Taylor is very upset that everyone thinks she's a Brute. She doesn't even have a Brute rating! A pseudo crossover of Worm and Berserk, enjoy
Not a Brute! [Alt Power Taylor][Worm x Berserk]
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Dragonslayer 1.1
Beta read by @Hiro Dark and Rowan, who currently does not have an SV account
April 8th, 2011
Leaning back into the bus seat as I headed to Winslow, I let myself sigh. Things had gotten complicated these past two years, and thankfully I still had my best friend to help me through it all. Looking out of the bus window into Brockton Bay, I nearly let out another sigh as I gazed at the dilapidated buildings, everything looking run down and weary. Like the city itself was dead and dying. My one good eye surveyed the passing buildings as I felt my hand subconsciously rub the nub where my left arm used to be. Thank god for contacts, I idly mused to myself. After losing my right eye a few years back, I switched over to contact lenses because wearing glasses with only one eye seemed silly.
Turning my head and looking forward, I could see the ugly gray building that was Winslow coming up. Reaching over I pulled my backpack up and got ready to sling it over my shoulder before the bus came to a stop in front of the Asshole of Brockton, although I have it on good authority that the Merchants resent that title as they believe that anywhere Mush lives to be the city's asshole. Getting up, I found myself slowly walking off the bus in that slow, ponderous way you need to else you wind up tripping and falling face first.
I found myself in a sea of gang members, potential gang members, and victims as I made my way towards the entrance, thankfully enough people were going in at the same time that I wouldn't have to worry about trying to open the door with just one hand while my backpack was on only one shoulder. Moving in I managed to spot the red that signified her, my best friend, Emma Barnes. I gave out a short call as I hurried up to talk with her before the bell rang. I saw her head turn; and I swear, everytime she sees me her face seems to light up, like she's been given a shot of pure dopamine. I guess that's why we're best friends if I can get that kind of reaction out of her.
I can feel myself start to involuntarily smile as I get closer, I can see Madison next to Emma and for some reason she just has this knowing look, like she knows what's going on, and my heart skips a beat. Did she know? How did she find out? Is she going to tell anyone? And I have to stop myself from having a minor panic attack before she goes to speak to me and Emma.
"Hey, Taylor!" She called out, greeting me with a small smile, "me and Emma were just talking about you."
Again, panic, but less so. General anxiety, not crippling panic of being unmasked. "Yeah, what about?" I asked, slightly fearing the answer.
"Relax, Tay," came Emma's response, cutting through my anxiety like a hot knife through butter. Her calmness helped to ground me during my impromptu panic, "we were just talking about how long we've known each other."
"Ah, that's what," I immediately felt relief flooding over me. Emma must have seen the change in my demeanor as she gave a quick little roll of her eyes in exasperation at my antics. I probably should try to get a better hang of my emotions if I'm causing that in her.
"Hey, Taylor. You and, uh, Emma doing anything tonight?" she asked, her knowing look slowly turning into a grin.
Immediately the relief that was palpable before transformed back into panic, I saw Emma tensing up herself from that, apparently she hadn't been expecting it either. "A-ah, yeah, yeah. We uh, you know, we study together." I lied, probably a bit too fast to be believable.
Emma, startled by this, eyes wide, went in to back up my lie, "Yeah, we study together. Taylor's been helping me out with computer class, Mrs. Knott has been on my ass about my grades, you know?"
Madison nodded, seeming to take it all in, and I taunted Murphy in that moment by mentally congratulating my and Emma on selling a lie as bold-faced as that when Madison posed a very simple question.
"But, Emma, correct me if I'm wrong, but. You don't have computer class, right?"
Internal. Screaming. I had been a cape for almost two years, and this is how I'm found out. A friend from school noticing that me and Emma spend a lot of time after school together. My life was over, I'd have to come clean to dad, have to join the Wards, this wasn't good. What I needed was a distraction. Looking over past Madison, I saw Hess about to shove some poor sap into the wall.
"Ohlooksophiaisabouttobullysomepoorkidigottadealwiththat, OKAY BYE!" and I booked it away from that situation as fast as I could.
From behind me, I could hear Emma give an equally poor reason to split and I made my way over to one Sophia Hess. She was a tall girl, black with a ponytail that reached down to her back. She had a sort of thin, wiry muscle build that came with running on the track team. She was almost as tall as I was, maybe an inch or two shorter.
Sophia, the poor girl. Not poor as in poverty, but, I pitied her. Coming back to Winslow after that summer, I met her and she tried to ingratiate herself into mine and Emma's little friendship, and she started to spout some inane philosophy about predator and prey that sounded like social darwinism on a greater scale, and I remember the look on her face when I told her that she needed therapy. Shock, with a brief glint of confusion followed by anger. She didn't try to stay friends after that.
As I got closer to her, I felt myself slowly steeling up, getting into familiar territory. Cape business was all about stopping bullies, and this was no different. Well, maybe a little different. No powers, except for the one that I can't turn off. I got within hearing distance right as she was about to push Greg Veder down the stairs.
"Hess!" I called out, watching her stumble as my voice carried into her.
I watched her stiffen and slowly turn, her voice filled with the same determination as my own, "Hebert."
Greg also stopped for some reason and turned to look at me. He started trying to squeak something out at me but I cut him off, "Get to homeroom, Greg." I could hear how tense my voice was, being this close to the biggest unaligned bully of the school.
"But homeroom doesn't start for te-" he started before I cut him off again.
"Now, Greg."
He stiffened before sulking and he went down the stairs that was almost his doom moments before. I watched him skulk downwards, going hurriedly, a few glancing looks from over his shoulder as he left for wherever his homeroom was.
Sophia spoke first after Greg left, "You trying to start something, Hebert?"
"Come on, Hess. We've gone through this song and dance before," I replied, my voice tense as I felt my power telling me how she was posed to strike at any moment and how to dodge and strike back in an instant, "one arm, one eye, how much more of a handicap do you want me to give you this time?"
She glared at me, I saw her lips start to move, like she was trying to think of the right thing to say to me. I swear, I saw her mouth the words "I don't get you" before she stormed off past me, probably going to push someone else down the stairs. Watching her leave I saw some Empire members give me an approving look, and I felt my face morph into a scowl.
"If you idiots try to start anything today, I'll kick all of your asses." I heard myself growl out at them, and I was pleased when I saw them look dubious at their chances. Good, my reputation precedes me. The premier bully hunter of Winslow, that's me. Didn't matter if you were a gang backed bully or just some twat trying to make other's lives miserable, I'd kick your ass halfway across the school and make you understand that you can't just pick on others.
Feeling myself relax after dealing with Sophia, I most definitely didn't run to homeroom, I power walked. I made it there with a few minutes to spare; stopping to threaten everyone who was about to start shit isn't very conducive for being on time most days. Settling into autopilot for the day, I felt time slip by as I took notes, handed in homework, went to class, and stopped idiots from trying to start shit they couldn't finish in my school. It felt good, knowing that I was doing to the school what I was doing to the city. That I could make a difference. I'd need to find a Freshman next year to take under my wing, teach them how to fight, how to spot potential violence and put an end to it before it started. How to make sure that your reputation was earned through many victories.
Autopilot ended as lunch began; cutting through the crowd I made my way to my locker, grabbing a brown paper bag before heading into the lunch room itself to look for Emma. Through the crowd of people forming into orderly lines, I saw her sitting down at one of the tables, lunch box in hand as she waved me over. I ran over to her, happy to see her after zoning the fuck out for three classes.
As I sat down, Emma handed me a protein drink, like she normally does. I smiled at her and started to give it a good shake when I noticed Madison sitting down opposite Emma in front of us. I greeted her with a nod as I continued shaking the drink, making sure the protein powder Emma put into the drink was properly dissolved by the time I popped open the top to take a drink. It was slightly chalky, with a faint aftertaste of strawberry, a relatively nice tasting protein shake, then.
Setting the drink down, I opened the paper bag that contained the lunch I could afford to eat, a plain ham and cheese sandwich, a little mayo, and a bottle of water. The sandwich didn't last long, and I saw Emma slide over a tupperware container with some grilled chicken in it over my way. My smile grew a bit brighter, Emma always had something to help me out during lunch, especially since Dad couldn't afford to pack enough for how much I needed to eat daily. I still felt a little bad about it, like I was taking advantage of our friendship. But then she rested her head on my shoulder and sighed loudly, and any lingering thought about taking advantage of friendship vanished. It's a nice thing, being such good friends with someone.
I found myself, at that point, wanting to wrap her up in a friendship hug, and I felt my smile dim a little. She was sitting to my left, and the arm that could most easily go over her shoulders was the one that ended in a stump. Being unable to hug her in this moment, it hurt a little. Friendship sure has such strong bonds. Before I could think any further on my depressing inability to give Emma as big of a hug as I wanted, Madison opened her mouth.
"So," she started, poking at her school lunch, which appeared to be some sort of sad attempt at spaghetti, "you two just study together after school, right?" She asked, her tone suggestive of conspiracy. The traitor. Taunting my cape identity like that.
I felt Emma move her head a little to look at Madison, during this I moved my arm as well as I could over her shoulders and gave her as good a squeeze as I could with the stump, "We also sometimes watch movies together," Emma responded, nestling deeper into my side, apparently having thought of things to say to ward off Madison's questions during class today.
"We also sometimes get something to eat," I added, thinking of perfectly normal things that friends do together. Which should hopefully explain things for Madison, although our earlier reactions probably sealed our fate with her.
"Mmhmm," she replied, thinking for a bit, "Well, I won't pry for now…" Sweet relief, she won't pry, "but I expect you two to be honest to me about it in the future." Fuck. An ultimatum.
"Anyways," she continued, as if she hadn't just given me a soft time limit on revealing my cape business to her, "Have you tried getting Panacea to look at your arm or your eye? I think I heard there was a waiting list for her with this sort of stuff."
Ah, this, this I could answer, "No, I haven't tried. It happened before she started visiting hospitals anyways, if the PHO wiki is right, it probably happened a week or two after she first got powers." I gave a noncommittal shrug with my shoulder that Emma wasn't nuzzling into, "Besides, it's not life threatening, and depth perception is overrated."
That got a snort out of Madison, and she had to stop herself from laughing before waving me off with her fork, "I guess I can accept that you have your reasons. You think you'll ever tell me what happened? I gathered that Emma was there when it happened from what little you've told me, if it's not okay I won't ask anymore."
I thought about it, and I looked at Emma, a lot of what happened that night was very personal for both of us, "... Maybe someday. It's hard to talk about, lot of bad memories there." My voice was quiet by the end, almost hushed into a pseudo stage whisper. I felt Emma snake an arm around my waist to give me a reassuring squeeze of her own.
"We'll discuss it in private if we're okay with sharing what happened," Emma said, her voice stronger than mine. I found that ironic, given all that happened that night.
Madison seemed to mull it over, her face showing her thoughts clearly as she took in the words, "Alright," she agreed, "just let me know if you're ready, and if so when you want to tell me."
That actually gave me some relief that she wasn't going to go blabbing about what happened if we told her. Although either way we kinda have to tell her, since it ties into being a cape and all.
The rest of lunch went smoothly, and we just talked. As inane as that sounds, it was nice. We just talked about class, upcoming assignments, how much of a tool Gladly was, Emma and Madison also mentioned a few incidents that occurred without my being there to stop them. Apparently a few ABB initiates thought it'd be a good idea to start a small fight with some Empire idiots. Empire idiots, that's a redundant term. They're unpowered, and they're with the Empire, critical thinking skills tend to preclude someone from being a Nazi. Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt in that encounter, which means that I can kick their asses to the fullest extent.
I felt myself entering autopilot again as lunch ended and I went to class, coming back into focus in-between as I kept an eye out for anyone starting to cause problems. Worryingly, there appeared to be a tense peace across the school as the rest of the day went by. I could see ABB and Empire goons sizing each other up in the hallways; it seemed like what those idiot initiates did earlier in the day was going to lead to a brawl. They stopped bringing knives to school after I educated them on what would happen if they escalated.
As the school day was drawing to a close, I saw a group of the two gangs squaring off with each other in the hallway that Gladly's class exited out of. Either they were extremely brave to start this where they knew I'd be, or extremely foolish. Once again, critical thinking skills and racism do not mix. I saw one of them start to throw a punch, and time slowed down. My power activated, and I saw how each of them were going to respond, I saw the resulting brawl and I knew how to end it myself. Cracking my knuckles against my jaw, I moved into the fray.
I entered first with a kick, knocking an ABB thug onto his stomach, from there I pivoted my body and brought my fist against an Empire skinhead's face, sending him down. I felt my face twist into a bloodthirsty grin as my power started feeding me information. I quickly stepped forward and slammed my forehead into the nose bridge of another Empire idiot, feeling it crack and I saw him go down with blood coming out of the now broken nose.
I heard one of the Empire mooks shout out, "Christ, why did we start this here?!" as I stepped to the side, narrowly dodging a bull rush tackle from one of the ABB members. I hooked one of his legs with my own, tripping him before kicking into his ribs, feeling them bruise against my boots. My power led me to duck, dodging a blow from one of the Empire, I jumped back and came forward, my fist punching into his gut, ramming into him with my shoulder to keep him pinned to the wall, before punching him three more times before letting him fall to the floor, dodging out of the way of another attempted attack by an ABB member.
I saw something metal gleam in his hand, and I laughed, "Looks like someone needs a reminder as to why we don't bring weapons to school." I saw his face pale, and he faltered, that moment of indecision gave me enough time to close the gap and trap his arm before breaking his elbow. I heard the knife clatter to the ground as I continued to educate him as to why we no longer escalate at Winslow. My power told me that the rest of the gang members were rushing off, even the ABB. No honor amongst thieves, I guess.
Pulling off of him, I felt blood drip off my knuckles and onto the floor, and I heard a very tired and dejected Gladly grumble out, "Taylor…" trying to figure something to say that I hadn't already heard before.
I just looked at him, my face returning to its normal, not quite as scary look, "What? They started it, I finished it."
"I'm not entirely sure that's applicable here when you joined the fight as an outsider."
I shrugged, "Well, they'll stop bringing knives to school for a while after this, and they'll also stop fighting here. I'd say that's a plus." I said cheerily.
Gladly just stared at me, before sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose, "Of course you'd think that way. Just, go home Taylor," the tool of the school grumbled, before heading back into his classroom.
With that done, I left; wiping off my bloodied knuckles on some paper towels in the restroom before heading off to meet Emma out front. Walking down the steps to the sidewalk, I saw Emma look up at me and smirk, seeing how bruised my knuckles were from fighting before we left to the warehouse that acted as my workshop.
April 8th, 2011
Leaning back into the bus seat as I headed to Winslow, I let myself sigh. Things had gotten complicated these past two years, and thankfully I still had my best friend to help me through it all. Looking out of the bus window into Brockton Bay, I nearly let out another sigh as I gazed at the dilapidated buildings, everything looking run down and weary. Like the city itself was dead and dying. My one good eye surveyed the passing buildings as I felt my hand subconsciously rub the nub where my left arm used to be. Thank god for contacts, I idly mused to myself. After losing my right eye a few years back, I switched over to contact lenses because wearing glasses with only one eye seemed silly.
Turning my head and looking forward, I could see the ugly gray building that was Winslow coming up. Reaching over I pulled my backpack up and got ready to sling it over my shoulder before the bus came to a stop in front of the Asshole of Brockton, although I have it on good authority that the Merchants resent that title as they believe that anywhere Mush lives to be the city's asshole. Getting up, I found myself slowly walking off the bus in that slow, ponderous way you need to else you wind up tripping and falling face first.
I found myself in a sea of gang members, potential gang members, and victims as I made my way towards the entrance, thankfully enough people were going in at the same time that I wouldn't have to worry about trying to open the door with just one hand while my backpack was on only one shoulder. Moving in I managed to spot the red that signified her, my best friend, Emma Barnes. I gave out a short call as I hurried up to talk with her before the bell rang. I saw her head turn; and I swear, everytime she sees me her face seems to light up, like she's been given a shot of pure dopamine. I guess that's why we're best friends if I can get that kind of reaction out of her.
I can feel myself start to involuntarily smile as I get closer, I can see Madison next to Emma and for some reason she just has this knowing look, like she knows what's going on, and my heart skips a beat. Did she know? How did she find out? Is she going to tell anyone? And I have to stop myself from having a minor panic attack before she goes to speak to me and Emma.
"Hey, Taylor!" She called out, greeting me with a small smile, "me and Emma were just talking about you."
Again, panic, but less so. General anxiety, not crippling panic of being unmasked. "Yeah, what about?" I asked, slightly fearing the answer.
"Relax, Tay," came Emma's response, cutting through my anxiety like a hot knife through butter. Her calmness helped to ground me during my impromptu panic, "we were just talking about how long we've known each other."
"Ah, that's what," I immediately felt relief flooding over me. Emma must have seen the change in my demeanor as she gave a quick little roll of her eyes in exasperation at my antics. I probably should try to get a better hang of my emotions if I'm causing that in her.
"Hey, Taylor. You and, uh, Emma doing anything tonight?" she asked, her knowing look slowly turning into a grin.
Immediately the relief that was palpable before transformed back into panic, I saw Emma tensing up herself from that, apparently she hadn't been expecting it either. "A-ah, yeah, yeah. We uh, you know, we study together." I lied, probably a bit too fast to be believable.
Emma, startled by this, eyes wide, went in to back up my lie, "Yeah, we study together. Taylor's been helping me out with computer class, Mrs. Knott has been on my ass about my grades, you know?"
Madison nodded, seeming to take it all in, and I taunted Murphy in that moment by mentally congratulating my and Emma on selling a lie as bold-faced as that when Madison posed a very simple question.
"But, Emma, correct me if I'm wrong, but. You don't have computer class, right?"
Internal. Screaming. I had been a cape for almost two years, and this is how I'm found out. A friend from school noticing that me and Emma spend a lot of time after school together. My life was over, I'd have to come clean to dad, have to join the Wards, this wasn't good. What I needed was a distraction. Looking over past Madison, I saw Hess about to shove some poor sap into the wall.
"Ohlooksophiaisabouttobullysomepoorkidigottadealwiththat, OKAY BYE!" and I booked it away from that situation as fast as I could.
From behind me, I could hear Emma give an equally poor reason to split and I made my way over to one Sophia Hess. She was a tall girl, black with a ponytail that reached down to her back. She had a sort of thin, wiry muscle build that came with running on the track team. She was almost as tall as I was, maybe an inch or two shorter.
Sophia, the poor girl. Not poor as in poverty, but, I pitied her. Coming back to Winslow after that summer, I met her and she tried to ingratiate herself into mine and Emma's little friendship, and she started to spout some inane philosophy about predator and prey that sounded like social darwinism on a greater scale, and I remember the look on her face when I told her that she needed therapy. Shock, with a brief glint of confusion followed by anger. She didn't try to stay friends after that.
As I got closer to her, I felt myself slowly steeling up, getting into familiar territory. Cape business was all about stopping bullies, and this was no different. Well, maybe a little different. No powers, except for the one that I can't turn off. I got within hearing distance right as she was about to push Greg Veder down the stairs.
"Hess!" I called out, watching her stumble as my voice carried into her.
I watched her stiffen and slowly turn, her voice filled with the same determination as my own, "Hebert."
Greg also stopped for some reason and turned to look at me. He started trying to squeak something out at me but I cut him off, "Get to homeroom, Greg." I could hear how tense my voice was, being this close to the biggest unaligned bully of the school.
"But homeroom doesn't start for te-" he started before I cut him off again.
"Now, Greg."
He stiffened before sulking and he went down the stairs that was almost his doom moments before. I watched him skulk downwards, going hurriedly, a few glancing looks from over his shoulder as he left for wherever his homeroom was.
Sophia spoke first after Greg left, "You trying to start something, Hebert?"
"Come on, Hess. We've gone through this song and dance before," I replied, my voice tense as I felt my power telling me how she was posed to strike at any moment and how to dodge and strike back in an instant, "one arm, one eye, how much more of a handicap do you want me to give you this time?"
