever see on the world's deadliest thinker. Staring me down, she shoved another two cookies into her mouth and gave them a loud chew.
"I. Deserve. These. Cookies," she growled.
The Door closed, leaving me confused as all hell.
"… Huh…?"
Author's Note
This omake came about because everyone kept telling me Andy's mom is too sweet. I've had multiple people tell me they expected her to die half a dozen times with all the death flags she's been raising. I decided to see how many I could cram into one scene: unexpected, excessive kindness, bouts of "I love you," future promise that might not be kept, reminiscing about dead people, etc.
As for that intro with Sonya Vasiliev? It's a good contrast, I think. It's good to remember that as fluffy as she is with Andy, Fortuna is not that kind of woman 99% of the time.
As always, thank you to my patrons:
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SanguisAnima
Σ Series Z10/0 Group A 4A-GELU Mk1
- Location
- nowhere important
Let me guess: Andy's mom has that hairstyle.
Y'know, that one that's an instant death flag.
Y'know, that one that's an instant death flag.
Fellow Human
Verified Roado Rolla
le confused
It's only been a month of sleep, did that option really win? Where's the shock of posthumous fame?
It's only been a month of sleep, did that option really win? Where's the shock of posthumous fame?
- Location
- USA
I just want to note the difference between reality and this fic. I love this fic and don't want it to be lambasted for "fake news" or some other BS.
In reality the Black Panthers were not a nonviolent civil rights group, whereas in this fic's Earth Bet they were.
In reality, they leaned much more toward Malcom X's side of civil rights activism than toward Martin Luther King Jr.'s approach. A cursory google search will provide you with more information if you are curious. That said, Earth Bet is different and that's fine.
P.S. I am not commenting with an opinion on the Black Panthers, just noting the historical difference.
In reality the Black Panthers were not a nonviolent civil rights group, whereas in this fic's Earth Bet they were.
In reality, they leaned much more toward Malcom X's side of civil rights activism than toward Martin Luther King Jr.'s approach. A cursory google search will provide you with more information if you are curious. That said, Earth Bet is different and that's fine.
P.S. I am not commenting with an opinion on the Black Panthers, just noting the historical difference.
Last edited:
Fabled Webs
Lord Weaver, Glorious and Wise
- Location
- Arlington, VA
One is an omake
7.3 Intermission
Fabled Webs
Lord Weaver, Glorious and Wise
- Location
- Arlington, VA
Intermission 7.3
Colin Wallis
2002, February 14: Brockton Bay, NH
With Mrs. Simmons' death, it was all but confirmed that she was in fact Doubletime, the Black Panther cape best known for using her power to secure escape routes for her fellows during raids. She wasn't a combatant, but remained valuable to the Panthers, which was probably why she was targeted by Allfather. Without her to increase their mobility, the Panthers became exceedingly more vulnerable.
Her death also had the effect of lighting a powder keg on the criminal underworld of Brockton Bay. The Ryujin seemed content to make war with various Asian gangs in an attempt to secure the northern half of the city. Allfather took that as an invitation to focus on eradicating the Panthers.
Sixteen deaths, four drive-by shootings, nine Molotov cocktails thrown through store windows, and seven nonlethal racially motivated assaults were the result of this focus. Just two days after Mrs. Simmons' death, the city was at war.
"Console to Armsmaster, we've got a robbery on Kale and Fourth Street North," my communicator rang out. There was the slightest echo of static in the background, something that I'd been meaning to fix but didn't get the chance to thanks to the sudden gang war. Quality of life improvements such as these had taken somewhat of a backseat to more pressing adjustments.
"We're on our way, console," I told her. I recognized Office Drye's voice from an ethics and procedures seminar she ran. Good woman, sharp as a whip, though unfortunately retired from the field due to her age.
"Well, shit. Looks like it's going to be a busy night," my partner grumbled, his bike only a few feet behind mine.
"Likely."
When we arrived, it was to find one Hispanic and one black man cornering a third man of some indeterminable ethnicity. I wasn't sure if I should be happy that not all criminals had segregated themselves along racial lines or upset that they were taking advantage of the brewing race war to profit themselves.
"Freeze!" I yelled as I parked my bike and leapt out in a single, smooth motion. I allowed myself a brief smile. The classics were classics for a reason and there was a simple pleasure in yelling stereotypical one-liners and still forcing people to take me seriously.
"Shit, it's Armsmaster! We ain't capes, man," one of the men said.
That brief mess got wrapped up in only seven minutes and four of those were waiting for police. As he said, this was not a parahuman-related crime and so Cannonade and I had minimal jurisdiction. Barring exceptional circumstances, we weren't advised to act beyond restraining suspects and waiting for police to provide statements. In some ways, the Protectorate was an auxiliary force to local police, for better and for worse.
Tonight, it ended up being for the worse.
Over the past two days, Mrs. Simmons became a martyr to the racial equality movement, something the Panthers eagerly seized on. They organized a number of demonstrations and marches for justice, many of them peaceful, but some not.
Cars were set on fire. Shops with white owners were broken into and vandalized. That caused shop owners from both sides to climb their rooftops with guns, keeping vigil all night in a sort of improvised neighborhood watch that would have almost been impressive if not for their willingness to take shots at anyone not of their skin color.
It all reminded me worryingly of the LA race riots in 1992. I couldn't remember if those riots came before or shortly after Alexandria claiming Los Angeles as her home city, but I suspected they were why she held such an iron grip on the city. I wasn't a hero then, but I remembered hearing about it on the news and wondering how things could end so poorly.
I now knew. It wasn't any one thing. Mrs. Simmons' death was the spark that lit the powder keg, but it was only the straw that broke the camel's back.
It was impossible at times to distinguish between the grief-stricken and the criminal so Director Cooper's policy was to let them tire themselves out. Leave maintaining public order to the mayor and the police because the Protectorate and PRT had our hands full with the Empire and Ryujin.
I agreed and wished it could be that simple. Already, that distinction in responsibilities was breaking down. There was a violent confrontation between police and protesters yesterday and it was only through good fortune that no one died. Tonight, it seemed as though everything would come to a head. All capes were called back on duty and distributed throughout various potential flashpoints.
Cannonade and I met up with Brandish and Flashbang, the grounded members of New Wave, to respond to a raid led by Asatru, Krieg, and Brunhild on a suspected Panther safehouse. Rebellion of the Panthers responded with seventeen men armed to the teeth with bats, pistols, tire irons, and whatever else they could scrounge up.
"This is console. Armsmaster, Cannonade, you are linked with Brandish and Flashbang. Your focus is on detaining the capes as quickly as possible and breaking up the fight. Priority, Asatru."
"Understood, console."
With the slide of a hidden trigger, I sent a pulse of low-frequency sound that mapped my surroundings. It had nothing close to the range of one of Bluesong's creations, but at two hundred yards, it provided plenty of data for my combat algorithm to work with.
Rebellion was the most violent extremist among the Panthers. He was suspected of being the one to heavily radicalize them from a civic organization to a gang. His crimes ranged from larceny to murder and his rap sheet was long enough that he began to blur the line between rebel and anarchist. For all his posturing however, he was a relatively simple changer-brute who had comically large muscles and could grow ram-like horns and an extra set of arms. Bulletproof, fast, and with enhanced senses, but ultimately predictable.
On the Empire side, I identified the biggest threat as Brunhild, the "valkyrie." The tall, heavily armored woman was a recent recruit by the Empire and thus not high up in their chain of command, but a power-granting trump was always a concern. She had the potential to be a force multiplier as potent as Paladin.
Krieg, the localized shaker and kinetic manipulator, was their direct combatant. He was problematic because his shaker field sapped all kinetic energy, making projectiles ineffective and close combat dangerous. He was also profiled as being particularly ambitious despite being middle-rung on the Empire ladder.
Comparatively, Asatru wasn't much of a threat. He was a fellow tinker with a specialization in drone technology, but insisted on styling himself after the Norse god, Odin. Everything he made was modeled after ravens and wolves and whatever stylistic choices he made for the sake of matching the Empire's motif, he made at the cost of efficiency and capability. He claimed he was all-seeing, a grand general who could control the battlefield.
I was happy to put that to the test.
Asatru was hanging back as he piloted his unkindness of ravens through a series of motion sensors on his hands. It was hilariously impractical, but I supposed it allowed him to play up his shamanic theme. The raven-drones flew about, distracting Panthers, pecking out eyes, and relaying orders.
At his feet were a pair of wolves, Freki and Geri supposedly. The two drones could only loosely be called such as each towered six feet at the shoulder. He almost never sent them out so that they could protect him from all comers.
Krieg charged forward and was wrestling with Rebellion. The two were locked in a grapple but Rebellion used his extra set of arms to hammer down at Krieg. Whether it had enough kinetic force after passing through Krieg's shaker field to do any damage, I could not tell at a distance.
"Follow me, warriors of the Empire! Purge the unworthy and claim for yourselves a seat in Valhalla!" Brunhild screamed out, her winged helmet standing out in the crowd. She waved her glowing banner, a spear with a flag wrapped around it, and charged. As tacky as that sounded, it had the desired effect. Behind her, fourteen Empire grunts charged in her wake.
Her brute rating was normally negligible, but she became stronger the more followers she had. And in turn, she empowered her followers with a lesser version of her brute powers. With no cape to occupy her, she would massacre the Panthers.
In moments, I came up with a plan. From arrival to analysis, it took me six seconds. Good, but still too long. I made a note to find a way to arrive with the scanner and combat algorithm already running.
"Flashbang, occupy Brunhild. Cannonade, separate Rebellion and Krieg. Then focus Krieg, you don't need to take him out, just keep him in place. Brandish to Rebellion," I barked out.
I heard their assent and shot out of our position, launching straight for Asatru. He had several men defending him, all shirtless and decked out in blue paint. Celt or Norse, I wished they'd at least pick a brand and stick to it…
"You cannot stop the higher powers, Armsmaster," their leader rambled on like a B-movie villain. At his feet, the two wolves began to stir. They opened their mouths and I noticed the flash of a gun barrel in their jaws. "We pure ones will cleanse the filth of this world!"
I rolled my eyes and cut aside one of the ravens as it came to peck at me with the sheen of poison on its beak. The problem with a raven theme was not that ravens were poor flyers, far from it. The problem was that they were big and when made of metal, they were depressingly cumbersome. Tinkertech could only excuse so much before physics took hold. I had hoped that they would be a good benchmark to test my combat algorithm against multiple vectors of attack, but Asatru's flock seemed limited to only a handful of weapons.
Still, he was a good target. He was a lieutenant in the Empire and as a tinker with an emphasis on surveillance, likely had plenty of valuable intel. Foolish that they let him out with so little protection; perhaps Allfather thought we heroes would be too busy to target him directly.
The wolves began to fire just as I marked them as priority concerns on my UI. The combat algorithm took over and I stepped to the side with deceptive ease even as I tased a grunt who had underestimated the range of my halberd.
I all but ignored the ravens, striking them down when they made their harrying runs. When they tried to stay at range, I used my grappling hook to grab them, the algorithm easily calculating the vectors necessary, to toss them into one another.
Their only real surprise was when two of them formed positive and negative charged ions between their claws, firing ionized plasma my way. "Mighty Odin strike you down!" he roared as if he was truly calling down lightning.
Compared to what I saw in DC, swarms of laser drones or Legend's explosions that made the very sky tremble, he was utterly pathetic. I charged the end of my own grappling hook and swung it, gathering the ionized plasma like a lightning rod. With the same deft motion, I stuck the opposite end of my halberd into the ground harmlessly.
The half-naked fools were even less of a problem considering they wielded "traditional" weapons and warpaint. If anything, their presence kept the wolf-drones from attacking me freely.
Asatru clapped his hands then flung them out before pointing a finger towards the sky. "Odin take you!"
"Brandish, strafing run coming your way," I drawled. "Watch the drones."
He froze. "What?"
"You're predictable. You clap to change targets. The distance you spread your arms selects the weapon choice. The angle determines the number of drones you send. That pompous catchphrase is also your activation phrase."
"You…"
I rushed forward, adjusting the setting on my plasma blade to cut through the head of one of his wolves. Then I did as my algorithm suggested and allowed my knees to buckle, falling with the pouncing wolf and mitigating the impact before rolling away. My halberd rose up, extending with the thrust to bury its heated edge into the wolf's chest. I smiled victoriously as something in its internals exploded.
I was left with only a handful of Asatru's personal henchmen. One tried to grab me from behind and my algorithm recommended a strike to the temple to remove him from the fight. I opted to just trip him then step on him as I hopped by to wind him. I made a note that the standard program could use more refinement. There were times when swift, decisive strikes were necessary, but strikes like that could also cause permanent harm which could pose problems down the line.
I toggled through my helmet's UI and diverted some of the energy needed for my plasma blade into the center of my halberd's shaft. There, I'd embedded a small but efficient generator that could be temporarily charged to expel a localized EMP. It only had a radius of four yards, but it was perfect for disabling tinkers up close.
I'd taken the idea from Hyunmu's Blitzshield; he'd used it enough on me as our spars got more competitive. About a month in, hardening everything I made to a minimum satisfactory level was all but mandatory with him.
Asatru did not have the benefit of such training. When faced with an experienced close combat specialist, he folded like a house of cards. My EMP sparked and every one of his drones fell to the ground, leaving my allies to focus on their tasks. I'd be sure to come collect the drones for personal study. They didn't seem all that impressive, but perhaps there was some aspect of his specialization Asatru overlooked in favor of sticking on-brand that I could learn from.
"You'll pay, race traitor," he swore. "You think you can hold Asatru?"
I rolled my eyes. Talking in the third person? He practically filled out the cartoon villain bingo card all on his lonesome. I wondered how this fool became a lieutenant. More than likely, he was elevated because he was no threat to Allfather's rule. Reaching down, I plucked a knife and some sort of black orb that my scanner told me was tinkertech. After closing off all potential escape vectors, I read him the abbreviated version of his rights.
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be provided for you."
"I know my rights," he smiled up at me viciously. "I'll be out within the week. You think any of this matters? Allfather will skewer you for this."
"Just procedure, you understand," I drawled. Then, more to get him to stop talking than because he was a flight risk, I injected him with a tranquilizer that knocked him out cold.
With my side of this battle dealt with, I turned my attention back to my colleagues. Flashbang was a man I'd come to respect in my three weeks in the city. He was measured and careful in everything he did, a direct contrast to his wife's more straightforward demeanor.
I wondered if it had to do with his powers. His power was intensely lethal, the creation of hardlight grenades with varying explosive yields. According to him, he taught himself to remove the thermal component and diminish the kinetic component of his power, creating a largely nonlethal, concussive variant that could be used on even civilians with minimal concerns. Even so, he always had to gauge just where his bombs went to avoid permanent injuries. That he was immune to his own explosions made things harder in some ways because he couldn't always rely on his own senses to judge the intensity of his attacks.
He had started by peppering Brunhild and her cohorts with bombs that were barely more than a hard shove, but quickly scaled up to bombs that exploded with enough force to toss my motorbike like a ragdoll. That was enough to incapacitate most of the lesser brutes and convince the rest that the fight wasn't worthwhile. Brunhild however was good enough to leverage her strength into better mobility and her armor protected her from the kinetic impact of Flashbang's grenades.
Across the street, Cannonade and Krieg traded ranged attacks. Cannonade had the decisive edge and was able to easily pin the shaker, but he was forced to run occasionally when Krieg tried to give chase or threw a rock his way enhanced by his own shaker field.
Brandish at least had Rebellion handled like an unruly child. She was by all accounts an exceptionally focused woman and it showed clearly in her combat style. She fought like nothing else existed but her and her opponent. With a hardlight longsword in one hand and kite shield in the other, I thought she could easily fit the "Paladin" moniker as well as my leader.
Rebellion clasped two hands above his head and brought them down in a hammer blow that would have caved in reinforced steel. Brandish dodged with impressive efficiency and parried another blow with her shield tilted just so before scoring a vicious cut on the brute's forearm. He howled in pain.
"You bitch! I'm going to kill you for that!"
"Unlikely," she snorted, her composure never breaking.
I saw that she had Rebellion well in hand and moved to support Flashbang. "ETA on unpowered support?" I barked into my mic.
"One minute, Armsmaster."
"Asatru is down and has been dosed. Prioritize securing him."
"Understood."
Brunhild ducked behind a car and picked up one of her own men before throwing him at Flashbang. The throw fell short, but it was enough to make Flashbang hesitate for fear of hitting the lad. That gave her the precious second needed to close the gap.
I dove forward, my servos groaning and grinding as I pushed my armor to its limit. My halberd interposed itself between Brunhild's spear and Flashbang in a rain of sparks and I made a note to thank Metalmaru for the chemical composition of that experimental steel alloy he sent me. It was roughly equivalent to tungsten carbide in durability but thirty-one percent lighter, which made me proportionately faster.
"Surrender, Brunhild. You're young. You don't need to go down this road," Flashbang warned earnestly. She likely reminded him of Fleur, the youngest member of New Wave and a capable heroine in her own right.
"Fuck you, race traitor! You think those fuckers hiding behind you are innocent? Who the fuck do you think killed my parents?" she shrieked. There was real pain there, the anguish of loss I'd become all too able to recognize.
She lashed out with strength born of desperation, but she was weakening. With her followers downed, the feedback loop of her trump power was drying up.
I parried a wild swing with my halberd before lashing out with a front snap kick that bowled her over. "Enough. Your personal tragedy does not give you grounds to seek violent revenge on an entire race of people."
"Fuck you! You don't know shit! You're not even from this city!"
I grit my teeth at that. She wasn't wrong. My childhood was less than ideal, but I never had to struggle with the death of a parent. No matter my parents' shortcomings, I never once doubted they'd be there for me, that they loved me in their own, aloof way."You could have done some real good in the Protectorate. You still can. I will make recommendations for therapy and a transfer."
"No!" She rose and lunged for me, spear pointed at my throat. I grabbed it and held it still as a weak concussive grenade from Flashbang sent her rolling away. "You think I'm going to work with that fucking nigger? I'd rather die!"
