[ ] Plan Decapitation
Escapades 5.7
Durham is exceedingly unexciting, you decide as you and the rest of the heroes begin your final approach. It isn't that you were expecting for there to be goose-stepping skinheads or swastikas everywhere already, but you thought there would be something unique, something
special that drew Kaiser to this little corner of nowhere. There isn't. It's a stark reminder that the Empire wasn't running
to anywhere. They were just running away in the first direction they picked. Once the most powerful gang in Brockton Bay, capable of deploying enough capes to hold off the entire local Protectorate, and this is what they've been reduced to.
You aren't sure if it is humbling or inspiring or what, but you certainly feel something stir in your heart at that thought.
"Your show now, kid," one nearby hero says, and the rest of the assembled groups slows to a halt while you shoot forwards towards the middle of the city. You would be lying if you said you weren't even a little nervous. Yes, you have cast Recursion Field before. Yes, you have done so in battle. But never has so much ridden on doing so. As soon as you revealed this spell to your group's time-accelerating leader and had its effectiveness affirmed by Lady Photon, you became the lynchpin in the battle plans that were drafted. Fighting a group of likely Zizzed villains when they had foot soldiers or even innocent hostages they could hide behind was a terrifying prospect. Once you captured them in a dimensional barrier, though, they would have nothing with which to defend themselves.
Othala. Rune. Stormtiger. Fenja. Hookwolf. Kaiser himself. Each and every one of them would be trapped and at the unlikely mercy of the thirty capes behind you. If you succeed, the only villains who retain the advantage of mooks and hostages are Victor and Cricket, and they have ten angry Brutes headed their way. If you fail, the worst-case scenario is that the Empire figures out what you tried to do and kills all the innocents around them before going on a panicked rampage.
No pressure.
Reaching the point Perfect Storm picked out as the center of the small town, you take a deep breath before you let the formula necessary for the creation of your shadowy dimensional echo run through your head. "Recursion Field," you breathe, and as you hope, the sigil appears below your feet without difficulty.
A moment later, you take in the structure of the dome and turn back to your remaining allies before flashing them a thumbs up.
No one really replies, but they turn and proceed to the most likely target: the city's university. Nazis generally are not ones for higher learning, but the choice to start here has nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with sensible tactics. The university has the largest area and the most buildings of all four locations, and those both mean more places for the villains to hide, or worse, set up an ambush. If they already have space on their side, the last thing you want is to give them time, too.
The campus looks to be only a little larger than the community college where your mom once worked, but without any students loitering around, the grounds sprawl menacingly beneath you. "Split up!" orders one woman, the flaming Chinese dragon she rides settling on the ground to let off its other passengers before splitting apart into giant animal heads that are equally alight. "Make sure you stay in sight of somebody else, and nobody better be running off alone! Pairs at least, but groups are better!"
No problem. You float towards Miss Militia, who is walking away from the dragon's landing site—
"Calamity Witch. Why don't we search over there?"
You stop and turn around slowly to face Lady Photon. Personally, you have no issues with the leader of New Wave, but considering Purity's suspicions about how they had a hand in suppressing her attempts to become known as a hero and Laserdream's none-too-quiet comments on the flight back from talking down that Empire splinter-group, the same might not be able to be said about her.
But! No need to make yourself more paranoid than you already are. Maybe she just wants to get to know another hero formerly from Brockton Bay, especially another local forcefield-using flying artillery cape— Oh god, she thinks you're some long-lost cousin or something, doesn't she?
She drifts towards where another group has already started investigating and hangs a left closer to a five-story dormitory before coming to a stop. "Now isn't the time or place to pull a stunt like you did yesterday. I hope you know that."
…Never mind, clearly paranoia was the right way to go, after all. "Are you really that bent out of shape about Purity trying to be a hero?" you demand. Of all the ludicrous things to pick a fight about, she was going to go after somebody trying to make up for her mistakes? Seriously?!