She glared at me, I saw her lips start to move, like she was trying to think of the right thing to say to me. I swear, I saw her mouth the words "I don't get you" before she stormed off past me, probably going to push someone else down the stairs. Watching her leave I saw some Empire members give me an approving look, and I felt my face morph into a scowl.
"If you idiots try to start anything today, I'll kick all of your asses." I heard myself growl out at them, and I was pleased when I saw them look dubious at their chances. Good, my reputation precedes me. The premier bully hunter of Winslow, that's me. Didn't matter if you were a gang backed bully or just some twat trying to make other's lives miserable, I'd kick your ass halfway across the school and make you understand that you can't just pick on others.
Feeling myself relax after dealing with Sophia, I most definitely didn't run to homeroom, I power walked. I made it there with a few minutes to spare; stopping to threaten everyone who was about to start shit isn't very conducive for being on time most days. Settling into autopilot for the day, I felt time slip by as I took notes, handed in homework, went to class, and stopped idiots from trying to start shit they couldn't finish in my school. It felt good, knowing that I was doing to the school what I was doing to the city. That I could make a difference. I'd need to find a Freshman next year to take under my wing, teach them how to fight, how to spot potential violence and put an end to it before it started. How to make sure that your reputation was earned through many victories.
Autopilot ended as lunch began; cutting through the crowd I made my way to my locker, grabbing a brown paper bag before heading into the lunch room itself to look for Emma. Through the crowd of people forming into orderly lines, I saw her sitting down at one of the tables, lunch box in hand as she waved me over. I ran over to her, happy to see her after zoning the fuck out for three classes.
As I sat down, Emma handed me a protein drink, like she normally does. I smiled at her and started to give it a good shake when I noticed Madison sitting down opposite Emma in front of us. I greeted her with a nod as I continued shaking the drink, making sure the protein powder Emma put into the drink was properly dissolved by the time I popped open the top to take a drink. It was slightly chalky, with a faint aftertaste of strawberry, a relatively nice tasting protein shake, then.
Setting the drink down, I opened the paper bag that contained the lunch I could afford to eat, a plain ham and cheese sandwich, a little mayo, and a bottle of water. The sandwich didn't last long, and I saw Emma slide over a tupperware container with some grilled chicken in it over my way. My smile grew a bit brighter, Emma always had something to help me out during lunch, especially since Dad couldn't afford to pack enough for how much I needed to eat daily. I still felt a little bad about it, like I was taking advantage of our friendship. But then she rested her head on my shoulder and sighed loudly, and any lingering thought about taking advantage of friendship vanished. It's a nice thing, being such good friends with someone.
I found myself, at that point, wanting to wrap her up in a friendship hug, and I felt my smile dim a little. She was sitting to my left, and the arm that could most easily go over her shoulders was the one that ended in a stump. Being unable to hug her in this moment, it hurt a little. Friendship sure has such strong bonds. Before I could think any further on my depressing inability to give Emma as big of a hug as I wanted, Madison opened her mouth.
"So," she started, poking at her school lunch, which appeared to be some sort of sad attempt at spaghetti, "you two just study together after school, right?" She asked, her tone suggestive of conspiracy. The traitor. Taunting my cape identity like that.
I felt Emma move her head a little to look at Madison, during this I moved my arm as well as I could over her shoulders and gave her as good a squeeze as I could with the stump, "We also sometimes watch movies together," Emma responded, nestling deeper into my side, apparently having thought of things to say to ward off Madison's questions during class today.
"We also sometimes get something to eat," I added, thinking of perfectly normal things that friends do together. Which should hopefully explain things for Madison, although our earlier reactions probably sealed our fate with her.
"Mmhmm," she replied, thinking for a bit, "Well, I won't pry for now…" Sweet relief, she won't pry, "but I expect you two to be honest to me about it in the future." Fuck. An ultimatum.
"Anyways," she continued, as if she hadn't just given me a soft time limit on revealing my cape business to her, "Have you tried getting Panacea to look at your arm or your eye? I think I heard there was a waiting list for her with this sort of stuff."
Ah, this, this I could answer, "No, I haven't tried. It happened before she started visiting hospitals anyways, if the PHO wiki is right, it probably happened a week or two after she first got powers." I gave a noncommittal shrug with my shoulder that Emma wasn't nuzzling into, "Besides, it's not life threatening, and depth perception is overrated."
That got a snort out of Madison, and she had to stop herself from laughing before waving me off with her fork, "I guess I can accept that you have your reasons. You think you'll ever tell me what happened? I gathered that Emma was there when it happened from what little you've told me, if it's not okay I won't ask anymore."
I thought about it, and I looked at Emma, a lot of what happened that night was very personal for both of us, "... Maybe someday. It's hard to talk about, lot of bad memories there." My voice was quiet by the end, almost hushed into a pseudo stage whisper. I felt Emma snake an arm around my waist to give me a reassuring squeeze of her own.
"We'll discuss it in private if we're okay with sharing what happened," Emma said, her voice stronger than mine. I found that ironic, given all that happened that night.
Madison seemed to mull it over, her face showing her thoughts clearly as she took in the words, "Alright," she agreed, "just let me know if you're ready, and if so when you want to tell me."
That actually gave me some relief that she wasn't going to go blabbing about what happened if we told her. Although either way we kinda have to tell her, since it ties into being a cape and all.
The rest of lunch went smoothly, and we just talked. As inane as that sounds, it was nice. We just talked about class, upcoming assignments, how much of a tool Gladly was, Emma and Madison also mentioned a few incidents that occurred without my being there to stop them. Apparently a few ABB initiates thought it'd be a good idea to start a small fight with some Empire idiots. Empire idiots, that's a redundant term. They're unpowered, and they're with the Empire, critical thinking skills tend to preclude someone from being a Nazi. Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt in that encounter, which means that I can kick their asses to the fullest extent.
I felt myself entering autopilot again as lunch ended and I went to class, coming back into focus in-between as I kept an eye out for anyone starting to cause problems. Worryingly, there appeared to be a tense peace across the school as the rest of the day went by. I could see ABB and Empire goons sizing each other up in the hallways; it seemed like what those idiot initiates did earlier in the day was going to lead to a brawl. They stopped bringing knives to school after I educated them on what would happen if they escalated.
As the school day was drawing to a close, I saw a group of the two gangs squaring off with each other in the hallway that Gladly's class exited out of. Either they were extremely brave to start this where they knew I'd be, or extremely foolish. Once again, critical thinking skills and racism do not mix. I saw one of them start to throw a punch, and time slowed down. My power activated, and I saw how each of them were going to respond, I saw the resulting brawl and I knew how to end it myself. Cracking my knuckles against my jaw, I moved into the fray.
I entered first with a kick, knocking an ABB thug onto his stomach, from there I pivoted my body and brought my fist against an Empire skinhead's face, sending him down. I felt my face twist into a bloodthirsty grin as my power started feeding me information. I quickly stepped forward and slammed my forehead into the nose bridge of another Empire idiot, feeling it crack and I saw him go down with blood coming out of the now broken nose.
I heard one of the Empire mooks shout out, "Christ, why did we start this here?!" as I stepped to the side, narrowly dodging a bull rush tackle from one of the ABB members. I hooked one of his legs with my own, tripping him before kicking into his ribs, feeling them bruise against my boots. My power led me to duck, dodging a blow from one of the Empire, I jumped back and came forward, my fist punching into his gut, ramming into him with my shoulder to keep him pinned to the wall, before punching him three more times before letting him fall to the floor, dodging out of the way of another attempted attack by an ABB member.
I saw something metal gleam in his hand, and I laughed, "Looks like someone needs a reminder as to why we don't bring weapons to school." I saw his face pale, and he faltered, that moment of indecision gave me enough time to close the gap and trap his arm before breaking his elbow. I heard the knife clatter to the ground as I continued to educate him as to why we no longer escalate at Winslow. My power told me that the rest of the gang members were rushing off, even the ABB. No honor amongst thieves, I guess.
Pulling off of him, I felt blood drip off my knuckles and onto the floor, and I heard a very tired and dejected Gladly grumble out, "Taylor…" trying to figure something to say that I hadn't already heard before.
I just looked at him, my face returning to its normal, not quite as scary look, "What? They started it, I finished it."
"I'm not entirely sure that's applicable here when you joined the fight as an outsider."
I shrugged, "Well, they'll stop bringing knives to school for a while after this, and they'll also stop fighting here. I'd say that's a plus." I said cheerily.
Gladly just stared at me, before sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose, "Of course you'd think that way. Just, go home Taylor," the tool of the school grumbled, before heading back into his classroom.
With that done, I left; wiping off my bloodied knuckles on some paper towels in the restroom before heading off to meet Emma out front. Walking down the steps to the sidewalk, I saw Emma look up at me and smirk, seeing how bruised my knuckles were from fighting before we left to the warehouse that acted as my workshop.
So, this is a return to writing for me after an eight year hiatus. Hoping it's received well. As for updates, this one is early. I'm going to finish writing up all of Arc 1 Dragonslayer plus an interlude chapter before posting them weekly, to give me a buffer to start working on Arc 2 Conviction. Lemme know what you guys think of this fun little thing I've got going right now.
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Dragonslayer 1.2
Betaread by @Hiro Dark and @CyberAngelRowan
Emma and I left for the workshop that we had hidden in a warehouse by the docks. I let my power guide me as we walked through town, making sure to dip into different stores and alleys to ensure that no one was following or watching where we were going. During these trips I tend to lead Emma by the hand since she often can't keep up when I'm going at my fastest, and we keep holding each other's hands when we need to walk slowly to look casual for anyone that my power pings as keeping an eye out.
I made a mental note of each ping and memorized where they're guarding, they tend to be decent places to hit when I start my patrols. We ended up having to walk around for about an hour before my power let me know it was safe to enter, a bit longer than normal so someone was getting suspicious of where my cape identity kept their base of operations. Dipping in quickly, Emma and I went to activate the tools of my workshop.
Once the soothing hum of power and activated tinkertech hit, I called over to Emma for her to follow me. She nods, having done this part countless times before, and will doubtless continue to do it for the foreseeable future. I opened a compartment on one of my workbenches and pulled out a prosthetic arm. It's not a pretty thing, but it works. Function over form, in all ways, is how my Tinkertech works. It's a rough looking forearm, like a shaped piece of metal, with obvious rivets in place to hold it together, ending in a hand that looks like it's more sturdy than dextrous. The whole thing is black, with crimson red glowing from lines in the metalwork. An odd quirk of my tech; the power sources I make, and the conduits to transfer that power, all glow with this hateful crimson.
Pulling it up and onto my stump, Emma dutifully starts to attach it, tightening the braces and making sure it's connected properly. With a short hiss of pain as the connection seals, I tenderly move the fingers on the hand one after another before twisting my wrist and making sure that it is working as intended. I smirk; the prosthetic's appearance is a lie, it's as dextrous as it is sturdy. A fine work of engineering on my own part.
I looked over at Emma after checking that my arm works, my face softening into a smile involuntarily, "Thanks, Emma."
She returned the smile, her face perfectly framed by her red hair, practically beaming at the praise, "It's no problem, Tay."
My spirits lifted with her presence, I pulled up some unfinished projects and sat down at one of my workbenches to start tinkering. I was vaguely aware that Emma sat down across from me, and I saw her pull out her phone to check the internet while I was working. Tinkering is… Weird. You don't notice time passing, and the whole world seems to cease, the only thing existing is the work in front of you and the idea of what it should be. What's especially weird is that even when I'm tinkering, I know that Emma is nearby. She cuts through the haze, and I always know where she is, even if just barely. Friendship like ours is great, with her being able to keep me grounded during tinkering.
I heard her words cut clear through the haze, "What are you working on?" and I stopped, having finished one of the little devices. I leaned back, cracked my back and moved my shoulders around to limber up after having been bent over tinkering for what felt like ten minutes, but was probably two hours.
"Grenades," I grunted. Getting out of the Tinker Fugue, I'm not the most coherent person.
I saw her eyes widen a bit, "So, grenades? Knowing you, they have multiple settings."
I nodded, she was right. Most of my gear was designed to have multiple settings to operate on, all of which could be switched on the fly. Feeling the haze lift off of me, I replied, "Yeah, so far they've only got three settings. Flashbang, electric discharge to stun, and incendiary."
She pursed her lips, nodding in thought. "That sounds like you, Tay. Two to capture, one to kill or annoy stronger opponents. How do these ones work?"
I knew she wouldn't remember how, but she knew how much I loved talking about my Tinker Tech. I smiled warmly at her thoughtfulness, and would skimp on the details in return. "Well, there's two ways of choosing which setting they're on. Here, catch," I said, tossing the finished grenade at her in a gentle, underhanded arc.
She caught the device and started looking over it, "There's three buttons on it, each one corresponds to a different setting. If you just tap a button, it'll be impact based. If you hold the button for a second, it'll be delayed by three seconds after impact," I informed her as she inspected the buttons. "I can also control what type they'll all be and whether they'll impact or delay from my armor." I nodded my head towards an attachment sitting next to where I grabbed my prosthetic from, a simple thing with buttons on it to control most of my gear while waiting without having to fiddle with everything individually.
She set the grenade down and nodded, taking it in. "So far you've just got the one? Planning on making any more tonight?" She asked, looking at the unfinished ones in front of me.
"Yeah, now that I've got one finished and standardized, I can put together five more easily enough, shouldn't take too long. Won't even enter a fugue during it."
I had already started grabbing the parts I'd need to finish making my new grenades when Emma brought over something she knew I'd want to tinker on. Seemed like there wasn't a week that went by that I didn't tinker on it.
The Endslayer. If you squinted, it could be called a sword. But it was far too thick, far too heavy to be called a sword. It was more like a giant club of Tinkertech that happened to be sharp. Like most of my gear, it had different settings. Currently, it has five:monomolecular blade, matter disintegration, plasma cutter, vibration blade, and an electrified stun setting that can be dialed up or down, depending on the current target. I didn't name it, I thought the name was a bit presumptuous, but Emma was adamant on the name after I figured out my specialty. I remember watching a video of Leviathan's attack on Kyushu, and thinking about ways to kill it. And my power, the tinkering side of my power, just started getting ideas. I remember sitting back and filling an entire notebook in Gladly's class while we were supposed to be watching the video and the resulting fugue after leaving school that day. It took me three weeks of almost nonstop tinkering, but by the end of it I knew my speciality: Monster slaying. I could make gear designed to withstand and kill Breakers, Changers, and the Endbringers themselves. Although, I feel like my current weapon is really only capable of maybe harming Leviathan. I'd have to see him in action personally to know how to tinker on the Endslayer to kill him. The edited videos don't give me enough information on how to kill him. But I will end the Endbringer; I can feel it in the marrow of my bones.
Setting aside my new grenades, I started to inspect the Endslayer more closely. Something about it was ticking in the back of my mind, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was. It felt almost like I had a new idea for a setting, but that I wasn't quite there yet. Shaking my head slightly, I started to disassemble it to do some minor repairs and tuning work before I went out tonight. There wasn't anything too major to repair, the carbon fiber used for the vibration blade was starting to crack so I replaced it with a newer one, hopefully more sturdy than the last. The conductors for the stun setting were cracked as well, probably from when I used the Endslayer as a shield against one of Mush's attacks. Bastard sent a boulder made out of broken bricks at me.
While working on the repairs, Emma decided to speak up about something that had to be talked about, but something I would have preferred to ignore in favor of tinkering or patrolling.
"So, Madison…" she started, trailing off at the end, the obvious was what was unsaid. Our friend had figured out the cape business.
"Yeah, we should probably tell her," I started, thinking about how I'm going to explain it to Dad.
"I mean, Madison's a good friend," she sighed, clearly thinking about this, "but should we really tell her that you're a cape?"
I shrugged, getting back to tightening a few nuts and bolts on the Endslayer, "She's already figured it out if what she said has any truth to it, but that's not what I'm worried about." Putting it back together, I started to apply the casing to my weapon and get it back into patrol condition, "if we're going to tell anyone first, it needs to be our parents. You need to tell yours, I need to tell my dad."
She hesitated for a second, her face flashing a few emotions too quickly for me to read all of them, but I knew I saw worry and determination last before she nodded, "Yeah, we'll need to tell them…"
"I mean, it's been two years. What's the worst that could happen?" I said, immediately regretting taunting Murphy like that.
"Why did you do that, Tay? Why did you taunt Murphy? Combat Thinker powers do nothing against Murphy!" Her tone was full of mock rage, clearly taking an out from our current conversation.
"We'll see, it'll be fiiine," I drawed out, clearly making the oncoming situation much worse. "Anyways, I need to get suited up for patrol; and you need to help me get it on."
She murmured her assent, and got up to gather a few things while I moved over to where my current suit was held. It was more a suit of armor than a costume, but the effect was the same when I wore my helmet. It looked vaguely medieval, like all of my Tinker Tech, pauldrons, vambraces, a thick heavy cuirass, a cape, and greaves; it all looked medieval, the lines of crimson betraying their nature as Tinker Tech. Underneath it all lay a bodysuit made out of a nanofiber polymer compound that could stop small arms fire and most non Tinker made blades. I carefully designed all of my suits to hide that I used a prosthetic; something like that was a dead giveaway for my civilian identity. The main function of the suit wasn't just for defense, with the helm I could control most of my gear including electronic magnets that held the cloak on. The suit was also capable of enhancing my strength slightly, still within human levels but nearing the point that proper Brutes could rate.
Taking off my pants, I moved to grab the undersuit and started to step into it. Emma knew she was needed, and came over to help hold it open for me. Getting my legs in, I took off my shirt and I could see how Emma's eyes stayed near my torso, where so many scars remain from the early days of my cape career, and a few from fights where I had no choice but to take a hit to allow me a chance to retaliate at full strength. I felt shame, shame that I had allowed myself to take such injuries and worry my friend like this, shame that I couldn't stop myself from going out if I wanted to. I knew that I couldn't live with myself if I didn't do everything I could do to stop the disease that was the filth in this city from spreading. If I didn't do everything I could do to clean up the city, and help make Dad's dream of the ferry reopening a reality.
I kept tugging the undersuit on, trying not to think about how I was going out again, leaving Emma alone. I saw her face, red with the heat from the workshop. Better ventilation would make its location obvious to anyone searching for it. Sliding my arms through, I turned around and Emma zipped it from the back. I could have probably designed one that didn't need a zipper, I could have designed my suits to not need a second set of hands. But I couldn't do that, not really. I couldn't remove Emma from my cape life, she was there from the beginning, she would be there until the end. Whether it be a bitter or sweet end, she will be there.
Sliding the leg and arm armor over my limbs, I thought about tonight's patrol. Last patrol was focused on Empire territory, and I ended up scaring off a new cape they had brought in called Rune, a terrakinetic if the slab of concrete she was riding on was any indication. But assuming limitations like that is how you end up either dead or dying, so I had her marked down as a total telekinetic until it could be proven otherwise. The Empire had been hurting for about a year, ever since I had managed to capture Hookwolf and got him caged with the help of the local Protectorate. It was actually due to Hookwolf that the Endslayer had its matter disintegration mode, as well as the ability to dial up the shock value on the stun setting. Something about seeing him in action, watching him transform into his wolf mode, made it click in my head that these were things that would be of the most use to me. It wasn't a clean capture, I had taken an arm from him in the process. He gave me an ugly scar running down my side, so I considered us even.