She could be talking about the director or Paladin. It didn't matter; I doubted we'd get through to her. I could already guess what most likely happened. A tragic casualty of a firefight, one of Rebellion's random rampages, or perhaps a mugging unrelated to the gangs. A trigger that was discovered by the Empire, only for them to seize on the opportunity to twist her vulnerable worldview. They gave her a home, adopting her into their warped community and offering her a circle of friends who validated their beliefs.
Or maybe her father was as racist as she was.
It didn't matter. I had a job to do. She'd see her day in court.
Without her spear and followers, she was barely more than a teenage girl throwing a tantrum. I grabbed her and cuffed her with Petricite shackles before handing her off to Flashbang so he could lead her to the now-arrived PRT transport.
He took her wordlessly and began to frog-march her away as I turned to support Cannonade against Krieg.
My intervention proved unnecessary.
Cannonade had caught on to the nuances of Krieg's power. He dodged out of the way of a thrown brick and dashed for his bicycle. He unclasped the miniaturized fire extinguisher I'd given him and used his power on the foam that came out, creating a sizable distraction and breaking line of sight.
I saw what he did next through my new sonar system. He picked out the bike chain and lock he used when we had walking patrols and whirled it over his head before launching it at Krieg like a bola. The chain, each link as thick as two fingers, now grew to the size of my thigh while retaining momentum.
Krieg's shaker field augmented or dampened inertia as far as we could tell. It did little to nothing to hamper mass. And with a chain, one link would enter the field first, slow, and transfer some of that force to the other links, making the field overall less effective. Even if the chain was moving at walking pace, it was still a set of metal links as thick as my leg. Weight alone would impart considerable force.
"Gah!" I heard the Empire cape yelp in pain as he was caught off guard. The link struck his shoulder, whirled around him, and dragged him to the ground with the snap of broken bone, pinning him under the increased mass.
Cannonade was no tinker, but he had a certain roguish cunning befitting his captain's motif. I approved.
"Is that everyone?" Brandish asked as she tossed an unconscious Rebellion at my feet. With his loss, the gang members following him scattered into the wind. I frowned. It would have been good to capture more of them, but I suspected the police would bother with only a few token arrests given the circumstances.
"It is," I said. "Thank you for your help, Flashbang, Brandish."
"This is our city, too."
Flashbang placed an arm around his wife. "She's right. We have a lot of work to do."
I nodded curtly. "Cannonade and I will escort the prisoners to the PRT cells."
"You do that, Armsmaster. I think we'll patrol the neighborhood for a while longer, make sure Mike and Jess don't need our help."
"Lightstar and Fleur," his wife corrected.
"Right, sorry. In the field."
"But it is as he said. We'll be seeing you. And welcome to Brockton Bay."
Author's Note
I wasn't born during the LA riots, but my uncle lived (still lives) in LA at the time. He'd tell me the craziest stories of neighbors standing on the roof of their laundromat business with shotguns all night. For a few months, it was honestly worse than Wildbow's depiction of Brockton Bay. In Brockton, there's a clear bad guy, a literal villainous group of Nazis. During the riots, it was everyone for themselves. Koreans, Mexicans, blacks, with the police being just another gang.
Asatru is the name of a modern religion that seeks to bring back pre-Christian Norse beliefs. The faith itself is not in itself racist, but white supremacists sometimes identify with it because it is a "warrior religion" and places a cultural emphasis on tribes, folklore, and (white) culture.
No, Brunhild was not my attempt at writing a "sympathetic Nazi." She's a bitch. Deluded bitch, but a bitch. I like to give OCs I make some personality and that's just what came out. Asatru is a chuuni who's halfway convinced himself that he's really Odin's messenger. Brunhild is a very angry teenage girl with a hell of a misspent youth.
Armsmaster is really strong when he's not being pit against Lung, the S9, or similar. In canon, he was consistently among the most prominent heroes in the country (Triumvirate, Rime, Myrddin, Chevalier, Exalt, Cinereal, Armsmaster, and someone else I can't remember).
As always, thank you to all my patrons. As of posting this chapter, my patrons can read up to LT 7.5, PWP 3.13, and Spoon 3.8 as well as two more stories that'll eventually come up in the publishing schedule. That is 17 chapters worth of extra content (of admittedly dubious quality).
Colin Wallis
2002, February 14: Brockton Bay, NH
With Mrs. Simmons' death, it was all but confirmed that she was in fact Doubletime, the Black Panther cape best known for using her power to secure escape routes for her fellows during raids. She wasn't a combatant, but remained valuable to the Panthers, which was probably why she was targeted by Allfather. Without her to increase their mobility, the Panthers became exceedingly more vulnerable.
Her death also had the effect of lighting a powder keg on the criminal underworld of Brockton Bay. The Ryujin seemed content to make war with various Asian gangs in an attempt to secure the northern half of the city. Allfather took that as an invitation to focus on eradicating the Panthers.
Sixteen deaths, four drive-by shootings, nine Molotov cocktails thrown through store windows, and seven nonlethal racially motivated assaults were the result of this focus. Just two days after Mrs. Simmons' death, the city was at war.
"Console to Armsmaster, we've got a robbery on Kale and Fourth Street North," my communicator rang out. There was the slightest echo of static in the background, something that I'd been meaning to fix but didn't get the chance to thanks to the sudden gang war. Quality of life improvements such as these had taken somewhat of a backseat to more pressing adjustments.
"We're on our way, console," I told her. I recognized Office Drye's voice from an ethics and procedures seminar she ran. Good woman, sharp as a whip, though unfortunately retired from the field due to her age.
"Well, shit. Looks like it's going to be a busy night," my partner grumbled, his bike only a few feet behind mine.
"Likely."
When we arrived, it was to find one Hispanic and one black man cornering a third man of some indeterminable ethnicity. I wasn't sure if I should be happy that not all criminals had segregated themselves along racial lines or upset that they were taking advantage of the brewing race war to profit themselves.
"Freeze!" I yelled as I parked my bike and leapt out in a single, smooth motion. I allowed myself a brief smile. The classics were classics for a reason and there was a simple pleasure in yelling stereotypical one-liners and still forcing people to take me seriously.
"Shit, it's Armsmaster! We ain't capes, man," one of the men said.
That brief mess got wrapped up in only seven minutes and four of those were waiting for police. As he said, this was not a parahuman-related crime and so Cannonade and I had minimal jurisdiction. Barring exceptional circumstances, we weren't advised to act beyond restraining suspects and waiting for police to provide statements. In some ways, the Protectorate was an auxiliary force to local police, for better and for worse.
X
Tonight, it ended up being for the worse.
Over the past two days, Mrs. Simmons became a martyr to the racial equality movement, something the Panthers eagerly seized on. They organized a number of demonstrations and marches for justice, many of them peaceful, but some not.
Cars were set on fire. Shops with white owners were broken into and vandalized. That caused shop owners from both sides to climb their rooftops with guns, keeping vigil all night in a sort of improvised neighborhood watch that would have almost been impressive if not for their willingness to take shots at anyone not of their skin color.
It all reminded me worryingly of the LA race riots in 1992. I couldn't remember if those riots came before or shortly after Alexandria claiming Los Angeles as her home city, but I suspected they were why she held such an iron grip on the city. I wasn't a hero then, but I remembered hearing about it on the news and wondering how things could end so poorly.
I now knew. It wasn't any one thing. Mrs. Simmons' death was the spark that lit the powder keg, but it was only the straw that broke the camel's back.
It was impossible at times to distinguish between the grief-stricken and the criminal so Director Cooper's policy was to let them tire themselves out. Leave maintaining public order to the mayor and the police because the Protectorate and PRT had our hands full with the Empire and Ryujin.
I agreed and wished it could be that simple. Already, that distinction in responsibilities was breaking down. There was a violent confrontation between police and protesters yesterday and it was only through good fortune that no one died. Tonight, it seemed as though everything would come to a head. All capes were called back on duty and distributed throughout various potential flashpoints.
Cannonade and I met up with Brandish and Flashbang, the grounded members of New Wave, to respond to a raid led by Asatru, Krieg, and Brunhild on a suspected Panther safehouse. Rebellion of the Panthers responded with seventeen men armed to the teeth with bats, pistols, tire irons, and whatever else they could scrounge up.
"This is console. Armsmaster, Cannonade, you are linked with Brandish and Flashbang. Your focus is on detaining the capes as quickly as possible and breaking up the fight. Priority, Asatru."
"Understood, console."
With the slide of a hidden trigger, I sent a pulse of low-frequency sound that mapped my surroundings. It had nothing close to the range of one of Bluesong's creations, but at two hundred yards, it provided plenty of data for my combat algorithm to work with.
Rebellion was the most violent extremist among the Panthers. He was suspected of being the one to heavily radicalize them from a civic organization to a gang. His crimes ranged from larceny to murder and his rap sheet was long enough that he began to blur the line between rebel and anarchist. For all his posturing however, he was a relatively simple changer-brute who had comically large muscles and could grow ram-like horns and an extra set of arms. Bulletproof, fast, and with enhanced senses, but ultimately predictable.
On the Empire side, I identified the biggest threat as Brunhild, the "valkyrie." The tall, heavily armored woman was a recent recruit by the Empire and thus not high up in their chain of command, but a power-granting trump was always a concern. She had the potential to be a force multiplier as potent as Paladin.
Krieg, the localized shaker and kinetic manipulator, was their direct combatant. He was problematic because his shaker field sapped all kinetic energy, making projectiles ineffective and close combat dangerous. He was also profiled as being particularly ambitious despite being middle-rung on the Empire ladder.
Comparatively, Asatru wasn't much of a threat. He was a fellow tinker with a specialization in drone technology, but insisted on styling himself after the Norse god, Odin. Everything he made was modeled after ravens and wolves and whatever stylistic choices he made for the sake of matching the Empire's motif, he made at the cost of efficiency and capability. He claimed he was all-seeing, a grand general who could control the battlefield.
I was happy to put that to the test.
Asatru was hanging back as he piloted his unkindness of ravens through a series of motion sensors on his hands. It was hilariously impractical, but I supposed it allowed him to play up his shamanic theme. The raven-drones flew about, distracting Panthers, pecking out eyes, and relaying orders.
At his feet were a pair of wolves, Freki and Geri supposedly. The two drones could only loosely be called such as each towered six feet at the shoulder. He almost never sent them out so that they could protect him from all comers.
Krieg charged forward and was wrestling with Rebellion. The two were locked in a grapple but Rebellion used his extra set of arms to hammer down at Krieg. Whether it had enough kinetic force after passing through Krieg's shaker field to do any damage, I could not tell at a distance.
"Follow me, warriors of the Empire! Purge the unworthy and claim for yourselves a seat in Valhalla!" Brunhild screamed out, her winged helmet standing out in the crowd. She waved her glowing banner, a spear with a flag wrapped around it, and charged. As tacky as that sounded, it had the desired effect. Behind her, fourteen Empire grunts charged in her wake.
Her brute rating was normally negligible, but she became stronger the more followers she had. And in turn, she empowered her followers with a lesser version of her brute powers. With no cape to occupy her, she would massacre the Panthers.
In moments, I came up with a plan. From arrival to analysis, it took me six seconds. Good, but still too long. I made a note to find a way to arrive with the scanner and combat algorithm already running.
"Flashbang, occupy Brunhild. Cannonade, separate Rebellion and Krieg. Then focus Krieg, you don't need to take him out, just keep him in place. Brandish to Rebellion," I barked out.
I heard their assent and shot out of our position, launching straight for Asatru. He had several men defending him, all shirtless and decked out in blue paint. Celt or Norse, I wished they'd at least pick a brand and stick to it…
"You cannot stop the higher powers, Armsmaster," their leader rambled on like a B-movie villain. At his feet, the two wolves began to stir. They opened their mouths and I noticed the flash of a gun barrel in their jaws. "We pure ones will cleanse the filth of this world!"
I rolled my eyes and cut aside one of the ravens as it came to peck at me with the sheen of poison on its beak. The problem with a raven theme was not that ravens were poor flyers, far from it. The problem was that they were big and when made of metal, they were depressingly cumbersome. Tinkertech could only excuse so much before physics took hold. I had hoped that they would be a good benchmark to test my combat algorithm against multiple vectors of attack, but Asatru's flock seemed limited to only a handful of weapons.
Still, he was a good target. He was a lieutenant in the Empire and as a tinker with an emphasis on surveillance, likely had plenty of valuable intel. Foolish that they let him out with so little protection; perhaps Allfather thought we heroes would be too busy to target him directly.
The wolves began to fire just as I marked them as priority concerns on my UI. The combat algorithm took over and I stepped to the side with deceptive ease even as I tased a grunt who had underestimated the range of my halberd.
I all but ignored the ravens, striking them down when they made their harrying runs. When they tried to stay at range, I used my grappling hook to grab them, the algorithm easily calculating the vectors necessary, to toss them into one another.
Their only real surprise was when two of them formed positive and negative charged ions between their claws, firing ionized plasma my way. "Mighty Odin strike you down!" he roared as if he was truly calling down lightning.
Compared to what I saw in DC, swarms of laser drones or Legend's explosions that made the very sky tremble, he was utterly pathetic. I charged the end of my own grappling hook and swung it, gathering the ionized plasma like a lightning rod. With the same deft motion, I stuck the opposite end of my halberd into the ground harmlessly.
The half-naked fools were even less of a problem considering they wielded "traditional" weapons and warpaint. If anything, their presence kept the wolf-drones from attacking me freely.
Asatru clapped his hands then flung them out before pointing a finger towards the sky. "Odin take you!"
"Brandish, strafing run coming your way," I drawled. "Watch the drones."
He froze. "What?"
"You're predictable. You clap to change targets. The distance you spread your arms selects the weapon choice. The angle determines the number of drones you send. That pompous catchphrase is also your activation phrase."
"You…"
I rushed forward, adjusting the setting on my plasma blade to cut through the head of one of his wolves. Then I did as my algorithm suggested and allowed my knees to buckle, falling with the pouncing wolf and mitigating the impact before rolling away. My halberd rose up, extending with the thrust to bury its heated edge into the wolf's chest. I smiled victoriously as something in its internals exploded.
I was left with only a handful of Asatru's personal henchmen. One tried to grab me from behind and my algorithm recommended a strike to the temple to remove him from the fight. I opted to just trip him then step on him as I hopped by to wind him. I made a note that the standard program could use more refinement. There were times when swift, decisive strikes were necessary, but strikes like that could also cause permanent harm which could pose problems down the line.
I toggled through my helmet's UI and diverted some of the energy needed for my plasma blade into the center of my halberd's shaft. There, I'd embedded a small but efficient generator that could be temporarily charged to expel a localized EMP. It only had a radius of four yards, but it was perfect for disabling tinkers up close.
I'd taken the idea from Hyunmu's Blitzshield; he'd used it enough on me as our spars got more competitive. About a month in, hardening everything I made to a minimum satisfactory level was all but mandatory with him.
Asatru did not have the benefit of such training. When faced with an experienced close combat specialist, he folded like a house of cards. My EMP sparked and every one of his drones fell to the ground, leaving my allies to focus on their tasks. I'd be sure to come collect the drones for personal study. They didn't seem all that impressive, but perhaps there was some aspect of his specialization Asatru overlooked in favor of sticking on-brand that I could learn from.
"You'll pay, race traitor," he swore. "You think you can hold Asatru?"
I rolled my eyes. Talking in the third person? He practically filled out the cartoon villain bingo card all on his lonesome. I wondered how this fool became a lieutenant. More than likely, he was elevated because he was no threat to Allfather's rule. Reaching down, I plucked a knife and some sort of black orb that my scanner told me was tinkertech. After closing off all potential escape vectors, I read him the abbreviated version of his rights.
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be provided for you."
"I know my rights," he smiled up at me viciously. "I'll be out within the week. You think any of this matters? Allfather will skewer you for this."
"Just procedure, you understand," I drawled. Then, more to get him to stop talking than because he was a flight risk, I injected him with a tranquilizer that knocked him out cold.
With my side of this battle dealt with, I turned my attention back to my colleagues. Flashbang was a man I'd come to respect in my three weeks in the city. He was measured and careful in everything he did, a direct contrast to his wife's more straightforward demeanor.
I wondered if it had to do with his powers. His power was intensely lethal, the creation of hardlight grenades with varying explosive yields. According to him, he taught himself to remove the thermal component and diminish the kinetic component of his power, creating a largely nonlethal, concussive variant that could be used on even civilians with minimal concerns. Even so, he always had to gauge just where his bombs went to avoid permanent injuries. That he was immune to his own explosions made things harder in some ways because he couldn't always rely on his own senses to judge the intensity of his attacks.
He had started by peppering Brunhild and her cohorts with bombs that were barely more than a hard shove, but quickly scaled up to bombs that exploded with enough force to toss my motorbike like a ragdoll. That was enough to incapacitate most of the lesser brutes and convince the rest that the fight wasn't worthwhile. Brunhild however was good enough to leverage her strength into better mobility and her armor protected her from the kinetic impact of Flashbang's grenades.
Across the street, Cannonade and Krieg traded ranged attacks. Cannonade had the decisive edge and was able to easily pin the shaker, but he was forced to run occasionally when Krieg tried to give chase or threw a rock his way enhanced by his own shaker field.
Brandish at least had Rebellion handled like an unruly child. She was by all accounts an exceptionally focused woman and it showed clearly in her combat style. She fought like nothing else existed but her and her opponent. With a hardlight longsword in one hand and kite shield in the other, I thought she could easily fit the "Paladin" moniker as well as my leader.
Rebellion clasped two hands above his head and brought them down in a hammer blow that would have caved in reinforced steel. Brandish dodged with impressive efficiency and parried another blow with her shield tilted just so before scoring a vicious cut on the brute's forearm. He howled in pain.
"You bitch! I'm going to kill you for that!"
"Unlikely," she snorted, her composure never breaking.
I saw that she had Rebellion well in hand and moved to support Flashbang. "ETA on unpowered support?" I barked into my mic.
"One minute, Armsmaster."
"Asatru is down and has been dosed. Prioritize securing him."
"Understood."
