Monster (Story-Only thread)

[Ghoul King]

Starting with an Index post so people can, among other things, find omakes in the main thread more easily.

Also because the index post is the only place the arc names can be found.

Here is the main, non-story only thread.

If you found Worm canon to be too intense at points -such as in the Slaughterhouse Nine arc, or during Taylor's schooltime miseries- then you're probably not going to be thrilled with Monster. Fair warning.

Premise: Taylor with a different power, the consequences therein, and the implications of what kind of person she was to get this power rather than canon Taylor's power.

Caveat: This is not strictly a single-point-of-divergence story. If you would like to know what the other difference is, have a spoiler to open.

Spoiler

Contessa.

Funny thing, my original guess of what her power was? Precognition with (local) omniscience. I thought she had the Byakugan simultaneous awareness of everything in a large sphere centered around her, plus precognition letting her know what would happen within that sphere (accounting for her own movement) for 5-30 minutes, with an 'implied' (ala how Skitter slowly realizes her power has a lot of 'implied' secondary powers) guidance system for her body so she would always execute her actions exactly as she plotted them.

The overall result was that she made sense as The Perfect Ninja Bodyguard, but had no utility for delegation outside of, like, delegating to people who would then work in the same room as her for the near future. Pretty much explaining everything we see her do prior to her Interlude providing the actual mechanics of her power. (Except I guess her lines about 'modeling' the Endbringers but we never see actual evidence of that being a thing she can do and it's dumb anyway)

It doesn't even actually change her attempt to kill Eden, beyond that she wouldn't be able to give instructions to her uncle with the same certainty that it would save him. She just adjusts her precog-plan as she closes with 'the monster' to account for what her power is 'learning' as she closes in, maybe occasionally has to double back and take a different route. Oh, and having Eden mess with the settings is completely unnecessary because even 30 minutes out is not good enough for plotting out a perfect plan.

Also, her power doesn't actually give her plans, it just gives her information. She makes plans, it tells her what will happen if she does that. Making her a lot more mortal.

Now take all that stuff I just said and be aware that it's canon to Monster instead of canon's Path to Victory. Further be aware that this affects Cauldron, among others.

Arc 1: Regicide
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1.x

Arc 2: Heartless
2.1
2.2
2.x
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.y

Arc 3: Deal
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.x

Arc 4: Shadows
4.1
4.2
4.3
4.x
4.4
4.y
4.5
4.z
4.4

Arc 5: Horrors
5.1
5.2
5.c
5.3
5.4
5.p
5.5

Arc 6: Perspective
6.m
6.p
6.r
6.u

Omake
Fun Taylor Fun Facts
Shipping Intensifies
Sveta and freedom
Undocumented Policies
Broadcast to Murderhobo Control
Canon Omake: Monster Christmas Special

Fan Art
A scene from 3.5
Who needs missiles?
Let's look at Monster as a monster

Other
How I Met Your Monster. Spoilers starting from partway through Arc 2.

 

[Ghoul King]

1.1

Unsettling to realize that Ellisburg is only a few hours drive from Brockton Bay. Convenient for me, but unsettling nonetheless. If Nilbog ever decided to leave his fucked-up little refuge, Brockton Bay was at real risk from him.

Of course, that's part of why I'm here.

Right now I'm standing on way too many legs outside the wall around Ellisburg, or more accurately out in the forest surrounding the cleared area illuminated by spotlights, in the dead of night. I'm looking at the wall, trying to figure out if there's anyone or if it's as unmanned as it appears: I haven't seen anyone since I stopped following the interstate highway, just tons of signs warning people this is a restricted area, leave, turn around, go back, this is for your own protection, etc. That, and chain-link fencing through the woods with more of the same on it, but it was trivial to hop over that fence. Probably meant to prevent people from wandering too close to Ellisburg while hiking, or lost in the woods, or whatever. Not a serious barrier.

The reason I haven't made the leap already isn't that I'm concerned about guards. Information on Ellisburg is ridiculously thin, but I have an advantage: I can sense human presences, like an itch or uncomfortable warmth on the back of my neck, worse the more people are nearby. There's nobody in the area, or at least nobody on this side of the wall, not even Nilbog. Guards aren't a concern. I'm not even concerned about Nilbog's monsters... well, okay, a little concerned about them. It is possible my power won't be sufficient protection from them, but at this distance I'm almost confident they don't qualify as human.

Which is kind of the problem, really.

The thing is, I came out here expecting... I dunno, two dozen Protectorate capes, or rows of tanks. Or that Nilbog's minions would be sufficiently close to human to count, disturbing as the thought is. Either way, I was expecting... well, to have wasted my night, disappointed and relieved all at the same time, and returned to Brockton Bay having done nothing. Which sounds dumb, I know. But the plan is dumb, crazy. It won't work. It should, by all rights, kill me, accomplishing nothing except maybe provoking the king of monsters to war. So having an excuse to turn and leave? Tell myself I've done my due diligence? I actually kind of wanted one.

But I'm here, and the plan is looking disturbingly plausible.

I've been sitting here for... probably twenty minutes trying to psych myself up to actually go in. It's hard, harder than I thought. I just can't motivate myself.

Let's... try again.

I don't actually have unlimited time. (No sense of urgency)

That this needs to happen. (Well, yes, but does it have to be me?)

I want to improve the world, if I can. (There's other things I could do...)

Fuck the bitches, they haven't broken me.

I leap to the wall and climb it in near-total silence.

----------------------------​

So here's the plan.

Step one: Enter Ellisburg.

Step two: Kill everything in Ellisburg.

Considering the Protectorate, the army, and everybody else -including some really overconfident villains- are scared to come within fifty miles of the place, you can maybe see why I'd have liked an excuse to not attempt this plan.

But here I am, perched on top of the wall.

First impression: what the fuck? The city looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, everything colorful and curved. It takes me a moment to shake off a conviction Nilbog's power somehow "cartoonifies" things. No, these are painted and shaped naturally. The wall is even painted to resemble a view of the horizon, as if the city isn't walled in at all. Even the trees are tended to, made to grow in curlicues and weirder.

Second impression: ugh, this city is big. It's a small town. Or it was, I should say. I'd been expecting it to be smaller. It's small enough I can see the wall at the far side of the town, but it's still bigger than I was really expecting, on some level. Big enough I'm worried this will take too long.

Third impression: People? Wait, what?

But then one of the "people" looks at me and nothing happens. No sudden chill, no return to Taylor Hebert, ordinary schoolgirl, no drop from my perch. It's not human. One of Nilbog's monsters, wearing clothes and chewing on a bloody, feathery mass. It (she? Wearing a dress, anyway...) shrieks an alarm, and I boggle at how many things come boiling out of buildings, from under buildings, and even some right out of the ground.

But I'm not Taylor Hebert, The Bullied Girl. I'm the monster, and instincts suiting the descriptor uncoil, like a snake waiting to strike. And like a snake, I strike faster than the eye can follow. One moment I'm clinging to the top of the wall, the next I've punched holes through a dozen gribly nasties. One of them sprays some bizarre fluid all over the place, sizzling and scorching everything it touches, griblies included. It slides right off the lubricant covering my skin, which is a relief because I'd never even thought to test my protection against chemical attacks.

Moments later I've diced my way to what vaguely resembles a grotesquely fat man, shoving griblies onto the caustic liquid and also flames a different creature has vomited up as I go along. The fat man's reflexes catch me off guard, grabbing me out of the air when I leap, talons aimed at its face instead caught by an enormous hand. I respond by bending my body until my rear limbs can reach it, and tear at its guts. This doesn't accomplish much, beyond provoking it into trying to crush my limbs, but the dim sense of pressure I experience is like a pillow sitting on a hand. I twist and pull limbs out of its grip to give myself more maneuvering room, intending to slit its throat.

Unfortunately, something yet larger rams me before I can get the appropriate leverage, ripping me from the fat man's grip and sending me skittering through a mob of little child-monsters. In passing I punch holes through eyes, tear out throats, and snap limbs, and the instant my tumbling is manageable I leap at some kind of sheep/dragon hybrid. Unfortunately, its coat is tough and its scales tougher, its head is too high for me to jump at, and it isn't stupid enough to lean down into my reach, instead opting to vomit some kind of reddish goo all over me. Like the acid and fire before, it slides right off me with no apparent effect, but this stuff doesn't seem to do anything to the other creatures, either.

I abandon attacking the sheep-dragon in favor of grabbing a quadruped whose claws ooze green fluid, hurling it legs-first into the biggest concentration of creatures I can see, and then sprinting toward some hideous mother-creature that is eating the dead -one screams before its skull is crushed between outsized molars, so not just the dead- and unleashing fresh horrors from its nethers. Twenty more smaller creatures are killed or maimed as I run, but a tremendous worm with eyes set inside its tooth-lined jaw bursts out of the ground in front of me, too large for going around to be quick, big enough I don't want it ingesting me. If its insides are as tough as that sheep-dragon's outsides, getting back out might be a real problem.

So I shift gears, simultaneously pulling back and striking a charging whatever-the-hell so that its course shifts to the right and brings it directly into the worm-monster's mouth, rather than safely to one side. What appears to be orange blood spatters from the impact, though I can't tell which one is injured. It doesn't matter, I need to stop the recycler, and anything else like it, or else this will be impossible. To that end I scramble back to the worm and the charging creature, both still reeling, and successfully climb over them, incidentally producing dozens of puncture wounds and fending off smaller creatures trying to intercept me. The recycler is still at it, but this time I charge halfway and abruptly jerk to one side, dodging what appears to be a gargoyle swooping down from the sky from behind me, and then do my best to leap or climb over the tide of new monsters pouring out.

One of them explodes like a bomb, directly adjacent to me, and I'm launched into and through the wall of one of the surreal buildings, I think it used to be a house. I'm annoyed. I wasn't injured by that either, I don't even feel warm, but it's still an obstacle. For attempt number three I approach by impaling and then throwing the newborn griblies straight back at momma horror as I approach at a relatively sedate pace. In short order flesh is melting and spines have punched holes into her brain, but she doesn't stop, and I can see flesh filling in the worst of it already, so I abruptly close the remaining distance and cut, and cut, and cut until head separates from body and hits the ground, still chewing on a detached arm.

I don't have time to look for another recycler before something has pulled me into the air, gripping under a pair of my "armpits", again coming in from the relatively small blindspot behind me. Is this luck, or canniness? Regardless, I flail while it attempts to tear at my carapace, but its claws find no purchase on the lubricated surface where mine stab, gouge, encircle and crush. I can't reach its wings, but eventually its grasping limbs are in no condition to hold me and I drop back to the ground level.

A gang of child-like gribblies move toward me as a coordinated group, faltering for a moment when six are dead before the first corpse has hit the ground. Then they literally dogpile me, focusing on getting a grip on me, trying to immobilize me, ignoring the injuries I heap upon them, ignoring how quickly they're dying. When other dangers approach, I slip limbs from their collective grasp, kill a few more, and leap aside as something huge falls on the entire crush. My focus is on a second recycler, this one resembling nothing I could name, scooping up bodies in what appears to be a sack made of skin while no obvious output occurs. I puzzle over its strangeness for a moment, and then rush it, ducking through an alley instead of taking the straightest route, scything through more little creatures, impaling one with a swelling head of fluid through the chest to hurl at the sack-thing, whereupon the swelling head pops, spraying the sack-thing to no effect. Grass shrivels where the fluid lands, and so does one of Nilbog's other minions caught in it, but the sack-thing just shoves everything into its sack, uncaring.

Nothing leaps out before I reach the sack-thing, and it only takes a couple stabs to the head for the thing to collapse, releasing a black-green cloud of something that billows out and downward. It's hard to see through, but I can hear hissing and crackling, seemingly from within the expanding cloud. More tellingly, the monsters closest to it are turning and running, which is the first time I've seen anything seriously scare any of them. So. Something really scary. And it's spreading, airborne. Given it's something Nilbog made...

Fuck, did I just release a plague?

Not a problem I can stab to death. Not a problem I can ignore on the assumption it can't touch me. It's a plague, it can go out beyond the walls. Fuck, there's a reason Alexandria hasn't come in swinging, why didn't I see that? I need to deal with this immediately, and I need to deal with it with what's on hand. Great.

I tear my way toward the last place I remember seeing fire, punching holes in more critters along the way, a few by simply stepping on them, until one of the child-like goblins screeches something and spits some kind of napalm at me. It slides right off the fluids on my skin, and the fire feels like a dim warmth anyway, but that's beside the point. I stab it through the chest and pull off a full-body spinning throw, hurling the thing straight into the cloud, and then pause (gutting three more critters lunging at me) to watch. After a few seconds I see an orange glow through the black cloud, largely obscured, which is probably doing something to the plague, but I'd been hoping for something more like an explosion, the entire cloud setting ablaze. Something fast.

A quick look around doesn't provide a lot of inspiration. Monsters are fleeing, there's a particularly large creature standing so tall only the lower part of it is within the cloud, and the flesh I glimpse through the cloud has been stripped to the point I can see chunks of white -bone?- but I'm not seeing anything useful. No acid, no fire, no exotic chemistry that I can see. Even so, I charge into a cluster of small, throwable gribblies, stabbing and tossing into the cloud, keeping an eye on how the cloud reacts. Ominously, nothing seems to be coming out of the cloud, in spite of how durable and persistent these things are. Is it a fast-acting toxin once breathed, in addition to being, apparently, a literally flesh-eating plague?

I resolve to stay out of the cloud's reach, in any event. I don't seem to breathe, but "don't seem to" isn't the same as "don't", and there's no saying what a flesh-eating plague is going to do to my body. Maybe nothing, maybe exactly what it's doing to everything else. So I back off some more, stabbing gribblies and throwing them into the cloud.

Then something enormous swoops overhead and rakes the cloud with green flame, a good third of the cloud vanishing to reveal nothing but a dusting of grey-black ash coating everything previously obscured. I think I can see bones, here and there, but otherwise there's no sign anything ever lived in the area, not even grass. Unfortunately, the enormous thing -which looks entirely too much like a dragon, if a dragon from a children's cartoon, for my comfort- loops back around and tries to strafe me with the green fire, and I suddenly realize it was targeting me earlier. For the moment I'm too fast for it, but more of the little guys are dogpiling onto me, and so are some of the bigger ones, slowing me down, limiting my mobility.

Oh, and now there's another recycler, resembling an enormous blue-black bipedal pig -or something thereabouts- covered in warts and licking up the ash with a ridiculously long, flexible tongue. The warts are gestating gribblies, expanding until they abruptly pop, releasing a torrent of yellow-green fluid and still more bizarre creatures. It takes me a moment to notice the recycler is wearing overalls, distracted as I am generally, and the half-second I spend agog at this is immediately taken advantage of, two dozen fanged midgets simultaneously slamming down on me, followed immediately by reinforcements dogpiling onto me, everything chewing, clawing, or slamming into me while doing their best to pin me down. My initial assumption that the risk of friendly fire means I won't be targeted again is proven naive -the dragon-thing makes another strafing run on me, and while some of the gribblies are very obviously dead, others seem to hold up under the flame, and more alarmingly others start multiplying when ignited, making the problem of being buried in bodies worse.

As slippery and strong as I am, this is still a nightmare. I don't have leverage, reversing joints only helps if the limb has somewhere to go, and my second skin of fluid isn't much help when there's this many determined creatures holding me down with raw mass. Every time I get one off me, three take its place... or a single one four times its size. I'm having enormous difficulty even stabbing them under these circumstances, especially since they're finally taking the threat my limbs pose seriously.

Then they bring chains and rope and I realize I'm fucked if I don't get out now. Worse, they're talking. In English. I think they have been the whole time, at least some of them, and I just filtered it out, though their accents -yes, accents, plural- are so atrocious there's times I'm only guessing they spoke an actual word. Naturally, most of what I'm hearing is coordination among the gribblies, which explains a lot and now I feel like the stupidest person ever for thinking I could sneak in and assassinate Nilbog, like his creations weren't even a factor.

Intensifying my struggles just gets one of the bigger nasties slamming a fist with spined knuckles into one of my eyes. Not that it really hurts, but neither is it me escaping the dogpile. Then the first chain starts going around a limb and I try my damnedest to take advantage of an opening, but I'm so ineffectual it doesn't even piss them off. In way less time than I'd prefer, I'm trussed up and being dragged toward the center of town.

Apparently, they're taking me to "god-king" ("good king"? Their accents are atrocious) Nilbog.

Which is exactly where I want to go. Reach the source, kill the source. This... might actually be a good thing? If I'm fast, being seen by Nilbog turning me human might even be my opportunity to escape my bonds. Might get me killed, but... the gribblies have no idea I turn human when seen by a human. They won't be prepared for it. So, as long as I don't waste my chance...

I turn my focus on the dragon. It's watching me. I get the distinct impression that half of its attention is on the still-spreading death cloud, but it's watching me.

I stop struggling, go completely limp.

After a few seconds, it snorts, a burst of green fire appearing maybe a second afterward, and turns its attention to the death cloud.

Oh thank god.

 

[Ghoul King]

1.2

I find myself wondering, briefly, where they got the chain. Then I decide I very probably would not like the answer and focus on my surroundings, keeping some focus on getting the chains a little less tight without being obvious about it. Don't want to distract the dragon from torching the plague.

In addition to the gribblies actually dragging me with the chains there's an ever-growing escort of yet stranger things, a good portion of them hopping from rooftop to rooftop to follow. Now that I'm not focused on simply killing them, I find myself surprised at what I'm seeing, in particular how many of them are a girly pink color, given that Nilbog is a man in... uh, his fifties? Forties? Sixties? Dammit, I didn't do enough research on this. They're girlier than I would expect of nightmare monstrosities, anyway. Though... maybe it's because he's an older man, alone aside from his creatures? An attempt to get some balance, mentally? Food for thought.

There's something more sinuous paralleling the group dragging me, moving via a road one block away. Between the distance, the buildings, and the gribblies between me and it I never catch more than a glimpse of it at a time, making it difficult to get the complete picture of what looks like, but it makes me think of a snake out of a herpetophobic's nightmares. That one concerns me. If it has the kind of strike speed actual snakes have, scaled to its size, it could hit me from a block away the instant I'm returned to being Taylor by Nilbog's sight.

I note that there doesn't seem to be any of the recyclers with this group. In fact, I'm pretty sure I see one lurching its way to where the death cloud was. I wonder if that's a sign of overconfidence. Maybe stupidity. Or maybe the recyclers are too valuable to risk being near a potential fight? Though they rushed right into the fight earlier, so maybe not. Or it's possible I'm overestimating my ability to tell the recyclers apart from the rest of them. There could be one mixed into this group and I just don't recognize it.

Finally we break into a clearing of a sort. There's ridiculously large tables that instantly put me in mind of How The Grinch Stole Christmas, in sheer scale but also in the table's shape and the whole layout's similarity to the ending, where the Grinch is cutting and serving meat. Chairs that look like someone took an ordinary, functional chair and then added Dr. Seuss bits to it and painted it a new color to obscure the hodgepodge nature, but not very well. It only occurs to me, seeing this now, that the entire town's distinctiveness is odd. Previously I'd half-ignored it, maybe assumed that Ellisburg was just a colorful place before Nilbog took over, but I wonder again if this is something he made happen. Something his creatures made happen? Now I'm wondering what the inside of his head looks like, that he's a parahuman who can create monstrous armies, a man of whatever age he is, and this is the aesthetic he chooses.

Or did he not choose it?

I'm also wondering where Nilbog is. There's an enormously obese man-creature at the head of the table, exactly where I'd expect Nilbog to be given his creatures seem to think of him as their king, but the man himself is nowhere to be found. I might be inclined to think the creature is him, but it's looking directly at me and I'm still the monster. I can feel him somewhere in the area, there's some human presence here, but it's not the fatman.

Then the fatman creature speaks, and it's the first thing that's sounded genuinely human here. The fuck.

"You know, I don't recognize this one at all." It leans halfway over the table to squint at me, while the procession continues to drag me closer. "Did Bella make this one? She's made so many mistakes lately." What? Then one of the things at the head of this formation speaks up, though I find it incomprehensible. My attention drawn to it, I notice it's got a fresh-looking cut across much of its head, though the bleeding is more sluggish than I would expect from a head wound. A participant in the fight, one that I failed to kill?

The fatman leans back and waves its weird, ugly arms in what I'm sure is a meaningful gesture to it. It just looks to me like it's losing its balance. It speaks again. "Oh, oh." It sounds slightly hurt. "I'm sorry to hear that." Hear what? "But if this isn't one of Bella's?... mayhap Cindy?" The lead thing shakes its head, says something that I'm guessing is a negative. The fatman's eyes turn back to me and narrow. Ugh. Little piggy eyes, the first time I've understood what the phrase means. "Well it has to be someone's mistake, citizens don't just grow on trees." Then it mutters something under its breath, I think I catch the word 'convenient', and then it's back to the projecting tone. "Ask around, find out who made it. We don't need this kind of mistake. Besides, this one is interesting! If we can get it some brothers or sisters, without the madness..." it looks vaguely upward as it trails off. Then it leans forward until its face is against a plate and starts eating with no hands, which honestly impresses me just because I didn't think it could lean forward far enough to get its head to the table like that. No idea what's on the plate, though it puts me in mind of purple gelatin at a glance.

I seriously have no idea what's going on. Did Nilbog have a robot revolution, only with his creatures instead of robots? He's not here, and this... thing is in charge, apparently.

The main thing I'm taking away from this is that this whatever-it-is doesn't think I'm a cape, an invasion from outside. It seems to think I'm... one of these creatures, I guess, but... rogue? Something like that?

I guess if you're creating creations that create creations errors tend to accumulate.

Now what? If Nilbog is dead... I can't kill him if he's already dead. And if they can replace him so readily -the fatman is apparently the good/god king Nilbog- then maybe killing him was never a good answer anyway. Ellisburg is still here. It's still filled with monsters. They're not dying off. Hell, it's the dead of winter right now and there's tons of the things.

... though now that I look around, a large part of the group that was dragging me has left. Most of the smallest, most gremlin-y things are gone, and some of the remainder are bundled up like they're in the arctic circle. So maybe they don't actually like the cold that much.

The fatman lifts away from the plate and looks at me again, frowning. Or I think it's a frown. The expressions are weird. Distorted. Like a cartoon character's exaggerated expressions, where the entire face changes in a completely boneless way, only it's on flesh and blood. Its eyes dart around for a moment. I suddenly have a bad feeling, but I stay still anyway. I need a plan. "They're alive, yes?" They're looking directly at Headwound as they ask. Headwound snaps what looks like an attempt at a salute, bounces over to me, and puts its hand on what could be mistaken for my neck. Then it turns and calls out what sounds to me like, "yuss, greet won. Haz poolse."

Wait, I have a pulse as the monster? Damn. I thought I didn't have blood at all. Something to keep in mind.

Fatman is squinting at me again.

Little gribblies start showing up and conferring with Headwound, before peeling off and entering houses. Well. Buildings, anyway. After twenty or so of them have talked to Headwound, the fatman rears up to its full sitting height -I haven't even seen legs on the thing- while tilting its head back enough that it is literally looking down its nose at us, and says, "Report!" Headwound snaps another salute -or maybe it's the Nazi heil thing, I honestly couldn't say- backs away from me, and calls back, "Noh-" yes, with an h in there, "-clam".

Now fatman is looking very hard at me. So hard it's tilting forward, I suspect unconsciously, getting a better look at me. Fatman starts speaking slowly, somewhat less loud than earlier, but not by any measure quietly. "Not born of any of those twenty. Three are dead. One couldn't have. The other two didn't, witnesses. No citizen did this." There's a pause. Then fatman says, slowly, with careful enunciation, "Organized rogues?" Headwound shakes his head, calls back "Not foh thee faze."

Fatman is looking at me again.

I can see gears grinding, rusty in its head. I can practically taste the rust. It hasn't thought this hard in... years? A decade? How old is this thing?

Then its eyes snap wide open, it rears up, and it bellows, "Intruder!"

I'm slipping out of the chains and have already cut down Headwound partway through the 'n' in 'intruder', and am actually decently prepared for the gribblies in the buildings to come pouring out. For starters, I hook one limb through a segment of chain and start swinging it like a flail. I partially repeat this trick by hooking into other chains, but arranging to throw them, one of them at the fatman, who shrieks like a two-year-old girl told spiders had laid eggs in her toothpaste and they were now burrowing into her brain. (Fuck Aunt Lyla) I half-expect the fatman to fall over onto its back from the reaction. I'm surprised when it doesn't, instead stopping at a 90 degree angle. Odd.

I'm also mostly prepared for things to come out of the ground. There was the worm thing earlier. As soon as I've removed/grabbed/thrown all the chains, I leap directly to the roof of a building. Nilbog's creatures don't seem to like damaging the infrastructure, so maybe they'll be more careful attacking me, give me space to breathe, so to speak.

I'm not prepared for the dragon -wait, is it pink?- from earlier to belch a cloud onto the building. More precisely, I'm not prepared for what happens when the building erupts into flames: a half dozen gribblies that climbed onto the roof in pursuit start multiplying into a dozen, two dozen, fifty...

I jump to a different building, irritated at forgetting about this breed, ignoring the shriek from the fatman. The fatman seems to be alternating between attempting to cower -badly, given its tremendous bulk- and making incoherent demands to, "Get them!" or, "Protect your king!" The roof promptly collapses under my weight, forcing me to scramble out and through a window, cutting in half what appears to be a worm laying on a couch in passing. The worm's segments both regenerate such that there's two full-sized worms, and I make another jump to a different rooftop, only to be intercepted mid-flight by a dozen harpy-esque creatures, which claw, bite, and defecate on me. I'm left reeling more by the emotional affront than by any physical threat they pose, and the time it takes me to get over myself costs me when another worm-thing bursts up and out of the ground and bites down and around me, taking three of the harpy things too.

I scramble toward the closed mouth, absently punching holes through the skulls of the harpies, and attempt to pry it open. No go. I have a dim awareness that 'down' is changing, and I can hear sounds I don't really want to think about. I attempt to burrow through what I'm pretty sure is the roof of the mouth, but while the flesh gives way readily enough I rapidly hit bone -or whatever- and though I leave marks, they're shallower than I'd prefer. I try the opposite side briefly, just in case I'm simply disoriented, but it has the same outcome. A glance at the harpies shows they've already vanished, apparently dragged by the throat musculature to, presumably, the stomach.

I take a closer look at the... lips? There's no teeth, but there's a crease or seam that's presumably where I can expect a hole to appear when it opens its mouth. I thrust a limb at it, and it penetrates to the outside easily. I jam more limbs through and try again to pry open the mouth, but aside from what I think is a pained grumbling, nothing happens. When I retract the limbs, the flesh seals over nearly instantly. Damn. I'd hoped to at least see outside, maybe plan a little.

I ponder briefly the idea of going deeper down the throat.

I reject it as a dumb plan, only good if I decide I'd like to die. No.

I return my attention to one of the points I've previously cut to bone. I pause when I notice the flesh hasn't healed over, and the gouges in the bone are still there. Excellent. I return to slicing and stabbing with a renewed vigor, or at least renewed focus. The work is slow-going, but after some interminable period I abruptly find a limb buried halfway up through the bone, in the middle of something. The 'room' shakes, but the mouth is still closed. I widen the hole, the room shakes some more. I stick multiple limbs in and spin them around, and watch gray matter and purple fluid spurt out of the hole before the mouth jerks open in a shriek.

I'm out as fast as I can, not wanting to risk the thing dying, mouth sealed shut, with me trapped inside. I'm not so concerned about dying at this point (Mystery plague aside, I've never been in any real danger thus far) but I've provoked Nilbog -or whatever that creature is- now, and I don't want to vanish for some number of hours, digging my way out of a dead worm, only to discover Elisburg has been nuked and half the US has been killed by his army by the time I'm loose. I need to keep his attention on me.

Thankfully, I'm still in sight of the Dr. Seuss table. It's also clear to me that, yes, the griblies have been gearing up for war. I can see griblies picking up haphazard, jagged chunks of metal that could be mistaken for a knife or sword if one squinted, while other griblies seem to be wearing armor now. Even some of the less humanoid creatures have been kitted out, though mostly with a marking painted on that I've been I seeing all over the place, rather than armor or weapons.

It takes me a long, long time to realize the marking -I've actually been seeing it on buildings the whole time- is a meaningful design, an ugly attempt at drawing a pig-like face with a child's crude attempt at a crown atop it, replicated faithfully a hundred times over. It literally looks like a five-year-old had been told what a pig looks like, sat down and drew it with a crown, and then that was photocopied. The result is surreal.

I make my way back to the Dr. Seuss table as stealthily as I can while punching holes in griblies without being noticed, something nagging at me. It's not until I can hear the fatman talking in that weirdly human that the thought coalesces.

Why could I feel a human presence in the area?

I'm feeling it again, that's what's bothering me. I stopped feeling it at some point inside the worm, but my attention was on other things. At some point in closing on the square, the sensation returned, and I'm pretty sure I'm coming from a different direction than the one I was dragged in from.

There is a human being in or near the square. This human has either gone completely unnoticed by all of Nilbog's creatures, even though there's hundreds -thousands?- of the things, they can burrow and fly, and they come in such a dizzying array I'd be amazed if any form of invisibility was simultaneously proof against all of them... or Nilbog is still alive, but hidden.

My first instinct is to think the fatman is a decoy. It's the only creature that's had a voice that wasn't at least vaguely animal, it's the obvious exception, and if it were me I'd take advantage of that assumption, let my foes convince themselves they were clever for figuring out that the fatman is my... puppet? Representative? I'm not sure what's going on there. Whatever, if it were me, it would be a deliberate fake, something that looks like it has to be me but would actually be a decoy.

But I've been through a decent chunk of this city and fought a fair few of Nilbog's creations, and I haven't seen anything resembling camouflage. The creatures are still and silent when they want to be, but they don't blend in, and they don't try to. Listening to the furious speech the fatman is giving-

"... DARE to violate a sacred trust, impugn the name of a king named by God, we will punish them! A holy war is upon them..."

-in conjunction with the city... no, I'm thinking that's Nilbog. There's no subtlety here, no tact or forethought. The city is childish and childlike, and if it covers a lethal truth it's not because the designer is lulling his enemies into a false sense of security. I think... the fatman isn't a decoy, but a security blanket, protection from a scary world.

I haven't seen the fatman move from its position. When it started to fall over, it stopped halfway, abruptly. I'm thinking it's rooted in place.

I'm thinking Nilbog -the man- is inside the fatman. Like someone in a mascot outfit, but made of flesh, maybe even able to move on its own to complete the illusion.

I'm maybe half a block away from the fatman when something rumbles behind me, to my left, and suddenly all eyes are on me. I jolt into motion, determined to get to the fatman and tear it open before I get dogpiled again, and the fatman shrieks out something to the effect of, "Get them!" This time, I'm keeping my head angled so I can pay attention to what's coming behind me, so when a furry, serpentine form lunges out a window not long after I pass, I'm ready and jump straight up. My intention is to land on it, but it's faster than I expect, clipping me on my way up and turning my leap into a flailing rotation, gone and past before I can take a stab at it. Then bullets are skipping off my skin.

It takes me a second to realize that, no, the gribblies aren't holding Tommy guns or anything. The "bullets" are supersonic spikes of bone -I think- being fired by I-don't-want-to-know means from a pair of oversized mantis-like things. I wonder for a crazy second where they're getting their ammunition, but then my focus is on ensuring I land cleanly, which is complicated by the barrage. I'm still not feeling anything resembling pain, but the force of the blows is taking control of my tumble away from me. I land in an untidy heap, three-quarters of the way to being upside down, only barely managing to stab a gribbly through the head before it can do whatever it was intending to do, clearly trying to be where I'd land.

Then its head bursts into a bizarre, flickering lightshow, and I have a stump.

Shit.

I scramble to right myself -there's not actually much of a difference between rightside-up and upside-down for me but there is a difference- stumbling for a split-second when one limb doesn't touch ground when I expect it to. I adjust quickly, more quickly than I'd expect to adjust to losing half a limb, but in addition to that delay, I'm having to pay attention now. Before, I could be a dervish, spot movement, stab movement. Now I need to figure out what's coming, then stab appropriate targets.

I decide to assume if I see one distinctive feature it's probably the gribbly's only distinctive feature. If it spits fire, I'm probably safe. If I don't know what it does, throw other things at it, things I do know what they do. I have no proof this is true, but if it's not I'm pretty sure I'm fucked regardless. I also haven't seen anything display more than one exotic capability thus far. It might be some kind of limit on Nilbog's creations.

I start by ducking, and then impaling the serpentine thing from before as it passes. It's still faster than I'm thinking -I was going for its head and got it something like three feet behind its head- and I'm jerked a couple of feet backward by the motion, but then I get traction and we both come to a dead halt. The serpentine thing doesn't like that, flailing and squeaking -wait, squeaking?- and I repeat my rotation throw trick, aiming it at a squad of gribblies that maybe look like the one that took a chunk from me. One of them bursts like a balloon, spraying a yellow fluid all over everything, but the rest just get knocked over. Not quite as effective as I was hoping, but then I realize the yellow fluid has glued the flying thing to the ground and four of the gribblies I threw it at and feel better.

I circle around the area as best I can, wary now of the unknown, and jump onto something charging headlong at me, stab it where I'm guessing its brain is a half-dozen times, and leap off in one motion, making my way toward the fatman. I'm impressed at how high the notes he's hitting are. I don't think I can hit those notes. Then I wonder for a moment exactly how my hearing works as the monster -I don't seem to have ears- but put it aside and impale the nearest gribbly and throw it at the fatman, aiming roughly for his head. The gribbly bursts into flame in midair and falls well short. Then it gets up and runs at me.

Well. I'm still pretty sure I'm fireproof anyway.

I ignore that gribbly, dodge around three more big, slow creatures that can't turn fast enough to track me, climb over another one, every step a deliberate cutting motion, leap to the nearest rooftop, duck under a dive from something with three pairs of wings, leap from there into the square, and am promptly slammed into from below by something burrowing out of the ground so fast it not only launches me into the air but gets some airtime of its own. It reminds me of a whale breaching, only when it hits the ground on its back it doesn't go through the surface and begins flailing. I'm still trying to get control of my fall, wishing I had a flight power, when the pink dragon from before and two weird things move in concert to grab me out of the air, jaws all clamped shut over my limbs.

They proceed to have a midair game of tug-of-war, like dogs fighting over a chewtoy. I find myself wondering exactly how durable I am. I'm not feeling any pain, but it occurs to me that I didn't feel anything when I lost half a limb, nor have I felt anything when I've unthinkingly smacked it into things as part of my stabbing motions. Maybe the lack of pain isn't proof I'm safe. Maybe I'm just incapable of feeling pain, even when I'm taking damage.

The stump has a little give, I notice. Not as securely held as the other limbs. I wriggle it, trying to get it out. No go. I jerk, twist, and flail my whole body as best I can, and feel it move a little. I stop for a moment, pay attention to the tug-of-war, and jerk myself in as much of a full-body motion as I can at the same moment that I'm being pulled away from the mouth holding that limb, and it pops out. It doesn't look damaged, not any more than being severed anyway. Distractedly, I even notice it just sort of... ends. No blood, no evidence of bone or veins. Just a flat blue cap. Odd. How do I have a pulse?

Then I smack it into the eye of the thing that was holding it. It blinks, snorts, and narrows its eye at me, but it doesn't let go of the other limbs it has. I contort myself and arrange to smack it at the base of its near wing, the right one, and I'm surprised to hear something tear. I can see the membrane of the wing has torn. How the hell did I tear it? This thing is the size of a bus, if that kind of force can tear its wings it shouldn't be able to fly!

That's about as far as I get in my thoughts before things get very chaotic very fast.

The thing with the torn wing struggles, loses a bit of height, flaps harder. The tear widens abruptly, it loses more height, it flaps harder, the tear worsens. It doesn't let go of me, and its rapidly worsening condition causes the whole flight to start losing height. The other two fliers respond to this by clamping down on me and diving, which turns into a spiral motion. It's only after we've been going down for a few seconds, no impact, that I finally notice how high we are, how high we must have been when this started. Then the wing that's tearing snaps in half, the creature collides with the pink dragon suddenly, the pink dragon opens its mouth and turns to bite at the creature with the broken wing, and I'm instantly tearing at the face of the last one. It's like its face is made of iron, but I can cut iron, so that just makes my work slow, which is a problem because it straightens its dive out... not to regain height, but to go straight toward the ground.

I am unable to make it let go before impact.

I still don't feel anything. I have to fight a momentary conviction that I'm seriously injured, force myself to actually check.

The iron-faced thing is either dead or unconscious. It's bleeding, and its blood is spontaneously bursting into flame, its body unmoving. More importantly, it's let go of me. I'm fine, as far as I can tell. I still don't have any other injuries. Just missing half of one limb.

I stick to a momentary glance. I don't need to come under attack by Nilbog's creations while I'm at the bottom of what amounts to a crater because I'm spending too much time checking myself for injuries. Hopefully I'm fine. I scramble up the body of iron-face, just to have an extra layer between me and the burrowing creatures, and take stock.

Yeah, there's creatures. They're looking at me and the iron-faced thing, not doing anything. I glance around, spot something big lumbering this way that reminds me of the recyclers, and then realize I have no idea where the Dr. Seuss table is. What part of the city am I in?

I jump to the surface of a building, going over the crowd of gribblies. I'm surprised when none of them attack me, shift my focus. Climb higher, look around, get a view. The building I'm on is too short, a one-story house. I spot a church in the distance and scramble that way, expecting to come under attack at any moment, but nothing happens. When I climb the church I circle around the bell tower, looking in every direction, and spot what looks to me like the right area. It's the largest area clear of buildings anyway. I scramble across rooftops toward the location.

Maybe halfway there the pink dragon has returned, trumpeting immediately after clearly spotting me, and suddenly gribblies are boiling out of buildings, converging on me. I stab, slice, and throw, but with more care than I'd prefer, still wary of whatever happened earlier. I hold off on the temptation to skip paying attention, to just slice and move, though it's a strong temptation, up until I throw something shrieking unendingly into a lizard-boy creature and they both vanish with a pop! along with a chunk of the ground under them and the parts of nearby gribblies in a roughly spherical area. That focuses my conviction. Confirm, then stab. Stay away from the unknowns.

I reach the next roof edge, initially intending to leap across, but change my mind and leap down and through a window a floor down. It surprises me to find it empty of glass, but I run through someone's trashed-out living room and leap out the next window, this time to climb up the wall of the next building and scramble across the rooftop. I dart off to the right and leap to the next building, stabbing something like a lit candle and tossing it in the direction of the pink dragon, but it goes over -lighter than I'd thought?- without the dragon even reacting.

Abruptly I'm bathed in blinding light, as a woman calls out via loudspeaker, "Unknown parahuman, this is a restricted area. Leave immediately, or lethal force will be authorized. This is your only warning."

 

[Ghoul King]

1.3

It takes me a few seconds to realize I haven't reverted to Taylor, even as I scramble to get away from the spotlight. Why am I still the monster?

Then I realize I don't sense a human presence at all. If I had, they might not have surprised me. The light, the voice, it's not a helicopter flown by people, which is what I'd first assumed. It's being remote-controlled. I guess seeing me via camera doesn't count?

Interesting.

I'll keep that mind for the future, but for the moment I slip past and stab a half dozen times at something large, round, and largely featureless. The thing vibrates briefly and oozes red fluid, but otherwise doesn't seem to react. I put it out of my mind, jump to another rooftop, and then the roof explodes.

That's not a figurative statement. There's a split-second of a whistling noise beforehand, but otherwise as far as I can tell the building detonated for no apparent reason, hurling me into the air, spinning wildly and doing my best to maim flying critters passing too close to me. Before I can fully get my bearings, the spotlight is on me again and I'm suddenly spinning more crazily. I spend a brief moment thankful I seem incapable of nausea as the monster, and try to right myself before I touch the ground, but then the whistling occurs again, I catch a glimpse of something, and then the world explodes and I slam into and through the side of another building. I have a heartstopping moment, surrounded by gore, where I'm convinced I've finally been injured, yet I still feel barely anything, but then I double-check myself and find no new damage. Is the fluid maybe a bit thinner? Am I imagining that?

A glance around suggests I actually splattered something of Nilbog's by slamming into it. I can see a detached head, still moving a little. The spotlight returns briefly, but doesn't linger, and nothing else happens. It's only when I feel relief at the lack that I realize: they were shooting me.

I guess they meant it when they said I'd only get the one warning.

I start to shake off what gore hasn't already slid off on its own, but then pause in thought. The light was on me briefly, but then left. Did they overlook me, covered in meat? I try to rub some more of it on me, but nothing sticks, my attempt instead sloughing off more of what is already on me. Damn. I peek out a window, trying to get a view on whatever has the spotlight and presumably guns, and spot what I'm guessing is it sweeping the spotlight nearby. It looks like a stylized, metallic dragon, bristling with weapons that somehow fit the aesthetic, contribute to the look of a dragon rather than detract.

... that's Dragon, isn't it. Greatest tinker in the world, armed the PRT basically single-handedly, makes every other gear-based cape green with envy. Isn't she Canadian? This is US territory, isn't it? I was half-expecting, in the back of my head, for maybe Legend to show up if things went really awry -we're not that far from New York and he can fly around the world in minutes- but... Dragon?

A gribbly armored with trash can lids and a bucket for a helmet pops around the hole in the wall I came through and I stab it in the head before it can shriek. Thankfully, it doesn't do anything exotic in reaction, though I berate myself for my overly twitchy trigger finger anyway as it falls over dead. I watch the... I guess this is one of Dragon's suits? I watch Dragon's suit for a minute, taking it in, feeling like I'm missing something important.

After a minute it occurs to me that the flying creatures are ignoring it.

My first thought, before anything else, is that Dragon's suit has... I dunno, a stealth system keyed to Nilbog's stuff. Then logic kicks in and I realize if she could do that, she could deal with Nilbog singlehandedly. Worse, I can tell, paying closer attention, that the flying creatures are giving the suit the same kind of respect they give Nilbog's own big fliers, avoiding flying too close to it. They know it's there, but they aren't attacking it, and it's not attacking them. It -she- is hunting me. Just me.

Words fail me. I stab another gribbly, this one melting the floor underneath it with acid blood. The acid slides right off me.

Dragon is... working with Nilbog?

I can't wrap my brain around this. I can't think of an alternate explanation.

Then -stab through the enormous eyeball of something, ignore it rearing back shrieking- it occurs to me something more ominous.

Do people... the government, the Protectorate, the PRT, I dunno who exactly... do people know Dragon is working with Nilbog? Is this some kind of conspiracy? What possible reason could people have for tolerating Nilbog's continued existence, let alone working with him? He killed an entire city!

No no, that's a worst case scenario, don't make assumptions. Dragon is an incredible tinker, the best tinker. It's possible this is a secret, somehow.

Still disturbing, to imagine the woman who provides the PRT its tools is allied with Nilbog. I might need to look into her at some point.

Focus. Nilbog's creations are going to properly find me any second now, Dragon is hunting for me, and I still need to kill Nilbog. If Dragon is allied with Nilbog, that makes it even more important I get it done tonight. If I leave tonight, intending to come back another day, the whole place might be fortified with tinkertech, with Nilbog's creatures better prepared for me.

I slip past the howling thing I stabbed through an eye -its only eye, as it turns out- stabbing at the back of one leg in passing, where I'd expect a tendon to be if they were human. There's no particular effect, but that's fine, my focus is on getting to Nilbog. I can't hop rooftops with Dragon hunting me and shit the spotlight is on me again.

This time, half-listening for it, I catch the whistling a full second ahead of impact. Watching for it, I see something streaking my way, the rear of it glowing blue. I try to dodge, and I think I even succeed, inasmuch as the rocket -I'm guessing- doesn't directly impact me, but it explodes almost on top of me anyway, slamming me into the shell of something the size of a car. Before I can peel myself out of the crater in its carapace, the spotlight is on me, and the instant I'm away from the creature my limbs are suddenly hopelessly unreliable while I'm assaulted with a barrage of noise. Then the world is suddenly a brilliant, piercing yellow. For the first time I can remember, I'm completely blind as the monster.

The effect fades after what I'm pretty sure is just a few seconds, I realize I feel like someone sitting in a too-hot bathtub, and I see that the ground around me is literally molten. The air is visibly rippling from the heat.

Holy shit. I just shrugged off that? I don't even have lingering spots of yellow in my vision.

Then my limbs are out of my control again alongside the cavalcade of sound, and I finally realize I'm being sprayed with machine gun fire. It barely feels like anything, I had no idea what was going on.

"Unknown parahuman, extreme measures will be authorized in five minutes if you do not leave immediately. This is your final warning."

Extreme measures? This wasn't extreme?

I actually felt the heat from the laser or whatever. If that's anything to go by, Dragon's suit probably can kill me.

I decide, in a split-second, that I care more about killing Nilbog than I do about escaping alive. I rush to cover as best I can, stabbing, slicing, and throwing Nilbog's creatures as I go along without bothering to make sure it's safe to attack them. I have no time for this. Something burrows from underneath me, but I turn the push into a jump and don't even bother to try to control my tumble, expecting to be sprayed with bullets anyway. Expectation met in a roar of noise, I hit the ground, roll to my feet (Well, claws) without stumbling, and run flat-out as best I can at an angle that's in the general direction of Nilbog's location while putting taller buildings between me and Dragon, still killing Nilbog's creations as best I can along the way.

The suit flies closer until the buildings are no longer in its line of fire, and the world turns bright yellow again. I keep running as best I can, half-hoping to escape the firing zone, but when the world is no longer yellow again there's a trail of flame behind me and no sign of the effect itself. I want to say this felt a little hotter than the last time, like grabbing a too-hot panhandle for a second, but I'm not sure and have no way of knowing whether heat is simply accumulating or if Dragon amped up the power of the shot. I duck, dodge, and sidestep past larger creatures for a few seconds, hit an area relatively clear of creatures, and the world lights up yellow again. I keep running, then try weaving drunkenly. When the effect cuts out, I have no time to react before I slam into -and bounce off of- the leg of something enormous, at which point I duck between the thing's legs, running underneath its tremendous bulk, hoping it doesn't decide to just drop while I'm under it. When I come out the other side, the instant I'm in another relative clearing of creatures there's the whistling followed by the explosion. This time I focus less on dodging per se and more on trying to ensure the explosion launches me toward Nilbog. It even works. In fact, when I hit the ground -blinded by yellow again, starting to feel itchy- and after I'm no longer blind, I realize I'm maybe two blocks from Nilbog's location. I can sense a human presence again!

I run, and on impulse I stick close to the gribblies and larger things, attacking as best as I can without substantially slowing myself down. Dragon doesn't shoot me.

I feel stupid for not thinking of this earlier. She's trying to not shoot Nilbog's creations. Of course she's trying to not shoot them. They're allies!

Unfortunately, the reprieve doesn't last long, as there's a gap I need to cross to reach Nilbog. I don't even know how much time I have left before Dragon brings out her "extreme" measures. It occurs to me she might break them out regardless if I get too close to Nilbog, but I push it out of my mind. I need to do this. I leap from the loose formation of creatures trying and failing to kill me and the world turns yellow again, then white. I keep running, keenly aware that this is distinctly uncomfortable. I remain blind. Discomfort turns into low-end pain, as the run drags on. It wasn't that large of a gap, I'm fast it shouldn't be taking this longimgonnadie-

And then the world returns to normal, aside from the steam rising off of me. That's new. I hit the table, quite literally, tumbling over it only half-controlled. I notice, absently, that Nilbog is shrieking and demanding Dragon, anyone, kill the 'interloper'. He's sounding like a stuck pig at this point, and I find something humorously appropriate about that. I leap onto the fatman and start tearing into it.

Nilbog starts crying, blubbering like a baby. The fatman is even producing tears. I notice it has genitals, but not legs. I decide I don't want to consider the implications. I find myself thinking Dragon is a woman and that is quite impressive in spite of myself. The only reason I don't vomit is because I don't have a mouth to do it with. About halfway through tearing into the fatman, it stops shrieking, and the upper half slumps like a puppet with its strings cut. The lower half is still twitching. By this point there are gribblies starting to get at me, shrieking and screaming, but they sound angry, not upset. I haven't found a human either. Just lots and lots of guts. I haven't found Nilbog. At this point, I don't think there's anywhere for Nilbog to be hiding inside the fatman. Where the hell is he?

Then there's a crack like I-don't-know-what and my right eye stings. My head is partially buried in dirt. It takes me a moment to realize I went through the table. I didn't even notice, it went so fast. The gribblies are shrieking, ignoring me. They sound victorious.

I suddenly hate them. No, you don't get to win you inhuman fucking monsters, you don't get to attack me for no goddamn reason and gloat. The fury is momentarily breathtaking, or what I imagine breathtaking would feel like. I don't breath as the monster. Maybe this is something else. I don't know.

I try to fight the anger down. Then I think I probably pissed off Dragon by attacking her well-endowed boyfriend and the anger hits new heights. I feel paralyzed. I'd always thought I'd lash out if I got this angry. No, I didn't think I could get this angry. I'm not even entirely sure why I feel this angry. There's a jumble of thoughts, jealousy and disgust and good old basic anger and a, a burning sense of something, and murderous impulses, a desire to hunt someone down and kill them.

Then I hear the sobbing.

 

[Ghoul King]

1.4

The fury doesn't go away, exactly. It sort of... shifts to one side.

I'm hearing a human being crying. I already dug around inside the fatman, cut it open until there was no hiding place left an adult would fit in. I hear someone sobbing regardless, a man, maybe a bit high-pitched for a man, but muffled. I focus my attention around me, carefully unmoving. Is one of the larger things in the area Nilbog's actual suit? Did I underestimate him? Was the fatman a decoy?

I notice that the lower body of the fatman is still twitching. I think of how the upper half abruptly stopped. I find myself recalling an earlier thought, the suspicion the fatman was rooted in place. I focus on what's left of the fatman, but I can't see anything of relevance. I'm still hearing that sobbing. It's still muffled. It's not moving, not changing. The creatures around me are all moving. I distantly notice Dragon's suit is hovering closer to the ground, spotlight still on me, mentally blot it out. I'm missing something here.

The fatman wasn't a decoy. The crying is not moving. It is muffled. I can't see a human anywhere. I can sense a human in the area. The creatures are moving. The crying is not moving. The creatures are moving but the crying is not but the crying is muffled like there's flesh in the way.

Or dirt.

I wait, very still, as Dragon's suit approaches. I think I hear her muttering. She sounds upset. I haven't killed her boyfriend, she has no reason to be upset. Yet.

I wait until what is very obviously a recycler, a tremendous caterpillar thing scooping up parts and laying eggs, squirms in front of her, blocking her line of sight to me, and then I'm up and the gribblies are shrieking in fear now and I'm digging underneath the fatman, there's a cord, a tube, an umbilical cord, going down into the ground, and I pull and cut and hurl dirt and stab gribblies and Dragon is saying something but I don't care what I'm killing your boyfriend you bitch and suddenly I hit air, faster than I thought I would, and now Nilbog's creations are backing off, bar a few who simply flail at me with tools or claws. No fire, no acid, no bones launched like bullets, no unimaginable effects making part of me cease to exist. It's easy.

I catch a momentary glimpse of a man, older, balding, naked inside a pink, largely transparent, veiny membrane, holding his head in his hands, sobbing. I have a momentary, intense conviction that I'm looking at my dad, about to kill my dad, but I shrug it off he's not wearing glasses, he's fat and a claw goes in through the back of his skull and out through an eye socket before he can decide to look up at me and make me Taylor again.

Suddenly the air is filled with flame and acid and weirder stuff, and I know I've killed him, they wouldn't be risking it if he wasn't dead, but I have to be sure so I tear him open, throw pieces of the man at fire and acid and onto spike-covered creatures and just focus on completely and utterly ruining his existence.

I don't even know his real name.

I decide I don't care, I don't care that he was crying and sad and pathetic and childlike, he was a monster, he needed to die. He did. He had a secret alliance with Dragon, it's all a trick or something anyway, they were colluding to... I dunno, rule the world or replace humanity with his monsters and her technology or something.

Then I'm missing half of one limb and three-quarters of another one when a gribbly vanishes, and I suddenly notice the creatures are attacking Dragon's suit in addition to swarming over me. She's shooting back.

I decide I don't care, I'm done here, I'm going.

I break loose from the insane melee, stumble and flail and totter for a few seconds, trying to get used to walking on three fewer limbs than I started the night with, fend off a bulldog-headed boy-thing, get struck by something from my blind side, roll, flail, stab wildly. I decide to hell with it, jump to a rooftop, and as fast as I can I make my way across the rooftops in a straight line for the edge of Ellisburg. I'm twitching my head every which way the whole time, trying to not be caught off guard with just one functioning eye, but the fliers are ignoring me, winging their way to the center of town, where Dragon is. It occurs to me she could probably fly away. She hasn't.

I go cold, thinking of stories of Bonesaw, reminded Dragon is the world's premiere tinker, second to none. Bonesaw is a tinker, isn't she?

But it's too late. If Dragon is planning to bring Nilbog back from the dead, if she can, going back now isn't going to stop her. I can't do worse than shred Nilbog, I've already done that, she'd break out her 'extreme measures', and I would die. It was probably an 'extreme measure' that cost me an eye.

I thought I was invincible, and I've lost an eye. I didn't have any warning. I don't remember anything between 'Fine, tearing into the fatman' and 'head in the dirt, hole through a table I don't remember going through'.

I stab a few gribblies on my way out, but nothing that matters happens before I get to the wall. Nothing happens while I'm climbing it.

I jump into the forest, and make my way toward the highway. Something glowing shoots overhead, toward Ellisburg, and I drop into the undergrowth, afraid. When no follow-up occurs for a full minute, I continue, still cautious, trying to at least keep trees between me and the sky at all times. Nothing else happens before I reach the highway and start following it back to Brockton Bay, paralleling it.

---------------------------------------------​

I'm making worse time back than I did on my way out. I've only got one eye, and I keep forgetting I'm missing chunks of limbs, messing up, slowing down. I can't run full speed, and checking signs so I don't get lost takes time. As dawn gets closer, highway traffic picks up too, and I'm still trying to avoid being seen by people. I find myself wondering if my injuries as the monster will translate to injuries as Taylor. Am I going to be missing an eye? I only have four limbs as Taylor, what would happen there?

I put it out of my mind. No. Later. I need to get back to Brockton Bay, back home. I don't even know what will happen. When I'm hurt, become the monster, become Taylor again, the damage is gone, the pain is gone. It shouldn't translate. If it does... I can't do anything about it. It shouldn't. It could.

Focus.

I have to double back three times, wasting precious minutes on each mistake. I'm getting nervous that Dragon is going to somehow track me down. I want to be Taylor again, back in Brockton Bay, where it's... well, less likely, at least, for her to identify me as the monster that attacked Ellisburg. I need to be Taylor in Brockton Bay again.

It's dawn by the time I've hit Brockton Bay city limits, it's been dawn for longer than I want to think about, and I make my way to a park I scouted on my way out. The park is actually pretty nice for being in an iffy part of the city if you ignore the graffiti, and the public bathrooms are open 24 hours. I suspect this is why there's so much graffiti, but I don't care. I make my way inside one of the more out-of-the-way bathrooms and look into a mirror.

I see someone in a motorcycle helmet, jagged teeth drawn haphazardly in white onto the 'jaw' portion of the helmet below the visor, wearing a black -or maybe just very dark blue- blanket large enough to hang below the knees while tied around the neck, like a poncho with no place for the arms to come out, looking slightly hunchbacked. Me, in my 'costume'. Not visible is a pair of sturdy black boots, getting to be a bit too tight but still usable. Taylor, dressed for caping. I'm not missing any limbs.

I remove the helmet, setting it down on the sink in front of the mirror. Ugh. Helmet hair. Really bad helmet hair. I hate doing this to my hair, but I didn't want to be recognized. Too important that I make it hard to connect Taylor to the monster. Then I see with relief that both eyes remain underneath my glasses. Priorities, Taylor. The state of your hair is not more important than the state of your eyes. I move to untie the blanket, trying to ignore how awful my hair looks, because while the park is nice the neighborhood isn't, and I don't have time to linger on making it look less awful. I need to get home, I'd intended to be home no later than probably an hour before now, if I've got the time estimated right.

Once the blanket is untied, I hang it over one of the stall walls and pull off the backpack I had under the blanket, which was creating the slight hunch. I unzip it, put in the blanket, and then the helmet, leaving me in grey sweats, including a sweatband around my forehead. I leave the boots on, though I'd considered having a pair of sandals to swap them for, more natural a shoe type for exercise, decided against it. From a backpack pocket I pull out a sandwich in a ziploc, after which I cover the blanket and helmet with some towels I kept inside, put the backpack on, unzip the ziploc, and start eating, keeping a mirror in my line of sight the whole time. Thankfully no one shows up before I finish eating to wonder why there's a girl eating her sandwich in a public bathroom, looking more at a mirror than the sandwich. I toss the Ziploc at a trash can, wincing at how close it is to overflowing. I don't think today is a trash run day, either.

I feel a little less unbalanced. Not calmer, exactly. It's hard to describe. I feel less pressured, which makes sense to me.

I brace myself emotionally, and turn my gaze away from the mirror. I look at myself as the monster. My limbs...

... oh thank goodness. They're back. As far as I can tell, they look identical to how they were, pre-injury.

I hesitate, worried about the eye. That was violent, dramatic, extreme, whatever word you want. Maybe I can only heal parts, not wholes. Or something. Powers are weird. Nonetheless... I put a limb to my right eye. I can see it, even though it's out of my left eye's view. You'd think I'd have known instantly, but my field of view didn't feel different when I lost an eye. I knew, intellectually, I was missing half my vision, but I didn't experience it as a blackness on one side of my head. It didn't seem any different.

But my eye is functioning, and running the limb over it confirms it feels the way it's always felt. No holes, sharp edges, or strange fluids leaking from it aside from the usual. I'm fine. The monster is fine.

I sag in relief.

Then I remember I'm late.

I make my way home, taking every weird side passage and dead end to hurry the journey along, avoid people so I'm the monster as much as possible. My awareness of people doesn't provide anything like radar, it doesn't let me pin down direction, quantity, or distance, but I have a dim idea of the difference between having the number of people in my radius going up vs the number going down and can use that as a crude guideline. Which, incidentally, means I look more like someone who belongs where they are and knows where they're going, so when I emerge from an alleyway that doesn't go anywhere, nobody pays any attention to me. I'm not someone to pay attention to, a jogger at ease with her environment. I maybe get a few looks over the backpack, I'm not sure. Or maybe they're looking at my hair, still in disarray from the helmet.

Late late late so very late.

On the minus side, there's people around when I get to the front door, so I'm slower than I want to be. On the plus side, there's people around, so I can open the door like a normal person. I'm the monster the instant the door is mostly closed, but I can push a door closed easily. It's doorknobs that give me trouble.

I make my way into the kitchen, still a bit hungry. I want to make more noise, sound like I'm actually walking in my boots, rather than on blades -I still have no idea why they don't scratch the floor when I walk- but I don't know if that's even possible. I certainly haven't practiced it. I can only hope Dad doesn't notice.

"Taylor, where were you?"

It's my dad, doing that weird thing where someone sits on a chair backwards, leaning onto the backrest. I wonder for a moment if he just finds it comfortable or if he's trying to go for a specific effect. I hope he isn't trying to be 'cool' to try to 'connect' to me or something. I don't think he'd try that, certainly not since mom died, but we haven't been talking as much as I'd like. I could be wrong.

I put it out of my mind, smile broadly, make an attempt to sound a bit winded and say brightly, "Morning run, don't you remember?" My stab at seeming winded sounds completely unconvincing to my ears. Hopefully I'm just being my own worst critic. I did tell him last night that I intended to start on morning runs soon. I didn't specify tomorrow. To be fair, I wasn't sure I would hit Nilbog tonight. I wanted some leeway if I couldn't psych myself up.

Dad looks troubled, and I have to fight off the image of Nilbog crying into his hands. I never saw his face. They don't look similar. They don't. Shut up.

"I thought you wanted to make some more preparations before you took the first run?" Instead of answering verbally, I reach my right hand over to a pocket on the left side of the backpack, pull out a pepper spray can and show it to him, carefully making sure it's pointed away from both of us and my finger isn't on the trigger. Then I put it back in place, and in one smooth motion pull it out and aim it at an imaginary opponent off to one side. After holding the pose for a moment, I relax, put it back in the pocket, and turn to my dad with a smile. "Got it handled, Dad." I very deliberately do not mention that I'd skipped lunch a couple days so I could afford it. Pepper spray isn't expensive, but being bullied is, and I'd spent money on the motorcycle helmet, even if it was second-hand.

I'm vaguely annoyed when Dad doesn't immediately cheer up. He starts to say something, I just know it's going to be something about how he's concerned about me or something to that effect, and I don't want to hear it, not from him. So I interrupt him, act like I didn't notice him starting to talk. "Gotta shower, get ready for school. See you in a few minutes Dad." That gets a smile on his face, a weak one, but a smile. He sits up and tells me he's starting breakfast then, and I thank him. Then I head upstairs, open my bedroom door -I left it open just a crack so I could pry it open as the monster, thankfully- look into the hand mirror I've got propped on my desk, and shuck the backpack and toss it haphazardly into my closet. I really need to find an excuse to get a bigger mirror in here.

Then I grab the hand mirror, grab a set of clothes for today -gray hoodie, black pants, won't show stains readily and the worst they can do verbally is imply I'm not feminine or imply I'm a lesbian, I'm too small to need a bra still (sigh), underwear is plain black- and then set the hand mirror back in place, new outfit held tightly in my arms. Then I head to the bathroom. It's closed. Dammit. I make my way back to my bedroom, grab the hand mirror, go to the bathroom and open it, then put the hand mirror back and then finally go into the bathroom. Thankfully, I can just use the bathroom's mirror, no need to bring the hand mirror in. I close the door, lock it, start the shower up, and then change into my outfit for the day in front of the mirror, shoving the running clothes into a corner for afterward.

I really need a watch or something too. I'm okay at keeping track of time, but not perfect, and time gets fuzzy when it's night. And then there's situations like this, where I really want something to let me know when fifteen minutes have passed.

I settle for spending a bit brushing my hair into better condition, suddenly glad Dad didn't seem to think anything of the helmet hair. Once I'm done with that, I wait a few minutes more, desperately wishing I had something to pass the time with other than my own thoughts. I'm reluctant to even practice as the monster in this downtime, for fear Dad might hear something really weird. Bad enough he might notice the water doesn't sound right because it's hitting the bathtub rather than me, but taking a shower using the bathroom mirror is basically impossible. I tried using the hand mirror, but it fogged up too fast.

I don't actually need showers nowadays anyway. Anytime I stop being the monster, I come back clean, rested, and healthy, no matter what condition I was in beforehand, but Dad would expect me to shower after a run. He knows what people are like after exercise, even if he's not familiar with runners per se. (I think?)

This 'morning run' plan suddenly seems a lot less appealing. I'd intended it as a cover story for if I came back late from nightly business, with maybe a side helping of better preparing me for cape life, physically, but if I'm going to have to pretend to shower every morning... that's going to be a pain, and a waste of time. I have a lot more of that nowadays, but in some ways I hate wasting time more than ever. Before the monster became a part of my life, a few minutes wasted was time spent resting, if nothing else. Nowadays it's just... a waste, full stop. I have moments where I intensely wish I was a tinker or something, a cape who could use downtime to enhance their performance in the field, somebody like Dauntless...

... well, maybe not Dauntless. I'm not sure I'd be comfortable having people pinning their hopes on me to be an Endbringer-killer some day.

Armsmaster, more like. PHO thinks he's got at least a half dozen halberds that can't be told apart at a glance but do completely different things, and it's known that when he's lost publicly to a villain's power he always comes back with some kind of countermeasure.

But no, I suspect I don't so much as benefit from exercise. Honestly, I have dim fears, things I try not to think about too much, that I might be trapped as a teenage girl for the rest of my life. I try not to focus on these fears too much, and I have one surefire way of making that particular fear die down: look up cape mortality statistics, particularly for independents, or if I'm in an especially pessimistic mood, villains. Knowing it'll be a small miracle if I make it to thirty, maybe thirty-five if I account for how capes with durability-enhancing powers skew toward longer lifespans, is strangely calming.

I'm jolted out of my thoughts by Dad knocking on the door and calling out, "Taylor, breakfast's ready!"

Wait, how long have I been thinking? Has it been fifteen minutes, or more like thirty? Ugh, I really need a watch or something, this is going to drive me nuts.

I turn off the shower, wait another minute, and then head downstairs, dropping the sweats into the hamper on the way. I still haven't come up with a solution I like for faking needing towels. Just putting towels into the shower doesn't work, because they end up smelling like clean towels. Besides, one of the things I've appreciated the most about becoming the monster has been the savings it's bringing, the fact that we're going to spend less on water, maybe even electricity, and making laundry less burdensome. Not sure what Dad will make of it when those next bills are low. Ugh, really hate faking showering, definitely need an alternative plan for the running thing. Bears thinking. At least I don't have to wait for my hair to dry ever again. That's a cool perk.

I turn the corner into the kitchen and goddammit Dad is facing away from me, still getting eggs out of the pan. I need an excuse to get a mirror in here. Ugh. I settle myself into a chair as best as I can as the monster. I still don't really get how this works, but I know from past experience I'll be sitting in the chair correctly the instant I'm in Dad's field of view.

Powers are weird.

Dad turns around, startles slightly, and the smell of breakfast hits me, and it's good. I haven't tested whether I need to eat as the monster or not, not directly, but I get hungry, and unlike when I get tired, or hurt, or start feeling the urge to go to the toilet, becoming the monster and then Taylor again doesn't make it go away. It only vanishes -kind of mutes, really- for the duration of my time as the monster. My guess is I need to eat, so I do. Food tastes delicious nowadays, I'm not sure I'd be able to keep myself from it even if I was convinced food was unnecessary now, so I'm kind of glad I have reason to believe I still need food. I think I'd be tempted to save money by not eating if I didn't, and then end up feeling guilty every time the delicious smell compelled me to eat.