I couldn't double dip against the Empire, they'd get too desperate if they thought that I was focusing on them more than any of the other gangs. The Merchants hadn't been too active the past few weeks; either they were focusing on shoring up their own internal logistics - not likely - or they were getting materials for Squealer to try something big. I couldn't go after them just for that, I'd have to first find Squealer's garage and that was well hidden. Much better than you would think a bunch of meth heads would manage. Besides, it would be suicide to try to attack a Tinker in their own workshop. I knew that my own hideout was well hidden and well defended; a faraday cage I built into the walls of the warehouse kept any stray signal from escaping and we had our own kitbashed wifi router to keep us online while we were inside. My own internal communications used a form of subspace communication and easily slipped by the faraday cage's effects. Even if someone found my workshop, they'd be hard pressed to leave the place alive with how many traps and defenses I had built into the place. At any time, I could activate a killswitch to send the place sky high if it seemed impossible to defend or take back from intruders. Assuming Squealer was a Tinker worth her salt, her workshop would have similar defenses or be protected in an equally lethal manner.
Continuing to think on that, Emma started to help bind the magnetic locks that kept the armor held in place. All of that left one gang to piss off tonight, the Azn Bad Boys. I held a special hatred in my heart for the ABB for what they did to Emma and I. Even if they hadn't done everything they had to me and mine, I would still find their practices of selling women into slavery repugnant in the extreme. Lung left a burn on me a few months back, a little scar from one of his fireballs on the small of my back. I still owe him for that, so if I met him tonight all the better. Thinking about it some more, I'd want to run a rooftop patrol. Something a bit more stealthy than my normal patrol measures, to make sure that if Lung were active tonight, I'd be able to get the drop on him.
Holding my arms out to the side, Emma lifted the cuirass and pressed it onto my chest. I held it in place while she moved to grab the other half and connect the two so that they would magnetically seal against each other. Nodding my thanks to her, I did some preliminary movements, stretching my body to make sure that everything was sealed properly and that I still had a full range of movement. Once I was sure that everything was in order, I started to load up my bandolier with what I thought I would need for tonight. Three grenades, six monomolecular blade throwing knives with stabilizing gyros, and three smoke bombs in case I needed to make a getaway. I walked over to the workbench and grabbed some new additions to my suit, pauldrons. Glorious pauldrons, no more having Emma shove my arm back into place. No more being unable to throw my shoulder into a door out of fear of injuring myself too badly. No more looking like I ran out of time to make the rest of my cosplay so my shoulders are bare. Pauldrons, pauldrons, pauldrons.
Emma could tell just how ecstatic I was to have proper shoulder protection, finally, and she smiled as she looked at me. Clearly, she was vicariously happy for my happiness, as all good friends are. I threw the cloak over my shoulders, sealing the clasps on before putting on my helmet. It was a simple thing, really. A chin strap, a dome to protect my head, and a large visor that went down and hid my face above my lips. Down the center of the visor, a short fin of metal sticks out, something to stop most swinging blows from going straight through it and hitting my face. I turned on the internal computer and began calibrations, controlling everything with my eye's movement. Switching the Endslayer from stun, to vibration, to plasma cutter, and then back to stun before placing it against my back where it would be sealed against my suit until I needed it.
I took out the final piece, the part that hid my identity most of all. A small box that's left attached to my throat, vibrating to distort my vocal chords. I turn it on and give it a quick test; my voice is deep, distorted with an almost ethereal quality to it while my little gadget is activated. I turned to look at Emma, and past her at the mirror we had bought to make sure that I didn't end up looking like an idiot after my first attempt at armor. It looked well, the pauldrons added several inches to my shoulders, further masking my gender and therefore my own identity. My armor was jet black, the crimson lines of energy faintly glowing through parts. The helm I wasn't happy with, but it was sturdy and I hadn't needed to replace it yet. It was the only part of my original suit that still existed, the rest of it having been cannibalized for parts. My cloak hung off my back well, leaving about three inches between its end and the ground. I nodded; it looked good, intimidating even. I wasn't concerned about PR, if it scared thugs into hesitating for even a split second, then it was worth it.
I stepped over to Emma, "I think tonight's going to be an ABB night."
"Yeah? Rooftop patrol or are you going to-" she started before I cut her off.
"No, it's a good tool, but it works too well as a deterrent. They know not to step out of the shadows when I'm using it, it keeps people safe for that moment but I'd rather they not know I was there so that I could capture them and keep people safe for more than just the one night I'm patrolling in that area."
She mulled that over for a bit before nodding. "That makes sense," she sighed, "but I feel better when you're using it. Just feels like it's safer for you."
I nodded. "That may be true, but it's better for Brockton that I don't use it. At least not tonight. I'll use it next patrol, promise."
She looked pensive, silent for almost too long before responding. "I'll hold you to that, be safe Tay."
"Emma, we've been over this. When I'm in costume, I'm the Black Knight."
Emma and I left for the workshop that we had hidden in a warehouse by the docks. I let my power guide me as we walked through town, making sure to dip into different stores and alleys to ensure that no one was following or watching where we were going. During these trips I tend to lead Emma by the hand since she often can't keep up when I'm going at my fastest, and we keep holding each other's hands when we need to walk slowly to look casual for anyone that my power pings as keeping an eye out.
I made a mental note of each ping and memorized where they're guarding, they tend to be decent places to hit when I start my patrols. We ended up having to walk around for about an hour before my power let me know it was safe to enter, a bit longer than normal so someone was getting suspicious of where my cape identity kept their base of operations. Dipping in quickly, Emma and I went to activate the tools of my workshop.
Once the soothing hum of power and activated tinkertech hit, I called over to Emma for her to follow me. She nods, having done this part countless times before, and will doubtless continue to do it for the foreseeable future. I opened a compartment on one of my workbenches and pulled out a prosthetic arm. It's not a pretty thing, but it works. Function over form, in all ways, is how my Tinkertech works. It's a rough looking forearm, like a shaped piece of metal, with obvious rivets in place to hold it together, ending in a hand that looks like it's more sturdy than dextrous. The whole thing is black, with crimson red glowing from lines in the metalwork. An odd quirk of my tech; the power sources I make, and the conduits to transfer that power, all glow with this hateful crimson.
Pulling it up and onto my stump, Emma dutifully starts to attach it, tightening the braces and making sure it's connected properly. With a short hiss of pain as the connection seals, I tenderly move the fingers on the hand one after another before twisting my wrist and making sure that it is working as intended. I smirk; the prosthetic's appearance is a lie, it's as dextrous as it is sturdy. A fine work of engineering on my own part.
I looked over at Emma after checking that my arm works, my face softening into a smile involuntarily, "Thanks, Emma."
She returned the smile, her face perfectly framed by her red hair, practically beaming at the praise, "It's no problem, Tay."
My spirits lifted with her presence, I pulled up some unfinished projects and sat down at one of my workbenches to start tinkering. I was vaguely aware that Emma sat down across from me, and I saw her pull out her phone to check the internet while I was working. Tinkering is… Weird. You don't notice time passing, and the whole world seems to cease, the only thing existing is the work in front of you and the idea of what it should be. What's especially weird is that even when I'm tinkering, I know that Emma is nearby. She cuts through the haze, and I always know where she is, even if just barely. Friendship like ours is great, with her being able to keep me grounded during tinkering.
I heard her words cut clear through the haze, "What are you working on?" and I stopped, having finished one of the little devices. I leaned back, cracked my back and moved my shoulders around to limber up after having been bent over tinkering for what felt like ten minutes, but was probably two hours.
"Grenades," I grunted. Getting out of the Tinker Fugue, I'm not the most coherent person.
I saw her eyes widen a bit, "So, grenades? Knowing you, they have multiple settings."
I nodded, she was right. Most of my gear was designed to have multiple settings to operate on, all of which could be switched on the fly. Feeling the haze lift off of me, I replied, "Yeah, so far they've only got three settings. Flashbang, electric discharge to stun, and incendiary."
She pursed her lips, nodding in thought. "That sounds like you, Tay. Two to capture, one to kill or annoy stronger opponents. How do these ones work?"
I knew she wouldn't remember how, but she knew how much I loved talking about my Tinker Tech. I smiled warmly at her thoughtfulness, and would skimp on the details in return. "Well, there's two ways of choosing which setting they're on. Here, catch," I said, tossing the finished grenade at her in a gentle, underhanded arc.
She caught the device and started looking over it, "There's three buttons on it, each one corresponds to a different setting. If you just tap a button, it'll be impact based. If you hold the button for a second, it'll be delayed by three seconds after impact," I informed her as she inspected the buttons. "I can also control what type they'll all be and whether they'll impact or delay from my armor." I nodded my head towards an attachment sitting next to where I grabbed my prosthetic from, a simple thing with buttons on it to control most of my gear while waiting without having to fiddle with everything individually.
She set the grenade down and nodded, taking it in. "So far you've just got the one? Planning on making any more tonight?" She asked, looking at the unfinished ones in front of me.
"Yeah, now that I've got one finished and standardized, I can put together five more easily enough, shouldn't take too long. Won't even enter a fugue during it."
I had already started grabbing the parts I'd need to finish making my new grenades when Emma brought over something she knew I'd want to tinker on. Seemed like there wasn't a week that went by that I didn't tinker on it.
The Endslayer. If you squinted, it could be called a sword. But it was far too thick, far too heavy to be called a sword. It was more like a giant club of Tinkertech that happened to be sharp. Like most of my gear, it had different settings. Currently, it has five:monomolecular blade, matter disintegration, plasma cutter, vibration blade, and an electrified stun setting that can be dialed up or down, depending on the current target. I didn't name it, I thought the name was a bit presumptuous, but Emma was adamant on the name after I figured out my specialty. I remember watching a video of Leviathan's attack on Kyushu, and thinking about ways to kill it. And my power, the tinkering side of my power, just started getting ideas. I remember sitting back and filling an entire notebook in Gladly's class while we were supposed to be watching the video and the resulting fugue after leaving school that day. It took me three weeks of almost nonstop tinkering, but by the end of it I knew my speciality: Monster slaying. I could make gear designed to withstand and kill Breakers, Changers, and the Endbringers themselves. Although, I feel like my current weapon is really only capable of maybe harming Leviathan. I'd have to see him in action personally to know how to tinker on the Endslayer to kill him. The edited videos don't give me enough information on how to kill him. But I will end the Endbringer; I can feel it in the marrow of my bones.
Setting aside my new grenades, I started to inspect the Endslayer more closely. Something about it was ticking in the back of my mind, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was. It felt almost like I had a new idea for a setting, but that I wasn't quite there yet. Shaking my head slightly, I started to disassemble it to do some minor repairs and tuning work before I went out tonight. There wasn't anything too major to repair, the carbon fiber used for the vibration blade was starting to crack so I replaced it with a newer one, hopefully more sturdy than the last. The conductors for the stun setting were cracked as well, probably from when I used the Endslayer as a shield against one of Mush's attacks. Bastard sent a boulder made out of broken bricks at me.
While working on the repairs, Emma decided to speak up about something that had to be talked about, but something I would have preferred to ignore in favor of tinkering or patrolling.
"So, Madison…" she started, trailing off at the end, the obvious was what was unsaid. Our friend had figured out the cape business.
"Yeah, we should probably tell her," I started, thinking about how I'm going to explain it to Dad.
"I mean, Madison's a good friend," she sighed, clearly thinking about this, "but should we really tell her that you're a cape?"
I shrugged, getting back to tightening a few nuts and bolts on the Endslayer, "She's already figured it out if what she said has any truth to it, but that's not what I'm worried about." Putting it back together, I started to apply the casing to my weapon and get it back into patrol condition, "if we're going to tell anyone first, it needs to be our parents. You need to tell yours, I need to tell my dad."
She hesitated for a second, her face flashing a few emotions too quickly for me to read all of them, but I knew I saw worry and determination last before she nodded, "Yeah, we'll need to tell them…"
"I mean, it's been two years. What's the worst that could happen?" I said, immediately regretting taunting Murphy like that.
"Why did you do that, Tay? Why did you taunt Murphy? Combat Thinker powers do nothing against Murphy!" Her tone was full of mock rage, clearly taking an out from our current conversation.
"We'll see, it'll be fiiine," I drawed out, clearly making the oncoming situation much worse. "Anyways, I need to get suited up for patrol; and you need to help me get it on."
She murmured her assent, and got up to gather a few things while I moved over to where my current suit was held. It was more a suit of armor than a costume, but the effect was the same when I wore my helmet. It looked vaguely medieval, like all of my Tinker Tech, pauldrons, vambraces, a thick heavy cuirass, a cape, and greaves; it all looked medieval, the lines of crimson betraying their nature as Tinker Tech. Underneath it all lay a bodysuit made out of a nanofiber polymer compound that could stop small arms fire and most non Tinker made blades. I carefully designed all of my suits to hide that I used a prosthetic; something like that was a dead giveaway for my civilian identity. The main function of the suit wasn't just for defense, with the helm I could control most of my gear including electronic magnets that held the cloak on. The suit was also capable of enhancing my strength slightly, still within human levels but nearing the point that proper Brutes could rate.
Taking off my pants, I moved to grab the undersuit and started to step into it. Emma knew she was needed, and came over to help hold it open for me. Getting my legs in, I took off my shirt and I could see how Emma's eyes stayed near my torso, where so many scars remain from the early days of my cape career, and a few from fights where I had no choice but to take a hit to allow me a chance to retaliate at full strength. I felt shame, shame that I had allowed myself to take such injuries and worry my friend like this, shame that I couldn't stop myself from going out if I wanted to. I knew that I couldn't live with myself if I didn't do everything I could do to stop the disease that was the filth in this city from spreading. If I didn't do everything I could do to clean up the city, and help make Dad's dream of the ferry reopening a reality.
I kept tugging the undersuit on, trying not to think about how I was going out again, leaving Emma alone. I saw her face, red with the heat from the workshop. Better ventilation would make its location obvious to anyone searching for it. Sliding my arms through, I turned around and Emma zipped it from the back. I could have probably designed one that didn't need a zipper, I could have designed my suits to not need a second set of hands. But I couldn't do that, not really. I couldn't remove Emma from my cape life, she was there from the beginning, she would be there until the end. Whether it be a bitter or sweet end, she will be there.
Sliding the leg and arm armor over my limbs, I thought about tonight's patrol. Last patrol was focused on Empire territory, and I ended up scaring off a new cape they had brought in called Rune, a terrakinetic if the slab of concrete she was riding on was any indication. But assuming limitations like that is how you end up either dead or dying, so I had her marked down as a total telekinetic until it could be proven otherwise. The Empire had been hurting for about a year, ever since I had managed to capture Hookwolf and got him caged with the help of the local Protectorate. It was actually due to Hookwolf that the Endslayer had its matter disintegration mode, as well as the ability to dial up the shock value on the stun setting. Something about seeing him in action, watching him transform into his wolf mode, made it click in my head that these were things that would be of the most use to me. It wasn't a clean capture, I had taken an arm from him in the process. He gave me an ugly scar running down my side, so I considered us even.
I couldn't double dip against the Empire, they'd get too desperate if they thought that I was focusing on them more than any of the other gangs. The Merchants hadn't been too active the past few weeks; either they were focusing on shoring up their own internal logistics - not likely - or they were getting materials for Squealer to try something big. I couldn't go after them just for that, I'd have to first find Squealer's garage and that was well hidden. Much better than you would think a bunch of meth heads would manage. Besides, it would be suicide to try to attack a Tinker in their own workshop. I knew that my own hideout was well hidden and well defended; a faraday cage I built into the walls of the warehouse kept any stray signal from escaping and we had our own kitbashed wifi router to keep us online while we were inside. My own internal communications used a form of subspace communication and easily slipped by the faraday cage's effects. Even if someone found my workshop, they'd be hard pressed to leave the place alive with how many traps and defenses I had built into the place. At any time, I could activate a killswitch to send the place sky high if it seemed impossible to defend or take back from intruders. Assuming Squealer was a Tinker worth her salt, her workshop would have similar defenses or be protected in an equally lethal manner.
Continuing to think on that, Emma started to help bind the magnetic locks that kept the armor held in place. All of that left one gang to piss off tonight, the Azn Bad Boys. I held a special hatred in my heart for the ABB for what they did to Emma and I. Even if they hadn't done everything they had to me and mine, I would still find their practices of selling women into slavery repugnant in the extreme. Lung left a burn on me a few months back, a little scar from one of his fireballs on the small of my back. I still owe him for that, so if I met him tonight all the better. Thinking about it some more, I'd want to run a rooftop patrol. Something a bit more stealthy than my normal patrol measures, to make sure that if Lung were active tonight, I'd be able to get the drop on him.
Holding my arms out to the side, Emma lifted the cuirass and pressed it onto my chest. I held it in place while she moved to grab the other half and connect the two so that they would magnetically seal against each other. Nodding my thanks to her, I did some preliminary movements, stretching my body to make sure that everything was sealed properly and that I still had a full range of movement. Once I was sure that everything was in order, I started to load up my bandolier with what I thought I would need for tonight. Three grenades, six monomolecular blade throwing knives with stabilizing gyros, and three smoke bombs in case I needed to make a getaway. I walked over to the workbench and grabbed some new additions to my suit, pauldrons. Glorious pauldrons, no more having Emma shove my arm back into place. No more being unable to throw my shoulder into a door out of fear of injuring myself too badly. No more looking like I ran out of time to make the rest of my cosplay so my shoulders are bare. Pauldrons, pauldrons, pauldrons.
Emma could tell just how ecstatic I was to have proper shoulder protection, finally, and she smiled as she looked at me. Clearly, she was vicariously happy for my happiness, as all good friends are. I threw the cloak over my shoulders, sealing the clasps on before putting on my helmet. It was a simple thing, really. A chin strap, a dome to protect my head, and a large visor that went down and hid my face above my lips. Down the center of the visor, a short fin of metal sticks out, something to stop most swinging blows from going straight through it and hitting my face. I turned on the internal computer and began calibrations, controlling everything with my eye's movement. Switching the Endslayer from stun, to vibration, to plasma cutter, and then back to stun before placing it against my back where it would be sealed against my suit until I needed it.
I took out the final piece, the part that hid my identity most of all. A small box that's left attached to my throat, vibrating to distort my vocal chords. I turn it on and give it a quick test; my voice is deep, distorted with an almost ethereal quality to it while my little gadget is activated. I turned to look at Emma, and past her at the mirror we had bought to make sure that I didn't end up looking like an idiot after my first attempt at armor. It looked well, the pauldrons added several inches to my shoulders, further masking my gender and therefore my own identity. My armor was jet black, the crimson lines of energy faintly glowing through parts. The helm I wasn't happy with, but it was sturdy and I hadn't needed to replace it yet. It was the only part of my original suit that still existed, the rest of it having been cannibalized for parts. My cloak hung off my back well, leaving about three inches between its end and the ground. I nodded; it looked good, intimidating even. I wasn't concerned about PR, if it scared thugs into hesitating for even a split second, then it was worth it.
I stepped over to Emma, "I think tonight's going to be an ABB night."
"Yeah? Rooftop patrol or are you going to-" she started before I cut her off.
"No, it's a good tool, but it works too well as a deterrent. They know not to step out of the shadows when I'm using it, it keeps people safe for that moment but I'd rather they not know I was there so that I could capture them and keep people safe for more than just the one night I'm patrolling in that area."
She mulled that over for a bit before nodding. "That makes sense," she sighed, "but I feel better when you're using it. Just feels like it's safer for you."
I nodded. "That may be true, but it's better for Brockton that I don't use it. At least not tonight. I'll use it next patrol, promise."
She looked pensive, silent for almost too long before responding. "I'll hold you to that, be safe Tay."
"Emma, we've been over this. When I'm in costume, I'm the Black Knight."
So, here we are with the second part of arc one. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep these going at a week by week basis.
Yeah, yeah, already going back on my word about how I'm planning on posting these. But I couldn't help it.
I'm honestly shocked that a good chunk of people seem to like this story from the little that's there. One day, I will write "Taylor, Queen of the Murlocs" and you will all doubt my sanity.
Yeah, yeah, already going back on my word about how I'm planning on posting these. But I couldn't help it.
I'm honestly shocked that a good chunk of people seem to like this story from the little that's there. One day, I will write "Taylor, Queen of the Murlocs" and you will all doubt my sanity.