The laser-wielding mom turns to look at you with a strange expression that is soon replaced with one of enlightenment. "No, no. That isn't what I meant at all. Part of the reason the method you chose to handle yesterday worked is because you had numbers on your side. Once we were in that pocket dimension of yours, you had all the power. Depending on how you chose to act, you could have turned the fight from four-on-four to five-on-three. None of us wanted that possibility to become reality, so Revel had little choice but to bargain with you. I just didn't want you getting any bright ideas about doing something similar where all it would do is get you painted by the same brush as the Empire.
"It's a good piece of advice for another reason, too," she continues while you just stare at her in befuddlement.
That is the reason she thought Revel sided with you instead of with her? "You got extremely lucky with Purity. She was desperate, and you had what she wanted. That won't happen every time. It won't happen most times, even. Show your back to a villain again, and you'll only have yourself to blame when they stab a knife in it."
You open your mouth to reply to that insanity – was it really so hard for Lady Photon to believe that somebody who made mistakes, even big mistakes, just might realize what she had done and try to correct it? – but a loud string of bangs and rumbles jerk your attention to the building that other group had been investigating collapses into a gigantic pile of concrete and rebar. Dragon-rider-lady, and you really do need to find out her name at some point if that's the best description you can come up with, zips over to them and nearly shrieks, "What are you doing?!"
"Nothing we do is gonna matter after the effect stops, is it?" one man retorts. "If we wanna get these Nazi fucks, might as well blow up everything around 'em and get 'em in the crossfire, you know?"
She sits on her flying fireball for a moment before turning to face you. "Is that how this works?"
Uh…. A quick back-and-forth with Perfect Storm, and you nod. You know where this is going, and while it will definitely be the faster way of doing this, you can't help but imagine what would happen if Recursion Field didn't work the way it does. "It's a little more complicated than that, but he's not wrong."
"Okay." She jabs a button on her wristband and says, "New plan, everybody. Demolish
everything. Calamity Witch says collateral damage is not a concern so long as her Shaker effect is up."
Lady Photon's wristband and your own both squawk out her message, the radios within just powerful enough to pass the word around to every cape in your dimensional field. Heroes and villains both turn their powers onto the nearby buildings, and in far too short a time, the entire campus has been reduced to rubble. It is a little uncomfortable how destructive capes can be when they really let loose, and just as uncomfortable when you realize much the same could be said about you.
The few seconds of chaos are followed by several minutes of looking through the wreckage for any sign that the Empire capes were there, but despite the parahumans' enthusiasm, it soon becomes clear that they took their aggression out on the wrong target. The fiery caterpillar dragon is reassembled, and you take off for the second site, the one that you know is where you will find your quarry.
City hall.
The squat, unimpressive building comes into view, and immediately streamers of light crash through the walls and detonate. Spheres of distorted space, pools of acid, Cailleach's ice bombs; it takes as little time to ruin this locale as they needed for the university grounds. You move closer to Miss Militia's spot on the dragon and ask, "Is this what it's going to be? Just bomb the whole town until we find what we're looking for?"
The American-themed heroine shrugs. Is her motion as uncertain as you think it looks, or are you just projecting your own concerns onto her? "I won't say it's your fault, but you certainly made it easier. Put people in a situation where there are no consequences, and far too many will embrace their worst desires, even if only for a moment." She looks away. "It is a trap all of us fall into, though we do our best not to succumb to that temptation again."
Several capes drop lower, but their cries of frustration soon reach your ears. What do they mean, the Empire isn't here?! This is where they were supposed to be! With Kaiser's ego, there was no way he would settle for anything less than taking over the seat of government. Not unless he was aiming even higher, if his deluded and Simurgh-addled mind thought he truly was above all other men. It looks like you're headed for the city's cathedral.
The others come to the same conclusion and ready themselves to move out once more. "Arbiter," a Case 53 covered in laser-shooting eyes calls out before you can move more than a dozen yards, "isn't the strip mall between here and the cathedral? We could knock it down while we're going and scratch that off our list."
"It's a little out of the way, but not that much," your group leader agrees after a moment's thought. "It won't delay us too much as long as nobody wastes time. Let's hit it and move on."