Brunhild ducked behind a car and picked up one of her own men before throwing him at Flashbang. The throw fell short, but it was enough to make Flashbang hesitate for fear of hitting the lad. That gave her the precious second needed to close the gap.
I dove forward, my servos groaning and grinding as I pushed my armor to its limit. My halberd interposed itself between Brunhild's spear and Flashbang in a rain of sparks and I made a note to thank Metalmaru for the chemical composition of that experimental steel alloy he sent me. It was roughly equivalent to tungsten carbide in durability but thirty-one percent lighter, which made me proportionately faster.
"Surrender, Brunhild. You're young. You don't need to go down this road," Flashbang warned earnestly. She likely reminded him of Fleur, the youngest member of New Wave and a capable heroine in her own right.
"Fuck you, race traitor! You think those fuckers hiding behind you are innocent? Who the fuck do you think killed my parents?" she shrieked. There was real pain there, the anguish of loss I'd become all too able to recognize.
She lashed out with strength born of desperation, but she was weakening. With her followers downed, the feedback loop of her trump power was drying up.
I parried a wild swing with my halberd before lashing out with a front snap kick that bowled her over. "Enough. Your personal tragedy does not give you grounds to seek violent revenge on an entire race of people."
"Fuck you! You don't know shit! You're not even from this city!"
I grit my teeth at that. She wasn't wrong. My childhood was less than ideal, but I never had to struggle with the death of a parent. No matter my parents' shortcomings, I never once doubted they'd be there for me, that they loved me in their own, aloof way."You could have done some real good in the Protectorate. You still can. I will make recommendations for therapy and a transfer."
"No!" She rose and lunged for me, spear pointed at my throat. I grabbed it and held it still as a weak concussive grenade from Flashbang sent her rolling away. "You think I'm going to work with that fucking nigger? I'd rather die!"
She could be talking about the director or Paladin. It didn't matter; I doubted we'd get through to her. I could already guess what most likely happened. A tragic casualty of a firefight, one of Rebellion's random rampages, or perhaps a mugging unrelated to the gangs. A trigger that was discovered by the Empire, only for them to seize on the opportunity to twist her vulnerable worldview. They gave her a home, adopting her into their warped community and offering her a circle of friends who validated their beliefs.
Or maybe her father was as racist as she was.
It didn't matter. I had a job to do. She'd see her day in court.
Without her spear and followers, she was barely more than a teenage girl throwing a tantrum. I grabbed her and cuffed her with Petricite shackles before handing her off to Flashbang so he could lead her to the now-arrived PRT transport.
He took her wordlessly and began to frog-march her away as I turned to support Cannonade against Krieg.
My intervention proved unnecessary.
Cannonade had caught on to the nuances of Krieg's power. He dodged out of the way of a thrown brick and dashed for his bicycle. He unclasped the miniaturized fire extinguisher I'd given him and used his power on the foam that came out, creating a sizable distraction and breaking line of sight.
I saw what he did next through my new sonar system. He picked out the bike chain and lock he used when we had walking patrols and whirled it over his head before launching it at Krieg like a bola. The chain, each link as thick as two fingers, now grew to the size of my thigh while retaining momentum.
Krieg's shaker field augmented or dampened inertia as far as we could tell. It did little to nothing to hamper mass. And with a chain, one link would enter the field first, slow, and transfer some of that force to the other links, making the field overall less effective. Even if the chain was moving at walking pace, it was still a set of metal links as thick as my leg. Weight alone would impart considerable force.
"Gah!" I heard the Empire cape yelp in pain as he was caught off guard. The link struck his shoulder, whirled around him, and dragged him to the ground with the snap of broken bone, pinning him under the increased mass.
Cannonade was no tinker, but he had a certain roguish cunning befitting his captain's motif. I approved.
"Is that everyone?" Brandish asked as she tossed an unconscious Rebellion at my feet. With his loss, the gang members following him scattered into the wind. I frowned. It would have been good to capture more of them, but I suspected the police would bother with only a few token arrests given the circumstances.
"It is," I said. "Thank you for your help, Flashbang, Brandish."
"This is our city, too."
Flashbang placed an arm around his wife. "She's right. We have a lot of work to do."
I nodded curtly. "Cannonade and I will escort the prisoners to the PRT cells."
"You do that, Armsmaster. I think we'll patrol the neighborhood for a while longer, make sure Mike and Jess don't need our help."
"Lightstar and Fleur," his wife corrected.
"Right, sorry. In the field."
"But it is as he said. We'll be seeing you. And welcome to Brockton Bay."
Author's Note
I wasn't born during the LA riots, but my uncle lived (still lives) in LA at the time. He'd tell me the craziest stories of neighbors standing on the roof of their laundromat business with shotguns all night. For a few months, it was honestly worse than Wildbow's depiction of Brockton Bay. In Brockton, there's a clear bad guy, a literal villainous group of Nazis. During the riots, it was everyone for themselves. Koreans, Mexicans, blacks, with the police being just another gang.
Asatru is the name of a modern religion that seeks to bring back pre-Christian Norse beliefs. The faith itself is not in itself racist, but white supremacists sometimes identify with it because it is a "warrior religion" and places a cultural emphasis on tribes, folklore, and (white) culture.
No, Brunhild was not my attempt at writing a "sympathetic Nazi." She's a bitch. Deluded bitch, but a bitch. I like to give OCs I make some personality and that's just what came out. Asatru is a chuuni who's halfway convinced himself that he's really Odin's messenger. Brunhild is a very angry teenage girl with a hell of a misspent youth.
Armsmaster is really strong when he's not being pit against Lung, the S9, or similar. In canon, he was consistently among the most prominent heroes in the country (Triumvirate, Rime, Myrddin, Chevalier, Exalt, Cinereal, Armsmaster, and someone else I can't remember).
As always, thank you to all my patrons. As of posting this chapter, my patrons can read up to LT 7.5, PWP 3.13, and Spoon 3.8 as well as two more stories that'll eventually come up in the publishing schedule. That is 17 chapters worth of extra content (of admittedly dubious quality).
- Location
- Philippines
The only thing I'm waiting for is our MC waking up and people be like "Oh shit!"
- Location
- Louisville KY
- Pronouns
- He/Him
But Imp wasn't around then...
Here he doesn't seem to have ego problem at least. He has seen what dedicated tinker can do and have done. He even got idea of incorporating ideas of other tinkers much earlier and more importantly Hero is alive. From what little we know about him it seems like his death was start of downward spiral of Cauldron even though they wereq quite shady already.
7.4 Intermission
Fabled Webs
Lord Weaver, Glorious and Wise
- Location
- Arlington, VA
Intermission 7.4
Colin Wallis
2002, March 2: Brockton Bay, NH
I'd never been the type to place my faith in a higher power. I believed parahumans could be explained by scientific progress, as outrageous as some powers seemed to be at times. I believed that this universe had an explanation for everything, no matter how seemingly impossible. The universe was an orderly place ruled by logic and predictable methodologies. If we could not understand, that was because we were lacking, not because there was anything truly and innately unknowable.
But Brockton Bay… this city made me wonder if there was such a thing as a higher power. If there was, this city would be shining proof of their disdain for humanity.
Two weeks ago, Cannonade, Brandish, Flashbang, and I scored a noteworthy victory against the criminal elements of this city. Dozens of Empire and Panther gang members were arrested, including Krieg, Brunhild, Rebellion, and the real prize, Asatru. For the first time in years, we had one of the lieutenants of Allfather's regime. We had his spymaster and potentially, access to his schemes.
It was a wonderful start to my career in the city. Unfortunately, it was also about the only progress we made.
Allfather divided his forces into three. While Asatru was captured, he cut a bloody swathe through Panther territory, killing nearly a hundred people, most of them unrelated to the gang war. He was only stopped by Paladin and the Pelham couple. Despite their best efforts, they were only able to capture two out of six capes from his raid, Huntsman and Garm.
On the Panther side, Witch Doctor killed six Empire gang members and mastered their corpses into killing more. It was not uncommon for capes to hide some of their capabilities, but that had been a particularly nasty reveal. In the past, he had relied on taxidermied animals or sometimes even roadkill. There was an assumption that he could not affect humans, a Manton limit.
The eight corpses turned on their former allies and fought viciously, with a tenacity that could not be found among the living. Though they were quickly put down, being forced to mutilate the corpses of their once-friends dealt a heavy blow to the morale of the EMpire rank and file. The unsettling surprise had been enough to secure the getaway of himself and most of his men. Unfortunately, he'd also painted a large target on his back; such an unsettling power would only feed into Allfather's rhetoric.
The last group of Empire capes were seen running a dedicated patrol along the border of their and Ryujin territory to ensure the yakuza did not attempt to capitalize on their distraction. This group was led by the Iron Prince, a man who was heavily suspected of being Allfather's son. Considering his ability to sprout metal on any surface, a relation seemed likely.
That was two weeks ago. After that, things fell steadily downhill.
Crosscut, enforcer of the Ryujin, turned up dead the very next day, literally impaled on a flagpole in front of Brockton Bay University. Though the university was generally accepted as neutral territory, such a public display made it clear that this was meant to provoke the Ryujin, not just remove a single cape.
They succeeded.
The six living members of Ryujin, including a cape called Rangda who was assimilated into their organization during their conquest of the docks, went on a rampage. With Doubletime dead, Rebellion arrested, and Witch Doctor barely holding the Panthers together as a solo cape, they logically eliminated the Panthers as being responsible for the murder, leaving only the Empire, Peach Blossom Company, or one of their own as potential culprits. I did not know precisely how their thought process worked, but Shirokumo, their "ane-san," decided that the Empire was the most likely culprit.
In the end, I suspected that the identity of the real culprit didn't matter as much as having a target to direct their vengeance. Shirokumo laid a trap with her wires as Stormfront flew by and allowed his own momentum to paint him all over the street like a Rorschach's test.
That was the catalyst for what journalists and pundits were calling stage two of this gang war. Initially, the various conflicts were more or less compartmentalized, with Ryujin trying to consolidate their hold over the docks and Boat Graveyard and the Empire trying to wipe out the Panthers. Crosscut's death shattered those imaginary lines and forced a conflict between the two most powerful gangs in the city, all while the Peach Blossom Company watched and waited.
This left the city in a precarious position. Our recent victory over the Empire left them with only six active capes: Allfather, Iron Prince, Purity, Pale Rider, Aryan, and Jarl Jotun. The Ryujin likewise had six capes with Shirokumo, Rangda, Yokai, Sengoku, Zanbato, and Hanya. This kind of numerical parity had never existed between the two factions. The Empire had always outnumbered all other gangs and it was only the threat of a unified alliance that kept them from sweeping the city completely.
Now, the Ryujin smelled blood in the water. Shirokumo ordered her men to fight aggressively and with a brutality born of knowing that such a chance will likely never come again. Just about the only bright side in all this was that Witch Doctor and the remnants of the Black Panthers were all but forgotten. They'd become problems in the future, but they were content to lick their wounds and hold what meager territory they could cling on to.
Two weeks. For two weeks, the Protectorate, New Wave, and a handful of solo independents fought a losing war to try to contain the carnage. By the end of it, hundreds were dead and the mayor had petitioned the state governor for deployment of the national guard. When Bonfire got hospitalized by a stray bullet, Director Cooper was forced to deputize some of the older Wards to patrol safer districts and shore up manpower.
It all culminated in the single largest battle I'd ever been in outside of the endbringer fight. Shirokumo called out Allfather to the Trainyard by carving the challenge directly onto the corpses of his unpowered men and hanging them from her wires like laundry. The macabre display dared Allfather and his Empire to come take her head. With a challenge like that, he had no choice but to move in force.
Which naturally meant the Protectorate had to respond in kind.
Director Cooper, ever the pragmatist, had us form a discrete perimeter around the Trainyard in an attempt to contain the fighting. If they wiped each other out, all the better. The plan fell to pieces at first contact. Even with New Wave, we simply lacked the numbers to enforce a perimeter over such a large number of cape.
Bonfire was hospitalized. Akitsu was our information specialist and had no business in the field. Luminous was deemed too young to participate and was given guard detail over the PRT building and the captured capes alongside the senior Wards. That left myself, Cannonade, Hammerhead, and our illustrious leader, Paladin.
New Wave had agreed to watch Witch Doctor, sending Lightstar and Fleur. With the Dallons and Pelhams joining us in the Trainyard, that left eight heroes and two dozen PRT troopers to contain twelve villains and over a hundred gang members, a tall order by any measure.
I dodged out of the way of Purity's blasts as she drummed a staccato of beats into the side of the train car behind me. She remained one of the biggest threats on the Empire side and though I had done well in a spar against Hero, I was not confident in my ability to deflect serious attacks from the blaster-eight. I was saved from having to think of a way to retaliate by a salvo from Cannonade. A single marble turned into twelve and expanded to the size of soccer balls. The Empire glass cannon yelped and dodged out of the way, screaming obscenities all the while.
She was forced further into the sky when Lady Photon and Hammerhead chased her away from the fight on the ground. Hammerhead was in his full "sky-shark" changer form, with a head that was reminiscent of his namesake and feathered "fins." It made him popular with young boys despite his generally gruff personality.
Those three joined the dogfight between the Empire's Pale Rider and the Ryujin's Rangda and Hanya. They soon escaped the range of my sonar and I forced myself to bring my focus back to earth. The battle on the ground was somehow more structured than the one in the sky despite the larger number of participants.
The three sides formed something vaguely in the shape of a triangle. These clear power blocs were enforced by each sides' ability to easily take down stragglers, usually lethally.
The Iron Prince had joined Allfather, forming a palisade of metal spikes. At the center, he made a large standing platform from which Allfather could command his troops. Jarl Jotun led the Empire gang members on the ground, swinging his large, double-sided ax made of ice. Aryan, the only non-flight-capable speedster in the city, corralled the men and conducted surgical strikes on any enemies who were caught out.
It was a frustratingly effective strategy that made the best use of Allfather's artillery and Iron Prince's defensive capabilities. Paladin eventually settled on a similar formation.
Paladin could grant nearly invulnerable golden shields to anyone in a radius, so he took up position alongside a squad of elite troopers atop what used to be a cargo train. They were relying on Paladin's shields while Cannonade, Flashbang, and the troopers rained fire on both gangs.
That unfortunately left Manpower, Brandish, and myself on the ground to adapt to the best of our abilities. Our opponents were decided for us, myself to the Empire and New Wave to the Ryujin.
The Ryujin 893 took on a far more proactive formation. Yokai could turn one person invisible alongside himself, so he turned his leader, Shirokumo, invisible. She ran along the perimeter of the Trainyard, stringing deadly traps between any surface she could reach. I knew that those wires would cut all but the strongest alloys and had even carved into Metalmaru's work before. My halberd still had a notch to prove her lethality.
I couldn't go after her even though the sonar made marking them easy because of Sengoku. Sengoku was a brute who styled himself as a samurai with a unique shaker effect: Nothing more technologically advanced than a bow and arrow worked. Even bullets that entered his field stopped flying as the kinetic energy imparted by gunpowder became inert. That of course went for tinkertech as well. Should I enter the field, the weight of my own armor would make combat nearly impossible.
I left Sengoku and the bulk of the Ryujin to Manpower and turned to the Empire. I was mildly surprised to note that I was joined by their remaining cape, Zanbato. He carried his namesake, a massive, curved blade five feet in length. If he had any esoteric powers beyond super strength, Akitsu was unable to discover them, the benefit of being new.
"Come on, race traitor!" Jarl Jotun roared as he barreled towards me. He was a large brute of a man with a long, red beard that was braided and garnished with a dagger at the end. His skin had an unhealthy pallor that hinted at tinges of blue towards his extremities. As a brute-eight, he'd yet to encounter an opponent whose attacks he couldn't shrug off.
He swung his double-sided ax with the ferocity of a berserker. I drew my halberd and braced myself, sinking into a textbook block that caught the blade on my haft. The blow made my arms tremble with its force even though I'd upgraded my armor.
I grit my teeth. If he could do this much with one strike, I was not his match in a contest of brute force. He was looking for a shoving contest but I refused to oblige him. With a subtle shift of my foreleg, I turned the haft of my halberd and allowed the blade to slide off before planting my rear foot into his sternum.
I kicked off with everything I had, jumping away into a performative back flip and staggering him. I made a note of that backstep: he could be disoriented even if kinetic force alone likely wouldn't cause enough damage to hurt.
"All strength, no skill," I taunted. Wordplay was not my strong suit, but even a brute like him could not mistake the derision in my voice.
"Die, tin man!" he roared as his feet hammered towards me.
I slid into a different stance, better suited for swift parries and shifts in direction.
The ax swung towards my neck and I followed my combat algorithm, ducking under the blow that would have decapitated me with only a millimeter of space to spare. I retaliated with a thrust towards his bicep. In his arrogance, he did not dodge, trusting his power to see him through.
At the very last moment, I switched on my plasma module. It bit deep and I frowned at the nonsensical nature of his power. His brute power was tied to temperature… for some reason…
"Aaagghh!" he roared, reeling back in pain. "You'll pay!"
"Unlikely," I snorted.
The attack only seemed to make him angrier. He fought with reckless abandon, swinging his ax with seemingly no regard for his safety or those of his compatriots. At the very least, his men seemed to expect it because they gave our duel a wide berth.
I could not find the space to retaliate, such was the ferocity of his strikes. All strength, zero skill. He had never been taught to wield such a heavy weapon but made up for his inexperience by swinging the ax with ever greater enthusiasm.
It disgusted me.
I worked for this strength. I drowned myself in sweat, blood, and vomit until I could compete with monsters like him. I spent sleepless hours designing and redesigning my armor just so I could stand on the same stage as men like him. He was given vitality men could only dream of, awe-inspiring strength, and even cryokinesis on top of that and he squandered it on worthless prejudice to stroke his own ego.
I found everything about him revolting.
With grim determination, I slid my halberd parallel to his ax and twisted, locking it in place. I triggered the extension module, giving my halberd an extra three feet to stab him in the shoulder. I then turned the stab into a sweeping parry before dancing out of range.
As we wove and clashed against one another, I couldn't help but compare Jarl Jotun to another cryokinetic I knew.