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Dragonslayer 1.3
Betaread by @Hiro Dark and @CyberAngelRowan
Leaping from rooftop to rooftop across Brockton never gets old. There's nothing quite like it. Running along the roofs, feeling the wind billow around you as you make that next adrenaline pounding leap. Knowing that if you fall, you'll probably need Panacea's help. It's exhilarating. Almost intoxicating. It's one of the few little joys I can enjoy as a cape, and I savor it whenever I can. Unfortunately, as fun as rooftop patrols are, they're also woefully inefficient when it comes to the amount of ground you can cover in a night. Between the three different patrols I tend to run, there's always a balance between each one. Tonight I chose the stealthiest, in the hopes that I would subdue and capture more of the filth that infests my city.
My helmet's sensors ping, and a prompt appears in my visor showing me where a noise that had a high likelihood of being an assault was coming from. I leaped across another alleyway and moved slowly towards the source of the noise. I drew my cloak over my shoulders, hiding me against the night sky above the lights in the streets. I definitely heard a scuffle with my own hearing, something moving and two people making noise. It sounded almost like they were being tortured. I steeled myself to see the worst that humanity had to offer in this city, and looked over the edge of the roof to peer down the alleyway.
I let out a startled squeak, my voice modulator turning it into an ethereal vocalization from hell.
Nope.
Not assault.
Definitely not assault.
Leaving. Leaving now. Leaving quickly.
Why? Why would anyone-?! Even if it weren't Brockton- IT'S FILTHY IN THERE!!!
Getting several blocks away before I could let myself continue the patrol as normal, I felt my face finally stop being as red as Emma's hair. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I looked around, taking a moment to let my sensors adjust to the new area before moving on. Manually searching and listening, parsing out the sounds of rats and raccoons fighting and trying to find the sounds of people in this city. I saw a couple walking down the street, sticking to the well lit areas. Given how deep I was in ABB territory, that probably wasn't enough. I watched them until they moved out of my sight, when I got a ping from my sensors.
Two blocks away, there were a lot of feet and chatter. People were moving, and talking. Could be a party just ended, could be a gathering of mooks and goons. Running across the rooftops towards the source of the ping, I started to hear it myself. Some Mandarin, some Vietnamese, and a little bit of Japanese. My suit was translating as best it could, and it didn't look good. Lots of swearing, lots of promises of violence. As I came up over the edge of the last building, I saw them. My suit counted fifty ABB members, and pinged two capes. I recognized them before my suit could tell me who they were based on past documentation, Oni Lee and Lung.
Oni Lee was, as ever, passive and silently watching from beside his master. His vibrant mask gazing emptily across the crowd of gang members gathered today. His bandolier of grenades was full, and I was wary of provoking him before I could properly get the drop on the group. I'd been close to capturing him before, but he'd been alone then. Now, he's got backup from Lung, and if I didn't set the playing field to my advantage I would lose in a heartbeat.
If there's anything I knew about fighting from before I had powers, it's that a fair fight is one that you've already lost. The moment you try to fight fair is the moment they cease, and that's when you lose. If anything, listening and learning to my Combat Thinker powers only served to reinforce that idea. See, from what I can gather, Combat Thinker powers are weird in comparison to regular Thinker powers. Regular Thinker powers are able to make connections, figure things out, but they leave out the middle work, they don't show how you do it they only give you the answer. But Combat Thinker powers, those are a special kind of bullshit. You can't just not show the middle process in a fight, you have to be aware of all the things that your power notices to make those connections. To know when and how to move your body. Combat Thinkers can skip experience, they already have it. But if you were to somehow remove a Combat Thinker's power after enough time had passed, they'd still be able to put together how to move as if they still had their power. Or, in this case, I would still know to stack the deck in my favor in every combat encounter that I could. That's something that my power had driven into me; always make sure you have the upper hand, and if you don't, cheat.
All that in mind, I grabbed three of my grenades and used my visor's control features to switch them to timed and flashbang. A minute and a half sounded like enough time to get in position, but I was already cursing myself for not including a simple detonator with this first batch of grenades. I threw them out in an arc, not using my power but letting my own experience guide my hand. I didn't wait to see if they were noticed, I went to the side of the building and started to rappel myself down to the ground in the alleyway. Detaching myself from the tether, I checked the timer on my visor and saw that I had about thirty seconds left before they went off. Looking in, my visor showed me that my grenades had landed behind the gang members. I had to get everyone looking in my direction if I didn't want all of that to be a waste. So, I did what I had to do.
I walked in, detaching the Endslayer and my cloak. I let it hum with power audibly as I kept walking in. I say walk, but it was more of a methodical stomp. I didn't step with care, with practiced ease I allowed the full weight of my suit to hit the ground with every step. It was loud, it was obvious, it was bait.
It worked.
It grabbed everyone's attention as I walked in. It felt like ages, but I could see from the timer that it had only taken twenty seconds.
I could see the fear in the gang members, they knew who I was, they knew what I was liable to do to them. Lung noticed this, and he started to speak.
"Black Knight," he growled at me. I could hear the grin on his face as he addressed me, clearly eager for a fight. But then, the flashbangs went off.
My helmet and visor protected me from their effect, deafening all noise and blackening my vision just before they went off. Switching the Endslayer to its stun setting, I charged.
Cleaving my way through the now blind and deaf ABB, I took down well over half their number before Lung and Oni Lee were able to shake off of the effects of my grenades.
My power screamed at me to leap forward; obliging it, I felt the air behind me slam into my back as shrapnel from Oni Lee's grenades pinged off of my armor.
Switching the Endslayer from stun to monomolecular blade, I swung to the right, slicing right through one of Lee's clones and stopping him from priming his grenades. My helmet pinged that Lung had already begun ramping up, I saw him out of the corner of my eye with silver scales forming and flame dancing around.
Switching back to stun, I started to smash and cleave my way through the remaining ABB thugs to get towards Lung, to try and knock him down before he gets too big to manage. Switching back to blade, another cut through an Oni Lee clone before going back to stun.
Clearing the remainder out of my way, I leapt towards Lung, noticing that he already had scales and was about nine feet tall. Switching the Endslayer to its matter disintegration mode, I swung with all my might down while still in the air heading towards the draconic bastard.
Like a hot knife through butter, it cleaved through him and his right arm fell to the ground. I heard him roar in pain and anger, and I watched as his ramping up sped up, his arm quickly growing back. My power told me that he was about to blast me with fire, but that I could dash through it quickly and keep up the offensive with minor damage to myself thanks to my armor. I saw his fire start, arcing around his body before beginning to shoot forwards at me. I kept the assault and jumped forward as he lept back, severing his other arm at the shoulder and taking out his left leg at the knee.
I spotted Oni Lee off to the side in one of the alleys, and I quickly threw one of my knives at him, marking him as the target in my helmet's computer to help the gyro ensure that it landed in him blade first before turning around and cleaving through another clone.
Dodging to the left, I felt a powerful gust of wind hit me and I saw one of Lung's arms swiping through empty air. I had barely dodged that. I saw him snarl and heard his inhuman growls reverberate through my bones.
"'ILL 'OU!"
Great, now he's started this shit again. Is it too much to ask that the most dangerous cape in the city maintain his mental faculties as he gets stronger?
"'ILL 'OU DEAD!"
Apparently.
I saw long spears start to grow out of his back. Shit, he was fifteen feet. His wings, great, just what I needed. I darted forward, readying myself to cleave his legs off. With a grunt of exertion turning into a roar of my own, I swung.
Lung fell.
One swing, no more legs. I felt the telltale sign that the merry suicide bomber was behind me, and jumped forward just as my power was yelling at me to do so. Huh. That's new. I beat my power's reaction time. I turned in midair and saw that my knife was buried hilt deep into his shoulder. That'll keep the bastard from using that arm.
That's something else that I've learned since starting to be a cape. There's no such thing as a flesh wound to the shoulder. If you've been shot in the shoulder, or in this case stabbed, there's a whole complicated set of muscles and bones there that work to control the whole arm. Getting your shoulder wrecked will put you out of the fight, unless you're a goddamned mass CLONING SUICIDE BOMBER!
I watched him teleport, setting a new clone up to the side before this one ran straight at me. I ran straight at him before reaching up and ripping my knife out of him, going up and over him to completely fuck his shoulder over before the grenades went off.
I flew.
I hit the ground. Hard. There's no good way to take an explosion at that distance unless you're a Brute of some kind. Despite all the baseless rumors to the contrary, I am not a Brute.
Picking myself off the ground, my helmet pinged a noise and I smiled. I knew it wasn't a pretty smile. No, that was a feral smile on my face. Too many teeth, and an almost manic grin. I stopped trying to get up and rolled to the left, dodging a fireball from Lung as he waited for his legs to regrow.
Finally jumping up to my feet, I saw Lung standing tall with Oni Lee by his side. I bemoaned my lack of ranged option and put in a mental note to put a cannon into my next prosthetic arm. Speaking of which, I saw the state it was in after being blasted by the asshole. The fingers almost fused together, mangled. I could still move the whole set forward and back, but that's it. Thankfully the magnetic seal still worked, so I'd be able to use it to grasp the Endslayer much as I had with my first prosthetic. Maybe a rail cannon? That could work.
I gripped my sharp bludgeoning tool of Tinkertech and readied it for a charge. Lung had stopped growing, but he was glaring at me hatefully. At least, I thought it was hatefully. His face was too inhuman at this point to really tell.
"DIE!"
Well, that cleared that up.
I charged at both of them, as I noticed a blue Tinkertech motorcycle enter from another alleyway. I gave a roar of exhilaration as I came upon them, swinging my blade through Oni Lee as he was cloning himself, slamming it into Lung's side and burying it halfway through his torso before ripping it out.
I heard an angry yell in Japanese from behind me, and I saw Lung start to ramp up even further. He noticed that Armsmaster was there. This was about to get ugly. Fast. A second hero was going to get Lung even crazier, and I didn't know how much more powerful he could get before I had to start making risky plays.
I noticed Armsmaster throwing himself into the fray next to me, halberd glowing blue in an offset by my sword glowing red. My helmet's sensors let me know that Oni Lee lay on the ground, unconscious from what it could pick up from his heart rate.
Good, that left just the big guy in front of us. My power pinged a plan of action, and I grimaced. It was risky; but against Lung, risky was as good as it got when it came to combat. I threw another knife at him, the one I grabbed out of the clone had turned to ash shortly after I grabbed it. It sunk in, only halfway, an annoyance if nothing else. But Lung couldn't think clearly in this state, and he was going to kill me for bothering to annoy him when a better opponent like Armsmaster was here.
I saw Armsmaster nod out of my peripheral, it appeared that he understood what I was doing and he jumped to the left right when Lung was swiping with his right arm. I started to swing, Lung's bladed claw ripping through my prosthetic as I continued to swing as hard as I could, gouging a huge wound into his chest. His claws kept going, digging into my armor, I felt them dig into my chest. It wasn't anything I couldn't survive, the armor took most of the depth of his strike away from actual fatal damage.
I heard a hiss of air, and I saw three darts hit Lung's exposed flesh as it was starting to knit together. I glanced over at Armsmaster, he had a raised fist pointed at Lung, and I saw a pneumatic dart gun slide down into the wrist of his armor.
Now now, it was a race against time for Lung. Armsmaster returned to the fray immediately, and we both fought. It was almost a dance between the three of us. Dodging, slicing, hacking, attacking. Lung was already faltering, his swipes getting slower, his body shrinking down. It wasn't too much longer before he fell over entirely, snoring as he shrank back down to his human form.
I looked over at Armsmaster before he nodded, and I deactivated the Endslayer, returning it to its place on my back. Armsmaster's halberd was already folding up, turning off and going to its place by his side.
"Thanks for the assist," I grunted, too worn out from the fight to sound like I was saying anything else of note to him.
"No thanks are necessary," he moved to begin zip tying the regular gang members as I went to retrieve my knife from Oni Lee's shoulder. "You don't seem to struggle as much as you did when you first started," he said, "but you still need to work on self preservation in your combat."
I gave a noncommittal grunt, it was a close call, yes. But I survived, and I won. "How's Lee?"
"Oni Lee's left arm is almost cut in half, it appears you were quite close to killing him when you last attacked, as he was distracted by my own arrival before he could teleport away."
"Shit. I'm used to him just leaving a clone whenever I go for him."
"Understandable, since we caught him off guard he was unable to prevent injury to himself. We'll see if we can get Panacea to look at him when he's taken to the holding cells."
I nodded, "So, want to get the statement over with before the PRT and BBPD show up?"
"That would be preferable, yes," he tapped the side of his helmet, "This is Armsmaster of Protectorate ENE, date is Four-Nine-Eleven. Taking statement from independent hero Black Knight after the takedown and arrest of Oni Lee and Lung."
"This is Black Knight, independent hero," and I gave him the basic rundown of what happened. Rooftop patrol, came across the gathering, decided to stop them before they decided to start shit, and how Armsmaster came in at the end to help take down Oni Lee and Lung. I'm sure I could have taken Oni Lee down, Lung would have been a pipe dream, but a girl can hope.
Armsmaster nodded as he listened to the statement being given, he corroborated that he had shown up during his own patrol and that he immediately came to aid after calling it in once he saw what was happening.
By the time we had finished with the statement, BBPD and PRT forces had arrived and were putting the captured gang members and capes into transport vehicles.
"Are you sure that you still aren't interested in joining the Wards?" Armsmaster asked as we were getting ready to leave, "I'm sure that we can make whatever accommodations needed to help a Tinker Brute of your caliber-"
"Not a Brute!" I angrily barked, at this point it was a reflexive response.
He stared at me in response, his helm pointing down as he wanted me to know that he was looking at my ruined arm and chestplate, "Of course. My mistake." He stopped for a short moment, before continuing, "You still haven't given us a reason, Black Knight."
I stopped, weighing my options before answering, "Shadow Stalker. I can't, won't be held responsible for what will happen if we meet."
This appeared to bring him up short, his mouth turned into a thin line as he mulled over what I said, "I take it that you two have a history, then?"
"You could say that."
"Would you care to enlighten me?"
"Only if it's off the record. Involves my civilian ID."
He stopped, and nodded, motioning for me to follow him as he walked over to an alleyway that none of the officers would overhear us talking from.
"She was there, during my Trigger."
He was obviously not expecting that. He started to sputter, his words short and sharp. "She was- she was there?! Did she cause-?!"
I cut him off, "No, worse." I leaned back against the wall and sighed. "She could have stopped it from happening."
Leaping from rooftop to rooftop across Brockton never gets old. There's nothing quite like it. Running along the roofs, feeling the wind billow around you as you make that next adrenaline pounding leap. Knowing that if you fall, you'll probably need Panacea's help. It's exhilarating. Almost intoxicating. It's one of the few little joys I can enjoy as a cape, and I savor it whenever I can. Unfortunately, as fun as rooftop patrols are, they're also woefully inefficient when it comes to the amount of ground you can cover in a night. Between the three different patrols I tend to run, there's always a balance between each one. Tonight I chose the stealthiest, in the hopes that I would subdue and capture more of the filth that infests my city.
My helmet's sensors ping, and a prompt appears in my visor showing me where a noise that had a high likelihood of being an assault was coming from. I leaped across another alleyway and moved slowly towards the source of the noise. I drew my cloak over my shoulders, hiding me against the night sky above the lights in the streets. I definitely heard a scuffle with my own hearing, something moving and two people making noise. It sounded almost like they were being tortured. I steeled myself to see the worst that humanity had to offer in this city, and looked over the edge of the roof to peer down the alleyway.
I let out a startled squeak, my voice modulator turning it into an ethereal vocalization from hell.
Nope.
Not assault.
Definitely not assault.
Leaving. Leaving now. Leaving quickly.
Why? Why would anyone-?! Even if it weren't Brockton- IT'S FILTHY IN THERE!!!
Getting several blocks away before I could let myself continue the patrol as normal, I felt my face finally stop being as red as Emma's hair. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I looked around, taking a moment to let my sensors adjust to the new area before moving on. Manually searching and listening, parsing out the sounds of rats and raccoons fighting and trying to find the sounds of people in this city. I saw a couple walking down the street, sticking to the well lit areas. Given how deep I was in ABB territory, that probably wasn't enough. I watched them until they moved out of my sight, when I got a ping from my sensors.
Two blocks away, there were a lot of feet and chatter. People were moving, and talking. Could be a party just ended, could be a gathering of mooks and goons. Running across the rooftops towards the source of the ping, I started to hear it myself. Some Mandarin, some Vietnamese, and a little bit of Japanese. My suit was translating as best it could, and it didn't look good. Lots of swearing, lots of promises of violence. As I came up over the edge of the last building, I saw them. My suit counted fifty ABB members, and pinged two capes. I recognized them before my suit could tell me who they were based on past documentation, Oni Lee and Lung.
Oni Lee was, as ever, passive and silently watching from beside his master. His vibrant mask gazing emptily across the crowd of gang members gathered today. His bandolier of grenades was full, and I was wary of provoking him before I could properly get the drop on the group. I'd been close to capturing him before, but he'd been alone then. Now, he's got backup from Lung, and if I didn't set the playing field to my advantage I would lose in a heartbeat.
If there's anything I knew about fighting from before I had powers, it's that a fair fight is one that you've already lost. The moment you try to fight fair is the moment they cease, and that's when you lose. If anything, listening and learning to my Combat Thinker powers only served to reinforce that idea. See, from what I can gather, Combat Thinker powers are weird in comparison to regular Thinker powers. Regular Thinker powers are able to make connections, figure things out, but they leave out the middle work, they don't show how you do it they only give you the answer. But Combat Thinker powers, those are a special kind of bullshit. You can't just not show the middle process in a fight, you have to be aware of all the things that your power notices to make those connections. To know when and how to move your body. Combat Thinkers can skip experience, they already have it. But if you were to somehow remove a Combat Thinker's power after enough time had passed, they'd still be able to put together how to move as if they still had their power. Or, in this case, I would still know to stack the deck in my favor in every combat encounter that I could. That's something that my power had driven into me; always make sure you have the upper hand, and if you don't, cheat.
All that in mind, I grabbed three of my grenades and used my visor's control features to switch them to timed and flashbang. A minute and a half sounded like enough time to get in position, but I was already cursing myself for not including a simple detonator with this first batch of grenades. I threw them out in an arc, not using my power but letting my own experience guide my hand. I didn't wait to see if they were noticed, I went to the side of the building and started to rappel myself down to the ground in the alleyway. Detaching myself from the tether, I checked the timer on my visor and saw that I had about thirty seconds left before they went off. Looking in, my visor showed me that my grenades had landed behind the gang members. I had to get everyone looking in my direction if I didn't want all of that to be a waste. So, I did what I had to do.
I walked in, detaching the Endslayer and my cloak. I let it hum with power audibly as I kept walking in. I say walk, but it was more of a methodical stomp. I didn't step with care, with practiced ease I allowed the full weight of my suit to hit the ground with every step. It was loud, it was obvious, it was bait.
It worked.
It grabbed everyone's attention as I walked in. It felt like ages, but I could see from the timer that it had only taken twenty seconds.
I could see the fear in the gang members, they knew who I was, they knew what I was liable to do to them. Lung noticed this, and he started to speak.
"Black Knight," he growled at me. I could hear the grin on his face as he addressed me, clearly eager for a fight. But then, the flashbangs went off.
My helmet and visor protected me from their effect, deafening all noise and blackening my vision just before they went off. Switching the Endslayer to its stun setting, I charged.
Cleaving my way through the now blind and deaf ABB, I took down well over half their number before Lung and Oni Lee were able to shake off of the effects of my grenades.
My power screamed at me to leap forward; obliging it, I felt the air behind me slam into my back as shrapnel from Oni Lee's grenades pinged off of my armor.
Switching the Endslayer from stun to monomolecular blade, I swung to the right, slicing right through one of Lee's clones and stopping him from priming his grenades. My helmet pinged that Lung had already begun ramping up, I saw him out of the corner of my eye with silver scales forming and flame dancing around.