Taking a slightly looping course, the strip mall comes into view. Much like the rest of the town, it's nothing impressive— Except for all that! You shoot to one side as the roof shatters under the onslaught of massive steel obelisks that fly like rockets at your group. Not everyone is as quick on their feet as you; one monolith catches the tail of giant dragon and knocks free a couple of capes riding astride, and two more cut through the cluster of heroes that includes the very person who suggested you come this route. You doubt she appreciates the irony.
The roof continues its collapse, revealing rows of ten-foot pillars. No, not pillars.
Blades. How long did it take Kaiser to make all these?!
The other capes continue their evasive actions as Rune flings more and more of her projectiles at your group, but even now you're rallying. A few flurries of light fly towards the building only to be stopped by a growing shield, and then the twenty-foot Fenja hurls something back that explodes into a living chainsaw. Another cape's quick thinking and momentum-reversing field is the one thing that saves more of your allies from being pureed by the blender that is Hookwolf.
Fenja's increased size makes her a better target, but the oddities of her Breaker state also mean she can weather the blows and better deflect the strikes aimed at the squishier capes at her feet. Or is it the oddities of her Breaker state mixed with the invincibility Othala can grant? That would probably make more sense. Fenja grows, Othala makes it impossible to hurt her, and then she can use her enlarged shield to protect Kaiser and Othala and all the rest. With that pair on defense, Kaiser and Rune can pair off for offense, him providing the blades and her throwing them. Hookwolf can be either another projectile or their final line of defense. It's a clever set up, and it's going to be a pain in the ass to stop now that they have gotten in a rhythm.
There is just one weakness that you can see: Othala, best as you remember, is incapable of granting any of her powers to herself. She is purely a support cape. If anyone could stop her, the Empire's strategy would fail, but Fenja is currently protecting her from all the threats thrown at her from above. You would have to attack her from the side to have any chances of hitting her, but if you tried that, all you would do is draw attention to yourself. Wide Area Search would let you target them, but between Kaiser's blades and Rune's powers and Stormtiger's air bombs and Hookwolf's everything, you can't be sure that any of your shots would hit. Solar Wrath would be easier to aim and impossible to deflect, but it can still be blocked. Not to mention, if you want to remain unseen, you would be blasting through a number of walls plus whatever metal Kaiser conjured to reinforce them. You don't know that it would have the energy to do more than ruffle their hair.
«
Any ideas, Storm?» you ask the Device.
Maybe it is because your Device literally runs off telepathy. Maybe it just knows you well enough to guess your thoughts. Either way, it immediately offers a grisly suggestion. «
Mistress's Flare Mana Conversion Affinity converts mana to heat and short-wavelength radiation. With safety measures in place, conversion limited to small amount of heat. Should Mistress cast without restrictions, spells cause lethal burns and radiation poisoning even if physical force nullified.»
That's not a great set of options, is it? Either you accomplish nothing or you burn everyone alive. This is not like fighting the Beasts, either. At the party, you had already figured out there was something wrong with them. They were more animal than man in your mind even before Miss Militia revealed they were probably the creations of a mad scientist. These are actual people, though. Evil, heartless people, but people nonetheless. Your hands tremble around Perfect Storm's pole. Can you go through with it?
Another swarm of tower-swords shoot into the air but is thankfully dodged by the capes it was aimed at, and it is that that really makes your mind up for you. Kaiser is desperate, and just like a cornered rat, he is going to bite anything that gets too close. It just happens that this rat carries the plague. The rest of the Empire aren't Zizzed – Othala you heard was cleared with your own ears, and Hookwolf and Fenja and the rest came back from Boston, so the same must be true about them – but they will follow Kaiser's lead. By the time they wise up, if they ever do, it will be too late to head off whatever convoluted plot Kaiser is part of. How many innocent people will they hurt before they're stopped, just like they hurt people with impunity back in Brockton Bay? How many will they kill?
How far will you go to keep your hands from being stained with blood if the alternative is for the ground to be soaked with it?