Hyunmu once called combat a dance, and for him, it was true. He wove and danced with Isolde in hand and a grace that was all but supernatural. He claimed his martial art was a cobbled together mess, a Frankenstein's Monster of techniques stitched together by an amateur.
It remained the single most elegant and effective combat art I'd ever seen. Knowing that he considered himself an amateur scared me. It scared me because I couldn't imagine the heights he could have reached. It scared me because his words forced me to look myself in the mirror and find the reflection woefully lacking.
I was not Hyunmu. I could not run through the sky on gathering clouds. I could not adjust my body to fight with a dagger one moment and a zweihander the size of houses the next. I did not become a living legend before the age of ten. Battle was not an elegant dance, a language whose fluency came naturally to me.
But I could cheat.
"Combat Protocol Four: Hyunmu," I spoke. My voice came as a whisper but the mic heard me. I could almost imagine the shift.
Battle was not a dance to me. Instead, it was but one more application of the scientific method. Observation. Hypothesis. Experimentation. Conclusion. Repeat until success.
I allowed my armor to guide my body into a style I'd seen mirrored before me hundreds of times. If I could not learn the language of combat to my desired fluency on my own, it stood to reason that I should develop an aid. The data my friend freely gave, I'd put it to good use, not just to predict, but to mimic.
"Die!" Jarl Jotun roared his battle cry as he swung horizontally at my stomach.
I allowed my suit to guide me, leaping into the air with a hair's space to spare. Before he could compensate for his wild swing, I was on him. My halberd shrank to the length of a bastard sword as I drew scorching lines on his barrel chest.
He tried to tackle me but my power armor forcibly contorted my body to act as Hyunmu would. I felt a wrenching force behind my knees, folding me and allowing me to narrowly dodge my opponent's swing. It hurt and it was all I could do to curb the instinctive tensing of my muscles. I had to allow my body to bonelessly fall limp and let the suit take control, lest it tear me apart.
Externally, I showed none of that focused strain. I slid on my knees and as Jarl Jotun tried to adjust, my halberd extended just in time to rip through his Achilles tendon, leaving him stumbling by.
"Aaagghhh!" he roared in pain.
I didn't even let him finish before a blazing thrust took him on the shoulder. I immediately injected my tranquilizer solution into the wound, bypassing his durability.
"You're strong, Jarl Jotun," I admitted. "A pity that's all you are."
I paid him no more mind as I took stock of the ongoing battle.
The dogfight in the sky had dropped in altitude to be just within my sensory range. It was not going in our favor. The heaviest hitter was without question Purity, and Pale Rider happily sacrificed his flying cavalry projections to keep her safe. In comparison, the Ryujin nor the heroic contingent were working nearly as well together. Despite being on the same side, the Protectorate seldom conducted joint training exercises with New Wave or local independents, something that was clearly hurting their coordination now. It was all Lady Photon and Hammerhead could do to keep the four villainous capes from assisting their respective gangs on the ground.
The scene was better on the ground, though not by much. Manpower and Brandish had taken down Yokai, but Manpower was clearly losing a lot of blood. He'd fallen to one knee as he tried to stem the bleeding on a gash over his torso. Brandish stood over her brother-in-law, ready to defend him. Occupied as she was, she likely wouldn't be good for more than taking down the occasional grunt who strayed too close. Shirokumo was nowhere to be found, which meant Yokai's invisibility would likely last several more minutes even without him.
Zanbato, the other Ryujin cape who went after the Empire, was dead. He had been distracted by Aryan, the Empire speedster, before someone threw an incendiary at him. Whatever brute rating he had, he wasn't fireproof and his inexperience got him killed.
I put it out of mind.
"Manpower and Brandish require assistance," I barked into the comms. It was all I could do for him. "I cannot fight Sengoku due to his anti-tech field. Engaging Aryan."
"Roger, we see him, Armsmaster," Paladin's voice rang back.
Before I could chase down Aryan, I saw him rush off towards the Ryujin contingent. Without Zanbato to distract the cape, he was tearing through the unpowered members with ease.
Then it happened. He held a knife, blade poised to tear out some young woman's throat, when his legs flew out from beneath him, severed at the knees. Like with Stormfront, his speed kept him from seeing Shirokumo's wires in time. The wires ripped into him as momentum carried him through her trap.
The young woman stood paralyzed as Aryan's lifeblood bathed her a vibrant crimson. The handgun she held in her hand clattered to the ground and her knees gave out a moment later.
Shirokumo was still nowhere to be seen.
Having no other targets, I withdrew to Manpower's side and withdrew a potion before pressing it to his lips. I saw gashes on his body close as color returned to his cheeks. He got up with a determined growl and pounded his fist into his hand.
"Right, thanks, Armsmaster."
"Is your field back up?" Brandish asked. Her hardlight weapons turned into a shield and spear as she prepared herself to reengage.
"Yeah. I'm going to hold off on burst uses though."
"Good. Empire or Ryujin?"
I considered the question. "Approaching the Ryujin contingent is too difficult with Shirokumo's wires. Empire."
Just then, I winced as I saw Rangda use Hammerhead as a shield, skewering him against Pale Rider's lances meant for her. A swift blast from Purity sent him spiraling to the earth and I knew he was lost.
"Hammerhead's down. Lady Photon is going to be forced to withdraw," I told her sister.
Brandish pursed her lips. "We need to end the fighting. Taking down Allfather will force the Empire to back off and he's only got Iron Prince with him."
"Plans?"
"Manpower, throw me?"
He looked alarmed. He eyed the metal palisades that Iron Prince and Allfather hid behind. "You can't go in there alone."
"I can take them," she insisted.
'Suicidal,' I thought, but… perhaps necessary. Between trying to locate Shirokumo and taking down Allfather, the latter was likely the better choice.
Flashbang was focused on the Ryujin. Without defensive capes, they were forced to hunker down behind abandoned rail cars. Cannonade had switched to using his revolvers and were firing bullets the size of baseballs at Iron Prince's palisade. Despite that, they held, healing what damage they sustained with newly generated iron.
Allfather rained down blades on all sides, but Paladin's power and positioning kept them from sustaining any permanent losses.
"I can accompany her," I volunteered myself. Someone had to break this stalemate and Allfather was a prime target who was far less intimidating in close quarters. Just as important, it'd keep me from accidentally straying into Sengoku's field.
"Can you climb that wall?" Manpower gestured.
"I can. How will Brandish pass Iron Prince's defenses?"
The blonde heroine smirked. "Like this."
She shrank down and became a ball of hardlight that Manpower palmed in one hand. "She's invincible like this," he explained. "I can throw her over. You sure you'll be alright in there?"
"Positive. I will begin the charge. Give me time to get there."
"Yeah, I can do that."
I switched my communicator on. "Armsmaster here. Brandish and I are going to break through Iron Prince's defense to try to take down Allfather directly. Can you provide covering fire?"
The concern was evident in my leader's voice. "Are you sure?"
I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. Why did everyone ask me that? Of course, I was sure. "I am. I can cut my way through. Brandish will enter her defensive sphere and Manpower will throw her over."
"You don't have to do this."
"I see no faster way to end the fighting than to remove Allfather."
Silence, then, "Fine. You have green light. Be careful, Armsmaster."
"Thank you, Paladin."
"Please don't make me regret this."
"I won't."
With that, I was ready. I timed my dash with Cannonade's salvo, running behind the wave of destruction for maximum coverage. The baseball-sized bullets ripped through the Iron Prince's outer defense, revealing several more layers before losing momentum. The walls of the palisade began to weave shut before my eyes.
I allowed my armor's combat algorithm to guide me through the shrapnel. My halberd deflected one iron fragment and I bent at a near impossible angle to evade another. A larger fragment struck my halberd and I used the flat of my halberd like a paddle to turn its momentum into a full rotation, twisting out of the way of another two without losing forward momentum.
This was Hyunmu's personal style, his final gift to me. Relentless aggression paired with an elusiveness that defied logic. I'd seen what he could do with it; I'd be a fool not to make it my own.
I slid beneath Allfather's retaliatory barrage and fired my grappling hook at the palisade before reeling myself in. I grit my teeth as the suit contracted around me, contorting my muscles to make the normally impossible motions possible. Behind me, I saw Manpower winding up to lob his sister-in-law over with me.
Allfather and Iron Prince stood side by side on an elevated platform inside their makeshift castle. They were as imperious as ever, standing tall as though they were above it all. The Iron Prince raised his hand and grasping claws of metal sprouted from the ground between us to skewer me upon landing.
A blade of superheated plasma cleaved through the blades like butter. I promised to pay Pyrotechnical respects; his old notes went a long way to improving the temperature of my blade without sacrificing its durability or cutting power.
Caltrops rose to pierce my feet but they scraped harmlessly against my grieves.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Brandish land and bounce like a basketball. She unfurled with a hardlight shield already in hand, deflecting a metal beam aside. I made a note that she could in fact choose the stance in which she entered and exited her breaker state. She took two steps and yelped in pain as iron needles pierced her feet.
"Iron Prince!" she yelled. She swung an impressive zweihander made of condensed plasma to clear the area around her. "Armsmaster! Throw me!"
She withdrew back into her ball. Allfather and Iron Prince struck with everything they had, but the layered forcefield remained as unblemished as ever, glowing an orange-yellow like a miniature sun.
I saw no reason to deny her plan.
I ran up to her and swung my halberd like a baseball bat, launching her at the raised dais where my enemies stood. I made sure to knock her towards the Iron Prince. Truthfully, she was a poor match for either as she'd struggle to deflect multiple missiles and lacked the armor to withstand the Iron Prince simply growing blades from beneath her feet. Even so, Allfather was by all accounts a more brutal fighter than his son and I feared that had I targeted his son, she would have been unable to keep him from launching swords into my back.
The two leaders of the Empire swore and dodged out of the way, though not nearly as swiftly as they should have. She landed near the Iron Prince and released her form with a blazing quarterstaff in hand. I doubted she could hear or see in that field, so it was fascinating to note that she somehow remained aware enough to immediately lock on target upon shifting back.
She was relentless, transitioning between quarterstaff, hammer, sword, and spear with impressive dexterity. She had clearly decided that the best way to keep him from skewering her from below was to give him no time to use his power at all. I didn't know how long she could keep up that routine with her feet bleeding, but for now, she kept him on the retreat.
I left her to it and made a beeline for Allfather. He tried to target Brandish from behind but I was already there, my extended halberd just long enough to nudge his missile off course.
He swerved to face me and said something, but I wasn't listening. I had no time. Brandish would not last so I had to beat Allfather and collapse on Iron Prince before he could make his retreat. For that matter, my own stamina was beginning to flag; the new algorithm was exhausting to execute.
Allfather fired on me with lethal intent. Normally, he at least paid lip service to the unwritten rules and avoided immediately fatal targets like the head or heart, at least when pitted against heroes. He was mindful of the retaliation he would invite should he kill Protectorate heroes without reservation. He abandoned the façade entirely as I drew near, proof of his mounting panic.
My neck twitched almost involuntarily, allowing a dagger to glide past my left ear. At the same time, my forward pace changed for just the slightest moment, long enough for another blade to pass by beneath my raised foot. I spun my halberd and leapt up into the air, cleaving through yet another blade that would have gone on to strike Brandish behind me.
I was on the raised stage now.
Allfather roared a wordless battle cry before four blades turned into a dozen. They were half-formed now, smaller, but also more of them. He normally liked to make full bastard swords as yet another way to demonstrate his superiority.
Again and again I swung my plasma blade. Allfather made me fight for every step, but he had to aim his blades too. He couldn't retreat while firing if he wanted to retain his accuracy so I was slowly but surely gaining on him.
I mirrored steps I'd seen performed against me hundreds of times. I flowed from stance to stance, my halberd extending and contracting to weave a ribbon of flame that cut through every single projectile. I promised Simmons his justice and I refused to be denied.
I pushed onward through a seemingly unending river of blades until finally, I had him. He stumbled back as he hurriedly retreated, but he wasn't fast enough. My blade extended out and caught him at the thigh, searing straight through the armor Iron Prince had woven for him.
"Aaaggh!" he screamed as his leg flew in the another direction entirely. The superheated plasma cauterized his wound so swiftly that not a drop of blood could be seen on the ground.
With a practiced twist, I opened the tranquilizer module at the other end of my halberd and stung him in the throat.
It was finally over.
Author's Note
Guys, not everything is Cauldron's fault… I mean, accusing Cauldron is kind of reflex when it comes to Worm fics, but remember that this is a scenario in which Brockton Bay was not singled out for the Terminus Project. Elisburg never happened. Coil hasn't received his vial yet. There is no unified pan-Asian gang, though the Ryujin 893 is going for it. There is no one balancing the criminal elements of this city and with a gang like the Empire headed by a man like Allfather, it'd really end one way.
Stormfront isn't from The Boys. Stormfront was the first major internet forum dedicated to hate speech and catered to white supremacists. Had to study it in grad school for examples of radicalization vectors leading to domestic terrorism. The character Stormfront is named after the website. If I remember right, it was taken down for good in 2017.
Random fact of the day: Dr. Curt Richter conducted a study on rats in the 1950s titled "On the Phenomenon of Sudden Death in Animals and Man." He took a few dozen rats, some wild and some domesticated, and put them in a jar to record how long they lasted before drowning. Surprisingly, domesticated rats did better while wild rats, after fighting for a short while, simply gave up.
He defined this trait in domesticated rats as hope. The domesticated rats had the familiarity with human masters to expect salvation, and so some swam for days.
To prove this point further, he briefly rescued and held the rats in his hands before they were about to drown, then set them in the water again. That brief interlude to their suffering made a huge difference in the length of their survival.
Moral of the story? Sometimes, we all just need a reason to keep our heads above water... Or you know, don't be a dick to rats.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Patrons can read a total of 20 chapters of content. LT at 7.6, PWP at 3.14, Spoon at 3.8 and ten more chapters from three stories that are coming up on rotation.
Colin Wallis
2002, March 2: Brockton Bay, NH
I'd never been the type to place my faith in a higher power. I believed parahumans could be explained by scientific progress, as outrageous as some powers seemed to be at times. I believed that this universe had an explanation for everything, no matter how seemingly impossible. The universe was an orderly place ruled by logic and predictable methodologies. If we could not understand, that was because we were lacking, not because there was anything truly and innately unknowable.
But Brockton Bay… this city made me wonder if there was such a thing as a higher power. If there was, this city would be shining proof of their disdain for humanity.
Two weeks ago, Cannonade, Brandish, Flashbang, and I scored a noteworthy victory against the criminal elements of this city. Dozens of Empire and Panther gang members were arrested, including Krieg, Brunhild, Rebellion, and the real prize, Asatru. For the first time in years, we had one of the lieutenants of Allfather's regime. We had his spymaster and potentially, access to his schemes.
It was a wonderful start to my career in the city. Unfortunately, it was also about the only progress we made.
Allfather divided his forces into three. While Asatru was captured, he cut a bloody swathe through Panther territory, killing nearly a hundred people, most of them unrelated to the gang war. He was only stopped by Paladin and the Pelham couple. Despite their best efforts, they were only able to capture two out of six capes from his raid, Huntsman and Garm.
On the Panther side, Witch Doctor killed six Empire gang members and mastered their corpses into killing more. It was not uncommon for capes to hide some of their capabilities, but that had been a particularly nasty reveal. In the past, he had relied on taxidermied animals or sometimes even roadkill. There was an assumption that he could not affect humans, a Manton limit.
The eight corpses turned on their former allies and fought viciously, with a tenacity that could not be found among the living. Though they were quickly put down, being forced to mutilate the corpses of their once-friends dealt a heavy blow to the morale of the EMpire rank and file. The unsettling surprise had been enough to secure the getaway of himself and most of his men. Unfortunately, he'd also painted a large target on his back; such an unsettling power would only feed into Allfather's rhetoric.
The last group of Empire capes were seen running a dedicated patrol along the border of their and Ryujin territory to ensure the yakuza did not attempt to capitalize on their distraction. This group was led by the Iron Prince, a man who was heavily suspected of being Allfather's son. Considering his ability to sprout metal on any surface, a relation seemed likely.
That was two weeks ago. After that, things fell steadily downhill.
Crosscut, enforcer of the Ryujin, turned up dead the very next day, literally impaled on a flagpole in front of Brockton Bay University. Though the university was generally accepted as neutral territory, such a public display made it clear that this was meant to provoke the Ryujin, not just remove a single cape.
They succeeded.
The six living members of Ryujin, including a cape called Rangda who was assimilated into their organization during their conquest of the docks, went on a rampage. With Doubletime dead, Rebellion arrested, and Witch Doctor barely holding the Panthers together as a solo cape, they logically eliminated the Panthers as being responsible for the murder, leaving only the Empire, Peach Blossom Company, or one of their own as potential culprits. I did not know precisely how their thought process worked, but Shirokumo, their "ane-san," decided that the Empire was the most likely culprit.
In the end, I suspected that the identity of the real culprit didn't matter as much as having a target to direct their vengeance. Shirokumo laid a trap with her wires as Stormfront flew by and allowed his own momentum to paint him all over the street like a Rorschach's test.
That was the catalyst for what journalists and pundits were calling stage two of this gang war. Initially, the various conflicts were more or less compartmentalized, with Ryujin trying to consolidate their hold over the docks and Boat Graveyard and the Empire trying to wipe out the Panthers. Crosscut's death shattered those imaginary lines and forced a conflict between the two most powerful gangs in the city, all while the Peach Blossom Company watched and waited.
This left the city in a precarious position. Our recent victory over the Empire left them with only six active capes: Allfather, Iron Prince, Purity, Pale Rider, Aryan, and Jarl Jotun. The Ryujin likewise had six capes with Shirokumo, Rangda, Yokai, Sengoku, Zanbato, and Hanya. This kind of numerical parity had never existed between the two factions. The Empire had always outnumbered all other gangs and it was only the threat of a unified alliance that kept them from sweeping the city completely.