Switching back to stun, I started to smash and cleave my way through the remaining ABB thugs to get towards Lung, to try and knock him down before he gets too big to manage. Switching back to blade, another cut through an Oni Lee clone before going back to stun.
Clearing the remainder out of my way, I leapt towards Lung, noticing that he already had scales and was about nine feet tall. Switching the Endslayer to its matter disintegration mode, I swung with all my might down while still in the air heading towards the draconic bastard.
Like a hot knife through butter, it cleaved through him and his right arm fell to the ground. I heard him roar in pain and anger, and I watched as his ramping up sped up, his arm quickly growing back. My power told me that he was about to blast me with fire, but that I could dash through it quickly and keep up the offensive with minor damage to myself thanks to my armor. I saw his fire start, arcing around his body before beginning to shoot forwards at me. I kept the assault and jumped forward as he lept back, severing his other arm at the shoulder and taking out his left leg at the knee.
I spotted Oni Lee off to the side in one of the alleys, and I quickly threw one of my knives at him, marking him as the target in my helmet's computer to help the gyro ensure that it landed in him blade first before turning around and cleaving through another clone.
Dodging to the left, I felt a powerful gust of wind hit me and I saw one of Lung's arms swiping through empty air. I had barely dodged that. I saw him snarl and heard his inhuman growls reverberate through my bones.
"'ILL 'OU!"
Great, now he's started this shit again. Is it too much to ask that the most dangerous cape in the city maintain his mental faculties as he gets stronger?
"'ILL 'OU DEAD!"
Apparently.
I saw long spears start to grow out of his back. Shit, he was fifteen feet. His wings, great, just what I needed. I darted forward, readying myself to cleave his legs off. With a grunt of exertion turning into a roar of my own, I swung.
Lung fell.
One swing, no more legs. I felt the telltale sign that the merry suicide bomber was behind me, and jumped forward just as my power was yelling at me to do so. Huh. That's new. I beat my power's reaction time. I turned in midair and saw that my knife was buried hilt deep into his shoulder. That'll keep the bastard from using that arm.
That's something else that I've learned since starting to be a cape. There's no such thing as a flesh wound to the shoulder. If you've been shot in the shoulder, or in this case stabbed, there's a whole complicated set of muscles and bones there that work to control the whole arm. Getting your shoulder wrecked will put you out of the fight, unless you're a goddamned mass CLONING SUICIDE BOMBER!
I watched him teleport, setting a new clone up to the side before this one ran straight at me. I ran straight at him before reaching up and ripping my knife out of him, going up and over him to completely fuck his shoulder over before the grenades went off.
I flew.
I hit the ground. Hard. There's no good way to take an explosion at that distance unless you're a Brute of some kind. Despite all the baseless rumors to the contrary, I am not a Brute.
Picking myself off the ground, my helmet pinged a noise and I smiled. I knew it wasn't a pretty smile. No, that was a feral smile on my face. Too many teeth, and an almost manic grin. I stopped trying to get up and rolled to the left, dodging a fireball from Lung as he waited for his legs to regrow.
Finally jumping up to my feet, I saw Lung standing tall with Oni Lee by his side. I bemoaned my lack of ranged option and put in a mental note to put a cannon into my next prosthetic arm. Speaking of which, I saw the state it was in after being blasted by the asshole. The fingers almost fused together, mangled. I could still move the whole set forward and back, but that's it. Thankfully the magnetic seal still worked, so I'd be able to use it to grasp the Endslayer much as I had with my first prosthetic. Maybe a rail cannon? That could work.
I gripped my sharp bludgeoning tool of Tinkertech and readied it for a charge. Lung had stopped growing, but he was glaring at me hatefully. At least, I thought it was hatefully. His face was too inhuman at this point to really tell.
"DIE!"
Well, that cleared that up.
I charged at both of them, as I noticed a blue Tinkertech motorcycle enter from another alleyway. I gave a roar of exhilaration as I came upon them, swinging my blade through Oni Lee as he was cloning himself, slamming it into Lung's side and burying it halfway through his torso before ripping it out.
I heard an angry yell in Japanese from behind me, and I saw Lung start to ramp up even further. He noticed that Armsmaster was there. This was about to get ugly. Fast. A second hero was going to get Lung even crazier, and I didn't know how much more powerful he could get before I had to start making risky plays.
I noticed Armsmaster throwing himself into the fray next to me, halberd glowing blue in an offset by my sword glowing red. My helmet's sensors let me know that Oni Lee lay on the ground, unconscious from what it could pick up from his heart rate.
Good, that left just the big guy in front of us. My power pinged a plan of action, and I grimaced. It was risky; but against Lung, risky was as good as it got when it came to combat. I threw another knife at him, the one I grabbed out of the clone had turned to ash shortly after I grabbed it. It sunk in, only halfway, an annoyance if nothing else. But Lung couldn't think clearly in this state, and he was going to kill me for bothering to annoy him when a better opponent like Armsmaster was here.
I saw Armsmaster nod out of my peripheral, it appeared that he understood what I was doing and he jumped to the left right when Lung was swiping with his right arm. I started to swing, Lung's bladed claw ripping through my prosthetic as I continued to swing as hard as I could, gouging a huge wound into his chest. His claws kept going, digging into my armor, I felt them dig into my chest. It wasn't anything I couldn't survive, the armor took most of the depth of his strike away from actual fatal damage.
I heard a hiss of air, and I saw three darts hit Lung's exposed flesh as it was starting to knit together. I glanced over at Armsmaster, he had a raised fist pointed at Lung, and I saw a pneumatic dart gun slide down into the wrist of his armor.
Now now, it was a race against time for Lung. Armsmaster returned to the fray immediately, and we both fought. It was almost a dance between the three of us. Dodging, slicing, hacking, attacking. Lung was already faltering, his swipes getting slower, his body shrinking down. It wasn't too much longer before he fell over entirely, snoring as he shrank back down to his human form.
I looked over at Armsmaster before he nodded, and I deactivated the Endslayer, returning it to its place on my back. Armsmaster's halberd was already folding up, turning off and going to its place by his side.
"Thanks for the assist," I grunted, too worn out from the fight to sound like I was saying anything else of note to him.
"No thanks are necessary," he moved to begin zip tying the regular gang members as I went to retrieve my knife from Oni Lee's shoulder. "You don't seem to struggle as much as you did when you first started," he said, "but you still need to work on self preservation in your combat."
I gave a noncommittal grunt, it was a close call, yes. But I survived, and I won. "How's Lee?"
"Oni Lee's left arm is almost cut in half, it appears you were quite close to killing him when you last attacked, as he was distracted by my own arrival before he could teleport away."
"Shit. I'm used to him just leaving a clone whenever I go for him."
"Understandable, since we caught him off guard he was unable to prevent injury to himself. We'll see if we can get Panacea to look at him when he's taken to the holding cells."
I nodded, "So, want to get the statement over with before the PRT and BBPD show up?"
"That would be preferable, yes," he tapped the side of his helmet, "This is Armsmaster of Protectorate ENE, date is Four-Nine-Eleven. Taking statement from independent hero Black Knight after the takedown and arrest of Oni Lee and Lung."
"This is Black Knight, independent hero," and I gave him the basic rundown of what happened. Rooftop patrol, came across the gathering, decided to stop them before they decided to start shit, and how Armsmaster came in at the end to help take down Oni Lee and Lung. I'm sure I could have taken Oni Lee down, Lung would have been a pipe dream, but a girl can hope.
Armsmaster nodded as he listened to the statement being given, he corroborated that he had shown up during his own patrol and that he immediately came to aid after calling it in once he saw what was happening.
By the time we had finished with the statement, BBPD and PRT forces had arrived and were putting the captured gang members and capes into transport vehicles.
"Are you sure that you still aren't interested in joining the Wards?" Armsmaster asked as we were getting ready to leave, "I'm sure that we can make whatever accommodations needed to help a Tinker Brute of your caliber-"
"Not a Brute!" I angrily barked, at this point it was a reflexive response.
He stared at me in response, his helm pointing down as he wanted me to know that he was looking at my ruined arm and chestplate, "Of course. My mistake." He stopped for a short moment, before continuing, "You still haven't given us a reason, Black Knight."
I stopped, weighing my options before answering, "Shadow Stalker. I can't, won't be held responsible for what will happen if we meet."
This appeared to bring him up short, his mouth turned into a thin line as he mulled over what I said, "I take it that you two have a history, then?"
"You could say that."
"Would you care to enlighten me?"
"Only if it's off the record. Involves my civilian ID."
He stopped, and nodded, motioning for me to follow him as he walked over to an alleyway that none of the officers would overhear us talking from.
"She was there, during my Trigger."
He was obviously not expecting that. He started to sputter, his words short and sharp. "She was- she was there?! Did she cause-?!"
I cut him off, "No, worse." I leaned back against the wall and sighed. "She could have stopped it from happening."
Ehhh... Posting before sunday, posting on sunday, it's all the same really...
Anyways, here's this. Not a lot to say about what's going on, felt like the fight scene was kinda meh, still need to figure out a good way to write those.
Hope y'all enjoy!
Anyways, here's this. Not a lot to say about what's going on, felt like the fight scene was kinda meh, still need to figure out a good way to write those.
Hope y'all enjoy!
Last edited:
Dragonslayer 1.4
Beta read by @Hiro Dark and @CyberAngelRowan
I made my way back to my workshop slower than I would have liked. Only having the one arm tends to make rooftop routes more perilous than normal. I was feeling a little light headed as I arrived, and I chalked it up to post adrenaline exhaustion. Crawling through the window to get in from the roof, I let out a hiss of pain as I grazed the side, my ribs on fire the whole way down..
Pulling myself up, I allowed myself to relax. My armor doesn't make it obvious, but I felt all the tension in me leave as I started heading downstairs towards Emma. Leaning against the rail for support, I found that I no longer had the energy to step lightly, each step a loud thud as I made my way down to my best friend.
I saw her when I had about a quarter of the stairs left, and she looked up at me from her laptop. I saw her beautiful face pale when she saw the state of my armor. I didn't even notice when she moved and came in close to support me, holding me up and dragging me to the couch.
It was hard to think, and most things felt like a blur. Like everything was either too thick or like there wasn't enough to feel.
I was vaguely aware that the red headed beauty was saying something, but it was all muffled. I tried to listen, tried to focus on just her voice.
"-ood?!"
"Mmwha?" Was my mumbled reply.
Almost, I could almost make it out. Her voice was nice; even panicked as it was, it felt soothing to me. I tried to focus on her, but it was getting cold. That's not a reason to not listen. I tried again, letting myself be moved by her as she started removing my armor.
I felt my helmet come undone - she knew the procedures to get it off? and I looked up at her face. I felt my mouth move into a soft smile, she was just so pretty. I saw her open her mouth and I tried as hard as I could to hear her. I focused on her soft lips, watching them move to hopefully fill in the gaps if I still couldn't hear.
"Taylor?" That's my name, I heard that.
"Why is there more blood than when you fought Hookwolf?"
I didn't frown, how could I when I was looking at her? I heard parts of it and mumbles, but her lips. Watching her beautiful lips helped me fill in the blanks. It was a question, she wanted to know about the blood. That's silly. I'm not bleeding that badly, Lung only grazed my chest.
I saw her freeze and start to panic, did I say that outloud?
She nodded. Oh, okay, that's not too bad then.
"S'kay, Ems," I mumbled up at her, "Lung's gone, captured. Arms…" I trailed off, unable to remember what it was I was talking about. I tried to move my arm, but it wouldn't budge. That was unfair, I wanted to touch her. She's so beautiful.
And now her face is red. That's cute.
"Okay, obviously blood loss is affecting your mental state," she says, probably more for her benefit than mine.
I started to mumble something back in response, but I closed my eyes and teleported to a different room. That was odd. What was I thinking about? Not important. I tried to get up but I found myself hindered by bandages that miraculously formed during the apparent teleport. Grunting, I tried to swing my legs over to the side of my lab's little "definitely not an operating room where Emma tries to patch me up."
Before I could get my legs halfway around, I felt a hand grab my shoulder and push me back down as a tired voice spoke from behind me, "No, none of that. You're not moving anywhere."
I turned my head around to look at the source, and saw Emma standing beside me. Without clothes on.
"Ems… Emma, why are you in your underwear?" I asked slowly, while feeling my face do its best impression of Emma's hair.
Her face very quickly matched mine before looking away. I saw her hands come up as she started to fiddle with her fingers, "W-well, you were cold! And I read that if you were cold the best way to warm up would be with body heat, and clothes get in the way of that…" she trailed off, very pointedly not looking at me or my bandaged chest that I just realized didn't have a bra on over the bandages.
My face grew warmer, "Ems, that's for hypothermia, not for blood loss!"
"Well, well that's what I read to do! And why are we making a big deal out of it?!" she panicked.
"I don't know! We've shared a bed before, there's nothing weird about it!" I replied in kind.
"Then let's stop freaking out!"
"Right!" I took a deep breath, and slowly let it out, letting the embarrassment leave me as I took another deep breath.
I turned to look at her, she was putting her shirt back on and I'm not sure why but I felt disappointed. With her top covered, she turned to look at me and she had a look. I knew that look, I knew it all too well. That's the look she gave whenever I did something incredibly stupid and made her worry. It also just so happened to be the same look Aunt Zoe gives Uncle Alan whenever Dad wasn't in the same room and able to stop him from saying something incredibly sutpid.
"What the hell were you thinking?!"
"I-"
"Taylor! You fought Lung! LUNG! Do you have any idea how many endbringer fights he's been to?!"
"A-"
"ALL OF THEM SINCE KYUSHU!!! And you decided to pick a fight with him?!"
"Wel-"
"Taylor! You almost died," her voice broke, and I could see the tears start as she started to sob. "I can't, I can't lose you Tay, I can't!"
I sat up as quickly as I could and used my arm to pull her into a bone crushing hug. Fuck. I hurt her. I hurt her again. All because I couldn't stop myself from fighting Lung.
I ran my fingers through her hair and tried to calm her down, "It's okay, it's okay Ems. I'm here. I'm alive." I tried to speak loud enough for her to hear me over her own tears, and I think it worked because she started to sniffle.
"I mean, besides, Armsmaster was there." I said, pulling back, wiping tears from her face. "He helped me put Lung and Oni Lee away," I smiled, hoping that I wasn't betraying how awful I felt at making her cry.
"... That explains the shrapnel in your back I had to pull out," Emma muttered, her eyes flicking towards a small bowl that I recognized as the thingy she dropped things that she pulled out of my body into.
"Huh," I vocalized my curiosity, "what was the biggest one?" I looked at her, a small smile on my lips.
"You're not getting out of this."
"Getting out of what? I just want to know-"
"You're not escaping this talk, Taylor." Shit, whole name. I'm in way more trouble than I thought.
Double down.
"You wouldn't be saying that if there wasn't a record breaker in there."
Her eyes darted back over to the bowl, success!
"Heaviest shrapnel yet," she mumbled, not meeting my gaze.
"What was that?" I asked, knowing full well that I had her distracted.
"Heaviest bit of shrapnel yet," she said loud enough for me to hear her properly. I beamed at her, my small smile blooming into a full on grin.
"Lemme see it!" I tried to crane my neck over so that I could look into the bowl, but it was just out of sight. I tried moving my body over, but the bandages got in the way. Who knew that binding your body to stop it from moving would impede your movement?
Emma sighed and got up to grab the bowl, holding it over to where I could look in. Peering into the bowl, she pointed out the shard that had taken the crown for 'heaviest piece of scrap pulled out of my body'. It was odd, jagged, and a bright red that being stained in blood wouldn't create.
I picked it up and felt my brain starting to go into overdrive looking at it, it definitely wasn't normal which meant that wasn't a normal bomb. It looked like it was an alloy of iron and cinnabar, which wouldn't make sense for use as a bomb unless you wanted it to poison the person it flew into. But it should have melted when the explosion went off, cinnabar contained mercury and that has such a low melting point. Maybe it was held together via a cascading electron field from the explosive? No, that wouldn't make sense, it would have melted by now if that were the case. Maybe-
I felt my attention jolt out of a Fugue and I saw Emma wrapped around me. Her arms cradling my chest as she leaned in to me, her head resting against my neck, feeling very nice and very warm. I let myself sit there for a second, tilting my head so that it slightly rested against hers. I took a deep breath, and I put the fascinating bit of tinker material down, willing myself to focus on something else.
Emma. My rock. The solid ground that I have built a fortress on top of. Probably not the healthiest of relationships, but sometimes friendship just is that deep.
Close my eyes. Breathe in, breathe out. Focus on Emma. Center on my friend. Breathe in, she bought new shampoo. Breathe out, feel her heart beating steadily against you.
I opened my eyes slowly, I looked over at Emma and I saw her radiant hair, and I smiled softly, "Thanks, Ems." I put my arm around her, and gave her a tender squeeze before pulling apart.
"So," I started, trying to figure out how to explain to Emma that Oni Lee had actually used a Tinkertech grenade on me.
"So," Emma responded, looking at me dead in the eyes," that was something Tinker related, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, yeah it was." I was trying not to think about the material, but there was something there that I was missing, something obvious.
"So you got blasted by a bullshit bomb, is what I'm hearing," Emma bluntly stated, making me stiffen a little at it.
"It's not that bad." I didn't whine. I didn't, and Emma will tell you the same.
"Taylor. It's Tinkertech and a bomb. You're not thinking of the full picture."
It clicked, just as she finished saying it. The news from a few weeks ago mentioned a mad tinker bomber not far from here, one that went missing around the same time the ABB was being awfully quiet.
"Fuck. The ABB has a Tinker." That was bad. As a Tinker myself, I knew the full scale of bullshit that could be achieved with a Tinker joining the ranks. And if it's the same bomber, then they already found their specialty and that made them all the more dangerous.
"Mhmm, and that's not the worst thing." Emma said, a little sheepishly.
"What could be worse than a fucking Tinker joining the ABB?" I asked, trying to figure out if they had also managed to get a Master, or worse a Thinker. Thinkers weren't as bullshit as Tinkers, but they were pretty close.
"Someone messaged me on PHO while you were out. They knew that I was connected to you, and asked to relay a message." Emma responded, looking at the floor with clear embarrassment. Fuck. She had obviously meant to tell me as soon as I came back, but she got sidetracked by me bleeding all over the workshop.
Thinking on the information given, I tried to figure out how someone would have figured out that Emma's account was connected to me, and then it hit me.
"Fucking Thinkers." I groaned out, pinching the bridge of my nose to stop an oncoming headache.
"Apparently, you saved their life tonight by doing what you do. They want to meet up to thank you, they said they'll be at Somer's Rock tomorrow from six to eight." Fuck. If I had saved their lives, and they wanted to thank me, then I'd be a bitch of the highest order to not show up. If it was a villain trying to lure me out, they chose a neutral spot that no one was willing to break the neutrality of.
Mulling everything over in my head, I came to a decision. "Shoot them a message back, tell them I'll be there."
I waited for her to do so before sighing out the word "fuck."
Emma looked at me and raised an eyebrow, and I responded to her unasked question, "We've got until tomorrow for me to fix my armor enough to look presentable at Somer's." I started to explain, "Place may be neutral ground, but anyone there that's not an independent will eat you alive if you show weakness."
I groaned and hissed as I got to my feet, "Can you send a message to our dads? Tell them we'll be staying the night at a friend's place? I've got a lot of Tinkering to do before the meeting, and I want to look my best."
I made my way back to my workshop slower than I would have liked. Only having the one arm tends to make rooftop routes more perilous than normal. I was feeling a little light headed as I arrived, and I chalked it up to post adrenaline exhaustion. Crawling through the window to get in from the roof, I let out a hiss of pain as I grazed the side, my ribs on fire the whole way down..
Pulling myself up, I allowed myself to relax. My armor doesn't make it obvious, but I felt all the tension in me leave as I started heading downstairs towards Emma. Leaning against the rail for support, I found that I no longer had the energy to step lightly, each step a loud thud as I made my way down to my best friend.