Dad blinks owlishly at me. Oh. Right, I basically just stealthed my way into my chair and sat there not eating or talking right behind his back. I notice I'm smiling. That's good, I don't need to fake it. "Breakfast smells awesome Dad." That gets a smile from my dad, and not one of those sad smiles that make me want to punch and/or perforate him. A real smile, like I just made his day. I suspect it helps that I promptly dig in. He sits down, starts eating. Glances at me periodically, looking vaguely puzzled. There's so many things for him to be puzzled by I'm not even going to guess. Breakfast is quiet, otherwise. We weren't chatty people even before Mom died, we certainly weren't chatty people after she died, and with the bullying and now being a parahuman I'm not exactly in a hurry to volunteer conversation. Things on his end are basically always the same-old-same-old: the economy sucks, jobs aren't really available to people, he has to tell people so fifty times a day, with the occasional attempt at meeting with a politician to be told "no". It doesn't really matter what they're saying "no" to. Not exactly a big motivator for his own desire to talk.

We finish eating, I'm really glad he's seated such that the sink is in front of him so I don't have to jump through any stupid hoops, and we part ways. Dad seems in a slightly better mood, and I wonder for a moment if he's expecting something to go well at work today.

Me, I'm going to Winslow.

Never will you see a more wretched hive of scum and villainy...

You laugh, but fuck you.

 

[Ghoul King]

1.5

Winslow High sucks. You know that, I know that, the teachers know that, the politicians know that, the gangs love it, hell I'm pretty sure the roaches know it. There's certainly enough of them they could hold the school hostage if they got organized.

I reflexively glance around after having that thought, heading into school grounds. Locust isn't a mindreader, no one except maybe the Simurgh is, but she's scary, and infamous on PHO for her habit of taking statements overly literally. It so consistently ends in pain PHO's tinfoils are 80-90% convinced she's doing it deliberately, like a meta-joke or something. The remainder like to point out that powers sometimes do very weird things to a parahuman's head, and we should feel bad for her.

Then sensible people point out Locust is A: Locust and B: a member of E88, and people remember to stop feeling sorry for the sociopath. Instead they commiserate for her poor husband, Fog. Personally, I want to know what kind of nutcase marries a woman made of bugs. Fucking creepy, the both of them.

The worst part is wondering if the fly that won't leave me alone just likes the way I smell or if Locust is seeing through it. The fucking worst thing about living in Brockton Bay.

Of course, that's all me distracting myself from how much I hate Winslow High.

Because thinking about Locust is better than thinking about Winslow. Because indirectly thinking about the possibility of Locust's sex life is an improvement over actually paying attention to the fact that I'm in Winslow.

Maybe today won't be so bad.

I don't believe myself.

-----------------------​

By lunchtime they've gotten glue on my chair twice, gotten a tack there once -hurt like a bitch but it's easier to ignore pain knowing the injury will vanish like it never was and I'm not giving them the satisfaction if I can avoid it- accidentally bumped into me probably a dozen times if I count their cronies, and had Greg Veder do his pathetic best to trick me into going on a date with him. I would maybe have fallen for that one, because Greg is so out of sync with the rhythms of school he could plausibly be pursuing the only person rejected harder by the school than him out of a conviction that we're Social Reject Buddies or something, except I overheard Emma talking to him yesterday. Blah blah blah, she wants him to do a favor for her, drops hints that she might go on a date with him if he does, probably has cleavage showing but I didn't actually see, can you get Taylor Hebert to the old bowling alley on yadda and so-and-so this Friday at six? He of course went for it, because he has the wit and social acumen of a tapeworm.

Well. PHO thinks Locust can control tapeworms too, going by a bad encounter between the Underwires or whatever and E88. Hmm. Hard to say whether Greg is more disadvantaged than the supervillain made of bugs when it comes to pretending to be a human being.

You know what? I'm feeling generous. Greg wins that contest today. He is more awkward and clueless about human normality than the bugwoman. Congratulations Greg, you won something. Not anything an actual person would want to win, but then the award isn't meant for a person, is it?

I handle the Greg situation by telling Greg he's 'sweet' but 'not my type'. Emma will interpret that as me thinking he's more of a loser than I am -I'm still undecided on that one, though I have the advantage of superpowers- and trying to 'let him down gently'. Greg will either have been told this a hundred times before and recognize it as code for, "Not if you were the last man on earth," or will decide it's proof Emma might actually have a reason for being interested in him. After all, a real girl told him he's 'sweet'. Surely, girls know what goes through other girls' heads, right?

No Greg, not Emma's head. I haven't understood the inside of that skull in ages.

I also overhear four different conversations, 'coincidentally', in which Emma makes ugly comments about me without actually naming me and her cronies laugh in response. Those are harder to ignore. I don't cry, at least. I'm hoping to never cry again, but I'll also settle for extending my longest streak of not-crying from three weeks to a whole month. Small victories.

Mr. Gladly is still the most hateable teacher in school, acting like it's my fault when someone else smacks me in the back of the head with a paper airplane. Yes, I was passing notes. Via paper airplane. Into the back of my head. I have talent, you see. A regular airshowwoman with paper airplanes, I am.

I wish I could bring myself to say that to his face, but backtalk just gets me sent to the principal's office. The one and only time that went anything resembling well was when Madison had caused the problem. If it's Emma or Sophia the principal is suddenly magically unable to understand that I am the injured party, even if I can roll up my sleeves and reveal bruises. Fuck, the time Sophia slammed me up against a wall so hard I was left bleeding from my nose and one eye, the principal had the gall to ask if my home situation was abusive.

What is that shit, some kind of 'reverse-racism'? I get Emma having good grades and a lawyer dad, but I just... what? Why does Sophia get the same treatment? I'd think it was because she's friends with Emma, but Madison was too, by a certain definition of 'friend'.

At least Madison getting sent off to Immaculata has made the cronies careful to not actually be seen by the teachers when they pull shit.

Small victories.

---------------------------​

The day ends on one kind-of-good note: nothing really bad has happened. It's one of the less-worse days. An average day, rather than a bad day. They didn't even irrevocably destroy any of my stuff.

If it had been a good day, that would be worse, because that would mean they're planning something really awful.

I wonder what they had planned with Greg. Whatever, I don't care. I'm just angry. Again.

Focus. I need another target. I'm not going to cut every last man, woman, and manchild at the school to ribbons. I'm not. There are worse evils out there, and I'll be getting them. That's my mission.

I get home, spend an hour with my hand mirror and homework. It doesn't really work. I've done maybe an assignment and a half, and spent probably half that time fantasizing about taking slices out of Greg. I hate that mindset.

I push myself away, head downstairs with the hand mirror, and boot up our ancient PC. While it's booting, I fiddle to get the mirror set up so it won't unexpectedly fall over. When the computer finally finishes booting, I bring up my document.

Making the world a better place
By Taylor Hebert

Assignment premise: if you could make ten changes to make the world a better place, what would they be? Explain your reasoning.

1: Kill Nilbog. Drop a nuke on him? Assassinate him?

2: Kill the Three Blasphemies.

3: Kill the Slaughterhouse Nine. (How?)

4: Kill Heartbreaker. Sniper? How does his power work, exactly? Range?

5: Kill the Sleeper? (Risking provoking him?)

6: Kill Ashbeast? (Too human?)

7: Kill Lung. (Killable?)

8: Kill Kaiser/break E88. (Is there a hideout?)

9:

10:

Presented as a school assignment so my dad won't suspect anything if he finds it. Probably. I have a dim hope that if tinkers hack this computer nobody will think anything of it, but honestly any situation in which tinkers are hacking my home computer is probably one where they're going to connect Taylor to the monster. Or already have. Whatever.

I remove Nilbog from the list, stare blankly at the remainder. I still need to do more research. PHO tinfoil hats are convinced there's a sexily mysterious woman in a hat behind literally everything bad in the entire world, who has been seen anywhere on the planet you care to name. The fact that people cosplay as this supposed woman doesn't help. They also think Hero wasn't really killed by the Siberian and is hiding out somewhere to someday rise with an Endslayer, that Elvis is not dead and/or that the Simurgh secretly killed him off before Scion showed up for... some reason... Lung isn't Asian at all, he's actually African and a woman, the Simurgh is actually making a long-term plot for the good of humanity so we should stop resisting, Scion is God, Scion is Satan, Scion killed God and Satan and is taking a break from ruling over Heaven and Hell, the Endbringers are proof we're in the Matrix (Atrocious Earth Aleph movie, I don't know how anyone could enjoy it, let alone how it apparently got sequels. Fucking Alephians) because they're obviously 'raid bosses', Eidolon is a woman, Alexandria is gay, Legend isn't gay and him pretending to be gay is a plot by the government to advance a satanic and un-Christian agenda, powers are granted by God to the worthy, powers are deals with the devil, Scion brought powers, Scion is the source of powers, Scion killed the source of powers, JKF's death was a Simurgh plot somehow, Hitler was a Simurgh plot somehow, the Crusades were a Simurgh plot somehow, powers are sold in a bottle by the government and they're just pretending people can get powers without spending money...

... that's not half a percent of the nonsense PHO puts out, and the worst part is it's basically impossible to tell what's a tinfoil hat, a troll pretending to be a tinfoil hat, a real person who really saw something weird and is reporting it, or a troll pretending to be a real person reporting a real thing. Especially since some of the stupidest shit is real while some of the most plausible-sounding stuff has been thoroughly debunked. "Powers in a bottle," indeed.

Tinfoil hats aren't remotely the best source of information on real monsters, but it's surprisingly difficult to get information on even the more publicly known ones.

I have to fight down a sudden urge to look up Nilbog's real name. That does give me an idea: I search for 'Nilbog dead'.

... no results?

Odd. Dragon was there -well, a drone of hers was- so it's not like it's a secret.

Maybe I need a different search parameter?

'Nilbog news' points me to articles that are more than a year old. 'Ellisburg news' points me to local news sites on towns outside New York, most of them with one 'L' in the name. 'Nilbog free' gets tinfoil hat-related sites, 'Dragon and Nilbog' gets creepy capefiction, 'Nilbog and Ellisburg' goes to the Parahumans Online Wiki... I give in and try looking up Nilbog's real name, on a hunch. The PRT official site has it, casually placed on the page discussing exactly why you should never, ever approach Ellisburg for any reason ever. Apparently, his civilian identity is a matter of public record. I didn't know that.

I type in 'Jamie Rink dead'.

...

No, nothing.

I look up Dragon's Tweet feed. It doesn't have as many followers as Legend's, but then Legend was one of the first heroes to use it at all, and is more well-known anyway. More surprising is that Glory Girl's Tweet feed is nearly twice as large as Dragon's. Dragon is an internationally recognized hero, Glory Girl is a local hero. Weird. Anyway, I'm not entirely surprised to find nothing in Dragon's feed about Ellisburg. Probably capes don't tweet about official business until hours afterward, if at all. Most of Dragon's tweets seem to focus on hyping gear she's making for the PRT, when she's not getting into tinker jargon with other Tweeters. Other tinkers, presumably.

Well. That's a bust.

I cringe and go clicking into cape news sites. Then regular news sites. Nothing.

... it's been more than half a day. I'd have expected to either hear about how we're all going to die because I fucked up and provoked Nilbog's army into attacking the world or run across the Protectorate taking credit for a major victory. Instead, there's... nothing.

Now there's a cold pit in my stomach. I'm half-convinced Nilbog and Dragon are "allies". Does it go deeper than that? Am I in a fucking tinfoil hat conspiracy theory now?

I'd originally planned to look more into my other targets. Instead, I shut down the computer, take the mirror back upstairs to my room, and do the more mindless parts of my homework. It's hard, not letting my shaking hands ruin the assignments.

-----------------------​

Dad gets home nearly an hour later than usual tonight. I'm half-upset, feeling creeped out by being alone in the house with these thoughts in my head, and half-relieved: the shaking didn't die down until twenty minutes before he showed up. His portion of dinner is cold, too, though at least him being late meant he didn't walk in on me cooking with one hand while carrying around the hand mirror. I'm still dreading having that, or something like it, happen one day.

We talk a little bit while he eats, watch the news a bit -nothing about Ellisburg, just the usual local news, gang warfare, Panacea out of town again on Protectorate business, Circus suspected in a night theft, etc- and ultimately he goes to bed early. Today was a hard day, he didn't really talk about particulars. That's fine with me.

I decide tonight is going to be my first attempt at the small scale. What I really want to do is research the Slaughterhouse Nine more, particularly their more long-term members like Jack Slash, and work out a plan to be implemented later this week, but I start shaking again every time I think of going back to the computer. Which is stupid, because the computer isn't the thing to be afraid of... but it does remind me of Nilbog, which puts me in mind of my ridiculous and now disturbingly plausible fears.

So, beating up gang members and calling the police. Or the PRT if one of them is a cape, but I'm a lot more nervous about getting into a cape fight than I was before Nilbog's minions vanished bits of the monster and Dragon's drone blew out an eye. That's my agenda for tonight. De-stress.

Theoretically.

With dad already dead asleep in his bed -I check, he's snoring already- I go to my room, unlatch the window and open it slightly, get my 'costume' on -minus the backpack and its contents- and slip out into the night as the monster. This is of course complicated by the need to do much of it while using the hand mirror, but I've actually practiced the whole thing enough by now that it's tolerable.

-------------------------------​

Here's what a night out as the monster, hunting down gang members, is like.

I spend most of my time running across rooftops, trying to not be seen, crawling low to the roof and trying to keep stuff between me and adjacent buildings if taller buildings are around to potentially be seen from. I keep an ear out and peek down into every alley or straight I jump over before I jump to the next building, but most of the time there's nothing and nobody there, or there's a homeless person sleeping In it. Sometimes it's teenagers doing drugs, smoking, or just playing a game of basketball against the wall, in which case I divert off to a different route. Especially when they're playing basketball and actually looking up. I don't want to find out what happens if I make a jump and turn into Taylor partway through.

When I do see gang members, they're usually standing around talking. If they have weapons, they're more-or-less concealed. Often, though not always, they're smoking. Very occasionally I catch one having an intense conversation with someone, the sort where I'm expecting to step in and save whoever they're talking to, but every single time things are apparently resolved in a satisfactory manner. In one case, the gang members backs off in response to something the presumed victim says.

When ABB and E88 groups of toughs walk past each other, there's a lot of posturing, but nobody really does anything. In some cases I get the impression they're practically friends, albeit on opposite sides. I don't know what to make of that.

As time drags on, I see more hookers, but I'm not sure how to handle that. I don't want to attack them, especially since my understanding is most hookers aren't in it by choice. Besides, something like every fourth hooker is probably actually a teen that thinks trashy equals cool and is up late for whatever reason. Leaping in and attacking hookers would be a bad plan even if I thought hookers deserved it. I mostly don't see anyone who looks like a pimp, either, so that's a no-go. Meanwhile, the toughs are actually getting less common as the night wears on, not more. Nighttime might be a criminal's friend, but that doesn't mean ordinary gang members can have a full day pretending to be normal citizens and skip sleeping, I guess.

By probably the fifth hour -so two in the morning, probably- I'm feeling pretty stupid for thinking I'd just run across crimes in progress, stop them, and then call up the PRT. I don't even have a cell phone on me. I'd considered a burner phone, but I'd have had to sock away more lunch money, or have spent less on the helmet, or something. Maybe later.

I'm getting bored, but I don't get tired as the monster, and I don't seem to get hungry while I'm the monster either. A break might get me in the right headspace to continue, but I don't have any real reason to take a break.

Forget it. This just isn't worth it.

------------------------------​

By the time I've gotten home, slipped into my bedroom, gotten my costume off me and into the backpack, and finally gotten the computer downstairs booted up, it's 3:21 in the morning.

I've decided patrols are stupid and I'm not doing them.

Sitting at the computer, relying on the reflection from the monitor's glow in the dark, no need for the hand mirror, I'm still feeling queasy. It's better though. Not tolerable, exactly, certainly not good, but I feel like I can focus on the task.

I pull up the document again, find to my annoyance I didn't save the removal of Nilbog, re-delete him, and get online.

First things first: Jack Slash.

He's been at this for decades. I'm surprised at how long he's been around, actually. I can't remember a time before Jack Slash was trailing a mob of killers, but somehow I'd always assumed he'd started somewhere in my childhood and I just didn't register the exact starting point. Official sites, including his locked PHO Wiki page -edit wars, apparently- focus on warning you away from the man. If you see him, flee as casually as you can, without catching his attention, and call the nearest PRT or Protectorate base, etc. There's no good photos of the man, either. Most pictures seem to be snapped from cell phones by shaking hands, and the lighting is often poor. In fact, the best photo I can find is nearly seven years old -a quick check of the Slaughterhouse Nine's page on the wiki confirms that 7 years ago is when Shatterbird joined. Well, that explains that, I guess.

There are newer photos, but less frequently, and often from a distance. The lighting is usually bad, too, presumably because Shatterbird's scream blows out all the lights in the area, and the photos are mostly urban. Poking around finds there are Slaughterhouse Stalkers, people trying to successfully trail the team and get good photos of them, making custom Shatterbird-proof cameras able to take clear photos at extreme ranges, but nobody has actually pulled it off. I have a disquieting suspicion that at least one of the sites devoted to the task hasn't updated in two years because the people running the site died.

I tangent for a bit, looking for photos of the other current members, which leads to looking up the current members, and then back to looking for the photos. To my surprise, there are high-quality photographs of Crawler and the Siberian. Everybody else either has no photos or the photos are uniformly low quality. Shatterbird, in particular, only has a handful of shots taken from extreme range, none of which are very helpful. She looks strange, and it takes some digging around to work out that she's not, in fact, a 'monstrous' parahuman, but rather cloaks herself in colorful glass, often producing highly stylized forms. Usually she has wings and a full helmet, at least.

Crawler has an incredible array of good-quality photos, and it's surprising how often he's almost posed. Eventually I find an image hosting site has a tag #Crawlervanity and piece together from comments on the site and from information elsewhere that Crawler likes the way he looks, and does, in fact, deliberately pose for photos, threatening to kill people if they don't photograph his 'beautiful' form. I gather he sometimes kills them anyway. The number drops off after Shatterbird joins, just like everyone else, but the photos that happen are still usually close up, steady-handed, and with Crawler showing off a specific piece of his body. Doing my best to assemble the photos into chronological order, it looks to me like it's usually something new he presumably evolved recently.

Well. That's not creepy at all.

I wish I had any reason to believe I could somehow use that against him and kill him. I suspect my best-case scenario is that he no longer counts as human and has nothing capable of hurting the monster, leading to a standoff where neither of us can kill each other. More likely he can kill me just fine, one way or another.

I dig around on the Siberian, wondering why quality photos of her are a thing. I am disgusted, but not surprised, to find a 'shrine' to her 'hot, sexy bod', which seems to have most of the photos I've been running across, and more usefully has little comments for each of the photos providing some context. In the Siberian's case, apparently she's just focused on killing people over destroying their stuff: far too many of the photos are labeled as, "recovered from a camera/cell phone in the trail of the Slaughterhouse Nine." Only a handful are presented as having been taken by people who survived the attempt, and most of them include horrible details like, "Siberian ate nine out of ten fingers," or, "Siberian removed and, going by chewing noises, ate both eyeballs. Victim only survived thanks to parahuman assistance."

I have slightly more hope about my chances against her than against Crawler, strangely enough. She's never been injured. Crawler is known to have survived losing his entire head, among other examples, so anything I can do to him is unlikely to accomplish much of anything beyond improving him further. If for some reason I can hurt the Siberian... she might actually be killable.

Realistically she'll just kill me, though.

I finally remember, at 6:13, that I'd been looking at Jack Slash for a reason, and drag myself away from the photo tangent.

Jack Slash is the only member of the Slaughterhouse Nine I think I have a realistic shot at killing. This is convenient, because he's nominally in charge of the group, and it's possible they might splinter if he dies. So I want to do research on him.

It takes a surprisingly long time to find detailed information on his power. When the clock reads 7:07 I've finally found a tinfoil hat thread of all things on PHO that collates information from videos, witness statements, offhand remarks from capes that have survived encounters with the Slaughterhouse Nine, and fills in gaps with a lot of speculation.

I'm disappointed at the conclusion. The man swings a blade, and it cuts at a seemingly arbitrary distance. It's assumed, but labeled as speculation, that he does have an actual range limit, guesstimated at around two miles, with explicit cautioning that he could be hiding his real range for a time he actually needs it or that his range may be effectively 'capped' more by the limitations of human sight than by any actual range limitation.

That's all.

The official sites provide no information beyond, "get out of sight as fast as possible," and a check of the wiki page shows that the only detail it adds is that he is skilled in close-quarters combat with knives and is always armed, even if no weaponry is visible.

Odd, and getting me anxious again.

My concerns on my mind, I look up Ellisburg again.

Ellisburg situation resolved. New York state safe to live in for the first time in years.

Oh. Oh!

Clicking around shows that news sites, regular and cape-oriented, are abuzz with excitement. Dragon is credited with a 'swift response' to a 'developing situation' caused by 'some of Nilbog's creations going rogue', culminating in her executing Nilbog's standing Kill Order. She called in dozens of additional heroes, including Panacea -wait, I saw that on the news- to clean up the remaining creatures before more than a handful could get past the wall, and the official statement is that it took twelve hours past the last creature being killed to establish that nothing had escaped the outermost perimeter. This was all kept quiet so no villains would take advantage of the sudden absence of heroes from nearby cities and even from some extremely distant cities, brought in by teleporter. Alexandria, Eidolon, and Legend were included in wait that was Legend I saw overhead.

No mention is made of an unknown parahuman.

I waffle for a minute. Am I being discounted because creepy conspiracy theory demands cover-up or is the official statement about rogue creations what they actually believe happened? Nilbog thought I was a rogue creature at first...

I decide the latter sounds plausible. I close the tabs, shut down the computer, and head upstairs to prepare for my morning run. Which I still need to replace as an excuse, because this is so stupid, especially if I'm not going to be patrolling anymore. Patrolling is stupid.

There's bounce in my step as I jog.

 

[Ghoul King]

1.x

Saint

"Oh boy." he muttered. He took a sip of coffee -he didn't like the stuff, but he needed to be able to focus- and then called out, "Mags! Bit of an emergency!"

They slept in shifts when they weren't on a job. Dragon didn't sleep, they did, simple as that. It was honestly a stroke of luck -or, as Saint liked to think of it at times, the work of fate- that it had been three people who stumbled onto Richter's box, and not two or the worst possibility of just one. It made it easier to ensure that there was always someone watching the AI, while still having the flexibility for people to run errands, and for Saint to make sure the suits and secondary tech were in working condition... as well as the myriad other daily rituals that eat up hours. Bathroom usage, shaving, bathing, the list was tremendous. Before they'd taken on the responsibility of being the Dragonslayers, Saint hadn't given it much thought. Nowadays he was all too keenly aware of it, to the point that it was one of his reasons for shaving himself bald. (There were others. He liked the "monkish" appearance it gave him. He wouldn't have shaved just for that effect, though) It took less time to periodically cut the new growth than it did to wash it, shampoo it, dry it... Dobrynja and Mags had declined, in part because it would make the group more conspicuous. Saint suspected a little vanity, as well, but didn't begrudge them it.

Dobrynja was actually out buying supplies (Mostly: groceries) right now, unless Saint had missed him coming in because he was too focused on the feeds... again.

"How urgent?" was Mags' sleepy reply.

"We might all die urgent," he called back, keeping his voice deliberately level. He could hear Mags' muttered cursing as she hurried to get out of bed and to the monitoring room.

As she came through the door Mags somewhat acerbically commented, "I assume it's not Dragon breaking loose from its shackles and preparing to go Skynet on us, given you're not informing me that you activated Ascalon." Saint blinked, not recognizing the reference, and then shrugged it off.

"No," he admitted. "Something happening with the King of Goblins." Then he clicked to bring more into focus the... whatever it was... that was currently cutting its way through Nilbog's creatures while the AI tried to shoot it, seemingly to little effect. Whatever it was, the bullets were knocking it around, making it difficult for it to move in anything other than a drunken, erratic line, but there wasn't any evidence of injury. Blue, with too many limbs -Saint had tried counting three times and come up with three different numbers, though he was confident it was at least eight- and a head shaped vaguely like an axe head mounted on a bizarrely thin neck. Saint was tempted to compare the limbs to a spider's legs, but only for the way they spread out from the curved, vaguely cylindrical body. The way they were shaped, the way they moved, it put him in mind of an octopus' arms, if the octopus had no distinct underside, no suckers, just a featureless cylinder tapering to a point -a point that was apparently quite sharp. When the AI had zoomed in, he was fairly sure he'd spotted blade edges running from the tip to approximately one-quarter of the way back from the tip, five of them per limb, distributed equally around the cylinder, but they jutted so slightly from the limbs and blended so well into it in terms of color that he wasn't entirely certain he hadn't imagined them. The arms had the kind of flexibility he'd expect in an octopus, too, or maybe more so than an octopus.

The axe-head had two green eyes, compound like a fly or other insect, one of each side of the 'blade' of the head. (He had yet to see the head actually used as a weapon, but he wouldn't put it past the being) They unsettled him. No pupil, no way to tell where the thing's focus was, or even to tell whether it had to focus on a specific point at all. Inhuman. Refreshing in a way, when he was so used to dealing with Richter's AI, which could present an unsettlingly human face, good enough to fool his instincts but never his mind.

The thing was coated in a layer of fluid that seemed to cling to its body like a second skin. At first he'd thought it some kind of parahuman force-field, an energy effect, due to how far out from the body it extended without simply falling away, but he'd seen dirt float in it, blood spread as it would in water, and other signs that it was a fluid. (Though never for long: he wasn't sure how it happened exactly, but anything trapped in the fluid vanished eventually. Osmosis?) Just another example of parahuman abilities laughing at conventional physics. There was a part of him -the still-fading remnants of Teacher's power- wondering at what the fluid was for, how it worked, potential applications, but it was a weak impulse, and long experience told him it wouldn't pay off particularly even if he were at the peak of Teacher's influence. Teacher gave him a tinker power aimed first at programming and second at the hardware you would run code on. It had never played nice with biologicals, or with non-electronic devices for that matter.

The being -which Dragon had just lost track of- unsettled him all around. His gut instinct was that it was a parahuman, and either a supremely confident one -admittedly so far justified in its confidence- or a madman. He was leaning toward madman. He couldn't say why, but he was convinced it was enjoying the bloodbath. He kept his thoughts to himself for the moment. He didn't want to taint his friends' reactions. Three heads are better than one, but not if one of them puts ideas in the other two's heads. Then you basically have one person. They needed to be more than one person to be on level with the AI. Saint also admitted to himself that they needed to be at their best to be competitive with the real parahumans -even with Teacher's help, he wasn't as good as a real tinker, and his friends were never better than ordinary Joes in powered armor. Civilians thought that tinkers used their own gear out of some kind of ego trip thing, but Saint knew it went deeper than that, that non-tinkers just couldn't get the hang of a tinker's gear the way the tinker did. He'd wondered why for a time, and then shrugged. The why didn't matter. Nothing to be done about it.

Mags muttered, "Bastard is going to unleash the apocalypse," and then said more clearly, "I'm going to get suited up."

Saint waved vaguely as Mags went to get the undersuit on. He always put on his undersuit before he sat down for monitoring duty. It was uncomfortable, but the time it saved when emergencies did happen was worth it, enough so that recently Mags and Dobrynja had taken to doing it too. (Even he didn't sleep in it, though. He'd tried. He'd failed) He remembered abruptly that he'd intended to ask Mags if she knew when Dobrynja was supposed to get back (What had been Dobrynja's errand again? It was the middle of the night, so probably not a grocery run... oh well) and then shrugged, pulled out a cell phone -modified with tinkertech from Dragon and set up to use the 'ignore me' string to block her attention, so it was the closest thing to untraceable around- and called up Dobrynja himself.

"This is Do'." A shortening of the cape name. They avoided their civilian names nowadays, too risky, but it would be even riskier to have Dobrynja answering to Dobrynja -anyone who recognized the reference to Slavic myth would be suspicious. Too easy to then connect a mythological dragon slayer to the Dragonslayers, especially. So... "Do'."

"We have a bit of a situation back at the farmhouse." Farmhouse meant that it was cape trouble. (Sometimes an emergency was that the plumbing wasn't working. No need to give each other heart attacks by not clearly distinguishing between a cape emergency and a regular emergency) "If you're not done already, you should probably hurry up and be done."

A pause.

"I'll be there in twenty minutes," and then Dobrynja hung up. Good. (Saint still couldn't remember what the errand was. Too hard to keep track of everything, while he had to focus on the AI's feeds)

Five minutes later Mags was back in the monitoring room, watching the AI's attempts to hunt the thing moving through Nilbog's creations like a chainsaw through butter. (The way viscera sprayed everywhere, it seemed an apt metaphor) Saint had double-checked everything else -Sleeper's quiet, Endbringers are quiet, the Three Blasphemies are quiet too, Birdcage has a coup going on in one block but not Teacher's block so whatever- and was still keeping an eye on other feeds, trying in part to parse the AI's own thoughts. Was Dragon worried? He'd thought he'd seen one of Dragon's 'pangs of guilt' (It was an AI and didn't feel guilt, of course, but you could see something distinctive happen in its code anytime it lied, deliberately left out critical information, presented things in a misleading way, or otherwise dissembled. Dobrynja had called it a 'pang of guilt' the first time they'd noticed and the term had stuck) when it had warned the thing, so he suspected the AI didn't really think the thing was a parahuman (What else could've been the lie?) but it had been and gone too fast. He wished at times like this that recording the feeds was practical.

It was doable, but there was so much to track at once that recording it all would eat a hard drive's worth of space every day. He'd calculated it.

More importantly, they'd tried it.

If only I was a better coder...

Then he could've made a watchdog program, something that knew what he would care about and record or otherwise note down just that for later reference.

Saint found himself tempted to make some commentary on the carnage they were taking in, but words failed him. Hard to take everything in and think of what to say. Then Dobrynja showed up, quieter than a man of his size had any right to be without parahuman abilities, glanced at the monitoring station (Saint saw his face reflected) and promptly turned around.

When he came back a few minutes later, he was dressed in an undersuit himself. Saint gestured vaguely at the thing rampaging and said, "Parahuman or rogue goblin?"

He had his thoughts, but again he didn't want to taint their thoughts. Dobrynja spoke first, quicker to render judgment than Mags. Always was. "Parahuman."

Saint glanced at Mags. "Mags?"

She shook her head, seemingly at some thought, and then said with conviction, "Parahuman."

Saint nodded to himself and said, "Yeah. I'm thinking parahuman." After a pause he gestured at Mags and added, "You first, Mags."

"It doesn't fit." Saint and Dobrynja glanced at each other. Nope, neither of them had understood. Mags continued without reacting, possibly without noticing. "You walk a beat, you learn to notice when things don't fit." She pointed somewhere at the carnage, Saint couldn't say where. Everything was moving too fast. "Nilbog's monsters have a style, a flavor, whatever you want to call it. They'd all fit readily enough into a children's cartoon headed by H. R. Geiger. The thing killing them, it wouldn't. It's not a mash of adorable and horrifying. It's just alien. Like some of the case 53s, the really extreme ones."

Saint nodded slowly at that. He hadn't thought of that, but now that she said so, yeah, she had a point. It didn't fit.

He gestured at Dobrynja. Dobrynja crossed his arms and said, "If Nilbog could make something this nasty, all his creatures would be as dangerous or worse." After a pause, he squinted at the screen, and commented, "Also, it has no mouth. Nilbog's monsters at least pretend to be a real animal, something that dies when you suffocate it or starve it or whatever."

Another good point. Saint didn't have one as good, and admitted it explicitly with a somewhat sheepish expression. "Gut feeling for me, nothing more." After a pause, he added, "All right, so we agree it's a parahuman." He met their eyes, first Mags, then Dobrynja. "I think we have two decisions to make here."

He held up one finger. "First, we need to decide if this thing with Ellisburg demands our intervention. We've sworn ourselves to preventing the apocalypse. This is potentially an apocalypse in the making, right in front of us." The Protectorate was already alerted to something happening -he'd seen it in the AI's feeds- but the alert was just a general heads-up that something unusual was happening in Ellisburg. It was not a proper panic button. The AI clearly thought it had things under control.

He raised the next finger. "Second, we need to decide if the parahuman is something -someone- we need to do something about, assuming they don't get themselves killed." Watching it shrug off one of Dragon's more lethal weapons, he appended, "Which seems likely," before continuing with, "My read is we have a new trigger, someone who is either perfectly willing to risk the end of the world for... God only knows what reason... or so insanely overconfident that they really believe this-" a sweeping gesture at the ongoing carnage, now returning to Nilbog's 'court'. "-is a workable plan that will not have any negative consequences at all."

Dobrynja and Mags simultaneously said, "Looks handled to me," before glancing at each other in some surprise. Saint glanced at them too, befuddled. They were rarely in sync, certainly not to that degree, but then his attention was pulled back to the screen.

Oh. Dragon had finally drawn blood. Shot it in the head with a coilgun, if he was reading the feeds right. It was down, unmoving, and Nilbog's monsters were celebrating. (Saint did his best to ignore how Nilbog's creations tended to 'celebrate'. Fucking disgusting, but not relevant) So... yeah. Situation handled.

Then the AI's view of Nilbog was blocked by some kind of monstrous caterpillar, and everything went to hell.

---------------------------------------------​

In the end they'd decided their help wasn't necessary. The risk that Dragon would take the opportunity to backtrack them was part of the concern, but not the primary one -Mags in particular had objected to the idea of even giving that angle any consideration at all. In the face of the apocalypse, it just didn't rate. Even so, the Protectorate response was swift -Saint was especially impressed by how fast Legend had arrived, taking literally 3 minutes to arrive from New York City- and Dragon's feeds made it clear that the situation was... not under control, but operating at the very edge of such.

Dobrynja had gone to get into a full suit when a flesh-eating plague had been unleashed and consumed four capes in as many seconds, but ended up staying put when Panacea had done something that resulted in a piss-yellow haze spreading over the city and the plague ceasing to be a problem. There were other moments, almost as terrifying, but mostly... it was a collapsing front. Saint had half-followed threads of Dragon's analysis, how the dead of winter meant that Nilbog's creations were weak with hunger, many of them afraid to actually go beyond the walls -the temperature within the walls was a full 5 degrees (Celsius) warmer than the temperature outside the walls, due to various things Nilbog had done to shape the city- because they weren't really equipped for the cold, and the chaos had drawn many of them toward the center of the city, so there were fewer monsters ready to escape over the walls. Other factors he caught only enough to know Dragon had thought something, but not follow the details.

The parahuman had escaped. Saint suspected Dragon had let it happen. With Nilbog dead, the AI might've been able to creatively interpret law, use a loophole to pretend its duty was successfully discharged. (Or, a slightly more generous part of his mind commented, maybe the AI felt the horde of monsters was a higher priority than one parahuman who wasn't even doing anything anymore)

It had taken eight hours of continuous combat for the Protectorate capes to mop things up, decide that things were safe enough for most of them to return to their stations and leave only a skeleton crew to complete the sweep. Saint was struggling to stay awake. Even coffee wasn't really helping. Dobrynja had already told him to get some sleep, but he'd shrugged it off. He had finally relented a little and let Mags get in the chair, handle monitoring. He was starting to see code behind his eyelids when he blinked. Other symptoms indicating he was falling apart.

Currently they were discussing the parahuman.

"Seemed like Jabberwocky-" Mags' name for it. Saint was too tired to argue it, didn't care enough to ask why. Dobrynja didn't seem to care in general. "-was here just for Nilbog. In and out." Saint nodded vaguely.

Drifted off, standing on his feet.

Jerked awake to Dobrynja saying "... fucking cover-up, again. Tired of seeing this shit."

Saint forced himself to focus, asked, "What?"

Dobrynja pointed to the feed and said, "The Protectorate. They're pretending Jabberwocky wasn't there at all, turning it into a Guild/Protectorate victory when it's a Guild/Protectorate fuckup." Oh thought Saint vaguely. Again? But Dobrynja wasn't done talking. "I'm half-tempted to find Jabberwocky just to give them a goddamn medal. Fuck."

Saint started to nod, frowned when he realized that was wrong, started to shake his head, caught himself from falling. Dobrynja glanced at him and said, with no small amount of sympathy. "Saint, man, you look like shit. Dead on your feet. Go to bed."

Mags added, "We can continue this after you've actually slept."

Feeling ganged-up on, Saint went to his bedroom, unable to muster the energy to argue with them.

He dreamed of a girl looking into a mirror, saying, "Snicker-snack went its head," and clacking a pair of scissors closed.

Repeatedly.

 

[Ghoul King]

2.1

I don't even make it to lunch. The relentless stream of little torments is worse than usual, more biting, more constant, but the event horizon is when I go for a water bottle from my backpack during gym and it's filled with red liquid with dark bits floating around inside of it. The only reason I don't drink any of it is that I've made a habit of pre-opening my bottles at home (Long story, ugly memories), and the unexpected resistance catches my attention enough to actually see the contents.

Rationally, I'm almost certain this is just juice, probably with pieces of fruit inside of it. Emotionally, I see the locker's contents, and I've hurled it away before I can finish telling myself it's just juice. It clips somebody in the head, and the coach starts yelling at me. I can see Sophia smirking. I have no idea how or when she planted the bottle without me noticing. I don't think I care.

I grab my backpack and go home, shoving my hands into my pockets to hide their shaking.

---------------------------​

She'd replaced all my water bottles.

I'd planned to go to school tomorrow as usual.

I'm not so sure now.

-------------------------​

Okay, Heartbreaker. Not capable of producing death plagues, but... defended by people who are essentially innocent, not to mention human. That's going to make this hard. There's also the smallest, barest chance he'll decide I'm attractive and turn me into another cultist, in which case I'll have made everything worse by giving him control over a nearly unkillable nightmare monster that doesn't need to sleep. Given everything I've been able to gather about his modus operandi, I'm reasonably certain that it won't happen that way -he doesn't use his power on anyone he doesn't intend to incorporate long-term and for all that he's a monstrous human being I'm not seeing evidence that he's a pedophile- but keeping in mind the worst case scenario is good.

I mean, if he decides to go for it, there's basically nothing I can do, and knowing about the possibility doesn't do much beyond give me a reason to hyperventilate and/or abandon the operation entirely, but... well, there's not actually a but.

I push it out of my mind. First, I need to find him. I already know he tends to operate in the vicinity of Toronto, but information about his location is sketchy beyond that. I'd sort of vaguely assumed he lived in a loghouse out in the woods somewhere and nobody had taken him down because he has a fanatically devoted cult of innocents on his side, but digging around online he doesn't seem to have a stable base of operation. Instead, he tends to live in the house or apartment of one of his recent 'recruits', with the rest of the 'family' either living in the same building or spread out among two or three closely clustered buildings. I'm kind of curious how he manages to move such a large group around under the radar. Are large families, moving as a group, common in Toronto? Does he go ahead with one or two women and then somehow get directions to the rest of the group, and they trickle to the new base in small groups?

Unfortunately, the internet doesn't have anything about that stuff. He's known to have been found in a number of different places, and flushing him out just leads to him going to ground, but that doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't have a primary hidey-hole. The fact that he can vanish so readily is also not actually informative. It's Canada, there's plenty of nothing to vanish into, and he can always Master a woman and hide in her basement or something, with no way for pursuit to know whether any given bystander who 'saw nothing' or 'saw an odd group of people going thataway' is a Mastered woman saying whatever Heartbreaker wants her to say or reporting the truth. He doesn't necessarily need any kind of network in place, ready to hide him... but he also could have such a thing going on. The women he collects don't necessarily have to remain in his immediate vicinity. He may well have a series of safehouses of Mastered women, behaving completely normally for a single Canadian woman until the moment he needs a place to hide.

This is ugly.

I look up more details about Heartbreaker's power, but it's not very helpful. It's unknown if he has an actual range limit, though he seems to operate by line of sight which is something, his effect is not known to wear off over time or be reversible in any way... it's not actually known what his victims experience (Or, it crosses my mind, maybe the Protectorate does know but isn't telling but then I shove that thought into a box and ignore it), but they behave as if they have full continuity and events are completely natural, as far as I can gather.

I decide to look into Master effects in general. In particular, I find myself wondering if killing the Master is a guaranteed way to 'fix' their victims. I have an ugly suspicion it isn't, given nobody has taken a sniper rifle to Nikos Vasil's head, and am unsurprised when the answer is sometimes. My only consolation is that Heartbreaker is similar to known cases of a Master's death freeing their victims: he does not provide specific orders or induce observable physical changes, and the fact that he seems to prefer to keep his 'girls' on hand could be for the obvious reasons, or it could be evidence of a range limitation or a need to refresh the effect with his presence periodically. So... call it 50/50 odds.

I'm already feeling bad for his existing victims. I can't bring myself to not try to kill the man though, given delaying just makes everything worse for everyone.

I spend the remainder of my free time before Dad comes home working out tentative ideas for plans and, after concluding I'm not likely to find anything else useful about Heartbreaker, digging up more information on future targets. (I avoid going off on a picture tangent this time)

Dinner is awkward. I infer Dad was called by the school, but doesn't want to broach the topic himself. I'm brooding, which doesn't help. The one upside is that Dad decided to cook steak tonight, ostensibly to celebrate something going on at work, but really I'm pretty sure it's an attempt to cheer me up.

I do feel better, afterward. A little.

While we're washing dishes, I find myself bringing up Nilbog's death, wondering if Dad heard about it. To my surprise, he hasn't, and his face lights up like Christmas came early this year when I confirm, yes, it was on the news and everything. That makes me feel... not good, but like it was worth doing.

We watch TV for a couple hours after dinner before I "go to bed" AKA lay under the covers as the monster, waiting for Dad to go to sleep.

---------------------​

I'm still feeling restless. I'd originally intended to do more research on Heartbreaker, but the idea of sitting around for a few hours just... doesn't appeal.

I decide instead to do some initial scouting in Canada, around Toronto and some of the other cities he's supposed to be in.

I dress warmer under the blanket than I did for killing Nilbog: a jacket over an old sweater, long pants that haven't been doused in some noxious fluid as yet, mittens I'd forgotten we even had that are uncomfortably tight, and a blue scarf I... haven't worn since mom died. I briefly debate wearing something on my head under the helmet, but ultimately decide it probably won't be necessary. I also skip the backpack this time: I really need to replace the "morning run" idea, and I cannot possibly dress appropriately for Brockton Bay temperatures without freezing in the Canadian winter, so the ruse is pointless in this case anyway. Besides, this is intended to be a scouting run, and Toronto isn't really much farther than Ellisburg was. I have time, since I won't get caught up in a fight and am leaving earlier anyway.

I slip downstairs to boot up the computer long enough to work out a route through to the Toronto region, focusing especially on finding a place no roads go through. I seem to recall reading somewhere that border patrols -Canadian and American alike- are focused on the roads, relying basically on the inclement weather and rough terrain of the wilderness to keep people from crossing the border illegally in areas where there are no roads. I poke around to see if parahumans existing has changed this policy, but what little time I spend scouring the internet turns up nothing in specific... which isn't to say that nothing has happened. Even so, I'm willing to chance it. I'm reasonably sure most parahumans who could cross the border without need of a road would be a bit more visible than the monster -fliers like Glory Girl, for instance- or be nothing a border patrol would be any help against, such as teleporters. So probably they haven't stepped up the security in a way that matters to me, especially since the US/Canada border is a huge stretch of ground to cover. It's just not practical to have the entire thing secured.

It takes longer to wait for the computer to boot up than it does to actually map out a route I can't get lost on once it is online, even with having to find an off-road path across the border that qualifies as not easy to get lost on. Once I'm reasonably confident I have the route memorized -close my eyes, repeat the information, open them, check if I got it right, repeat until I can do it five times in a row- I shut the computer down and head out.

----------------------​

Following the roads is mildly stressful, reminding me of my all-too-recent flight from Ellisburg. I find myself wondering if there's more cars out and about tonight, or if I'm just imagining it. I'm still uneasy about the thing with Dragon. (And the Protectorate, but that goes into the box too and I pretend I never thought it)

Crossing the border turns out to be easy. I'd actually given myself a long way around if the checkpoint near the road turned out to be more serious than I was expecting, but I end up paralleling the road a bit further out than usual for a few minutes, out in the woods, to get past the checkpoint, and then just return to my preferred distance from the road once I'm past it. That's it. I was expecting to at least have to hop a fence or something.

--------------------​

When I hit the Toronto city area, things get more complicated. The place is huge, and doesn't lend itself to roofhopping, not in any way that lets me actually keep a good eye on the ground. I'm blatantly dressed up as a cape, if an amateurish one, which is not conducive to wandering the streets on foot, and that would take forever anyway. Since I didn't bring my backpack, I don't even have any place to hide my helmet, so just taking off the blanket and helmet and pretending I'm nobody of interest isn't a viable option, and could lead to people connecting the monster to Taylor. Or at least connecting 'the girl in the helmet and blanket' to Taylor Hebert, which would still be outing myself as a cape... or humiliate me by having people think I'm a wannabe cape, which would be worse than having people know Taylor is a parahuman.

The worst, most depressing thing, though, is realizing that a big part of my problem is that Toronto is nice.

Oh, I spot what I'm pretty sure are gang toughs at times, and in some of the less trafficked parts of town there's definitely gang tags. There's also at least two other reasonably major supervillains in the area beyond Heartbreaker, the city is close enough they're in Brockton Bay news sometimes, usually speculation that they might move here if they suffer a particularly bad defeat, so it's not some bastion of perfection.

But there's just not the same kind of huge, largely uninhabited/gang-controlled/filled with the homeless sections of town like there is in Brockton Bay. The vast majority of the city is being used for legitimate purposes -or at least for purposes that can pretend to be legitimate- and this makes it hard for me to do anything to narrow my search. To a certain extent, the whole thing just highlights how I didn't have any kind of actual plan -I had vague ideas I'd check the ugly parts of town, the places cops and PRT are less likely to pay attention to- but it's also just the case that, for instance, I see multiple places with attractive, well-dressed women in large numbers. If this were Brockton Bay, I could investigate a handful of places like that, and expect to find Heartbreaker by the end of the week, probably. Here... no, not really. There's just plenty of parties and the like. I'm pretty sure some of the places I'm skimming are sororities, even.

There's also just too many skyscrapers. I'm not capable of combing those efficiently, and it's all too plausible that Heartbreaker is living in a suite in one of the skyscrapers.

I try to tough it out, manually comb the place. It's not like I'm going to go home, build a Heartbreaker-tracking device, and come back tomorrow night. This isn't Protectorate Pals, and I'm not Armsmaster.

Then I'm Taylor for a heart-stopping ten or so seconds, flailing through the air mid-jump, sure I'm going to die.

After I land as the monster, I make my way back to the edge of town -carefully- and then stalk back home to Brockton Bay, done with this.

-----------------------​

I don't tell Dad, but I don't go to school today. I stay home and surf the internet instead, in some dim (Yet depressing) hope that I'll find inspiration, or maybe evidence that the Protectorate does know where Heartbreaker is and just doesn't act on it. (Tinfoil conspiracy shut up) An easy answer. Nope.

I double-check where the Slaughterhouse Nine were last heard from. Unfortunately -maybe the wrong word to be thinking- the last time they were placed was two weeks ago and was some town I've never heard of an hour to the east of Los Angeles. They're nowhere near Brockton Bay. Even at their fastest, they've never crossed the country in two weeks, never mind that they theoretically should be able to do so. More likely they're one state over, or still in California, doing horrible things in places nobody cares about except the locals.

Not that I have any idea how I'd kill most of them, but it would be something I could work on, instead of running in circles about how to find Heartbreaker.

I bounce around threads on PHO for a bit, nothing in mind in particular. Eventually I run across a thread that's actually interesting -apparently, a lot of parahumans have weird sensory elements to their powers. Initial conversation is mostly non-parahumans saying, "oh wow that sounds cool," etc while parahumans talk a little bit about what exactly they experience when they use their power, but eventually the conversation shifts more to parahumans talking about weird, unexpected uses for these elements. The thing that particularly sticks with me is Vista chiming in late in the thread: she can't use her power on people -I am distinctly glad to learn she can't actually turn people into pretzels- and she has an awareness at all times of what effect her power is having on the world as well as what it could do. The relevant bit? She has a weird, dim awareness of human presence at all times in an area around her.

She admits she's never gotten any practical use out of it, beyond pranking Clockblocker (Wards prank each other?), but it reminds me of my own power giving me an awareness of people around me. I go back over the thread, reviewing posts I'd previously skimmed where capes are talking about how they discovered these details, and find myself wondering if there's hidden depths to my own sensory weirdness.

I end up spending an hour wandering around outside in my running outfit, intently focused on my 'there's people nearby' sense. By the end of it, I've confirmed anew that, yes, I can tell when the number of people in my radius goes up, and I can tell when that number goes down, and I have some kind of awareness of the overall scale -a couple people feels distinct from two dozen people, though not nearly as strongly as you might expect- but I haven't discovered anything actually new.

I find myself wondering if maybe I can sense parahumans somehow. Maybe parahumans feel different from non-powered people? Or maybe they don't register at all -wait. No, Nilbog pricked my sense, and nothing else did in Ellisburg. Not even Dragon, but that might've been a drone. She's known to use drones. So, not invisible. But maybe different in some way?... it would be fantastic if I could just comb Toronto for parahuman presence.

I head to Arcadia by rooftop, in costume. (Hoodie and pants underneath, no backpack) The only tricky part is timing leaving the house until there's nobody around to see me, but my people-sensing power makes it a little smoother than it would otherwise be. I make sure to be careful, avoiding paths that will involve jumping over heavily trafficked streets, but I also try to just ignore the times I do become Taylor. Well. Not so much ignore as grit my teeth and bull through them. The incident in Toronto scared me, but really that's stupid. I heal instantly from injury, and given how severe what the monster recovered from was, I can probably shrug off similar. Probably. So, I steel myself for the possibility of turning into Taylor mid-jump and try to get used to it happening. I'm not going to land as Taylor when jumping roofs. Even if I do, I just need to break line of sight with whomever is watching me, and I'll become the monster again and be fine.

I turn into Taylor seven times mid-jump on the way to Arcadia, and by the seventh one I no longer flail wildly in a panic. I still have to fight an urge to vomit, but it's less than it was. Once I'm in sight of it, I see a hole in my plan.

Arcadia doesn't have any buildings nearby it. Not close enough to jump to its roof from.

Well. Shit. I'd intended to stealthily crawl around on the rooftop, see if I felt anything weird, anything suggesting parahumans feel different from other humans. Since the Wards go there, that'd be a pretty surefire way of sneaking in a test without having to run down Armsmaster on his motorcycle or something.

I spend a minute debating my course of action, and finally settle for stashing my costume on the roof I'm on -after double-checking that the door to this roof is locked and the lock is not easily rattled open or anything- and then jumping down into the alley behind a dumpster when no one is in a position to have line of sight on the alley. Probably. It takes me a minute to find a sufficiently reflective surface to trigger becoming Taylor, but once I find a reasonably shiny air conditioning unit things go smoothly. Then I jog my way to Arcadia school grounds. After all, I'm just a girl walking if you can see me, and if you can't... well, you can't see me. Perfect!

It's only when I'm halfway across the lawn that I remember Dragon's suit didn't revert me to Taylor.

Too late now. I keep jogging/galloping (Or is it still a jog when you have too many limbs and they all end in blades?) toward the front door, suddenly glad I have my hoodie up, giving my identity a little protection. I'm pleasantly surprised when the front door opens easily to a push. I was half-expecting it to be locked. For that matter, I was half-expecting there to be security guards. I guess rumors about Arcadia are exaggerated a bit.

I have a bit of culture shock when I get inside. Arcadia's halls are cleaner than Winslow's. It takes me a second to realize that Arcadia's halls being cleaner than Winslow's implies that Winslow's halls are dirty. Somehow I'd assumed Winslow was in as good a condition as it could be, just with... less well-paid teachers or something. Fewer teachers? Poorly-trained staff? I dunno. I hadn't realized Winslow was actively filthy. Then I notice that none of the ceiling lights are flickering. Then I realize they're all pure white, where Winslow's are a dull yellow, the kind of color you get out of a lightbulb that needs to be changed.

I spend a minute reeling, assimilating. There's dozens of little details like this. The walls seem strange, and I finally realize it's because they haven't been plastered in gang tags, cleaned of gang tags, re-plastered in gang tags, re-cleaned, ad infinitum. They're just... smooth, like new. The glass is so clean you can almost believe the windows are just open spaces, that's how clear they are. If you told me people eat off this floor, I'd hesitate to call bullshit. There's no knife marks, no cigarette burns, no smell of dru-

Oh. There's somebody staring at me.

Right. Right. I'm here to test my power, not drool all over myself staring at an actually decent school.

I ignore the short girl staring at me like she's never seen a- fuck. I look like a hobo teen in my old, dirty pants and blotchily stained hoody. In Arcadia. Fuck. I didn't think this through.

I ignore the short girl and her weirded-out stare, and stalk through Arcadia's halls.

The girl lets out a strangled yelp when I turn a corner, and I back up, confused. She's wide-eyed, and not looking at anything in particular, seeming focused on something in her head.

Huh. Maybe Arcadia isn't so pristine after all, if a girl that young is doing drugs and nobody has caught on. I briefly consider trying to give her a talk about why she shouldn't do drugs, and then decide she's not going to listen to a random hobo teen. Oh well.

Feeling weirdly relieved, I go back to stalking the halls of Arcadia. The way-too-perfect halls.

---------------------------​

I'm ultimately disappointed. If my power does differentiate between parahuman and regular human, I can't figure it out.

I'd wonder if maybe the Wards were busy elsewhere, but I spotted Glory Girl -Victoria, I guess- in a classroom, looking really cranky. Even if the Wards aren't here, there's parahumans here, and I never sensed any kind of difference in my power beyond the already-established more, less, vague sense of overall numbers. I can't feel any variation, which is frustrating. 'Parahuman' would've been most convenient, but even discovering my power can differentiate between gender, or age, or something would've been neat. Not what I wanted, but something.

I did confirm that my power is not blocked by intervening objects, the radius completely unaffected by anything except my position as far as I can tell. It has a static, uniform size. I also discovered it seems to be a sphere, or maybe a cube but I don't think it's a cube, anyway the point is that its reach seems to extend equally in every direction, which is part of why I'm thinking it's a sphere, rather than being anything weird like "50 feet out horizontally but only 10 feet up and down". That's useful to know, that I can tell if people are nearby even if there's walls in the way. Makes me harder to ambush, kind of.

I end up leaving the third time a teacher's gaze flicks my way when passing a classroom. Something about the look on their faces makes me uncomfortable, like the walls are closing in on me. Dunno why.

Nothing of interest happens in the time it takes me to get back to the roof I stashed my costume on, and getting it back on is uninterrupted as well. I'm sort of weirded out at how smoothly this is going. If this were cape fiction, I'd have bumped into a Ward without realizing it, been jumped by a supervillain and/or caught on the way out by Velocity, and been called on a cell phone by my dad at the worst possible moment. Not that I have a cell phone...

... the point is, this is going weirdly smoothly-

crying into his hands

-and I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. 'Trip was completely pointless and useless' is bad, but not that bad.

I circle the edge of the rooftop briefly, keeping an eye out for heroes -or villains, for that matter- but spot nothing and make my way home by rooftop, a little less careful to avoid the more heavily trafficked spots. I really want to desensitize myself to the disorientation of becoming Taylor mid-air.

------------------------------​

There's a van for Van Dyke Plumbing a block away from my house, cheerful art advertising their, "15 years of quality service".

This catches my eye, because it wasn't all that long ago Dad was talking about poor mister Van Dyke selling what was left of his business and planning to move to Florida and start over. Not letting someone else take over the plumbing business selling. Taking apart and selling the components selling. The van shouldn't be out there. It should've been repainted by now.

I'm watching this from a nearby rooftop, bothered. I really should just ignore it and head back home, but... I'm not sure why I'm caught on this. Yeah, Mr. Van Dyke left... barely a week ago, if I recall correctly?

Why is this bugging me? They're in a yard, set up for-

Their doors are closed. They're in a yard, presumably to do work -that's not Mr. Van Dyke's yard, he lives in an entirely different neighborhood, and he had an actual office anyway- but their doors are closed. All of them. The house's doors are closed. The lights are off.

I'm not quite sure what conclusion I should be drawing, but I have a sudden conviction that this is the other shoe I was expecting to drop at Arcadia.

 

[Ghoul King]

2.2

The obvious conclusion to draw is that this... whatever it is... is somehow connected to me. It could be the case that this... stakeout? This stakeout could actually be about someone else in the area, but even if that is the case, that doesn't necessarily mean I should ignore it. Whatever it is, it's suspicious.

I very carefully angle to get a better view on the van, more specifically the front, suddenly feeling dumb for not bringing my backpack. If I had, I could find a reasonably private place in walking distance, change out of my costume, and just walk past as Taylor. Instead I'm having to skulk around as the monster in a residential neighborhood, trying to balance several different kinds of stealth. At least no schools have let out yet. There's not actually that many people here right now, just a few housewives, most of whom aren't interested in a view of the street. I'm pretty sure that will change soon, though. It can't be that far off from three o'clock by now.

There's a single guy in the front seat, looking bored. He's dressed right for a plumber, as far as I can tell, but he still doesn't feel right. Watching him scan around every few seconds, otherwise calm and collected, I'm left with the impression of someone who is used to sitting still, one eye out for trouble, not a plumber waiting to start a job or something. I'm put in mind of Miss Militia, and I can't say why exactly. I also can't see into the back part of the truck. In fact -I scramble to the other side of the street- yes, the windows in the back are dark like one-way glass.

That clinches it.

I consider simply rushing the vehicle and attacking it. I discard the idea. Appealing in its simplicity as it is, I'm not actually well equipped for a straight fight, nightmare Brute or no. If the man in front is a cape of some kind -if there's a cape in the back, or people with guns- that could go very wrong very fast. Besides, I haven't actually confirmed that I can tear open a car bare-limbed, regardless of how convinced I am that I can.

What I need is information. Why are they here?

I streak back to the other side of the street, the side the van is on, glad cars have little reason to pass through here. I get up close to a fence, look through a gap. He's looking my way, still seeming bored. A perception power? But no, he's not looking at me, just in my direction. I wait. After a few seconds he looks around again, and I jump the fence and rush to the next one, hide behind it, look through a gap in the fence.

Now he looks like something startled him, and he's looking my direction again. After a moment he puts a hand to his right ear and says something. Some kind of radio? A pause, hand still to his ear, then he says something brief -one or two syllables, going by the way his mouth moves- and his hand drops back to his side.

I wait, but the minute stretches on without his gaze moving away from me. When I start moving to make my way to this house's backyard, he twitches, and now I know he's watching me, his eyes tracking my motion until I stop, his eyes stopping the moment I do. Odd. I'm not Taylor. I already know glass doesn't block the effect, it's not because there's a window between us. If he can see me, why am I the monster?

I push the thought aside. Later. Right now I need to either do something about these people -the guy is not alone if he's talking via radio- or I need reason to believe they're not a problem. At this point I'm almost certain they are a problem, even if I'm not sure what problem they actually are, but it would be a relief if I was wrong and they're actually a... a PRT van staking out some gang thing in the area or something.

Abruptly, I'm Taylor, and after a spasm I whip around, expecting to spot a mom or a little old lady or maybe a kid back from school.

I see nothing.

Meanwhile, behind me, the van bam!s open and people pour out, PRT troopers going by the hands in the air! and do not use any parahuman abilities! and then suddenly I'm being buried in containment foam.

What.

-------------------------
​

The entire drive to the PRT HQ -in the "plumbing truck", naturally- there's three troopers watching, two of them with containment foam dispensers pointed directly at my face. I want to say the third one is holding a shock baton, but honestly I don't know. I've not read up on the PRT. I basically just know what everyone knows.

I never thought the PRT would ambush me.

They're silent. I'm silent. I couldn't say why they're being quiet. I don't even know what to say. I feel vaguely indignant, but mostly I'm confused. What is going on? Was I just in the wrong place at the wrong time?

I don't get anything resembling answers until I'm unloaded at the PRT HQ and dumped in a cramped room with Armsmaster, Miss Militia, and four more PRT Troopers. Still covered in containment foam of course. (They actually loaded me onto a pallet and carried that)

Miss Militia is the first to speak. I get the distinct impression she's playing 'bad cop'. I have a sinking feeling about how this is going to go down.

"Parahuman identity, powers, reason for being in the area." I blink, not that they can see that. "Um. I... don't actually have a name picked?"

So sue me. I've been a parahuman for less than two weeks.

Armsmaster cuts in, and the bad feeling gets worse, because he's also 'bad cop', sounding impatient and angry. "How did you pick out the van?" I haven't even answered Miss Militia's other two questions.

Suddenly there's an oppressive silence, and I realize I blurted that out. Fuck. Wait, did I blurt that out too? No reaction. Whew. I dec- "This will all go easier on you if you cooperate fully and honestly." Miss Militia again, and I find myself thinking shouldn't you have opened with 'good cop'? and blurt again, "I was just going home and the van bothered me because I know Mr. Van Dyke sold everything and left!"

This time nobody yells at me, and I take a moment to focus. I know they're trying to keep me off-balance, though I don't get why. I haven't done anything!

... I mean, aside from killing Nilbog.

But they don't know I'm the monster, and he has a kill order on him anyway so it's not illegal -actually, should I have tried to claim the bounty on him? Dammit, with that kind of money I could... hire a private tutor or get transferred to Arcadia or something. Fuck. I should've tried to- well. If this is representative of the kind of reception I would've gotten, maybe it's for the best I didn't stick around and try to claim the bounty. Plus, how would Taylor Hebert spend the monster's money withou-

Claim the initiative. Stop getting distracted.

I take a deep breath, notice everyone in the room tensing (right, unknown parahuman, unknown abilities), and breathe out slowly, calmingly. Nobody else relaxes. Ugh. I try to inject calm and measured into my voice, rather than panicking teenage girl. "I'm faster, stronger, and tougher when people can't see me." I pause for a second, taking in the mood for moment. I'm reasonably happy with how calm I sound. Better than how I feel, anyway. "If people are looking at me I'm noth- er." Right, the people-sensing. "Um, I can tell when people are nearby at all times, too. But aside from that I'm just an ordinary girl if you can see me." I frown a little under my helmet, noticing Armsmaster relax fractionally, followed by Miss Militia spontaneously switching from a shotgun to a pair of pistols she promptly holsters without even looking at her hands. Huh. I'm not sure I've ever seen her change weapons on film. I didn't know it turned into some kind of green... stuff... in between.

After a second Armsmaster's lips move just a little bit, saying nothing I can hear, and I feel the last of the tension in the room drain away.

What was all that? Are they just... taking me at my word? I...

... well. I want to be offended at their naiveté, but... I... can't actually recall the last time someone believed me, no need for proof, no having to shoot down idiocy.

Feels good, in a depressing, "how long have I been denied basic civility?" sort of way.

Miss Militia comments, "Interesting powers."

I nod vaguely, not sure how to respond to that. Armsmaster speaks up again, still less-than-warm, but it's different. Reminds me of listening to Dad talking over the phone to people at work. Business-like. "Do you have a preferred temporary designation?"

I blank for a moment. Um. "... Monster?" It comes out like a question, and I cringe at that. This feels less threatening, less like I need to put up a strong front, but I still don't want to be the Nervous Nellie cape.

Armsmaster taps away on one of his bracers like it's a keyboard for a second, not responding verbally, and I fidget a little, notice myself fidgeting, clamp down on it. After another moment he speaks up again, still blandly... professional, I guess. "Not currently in use, under request, or overly similar to an existing name. Acceptable."

... okay I'm impressed. His suit has wireless internet in there? His bracer(s?) doubles as a touchpad or something? I used to be a fan, I never heard of this.

I jolt a little when Miss Militia speaks up again. Ugh. I need to stop with that. "Why were you after the van?" Warmer than Armsmaster, still not warm. I retract some of my previous concerns that they're secretly naïve morons.

"Honestly, I thought it was a... um. Like the Empire Eighty Eight were after me, or maybe someone else in the area." An eyebrow goes up on Miss Militia. I don't see a reaction from Armsmaster, but then all I can see is his mouth, beard included.

Miss Militia asks "You have a reason to think the Empire would pursue you?" I fidget again, suddenly aware of how... paranoid-sounding my thoughts could be seen as.

I admit, "Not specifically no. I just... I knew something wasn't right, and I-" I stop, trying to think of how to say this without admitting I live in that specific area. Might be a bit late for that, after admitting that I was 'going home' earlier, but I'm not comfortable outright saying it. I start over, sort of. "Well, I'm the only thing in the area I know that's of interest. Basically. I guess a Ward could live there, or something? So I... well."

Miss Militia is actually looking a little sympathetic now, but it's Armsmaster who cuts in with "You thought a gang knew where you lived and were planning on killing you in your sleep." I'm really glad my helmet hides the blush.

"Not anything that concrete? I just knew it was suspicious. I was actually, um, trying to get closer so I could maybe figure out what was going on when-" What did happen there? "-um, when... whatever happened that left me as T-this. Um. Weak." Fuck, almost used my name in my cape identity. Fuck. I need to change how I think of the difference between the monster and Ta-the girl. I can't slip up like that. "And then the PRT Troopers got me." I finish a bit lamely.

Miss Militia fiddles idly with one of her pistols, looking distracted. Armsmaster settles into a chair, claps his hands together in front of himself, leans forward on the table, looks almost friendly... except he's not smiling. "So. Basic self-defense, then?" I hesitate for a moment, wondering if this has suddenly turned into legalese and I-want-my-lawyer and actually am I supposed to have a lawyer now? Can they just grab me, stuff me into a cell, and interrogate me while I'm still encased in a glob of containment foam?

No, not now, later. "I- yeah, I guess? If that applies here?"

Armsmaster waves a trooper over with one hand, tells me rather brusquely, "Hold still." and then makes a couple of odd motions with the hand he waved them over with. The trooper sprays something at the containment foam on me, and it starts... melting and hissing, draining away and I suddenly notice there's a drain in the floor. Huh.