Now, the Ryujin smelled blood in the water. Shirokumo ordered her men to fight aggressively and with a brutality born of knowing that such a chance will likely never come again. Just about the only bright side in all this was that Witch Doctor and the remnants of the Black Panthers were all but forgotten. They'd become problems in the future, but they were content to lick their wounds and hold what meager territory they could cling on to.
Two weeks. For two weeks, the Protectorate, New Wave, and a handful of solo independents fought a losing war to try to contain the carnage. By the end of it, hundreds were dead and the mayor had petitioned the state governor for deployment of the national guard. When Bonfire got hospitalized by a stray bullet, Director Cooper was forced to deputize some of the older Wards to patrol safer districts and shore up manpower.
It all culminated in the single largest battle I'd ever been in outside of the endbringer fight. Shirokumo called out Allfather to the Trainyard by carving the challenge directly onto the corpses of his unpowered men and hanging them from her wires like laundry. The macabre display dared Allfather and his Empire to come take her head. With a challenge like that, he had no choice but to move in force.
Which naturally meant the Protectorate had to respond in kind.
Director Cooper, ever the pragmatist, had us form a discrete perimeter around the Trainyard in an attempt to contain the fighting. If they wiped each other out, all the better. The plan fell to pieces at first contact. Even with New Wave, we simply lacked the numbers to enforce a perimeter over such a large number of cape.
Bonfire was hospitalized. Akitsu was our information specialist and had no business in the field. Luminous was deemed too young to participate and was given guard detail over the PRT building and the captured capes alongside the senior Wards. That left myself, Cannonade, Hammerhead, and our illustrious leader, Paladin.
New Wave had agreed to watch Witch Doctor, sending Lightstar and Fleur. With the Dallons and Pelhams joining us in the Trainyard, that left eight heroes and two dozen PRT troopers to contain twelve villains and over a hundred gang members, a tall order by any measure.
I dodged out of the way of Purity's blasts as she drummed a staccato of beats into the side of the train car behind me. She remained one of the biggest threats on the Empire side and though I had done well in a spar against Hero, I was not confident in my ability to deflect serious attacks from the blaster-eight. I was saved from having to think of a way to retaliate by a salvo from Cannonade. A single marble turned into twelve and expanded to the size of soccer balls. The Empire glass cannon yelped and dodged out of the way, screaming obscenities all the while.
She was forced further into the sky when Lady Photon and Hammerhead chased her away from the fight on the ground. Hammerhead was in his full "sky-shark" changer form, with a head that was reminiscent of his namesake and feathered "fins." It made him popular with young boys despite his generally gruff personality.
Those three joined the dogfight between the Empire's Pale Rider and the Ryujin's Rangda and Hanya. They soon escaped the range of my sonar and I forced myself to bring my focus back to earth. The battle on the ground was somehow more structured than the one in the sky despite the larger number of participants.
The three sides formed something vaguely in the shape of a triangle. These clear power blocs were enforced by each sides' ability to easily take down stragglers, usually lethally.
The Iron Prince had joined Allfather, forming a palisade of metal spikes. At the center, he made a large standing platform from which Allfather could command his troops. Jarl Jotun led the Empire gang members on the ground, swinging his large, double-sided ax made of ice. Aryan, the only non-flight-capable speedster in the city, corralled the men and conducted surgical strikes on any enemies who were caught out.
It was a frustratingly effective strategy that made the best use of Allfather's artillery and Iron Prince's defensive capabilities. Paladin eventually settled on a similar formation.
Paladin could grant nearly invulnerable golden shields to anyone in a radius, so he took up position alongside a squad of elite troopers atop what used to be a cargo train. They were relying on Paladin's shields while Cannonade, Flashbang, and the troopers rained fire on both gangs.
That unfortunately left Manpower, Brandish, and myself on the ground to adapt to the best of our abilities. Our opponents were decided for us, myself to the Empire and New Wave to the Ryujin.
The Ryujin 893 took on a far more proactive formation. Yokai could turn one person invisible alongside himself, so he turned his leader, Shirokumo, invisible. She ran along the perimeter of the Trainyard, stringing deadly traps between any surface she could reach. I knew that those wires would cut all but the strongest alloys and had even carved into Metalmaru's work before. My halberd still had a notch to prove her lethality.
I couldn't go after her even though the sonar made marking them easy because of Sengoku. Sengoku was a brute who styled himself as a samurai with a unique shaker effect: Nothing more technologically advanced than a bow and arrow worked. Even bullets that entered his field stopped flying as the kinetic energy imparted by gunpowder became inert. That of course went for tinkertech as well. Should I enter the field, the weight of my own armor would make combat nearly impossible.
I left Sengoku and the bulk of the Ryujin to Manpower and turned to the Empire. I was mildly surprised to note that I was joined by their remaining cape, Zanbato. He carried his namesake, a massive, curved blade five feet in length. If he had any esoteric powers beyond super strength, Akitsu was unable to discover them, the benefit of being new.
"Come on, race traitor!" Jarl Jotun roared as he barreled towards me. He was a large brute of a man with a long, red beard that was braided and garnished with a dagger at the end. His skin had an unhealthy pallor that hinted at tinges of blue towards his extremities. As a brute-eight, he'd yet to encounter an opponent whose attacks he couldn't shrug off.
He swung his double-sided ax with the ferocity of a berserker. I drew my halberd and braced myself, sinking into a textbook block that caught the blade on my haft. The blow made my arms tremble with its force even though I'd upgraded my armor.
I grit my teeth. If he could do this much with one strike, I was not his match in a contest of brute force. He was looking for a shoving contest but I refused to oblige him. With a subtle shift of my foreleg, I turned the haft of my halberd and allowed the blade to slide off before planting my rear foot into his sternum.
I kicked off with everything I had, jumping away into a performative back flip and staggering him. I made a note of that backstep: he could be disoriented even if kinetic force alone likely wouldn't cause enough damage to hurt.
"All strength, no skill," I taunted. Wordplay was not my strong suit, but even a brute like him could not mistake the derision in my voice.
"Die, tin man!" he roared as his feet hammered towards me.
I slid into a different stance, better suited for swift parries and shifts in direction.
The ax swung towards my neck and I followed my combat algorithm, ducking under the blow that would have decapitated me with only a millimeter of space to spare. I retaliated with a thrust towards his bicep. In his arrogance, he did not dodge, trusting his power to see him through.
At the very last moment, I switched on my plasma module. It bit deep and I frowned at the nonsensical nature of his power. His brute power was tied to temperature… for some reason…
"Aaagghh!" he roared, reeling back in pain. "You'll pay!"
"Unlikely," I snorted.
The attack only seemed to make him angrier. He fought with reckless abandon, swinging his ax with seemingly no regard for his safety or those of his compatriots. At the very least, his men seemed to expect it because they gave our duel a wide berth.
I could not find the space to retaliate, such was the ferocity of his strikes. All strength, zero skill. He had never been taught to wield such a heavy weapon but made up for his inexperience by swinging the ax with ever greater enthusiasm.
It disgusted me.
I worked for this strength. I drowned myself in sweat, blood, and vomit until I could compete with monsters like him. I spent sleepless hours designing and redesigning my armor just so I could stand on the same stage as men like him. He was given vitality men could only dream of, awe-inspiring strength, and even cryokinesis on top of that and he squandered it on worthless prejudice to stroke his own ego.
I found everything about him revolting.
With grim determination, I slid my halberd parallel to his ax and twisted, locking it in place. I triggered the extension module, giving my halberd an extra three feet to stab him in the shoulder. I then turned the stab into a sweeping parry before dancing out of range.
As we wove and clashed against one another, I couldn't help but compare Jarl Jotun to another cryokinetic I knew.
Hyunmu once called combat a dance, and for him, it was true. He wove and danced with Isolde in hand and a grace that was all but supernatural. He claimed his martial art was a cobbled together mess, a Frankenstein's Monster of techniques stitched together by an amateur.
It remained the single most elegant and effective combat art I'd ever seen. Knowing that he considered himself an amateur scared me. It scared me because I couldn't imagine the heights he could have reached. It scared me because his words forced me to look myself in the mirror and find the reflection woefully lacking.
I was not Hyunmu. I could not run through the sky on gathering clouds. I could not adjust my body to fight with a dagger one moment and a zweihander the size of houses the next. I did not become a living legend before the age of ten. Battle was not an elegant dance, a language whose fluency came naturally to me.
But I could cheat.
"Combat Protocol Four: Hyunmu," I spoke. My voice came as a whisper but the mic heard me. I could almost imagine the shift.
Battle was not a dance to me. Instead, it was but one more application of the scientific method. Observation. Hypothesis. Experimentation. Conclusion. Repeat until success.
I allowed my armor to guide my body into a style I'd seen mirrored before me hundreds of times. If I could not learn the language of combat to my desired fluency on my own, it stood to reason that I should develop an aid. The data my friend freely gave, I'd put it to good use, not just to predict, but to mimic.
"Die!" Jarl Jotun roared his battle cry as he swung horizontally at my stomach.
I allowed my suit to guide me, leaping into the air with a hair's space to spare. Before he could compensate for his wild swing, I was on him. My halberd shrank to the length of a bastard sword as I drew scorching lines on his barrel chest.
He tried to tackle me but my power armor forcibly contorted my body to act as Hyunmu would. I felt a wrenching force behind my knees, folding me and allowing me to narrowly dodge my opponent's swing. It hurt and it was all I could do to curb the instinctive tensing of my muscles. I had to allow my body to bonelessly fall limp and let the suit take control, lest it tear me apart.
Externally, I showed none of that focused strain. I slid on my knees and as Jarl Jotun tried to adjust, my halberd extended just in time to rip through his Achilles tendon, leaving him stumbling by.
"Aaagghhh!" he roared in pain.
I didn't even let him finish before a blazing thrust took him on the shoulder. I immediately injected my tranquilizer solution into the wound, bypassing his durability.
"You're strong, Jarl Jotun," I admitted. "A pity that's all you are."
I paid him no more mind as I took stock of the ongoing battle.
The dogfight in the sky had dropped in altitude to be just within my sensory range. It was not going in our favor. The heaviest hitter was without question Purity, and Pale Rider happily sacrificed his flying cavalry projections to keep her safe. In comparison, the Ryujin nor the heroic contingent were working nearly as well together. Despite being on the same side, the Protectorate seldom conducted joint training exercises with New Wave or local independents, something that was clearly hurting their coordination now. It was all Lady Photon and Hammerhead could do to keep the four villainous capes from assisting their respective gangs on the ground.
The scene was better on the ground, though not by much. Manpower and Brandish had taken down Yokai, but Manpower was clearly losing a lot of blood. He'd fallen to one knee as he tried to stem the bleeding on a gash over his torso. Brandish stood over her brother-in-law, ready to defend him. Occupied as she was, she likely wouldn't be good for more than taking down the occasional grunt who strayed too close. Shirokumo was nowhere to be found, which meant Yokai's invisibility would likely last several more minutes even without him.
Zanbato, the other Ryujin cape who went after the Empire, was dead. He had been distracted by Aryan, the Empire speedster, before someone threw an incendiary at him. Whatever brute rating he had, he wasn't fireproof and his inexperience got him killed.
I put it out of mind.
"Manpower and Brandish require assistance," I barked into the comms. It was all I could do for him. "I cannot fight Sengoku due to his anti-tech field. Engaging Aryan."
"Roger, we see him, Armsmaster," Paladin's voice rang back.
Before I could chase down Aryan, I saw him rush off towards the Ryujin contingent. Without Zanbato to distract the cape, he was tearing through the unpowered members with ease.
Then it happened. He held a knife, blade poised to tear out some young woman's throat, when his legs flew out from beneath him, severed at the knees. Like with Stormfront, his speed kept him from seeing Shirokumo's wires in time. The wires ripped into him as momentum carried him through her trap.
The young woman stood paralyzed as Aryan's lifeblood bathed her a vibrant crimson. The handgun she held in her hand clattered to the ground and her knees gave out a moment later.
Shirokumo was still nowhere to be seen.
Having no other targets, I withdrew to Manpower's side and withdrew a potion before pressing it to his lips. I saw gashes on his body close as color returned to his cheeks. He got up with a determined growl and pounded his fist into his hand.
"Right, thanks, Armsmaster."
"Is your field back up?" Brandish asked. Her hardlight weapons turned into a shield and spear as she prepared herself to reengage.
"Yeah. I'm going to hold off on burst uses though."
"Good. Empire or Ryujin?"
I considered the question. "Approaching the Ryujin contingent is too difficult with Shirokumo's wires. Empire."
Just then, I winced as I saw Rangda use Hammerhead as a shield, skewering him against Pale Rider's lances meant for her. A swift blast from Purity sent him spiraling to the earth and I knew he was lost.
"Hammerhead's down. Lady Photon is going to be forced to withdraw," I told her sister.
Brandish pursed her lips. "We need to end the fighting. Taking down Allfather will force the Empire to back off and he's only got Iron Prince with him."
"Plans?"
"Manpower, throw me?"
He looked alarmed. He eyed the metal palisades that Iron Prince and Allfather hid behind. "You can't go in there alone."
"I can take them," she insisted.
'Suicidal,' I thought, but… perhaps necessary. Between trying to locate Shirokumo and taking down Allfather, the latter was likely the better choice.
Flashbang was focused on the Ryujin. Without defensive capes, they were forced to hunker down behind abandoned rail cars. Cannonade had switched to using his revolvers and were firing bullets the size of baseballs at Iron Prince's palisade. Despite that, they held, healing what damage they sustained with newly generated iron.
Allfather rained down blades on all sides, but Paladin's power and positioning kept them from sustaining any permanent losses.
"I can accompany her," I volunteered myself. Someone had to break this stalemate and Allfather was a prime target who was far less intimidating in close quarters. Just as important, it'd keep me from accidentally straying into Sengoku's field.
"Can you climb that wall?" Manpower gestured.
"I can. How will Brandish pass Iron Prince's defenses?"
The blonde heroine smirked. "Like this."
She shrank down and became a ball of hardlight that Manpower palmed in one hand. "She's invincible like this," he explained. "I can throw her over. You sure you'll be alright in there?"
"Positive. I will begin the charge. Give me time to get there."
"Yeah, I can do that."
I switched my communicator on. "Armsmaster here. Brandish and I are going to break through Iron Prince's defense to try to take down Allfather directly. Can you provide covering fire?"
The concern was evident in my leader's voice. "Are you sure?"
I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. Why did everyone ask me that? Of course, I was sure. "I am. I can cut my way through. Brandish will enter her defensive sphere and Manpower will throw her over."
"You don't have to do this."
"I see no faster way to end the fighting than to remove Allfather."
Silence, then, "Fine. You have green light. Be careful, Armsmaster."
"Thank you, Paladin."
"Please don't make me regret this."
"I won't."
With that, I was ready. I timed my dash with Cannonade's salvo, running behind the wave of destruction for maximum coverage. The baseball-sized bullets ripped through the Iron Prince's outer defense, revealing several more layers before losing momentum. The walls of the palisade began to weave shut before my eyes.
I allowed my armor's combat algorithm to guide me through the shrapnel. My halberd deflected one iron fragment and I bent at a near impossible angle to evade another. A larger fragment struck my halberd and I used the flat of my halberd like a paddle to turn its momentum into a full rotation, twisting out of the way of another two without losing forward momentum.
This was Hyunmu's personal style, his final gift to me. Relentless aggression paired with an elusiveness that defied logic. I'd seen what he could do with it; I'd be a fool not to make it my own.
I slid beneath Allfather's retaliatory barrage and fired my grappling hook at the palisade before reeling myself in. I grit my teeth as the suit contracted around me, contorting my muscles to make the normally impossible motions possible. Behind me, I saw Manpower winding up to lob his sister-in-law over with me.
Allfather and Iron Prince stood side by side on an elevated platform inside their makeshift castle. They were as imperious as ever, standing tall as though they were above it all. The Iron Prince raised his hand and grasping claws of metal sprouted from the ground between us to skewer me upon landing.
A blade of superheated plasma cleaved through the blades like butter. I promised to pay Pyrotechnical respects; his old notes went a long way to improving the temperature of my blade without sacrificing its durability or cutting power.
Caltrops rose to pierce my feet but they scraped harmlessly against my grieves.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Brandish land and bounce like a basketball. She unfurled with a hardlight shield already in hand, deflecting a metal beam aside. I made a note that she could in fact choose the stance in which she entered and exited her breaker state. She took two steps and yelped in pain as iron needles pierced her feet.
"Iron Prince!" she yelled. She swung an impressive zweihander made of condensed plasma to clear the area around her. "Armsmaster! Throw me!"
She withdrew back into her ball. Allfather and Iron Prince struck with everything they had, but the layered forcefield remained as unblemished as ever, glowing an orange-yellow like a miniature sun.
I saw no reason to deny her plan.
I ran up to her and swung my halberd like a baseball bat, launching her at the raised dais where my enemies stood. I made sure to knock her towards the Iron Prince. Truthfully, she was a poor match for either as she'd struggle to deflect multiple missiles and lacked the armor to withstand the Iron Prince simply growing blades from beneath her feet. Even so, Allfather was by all accounts a more brutal fighter than his son and I feared that had I targeted his son, she would have been unable to keep him from launching swords into my back.
The two leaders of the Empire swore and dodged out of the way, though not nearly as swiftly as they should have. She landed near the Iron Prince and released her form with a blazing quarterstaff in hand. I doubted she could hear or see in that field, so it was fascinating to note that she somehow remained aware enough to immediately lock on target upon shifting back.
She was relentless, transitioning between quarterstaff, hammer, sword, and spear with impressive dexterity. She had clearly decided that the best way to keep him from skewering her from below was to give him no time to use his power at all. I didn't know how long she could keep up that routine with her feet bleeding, but for now, she kept him on the retreat.
I left her to it and made a beeline for Allfather. He tried to target Brandish from behind but I was already there, my extended halberd just long enough to nudge his missile off course.
He swerved to face me and said something, but I wasn't listening. I had no time. Brandish would not last so I had to beat Allfather and collapse on Iron Prince before he could make his retreat. For that matter, my own stamina was beginning to flag; the new algorithm was exhausting to execute.