I saw her when I had about a quarter of the stairs left, and she looked up at me from her laptop. I saw her beautiful face pale when she saw the state of my armor. I didn't even notice when she moved and came in close to support me, holding me up and dragging me to the couch.
It was hard to think, and most things felt like a blur. Like everything was either too thick or like there wasn't enough to feel.
I was vaguely aware that the red headed beauty was saying something, but it was all muffled. I tried to listen, tried to focus on just her voice.
"-ood?!"
"Mmwha?" Was my mumbled reply.
Almost, I could almost make it out. Her voice was nice; even panicked as it was, it felt soothing to me. I tried to focus on her, but it was getting cold. That's not a reason to not listen. I tried again, letting myself be moved by her as she started removing my armor.
I felt my helmet come undone - she knew the procedures to get it off? and I looked up at her face. I felt my mouth move into a soft smile, she was just so pretty. I saw her open her mouth and I tried as hard as I could to hear her. I focused on her soft lips, watching them move to hopefully fill in the gaps if I still couldn't hear.
"Taylor?" That's my name, I heard that.
"Why is there more blood than when you fought Hookwolf?"
I didn't frown, how could I when I was looking at her? I heard parts of it and mumbles, but her lips. Watching her beautiful lips helped me fill in the blanks. It was a question, she wanted to know about the blood. That's silly. I'm not bleeding that badly, Lung only grazed my chest.
I saw her freeze and start to panic, did I say that outloud?
She nodded. Oh, okay, that's not too bad then.
"S'kay, Ems," I mumbled up at her, "Lung's gone, captured. Arms…" I trailed off, unable to remember what it was I was talking about. I tried to move my arm, but it wouldn't budge. That was unfair, I wanted to touch her. She's so beautiful.
And now her face is red. That's cute.
"Okay, obviously blood loss is affecting your mental state," she says, probably more for her benefit than mine.
I started to mumble something back in response, but I closed my eyes and teleported to a different room. That was odd. What was I thinking about? Not important. I tried to get up but I found myself hindered by bandages that miraculously formed during the apparent teleport. Grunting, I tried to swing my legs over to the side of my lab's little "definitely not an operating room where Emma tries to patch me up."
Before I could get my legs halfway around, I felt a hand grab my shoulder and push me back down as a tired voice spoke from behind me, "No, none of that. You're not moving anywhere."
I turned my head around to look at the source, and saw Emma standing beside me. Without clothes on.
"Ems… Emma, why are you in your underwear?" I asked slowly, while feeling my face do its best impression of Emma's hair.
Her face very quickly matched mine before looking away. I saw her hands come up as she started to fiddle with her fingers, "W-well, you were cold! And I read that if you were cold the best way to warm up would be with body heat, and clothes get in the way of that…" she trailed off, very pointedly not looking at me or my bandaged chest that I just realized didn't have a bra on over the bandages.
My face grew warmer, "Ems, that's for hypothermia, not for blood loss!"
"Well, well that's what I read to do! And why are we making a big deal out of it?!" she panicked.
"I don't know! We've shared a bed before, there's nothing weird about it!" I replied in kind.
"Then let's stop freaking out!"
"Right!" I took a deep breath, and slowly let it out, letting the embarrassment leave me as I took another deep breath.
I turned to look at her, she was putting her shirt back on and I'm not sure why but I felt disappointed. With her top covered, she turned to look at me and she had a look. I knew that look, I knew it all too well. That's the look she gave whenever I did something incredibly stupid and made her worry. It also just so happened to be the same look Aunt Zoe gives Uncle Alan whenever Dad wasn't in the same room and able to stop him from saying something incredibly sutpid.
"What the hell were you thinking?!"
"I-"
"Taylor! You fought Lung! LUNG! Do you have any idea how many endbringer fights he's been to?!"
"A-"
"ALL OF THEM SINCE KYUSHU!!! And you decided to pick a fight with him?!"
"Wel-"
"Taylor! You almost died," her voice broke, and I could see the tears start as she started to sob. "I can't, I can't lose you Tay, I can't!"
I sat up as quickly as I could and used my arm to pull her into a bone crushing hug. Fuck. I hurt her. I hurt her again. All because I couldn't stop myself from fighting Lung.
I ran my fingers through her hair and tried to calm her down, "It's okay, it's okay Ems. I'm here. I'm alive." I tried to speak loud enough for her to hear me over her own tears, and I think it worked because she started to sniffle.
"I mean, besides, Armsmaster was there." I said, pulling back, wiping tears from her face. "He helped me put Lung and Oni Lee away," I smiled, hoping that I wasn't betraying how awful I felt at making her cry.
"... That explains the shrapnel in your back I had to pull out," Emma muttered, her eyes flicking towards a small bowl that I recognized as the thingy she dropped things that she pulled out of my body into.
"Huh," I vocalized my curiosity, "what was the biggest one?" I looked at her, a small smile on my lips.
"You're not getting out of this."
"Getting out of what? I just want to know-"
"You're not escaping this talk, Taylor." Shit, whole name. I'm in way more trouble than I thought.
Double down.
"You wouldn't be saying that if there wasn't a record breaker in there."
Her eyes darted back over to the bowl, success!
"Heaviest shrapnel yet," she mumbled, not meeting my gaze.
"What was that?" I asked, knowing full well that I had her distracted.
"Heaviest bit of shrapnel yet," she said loud enough for me to hear her properly. I beamed at her, my small smile blooming into a full on grin.
"Lemme see it!" I tried to crane my neck over so that I could look into the bowl, but it was just out of sight. I tried moving my body over, but the bandages got in the way. Who knew that binding your body to stop it from moving would impede your movement?
Emma sighed and got up to grab the bowl, holding it over to where I could look in. Peering into the bowl, she pointed out the shard that had taken the crown for 'heaviest piece of scrap pulled out of my body'. It was odd, jagged, and a bright red that being stained in blood wouldn't create.
I picked it up and felt my brain starting to go into overdrive looking at it, it definitely wasn't normal which meant that wasn't a normal bomb. It looked like it was an alloy of iron and cinnabar, which wouldn't make sense for use as a bomb unless you wanted it to poison the person it flew into. But it should have melted when the explosion went off, cinnabar contained mercury and that has such a low melting point. Maybe it was held together via a cascading electron field from the explosive? No, that wouldn't make sense, it would have melted by now if that were the case. Maybe-
I felt my attention jolt out of a Fugue and I saw Emma wrapped around me. Her arms cradling my chest as she leaned in to me, her head resting against my neck, feeling very nice and very warm. I let myself sit there for a second, tilting my head so that it slightly rested against hers. I took a deep breath, and I put the fascinating bit of tinker material down, willing myself to focus on something else.
Emma. My rock. The solid ground that I have built a fortress on top of. Probably not the healthiest of relationships, but sometimes friendship just is that deep.
Close my eyes. Breathe in, breathe out. Focus on Emma. Center on my friend. Breathe in, she bought new shampoo. Breathe out, feel her heart beating steadily against you.
I opened my eyes slowly, I looked over at Emma and I saw her radiant hair, and I smiled softly, "Thanks, Ems." I put my arm around her, and gave her a tender squeeze before pulling apart.
"So," I started, trying to figure out how to explain to Emma that Oni Lee had actually used a Tinkertech grenade on me.
"So," Emma responded, looking at me dead in the eyes," that was something Tinker related, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, yeah it was." I was trying not to think about the material, but there was something there that I was missing, something obvious.
"So you got blasted by a bullshit bomb, is what I'm hearing," Emma bluntly stated, making me stiffen a little at it.
"It's not that bad." I didn't whine. I didn't, and Emma will tell you the same.
"Taylor. It's Tinkertech and a bomb. You're not thinking of the full picture."
It clicked, just as she finished saying it. The news from a few weeks ago mentioned a mad tinker bomber not far from here, one that went missing around the same time the ABB was being awfully quiet.
"Fuck. The ABB has a Tinker." That was bad. As a Tinker myself, I knew the full scale of bullshit that could be achieved with a Tinker joining the ranks. And if it's the same bomber, then they already found their specialty and that made them all the more dangerous.
"Mhmm, and that's not the worst thing." Emma said, a little sheepishly.
"What could be worse than a fucking Tinker joining the ABB?" I asked, trying to figure out if they had also managed to get a Master, or worse a Thinker. Thinkers weren't as bullshit as Tinkers, but they were pretty close.
"Someone messaged me on PHO while you were out. They knew that I was connected to you, and asked to relay a message." Emma responded, looking at the floor with clear embarrassment. Fuck. She had obviously meant to tell me as soon as I came back, but she got sidetracked by me bleeding all over the workshop.
Thinking on the information given, I tried to figure out how someone would have figured out that Emma's account was connected to me, and then it hit me.
"Fucking Thinkers." I groaned out, pinching the bridge of my nose to stop an oncoming headache.
"Apparently, you saved their life tonight by doing what you do. They want to meet up to thank you, they said they'll be at Somer's Rock tomorrow from six to eight." Fuck. If I had saved their lives, and they wanted to thank me, then I'd be a bitch of the highest order to not show up. If it was a villain trying to lure me out, they chose a neutral spot that no one was willing to break the neutrality of.
Mulling everything over in my head, I came to a decision. "Shoot them a message back, tell them I'll be there."
I waited for her to do so before sighing out the word "fuck."
Emma looked at me and raised an eyebrow, and I responded to her unasked question, "We've got until tomorrow for me to fix my armor enough to look presentable at Somer's." I started to explain, "Place may be neutral ground, but anyone there that's not an independent will eat you alive if you show weakness."
I groaned and hissed as I got to my feet, "Can you send a message to our dads? Tell them we'll be staying the night at a friend's place? I've got a lot of Tinkering to do before the meeting, and I want to look my best."
Jesus Christ this chapter kicked my fucking ass. I feel like it's because a lot of stuff was revealed but very little actually happened, it was mostly all dialogue and dealing with the unfortunate effects of fighting like a Brute when you're a baseline squishy normal.
Anyways, that's the last chapter of this arc, up next is a combo PHO Interlude and Emma Interlude, and we'll be heading straight into Arc 2 Conviction after that, so stay tuned
Anyways, that's the last chapter of this arc, up next is a combo PHO Interlude and Emma Interlude, and we'll be heading straight into Arc 2 Conviction after that, so stay tuned
Last edited:
David Spade
- Location
- I thought you had the map?
Black Knight: "So, we meet again, David Spade."
Lung: "As I have told you times before, little brute, I am not David Spade."
Black Knight: "And as I have told you times before, David, I am not a brute!"
Lung: "Did you not hear me just now, or the dozen times before!?"
Black Knight: "You keep calling me a brute! Also you can't really blame me for confusing you. With this helmet on, small details are easy to miss."
Lung: "Small-...small details!? We look absolutely nothing alike!"
Black Knight: "Pity."
Lung: "Insolent little girl. Tonight you die!"
Black Knight: "Bring it on, David!"
Note: I don't know.
Interlude E
Beta read by @CyberAngelRowan and @Hiro Dark
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♦ Topic: Lung and Oni Lee Arrested!
In: Boards ► Capes ► Cape News ► North America ► United States ► East Coast ► Massachusettess ► Brockton Bay
Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Posted On Apr 9th 2011:
According to my sources, the murderous rage dragon known as Lung, and the serial suicide bomber known as Oni Lee have been arrested following an altercation with local independent hero Black Knight and Protectorate hero Armsmaster.
From what I was able to gather, Black Knight was on patrol and decided to intervene after coming across an ABB gathering that had two of their four capes, and decided to intervene. While fighting, Armsmaster arrived on his own during his patrol and they worked together to capture Oni Lee and Lung.
[EDIT] Some people managed to snag it all on video, here's some links
[LINK]
[LINK]
[LINK]
Emma leaned back in the chair, arching her shoulders and back out as she felt two satisfying pops in her spine as she forced herself into a better posture. Her eyes flickered from the laptop where she had been browsing PHO and she glanced over and saw Taylor sleeping on the couch, her bandages red and needing changing. She cringed at the sight, at Taylor, at her best friend being so injured.
Taylor isn't a Brute.
She shouldn't have to fight like one.
She doesn't deserve the pain. Not after everything that happened that night.
Steeling herself mentally, Emma got up and stretched the rest of her body before walking over to the closet where she kept her medical supplies. If Taylor was going to keep on fighting like an idiot, the least Emma could do was patch her up before she went out to fight again.
Emma started rifling through the closet, grabbing some gauze, cleaning alcohol, and some cotton pads before walking back over to her best friend's sleeping form.
She gently nudged her with her arm on her shoulder, "Taylor…" she crooned softly.
Taylor let out a short breath before opening her eyes, her wide lips beaming at her with a soft smile spread over her face, "Your hair is so pretty."
Emma felt her breath hitch in her throat, like it always does whenever Taylor compliments her in her worn out state. She knew she shouldn't be shocked by Taylor complimenting her, that's just a thing friends did. But it always felt like it meant more when it came from her, like Taylor made it feel more raw and impactful.
She smiled at her best friend, her savior, her Hero.
"Come on, Tay," she whispered, trying to keep her voice level, "time to change those bandages."
Taylor's eyes focused for a bit before she nodded, reaching over and grabbing her phone before sitting up, checking the time. Someone who didn't know Taylor wouldn't be able to notice her tells, notice when she was hiding her pain.
Emma knew. She had known for years.
It was hard not to notice when she had seen her do the same thing when she wanted to prove that she wasn't hurt after falling off the slide, after scraping her knee, when she took a knife to the eye and lost her arm.
Always the same tells, never changing. Her neck held tight, her eye too focused on something in the distance that Emma could never see. The way her hand slightly clenched into a fist as she inhaled.
Taylor had probably managed to lie to herself, making her not notice her own pain.
But Emma knew.
Emma always knew.
She reached out and gently started to remove Taylor's wrappings, she tried to ignore the smell of sweat and blood. It still permeated the air, she still smelled that unique scent, rusted sea salt mixed with copper, that blood has.
She swore, a short and hissing thing. Taylor had managed to tear one of the stitches open and Emma would have to redo them.
"Taylor." Emma started, making her voice as stern as she could.
Her friend froze, Emma felt Taylor's muscles tense up as she realized that she had gotten caught.
"Y-yeah, Ems?" Taylor stuttered, forcing Emma to channel her inner Auntie Annette so that she wouldn't giggle at the thought of Taylor being scared of her.
"Did you do anything… Strenuous… when I told you to get some rest?" Emma ground out, steeling herself so that she could be stern with her incredibly stubborn friend.
"I just…" she trailed off, and she looked at Emma with such emotional pain. It took far too much willpower to stop herself from giving her friend a hug and cuddling into her like she did after that night. "... sorry for ruining your work." She sulked out.
Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves and to ensure that she could continue to be stern to Taylor, even when her heart was melting looking at how much Taylor was visibly upset with having ruined Emma's prior stitchings.
"Just, just hold still," Emma finally ground out, getting up and walking back to her little supply closet to pick up some needle and suture thread. She was glad that it only took the first time Taylor got cut up to learn not to use regular sewing thread, having to pull it out of her friend's skin after she healed up had been… an experience.
Returning to Taylor on the couch, she quickly rubbed her needle in alcohol and let it dry before getting to work patching up her handiwork. She felt Taylor's body tense as she held her steady, she could feel her heartbeat quicken at her touch, and all too soon it was over.
A little bit of smug satisfaction grew in Emma at how quickly she had been able to sew up Taylor's wound. Back when they first started, that would have taken them about an hour to fix up. Now all she needed to do was grill her friend on how she managed to tear the original stitches and figure out how she could stop her from doing it again while they were in Taylor's workshop.
Setting down her implements, Emma turned to Taylor and turned on the saccharine, "So, Tay…" She leaned forward, aware of her friend's face growing more and more red with the growing proximity, "remind me again, how did you open up your stitches?"
Her friend quickly looked away, mumbling something out of earshot and refusing to make any further eye contact.
"What was that?" Emma crooned sweetly, leaning close enough in that their bodies were touching.
Taylor started to sputter when Emma leaned in close enough, and it devolved into further useless sputterings as Emma cuddled into her friend.
"I can't hear you."
"I-"
"Speak up, Tay," Emma was close, she knew her friend well.
"I was just, you know?" Taylor tried to deflect.
It didn't work.
"I don't know, that's why I'm asking."
"I was just trying to get in my workout, you know? I can't just sit idle." Her face finally turned to look at Emma, and was greeted by, what Emma felt, was the flattest expression she had ever given in her life.
Clearly, there was only one solution to this.
Emma sat on the couch next to Taylor, and reached out, gently pulling her into a cuddle.
Taylor gave an indignant squawk at being pulled into a cuddle, but Emma didn't care. She wrapped her arms around Taylor's chest and just pulled her in closer.
"You won't escape friendship cuddles, Tay. You're staying put for the rest of the night," Emma declared triumphantly.
Only for Taylor to heat up against her, which was weird, Taylor didn't have a fever earlier-
"Emma. I'm topless."
Oh. Oh dear.
Taylor would later swear that Emma's face grew as red as her hair.
■
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■
♦ Topic: Lung and Oni Lee Arrested!
In: Boards ► Capes ► Cape News ► North America ► United States ► East Coast ► Massachusettess ► Brockton Bay
Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Posted On Apr 9th 2011:
According to my sources, the murderous rage dragon known as Lung, and the serial suicide bomber known as Oni Lee have been arrested following an altercation with local independent hero Black Knight and Protectorate hero Armsmaster.
From what I was able to gather, Black Knight was on patrol and decided to intervene after coming across an ABB gathering that had two of their four capes, and decided to intervene. While fighting, Armsmaster arrived on his own during his patrol and they worked together to capture Oni Lee and Lung.
[EDIT] Some people managed to snag it all on video, here's some links
[LINK]
[LINK]
[LINK]
(Showing page 1 of 1)
►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Banned)
Replied On Apr 9th 2011:
holy shit!!!1!!!
Lung's been captured?? I wonder who he is under the mask? I bet he's [MOD EDIT] Tin Mother: Void, we've discussed this. No speculating on cape identities. Enjoy your two week ban. Again.
►His_Dudeness (Unverified Cape)
Replied On Apr 9th 2011:
I actually live in the area that the fight happened and I got it on video! Here's a link for it!
[LINK]
►QueenofSalvation (Cape Groupie)
Replied On Apr 9th 2011:
...Holy. Shit
That has got to be the most METAL AS FUCK thing I have ever watched.
Seriously, that was the kind of show I would expect to see in a music video? But this? Holy hell, Black Knight is fucking incredible! The technique using that massive weapon was flawless! And seriously, how jacked does he have to be to even swing that? Brute or not, he must be incredibly built under that gear.
Further, he only came off with one hit. ONE. Against Lung! If that isn't a power, nothing is. Either one hell of an agile move or just pure combat thinker. I mean, give him the sword from that one stupid Uber and Leet Final Fantasy 7 video and he could outdo Sephiroth.
►SpecificProtagonist (Cape Groupie)
Replied On Apr 9th 2011:
... Huh. I wonder what Bakuda and that cutie Tengu were up to? Why weren't they there at the rally?
►BadSamurai
Replied On Apr 9th 2011:
I'm going to hold myself to being cautiously optimistic that they remain in Protectorate holding before they get sent to a brute rated prison for the both of them.
Think they'll let Lung out to keep fighting the Endbringers as they come?
End of Page. 1
■
Emma leaned back in the chair, arching her shoulders and back out as she felt two satisfying pops in her spine as she forced herself into a better posture. Her eyes flickered from the laptop where she had been browsing PHO and she glanced over and saw Taylor sleeping on the couch, her bandages red and needing changing. She cringed at the sight, at Taylor, at her best friend being so injured.
Taylor isn't a Brute.
She shouldn't have to fight like one.
She doesn't deserve the pain. Not after everything that happened that night.