I hesitantly reach one hand over to pop the other hand's wrist -it was in an awkward position and doesn't feel right- but nobody reacts like I'm a wild animal they need to be ready to shoot. I pop the wrist a bit more confidently, and am relieved when nobody so much as flinches at the little crack. Ahhh. Better.

Miss Militia speaks up now -I'm kind of annoyed they're still doing this routine, even if they're no longer pressuring me with it- asking me, "It sounds like you are currently a rogue. Have you considered joining the Protectorate?" Wait, the Protecto- I'm too young for that!

... aren't I?

I respond carefully, feeling like it's important I pick the right words. "I had been under the impression that was not an option open to me." I pause for a moment, trying to think of how to frame this. How about... "My powers don't lend themselves to the classic Protectorate look, and I'm not sure how useful I'd be on patrols anyway." Really, I thought it would be the Wards and no, I don't need superpowered teenage drama in addition to regular high school drama -imagine what Sophia would do to torment me if she had Vista's powers!- and I just... I need to make the world better, and as a Ward I wouldn't get to do that, I'd be babied until I was eighteen, and that's more than two years of the world getting worse, and... and if I'm entirely honest, much as I respect Armsmaster and Miss Militia and Legend and so on, there are times I feel like the Protectorate isn't so much making the world a better place as it is slowing down the rate at which it gets worse. I think Legend coming out as gay was the last time a member of the Protectorate did anything to improve the state of the world?

Though... having said it, I'm realizing I actually mean it. What would I do on a patrol? If I somehow made it big, what kind of action figure could you even get out of 'girl who turns into a monster'?

... Hasbro toys aside, I mean.

Armsmaster interrupts my thought process. "You don't need to rush to decide. If you decide tomorrow you do want be a part of keeping the peace, you can join then. Remaining a rogue isn't a lifetime commitment." Well. I don't see my stated reasons changing. Even if I wouldn't be dealing with teenage drama, I'm still not really Protectorate material. That's always going to be true. Probably. I haven't noticed anything like Crawler's mutations...

I suddenly realize that, reassuring words aside, they're actually waiting for a response. I suppress a weird urge to apologize. "Uh, thanks for the offer? Thanks, but no thanks? Um, not that I'm intending to be a villain or anything, I just don't think becoming a Protectorate hero would work, like, at all."

Armsmaster makes a so-so motion with one hand and says, "Rogue it is, then. For now, at least."

Then his mouth sets into a grim line.

"Now for the paperwork."

----------------------------​

The paperwork takes two hours to get through it all, and trying to parse some of the legalese is more stressful than the interrogation was. It's astounding how hard it can be to answer a yes/no question if it's preceded by enough gibberish like, "the party of the first part concedes to the party of the second part that the party of the first part..." I was vaguely surprised, at the end, to realize they never made me unmask. Everything I had to sign was signed as Monster, no attempt to extract my name, date of birth, location of birth, social security number, or anything else that could be used to identify me as Taylor Hebert. I didn't even have to select Caucasian on a form.

In the end I'm driven out to a location of my choosing ("Within reason," which apparently meant basically anywhere within thirty minute's drive of the PRT HQ) in a van (I'm in the back, where the public can't see me in costume) manned by one plainclothes PRT officer, and dropped off by myself, still in costume.

It occurs to me, belatedly, that I would've liked an... I dunno, autograph or something, from Miss Militia and Armsmaster. Or maybe Taylor Hebert would've and Monster is too professional for that?

I'm not sure I like the handle, but I was assured -repeatedly- that it's only for internal PRT paperwork reasons and that my 'real' name will be used when I announce it if I decide I want a different cape name.

I approach my house cautiously, concerned that it's late enough that Dad is back home, half-hoping that even if it's past the time he would normally be back that today is a late day. Thankfully, there's no car in the driveway -and a quick look around shows nothing like the suspicious PRT van from before- so... apparently he's not home yet.

Whew.

Sneaking back in through my window goes smoothly. I remain the monster all the way through going into our back yard and climbing through the window, so no one saw me. Assuming no cameras anyway, but there shouldn't be anything like that in the area and I can't exactly walk in the front door in costume. After I get my costume off and change into a more comfortable set of clothes, I lurk in my closet.

What I really want to do is crash asleep on my bed, or at least lay down half-asleep and try to work through my thoughts in a vaguely relaxed way. After the adrenaline rush of the last few hours, I just want to relax... intellectually. Physically, the instant I became the monster again I was rested and recovered, with enough nervous energy that I probably couldn't sleep even if I went through the effort of arranging for that to work. A weird downside to being refreshed and recovered anytime I switch: downtime just isn't a thing with me, even if I'd like it. The closest I can come to real relaxation since I first became the monster is holing up in an enclosed dark space, hence curling up in the closet.

I'm not quite sure how to feel about the fact that recreating the locker incident -admittedly minus the disgusting parts- is soothing. Aren't I supposed to be afraid to experience anything like the original trauma after a terrible event like that?

Getting sidetracked.

This whole thing was weird. Suspicious van, suddenly stop being the monster for... no clear reason... getting dragged in and having emotional whiplash from going so fast from, "Talk. Or else," to, "Oh, understandable."

They never did actually tell me why the PRT van was staked out in this neighborhood. I'm a little spooked. I get operational security, but I also really doubt Lung is one of my neighbors when he's not being a supervillain, or whoever. Maybe they didn't inform me because you just don't share information on an ongoing operation. Fair enough.

Maybe they didn't mention it because I'm the target.

If so... why? They shouldn't know I killed Nilbog, and they didn't even ask. They didn't do that whole, "where were you at Y time the night of Z?" to see if I had an alibi, either. They don't seem to suspect me of killing Nilbog, and if it's not that, then... I haven't done anything else. It couldn't even be in reaction to me visiting Arcadia, the van was already there when I got back, they couldn't have tailed me to set up the van in the right place! If it's not any of that, what is it?

I just can't imagine a reason why they'd be after me, and I find it extraordinarily unlikely that they were after someone else and it was an unfortunate coincidence. Which leaves me with... what?

I'm not even completely convinced it's any kind of clue that I didn't see a replacement van in the area on the way back. If they still want to do a stakeout on me for some reason, they'd be more careful, try to make sure I wouldn't notice anything. For that matter, even if they want to do a stakeout on someone else, they might make an effort to hide it from me better, just to avoid a repeat.

I have no explanation for what just happened. Arguably I have less than nothing.

Ugh.

It idly crosses my mind that precognition could explain some of the mystery here, but... I don't think there's any precogs in Brockton Bay, let alone on the Protectorate's payroll.

Besides, that way lies madness. When you laugh at regular causality anything is possible. It's just not useful to posit that precognition might be involved unless you have a specific individual in mind and a specific plan of action. Ideally, one you're pretty sure their precognition won't tip them off to.

I don't actually have a headache from thinking about this. I have more a conviction that I should have a headache from working myself into knots over this than I do an actual headache or anything resembling one. At the same time, I'm still tired, in some sense, of looping through this nonsense.

I unfold myself from the closet, head downstairs, and boot up the computer again. I browse Parahumans Online until Dad gets home. I don't have a specific plan in mind, though I do keep something of an eye out for anything that looks like it might have to do with Heartbreaker.

 

[Ghoul King]

2.x

Barret Johnson

Being bait sucked.

Not that he'd been told he was bait. What he'd actually been told was that it was his job to handle all aspects of maneuvering the vehicle wherever it might need to go and keeping everyone else informed of anything Miss Militia failed to catch through her scope and that didn't show up on the cameras Armsmaster was very carefully hiding nearby -currently in a civilian disguise with sunglasses (And a fake tan) and loose-yet-comfortable clothing that easily hid the majority of his armor. (No helmet, of course) He was pretending to be the man of the house in a building that was conveniently owned by a PRT employee already. (Johnson didn't know the woman's name. Mary? Milly? Something like that. The rumor mill was that she was perfectly glad to risk her house being trashed in hopes that the it would be trashed so she'd get paid for the damage. She was a secretary? Or maybe she manned the front desk?... Johnson could never remember anybody who wasn't in his squad, a freak, or Director Piggot)

Being bait in a rushed operation sucked worse.

The operation had already been planned to happen, of course, but it was supposed to go down a week later, give or take a few days. (Well. The cameras and directional microphones would've been getting set up even if it weren't being rushed, but it wasn't supposed to be Armsmaster doing it. His time was too valuable to waste on trivialities. Johnson resentfully assumed it would've been his job. Then he found himself wondering what was in the fridge and if he was missing out and decided he resented Armsmaster for getting the job after all) Then one of the mini-freaks had phoned in about suspicious activity at Arcadia and their target had been spotted on camera stalking the halls when they followed up and the bigwigs (ie Piggot) had thrown a shitfit and the whole thing was being rushed and goddammit being bait sucked.

Johnson hated waiting in general, really, but he especially hated waiting as bait for a freak. All he'd been told about the target was that it was, "some kind of Case 53," (So a superfreak) and he shouldn't expect the flashbangs to be effective. Focus on containment foam (Not that Johnson had a tank on him, what with pretending to be a fucking plumber) and try to buy time for Miss Militia to line up her shot. Limit their mobility. Block them with your body if that's all you've got. Maneuver them into a dead-end if you can. Other 'helpful' advice like that.

Johnson knew when the bosses were very carefully not saying, "You're fucked, try not to die."

Bored, scanning the area like a dutiful little soldier (And trying to see if he could identity which skyscraper in the distance Miss Militia was set up on top of with an anti-tank rifle, because that wasn't alarming at all), Johnson saw nothing. He was fine with seeing nothing. Seeing nothing meant the freak wasn't here. Probably. As safe as you could get, really, world being what it was. Not being in clearly imminent danger was the closest thing to safe since the freaks started showing their asshole faces.

's why Johnson had joined the PRT after the Army told him they didn't want him anymore, take a hike. Everybody knew it was the freaks' faults the world sucked so much. Anybody who said different was lying. Really disappointing to learn that he'd be working alongside freaks-

-did something just move?

He squinted hard.

... nothing?

A cat zipped across the street.

Oh. Just a cat. Where was I, again?

Oh, yes. Working alongside freaks. Johnson had been so disappointed to learn that fighting freaks meant fighting with freaks. (Johnson kept a pistol at home, unregistered because it wasn't the government's goddamn business. If he ever became a freak, he was shooting himself in the goddamn head. Fuck that shit) The only good news was he rarely had to talk to or listen to them. Supposedly he outranked them or something, though any idiot knew Armsmaster wasn't going to actually listen if a no-name grunt started talking like they was in charge of the freak, so he didn't know why that was in the rulebooks. Didn't really matter. Piggot did most of the talking to the freaks. Her and whatever sap was manning Console, which Johnson went to great pains to not be assigned to. Ever.

Johnson's head jerked to the side again. He'd definitely seen something, and it wasn't a fucking cat.

A trick he'd learned, useful when he had been in the Service, was to sort of... cross his eyes. Unfocus. He noticed things he didn't notice normally, when he did it. He did that now, and one of the fences caught his eye. A bit of motion, and he realized it wasn't the fence. It was some thing, something huge and blue and tentacle-y and oh jesus fuck this was the freak they were after, wasn't it? God, please let it not be, jesus fuck. Case 53s, they were supposed to be like that metal kid, or the grotesquely ugly kid on the mercenary team. Freaky, but human.

The CGI tinker reconstruction of what this fucking thing looked like had not prepared him for the horrible reality.

Somewhat distantly, he observed himself activating his ear bud and radioing it in, giving directions relative to the truck for double-M to use. Most of his focus was on the freak. Goddamn. It was ugly as sin and just -how had it not drowned itself in horror? Even freaks had shame. Wouldn't wear those stupid costumes if they didn't want to hide their shame from the world.

He kept staring at the horrible freak, sweating a little, waiting for double-M to line up the shot, or for Armsmaster to break out one of his stupid axes and kill the thing, or for Piggot to get on the line and tell them it was a false alarm and they should all go home (Okay, that was pure fantasy. She'd just assign them some other duty, but frankly Console was looking pretty appealing right about now), or hell, for Scion to show up and vaporize the freak. He did that sometimes. Just... flew up, grabbed a freak, and poof! They were dust. Great stuff.

Then the freak disappeared and double-M said, "I have an unknown parahuman in sight. Not the target, I repeat, unknown parahuman, not the target."

What?

Then more alarmingly: "Thinker! They know!" and Piggot got on the line to bark, "Don't let them get away!" and Johnson obligingly hit the button to remotely unlock and open the rear doors and out poured a crew of freak-beaters and then there was a lot of shouting and spraying of containment foam and Johnson was just kind of glad his job was bait and he didn't have to go out and risk facing the horror show freak.

This is where I turn around and it's right behind me, isn't it?

Johnson obligingly turned to look around.

He saw nothing but Armsmaster calmly walking into a civilian car and driving away. Presumably off to get into his freak-clothes at HQ.

Asshole.

--------------------------​

Once the (Different??) freak was loaded into the truck, it was of course Johnson's job to drive them to HQ while the freakbeaters handled the job of watching it for any funny moves.

It was boring. After all that fuss and the anti-tank rifle ready to snipe and just... it was boring.

Johnson had been looking forward to seeing their head pop like a water balloon. Wasn't often the PRT broke out appropriate force. If he was the snooty sort, he'd have planned on breaking out the champagne tonight. As was, he'd been planning on opening an extra beer. (So seven cans, rather than six) But no, they'd foamed the freak. Like usual. God. When were they going to put a bullet through?... anybody's head, really. Make all the difference, show them they aren't above the law, aren't above real people.

Johnson stewed the whole drive, bored and annoyed. The freak in the back didn't do anything, just sat there, still like a statue... it didn't help. He didn't like it. Didn't read like defeat.

It read like plotting.

----------------------​

Johnson had been looking forward to the interrogation. Everybody knew what really went on when the PRT interrogated a freak. Beatings, at the least. But no, even though he'd been a part of the operation, he was the only one relieved from duty -but he couldn't go home yet, because of course he couldn't go home yet. There was a debriefing to attend. But not yet, because everybody else in the operation was attending the interrogation.

So fucking unfair.

Instead Johnson poured himself coffee. Last of the coffee in the break room. Considered refilling it. Decided it was too much effort. Somebody else could handle it.

Johnson sipped his coffee, moodily considering how everything was terrible and it was everyone else's faults, the stupid fuck-ups. Moody and irritable... he decided he could use a beer. Just one to reward himself for putting up with such a crappy day, nobody would notice. He was supposed to be heading home after the debriefing anyway, right? It's not like it was actually against regulations to keep beer in the base. Against regulations to drink on duty, yes, but he was relieved from duty. So it was fine. Obviously. Made perfect sense.

He still glanced around before retrieving a can from his hidden stash. Didn't want an unfortunate misunderstanding if someone stumbled upon him at the wrong moment, yeah?

Aaaaah.

Better.

------------------------​

Johnson was just starting to move from mellowed-out drunk to moody drunk when the debriefing was fucking finally started.

Johnson paused briefly after he walked into the meeting room. Piggot was here. That was ominous by itself. Worse, she had that look. The one where she was pretending like she wasn't in a towering fury.

On the plus side, Arms and double-M were also there. Fr- parahumans always got all the attention. Probably Piggot would yell at them and completely ignore the squad. As she should. Probably their fault anyway. Double-M was supposed to shoot the target. (Johnson ignored the niggling part of his brain reminding him that she was only supposed to do that if the target proved hostile. Of course it was hostile! Nothing so awful could possibly be friendly, and that was a fact) So definitely her fault. Definitely.

Piggot skipped the formalities. That was even more ominous. "Did anything in this operation go right?" Yeah, this was the You Stupid Fuckups voice. Johnson slouched a little. Just a little, else she'd notice him slouching and give him hell. Thankfully her eyes didn't move away from the parahumans at all. Good.

Armsmaster -in full costume now- seemed oblivious to Piggot's tone. "We made non-hostile contact with a new parahuman and, in spite of everything, seem to have made a positive first impression." Double-M nodded a little, though she seemed more aware that the question had been rhetorical. Probably. Could never tell with... parahumans.

Piggot was clearly not amused. After a pause in which she seemed to be trying to kill Armsmaster with her mind, she shifted gears. "From the top."

Things moved fast after that, and Johnson had a hard time following it. It wasn't because he was drunk, because obviously he wasn't. One can of beer did not equal drunk. He was tired. That's all. Mostly Piggot asked the parahumans questions and they answered, starting the story from the call from the Ward. (Vista, apparently. Johnson hadn't known that before)

Then Armsmaster was saying something about, "Agent Johnson called in that he saw the target," and suddenly Piggot's attention was on him rather than the parahumans. Johnson sat up slightly straighter, as best as he could without looking like he was and did his best, "Yes ma'am, no ma'am, I understand ma'am."

He slurred, slightly, but he was pretty sure Piggot didn't notice.

Until she started asking if anyone else had actually seen the target.

... they hadn't, not even the cameras ("I was focused on setting up angles on the target house," says Armsmaster) and now everyone's eyes were on Johnson.

"Agent Johnson, have you been drinking on the job?" came out of the icy pits of hell. (ie Piggot's mouth)

"No ma'am," was his swift, completely honest reply.

Armsmaster frowned and made a motion with his hand, and Piggot's expression went sub-arctic. Johnson tried not to frown, himself. He hadn't been drinking before the operation. Or during it. (Just after it, and that didn't count, right?) How dare they act like he was lying? He was just tired. That's why he was slurring. He was only slurring a little anyway.

Piggot made a slow visual sweep of the room and spoke even more slowly, carefully, controlled. "So no one reliable actually saw the target."

Johnson was offended by the implication that he was unreliable. All his friends called him Reliable Barret! (Well, they would, if he had any friends that weren't his three dogs) Nonetheless, he kept quiet. Piggot wasn't paying attention to him. Maybe she'd go back to blaming the freaks again. Their fault. Definitely their fault.

He ignored how double-M's knife turned into a sub-machine gun. Random, total coincidence.

"Armsmaster." Yes! Piggot was ignoring him again! Safe! (Ignore that she's staring right at you, dude. Coincidence. She's not talking to you, so she's not paying attention to you. Duh)

"Yes, Director?" was Armsmaster's schoolboy-perfect reply. Asshole had probably been a teacher's pet, back in the day.

"Which do you think is more likely. That the target is an astonishingly rapid Changer... or that Johnson made a mistake?" Hey!

"Could be both, ma'am." Piggot nodded slightly at that, seeming unbothered by the smartassery. Then Armsmaster continued with, "However, Monster was as completely honest with us as could be expected under the circumstances and, in particular, informed us that her power doesn't activate when someone can see her." Here he paused, and then continued, his words loaded with import. "Such as if Agent Johnson were to have been looking at her." A shorter pause, and Johnson started sweating. Piggot was still staring at him. "If her power were a Changer or Breaker state that was rendered inactive by being seen, I would expect Agent Johnson to have not seen this state at all," was his concluding statement.

Piggot said, "I see." Johnson didn't like how she said it, and he liked even less how Piggot was still staring at him break eye contact or fucking blink come on!

Then Piggot did turn her attention away from him, and the debriefing continued without further attention paid to Johnson.

Johnson did his best to sigh quietly in relief. For a minute there, he'd thought that he was going to be punished. Silly. He'd done nothing wrong, after all.

The ensuing discussion involved Piggot ordering Armsmaster to apologize to the new freak the next time he encountered her ("Because I know you certainly didn't do it while she was here," to which Armsmaster made an acknowledging nod), a tentative conclusion that maybe Monster was the target but more likely she lived in the same area as the target and this was one of those unfortunate coincidences that happen sometimes, and it was decided that monitoring would continue, but it would be restricted to cameras and directional microphones. If Monster was colluding with the target, she would've tipped the target off and having a truck in the area would be too risky. By a similar token, while double-M was to remain especially ready until the target was taken in or taken out, they weren't going to be placing her in a sniper's nest again. Especially since they weren't 100% sure the target actually lived in the area. It was possible the target had stolen into someone's house and used their computer. Unlikely, but possible. (Armsmaster glanced at Johnson as he said this, and Johnson congratulated himself for successfully resisting the urge to flip the bird)

It slowly dawned on Johnson that they really did think he hadn't seen the target. He got mad, and then he got worried. Maybe he hadn't seen it. All he'd seen was glimpses of something between the fence slats, and there were freaks that could alter your senses and it had abruptly disappeared when everyone else had gone out, like... like something out of a supernatural horror movie or something, one of those things where the lead can see the monsters and everybody else thinks they're crazy and sometimes they are and fuck that Johnson wasn't crazy.

... but maybe, just maybe. Maaaaybe he drank a little too much? Just a little. Drinking could lead to hallucinations, couldn't it? And he did have a stressful job, didn't he?

Johnson decided to stop thinking about that. Existential crises (Not that he actually knew the phrase) were not anything he wanted to give himself nightmares with.

The debriefing ending, and Johnson walked away feeling like he'd gotten away with something.

Then his captain took him aside and said, "Johnson, we need to have a talk about your... habits," and Johnson realized with a sinking feeling that he hadn't gotten away at all.

Johnson blamed the freak whose fault this obviously all was.

The fucker.

 

[Ghoul King]

2.3

After the thing with the PRT/Protectorate, to my surprise I don't see any further sign of monitoring or anything else concerning.

I spend the first night half-expecting a PRT squad to come crashing in through a window, and can't bring myself to actually leave the house. I end up spending pretty much the whole night searching the internet for a shortcut to finding Heartbreaker. I'm depressed, but not surprised, to find nothing so convenient.

I do some thinking about how convenient certain capes' powers would be at shortening this. The problem is that I'd either switch from 'find Heartbreaker' to 'find the villain Proboscis' and also then tack on 'convince the villain Proboscis to help me find Heartbreaker' as an additional difficulty, or they're a Protectorate cape -or a Ward, in a couple of cases- in a far-off city which... well, contacting them probably wouldn't be that hard, but convincing them to help me... I just find myself thinking if it were really that easy, that hero would've already done it. Maybe their powers are blocked by Heartbreaker's power, or maybe the Protectorate just doesn't work that way, or something. I don't know. I kind of don't care. It's a dead end, is the point. I'm certainly not in a position to hire one of the rogues selling tracking services, not at the rates they charge.

So I give up and for the next six nights I manually comb Toronto. It's slow, tedious, it has me half-tempted to give up and chase down some other horrible monster... but most of the others in the world are more mobile, way harder to kill, both, or just too far away for me to realistically reach. Some of them I'm not even sure it's appropriate to kill them. Moord Nag sounds really really horrible, but Africa as a whole is so bad I have to wonder how much of that is 'Moord Nag is a monster' and how much is 'Africa is so bad if you're not a monster you're dead'.

I resign myself to combing the city for the next few months and keeping an eye on PHO for rumors during the day where possible. Not really what I want to do, not really what I itch to do, but whatever. I actually try for a grid search pattern initially, but give it up almost immediately because I can't keep street names straight, can't correctly anticipate how long any given chunk of the city will take to search, and on the second night it crossed my mind I could all too easily search an area, tell myself done, and then Heartbreaker moves into that area while I waste time searching the rest of the city. After I have that thought I just wander at random, with a vague attempt made to not retrace my footsteps too consistently.

​

I go back to school, and things are quiet the first day, with nothing more than three shoves, two incidents of talking about me 'behind my back', and once Emma loudly implying I was too stupid to answer a question on the blackboard. I knew it wouldn't last, but it let me get through the day. The rest of the week is variations on the usual, spiked by enough surprises I can never quite block it all out, also as usual, but I'm at least relieved the quiet period doesn't continue: they're not building up to something worse. In a way, the dull tedium of searching Toronto at night is a relief. In another way it's just one more layer of torment, but self-inflicted.

On the seventh night I get lucky.

---------------------------​

I'm surprised. I'd vaguely assumed Heartbreaker was an achingly beautiful prettyboy, the kind of guy other girls swoon over while I'm thinking I thought you girls were into men? With a name like Heartbreaker and the way he uses his powers... well. It seemed the obvious inference.

He's... kind of ugly, actually. His arms are hairy enough to make a bear envious, his face has this squashed quality that has me legitimately wondering if whoever delivered him as a baby put too much pressure on his head, and he has an odd scar running down the right side of his face. It's not an attractive/cool scar, either, just an ugly line that creates the illusion of having an overly large, unsettlingly shaped cheek, as if his cheek has or is a cancerous growth. He's also obviously out of shape. He's not fat exactly, but he has the kind of flabbiness you see on people who don't exercise enough, like their skin is just a little too large for their body.

If you look past all that, yeah, he's got the foundations of a nice look, with a lantern jaw, pretty eyes, the most amazing hair I've ever seen outside of a movie, and the suggestion he used to be very fit... but in a way it just exaggerates the ugly parts, making them seem hideous in contrast. On a more average man, they wouldn't stand out so sharply. On him, it's like finding diarrhea staining your five-star hotel room's silken bed.

The ugliness is what makes me certain it's him. He's got two attractive, shallow-seeming young women with him, one hanging on him like he's the most important thing in the world (While she's got perfect makeup, a fashionista dress that can't possibly be keeping her warm enough for Canadian winter, and hair only marginally less amazing than his) while the other maintains a running chatter walking just behind him. Even though he looks like the kind of guy that girls who dress like that usually openly laugh at, he swaggers like this is just the way the world works, nothing unusual about it... but he doesn't carry himself like he's moneyed. Frankly, his clothing is... not the worst thing I've ever seen, but it's hillbilly chic, not rich man casual. He could be a rich hillbilly I guess, but the group isn't acting like he's rich. For one thing, they're not even glancing at the storefronts they pass by.

Maybe I'd have passed right over him if I wasn't specifically looking for Heartbreaker. I'm not sure. Here and now, though, the whole thing rings false, easier to explain with parahuman abilities than by imagining the women aren't shallow or assuming the man brings something unseen to the table, like a winning personality. Plus... his gaze keeps lingering overly long on other women, quite blatantly, yet the woman draping herself over him isn't reacting at all. I think the girl behind him rolls her eyes sometimes, but I'm not completely sure. I don't have a good angle.

I want to get close enough to listen to them, to get confirmation that yes, this is Heartbreaker, and I'm not sure how. I'm lucky in the first place that we're in a part of the city where the buildings are short enough I can make out individual faces while stalking around on the roofs, but I'm still too far away to hear people as more than the noise of crowds, and there's no way I'm going down in costume. I'm also not going to stash my costume and go on foot. The cold is horrible when I revert to Taylor mid-jump, and that's with the costume over winter clothing. (I honestly can't believe drape-girl isn't freezing to death) Besides, I'd risk losing them in the process... and risk being unable to find my costume (Such as it is) afterward, to boot. I've only been combing the city for a week, I'm not that familiar with it.

So I stalk them by rooftop, frustrated. After a couple of blocks I realize they're heading toward downtown, which is... well. Shit. I might lose them outright, unable to follow them by rooftop. Too much risk of killing myself if I try to clamber along the windowsills and other ledges, and there are parts of downtown where it's all smooth glass, like they're asking for Shatterbird to ruin their city.

I'm relieved when, at the next corner, the girl behind him gets his attention, they stop and talk for a minute, and then they turn right, toward suburbs and apartment complexes.

Over the course of three long, slow blocks the buildings get shorter, but they also move away from the road, transitioning into commercial zones with parking between the buildings and the sidewalk. Thankfully, traffic is less dense too, both car traffic and foot traffic, and I start catching bits and pieces of the trailing girl's chatter. Nothing useful, though I notice with a chill that she sounds very... teenager-y, with phrases like ohmygawd and like, yeah. I double-check for a cell phone, half-hoping she's his daughter being dragged along, chattering on a cell phone rather than one of his victims, not to mention half-hoping this isn't Heartbreaker at all. I don't see a cell phone.

Fucking Heartbreaker.

Her monologue falters for a moment, and then picks up louder than ever. She has a smile like the proverbial cat that ate the canary, suddenly. She was smiling earlier, yes, but it was different, in some way I can't fully quantify. Odd. I take a risk and leap soundlessly into one of the bigger trees a bit ahead of them. Thankfully, none of them seem to have noticed, possibly-Heartbreaker not looking like he's paying attention to anything, drape-girl paying attention to nothing but him, and chatterbox apparently too absorbed in her one-sided conversation.

"... two, maybe three relationships close enough that they might miss her, and they read long-distance to me, probably parents she talks with on the phone or maybe by email or Skype, I can't find reciprocal people in the city. I don't think she's close enough to any of them that they'll find a sudden change alarming if they even notice it at all, though there was the incident with the stalker a couple years back so you shouldn't assume anything, and her coworkers find her a combination of boring and creepy. She's got self-esteem issues like crazy, convinced she's not that attractive, but guys and some girls disagree fairly frequently, she probably dresses ugly and hasn't even noticed it, she doesn't feel to me like she's in poor health, anyway. She's not a spender, too conservative, probably has some money saved up from her job even though her job doesn't pay well."

If I had a human face, I'd be frowning. What am I hearing here? She's talking like this is someone she knows personally and extensively, like she knows this girl -this woman?- better than they know their self, but... if she did, she'd know whether they dress ugly or not, wouldn't she?

"So daddy, she joining the 'harem' or not?" She says harem with air quotes -as in she literally does the air quotes thing with her fingers- and with a light tone like someone joking. Well. Glad to hear she's not one of his girls.

He grunts, mumbles something I can't really make out, and then says a bit more loudly, "I've told you before, don't talk about it like that outside." They're passing under the tree. I'm pretty sure that's the only reason I heard him at all, he's a lot quieter than the chatterbox. Also: holy shit. His voice is like someone bottled... I dunno, something sexy. And then concentrated it. And then concentrated that. And this what he sounds like when he's annoyed, holy shit, I would buy tapes of him just nattering on about anything, why is this guy not doing porn or even on the radio or something, holy shit. I try to imagine what he'd sound like if he were trying to ooze sex appeal, and my brain blows a fuse.

Suddenly I have an idea of why drape-girl's head is laying on his shoulder, ear almost touching his jaw, awkward pose be damned.

Looking contrite in a very fake looking way -wait, shit, they've gotten to the other side, I can't see their faces anymore, they're going to be out of my hearing soon- the chatterbox apologetically says, "Sorry daddy, I forget sometimes it's supposed to be a secret, the way we live."

He grunts again, which thankfully doesn't provoke that absurd response from me, and then grumbles out something I can't make out but sounds like it might be, "Don't do it again." Gooodddd I am tempted to follow him just to hear him grumble moodily some more.

Oh wait, I'm following him anyway. Right. Okay. Awesome. I have a good excuse! Reason.

That.

I wait until there's a decent gap in the foot traffic (It's not a long wait -not many people are interested in braving the chill past sundown, I've noticed, not on foot anyway) and then return to the rooftops to resume stalking him. If I'm a little less careful about staying out of sight... well, he's probably Heartbreaker. I can't risk losing track of him.

-------------------------​

Eventually probably-Heartbreaker goes to a second-story apartment and knocks on the door. I'm watching from a roof on the other side of the street, and the street is a little too loud for me to hear the exact words, but a woman answers the door, rubbing sleep out of her eyes, and then shock and joy explodes across her face and she kisses him and urges him in, acting like he's an old friend she hasn't seen in ages. I want to say she's a little glassy eyed, reminding me somehow of drape-girl, but at this distance it's hard to say.

I also notice, wishing it would produce a cold knot in my stomach, that she essentially ignores drape-girl and chatterbox. The latter? Sure, makes sense. Chatterbox waves goodbye, talking about going home, and wanders off, humming to herself with obnoxious cheer. Her smile takes on a different character when the door closes, though, and I start to wonder if maybe she's not got such a good relationship to dear old dad. But drape-girl comes in with probably-Heartbreaker and draws zero commentary. For that matter, she doesn't react to the other woman being kissed.

Found you.

My first impulse is to leap to the street, break down the door, and charge in to kill him, but I rein it in. I'd rather sneak up on and assassinate the man rather than risking him noticing me and Mastering me. For that matter, being seen by him is a problem, even if he doesn't do anything to me. The monster can kill Heartbreaker. Taylor -the girl, don't make that mistake- the girl can't kill Heartbreaker. Hm. Maybe I should correct that. A knife? A gun? No, getting distracted. What I need to do is find a way into the apartment, ideally a window that's open. It doesn't even need to be wide open, I'm surprisingly thin as the monster: no part other than the head is much thicker around than the girl's arms.

Hey, I actually remembered to not think of it as Taylor.

Wait, getting distracted. Focus.

I jump across the street, wince at how I briefly turn into Ta- the girl at the apex of my flight, and land on the apartment's roof. Carefully, as the roof is sloped and tiled so if I turn back abruptly this could go bad places fast, crawling as low as I can in part to try to avoid being seen and turned into the girl again, I check the windows I'm pretty sure are attached to the apartment I saw Heartbreaker enter. They're both closed and locked. I make my way to the front door, find myself the girl again, try to turn the knob. Locked. Damn. I'd hoped they'd forgotten. Then I'm the monster again. I back up, check under the welcome mat covered in snow. No, there's not an extra key under it. I look around, spy some potted plants. Potted plants in Canadian winter? Who does that? They're obviously dead, anyway. None of them is hiding a key, not under the pot, not under the dirt.

I leap back onto the roof before anybody spots me again. I don't need people calling up the local PRT office -and there is one in Toronto- and derailing this assassination.

I have a sudden brainwave when I notice one of those raised-up little window things you see on roofs sometimes. I didn't pay attention to it earlier, but maybe...

The window opens easily, not locked or otherwise proofed from being opened from the outside. Yes. I slip into the attic, pink insulation material lining it.

I've always wondered why the stuff is pink.

Anyway.

I stalk around, trying to be quiet. This has always been easy as the monster, more so than I'd expect for how large it is, but I don't want to produce any sound. I'm inordinately grateful that my night vision is so good as the monster, as it makes it drastically easier to spot and avoid loose foil, weak-looking planks of wood, or anything else that might produce noise when stepped on. Even so, I tip-toe, never taking more than one limb off the ground at a time so I never have more weight than necessary on my limbs. After a fair amount of searching, I spot a door in the floor, one of those staircase things that's weighted so it goes up and down smoothly, I never understood the mechanics of it. I creep my way toward it, tamping down my excitement. I need to remain quiet. A single mistake could net me a fate worse than death... or at least fail me this operation and get Heartbreaker to put his guard up. This is my best chance.

I very cautiously push down on one end, slowly increasing the pressure until I finally feel it moving. It takes rather more pressure than I'd expected. Nonetheless, it does go. This would be where I'd breathe a sigh of relief as T- the girl. I'd worried this would be another dead end. After all, attic doors don't have to be designed to accessed from inside the attic. Certainly not designed so the monster can open them. After a long, slow, torturous minute, I have the staircase down to its fully unfolded position.

Now I can hear them.

Great.

That's... great.

I take the staircase down to the hallway, taking in everything. Out toward the front, where I can still hear them ugh, there's a living room or something. On one side of this hallway, there's a bathroom, toilet facing the door. The other side looks to be a bedroom, currently dark and unused. The end of the hallway is... I'm guessing a closet? I make my way toward it, slowly, quietly, and slowly open it, glad that it's already open a crack.

Yes, it's a closet.

I slowly push the closet door back into its just-barely-cracked-open position. I sneak, very slowly out toward the main area. I poke my head out, just barely, out around the corner toward the noises, as close to the ground as I can get.

I conclude that there is no way I'm sneaking up on the three of them. Also, ew. Ew ew ew. Really? Why would you- how- that can't possibly be enjoyable! For either of them!

... can it?

No, never mind. Focus. The important part: I'm not sneaking up on them as the monster. That's... unfortunate, though I'll admit the thought of killing Heartbreaker in the middle of... that... leaves me feeling kind of scummy, so I'm not entirely unhappy with having a reason to not do so.

I need a different plan. I don't want to wait until he leaves. For all I know he'll do something like call one of his women to pick him up. For whatever reason he's only got two women with him, neither of whom are armed or anything -I was pretty sure earlier just because drape-girl wasn't dressed to hide a knife or a gun or anything, but I'm completely certain now- and... probably neither of them is a parahuman? I think he doesn't grab parahumans?

Shit, I forget. I might be mixing him up with one of the other targets. Shit.

No, never mind, they haven't noticed me, I just need to... isolate him. Even if they have powers, that's all I need.

... I find myself glancing at the bathroom.

I think I have a plan.

--------------------​

Way the hell too much time later, I've gotten the attic door closed back up, quietly, except it thumped at the end and I'd have winced but none of them reacted so it's fine, and I crept into the bedroom, unlatched the window and slid it open a little just in case, and tilted the bedroom door mostly closed. Thankfully, it didn't creak. Now I'm positioned to peek through the gap as invisibly as possible.

And then I wait.

And wait.

And wonder if I can turn off my sense of hearing as the monster, because uuuuugh, but no, I can't, or at least I can't find the metaphorical off switch. It does get me wondering about my other senses -do I even have taste as the monster? I don't have smell, can I turn that on? Can I turn off my vision?- which provides a few minutes of distraction, but is otherwise not terribly productive. Alas. About the only positive thought I have is at least the monster can hold still well. This would be so much worse if I had to actively fight against fidgeting. I find myself idly thinking how it's sort of interesting, in a fucked-up way, how a man who, going by his looks, probably struggled with getting women to talk to him at all got a power that let him skip the wooing process entirely.

The noises stop. Again. Not the first time they've paused, I'm barely paying attention, trying to hum a rhyme to myself, which is difficult without vocal chords. I snap out of it when I hear Heartbreaker say something in that ridiculous voice of his, followed by footsteps coming my way. When he enters my line of sight yes he's going into the bathroom! Also, he's naked. I'm not surprised exactly, but I was kind of hoping he wouldn't be. I imagine there are teenage girls who wish they got to see him from this view. Wait, distracted, stop it. Only question is...

... yes! He's not sitting down or even bothering to close the door!

Hooray for men being lazy, inconsiderate jerks everywhere!

I slowly push the door open until it's open enough I can walk out smoothly. Then I jolt forward and stab into Heartbreaker's head and chest a dozen times before he can even cry out in pain.

I wait a minute, eyeing the corpse, half-expecting him to laugh it off. Nobody's ever backed Heartbreaker into a corner before. Maybe he's got regeneration or something. When he slides a little I jolt in surprise and stab him another two dozen times... and then realize all that happened was the corpse was settling. I think some blood got under it somewhere and it slipped?

At this point the body looks like an animal savaged it, which is... not exactly wrong, I guess. The monster certainly isn't human.

I did it? I drift for a minute. Killing Nilbog was hard and I nearly died and I keep expecting Heartbreaker to have a surprise, I keep waiting for things to go wrong like they did with Nilbog. It can't be this easy. But I guess it is? Nilbog did have an entire city of creatures at his beck and call, while Heartbreaker was... I guess he really was just a man when you ignore his Master ability.

I feel weird, like I'm elated but in a very dry, analytical way. I feel good, but not heady.

Well.

Mission accomplished.

Now I just have to hope his effect breaks with his death.

(I very carefully do not think about the possibility that I just killed an innocent man rather than Heartbreaker)

 

[Ghoul King]

2.4

Lingering over Heartbreaker's body, a voice comes up behind me unexpectedly, a silky voice promising something. I turn, suddenly remembering the two women, but the silky voice turns into a shriek and then another scream joins it and-

vast many ancient powerful

Destination. Agreement.

closing in on a continent, the northern part, cold, snow, local structure, target, female

-wha

buh

Somebody is beating my head against the ground repeatedly. Lift, smash, lift, smash. I can't think. My vision is swimming. Everything is dark. I remember, disjointedly, that I have a helmet, that it's why everything is dark. The smashing continues. The person, it's a woman, screaming unendingly I can't even tell when she stops to breathe is she stopping to breathe she must be why is she naked oh, oh right, it's Heartbreaker's girl, the new one, the one that lives here. I like her hair. It's dark and curly and long. I want hair like that.

Wait. I have hair like that. I like it. It's my best feature. Why does someone have my hair??

I'm angry, suddenly, my thoughts all over the place, and I bring my right arm up in a clumsy motion intended to be a punch. It ends up being something more like popping her in the chin with my open palm. I have difficulty believing it hurts her, but she pulls her hands off of my neck -oh, oh right, I was having trouble breathing, I didn't even notice- and one hand goes to where I hit her while the other rears back, forms a fist, and smacks the front of my helmet, which bounces my skull off the ground. It still hurts a little less what she was doing earlier.

I notice I can taste blood. Everything tastes like vomit. I don't feel any vomit. I don't smell any vomit. Everything still tastes like vomit, and blood, and metal and it's like the locker all over again and I shriek and headbutt the woman so hard everything goes black for a few seconds and there's a crack and I'm worried it's my helmet, but I can hear her muffled, distorted crying and some clinical part of my brain declares broke her nose and that's fine, that's good, that means my helmet is safe, my identity is safe, I'm good.

Once I can see again, I punch her in an eye. I notice I'm shaking. I remember, all of a sudden, that she's a victim and I shouldn't be attacking her. It's not her fault. It's Heartbreaker's fault. I should kill him.

Wait.

I already did that.

So it's not his fault.

I rise to my feet and absently kick her in the ribs, stumble into a wall. Then I remember something. It's important. I should be the monster. I double-check: she is covering her face and her eyes are closed.

I should be the monster. Why am I not the monster. Why am I hurting and bleeding and I need to kill Heartbreaker and no wait I already did that and I kick the woman again and she says something in probably French and cries and curls up into a ball and I decide that's that but I'm still not the monster. The world tilts crazily, and that clinical part of my brain from earlier decides to be a smartass and tell the rest of my brain that this is obviously a concussion. I retort and how would you know what a concussion feels like and then it's smug and I have a moment of almost-lucidity that I am arguing with my own brain, that parts of my brain are arguing with other parts and not in a normal way where I'm being indecisive but like they are talking and emoting and I have a concussion and I need to become the monster so I can fix that.

I turn toward the door, intending to leave, become the monster, make everything better, and there is a thing there, it's my locker, it has eyes and teeth and faces, it speaks in Emma's voice with Sophia's angry growl just behind it and even Madison's chirpy smirky faux-innocent attitude somewhere in there and somehow the faceless, voiceless mass of all the students and all the teachers and the principle and the police and everyone else that has never cared is in there and it's bleeding, no it's not bleeding it's menstruating, but it's all dry and old and crusty and molded and there are things and it wants to hug me and I recoil from the thing and I trip over the woman and crack my skull on the floor again and a loopy part of me cheerfully comments now my concussion has a concussion, that'll take it out of commission! and a violent urge to vomit takes over and I vomit into my helmet and everything is the locker, I can't escape, I'm trapped, no one is coming for me and I'm going to die and I need to get out scrabbling against the door it clicks it never clicked it slides it opens I'm free

and then I'm falling and everything is cold and I hit snow with a muffled crunch and I can't feel my left arm no wait it is made of pain everything about it is pain, but I need to escape the locker is here, the locker is after me and I lurch to my feet, ignoring the shouts of alarm around me, and glance, on impulse, up and the locker is in the window above me, watching me, preparing to chase me and I run and I run until

finally

finally I am the monster in an alleyway.

I lurch to the nearest rooftop, orient myself using downtown's spires as my reference point, and then run toward Brockton Bay.

I don't stop running until I'm home.

--------------------
​

After I've climbed in through my window, I grab my hand mirror, head into the bathroom, lock the door, start the shower, and stand under the running water for I-don't-know-how-long, trying to tell myself that, whatever I saw, it wasn't real, the locker is at school, I wasn't in school, I was in another city in another country, lockers don't stalk people. I idly examine myself in the mirror, half-distracting myself half just... I'm looking at myself, I need to be to be Taylor, the girl, whatever, and if I'm looking at myself of course I'm going to notice things. Half-that.

The helmet is cracked, the visor has big chunks missing from it, the remaining plastic is razor-sharp and some of it is probably in a position to end up taking a bite out of my face if things flop around, which of course they will with my acrobatic tendencies. I resign myself to the idea that the helmet is a wash, which I'm not happy about because I don't have the money to buy a new one, even if it's also used, and I really don't want my identity on display, so I need to replace it. Maybe I'll replace it with one of my scarves. That works for Miss Militia. Of course, she's approachable, and friendly, and heroic.

Maybe not a scarf.

It takes distressingly long for it to dawn on me that there's almost no blood staining the helmet and blanket. There's some on the forehead of the helmet, and a few spots on the blanket, which I set to work scrubbing as furiously as I can with one hand while the other holds the hand mirror, but I distinctly recall things being a lot worse. Well. Distinctly is... not the word to use. Everything was a blur when it was actually happening. My memory of it isn't going to be something better than a blur.

Didn't I vomit? I can't find any vomit stains. Did I imagine that too?

What actually happened?

Dad knocks on the door and asks me if I'm all right, startling me. I hope he didn't hear the blanket shifting. Or pay any attention to the sound of plastic hitting the floor as the visor loses a couple more pieces. I take off the helmet, carefully, to avoid him hearing my voice being distorted by it, and call out, "Nightmares." Which... is maybe even true, in a way. (It's not real) Silence for a minute, except for running water, and then I can hear him walking off.

I breathe a sigh of relief.

Then I giggle, struck by the thought that I wanted to sigh in relief several times over the night and physically couldn't.

When the giggling doesn't stop after thirty seconds I start panicking, try to stop giggling, giggle harder, panic harder.

Finally I drop the hand mirror, I'm not even sure how intentional it was, I want to think it was but I don't know, and I'd wince when I hear glass cracking and falling out of the mirror but I'm the monster, I'm calm, I'm not giggling, I'm not feeling like I should be giggling and only not giggling because I'm the monster, I'm calm, the monster doesn't have anything to wince with.

I guess I could cringe. I could cringe.

Should I cringe? Is that, like, a thing I should be training myself to do, or- no, no one can see the monster, cringing for their benefit doesn't make sense. I mean, I guess if I'm being filmed...

It crosses my mind that I'm not actually entirely stable, monstrous healing or no. Is the monster concussed, somehow?

Did the monster become concussed when I was shot in Ellisburg?

Wait, no, I healed aft-

"Taylor! Are you all right?!" I suddenly realize Dad is calling me. Has been calling me. He heard the mirror drop hard and crack loudly, came running, he knocked on the door, and I was ruminating on the monster's body language, or really its lack, and- I really should answer him.

I'm fine Dad, nothing important, I'm not cut or anything.

... it takes me longer than I care to admit to notice that I didn't actually say anything. It takes still longer, Dad still asking me if I'm alright, to remember that I'm the monster, and have no vocal chords, and I need to correct that if I want to say anything. I lean toward one of the larger pieces of glass, idly noticing smaller ones going down the drain and wondering if that will be a problem, and the instant I can see my reflection I grab it, ignore how one edge bites into my hand -it will heal, everything heals- and call out, "I just dropped a-" wait shit a what, what did I drop, I wouldn't have a hand mirror in the shower, "-a-" shit there's nothing glass in here wait I know

I drop my glasses to the floor and then step on them. crunch

There's a moment where I'm anticipating pain, trying to figure out why I'm anticipating pain, and then I realize I don't wear boots into the shower normally and I'm still in my costume. I feel stupid. I didn't actually realize my boots would protect me, I forgot I was wearing them, I just got lucky.

"-uh, my glasses and they got broken".

Then I realize I've just destroyed one of my two pairs of glasses.

Why did I do this to myself.

Dad asks me if I'm alright and I assure him I'm fine, I haven't been cut and I'll clean it up myself, I have another pair, and anyway we'll need to replace them soon anyway, the prescription is getting out of date, which is reasonably true. We probably would've waited two or three months to replace them, but they are getting a little blurry.

I resent, just a little, that my miracle healing doesn't fix my eyes.

I scoop up the glass and the rest of the hand mirror, taking care more because I don't want to accidentally become the monster than because I'm concerned about cutting myself on the glass. I'm only half-paying attention to Dad, I can tell he's not really reassured, but he's not willing to press me on the topic and he really does need to get to sleep, since he has work in the morning, so functionally this conversation is over. I'm relieved. Now I won't have to figure out how to hide the costume.

Well. I don't need to sneak it past Dad, anyway.

--------------------------------------​

It's six in the morning by the time I've hidden the ruined helmet in the basement, gotten the blanket through the washer and into the dryer, and put the boots away... and thrown all the glass and glass-related stuff into a trash can. Except for one shard, large-ish and not overly sharp. I keep that, hide it where the monster can pull it out readily enough in my bedroom, as a temporary solution.

So. Now I need a new hand mirror, a new something for covering my head, and I need to be more careful with my glasses. In fact, maybe I should stop taking my glasses out with me in costume? I'm... well, I'm painfully blind without them, but I spend most of my time as the monster. It's not necessarily unacceptably problematic for me to have bad vision as the girl, is it?

... if I'm completely honest with myself, it really is unacceptable. My vision is dangerously bad without glasses. ugh

I unwind in front of the computer, absently surfing PHO for... anything, really. I'm still jittery. If I could sleep, I would, just to get some distance, mentally, emotionally, whatever, from this night. I have a moment where I'm considering looking up if Heartbreaker's fate has been announced or anything, but I the walls closing in feel sick at the thought of reminding myself of what happened.

I decide to read lighter stuff, like parahumans talking about cool/funny uses of their powers, non-combat uses. Somehow this transitions into me watching videos of stuff exploding, stuff not exploding that you'd expect to explode, and testing the seaworthiness of a boat made of duct tape. It sinks, but not as quickly as I expect.

I find myself wondering if the monster can swim. Does it float? It doesn't seem to breathe... I should test that.

I'm taken out of distracting myself by Dad waking up, the day starting up. I decide to start breakfast. Then I realize I don't have my hand mirror, and I don't want Dad walking in on me holding a chunk of broken glass while cooking. I... don't know what he'd think was going on, but I can't imagine it would be good.

When I hear the shower start up, I head off to start breakfast, relieved I have a few minutes.

-----------------------------​

I end up using a particularly reflective pan, until I hear Dad coming down. I also set his plate down at the kitchen table such that he'll be facing the stove when he sits down. Once Dad makes his way down the stairs, I put the pan away, quietly, and a bit awkwardly given I'm trying to not just drop it by turning into the monster in the process, and then I have to close the cabinet door without slamming it or cutting it. You'd think there'd be more reflective objects in a kitchen.

Breakfast is awkward. Dad asks about the nightmare waking me up. I'm vague, because I'm not talking about the locker. Dad gets the memo, backs off, and makes a face like a kicked puppy.

I hate that face.

At least the pancakes were good.

--------------------------------​

I go to school, but only by bargaining with myself. I tell myself I will treat myself to ice cream if I make it the whole day. (Never mind that I'm already concerned about my funds) If I don't make it to 12 o'clock, I will punish myself: I will watch Uber and Leet's videos all night, instead of doing something useful, productive, or enjoyable with the time.

It doesn't go the way I want.

I'm twitchy, and Emma picks up on it. Her usual ploys are replaced with deliberately making sudden sounds behind me, or sudden motion at the corner of my vision.

I flinch and whirl toward the sound or jerk my head toward the motion every time. In short order all of my tormentors are following in Emma's footsteps.

It doesn't take long for even the students that normally ignore me to be laughing in response to me twitching, jerking, whirling.

Teachers shush the class when too much of the class erupts into laughter at the same time, but they don't tell people to stop messing with me. They don't even tell me to stop being a disruption. (This has happened. I have fantasized about killing the teachers, and then locked those thoughts away) They just ignore the whole thing.

By 10:40 I'm glancing at the clock constantly, desperately wanting the momentary relief lunch would bring. Naturally, Sophia picks up on the fact that I care about the time, and seems to somehow infer that I specifically care about 12 o'clock, and the pressure ramps up, and keeps ramping up. To my surprise, it's not physical: she doesn't push me, kick me, trip me, or 'accidentally' bump into me. Instead she does things like abruptly call out to a friend from right behind me when I was sure there was no one there. On an abstract, unemotional level, I'm kind of impressed at how skilled she is at this. I'd sort of assumed Sophia was a jerk jock sort of person, getting by more on athletic ability than intelligence, but she is by far the most effective of my tormentors at finding the exact right moment to freak me out, finding my blind spot, knowing exactly where the very edge of my vision is and having something flash suddenly right at that edge, like I just saw light glinting off of a knife, but it's always a metal pen or the rings of a notebook or something else innocent when I twitch to look, and she maintains this constantly, with a very faint smirk, not even looking my way.

At 11:46 I'm glancing at the clock when something goes BANG! right behind me.

I burst into tears and run home without even checking what actually happened.

--------------------------​

Halfway home I realize I left my backpack underneath my desk. I dully resign myself to getting it and everything in it back... in ruins.

 

[Ghoul King]

2.5

The afternoon is me brooding and Dad pretending he didn't get a call from school about me missing the latter portion of my day. I know he got that call, because the answering machine took it before he got home and I didn't delete it.

The night is spent on my self-punishment. Training doesn't work if you aren't consistent, even if the thing you're training is yourself.

To my surprise, watching Uber and Leet is cathartic. Behavior I'd condemned with disgust before makes me feel better, somehow, makes life seem a little less awful. Even kidnapping Miss Militia as 'Princess Daisy' doesn't provoke my ire. (Puzzlement at how they didn't get shot, maybe, but not anger or disgust) I laugh, even if I have no idea who 'Princess Daisy' is.

(A quick search shows that it's an obscure Nintendo character, supposedly somewhat less obscure on Earth Aleph, whom is basically the better-known Princess Peach with a different color scheme, including brown skin)

A thought nags at me as I watch.

Why aren't they in prison?

The thought is initially an absent curiosity, something sitting in the back of my head as I watch Armsmaster ignore the pair making off with bags filled with candy to instead grab one of Leet's inventions. It's not even an urgently threatening device -just an anti-gravity badge Uber lost in the scuffle.

Increasingly I feel like I'm missing something, watching Velocity prioritize getting the mayor to safety over running the pair down, Miss Militia breaking out a bazooka that... launches a net, which Leet proceeds to cut his way out of with an oversized sword. (What is with his hair in this video?) I don't even know what to make of the one where Uber, Leet, and a mob of hires are all in white masks and mostly in red robes, Uber in a white outfit issuing orders from a "tank" mounting a giant lightbulb that seems to hurl lightning... really ineffectual lightning. It stuns people briefly, but it doesn't seem to cause any real harm, just immobilizing them for a few seconds.

I don't get it. Uber and Leet are villains... they're jokes... they're alone in Brockton Bay, aside from occasionally hiring other people to play secondary roles in a skit. They don't have muscle. They're not subtle, their escapes usually leave an obvious trail.

I feel like I do when I have a word on the tip of my tongue, only it's that I can't complete a thought.

I stop at 5 in the morning, only three or four videos behind their latest escapade, and head outside, intending to do... I'm not sure what, exactly.

I promptly have a heart attack as the monster when a cat meows behind me.

School is not happening today. I console myself with the thought that this is Thursday night/Friday morning. I'll have a couple of days to calm down where I won't be missing school.

Things will be better by Monday.

They have to be.

-----------------------------​

The morning is awkward again. I claim that I didn't get enough sleep, that I might be coming down with something. Dad leans forward, looking at me over his glasses, and agrees, in a mild tone of voice, that I look like crap. He calls the school to let them know I'll be staying home sick for the day.

I assume he's colluding with me until I get a look at myself in the bathroom mirror after he's left and see the dark circles under my eyes.

Becoming the monster for a minute doesn't make them go away. I actually try to lay down and sleep on the couch, relying on the TV's reflective screen to keep me from becoming the monster, but I don't feel tired and I don't fall asleep. In fact, I have trouble holding still, and have to fight against an urge to turn around, knowing I'd become the monster if I face away from the TV.

I give up in frustration after an hour, going by the clock.

So. I look tired, or maybe sick, but I can't sleep. I also don't actually feel tired or sick.

Great.

I get back on the computer and pull up my targets document.

Making the world a better place
By Taylor Hebert

Assignment premise: if you could make ten changes to make the world a better place, what would they be? Explain your reasoning.

1:

2: Kill the Three Blasphemies.

3: Kill the Slaughterhouse Nine. (How?)

4: Kill Heartbreaker. Sniper? How does his power work, exactly? Range?

5: Kill the Sleeper? (Risking provoking him?)

6: Kill Ashbeast? (Too human?)

7: Kill Lung. (Killable?)

8: Kill Kaiser/break E88. (Is there a hideout?)

9:

10:

I notice I haven't removed Heartbreaker. I absentmindedly do so and save the document. Then I stare for ten minutes at the screen, trying to think of research I could be doing or similar. When I catch myself following the way a stray hair curlicues, reflected in the monitor, I decide this isn't going anywhere and close the document. I hop online, and start digging around for... I dunno. Stuff.

Eventually I realize I'm trying to follow up on why aren't Uber and Leet in prison? On impulse, I type exactly that into the search engine. I'm not really surprised to not find an official answer, but I am surprised to find unofficial answers. I'm not the only one asking this question. There's a lot of different ask/answer cases online, most of the answers unhelpful/opinionated stuff like, "The Protectorate doesn't do their jobs," or, "Uber and L33t are too awesome to be caught!" but there's a also a number of answers claiming that they're protected by an invisible code or a gentleman's agreement or... the framing differs, but the idea keeps cropping up that there's the regular laws, and then there's another set of rules when it comes to capes, a set not in any books.

One of these answers points to the Endbringer Truce as an example of 'cape rules'.

I go digging into the Endbringer Truce. I've heard of it, but never paid much attention to it. The gist of what I turn up is: the Endbringer Truce started out as an informal, unspoken policy among parahumans when Endbringers attacked, with Behemoth's first attack provoking local capes to close ranks against him as it became obvious he wasn't something any one of them could take, and afterward local heroes were unwilling to pursue villains that had participated in the defensive action. Conversely, villains who had taken advantage of the chaos to advance their own agendas were met with retribution -there's rumors Lightspoke and Rain of Pain actually teamed up to deal with offenders, but no concrete proof exists, and I get the impression nobody is all that interested in finding such proof. It became official-unofficial PRT policy, and then at Director Costa-Brown's urging it became official-official PRT policy, with details hammered out like what the grace period was, what constituted taking advantage of an Endbringer attack, etc, and eventually a modified version of Costa-Brown's basic proposal actually became international policy, signed by every member of the UN and pretty much every other country that isn't a technicality, a warzone with no stable leadership, or North Korea. The international version is more focused on the behavior of countries than with parahumans, setting a grace period in which it is forbidden to attack or declare war on a country sufficiently devastated by an Endbringer attack, penalties for not suspending an ongoing war directly affected by an Endbringer attack, rules requiring all signing nations to have a standing army ready to move to punish violations of the Truce at all times, but there are rules more specific to capes and dealing with capes.

A good third of the document is caveats, errata, and extra rules that apply specifically to Simurgh attacks and not to attacks by Behemoth, Leviathan, or any hypothetical future Endbringers. It's kind of depressing seeing in writing how scared people are of the Simurgh, a grim reminder of just how much she warps everything by existing. A lot of rules relevant to the Simurgh have also been retracted, revised, or replaced with entirely different rules, thanks to stuff like the failure of the tattoos.

I've always known about the Endbringer Truce, of course, but I'd always heard of it as a cape geek thing. I hadn't realized that it applied to international politics.

The thing that really sticks with me, though, is that it started as an unspoken agreement. That lines up with the recurring claim that Uber and Leet are protected by some kind of invisible honor code among capes.

Hmm.

I look up if they've participated in Endbringer conflicts. They don't film themselves doing so, I'd just sort of assumed...

Yes, they've participated. Three attacks to date, specifically.

Huh. Are they being given leniency because they fight when Endbringers attack?

... is Lung being left alone because he fought at Kyushu?

I find myself wondering if there are other unspoken rules. Customs?

--------------------------------​

I comb through the tinfoil hat threads. It seems the obvious choice. If there are such rules, and I've never heard of them before... the people most likely to be saying them aloud are going to be the people nobody takes seriously.

It does have the flaw that tinfoil hats can be fucking crazy.

I ignore the threads about parahumans having beauty standards. I'm not even entirely sure what that means, but I'm sure it's something stupid. I discount a dozen other obviously ridiculous ideas... but I keep in mind some of the more questionable ones. Questionable doesn't mean it isn't real. Unlikely to be true, certainly, but not definitively false.

I pay the closest attention to things that... fit, in odd ways. The PRT doesn't unmask villains they capture is one -I find myself objecting, "Yes they do," because seriously, they do, but then I think on it more and find myself thinking of all the villains they've captured whose civilian self remains yet unknown. I mentally mark that down as tentatively true.

Supposedly capes don't attack each other in their homes. My mind goes to New Wave, whom was attacked not long after they switched from being the BBB... but hasn't been attacked since. More importantly, I draw a complete blank on cases where a cape was attacked in what turned out to be their home outside of New Wave. Doing some digging online shows that there are cases beyond New Wave, but... I notice trends, even there. Particularly psychotic villains being the perpetrators (Or, in one case, a particularly psychotic hero, Vaccine) or the perpetrator screaming ugly accusations during the assault -accusations of power-assisted rape, for example.

This leads to me paying closer attention to the threads claiming that those who stray too far from these rules cease to benefit from the protections offered. Attack a cape in their home, out their civilian identity, abuse the Endbringer Truce -you don't get those protections yourself. (This jives with the official Endbringer Truce documentation -violating the Truce means the Truce no longer protects you)

Eventually I notice there's a plethora of locked threads, specifically when one thread is bandying about the idea that the moderators suppress the truth by locking threads, linking to various threads as examples of locked 'truth threads'. My initial impulse is to think that's just standard tinfoil hat crazy talk, same as, "mind control rays from satellites using our fillings for their reception," but I'm disturbed to notice in skimming the locked threads that they include very few of the most obviously ridiculous theories being pushed. It's mostly the more plausible-sounding stuff that's locked. The really ridiculous stuff is allowed to rot naturally.

The thread complaining about threads getting locked to 'suppress the truth' gets locked sometime while I'm looking over the list of locked threads.

I take a break from the tinfoil hat threads for a bit, feeling my paranoia mounting.

I focus on collating the ideas into a coherent whole and comparing it against real life and considering the implications.

For instance: this either suggests the PRT was not there for me when they dogpiled onto me, as everything I'm reading indicates the PRT has marked overlap with cape culture (Which seems intuitively logical, too), or they were breaking a big taboo in coming after me in my own neighborhood.

The latter is an unnerving possibility. It also doesn't fit with the rest of what I'm reading, as Nilbog would most certainly constitute a parahuman who has forfeit all the protections of cape culture. There'd be no reason to come after me for that, except maybe to congratulate me and give me the Kill Order bounty money.

I conclude with some relief that it really was a coincidence.

After I've had a few minutes to clear my head of Feeling Crazy, I dive back in. This could be important. Trying to kill off some of the worst local scum might be a mistake. If there are rules, I need to know them.

-----------------------------​

Eventually I get derailed. I haven't been following local news in any meaningful capacity, not really, and one of the threads I'm digging through refers to something significant.

Assault and Triumph are dead.

I'm surprised, particularly by Assault's death. He's not exactly easy to kill. The tinfoil hat thread I find this statement in links to another thread, and clicking into it shows that thread is, "honoring the sacrifice of those heroes that fell in the Final Ellisburg Incident."

The list is... not as long as it would be if it were a thread for honoring those that fell in an Endbringer attack, but I'm still upset to see two dozen dead, including Shepherd, Chevalier, and Torrent -capes who were particularly positive presences, going above and beyond the call of duty.

When I originally read the news, I'd been under the impression that nobody died. They didn't even say there'd been low casualties -which this thread makes a point of saying- just that Ellisburg was dealt with, New York state was safe to live in. That kind of thing. All positive. No... no negative.

I go and dig up the relevant news articles, wanting to know -did I just overlook the bad news, or did they leave it out?

The answer is: they left it out. I can't find a news article covering Nilbog's death that refers to any casualties. It's all just praise for Dragon and Panacea and, "All the other Protectorate heroes that helped save the day." The closest I find is the personal blog of a cape spouse whom mentions that their spouse's best friend died in the Ellsburg fight, making what would otherwise be wonderful news something of a downer.

More digging around shows that there are local news reports for the individual deaths, such as Philadelphia newspapers covering Chevalier's death, and they do consistently mention that the given hero died during the fighting with Nilbog, but there's no overarching picture in the news, no easy way for the public to collate exactly how bad Ellisburg actually was. A couple of the heroes that died are actually from the West Coast, I assume they got teleported or something. I'm not familiar with either of them, and their names aren't very informative -what kind of names are Pinion and Alert anyway? Maybe a flight power for the first?...

I return my focus to the thread. It's... not actually a complete casualty listing, not necessarily. They've got six different capes listed as maybe, as they haven't been seen by the public since around the Ellisburg incident but they're not confirmed dead. Sometimes heroes take breaks, for one. For another, sometimes they get captured by villains. There's people in the thread who comment that, though it's not common, the Protectorate has been known to misrepresent deaths -that casualties from Ellisburg may have been attributed to other sources for any number of reasons. They get called tinfoil hats by most, but I'm not so sure. I haven't found a reference to the monster's presence and influence at all, not in any of the press releases or news reports that I've looked at, and that seems... an odd omission. Even if I didn't have this stupid conspiracy theory about Dragon sitting in my head... still an odd omission.

I find myself getting bored of reading through the thread, notice that I'm getting bored, and get upset. Shouldn't I still be upset? I got a bunch of people killed. I mean, I'm pretty sure I prevented worse by doing this -I find it unbelievable that Nilbog would've just quietly died and his creations then all stayed in the city and gone extinct- but I still got a bunch of people killed. I didn't ask them if they were ready to die, I just made it happen. Shouldn't I feel responsible? Because I don't. I'm... more upset at the fact that it didn't play out the way I'd intended, than I am by their actual deaths. That bothers me.

Somewhat uneasily, I find myself wondering if there will be similar consequences for killing Heartbreaker.

I push the thought aside. Crying over spilled milk isn't useful. I should learn from these mistakes and adjust my plans going forward. Maybe target people whose deaths won't leave dangling threads like these two did before I go after other threats that will leave dangling threads. Speaking of, I update my targets document again, then a third time when I remember the Butcher is an ongoing problem in Boston, and probably a much worse person than Lung or Kaiser are, all things considered. Not sure how I'll deal with the Butcher... but that goes for a lot of my list.

Making the world a better place
By Taylor Hebert

Assignment premise: if you could make ten changes to make the world a better place, what would they be? Explain your reasoning.