"Okay," you whisper to yourself. Looking at the ground, you note a nearby alleyway with just a single building between it and the strip mall. Nothing comes at you while you cast Spatial Translocation, and then you're at your destination. "Storm? Give me the formula for Solar Wrath."
«
Does Mistress desire lethality restrictions remain active?»
You hesitate, once more looking at the gravity of the situation on your shoulders. "No. No, take them off. I need everything you've got."
«
Understood. Lethal restrictions lifted. Begin ignition sequence.»
Aiming the tip of your staff at the building and the strip mall behind it, you watch the miniaturized sun grow and grow in front of you. When you fired this at Cadejo, you only let it get as big as your head. Part of that was the time crunch involved, but another part was knowing just how big this thing could get from your time in the training simulator while you should have been paying attention in history class. For this, you allow it to grow to its full size, wider than your shoulders and just a little less than half the length of your torso. Even with the protection from heat offered by your Barrier Jacket, you still feel the immensity of the fire contained within. The edges of the sunspots glow like coals; the flares looping back into the corona twist like starving snakes eager to gorge themselves on everything before them.
You raise the staff a little so it is firing at an upwards angle and hopefully won't melt the street quite as much as last time, and then you squeeze the trigger in your mind.
The force of the blast actually slides you backwards a few inches on the asphalt, but that is nothing compared to its brightness and volume. You can't see anything through the cone of flames. You can't hear anything over its furious roar. Your whole world becomes this single prolonged explosion, something Earth was never supposed to hear until the real sun breaks apart at the end of its life and consumes all around it.
«Initiate selective sensory suppression.»
The beam of nuclear fire finally dies down, and you blink the spots out of your eyes in time to see a massive spearhead coming your way. Diving to the side and never touching the ground, you shoot skywards to get out of the way as well as see what kind of calamity you have wrought.
In hindsight, you decide as you stare speechlessly at the scene before you, you
might have underestimated how much damage that spell could do.
The building you chose to use as cover has a massive swath cut though it, and while Solar Wrath was still ongoing the top of the building collapsed and was likewise destroyed. The buildings
behind the strip mall are both gone, as are those behind and to the sides of them. And the store itself? Like everything else the most powerful of your attack spells touched, it is not even rubble. When the spell hit Fenja's invulnerable legs, it did not stop so much as scatter, vaporizing anything it touched and melting what was outside its reach.
There is no sign of the Nazis at her feet. You can't help but wonder if they even had time to feel themselves being set on fire before they simply disintegrated.
«Suppression successful.»
The sound rattling in the air pauses for just a moment, and now you realize it is Fenja's scream of grief and hate. She whips out her sword and tries to pull out of the molten muck pooling around her feet, but by setting her focus entirely on you she has opened herself up to the thirty capes you brought with you. Even Othala's boon cannot last under the onslaught, and without warning it fails. Fenja falls a moment later, the myriad of exotic energies suddenly wreaking deadly effect.
Quiet falls over the empty city.
When you move back towards the group, you can't help but notice that everyone scoots away just a little. It is a subconscious reaction, you tell yourself. Never mind that extremely few parahumans are capable the kind of feat you just performed. Never mind that what is left of the buildings looks far too much like something from the few photos that inevitably spread over the internet after Behemoth attacks. It's fine. You're fine.
Arbiter drifts closer and clears his throat. "If you could take us out of this pocket dimension, I expect the Brutes have finished dealing with the other capes and the non-parahuman fighters. Should that not be the case, we know where they are and can finish this quickly."
"Right. Yeah." Taking another look at the aftermath of your attack, you find the threads of Recursion Field and break them.
Color washes back into the city, and activity resumes. The strip mall remains demolished.
Several capes shout in protest, and Arbiter turns to you with a cold glare. "I thought you said the damage we did would not transfer over."
"It doesn't! Look!" You point at the building. "I
melted the building. That's collapsed. Whoever did that, it wasn't me."
Movement below catches your eye, and the group as a whole descends to street level. "Brick!" somebody calls out. "You okay down there?!"