Steeling herself mentally, Emma got up and stretched the rest of her body before walking over to the closet where she kept her medical supplies. If Taylor was going to keep on fighting like an idiot, the least Emma could do was patch her up before she went out to fight again.
Emma started rifling through the closet, grabbing some gauze, cleaning alcohol, and some cotton pads before walking back over to her best friend's sleeping form.
She gently nudged her with her arm on her shoulder, "Taylor…" she crooned softly.
Taylor let out a short breath before opening her eyes, her wide lips beaming at her with a soft smile spread over her face, "Your hair is so pretty."
Emma felt her breath hitch in her throat, like it always does whenever Taylor compliments her in her worn out state. She knew she shouldn't be shocked by Taylor complimenting her, that's just a thing friends did. But it always felt like it meant more when it came from her, like Taylor made it feel more raw and impactful.
She smiled at her best friend, her savior, her Hero.
"Come on, Tay," she whispered, trying to keep her voice level, "time to change those bandages."
Taylor's eyes focused for a bit before she nodded, reaching over and grabbing her phone before sitting up, checking the time. Someone who didn't know Taylor wouldn't be able to notice her tells, notice when she was hiding her pain.
Emma knew. She had known for years.
It was hard not to notice when she had seen her do the same thing when she wanted to prove that she wasn't hurt after falling off the slide, after scraping her knee, when she took a knife to the eye and lost her arm.
Always the same tells, never changing. Her neck held tight, her eye too focused on something in the distance that Emma could never see. The way her hand slightly clenched into a fist as she inhaled.
Taylor had probably managed to lie to herself, making her not notice her own pain.
But Emma knew.
Emma always knew.
She reached out and gently started to remove Taylor's wrappings, she tried to ignore the smell of sweat and blood. It still permeated the air, she still smelled that unique scent, rusted sea salt mixed with copper, that blood has.
She swore, a short and hissing thing. Taylor had managed to tear one of the stitches open and Emma would have to redo them.
"Taylor." Emma started, making her voice as stern as she could.
Her friend froze, Emma felt Taylor's muscles tense up as she realized that she had gotten caught.
"Y-yeah, Ems?" Taylor stuttered, forcing Emma to channel her inner Auntie Annette so that she wouldn't giggle at the thought of Taylor being scared of her.
"Did you do anything… Strenuous… when I told you to get some rest?" Emma ground out, steeling herself so that she could be stern with her incredibly stubborn friend.
"I just…" she trailed off, and she looked at Emma with such emotional pain. It took far too much willpower to stop herself from giving her friend a hug and cuddling into her like she did after that night. "... sorry for ruining your work." She sulked out.
Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves and to ensure that she could continue to be stern to Taylor, even when her heart was melting looking at how much Taylor was visibly upset with having ruined Emma's prior stitchings.
"Just, just hold still," Emma finally ground out, getting up and walking back to her little supply closet to pick up some needle and suture thread. She was glad that it only took the first time Taylor got cut up to learn not to use regular sewing thread, having to pull it out of her friend's skin after she healed up had been… an experience.
Returning to Taylor on the couch, she quickly rubbed her needle in alcohol and let it dry before getting to work patching up her handiwork. She felt Taylor's body tense as she held her steady, she could feel her heartbeat quicken at her touch, and all too soon it was over.
A little bit of smug satisfaction grew in Emma at how quickly she had been able to sew up Taylor's wound. Back when they first started, that would have taken them about an hour to fix up. Now all she needed to do was grill her friend on how she managed to tear the original stitches and figure out how she could stop her from doing it again while they were in Taylor's workshop.
Setting down her implements, Emma turned to Taylor and turned on the saccharine, "So, Tay…" She leaned forward, aware of her friend's face growing more and more red with the growing proximity, "remind me again, how did you open up your stitches?"
Her friend quickly looked away, mumbling something out of earshot and refusing to make any further eye contact.
"What was that?" Emma crooned sweetly, leaning close enough in that their bodies were touching.
Taylor started to sputter when Emma leaned in close enough, and it devolved into further useless sputterings as Emma cuddled into her friend.
"I can't hear you."
"I-"
"Speak up, Tay," Emma was close, she knew her friend well.
"I was just, you know?" Taylor tried to deflect.
It didn't work.
"I don't know, that's why I'm asking."
"I was just trying to get in my workout, you know? I can't just sit idle." Her face finally turned to look at Emma, and was greeted by, what Emma felt, was the flattest expression she had ever given in her life.
Clearly, there was only one solution to this.
Emma sat on the couch next to Taylor, and reached out, gently pulling her into a cuddle.
Taylor gave an indignant squawk at being pulled into a cuddle, but Emma didn't care. She wrapped her arms around Taylor's chest and just pulled her in closer.
"You won't escape friendship cuddles, Tay. You're staying put for the rest of the night," Emma declared triumphantly.
Only for Taylor to heat up against her, which was weird, Taylor didn't have a fever earlier-
"Emma. I'm topless."
Oh. Oh dear.
Taylor would later swear that Emma's face grew as red as her hair.
Aight, so
This took two months because of the PHO half of it. I am tempted to simply say "never again" on PHO.
Also, Emma here. I started to write Emma, and immediately she slapped me around and said "hey, hey. I'm going to do things this way. You have no control." and here go. This is not how I intended to write her to start but that's how she rolls I guess
This took two months because of the PHO half of it. I am tempted to simply say "never again" on PHO.
Also, Emma here. I started to write Emma, and immediately she slapped me around and said "hey, hey. I'm going to do things this way. You have no control." and here go. This is not how I intended to write her to start but that's how she rolls I guess
Last edited:
Conviction 2.1
Unfortunately, I had things to do, and I couldn't lie on the couch for the whole day. I had villains to meet at neutral ground.
It was a hard decision to remove myself from my best friend's embrace, but it was one that had to be made.
Prying her arms off of me, I heard her give a weak moan of protest. Seems she had just gotten comfortable with me in her arms.
Getting up, I grunted as I felt my ribs protest at the exertion. I allowed a hiss of pain to escape my lips as I twisted my body to look at the bandages. Emma did good work.
Throwing a sports bra and a shirt on, I made my way to my armor and finished up the repairs that I had started last night after coming back from patrol.
I couldn't get it entirely working right, but I could repair the cosmetic damage. Most fights are psychological in nature, if you can provide a front of implacable stalwartness then most people are going to believe that you are.
That's how I got my Brute rating, as much as it irks me.
Ignoring damage, and making sure that you can still slowly march your way forward while everyone has their eyes on you and not looking around for backup or for the traps you already prepared the area with, that's how you win.
Like I said before, there is no such thing as a fair fight. If you try to fight fair, you've already lost. Do everything you can to stack the deck in your favor; prep the field ahead of time, fight dirty, throw sand in their eyes. Whatever you can do to make sure that you're not the one lying on the ground in a pool of your own blood.
Checking the time, I cursed under my breath and forced my mind away from tinkering. Almost got caught in a pure fugue, and the time slipped by so fast that I was almost running late.
Putting on the armor that I could by myself the easiest first, I then attached my prosthetic. The new one featuring an arm cannon wasn't quite ready yet, but it would be soon and I was excited to try that one out for live testing.
Slowly setting the torso armor on, and doing the clasps myself took a bit longer than I expected, but Emma was still asleep and I wasn't going to let anyone wake her up, especially not after the night she had patching my ass back up.
I picked up my helmet, and I grimaced looking at the dings on it.
Fuck.
I didn't have time to fix that, and was starting to run late as it was.
Putting it on and feeling it seal onto my head, I walked over to the table that contained the Endslayer and my other minor weapons.
Clamping it on my back via magnetism, which might as well be black magic, I pocketed what few grenades I had left before sheathing three of my throwing blades onto my bandolier.
Glancing back at Emma, who was sound asleep, I remembered an old promise I had made to her years ago after That Night.
That I wouldn't let her worry about me the way that I worried about her then.
Fuck.
I've been a terrible friend to her.
I need to do better.
I need to be better.
I will.
"I promise, Ems. I'll be safe," I whispered under my breath, despite my helmet muffling all sound coming out from my face.
Making my way to the entrance, I walked over and removed the tarp covering my steed-
Why did I just call my motorcycle a steed?
Wh-what is wrong with me?
This thing needs a proper name so I don't do that again.
Looking at it, my power fought me as I tried to figure out ways to improve it. I had armored it up using the same composite material that my own armor was made out of, and I was able to apply a few simple systems to it that weren't tinker tech but were tinker derived.
Simple systems to install. Something to spill caltrops a compartment behind, reinforced tires that were tinker tech and thus had to be maintained, and a simple to create oil slick dispenser.
I was looking at it, trying to figure out new things to add to it but my power didn't like that.
I know that tinkers have a specialty, and that anything outside of it doesn't come as easily. But I've never heard of a tinker mention their power fighting them when it comes to figuring out ways to apply their tech.
I'd always heard as being more "my power just doesn't come with anything for this," which worries me as my own experience is quite clearly "I can get the information on how, I just have to wrestle with my power mentally until it relents and gives me what I want."
Doing that too many times sucks, however. It really likes it when I build things for more direct and personal combat.
I tried to give my power a happy little nudge, and it seemed to nudge me back, but that was probably psychosomatic.
It's not healthy to humanize the unknown force that grants parahumans their bullshit.
Looking back at Emma's quiet sleep, I flipped up the kickstand on my bike and I walked it out through the false wall entrance I put into the side of the building when my power told me it was safe to do so. It's honestly weird how versatile my combat thinker power was, acting at times more like a preternatural danger sense than a how to guide on how to fight things bigger and meaner than myself.
Sliding out, and closing the false wall behind me, I hopped on my bike and started the ignition.
It was loud, roaring to life with flames escaping from the exhaust pipes.
I tried to remove the flames, and to make the damn thing quieter.
I went over this damn bike with a fine tooth comb, and as far as I can tell there is no mechanism that supplies the flames that burn out of the exhaust pipes.
None.
They just appear ex nihilo and that bothers me.
It bothers me so goddamn much.
I also tried to make the damn thing quieter!
Last time I did that, I fugued and it was even louder!
Which... Adds credence to the idea that these are just things that my power likes but all sources say that's crazy talk and I am not...
Okay, I am a parahuman and that automatically makes me less sane than the baselines that are average people living on Bet.
But I'm not so far gone as to require the nice young men in their clean white coats to come and take me away to the funny farm.
Strange references to obscure Aleph future pop bands aside, I needed to get to Somer's.
Shooting out in the street proper, I ducked and weaved between traffic, my motorcycle roaring through the street as I rode my way up towards Somer's Rock.
It was fairly peaceful, all things considered.
The stars were out, the moon was full, and there was a Squealer tank revving up on the side of the road.
Wait, what- I heard an engine even louder than mine roar behind me, and my helmet's HUD warned me of an oncoming threat from behind as my combat thinker power screamed at me to lurch forward.
I revved my own engine, pushing the engine to its limit as I shot forward, and on my HUD I could see someone colorfully shouting "shitfuck!"
Looking in my mirror, I saw that Squealer was driving her tank and that she was shouting to herself.
My helmet's computer read her lips from the mirror, and helpfully told me that she didn't quite like that she wasn't the only tinker in town that worked on vehicles.
Or that my bike was louder than her last couple of trucks.
Or that I burned down her last workshop.
Dumb bitch shouldn't have built her workshop where they were making meth.
That was a fire hazard just waiting to happen.
I sighed to myself, reaching behind my back to draw the Endslayer before veering to the left and slowing down so that I'd be next to her before switching over to the matter disintegration setting.
It was going to be one of those nights, wasn't it?
I revved the engine and shot forward in a burst, narrowly missing Squealer's tank as it tried to flatten me.
Shit.
She was too high to give a damn about the Rules.
I was going to have to get physical, and after I had already promised Emma that I wasn't going to do anything too strenuous.
Well, it was Squealer. That shouldn't be too bad.
I pulled back and magnetically locked my arms in place with my armor's controls, and then I slammed to the right, puncturing the hull of the tank, and then braked.
I felt armor groan, the joints starting to bend with the pressure as the Endlsayer got caught on something that resisted the matter disintegration that the blade offered.
I let go of my bike, the vehicle slowing to a stop behind us as my joints unlocked and I was able to swing myself up from the Endslayer's handle, wrenching it free and landing on top of the tank.
I felt something pop in my shoulder, and as I let out a sharp hiss of pain I knew that the stitches Emma had worked so hard on had popped under the duress I had already put them under.
I ran across the top of the tank towards the front cabin, swinging the Endslayer and cutting the barrel of the main cannon off, ruining any chance she had of firing the monstrous thing.
I engaged the magnetic grips on the bottom of my boots, and I braced myself as I felt my shoulder flare up in pain as I raised the Endslayer high, angling it downwards as I thrusted it straight downwards.
"Son of a PISS-FUCK!"
It was honestly impressive how I could hear Squealer's commentary as I started to carve open the roof of the cabin.
I looked at her, and I had my helm glow a bright crimson in two spots that would correspond to my eyes.
Squealer looked ready to piss herself, no doubt seeing my usual intimidation tactics as something nightmarishly different with whatever cocktail of drugs she was on.
Never doubt what intimidation can do to even the most foolhardy of foes. Or to the most drugged of foes.
I didn't hold in my yell of pain as I threw the part of the cabin I had carved out away, my helmet's filters turning it into a guttural roar as it went flying away from the Tank.
I jumped down into the cabin and started punching Squealer with my prosthetic, my other hand was busy steering the vehicle while she kept her foot on the gas like an idiot.
After a good swing to her glass jaw, she was out cold and I was able to grab the emergency brake and yank it back.
I felt the tires seize up, and the truck began to lift off the road and upwards before slamming back down, nearly knocking me over in the cabin.
I grabbed Squealer's unconscious body and dragged her out of the truck, zip tying her to a light post nearby, sending a command out to my bike to have it drive up to me and park.
The PRT arrived not soon after, and I was able to give my statement to the PRT officer, and was able to say that the property damage wasn't my fault for once. After that, I hopped onto my bike and thankfully had an uneventful trip to Somer's.
It was a hard decision to remove myself from my best friend's embrace, but it was one that had to be made.
Prying her arms off of me, I heard her give a weak moan of protest. Seems she had just gotten comfortable with me in her arms.
Getting up, I grunted as I felt my ribs protest at the exertion. I allowed a hiss of pain to escape my lips as I twisted my body to look at the bandages. Emma did good work.
Throwing a sports bra and a shirt on, I made my way to my armor and finished up the repairs that I had started last night after coming back from patrol.
I couldn't get it entirely working right, but I could repair the cosmetic damage. Most fights are psychological in nature, if you can provide a front of implacable stalwartness then most people are going to believe that you are.
That's how I got my Brute rating, as much as it irks me.
Ignoring damage, and making sure that you can still slowly march your way forward while everyone has their eyes on you and not looking around for backup or for the traps you already prepared the area with, that's how you win.
Like I said before, there is no such thing as a fair fight. If you try to fight fair, you've already lost. Do everything you can to stack the deck in your favor; prep the field ahead of time, fight dirty, throw sand in their eyes. Whatever you can do to make sure that you're not the one lying on the ground in a pool of your own blood.
Checking the time, I cursed under my breath and forced my mind away from tinkering. Almost got caught in a pure fugue, and the time slipped by so fast that I was almost running late.
Putting on the armor that I could by myself the easiest first, I then attached my prosthetic. The new one featuring an arm cannon wasn't quite ready yet, but it would be soon and I was excited to try that one out for live testing.
Slowly setting the torso armor on, and doing the clasps myself took a bit longer than I expected, but Emma was still asleep and I wasn't going to let anyone wake her up, especially not after the night she had patching my ass back up.
I picked up my helmet, and I grimaced looking at the dings on it.
Fuck.
I didn't have time to fix that, and was starting to run late as it was.
Putting it on and feeling it seal onto my head, I walked over to the table that contained the Endslayer and my other minor weapons.
Clamping it on my back via magnetism, which might as well be black magic, I pocketed what few grenades I had left before sheathing three of my throwing blades onto my bandolier.
Glancing back at Emma, who was sound asleep, I remembered an old promise I had made to her years ago after That Night.
That I wouldn't let her worry about me the way that I worried about her then.
Fuck.
I've been a terrible friend to her.
I need to do better.
I need to be better.
I will.
"I promise, Ems. I'll be safe," I whispered under my breath, despite my helmet muffling all sound coming out from my face.
Making my way to the entrance, I walked over and removed the tarp covering my steed-
Why did I just call my motorcycle a steed?
Wh-what is wrong with me?
This thing needs a proper name so I don't do that again.
Looking at it, my power fought me as I tried to figure out ways to improve it. I had armored it up using the same composite material that my own armor was made out of, and I was able to apply a few simple systems to it that weren't tinker tech but were tinker derived.
Simple systems to install. Something to spill caltrops a compartment behind, reinforced tires that were tinker tech and thus had to be maintained, and a simple to create oil slick dispenser.
I was looking at it, trying to figure out new things to add to it but my power didn't like that.
I know that tinkers have a specialty, and that anything outside of it doesn't come as easily. But I've never heard of a tinker mention their power fighting them when it comes to figuring out ways to apply their tech.
I'd always heard as being more "my power just doesn't come with anything for this," which worries me as my own experience is quite clearly "I can get the information on how, I just have to wrestle with my power mentally until it relents and gives me what I want."
Doing that too many times sucks, however. It really likes it when I build things for more direct and personal combat.
I tried to give my power a happy little nudge, and it seemed to nudge me back, but that was probably psychosomatic.
It's not healthy to humanize the unknown force that grants parahumans their bullshit.
Looking back at Emma's quiet sleep, I flipped up the kickstand on my bike and I walked it out through the false wall entrance I put into the side of the building when my power told me it was safe to do so. It's honestly weird how versatile my combat thinker power was, acting at times more like a preternatural danger sense than a how to guide on how to fight things bigger and meaner than myself.
Sliding out, and closing the false wall behind me, I hopped on my bike and started the ignition.
It was loud, roaring to life with flames escaping from the exhaust pipes.
I tried to remove the flames, and to make the damn thing quieter.
I went over this damn bike with a fine tooth comb, and as far as I can tell there is no mechanism that supplies the flames that burn out of the exhaust pipes.
None.
They just appear ex nihilo and that bothers me.
It bothers me so goddamn much.
I also tried to make the damn thing quieter!
Last time I did that, I fugued and it was even louder!
Which... Adds credence to the idea that these are just things that my power likes but all sources say that's crazy talk and I am not...
Okay, I am a parahuman and that automatically makes me less sane than the baselines that are average people living on Bet.
But I'm not so far gone as to require the nice young men in their clean white coats to come and take me away to the funny farm.
Strange references to obscure Aleph future pop bands aside, I needed to get to Somer's.
Shooting out in the street proper, I ducked and weaved between traffic, my motorcycle roaring through the street as I rode my way up towards Somer's Rock.
It was fairly peaceful, all things considered.
The stars were out, the moon was full, and there was a Squealer tank revving up on the side of the road.
Wait, what- I heard an engine even louder than mine roar behind me, and my helmet's HUD warned me of an oncoming threat from behind as my combat thinker power screamed at me to lurch forward.
I revved my own engine, pushing the engine to its limit as I shot forward, and on my HUD I could see someone colorfully shouting "shitfuck!"
Looking in my mirror, I saw that Squealer was driving her tank and that she was shouting to herself.
My helmet's computer read her lips from the mirror, and helpfully told me that she didn't quite like that she wasn't the only tinker in town that worked on vehicles.
Or that my bike was louder than her last couple of trucks.
Or that I burned down her last workshop.
Dumb bitch shouldn't have built her workshop where they were making meth.
That was a fire hazard just waiting to happen.
I sighed to myself, reaching behind my back to draw the Endslayer before veering to the left and slowing down so that I'd be next to her before switching over to the matter disintegration setting.
It was going to be one of those nights, wasn't it?
I revved the engine and shot forward in a burst, narrowly missing Squealer's tank as it tried to flatten me.
Shit.
She was too high to give a damn about the Rules.