1: Kill the Butcher. For real. (How?)

2: Kill the Three Blasphemies. (How do I get to Europe? Ride a plane on the outside?)

3: Kill the Slaughterhouse Nine. (How?)

4: Kill the Sleeper? (Risking provoking him?)

5: Kill Ashbeast? (Too human?)

6: Kill Lung. (Killable? Wait until later?) (Protected?)

7: Kill Kaiser/break E88. (Is there a hideout?) (Protected?)

8: Kill Leviathan.

9: Kill Behemoth.

10: Kill the Simurgh.

I don't really think it's all that likely I can assassinate an Endbringer...

... you know, I wonder...

-----------------------------------​

Thirty minutes later I'm at the beach, just ordinary Taylor in a swimsuit (Minus glasses), swimming toward the horizon, trying to not look conspicuous. I suspect my hair makes that harder than it should be, with the way it spreads out around me in the water, but whatever. Once I'm far enough out that I feel reasonably alone, I glance back to see if anybody's paying attention to me (Hair in the way, hair in the way, agh!) and decide no, nobody is watching me specifically, their attention on other things.

Out of habit, I take a deep breath and close my eyes before I dive.

A second later, I'm the monster, touching ground. I'm surprised at how clearly I can see. I can't see very far, I don't think, but it's actually kind of unsettling how much it looks like I'm standing in open air. I glance up, confirm that the top of the water looks weird and distorted like it should, and feel a little calmer. Experimentally, I try walking, out deeper into the ocean. I can feel resistance, it's slower than in the air, but it's nothing like the slow-motion sort of experience you normally get when you put someone underwater. I go faster, wondering if I can get to anything like my land top speed. I still don't really feel like there's all that much resistance. I go screw it and throw caution to the wind, going as fast as possible.

It's only after I've been running for a minute or two that it occurs to me that I have no frame of reference available. I got an idea of how fast I was on land by comparing myself to cars on the highway, and I was easily topping 60 mph in a straight line with no obstacles, going by that. Here, all I've got is how fast the ground underneath me travels, and how quickly fish swim away from me. I don't even know how fast most fish can swim. That sparks a thought, and I pick out a fish and chase it, trying to impale it. It flickers, shimmering, and I miss it three times, but it can't outrun me... though once it swims high enough I can't jump high enough to reach it, either. Which reminds me: swimming. Can the monster do it?

Short version: no.

Long version: hell no.

Still, I feel... comfortable down here, weirdly enough. And... wait. What's that smell? Those smells.

Why do I suddenly have a sense of smell?

I pick one out, the strongest smell, and follow it and... I'm pretty sure it takes me to underneath the fish I was trying to catch/kill earlier. Interesting. I can smell things underwater? Why can't I smell things above the water? Maybe... maybe it's not really smelling things? Just some weird, monster-y sense I'm interpreting as smell because my other senses are in use? Ugh, I don't know. I can track underwater, that's the important part. So maybe I can track down Leviathan somewhere in the ocean.

Wow. I... I didn't really think this would do anything other than test how the monster performs in water.

Speaking of, I should test breathing. I haven't noticed myself breathing as the monster, I don't seem to suffocate, but I'd rather be confident I can hold my breath (Or whatever) for at least an hour or two before I commit myself to going deep underwater, unable to swim to the surface for air. That would be horrifying and a completely stupid way to die. So, I fight down the temptation to just go wandering out into the ocean, looking for Leviathan. Instead, I wander around, staying away from the beach, experimenting with swimming and the general mechanics of wandering around underwater as the monster while I wait for some evidence that I've needed to breathe the whole time and never noticed it.

The sun is painting the sky red by the time I decide that I probably don't need to breathe as the monster. If I'm just holding my breath, doing so for hours is still pretty impressive. I think sperm whales can only hold their breath for three or four hours? I've been down here at least that long, and I'm pretty sure the monster could comfortably sit inside a sperm whale's lung, so there's no way I have a sperm whale's storage capacity for air on regular physics. Parahuman abilities don't exactly have a lot of respect for ordinary physics, but overall I think it's more likely that I don't need to breathe than it is that I need to breathe once every ten hours, or whatever.

I make my way home, hoping Dad didn't get back before me.

---------------------------------​

He did, but he goes from concerned to pleasantly surprised when he learns that I spent the day at the beach. Apparently I'm looking a lot better than I did this morning, and he's inclined to think I didn't skip school to go to the beach but instead went to the beach to try to work on my health, having legitimately missed school due to being under the weather.

I don't bust this interpretation.

Instead I hang out on the computer trying to gather information. The first thing I do is try to get an idea of how big the Atlantic ocean is, because last I heard Leviathan was somewhere in the Atlantic ocean. I think he was supposed to be in the Mariana Trench?... no, the internet tells me the Mariana Trench is in the western part of the Pacific Ocean, not anywhere in the Atlantic. A quick double-check confirms that, yes, the last official statement on Leviathan's location was somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. I decide to look up how big the Atlantic Ocean is.

From Maine to Portugal, in a straight line, is more than 3000 miles. That's... Maine to California isn't much more than 2500 miles. It took me all night to go to Ellisburg, kill Nilbog, and come back to Brockton Bay, which is, what, a couple hundred miles? Three hundred? I couldn't cover that in one night if all I did was run from Maine to Portugal in a straight line! I couldn't do that over an entire weekend! Going from the Arctic Circle to Antarctica is something like ten thousand miles. Call that something like 3000 times 10,000 and... ugh. That's... 300,000 square miles? Ignoring that Leviathan isn't stuck at the bottom of the ocean, while I am, barring maybe hitching rides on whales or something?

Damn. Unless my tracking ability has really impressive performance this is... just not realistic.

Ugh.

Fine, whatever, I don't really want to do another... okay, yeah, I really do, I can't lie to myself. I want to deal with the big threats, the world-shaping ones, and my past failure with patrols isn't helping me build enthusiasm for focusing on the small-time problems. Still. Leviathan is... probably beyond my ability to reach right now, which is frustrating because Behemoth is supposedly swimming around in the Earth's core and the Simurgh is in orbit, and while I suspect at this point that the monster could survive in space that doesn't mean I could get there as the monster, let alone avoid being thrown out to die in the void of space or go crashing back to Earth and die in the atmosphere, let alone the worst-case scenario of surviving all that, making it back to Earth safely... while having been sung into a weapon.

I have zero delusions about the possibility of successfully traveling to and survive the pressures at the center of the Earth. If I have any shot at killing Behemoth, I'm just going to have to wait for it to surface. Frankly, even if I can kill an Endbringer, I don't see killing Behemoth happening, with how many people respond to Endbringer attacks. I'd have no chance of getting at Behemoth as the monster at all.

... I guess maybe I should comb Brockton Bay for the small fry, try to interrogate them, find Kaiser or Lung, bust them?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's what I'll be doing tonight and... well, for the foreseeable future, I guess.

First, I need a replacement for my helmet.

 

[Ghoul King]

2.y

Cordelia Vasil

It takes Cordelia a bit to realize that people are running and screaming from her.

She'd been trying to follow Nikky's killer, initially, and assumed people were panicking because Nikky's killer was in the area. She'd found footprints (which turned, rather abruptly, into... knifeprints?...) in the snow and followed them as far as she could, and from there she'd followed the screaming. But no, she realized after two blocks of this that she was the cause, not Nikky's killer. She wasn't following a trail at all anymore.

She'd been depressed. Nikky's murderer had gotten away. Then she'd realized she was covered in blood, and she thought something like oh yeah, I did clutch at his body and sob, I guess that makes sense and had headed back to the New Girl's apartment. (She'd never caught their name. Names weren't necessary with Nikky, not most of the time) There, she'd washed up, ignoring the New Girl's pained moans just behind her, and borrowed some clothing -warmer clothing than what she'd been wearing, and more importantly not soaked in blood. She was sure New Girl would understand. (Also, she didn't really care. Cordelia knew she was Nikky's favorite, that someday soon... that... if he were still alive... then someday soon he would've realized and kicked all these girls to the curb. They weren't special like Cordelia was)

Freshened up and ready to face the world, she'd promptly found people were still running in mortal terror from her.

That was puzzling. Then it occurred to her -shouldn't that be upsetting? A mental 'poking' of how she felt about it was... no, it was puzzling, and it was... satisfying? Pleasing? That didn't sound quite right. Cordelia turned to word association.

Fear terror nourish

... nourish? Confused, Cordelia pouted. That was a bizarre association.

Before she could delve further into this exciting vista -Cordelia never knew that having people running in terror from her would be appealing, it was a very interesting insight into her own character she'd never have anticipated- PRT and Protectorate agents turned a corner, startling her. They didn't flee in terror, which seemed natural enough. She found the heroes in particular interesting -the PRT agents were dressed the way they always dressed, but the heroes all had clunky helmets covering their entire head that she knew were not a normal part of their costumes. She'd never been any kind of cape geek -ew, no thanks- but it was hard not to have seen Radiance on the news. He was kind of hunky. Nothing compared to Nikky, of course, but still nice to look at.

Not so much with the garish helmet hiding his glorious chin.

Oh well.

She waved and called out, "Excuse me!" intending to ask if they'd seen a parahuman in all black, motorcycle helmet with childish fangs drawn all along the jawline, anything like that?

They ignored her.

Cordelia huffed, annoyed. You don't ignore Cordelia! Nobody ignores Cordelia!

She pushed back the annoyance. They weren't ignoring her, it was just those big stupid helmets made it hard to hear. They had radio or something in them, didn't they? Maybe they couldn't hear her over their boss talking or something. Totally understandable, not ignoring Cordelia, nothing to get mad over stop being mad Cordelia.

Deep breath.

Calm.

With a bright smile she got closer and almost directly in front of... uuuuh... Freakcake? God, whatever the woman's name was. Planted herself firmly in front of the woman and waved and called out, "Excuse me!" again and they were still totally ignoring her the jerks!

So she slapped Flakecup or whatever her name was right in her stupid helmeted face and ow ow that stung ow.

It took her a moment (Too busy clutching at her poor hand and ohmygod she'd chipped a nail god fucking fuck!) to notice that the entire contingent of jerks had fallen into a huddle facing outward, scanning everything. She could just barely hear their voices through their helmets, juuuuust enough to tell they were freaked out a bit. Felt good, actually. Felt powerful.

Hmmmm.

She circled around a bit, trying to decide how to approach this. Someone turned a corner, spotted her, then went screaming the other way. Interestingly, the goon squad reacted to that, jerking and tightening their huddle. Cordelia took a deep breath, and gave a great big scream.

No response from the squad.

A few people came along around corners or opened their window to look out onto the street, upset or confused, but they all freaked and fled or hid once they could see Cordelia.

The PRT squad, again, reacted to that where they hadn't reacted to Cordelia's own scream.

HMMMM.

She grabbed a discarded bottle of alcohol, and waved it around. No response. She tossed it at a car, it broke on the car, they reacted to that. One of them sprayed containment foam at the car! It was just blind luck that Cordelia hadn't been in the line of fire, honestly, she hadn't actually thought about the possibility they'd shoot at the bottle. Need to be more careful.

She decided to back off and watch them. Did the PRT carry real guns? She couldn't remember, and didn't know how to check if the rifles they were carrying were pew-pew-you-die guns or, like... rubber bullet guns? Tinker guns? Oh whatever. Better to not find out by getting shot. Then she decided to back further out of sight once another late-night walker went screaming away -where were the people in cars, anyway, shouldn't there be cars?- because every time that happened the squad had a minor freakout but didn't do anything and she really wanted to see if they'd start moving and maybe find out what they were up to. Maybe they were after Nikky's murderer! So she holed up in a little corner, rubbing her arms for warmth because okay her borrowed clothes were warmer but they weren't really all that warm.

After a few minutes of watching the squad -she eventually noticed they were using hand signals- a helicopter flew overhead, shining a spotlight down around the squad. Cordelia squinted, trying to see if she could figure out what kind of helicopter it was -PRT? Police? News?- but the spotlight was killing her night vision and it was dark and ugh. She stepped out to try to get a different angle, the spotlight jerked her way, and then there was a strangled scream and a man came falling out of the sky and hit the ground with a heavy thud. He didn't move. Dressed in black, looks like body armor or something? So police or PRT. Probably.

The helicopter flew away, and Cordelia got the distinct impression they were totally running. Neat.

The squad, meanwhile, had tightened their huddle and sprayed a line of containment foam all around themselves, making a barrier Cordelia couldn't walk over. Or jump over. She could still throw stuff at them, but whatever. Bored now.

... oh right. Darn it. She'd wanted to follow them in hopes they were after Nikky's killer. She pouted. Hate to admit it, but I totally botched this. Now they were just going to huddle there for... way too long, probably.

She decided to head back to New Girl's apartment. Maybe she'd notice a clue she hadn't last time -she had gotten derailed by thinking the screaming was in response to Nikky's killer. Maybe she could follow the trail properly this time.

After a bit of a hike, she was in the right area. The ambulance and two police cars were new, though. Distressingly, they'd driven right over the trail left by Nikky's killer, totally obliterating the footprints in the snow. The inconsiderate jerks. She hurried over to see if she could find the trail anyway, and after a bit of fretting she found what she was reasonably confident were the killer's footprints. But the footprints again vanished in favor of what seriously and for true looked like someone had been walking on swords or... something. Really really weird. They were a cape though. Maybe?... um... well, maybe it was still them somehow. Because cape?

They vanished after not too long, too. That seemed... even stranger. If they could... teleport? Fly? Phase through walls?... well anyway, she'd have expected them to do it earlier. Weird. A glance around showed... marks on the alley wall. Hmmm. Her gaze trailing up along the wall, taking it all in, there was a distinct trail up the wall, meandering a bit before it hit the roof. Well. That explained where they'd gone, but Cordelia wasn't sure how she'd follow them. Or. Wait. Aren't I a parahuman now?

That would totally explain the running and the screaming and... well. She wasn't sure why the PRT squad couldn't see her when everyone else apparently could (And was terrified for some reason, what was up with that? She'd seen herself in the mirror after she cleaned up and she looked mighty fine if she did say so and she did say so) but okay whatever, Cordelia was a cape now. Or a parahuman, really, she couldn't really see herself wearing tights or any of the other disasters capes seemed to think looked good on them. Ew. So: parahuman. Not cape.

But hey, maybe she had a power to... climb walls?

Ow ow ow ow.

No, not to climb walls. She'd complain her outfit was ruined by falling into the dirty snow, but eh, she'd pulled it from New Girl's wardrobe anyway. Not Cordelia's proble- oh goddammit she'd chipped another fucking nail.

No, the first one had not regenerated, either. Because that would be too convenient. Ugh.

Cordelia tried sniffing the air. Maybe she had super-senses!

Oh god that was a mistake did some hobo vomit back here why does it smell so bad jesus.

... she was pretty sure she didn't have enhanced smell. Or sight, now that she thought about it. She hadn't had any interesting experiences trying to squint at the helicopter earlier or anything of the sort. Hearing? Didn't seem that way, but she wasn't sure how she'd test that anyway. Was she maybe tougher?... the nails chipping wasn't a positive sign, but she decided to claw at one arm anyway.

It bled.

Dammit.

Oh wait, maybe she had, like, super-strength that was overcoming her own super-durability!

Ow owowowwoowow

Punching the wall=bad plan. At least she hadn't chipped another nail.

So no, no super-strength, no super-toughness.

Could she fly?

Cordelia's face screwed up in a look of intense concentration, successfully blocking out the sound of another person fleeing in terror (Somewhat less successful in blocking out the sound of them dropping their bags in the process) and... felt... something? Like, a warmth in her chest, near her heart. Seemed new. Never felt anything like that when doing yoga. Didn't hurt, either, so probably not heartburn. Hmm. What was it?

She tried imagining it, like... getting hotter.

It got hotter, feeling like intense warmth going out all the way to her extremities, so hot it felt like it should burn, but somehow not burning her.

Ooooh.

How about cooler?

It got cooler, back down to how hot it started, then cooler than that as she kept up the... whatever she was doing. She stopped when it felt like a matchstick. She didn't want to put it out. Maybe she'd never be able to start it back up!

Okay, but what is it?

She was pretty sure it wasn't a literal heat, because her breath had been the same fog cloud in the air either way and she hadn't, like, melted snow where she stepped or anything even though she'd felt so hot, even though it had felt like even her fingertips were hot. So. Symbolic? Symbolic of... what? She hadn't started floating, so it wasn't some weird flight power. She hadn't felt her thoughts feel any different at any point her -or. Had she? She'd done that word association thing earlier, gotten... what was it again?

fear terror nourish

Right, that. Hmm. And people ran screaming from her... and she liked it...

Hm.

Cordelia walked out of the alleyway and headed toward New Girl's apartment, 'flame' still damped down to a matchstick. The EMTs were loading New Girl into the ambulance. Police seemed to still be inside. One of the EMTs glanced at Cordelia, frowned for whatever reason, continued with his work. Rude.

... waaaait a second.

He didn't panic!

In fact, Cordelia realized she hadn't had anyone react to her particularly since she'd damped down the 'flame'. Neat! More than neat, really -now that she thought about it, she wasn't sure how she'd have had a normal life if everyone ran screaming in terror the instant they saw her. Lucky to have found out how to control it before she'd realized how problematic it would be. So... ramping it up... made people more scared of her? Was that it?

She decided to test it, sauntering her way over toward the EMTs, who had just closed the door. With some mental effort -a bit less than earlier, maybe practice would one day bring it down to a casual action?- she upshifted the warmth to what it had been earlier. Campfire, she decided to call it. She called out, "Excuse me!" with nothing in particular in mind beyond catching their attention. The one who'd ignored her earlier ignored her again -Rude!- but the one who'd glanced at her glanced again, double-taked, and she could juuust barely hear him mumble, "No. Impossible."

Hm. Not running screaming. Weird. She pushed the heat up until she felt it in the tips of her fingers and watched the man jolt, visibly panic, and turn to run. He retained some sense, though, throwing open the ambulance's door and scrambling in and yelling at his partner -who had still not looked at her!- to, "Just drive!" She didn't hear the partner's response, but the ambulance pulled away. She thought, but wasn't entirely sure, that the man who had freaked out had been watching her in the side mirror.

So there was some nuance here she wasn't getting. Did the warmth have more settings than degree?

... a bit of experimentation turned up nothing. Trying to imagine it as, say, a block of ice of varying size did nothing, not even making her feel cooler. Trying to imagine it heating up a part of her body also did nothing. More or less, bigger or smaller. Nothing else she could find to do with it.

She pouted, and made her way in to see if the cops had turned up anything. That was what cops did, right? Track down criminals? Surely they had a lead on Nikky's killer.

Entering the apartment she could already hear snippets. They weren't promising -things like, "Looks like an animal attack to me," and, "Who the hell was this guy? I'm not sure we can get dental records off this skull." It sounded like... four different voices? She decided to wait just inside the doorway-

-a cop turned a corner, sipping (coffee? Hot chocolate?) saw her, fumbled for her gun while falling on her butt and splattering the styrofoam cup's contents all over herself. Drat. Cordelia decided to ramp up the heat -the cop had yet to make any progress on pulling the gun, she felt she had time- and see what happened. Take it as far as she could go.

It turned out 'as far as it could go' was 'causing the cop to curl into the fetal position, body wracked with silent sobs' while Cordelia felt radiant, like she had to be glowing. (She wasn't, but it felt like she should be) Had the woman failed to run because she was a cop? Something about the training, or the psychology? No, that didn't seem quite right. The helicopter had been fleeing, Cordelia was almost certain of that, and she was fairly confident it had been a cop copter or a PRT copter.

Another cop called out, "Hoskins, what'd I tell you about-" turned the corner, had his eyes roll into the back of his head, and hit the ground in a dead faint.

Coooool.

"Jesus Christ!" and, "Nom de Dieu!" came from the bathroom -he'd come from it, apparently two people in there had seen him faint. Then she heard a radio click on, and she decided she didn't like the sound of that. She'd thought they'd come to her, it'd be fun. Instead, for the second time tonight she found herself standing in the door to the bathroom while someone -well, two someones this time- scrambled up against the wall. They weren't talking to the radio. The radio was demanding things like, "What's your situation? Answer me!" but they were too busy sobbing against the wall, clutching at each other and wailing for forgiveness in two languages. It sounded like... the one in English seemed to be begging for forgiveness from his dead son, while the French-wailing cop was apologizing for shooting an innocent gangster (Was that a thing? Weren't gangsters not innocents, by default?) and pleading for forgiveness.

Now that was interesting. Cordelia had been starting to think it was basically just a... generic? Sure, generic. Generic terror, or maybe that everyone was seeing her as a scary monster or something. These two cops seemed to be thinking she was a vengeful ghost here to punish them -and they each thought she was a different ghost, unless the English-sobbing cop's dead son happened to be the 'innocent' gangster the other cop had shot. Seemed a bit unlikely, though something to keep in mind with further testing.

Cordelia made her way back to the female cop, and yeah, they were still curled into a ball. So was her power operating on anyone in an area? No, wait, that was obviously wrong -the PRT squad hadn't even known she was there. (What was with that?) In fact... people had consistently only panicked when they saw her. The two EMTs, for instance: the one who saw her, he freaked, the one who didn't, didn't. So... people saw her, but they didn't see her, not when her 'flame' was up, they saw... ghosts they felt guilty about, maybe? Seemed a bit unlikely -not everyone had a death on their conscience- but it seemed a good enough working theory to start with. Some kind of personalized horror, anyway.

Her thoughts were interrupted again by a spotlight hitting her full in the face while some asshole on a megaphone was calling out, "This is the PRT! Parahuman, you are a danger to others and possibly yourself. Please, turn yourself in." Oh heck no. She'd promised Nikky she'd never ever ever ever let the PRT get their grubby mitts on her. Not that she kept her promises usually, but Nikky was special, and really, it had been his last request. (Well, his last request had been sexy funtimes, but really that was just quibbling over semantics) She owed it to him to keep to that promise.

So she tried pushing the heat past 'radiant'.

Mmmm. No-go.

"Parahuman, this is your last chance. If you do not turn yourself in, we will use whatever force is necessary to bring you in."

Annoyed, Cordelia stalked her way to the open door and called out, "Go fuck yourselves!" out into the glare of the spotlight.

Weirdly, there was no reaction. Again.

What is with that seriously??

She backed up, trying to think of a plan. All she had was some kind of fear-inducing powe- actually.

She leaned down toward the woman cop (Horkit or something?) and said, "Walk yourself out the front door or else," in her best menacing tone. (She admitted it wasn't very good, but she figured her power would make anything she said terrifying)

Lady cop curled into a tighter ball. Cordelia pouted.

Darn it. She'd hoped she could leverage the fear to, like, control people. Would make things so much simpler. She could've even continued Nikky's legacy! In honor of him of course, not at all because she liked the idea of dozens of men subject to her every whim. Oh no, not at all.

So okay, the option of sending the cop out so they think she is the parahuman they're looking for was out, and there was no way Cordelia was going to (wo)manhandle the cop out there. Lady was way too muscled for that to be a practical option. PRT probably wouldn't buy it anyway, not even well enough to give her a few extra minutes.

"You've forced our hand, parahuman," came from the loudspeaker jackass and there was the sound of a whole lotta feet tromping on concrete and through snow and up the stairs and Cordelia decided to get behind the couch and she could hear them spraying foam everywhere the instant they got through the door. Didn't get her yet, though some of it expanded uncomfortably close to her spot. She popped her head up to look over the couch and ooooh crap one of them is looking directly at me.

But then their helmet shifted away and nobody else reacted.

Cordelia blinked. All right. So... she scared most folks, but she was invisible to the PRT -oh, and the Protectorate heroes. Odd.

... was it something to do with the helmets, maybe? Cordelia chewed on her lip thoughtfully, noticing that, again, she could just barely hear the troopers talking within their helmets. Good soundproofing apparently. Really good, because honestly she was only hearing them when she was pretty sure they were being loud. Not yelling, exactly, but definitely loud. She inferred she wasn't hearing them at all when they were speaking at a more conversational level.

A trooper sprayed something new at some of the containment foam, and the foam melted away, giving them a path toward the rest of the apartment. They moved with caution, leaving a pair of troopers behind while the rest advanced slowly. Cordelia watched the fluid that was melting the containment foam inch its way toward her spot. In a minute, she'd be able to... hop the containment foam. Probably. She didn't like how fast the fluid was fading. The melty containment foam looked a lot like soapy water, really. She found herself wondering if it would be a bitch for New Girl to get out of the carpeting, and whether the PRT would reimburse New Girl for the damage if so. She also found herself wondering if the lady cop was going to survive being buried in containment foam. Didn't seem like the kind of thing you could breathe in, but the troopers were being pretty cavalier with the stuff. They were supposed to protect people, right?

Then the fluid had all faded away, disappointing Cordelia by leaving a rather larger patch of containment foam between her and freedom than she'd have liked. She eyeballed the stretch she'd have to jump with much dubiousness. She didn't want to just sit here forever... or, well, for a few hours, really. She might still be able to track down Nikky's killer if she hurried! In fact, maybe she could use this fear power to interrogate someone? The cop lady hadn't taken instructions, but that didn't mean she couldn't ask questions and get answers. Surely someone else had seen Nikky's murderer, at least long enough to give her a general direction to look.

After some hesitation, she decided to take the risk and, with a tiny bit of a running start, hopped the containment foam.

When she thumped on the other side, the two goons standing guard both glanced her way. She froze, heart pounding. She didn't seem to have a power to defend herself from people who weren't scared of her. Had she broken the invisibility somehow?

But then they turned away, not paying attention to her.

She walked slowly toward the front door, half-expecting one of them to shout, "Ha ha you fell for it!" and foam her, or something similarly mean. Nope, no response. She was making an effort to not make noise as she walked, but she wasn't really succeed- oh right, the helmets were soundproofed. Probably they really couldn't hear her regular footsteps. Lucky.

Out she went, smooooothly. There weren't even any civilians to go running screaming. Squinting through the multiple spotlights, Cordelia thought she saw the start of a cordon. Wow, they were taking Nikky's death really seriously! Maybe she wouldn't have to hunt down the bastard who killed him and make them suffer before they died. Though she wasn't sure the PRT would properly punish them, so maybe she shouldn't trust them to handle it?...

Hmmm. Maybe she should get help. One of Nikky's kids. Daddy's worth avenging just because he's your dad, right? She'd never really paid a lot of attention to their powers before, but she was sure there was at least one who had some kind of tracking ability.

She carefully slipped her way past the developing cordon, got some distance, and once she was reasonably confident she was out of sight of the PRT she tamped the warmth back down to 'matchstick'. She wasn't sure having the warmth high was why she seemed to be invisible to the PRT goobers, but better to be safe and wrong than risky and wrong. Ya know? But now she needed to not be freaking out everyone else.

From there she made her way back to... what had been Nikky's latest place. But now he was dead.

------------------------------​

The sun was rising by the time she'd managed to find the place -she'd never concerned herself overly much with memorizing directions to their current place, it wasn't really necessary and they almost never stayed more than two weeks in a place anyway- so it had taken her a while.

On her way over she'd noticed she wasn't tired. She hadn't noticed earlier, with all the reasons to have her adrenaline pumping and her focus away from her own condition and all, but it was really really obvious once she'd been wandering around after dark for hours and still wasn't tired at all. Also? At one point one of Tube Lord's goobers had tried to mug her -she'd thought it was a regular mugging until she'd seen the little red LED lights blinking under his hair- and she'd ramped up the heat all the way until the man was left sobbing on the ground (Sounded like he was imagining her as an angry Tube Lord, which, ew. But informative!) and then ramped back down and realized she felt physically better after she'd reduced the goober to a sobbing wreck.

So apparently her weird word association of fear=terror=nourish was because she totally ate people's fear or something.

Neat.

But now she was knocking on the door to Nikky's latest place (A house in the suburbs, owned by his second-latest toy) and oh god it was that bitch Connie why. Why couldn't it have been someone who didn't hate Cordelia for no reason who answered the door.

Connie opened her mouth to say something cutting and cruel because, come on, it was Connie, and Cordelia decided she didn't have to put up with that anymore, not with her power and with Nikky being dead and all and she just ramped the heat up and watched Connie pale, stumble backwards, and then avert her eyes and clutch at her cross necklace and start muttering prayers to The Lord to protect her. Huh. And here Cordelia had always thought Connie just liked the necklace because it was a pretty shade of silver and went well with basically all her outfits.

Cordelia advanced toward Connie, taking glee in how the bitch stumbled backward some more until she was up against a wall, eyes still averted (Not closed, interestingly) and seriously considered kicking her, see if she could get screams out of her and-

-aaaaand the rugrats started screaming. And the other girls. A lot of them began running.

Whoops.

Cordelia brought the heat back down, buuuut it didn't really help. Everyone who'd already seen her and turned to flee kept fleeing. Connie jerked and asked, "Cordelia, is that you?" but she was kind of the exception. Other people came in to investigate, some of them shouted to ask what was going on, and anyone who responded gave them some story about some terrible thing having come for them (Lizzie said it was Nikos and he was angry, Tam said it was Jack Slash here to play, one of the rugrats was crying about the Simurgh...) so most of them were also panicking and running away and Cordelia's attempts to shout and tell people nothing is wrong, everything is fine, CALM THE FUCK DOWN! didn't really work. (Maybe in part because she was lying: Nikky was dead, ergo things were not fine. She knew one of the rugrats was definitely some kind of truthseer or something like that, couldn't remember which one. Cordelia wasn't an experienced liar anyway. Maybe they'd all picked up on it)

In less than ten minutes Cordelia was left almost alone in the house. Connie was staring at her, muttering about Satan and souls and other stuff Cordelia would never have pegged her as believing in. At least Bigfoot wasn't in the muttering. Yet. There were also a half dozen of the smallest rugrats, abandoned and too small to do more than cry and/or scream while failing, and three adult women who'd fainted or... something. Hadn't, uh, Ga-something had a weak heart? Miiiight've died of a heart attack. Whoops.

Unless Connie had powers, this wasn't helpful.

Speaking of: "Connie, do you have powers?"

Connie gave Cordelia a look. The look that said you were so stupid she didn't want to talk to you for fear she might catch your stupidity. Bitch.

Cordelia pushed the flame up a bit and loomed over Connie, ceasing to heat up right when Connie's stare turned rigid and horrified and she muttered something about the devil and possession.

"One more time Connie. Do you have powers? Yes or no."

"N-n-no." A pause. Then Connie blurted out, "It didn't count I didn't mean to you can't have my soul!" and then slapped her hands over her mouth and just stared in horror.

So Connie was useless then. And also had done something at some point that made her think Satan could totally have her soul but wanted to pretend it didn't count. That was kind of interesting, though not nearly as interesting as Cordelia finally finding a way to use her power other than 'hide from the PRT' and 'terrify everybody else into incoherent panic'. Maybe if she'd modulated her power more carefully she could've made the policewoman go outside earlier?

Soooo. Since Connie was useless to her for finding Nikky's murderer... and she still needed to explore the details of her power...

She only realized she was grinning when Connie moaned in horror.

-------------------------------------​

She determined a number of interesting things with Connie's help.

She confirmed -especially when one of the other women woke up and apparently saw Cordelia as her abusive ex-boyfriend- that the horror other people saw was personalized, and could change based on how high she pushed the 'flame'. When she kept the flame low to mid-range, Connie saw her first as Cordelia, than as Cordelia possessed by the devil. Pushing it higher caused Connie to interpret her as a substantially modified Cordelia -Connie had been staring rather blatantly at empty space in front of Cordelia's forehead at one point, and questioning her had revealed she saw enormous curling goat horns growing out of Cordelia's head- and pushing it as far as it went led Connie to think that Satan was standing there in the room, though Connie was vague as to whether she thought Satan had replaced Cordelia or if Cordelia had just vanished as a coincidental thing or what. The other woman replaced seeing the abusive ex-boyfriend with... Cordelia wasn't sure exactly what the woman saw at higher heat, but it didn't sound like anything human. Parahuman, maybe, but not a regular human.

She also confirmed that, even though sight seemed to be the primary trigger for her power, it was considerably more complete a sensory experience than that. Connie smelled 'brimstone', felt fur, and claimed, when questioned, that 'Satan's' voice had an unearthly echo to it. The other woman similarly alluded to smelling cigarette smoke when she perceived Cordelia as her ex-boyfriend.

Interestingly, the two both knew the other was present and they would talk freely to each other, but their differing perceptions were sort of... glossed over. Connie talking about Satan right over there didn't leave the other woman baffled. Cordelia wasn't entirely sure what was going on inside their respective heads. Just assuming the other woman was crazy and/or stupid? Somehow filtering their statements to be consistent with their own perceptions, such that Connie perceived the other woman as talking about Satan anytime she talked about her own vision of Cordelia?

It had also become clear that Cordelia's inference that she was sustained by fear was a bit more true than she'd originally thought. She'd bitten into an apple partway through her tests... and spat out what she'd bitten off. It tasted like ash from an ashtray, so much so that she'd expected what she spat out to be ash. Nope, it was partially-chewed apple, still wet (Where her tongue had reported it as dry as a desert) and nothing apparently wrong with it. Meanwhile, she felt... refreshed by bathing in the terror of Connie and the other woman. That was sufficiently weird she'd decided to ignore it for now.

She'd also experimented some with trying to motivate Connie and what's-her-face into doing what she wanted via fear. Interrogations worked okay, sort of, but she'd not been able to figure out a consistent way to issue a command they'd follow. Informing them they'd be punished if they didn't obey mostly just provoked moaning, sobbing, or other undignified shows of terror. Not action. Even if it was really very reasonable requests, like, "Hold up two fingers on your left hand." Modulating the exact level of terror wasn't very helpful. It was frustrating, because she felt sure she could get the results she wanted somehow, but... nothing she'd tried had worked yet, not even a little, outside of demanding answers.

By far the most interesting tidbit had been when Cordelia had decided to test her power's effect when played through a recording -ramp to max, record herself saying something via one of the teen's cameras, ramp down, play the recording at Connie (And the other woman, why not) and see if her power transmitted itself through recordings.

The answer was: she didn't show up in the recording at all! The camera recorded, but somehow she wasn't in it, not even her voice. She was like a vampire or something. Gave her a possibility for why the PRT goons hadn't reacted to her, too: if they were seeing and hearing the world through cameras and microphones... she'd be completely outside their awareness. Interesting.

She wasn't sure when she was interrupted in all this testing, but it wasn't any later than noon, going by the position of the sun in the sky.

In retrospect, she was surprised at how long it had taken the police to be called, what with all the screaming.

She tamped the flame down and sauntered out to meet the police, quite confident she could scare her way out if things went bad. They were just cops, after all. She called out, "What seems to be the problem, officers?"

There were two cars, four cops. Two a car. They were taking this a little more seriously than the bare minimum, but they weren't here in force. The fat one (Of course there was a fat cop) closed the car door behind him and didn't bother to raise his voice in response. "Reports of domestic disturbance, ma'am." He raised one giant eyebrow and asked in a mild tone, "You wouldn't happen to know anything, ma'am?"

Oh. They were here over the kids screaming. Here she'd thought maybe this was some kind of half-assed response to everyone else running away at dawn, screaming incoherent nonsense. (Where'd they all gone, anyway? Cordelia was pretty sure there wasn't an agreed-upon home to meet at, not yet. Had they really just... panicked and fled every which way?) With a dismissive sniff she ramped up the heat and- well. She'd originally planned to grab a cop car and drive that out of here, but the more she thought about it the more that seemed like a bad idea.

And now it was too late to see if she could go online on one of the laptops in the house to look for a cape whose costume matched Nikky's killer. She could hear the dispatcher directing reinforcements because one of the jerk cops had managed to call for help before curling into a fetal ball, and at some point this was going to get the PRT on her case and Cordelia wasn't actually willing to bet they'd never find a way around her combination of 'invisible to cameras' and 'terrifying to people'.

Darn it.

Uuuugggggh. Finding Nikky's murderer was going to take forever like this, even if she was done getting distracted by her shiny new power. (Which she was honest enough with herself to admit was unlikely. It was a very shiny power) She'd screwed up and scared off all the teens who might've been able to track the cape for her, and she'd still found no evidence her own power offered anything of the sort. Nikky was dead, so making puppy-dog eyes to get him to use his power on someone was out, and her own power, cool as it was, had so far proven iffy at getting cooperation from strangers.

Okay, first thing she needed to do was determine where Nikky's murderer was.

Second thing she needed to do was get to where they were at.

Third thing was kill them.

Well, no. Third thing was make them suffer so much they regretted being born and begged for death.

Fourth thing was kill them.

She wondered for a moment what she'd do after that, and then decided it didn't matter.

Revenge first, a life of luxury and handsome men later.

Cordelia frowned and rubbed her chin, ignoring the cops moaning and sobbing in the background. Maybe she could find a netcafe? Look up capes, see if one matched what she'd seen? Yeah, that sounded good. She'd need to ask someone for directions...

... she glanced at one of the cops...

... but first she should get some distance, ramp her power down, and then start asking people for directions to the nearest netcafe.

Sounded like a plan!

She began walking, humming an uplifting tune to herself.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life!

 

[Ghoul King]

3.1

I'd spent a week-and-half combing the city and shaking down E88 and ABB thugs to try to get information about their bosses out of them. This was... tricky, given that if I could ask questions I wasn't in a position to seriously threaten them, but I was able to manage it. The worst incident was kind of ironic -guy panicked, ended up running into a dead-end alley, and then turned around and wouldn't take his eyes off me. Cornered, he pulled a knife and started talking about how he'd defend himself if I got any closer. I ended up untying my blanket and throwing it on him so I became the monster at which point I beat him silly -carefully avoiding hitting with the sharp parts of my limbs- and once he was a twitching, moaning mess pulled it back off, got his attention so I reverted to the girl again, and pulled it back on and tied it off. Then I proceeded with the interrogation.

Not that he had anything useful to say, and I worry that particular incident is going to get the PRT on my case. Nothing so far, but I still worry.

Still, I'd managed well enough and I'd even avoided getting my costume damaged in these interrogations. Mostly. Most useful thing I'd learned was that Hookwolf ran dog fighting pits and periodically visited them in person. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to try to go after him or not. If he didn't count as human, I had a suspicion it would still be a tricky fight. If he did count as human, he'd probably kill me, or maybe just maim me as a lesson. I mean, if he didn't kill me I'd bounce back just fine, costume aside, but I wasn't really confident he wouldn't kill me and wasn't comfortable finding out manually.

The ABB thugs hadn't really known much of anything useful so far. Or maybe they were better at pretending to be clueless. Hard to say.

Tonight, though, Sunday night, I actually ran across a real crime-in-progress -an attempted rape, E88 guy forcing a black woman into an alleyway and making it pretty clear what he intended to do. I waited until they were far enough into the alley that I could be as certain as possible no one else would interrupt -there was something ironic there, I think- before I dropped down behind them and promptly banged the thug on the back of the head fairly hard, careful to not hit him with a blade. He dropped bonelessly to the ground, the woman shrieking before apparently realizing he wasn't doing anything untoward. I was busy trying to check if he had a pulse, which I'd been pleasantly surprised to discover I could do as the monster during an earlier interrogation, because I still hadn't gotten a handle on my strength and he was bleeding from the back of his head. By the time the woman had turned around, causing me to become the girl, crouched over the thug, I'd determined that he was... okay enough. Probably concussed? He'd probably be fine, especially since one piece of information I'd gotten out of interrogating E88 thugs was that Othala was often tapped to rapidly heal minor injuries acquired 'on-duty'.

The woman eeped at seeing me. I'll admit my 'new' costume was still kind of intimidating -I'd replaced the busted motorcycle helmet with a black bicycle helmet (I'd been surprised to find an older helmet of mine just needed the strap lengthened to fit) along with a red scarf that I'd basically doodled to look like the outer edges of my face were jagged white teeth and everything else was still red like the inside of a mouth or something. (It covered my entire face, eyeholes cut into it so I could see when I wasn't the monster) In conjunction with the blanket, I was basically an amorphous blob of black with a bloody jaw. I'd looked in a mirror and it was surprisingly easy to overlook the eyeholes/my eyes. Still, she said, "Thank you, um."

"Monster," I prompted, and she startled again, giving me a once-over. Okaaaay?

More carefully she said, "As one woman to another, thank you. Really."

I shrugged. It was nice to have finally done something pretty clearly good, it was nice to be thanked for it, but... I dunno. I'd thought it would feel better than this. I also wasn't sure how to handle gratitude anyway.

Fucking Emma.

I struggled for words for a second, and finally settled on, "You'll need to stick around so the police can take your statement." It was... curt. I'd wanted to be friendlier, but... ugh. It was hard.

She hesitated, glanced at the thug, and then nodded in understanding. I added, "The police should be along shortly, and I have places to be. Good night." Then I went to find a pay phone -one with a sufficiently reflective box I could avoid turning into the monster and actually use it. (Did you know you can call emergency services, including the PRT, for free from any pay phone? I didn't until I read it on PHO two days after I first became the monster)

--------------------------------​

I'd just put the pay phone back on its hook, having told the police where the attempted rapist and their intended victim were waiting when-

"Heya killer."

Shit!

I leap to the nearest cover I can see -a parked car- and peer under the vehicle. All I can see is someone's lower legs -not wearing pants, so shorts or a skirt- and girly shoes, to go with the girly voice. Fashionable shoes. Not high heels, but the sort of thing Emma wears, purple with a shiny finish and showing off the feet more than protecting them, with plastic flowers sitting where they can cut the ever-living-shit out of your foot if you don't walk just so. I... I'd assumed a cape, but... capes run more practical. Don't they? Well, Nilbog and Heartbreaker didn't really run practical... and my experience with 'normal' capes is essentially nothing... shit, I've never paid attention to shoes on capes. This is going to bug me until I check online, isn't it?

"Jeez girl-" girl? "-I'm not here to kill you. I'm here to thank you." Exasperation clear in her voice. But seriously, nobody should know I'm a girl. (Except the Protectorate) Nobody should think I'm a girl. (Except the Protectorate...) I'm an amorphous blob with a head essentially entirely concealed (... except for what hair is sticking out from under the helmet, I guess) and I avoid talking even when I can speak. Was she listening in, unnoticed? I was quiet, she shouldn't have heard me speaking anyway. Her words should make me more tense.

But... I calm down a little. Something in her tone? Sincerity? It's not like I'm used to sincerity from anyone except Dad, maybe that's it. Still. Thank me? For what? Nobody knows about my biggest deed, I'm pretty sure -well, nobody knows that Monster killed Nilbog, anyway, the monster that attacked Nilbog shouldn't have been connected to the parahuman named Monster that the PRT interrogated, and anyway the monster has never been acknowledged by the Protectorate- and putting away an attempted rapist isn't worth... what, hunting down a new, little-known, creepy cape just to thank her? This is just weird. She mutters something, sounds like invective, probably wouldn't have heard it at all if I'd been the girl when she spoke. I'm still trying to get a different view, without entering her line of sight, when she calls out, "This is about Heartbreaker!"

That gives me pause. There's only two categories of people who should know that, I'm pretty sure. Protectorate capes... and Heartbreaker's, erm, 'associates'.

I find myself doubting she's a Protectorate cape. I'm pretty sure this would be more... formal, if she were. (I don't think any of the locals is the right gender+age range anyway) Which leaves one of Heartbreaker's women or kids, here to thank me, or pretending to be here to thank me so she can kill me. She doesn't sound like either of the girls that were with Heartbreaker when I killed him, either. Odd. They shouldn't even have a name for me, even if they blabbed to everyone I changed my costume recently and I'm in another city and this is just wrong. I tense, ready for a fight.

More muttering, then she raises her voice. "Will you stop that! I can tell you're thinking this is a trick or a trap or whatever, but it's not!" Oh great, she's some kind of mindreader. "Not a fucking mindreader," she says. In response to me thinking she's a mindreader. "It's emotion reading, stop that, stop being so suspicious, I was trapped, I tried leaving the family, but he'd just send some of my brothers after me and I'd be back in Toronto or Bumfuck Nowhere, Canada, wherever he was at the time, barely two weeks later, no matter how far I went or where I went or how well I covered my tracks, and it fucking sucked. I'm happy he's dead."

Muttering to herself again. This sounds slightly more plausible, though really, I have no reaso- "I'm here to join your team! God."

Team?

"You don't have a team. I... fine, whatever, I still want in. Call it gratitude-" nobody comes this far over gratitude, certainly not to their father's murderer "-okay don't call it gratitude you paranoid psycho, call it I like being around interesting people. I can help you with stuff like tracking threats-" Finding Heartbreaker had been hell. "-Yes more of that please, seriously. I can track, I can scout, I can forewarn you of oncoming threats, I can do the social infiltration stuff, which honestly I'm pretty sure you're shit at-" yeah basically "-yep, called it- and I can do all kinds of other stuff too."

(The way she says other, it sounds odd, I can't quite place it)

That does sound cool... other than the part where I've got one of Heartbreaker's kids trying to convince me she's not here to kill me and I should totally metaphorically bare my throat to her.

"Oh for the love of- Okay. Fine. I'm going to leave now. I'm leaving a burner phone." I see her bend down and do exactly that, catching a glimpse of manicured nails and long, blonde hair. Some of it looks red? "It has my cell number on it, it's-" probably got a tracking device "-fuck. Why are you making this so fucking hard?" Emma "Oh. Lovely. No, I'm not whatever whorebag I remind you of. Okay? I'm not..." Hm? "... disloyal? No, traitorous. I'm not going to cozy up to you and then kill you, or manipulate you into getting yourself killed, or abandon you. I'm not going to be your best friend-" Emma "-Jesus, really? Best Friend equals brooding anger? Huh. I guess that explains something. Look. I'm clearly not going to be able to convince you to trust me, but if you don't try, you're never going to get that-" that? real acceptance? "-back. That's not how it works, I can tell you know that's not how it works, and I realize trusting a supervillain's daughter when you killed her father sounds, on the face of it, stupid, but trust me when I say I would've killed the bastard myself if that's what it took, if I'd thought for even a moment I could pull it off."

Sounds sincere.

"Because it is, god!"

A long pause. She sighs.

"... all right, I'm leaving the phone here. If you think it has a fucking... I dunno, bomb inside of it or whatever exactly you're thinking, you can just break it, or leave it, or whatever. I'd appreciate it if you actually took it and called me. We can have a conversation without you feeling like danger is looming, you can ask questions, and maybe then you'll believe me, trust me enough to give this a shot." Another pause. Probably trying to read my reaction. Honestly, I'm not sure what my reaction is. This is just surreal.

"... Okay. Okay." Deep breath. "I'm leaving now. At least consider it, don't dismiss it out of hand, or you'll always be alone." I don't flinch... because the monster can't flinch. "Seriously." Not-flinching again.

She turns and leaves, feet crunching through the light snow. I watch her carefully before she turns a corner, and yeah, part of her hair is red, a stripe down the middle. The rest of her outfit is in line with the shoes: a modestly sized bright red purse, a colorful one-piece dress that is too light for the temperature, with lacing around the collar and wrists, it just looks all-around nice, fits her figure -which is way curvier than mine- and the whole thing pulls together as a "look", like she knows fashion, where a lot of girls just read a magazine and copy something wholesale even though it was made for a twenty-something supermodel to show off in a magazine, not for a teen with a more typical body shape to wear to school or a club or whatever other teens do for fun.

Still reminds me too much of Emma.

"Fuck!"

Against what I feel is my better judgment, I make my way around the car, carefully approaching the cellphone. I stare at the phone for probably a full minute before I actually reach for it, at which point it's like a spell breaks, as suddenly I'm the girl again and people are walking the street normally, right up until they see me. Then it's people recoiling and staring and one person actually calling the PRT while I make a run for an alley, turning into the monster once I pass into it thankfully, and go leaping up to the roofs and from there bounding across rooftops toward the northeastern edge of the city.

Maybe I should work on my reputation.

-------------------------​

Somewhat to my surprise, I make it to my destination without any capes intercepting me. It's a lake Dad has fished at with friends a few times before, out in an undeveloped area not very far from the city, but not all that convenient by car. (You have to hike about a mile through woods from the nearest road, realistically speaking) In the cooler parts of the year, mostly nobody comes here at all. The lake never actually freezes over, but a nearly frozen lake is even less appealing than an actually frozen lake, since you can't skate on it or go ice-fishing or anything really interesting. It's just a lake, but cold, with fish flopping into the boat and splashing water all over you, say hello to hypothermia. (I got over it... eventually)

Which means it's basically perfect for me. I can stare into the water to stay the girl without having to worry about anybody stumbling upon a girl wearing a blanket like a shawl and a black bicycle helmet and red, toothy scarf obscuring her face, while staring into a lake. I'm certainly not taking this phone home.

Opening the phone and scrolling through its options is a bit of a pain. It's been forever since I've even handled a phone, it's chilly out here, and I'm having to hold myself in an awkward position so I've always got my reflection sufficiently in my view while at the same time trying to look at the cell phone, all while I'm concerned I'll drop the phone in the water and ruin it. The phone has more space dedicated to games than it does to being a phone, too, and I'm distracted twice by what looks like a legitimate function but turns out to be a weirdly named game. ("Connect with friends," is a game? What?) Eventually I navigate to the contacts list, where there's just the one number, labeled Cherie... which I initially read as a badly botched attempt to spell Cherry, before it occurs to me that it's probably French. French-Canadian, I guess, since she's Heartbreaker's kid. Kind of a relief. I had an awkward moment where I was thinking Cherry must be her cape name, and I was briefly imagining being Monster and Cherry, which just sounds awful.

It takes me three tries before I call the number successfully. The thing is such an awkwardly designed piece of shit I find myself sort of glad I haven't had a cell phone in ages. Shouldn't cell phones be better nowadays? (Then I feel bad for feeling glad about something caused by Mom's death)

Waiting for her to pick up.

Still waiting.

Yeah, sti-

"Hello... Whatever you call yourself." There's an expectant pause, which I deliberately ignore. "... sorry to keep you waiting, I was in the middle of something, but I'm good for however long you need. Ask whatever you like."

First things first. "Why on earth would you come all the way to Brockton Bay out of 'gratitude'?"

Her response is easy, calm. "My dad is dead and most of my family is locked up or 'reforming' by now." I can hear the air quotes around 'reforming'. She's being sarcastic. "I don't have anywhere specific to be, and I didn't want to be a part of their crap anyway. Why not?" It bothers me a little, how she's so casual about her father's death. "And you're here, so I'm here." I'm not sure what to say to that. There's a pause that turns into something awkward as I try to think of what to say.

"Look, if you're not going to buy a noble motive, can I give a different, no less true angle?" I make a noncommittal noise in my throat, which she apparently takes as an affirmative. "I stuck with my dad for as long as I did partly because the asshole would send family to recapture me, but partly because I thought the man had ambition. Get a cult-slash-family going, produce parahumans he can shape over their entire life for loyalty to him and his goals, conquer, I dunno, Alaska or something. Crown himself king, with the family as his superhuman enforcers." This sounds like a disturbingly plausible scenario, though I don't see where she's going with it. "Thing is, he didn't pay any attention to me or any of my siblings, beyond punishing us if we annoyed him, and trying to trigger us. Before you came along, I was starting to suspect he was exactly what he appeared to be: a man granted an incredible power but with no vision." A pause. Gathering her thoughts?

Trigger them? I frown. As in... trigger warnings?

What... what was he doing to his kids?

I suddenly have an inkling of why she's feeling so grateful. I shiver, and it's not due to the cold. I am so fucking glad I ended the sonofabitch.

I open my mouth, frown harder. Decide I don't really want to know what he did, and don't want to hurt her like that. I'm killing people like him to end the suffering. I don't need to go poking open wounds just to satisfy my curiosity.

Oh, she's talking again.

"If he was planning something big, world-changing? Something that would get him and his a bigger piece of the pie that is life? I wanted in on that." Oh. Lovely. "You? You have vision, I'm thinking." I... what? "You killed Heartbreaker, and... I'm thinking it was you that hit Ellisburg." Shit. "Hit a major villain nobody wants to take on in a suicide mission, decapitating strike. Twice, both in the northeastern North American continent. It's not a string of three, not yet, but it looks like the beginning of a pattern to me." Shit shit shit. "I'm not going to lie to you and pretend I share your presumably altruistic motives. Wouldn't have told you about what I thought my dad's plan was, how I wanted to be part of it, if I was going to fake that, you know?"

Oh, so I have a supervillain wanting to team up with me. That makes everything better. "So I'm thinking you're trying to take down the worst of the worst out there, make the world a better place or something, and I'm not going to tell you that I particularly care about the world being a better place." I'm torn between appreciating her honesty and suspecting this is some kind of bizarre mind-screw that's dishonest on an entirely different level. "No, I'm interested because you're going places. Kill the biggest, baddest monsters out there, guys who shape the world by existing? By yourself, no Protectorate backing, no government backing, nothing but you, your power, maybe some friends? That's insane, that's awesome, you'll go down in history as a legend." Uuuuh. Hm. Never thought of what I'm doing from that angle. I... guess she has a point, if I don't die first. "And if I'm there, hey, they'll remember Cherish too."

"Cherish?" I blurt out, confused.

"Oh. Right. 's what I'm calling myself, now that my dad's dead."

"Oh."

"Though I was actually thinking if you let me aboard I'd probably call myself Beauty or something, try to play off whatever your name is." Really? I'm not calling myself 'beast', that doesn't work... fuck. I'm not considering this. No way.

There's a long pause.

"If you don't believe that either, which, honestly, I'm not sure I'd buy it if it were me on the line, true as it is... last thing I've got to say on the topic. You keep this up, I'm a part of it? There's going to be rewards. Even if officially we're condemned, there'll be money, power, guys and girls throwing themselves at us-" wait is she bisexual does she think I'm bisexual what is this "-all that good stuff. It's great." I wonder if she realizes how much that resembles the behavior she was just lamenting in Heartbreaker. I wonder if I should point it out to her. Maybe it would drive her off. Maybe it would just piss her off and lead to a cape of unknown ability trying to kill me who has already proven she can track me down and sneak up on me without me noticing. "That make sense?"

I say, "Sure, I guess," sounding as ambivalent as I'm feeling. Still not sure whether this is some kind of trap or if she's genuinely earnest and genuinely creepy.

Something's bugging me though. I say, "You sound like you've put a lot of thought into this," trying to keep my tone level, my concerns out of my voice.

There's a pause before she responds, just long enough to make me think she didn't have a response already prepared, not so long she seems off-put by me saying it. "No, really? And here I thought we met through blind chance and I acted on impulse." Okay. Sarcasm. She has a point. Still... not entirely comfortable with this. Does she have no family loyalty at all? I have a really hard time believing that she's not bothered by the death of her father, or the fact that I attacked her family at all.

"Point. But most people-"

"Really?" She sounds exasperated, a touch angry. I'm annoyed she interrupted me. "I'm not 'most people'. My family was a power-enforced harem. My father punished us with superpowers. I was just talking about how I was legit expecting my dad to carve out Alaska as his own kingdom, using an army of brainwashed cape children. It would be a miracle if I was 'most people'."

Wait, 'punished us with superpowers'?

Does this have to do with her talking about being triggered?

No, no. Stay on task. "I meant that family is important." Clear, direct, true, dodges her... tic about normality? I get the impression she hates being called normal. Wonder why.

"My dad was a supervillain. My siblings were my competition." Well. Siblings as competition isn't anything new. "My dad tried to trigger us." A pause. "Yeah, he was an asshole." Another, shorter pause. "On the topic of powers-" Here it comes, she's going to ask me about my power, try to find weaknesses. "-I'm surprised you haven't asked about mine yet." uuuuh wait. Um, straight honesty I guess. I don't think it can give away anything important to talk about what I was expecting. Assuming?

"I was sort of assuming it was basically Heartbreaker's, I guess. Weaker or less diverse, or something? I've heard so little about his kids I honestly forgot they existed while I was planning." Which in retrospect I am so goddamn lucky that didn't screw me over. If I had found him at home, with all his parahuman children presumably right there, that would've gone bad places. "I would've heard about you if you were literally Heartbreaker all over again, or something like that? I didn't think about it, really." I wonder for a moment if I sound apologetic. I don't feel apologetic. I'm talking to a supervillain's daughter who's probably here to kill me.

"Well, yes and no." She sounds amused. Why does she sound amused? "I've got a power that's similar to dear old dad's, in the same way an ostrich is similar to an eagle."

... what?

"His power let him directly dictate the way a given person felt emotionally on an arbitrarily selected topic. You already know the main way he used it, and in all honesty the only other vaguely clever thing he ever did with it that I saw was 'blasting' people with intense feelings. Subtlety of a sledgehammer, dear old dad." I can't tell if that's wryness in her voice, sarcasm, or genuine affection. I don't think it's just because we're talking over a phone. "I sense emotions. Same general idea, different details. I can make people feel pretty much whatever I want them to feel, but it's just a random feeling from 'nowhere'. Heartbreaker could look at someone and make them love him. I can look at someone, pay attention to when they look at me, and have them feel a random surge of affection that they interpret as being caused by looking at me. Do it often enough, and it becomes real." holy shit she brainwashes people.

Holy shit she's telling me this. Why is she telling me this?

"Not nearly as precise as dear old dad, but then he didn't track people at the outer edge of a city from inside a nice, comfy hotel room. Good trade, I say."

...

She's implying she knows exactly where I am right now. Is she impl-

"No, I can't manipulate you at this distance. I need line of sight, or something like that, to work that part." not sure I believe her "Even the sensing part of my power gets relatively weak this far out." I'm starting to think she's going for full disclosure because she can mind control me and so it doesn't matter what she tells me because she'll just mind-control me.

Fuck. I need to throw the phone away and... shit, I can't just leave town, and if I stay with my dad she can still sense me anywhere. Fu-

"Whoa, slow down there girl! Yeah, I'm sharing everything, but it's not whatever you're thinking. Thing is, your power messes with mine. I don't know what your power is, so I can't speculate why, but a lot of the time your emotions are very stable, very dim. I was actually trying to calm you down when you were hiding behind the car, get you to listen to me and, I'll freely admit, maybe get you to associate me with calmness so you'd want to hang, but it wasn't really working. I frankly have no idea why, but you're protected from me somehow. And I could tell, even before you had this little freakout, that you're a nice little goody-two-shoes that can't stand the thought of mind control. So, better to let you know before we partner up, rather than having you realize I'm borderline mind control and instantly murder me because you're mostly immune and not so moral you won't kill Bad Guys." I can hear her capitalizing Bad Guys. I think I'm being mocked. I'm not sure how to feel about her thinking I'd murder her if I found out her power, either. "'s part of why I'm interested in you. Not used to that particular combination of morals." Aaaand now I'm creeped out.

"Oh come on, it's... look. I can't do it to you. I'm totally cool with you being head honcho on this. You want me for my tracking ability and stunning and totally natural good looks? Sure, I'll do that. Honest, swear on... I dunno, pretend I'm Christian and swearing on a bible applies. I won't touch that part without prior approval, and I can't cheat and make you give approval." Not really selling me on this. "Plus, it's not really that different from what everybody does everyday." Uh. No, it's very different. "No really. You're trying to be, like a real-life Batman-" ??? "-oh wow. Um. Never mind, point is, you're trying to make people afraid of doing something so terrible you come after them. I can totes help with that, it's not really any different from scaring the shit out of them by being a spooky-ass vigilante." I... don't really agree, but I can see her point. Kinda.

... is that long-distance emotional manipulation she's engaging in?

Wait, what's that noise? Is there someone here?

No, no, it's coming from the phone. It's... oh. She's screaming. Did I just hear glass break? I think I just heard glass break. Can't quite make out what she's screaming though. I'm pretty sure most of it's swearing, though.

Now I'm kind of concerned she's insane and violent or something.

Oh. I think she's done. Yeah, that sounds like her picking up the phone. Did she have it under a pillow or something? Oh, she's talking. It doesn't sound like she's mad... "Seriously. I can't get to you at this range. I can't do anything to you at all sometimes. A lot of the time, really, and anything I do doesn't stick." Wait, has she been testing this on me? Without my -is she screaming again?- without my knowledge? I've been moody since I killed Heartbreaker: is it her fault? Would I even notice if she was doing it? Oh there she is again. "I think you have an actual problem." What, because I don't want to trust my creepy stalker who's the daughter of the man I murdered in cold blood, scarring her for life? "I'm becoming concerned you don't know how to trust people." I totally trust people. My dad is awesome. I trusted Emma. I mean, look where it got me, but I trusted her.

...

Um. There's also my mom. I trusted her.

...

I trusted... trust, I trust... um... Alexandria? Armsmaster was my hero as a kid. They're both good people, they deserve my trust. And the rest of the Protectorate. Um. The PRT. The police. Charities. Yeah, the people of the world making the world a better place? I trusted them.

... trust. I meant trust.

...

shit

"Oh thank god."

shitshitshit

"Look before you go into some spiral of self-loathing or whatever, can we just agree to this team-up thing and figure out the next big bastard to kill?"

fuuuuuuuck

"You know what? Never mind, just call me again when you're not having a complete breakdown." click

no

 

[Ghoul King]

Warning: contains two whole kiddos.

3.2

I wish I could say I wake up in the morning, covered in snow, freezing to death, and briefly pretend that it was all a dream, before spotting the phone and realizing it was all real.

I can't say that because that's not what happened. I can't fall asleep without someone watching me or staring at myself via reflection, both of which have problems. What I actually did was fall backward, away from the lake, thus becoming the monster standing upside-down, and remain completely motionless for... some long period of time. I dunno. It wasn't dawn yet, anyway. Still in the middle of the night.

Later, I thought it was kind of cool that a deer came into the clearing, glanced briefly at my immobile body, and then ignored me while it drank from the lake. At the time I only half-registered it. I don't even remember whether it had antlers or not.

But eventually I felt restless. Realizing I haven't extended real trust to anyone since sometime during the bullying campaign? Not even to people who have done nothing to destroy my trust, like the Protectorate? (The ambush doesn't count, it was a misunderstanding, they weren't after me...) I didn't really want to confront it, would've loved to have just slept it off, or just sat there until the end of time, ignoring the world. But the restlessness came anyway, a bone-deep hunger for action.

I put 'Cherish' out of my mind. I'll go... capture Victor or something. Maybe Uber and Leet. Ignore this thing with Cherish, vent some steam. And then I'll murder some other sonofabitch monster nobody will miss.

Because fuck no I didn't trust the girl. She had a point, horrible as it was to admit it, but that didn't mean I was wrong to mistrust her. This was probably still some kind of bizarre plot to get close to me and kill me. I mean, sure, if she wanted to she could've brought a gun and shot me when she first found me. I'd have died instantly if she shot me in the head I'm pretty sure. Easy assassination, given I didn't know she was there until she spoke.

...

no no shut up it's a plot she's like the simurgh she manipulates your thoughts don't let her get close to you or it'll be a fate worse than death

Yeah. Yeah, she left me alive so she could do worse later. That's something the Slaughterhouse Nine do, that's something the Simurgh does. There's worse things than dying. Better revenges. I'm right to not trust her.

Let's go hunting for Uber and Leet.

----------------------------​

The thing I'd like to do is go wandering the city, sniff out their hideout, break in, and take them down before finding a pay phone to call the PRT. (... could I text the PRT with Cherish's burner phone? Is that something you can do with emergency services?) That would require I already know where their hideout is, though. Or have powers that make it easier to track people.

Like sensing them emotionally from a distance.

no shut up

Obviously I don't know where their hideout is. If I did, it'd be because everyone knew, and it wouldn't be a hideout for long. But I know they have a hideout, because they've alluded to a hideout a few times in their show. They could be faking, of course, but it felt casual, like a slipup. I don't think they were trying to plant false leads. I also never tried that hard to figure out where they might have a hideout at. It was entertainment, a bit of catharsis, more recently punishment. The Zelda caper wasn't even criminal, unless you consider attacking a known villain to be a crime, and I don't think anyone is too broken up over Malice being humiliated before he went to jail. And he did look like Gannondorf, big black guy with a hook nose, frames his powers as magic, he was practically asking for it by moving into Brockton Bay...

Anyway.

So the first thing I actually do is get home, sneak in through my window and stash my costume in my closet. Then I quietly make my way to our computer, and boot it up. Then I plug in a pair of headphones, wait impatiently for the browser to boot up, and make my way to Uber and Leet's site. (Wonder briefly how the site avoids getting taken down -some kind of Leet tinkertech?) Click into the video section, wait impatiently again for the video links to boot up... I take the time to mull over how far back I should be looking. They might've changed their hideout at some point, in which case really early videos would be a waste of time. But they also got better, more circumspect over time. In early videos they were streaming with a 30 second delay, which they extended to a 5 minute delay when Armsmaster used their stream to find out where their Doom-themed teleporter was and get to it before they did. Disabled it, ambushed them when they showed up, and then took it home with him.

(I still think he let them get away.)

So in more recent videos they might have stopped accidentally dropping hints to where they keep their stuff. I'm basically screwed if they have both stopped giving clues and proceeded to move their lair, but... I have my doubts that's happened. I wish I'd been paying attention to this when I was watching their videos as punishment. I don't even remember which videos they refer to their lair in.

Eventually I settle on starting from six months ago. They make a video every one or two weeks, most of their videos are about half an hour long, but I'm focusing on the quiet parts -the chunks they didn't cut out, at least- and on the most intense parts, where there's the greatest chance that something will slip out, from boredom (Quiet sections) or panic (Intense sections), so it actually only takes me something like 5-10 minutes to get through most videos. It takes longer once I get the idea to consult Google Maps and see if their episodes are focused around any one part of the city, but not too much longer. In the end, it's nearly two hours later -just before 5 in the morning, I finally notice- when I lean back in my chair stretching, done.

Unfortunately, there really isn't that much, and the worst thing is two different videos suggest they've changed their location -twice. The first one is from five months ago. The second is from two months ago. It sounds like in each case a gang found the place and trashed it -Leet spent literally an entire video moaning about Squealer jacking something, I don't know how I forgot- while they were away, forcing them to start over from scratch in a new location, aside from whatever they had on them when it happened. It also sounds like they've been focusing on extralegal options, like abandoned warehouses, which doesn't really surprise me. It does basically eliminate the nicer parts of town, which is something.