Allfather fired on me with lethal intent. Normally, he at least paid lip service to the unwritten rules and avoided immediately fatal targets like the head or heart, at least when pitted against heroes. He was mindful of the retaliation he would invite should he kill Protectorate heroes without reservation. He abandoned the façade entirely as I drew near, proof of his mounting panic.
My neck twitched almost involuntarily, allowing a dagger to glide past my left ear. At the same time, my forward pace changed for just the slightest moment, long enough for another blade to pass by beneath my raised foot. I spun my halberd and leapt up into the air, cleaving through yet another blade that would have gone on to strike Brandish behind me.
I was on the raised stage now.
Allfather roared a wordless battle cry before four blades turned into a dozen. They were half-formed now, smaller, but also more of them. He normally liked to make full bastard swords as yet another way to demonstrate his superiority.
Again and again I swung my plasma blade. Allfather made me fight for every step, but he had to aim his blades too. He couldn't retreat while firing if he wanted to retain his accuracy so I was slowly but surely gaining on him.
I mirrored steps I'd seen performed against me hundreds of times. I flowed from stance to stance, my halberd extending and contracting to weave a ribbon of flame that cut through every single projectile. I promised Simmons his justice and I refused to be denied.
I pushed onward through a seemingly unending river of blades until finally, I had him. He stumbled back as he hurriedly retreated, but he wasn't fast enough. My blade extended out and caught him at the thigh, searing straight through the armor Iron Prince had woven for him.
"Aaaggh!" he screamed as his leg flew in the another direction entirely. The superheated plasma cauterized his wound so swiftly that not a drop of blood could be seen on the ground.
With a practiced twist, I opened the tranquilizer module at the other end of my halberd and stung him in the throat.
It was finally over.
Author's Note
Guys, not everything is Cauldron's fault… I mean, accusing Cauldron is kind of reflex when it comes to Worm fics, but remember that this is a scenario in which Brockton Bay was not singled out for the Terminus Project. Elisburg never happened. Coil hasn't received his vial yet. There is no unified pan-Asian gang, though the Ryujin 893 is going for it. There is no one balancing the criminal elements of this city and with a gang like the Empire headed by a man like Allfather, it'd really end one way.
Stormfront isn't from The Boys. Stormfront was the first major internet forum dedicated to hate speech and catered to white supremacists. Had to study it in grad school for examples of radicalization vectors leading to domestic terrorism. The character Stormfront is named after the website. If I remember right, it was taken down for good in 2017.
Random fact of the day: Dr. Curt Richter conducted a study on rats in the 1950s titled "On the Phenomenon of Sudden Death in Animals and Man." He took a few dozen rats, some wild and some domesticated, and put them in a jar to record how long they lasted before drowning. Surprisingly, domesticated rats did better while wild rats, after fighting for a short while, simply gave up.
He defined this trait in domesticated rats as hope. The domesticated rats had the familiarity with human masters to expect salvation, and so some swam for days.
To prove this point further, he briefly rescued and held the rats in his hands before they were about to drown, then set them in the water again. That brief interlude to their suffering made a huge difference in the length of their survival.
Moral of the story? Sometimes, we all just need a reason to keep our heads above water... Or you know, don't be a dick to rats.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Patrons can read a total of 20 chapters of content. LT at 7.6, PWP at 3.14, Spoon at 3.8 and ten more chapters from three stories that are coming up on rotation.
The reason that people assume Cauldron is that Hyunmu is an important enough cape that Cauldron absolutely wouldn't ignore him (and hasn't in the past).
Cauldron is able to stay in the background for a while in canon because Skitter actually isn't that important (at least until she kills Alexandria).
Cauldron is able to stay in the background for a while in canon because Skitter actually isn't that important (at least until she kills Alexandria).
- Location
- Philippines
Plus, Khepri while undeniably the one of the strongest powerhouses in Worm, hadn't actually been the silver bullet. She was actually losing against Scion, and all she could do was basically throw every cape combination at Scion as she could. And that was what did the trick - by throwing so many capes at Scion, eventually she stumbled into hitting Scion's trauma so hard that he voluntarily let himself be killed in a manner not too different to suicide.
So, knowing that Scion is emotionally prone means that you don't actually have to throw everything and the kitchen sink at Scion anymore. You could just do a precision strike at his weakest point, invoke his trauma hard enough that either he kills himself or lowers his guard enough to let you do it. And for that, you don't need a Khepri.
Fellow Human
Verified Roado Rolla
I dived deep once on rat traps. It got ridiculous with a rat dropping into a water tank every few seconds, obviously pet rats that get released and used for another video elaborate trap. I mean, rats don't go that fast and easily into traps, they were used to it.
Except the super glue on cardboard trap, that shit's inhumane(they drag themselves to the point of bleeding).
Then I got to see bullfrogs swallowing live snakes and stopped going in that rabbit hole.
Except the super glue on cardboard trap, that shit's inhumane(they drag themselves to the point of bleeding).
Then I got to see bullfrogs swallowing live snakes and stopped going in that rabbit hole.
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Arimai
Curmudgeon
Psst. . . Stop self snitching. You might end up like those rappers in Chicago. . .
More on track. I hope Hyunmu recovers soon. But going by XianXia convention he's burning his Mortality away and has ascended to Tier 0 godhood. Immortal, and definitely no longer human. It could be years before he completes his ascension.
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7.5 Intermission
Fabled Webs
Lord Weaver, Glorious and Wise
- Location
- Arlington, VA
Intermission 7.5
Colin Wallis
2002, March 2: Brockton Bay, NH
It wasn't over.
I slouched in my armor and leaned on my halberd for support. The combat module I was running attempted to mirror Hyunmu's martial art, but perhaps because it was tailored for a much younger body, performing the same flowing dance was extremely taxing on me.
I'd downgraded my internal temperature control program in favor of the improved combat module. It had proved itself a worthwhile trade, but I sorely wished I had found a better compromise now. I was completely drenched in sweat and I knew my undersuit would need to be peeled off when I returned. I'd be a mess of bruises and strained muscles for days, most of it caused by the contractions of my own armor as it forced my body to move in ways I hadn't yet perfected.
Still, that was future-Colin's concern. In the present, I forced myself to take steady breaths and stand to face my last opponent, the Iron Prince.
He was Allfather's son, or at least a close relative considering the genealogy of inherited powers. His sister, Iron Rain was her name, had died a handful of years back. Marquis was blamed for it, though I had my doubts. I'd never met the man, but by all accounts, he was a disciplined man who abided by his own code of honor, chief among them to never harm a woman.
Nonetheless, the blame was laid at Marquis' feet publicly. What Allfather and Iron Prince thought of the matter in private was unknown to me. Too much about the Empire's leadership was shrouded in mystery, especially their prince, a fact I was sorely lamenting now.
He stood triumphantly over Brandish's breaker state. They'd reached a sort of stalemate; he could not breach the forcefield and it seemed that she could not emerge to continue the fight. And yet, he could not turn his attention fully to me either, lest she emerge long enough to cut his legs from him.
"Unfortunate," the false prince clicked his tongue. Everything about him screamed condescension, the air of a man who believed all else his inferior. "Was Allfather lesser or are Hero's pupils so mighty?"
"There is nothing a tinker can't do," I replied firmly. I activated a discrete trigger command through my UI and felt the slight prick of a needle pierce my neck. The stimulant cocktail was experimental and had been watered down just in case, but it should give me the strength needed to continue. I had to keep him talking, catch my breath and give my body time to respond to the chemicals.
"With powers that are not yours," he scoffed. "A tinker is no better than a toymaker. What are you without your toys, Armsmaster? Strip them away and you are but a man with delusions of grandeur, forever aping powers you wish you could have, greatness you wish you could reach."
"And what does greatness look like? You? The entitled brat whose only legacy is the pain and suffering of innocents?"
"Innocent? You call those niggers and spics innocent? That same chink whore that paints the street in the viscera of good men?" He was building up a head of steam now and I was happy to let him have his soapbox. I had to give it to him; he had an excellent voice for soliloquies. It rang out over the Trainyard clearly even despite the metal helmet. Or perhaps he'd built his armor to both disguise and project his voice? Whatever the case, it was a pity the talent was wasted on filth like him. "You think the Empire is a menace, but we are all that stands between this city and mayhem! We put down criminals and rabid dogs! We do the work that you heroes are too afraid to do, shoulder burdens you are too cowardly to bear."
"The ravings of a lunatic. You're an eloquent orator, Iron Prince, but that's all you are."
I counted down the seconds on the clock attached to my UI. The time for talk had passed.
With zero warning, I lunged towards him. I had about four minutes' worth of adrenaline coursing through my veins before I'd be forced to retreat. I had to end this now.
Fighting Iron Prince was a much different experience from fighting Allfather. One might think their fighting styles would be similar, but that was only superficially so thanks to their related powers.
Allfather was a brute in the colloquial sense, not the assessment sense. He was direct and swift in his offense but had very little in terms of defense. He could generate and launch blades as swift as a bullet but was a very straightforward fighter. There were only so many strategies he could employ with his power and the man himself was not the type for cunning tactics in the first place.
The Iron Prince was the polar opposite of his father. His power forfeited the offensive pressure of Allfather's, but in exchange provided great defenses and mastery of the battlefield. He was, all told, a far more balanced figure, the gentleman to his father's berserker.
Even with my second wind, I was immediately pushed to the limit. I had to be mindful not just of my footing, but also of attacks that emerged from every angle. He didn't just sprout blades; he wove nets of razor wire to ensnare me, chains to weigh me down, and beams to bludgeon me. He was by far more creative than his father.
Still, it was all regular steel in the end. My plasma blade was more than up to the task of cutting through all obstacles. I danced and weaved between them, cutting my way through to him. On the way, I spared the time to bat Brandish's breaker ball off the dais. If she could not join me, then perhaps she could help break down the palisade from the inside so Cannonade could assist me.
"You cannot reach me," he mocked as he wove yet another barrier of blades. He was learning even as we fought. He quickly found that barbs, briars, and branches were far more effective than singular columns of iron. I cut through then like all the others, but random shifts in angles and material density did more to redirect my blade than a large but consistent mass.
I remained silent. Talking in battle was a sin. No matter what he said, I was gaining and we both knew it.
And then, when I was merely a foot away, every alarm in my helmet blared in warning. I'd completely forgotten about the aerial dogfight in my battle-high, a dogfight Lady Photon was losing. She couldn't hope to keep up with four villainous flyers, especially with Hammerhead's likely death and it had been all she could do to keep them from interfering with the battle on the ground.
She ultimately failed. She dodged a burst of black miasma from Rangda, the newly recruited Ryujin cape, but was therefore unable to prevent Purity from raining blasts down on me.
"Armsmaster!" Brandish cried as she interposed herself in front of me, a hardlight tower shield in hand. The shield crackled as though made from condensed lightning and I remembered hearing she could impart both heat and kinetic force at will.
She did so now, detonating that force outward to directly oppose the blaster-eight, if only for a moment. I caught her as we were thrown back and used my armor to roll on the ground, minimizing the damage. We rolled to our feet and faced down Iron Prince and Purity.
In just an instant, the situation had changed. I took the brief lull in the fighting to take stock of the battlefield. Allfather was still down. The Iron Prince was the only Empire cape on the ground. Sengoku and Shirokumo were nowhere to be seen, though much of the Trainyards were trapped with wires. In the sky, Pale Rider had interposed himself between us and Lady Photon, using his clones to keep her from assisting her sister. Without further orders from Shirokumo, Rangda and Hanya were hovering back, waiting to see how things would go.
Paladin, Cannonade, and Flashbang were through breaking down Iron Prince's palisade, but could not on the Empire capes without potential friendly fire, nor could they relocate easily thanks to the unaccounted for Ryujin capes. They took the best course of action available and turned their attention to the three villainous capes still in the air, coordinating artillery barrages against Pale Rider, Rangda, and Hanya. They would be here soon enough; the Ryujin seemed to be conducting a fighting retreat, their flyers covering for what few of their men remained conscious.
"Iron Prince," Purity said, "they'll be here soon."
"They will," he gave her an imperious nod. "I think it's about time to go, don't you?"
"Allfa-"
"No matter. We can get him back. Enjoy this victory, Armsmaster, fleeting though it shall be."
Purity looked briefly conflicted but picked up her leader and rose into the sky. Contrary to popular belief, plate armor was not particularly heavy, roughly fifty pounds, so she had no trouble lifting him with the assistance of her power.
I fired a tranquilizer dart at Purity, but a clone from Pale Rider took the blow and covered their retreat. Brandish and I had little recourse but to watch them run. I cursed myself. Even now, my ranged options were greatly limited.
2002, March 6: Brockton Bay, NH
"The Protectorate and the PRT scored a landmark victory against the criminal elements of this city," I watched from my lab as Director Cooper gave his speech at a press conference in front of city hall. He looked strange and somewhat uncomfortable standing there with the mayor, police chief, and other local dignitaries. His suit fit fine and he had an appropriately stern but celebratory expression as he delivered the news, but I got the impression that the ex-marine wanted to make this as brief as possible.
"Thanks to the hard work of our heroes, we have captured nine villains, including Rebellion, leader of the Black Panthers, and Allfather, leader of the Empire. That last victory was possible only through flawless cooperation between Armsmaster and Brandish of New Wave."
He went on to explain the broad strokes of the battle at the Trainyard before making several comments about the death of Mrs. Simmons that started this war. He also unveiled a new initiative in which the PRT would more closely collaborate with police. Finally, he called for a brief minute of silence for Hammerhead, the fallen changer.
"Rest assured that this is not the end. We struck a blow against crime and racial injustice in this city, but it's not over. Neither the PRT nor the Protectorate will rest until we have rooted out the gangs and restored order."
Overall, a short speech that lasted a scarce four minutes. Director Cooper was not a verbose man. On the other hand, the mayor most certainly was. The director was followed by the mayor and other higher-ups in his administration who all did their best to associate their names with the PRT, even if their jobs had absolutely nothing to do with law enforcement.
I rolled my eyes. Politicians.
Social leeches notwithstanding, I had to admit, it felt good to have my name on everyone's lips. I worked for every accolade, spent sleepless nights building to become the hero I was now. It was validation, plain and simple, proof that my time has not been in vain.
I turned to my armor and got to work. As satisfying as capturing Allfather was, the battle at the Trainyard, highlighted my weakness to ranged opponents. Had I had a shield, perhaps Brandish would not have felt the need to defend me. Had I had better options than a dart launcher, perhaps I could have captured Purity and prevented Iron Prince from fleeing.
Any long-range options I added had to be done in such a way as to not interfere with my current fighting style. More importantly, it would mean upgrading my targeting systems and revamping the way my armor rerouted energy reserves for different modules, a tall order given how little software real estate I had in my armor as things stood.
I decided to consult Zero Day once more. He usually had good advice on the matter.
Two hours later, we six remaining heroes were gathered inside a conference room alongside Director Cooper and Deputy Director Corbin. It was but one of several meetings we'd had over the past four days. They were tedious but necessary so no one complained as Director Cooper passed around manila files with meeting notes already contained within.
"Right," he grunted, "let's jump to it. This whole shitfest started when the Ryujin massacred the Dockside Tigers. They then went on a campaign to take over territory in the north. The Empire took it as an opportunity to remove the Black Panthers from the board. It ended four days ago when we captured Allfather. Shirokumo is still at large. We all clear on the general order of events?"
"Uh, yeah, but that's all good, right?" Bonfire asked. I'd learned a bit more about the resident alcoholic in the past few weeks. His position here was not voluntary. He triggered, started a minor gang of anarchists in Hartford, Connecticut, then was brought in for arson. Because he hadn't killed anyone, he was given a plea deal and reassigned to Brockton.
It was Akitsu who answered. The Japanese woman had been saddened by Hammerhead's passing, more than I'd initially expected considering his failed attempt at wooing her. "On paper, yes. In actuality, not necessarily."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Before the new year, there were something like seven or nine different gangs in the city, depending on how you wanted to count them. Now, there are just three: Empire 88, Ryujin 893, and the Plum Blossom Company."
"Hold on," Luminous cut in. "There were the Dockside Tigers… Black Panthers… That's five."
"Glad you can count," Akitsu replied dryly, "but those are the names you know. After taking out the Tigers, Ryujin absorbed a few smaller street gangs. You didn't hear about them because most didn't have any capes worth mentioning, their crimes were relatively light, and the police could deal with them without help. When Ryujin started their takeover, they either killed or recruited all the capes they could find so it's possible that Shirokumo is sitting on a few more than she showed at the Trainyard. Maybe because she couldn't trust them not to backstab her in a fight, or maybe because she's keeping them in reserve for something else. I have it on good authority that Rangda is one of those who got a deal she couldn't refuse."
"Down the list, Akitsu. Give us a brief on the state of things," Director Cooper said.
"Yes, sir. Starting with the Ryujin, they've got four capes we're aware of: Rangda, Hanya, Sengoku, and Shirokumo. Crosscut and Zanbato were slain in the gang war. They now have the largest stretch of uncontested territory, though it's the north side so it's not exactly economically productive. Still, with both the Trainyard and Boat Graveyard, it's fair to assume they'll start to dabble more in smuggling. Shirokumo is a heartless bitch so I don't just mean drugs or guns either. People. Organs. Doesn't matter. If it pays, she'll do it.
"Then there's the Plum Blossom Company. They're as they always were since they didn't participate in the gang wars at all, but that makes them stronger relative to the others who lost capes here and there. I received some new intel. They have two capes that I know of: Yama and someone who goes by The Sage."
"Yama? What's with these weird-ass names?" Bonfire rolled his eyes.
"Yama is the king and judge of the underworld in Taoist mythology. Are you done?" Akitsu ground out. She had a short fuse belied by her normally clinical detachment.
"Yeah, sorry, sorry, go on."
"The leader of the Plum Blossoms is The Sage, not Yama. They deal in blackmail, sabotage, and other subtler crimes and are most prevalent among the Chinese community, though most Chinese people aren't loyal to them or anything like that. It's more appropriate to say that they operate like the triad and use the Chinese community as a smokescreen to hide their membership. Other than that, not much is known about them. Before you ask, no, I don't know what their powers are. They're by far the most mysterious of the gangs.