I was going to have to get physical, and after I had already promised Emma that I wasn't going to do anything too strenuous.
Well, it was Squealer. That shouldn't be too bad.
I pulled back and magnetically locked my arms in place with my armor's controls, and then I slammed to the right, puncturing the hull of the tank, and then braked.
I felt armor groan, the joints starting to bend with the pressure as the Endlsayer got caught on something that resisted the matter disintegration that the blade offered.
I let go of my bike, the vehicle slowing to a stop behind us as my joints unlocked and I was able to swing myself up from the Endslayer's handle, wrenching it free and landing on top of the tank.
I felt something pop in my shoulder, and as I let out a sharp hiss of pain I knew that the stitches Emma had worked so hard on had popped under the duress I had already put them under.
I ran across the top of the tank towards the front cabin, swinging the Endslayer and cutting the barrel of the main cannon off, ruining any chance she had of firing the monstrous thing.
I engaged the magnetic grips on the bottom of my boots, and I braced myself as I felt my shoulder flare up in pain as I raised the Endslayer high, angling it downwards as I thrusted it straight downwards.
"Son of a PISS-FUCK!"
It was honestly impressive how I could hear Squealer's commentary as I started to carve open the roof of the cabin.
I looked at her, and I had my helm glow a bright crimson in two spots that would correspond to my eyes.
Squealer looked ready to piss herself, no doubt seeing my usual intimidation tactics as something nightmarishly different with whatever cocktail of drugs she was on.
Never doubt what intimidation can do to even the most foolhardy of foes. Or to the most drugged of foes.
I didn't hold in my yell of pain as I threw the part of the cabin I had carved out away, my helmet's filters turning it into a guttural roar as it went flying away from the Tank.
I jumped down into the cabin and started punching Squealer with my prosthetic, my other hand was busy steering the vehicle while she kept her foot on the gas like an idiot.
After a good swing to her glass jaw, she was out cold and I was able to grab the emergency brake and yank it back.
I felt the tires seize up, and the truck began to lift off the road and upwards before slamming back down, nearly knocking me over in the cabin.
I grabbed Squealer's unconscious body and dragged her out of the truck, zip tying her to a light post nearby, sending a command out to my bike to have it drive up to me and park.
The PRT arrived not soon after, and I was able to give my statement to the PRT officer, and was able to say that the property damage wasn't my fault for once. After that, I hopped onto my bike and thankfully had an uneventful trip to Somer's.
This fight with Squealer kicked my ass. That, plus seasonal depression, is the reason this chapter took so long to get out. Many thanks to @CyberAngelRowan and @Hiro Dark for beta-ing the chapter!
Conviction 2.2
Somer's Rock.
This was a place that had character, in the same way that bullying supposedly built character.
It was old, almost as old as the city itself. The bricks were shoddy, cracked, and with quick dry cement being the only thing holding them together. The door was half an inch too thick, layers of paint adding up over the years to add to its width, with a persistent rumor that the door was originally one stolen from a British governor during the colonial days.
I personally doubted the validity of that, but the rumor remained.
Opening the door, I side stepped my way in, ducking to let the hilt of the Endslayer in without it hitting the door frame. Too many experiences where doing that in my early career ended the chase, as well as ending any attempt at intimidation afterwards.
Image, is perhaps the second most important thing to being a cape, I have found. If you can cultivate an image, make it be known to others, then you can de-escalate situations before they turn violent. It gave people an understanding of who you were, how you would react to certain threats.
The Image that I had built for myself was one of barely restrained violence, tempered by ability. To all who knew of the Black Knight, they knew of his viciousness, the ruthless way he would tear through mobs of opponents. It was from those early encounters that the annoying rumor that I had Brute powers started.
I took that image, born of me flailing around like an idiot in my first few months when I didn't have too much control over my Thinker powers, and I enhanced it. I played it up, made it stronger. A growl here, a roar there. It was that image that I had cultivated that let me end the fight with Squealer early.
But, here's the thing.
That image was a lie.
A falsehood, something I wrapped myself up in to hide from the world that I was just as broken as everything around me. But, just because it was a lie, didn't mean it wasn't important. If everyone reacts to the lie as though it were the truth, then it has become the truth as far as they are concerned.
Upholding that Image was key to my survival, and I sat down at the table with a self proclaimed psychic who could probably see through all of it.
To say that I was feeling nervous was an understatement.
The reason for my nervousness?
A certain blonde bitch that was locally famous for her ability to read minds who could probably suss me out before I could even punch her in the gut for opening her mouth.
I had no reason to attack the Undersiders, in truth I thought they were fun to leave running around my city. They only ever hit other villains or corrupt businesses, even if the businesses weren't known to be corrupt at the time. They never harmed the average civilian, and had a reputation for professionalism when on the job.
The fact that Tattletale had contacted Emma on PHO was a very possible breach of the Rules.
Well, a very flimsy breach as Emma's PHO handle was literally Knight's_Squire, but I was prepared to stretch the very minor breach in the rules if she threatened her, consequences to myself be damned.
The Undersiders weren't far, they were sitting at the bar where they had a good view of the door, and Tattletale waved me over.
I slowly made my way towards them, not letting the full weight of my suit thud against the wooden floor of Somer's Rock, and as I made my way towards the group I noticed a few other capes in the city get up and get out of my way, with a few even leaving the bar entirely as I made my way towards the Undersiders.
I felt bad as Parian, a doll themed neutral rogue, got up and left when it looked like she had just sat down to order something.
Image was important, but it had its downsides at times.
I sat down next to the thieves that had contacted me, and slowly turned my head towards them.
I saw Bitch, Hellhound if you wanted her to hate you, start to growl something at me before Grue shot her down with a look.
She looked at him and grumbled before sitting back down, my fist unclenched from where I had been subconsciously balling it up, ready for a fight that might have broken out, before turning my attention to Tattletale, who looked pale and like she was ready to piss herself.
Good.
Image had its advantages.
"Tattletale," I ground out, the voice changer in my helmet transforming my voice into something more menacing.
She gulped, and I don't even think she realized that she had done it before responding herself, "Black Knight, I can explain-"
I immediately cut her off, forcing the conversation to follow my flow, not hers. Never let the Thinker have a moment to Think.
"Explain it to me then, tell me why you contacted my friend on PHO to set up this meeting," I growled out, the voice changer probably wasn't needed in that moment to make the full brunt of my displeasure known.
Tattletale must have noticed because she somehow managed to go a few shades paler, and she very quickly tried to dissuade my anger as she waved her arms about in a blind panic.
"No, no, it's not like that! It's not what you think!" She very hastily got out before I took a deep breath to make my displeasure known when she managed to bite out, "we just wanted to thank you!"
Which, naturally, brought me up short and took the wind almost entirely out of my sails.
"Thank me?" I asked dumbly.
Tattletale looked like she was starting to feel more assured that I wasn't going to kill her right then and there. As if I would break the sanctity of neutral ground.
Regent spoke up from behind her, a slight tremor in his voice betraying the lazy drawl of nonchalance that I had grown to associate with him, letting me know that he was scared shitless.
"You stopped the rage dragon from fucking finding and killing us," I blinked, processing what he just said before he continued, "Tats here demanded that we repay the favor somehow."
My attention turned back to Tattletale, "I saved your lives?" I asked, figuring that them paying me back was worth any minor breach of the Rules they made in attempting to contact me.
Tattletale nodded, "yeah, yeah you did. We had robbed one of his casinos a few nights before and he was tracking us down before he managed to figure out where we were within a few blocks, at which point you and Armsmaster made short work of him and he got dragged off to a secure cell on the Rig where he's most likely being kept sedated."
I leaned back to sit up straight, and motioned for her to continue and for her to hopefully get to the point.
"Right," she let out a nervous chuckle that seemed to ease her tension, "so, we figured we'd return the favor by informing you of any ABB news over the coming weeks, until Lung gets properly shipped out to prison."
I nodded, feeling much better about this meeting now that I knew what it was about.
Hah, look at that. I catastrophized about something before I knew the full details.
Emma must never know.
"Do you have any information now? Or do you want to send the information over PHO," I asked, eager to get information from a Thinker 7 who was famous amongst the lesser criminals for her breadth of information gathering.
"Two things, actually," she replied, her skin no longer looking pale and terrified as I allowed her to enter her element.
"The first thing is that the ABB has two new capes, and they've already made their debuts after Lung was captured. The first is a tinker named Bakuda, she was on the news recently for trying to bomb Cornell University, don't know if she's just fond of explosives or if-"
I cut her off, "she provided Oni Lee with several tinker tech grenades, I found out when I was examining the shrapnel that I removed from myself after the altercation."
Tattletale opened her mouth to an 'o' shape before closing it and shaking her head, "only you, Black Knight, only you."
She sucked on the corner of her upper lip before continuing, "the other is a C53 named Tengu, avian in appearance and fights with a bow. Powers unknown, possible Striker/Blaster from internal PRT documents."
I shifted in my seat, ruminating on this treasure trove of new information, "thank you, Tattletale. Continue to relay information through the intermediary's PHO account, if you can tell me anything about the prison transport for Lung and any attempts to break him out, I'll consider us even in this regard."
Tattletale let out a sigh of relief and sipped on a coffee that was no doubt getting cold by now, but she didn't even seem to care.
"Don't worry, I'll make sure not to look too deep into your girlfriend's account," she said casually, and I felt myself stiffen as what she said registered to me.
"She's not-" I began tersely, slowly letting out a breath of air as I saw Tattletale's face pale again, "she's not… that. " I said slowly, calming myself down for reasons I couldn't quite place.
"We're just friends."
Tattletale quirked an eyebrow at me and I was about to respond when I saw the front door open, and I turned my attention towards the front to see who was coming in.
A large, imposing brick of a man entered the bar, a white robe with red accents covered his body, while a mask made of pure stone rested on his face. In his hand he held a Bible, and I saw swastikas intermingled with flaming crosses on his red cassock that draped over his shoulders, there was absolutely no way to tell what gang this newcomer was from.
The obvious Nazi looked around Somer's, and even through the thick, stone mask he wore I could tell that he was looking in disgust.
His deep, booming bass of a voice spoke, his words somehow coming through unmuffled through his mask through what was probably power bullshit, and everything he said got me ready for a fight.
"So this is where the filth that contaminates this city congregates," his eyes, a piercing steel blue bore into mine when his gaze came across my own, "pathetic."
He marched towards the bar where me and the Undersiders were seated, and I could sense the danger that this man was radiating off of him, my power screaming at me to leave as soon as possible so that I wouldn't be caught.
I looked at Tattletale and motioned for her to leave, quickly.
I didn't bother to pay attention to if she did or not, and I immediately kept my eyes on this unknown Empire bastard, standing from my seat and preparing myself for a confrontation if one presented itself.
The unnamed cape walked around the bar and grabbed a bottle of rum and slowly stuffed a rag into it, and my mind froze when I realized what he was planning.
He couldn't.
He wouldn't.
This was-
We were at-
Somer's was neutral.
"There is only one surefire way to get rid of garbage, especially garbage that refuses to be cleaned," he intoned gravely before lighting his newly created molotov cocktail.
"One must put it to the torch."
I darted forward, drawing the Endslayer from its place on my back and I went to swing, but it was too late.
He threw the bottle.
It broke against the liquor shelf.
All of hell broke loose.
This was a place that had character, in the same way that bullying supposedly built character.
It was old, almost as old as the city itself. The bricks were shoddy, cracked, and with quick dry cement being the only thing holding them together. The door was half an inch too thick, layers of paint adding up over the years to add to its width, with a persistent rumor that the door was originally one stolen from a British governor during the colonial days.
I personally doubted the validity of that, but the rumor remained.
Opening the door, I side stepped my way in, ducking to let the hilt of the Endslayer in without it hitting the door frame. Too many experiences where doing that in my early career ended the chase, as well as ending any attempt at intimidation afterwards.
Image, is perhaps the second most important thing to being a cape, I have found. If you can cultivate an image, make it be known to others, then you can de-escalate situations before they turn violent. It gave people an understanding of who you were, how you would react to certain threats.
The Image that I had built for myself was one of barely restrained violence, tempered by ability. To all who knew of the Black Knight, they knew of his viciousness, the ruthless way he would tear through mobs of opponents. It was from those early encounters that the annoying rumor that I had Brute powers started.
I took that image, born of me flailing around like an idiot in my first few months when I didn't have too much control over my Thinker powers, and I enhanced it. I played it up, made it stronger. A growl here, a roar there. It was that image that I had cultivated that let me end the fight with Squealer early.
But, here's the thing.
That image was a lie.
A falsehood, something I wrapped myself up in to hide from the world that I was just as broken as everything around me. But, just because it was a lie, didn't mean it wasn't important. If everyone reacts to the lie as though it were the truth, then it has become the truth as far as they are concerned.
Upholding that Image was key to my survival, and I sat down at the table with a self proclaimed psychic who could probably see through all of it.
To say that I was feeling nervous was an understatement.
The reason for my nervousness?
A certain blonde bitch that was locally famous for her ability to read minds who could probably suss me out before I could even punch her in the gut for opening her mouth.
I had no reason to attack the Undersiders, in truth I thought they were fun to leave running around my city. They only ever hit other villains or corrupt businesses, even if the businesses weren't known to be corrupt at the time. They never harmed the average civilian, and had a reputation for professionalism when on the job.
The fact that Tattletale had contacted Emma on PHO was a very possible breach of the Rules.
Well, a very flimsy breach as Emma's PHO handle was literally Knight's_Squire, but I was prepared to stretch the very minor breach in the rules if she threatened her, consequences to myself be damned.
The Undersiders weren't far, they were sitting at the bar where they had a good view of the door, and Tattletale waved me over.
I slowly made my way towards them, not letting the full weight of my suit thud against the wooden floor of Somer's Rock, and as I made my way towards the group I noticed a few other capes in the city get up and get out of my way, with a few even leaving the bar entirely as I made my way towards the Undersiders.
I felt bad as Parian, a doll themed neutral rogue, got up and left when it looked like she had just sat down to order something.
Image was important, but it had its downsides at times.
I sat down next to the thieves that had contacted me, and slowly turned my head towards them.
I saw Bitch, Hellhound if you wanted her to hate you, start to growl something at me before Grue shot her down with a look.
She looked at him and grumbled before sitting back down, my fist unclenched from where I had been subconsciously balling it up, ready for a fight that might have broken out, before turning my attention to Tattletale, who looked pale and like she was ready to piss herself.
Good.
Image had its advantages.
"Tattletale," I ground out, the voice changer in my helmet transforming my voice into something more menacing.
She gulped, and I don't even think she realized that she had done it before responding herself, "Black Knight, I can explain-"
I immediately cut her off, forcing the conversation to follow my flow, not hers. Never let the Thinker have a moment to Think.
"Explain it to me then, tell me why you contacted my friend on PHO to set up this meeting," I growled out, the voice changer probably wasn't needed in that moment to make the full brunt of my displeasure known.
Tattletale must have noticed because she somehow managed to go a few shades paler, and she very quickly tried to dissuade my anger as she waved her arms about in a blind panic.
"No, no, it's not like that! It's not what you think!" She very hastily got out before I took a deep breath to make my displeasure known when she managed to bite out, "we just wanted to thank you!"
Which, naturally, brought me up short and took the wind almost entirely out of my sails.
"Thank me?" I asked dumbly.
Tattletale looked like she was starting to feel more assured that I wasn't going to kill her right then and there. As if I would break the sanctity of neutral ground.
Regent spoke up from behind her, a slight tremor in his voice betraying the lazy drawl of nonchalance that I had grown to associate with him, letting me know that he was scared shitless.
"You stopped the rage dragon from fucking finding and killing us," I blinked, processing what he just said before he continued, "Tats here demanded that we repay the favor somehow."
My attention turned back to Tattletale, "I saved your lives?" I asked, figuring that them paying me back was worth any minor breach of the Rules they made in attempting to contact me.
Tattletale nodded, "yeah, yeah you did. We had robbed one of his casinos a few nights before and he was tracking us down before he managed to figure out where we were within a few blocks, at which point you and Armsmaster made short work of him and he got dragged off to a secure cell on the Rig where he's most likely being kept sedated."
I leaned back to sit up straight, and motioned for her to continue and for her to hopefully get to the point.
"Right," she let out a nervous chuckle that seemed to ease her tension, "so, we figured we'd return the favor by informing you of any ABB news over the coming weeks, until Lung gets properly shipped out to prison."
I nodded, feeling much better about this meeting now that I knew what it was about.
Hah, look at that. I catastrophized about something before I knew the full details.
Emma must never know.
"Do you have any information now? Or do you want to send the information over PHO," I asked, eager to get information from a Thinker 7 who was famous amongst the lesser criminals for her breadth of information gathering.
"Two things, actually," she replied, her skin no longer looking pale and terrified as I allowed her to enter her element.
"The first thing is that the ABB has two new capes, and they've already made their debuts after Lung was captured. The first is a tinker named Bakuda, she was on the news recently for trying to bomb Cornell University, don't know if she's just fond of explosives or if-"
I cut her off, "she provided Oni Lee with several tinker tech grenades, I found out when I was examining the shrapnel that I removed from myself after the altercation."
Tattletale opened her mouth to an 'o' shape before closing it and shaking her head, "only you, Black Knight, only you."
She sucked on the corner of her upper lip before continuing, "the other is a C53 named Tengu, avian in appearance and fights with a bow. Powers unknown, possible Striker/Blaster from internal PRT documents."
I shifted in my seat, ruminating on this treasure trove of new information, "thank you, Tattletale. Continue to relay information through the intermediary's PHO account, if you can tell me anything about the prison transport for Lung and any attempts to break him out, I'll consider us even in this regard."
Tattletale let out a sigh of relief and sipped on a coffee that was no doubt getting cold by now, but she didn't even seem to care.
"Don't worry, I'll make sure not to look too deep into your girlfriend's account," she said casually, and I felt myself stiffen as what she said registered to me.
"She's not-" I began tersely, slowly letting out a breath of air as I saw Tattletale's face pale again, "she's not… that. " I said slowly, calming myself down for reasons I couldn't quite place.
"We're just friends."
Tattletale quirked an eyebrow at me and I was about to respond when I saw the front door open, and I turned my attention towards the front to see who was coming in.
A large, imposing brick of a man entered the bar, a white robe with red accents covered his body, while a mask made of pure stone rested on his face. In his hand he held a Bible, and I saw swastikas intermingled with flaming crosses on his red cassock that draped over his shoulders, there was absolutely no way to tell what gang this newcomer was from.
The obvious Nazi looked around Somer's, and even through the thick, stone mask he wore I could tell that he was looking in disgust.
His deep, booming bass of a voice spoke, his words somehow coming through unmuffled through his mask through what was probably power bullshit, and everything he said got me ready for a fight.
"So this is where the filth that contaminates this city congregates," his eyes, a piercing steel blue bore into mine when his gaze came across my own, "pathetic."
He marched towards the bar where me and the Undersiders were seated, and I could sense the danger that this man was radiating off of him, my power screaming at me to leave as soon as possible so that I wouldn't be caught.
I looked at Tattletale and motioned for her to leave, quickly.
I didn't bother to pay attention to if she did or not, and I immediately kept my eyes on this unknown Empire bastard, standing from my seat and preparing myself for a confrontation if one presented itself.
The unnamed cape walked around the bar and grabbed a bottle of rum and slowly stuffed a rag into it, and my mind froze when I realized what he was planning.
He couldn't.
He wouldn't.
This was-
We were at-
Somer's was neutral.
"There is only one surefire way to get rid of garbage, especially garbage that refuses to be cleaned," he intoned gravely before lighting his newly created molotov cocktail.
"One must put it to the torch."
I darted forward, drawing the Endslayer from its place on my back and I went to swing, but it was too late.
He threw the bottle.
It broke against the liquor shelf.
All of hell broke loose.
Here we go, another updoot! Once again, many thanks to my betas @CyberAngelRowan and @Hiro Dark
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