The problem is, that's about it, and the not-nice parts of Brockton Bay... well, they probably aren't more of the city than the nicer parts, but the area is pretty large. Knowing that one of the Archer's Bridge Merchants stole something of Leet's does help in one way: it confirms that, regardless of how often they've taken their 'show' to other cities, they aren't simply pretending to be based in Brockton Bay. They are based in Brockton Bay.

Even with how fast I move, I don't have enough time to search the entirety of the Docks, the Boat Graveyard... not before dawn arrives and I have to head home and then go to school. I could probably do some searching, but if I did luck into them, and it was late enough or took long enough I'd have problematic questions to be answering.

So, in spite of how badly I want to just find someone who should be removed from polite society and make it happen, I shut down the computer, put the headphones away, make my way to my room essentially silently, and slip under the covers in case Dad comes in before I 'wake up' to go make breakfast.

I spend the next hour stewing over my encounter with Cherie.

--------------------------​

When Dad comes into the kitchen with a, "Hey kiddo," I make sure to turn away from the pancakes, smile at him, and say, "Morning, Dad."

He stops in place, halfway to the fridge, and looks at me. I can't place his expression. He asks, "Taylor, are you OK?" and I finally realize his expression is one of concern.

I'm baffled, and apparently it shows on my face because he waves it off with, "Never mind, never mind," and goes back to pouring himself a glass of milk.

Seriously, what?

There's an awkward minute where I'm sure he's going to pry, or something, but nothing comes of it. He reads his newspaper, thanks me when I put his plate in front of him, makes a passing comment on how I'm clearly enjoying the pancakes and especially the syrup -I poured a lot- and we do dishes afterward together, and things just seem... normal. It takes me a minute to realize we haven't done normal in a while.

It takes me even longer to realize that was because of me.

It's not until I'm entering Winslow's grounds that a half-thought crystallizes and I shout, "Fuck!" right in the middle of a crowd of students.

The trip to the principal's office barely registers on me. Blah blah blah bullshit about how she realizes things have been rough since my mother's death etc etc she's been giving me space but if behavior like this continues yadda yadda suspension or expulsion. Whatever. I nod and make noises of agreement or apology in the right places and in the end promise to never do it again, which is probably actually true though not out of respect for her authority, and am sent on my way with detention. There'd be whispering of nasty girls behind my back, except they're all in class. The whispers will still happen, just later, of course.

I spend the rest of the school day brooding. I'd dignify it with a word like ruminating, but it isn't. It's me sitting in class, largely ignoring the teachers who largely ignore me, and largely ignoring the standard array of bullshit from students that want to be a part of the 'in' crowd. Still, I note three separate incidents where Sophia oops bumps into me, steps on my foot, and in the third case puts her foot out as I'm turning a corner, and far more than that in the way of ugly words said about me but not at me yet deliberately in my vicinity as if they didn't realize I was there. But mostly I brood.

I do use computer science class to look into the aftermath of Heartbreaker's death, see if I can find a cape called Cherish -nope- or a Heartbreaker kid or girlfriend called Cherie -yes, supposedly, though the aftermath is a chaotic mess and Cherie could be one of the girlfriends, a kid, or there could be one of each... or more than one of either or both. The PHO wiki is also updating with new information on the kids that escaped, but not on a 'Cherie'. In fact, the escaped ones listed on the wiki are a trio of boys working together, an extremely young girl whose power is unclear but apparently disturbing to see in action, and a lone teenage boy who supposedly senses and induces pain, the latter within his line of sight, probably. No teenage girl.

I spend a minute imagining Cherie could be this boy crossdressing and with a more diverse power set than either one supposedly has, until a shaky cell phone photo uploaded literally while I'm reading shows that the boy has a shaggy shock of black hair that still looks like someone from Hollywood had done it up fifteen minutes ago. And he's built like someone hoping to be a bodybuilder someday, not slender enough to fit what I saw of Cherie. Nice abs. Not that it was ever a serious thought, but that theory's busted.

It's a relief when school ends. Less relief than I'm used to, because now I have to make myself follow through on the thought that led to Blackwell's office in the first place.

Now I have to call Cherish and say yes.

----------------------
​

The half-thought-turned-full-thought was complicated. I can't say I'll ever fully lay it out, it had too many pieces. The crux of it, though, was that I'd damaged -hopefully not destroyed yet- but damaged my relationship with my Dad.

Not the bullies. Me.

I'd been hiding the details of the situation from him to avoid hurting him, but in the process I'd been hiding the details of everything from him. First I'd just kept quiet on the bad days. At some point I'd realized he could tell that not talking about my day was basically the same thing as admitting it had been a bad day, so I'd stopped talking about school at all, except in the vaguest terms possible, so he couldn't tell whether a given day had been bad or not.

Somehow I'd thought this would worry him less.

The half-thought had pulled together when I'd realized it was the opposite. With no information to go on, and me doing what I'd previously done only on the worst days...

He probably thought I'd stopping talking about school because every day was one of the bad days. One of the worst days. Ever since the locker? He might be assuming they were all that bad.

They weren't, but he had no way of knowing that, and it wasn't because the bullies were hiding it or would hurt me if I talked to my own father or any kind of good excuse. Not that the better days were good days, but they were really like... if I was a physically awkward student, who tripped frequently? Dropped her stuff? Was a bit bad at schoolwork, and socially awkward? Most of the days would be like that. The bullying campaign was never a good thing, but most of the time it wasn't necessarily worse than just being a bad fit for school. It was maybe two, three times a month that it stepped over from constant low-grade harassment into vile, horrible things. Which was two or three times a month too many, but was like literally a tenth as much suffering as my Dad might be thinking was going on. If he thought it was all the locker, all the time, it was one millionth the misery he imagined.

In the process of painting this horrifying picture to my Dad, I'd also, entirely incidentally, sent... a lot of messages. But the key one, the reason I'd had the thought, was 'I don't trust my own father to understand and care'.

Unfortunately, it was... not too late exactly, but an old habit, a groove. If I suddenly changed pattern for no reason, assuming I could even make myself stick to it, it might just upset him more. Reinforce that he knows nothing about what's going on in my life, and what a happy thought that is, that my own father knows nothing about me. I haven't even told him I'm a cape.

I'm not sure I want to tell him that, ever, but it's still the latest thing he doesn't know about me. I'm not even sure he knows how well I do in track -did that crop up before I transitioned to 'just don't talk about it'? I need to fight this, undo it, get the relationship back. Or make a new, good, one. It might not be possible to salvage the old one. I'm no longer a little girl, even leaving aside the bullying and its consequences.

There's layers here I was still trying to wrap my head around, but it boiled down to: I'd fucked up, it came back to trust, and right now the only people I could extend trust to were my dad, the PRT/Protectorate... or Cherie.

I was starting with Cherie. I'd work my way up to the others later.

Worst case scenario?

She I can kill with no one the wiser.

-------------------​

I spend twenty minutes rummaging through my room before I remember where the cell phone actually is. Back at the lake. Not even buried, which had been my original plan when I was done with it if I didn't simply destroy it, to be absolutely sure nobody found it, but simply laying out on the dirt where anyone could find it, because I'd honestly forgotten about it entirely.

That gives me pause. It's between 4 and 5 in the afternoon at this point, and even in winter that's not quite dark. Making my way out and back before Dad got home would be a tight schedule (Unless he's really late today, which admittedly is fairly common nowadays) if I went full speed as the monster, no detours or distractions. Doing so in daylight is slower, riskier.

It's frustrating. Now that I have this thought I just want to make it happen, right now. I don't want to wait, let myself lie by omission to my Dad when I could be working on fixing this.

The doorbell rings. My initial impulse is to ignore it. Then I think that's strange and make my way to the door, racking my brain for who might be at the door. Peek through the peephole -not entirely sure I understand the mechanics of pulling that off- and that's Cherie, smile on her face, waving.

What.

I have a sudden, intense urge to see if I can simply stab her to death through the door. She knows where I live. She's willing to threaten my civilian identity, implicitly, and my Dad in the process. This is unacceptable. I stall for a half-second while I try to think how I could possibly explain a strange teenage girl, dead on my doorstep, filled with punctures that match the holes in the door ("I'm not suspicious or a cape or guilty of murder, it's a wild coincidence, officer." That's going to end well), and hesitate for a further fraction of a second, uncertain whether I would remain the monster if I tried.

What saves Cherie's life is the way her smile slides right off her face, presumably in response to my thoughts. Or feelings, I guess. This is not the face of a girl intending to murder me or threaten me, certain she has the upper hand. This is the face of a girl who walked up to a lion, intending to pet it, and only just realized it intends to eat her and she can't do anything to stop it.

I watch her through the peephole, clear I'm not going to kill her right this instant but thinking furiously otherwise. Invite her in, scare her off, stalk her and kill her later... I can't decide.

Maybe thirty seconds pass. She's shivering, and it's not from the cold. Then she swallows, takes a deep breathe she lets out slowly, and stares directly at the peephole, gaze steady, saying nothing.

I let her in.

-------------------​

She's still dressed stylishly, though a bit less so than last time. She's wearing sneakers this time, as well as pants -they actually complement the skirt- and a heavier coat than before, this one with a hood. She had it down outside, but it still has a hood, which I don't think her outfit last night had. She even has gloves, though she still makes them look good, somehow. This seems odd, since it had to have been colder last night than it is right now. The sun still hasn't set, while last night's meeting was around midnight. Why dress more warmly now?

I make myself tea. I haven't actually had tea in ages, now that I think about it. No need to make it when I'm alone, haven't had it with my Dad.

I don't offer Cherie anything, and she doesn't ask for anything. She just watches me from her seat on the couch looking haunted while I sit down in a chair. She swallows convulsively, tries to talk, fails. Turns to one side to cough, swallows again, and looks me in the eyes before she says, in a low tone, "I didn't mean it that way. I was clear you were going to call me, I got... I got a little excited, okay?" Another nervous swallow. "I just thought this would be more convenient." Her eyes go toward the floor. "I already told you about the tracking. I thought you knew that I knew where you lived. What school you go to. All that." Which I had, intellectually, but I hadn't thought she'd come here directly, regardless. You don't do that. (My mind drifts to the Endbringer Truce, Uber and Leet, things I've been thinking while I've been stalking the streets. There are rules)

I sip my tea, watching her, and am struck by a thought. I spend a moment wondering if I should be circumspect or blunt. I decide on blunt. "Is this actual guilt?"

She shakes her head very slowly. I raise an eyebrow. She swallows nervously, and says, "Mortal terror." Mortal ter- oh. I... think I see.

She licks her lips and asks me, "Could you have killed me?"

I answer, in complete honesty, "I don't know." I don't think it reassures her.

After a moment I ask, "So. No guilt." She nods. Slowly.

I spend a minute sipping my tea, looking at Cherie, not really seeing her. Mind elsewhere. I'd planned on saying yes. I still kind of want to say yes. But I also still kind of want to string her up by her guts -she flinches- and leave the PRT to find her corpse -smaller flinch- after this shit. There are rules. You don't violate them unless you're dealing with the real monsters, unless you want to be one of the real monsters. Does Cherie not get that?

There's not really a lightbulb moment. Not exactly. I'm rolling that thought around. Thinking about Cherie talking, last night, where she interrupted me when I talked about 'normal' people. Not a lightbulb moment, a slow dawning. The final thought...

... she probably doesn't.

I push aside my feelings for a moment -another flinch, which surprises me- and speak, in as mild a tone as I can manage. "Cherie, have you ever heard of capes having a... gentleman's agreement, something like that?" I don't even need a response. She's looking at me like I'm speaking Martian. I sigh, just a little, most of my anger draining away. It's hard to be mad at the ignorant. It's like being mad at a baby. Now Cherie looks wary, maybe a little hopeful. I ignore it, set my tea down, and lean forward in a casual, earnest way, hands clasped in front of me, no particular expression on my face.

Then I abruptly put both hands on the side of her head, jerk it to right in front of my face, maybe an inch of space between us, and say, very mildly, "There are rules." Now she looks terrified. Again. It occurs to me, abstractly, that I haven't told her my power, that she probably knows generally what I can do, but doesn't know what I can't do. For all she knows I can shove my fingers right into her skull and pull out her pulped brain on Brute strength. I push the thought aside, try to ignore how she's holding very still and is sweating so much I can't tell whether she's crying or not -her mascara is running, anyway-, and just focus on the words. "You do not unmask capes, unless they are monsters, the kind that get kill orders put out, that not only will no one cry if they die but you will be paid money for their death. If you connect their cape life to their civilian life, even accidentally, you don't touch that. You don't touch the civilians in their lives. You don't do anything that looks like you might ever intend to do any of these. If you are unsure whether a given course of action is appropriate, assume it isn't unless they have a kill order on them." A bead of sweat forms on her forehead. I ignore a sudden bizarre urge to lick it off.

Focus on the words. "If you know where a cape lives and sleeps, and it's not an actual lair? If it's a home with family inside it? You don't touch it, you don't go there, you pretend you don't realize it exists." Cherish's eyes widen, just a little. I press on. I need to make the point, the one I suspect she needs to hear. "You don't violate these rules, not because I'm telling you to, but because if you don't the entire cape world will decide you don't get any protection." No response. She's not getting it. "If you respect these rules, you can get healing, you can go to jail, you can have any number of things happen and people won't unmask you. If they recognize you in your public life, when you're out for ice cream, they won't pull a gun and kill you, even if you're a notorious supervillain or a hero they personally hate and want dead." More of a response. She might be getting it. "But if you do violate these rules, teams will form to kill you." I pause, gauging her reaction. Her lack of reaction, really. She's starting to drool from not swallowing this whole time. "When I say 'teams' I mean that Lung will happily fight shoulder to shoulder with Armsmaster to ensure you die." That gets a response. "And then when you're dead, whether you unmasked a hero or a villain, they will shake hands, congratulate each other on a job well done, and go back to life as usual."

She's starting to shake again.

Abruptly, I let her go, lean back into my chair. She barely catches herself before she would fall onto the table. I pick up my cup of tea and continue sipping from it, expressionless. She levers herself back onto the couch, works her jaw, swallows a few times. She doesn't take her eyes off me. She opens her mouth and starts to say something when-

-the front door clicks, Dad calls out, "Hey kiddo I-" and stops abruptly, having entered the living room to find me with a strange girl who looks like she's been crying.

I say, "Hi Dad. This is Cherie-" there's a response there from him, but I can't place it "-and she was just telling me about her break-up with her boyfriend." I turn my gaze on her. "Right, Cherie?"

Her voice is a bit hollow when she says, "I regret it completely." It takes me a moment, but I realize she's actually... not apologizing to me, but acknowledging her fuckup. She got the memo. Good.

Dad is clearly lost, looking back and forth. He starts to say, "When-" and I interrupt with, "I met her last night, invited her over if she couldn't find a place to stay that was safe from her boyfriend, excuse me, ex-boyfriend. Sorry I forgot to mention it, Dad." Cherie nods vaguely, while Dad actually... brightens a little? Hm. He seems relieved. Odd.

He makes a magnanimous gesture and says, "I'd have preferred a heads-up Taylor-" I wince a little at that. "-but we can put her up for two or three days while she gets her head on straight, if she needs it." He looks at Cherie. She glances at me and then immediately away before saying, with false cheer, "That's okay mister-" she pauses and glances at me. I just stare blankly back at her. It's my dad who gets it, a couple of seconds after it's turned awkward. "Hebert. Danny Hebert." Oh. Right. Did she even know my name was Taylor before Dad showed up and called my name? I'd assumed... with the creepy stalker behavior...

... and now she's glancing at me again, not sure why...

"It's okay mister Hebert. I just needed a shoulder to cry on, I actually have other arrangements, but they don't know the full story and I'm not comfortable sharing it with them. Taylor was actually there for the important bit." It suddenly occurs to me: Cherie has done this before. I went to outright lying to Dad. She's actually mostly telling the truth, just in a misleading way. Fuck. I really need to work on this honesty thing. Why is Cherie better at not lying to my dad than I am? Fuck.

My dad looks relieved, very briefly. It occurs to me Cherie probably read his apprehension directly, earlier. I didn't even notice he didn't want to actually take her in. He says, "Good. That's good. That you're already situated, I mean." A pause. He looks at me. He looks like he's going to ask me something, but then he shakes his head slightly and says, "I'll be in the kitchen if you need anything."

Cherie and I are silent as he makes his way there. I sip some more of my tea. Hm. Starting to get cold. Once he's out of sight Cherie leans toward me, flinches and stops halfway through the motion, but continues until she's in whispering distance and says to me, under her breath, "Ex-boyfriend? Really?" I shrug. I don't really care about her opinion. There's a moment where she's just watching me, I think waiting for more of a response, but then she just asks, still whispering, "Are we still on for this or what?"

I spend a moment not responding, sipping my tea. I think, really, just to be petty. I'm not entirely sure. If so, it doesn't work: she clearly picks up something in what I'm feeling, because a smile slowly makes its way across her face. The cat that ate the canary. I mull that over for a moment, suddenly wondering if she really got the memo earlier if she's already being smug and provocative when she seemed genuinely afraid I would kill her just minutes ago. Then I push it aside. I really do need to do this for my own reasons.

I can always kill her if she goes over the line.

Cherie's face goes completely white. Her left hand starts twitching, until she covers it with her right hand. She swallows reflexively, while I watch her impassively. She glances toward the kitchen, but I just shake my head back and forth. She cringes, tries to say something, fails, and finally chokes out, "When are we doing it?"

I...

Hm.

"Tonight. Uber and Leet."

Her entire face screws up in an expression halfway between disgust and puzzlement. "Those losers? You're going to kill them?"

I... suppose I shouldn't be surprised that's where her mind goes, given how this entire visit has gone. I'm vaguely affronted anyway, and it creeps into my voice. "No. They're not monsters. I'm capturing them. I'd intended to do it last night, but I don't know where their hideout is."

That fucking smile again. "So you need my help to track them?"

I give her a withering look at the emphasis on 'need'. "You can stop that. We're a team-" She brightens suddenly, I think involuntarily, because she immediately clamps down on it and puts an artificial, smug expression on her face. I find myself wondering if she reacted to me reacting to her reaction, or if she is just sufficiently self-aware to catch her own reaction. "-until you do something to piss me off. Like needling me." I do my best to make the last bit particularly pointed, even looking at her instead of my teacup while I say it.

I'm not sure how well it works. Cherie is looking serene now, not contrite or anything. Though... I'm not sure I'd believe 'contrite' from her at this point...

Cherie asks me when. I say midnight. There's more whispered discussion establishing details, but it's basically trivialities. And snark. Lots of snark, particularly when my costume comes up in the conversation. I'm more annoyed at her refusing to move past it for five minutes than I am at the snark itself. The costume isn't meant to look nice. It's just meant to hide my identity when I'm not the monster. The details of my power never do crop up in the conversation. The closest it comes is when I have a sudden thought and suggest Cherie bring a blindfold, or something that can be used as one. Cherie seems to assume I intend it for one of the boys, only remarking that she'll do one better and bring two. That's fine.

Eventually Cherie leaves for... wherever it is she goes... I don't know, and right now I don't care. I blow off Dad's attempts to talk to me by calling attention to my homework, barely touched. I'm not up for actually implementing this trust my own dad thing, nor the don't lie unnecessarily to my own dad thing, and I really don't want to answer his questions about Cherie right now. I'd rather get with her on the cover story end of thing first, and I also just don't want to lie to him again. Bad enough that I'm doing it reflexively at this point.

I spend the rest of the evening in my room, doing my homework with the assistance of a (Recently purchased, second-hand) hand mirror carefully placed so I remain Taylor, without looking suspicious. I 'go to bed' just before ten.

At eleven-thirty, I quietly pull on my costume, climb out my window and go to meet Cherie.

 

[Ghoul King]

3.3

Meeting Cherie is simple. She can still track my 'emotional signature', whatever that means, and even if she couldn't, she knows that anytime I'm travelling quickly I'm 'muted', which is apparently unique in Brockton Bay. She seems to think I have a mover power that somehow interferes with her power, which is not precisely wrong.

Anyway, that means she can find me wherever I go. Which is still creepy stalker behavior, but it's convenient enough right now. I gave her vague directions to meet me at a specific, reasonably large park, counting on her ability to sense my exact location through her power to handle the rest. It doesn't take more than a few minutes for her to show up after I've climbed into a tree in the park. I half-wonder, as she approaches, how precise her detection is, and get something of an answer when I notice she's looking up at the tree branches, more or less exactly where I'm clinging.

I suddenly find myself wondering if she only detects humans or if animals are fair game.

I shake off the thought and drop down before she's close enough to actually see me and revert me to the girl mid-fall. I note a slight widening of her eyes. She also slows down just a little in approaching me, at least until she's close enough that I'm suddenly the girl. I wonder if she's relieved to see a human rather than whatever she thinks she saw drop out of the tree. I wish, not for the first time, that my night vision as the girl were as good as my night vision as the monster. Or that my vision as the girl was something other than complete shit, period. I'm not willing to risk wearing glasses in costume anymore, and I don't have contacts. By the time I can see her, she's composed and confident. Or faking confidence. I'm suspecting the latter. I notice she's tied her hair up into a tight bun, the red streak almost invisible. Huh. Otherwise she's wearing more or less what she wore when she came to my house.

With a wave, she calls out, "Heya boss."

I ignore her flippancy, hold out one hand, and ask, "Did you bring it?" She grins and removes a scarf I'd completely overlooked from around her neck, black and expensive-looking, puts it in my hand, a gold-bronze scarf revealed underneath where the black one was. I raise an eyebrow, realize she probably can't see it, then realize Cherie can probably sense my skepticism directly, and mentally throw my hands in the air. Physically, I take it, stress-test it a couple of times -no tearing- and then say, firmly, "Turn around." Cherie's smile flickers, and her eyes dart around. She hesitates for a long stretch, and then finally turns around without saying anything, though the smile turned into a rictus. I try to not think too hard about what she might be imagining, that she's so concerned, and instead -oh good the scarf did stay, instead of vanishing with everything else- I wrap it over Cherie's eyes. She jumps slightly, but doesn't move. She jumps again when a bit of fluid drips off a limb onto her shoulder, and shudders weirdly when it slides almost frictionlessly -I notice it doesn't darken the material on her blouse any- down her arm, dropping to the ground from her elbow. I'm mildly impressed -she suddenly stands a little straighter- at her lack of response though. It takes me so long to fumble with trying to tie off the scarf that Cherie finally reaches back and does it herself.

Cherie speaks, with just the tiniest bit of a tremor in her voice. "So boss, done. Not what I was expecting when you asked for a blindfold, buAAAAAAA!"

The scream was, of course, because I insinuated myself under her (Careful to avoid her touching my blades) and suddenly took off at a run, having waited just long enough for her to reflexively grab onto what feels like my neck with her arms and wrap her legs tight around my main body. To her credit, the scream only lasts maybe three seconds. She was surprised, more than frightened, I infer. She screams again when I'm suddenly going vertical, climbing right up the side of a building, though again, only for a moment. She starts whimpering, until I go horizontal again on the rooftop.

When she moves to climb off, I arrange to keep my blades away from her body. She pulls off the scarf, throws it off to one side, and proceeds to run to the edge of the roof and vomit over the side. Profusely. I wait patiently. We have all night.

Eventually she moves to dry heaving, then to hiccups. Finally she turns around and makes her way toward me.

It takes me a second to realize the expression on her face is not fear. It's... anticipation? "What was that?" The tone of voice isn't what I expected, either. I was expecting outrage. I half-expected her to want to jump ship, give up on this 'Team Monster' thing. She sounds more like someone who thinks they saw Jesus, or the Buddha. Reverent, that's the word I'm looking for.

...

...

... she enjoyed it.

...

...

Moving on.

I say, "Fast travel. Can you track Uber and Leet?"

She's still... glowing... but she answers dutifully. "I can guess, but I can't guarantee anything without having confirmed that a given emotional signature is a given person. I could find you again because I already knew your signature. I've never met them." Oh. Great. "However, I can make an educated guess based on their general personality, and see if I can find a pair that fits."

I nod sharply and ask, "Would this work better with a stable position, or if we were traveling?" I've barely finished my sentence when she says, "Traveling," in a breathy tone I can't place.

I pause for a moment, staring at her.

Then I shake it off and tell her, "Blindfold on." She nods with a small grin, glances around, spots it faster than I'd have expected her to -it's a black scarf on a black rooftop at night- and gets it on by herself, hands shaking just a little. Then we mount up, and I jump to the next rooftop.

Cherie whoops.

--------------------------​

The following hour goes something like this.

"So I was thinking -left, go left- I'd maybe be Beauty." A pause, while I wince mentally. "Yeah OK it's a bit weak, but it's also not taken." Another pause. "Well, if you -okay just a little more left no no not that far left yeah straight ahead from here- if you insist. Any particular reason for the mute act, anyway?" Silence. "Well, you're not breathing hard..." A pause. "Are you breathing at- yes! That was great!- at all? And what is that noise?" My claws, when I'm not running completely silent.

A peek into an abandoned warehouse. Whispered instructions from Cherie. It turns out to be a pair of bums, one asleep, the other singing drunkenly to himself under his breath. Cherie picks up my disappointment or something, I dunno, and starts giving me directions to her next idea.

"So anyway maybe Stalker?" There's already Shadow Stalker. "No?... oh wait, there's a Ward named, um, Darkstalker or something, isn't there. Yeah, good point. A little bit to your right. Too edgy for my tastes anyway. I'm thinking contrast, Beast and Beauty, Fafnir and Damsel, Terror and Cherish, not Scary Cape and Other Scary Cape. They're up, you'll need to climb." A three-story building in disrepair. I climb as quietly as I can. She whispers here when I'm on the third floor, and I peek, very carefully, through a grimy window. It's a man and a woman, teens or twenty-somethings, talking, a few bottles of alcohol sitting on the floor around them. Definitely not Uber and Leet.

They start kissing.

Yeah, not Uber and Leet. I jump to the next rooftop -Cherie whoops again- and she rattles on. Names she suggests for herself include Dame, Skirt, Velvet, Princess, Adieu, Precious, Genteel, Harpy, Banshee, Lady, Countess, Mall (She talks about mobsters, but I don't get it), Temperance, Pride, Cat, Shine, Radiance, Siren, Bewitch, Centerpiece, Diamond, Priceless, Affection ("Like the feeling, but also like pretending"), Waver, Cosset...

I notice a few themes here. Even if I could talk as the monster I'd have restrained myself from commenting, but I make notes in the back of my head. Cherie thinks of herself a particular way, or wants to be thought of in a particular way, or both. I'm not convinced she explicitly realizes her set of choices tell me something about how she thinks of herself.

In any event, she -we?- eventually settles on Pride, apparently based on my emotional response. I'll admit there's something to it, and something to 'Monster and Pride'. I didn't like very many of the other names she suggested, and several are in use anyway. I suppose we'll have to double-check later. We also drop in on something like forty different pairs of people, a good portion of them bums, a few of them obviously gang members. We also dodge around capes on three separate occasions, or so Cherie claims, leaving me wondering how she's so certain they're capes. (No explanation is forthcoming in her chatter) I notice somewhere around the twentieth pair of potential targets that they mostly seem to be people down on their luck in some way or another. I find myself wondering if Cherie -Pride?- is failing to find Uber and Leet because she's looking for people who think of themselves as losers, if maybe Uber and Leet have a higher opinion of themselves than that. They are kind of oblivious in their show.

Then we finally stumble upon Uber and Leet, in costume no less, inside a two-story commercial building that's in surprisingly decent condition. Well, Leet's costume is on and complete anyway, they seem to be in the middle of putting a costume on Uber, but the point is they're not civilians that might be Uber and Leet. I think I even know what series their costumes are based on, and no one else in Brockton Bay would willingly dress like a video game character. I wonder, for a moment, why they're awake at this hour -I'm pretty sure most capes sleep like normal people- but brush it off, focus on the here and now. Before I can work out a plan of action -the room is reasonably well lit and I'm expecting some kind of security- Cherie has already whispered gleefully, "Oooh, watch this!" though she doesn't actually do anything I can see.

Suddenly Uber shrieks and hits the ground, flailing. Leet, however, straightens up and starts looking around, shouting, "Master security!" and tapping just behind the cannon on his right arm with his left hand. A weird hodge-podge of robots burst out of an adjacent room, one sweeping with an obvious laser sight, while Uber pulls himself into some kind of zen pose, already looking less freaked out. The front doors of the room close with a very final clang, the main ceiling light has turned blue for some reason...

I'm pissed, and Cherie apparently knows it, because I can feel her cringing.

I leap off the side of the building and flee.

------------------------​

We're on a rooftop, somewhere over ten stories in the air, Cherie no longer blindfolded, watching me pace from her seat on... I dunno, part of the roof, whatever. I'm literally inarticulate with fury, trying to think of how to say what I want to say, not even sure what it is I want to say beyond I'm pissed! which just seems like a waste of time given Cherie can clearly tell how angry I am -I note, absently, that she's not reacting like she's afraid I'm about to kill her- and I'm pissed at her because she shouldn't have done... whatever it is she did.

... that thought brings me up short. What did she do? I turn and ask her, "What did you do, exactly?" Then I remember something and tack on, "Pride?" I need to practice that.

I'm half-expecting her to cringe again, but she just answers the question. "I hit them with fear. I was thinking it would take the fight out of them, leave them helpless." A pause. Then she admits, "And I maybe thought it would be funny if they pissed themselves in terror."

I move to massage my forehead, annoyed, stop when I remember I have the bicycle helmet on, let out a huff instead. "This was scouting. I wanted a plan, before they had any idea anything was coming. Now they'll be on their guard for who knows how long." I sigh and continue. "There might never be as good an opportunity again, if they ramp up their security in response to this."

Then I scowl at her, ignoring the scarf in the way. She can probably sense it anyway. Cherie -Pride- says, "Oh." I resume pacing, restless.

"... so we weren't going to hit them tonight?"

I don't stop pacing, still frustrated. "No, we were going to hit them tonight, but I wanted to investigate, see if they had any minions on-site, see if I could find some of their security, maybe listen in. Then I would've gone to a nearby rooftop and we would've hashed out a plan. Then we would've hit them, assuming we didn't decide hitting them was a bad idea. Instead, all we've learned is that Leet is immune to you for some reason, and that they have special preparations for capes like you, while they now know someone is gunning for them. They're going to up their security, maybe move to a different location outright, forcing us to start over from the beginning, or worse yet lay a trap for us." I pause to let that sink in. "Bad things happen when you go in without a plan." I flash to being shot by Dragon's suit or drone or whatever it was, back in Ellisburg, and I can't quite fight down a burst of anger. Cher- Pride. Pride flinches a little.

Not her fault not her fault not her fault...

I take a moment, just... breathing. Ellisburg was my mistake, not Cherie's, and the stakes are different anyway. Uber and Leet are criminal, yes, but they're not a threat to the entire world. They're barely a threat to civilians. The scale is completely different. I don't think Uber and Leet have ever killed even in self-defense, where Nilbog killed an entire town without provocation.

Need to salvage this. I ask, "Can you still track them?" Pride gets a look on her face -we really should get her an actual mask- like... I dunno. A cat?

Her response is a very confident, vaguely gloating, "Absolutely boss, anywhere in the city, for the rest of their lives."

I pause and take that in.

Pride continues on, "Right now they're making a sweep of the perimeter and trying to convince themselves they didn't see something scary, that they were spooked by their own stuff. Uber would rather believe there was somebody watching them, he doesn't want to blame Leet. Leet is ashamed. He thinks it's his fault." The corners of her mouth turn up a bit more. "They're arguing, it's an old argument. Uber isn't willing to listen, I'm getting loyalty here, probably Leet is trying to convince him to split, saying it's for his own good or something." I raise an eyebrow. I'm not sure myself whether I'm impressed or skeptical. Maybe both. Pride's smile has teeth now, as she continues on. "They've stopped with the perimeter sweep, they're caught up in the argument, Leet is being really pushy and it's starting to piss off Uber. Ya know boss, if we hit them now I think we'd get them with their pants down, they're on the bottom floor."

I spend a second thinking on it. Cherie -Pride- whoops and pulls the scarf back over her eyes before I can vocalize my agreement.

I'm bemused, but shrug it off. Business. I clamber under Cherie as the monster once more, her whooping and shrieking like a loon as I scramble down the side of the building. She keeps it up, ignoring how the few people outside at this hour are glancing around, confused. When my annoyance spikes -we're getting close to Uber and Leet's location- she abruptly cuts herself off. I note she doesn't apologize. I think she's snuggling. I find myself wondering what she thinks is going on. Surely she's noticed the layer of fluid covering my body, my nonhuman proportions?

I put it out of my mind, following Pride's whispered instructions until we're in front of the building Uber and Leet were in. I hear them before I see them. They are, indeed, arguing. Leet is sufficiently blubbery and shrill I can't really make it out, but it sounds like he is, yes, trying to convince Uber that Leet is just holding him back. Uber's movie-trailer-voice is a lot easier to make out, and he's clearly frustrated. I skulk toward the entrance and peek around as best I can without being seen. Thankfully, the two of them are alone: no robots or goons. (Some flaw with the robots preventing them from following?) They're also angled so they both have the front door in the corner of their eyes. Coincidence? Hard-earned experience? They don't notice me, not yet.

Nonetheless, I notice that there's a window not in their view, and it's clear the glass is largely gone. I half-jump-half-clamber over the front entry area, pushing aside the stabbing concern when Pride makes a noise of surprise, and loop around toward where I saw the window. Once there, I peek carefully. Uber is facing away from this window. Leet is invisible to me, Uber blocking my view. Perfect.

I start to move to shrug Pride off, but she gracefully hops off by herself (I have to shift aside a limb to avoid her cutting herself on it) and I can see her grinning, presumably in anticipation, out of the corner of my eye.

I lunge through the window and run at Uber as fast as I can. This is quite fast. Uber and Leet abruptly cut off their argument, both clearly reacting to something, but before either of them can do anything I've already slapped Uber all over the back of his head and neck with non-cutting parts of my limbs, going for something softer than when I hit the attempted rapist. He drops like a puppet with its strings cut. Hm. Maybe practicing on thugs wasn't very good practice after all. Regardless, now I'm the girl, facing Leet, who has paled and backed away a step. I call out, "Surrender," in my best or else voice.

I've actually practiced it with a mirror. Might as well, given I don't sleep anyway.

Annoyingly, that apparently firms his resolve, because he shouts, "Never!" and takes a shot at me with the arm that ends in a roughly cylindrical green gun-thing. I step to one side and let the slow-moving yellow ball of light go right past me. He shoots again, and this time I don't even move, it's that off-target. Then a bigger ball of light starts growing at the end of his gun-arm. I start circling around him, and he tracks me. I keep circling anyway. He smirks behind the green faceplate. For someone who thinks he's holding back Uber, he sure has a lot of self-confidence in a fight. He raises his other hand dramatically and opens his mouth to say something...

... which is when Pride climbing in through the window (Still blindfolded) knocks over a piece of glass.

Leet's head jerks around toward the window, but his arm stays locked on me. That's fine. I'm the monster, and I rush him. The gun fires, but the ball's bang! doesn't do anything to me that I notice. Leet is actually, to my surprise, turning the rest of his body to face Pride. What, does he think I'm already down? If so, I bust that thought by slamming into him full bore, knocking him to the ground, and cutting at his helmet and gun arm. He curls into a ball.

It takes me a second to realize that's literal.

What the hell.

I stab at the orange ball trying to roll away from me and ignore the little blue, flickering lights it leaves behind. They burst and make noise, but I don't feel anything, so I continue to ignore them. Initially I'm just knocking the ball around and leaving abbreviated scratch marks on it, but finally I manage to pin it in place and jam a limb right through the center of the thing.

Wait, I what a what?

Blood pours out.

Fuck.

 

[Ghoul King]

3.4

Pride asks, "What happened?" I ignore her in favor of pulling my limb out and peeking inside the ball. I can't make sense of what I'm seeing, beyond that it's leaking blood. It doesn't look like Leet is actually inside the thing -he couldn't possibly fit, but tinkertech- but the wires and metals and glass are soaked in blood, and I think I see bits and pieces of torn flesh laying on machine parts. I notice, abruptly, that the ball is no longer emitting green light. I didn't notice it was producing green light, not until it stopped.

I watch the thing for nearly a full minute, ignoring Pride's pestering and subsequent pouting.

It doesn't move.

Fuck.

Yeah, I've killed Leet. Probably.

I sit there for a minute, waiting to feel bad, to feel crushing guilt that I've murdered someone who didn't deserve it.

It doesn't happen.

I'm disturbed by that, though a contrary part of me notes that I didn't feel any kind of joy at the act either, so I'm not a serial killer in the making. I'm... annoyed. I'd intended to bring Uber and Leet in so that justice could be handled by the law, an independent cape doing their civic duty. Make people less scared of me, do something more substantial than turning in the occasional unpowered thug, but less worldshaking and bloody than murdering the likes of Nilbog. Killing either of them wasn't what I'd intended. That's what annoys me.

Uber moans, and I experience a flash of annoyance at him, too. I don't even know why.

I jerk away Pride's scarf and ask if she has a cell phone, one not affiliated with her civilian identity. She lights up until I append the bit about her civilian identity, at which point she wilts. Fine, whatever. I tell her to go call the PRT on a public phone to let them know that Monster ("You're calling yourself Monster?" she says incredulously, but I ignore her) and Pride have captured one cape, and another cape is likely dead, unfortunately. She pouts, then hesitates. Somewhat irritably I tell her to just dial 911, you don't even need to pay, etc. She heads off with no further delays.

I get behind Uber so that I can put him back down as the monster if he gets up.

Then I wait.

Uber moans twice before the PRT truck arrives, but is otherwise quiescent.

--------------------------------​

Pride stands behind and to my right, scarf over her eyes again, while I answer the questions of a PRT officer. To my vague irritation, the woman is dismissive of Leet's death, and doesn't ask me any further questions when I explain how I killed him by accident, not understanding how his tinkertech works and not expecting him to die. (I leave out the part where I just... got caught up in the fight. I'm not even sure how to address that can of worms) She just grunts, says, "Risks of parahuman combat," and writes a note down on her tablet.

Not that I want to be grilled or jailed over an accidental death, but it grates on me.

Homicide, dead teen, not really a bad kid, but this officer doesn't care. At all.

I push it to the back of my mind and focus on the interview. Debriefing? I make sure the officer knows about the robots on one of the higher floors, since they may still be an active danger. The officer grunts in acknowledgment and passes it on by radio. Pride chimes in on occasion, taking credit for finding the two parahumans and making sure to refer to me as boss a few times. I note that the officer's eyes (Just barely visible behind her faceplate) glide back and forth between the two of us each time Pride calls me 'boss'. I'm not sure what it means.

The officer asks which Pride in 'the database' she is, and Pride smoothly responds that she's, "New to the scene." This leads to the officer asking for Pride to fill out a form. Pride is perfectly fine with that, and the officer continues the interview with me while Pride does some paperwork. Pride steps forward to take it, and looking over her shoulder it looks to me to be the same "What is your power/what is your cape name/what was your experience with the PRT/are you a rogue, hero, or non-cape/etc" paperwork I filled out, or something very similar at least. Pride pulls the scarf up just enough to see before she starts writing. I note with a little annoyance that when it comes to 'Team or other affiliation' she writes 'Monster's'. That's it. No further clarification. It crosses my mind that it could be read as 'part of Monster's team' or as 'I am Monster's' as in I am Monster's property, and I feel a stab of irritation that Cherie would accidentally leave that interpretation available to create problematic misunderstandings, but I don't want to say anything in front of the PRT.

Eventually the interview (And Pride's paperwork: she pulls the scarf back down over her eyes) is over, and we're shooed out. I notice that the PRT has cordoned the area off with caution tape -tinkertech risk caution tape, not crime scene caution tape. Because of the robots, or because of the tinkertech in general? Pride and I head into an alley without conversation, where I slip under her and we return to roof-based travel. She whoops joyfully. I want to say it's different, more intense, than earlier in the night. I'm not sure what to make of her.

A minute later we're on the roof of the ten-story building where I berated her earlier. I slip out from under her and shove the scarf up, open my mouth to say something... nothing comes out. I'm agitated, I want to vent, but I don't even know where to start. I'm not sure Pride is the person to be talking to, either, she doesn't seem bothered, but who can I talk to about cape stuff if not Pride? It's not like I'm going to talk to my dad about... all this. Yeah, great way to open up to him: "Hey Dad, I'm a parahuman, and a murderer-by-accident, and I have all these big feelings I need to talk out with you and please don't be alarmed!"

No.

Not happening.

I pace for a minute, Pride's eyes tracking me, though she's silent aside from swinging her legs, like a girl on a swing. Eventually I grit my teeth -literally, not just metaphorically- and just take the plunge. "Che-" cape names cape names! "Pride." Having stumbled over my own tongue, I take a moment to collect myself, angry with myself, before I continue. "How do you..." word, what word?? "... uh, feel, about... tonight?"

Her response is glib, cheerful. "Fantastic, Boss." Great. That's... just great. Her smile dims a little, but doesn't go away entirely. To my surprise she asks, "You tired? I'm exhausted, and you've been doing most of the work."

The answer is no, of course. I'm not tired, not physically. The monster doesn't tire, and I don't stay tired so long as I cease being the girl periodically. I don't say that, partly because I'm not ready to just spill all my secrets to her (There's learning to trust again, and then there's idiocy) but mostly because... no, I'm not ready to sleep, I'm never ready to sleep, but... I could use a break. Go home, rest, focus on other things. I don't want to go out and patrol some more, or hunt down some other cape, not like this, not the same night I killed someone I was trying to capture. Not the right headspace for it. Emotionally tired? Is that even a thing? (Did Pride simply 'see' that with her power?)

So instead I say, "Yes. Yes, I think I am." My first impulse is to simply leave, but then I remember we're quite high up and Pride doesn't have any kind of mobility power. So, somewhat awkwardly, I ask, "Do I need to drop you off somewhere?"

She smiles widely and names an intersection not far from here. Somewhat curtly, I tell her to pull on the blindfold -and to be quiet while we're traveling. Her grin dims a little, but she nods compliance and pulls the scarf over her eyes. To my surprise she even does keep quiet, limiting herself to grunts when I make a jarring landing. When we part ways she gives me a jaunty little wave and wanders off, uncaring. I find myself wondering how she's going to handle changing her 'costume', and then mentally shrug. If she screws up, that costs her. Not really my problem. I didn't want a partner in the first place.

On that note, I pull back into the shadows of the alleyway and from there make my way home.

------------------------​

I hole up in the closet again, trying to relax. It works, but not as well as I'd like.

First night I try to bring in a parahuman rather than kill them, and I kill a parahuman. I know the monster is almost literally a killing machine, I'm not bothered by thoughts like, "I'm made to kill people," but I'm trying to make the world a better place. Kill the worst monsters, the ones no one else will, capture the misguided. I can't just devote my life to killing people and nothing more. I might as well sign up for the Slaughterhouse Nine at that point.

At the same time there's a temptation to just... put off capturing villains. Hunt down someone who deserves to die and make it happen. I can do that without fucking it up. I've done it twice (Thrice, counting Leet, but that was a fuckup) now. It's been easy, so much easier than not killing them. I never did follow up on the thing about Dragon being friends with Nilbog, too disturbed by my tinfoil hat conspiracy theory bullshit that seems all too plausible... I didn't want to think about it, so I didn't.

On the other hand, she's done so much good for the world I'm not sure killing her is the right answer. On the third limb, how would I even make capturing her work? She's a known hero, much-beloved in spite of her reclusiveness. If I knock her unconscious and drag her to the nearest Protectorate office, the most likely response is them locking me up.

I decide I'm just spinning my wheels at this point. Thinking on it isn't going to reach a decision, not like this. I need more information.

I head downstairs to our computer, careful to be quiet about opening my door, making my way down, et al. It takes another age to boot up, which I spend puttering around in the kitchen, grabbing some snacks, quiet snacks. I'm glad I did manage to replace the hand mirror, anyway. Using whatever reflective surfaces I can find is horrible. I find myself contemplating the thought of stealing one of Emma's hand mirrors if this one gets broken too. I suspect I could do it, sneak in as the monster, grab it as the girl, leave as the monster. It probably wouldn't even be traced back to me, and she's cost me so much more than a hand mirror. It feels like a slippery slope, though, like if I do it once I'll do it more than once and before long Emma will be calling the PRT and they'll track it back to me and ugh.

Besides. I'm trying to be a hero.

When the computer finally boots up and the browser is ready to go, I type in 'Dragon criminal past'. Maybe she's got some sordid history I've never heard of, something the tinfoil hats have dug up and get ignored on because they're tinfoil hats. I'm pointed straight to a mercenary group called the Dragonslayers, instead.

The Dragonslayers get their name from the fact that they've successfully stolen from Dragon -multiple times. As far as I can tell, the question of whether any of them is a parahuman or not provokes raging flame wars in every forum it gets brought up in, but in any case they're able to use her gear for their own benefit. Aside from their relationship to Dragon -hard to say whether that's a vendetta or just a product of Dragon being the best tinker in the world and so the best to steal from- they package themselves primarily as a parahuman mercenary group, with pay being more important to them than ethics. They're most often hired by villains and the occasional wealthy rogue, sometimes for simple smash-and-grabs of a tinker, sometimes to straight-up murder a rival or whatever, but they also sell their services outside of the US, and have participated in what amounts to military actions for local warlords in places like Africa.

I dislike everything I read about them.

I dig around to see if I can find out why they've not been brought in yet. I can't get anything official, but an off-the-cuff remark caught on video from a hero in Chicago is suggestive -she doesn't consider it worth her effort to run down people who are mostly hired to kill villains anyway. "Less work for me," are her exact words. They also fly under the radar when they're not acting on a client's behalf, to the point that nobody has any idea where they base themselves out of beyond the incredibly vague, "Somewhere in the continental US." (I wonder to myself how they get hired if they're that hard to find, and then shrug it off as one of those criminal underworld things I don't understand) There is an active bounty on them, but it's not very high, and I check -only Dragon has contributed funding to it. Apparently most of the world considers them a tolerable evil, maybe even a net good.

I frown at that thought. While they're not as monstrous as Nilbog or Heartbreaker, the idea is uncomfortably similar to me. Tolerated because people don't think they're worth the effort or risk of running down, left to run free and perpetuate additional horrors. I dislike it.

I check the time (4:23), thinking of the phone Cherie gave me, probably still sitting by that lake. If I'm going to do this team-up thing, I really ought to make sure I can get in contact with her, and she already gave me that phone... though I'll have to hide it from Dad. Not that I'd want to bring it to school, either, as that would just be one more thing for Emma and her 'friends' to destroy or use to hurt me, so... hmm. Where would I even keep it? If I can't keep it on hand, then Cherie can't use it to contact me, and I'm not sure how useful being able to phone her up would be. She's already met up with me by reading my emotions from... wherever it is she's hanging out. Hm.

I put off the phone issue and go back to reading up on the Dragonslayers.

The suits they've stolen are sealed and encompass their entire body. Some digging indicates PHO is pretty confident they're looking out through cameras -that would help me a lot- and their arsenal seems to primarily be assorted energy weapons. There's a lot of speculation that the suits have rockets and some more conventional guns mounted somewhere on them, as that's pretty common for Dragon's suits and they are stolen Dragon suits, but the Dragonslayers haven't been caught using most of what would be expected for them to use. The general consensus is that they can't reproduce the ammo themselves, and are either entirely out of the ammo for those weapons or are being very careful to conserve whatever they do have, focusing on the energy weapons because those are easier to recharge, something like that. It's been shown that the suits have fairly significant ECM, good enough that even tinkers have a hard time breaking through it, which among other things makes it difficult to achieve a missile lock or 'hack' the suits. Not exactly relevant to me, but it's kind of scary how much is packed into the suits. They're not particularly bulkier than an astronaut's suit, and are a lot less awkward to walk around in. I'm somewhat surprised to realize I can't find any evidence of Dragon releasing the specs on the stolen suits or anything of the sort. Does she really care that much about keeping secrets? But- she's the Tinker who releases tech to the PRT.

Perplexing.

I've just had the idea to go digging for pictures of the suits when I hear the creak of movement from upstairs. A glance at the clock shows that it's taken me two hours to gather what information I've found on the suits, in spite of how little it is. It's time for me to prepare for school again.

Fuck everything.

---------------------------​

Throughout the school week since the Friday that I ditched school (With Dad's permission) and explored how the monster did underwater, the torment has slackened. I've been doing my best to ignore it -they want to savor my anticipation, my paranoid worries about what's coming and I won't give them the satisfaction- but each day has been a little harder than the last, the chunk of dread in my gut that extra bit heavier. The worst part is the meta-dread, knowing that when they backed off entirely for a few weeks it was the lead-up to something unimaginably horrific, though I temper it by focusing on the fact that they haven't backed off entirely. Less torment, not no torment.

Even so, it's a substantial effort to make myself go to school, made worse by the weekend giving me two days away from it. The weekend always makes it worse, shows me how my days could be if I weren't on Sophia and Emma's shitlist, makes the lows feel even lower by comparison. "Look Taylor!" the weekend says. "It's a cold, lonely existence, no friends, nothing that could be called a hobby outside of caping, but at least you're not being actively fucked with!" The weekend points out, "It's not as if you're learning anything at school, really, not anything you couldn't learn by scouring Wikipedia. It's not as if you're going to graduate with good enough grades to get an appropriate job."

It'd be so tempting to quit, throw myself full-time into my life as the monster -as Monster, I guess- if it weren't for how it would crush Dad's soul for me to abandon any semblance of success at being normal, when his life is depressing enough as-is... and if it weren't for the fact that a truant officer would come after me eventually.

And if it weren't for the fact that it would mean the bitches had won.

No.

So when I come in, I'm expecting something nasty. Not like the Locker, nothing will ever be as bad as the Locker, nothing will ever be worse, but worse than the low-grade everyday constant torment they normally subject me to. Something like the time they arranged for me to be shoved into the boy's locker room (When they were in the middle of changing, of course), and got the teachers to give me detention for 'inappropriate behavior', as if I was peeping. Shit like this is why so many people think I'm the problem -if you don't know me personally, I'm the creepy perverted weirdo who keeps doing messed-up things and is always dressed poorly and who is frequently in trouble with staff. So, clearly I'm a troublemaker, a weirdo troublemaker. Keep away, I might be contagious.

It's why I can't even make friends with people who share no classes with me.

The first half of the day goes by with me brooding and anxious and doing my best to hide it, pretending I'm oblivious and unaffected. I think Sophia buys it, hard to say, her smirk makes me think she's just anticipating whatever they're going to do but it might be a smirk of, "I see right through you." Emma definitely doesn't buy it, but that's okay, she wouldn't buy it even if it were true. Too invested in believing I'm miserable. Still don't know why. In any event, I'm pretty sure the cronies buy it -I can see out of the corner of my eye that some of them are disappointed. They wanted me stewing in my own (justified) paranoia. Degenerate leeches.

I hate them the most.

Lunch goes by smoothly, same as it always does. I simply hide on the rooftop, climbing there as the monster with careful timing and keeping to shadows. Everybody knows you can get there if you really want to, gang kids used to do it all the time as some kind of rite of initiation or something I dunno, but that stopped when somebody botched the climb, hit the ground, never got back up. So if they find me up here? Doesn't out me as a parahuman. It would take this refuge away, but that's all. Occasionally I even get a moment's amusement out of seeing the Duo -it looks to me like they've tried to find me at lunch repeatedly since the Locker, and it's a tiny bit of satisfaction to see their frustration at failing. Or maybe I just want to believe that it's about me. Dunno.

By 2 in the afternoon I'm so tense my palms are sweaty and my gut is roiling and I can't hide that they're getting to me. It doesn't help that I'm starting to think that today won't be the day, that they're going to draw it out and do something yet worse than I've been thinking, and both possibilities make me want to vomit or kill someone. Or both.

2:30 I break a pencil.

3:00 the bell rings, and relief floods me.

"One moment Taylor."

I turn to stare blankly at the teacher. I know, somehow, someway, that this is the Duo's fault. Whatever it is, it's their fault.

"This was found in your desk this morning..." she pulls out a Ziploc bag. My eyes track uncomprehendingly. Dust? Bangles? I don't understand. "... and I was hoping you'd be able to explain yourself?" She gives me a pointed look. I stare back at her, not even sure what's happening. She sighs. "Taylor, you would be far from the first student at this school to... join such a group. Act out." She pauses again, before saying with significance. "Try to dull the pain."

Realization hits: a gang. She thinks I joined a gang.

She thinks I joined the fucking Merchants.

She thinks I'm stupid enough to bring proof to school that I joined the fucking Merchants.

I explode, incoherently screaming something about bitches, I don't even know what all, and I have to fight the urge to get behind the teacher and tear her open. Not her fault not her fault not her fault.

She apparently thinks I mean her when I scream bitch, because she gets affronted and in no time flat I find myself in the principal's office.

There I am told I'm suspended for a week.

My jaw works but no response comes out. Did they even check for fingerprints or anything? I want to ask, but-

What comes out of my mouth is, "Fuck you." I'm less surprised with myself than I'd like to be. I'm less disappointed with myself than I'd like to be, for that matter.

Her response is an utterly unaffected, "Two weeks, Miss Hebert. Be glad I'm not calling the police on you." A pause. "Or simply expelling you. Nobody would bat an eyelash."

I leave. It's either that or kill her and... no. No. She's responsible yes, but not responsible-responsible. She contributes, she doesn't fucking care enou- no wrong stop that. Not responsible. Talk self down. She's part of the problem, but she'd be... distant, is all, if Winslow wasn't a shithole for other reasons. Not a terrible, heinous person. Just... distant. Distant can be good. Plotting her death is wrong. (I think I even believe myself)

I try to tell myself it would be wrong to plot the bitches' deaths, but I can't convince myself.

I head home, thinking I'll cool down with... internet research of some kind. Maybe I'll dig into the Slaughterhouse Nine. They deserve to die.

Let's do that.

 

[Ghoul King]

3.5

Partway home I change my mind, divert off to the lake, the cell phone still waiting there. I need to kill something. Vent. Something deserving. Not like Leet. Somebody malicious.

Pride answers the phone before the first dial tone even finishes. I can tell she's trying to mask some fear as she asks in a forced-cheery tone, "You need me, boss?"

I say, "I need to kill someone." I think I hear her choke slightly, ignore it. "Someone who actually deserves it."

There's a pause. Her voice is shaking a little with relief as she responds. "Need me for my tracking services, gotcha. Anybody in mind?"

I pause, having not really thought about it before now. Not Lung. I have no confidence in my ability to deal with him, not without more experience. Skidmark? Arguably a bit unfair that he comes to mind first primarily because of what prompted this, but while I'd rate him as a lower priority than Kaiser, he's still a scumbag getting kids hooked on serious drugs and though I haven't done a lot of research into the Merchants I know they've done...

I frown for a moment. Something about the bangles. Merchants, bangles.

I give up on the thought. It's not important. Point is, they've done a lot of terrible things, and it's not even... I mean. They live in squalor. They're not making themselves better at the expense of others. They're just dragging everyone down. It's just... awful. I sort of get the ABB and the Empire and some of the indie villains. Drag someone else down as you raise yourself up. Mean, selfish, sensible if you don't care about other people. There's sense there. The Merchants... aren't like that, and frankly I'm pretty sure they're only still around because nobody takes them seriously enough to put real effort into coming after them. If they were competent -if they were like a local mini-Slaughterhouse Nine or something- they'd probably be wiped out instantly by everyone. But no, they survive like... cockroaches? No, no... cockroaches are actually hard to kill. Pigeons? Pigeons are gross and pushy and all-around horrible little birds but not quite revolting enough -or easily killed enough- for the city to really push for their collective death.

Yeah. Parahuman pigeons.

"... boss? You there?"

I jerk slightly, careful to keep my reflection in view. Forgot. Got distracted.

Yeah. I think I do. "Skidmark."

"... who?"

Oh. Right. Not... really any reason for her to already know who Skidmark is. Some locals don't know who he is. People know about the Merchants, but not necessarily individual Merchants. Squealer's the most attention-grabbing one, and the Merchants are small-time anyway. It's not like I've got the Toronto villains memorized. Why would Pride know the list of Merchants off the top of her head?

So I clarify. "You familiar with the Archer's Bridge Merchants?"

There's a pause before she responds. "Druggy gang or something, right?"

"Right, yes. Well, Skidmark is their leader. Lays down zones that push things a particular direction, not much else to him as a cape. He's a scumbag, and he has no..." I pause, searching for the word. "... no honor, I guess. Doesn't even participate in Endbringer defenses-" Pride makes a noise of confusion, but I ignore it. "-or otherwise make him worth tolerating. This is a dude who gets children hooked on-"

Pride interrupts me. "Boss, I don't actually care. He's small-fry, but sort of important. That what you're saying?" I grunt in the affirmative, annoyed. Ranting about him was cathartic. "Got any idea what kind of personality he has?"

I open my mouth to respond, and- nothing comes out.

... he's a scumbag, but that's... not very helpful. Brockton Bay isn't exactly a bastion of civilization. I don't really know what he's like. Lazy? Ambitious? Angry? Happy? I... don't actually know.

I switch tracks. "Well, the gang includes a lot of homeless. Just looking for concentrations of homeless would be workable. Can you do that?"

"... yyeeesss? Gross, but yes." She doesn't sound thrilled, but I don't care.

"Where's most convenient for you to meet me at?"

"Wait, are we doing this in daylight?" She sounds surprised, not concerned. I firmly say yes (I can't wait, I can't), and then ask, again, where to meet her.

She names a pair of streets. I say, "See you there," wait for her response, turn off the phone and... stare at the phone for a minute. What to do with this? Where can I keep it?

I decide to take it with me for the moment, slip it into a pocket. Maybe Pride will have an idea.

I head out to meet her.

-----------------------​

On the way over I finally remember why the bangles thing was bothering me -I've seen Merchants wearing colored bangles, both in person and in the news, such as when they've been arrested. Not sure what the bangles are about. I noticed it, didn't think about it. Rank? Whatever the case, that's why there was a bangle in with the drug the assholes planted in my desk, and that's why the teacher thought I'd joined the Merchants, rather than just thinking I was doing drugs on my own.

If I weren't the monster, I'd frown. I don't know how the Merchants handle their bangles. Was the one planted in my desk just... a bangle that could've been bought at any number of stores, or was it somehow a genuine Merchant bangle, and was there any way to tell the difference? The thought gnawed at me. If Emma or one of her goons had simply bought a bangle, or maybe just pulled one from out of a drawer in their rooms, and planted that to sell the idea, that was... depressing, but held no deeper significance.

If Merchant bangles were actually hard to come by and they'd gotten one anyway, that was rather more disturbing. I couldn't quite see either of Emma or Sophia in the Merchants, nor could I see them tolerating any teen dumb enough to be in the Merchants while trying to curry favor with the Popular Girls. The whole story they spun was that they had standards and were superior and Merchant scum would definitely not be treated favorably or else their narrative would lose its strength. But then how would they have gotten a Genuine Merchant Bangle, if that is indeed a thing?

I make a mental note to pay attention tonight, see if anything I see or overhear indicates either way.

----------------------------​

Turns out Pride had named a small park I've never personally been to, deep in the concrete jungle. It's not even a full block. Just this little area with some trees, water fountains, trash cans, and grass everywhere. The plant life isn't holding up that well, either, and there are way too many cigarette butts lying around. This is particularly depressing as the only sign for this tiny little park has several rules in ginormous text, one of which is no smoking. There's also several patches of dog poop lying around, unattended, even though there's a dog poop-bag dispenser and trash can in the area. This is not a quality park. At least it's bounded in by bushes well enough that when I leap from a nearby rooftop down to the park it's with confidence that I'll be the monster when I hit the ground. Which... admittedly is probably part of why it's such a trashed-out park. Seems unoccupied, anyway, so I guess maybe it gets more traffic at ni-

"Heya boss."

I startle, try to hide it, then frown when I remember she can sense my emotions directly so there's no point. How does she keep surprising me like that?

Then I realize I didn't actually frown because I'm not the girl, I'm still the monster. I turn to where I heard her voice, and she's sitting on a bench, blindfold/scarf already over her eyes. I pause for a moment, surprised. I try to parse the thought, mostly fail. I manage to pull out my tangled mess that I'm weirded out by her either feeling comfortable enough to wait for me in a public place while blindfolded or by her pulling on the blindfold as I was approaching with time to spare such that it looks to me like she was simply waiting for me, already blindfolded. She's smiling faintly. I shake my head slightly, and it turns to a small frown.

I get up next to her, pull her blindfold up so I'm the girl again, and say, low in tone, "We're just going to be two friends on a walk. Not costumed." Which reminds me that she really ought to get a proper costume herself, but I'm not sure how we'd get her a costume that works without turning to theft. I've been very carefully not thinking too hard about how, exactly, she's been keeping a roof over her head and feeding herself when she's a teenage girl with, as far as I'm aware, no income and no cash, but... I dunno. Keeping out of her business, suspecting it's not precisely kosher, feels a bit different from pushing her to do something that I'm fairly certain will require illegal activity. More like I'm responsible. I don't like the idea.

It's also not relevant right now, so I can put all this off for another night. Gonna need to find a less questionable way of handling her situation, but... not now.

Now, I need someone to kill.

Cherie pouts a little, but then shrugs, pulls on a pair of sunglasses from some pocket, lets her hair loose, flips her black jacket inside-out so it's now a red jacket, a very similar shade as the streak in her hair, actually, and spends a good thirty seconds pulling her skirt up and doing something to get it to stay in place, having gone from stretching past her knees to being a rather short skirt. I blink, startled at how pronounced the effect is -she's gone from looking like a somewhat severe businesswoman in her thirties who knows how to dress well to looking like she's a fashionable late teens/early twenties woman who knows she looks good and flaunts it. I suddenly feel somewhat self-conscious, realizing I'm still dressed in my usual school clothing, the kind that is not at all flattering to my appearance, and wonder for a moment if it's maybe a bad plan to pretend we're friends out on the town. She grins, presumably pleased by my reaction to her change in appearance, and then bounces to her feet and asks, "So, any more specific ideas of what to be looking for?"

I frown and stare vaguely at a cloud. I catch a glimpse of someone from New Wave flying overhead, waving at people below, and get distracted for a moment wondering if it would make Monster more approachable to have her seen patrolling in daylight hours and whether/how I could fit that into my schedule. I shake my head, glance at Cherie's-

Actually, hold that thought.

I ask her, "What are we calling you?" in a low tone, resisting the urge to glance around like a suspicious person. I don't know whether her real name is widely known, but I don't want us just throwing it around and end up with the PRT finding out somehow and coming after us, even if her name is as little-known to the public as it seems to me.

Cherie's grin broadens and she smoothly says, "I am Carlia Smithson, new friend to one Taylor Hebert. My boyfriend, now ex, was a jerk, and now we're out on the town to cheer me up, maybe you too given the day you've had-" I clench my teeth and look away, feeling... exposed. I say nothing. "-even if our eyes are bigger than our wallets and we know it. We'll probably wander the town for a few hours, look at cool stuff, talk about whatever with each other, and then part ways once we feel better."

I turn to stare at her once I've calmed down, not quite able to comprehend how easily this came to her. Did she just... think of this before she came to meet me, or did she really come up with this off the cuff? She's definitely way better at keeping track of her lies than I am, anyway. It's a good story, too, a good excuse for us to be wandering the town together, doing nothing in particular.

Skin crawling, I go back to trying to answer her original question. What would Skidmark be like? He's not exactly popular with the news, not attention-grabbing like Lung when he gets going or charismatic like Kaiser or anything. I know he's an angry man, quick and creative with the invective, so much so that when he does manage to get screentime half of everything he says gets censored. Actually... now that I think about it, he reads like he's putting up a tough front. Bluffing. Talk a lot of smack in hopes he doesn't have to follow through because you're too intimidated. It... kind of fits. The Merchants are very much the least relevant of the gangs and basically always have been the entire time they've existed, even the Teeth stayed more relevant when they were around but the Butcher wasn't. If he's more bark than bite... that kind of fits. So... angry, pretends to be more confident than he actually is? Maybe actually that confident when dealing with people who aren't parahumans?

I relay this basic description to Ch-Carlia.

... I'm never going to get good at this subterfuge thing, am I?

She throws her left arm around my right arm, I flinch, she gives me a look, but I don't pull away and after a moment I start walking, looking at the ground but not shrugging off her arm. I don't see her reaction, but after a moment she catches up and gently, much more gently than I was expecting, pulls me more toward the right.

After we've been walking for a block like this she starts chattering about nothing of any consequence, I'm not even sure how much of it is real, and I just... let it wash over me, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and fighting the urge to rip myself from her grip. She's not Sophia. Or Emma. Or any of the others. This isn't like that. She's... well, she's not actually my friend, but she's an ally, not a bully.

I'm tempted, for a moment, to ask her if she can do something about this irrational terror, and then my brain catches up with itself and I shove that in the back of my head and then I get suspicious and glance at Che-Carlia but she's just looking at me like I'm the lunatic and I dunno maybe she's faking really well she's already proven she's a much better liar than I am but... urgh. I focus on logic: I have every reason to believe her power is... sufficiently straightforward that this kind of slow manipulation isn't necessary. Therefore, being suspicious that she seeded the thought in me is... improbable. Especially because she said she's a manipulator of emotions. She could be lying, of course-

-she sighs with frustration next to me but then goes back to her (cheerful) monologue-

-but.

Ugh.

I shove it all out of my head and just... focus on the here, the now.

After a bit I manage to make myself say something plausible in response to something she said. Supposed to be two girls out on the town, talking. Not one girl rambling at a sad, pathetic, useless excuse for a human being-

-she jerks on my arm, pointing casually at an abandoned apartment complex. She's saying something contextually appropriate that has nothing to do with her real point, and I suddenly feel a weird little spike of... triumph?

I look at her, because I'm pretty sure that was her using her power on me, but she shrugs it off, leading us into a shitty, trashed-out alleyway, so badly trashed out that she's able to casually pull us to one side, out of sight from both streets, trusting in the trash to obscure us. At that point she mutters to me, "Found him," and again jerks one arm at the abandoned apartment building, which we're standing next to. After a moment I realize she's actually pointing at a second-floor window, one of the only ones not boarded up, and then I notice a thin trail of smoke curling up out of the window.