"Now, onto the Empire. They lost the largest number of capes in this mess. Stormfront and Aryan died in combat. We captured Asatru, Brunhild, Krieg, Huntsman, and Garm a few weeks back. They've since been moved out of the city. Allfather and Jarl Jotun are still in our custody. That's seven capes, leaving their roster smaller than it's ever been. Iron Prince, Purity and Pale Rider make up the core of their group, but I've heard that they're already on a recruitment drive."
Paladin leaned forward, his normally amiable face twisted into a concerned frown. "Recruiting? From where? And what do you think Prince is going to do after?"
Our intelligence specialist shrugged helplessly. "I tried tracing rumors and contacts. As far as I can tell, they have connections with white supremacist groups down south. The Herren clan is the most notable of them, but there are also other families that have deep roots with the KKK. I also suspect they have contacts in Gesellschaft, a German neo-Nazi crime syndicate, though I can't prove it. As for what he'll do, that's easy: Allfather is Iron Prince's actual father, about ninety-five percent sure, so a prison break sounds likely. The son is far more cunning than the father though, so he might wait on that for a bit, make us lower our guard."
"Then we move him as soon as possible."
"That's up to you and the director, Paladin. I just feed you rumors. Anyway, that's all the factions worth mentioning. The numbers have dropped, but each gang now holds more territory and so has more power and influence. It's like a jar of poisonous insects that were forced to cannibalize each other. The poison just sits and concentrates, making the ones that survive even more dangerous."
Director Cooper grunted and leaned back into his chair. "It is, but this was a necessary step to getting rid of the Empire for good. We need to strike while the iron is hot. Akitsu, your priority will be on ferreting out Empire bases. We're going to pull them out by the root before they can replenish their numbers."
"Yes, sir."
"U-Umm… Sorry," Luminous raised her hand. As the youngest, she'd been spared the vast majority of the gang war. Most of the time, she was stationed at or near base to guard Akitsu and the prisoners we arrested. I personally believed the director coddled her a little too much. Perhaps she would not suffer the Dunning-Kruger effect as a hero and compensate by being the team mom then. "W-What happened to the Black Panthers?"
"Doubletime went belly up," Bonfire joked, "like a fish."
"Bonfire!" Paladin barked. "Too far. You don't joke about the dead."
"Alright, geez. She's dead. Rebellion was transferred out. Who else is there?"
"No, Luminous is right," Akitsu said. "You are missing one: Witch Doctor. He used to animate taxidermied animals but revealed he could animate corpses. He made a bunch of Empire soldiers kill each other so he's likely to be at the top of their shit list. Or, he would be if they ever find him. No one's heard from him since the day Rebellion got captured."
"What do you think happened to him?" the director asked.
"If I had to guess? He's left the city. If there's a less PR-friendly power than corpse control, I can't think of any. Sure, villains don't care about image like heroes do, but that's only to a point. Desecrating the dead crosses the line for a lot of people regardless of legal alignment. He'll probably lay low and then crop up again as a new cape with a tweaked aesthetic. Look for any animal masters popping up in New England over the next month or two."
"Noted. So the Panthers are gone then… Can't say I'm sad about it, but…"
"Maybe, maybe not," Paladin said. "The Black Panthers started as an offshoot of the civil rights movement. Yeah, they committed crimes, but they did it with an honest belief that they were doing the right thing. I'm not saying they're right, but they truly thought they were necessary to protecting their community. I don't think that sentiment is going to go away until the Empire does."
"You're right. We'll have to keep an eye out for a resurgence of the group. Now, what's ne-"
Before the director could continue down the agenda, his secretary burst down the door. In seconds, she was staring down my halberd, Bonfire's blazing torch, Cannonade's pistol, and Luminous' glowing fist. "Director! You've got to-EEP!"
"Hold!" he barked. "Maybe don't barge into a room of jumpy capes right after a gang war, eh, Savannah?"
"Ehehe… Yes, sir…"
"Sorry, Savannah," Paladin apologized on our behalf, his everyday charm now a little forced. "We're a little on edge lately. What were you going to say? Has to be important to see you here."
"Right," she gulped nervously. "I got word from the cells, sir. Allfather and Jarl Jotun are dead."
"What?"
The base was a hive of activity as we tried to discover the intruder in our midst. The director had all exits shut, but I suspected it wouldn't help. We'd examined the security footage of course, but found nothing. Someone hand managed to delete the footage and the guard who was supposed to be on duty was nowhere to be found.
Allfather and Jarl Jotun were poisoned by someone and their bodies were discovered only hours after they'd already expired. Initial blood samples were flush with batrachotoxin, several times the dosage needed to kill most men. It told us that the poisoner wasn't concerned with trying to cover up the murders in any way; there was no attempt to make it look like an accident.
Were they so confident that they were above repercussion? Was it one of the scattered elements of the Black Panthers seizing an opportunity? It could even have been something tacitly approved by Paladin and Director Cooper, not that I'd ever broach the subject, they certainly were no friends of Allfather. Or was it a rogue element of the Empire acting independently of Iron Prince to remove what they saw as disastrous leadership?
Finally, after hours of fruitless investigation, we were permitted out of PRT HQ.
2002, March 9: Brockton Bay, NH
The last three days were hectic. As Paladin's second-in-command, now that the gang war was over, I was responsible for keeping the Wards program running smoothly while he and forensics analysts from the PRT analyzed what evidence they could glean from the two villains' bodies.
I wasn't hopeful.
I had arrived back in my lab from a meeting with the Wards Leader, a young man named Stalwart, who told me all he could about their regular duties. The meeting was an unnecessary reminder that I was awful with children. There was only one child I spent any extended time with and I suspected he was not a good example of average psychological development. Confronted with the task of managing the Wards program, I was put on the back foot from the start.
Not to say the task was difficult, assign patrol routes, enforce curfews, schedule training to develop powered and unpowered skills, and otherwise offer good, actionable advice, all relatively simple, reasonable tasks. Even so, I found those duties emotionally draining.
I intended to get some therapeutic tinkering in now that I had some time to myself, but a series of alerts went off on my computer. They were alerts I'd placed over several websites and news channels to monitor gang activity. Sighing, I turned it on. I was still so new to Brockton Bay; any source of information could only help.
The video in question was posted on numerous websites. The mods at PHO took it down, but there were plenty of sites with fewer restrictions or targeted sympathies. It gained enough traction that the evening news did a quick story on it, setting off my alert.
The Iron Prince stared back at me through the screen. He was seated at an ornate, mahogany desk, the sort that cost thousands and became heirlooms. Even through his full plate armor, the man radiated an undeniable sense of smug, villainous charisma.
To his right were two of his usual lackeys, Purity and Pale Rider. Purity glowed softly so as not to outshine her leader. I could see her brunette locks through the glow, a rarity with the woman. Pale Rider was dressed like a crusader. He'd overlayed one of his phantasmal clones atop himself to make it seem as though wisps of ghostly flame were coming from him.
To his left was the real surprise: Krieg and Brunhild, free and hale. They, along with Asatru, Huntsman, and Garm, had been moved out of the city and I had thought that they were no longer my concern. Their appearance sent my mind whirling through the possibilities. Did Iron Prince have contacts inside the PRT? No, of course he did, that wasn't the right question. As much as I wanted to trust my colleagues, I wasn't blind to the possibility of infiltration.
The better question was, were those contacts high up enough for him to intercept prison transports? Perhaps even to assassinate his own father? There was no question that he had a very different leadership style to his father and Jarl Jotun was Allfather's most loyal lieutenant… In fact, I did not see Asatru, Huntsman, and Garm, which implied that they had not been freed despite his unexpectedly long reach.
They were all men who ascribed to Allfather's style of unrestrained brutality. Could that have been intentional on his part? Had we inadvertently assisted him in getting rid of the old guard? Paladin had initially discounted Iron Prince as a suspect due to their familial relationship, but it seemed he'd been too hasty.
I glowered at the screen impotently. There wasn't a thing I could do about it now. He had overturned what should have been a crippling defeat for his organization and had done so in a way that cemented his rule.
To the far end of either side, there were two girls dressed in much the same manner as Brunhild. Blonde, blue-eyed, but young. Wards age. They stood submissively on the flanks, hands clasped and head bowed in deference to the five senior capes. I made a note of two new capes but paid little heed to them, so focused was I on Iron Prince.
"Greetings, Brockton Bay. You have cause to mourn this night for I have received word that Allfather, my father, is dead. He and Jarl Jotun were not granted the death of the valiant. They were slain in their beds with foul poison while under the care of so-called heroes!" he spat. He moved very little in his armor but such was his skill as an orator that it was impossible to mistake the underlying fury in his voice. If he was indeed the murderer, did he wait to announce their deaths so as to allow rumors to trickle down naturally and protect his spies?
"Yes. Allfather is dead. The man who began this grand cause is dead. The man who sparked in our hearts a sacred passion for the prosperity of our people is dead. The city has lost a true hero this night, and I, I lost my father. He is dead and there is nothing I can do to bring him back. So mourn, mourn the man who fought for you. Mourn the man who died for you.
"But rise. Rise because this is not the end. I refuse to let this be the end," he declared, slamming his hands on the desk. He stood and began to walk towards the camera. "I feared for the loyal so delivered Krieg and Brunhild from wicked hands. Know that in the same way, the righteous will be justly rewarded as I take up my father's cause."
He swung his hand to the side and from it sprouted an ornate sword. At the same time, a crown of wrought iron twisted itself from his helmet. Taking his sword, he aimed it at the camera and said, "I am his heir. I am the inheritor of his will and I will carry on his thankless task. I will purge this city of subhuman gangs and lawless lessers that prey on good men and women. I promise you a golden age of health and prosperity, an age in which the innocent need not fear cowardly spiders or inept heroes. This is my promise, one I make with the brave and loyal at my back:
"No longer am I the Iron Prince, for the time for princedom has passed. From this night forth, I claim my father's crown, the crown of the Empire. I. Am. Kaiser."
Author's Note
Obligatory disclaimer: Kaiser's opinions are not my own. Dear, anon, I'm Korean. It's kind of hard to be a white supremacist.
A more valid criticism of the past five chapters is that it feels rushed, because it is. This whole gang war could have taken two or three arcs but I condensed it because this story is not ultimately about the rise of Kaiser or the restructuring of Brockton Bay's geopolitics. This story is about Andy and this arc is about the ripples his actions caused, some familiar and others not.
I know most of you expected this so it's not much of a twist, but I still felt that it was a necessary one. Kaiser is described by Wildbow as being an exceptionally charismatic man and a phenomenal orator. Unfortunately, we don't actually see much of him because he got Levi'd. Pity, because I think charismatic villains are awesome. It's one of the things I think Nuclear Fire (a tinker of fiction story) did really well.
Now, obligatory random fact: There is a statue of Jesus Christ in Gyeongsangbuk-do, South Korea. The statue depicts Christ as being incredibly buff, with a huge grin fit for All Might. My friend showed me this in bible study with the running joke that he will literally carry all my sins.
*Note: I'm Christian. This isn't offensive, it's hilarious. Don't start a religious debate in my thread, just enjoy buff-Jesus.
As always, thank you all for your support. Patrons can read up to 3 chapters of a new Worm/LoL fic, 4 chapters of a new Pokemon fic, an extra chapter of Legendary Tinker, 6 chapters of Plan? What Plan? 5 chapters of When is a Spoon a Sword? and 3 chapters of Troll in the Dungeon! That's a full 22 chapters of content.
Colin Wallis
2002, March 2: Brockton Bay, NH
It wasn't over.
I slouched in my armor and leaned on my halberd for support. The combat module I was running attempted to mirror Hyunmu's martial art, but perhaps because it was tailored for a much younger body, performing the same flowing dance was extremely taxing on me.
I'd downgraded my internal temperature control program in favor of the improved combat module. It had proved itself a worthwhile trade, but I sorely wished I had found a better compromise now. I was completely drenched in sweat and I knew my undersuit would need to be peeled off when I returned. I'd be a mess of bruises and strained muscles for days, most of it caused by the contractions of my own armor as it forced my body to move in ways I hadn't yet perfected.
Still, that was future-Colin's concern. In the present, I forced myself to take steady breaths and stand to face my last opponent, the Iron Prince.
He was Allfather's son, or at least a close relative considering the genealogy of inherited powers. His sister, Iron Rain was her name, had died a handful of years back. Marquis was blamed for it, though I had my doubts. I'd never met the man, but by all accounts, he was a disciplined man who abided by his own code of honor, chief among them to never harm a woman.
Nonetheless, the blame was laid at Marquis' feet publicly. What Allfather and Iron Prince thought of the matter in private was unknown to me. Too much about the Empire's leadership was shrouded in mystery, especially their prince, a fact I was sorely lamenting now.
He stood triumphantly over Brandish's breaker state. They'd reached a sort of stalemate; he could not breach the forcefield and it seemed that she could not emerge to continue the fight. And yet, he could not turn his attention fully to me either, lest she emerge long enough to cut his legs from him.
"Unfortunate," the false prince clicked his tongue. Everything about him screamed condescension, the air of a man who believed all else his inferior. "Was Allfather lesser or are Hero's pupils so mighty?"
"There is nothing a tinker can't do," I replied firmly. I activated a discrete trigger command through my UI and felt the slight prick of a needle pierce my neck. The stimulant cocktail was experimental and had been watered down just in case, but it should give me the strength needed to continue. I had to keep him talking, catch my breath and give my body time to respond to the chemicals.
"With powers that are not yours," he scoffed. "A tinker is no better than a toymaker. What are you without your toys, Armsmaster? Strip them away and you are but a man with delusions of grandeur, forever aping powers you wish you could have, greatness you wish you could reach."
"And what does greatness look like? You? The entitled brat whose only legacy is the pain and suffering of innocents?"
"Innocent? You call those niggers and spics innocent? That same chink whore that paints the street in the viscera of good men?" He was building up a head of steam now and I was happy to let him have his soapbox. I had to give it to him; he had an excellent voice for soliloquies. It rang out over the Trainyard clearly even despite the metal helmet. Or perhaps he'd built his armor to both disguise and project his voice? Whatever the case, it was a pity the talent was wasted on filth like him. "You think the Empire is a menace, but we are all that stands between this city and mayhem! We put down criminals and rabid dogs! We do the work that you heroes are too afraid to do, shoulder burdens you are too cowardly to bear."
"The ravings of a lunatic. You're an eloquent orator, Iron Prince, but that's all you are."
I counted down the seconds on the clock attached to my UI. The time for talk had passed.
With zero warning, I lunged towards him. I had about four minutes' worth of adrenaline coursing through my veins before I'd be forced to retreat. I had to end this now.
Fighting Iron Prince was a much different experience from fighting Allfather. One might think their fighting styles would be similar, but that was only superficially so thanks to their related powers.
Allfather was a brute in the colloquial sense, not the assessment sense. He was direct and swift in his offense but had very little in terms of defense. He could generate and launch blades as swift as a bullet but was a very straightforward fighter. There were only so many strategies he could employ with his power and the man himself was not the type for cunning tactics in the first place.
The Iron Prince was the polar opposite of his father. His power forfeited the offensive pressure of Allfather's, but in exchange provided great defenses and mastery of the battlefield. He was, all told, a far more balanced figure, the gentleman to his father's berserker.
Even with my second wind, I was immediately pushed to the limit. I had to be mindful not just of my footing, but also of attacks that emerged from every angle. He didn't just sprout blades; he wove nets of razor wire to ensnare me, chains to weigh me down, and beams to bludgeon me. He was by far more creative than his father.
Still, it was all regular steel in the end. My plasma blade was more than up to the task of cutting through all obstacles. I danced and weaved between them, cutting my way through to him. On the way, I spared the time to bat Brandish's breaker ball off the dais. If she could not join me, then perhaps she could help break down the palisade from the inside so Cannonade could assist me.
"You cannot reach me," he mocked as he wove yet another barrier of blades. He was learning even as we fought. He quickly found that barbs, briars, and branches were far more effective than singular columns of iron. I cut through then like all the others, but random shifts in angles and material density did more to redirect my blade than a large but consistent mass.
I remained silent. Talking in battle was a sin. No matter what he said, I was gaining and we both knew it.
And then, when I was merely a foot away, every alarm in my helmet blared in warning. I'd completely forgotten about the aerial dogfight in my battle-high, a dogfight Lady Photon was losing. She couldn't hope to keep up with four villainous flyers, especially with Hammerhead's likely death and it had been all she could do to keep them from interfering with the battle on the ground.
She ultimately failed. She dodged a burst of black miasma from Rangda, the newly recruited Ryujin cape, but was therefore unable to prevent Purity from raining blasts down on me.
"Armsmaster!" Brandish cried as she interposed herself in front of me, a hardlight tower shield in hand. The shield crackled as though made from condensed lightning and I remembered hearing she could impart both heat and kinetic force at will.
She did so now, detonating that force outward to directly oppose the blaster-eight, if only for a moment. I caught her as we were thrown back and used my armor to roll on the ground, minimizing the damage. We rolled to our feet and faced down Iron Prince and Purity.
In just an instant, the situation had changed. I took the brief lull in the fighting to take stock of the battlefield. Allfather was still down. The Iron Prince was the only Empire cape on the ground. Sengoku and Shirokumo were nowhere to be seen, though much of the Trainyards were trapped with wires. In the sky, Pale Rider had interposed himself between us and Lady Photon, using his clones to keep her from assisting her sister. Without further orders from Shirokumo, Rangda and Hanya were hovering back, waiting to see how things would go.
Paladin, Cannonade, and Flashbang were through breaking down Iron Prince's palisade, but could not on the Empire capes without potential friendly fire, nor could they relocate easily thanks to the unaccounted for Ryujin capes. They took the best course of action available and turned their attention to the three villainous capes still in the air, coordinating artillery barrages against Pale Rider, Rangda, and Hanya. They would be here soon enough; the Ryujin seemed to be conducting a fighting retreat, their flyers covering for what few of their men remained conscious.
"Iron Prince," Purity said, "they'll be here soon."
"They will," he gave her an imperious nod. "I think it's about time to go, don't you?"