The Brutes climb to their feet, some of them moving gingerly and all of them covered in scratches or cuts. For parahumans whose point of pride is their strength and durability, that is not a good sign. "Tell me the others are handled."
"Our selection of targets were eliminated," Arbiter confirms. "What about yours?"
The capes you couldn't keep an eye on carefully do not look at each other, and finally one of them explains, "We were going to check this place out on the way to the college, and then they started shooting and somebody Triggered. Next thing we knew, everybody was on the ground and there were big chunks of concrete flying at us. We broke in, but the only one there was that Victor cape, and he did some crazy kung fu shit to keep us from hitting him before he blew the building up with all of us inside. He's dead, and we're okay, but Cricket and the new cape and all the grunts were gone by the time we dug our way out."
"Why would they even pick here to hide out?" demands someone from deep in the crowd.
Several mutter in agreement, but it is Miss Militia who responds. "There was a gun store here. They probably picked it so the unpowered members would have plenty of ammunition."
The group starts devolving into an argument about whose fault it is that a known Empire cape and someone whose powers no one has a good handle on were able to escape. You, on the other hand, float a short distance away. You have no interest in who did or didn't do what, not when you still feel your skin crawling at what you've already done.
«
Impossible for false Empire to defeat Mistress,» Perfect Storm says, trying and failing to cheer you up. «
Mistress heir to might of Galea.»
You blink and look at the head of your staff. "Galea?"
«
Location of unit construction. Home world of Calamity Witch origin.»
Origin? Construction? "Storm," you whisper, your mood rising both with the ready distraction and the implications of your Intelligent Device's statement, "do you remember something about your past?"
«
Memory segment repair completed. Majority of files corrupted beyond possibility of recovery. Earliest records stored with highest priority adjacent to template files and restorable. Records include purpose of construction and designation chosen by designers.»
Its designation. Its
real name. "Who are you?" you whisper.
«
Unit classification: accelerated training platform. Unit purpose: installation of ability templates into local untrained mages to supplement military forces engaged in conflict with invading Belkan Empire.» You can almost feel the pride radiating from the crimson gem. «
Initial designation: Immortal Assimilation Engine.»
Your wristband chooses that moment to begin beeping incessantly, as do everybody else's. What in the world is going on?
Arbiter taps a button on his, and you return to the group to better hear what's going on. Judging by how pale his skin is, it's nothing good. "Say that again, Console."
"Get back here now! The new Butcher just attacked headquarters!"
And now you have some idea what the dice rolls were for. 
Even the sane(r) members of New Wave are fucked up. Whoever could have guessed that? Lady Photon's opinions are especially ironic considering the recent events in Boston and all the press that media circus generated. Hint: Collateral Damage Barbie, a lovestruck healer, smartphones, and unseen bystanders do not a good combination make.
Speaking of PHO-worthy topics, my SVers will notice something interesting if they check the threadmarks. A longstanding canon omake has now been put in its proper place, mostly because I only figured out this week how to rearrange threadmarks.
But enough about me! There is a new passive trait in your character sheet with two big implications. First, you can now support twin Guardian Beasts without any penalty to learning or training new spells. This won't matter until Samantha dies or you choose to un-convert her, but it's something to keep in mind. Second, now is your first chance to pick your secondary class!
Here's how this is going to work. There are three other classes to choose from, and each offers 5 or 6 unique spells from their skill trees that I think really capture the flavor of that class. Once you learn all those spells, you can choose to cross-train a second time. Details about that are in the FAQ section.
[ ] Extinction Knight – Close combat specialist with heavy armor and the cartridge system.
[ ] Infinite Enhancement – Support class with spells that empower your allies and hinder your foes.
[ ] Transcendent Gadgeteer – Magical Tinker with a specialty in cybernetics and weapon design.
[ ] Nothing – Do not take on another class at this time. This vote will be repeated at the end of every arc until a secondary class is chosen.
VERY IMPORTANT! Because the Gadgeteer is the only true non-combat class, it has its own leveling system. Except for the very first skill, participating in fights will not let you buy Gadgeteer skills, and completing projects will not let you buy spells from Calamity Witch's.