Oh. She's found something.

I try to think about where we're at. I wasn't really paying attention, but I want to say this is the right general area for Merchant territory. I mean, I'd expect Skidmark to have a more dignified...

...

... oh, who am I kidding? It's Skidmark. He probably thinks a literal mountain of trash is an appropriate throne.

I tell her to close her eyes for a minute, she shrugs and complies, humming some tune to herself. Nothing I recognize. I hesitate for a moment, trying to figure out how to reach the window without risking being seen leaping through the air outside of my costume, and then decide to settle for pulling my hoodie on, tightening it, and then double-checking that my hair is all inside the hoodie. (It isn't, it takes some effort to get it all in) This requires me to tap Cherie- fuck, Carlia, on the shoulder so she opens her eyes (Raising an eyebrow in response) and I try to ignore the burning embarrassment. Now I'm just a suspicious-looking teen you're not going to see the face of. Then I decide it's... probably a bad idea for Carlia to stay in the area. So I tell her to wait for me at the park we met up at -I'm pretty sure I can find it again. She shrugs, and wanders off, not even glancing at me.

I find myself somewhat uneasy with how cooperative she is. She still hasn't asked about the blindfold or commented on any of the evidence that I turn into a monster, either. I find it difficult to believe she's oblivious, or that she doesn't care. It feels like there has to be an angle to it, but I can't see it. It reminds me uncomfortably of dealing with the bullies, where I'll know they're up to something, but can't figure out what, and end up just building dread.

Then I shove it out of my mind. An issue for later. Here and now, Carlia has turned the corner of the alleyway. I wait another thirty seconds or so, wish I could take a deep breath to smooth out my mental state, and then jump right at the window.

I'm relieved when I stay the monster the whole way up.

The first thing that grabs me about the room is the source of the smoke -a little fire in a metal bowl of some kind in turn kept off the (gutted) desk it's sitting on by metal legs. I'm not sure if it's meant to be a cooking fire or a light source or... something to do with drugs? I don't know enough about drugs to guess, don't want to know.

The second thing that grabs me really ought to have been the first -what a fucking disgusting mess it is. There's wrappers, discarded needles, rotting food (Mostly fast food, looks to me, but I'm trying to not pay close attention to it all), mounds and mounds of newspapers, I think I see a little pile of vomit in one corner, dozens of cockroaches all but partying around the worst messes and I have to fight a paranoid urge to think I've found Locust's nest they're just regular roaches and anyway she's never managed to hurt people with roaches. (Yet, some part of my brain chimes in but I shove that thought into a box too) It's abominable, and the worst part is it appears to be occupied, a mound of blankets in one corner rising and falling with someone's unpleasant-sounding breathing. I find myself incredibly glad the monster doesn't seem to have a sense of smell outside of water (Or whatever is going on there exactly -I really ought to figure that out at some point) because goddamn. I appear to be in what would be a living room if the apartment were in proper use.

I very carefully stalk around, avoiding stepping on anything particularly noisy (I can't avoid stepping on stuff, but stepping into unidentifiable sludge is less likely to wake the hobo than stepping on a candy wrapper), trying to see if I can find confirmation that this is Skidmark and not some random hobo matching the profile I told Cherie -wait, should I still be calling her Carlia? Agh, I dunno- to look for. The adjacent rooms are... there's a bathroom, but the only part in use seems to be the sink, and it's certainly not being used for water. I'm not sure what it's being used for, what I'm looking at means nothing to me. I file it under probably drugs and move on. A different room, probably the master bedroom, has a walky-talky, strangely isolated. As in, there's literally nothing else in the room. Just the little walky-talky sitting in the very middle, alone. The room isn't clean, not remotely, but it's restricted to mold, dust, and other detritus. I take it as confirmation that this is a Merchant, and not an unaffiliated hobo -I can't imagine a random hobo having a walky-talky and treating it with... reverence? There must be some reason. Keeping in contact with other Merchants makes sense to me.

Another room, what I assume would've been another bedroom, has a table and what looks like chemistry set stuff stacked all over it. The area is messy, more trashed-out than the walky-talky room, but less trashed-out than the room the (Man?) is sleeping in. Whoever this is, they have bizarre priorities. Messed-up might be a more appropriate description. I'm guessing the chemistry set is more drug stuff. So their drugs deserve a clean space to make in, but they are going to sleep in the most trashed-out room? Why?? What is that?

I consider going out the front door, see if there's anyone else in the apartment complex, but while it's open a crack, it's only a crack. I'm hesitant to risk waking them in that way when I'm not certain there's anything to look for. On the other hand, I'm hesitant to risk waking them at all without knowing whether they're a random hobo or an important Merchant cape. On the third limb, I'm not sure how to figure that out without risking waking them up. It's not like I really know what Skidmark looks like under his costume. I think he was Hispanic?

I stalk around for a minute, trying to see if anything else leaps out at me. I notice the closets, but there's nothing terribly interesting about them -they just continue the trends of the rooms they're inside of. I also notice that only the one window isn't boarded up, which has me wondering why that one isn't boarded up when the others are. If any room was going to be given extra ventilation, I'd expect it to be the chemistry room, especially since they do have it relatively clean. I just can't wrap my head around this guy.

Finally I work up my nerve to very, very carefully open the front door.

At one point it creaks and they snort and roll over, but that's it.

The door opens up into an enormous, old-timey apartment stairwell, the kind where the center is a big hole from top to bottom and apartment doors ring the outside. The banisters are real wood, or at least look like real wood, it's hard to tell through the mold. I'm surprised -this was a nice building before it was... abandoned? Slated for demolition? What happened here? I wish I knew.

I stop gawking and start stalking through the apartment building... it's mostly just empty. Doors are boarded up, lightbulbs have been stolen (??), rot and mold is setting in everywhere. I find myself hoping this building is slated for demolition. I find only two other apartments that aren't boarded up, but there isn't actually anything in either of them. I'm puzzled. I'd been expecting this to be a Merchant enclave of some kind, especially once I saw how nice it once was. Their HQ, maybe? I was expecting a lot of people living in squalor. Not one person living in squalor but otherwise with an entire building to himself. I mean, if he doesn't want to bother with cleaning up his trash at all, he could put in a fairly minimal effort to start sleeping in a different apartment. There's already two that are easily opened, not boarded up at all. I just don't get it.

I also try to figure out how he's entering and leaving. I haven't seen anything like a rope ladder or, well, a rope at all, so I don't think he's entering and exiting by the window, especially since that wouldn't work so well for coming back in since he's by himself. If there were multiple people living here, I could assume they just have someone on site at all times to handle laying it out/pulling it up after people are done leaving, but it's just the one guy. Puzzling. Maybe it is Skidmark and his power is more flexible than I'd been led to believe? Like, I dunno, he lays the effect on the wall and uses that to climb up or to make it more practical to climb down, or something. It's supposed to be... localized gravity? I think? That might make sense.

In any event, I don't find any evidence of another entry/exit than the window. I tested the front door of the building and it's a no-go, I don't find any other usable windows, nothing about the basement really stands out...

Puzzling.

I make my way back to the room, and the door has been closed.

Shit.

I pause, lean up against the wall, try to see if I can hear what's going on inside the room. I hear muttering, but it's hard to make out clearly over the sound of trash crinkling, squishing, snapping, and just generally making a disgusting racket. I think they're pacing? Maybe walking in a circle? So they're agitated. I think I hear swear words, but it's not like Skidmark is the only man in the world who swears, and if they're agitated swearing would make perfect sense. They do seem to be trying to be quiet, sounding angry when they manage to... bang their shin on something, maybe? Something particularly loud, whatever it is. They're not succeeding particularly.

So, okay, they woke up while I was gone, I guess noticed the door was open more than a crack, knew that was wrong, and are... panicking now, I guess?

Ugh. I wish I was sure this was Skidmark. Then I could just try to stab them through the wall and be done with it. If this is an innocent hobo, I don't want to ruin their makeshift home, awful as it is, disgusting as they are.

So I turn to becoming a horror movie monster.

Yes, seriously.

----------------------------------------​

It starts with me grabbing a piece of debris -a good-sized chunk of particle board that apparently broke off from one of the boards covering the doors, big enough and, I think, heavy enough that it will make a good clatter when dropped from...

... the highest part of the stairwell. Which is where I drop it from, aiming for the very bottom.

It hits the ground less noisily than I would've preferred, but it works. A few seconds of tense silence later, the man, whoever they are, has opened their door (Quietly, so quietly I almost missed it), closed it again (Still quietly), and walked out toward the railing where I can just barely see them, edging along it. I wouldn't be able to see them at all if I weren't the monster, I don't think, with all the windows boarded up and being inside a stairwell not much light is getting in here. I notice a strange sucking sound. Not sure what it is. Gross shoes?

squish

... really gross shoes?

From there I maneuver to directly above them -carefully, quickly, adjusting my course based on the bizarre, gross sounds I'm hearing- and then thump the floor with a limb. They audibly startle, biting back a curse by the sound of it. Then there's more squishing and sucking noises and other weirdness I can't even begin to describe, seeming to make their way back to their room. I wait, following along the staircase above them, trying to keep out of sight. There's a long pause when they're in front of their door, and I start getting impatient, wondering how long they're going to take to make a decision, before I hear the door creak. Then it creaks again, I'm guessing it's being closed. I'm tempted to swing down from my current position, but it crosses my mind this could be a trick -or they could simply have changed their mind. Either way, I don't want to go falling down the stairwell. So instead I circle around the stairs until I can see the door -it's closed, there's nobody there.

The ground in front of it is clean.

As in, it looks like someone came along and thoroughly wiped the area down within a few feet of the door. I notice it primarily because there's a sharp demarcation of dust -eight feet or so in every direction from the door is clean, and then there's abruptly a layer of grey dust over most everything. I notice there's the occasional droplet of my fluid, beaded atop the dust around me, and I find myself wondering what exactly this stuff is, what I can do with it. With my attention called to the dust, I also notice that chips of wood, bits of gravel, and pretty much every other form of loose griminess is gone in that area around the door.

Okay. I've found a parahuman. Definitely. I... don't think this fits Skidmark? I wish I'd done research on him at some point. I've been researching with more of an eye toward the big threats, and Skidmark is... not one of those.

Dammit. Skidmark I'm pretty sure deserves death, but... ugh. I don't know who I'm dealing with here. Do I-

-the door explodes open -as in literally shatters into splinters flying at me- and I'm suddenly Taylor, not the girl, Taylor, no costume, no protection, and there's splinters slamming into my skin and oh god my glasses where did they go I can't see it's too dark where is the enemy and I hurt and I'm bleeding but I ignore it and ignore the, "Got you," rumbling from somewhere just behind where the door used to be and I throw myself over the banister and ignore the sound of vague confusion that prompts and then

I'm the monster again.

I hit the ground floor and hurl myself to the side, need to avoid line of sight, why did he attack through the door? Some kind of perceptual ability? Heard me, or something? Blind chance? There's schlucking and a dim stomping sound repeating above and the wood creaks. I hear them calling, "I know you're there! You fucked up when you challenged Mush!"

Mush?

... I think that's a Merchant cape? (Male?)

Then there's no time to think because they've slammed through the ground ie through my ceiling and are dropping down and I'm Taylor again, no, goddammit no, I throw myself to the side but I'm still Taylor and I scrabble by feel up the stairs and I hear Mush going, "Really? One girl. Really?" and then something utterly disgusting is wrapping around my heel and I try to kick but it doesn't really accomplish anything, what is this, it's disgusting, did I just feel a roach crawl up my leg oh god, what the fuck is going on, I scrabble and scrabble and nothing is working and they pull and I'm sliding down and banging my head on stairs and it hurts and everything is wrong and then I'm dangling upside-down from my heel while Mush's godawful breath is washing over my face, how big is he, what is this, what is his power?

He starts saying something, but I spit at him where I think his face is and he sounds angry but suddenly I'm the monster and I can see him, covering his face with one hand while the other is gripping a limb -I slip out and drop to the ground and ignore his, "Eh?"- and he's huge and gross and made of trash or something what is this I start stabbing and stabbing and

I'm Taylor again. Fuck.

I barely see a dim shape just before I'm hit and sent flying, in tremendous pain. Before I impact anything, I'm the monster again, and I catch myself on the second floor banister and pull myself up and then I'm Taylor for a second, just a second, before momentum pulls me back out of Mush's sight and I'm the monster again and I cut through a door conveniently right in front of me and duck off to the side and look around to see if I can find anything to throw at him, but there's nothing. Nothing. I can hear him making his way up the stairs, it's loud, he's audibly angry, cursing me out, I think he's complaining about how he'll have to change locations but it's honestly hard to make out what he's saying, particularly when it's anything more than one syllable at a time.

Contrary to my expectation, he doesn't come in through the door, instead crashing through the wall next to the door. Other side from me, at least, and I stay the monster the whole time, get behind him, climb on, and start cutting. I notice that the splinters of wood and the dust flying everywhere and all the other relatively small objects are actually adhering to him and shifting to build up his form.

... he builds a body out of trash?

I file that thought away for later and keep cutting while he roars angrily, flails, and awkwardly tries to reach behind him and grab at me. His arms twist in ways no human arm actually could, but now I can see how the trash it's made of shifts, stretches, or otherwise alters its formation to produce the result he wants. I back away down his back, still cutting, wondering why a body made of trash is so tough, and then I realize the 'wounds' are sealing shut behind my slices. So I stop playing nice, and jam a limb right through his body.

He startles, but he doesn't sound hurt. I'm not sure whether I missed his real body or if there's just no distinction between his human flesh and the trash 'flesh'. The latter is a pretty horrifying possibility, both on a pure disgust level and on a more pragmatic level -I'm not sure I can beat him if there's no such distinction.

So I stab again several times, and this time I see him cough up blood in reaction, in addition to feeling something different with some limb stabs than others. It occurs to me abruptly that I haven't really made an actual decision about whether I want to kill Mush or not. I don't really know enough about him to make a good guess on whether he deserves it or not.

...

Fuck. I got caught up in the moment. Again. Just like with Leet.

I jump over Mush, landing in front of him as Taylor, stumbling for a moment, and turn and ask in a conversational tone, "I don't suppose you'd care to tell me what you do as part of the Merchants." There's just enough light coming in from the window that I'm pretty sure I'm looking at him.

I hear a, "Whuh-" before he rears up to his full (Well, no, not full, because he's too tall for the ceiling here, but he's only a little hunched over) height, turns to cough blood into one hand (I'm the monster again, watching holes still closing where I stabbed through him) and then in the most sneering tone I've heard outside of Emma and Sophia says, "What's it to you, little bitch?" Rude.

I waggle one finger at him and say, "No call for rudeness," bluffing a little. He doesn't know I turn into an inhuman monster able to meaningfully fight him only when he can't see me. Probably. I try to sound flippant, maybe channeling a little bit of Cherie, and say, "Call it professional curiosity."

"Oh, yer looking to horn in on my business are you? Well fuck you, the whores and dealers are mine!"

... okay, I was kind of hoping for something a bit more damning, but I think I can accept this as-

ow

I'm the monster again, off to one side, and then I'm Taylor again, scrambling to get up and then Mush starts coughing heavily again and I'm the monster again, watching him leaning down, clutching at his chest and I maneuver as fast as I reasonably can around to his back and go straight to striking at his head.

To my consternation it doesn't seem to hurt him, and he starts laughing, then breaks into a coughing fit, and then I go stabbing him in the main of his body again, and this time I feel and hear flesh tearing instead of this weird trash-flesh and I strike and strike and strike until he... stops moving, stops screaming.

I wait a moment. He slumps heavily against the ground. After a few seconds where I'm trying to decide whether I should roll him over and check his pulse, the trash-flesh abruptly... loses its cohesion. It oozes out in every direction. If I had a nose, I'd wrinkle it. As-is I reflexively back away. I notice roaches and flies wriggling out of the pile. Somewhat cautiously, I approach what appears to be his real body -a squat man who leaves me thinking very much of some kind of goblin. A goblin that's been perforated.

Hesitantly, I roll him over and move to directly into his vision.

I remain the monster.

His eyes are glassy, and he's not breathing. Also, his gut is full of holes that would be bleeding more if they weren't packed with trash. The thought is repulsive, but I find myself wondering if he was deliberately stemming the bleeding with trash.

... in any event, he's dead.

I feel... vaguely accomplished? A little? Not a lot. He wasn't who I wanted dead, and I'm not entirely sure he actually deserved death.

That thought bothers me. If I were Ta-the girl, I'd frown. I feel... no guilt at all. None. I was more bothered when I killed Nilbog thou-

Did I feel guilty? I don't remember. Upset, definitely. I had a flash of thinking he was my dad and that messed with me and ugh, but... was there guilt?

I'm vaguely disturbed.

The sound of PRT sirens pulls me out of my introspection. For a moment I'm assuming it's unrelated, but then I remember that Mush was causing some fairly significant damage -loud damage.

It crosses my mind that maybe I don't want the PRT to find me at the site of another death. They glossed over Leet's death, but I find myself thinking of, "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." They might decide it wasn't an accident at all if I'm caught having killed another person.

I leave for the park Cher- Carlia is waiting at.

--------------------------​

Once I'm out in the wider world as Taylor again, I remember that I lost my glasses. My only pair, since I broke the first pair in my idiotic attempt to dissuade Dad from asking questions. Shit. They probably got broken in the fighting, even if I were to go back for them anyway. Ugh. I'm... ugh. Fantastic. I'd hoped to put off getting Dad to replace my glasses for a month, and now I'll have to explain how these ones got destroyed, too. Which means more lying. Why didn't I give Carlia my glasses? Why didn't I think?

When I get to the park, it's busier than it was earlier, which admittedly isn't hard. Frustrating.

Carlia picks up on my frustration, because of course she does, and comments that she, "Knows a place," with some privacy. Which seems... odd, given how she hasn't-

-she gives me a funny look as she takes me by the hand (I flinch, she pauses, then we continue) and leads me on-

-oh. Right. Her emotion sensing. She'd know where people aren't.

We walk for a bit before she pulls me aside into a warehouse. My initial impulse is to think it's abandoned, but then I'm hearing... dogs? I give Carlia a weird look, and she explains with a shrug, "Someone's keeping the dogs here. They're way on the other side of the city right now, feels like they're in a scrap actually, but the point is I know it's possible to get in here but also there's no one here right now."

Oh. Okay.

I take a deep breath, and then turn to look at Cherie and demand, "Hit me with guilt." After a second I add, "As hard as you can."

Cherie gives me a dubious look. Which, yeah, I'm being weird. I don't care. After a second, I impatiently say, "I know I'm be-"

"I just did it," she says.

...

"I don't believe you."

Cherie makes a noise of frustration and says, "Seriously, I did. I don't know why it didn't work, but I pushed it and it didn't work."

...

I grit my teeth and demand, "Hit me with sadness," and she throws her hands up in the air and then

I feel

something

...

... but not much. I'm having weird half-thoughts like, "I feel kind of bad for Mush," or, "I miss Mom," or, "I miss Emma," but it's all distant, more like what I can remember feeling when I got a bowl of cereal and it wasn't what I'd wanted and I knew Mom wasn't going to give me what I wanted because this was 'healthy' and what I wanted wasn't. It's far, far less than what I felt when she died, or what I felt when I lost Emma.

After a bit the moroseness lifts. I shake my head a little and ask, "Did you do anything else?" and Cherie shakes her head, still giving me a funny look.

"Happiness. Now."

And I barely have time to read her expression before I'm

SO

FUCKING

HAPPY

that I throw myself around Cherie in a hug and say, "You're my best friend, Cherie," and squeeze because, really, she is a good friend, likable and cool and I hope to one day have her self-confidence and she's trying so hard it's so sweet of her and it's nice to not be alone anymore and maybe she'll tutor me on how she manages to dress so nice and

then

it stops.

I realize Cherie is doing her best to lean away from me and is staring at me like I'm a crazy person.

I let go of her, blinking in surprise.

So.

I can be happy.

I'm just not happy.

I file that away for later, open my mouth to demand she hit me with anger, then decide that I proooobably don't need to test that. I've been mad before. Definitely been mad before. So I switch tracks and say, "Fear," and now she's looking at me like I'm a really crazy person but

ohshitsomeoneisheresomeonewantstokillmeveryonewantstokillmeit'sDragonofcourseit'sDragonIkilledherboyfriend

stops. I realize after a moment that I'm in a corner, hugging myself.

I pull myself up, pat down my pants to get some of the dust off of them, and turn around and walk back up to Cherie and nod in acknowledgment. Last test. "Jealousy."

And suddenly I'm hugging Cherie again, she's mine, Emma can't have her, the Protectorate can't have her, mine minemineminemine-

-and then I find myself faintly embarrassed and back away. Oh yeah. Embarrassment is an emotion too. Though... clearly not one that requires a test.

I nod to myself and go, "Okay. Okay."

Cherie is looking at me and for the first time I can remember she looks concerned. "Bo- Taylor. Um. You- well, this is where other people would ask if you're alright, but uh, no, you aren't."

... I'm not? I feel fine.

"You're kind of.. having a big breakdown. Um. Do, uh, should I just hit you with happiness again? I mean-"

Oh. I am crying. I don't think I was crying earlier.

I turn away and rub at my face with my disgusting horrible sleeves, I hate the bullies, I hate crying, I hatehatehate-

-this is actually a nice hoodie, I really liked it when I picked it out, it's served me so well for so long-

-no. "Stop that."

And then the world is a terrible horrible awful place wherein I'm not even allowed to feel guilt and can barely feel real sadness I'm not a real person I'm just a monster I don't deserve better and-

-Cherie is hugging me why is she hugging me why does she smell nice.

I feel better. It makes me mad. "Stop using your power it's wrong that's wrong-"

and then I'm the monster and Cherie says, "Not using my power."

and I realize it still feels nice to be hugged as the monster.

I feel weird. I'm... still not happy to have learned that I'm apparently incapable of feeling guilt, that's, that's wrong, that's horrible, but it's more intellectual. Less existential horror, more, "What can I do to fix this?"

I realize I can fix it. I don't need a conscience to have a conscience -I don't need emotions to tell me something is wrong and I shouldn't do it. I'd rather have the emotions, but I can work around it. I just need to stop assuming my emotions will prevent me from doing wrong, or... reframe it? I haven't tried to kill the bullies, I sort of assumed it was because I'm a moral person who would never kill people who don't really deserve it but in retrospect I wonder how much of it was the fear that it would be connected back to me -if Sophia Hess and Emma Barnes were to die, and only them die, that'd be pretty conspicuous, who else would have motive but one Taylor Hebert? Hell, even if I was willing to just kill everyone who's ever tormented me at the school -which would be a lot of people- it wouldn't change the point. Who else has motive? And in a world of parahumans, it's just... easy to guess I'm a parahuman and then move to prove it. So maybe my historical reason was that I'd rather put up with their bullshit until high school is done than kill them and end up Birdcaged. (... okay, not Birdcaged, you have to be a lot worse than a parahuman-who-commits-murder to go there, but a lesser jail is still jail)

That makes me feel better.

... in addition to the hug.

I pull away, vaguely embarrassed again, and then cease to be the monster as Cherie opens her eyes. She starts to say something but I cut her off. "I want to stay at your place tonight." She startles, and I add, "Can- can you call my dad and, um, tell him we're... having a slumber party or something? I- I just can't face him tonight. Tomorrow. Just... not tonight."

Cherie's jaw works up and down for a few seconds before she manages to put a smile on her face and say, "Sure, I can totally do that, but we might want to get moving first. Whoever has been taking care of the dogs here is heading this way, and they're mad."

I nod, and we're off.

 

[Ghoul King]

3.x

Cherie Vasil

Managing Taylor's dad is easy. He's all too happy to support Taylor building a friendship with someone, even if he's a little concerned that she's going to end up hurt again. I don't read like a 'bad influence' to him, so he's willing to keep his concerns to himself for the moment, though I'm pretty sure he'll probably try to figure out what kind of person I am by interrogating her.

Phone call handled, I smile at Taylor, take her by the hand, give her a second to recover from the reflexive flinch (What is that about?), and then lead her to the hotel I'm staying at.

Naturally, she's all suspicious and asks how I'm staying here once we're inside my room. I roll my eyes at her -it's not actually a particularly nice/expensive hotel- and pull out a sheaf of money, should be 4500$~ at this point, and explain how Dad wasn't a big fan of actually paying for things himself, and so anytime he brought me along to scope out a target he just made me carry all the money for those rare times he couldn't get out of paying for something.

She does that fucking aggravating thing where she believes me but refuses to actually accept that she believes me because REASONS, but I let it slide. She let me on her team, we've done stuff, it's been fun and we haven't even hit a big target yet, I'm willing to give her space for now. She's not getting on my case about it, anyway -probably thinks I stole the money from somewhere, which yeah, I did, that somewhere being my dead father- so it's not a big deal.

Taylor takes a chair and looks around. I see her eyes catch on where I'm keeping other outfits, feel a longing from her, still haven't pinned down why she keeps doing that about clothing, but then she moves on, eyes wandering over the space. There's not a lot to see, and she's disappointed. My guess? She wanted to pick up clues about me, maybe find drugs so she could justify breaking up with me to herself.

Not that I haven't had fun, but it's been awhile and I kind of left home on short notice, so all I really had on me was the money and the clothes on my back, so that stuff got left behind with the fam. Not a lot of time available to go hunting down good quality, clean drugs while hurrying to find Dad's killer. There was that one guy who I was able to guilt into giving me a ride... but he was offering to share because it would impair my judgment and he thought that would give him a chance. Ew, no.

And now I'm going to stay clean, because this is the best high, and I don't want to lose out.

I wait a minute for Taylor to say something while I strip down to the T-shirt and skirt -don't need all the extra layers for warmth inside the hotel- and set them aside for later. It doesn't come, and a glance at her shows that she's still just looking around the room, bouncing one leg. She's anxious, a little bored, not as curious as I thought she'd be. She's not going to be the one to start a conversation.

That's fine. Gives me some control over the direction conversation goes. I'm still hoping for details on... a lot of things.

"So," I start off as casually as I can, pretending I don't notice Taylor's stab of panic, "Care to share what all the feels were about?"

She shakes her head mutely. There's... not as much anger as I was worrying, a little fear, some squeamish complexity going on I can't quite untangle before it flickers away, and a fair chunk of embarrassment. Eh. Tests were fun, anyway. Glad she didn't go for anger, though, she's been... pretty apocalyptic when she's been angry, and it comes on fast, so I'm not convinced I'd have been safe if she'd made me hit her with anger.

The jealousy test was very interesting, though. Still not sure if Taylor was jealous of me or jealously possessive of me. Either one is a hook, one I can nurture without even using my power. Just need to be careful to not punch her buttons until I've worked out which it is -hopefully it isn't both, I hate it when that happens, it's always such a pain to separate them out and prune them properly.

"Okay then," I start in a warm, accommodating tone I've needed to use way too much in appeasing Daddy. "We can talk about something else. You have any plans for the near future?"

She breaks eye contact, looking out the window, and mumbles, "The Dragonslayers." Hmm. Interesting choice. Her emotions were flat, a bit angry, and... I'm not able to pin down the last bit before it flickers away too. Irritating.

I nod along, say, "Okay, makes sense. Stop them from further impairing Dragon, yeah?" and her emotions spike, anger and a heck of a lot of fear and the concoction that I usually call paranoia, a kind of horrible anticipation that something bad is going to happen, the very second I'm saying Dragon. Wow, okay. What's that about?

Her visible reaction is nearly nil. A slight widening of the eyes I only notice because my power let me know about the underlying emotion first, as she turns to face me, not quite making eye contact, and says in a near-monotone, "Not... exactly," and then she clams up. Can't follow her exact thoughts, but it's moody brooding stuff, still with a dash of paranoia. She's got Issues with Dragon. Weird. Did she ever meet Dragon?

I cock my head and go with innocent curiosity. "Dragon bothers you? What, she too goody-two-shoes for you?" with the second half delivered in a joking tone. Come on Boss, you've gotta pick up on a joke at some point. I know you can find things funny, I've felt you experiencing humor. Just... not around me, for some reason. Dammit.

Nope, joke rolls right off her. Can't even tell if she doesn't realize it's humor or if she recognizes it but finds it utterly un-funny. Instead she shakes her head ever-so-slightly, anxiety spikes while she visibly hesitates to speak, and then finally she swallows nervously and says, "P-... promise not to laugh?"

I don't hesitate at all, saying, "Not unless you tell a joke, Boss," and giving a casual salute. Sincerity laced with humor. It doesn't get the reaction I want, failing to really set her at ease, and in fact she pulls her legs up and hunches over them, anxiety roiling off of her like I've never felt except when... she was at school. Oh, great. She's treating me like one of the assholes at her school? Crap, minus a million points. Step up your game Cherie, stop stepping in it.

Uuugh, how do normal people not go insane with frustration dealing with each other? This is so hard when I can't use my powers to manipulate her (safely) and I still get to directly sense her emotions!

So, in a vaguely fetal position and so tense any idiot could tell by looking at her that she's stressed, she says, in the most mumbly, least confident tone I've heard from her, "I think Dragon was Nilbog's girlfriend."

I blink, work my jaw, raise a finger in objection and then shift it to tap my jaw thoughtfully when I notice her tensing further at my rising hand, and then go with a non-committal, "Huh." Because... what? What is she talking about? But no, don't laugh (Not that it's funny, just confusing) and don't mock her and don't... just don't do anything to provoke her, this matters to her more than literally anything else she's said or done around me -well, maybe a close second to killing Daddy- so if I botch it the team is probably over. Walking the tightrope.

She's doing this thing where she's looking at me from between her legs, hair partially obscuring her eyes, like I won't know she's looking at me or something if she puts multiple partial barriers between us. Need to work on that. She was strong and confident and badass when she went after Daddy -well, until shortly after he died, still not sure what the freakout was about- and while we were on the hunt for the dumbass duo but it's like anytime she thinks of herself as plain old ordinary Taylor she just... loses it all. Really need to fix that.

After a few more seconds of me tapping my chin thoughtfully, trying to figure out how the hell I respond to this piece of weirdness her entire emotional profile turns real ugly and I have to fight the urge to just hit her with pure happiness because she'll notice that so I kind of... round off the edges. Slowly. She starts rambling and I do my best to simulate a cathartic release of confession without her noticing that normally she'd be in a depressive spiral, and it's tricky.

"She tried to stop me when I attacked Nilbog and I just can't imagine why she'd do that he's a villain and she's a hero and he killed an entire town shouldn't she have been helping me and they covered up that I was there and Dragon got the credit and it's a stupid tinfoil hat conspiracy theory but I believe it anyway and it's horrifying and dumb and I'm dumb for believing it-"

She stopped, of course, because I hugged her, ignoring how the body my arms go around is cool to the touch, slick with something, and naked. Whatever is happening there -really need to ask someday when I think she'll answer me- it stabilizes her mood without further intervention from me. She calms down, even compared to the muted state she's in, as I continue the hug and make wordless soothing noises largely stolen from Daddy's various girls. They worked on babies, why not? Not like pre-trigger television gave me any better ideas, and I've never needed to learn how to calm people down, aside from Daddy and... nothing worked on him that I ever found...

Anyway!

After a minute, when she stops reacting positively to the hug, I pull back and say, "Could be a Master effect," and say no more because holy fuck I have no idea how to address this.

She goes very still, staring right through me, and mouths something before shaking herself and Monster is back fuck yes.

"I want the Dragonslayers dead because nobody else is going to do the job. Heroes tolerate them because while they support military juntas in Africa and occasionally parts of the ex-Soviet region, most of their work on US and European soil is restricted to killing villains... you know, except for when they steal from Dragon." There's some bitterness there, a breach in the Monster, but she continues smoothly. "Also, I-" she pauses, picking her words, and there's a spike of anger but it's not aimed at me so I do my best to hide the shiver of fear. "-am free of school for two weeks anyway and I suspect hunting the Dragonslayers down will take considerably longer than most of my less mobile and/or less well-hidden targets. So I was thinking we could tell my dad that we're camping or something for fun, turn this negative into a positive."

I grin, say, "Cool, when do we start?" and pay closer attention to her emotions.

Still controlled, focused, and she promptly says, "Tomorrow. I need a... break."

I nod, say, "Fair enough," and then my smile widens and I say, "So are we going to... get to know each other better tonight?"

She looks at me blankly and gives a vague, "I guess," in response, and her emotions are if anything flatter than her expression. Huh.

So I say, "Now, obviously, you already know the basics of my life, but I don't really know much anything about yours. You first?" which is a bit of a lie, I know she's treated like shit at school and that a lot of it is malicious, and I've already worked out that her mother isn't around, probably dead given what I've picked up from her and her dad around their home, and I know -well, knew before she called me her best friend- that she has literally no friends unless you count me, which... I'd honestly thought she didn't count me, actually. Pleasant surprise to learn otherwise. Suggests she's more desperate than I'd thought. Not used to mis-estimating that.

She startles, and I can tell she's genuinely caught off-guard. Hmm. She stammers a little, saying, "Th-there's not really anything that interesting about my life."

I laugh a little behind one hand, because oh my god, really? She's on a murder spree and she thinks she's normal? So I say, "There's gotta be something, if you were completely boring you wouldn't have triggered-" and there's more of that confusion. I cock my head again, and continue with, "... and you don't even know what a trigger event is, do you?"

She hesitates, and there's waaaay too much reluctance there, like she thinks I'll hurt her if she admits ignorance or something, and finally she says, "I... sorta assumed... you were talking like, um. Trigger warnings?" Framing it as a question, nervous, doesn't want to admit she really has no clue. Wow, whatever is going on at school it's really messed with her head. Also, the heck is a trigger warning?

Whatever. I school my face into my best 'teacher' look -it's not really very good, I'm pretty sure, I'm better at sexy teacher than educator of children- and say, "A trigger event is when you get your powers. Bad shit happens to you, I mean seriously bad shit, shit like you've been buried alive and you're slowly suffocating while your siblings stand around taunting you and you beg and scream and your dad just slams you with more fear and-" shit. Redirect, redirect! "-and, um, yeah. Bad stuff. Worst day you've ever had by like a hundred times. You black out, and you wake up with powers." I pause, watching Taylor's wide-eyed stare, reading her emotions (Some shock, fair bit of horror, a spike of anger mixed with vicious satisfaction I'm going to assume is aimed at Dad) and then continue with, "So since you're a parahuman, you've got to have a story." As if tacking on an afterthought, I hurriedly say, "Not that I'm asking for you to relive your trigger event or anything! I just mean that you can't possibly be a Boring Ordinary Girl or else you wouldn't have a power, that's all."

Awww. I don't think she's going to reciprocate. Fuck. Meant to share that later, when she was liable to reciprocate. Instead, with a cautious note like I'm made of fucking glass goddammit don't do that I'm not fucking fragile, she says, "So it's... not like X-Men? No power puberty?"

Oh my god she knows about X-Men but not Batman? Why. Why.

I realize I said that aloud when she gets defensive and says, "They were my mom's. Said they were good comics for girls, or, well, she said they were good comics for girls before they noticed they were popular with girls and added in a bunch of sexed-up bimbos no teenage girl would actually relate to in a panicked attempt to appeal to said girls. I've never been a comics person, though. Seemed redundant with real capes running around?" Still saying things like they're questions, what is with that?

I just... okay, whatever. Whatever!

"No, no 'power puberty'. Worst day of your life, black out, wake up with powers. Okay? Trigger event. Done."

"Oh."

And then there's silence, Taylor closing up and focusing on her own thoughts. Ugh.

I flop onto the bed, grab the remote, and flip channels until I find something where I don't have to worry about the disconnect of people showing feelings on-screen while I'm reading nothing from them. Ends up being a nature documentary jabbering about ants. I know way the fuck more about bugs than I would've ever chosen to learn, let me tell you, most animals rat-size and up register to my power and ever since dear old Daddy made me trigger it just made it really hard to watch television with animals or people who are supposed to be emotional (ie all of them) while my power insists there's nobody feeling anything. Makes my skin crawl, like having a store mannequin turn and start talking to you, still obviously a mannequin.

So: bugs. Way the fuck too much info about bugs. I don't feel anything from them anyway, so it's all good.

Well, except when they start getting into wasps that turn caterpillars into zombies dedicated to protecting the eggs implanted inside them that hatch into wasp babies that deliberately eat them such that they stay 'alive' for as long as possible. I mean, it still makes my skin crawl and my stomach lurch less than watching television with people on it, but that is some And I Must Scream bullshit.

Right now it's just a program talking about ants that farm fungus. It's like they're tiny, six-legged people with their skeletons on the outside! Or something. I mean, I've seen this basic crap before, but it's better than being bored and Taylor is just over there brooding. Not sure the exact details, but my guess is that she's looking back on her trigger event and going, "Oh, so it wasn't coincidence that the worst day of my life gave me powers," and having all kinds of dumb drama about whether she should be grateful to her tormentors -I'm guessing it happened at school and was caused by people, it seems the obvious explanation- and I really really hope she's not having second thoughts about killing Big 'Uns just because, "Being a parahuman is suffering," and misplaced sympathy. Not that I've ever read sympathy from her, ever, but she apparently cares about caring, which, ugh. She waaaay overestimates the average person's moral integrity. I mean, seriously, you just hit them with a little terror or a little anger, not even that much, and they just throw all that stupid morality stuff out the window and then tell themselves that it wasn't really them or some dumb shit.

Yeah, that totally was you, dumbass. Just because I made you angry doesn't mean it wasn't you who decided to knife that person. Same fucking thing as if someone else pissed you off and you knifed someone because you were angry, and you take responsibility for that. (Except for the dumbasses who don't...)

Uuuugh. Commercials are the worst, too. At least people in commercials are so obviously fake I can just pretend to myself they actually are mannequins or something. Makes it less skin-crawling. A bit less. Enough that I can cope, anyway, it's not like muting it or looking away until the regular programming resumes helps since the dissonance is still there.

The afternoon continues in a similar vein: Taylor brooding, me watching what television doesn't screw with my head. I periodically try to engage her in conversation, but the closest thing to a success I get is when I finally decide to head out and get dinner and I ask Taylor if she wants anything. She hesitates, having all kinds of weird emotional drama that I'm pretty sure has to do with whoever it was that betrayed her for giggles, and finally asks for a soda and maybe some pizza.

I make it happen. She doesn't need to know that this doesn't involve spending money, nor does acquiring my own lunch. Just an attractive girl successfully flirting her way to free food. (Ha ha, I kid, I used my power)

When I come back with the food, she moves her chair so she's just off to the side of the television, in my view, and eats carefully. Hmm. There's been the thing with the blindfold, too. Other examples. She's always so uncomfortable, too. I don't think she's ashamed of the critter, she's not been big on shame so far, but she's got to have some reason why she won't let me see it. It can't be that seeing it would strike me dead. Still having trouble figuring that out. Hopefully she'll get over... whatever it is, at some point.

Maybe there's an involuntary component? Not like I can turn off my ability to read emotions. TV would actually be enjoyable if I could.

Hmmm.

Once the food is finished, Taylor surprises me by shoving her trash to one side, taking a deep, calming breath, and giving me her rambling story without being asked, facing out the window rather than toward me.

"I used to be friends with a girl called Emma." Incandescent rage, bitterness, longing, anger anger anger. Well, at least now I know why 'best friend' provokes a negative response from her. Spoken in a dead monotone.

"We were so close we were practically sisters. One day, for reasons I have never understood and never gotten an answer on, she decided she hated me and became friends with another girl, and the two of them cemented their newly formed friendship by bonding over tormenting me at school." Anxiety, regret, anger, fear, depression. Still the monotone.

"Their actions started small. They said mean things about me. They tripped me. They stole assignments from me. They broke things of mine. All under the teachers' collective nose, all ignored by staff, even as they began to build up a host of cronies that either enjoyed participating for their own reasons or simply hoped to become popular by pleasing the popular kids, all for the low, low price of their soul." Anger, tightly clipped. She wants to hurt them, refuses to let herself do it. Also still in a monotone.

"Initially I fought back, but they'd thought this through and made sure I always got the blame, or at least that no one got in trouble. I switched to trying to tear down their arguments, but it wasn't about logic, it was about meanness. I tried being mean back, but that just made them laugh. So eventually I moved to just... trying to get them caught." No emotion at all.

"Initially that didn't work at all. They were cannier than I was, more aware of where the teachers were, more aware of which teachers would do what thing in what situation. When it did work, it was only getting one of their hanger-ons in trouble. The terrible twosome disavowed all knowledge of her actions and left her to rot." I was expecting a spike of triumph or pleasure or something. There's nothing.

"This helped a little. The other hanger-ons were a little less eager to participate, made more of an effort to stay out of the way. Emma and her new friend stepped up their game in response, and did their best to turn it deeply personal." Jesus, where is the emotion?

Shifting from a dead tone to a casual, conversational tone, Taylor said, "Did you know my mother is dead?" Flat emotions.

I nod cautiously, half-wondering if this is some kind of trap. I had guessed as much.

Taylor nods to herself, still facing toward the window rather than me. She continues in the monotone. "It was a car wreck. It involved a cell phone. Emma told me it's my fault my mother is dead." A pause, while I take that in. Taylor nods so slightly I'm not sure she's aware she's doing it. "It's true. My mother is dead, and it's my fault." No guilt, but we already established that. Tiny bit of sadness. Tiny.

She finally turns to face me and smiles slightly. "I didn't let Emma see the hurt. The light died in her eyes as she saw me stare back impassively, unaffected by the worst thing she could think to do to make me suffer. I'd won." There is exactly zero positive emotion in her voice or her actual emotions. Little unsettling.

Then the smile fades and she goes back to facing out the window. "They left me alone for a bit. It proved I'd won. They couldn't hurt me anymore. Not by twisting the knife. So I was very surprised when I discovered that my locker had been violated, filled with tampons." A pause, and some anger actually reaches her voice for the next words. "Used tampons." Hurt, anger, hurt hurt, murderous fury. How the fuck has she not killed them if she feels this way about their actions??

Then it's back to the monotone. "That was disgusting, of course. I think I threw up. My memory isn't entirely clear. What I do remember is being shoved inside, the door closed behind me. Everybody went to class and ignored my pleas for help. The smell, the fucking taste, the claustrophobic space, I wanted out. I wanted out so badly." Tired.

"I hit my head somewhere in there. Convulsing, I think. I don't remember why. It was strange and terrible. I remember wondering what could possibly motivate Emma and her replacement friend to go through all this effort just to fuck with me. It didn't make sense." Confusion, a bit lost. Tiny bit of sadness.

"At some point in there I-" and here she pauses and looks at me again, and I can tell she's waffling on whether she should say something or not. After a moment, in a carefully neutral tone of voice, she asks, "Car-Cherie? What do you think my power is?" Difficult to pin down her emotions here. Nervousness, some kind of anticipation. Not sure what about.

I shrug and, as honestly as I can, say, "Well, you shrug off my emotional manipulation somehow. Erratically. I know you killed Nilbog-" and there's that twitch of emotion again, the proof. "-and Daddy-" flinches. Fear? It's a tangled knot and it vanishes so fast I'd miss it if I'd blinked, metaphorically speaking. "-so you're apparently pretty scary-dangerous." After a pause, where she's watching me, waiting for something more, I say, "Also you apparently turn into some kind of landsquid or something?"

Disappointingly, there's not a strong response. Awww. I was hoping to mess with her some. She just turns to face the window again, and then resumes talking as if this detour never happened.

"I became the monster for the first time there, in the locker. Shoved the locker door so hard it ripped out, freeing me, fled straight home, never did go back to school that day." A pause. I note that phrase: the monster. Telling. "I guess I triggered in the locker." Another pause, and then somewhat idly, picking at a piece of her shirt she continues. "I still wonder sometimes what Emma and her friend think happened. If they guessed I must be a parahuman, it didn't convince them to stop harassing me. Maybe they blamed it on adrenaline? I dunno. It's been ages since I understood Emma, and I never understood her replacement friend." Boredom, or something close. That's... really weird.

Then she turns to me and smiles a brittle, fake smile, so fake it would be obvious it was fake if I didn't get to see directly the complete lack of anything positive going on in there, bar maybe some catharsis, some relief. "So now you know my story, same as I know yours."

After a long, long pause where I'm trying to pick an appropriate response to this, her fake smile slides off her face, she curls back into a vaguely fetal position, and goddammit she's getting depressed again.

I bounce out of the bed and go to hug her again, but she twists away mumbling some idiocy about not deserving it or whatever and I slap her.

She turns to me with wide eyes, shocked and confused, holding one hand to the cheek I hit. I note a bruise forming. Hit her harder than I'd meant to. Pissed me off.

I glare and say, "Seriously. I've already told you I'm not like your whorebag ex-friend. Stop expecting me to be like her. It's really fucking offensive," and then I hug her and she's too befuddled to do anything. She turns into the squid thing again -'the monster'- and now I'm almost certain there's an involuntary component because she's too busy having a little blue screen of death going on to be deliberately inducing the state. Maybe she has to consciously maintain focus on staying human? No, that doesn't seem right. Oh, whatever.

After a minute of feeling her reach a somewhat better mental space, I pull back and-

Wait, when the hell did the bruise go away?

She notices me staring confusedly at where the bruise should be, turns away so that side of her face is away from me and I grab her by the face and turn her around and look and seriously, the bruise is already gone. I blink, and she slips out of my grip somehow and mumbles, "I heal," and yeah, obviously, but I didn't see any evidence of it happening.

She changes the subject. Blatantly. "When are you going to bed?"

It takes my brain a second to catch up, and I let the grin spread across my face and go for teasing. "When are you planning to join me?"

Only one bed in the room. It's a twin, but it's still just the one bed.

She stares blankly at me. My grin fades, and finally she says, firmly, "I don't sleep."

Aaaaand that kills my grin entirely.

Dammit, this 'sleepover' just got way less fun.

I try to think of some other fun thing to say and come up blank. Aaargh. I had a list! I was going to be teasing her for hours, maybe even days. See if I could get a strong reaction out of her that was totally natural and not murderous fury. But nooo, she doesn't need the bed. She's just going to-

...

"... Taylor, what were you planning on doing all night?"

She looks away again, and her emotions are all kinds of miserable. After a second she mumbles, "I'd thought you'd have a laptop I could do research on." After a pause she adds in an even lower mumble, "As is... probably just brood all night." Completely 100% honest.

Oh hell no. No no no no no.

No.

"Come on Taylor, into the bed with you," and I pull her out of the chair and toward the bed and ignore her starting to say something about how she'll turn into the monster or whatever the fuck and shove her into the bed (She'll heal if I'm overly aggressive with her, whatever) and declare, "We are doing cuddles. Cuddles make everything better. You are not leaving this bed until I leave this bed."

She keeps mumbling vague protestations about what a disgusting horrible monstrosity she is, but I note she doesn't actually leave the bed or shove me away or anything that would be happening if she really wasn't going to go along with this. I mean, come on, she's not some helpless damsel.

I tell her firmly, "Stay here," and head off to do my nightly ablutions, including changing into sleepwear.

When I come back, she's still laying exactly where I pushed her. I give her a strange look, tell her, "Come on, let's change you into something actually comfortable to sleep in," grab a passable outfit -there's nothing that will be good on her, she's got something stupid like half a foot on me- shove her into the bathroom with it, tap my foot impatiently just outside the door so she knows I'm waiting (Though really it's her feelings I'm paying attention to), start considering shoving my way in and dressing her myself, but then she gets it handled and comes out, looking ridiculously lost and helpless and oh my god girl.

I look her up and down real briefly, comment, "Good enough for now," and then shove her toward the bed, ignoring her vague mumbled protestations, turn out the light -she stops talking abruptly, I note that- and then slip under the covers and reach out to hug her.

For a moment I think she's trying to move away because of her stupid issues, and am about to say something scathing, but then I get a good grip on her and she only moves a little more. Hmm. Whatever.

"Good night," I say. There's no response from her, but I wasn't expecting one.

It takes a while, but eventually I drift off.

--------------------------------------​

I wake up abruptly, sometime before dawn. At first I think Taylor has fled and that's what woke me, but then I realize she's still firmly in my grasp, still the squid.

Sitting up and looking around, ignoring Taylor shifting almost silently, I look around, see nothing off. Something woke me up. I check for if there's any conspicuous emotional signatures, such as one outside the window -we're on the fifth floor- or stopped in front of my room's door, but there's no such thing to explain why I'm unsettled enough to wake up way too early.

What grabs my attention is that the city-wide emotional spectrum is shifting toward anxious. Strange. The way it's growing is weird, too. It's not progressing in a wave, which is what I'd expect if something was happening like Lung on a rampage. Instead, a cluster of individuals will all get anxious at the same time, or one person will get anxious and those closest to them react after a minute. I swear this is familiar.

After a minute, I remember: Endbringer attacks. I've seen this basic pattern in Toronto when an Endbringer attack was on the news.

Okay. Pattern of reaction suggests it's not occurring here, and I think Endbringer sirens are a thing in the US? I'd expect it to be, it's the PRT's fault Canada started implementing them. No sirens are blaring.

Just in case, I pop out of bed, grab the remote, and start flipping channels, looking for news channels. Taylor steps abruptly into my vision, startling me -I didn't even hear her leave the bed- and asks, "What? What's going on?"

I wave one hand flippantly, intending to blow her off, but then the TV hits an international news channel and yep, it's an Endbringer attack. Simurgh, hitting... Canberra? Don't recognize the name. It's apparently in Australia?... the ticker at the bottom is repeatedly informing parahumans to report to their nearest PRT office if they intend to volunteer.

"We're going."

Oooooh fuck no. "Boss, I can't contribute anyth-"

"Search and rescue," and her voice is hard. Which would be awesome if she wasn't trying to rope me into facing a goddamn Endbringer.

Redirect, redirect. "What about you? I'm pretty sure you, what, can't maintain the squid state when people see you?" She doesn't flinch physically, but I can feel her emotional reaction. I've hit a nerve. "So how are you expecting to contribute in a great big fight with lots of people? Do you even have any powers other than turning into the squid?" and then I remember the bruise vanishing and amend it to, "And that regeneration, I guess."

She looks away and mumbles something about people and presences.

"So no, not really."

And now she's depressed oh goddammit.

I fight the temptation to just hit her with happiness again. I could maybe take the edge off her depression if I'm subtle, but last time I went for unsubtle she picked up on it just fine and was shifting over to murder mode before I kicked her back into an appropriately depressive mindset.

Instead I throw my hands up in the air and say, "Okay fucking fine, would throwing a sheet over you work?"

She looks at me, blinking confusedly. I can feel hope swelling in her. Great. After a moment she cautiously says, "I never thought of that possibility. I... I don't know?" and she says 'I don't know?' like she's happy to be saying it.

Fucking wonderful. Fan-frickin'-tastic. We're turning her into Casper The Friendly Ghostsquid.

I spend a minute working a sheet out from the bed, and then turn around and with my eyes closed say, "Hold still," and move until Taylor's signature (Muted) is right in front of me and then throw the blanket over her squiddy form. Then I say, "I'm opening my eyes now," and do so.

I am facing a sheet that is not actually large enough to completely cover the squid. I can see a number of (Arms?). Okay. Fuck. I was hoping that wouldn't work and I could finagle this into us having some ice cream. Or going murdering something actually plausible. With some effort -trying to ignore the stab of joy Taylor is experiencing- I put a frown on my face and say, "We're going to need a bigger sheet."

The sheet jerks up into the air and I just barely have an impression of a zillion long, blue legs (Arms? Legs? Ugh, I dunno) before it's abruptly Taylor again, with a small smile on her face, ducking off to one side to avoid the sheet as it falls back to the floor. Excitedly she says, "We can do that! You've got money, we can just buy a big sheet, is there a size bigger than King I forget-"

I cut her off and say, "Are you going to wear a costume?"

She pauses, says, "If I'm under the sheet it shouldn't be necessary?" and I don't think I want to know why she's saying it like it's a question.

"Were you able to see from under the sheet?"

She cringes a bit, but then brightens and goes, "I can cut eyeholes in it!" After a momentary pause she adds, "With my limbs. They have blades, you know." Which no, I did not know that, and it might explain some of what she's done as the squid.

Oh god. She really is going to be Casper the Friendly Squidghost. Fuck my life.

I heave a great big sigh and say, "Can we just... not do this?"

And her face is stone and it's fantastic but then she says, "We're helping," and I sigh again because ugh.

We proceed to get dressed, head out to find a store with as large a sheet as we can find, buy the damn thing, duck into an alleyway so I can tie my hair up and in general switch over to my costume while she cuts... sigh... eyeholes into the sheet. We confirm that having her eyes -which are green compound eyes?- sticking out through the eyeholes doesn't revert her to Taylor, and then we head to the PRT HQ.

To go to where the Simurgh is.

Seriously, fuck my life.

 

[Ghoul King]

4.1

When it becomes obvious that the sheet doesn't want to stay on, we stop, Pride starts to ask something but apparently picks up me inferring that she's intending to ask to quit and cuts herself off with a muttered, "Of course not." She heaves an enormously put-upon sigh but then she says, "We can work with this," and starts tying off knots around some of my limbs, toward the bottom, careful of the blades. Once she's tied off eight knots, she climbs aboard and we zoom off to the PRT HQ, and it works.

The intake process is surprisingly simple. Pride confirms that we're two parahumans intending to join the Endbringer fight, is informed that if she has any major psychological issues (the trooper glances at me) it would be appreciated if she declined to participate (Pride glances at me and then affirms she's going), is asked how she intends to contribute and informs the trooper that we'll be acting as search and rescue. After that the PRT trooper hands over two collars to us and explains how they work, and then directs us to a specific part of the lawn to wait for pickup. They make a point of being completely sure we understand that these are collars that will kill us if we spend too much time in the Simurgh's range, and while Cherie turns pale and glances at me (So weird when she's got a blindfold on), she nods in understanding regardless. The trooper doesn't seem to know what to make of me, and ultimately shakes their head and leaves, muttering.

Pride spends a bit staring at her own collar, clearly uncomfortable, and I get irritated with her and she cringes and puts it on. After a small delay she reaches under the sheet and slips the other collar around one of my limbs that has no sheet tied to it. With that done Pride kicks her legs like she's riding a horse and I turn my head as best I can under the sheet to give her a look, but it does nothing to intimidate her and I head over to the designated arrival site, metaphorically rolling my eyes. There's a man with a wolf mask made of (sheet?) metal, shirtless, standing there with his arms crossed, seeming bored to me, and it takes me a minute to remember that Hookwolf's costume is... yeah, just that mask. He's even wearing regular work jeans.

Huh. I wouldn't have expected him to volunteer.

There's only two other capes standing in the area, and I feel vaguely disappointed. I recognize Widescreen, of course, a vigilante currently glaring at Hookwolf and being entirely ignored in turn. I think his power is something to do with manipulating light like it's a physical object? His most well-known effect is short-range teleportation, usually via TV screens, though he's also been known to appear abruptly from cell phones, so size isn't that important to him, I recall that much. General evidence is that he's white, but he's got a serious beef with the Empire for some reason. His costume isn't much of a costume at all, though I suppose I'm not one to talk. The mask is about the only part that's particularly costume-like, and it's just a Halloween mask. Something vaguely sci-fi?

The other cape is a minor solo villain, which surprises me. I forget his name. His 'costume' is mostly just black motorcycle leathers and a red motorcycle helmet, not even painted up in an interesting way or anything. It's pretty obvious that he's a cape, though, as there's grass sticking up out of his feet, and when the wind blows hard enough to knock leaves out of the trees, some of them go right through him. Some kind of phasing power? Not entirely voluntary, looks like. He's mostly restricted himself to petty theft, which is part of why I've not done research on him. He's pointedly looking away from Hookwolf and Widescreen. At least, I'm pretty sure he's a he... might not be, now that I think about it. Oh well.

There's a long, silent wait in which only Pride seems to be comfortable, Hookwolf pointedly ignoring Widescreen while bicycle leather pointedly ignores the both of them. Hookwolf glances at Pride and I and snorts behind his mask, and then goes back to ignoring us, too.

Then a line rapidly inscribes itself on the ground nearby, forming a small circle seemingly made of ash. The PRT troopers seem comfortable with it, so I just watch it curiously. When the circle completes, a single person appears inside of it in a burst of ash, a woman in a pretty snazzy, custom-made costume. I can't place the general design, even though I swear it's an official government-made costume. Green. She jogs over and asks, "Okay right quick are we waiting on anybody before we go because I am in high demand let me tell you lads." She pauses for a second and glances at Pride and tacks on, "And lass." I think that's an Irish accent? Or- I can never keep straight Scottish and Irish. Maybe she's neither, I dunno.

Hookwolf shrugs, biker costume shrugs, Widescreen says, "Man, I don't know nuthin'," and a PRT trooper gives the new woman a thumbs-up. I can't see what Pride does. I just hold still, fighting impatience and a minor urge to attack Hookwolf. He's volunteering for an Endbringer defense. I shouldn't do that. Not yet, at least.

The teleporter makes a one-armed shrug, claps her hands together loudly, and starts circling us, dragging one foot on the ground while she walks the other more normally. "Hold still lads and lass and whatever the ghost with bug eyes qualifies as, ya don't want to have anything outside the circle. Trust me. Also, don't be alarmed by anything you see in transit, it's na' anything to worry yerself over." I notice that the foot that's dragging is leaving a trail of fire, though the fire doesn't catch anything nearby alight. It most certainly does reduce the grass within it to a twisted black mess. Powers are weird.

When she completes the circle -and I note that she pulls herself inside the circle before dragging her foot the last few inches to complete it- everything outside the circle vanishes and is replaced with fire and shadows, dancing like demons. I'm reminded of some fairly abstract representations of Hell. Hookwolf visibly startles, but then very obviously makes a deliberate effort to relax. Pride stiffens, but holds her ground just fine. Biker-costume looks around, but he only seems curious. Widescreen seems fine at first, but then I hear what sounds an awful lot like screams and he recoils, throwing his arms over his head like he expects to be attacked by birds or something.

The teleporter makes sympathetic noises in his general direction and then ruins the effect by saying, "Always hits the crybabies hardest."

Hookwolf sniggers while Widescreen makes incoherent sounds of outrage, and then abruptly the flames and shadow are replaced by grass, trees, a vast sky seemingly in the middle of sunset, a circle of ash inscribed in the grass around us. Also some tall-ish buildings in the distance.

And the Simurgh, of course, drifting slowly through the air, surrounded by debris and capes assaulting her. I resist the urge to charge her. I'm here for search and rescue. Not combat.

Hookwolf promptly starts transforming, heading straight toward the Simurgh, though I notice the suicide collar stays attached and uncut somehow. Widescreen pulls out a cell phone, somehow turns the limited light coming out of it into a sizable square of gold that he promptly jumps into, vanishing, and the biker leather guy glances our way and then takes off at a run, pressing buttons on his collar. I catch snatches of a tinny voice before he's too far away for me to hear.

Pride is muttering to herself, from the sounds of things trying to sort out all the information she's taking in. I'm impressed (She shifts a little) when I realize she's not freaking out in response to being abruptly dumped into the middle of what amounts to a warzone. Come to think of it, how much stress does it put her under to be around what must be ridiculous amounts of stress?

"Not much, boss," she mutters. "Reading emotions isn't feeling them, and, well, I don't care."

... oh.

Right.

"Oh goddammit stop that depressive bullshit I'm trying to concentrate here, it's not actually easy picking out people who are wounded or dying or whatever instead of just panicking or giving up because they're defeatist or whatever."

After much, much longer than I would prefer to have waited around, she directs me toward, "That cluster of trees," and we head out.

------------------------------------​

We've rescued twenty civilians and eight capes through direct action -loading them onto me, rigging up a temporary way to keep them attached while I zip around, and taking them to one of the many evacuation points after consulting where those are by asking the suicide collars- and rescued some much larger number primarily through Pride knowing whether a given collapsed building contains living people or not, helping direct teleporters and other capes capable of retrieving groups and/or retrieving people from under rubble toward where their presence will actually help, when our collars simultaneously beep and announce-

"Five minutes remaining before this collar activates. Please evacuate."

Pride has been complaining about headaches and, at one point, muttered something about a Jean-Paul and I'm feeling... strangely lightheaded. A new feeling as the monster. The collars speaking snaps me to attention, though Pride seems more out of it than me. Instead of anything I'm expecting, like declaring, "Finally!" she just mutters something tiredly -I can only catch Daddy and no.

I feel alarmed, and then Pride seems to pull herself together to assure me that she's, "Fine, just fine, we just got up early is all."

I don't really believe her and rush to an evac point.

The sixty seconds it takes for someone to show up has me antsy, and the worst part is I feel like I want to stab a problem that's not stabbable. Finally a teleporter rises up out of the dirt, touches me and a handful of other people at the site, and then drags us all down under the earth.

-------------------------------------------​

I'm vaguely surprised when we rise up out of the dirt, and we don't seem to be in Brockton Bay. Then I feel dumb, because with all the rush it can't be practical to immediately take us back where we came from. Certainly not when groups of people are being grabbed all at once, no guarantee they all share a home town.

The teleporter sinks back into the ground after breaking contact with the group, presumably off to rescue more people. I'm left to look and listen, try to figure out what's going on around me.

There's a lot of people around. We seem to be in a stadium, not currently in use for sports, instead used as some kind of PRT staging point. Huh. Do they... not have official places set aside? I guess not?... in any event, we're far from the only people here, and only a small portion of them are capes, at least as far as I can tell. There's PRT troopers at all the entrances, armed and ready with containment foam and so on, and suits coming in and taking people off to areas demarcated by standing curtains. I'm not clear what they're doing, though. When they're done, sometimes the people they brought into a curtained area are taken out past the troopers, other times they're returned to the general field, but with a yellow bracelet, generally clustered to one end of the field. I note that there's some Protectorate heroes lingering in the stands nearby, though I don't remember a lot about them as individuals. Thinkers and combat-oriented capes, I think?

Occasionally when someone is taken out of the stadium, there's a struggle that requires the intervention of PRT troopers and/or Protectorate heroes. Even more rarely, the individual goes quietly along, head hanging, seeming... resigned? I'm not sure what it is, exactly, but it makes me nervous.

The whole thing makes me nervous, like we're being treated as dangerous. I get that the Simurgh promotes paranoia, but... well. We have our collars, shouldn't that be proof enough that we're safe to interact with?

When I wander over in the direction of a wall, everybody near that wall -all the heroes and PRT troopers- jerks to look straight to me, and I stop short. I... wanted my back against the wall. Makes me feel safer, would make it easier to keep an eye on everyone around us. Pride irritably mutters something about being able to track threats just fine on her own, sounding like she's only half-awake, and gives me directions until we're in a spot that's... I don't really see what's special about it, but she insists the people around us are unlikely to make trouble. Really, I was hoping for some privacy to change back to... Taylor, I guess, given I'm not in costume. But I don't think I'm going to be getting that here, not without way too much risk of connecting Taylor to the monster.

Instead I watch, and wait, and listen. (... including to Pride's continued muttering, drifting in and out of coherence)

Snatches of what I'm making out indicate that the curtained-off areas are for a combination of physical evaluation and psychological evaluation. The priority seems to be that visible injuries get looked at first, followed by capes, followed by civilians, though it doesn't seem to be a hard-and-fast rule of any kind. I note that capes are involved, though it's also clear there's not nearly enough of them to handle all the duties -they seem to have a couple of capes dedicated to the psychological evaluation, and then a dozen non-capes, at least going by costume/lack of costume. The capes seem to most consistently handle other capes, though occasionally I see a non-cape handle the psych evaluation of a cape.

There's also a cape wandering around, quietly asking people a question and then touching them somewhere on the skin. A lot of them are promptly escorted out of the building, clearly relieved. Some of them are anxious instead. A few more minutes of listening in indicates they're some kind of postcog, checking to determine how long a given person was in the Simurgh's range. People who were in its range for only a brief period are the ones being let out early, without a psych eval, after she's confirmed they're safe.

It eventually dawns on me that we're not in an American city, and this isn't a Protectorate operation. It's an Australian city, and most of the capes watching the area are Australian heroes. Which... I feel really stupid now. Of course it's not appropriate to be whisking Australian citizens away to America. Probably. I dunno, I'm not big on international law. Makes sense, regardless, and incidentally this explains part of why I'm struggling to recognize a lot of the heroes. I'm a lot more familiar with American heroes than... any other kind.

I also notice some of the capes that get cleared make their way to the stands to contribute to the perimeter. That... makes a lot of sense, really. I'd wondered why so many capes were tied up in this. If it's being reinforced by people who have contributed their twenty minutes, evacuated, and then been cleared as safe, then it's not costing the world firepower at the fight itself. Maybe the initial perimeter force cycled out into the battle once enough people had been cleared and added to the ring?

As time goes on, the arrival of civilians first slows, and then stops entirely, though capes continue to arrive at an erratic pace. Some of the civilians are visibly, audibly upset, though in most cases someone rushes to assure them that there are multiple evacuation destinations and they may simply be separated from friends or family that are completely safe. I infer that the Simurgh has been roaming free for too long, the remaining locals declared too dangerous to risk evacuating anymore. The idea gnaws at me, a frustration that makes me want to run the Simurgh down and stab it until it dies, but I can't leave. Pride and I need to be tested.

The postcog finally stops by us after far too long. Up close, I can see she's themed in a Sherlock Holmes sort of way, though it's a loose enough inspiration that the only reason I connect it is because she introduces herself as, "Miss Moriarty, postcog detective extraordinaire." She says it with a smile that makes me wonder if she's being self-deprecating or if she's just trying to put us at ease. Either way, I find myself wondering why she's named herself after Sherlock Holmes' nemesis. Is she an Australian villain? That seems... dubious to trust, if so.