"Allfa-"
"No matter. We can get him back. Enjoy this victory, Armsmaster, fleeting though it shall be."
Purity looked briefly conflicted but picked up her leader and rose into the sky. Contrary to popular belief, plate armor was not particularly heavy, roughly fifty pounds, so she had no trouble lifting him with the assistance of her power.
I fired a tranquilizer dart at Purity, but a clone from Pale Rider took the blow and covered their retreat. Brandish and I had little recourse but to watch them run. I cursed myself. Even now, my ranged options were greatly limited.
X
2002, March 6: Brockton Bay, NH
"The Protectorate and the PRT scored a landmark victory against the criminal elements of this city," I watched from my lab as Director Cooper gave his speech at a press conference in front of city hall. He looked strange and somewhat uncomfortable standing there with the mayor, police chief, and other local dignitaries. His suit fit fine and he had an appropriately stern but celebratory expression as he delivered the news, but I got the impression that the ex-marine wanted to make this as brief as possible.
"Thanks to the hard work of our heroes, we have captured nine villains, including Rebellion, leader of the Black Panthers, and Allfather, leader of the Empire. That last victory was possible only through flawless cooperation between Armsmaster and Brandish of New Wave."
He went on to explain the broad strokes of the battle at the Trainyard before making several comments about the death of Mrs. Simmons that started this war. He also unveiled a new initiative in which the PRT would more closely collaborate with police. Finally, he called for a brief minute of silence for Hammerhead, the fallen changer.
"Rest assured that this is not the end. We struck a blow against crime and racial injustice in this city, but it's not over. Neither the PRT nor the Protectorate will rest until we have rooted out the gangs and restored order."
Overall, a short speech that lasted a scarce four minutes. Director Cooper was not a verbose man. On the other hand, the mayor most certainly was. The director was followed by the mayor and other higher-ups in his administration who all did their best to associate their names with the PRT, even if their jobs had absolutely nothing to do with law enforcement.
I rolled my eyes. Politicians.
Social leeches notwithstanding, I had to admit, it felt good to have my name on everyone's lips. I worked for every accolade, spent sleepless nights building to become the hero I was now. It was validation, plain and simple, proof that my time has not been in vain.
I turned to my armor and got to work. As satisfying as capturing Allfather was, the battle at the Trainyard, highlighted my weakness to ranged opponents. Had I had a shield, perhaps Brandish would not have felt the need to defend me. Had I had better options than a dart launcher, perhaps I could have captured Purity and prevented Iron Prince from fleeing.
Any long-range options I added had to be done in such a way as to not interfere with my current fighting style. More importantly, it would mean upgrading my targeting systems and revamping the way my armor rerouted energy reserves for different modules, a tall order given how little software real estate I had in my armor as things stood.
I decided to consult Zero Day once more. He usually had good advice on the matter.
X
Two hours later, we six remaining heroes were gathered inside a conference room alongside Director Cooper and Deputy Director Corbin. It was but one of several meetings we'd had over the past four days. They were tedious but necessary so no one complained as Director Cooper passed around manila files with meeting notes already contained within.
"Right," he grunted, "let's jump to it. This whole shitfest started when the Ryujin massacred the Dockside Tigers. They then went on a campaign to take over territory in the north. The Empire took it as an opportunity to remove the Black Panthers from the board. It ended four days ago when we captured Allfather. Shirokumo is still at large. We all clear on the general order of events?"
"Uh, yeah, but that's all good, right?" Bonfire asked. I'd learned a bit more about the resident alcoholic in the past few weeks. His position here was not voluntary. He triggered, started a minor gang of anarchists in Hartford, Connecticut, then was brought in for arson. Because he hadn't killed anyone, he was given a plea deal and reassigned to Brockton.
It was Akitsu who answered. The Japanese woman had been saddened by Hammerhead's passing, more than I'd initially expected considering his failed attempt at wooing her. "On paper, yes. In actuality, not necessarily."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Before the new year, there were something like seven or nine different gangs in the city, depending on how you wanted to count them. Now, there are just three: Empire 88, Ryujin 893, and the Plum Blossom Company."
"Hold on," Luminous cut in. "There were the Dockside Tigers… Black Panthers… That's five."
"Glad you can count," Akitsu replied dryly, "but those are the names you know. After taking out the Tigers, Ryujin absorbed a few smaller street gangs. You didn't hear about them because most didn't have any capes worth mentioning, their crimes were relatively light, and the police could deal with them without help. When Ryujin started their takeover, they either killed or recruited all the capes they could find so it's possible that Shirokumo is sitting on a few more than she showed at the Trainyard. Maybe because she couldn't trust them not to backstab her in a fight, or maybe because she's keeping them in reserve for something else. I have it on good authority that Rangda is one of those who got a deal she couldn't refuse."
"Down the list, Akitsu. Give us a brief on the state of things," Director Cooper said.
"Yes, sir. Starting with the Ryujin, they've got four capes we're aware of: Rangda, Hanya, Sengoku, and Shirokumo. Crosscut and Zanbato were slain in the gang war. They now have the largest stretch of uncontested territory, though it's the north side so it's not exactly economically productive. Still, with both the Trainyard and Boat Graveyard, it's fair to assume they'll start to dabble more in smuggling. Shirokumo is a heartless bitch so I don't just mean drugs or guns either. People. Organs. Doesn't matter. If it pays, she'll do it.
"Then there's the Plum Blossom Company. They're as they always were since they didn't participate in the gang wars at all, but that makes them stronger relative to the others who lost capes here and there. I received some new intel. They have two capes that I know of: Yama and someone who goes by The Sage."
"Yama? What's with these weird-ass names?" Bonfire rolled his eyes.
"Yama is the king and judge of the underworld in Taoist mythology. Are you done?" Akitsu ground out. She had a short fuse belied by her normally clinical detachment.
"Yeah, sorry, sorry, go on."
"The leader of the Plum Blossoms is The Sage, not Yama. They deal in blackmail, sabotage, and other subtler crimes and are most prevalent among the Chinese community, though most Chinese people aren't loyal to them or anything like that. It's more appropriate to say that they operate like the triad and use the Chinese community as a smokescreen to hide their membership. Other than that, not much is known about them. Before you ask, no, I don't know what their powers are. They're by far the most mysterious of the gangs.
"Now, onto the Empire. They lost the largest number of capes in this mess. Stormfront and Aryan died in combat. We captured Asatru, Brunhild, Krieg, Huntsman, and Garm a few weeks back. They've since been moved out of the city. Allfather and Jarl Jotun are still in our custody. That's seven capes, leaving their roster smaller than it's ever been. Iron Prince, Purity and Pale Rider make up the core of their group, but I've heard that they're already on a recruitment drive."
Paladin leaned forward, his normally amiable face twisted into a concerned frown. "Recruiting? From where? And what do you think Prince is going to do after?"
Our intelligence specialist shrugged helplessly. "I tried tracing rumors and contacts. As far as I can tell, they have connections with white supremacist groups down south. The Herren clan is the most notable of them, but there are also other families that have deep roots with the KKK. I also suspect they have contacts in Gesellschaft, a German neo-Nazi crime syndicate, though I can't prove it. As for what he'll do, that's easy: Allfather is Iron Prince's actual father, about ninety-five percent sure, so a prison break sounds likely. The son is far more cunning than the father though, so he might wait on that for a bit, make us lower our guard."
"Then we move him as soon as possible."
"That's up to you and the director, Paladin. I just feed you rumors. Anyway, that's all the factions worth mentioning. The numbers have dropped, but each gang now holds more territory and so has more power and influence. It's like a jar of poisonous insects that were forced to cannibalize each other. The poison just sits and concentrates, making the ones that survive even more dangerous."
Director Cooper grunted and leaned back into his chair. "It is, but this was a necessary step to getting rid of the Empire for good. We need to strike while the iron is hot. Akitsu, your priority will be on ferreting out Empire bases. We're going to pull them out by the root before they can replenish their numbers."
"Yes, sir."
"U-Umm… Sorry," Luminous raised her hand. As the youngest, she'd been spared the vast majority of the gang war. Most of the time, she was stationed at or near base to guard Akitsu and the prisoners we arrested. I personally believed the director coddled her a little too much. Perhaps she would not suffer the Dunning-Kruger effect as a hero and compensate by being the team mom then. "W-What happened to the Black Panthers?"
"Doubletime went belly up," Bonfire joked, "like a fish."
"Bonfire!" Paladin barked. "Too far. You don't joke about the dead."
"Alright, geez. She's dead. Rebellion was transferred out. Who else is there?"
"No, Luminous is right," Akitsu said. "You are missing one: Witch Doctor. He used to animate taxidermied animals but revealed he could animate corpses. He made a bunch of Empire soldiers kill each other so he's likely to be at the top of their shit list. Or, he would be if they ever find him. No one's heard from him since the day Rebellion got captured."
"What do you think happened to him?" the director asked.
"If I had to guess? He's left the city. If there's a less PR-friendly power than corpse control, I can't think of any. Sure, villains don't care about image like heroes do, but that's only to a point. Desecrating the dead crosses the line for a lot of people regardless of legal alignment. He'll probably lay low and then crop up again as a new cape with a tweaked aesthetic. Look for any animal masters popping up in New England over the next month or two."
"Noted. So the Panthers are gone then… Can't say I'm sad about it, but…"
"Maybe, maybe not," Paladin said. "The Black Panthers started as an offshoot of the civil rights movement. Yeah, they committed crimes, but they did it with an honest belief that they were doing the right thing. I'm not saying they're right, but they truly thought they were necessary to protecting their community. I don't think that sentiment is going to go away until the Empire does."
"You're right. We'll have to keep an eye out for a resurgence of the group. Now, what's ne-"
Before the director could continue down the agenda, his secretary burst down the door. In seconds, she was staring down my halberd, Bonfire's blazing torch, Cannonade's pistol, and Luminous' glowing fist. "Director! You've got to-EEP!"
"Hold!" he barked. "Maybe don't barge into a room of jumpy capes right after a gang war, eh, Savannah?"
"Ehehe… Yes, sir…"
"Sorry, Savannah," Paladin apologized on our behalf, his everyday charm now a little forced. "We're a little on edge lately. What were you going to say? Has to be important to see you here."
"Right," she gulped nervously. "I got word from the cells, sir. Allfather and Jarl Jotun are dead."
"What?"
X
The base was a hive of activity as we tried to discover the intruder in our midst. The director had all exits shut, but I suspected it wouldn't help. We'd examined the security footage of course, but found nothing. Someone hand managed to delete the footage and the guard who was supposed to be on duty was nowhere to be found.
Allfather and Jarl Jotun were poisoned by someone and their bodies were discovered only hours after they'd already expired. Initial blood samples were flush with batrachotoxin, several times the dosage needed to kill most men. It told us that the poisoner wasn't concerned with trying to cover up the murders in any way; there was no attempt to make it look like an accident.
Were they so confident that they were above repercussion? Was it one of the scattered elements of the Black Panthers seizing an opportunity? It could even have been something tacitly approved by Paladin and Director Cooper, not that I'd ever broach the subject, they certainly were no friends of Allfather. Or was it a rogue element of the Empire acting independently of Iron Prince to remove what they saw as disastrous leadership?
Finally, after hours of fruitless investigation, we were permitted out of PRT HQ.
X
2002, March 9: Brockton Bay, NH
The last three days were hectic. As Paladin's second-in-command, now that the gang war was over, I was responsible for keeping the Wards program running smoothly while he and forensics analysts from the PRT analyzed what evidence they could glean from the two villains' bodies.
I wasn't hopeful.
I had arrived back in my lab from a meeting with the Wards Leader, a young man named Stalwart, who told me all he could about their regular duties. The meeting was an unnecessary reminder that I was awful with children. There was only one child I spent any extended time with and I suspected he was not a good example of average psychological development. Confronted with the task of managing the Wards program, I was put on the back foot from the start.
Not to say the task was difficult, assign patrol routes, enforce curfews, schedule training to develop powered and unpowered skills, and otherwise offer good, actionable advice, all relatively simple, reasonable tasks. Even so, I found those duties emotionally draining.
I intended to get some therapeutic tinkering in now that I had some time to myself, but a series of alerts went off on my computer. They were alerts I'd placed over several websites and news channels to monitor gang activity. Sighing, I turned it on. I was still so new to Brockton Bay; any source of information could only help.
The video in question was posted on numerous websites. The mods at PHO took it down, but there were plenty of sites with fewer restrictions or targeted sympathies. It gained enough traction that the evening news did a quick story on it, setting off my alert.
The Iron Prince stared back at me through the screen. He was seated at an ornate, mahogany desk, the sort that cost thousands and became heirlooms. Even through his full plate armor, the man radiated an undeniable sense of smug, villainous charisma.
To his right were two of his usual lackeys, Purity and Pale Rider. Purity glowed softly so as not to outshine her leader. I could see her brunette locks through the glow, a rarity with the woman. Pale Rider was dressed like a crusader. He'd overlayed one of his phantasmal clones atop himself to make it seem as though wisps of ghostly flame were coming from him.
To his left was the real surprise: Krieg and Brunhild, free and hale. They, along with Asatru, Huntsman, and Garm, had been moved out of the city and I had thought that they were no longer my concern. Their appearance sent my mind whirling through the possibilities. Did Iron Prince have contacts inside the PRT? No, of course he did, that wasn't the right question. As much as I wanted to trust my colleagues, I wasn't blind to the possibility of infiltration.
The better question was, were those contacts high up enough for him to intercept prison transports? Perhaps even to assassinate his own father? There was no question that he had a very different leadership style to his father and Jarl Jotun was Allfather's most loyal lieutenant… In fact, I did not see Asatru, Huntsman, and Garm, which implied that they had not been freed despite his unexpectedly long reach.
They were all men who ascribed to Allfather's style of unrestrained brutality. Could that have been intentional on his part? Had we inadvertently assisted him in getting rid of the old guard? Paladin had initially discounted Iron Prince as a suspect due to their familial relationship, but it seemed he'd been too hasty.
I glowered at the screen impotently. There wasn't a thing I could do about it now. He had overturned what should have been a crippling defeat for his organization and had done so in a way that cemented his rule.
To the far end of either side, there were two girls dressed in much the same manner as Brunhild. Blonde, blue-eyed, but young. Wards age. They stood submissively on the flanks, hands clasped and head bowed in deference to the five senior capes. I made a note of two new capes but paid little heed to them, so focused was I on Iron Prince.
"Greetings, Brockton Bay. You have cause to mourn this night for I have received word that Allfather, my father, is dead. He and Jarl Jotun were not granted the death of the valiant. They were slain in their beds with foul poison while under the care of so-called heroes!" he spat. He moved very little in his armor but such was his skill as an orator that it was impossible to mistake the underlying fury in his voice. If he was indeed the murderer, did he wait to announce their deaths so as to allow rumors to trickle down naturally and protect his spies?
"Yes. Allfather is dead. The man who began this grand cause is dead. The man who sparked in our hearts a sacred passion for the prosperity of our people is dead. The city has lost a true hero this night, and I, I lost my father. He is dead and there is nothing I can do to bring him back. So mourn, mourn the man who fought for you. Mourn the man who died for you.
"But rise. Rise because this is not the end. I refuse to let this be the end," he declared, slamming his hands on the desk. He stood and began to walk towards the camera. "I feared for the loyal so delivered Krieg and Brunhild from wicked hands. Know that in the same way, the righteous will be justly rewarded as I take up my father's cause."
He swung his hand to the side and from it sprouted an ornate sword. At the same time, a crown of wrought iron twisted itself from his helmet. Taking his sword, he aimed it at the camera and said, "I am his heir. I am the inheritor of his will and I will carry on his thankless task. I will purge this city of subhuman gangs and lawless lessers that prey on good men and women. I promise you a golden age of health and prosperity, an age in which the innocent need not fear cowardly spiders or inept heroes. This is my promise, one I make with the brave and loyal at my back:
"No longer am I the Iron Prince, for the time for princedom has passed. From this night forth, I claim my father's crown, the crown of the Empire. I. Am. Kaiser."
Author's Note
Obligatory disclaimer: Kaiser's opinions are not my own. Dear, anon, I'm Korean. It's kind of hard to be a white supremacist.
A more valid criticism of the past five chapters is that it feels rushed, because it is. This whole gang war could have taken two or three arcs but I condensed it because this story is not ultimately about the rise of Kaiser or the restructuring of Brockton Bay's geopolitics. This story is about Andy and this arc is about the ripples his actions caused, some familiar and others not.
I know most of you expected this so it's not much of a twist, but I still felt that it was a necessary one. Kaiser is described by Wildbow as being an exceptionally charismatic man and a phenomenal orator. Unfortunately, we don't actually see much of him because he got Levi'd. Pity, because I think charismatic villains are awesome. It's one of the things I think Nuclear Fire (a tinker of fiction story) did really well.
Now, obligatory random fact: There is a statue of Jesus Christ in Gyeongsangbuk-do, South Korea. The statue depicts Christ as being incredibly buff, with a huge grin fit for All Might. My friend showed me this in bible study with the running joke that he will literally carry all my sins.
*Note: I'm Christian. This isn't offensive, it's hilarious. Don't start a religious debate in my thread, just enjoy buff-Jesus.
As always, thank you all for your support. Patrons can read up to 3 chapters of a new Worm/LoL fic, 4 chapters of a new Pokemon fic, an extra chapter of Legendary Tinker, 6 chapters of Plan? What Plan? 5 chapters of When is a Spoon a Sword? and 3 chapters of Troll in the Dungeon! That's a full 22 chapters of content.
SanguisAnima
Σ Series Z10/0 Group A 4A-GELU Mk1
- Location
- nowhere important
Wasn't that the same pic that spawned the whole series of Buff Jesus memes? I remember one of the "verses" going something like, "Doth thou even hoist, brethren? I say unto thee, blessed is he who skips not the day of legs."
Link was removed by imgur. It's Jesus reimagined as the former Korean Sumo champion. When he first started and had not yet layered fat on his muscles.
Fellow Human
Verified Roado Rolla
I don't find this interlude interesting, keep hoping we get back to Hyunmu or Cauldron.
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