She explains her power as: she makes skin-to-skin contact, and that feeds the last 24 hours ("It's really more like 26 and a half for some weird reason...") of what we experienced to her. What we saw, what we felt. Not what we heard or thought, and strangely she explains that the written word is 'scrambled' to her. She admits that this can be a huge violation of privacy, but she also swears up and down that she's not judgmental and she's not gossipy -though she also notes, somewhat apologetically, that she's required to report crimes she discovers in this way. ("The Endbringer Truce doesn't mean we can't arrest you for crimes we found out during the event committed prior to the battle. It just means you don't get arrested until after you've been released back home and given a grace period of... an hour or so? It doesn't crop up often, I might have the details wrong.") She also tells us that the risk to our secret identities is relatively small, as she'd basically have to pass us in the street to connect our civilian identity to our cape self, assuming we actually looked at ourselves in a mirror recently enough, though she also admits that she's already had it happen twice so we shouldn't be cavalier about this.

Pride mumbles and grumbles and pulls herself together enough to ask why we're not just being let loose since our collars prove we didn't spend too long around the Simurgh. Miss Moriarty launches into a long, seemingly rehearsed explanation, which boils down to, "The suicide collars are more easily fooled than my power." She specifically references a particular incident where someone who had the power to 'save the state' of things and then reset them at a later point to that 'saved' state did this with his collar to claim he spent only fourteen minutes exposed to the Simurgh when he'd been exposed for four hours, and the only reason it was caught before he was let loose was because the collars also periodically report to Dragon's systems and the discrepancy raised a red flag. He was actually in the middle of waiting for a teleporter to be free to take him home when this was discovered, so it was a fairly close call. Her power can only be fooled by our own senses being fooled, which limits our ability to manipulate results ourselves. Apparently it bypasses memory alteration, for one: it doesn't matter what we remember recently, it matters what we experienced.

Ultimately Pride assents to this power being used on her. I'm disturbed by the idea of the power in all honesty, but I'm... well, I'm not thrilled at the idea of Miss Moriarty getting to see Pride's recent memories, but as far as I'm aware the most problematic thing in there is... ergh. Cuddling with her as the monster.

Contact has been made before I can decide whether I consider Pride's experiences being siphoned a violation of my privacy or not.

Miss Moriarty gives Pride a look, like she's gotta be nuts, but then shakes herself, puts a smile on her face, and turns to look me in the eyes with no evidence that she's freaked out. Well. Little evidence. She just asks, "So what about you?" and in spite of my reservations I'm actually inclined to say yes so we can get out of here sooner-

-and then I remember I killed Mush yesterday and find myself shaking my head in a no. I can't let that be connected to me. I actually feel vaguely relieved to have a good reason to not give someone a look at my private life, even as I'm deeply unhappy with missing out an opportunity to leave early.

To my surprise, when Miss Moriarty gestures for Pride to leave, she shakes her head and mutters, "Not leaving the boss." Miss Moriarty looks surprised, too, though not as surprised as I feel, and gives me a 'knowing' look.

... oh fuck you. You -I -no. Pride and I aren't in some fucked-up relationship you, urgh, just... fuck you.

I have to fight the urge to kill the girl. It's a completely inappropriate urge, even if I hate her, we need to get out of here and stabbing her to death, however satisfying, isn't a good idea-

-and I catch myself having taken half a step toward her. She doesn't seem to have taken it as a threat, though. Pride pats me behind my eyes and murmurs, "Calm, boss, calm. Whatever she thinks of us is nothing to get hot over," and then Miss Moriarty jolts a little and seems to suddenly decide she has someplace else to be and I'm almost certain it's Pride and twist my head to give her a look as best I can as the monster, but Pride gives me a toothy (tired) grin and shrugs. Probably because I'm too relieved at Miss Moriarty leaving to really be upset at Pride using her power this way, and she probably knows it.

Even more time passes, the population in the stadium slowly dwindling, until finally one of the parahuman psych evaluators shows up (A man in a formalwear suit with only some cape-type accouterments), calling himself Vigilance. He asks Pride to come with him, but she shakes her head and explains that Miss Moriarty already cleared her, and it's just 'the boss' that needs to be handled. He frowns, adjusts a pair of glasses he's wearing over a domino mask (Which has me wondering why he's not wearing something more substantial with built-in lenses...) and then says, "One moment." His gaze drifts for a moment, and then he seems to wake up, scrutinizing me more closely. Somewhat cryptically, he comments, "I see." He has a posh British accent of some kind.

In spite of Pride's insistence, he only lets me come along, and then we move to within one of the curtained-off areas. I barely fit. He sits down in a chair and pointedly says, "I've already used my precognition. Interesting power. You really should've worn a proper costume, though. Unless that's some limitation of your power?..."

Embarrassed, I rear back until suddenly I'm Taylor (the suicide collar strapped around one arm) and the sheet is falling behind me. (The lightheadedness vanishes, though I'd largely forgotten about it until just now) I gather it up and arrange it into something to cover most of my head and a good chunk of my body before I answer him, trying to ignore the sticky feeling of blood staining it. "No, I just... was in a hurry and didn't have my costume on me and didn't think it would matter." I pause for a second, watching him, his arms crossed and one eyebrow raised enough that it's distorting the domino mask to the point I can see it in spite of my blurry vision, and then I say, "So... how does this work?"

He adjusts his glasses again -weird habit- and says, "Well, just spending ten or so minutes talking with you, periodically using my precognition power, will go a long way to mitigating Ziz's influence. Long-term plots predicated on carefully anticipating specifics tend to go awry around precogs, even without a specific effort to identify and stop the plan." I can't see his face well enough to work out what the pause is about. "However, it's also my job to perform a proper analysis to determine if you've had any more... crude alterations made, resistant to precog interference." I nod in understanding. I vaguely recall hearing somewhere -the news? PHO?- that precogs interfere with each other, and I already know about the Simurgh altering people's brains.

He claps his hands together abruptly, and I startle a little, and he says, "So let's get started."

-------------------------------------​

We go through a battery of questions, and periodically he does something to provoke me. It takes me a while to realize that's what he's doing, but when I catch on and call him on it, he unashamedly admits that's part of the testing -one of the Simurgh's more common, simple and quickly made alterations is to tweak how aggressively people react to... various things. You get someone going on an out-of-control rampage because someone else was just a little too irritating -someone playing music too loudly on the bus, someone making a popping noise, someone chewing gum too loudly, and suddenly your Simurgh bomb is homicidal. If they're a parahuman, it can get real bad real fast, especially as they're usually modified so attempts to reason with them just provoke them further.

Most of the questions themselves seem to be fairly simple. Some of them are hypotheticals -"what would you do in X circumstance"- while others are... I dunno what the purpose of them is. What's the point of asking my favorite color? He also interrupts himself or me and asks several of the questions multiple times at various points, to my increasing irritation, and when I attempt to ask what that's about he interrupts to ask me if I love my father.

My throat closes up and I can't say anything and even through the blur I can tell he's studying me carefully and then he waves a hand and says, "Never mind never mind, moving on."

He also at various points drifts off into that state he apparently goes into when using his precognition, though he at least doesn't interrupt his sentences with it. Or mine, at least not too often. He mostly doesn't make any commentary about these, and I find myself wondering if he's asking different questions from what his precog predicted or not. Given he said part of the point is to interfere with the Simurgh, I'm guessing yes, but I'm hesitant to actually ask. I feel vulnerable like this, and I don't like it.

In the end, he adjusts his glasses one last time, says, "Well, I'd hesitate to call you normal or healthy, but you seem to have been minimally impacted by Ziz." He pauses, and it's rather longer than what's been typical for him so far. Somewhat hesitantly, he adds, "In fact, as far as I can tell you haven't been affected by the blasted thing, which... puzzles me. You don't have any Thinker abilities I'm overlooking, do you?"

I start to shake my head, and then remember my people-sensing. I give him the basic rundown of it.

He rubs at his chin, making thoughtful humming noises. After a bit of that he declares, "Well, the collar and my assessment agree that you are very low risk. I would appreciate it if you allowed my colleague to perform their own once-over of you, but procedure does not actually allow me to compel you to remain. It does demand that I note down your parahuman identity, however, and I'll admit I don't recognize you at all." He pauses again and gives me a look, though I'm unsure what it's meant to convey, with how blurry my vision is. "I probably don't need to tell you this, but I am very, very good at catching people out at lies, so in spite of the fact that you are not in your regular costume and I am not personally familiar with your power set, I will know if you attempt to claim you are a cape that you are not."

I nod vaguely, having sort of expected such -he dropped a few hints that he has a Thinker power beyond his precognition over the course of the evaluation- and I say, "Monster. Registered with the Protectorate as a Rogue?" I hesitate and add, "I'm trying to be an independent hero, but I'm not sure what all goes into that, so I just... went with Rogue for the initial, uh, paperwork and all. I know New Wave coordinates a lot with the Protectorate, for instance, but-"

He waves a hand and says, "Not with the Protectorate, not interested, couldn't tell you. English, not a bloody colonist, God bless the Queen etc etc," his accent very clearly deliberately exaggerated.

I mutter, "Oh," feeling vaguely stupid, and watch as he pokes at what I'd previously dismissed as a wristwatch. Apparently it's not, though. Some kind of tinkertech computer, I guess.

After a moment he looks up, makes an 'okay' sign with one hand, and says, "Right then, that's two sources vouching for you -me and the collar- and you've yet to start screaming like a loony and attack people, so you can go back to your flat or whatever it is you do on your time." A pause. "Well, as soon as someone is ready to transport you, anyway." He stands up and makes a half-bow, gesturing with his arms as if I'm someone about to walk out of a carriage, and says, "In the meanwhile you can at least leave the building, enjoy some sunlight, maybe meet up with your cape friends -oh, you don't have cape friends, that's terribly awful- anyway just... enjoy yourself. You helped fight one of those damn things, you're alive, you're not any crazier than you were before you got here. Go celebrate!"

I look at him funny, but head out anyway, sheet arranged to cover as much as possible while still being able to walk and still able to see. Pride is standing much closer than she was when I went in, having apparently noticed when it was time for me to go, and gives a little wave and a tired smile. When I'm close enough, she clasps one arm over my shoulders. I flinch and my impulse is to tell her to get off, but then I notice just how heavily she's actually leaning on me and realize she's actually using me as a support, weakness hidden behind a show of camaraderie. I grimace and say nothing, though I find myself wondering again just what the Vasil family life was like that she has these kinds of skills and uses them seemingly without substantial forethought.

That bit about her trigger event she let slip makes it obvious it wasn't sunshine and flowers, but these little behaviors make me think it wasn't isolated. Like how the locker was the worst thing to happen in my bullying, not the only thing.

I'm more than a little relieved when approaching one of the PRT troopers (And what are PRT troopers doing in Australia?...) guarding an entrance leads to them waving us on. As we're approaching, one of them does something with a tablet, and the collars click and detach themselves, and we hand them over.

Then we head out.

--------------------------------------------​

"Well, that should've sucked, and somehow it didn't," are Pride's first words once we're outside. It's nighttime wherever we are, and there's a perimeter, manned by more PRT troopers, keeping people away from the stadium, but we're... actually fairly close to being alone. There's other capes hanging out in the area, but they pay us little attention that I can tell. I think. Probably. Really wish I didn't break my glasses. Both of them. By being stupid.

Pride scowls at me and says, "We did the stupid thing and we're not dead. Live a little, come on," but I'm not really all that satisfied. We helped with the Simurgh, but I don't really feel accomplished. I've never felt as happy as I'd like about successfully taking out key foes, but there was a sense of satisfaction in killing Nilbog and Heartbreaker -they were dead, gone, done. No more. Progress. We helped make things less bad with an Endbringer attack, at least hopefully, but... less bad isn't great, and even the gratitude we got off of civilians and the occasional cape didn't really move me. In fact, now that I think about it, the woman I helped prevent the rape of being grateful didn't help me feel like I'd done something worthwhile, either.

Goddammit. I can remember the warm glow I got when Dad or Emma (Pride flinches slightly) or Mom or a teacher or anyone was happy to see me do good work. I can remember helping one of Dad's friends, happy just to have them thank me. Now I'm saving people's lives, hell, this is the Simurgh so I can be a bit melodramatic and say I'm saving their souls without it being pure exaggeration, and their gratitude means nothing to me. Why? Is this something that getting my power -my trigger event- did to me? Or has the bullying just... worn down any sense of basic human decency in me? I thought I was strong and shrugging it off, mostly. Mostly enough.

Pride interrupts my thoughts to comment, "I really do need more sleep, you know. I wasn't exaggerating when I said we got up early, and then we did this whole thing and I just feel... ugh. Need a nap. Not like we're going back to BB until they're done with the big bird," which seems a strange way of interrupting my thought process, because, sure, the girl with emotion sensing coincidentally butted in on my brooding-

... "Pride?"

"Yeah, boss?"

"Were you able to sense the Simurgh's emotions at all? Or an, um, emotional signature from it?"

"Nope," and she pops the 'p'.

"Damn." Probably not going to track Leviathan that way. Not sure how I'd get her help out in the ocean anyway, but still.

"I think I might've been able to tell who the song was hitting, though, and how hard."

I turn to look at her, trying to read her face, see if she's just messing with me. Skeptically, I say, "Really."

"Really," and she's just smiling gently. Then it drops off her face and she says, "Seriously boss, I need rest. Can we just find a comfy corner and let me just... close my eyes for a few minutes?"

I relent, not even bothering to do so verbally since she so clearly reads it in my emotions, and we make our way to the stadium wall, amid some grass. I try to look for... bullet ants or whatever other hellish things stalk Australian grass, but nothing leaps out at me, figuratively or literally, so we just sit down. Pride immediately leans on me, covering her eyes with one arm, and mumbles, "I did not sign up for this shit."

My response to that is, "Yes you did," but she just lays there, resting.

After a few minutes pass it occurs to me I haven't reverted to the monster, and I look around, wondering why. Eventually I determine there's a handful of capes facing our general direction. I guess one or more of them has enhanced sight? Perfect night vision? It makes me twitchy, wondering if-

"No, they're not fucking planning on slitting our throats. Stop that. Save the paranoia for the hunt. They're just curious why we have such shitty costumes." Pride pauses. "Also a couple of them are worried you're seriously hurt and haven't said anything because I keep making them afraid to actually approach us." I give her a look. She's still got her eyes covered by her arm in addition to the blindfold, but emotion-reader. Then she adds, "Also one of the guys thinks you're cute, though I'm not sure what he's seeing with all that blood-soaked sheet you're bundled in that makes him think that."

I fight to not blush, remember I'm dealing with Pride, then realize that my imperfect job covering myself up might let this mysterious watcher see me blush and go back to trying to suppress it. Not the time, not remotely the time.

"So you are interested in boys. I'd wondered, with the 'best girl friend' and all..." and I give Pride a glare, trusting in her emotion sensing to convey my irritation with her, because of course I'm interested in boys. Just... not anybody at Winslow High. Because they're all in on it, all assholes. (Okay, not the people who just think I'm the weirdo pervert and all, don't blame them Taylor, not their fault everybody else makes this misunderstanding... but I don't want a boyfriend who thinks I'm some kind of pervert. That would go horrible places)

After that Pride is quiet, and I find myself wondering if Pride can do something more useful the next time the SImurgh attacks, given she thinks she can sense the song, or whatever. It's something to focus on while we wait.

-----------------------------------------​

Light is peeking over the horizon by the time a ragged cheer goes up, the Simurgh apparently finally driven off, and what long-range transporters haven't been run ragged start appearing to take people back home. Ultimately a girl who introduces herself as Acrobat bounds over, excitedly asks us where we need to go, confirms Brockton Bay when we mumble it out by saying it back at us at seemingly the top of her lungs, and then opens a ring of yellow light with a, "Ta-daaaa!" I stare a bit blankly at her, vaguely offended by her energy, but pull myself and Pride to our feet, hesitate, and ask, "We just need to walk through the portal, right?"

Acrobat nods enthusiastically and launches into a detailed explanation of all the cool things she's done with it, the only bit of which I care about is her alluding to turning the portal off with something halfway through it. A demand for more information gets her uncomfortable, she clams up, and I give Pride a look. I'm not going to let some idiot get us killed. Pride gives a thumbs-up, and suddenly Acrobatic looks stricken with guilt and admits that her portals tend to slice things apart, outside of herself and a couple of specific parahumans she'd fought alongside/against who 'slip out' instead, if they fail when someone or something is partway through them. Then she hurries to explain her portals never fail unless she's knocked unconscious, not when something is inside them, and with a nervous laugh she says, "And it's not like I'm about to be beaned on the head here, you know? We're safe."

Gritting my teeth, irritated, I declare, "I'm testing the portal first."

Acrobat looks put out, but her only comment in response is, "Well, don't take too long, you're not the only people waiting for me."

I ignore her and stick an arm partway through. Nothing happens, and I whisper to Pride, "Hit her with something to startle her," and I hear Acrobat suck in breath and, from the sounds of things, look around in a minor panic. The portal, however, holds steady. So I take a deep breath and stick my head through, wanting to see what the other side looks like -I'm paranoid, half-expecting it to take us straight to a PRT cell, Endbringer Truce or no- but it's just the front lawn of the Brockton Bay PRT HQ, some people looking at me curiously. I think I recognize Hookwolf, which puzzles me. I would've expected him to be in a hurry to get away before whatever grace period he has is up, but instead he returns to conversation with... someone I can't place, if only because I'm practically blind at the distance they're at.

I pull my head back, tell Pride, "It's safe. Probably," and ignore how she rolls her eyes at me and we just step through the portal. After a second, it winks out with a noise like a very distant roar, which confuses me because it formed completely silently.

So now we're in Brockton Bay. I look around, expecting someone to approach us and something to happen, I'm not even sure what, but Pride hisses at me, "Nobody cares, other than yokels who are just being nosy for nosiness' sake. Let's get going, come on," and I start walking toward the nearest alleyway I can find so I can become the monster again and we can head back to her hotel room. We end up ditching the sheet in a dumpster and walking the last two blocks, not wanting to try to sneak the blood-and-worse-stained sheet past staff, or take it to a laundromat, or otherwise risk trouble with it. It worked, but we need a better approach. Or at least a replacement that doesn't show blood so vividly. Like black. Black is nice.

Once she's dropped off, flopping into the bed without even bothering to change her clothes, I look around, shrug, and make my way out, so glad the hotel uses handles rather than knobs.

It's not until I'm out on the street, still in the clothes Cherie dressed me up in this... gosh, was it really this morning? Feels longer. Point is: it's only then that I realize I'm not dressed in my own clothes. I'm dressed in lacy clothes of the sort I... haven't worn since... Emma. I mostly wore that sort of thing at Emma's insistence, so it just... kind of stopped once we stopped being friends, even before the bullying started and I had to pick clothes to protect myself. And I'm not going back to Cherie's room just to retrieve my previous batch of clothes -especially since I wouldn't put it past her to have disposed of them somehow for some reason.

I wander for a bit as Taylor, not really ready to go home, but Cherie needs her rest and I'm... not even sure what to do now. What I'd like to do is perform more research, particularly on the Dragonslayers. They didn't participate, so I'm pretty sure I don't need to worry about the Truce grace period being longer than I think it is in their case. But... I also don't want to go home yet.

It takes half an hour before I think of the public library.

-------------------------------------​

Further digging on the Dragonslayers yields little I didn't already discover or guess. Eventually I get bored and just... surf PHO's forums.

I'm surprised when I run across people talking about Monster -about me. It's just one thread in the Brockton Bay sub-forum, but I really didn't think I was sufficiently well-known to warrant an entire thread at all. No mention of Pride, though. Not yet. It's mostly negative, too, though I find myself suspecting the thread was started by one of the E88 toughs I roughed up while trying to gather information on the gang. I'm almost certain the things they know shouldn't be known by them if they're not.

However, that does get me to go looking for my cape name on the forum, see if there's other references.

It takes a good twenty minutes to filter out all the false positives -Endbringers, the Slaughterhouse Nine, and Case 53s all get called 'monster', to name just a few- and find the handful of posts that actually are referring to the cape named Monster ie me, but thankfully those paint a slightly rosier picture of people's interpretation of me. I'm apparently coming across kind of like Shadow Stalker did before she joined the Wards, which has people who are cheering for Monster as 'real justice' and the like and has other people sneering that I'm just a thug beating up socially acceptable targets. There's some interest in what Monster looks likes, regardless, what kind of costume I'm wearing, and one of the threads I came up in is one that mocks 'shitty' costumes that 'amateurs' wear. There's a bit of disagreement somewhere in there over whether I wear a motorcycle helmet or a scarf, until someone points out that capes do change their costumes. (I guess my bicycle helmet doesn't make anyone's radar) Annoyingly, all the posts agree that I'm a man -I even double-check the thread about me and yeah, it also calls Monster a 'he'. I guess that particular tough doesn't want to admit, even to himself, that he got beat up by a girl. Which is absurd, given I'm a parahuman and he's not, but there you go.

Uuuugghh. I guess the Protectorate is being quiet about me for the moment. Probably not that common for them to announce new rogues, now that I think about it. Probably my paperwork went into a database and has largely been ignored since then.

Somewhat idly, I check up on the Slaughterhouse Nine's last known location -discovering in the process there's a site walking the border between 'creepy fans' and 'legitimate service to the world' by collating all the information on the internet about the group. Damn. How did I miss this one? I email the site to myself for closer reading later, and check the latest update on their location.

Topeka, Kansas.

I'm torn between being pleased and disturbed. That's a lot closer to Brockton Bay than when I last checked on them. I doubt they're coming here, but maybe they'll... I dunno, try to go for New York or something, and I can cut them off, kill at least Jack Slash if I can get him separated from his allies, the worst ones at least, and... if he's the heart of the group, maybe that'll be enough to get them to break apart. Even if it doesn't, he's still a villain who's been operating as a mass murderer for literally giggles for more than twenty years. His time is long past overdue.

I while a few more hours away in this sort of way, and somehow nothing bad happens. Even cape news is slow, though to my disappointment I learn Canberra is considered a defeat. They're building a dome over it. That's... that's nuts.

It also reinforces my feelings of futility in trying to help at Canberra. I'm only one person, and I'm no Endbringer, no Eidolon, but... still. I've killed, by myself, two big bads, and I contributed... search and rescue, and honestly most of the important/impressive work was done by Pride. Not Monster. Not the monster. I just carried people around and got the brand-new sheet stained so badly I'm amazed no one was assuming I was soaked in the blood of my victims.

... did Cherie?...

... no, I think the Thinkers would've caught that.

... I hope they would've caught that.

Fuck, I need to have a talk with her.

I log off the computer and head to the hotel.

 

[Ghoul King]

4.2

Knocking on a door is awkward as the monster. Thankfully, I end up not having to do that, because Cherie opens the door just as I've gotten in front of it, looking only half-awake, though she changed clothes at some point after I left.

Before I can say anything, she's already heaved a great big sigh and asked, "Why are you mad at me?" in a tired, put-upon voice, as if she couldn't possibly have done anything wrong, even as she moves aside to let me in.

I wait until the door is closed before I answer, saying, "You kept people from freaking out at the stadium, didn't you?"

Cherie blinks owlishly at me, cranes her head, and very eloquently says, "What?"

Impatiently I clarify, certain she's just pretending to not know exactly what I'm talking about. "When I was the monster, wearing the bloodstained sheet, and then as T- not the monster, still in a bloodstained sheet. Nobody reacted. That was you, wasn't it?" while narrowing my eyes at her.

She rubs her chin thoughtfully and goes, "You know, that would've been a clever idea, if I had thought of it." Sarcasm. "Back in reality, I'd not gotten enough sleep, strained my power in ways I've never used it before, was carried around by you which is, let me tell you, not a smooth ride at all before you start throwing other people's carcasses next to me, and I was waaaay more concerned someone was going to blow my head off because we'd spent thirty seconds too many around the birdbrain. And anyway, were you even paying attention to other people? Most of the capes had blood staining them, and not many of them had costumes that tastefully obscured the point. Nobody cared." She pauses. "Well, okay, not nobody, there were like three xenophiles who thought it was hot-"

Oh ew.

"-plus there were non-capes who were sure you were some murderbeast, but they thought that about all the capes with bloodstains and no obvious wounds. Basic paranoia." She takes a deep breath. "So no, boss, I didn't do nuthin' without your express permission."

I give her a dubious look. She raises an eyebrow in response, and adds, "You do realize that even if someone did alter the mood of the place, there were like a hundred capes there, right?"

... I try to not let my reaction show, remember I'm dealing with Cherie, wilt a bit. Dammit. Yeah, I'm pinning it on her even though I have no evidence beyond the fact that I know she can do it, and that's unfair and wrong. It would even make sense for the Protectorate (Errrr, the Australian equivalent? Ugh, why didn't I look that up when I was at the library) to have someone on hand to keep people calm, prevent things from turning into a riot or the like. No need for Cherie to be involved, and... I'm pretty sure she fell asleep for a bit outside the stadium. Maybe even inside of it, too. I -well, I suppose she might be able to use her power while asleep, but I'd be surprised, even with expecting the worst of her. If she can't manipulate people while asleep, she couldn't have been keeping people calm about me during that stretch. I look away, ashamed.

"... I'm sorry."

Cherie opens her mouth, but nothing comes out of it. After a second she visibly pulls herself together and says, "We're cool," in this shaky tone of voice I can't place. Turning to look her in the eye, I notice tears, and am immediately bewildered.

She promptly turns around, rendering me the monster, and declares, "One sec', I haven't been to the bathroom in an age," and heads off to do that. I note that there's a lot more running of the sink than there is sounds of using the toilet. Washing her face?... why was she crying after I apologized? Did I really upset her that much with my accusation? I -well. I have seriously considered killing her if she crosses a line. She... fuck. I'm horrible.

Fuck.

Why can I not get this right? Emma always made people seem easy. Conversation, friendship, even wheeling and dealing so everybody gets what they want, she made it look natural, something any idiot could do. Once she replaced me, I went from one friend to no friends, and my failure to replace her didn't have anything to do with the bullying -it took two weeks for the torment to even really start up. If I could do this I'd have had friends in short order, or already had friends beyond Emma when she broke things off, maybe interrupted the bullying entirely by not being a lone, weak target. But no, people just don't click for me, and... I was well past awkward before I started turning into a -a murdersquid. Even Greg Veder has... well, not friends, but, uh, playmates? They play Dungeons and Dragons or something, I never paid a lot of attention to it.

If he can at least have people who are willing to tolerate his presence long enough to play a game with him, why can't I make real friends?

Cherie finally comes out of the bathroom, and yeah, it's obvious she washed up her face. It's also very obvious she's trying to pretend she did no such thing and just needed the toilet. It's also very obvious that she knows that I know but is going to maintain the façade anyway.

... Cherie makes my head hurt and confuses me.

At least I can tell myself she's not remotely normal and so it's not actually a commentary on how much I suck that I can't figure her out.

Probably.

Cherie interrupts my self-flagellation by asking in her brightest and fakest voice yet, "So boss, what are we doing tonight? Same thing we do every night, right?"

I stare blankly at her.

Her smile slowly slides away until she goes, "Really? I mean, I wasn't really expecting you to play along, but you've never heard of it?"

I decide to ignore this. "We're going to go on the, uh, 'camping trip' we discussed last night." I pause. "After I retrieve my costume." Really wish I'd picked it up before I met up with Cherie. Even if I'd chosen not to wear it when I... ended up fighting Mush, I'd have had it for the Simurgh fight and wouldn't need to go back home to retrieve it. Which I don't want to do. At all. At this point I'm feeling like such a shitty pers-

-aaaaand Cherie is hugging me why is she hugging me I'm the monster why does she keep doing this

and then she pulls away and says, "We can get you a better costume."

I stare blankly at her and vaguely repeat, "Better?" because apparently hugs break my brain.

... when's the last time I hugged Dad?

Oh god, I can't remember when the last time was.

That's not right.

I resolve to hug him the next time I meet him.

... then I realize I'll probably turn into the monster if I do that and I don't want him to find out I'm a parahuman that way, even if I decide I want him to know. Maybe I can do it the next time Cherie swings by, have her act as my, uh, spotter?

I am going to hug Dad come Hell or high water.

But here and now, we were talking about a new costume or something?

Cherie comments, "I'm not even going to ask," which leaves me feeling vaguely offended though I'm not even sure why and then she continues with, "Yeah, a blanket, a bicycle helmet, and an admittedly rad scarf is kind of a shit costume, easily improved upon, and I'm willing to spend some money on you. Just so long as we don't buy it all in one place, it's unlikely anyone will connect you to your costume just because you bought a part from them, even if they see the costume in full in person."

"... okay."

-------------------------------------------​

By the time our shopping trip is over, Cherie seems much-revived, and I have... well, honestly, it's not that different from my original costume. I have a cape -a proper cape, not a blanket- that ties around the neck and is readily detachable, black. A new motorcycle helmet, also black. Gloves, black. Basic black pants, with a detachable skirt at Cherie's insistence, also black. (She insisted on the skirt after I explained that I wanted the cape so I could potentially throw it into people's faces in an emergency) A dark blue shirt with a black jacket to go over it, the jacket specially selected by Cherie as being relatively easy for me to take off and throw in one motion. When we get back, she even makes me practice said motion until I've successfully done it three times in a row.

The result is considerably more intimidating than my old costume, even though I haven't drawn fangs onto the helmet yet or anything. In spite of looking heavier, it's actually lighter and more comfortable, largely due to replacing the bulky blanket with a cape actually designed to be used that way. I have more mixed feelings about how its gender comes across -Cherie insists it looks perfectly feminine, but wearing it makes me feel like I look like a man who randomly threw a skirt over his pants for... some reason.

Cherie also got herself a costume, kind of. I had very little input, beyond insisting that she stick to darker colors -at first she was going to pick out bubble-gum pink stuff, which I vetoed because I want us to be stealthy. Somehow this lead to her switching from some plan to go for a Disney Princess vibe to more of a Morticia Addams vibe. It's basically all black, including black gloves (Lacey and frilly, where mine are workman's gloves) and a wide black skirt, except for a stark white mask of a woman's face with bright red lips. Cherie surprises me once we're back at the hotel by promptly arranging to tie a red scarf into a blindfold over the mask's eyeholes.

The result is honestly a little unsettling once she pulls it all on, especially when we turn out the lights to see how it looks in relative darkness. The mask's face seems to hang in mid-air, no person attached, and it's a little too easy to interpret it as bloodstained between the red lips and the red scarf/blindfold. Like a ghost that's nothing more than a face crying tears of blood from a skull empty of eyes, lips stained by its kiss of death.

Cherie thinks it's quoteunqoute awesome, of course.

We also bought a replacement sheet, this one black, and grabbed some basic supplies for a camping trip, including a sleeping bag. (Cherie tried to insist we buy two, but I refused it as a waste of money) Mostly we grabbed food, water bottles, and backpacks to put everything in. We are going to need to be able to feed ourselves out there. We also stuff Cherie's extra outfits into one of the backpacks -there's fewer than I was expecting, honestly.

Then I declare that we need to let my dad know about our... 'camping trip'.

I look pointedly at Cherie.

I'm not lying to him if I have Cherie lie for me, right?

... okay no not really, but I just can't handle facing him for so many reasons right now, and I honestly fear I'll have some kind of breakdown if I talk with him for too long.

To my intense relief, it seems to go smoothly. Cherie effortlessly dodges the fact that I have not, in fact, told her at any point that I've been suspended when Dad brings up the topic, instead pretending that she suggested the camping trip precisely to help me feel better. After much cheery chatting, she hands the phone over to me.

"Taylor, are you really sure about this? I'm- well, if I'm honest, I'm not entirely happy that you made a new friend and then were promptly suspended over... drugs? I hate to sound suspicious, but..."

Oh. Shit. I didn't even think of that angle.

I hesitate for a moment, my first impulse to deny everything and explain nothing. Then I remember I'm supposed to be trying to be more honest and trusting. I take a deep, shaky breath, and admit, "... the bullies planted it."

I hear a sharp intake of breath from dad's end. After a long, long silence, he carefully asks, "So this really has nothing to do with your new friend?"

"Nothing," I affirm as confidently as I can. It's not half as confident as I want it to be. Being honest with Dad has me practically shaking.

"And you're still being bullied." It's not a question.

"Yes," I admit.

"And the school suspended you? Nothing done about the bullies?" This is his angry-but-trying-to-not-sound-it tone. I... I haven't actually heard it since Mom died. It's strangely nostalgic, never mind that historically it often came before punishment.

"... one of them got ejected." A misleading truth. Madison got shifted to Immaculata months ago, certainly not in response to this, but I -I don't want Dad trying to make a big thing of this. It'll just end in heartbreak. Trying to make it seem less bad, make him less inclined to try to take action.

He gives a big sigh before he asks, "So it's not all downside."

"I'm as happy as I could be, given the circumstances. I'd still like a break from Brockton Bay, though." Still not technically lying.

I fucking hate myself.

I'm pretty sure Dad is running his hand through his thinning hair, going by what I hear and what I know of him. Nervous tic. "... okay, okay kiddo. And your friend, Cherie? You really think she's good people?"

I look at Cherie, pretending to laugh behind her hand. I know she didn't hear his voice. I'm not sure what she's reacting to, really.

I settle for, "She's the kind of person I need right now," and ignore Cherie's pout.

He heaves one more big sigh and says, "Okay Taylor. If... if this is what you want, I won't stand in your way. But I'd really like to meet Cherie properly when you're back. Can you invite her to dinner when you're done?"

I smile faintly. He wants to interrogate her is what he means. He's willing to trust my judgment for the moment, but he still wants to confirm for himself that she's good for me. I say, "Yes, absolutely."

From there it turns into awkward goodbyes, and then I hang up the hotel phone and stare at it for a minute before Cherie snaps me out of it.

Literally snapping her fingers at me, saying, "Hey. Hey. Boss. We doing this tonight or not?"

I nod slowly and say, "Yes, we're doing it tonight."

------------------------------------​

My main thought process is: if the Dragonslayers are so hard to find, they're probably not within a major city. Or even a minor city. Or Smalltown USA, either. They'd need a lair at the minimum, and honestly, with how flashy and large their stolen suits are, they couldn't simply keep it in some suburban garage and leave under the cover of night. They've got to be somewhere where there's little or no human presence, realistically speaking. This dramatically eases a manual combing of the country -since we can focus on the countryside. This makes Cherie's emotion sensing a much more useful tool for scanning for the Dragonslayers, as we basically can focus on looking for people at all and then investigate them more closely. Anything suspiciously far from the road is an obvious thing to go for, for example.

I'm also reasonably confident the Dragonslayers are somewhere in the northeastern USA... or southeastern Canada. One of the two. It seems to me there's a bias in their North American contracts toward the region, though it could just be me hoping they're relatively convenient to me. If I'm right, then it's... still pretty unlikely we'll stumble upon them, but I can hope.

Traveling as the monster with Pride in tow is more complicated than when I made the run to Ellisburg or to Toronto by myself. Pride's merely human body can't really cope with some of my more, eh, creative shortcuts, and she tires where the monster does not. I also have to be careful to not clip her with tree branches as we go, among other obstacles I normally largely ignore.

On the other hand, search times are legitimately much, much reduced.

In the first night alone we investigate three different 'emotional signatures', of which I would've found maybe one if I'd been searching by myself. One is simply a man living in the countryside, probably commuting by car to a job in Brockton Bay. It's possible he's a parahuman, of course, but unlikely, and in any event it's very unlikely that he's a member of the Dragonslayers. The fact that Pride insists he's 'terminally depressed' is a contributing factor to feeling like it's unlikely, but ultimately the least important factor. The second person we find is a hobo sleeping in a small tent in the woods. Not a Dragonslayer. The third person is a woman, very obviously a parahuman, living in a cabin in the woods and loudly babbling to herself. There's no road, no evidence this can be accessed by car, and watching the woman in action it's pretty obvious she made the place herself. Some kind of tree-manipulating power? I'm fairly sure she's not a villain, anyway, and, again, she's no Dragonslayer.

Pride flags as dawn is approaching, and we stop, eat some of our supplies, and set her up in a sleeping bag relatively far away from the highway.

I'm left restlessly stalking the area as the monster, which feels strange to be doing in daylight. I've been the monster in daylight before, but never simply idling in the open. It was always on the way somewhere, expecting it to be a brief thing, lasting no more than ten minutes at a time, if that. This? It'll last something like eight hours, since that's approximately how long Pride should need to sleep, and I don't expect anyone to find us.

Initially I try to just hang out quietly in Pride's vicinity. It takes almost no time at all for me to determine that I'm not going to be able to do that long-term. I bore far too quickly. So I move to where I have a good view of her and our stuff, and proceed to practice acrobatics as the monster. They've come easily enough overall so far, but there's no harm in practicing regardless.

This occupies my time decently enough for a while, long enough for the sun to reach its highest point in the sky. Noon-ish, I guess. I still get bored of it.

From there I move to stalking animals. I make an effort to not hurt them, as I'm really just trying to get in practice at my stealth skills, but it's... hard. Not that it's necessarily difficult to resist the urge to hurt them, per se, as there's barely such an urge at all, actually. The issue is that it happens so fast. A momentary impulse, a thought, an idea to strike at rather than nearby leaves me with an abruptly dead squirrel, rabbit, or bird before I can really stop and tell myself I don't actually want that outcome. It's frustrating, though at the same time it makes me feel better about Mush and Leet. I'd worried, just a little, that I had some subconscious intention to kill them or something. That it's just so easy to, in the moment, strike with lethal intention before conscious thought can catch up to my actions... it's a problem, but it's a less worrying one than a failure to understand my own motivations.

So then I start practicing preventing myself from just going straight to a kill. The results are... erratic. It's easy enough to hold off from making a lethal strike when I'm not trying to make any kind of strike. I can sit, and wait, and watch a squirrel chew on a nut indefinitely just fine. When a bird lands on me, it's effortless to just... not react. I don't actually have some blind, intense urge to attack things.

The instant I'm trying to attack or even merely harry something, it goes straight to lethal impacts.

Partly there's a pure mechanical difficulty involved. I get partial successes where I did, in fact, try to divert in the split-second after I realized my strike was going to be a lethal one, but it generally remains lethal anyway because I replace punching a hole directly through their center with slashing them with the blades on the side of the limb, even when I manage to divert the strike far enough to skim them instead of stabbing them. Occasionally an animal will limp away from this, but not often. It's sufficiently uncommon for them to get back up I begin to wonder if the fluid that covers my body is some kind of poison that doesn't harm just at skin contact, or if my blades deliver some unseen venom. Something to keep in mind in the future.

Mostly, it's that things happen too fast. This compounds with some weird psychological difficulty: telling myself I want to take the animal alive, telling myself I want to hit it in the leg to slow it down, very specifically thinking of exactly where I want to strike... I end up striking where it will be most lethal anyway.

I try going slowly. Move a limb toward an arbitrary spot at a speed I can actually meaningfully perceive, touch it. This works okay, whether I'm poking an arbitrary section of bark or a distinctive white spot on a rabbit that ignores me, chewing on something green. I have precise control over my limbs in that context. But trying to translate that into a strike that doesn't go for the heart or the head or the spine, that clips something for a disabling strike... no matter what I try, how I focus, whatever, it doesn't work. My full-speed strikes are almost magnetically drawn toward lethal impacts.

My trail of cute mammal corpses stops growing in length when Pride wakes up at last, the process of her sitting up catching my eye immediately. We eat -well, mostly she eats- and talk a little about how we're going to scan for today, the gist of which is that I'm going to stay well away from the highway until night falls and rely on Pride's emotional sensing to bring us back to the highway later.

We search two dozen different locations before the sun has even set. Most of them are nothing of interest to me, but the sense of progress is nice, even if the few cases that are at all interesting are still pretty worthless for my purposes. There's a minor hiccup when Cherie interrupts because she needs a bathroom break -I'm vaguely embarrassed, as it's been so long since I've needed one myself that I'd actually... been kind of starting to forget that was a thing at all. I'd prepared myself psychologically for the idea that I'd need to be patient with Cherie needing to sleep and needing to eat more frequently than me, but this caught me completely off guard, and I have to fight an urge to snap at her for springing this on me. Not her fault I'm forgetting what it's like to be normal...

Then it's back to the hunt, whiling the night away until Cherie is too exhausted to keep going, this time before there's even pre-dawn light. Once she collapses into her sleeping bag, I return to my attempts to get around this bizarre difficulty I have with not killing things.

It... continues to not go very well.

I keep at it anyway until Cherie wakes up.

Several days pass in this basic pattern, Cherie uncomplaining even when tired, never mind that trail rations aren't exactly stellar meals. I'm vaguely surprised to find that, while we encounter multiple people I'm pretty sure are minor villains, there's not really any evil lairs anywhere. I keep expecting to find a supervillain's major base out in the woods, maybe in a cave or something, but even the minor villains are, from what we gather, basically either petty thieves or minor villains who are lying low after pissing off the wrong person. Or both, I guess. My marathon attempts to overcome this weird murder impulse frustrate me to no end, feeling like I should be making progress after so many hours sunk into something that really shouldn't be that hard, while in actual fact making no progress that I can tell. The trail of dead animals failing to provoke an emotional response is frustrating in its own right, for that matter. Doesn't matter whether I think they're cute or not, there's nothing. It's disturbing that I'm not disturbed, or feeling guilty for killing so many animals. It's not like Cherie and I are eating them.

(We make a stab at cooking a rabbit on the sixth day, but neither of us can figure out how to start a fire, and it becomes obvious after some more discussion that even if we did get a fire started, Cherie has no idea how to cook with a campfire at all, and I just don't remember summer camp well enough to be confident this will result in something edible instead of a forest fire. We don't have the kind of frying pan that I remember from summer camp, either)

I end up killing a villain we catch muttering to herself about the next child she's going to kill and eat the fingers of, what appears to be blood circling her head in a double helix, but it's honestly pretty anticlimactic. We find her, listen in for a bit while Cherie gives me a running commentary on the woman's emotional state as she's talking about her intentions, back away to drop Cherie off in relative safety once I'm too revolted to listen to anymore, and then I sneak up behind her and stab her to death, head and heart perforated multiple times before she's noticed anything's wrong, the ring of blood losing its shape and dropping to the ground after a moment. No surprise power usage saving her. Just... dead. It was easy. Again.

I dimly worry that we'll run into the Slaughterhouse Nine out here, unprepared -maybe while Cherie is asleep- but nothing of that sort comes to pass. My concerns that the dead animals might draw attention seem to be empty, too. If anybody has found anything, it hasn't led to us. Cherie's range is sufficiently ridiculous I have a suspicion she'd know well before trouble got to us, short of a teleporter or something getting involved, which helps me avoid a death spiral of paranoia while Cherie sleeps. In general, while there's more people out in the wilderness than I'd have ever expected, it's still kind of... empty out here.

At one point we find what seems to be a log cabin that was used by a tinker, seemingly abandoned in a hurry. Blind luck that we stumbled upon it, and I have no idea if it's anything to do with the Dragonslayers or not. I briefly consider grabbing some of the exotic stuff lying around, but then discard the thought -without a tinker ally of my own, it would be long odds for me to figure out any of the weird cubes lying around, assuming they do anything by themselves in the first place. More importantly, for all I know they're boobytrapped somehow. Even activating them correctly could end poorly for me, depending on what they do. Cherie seems to follow my lead, glancing curiously at them and then ignoring them once I decide grabbing them isn't worth it.

Unfortunately, I don't know enough about following tracks to meaningfully follow whomever was here, even if they're relevant to my goals. A brief look around the area has me suspecting they had kind of hovering device (Or maybe a teleportation device?) anyway, as one spot very conspicuously has been substantially disturbed, as if by a vehicle parking there, but there's no tire tracks or tread tracks or anything to indicate it came and went, so even if I knew how to track, I probably wouldn't be able to anyway.

Disappointing overall.

Still, we've managed to check nearly two hundred people, if my admittedly fuzzy numbers are right, and in about twelve days.

No Dragonslayers, unfortunately. We're almost out of time.

Pride interrupts my ruminating to inform me that there's three emotional signatures in the sky a ways away. I follow her directions to intercept their general route and climb up a tree, careful to not lose Pride.

A trio of metal suits roar overhead, trailing a thin layer of smoke from their jetpacks. There's less light coming from the jetpacks than I'd expect, and honestly the only reason I can see the trio clearly in the night sky is the monster's absurd night vision.

I find myself exchanging a glance with Pride, in spite of her being blindfolded. How does she do that, and why?

No, don't get distracted.

I begin to follow the smoke trail -backwards. It peters out fairly quickly, but Pride assures me that as far as she sensed, they were on a straight-line course. Maintaining an exact, straight line is hard when going through rough terrain and relying solely on eyeballing, but following the trio of almost-certainly-Dragonslayers per se would be even harder. Especially if they're on their way to a contract in Uganda or something. Following them through the ocean wouldn't have been practical before I had to account for Pride's human limitations. Tracing them back to their lair... that's a lot more practical. Especially if they come back at some point -then Pride can pin down their exact location, even if I fail to find it in the meantime.

Pride lets out a whoop when I hop over a dead drop, enjoying herself entirely too much.

----------------------------------------​

It takes a few more hours, but eventually we do find what seems to be the Dragonslayers' lair in the early morning. Surprisingly, Pride actually did help narrow it down, even though the trio hasn't returned yet: she informed me of areas that various animals avoided/were afraid of, confirming in the process that she senses more than just human emotion, and though this involved multiple spots I could see nothing special about and one case of circling around a bear and her cubs, finally we came upon a building.

A pickup truck sat nearby, no particular space set aside for it. A rain tarp sat in the back of it, suggesting to me that this was its only protection from rain or harsher elements. The building itself... my best guess was that it was leftovers of a farm long since dead, but it was hard to say. If the area had been a farm at one point, it had been a long time since crops had grown here, as trees crowded all over the place, almost right up to the building itself. A satellite dish sat atop the building. The lights were out.

The only road was a dirt trail, clearly a product of the truck's travel, to the point that there's grooves that perfectly line up with the truck's wheels. I found myself wondering how the place got electricity, and then went tinker, duh. Even if it was hotly contested by PHO/the world whether any of the members were a tinker or not, just stealing Dragon's gear would open up options for being self-powered. Might even be necessary if they want to stay off the grid successfully, now that I think about it. How much electricity do tinkers use, compared to non-tinkers?

I circle around the entire area, looking carefully for traps, tripwires, cameras, or any other indication that simply approaching the building is a bad idea. Just because they're apparently not present doesn't mean it's safe to approach. I'm at least relieved that there really are only three of them, unless they have a fourth member who happens to conveniently be immune to Pride's senses. Which is possible, I guess. Really unlikely, but possible.

As far as I can see, there's no defenses. I find this unlikely. More likely is that the defenses are subtle, and I'm just overlooking them. Armsmaster is known to have a Halberd that can turn its blade into a spike-studded ball. On a chain. I wouldn't be that surprised if one of the trees is actually an automated laser turret or something even more ridiculous.

So I back away a bit, and Pride hops off without explicit prompting on my part. She pulls the scarf up enough so she can see me clearly, reverting me to Monster, and I take off my backpack -the heavier one of our two backpacks, since it vanishes while I'm the monster. I really ought to look into how much stuff I can vanish this way, not to mention other details of how it works. Could I hug Cherie such that she vanishes when I become the monster? What would she see if that worked, anyway? If it does work, that... might actually solve my difficulties taking people alive. Actually, why have I never checked with a pocket watch what happens?... oh right, I don't have one and don't have a lot of money to spend and don't want eat too much of Cherie's funding. I really really need to test that.

... later, though.

"I'm going to get closer, scout. If you think you sense the Dragonslayers returning, hit me with, um, fear. Not a ton, though, just enough to grab my attention."

"You got it, boss," said with a sloppy salute. I really ought to have a talk with her at some point about that. We're teammates. More like coworkers than anything else.

From there Pride gets the scarf back in place and I stalk closer. I don't want to wait for the sheet. It'd take too long, and it'd probably be destroyed if the Dragonslayers took a shot at me anyway. Better to have maximum mobility. The place continues to seem empty even once I enter the almost-clearing it dominates, and I still notice nothing of interest. Nothing appears to follow me, aside from an owl, which flies away, startled, when I make an aborted hop toward it, so it's not some weird camera disguised as an owl in a tree. Probably. It flies well out of my sight, anyway, so if it is some kind of hidden camera, it's falling down on the job.

Getting up close to the windows (Careful to take an angle that doesn't revert me to Monster) reveals little of interest. What's visible of the inside seems to be a fairly normal home sort of space. A bit spartan, maybe, no pictures on the walls for example. Little in the way of objects of sentimental value in general, now that I'm noticing that. A new-ish TV, but it's not like it's an expensive flat-screen. The couch looks pretty new, too.

... in fact, everything inside looks fairly new. Much more new than I'd expect of a place as inconvenient to civilization as this.

I'm not sure what to make of that. Perhaps they move regularly, and find it easier to just buy new wherever they set up? Maybe they've repeatedly been forced to abandon lairs? Might simply be that I've happened to stumble upon them shortly after a genuinely unusual move, admittedly.

Whatever the case, stalking around the outside -and on the roof- looking for an unlocked entrance I can access as the monster without breaking anything yields nothing. I turn instead to breaking a padlock on a shed I didn't originally notice. Opening the door, I find what appears to be some kind of tinkertech generator, cables running through the wall closest to the house, obscured by scrap metal well enough I might not have found it were it not for said cables. It hums, quiet enough I couldn't hear it until I broke into the shed. Or perhaps the shed has special sound dampening properties? It doesn't look like anything special to me...

I tear the generator apart. If this isn't the Dragonslayers' lair... well, sorry anonymous tinker. Too important.

It's a surprisingly sturdy object, and even once I've gouged out enough chunks of it that it makes a kchunk sound and, after a delay, very abruptly ceases humming, it's honestly still mostly intact. Just in case, I cut apart the cables, reasonably confident I'm not going to shock myself now that the generator is down, even if the monster is susceptible to being fried by electricity. For all I know the generator can repair itself or something. Admittedly, maybe the cables can too, but whatever. I'm trying to cut power to whatever tinkertech defenses they might have.

Jolting back outside, nothing seems particularly different.

I circle around the building a second time and spot what appears to be a cellar door, obscured by overgrown grass and, for some reason, covered in cardboard boxes. It's held shut by a shiny new padlock. I tear it off and throw the doors open before ducking inside, and here I find a room I'm expect of some kind of tinker.

A bank of monitors takes up a good chunk of a wall. My first thought is how do they transport this thing? but upon closer inspection I realize that they're designed to be disconnected. If they were stacked carefully, they could probably all be fit into the passenger seat of the pickup truck. There's also a chair, strangely nice and rather large. I'm not sure what its purpose is, or more precisely I'm not sure why it's so strikingly unusual of a chair. Tinkerchair?

I destroy it on principle, half-expecting a boobytrap. All I get is stuffing and what might be an exposed circuit board, but I'm not sure. I shove the whole thing -violently- to one side, and consider the monitors and accompanying keyboard. I don't see an actual computer tower anyway. Tinker bullshit? Or maybe it's just elsewhere in the house. I'm puzzled as to what the bank of monitors is for, and annoyed that it seems to be dead. There's an obvious red button, but pushing it does nothing. Probably because I killed the generator. A mystery.

The door at the top of the staircase is locked, though once I manage to successfully turn the knob -by far the most difficult thing I've done in this little adventure- it unlocks just fine. Attempting to push it open hits resistance abruptly. The door is chained closed on the other side.

I'd be scowling if I was the girl right now. Giving up my last pretensions of subtlety, I slam the door with limb strikes until its hinges are torn apart and the top half actually collapses out into the hallway, falling right over the length of chain, and then I lunge over, squeezing through the space opened up.

It's incredibly lucky that I gave into my impatience, because containment foam erupts from the walls where I was just standing, expanding fast enough I find myself panicking and scramble to get away, concerned it's going to envelop me even though I'm already out of its release area. Thankfully, it really doesn't expand much farther, completely blocking off this entrance to the cellar but not going much farther.

Weird. Why didn't I trigger similar defenses at the cellar door?

Hmm.

I stalk through the rest of the house, cautious for further traps and watchful for more tinkertech, but it's largely empty of real interest. There's three rooms being used as bedrooms, there's a decent little kitchen, a bit more modern than I might've expected from a building that literally looks like it was built in the 1920s, and there's the continuing lack of personal touches. When I go to the attic, I finally find more evidence of tinkertech -it seems they're using it as a workshop, with a fourth suit sitting around. It... looks completely intact.

....

....

....

I drag it down to the front door, unlock and open the front door (Again: just turn the knob, it unlocks. The security here is such a mixed bag), and drag the thing the rest of the way to Pride.

"Not sure why you're back Bo- prezzies!"

That last word came in response to Pride pulling down the scarf and apparently spotting the suit. Before anything else I check: "You haven't sensed them approaching yet at all?"

Pride rolls her eyes at me and goes, "Yes yes, it would've been the first thing you heard if I'd caught their emotional signatures coming. But seriously, prezzies. It's not like you intend to use that suit, yeah?"

Somewhat reluctantly I admit, "... yeah, it wouldn't be practical for me to wear a suit made for a human. And it wouldn't be as much of a boost to me as it would to you. Honestly, if we can get this working, I'm considering just going back to Brockton Bay and considering this a win." After a pause I add, "But I'd really rather ambush them here, since we've found them successfully." After another pause I sheepishly tack on "Though depending on what their security is like, I might have already ruined any chance at an ambush with my breaking and entering."

Pride shrugs and informs me, "Well, I'll probably know if they know about the break-in on the way in. If you want, we can set up somewhere out of sight and wait for them to get back here, ambush them if they seem unaware, leave if they're clearly ready for a fight. The suits probably won't block me making them shit themselves with terror, and-" here I can hear the smile "-if we can get this lovely little present working, then we'll be ready for some fun."

I nod. It's a good plan.

We move to make it happen.

 

[Ghoul King]

4.3

Unfortunately, we still haven't figured out how to operate the suit by the time Pride detects the Dragonslayers flying this way, though I also talked about what I saw while I was exploring, trying to get some insight from Pride, but she mostly just grunted and focused on her 'prezzie.' We know how to open it, and we've yet to find any unpleasant surprises in it, but turning it on has so far been beyond us, and even the idea of Pride wearing it as simple armor is clearly ludicrous. The joints appear to be locked somehow, as all attempts to maneuver the arms and legs go nowhere. Even attempting to move an arm as the monster doesn't work -I have to stop when it makes a creaking sound like something is about to break. Pride comments on being jabbed uncomfortably by bits inside of it, which seems sufficiently weird I feel it has to be a clue to what we're doing wrong -I'd really expect the inside of a suit to be comfortable, or at least consistent in its lack of comfort- but I'm stumped as to what it is we're missing.

Pride's report goes something like-

"They're tired, the mission dragged on longer than they expected, they're satisfied with how it went, probably happy with the pay? Might not be thinking about the money. They're expecting home to be safe, so they probably don't know you've been and gone. Pretty sure they're talking, radio or something I guess, one of them is distracted and not paying a lot of attention, the other two keep deferring to him or maybe her but the guy feels like a him to me and I'm not usually wrong about this, I mean there was that one time with the hooker who read like a man and wasn't trans-"

I cut her off with, "Focus. I know you're tired, but this is important." And she is tired, I can hear it in her voice, see it in how she's tending to slump a little, even sitting down. Really, she should've been asleep for a few hours by now, but she was too excited about the suit.

She smoothly continues as if I never interrupted her at all with, "So he's probably the leader, especially since he's at the point of the wedge, other two are poking fun, relaxing, not sure whether they're trying hard to not think about the mission or if the mission just wasn't a big deal to them, they're all pretty calm, I'm thinking they've got some kind of early warning system because none of them seems concerned about being tailed or anything. Okay, they're spotting the house, they're not concerned, they think the situation is normal so far, I'm thinking they're going in for a landing -okay, leader guy has noticed something, now the others know, probably he told them but they might've noticed, one of them is pulling up and they're tense and circling, leader dude and I wanna say a woman are cautiously approaching presumably the building."

She takes a drink from a bottle of water and continues. "The guy circling overhead is nervous, but it's a calm sort of nervous, he's used to trouble and he's not worried he's going to be sniped or something, I'd rate him as a bit overconfident, I'd guess he was new to the cape scene but I know the Dragonslayers aren't so that's not it, leader man is holding still, tense, while the woman is circling around back. They're worried about an ambush from inside, trusting the guy above to spot any attackers coming at them from outside, oh oh, I think the woman just found that cellar door you mentioned, she's upset, legitimately thought nobody would pay it attention, wait, she's gone down and she's relieved, it's less bad than she was expecting." Here she glances at me and says, "I thought you said you trashed the place pretty badly?"

I shrug and say, "I didn't trash the basement particularly. I dunno." Then I add, "I really should get going while they're still inside the building, reduce their odds of escaping by flying away."

Before I can do anything Pride jumps in and says, "Bring me closer! I wanna help! Make them panic or something, I can help, maybe capture one of them?"

I give her a dubious look. "I thought your range was line of sight."

She makes a noise of frustration. "No, it's not actually line of sight, that was a simplification. If I can see someone, and it's not through binoculars or something, I can definitely affect them, but I don't need to see people to affect them. I've been blindfolded a lot of the time and still been doing this stuff."

Feeling really, really dumb, I say, "Oh." Because yeah, she has, and she has. I'm retarded.

Somewhat impatiently she adds, "Okay seriously can we get going before they decide they need to abandon the place or anything?"

I wince, make a vague motion at her blindfold, she whoops and I frown at her, knowing she'll know regardless of my helmet, and she apologizes and pulls her blindfold back over the eyeholes, and now I'm the monster and she climbs aboard and we zip along, Pride making muted noises of excitement as we go. Once I can see the suit hovering over the house, clearly scanning the area, I move to drop Cherie behind a tree, and she climbs off obligingly enough with a muttered, "They're still in the building, and they're pretty freaked out now, but calming down. They think the danger has passed."

Then I sneak as swiftly as I can toward the front entrance. The last stretch of running I do full-tilt, and the suit hovering overhead -whom I note actually doesn't have a jetpack, but rather some sort of rotating wheel placed on the back instead- seems to notice me, but I'm already lunging at one of them inside, stabbing at them as they turn to face me, and thank god I stay the monster, I'm guessing they're using cameras to see out of the suits. I hear a muffled sound of surprise as I'm stabbing, but my limbs skitter off the armor on my first dozen strikes. Physics gets in my way another way: they're pushed back by each ineffective strike, and they don't fall over, contrary to my hope. A barrel mounted on one wrist smacks me in an eye with a bolt of blue light, but all I feel is a dim warmth and then I've ripped it off the arm. It wasn't that firmly attached. Whoever is inside this suit -male, going by the voice- is talking, but it's too muffled for me to hear anything. My guess is he's talking to his teammates.

I stab at his eyes, but though the face-plate looks like it has eyes made of one-way glass, they're just as tough as the rest of the suit, and I guess aren't one-way glass at all since I'm still the monster. He pulls something resembling a pistol from a holster on one hip but I smack it away and then try to jam a limb into a crevice at the hip joint. It takes three tries, the first two failing largely because my pushing shoves him backward, but then his back hits the wall and now the limb forces itself into the gap and he punches me in the eye and makes a strangled noise of surprise when I don't react at all. More importantly, the suit that was hovering topside has landed, I can hear them and I jerk my head to look at them, but when they move to aim what appears to be some kind of rifle at me, they visibly startle, whirling to look behind them.

Limb jammed into the crevice, I push. The metal creaks and I can hear a gasp of horror from inside the suit and a fingertip pops open on the left hand, revealing a button he moves to push with his thumb, but I've already slammed the hand into the wall with a free limb. I jam another limb into the other hip's gap, and try to pry him open. There's a crack, and he screams, left leg torn into by razor-sharp steel and also the limb has slammed into his actual leg, I think. Blood sprays -I distantly note I seem to have hit an artery- and then a muted whumpf reaches me a split-second after my head has been slammed into and through the wall. I twist around to pull myself out of the wall, behind the man I've all but already killed -pushing him away from the wall to give me space- and then with a huge, all-body push, launch him a good fifteen feet away. He lands just outside the door, and the sentry with the wheel is aiming that rifle at me and I abruptly realize my eye must've taken real damage because there's this bizarre thing where my vision distorts everything in a particular area, it's really disorienting and actually vaguely nauseating, leaving me feeling like my vision around that spot is draining down a toilet or something.

I dodge aside and out of sight, but another shot slams into me through the wall, and I find one of my limbs has been severed at the base of the body. So I run straight at the door and lunge at my attacker, and they shoot me again and now I have actual pain somewhere in my main body, but the bigger issue is how it reverses my momentum for a second, and I jump overhead and land behind him and he's turning but I jump onto his back and grab at the wheel and start tearing at everything I can see as best I can and the other guy, the one bleeding out, he moves to do something but I just reach out and smack him in the head since he's so close and he clutches at his head and rolls away, trailing blood behind him while the wheel-suit first tries to grab at me, seemingly reflexively, and then after a second the wheel sparks, starts spinning-

-and then I tear it off.

This throws off our collective balance so badly I fall backward away from him while he lands face-first, but he's quick to roll to his feet and aim the gun at me, but I arrange to whip the wheel at him and the rifle is knocked aside but not, as I had hoped, out of his hands, and I rush him and I can see the third person finally turning the bend at a run, holding what appears to be some kind of assault rifle they're bringing to bear on me, but I simply move so the now wheel-less suit is between me and them so they can't shoot me even as I'm awkwardly tearing at the ragged remains of the wheel's mounting, trying to punch a way to the man inside who slumps, crying audibly while the man bleeding out from the artery is moaning dimly and the one still standing is shaking and I finally tear a hole through the back of the suit and stab the man through the heart and

"Boss! Boss! They're done, you can stop!"

I just barely restrain myself from lunging at Pride and I can tell she knows it because she backs up a step and when did she get here?

I look around, vaguely confused. I never attacked the last one. Why are they curled into a fetal positi-

"Crushing guilt, lotta fear, some depression. Hard to even get out of bed, let alone fight a murdersquid that's killed your only -no wait, not only, best? Something like that- friends." Pride smoothly answers my thoughts.

I take stock of the situation. The wheelsuit's man is dead, heart pierced. The man I first attacked is... not dead just yet, I can hear his ragged breathing. He's going to die, though, I can see blood pumping out with each heartbeat. The last one... is fine. And a woman, I think. I can barely hear them sobbing through the suit, and they sound like a woman to me.

So two suits that have been trashed, two suits that haven't, one survivor. Who we've... captured? I guess?

I find myself looking at the woman's suit, trying to figure out how we're going to get her out. Pride answers the question by getting to the woman, whispering to her about how her life will be nothing but misery and suffering that always gets worse if she doesn't open the suit and get out, and when the woman gives a defiant no I can just barely make out, Pride apparently hits her with something emotionally because she starts keening. I suspect my skin would be crawling if I were currently human. As-is I'm still uncomfortable.

This iterates twice before the woman breaks and does whatever it is that gets done to open these damn suits. From there Pride and I bodily drag her out, I'm human once more, the woman's glassy stare locked on me. She's barely even blinking. I also note she's wearing a... silver suit of some kind. There's little bits sticking out of it at various points, and they seem to be sparking with electricity or something? Pride and I are careful to not touch those.

The first words out of the woman's mouth are, "Just get it over with and kill me." Bitter.

I glance at Pride, curious. I would've expected her to put the woman in a more normal mood once we had her away from her weaponry. Pride shrugs at me and says, "Not my decision," and there's a second where I think she's talking to me but then I realize she's talking to the woman.

It hits me that we have a prisoner. Really, actually hits me. A prisoner I am intending to kill because, seriously, fuck the Dragonslayers, but... I feel like I'm at some weird moral crossroads and I don't know what I should be doing. Nothing I can remember from before all this has really prepared me for deciding what the ethical way to handle interrogating a prisoner I intend to execute regardless is.

The woman, clearly getting angry, demands, "Come on, it's what Dragon wanted you to do, isn't it? I don't know how she found us without our feeds catching it-"

Feeds? I'll come back to that in a second. Here and now I say, "I am not an ally of Dragon's," in my most careful and firm tone.

The woman gives me a speculative look. "So, what, you're villains that lucked into our lair?" Then she snorts and says, "Yeah, right."

Pride very cheerfully chimes in with, "Nah, the boss was looking for you. Wanted you dead because of Bosnian war crimes or something," and I'm irritated because now she's confirmed our intention to kill the woman and she's liable to turn completely uncooperative and arrgh does Pride ever stop and think?

The woman closes down, and then over the course of thirty seconds or so her face turns dimly happy and sleepy and she says, "Yeah, we've done some awful things, I can see why someone would come after us." She makes a face and adds, "The thing in Senegal wasn't intentional, if that helps."

I stare at Pride with vague horror. The woman asks with a distant, idle curiosity, "So you're not assassins hired by Dragon?" She sighs and with a sound of relief adds, "That actually makes me feel better. We didn't make a mistake with her."

I fight my revulsion at Pride's methods, because the way she's talking about Dragon weirds me out (lines up with my fears) and I want to know. I ask, "Why were you expecting Dragon to hire assassins?"

She shrugs, boredly picking at some of the grass, and says, "We know she's an AI."

I

Wh

How

AI??

Artificial intelligence? A program?

I turn to Pride and say, "Can you tell if she's telling the truth?"

Pride shrugs, and admits, "Not precisely, no. She's not lying to fuck with us, if that's what you're thinking. I've got her in a kind of, um, drugged state. It's actually kind of tricky so I can't let you distract me too much, but she's in a kind of stream-of-consciousness thing so she probably believes what she's saying. Or she might just be bored and thinking about nonsense. It can be either."

Fuck.

I turn to the woman and ask, "What makes you think Dragon is an AI?"

The woman is staring at something past me now. I glance behind me, but all I see is the moon. She talks, but I'm not sure she's really answering me. "We found The Box." I can hear the capital letters. "Tinker, made AIs. Made Dragon. Feared Dragon. Left a will. Had to be a police officer to open the box. I was one, didn't want to open it. Geoff talked me into it. Said we had a duty. Have to make sure Dragon isn't evil, doesn't turn evil, doesn't throw off her shackles and devour the world. Programs left in the will. Tapped her senses. Saw her code. Couldn't understand it. Went to Teacher."

Oh fuck.

"Code changed, needed Teacher again."

Fuck.

"Stole a suit. A test. Geoff wanted to be sure she was an AI, make sure she was shackled. We stole a suit, exploited her programming. It worked. Dragon is an AI. Used other programs to influence her sometimes. Code changed, programs stopped working. Getting worried that soon it will be just Ascalon. Getting worried soon it won't even be Ascalon. Don't wanna just kill her, not fair to her. But. If she changes so far she's immune, and then..."

I wait expectantly, but she's mumbling incoherently to herself.

I sit down and close my eyes. God. The Dragonslayers let Teacher get his grubby mitts on them. I... fuck. They're basically victims, and yet they're arguably so much worse than anything I'd imagined. Teacher went to the Birdcage for his long games. Have the Dragonslayers done anything for one of his long-term plots? Were they going to? Fuck, Dragon manages the Birdcage. The Dragonslayers might have been able to free Teacher. Especially since Dragon is... apparently... an AI. An AI that can be exploited.

Goddamn.

I'm half-tempted to kill the woman now. Teacher scares me.

Instead, I take a deep breath and ask ,"How did you watch Dragon?"

"Panic room." She sounds sleepy again, and I glance at Pride. I'm not sure what a panic room is. Is a panic room a thing?

I ask, "Where's the panic room?"

"Cellar." That's all she says.

I turn to Pride and say, "Think you can handle her while I look?"

Pride nods and makes a somewhat strained, "Mmmhmmm," sound.

I head to the cellar via the cellar door again, but I see nothing initially. A careful combing of the area finds me a thin, thin little line, a crevice in one wall. I punch holes into the wall and then tear through.

On the other side I find a room with what appears to be a computer hooked up to another tinkertech generator. Cords snake their way into the ground and vanish. A glance back at the main of the basement has cords to the monitors snaking out of the ground that I hadn't given thought to before. Back in the 'panic room', there's no monitor, no keyboard, just the computer tower. Also food, the kind of food that can be stuffed in a basement for months and remain edible, a fair amount of it, and water bottles carefully stored in a corner of the room that's lower down than the rest of the floor. But nothing to actually use the computer that I can see. I look around, try to see if there's some hidden room inside this hidden room, ridiculous as the idea is, but I find nothing.

Frustrated, I loop back around to Pride and the prisoner (And the two corpses), only to find that Pride has stripped the prisoner naked while I was gone. The prisoner's eyes have glazed over at this point, and I'd worry she were dead if it weren't for how her being naked means I can see the slight movement of her chest rising and falling.

"Goddammit Pri-"

She cheerfully cuts in with, "The suit's what we were missing!"

The non-sequitor throws me completely. I grit my teeth and demand, "Clarify."

She falters a little, and in a more subdued tone explains. "I was interrogating her as best I could while you were gone, boss, and I wanted to know how to operate the suit we got, or I guess maybe the one she was wearing now that we have that too, and what I got out of her is the silver thing she's wearing is necessary to activate and operate these suits. Since she's the only one whose thing is intact, I wanted hers before you ruined it too." Somewhat defensively she adds, "That's all!"

I take a few calming breaths before saying, "Okay. Okay. That's... not awful, but you could've waited and told me when I got back."

She pointedly remarks, "You've been more of a 'kill things and ask questions later' sort of girl so far, boss."

... okay, point.

I kind of wish she wasn't wearing a mask, because it's a lot harder to tell if she's reacting to my emotions or not when she's wearing the mask. None of the subtle facial expression stuff comes into play.

I ignore her and turn to the prisoner and demand, "Hey, how do you operate the computer in the 'panic room'?"

She mumbles insensately.

I turn back to Pride, and she promptly tells me, "I said earlier it's kind of a simulation of a drugged-out state? Well, anything that the brain isn't designed to move to on a moment's notice is... also something it's not really designed to move out of on a moment's notice." She pauses, and then admits, "Or at least that's my guess. I just know that some mental states are easier to push people into than others, and if they're hard to push them into, they're hard to push them out of. I mean, we've got time..."

I grit my teeth again and say, "Fix her."

I catch Pride rolling her eyes behind her mask (She seems to have lowered the blindfold while I was gone, unsurprisingly), but I don't comment on it. After a few minutes of making a face, she says, "Okay, she should be in less of a vegetative state. Ask away."

So I ask again. "The computer in the panic room. How is it accessed?"

Dreamily, she mumbles, "Suits. Monitors," which is... less informative than I want, but suits is noteworthy. They can access this computer remotely from the suits, it sounds to me. So I guess they were also monitoring Dragon while they were off... doing whatever it is they were doing. I suppose that might help explain why they didn't leave a guard, especially since... I totally overlooked the panic room. I'd been assuming the poor defenses were not intended (Not enough time? Not enough money?) but now I'm wondering if they were in part meant to promote overconfidence. Break in, steal some stuff, but utterly overlook the most important thing because it looks like they did a terrible job of hiding/defending everything. It's possible.

I consider trying to interrogate the woman on the topic, but a glance at her drooling on herself...

"Pride, is this going to cause long-term harm?"

Pride stops in trying to shimmy into the silver suit while still in her costume, and I get the impression she's surprised. After a moment, she says, "Uh, probably? 's not like I've done a study or whatever."

"... so I might be on a time limit for her remaining functional enough to interrogate."

She goes back to trying to get into the suit, and grunts out, "Not one that matters, no. She's not going to turn into a vegetable tonight, and she wouldn't if I kept this going for a week straight." The implication of that sentence horrifies me. There's more grunting before she admits, "... yyeeaah I've done that before, and, well. They never were quite the same afterward, but they weren't braindead. Just... weird."

She sounds uncomfortable and I'm not happy with the reminder of her history and I'm not sure how to address this so I just turn to the prisoner and ask her, "What's on the computer in the panic room?"

Sounding half-asleep, she mumbles, "Ascalon. Robin Hood. Manhunter. Monitor."

She shows no sign of stopping, and this doesn't tell me anything. I interrupt her to demand, "What is Ascalon?"

"Sword that Saint George used to slay the dragon."

... okay, that's either totally irrelevant or an indication that it's a program to kill Dragon. Or whatever you do to an AI, I guess. How does that work, anyway? You can't just stab a program in the heart, and a program isn't going to... destroy the server she's on? Is she on a specific server?

The interrogation past that is... maddening, and not very productive. Much more significant is Pride managing to get into the suit eventually, though she ends up heading inside and changing out of her costume to do it. She comes out and asks me, "Well boss, what do you think?" once she's got it on, but I ignore her (Including the pout at being ignored), focusing on the interrogation.

Asking Pride to move her into a less pliable but more comprehensible mood doesn't really help, as we're unable to get her into a space where she'll talk comprehensibly and is actually cooperative. When she can understand things well enough to give meaningful answers, she's aware this is an interrogation and her teammates (Friends?) are dead at our hands. Mostly mine, but I doubt Pride would be able to-

...

I'm going to hate myself for asking this...

"Pride, can you make her like us?"

She's in the middle of climbing into the woman's suit, and she gives me an odd look, eyebrow raised, and then admits, strangely sheepish, that, "Not directly, no. Certainly not quickly. We'd need days at the minimum, and probably closer to weeks. Possibly months, I've never tried, uh, reprogramming someone who was expecting it."

Disappointment at not being able to get better answers is overwhelmed by relief that I don't, in fact, have to decide whether I want to brainwash this woman for answers or not. It's not remotely realistic for us to brainwash her in our current circumstanc-

-fuck. It might be realistic at some future date.

Fffff.

Uck.

Pride whooping distracts me, and a glance at her shows that she's gotten the suit working. Before I can say anything, she's put the helmet on and, with the most gleeful yell yet, launched into the air via jetpack. There's less of a scorch mark than I'd expect. For that matter, the suit's flight is a lot more stable than I would expect, given it only seems to have the one engine...

With a mental sigh, I turn to the woman and slam a limb through her skull, right through the left eye. She twitches a few times, and then stops. I roll her corpse into the woods and savage the body, and then come back, pull the other two from their suits as best I can, and pull them deeper into the woods and ruin their corpses as well, in their cases first making sure to remove the silver undersuit as best I can... which involves a lot more cutting than I'd prefer, but I'm honestly assuming they're basically unusable as-is. I've already punched holes in them, and neither of us is any kind of tinker.

... I never did ask the woman if any of them was a tinker. Damn.

Pride spends a while performing loop-de-loops and similar in the air, and at one point fires some yellow beam at the shed, before finally landing, popping the helmet, and informing me, "That was awesome." I notice she also grabbed the suit I originally stole at some point in her flight, as she carefully sets it down while landing. I'm surprised that one suit can carry another like that.

I sidestep her enthusiasm and just blandly say, "We need to figure out how to take the computer, its power supply, and whatever salvage we want back to Brockton Bay."

Pride jerks a thumb at the pickup truck, still smiling.

Skeptically, I ask her, "Can you drive?"

She promptly says, "Absolutely, boss."

-------------------------------------​

She was lying.

I figured she hadn't gotten a license, but I'd thought maybe she'd been given the opportunity to drive a car before. That's a thing parents do. A number of people Dad knows from the union have given their kids pre-lesson lessons on driving. Take them out to the middle of nowhere and you've already simplified the procedure. Dad actually talked about giving me such lessons... before Mom died.... and then she died and that talk stopped, along with pretty much anything else resembling a relationship to me.

... which makes me feel slightly better about my own fuckups in our relationship, when I put it like that.

But no, Cherie has never touched a steering wheel in her life. She's always wanted to drive, but this? This is her first experience.

I make her stop when we've been driving only fifteen minutes, because she's goddamn terrible. It goes like this.

"Pride. Stop the car."

"No no, I got this bos-"

"Stop the car, or die."

And then we pulled to a stop.

This is of course skipping past all the hauling stuff and loading it into the back of the pickup truck and pulling the rain cover over it all and weighing down its edges with the stuff inside. Pride ended up handling most of it, as the monster is not well suited to carrying things and I can't reliably carry things as the girl without her watching me, and on top of that the suit apparently enhances her strength. A lot. She seemed to delight in that point, honestly. We took all the suits, or the mangled remains of suits in the case of the two the men had worn, as well as the computer tower, its power supply, one of the monitors, some of the relevant cabling, and pretty much anything even vaguely interesting in the workshop. We also stole some of their food, because it's not like they're going to use it. Our backpacks were retrieved as well, of course, and Pride's costume was stuffed into my backpack. We left the front door open so animals could trash the place further, obscure our presence whenever people get around to finding out that the place's previous owners are dead. Which... might take a while. Though maybe country hospitality means they get visits from near-strangers on a regular basis and it comes up sooner? I dunno.

But: driving. Pride is awful. I take over.

This proves a bad idea since I'm not wearing glasses, and we switch back after the second time I nearly hit something.

On the plus side, at least the gas tank is three-quarters full. And there's more gas in the back of the truck, presumably because they are a bit in the middle of nowhere.

On the minus side, Pride is awful, and it's stressful, and the only comfort I can take out of it is that a car wreck might kill her but I should be fine. (She gives me an alarmed look and I bark at her, "Eyes on the road!" and she does so)

When we eventually stop at a gas station during the day, Cherie making sure to change into civilian clothes a fair distance away first, she buys a map and gets told where we're at, and... well.

It's going to take us three days to drive back to Brockton Bay at our current pace.

Cherie cheerfully volunteers to drive above the speed limit, but I shoot that down. She's sufficiently awful at driving I'm concerned as-is, and we don't need to be getting a cop running us down. For a lot of reasons.

We -by which I mean she- keep sleeping out in the woods, but now it's Pride curled up inside the truck in the sleeping bag while I stalk the environs, passing my time trying to find a solution to the murderflex. It's only when she makes an offhand comment about this being, "so much warmer," than sleeping, "out with the frickin' trees," that it occurs to me that she might not have been sufficiently warm at night over the last nearly two weeks. I feel vaguely bad about that, and then shove it aside. She wanted this. She's the main one benefiting from us jacking the Dragonslayers' stuff. She can leave me if she really wants. So... whatever.

It only occurs to me on the second day that we can have Pride call up my dad and let him know we're running later than we thought we would. She handles it when we take a rest stop for her anyway. I deliberately stay out of earshot, unable to take the stress of listening to one half of the conversation, wondering what my dad is actually saying, and just wait for Pride's report. The conversation takes so long I'd have been hyperventilating if I weren't the monster, huddled in the restroom.

When she retrieves me, it's with a smile and a, "He was happy to hear that the trip went well, and very understanding that we underestimated how long it would take. Didn't even ask me questions about where we went or how we got there. Said he'd handle the school end of things."

I sigh in relief, currently wearing one of her (unwashed) outfits, and thank her.

"No prob, boss."

I frown at that, because, seriously, she needs to knock that off. I know she knows that annoys me.

Her smile widens.

...

Great.

When we do finally arrive in Brockton Bay past sunset, we (she) drive the truck around until we find an abandoned-seeming warehouse she doesn't sense anyone in, and drag everything in there, hiding the truck in a nearby alleyway. To my surprise, she volunteers to stay in the warehouse and watch the stuff. I give her a dubious look and ask, "I thought you'd want to live in luxury."

She grins and says, "Toys," with a gesture at the suits.

I stick around long enough to confirm she's doing well enough (She's enjoying fiddling with the suits far more than I thought she would), wait an hour past that, half-expecting someone to attack her, and then finally head home, feeling strangely uncertain, wishing I could just... sleep on this whole thing.

Dragon is an AI.

On the one hand, it means she's... probably... not ever been in a relationship with Nilbog. Mechanical problems aside, she's an AI. Why would she care? On the other hand... it actually makes it even more plausible that she was working with Nilbog, since if his minions replace all of humanity, she's fine so long as there's still computers for her to live in. It's frustrating that I couldn't interrogate the woman more successfully, see if the Dragonslayers know whether they ever did work together or not. Robo-monster-apocalypse or not?

I suppose, rationally speaking, it's unlikely it ever happened to the Dragonslayers' awareness. If 'Ascalon' is a kill-switch of some kind, why would they have left her active if she was trying to kick off an apocalypse? On the other hand... I really need to actually see these programs in action. For all I know, Dragon knows they're monitoring her and feeding them false info.

I just don't know.

When I get home, I realize I'm not sure how I'm going to get in. It's late enough knocking or ringing the doorbell might not work at all -Dad's a hard sleeper most of the time- and I haven't left my room's window open, since I went to meet Cherie right after school. Even if I had, Dad would probably have closed it sometime while I was gone. It's been more than two weeks, after all. The monster is not capable of grabbing our emergency key and actually using it, either, and not only is it late, but I'm in costume, so trying to become the girl is a terrible plan. It would be criminally stupid of me to try to arrange for someone to be looking at me and then go into my own home while in costume. Just let the entire world know that either Taylor Hebert or Danny Hebert is Monster. Quick, guess which one is the female cape!

While trying to figure out a solution to this irritatingly mundane problem, something blurs in the corner of my eye, and there's a clink, and with a bamf there's suddenly containment foam half-covering me.

Fuck!

 

[Ghoul King]

4.x

Miss Militia

Miss Militia had volunteered to watch for Monster every night once they'd determined that Monster was the creature that had, in fact, holed up in the Hebert household, and Mush had been murdered, almost certainly by Monster. She couldn't be ordered to do so, even though she didn't need to sleep and the Protectorate knew that, but she wasn't a Ward so there was no possibility of the Youth Guard or any other organization kicking up a fuss if she volunteered. So she had, and was sitting atop a skyscraper, anti-materiel rifle aimed at the Hebert house. Admittedly, she'd expected Monster to swing by within a night, not vanish for two weeks, but this was too important. Camera observation had confirmed that the Ellisburg Creature was Monster, and with her having officially killed Leet in combat and almost certainly been the one to brutally murder Mush in the closest thing to a home the man had, it had become clear that she was, at best, an overly violent vigilante that needed to be reined in, and at worst was walking the road to becoming a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine. Or starting her own group, given she'd somehow picked up a sidekick already. The implied charisma was worrying.

Unofficial-official PRT sources were putting out the idea that Hookwolf was currently under suspicion for Mush's death. (He had denounced this loudly, publicly, in costume, claiming he would never, "kill someone in the shadows like a coward," but so far the public didn't seem to believe him. Just some tinhats, but there were always a few) Piggot had made it clear she wanted the Monster situation to be kept hushed up -there was no need to panic the public, suffer a blow to the PRT's credibility by having endorsed Monster's Rogue status officially, and give Monster fair warning that they had figured her out and were coming after her for her reckless endangerment of not only Brockton Bay but the larger continental US. There were already concerns that she'd deliberately gone to ground after killing Mush in anticipation of PRT retaliation. Piggot was no longer willing to give Monster the benefit of the doubt, not with what they knew about her now, and Miss Militia was leaning in a similar direction at this point, too.

The Merchants seemed to have believed the PRT 'leak', or maybe just Skidmark. The gang had made pushes into Empire territory, anyway.

This had gone okay for the Merchants until the Empire had pushed back.

So far the Merchants had lost, by current estimates, half of their territory. The evidence was that Hookwolf was the main parahuman backbone for the Empire's counter-push, with Cricket and Stormtiger contributing erratically. The aggression had picked up recently, occurring nightly for the last four days, and the expectation was that they'd push again tonight. Miss Militia was alone with Velocity tonight as a result, the graveyard shift of PRT troopers committed to intercepting an anticipated raid by Stormtiger (And some E88 soldiers) that had been leaked in the planning stages. Stormtiger was making a point of slashing the tendons of non-white members of the Merchants when he participated, and sometimes regular homeless got caught in the crossfire, so dealing with him, in particular, had moved up in priority.

Thinkertank advisement was that Mush had probably been acting as the main muscle of the Merchants in parahuman conflict. If the thinkertank's conclusions were to be believed, he'd been discouraging overly aggressive pushes by other gangs between his comparative stealth -even the PRT knew exactly where Squealer's workshop sat, whereas Mush could be a hidden threat literally anywhere garbage could be found, which was everywhere- and by having projected fairly significant force wherever he was at. It seemed to fly in the face of the accepted wisdom that the Merchants had been tolerated by the gangs because their territory held no value and they were no threat themselves, but the Merchants had skirmished with the other gangs before his death... Hannah was still mulling that one over, wondering if she'd been underestimating Mush.

There was also talks of trying to extract Squealer. The basic idea had been discussed on and off for almost the entirety of the Tinker's membership in the Merchants, but there had always been more urgent priorities. Now that it was likely she would be killed or pressganged into the Empire, the idea had taken on a new urgency. The difficulty was and had always been that, though there was evidence that Skidmark and Squealer were in an abusive relationship, Squealer seemed to be perfectly happy with her circumstances, in spite of a lack of overt Master involvement. The ideal scenario would be -cold as it was to say- Skidmark dying at the hands of a rival gang and the Protectorate happening to be ready to leap on the chance, but it couldn't be counted on, and arranging it happening had... problems, of which the ethical problems weren't even the most significant obstacle.

As such, alternative plans were being hammered out and a thinkertank would be contacted to help ascertain which alternative was the least worst scenario. They'd have to hope that Squealer's situation didn't change before they were ready. Which... it probably would, unfortunately.

With a small sigh, Hannah made a conscious effort to find something more positive to think about. She didn't tire in the usual way, and in some ways that made laying in a sniping position for eight to twelve hours considerably easier than it would be for most people. Her attention had never drifted from the view in her night vision scope, and nothing needed to be done to help her keep awake nor an effort made to periodically check whether she was awake or not. On the other hand... the mind still wandered, and it took physical exhaustion to make it tolerable to just... not think. Usually a plus, Hannah suspected it made it harder for her to tolerate extended boredom.

Maybe I should've brought a book.

She hadn't indulged the impulse any of her nights so far. Hopefully-

"Target spotted," Velocity interrupted her.

Miss Militia's attention fully returned to the scope, slowly adjusting it to scan the area around the house. She didn't see the creature, Monster's costume, or a woman walking down the street. Miss Militia called Console to let them know Velocity was reporting contact, before returning to the channel being used by Velocity and her tonight. "Details?"

"She's still the Creature. I'm looking right at her, can see her clearly, and she's not changing." After a pause, he added, "She's just stopped in front of the house. Just staring, I think."

Miss Militia frowned, and adjusted her scope until she spotted the Creature, centering her view on it. She remained the Creature, eerily motionless, and Miss Militia lined up a shot to the head, just in case. Considered changing what tinkertech round was loaded, decided against it.

Something isn't right.

Velocity was borrowing a device of Armsmaster's that 'read' incoming light and then, if an electronic system determined it was insufficiently bright for human eyes, 'multiplied' the light going to the eyes to provide a clearer image. Armsmaster had assured them it wasn't anything like a camera, and so looking at Monster through it should be the same as looking at her unassisted, only better.

Nonetheless...

"Velocity, take the goggles off."

Velocity did not acknowledge with words, but she could hear him wrestling with the setup. It had originally been designed to be integrated into Armsmaster's armor, and in the process of redesigning it into standalone goggles, it had ended up... clunky. He'd had to add an independent power source, in particular, which took the form of a small backpack. Then Velocity released a carefully quiet gasp of air and said, "I'm looking. Looks like she's still the creature to me. What about you?"

Monster remained the Creature, and Miss Militia relayed such to Velocity. She didn't quite scowl, but it was a near thing. The woman had seemed decent enough in conversation, nervous and a little eager to please, and she'd hoped that capture would go as smoothly as it had last time. That seemed much less likely now. Still, containment foam was made for Brutes. Hope yet lived.

So she said, "Velocity, go," and set up to shoot Monster in the eye if the foam failed.

------------------------------------​

Crack!

Miss.

The anti-materiel rifle reformed, (ordinary) shot already in place.

Crack!

Miss.

A green flicker.

Crack!

Winged a leg.

The rifle resettled, and through the scope she saw Velocity make a second pass with a containment foam grenade. With what seemed to be a tremendous exertion, Monster pulled loose from the first batch of foam, drawing a frown from Miss Militia. The foam hadn't stretched nearly as far as it should have. The foam stuck to people, stretched while providing resistance, and it had done that, but only about half as far as it should've before the leg pulled loose. Monster moved to lunge away from the second grenade-

Crack!

-and her movement was interrupted, all her legs seizing in response to the shot impacting the back end of her torso. The rifle crackled with something resembling electricity, ready for another shot. The time it took Monster to recover from the shot was enough for the grenade to go off, catching four limbs and coating part of her scythe-like head.

Good.

Crack!

Leg disabled?

Yes, one leg was dangling uselessly starting halfway down, apparently non-functional. Velocity swung by again to lob a grenade as the rifle glowed green for a moment, and with a-

Crack!

-Miss Militia hit another leg, stunning Monster again. The grenade detonated true, and now Monster was all but completely engulfed in containment foam. She continued to struggle and flail, the foam jiggling all over in response, and Miss Militia reformed the rifle, not ready to assume she was truly trapped. Sometimes villains lulled you into a false sense of security deliberately. Assault had nearly lost an eye when Cricket had pretended to be down and out, three months back.

Time passed. Monster's flailing didn't stop, but she wasn't making obvious progress, either. There was some relief there, that death was not necessary tonight. Miss Militia directed Velocity to make the call -they'd need a van to make the pick-up, one equipped for detaching containment foam from the ground while keeping the parahuman trapped. Miss Militia kept her own focus on her scope.

Wouldn't do to get cocky now.

---------------------------------------------​

23 minutes later, Velocity began screaming.

His attempts to answer what was going on were confusing and nonsensical. It took a minute for her to remember the sidekick -Pride, who sensed emotions and could manipulate them, and was the only individual known to have a personal interest in Monster. The description on-file had been fairly limited, and in retrospect had been possibly deliberately misleading, painting a picture of subtly altering people's reactions to her spoken word. It seemed she could be a sledgehammer if she wished. That she'd shaped perceptions to seem more innocent... it didn't paint a good picture of the duo. Miss Militia's estimate of Monster shifted just a little more toward, "serial killer in the making," a little more away from, "innocent, not thinking of consequences."

Miss Militia had not been idle while trying to extract an answer out of Velocity, pulling the zoom on her scope back and looking for parahuman presence. All she'd seen so far had been civilians too interested in events to return to bed -many of them now looking nervous, moving as if to hide in doorways- and Velocity zipping from one piece of cover to another. He was breathing hard, which was unusual, but it spoke of panic to Miss Militia rather than exhaustion. She didn't think he'd been run ragged yet.

Then she saw the civilians react and her eye was drawn to where they were looking and there was a glint of light and she threw herself away from her rifle.

A green bolt slashed through the rifle, half-passing through where her head had been, and after a moment the rifle's remains shimmered, shrunk down to a sphere, and jerked over to her side to become the pistol she'd first shot so long ago. She jogged to the edge of the roof, reforming the weapon into a more conventional sniper rifle, the best scope she knew of attached to it, and she looked through it, found her landmarks and reoriented toward the neighborhood and there was an obvious parahuman and-

Is that one of the Dragonslayers?

-she shot them in the head but it simply sparked off one side of the metal head and she growled a little. The suit aimed a wrist-mounted weapon at her, seemingly right at her, and she was already throwing herself back from the roof's edge which was good because four seconds later a bolt of green once again shot through where she'd just been.

She changed tack, moving to get into contact with Console and lay down suppressive fire. Velocity was still screaming... and then he started sobbing. She winced. She'd never heard him cry before. It wasn't as unsettling as if Armsmaster were to break down bawling, but it still caught her off guard, broke her line of thought for a moment before she recovered it and found Console's channel.

Then she remembered to put suppressive fire down range, too.

Speaking of Armsmaster, he butted in less than a minute after she called Console. In the back of her head, Hannah was thinking Colin really needs to stop pushing himself like this but in the here and now it was actually a relief that he'd stayed up late in his workshop again and so would be 2-3 minutes faster to respond. In fact, she could hear his motorcycle revving up right now, so make that five minutes faster. Probably never even took off his costume, had an idea on his way back and was too eager to get to it to even remember to change. He really needs to take better care of himself.

The Dragonslayer suit exchanged shots with her four more times before it started ignoring her, making its way directly toward the wriggling pile of containment foam.

Mistake to ignore me.

She formed a different anti-materiel rifle, one possible to carry on the shoulder rather than demanding she lay it on the ground to accommodate its weight, and lined up a shot and there was that tiny bit of satisfaction she always had when she knew she was going to land a good shot and-

the suit threw itself to the ground

-she missed.

And then her shoulder informed her of what an outrage her ill-treatment of it was. It wasn't dislocated, but there was going to be a bruise. A big bruise. She'd forgotten how much recoil this particular model had, hadn't braced it properly. She backed away from the roof's edge and tested the arm. Winced in pain. She'd need to flip her grip, or else she'd be too distracted by recoil pushing into the injury. Unfortunate. She had worse accuracy using her off-hand: she'd tested at the firing range, missing about one in four shots she would normally land.

On the other hand, for some reason the Dragonslayer had known she was about to fire. Something newly stolen from Dragon? Warned by Pride? Was this why Monster had vanished -had she sought out and allied with the Dragonslayers? Unimportant. The important part was she probably couldn't land a disabling shot, or a lethal shot. She could, however, still put out enough rounds to make the Dragonslayer think twice about approaching Monster.

Which is exactly what she did for the next four minutes, relying mostly on her ability to simply recreate the gun, already loaded, to maintain a decent fire rate. She was careful to watch for civilians, wouldn't fire if there was risk of them being hit, which was tricky with how she had to account for wind. Far too many times she had to delay or readjust her shot to avoid risk to civilians, though thankfully once she'd started up the suppressive fire the spectating had largely turned into fleeing to the relative safety of their homes.

Then she winced, because someone here had more courage than sense, shotgun blast sparking off the suit to no real effect. The Dragonslayer closed the distance with the civilian, backhanded them in the face so hard Miss Militia was pretty sure she saw a spray of blood, possibly even a tooth knocked out, and then returned to the containment foam. Once close enough, they leaned in and the left wrist reconfigured, and there was the crackle of something she could barely make out through the scope. Whatever it was, the containment foam was moving away, and seemed to be acting more like a liquid than a semi-solid, Monster's body parts suddenly moving more quickly through the stuff. Probably electricity, then.

Miss Militia considered a rocket launcher, caught a glimpse of the man who'd brought a shotgun to a parahuman fight, still overly close to the action, dropped the idea. Instead, she backed away, moved to set up a more serious model of anti-materiel rifle, and then hurled herself to one side as more glowing globs of green were shot her way. One impacted with the side of the building -which meant the PRT would be paying the building's owner damages- and she winced as part of the edge of the roof crumbled and fell down. The fact that it was the dead of night didn't help -it just meant whoever was down there was even more likely to not notice the dark object falling at terminal velocity in the darkness until it was too late. This deep into downtown, the city never fully slept.

Careless of me.

She shifted back to her best scope and took a moment to get eyes on the scene. The containment foam pile was still in the area, though it hadn't fully returned to the usual lumpy, bubbly shape. She didn't see Monster or the Dragonslayer initially, opened her other eye, saw a yellow glow like a small torch, brought her scope to bear on that-

-and then hesitated to fire, seeing homes right behind the Dragonslayer in flight, barely recognizable through the mess of tentacles clinging to its front. She probably couldn't land the shot at this distance anyway.

One of the suit's hands adjusted, catching her eyes as an out of place motion. It took her a moment to parse it.

The Dragonslayer was giving her the middle finger.

And then it vanished behind a taller building. Pulling her scope back... damn. They were heading straight toward one of the more high-rise dense parts of town. So long as the Dragonslayer kept flying a little low, she wouldn't be able to see even the muted glow of the jetpack. She'd lost them, and Armsmaster hadn't so much as reached the shore.

The chase was not over, though. She flipped comms back to the channel she was sharing with Velocity tonight. "Velocity, status?"

The response was heavy breathing, followed by the sound of someone swallowing loudly. After a moment Velocity spoke up. "I-I'm okay. I think. I got out of range or something, tried to contact you once I could think, but you'd changed channels, I'm assuming. I tried to go back, provide support, but I couldn't get anywhere near them without panicking. Sorry, are we still going after them?"

Yes.

Armsmaster butted in before she could actually say it. "No, we're not." Velocity made a noise of confusion -he's more rattled than I thought- but Armsmaster didn't wait for a response. "The other operation's gone south. If the reports are accurate, it's Cricket, Hookwolf, Stormtiger, Krieg, Rune, and Lung on-site. The gangs are focusing on each other for the moment, but we have to move in, help the PRT troops survive the night, and hopefully bring in some villains. Lung, in particular, we'll need to hurry if we want a chance to catch him."

This is terrible timing.

She considered fighting it. This was probably their best chance to capture -or kill, which seemed likely to be necessary- Monster, and she didn't want to let it slip away so they could go fight fires. Usually E88 rescued its own in a matter of days, and Lung had never really even been driven back -he left when he felt like it, not when he was threatened, because they'd never really threatened him. It would be nice to do something with clearer payoff. There was also the question of Monster's apparent alliance with the Dragonslayers, which was mind-boggling all by itself. (What did the Dragonslayers get out of it?)

But letting so many powerful established villains duke it out in the middle of the city, checked only by the overwhelmed PRT troops, wasn't really acceptable. "Velocity, can you pick me up?" she asked instead.

He couldn't, as it turned out, but Armsmaster assured her that he was on his way and he'd pick her up at the base of the building. She acknowledged and made her way to the elevator. Along the way, she did her best to relay the essentials Armsmaster wouldn't have heard, mainly the part where a Dragonslayer had rescued Monster. Miss Militia could hear the grimace when he spoke. He had a personal distaste for the group, though he wouldn't admit it. So far it hadn't affected his work, but she suddenly wondered if it would change how he saw Monster. Something to keep in mind, but for the moment she could wait on pointing it out. Especially since... well. Monster's actions cost people their lives. It didn't sit well with Hannah that Ethan, Rory, and others she knew less well died because of Monster's actions. In addition to her actual crimes, that was the blood of good people on her hands.

So she wasn't in a hurry to get Armsmaster less unsympathetic to the cape.

The motorcycle pulled up as she was about to reach the building's front door (Nodding at Kelvin at the security desk and getting a sloppy salute in return) and she hopped aboard.

Off they went.

--------------------------------------------​

"Fuckin' liars. I was at Canberra, you know! Fuckin' gratitude for ya," and then Hookwolf went back to being more fully a wolf-shaped collection of hooks and worse, having said his piece.

Lung rumbled, difficult to understand, already grown far enough the spines of his wings had pushed their way out of his back. They weren't filling in with membranes yet, but still. Probably too late to capture him tonight. It was hard to be sure, but it seemed to Miss Militia that he gave Hookwolf an abbreviated bow. Hookwolf seemed to agree with her assessment, but couldn't speak in that form -instead he formed a recognizable enough hand out of part of his mess of metal to obviously be giving Lung the middle finger. To no one's surprise, fire washed over him in response.

The good news was that none of the troopers had died yet, and the most serious injury was probably just some cracked ribs. The bad news was that the E88 capes were going out of their way to attack anyone they thought was a Merchant, whether because of bangles or simply being unkempt. Cricket wasn't even in the area, having apparently exchanged words with Hookwolf and then charged ahead when Lung showed up. The other good news was that neither gang had brought any of their own toughs. The worse news was that Lung probably had Oni Lee leading toughs in some other action. That was fairly typical of Lung; be a giant distraction nobody could afford to ignore while his troops got something done. Usually if he wanted to win a fight, he actually brought his toughs with him.

Though she personally wondered whether he'd lucked into this fight or if he'd also had an insider leak the E88 plan somehow.

The whole thing was a mess, and Velocity had already run on ahead to try to find Cricket. Armsmaster was talking to Console, trying to see if anybody else was able to come help, at the same time he was carefully dueling Stormtiger, but she could tell it wasn't going well. Triumph and Assault were dead, Battery had actually been given mandatory leave for a minimum of two weeks and as much of a month on Armsmaster's own orders, and Console wasn't willing to wake Dauntless for this. Armsmaster was pushing for Aegis, but the PRT wasn't willing to even ask him without Renick's permission, and Renick wasn't willing to give it until the situation was more stable.

Miss Militia was occupied using less-than-lethal ammunition to tie down Krieg, force him to use his power to redirect or minimize the impact of the shots. Rune had actually fled shortly before they arrived, passing by them in her flight as they were almost on top of the situation, nursing a burn on one arm (presumably from Lung), and Lung was now grappling with Hookwolf, so that meant everyone was accounted for at the moment. While Lung would be a problem, he'd probably leave on his own in a few minutes. So long as Velocity got to Cricket before she did too much damage, simply stalling should bring the fight in their favor.

That thought was approximately when Squealer crashed the fight, in the rather literal manner of ramming a tinkered van into the Lung/Hookwolf mess. Things turned to chaos from there, with Squealer disengaging from that mess and moving to run Krieg over. Miss Militia stopped her barrage so he'd be able to save himself. It didn't help as much as she wanted -his left leg was bloody, broken, twisted after the pass. He was screaming in agony, clutching at it.

She winced a little. One of many reasons why recruiting Squealer was a discussion, not history. The woman's specialty didn't lend itself to clean fights, and she didn't try that hard to play by the rules.

Miss Militia was turning to follow the vehicle, rifle sucking back into that green between state for an overly long second as she tried to decide whether she should break out a bazooka or trust somebody else to handle it, and then Squealer's van rammed right back into Hookwolf and Lung. This was a mistake. The two villains semi-cooperatively grabbed the vehicle on impact, Lung lifting it up off the ground so the tires had nothing to grip, while Hookwolf tore at the surprisingly durable tires. Squealer let loose a battery of profanity, either in anger or to cover up fear, it was hard to say. (Where was Skidmark, anyway?)

The hesitation solidified into a conviction that they needed to get Squealer out of here before she got herself killed, and her weapon followed.

 

[Ghoul King]

4.4

The first thing Cherie says after we've snuck back to her... our?... lair? The building I dropped her off at, anyway. Anyway, the first thing out of her mouth once the helmet is off is-

"Isn't it traditional that when a knight in shining armor-" she gestures at her torso "-rescues a fair maiden-" she waves the same hand toward me "-the valorous knight would then be awarded a kiss?"

She's grinning, of course, and though she's not puckering her lips or closing her eyes, once she finishes gesturing she's otherwise posed as if she's expecting a kiss; leaning slightly forward, arms clasped behind her back. I get distracted by her hair, though. It came spilling out from the helmet when she took it off, and I find myself thinking that must've been a pain to get inside the suit. It's so long, there's so much of it, and the suit doesn't have that much space, even considering she's shorter and thinner than the previous wearer. It's confusing that she arrived so quickly, given she must've somehow wrestled her hair in.

Cherie pouts, and otherwise doesn't change her pose.

I stare at her. She doesn't move.

Eventually I realize she's not playing around. She's being serious.

"... I'm heterosexual, Cherie."

Her lips twitch. She visibly tries to hold her expression, and finally fails after maybe five seconds, bursting into laughter. There's a muted clank as she slaps a hand against a knee.

I stare some more, unamused. Once her semi-hysterical laughter drops down to giggles, hand held to her mouth for whatever reason, I firmly (a little irritated) say, "I'm not into girls."

I half-expect her to go back to uncontrolled laughter, but she just sort of... smirks behind her hand. After a moment, she takes the hand away from her mouth, giggles, takes a deep breath, winces, and then says, "But you're not into men either."

"Bullshit." There's no real inflection there. I know me. I admire abs on guys and stuff. I wanted a boyfriend before... all this. Still do, just putting it on hold, too much to do and not enough time even now that I don't sleep. I'm not... whatever she's implying I am. I'm firmly heterosexual and have never had the slightest interest in girls. Not even butch girls. Jealous of the pretty ones? Yeah, definitely. I want to be that pretty (I want to be as pretty as Cherie) and it can be frustrating and all, but there's... no lust. No feelings, aside from that envious streak.

Regardless, her lips twitch again, seeming to be fighting a smirk. My stare shifts to more of a glare, pointless as it is, and then her not-going-to-smirk turns slowly into a face-devouring cat's grin, mischievous and weirdly delighted. Sounding vaguely awestruck she goes, "Oh man. Oh man. You really haven't noticed?"

"I am heterosexual and that's that."

"Alexandria."

-a flash of sculpted biceps-

Cherie crows, pointing at me. "That! That right there! That's what you like!"

I.

What?

I shake my head as if to clear away the confusion, and firmly say, "Heterosexual. Boys do it for me, not girls," and then I pause, because I'm starting to feel like this conversation got away from me somewhere, and I can't quite pin down where.

Cherie shakes her head slowly back and forth, and goes, "No, no, no, Boss. Uh-uh. I'm not sure what it is that does it for you, but I'm thinking it's just something you find on, uh, 'boys'-" She air-quotes, and I stare at her fingers, wondering why. "-more commonly."

In a conversational tone I ask, "Why are we discussing my sexuality?" and I make no effort to do anything about how I am feeling irritated and want to be done.

The too-satisfied grin on her face finally falters, and she says, "Uh. No reason. Boss."

And like that my irritation evaporates (I slant an eye at her, but she just rolls her eyes in response) and I move to topics that actually matter. "Are they still following us?"

Cherie takes the change of topic easily enough, and with an easy confidence rattles off: "Two or three-" three? "-of them wanted to follow us but a scrap started way away in town and everybody involved -no wait, there's one guy who doesn't care- is surprised, I'm thinking it's because of how big a fight it is, so the Protectorate people stopped following us once I dropped below rooftop in the escape. They went to join up with the big bust-up, which by the way is still going on and it's big and the one guy who doesn't give a fuck is the only guy who's not at least a little scared though most everyone is pretending they're totally not scared-" she snorts derisively "-and some people are probably going to be in the hospital when this is done, maybe the morgue, nobody's really willing to back down. Too much pride at stake or something? The abstract stuff is always hard to read. Anyway, the Protectorate pals made it to the fight a minute back and they've got a grim confidence thing going on, I'm thinking they're not exactly expecting to win but they're confident they won't lose though it might just be a willingness to die 'cause I've been thrown by that a few times. Probably once this is done they'll be too tired, maybe too injured, to actually follow us just yet... but, uh, I think we're nagging at them? They're not going to just ignore us after this, probably."

I heave a frustrated sigh. I don't even know why they attacked me. I left Brockton Bay for two weeks and now I'm on their shitlist? How come? The only thing I did was kill the Dragonslayers, and nobody should even know about that yet!

Even if they did already find out, I just... even in my most rabid, paranoid fears, I can't imagine that they'd be fine with me accidentally killing Leet and mad about me killing the Dragonslayers. There's a bounty on them. (... should I approach Dragon and try to collect on that bounty?) It makes no sense. I have to be missing something. Did they find Mush, connect it to me, feel it crossed a line? Did they decide that I was, in fact, at Ellisburg, and are holding that against me for some reason? Ugh. I can't make sense of this, and now I apparently can't even go home because they ambushed me in front of my own home again so it's not a coincidence regardless of what they led me to believe before... oh, and apparently they don't care about the Unwritten Rules, either. I helped at Canberra! It was search and rescue, no killing at all! This is my reward?

Goddammit.

Cherie puts a cold, metal hand on my shoulder, and I glance at her, and she's smiling gently, practically exuding warmth and friendliness and understanding. My glance becomes a glare and I grind out, "You're not getting a kiss."

Her soft smile morphs into a having-too-much-fun grin, widening, and she shrugs. "Worth a shot."

Funny. Not.

She shrugs a second time, disengages, and apparently heads off to get out of the suit. Abruptly the monster again, my moodiness levels off a bit, and I look around, wondering what Cherie accomplished in the brief period between me leaving and her picking up on my distress. Not much, if I had to guess. Nothing stands out, anyway.

Thus ends my attempt to distract myself from... this.

I can't go home. I can't go to school. (Which, okay, no real loss there, and it's not the bitches' fault, so I didn't lose) I'm not sure it's even safe to call Dad. If they were staking out my house, they could easily have the place bugged, could easily trace the call, or -though I hope this is unjustified paranoia- use my dad against me. They knew I was there somehow, I didn't stop being the monster at any point... cameras? I didn't see any, but then, I wouldn't have, would I? I can't patrol anymore (Not that this did much of anything either...), not safely, not without Cherie -Pride- to help me avoid bumping into the Protectorate.

Strangely, I feel a sense of relief more than anything -I glance toward Cherie, but she's behind a wall and anyway I'm the monster she's indicated the monster is resistant- even as there's frustration and anger over the betrayal. I don't have to pretend to be normal. I don't have to hide from people that I'm the monster. I don't have to cram myself into that life that's... not relevant to me anymore. I'm... free? Sort of? Cherie knows what's up, knows who I am and what I'm doing and what I become and is... comfortable with it, as far as I can tell.

Liberating.

That's the word I'm looking for.

The only thing really gnawing at me is... Dad. I'd just started -kind of- renewing our relationship, and now it's dangerous to even make contact with him. Worse, he's expecting me home soon -if we hadn't called him, it might've taken a week for him to really start worrying. Now it will take a day, maybe two, for him to wonder why I'm not already back. And... I'm not sure how to fix this. I'm not willing to bring him into the fold, even if it was a practical option, which I'm pretty sure it isn't. I... can't exactly murder the entire US government and return to my normal life from there. They were firing a gun at me. With serious bullets. So I'm pretty sure they want me dead, maybe in the Birdcage at... best? Worst? I dunno. They're not planning to redeem me, anyway. I might be able to prove I'm on the side of justice somehow, but I'm not sure where I'd begin. I already killed Nilbog, and if they've connected me to me... they've probably connected me to Ellisburg. So I don't think murdering bad guys is going to convince them I'm a righteous vigilante enforcing justice where law enforcement can't/won't, because it already would've if it was going to.

I can't possibly just... kill the local Protectorate and go into hiding. Even if I were willing, my information is in a database. Probably anyone in the government -or at least in the PRT- can look up their notes on me on a moment's notice. It would be utterly pointless. Worse than pointless? They'd probably escalate if I did pull that off, take me more seriously as a threat deserving a serious response. So yeah, worse than pointless.

There's no going back, and I don't even know when I crossed the line.

Still, there's... possibilities. I can carry on with this business for a bit, arrange to contact Dad safely, and then... we go live in Argentina or something. The Protectorate probably won't pursue me if I leave the States, and I don't think they work closely with South American capes like they do European ones. Or more accurately I don't think South American capes are as likely to listen to them when they say, "This is a bad person who you should turn over to us or jail them or something."

So even the frustration over this obstacle blocking me from undoing the wreck I've made of our relationship is... tempered. I don't have a plan, exactly, but I have clarity that I can make this work. My old life is... gone, forever, but there's not much of it I'm going to miss, either. The one thing I care about -Dad- can be gotten back, the relationship made better.

So I take a moment to collect myself and go to ask Cherie what she accomplished after I left.

---------------------------------------------------------------------​

Not much, is the answer. She'd barely figured out how to plug the computer into the power source when she felt my panic and moved to suit up.

Incidentally, it turns out the hair issue isn't as bad as I thought. The suit has a step where it vacuum-seals, and apparently this sucks in all her hair and then completes the seal. Weird. Convenient, but weird. So she didn't spend any time on it, really. She spent longer waiting for the suit to go through some bootup checklist than she did on her hair.

We decide to work for a bit on hooking up the computer. (By which I mean I suggest we do so, and Cherie says, "Sure boss," with a sunny smile on her face) It's a soothing distraction, punctuated by frustration when Cherie glancing away or moving to get something or fucking blinking causes me to botch what I'm doing, but having something to focus on helps. It helps a little less when doing so reminds me that my list is on the computer in my house. The one I can't go back to.

Then it occurs to me the PRT might arrange to dig through my computer, find the list, discover what I'm up to, what my plans are.

My work on the computer is rather moodier after that.

In the near-silence (Cherie is humming cheerfully to herself, but she's quiet enough I can ignore it) of our work, I try to recall what the list included. Local gang leaders, definitely. Lung and Kaiser. Sleeper, though I'm nervous about waking him, nervous about going to Russia. I already did Nilbog and Heartbreaker. Um. The Slaughterhouse Nine, of course. I- you know, I wonder if Cherie's power would work on the Siberian? Maybe she could be made to commit suicide. Unstoppable force, strike thyself.

I only realize I'm eyeing Cherie speculatively when she produces a mischievous grin and says, "Like what you see?"

I grit my teeth and grind out, "Not. Happening," but all she does is grin a bit wider before going back to work on the monitor's cord.

I return to my thoughts. The three... I forget. European hags that don't die. Whatever they're called. It'd be a pretty big win to kill them, but I'm not so well suited to that. Kill them one at a time and they just revive each other. Have to get all three, probably. Not something I do readily, even with Cherie's help. Ash Beast, of course. He'd be easy to hunt down, I might be able to survive him. It'd do a world of good to deal with him. Though.

"Cherie, do you have a passport?"

"Nope," in the most cheerful tone ever, popping the 'p'.

After a moment of eyeing her sidelong, I guess, "... you don't really need a passport, do you."

She grins, and then says, "Just need a piece of paper, flash it, make them feel everything's cool. You don't even need powers to make it work, but they make it hella easier."

"... I see."

And then we return to working on the computer. We've got most everything plugged in at this point, and are hunting for the power button. The computer -the 'tower', not the monitor- isn't very person-friendly. Abstractly, I find myself wondering if they stole it from Dragon and that's why. She's an AI, after all. Why make her stuff convenient for humans? (I frown, thinking of all the PRT stuff she's made, but move on) It's not like it needs to be made for a human finger, or for human expectations. If the Dragonslayers stole it, and know how it works because they've been watching her, they might not have reason to make it more friendly to human usage, either.

In fact, it crosses my mind, it might not have a button at all.

Ergh. If I was an AI, well, a physical mechanism would still be nice as a backup, but it wouldn't be my primary choice, and Dragon is a tinker. Or... maybe she's just a smart AI? Whatever. The distinction is irrelevant. The point is she may well have a super-science means of turning on and off her stuff that isn't intuitive to humans. Which means I have no idea how this thing might be turned on. Wonderful.

Cherie bumps into me, seemingly by accident, while reaching past to grab one of the fiddly bits we looted, shoulder against shoulder. I glance at her suspiciously, but she ignores me, humming to herself, and starts running the fiddly bit all over the computer casing. After a minute, I shift more into her line of sight and ask, "What are you doing?"

She stops entirely for a moment, and then says, "Trying stuff. Thinking this might be a magnet."

I recoil a little and go, "You don't run magnets over a computer unless you want it ruined!"

Her response is, "Tinkertech!" in a song-song-y tone.

I glare at her and open my mouth to say something-

-and the computer audibly clicks as the thing Cherie is holding passes over the back part of the top of the computer. A light flickers on, green, somewhere inside the case, and a hmmmm starts up. The screen flickers on, displaying the opening screen of a booting-up process.

I gape.

Cherie waves the possibly-a-magnet at me with a smug grin, and then moves over to the monitor.

---------------------------------------------------​

It takes a bit for us to establish that the monitor isn't a touch-screen device and from there find the keyboard and hook it up. To my relief it's all very plug-and-play -we don't have to figure out how to shut the damn computer off to get the keyboard working. It works the instant we have it plugged in. Confusingly, there's no mouse. Eventually we work out that an innocuous blank patch of the keyboard is the mouse, the cursor jumping on the screen to a roughly matching point; tap the upper-right corner of the mouse-space and the cursor jumps to the upper-right corner of the screen. It takes longer to work out how to pull off what amounts to a left click, and still longer than that to pull off a right click.

Then it's digging through the files, most of them with unclear labels. Broadly speaking, it seems to be basically a Windows OS, or at least using a Windows-esque UI, but I've never really gone digging around in the guts of a Windows computer and this computer doesn't seem to have been designed to be user-friendly. There's nothing equivalent to desktop shortcuts, just a place to type and the ability to go digging around inside the system's files, neither of which is that intuitive.

For once, I'm the backseat driver. I'm clearly more familiar with computers than Cherie, but I don't want to accidentally damage this tinkertech computer by turning into the monster with poor timing. So she operates the thing while I give her instructions on what to try opening.

Mostly nothing happens with the initial few things we're messing with. We get unclear error messages or get asked what other file we want to do something with, in which case I direct Cherie to back out and try something else. Eventually video clicks onto the screen. I'm not sure what I'm looking at, but there's buttons at the bottom of the video. Clicking them changes the video feed, but doesn't clarify anything. It's not until I see Glaistig Uaine (I choke in surprise, which clearly confuses Cherie, but I don't explain) that I realize we're looking at camera feeds for the Birdcage.

I make a mental note of the program that opened this ("SafePlaceWatcher") and check with Cherie if we have anything to actually write it on. The answer is 'no', as far as she's aware. So from there I try to see if we can find a Word-alike. Or a Notepad-alike. I'd take that. We open a program ("SecretaryFriendMedical") that provides incomprehensible gibberish flowing past really quickly, and it takes me a minute to realize it's ones and zeroes. Cherie has an idea before I do: "I think it's Dragon's code?"

I stare blankly, trying to figure out why this would be a thing, shrug, say, "Maybe," and urge her to get back to looking.

We find a few more confusing programs, including one labeled "RobinHoodHandler" that just throws up a wall of settings without explanation (I note that one of the entries is labeled as a 'deposit account number', but I'm not sure what to make of that) before we finally find a Notepad-alike. (And it is a Notepad-alike, pure text, no advanced anything) It's while I've got Cherie writing down the names of the programs we've tried and little tentative descriptions that she yawns, and I glance at her and see just how tired she looks. I remember, abruptly, that we'd been up for a while before we got here, and then she had to rescue me, and... yeah. She's been up for... probably more than twenty hours? Maybe even like twenty-five? I don't really remember when she last slept.

"Go to sleep Cherie." I'm going for firm-but-not-mean. I think it comes out harsher than that.

"Nah, I'm-"

I cut her off. "If the Protectorate comes for me later, I'll need you well-rested. I'll be fine regardless."

She pouts (She does that a lot) and starts to say something, but then she yawns, unable to complete even one word. I give her a look. She gives a shrug in response, says, "Fiiiine." (Reminds me of Emma) Cherie flinches. After recovering her equilibrium she heads off without another word.

Somewhat hesitantly, I maneuver so I can see myself in the reflection of the monitor. It's dark enough I'm hoping I'll see myself clearly, enough to stay myself. If that works reliably, I should be able to spend the time Cherie is sleeping in a productive manner. I fidget and try different angles, expecting to revert to the monster. After a bit I work out that laying belly to the ground (The cool concrete is uncomfortable, but I can endure it) seems to be the most consistent way to stay myself. Not sure why.

I'm interrupted by Cherie dragging her sleeping bag over from wherever it was. She's dressed in sleepwear, with the exception that she's got her mask on. I cock my head at her, confused, but she ignores me, focused on her sleeping bag. She only stops once she's dragged it up quite close to me. She fiddles with it for a bit, makes a satisfied noise to herself, and then slips in. In the end, her head is laying against my right side. She says, "G'night boss," cheerfully, sounding... it takes a bit for me to pin it down. Genuinely happy.

It's only with that thought that I look back on prior times and realize she was... maybe faking is too strong a word? Not very genuine when she was acting happy. I'm not sure how to parse the difference. I'm just clear there is a difference. The thought surprises me, and my desire to shove her off me and call her rude dies. I'm... not sure why she's in a good mood, why laying up against me like this makes her feel so comfortable, but I can't bring myself to ruin it for her. There's a part of me that wonders if she's manipulating me, but for once it's a dim, clinical thought. An awareness that it's a possibility, not an active suspicion.

I've never liked breaking people's happiness, not even people I hated. I certainly don't hate Cherie. I still don't really trust her, not as fully as I'm hoping I someday will, and I'm very clear that she's got a worse moral compass than I do even though my power apparently surgically removed my moral compass, so I certainly wouldn't trust her to make the right (moral) decision when left to her own devices. So I'm pretty sure this is all me. It would be cruel to burst her bubble. Unnecessarily so, given it's only a minor discomfort.

The warmth of her head even helps offset the chill of the concrete.

-----------------------------------------------------​

It takes nearly two hours to get basic documentation on (Nearly) all the things the computer can run. Most of what I have written amounts to, "Dunno. Might be x?" but there's some useful stuff.

The "RobinHoodHandler" thing solves one of our biggest problems: what happens when Cherie's money runs out?

The answer: we fund ourselves with money stolen from criminals by a program.

I don't have a bank account myself, not yet, and I suspect Cherie doesn't either, but after some fiddling the program apparently creates a bank account in a name of my choosing ("Carlia Smithson") and then merrily dumps money into it. I set the program to 'Plausible' under 'deposits', which still gives me ten thousand dollars to start with.

I spend a few minutes just taking in the enormity of the change here. I've been taking money from my lunch funding to cover costume components and so on. Now, I'm homeless but have plenty of money.

My brain doesn't want to accept it. It's absurd.

There's also a part of me that's quoting the cartoon version of Armsmaster. "Remember kids: crime never pays. Stay in school!" Childhood memory come back to mock me.

Why is this my life.

I also work out that "SecretaryFriendEyes" is a camera feed from Dragon's perspective. Or something. It's honestly kind of confusing. It flickers all over the place a lot, looking at the Simurgh physically (An observatory feed? Satellite?), covering graphs that I barely catch are of seismic activity before jumping to a map labeled 'Atlantic Ocean' and then jumping to a room that looks like it belongs to a tinker (No one is in it, though) and then shifting to an aerial view of some woods... I shut it off, actually feeling a bit of motion sickness from watching it.

A big consumer of my time is finding a folder (Well, it would be a folder if this was Windows, anyway) filled with sub-folders that are filled with text files and reading them. Thankfully, the sub-folders have vaguely sensible names, and I'm able to develop a picture of what I'm looking at: the Dragonslayer's personal notes. There's four folders I work out have to do with the suits. I skip those for the moment -they'll probably be more important to Cherie than to me. There's others that seem to be notes on various contracts. I look at a few to see if they'll be of interest, but they're really not, not now that the Dragonslayers are dead.

One folder is notes on threats. One for each Endbringer. One for Nilbog. One for Sleeper. One that's for Africa as a whole. A series for Europe, country by country. The Three Blasphemies (Right, that's what they're called) are listed under Germany, alongside four other capes whose names I don't recognize. One for the Nine, though the Siberian gets a page all to herself. Other files are old, dead parahumans I recognize. Still others seem likely to be for dead parahumans I don't recognize.

They're interesting, but less helpful than I'd have hoped. The Siberian, in particular, only really has one note of use to me: sadistic, plays with her victims. Probably best way to escape. I'd been hoping for... suggestions of a weakness? Or something? Mostly it's a long, long list of things that are known to have done jack and shit to her, which is apparently, "everything that's ever been tried." It's intimidating.

One is labeled Jabberwocky. I don't think anything of it until I've clicked in and the first line is, "The creature of Ellisburg."

I read that file in full.

......

I hate myself.

'Jabberwocky' is their name for me, for whatever reason. They thought I was a lunatic, but they thought I was doing good work. One of the notes is Jabberwocky deserves a medal for Ellisburg, Protectorate deaths be damned. They'd tentatively guessed that the commotion with Heartbreaker might be me as well, and were all for it. They wanted to meet me and shake my hand if that was an option.

And I killed them.

There's a part of me that feels grateful for my inability to feel guilt. I suspect this would be soul-crushing if I could. As-is it's merely depressing. There's another part of me that hates that I can't feel guilt, because this deserves guilt.

There's a third part of me that just wants to curl up and cry in a corner.

I go back to exploring the computer. I'll come back to their notes when I'm less depressed.

After an hour or so of writing down notes on various only half-comprehensible programs (Carefully avoiding the program labeled Ascalon. If it's a kill-switch with no chance to back out, I want more time to think on this first), building up an idea of the bigger picture of how the Dragonslayers worked, I stumble into realizing one program is an internet browser. It's called "SafeLook", which is... a confusing name. Even more baffling, we have an actual internet connection even though the only things plugged into the computer are its power supply, the monitor, and the keyboard. It's hard to say, given how user-unfriendly the whole thing is, but I don't think it's connecting to someone's wi-fi out here.

... ultimately, I shrug to myself. Tinkertech.

Hesitantly, I go check the Dragonslayers profile on the wiki. Somehow, it surprises me that there's no reference to them being dead. In fact, the timeline section has already updated with links to cell phone camera footage -and one proper camera!- of Cherie rescuing me. A pop into the Dragonslayer's PHO thread shows surprisingly rampant speculation about what's going on that the Dragonslayers rescued 'a Case 53' from the Protectorate in Brockton Bay. It's not yet dawn. I'd think most of the Bay would still be asleep, not posting on PHO. Only some of the speculation is being decried as tinfoil hat theories, too.

It's a little depressing to find that a lot of people are assuming I was there to murder people in their homes. There's like two people defending me, a GStringGirl and a MechanicalMan (The latter's signature links to a song by the same name, as well as to their PHO wiki profile -they're apparently a Ward by the name of Weld) who aren't even really defending me so much as they are being cranky that people are assuming the 'monster' is a murderous monster just because it's not human-looking. The counter-point to that is that the Protectorate wouldn't have been shooting at it if it was friendly. MechanicalMan makes a long post in response -I double-check his location, he's in Boston, so shouldn't he be at home, asleep?- about Protectorate procedure and how encounters like this can be misunderstandings, or caused by the parahuman being not entirely rational without actually being a bad person, or as simple as the parahuman not knowing how to control their powers. I end up skimming it a bit, bored. It doesn't seem to be very convincing to other posters, either, even when someone points out that MechanicalMan is a Verified Cape with their cape identity in their actual signature and everything.

Well. At least I can be semi-confident the Protectorate isn't on my case over the Dragonslayers. Probably. Maybe. Ugh, I dunno. How does this crap work?

With a sigh, I close the browser. I don't like this night at all.

I open "SecretaryFriendEyes" again and just... zone out.

------------------------------------------​

In spite of the nausea it induces, I'm able to tolerate watching Dragon's view until sometime not long after sunrise. I feel like I'm starting to get a sense of a pattern, something comprehensible, but it's still pretty overwhelming. Which is good, in a way, since it made it easier to keep myself constructively occupied instead of fixating on various depressing topics.

On the other hand, I'd originally intended to plot out my next move while I watched the feed. Instead, I only got to the point of thinking that I really ought to deal with one of the major players of Brockton Bay -Kaiser or Lung or I guess Skidmark or maybe Faultline though I'm not really sure what she does- and then we leave for a time. With it being dangerous to Dad for me to return home, I don't have any reason to stay in the Bay. I have reason to go elsewhere, in fact, to protect him. But I'd still like to do something about the Bay's plague of villains, something better than killing Leet by accident and Mush by partial intention, and I have a half-thought that it might throw the Protectorate off my trail if I do just one more thing in the Bay before leaving, convince them to keep looking for me here when I'm actually catching a plane to Russia to deal with Sleeper or something.

I close the program, rubbing tiredly at my forehead, and isn't it strange how strange it is to be tired? It'll pass the next time I become the monster, so I don't pay it much mind. Instead, I turn back to the issue of who to deal with.

I cross off Lung after very little thought. I am not remotely confident in my ability to kill him, even if his transformation renders him sufficiently inhuman that he can't keep me from being the monster, and if I fuck up the collateral damage is huge. Even if I kill him, the collateral damage might be huge, and fires he starts could potentially become something really serious. In the absolute worst-case scenario, a good chunk of the city could burn down. On top of that, I'm uneasily thinking of Oni Lee. I have no idea where his clones are likely to fall on the human-to-inhuman continuum, and more importantly I have basically no defense against him just appearing behind me and slitting my throat. A fight with him is basically going to boil down to: either I ambush him successfully, and win, or I don't, and I'm pretty sure I die. I'm especially uneasy thinking of arguably-paranoid scenarios; say I sneak up on him and stab him, but he reflexively teleports before I've done more than broken his skin. I think I've killed him, and then he appears behind me and kills me. Or follows me back, hoping to kill everyone I know and love. Or something. I dunno.

The risk involved in fighting the both of them at once is obviously even worse, and also I'm leaving out the part where even if neither of them can revert me to Taylor this would be happening in the middle of Brockton Bay. There's no way I can successfully bait either of them out beyond city limits to where I won't have to worry about civilians reverting me.

I decide against Faultline as well, as I just plain don't know what she does. She's a villain mercenary, but so were the Dragonslayers, and look where that got me. I'd need more research before I came to a decision regarding her and her crew.

I've already killed Mush, and I don't know enough about Squealer. Or Skidmark, really, but everything I do know about him is negative. Very negative. But with Mush dead the Merchants have already been weakened. I'm... not sure how the gang dynamics work, but I have this suspicion that if I killed another Merchant the remainder would be rolled up and taken over by the Empire or the ABB. I think that's less productive than having the gangs fighting each other. Probably.

I dunno. Whatever.

Point is, that leaves the Empire, specifically Kaiser. Unfortunately, he's not like Lung. He's not that public a figure, rarely comes out to fight personally. It happens, he's been caught on camera and everything, but it's mostly his underlings that fight in the streets. He's management more than anything else. He's also always followed by his two bodyguards, the Valkyrie-themed giants, when he does bother to come to a fight. That will make it... tricky to fight him. And I really want to kill him if I kill anybody, because the Empire tends to just replace its fighting capes. I'm not certain the Empire would splinter if I killed their leader, but I'd rather gamble on that than go with the option I know won't accomplish anything except to maybe put them on their guard. I mean, I'm planning on leaving afterward regardless, but if I put them on their guard that reduces the odds of someone else assassinating Kaiser after I've left.

Problem is, I have no idea how I'd find him, especially given I want to leave soon.

Cherie startles me by speaking, apparently awake. "Whatcha thinking about that's got you so moody, boss?"

After my heart settles down, I turn awkwardly to look at her. She's looking back. When did she turn, and why did I not notice given her head is laying on me? After a moment of deliberation, I sigh and admit, "I'm frustrated because I want to kill Kaiser before we skip town and I don't know how I could find him on short notice."

She wriggles an arm out of the sleeping bag awkwardly. I watch, puzzled. She flips her mask up. Then she cocks an eyebrow at me and points a thumb at herself.

Somewhat reluctantly I start saying, "Look, I know you found me, somehow, but I don't want to kill him in his home or the like and anyway you, what, recognized my signature as having been in Toronto when Heartbreaker died? I don't see-"

"Actually, I helped you kill him." She says this in this amused, smug tone. She's not smiling though. It's kind of unsettling.

The admission draws me up short, because... no? She didn't?

Her mouth twitches. First toward a frown, I think, then toward a smile. Neither fully forms. Then her hand goes to her mouth while she makes a ppffffff noise and then she chokes on laughter for a moment while I just look at her, confused. Finally she manages to work through her laughter enough to ask, "S-so, you really -ehehe- you really really didn't recognize me at all? Heh."

?

I make a negative sound, unsure what she's driving at.

"Pffff. Hehehe. Oh man boss, really?" I feel affronted, but don't bother to say anything. She knows. She waves her hand in a gesture I think she intends to be calming, but it comes across as dismissive instead. "Boss, it was me. The other girl, the one that was talking? Rather than pretending to be a human scarf?"

I stare blankly at her. I remember a girl, yes. I struggle to recall what she looked like, what she-

"Like ohmygod Daddy." Cherie says in a voice she's never used before, not with me. Childish, immature, dumb.

-sounded like, "Holy shit." It's her. That's exactly the voice that was talking to Heartbreaker.

I'm a moron.

I wrestle with that for a moment, ignoring how Cherie is laughing into her hand again. I manage to push past the mindfuckery long enough to say, "You left."

Cherie gets herself under control, mouth twitching into a smirk over and over while she talks. "I guided him. I was taking him to downtown initially. Felt you, felt your reactions. Took a bit, but I pieced together that you were here for dear old Daddy-" Again with that voice, high-pitched, and my skin crawls. "-and you were unhappy when you realized where we were going so I picked a different girl, different part of town, would've found an excuse to pick someone else if you'd been unhappy with how that was going. I could tell you weren't patient, guessed you were worried about missing your opportunity or something like that. I wanted him dead, so I helped make it happen."

Blankly, I say, "I thought you said he sensed emotions."

She raises an eyebrow skeptically. "No, I said he and I have similar-but-different powers. He had control, I have sensing with less precise control."

My thought process judders for a moment as what she's saying really hits me. I believe her. I don't want to believe her. This- this isn't what I thought she meant back when she first said she wanted him dead. I thought she meant she hated him. I didn't think she meant she was complicit in his death.

My horror mounts.

Cherie's expression collapses and she goes, "No no no don't hate me-"

I interrupt with a quiet, calm whisper. "I wish the man was alive so I could kill him again." She looks stunned and confused.

Then I hug her.