Plan? What Plan? (Worm/ToF)
- Thread starter Fabled Webs
- Start date
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- Tags
- worm oc insert reincarnation tinker
Great Chapter, morally ambiguous fights are wormy to the extreme. Creed is developing his namesake here I feel.
I personally liked Coin and Conformity, but I dropped it after the ashara thing, it felt too daytime TV esc, and I just can't take that kind of thing seriously.
Winter Of Widows on SB is phenomenal in every metric, and honestly a cut above pretty much every ASOIAF uplift fic I have ever read. Its new and actively updating.
I personally liked Coin and Conformity, but I dropped it after the ashara thing, it felt too daytime TV esc, and I just can't take that kind of thing seriously.
Winter Of Widows on SB is phenomenal in every metric, and honestly a cut above pretty much every ASOIAF uplift fic I have ever read. Its new and actively updating.
4.9 Seal
Fabled Webs
Lord Weaver, Glorious and Wise
- Location
- Arlington, VA
Seal 4.9
Bryce Kiley
2010, November 27: Damascus, Syria
Racing back to the refugee camp took me less than half the time it did ferrying the patients and Nurse Johnson. Without a literal ton of bodies to hold me back, I hopped into the air and cast Agility, leaving the fallback point in a streak of condensed vapor.
I returned to a scene of utter pandemonium. Rather than die down, it seemed like the inclusion of SRG reinforcements had only added to the violence. How many different factions were there? I saw the ghostly, ursine projections of the Protectorate leader, the gray and desert-tan uniforms of the SRG, and several figures who wore dust-brown shrouds over their faces. Beyond those three, I could see at least a dozen people in civilian outfits doing whatever they wanted, lashing out at whoever was closest.
From the north and east, the golems of Arsalan were making steady headway. I couldn't see much from above because of the dust clouds, but they looked to be grabbing and throwing people down, incapacitating them with what would in America be considered excessive force. They were bulletproof, the muffled pinging sounds from their stone armor made that clear. They were also supported by a flying figure and a pair of movers who fought with the men in shrouds.
As I got closer, I found that the flyer was either a changer or a Case-53. He had two sets of large, insectoid wings like a dragonfly. His spine protruded from his back around and over his neck, framing his head and looping out until it formed a spiraling spike of bone. He looked like a cross between a dragonfly and a unicorn and I named him "Flygon" in my mind. He was fast, zipping back and forth to skewer or pick up anyone who aimed at his leader. Even if he missed, a cyclone of wind followed his wake, leaching chaos behind.
The two movers weren't as fast, but they made up for that with area denial. One generated flaming trails with his footsteps, leaving behind a column of fire nine feet tall. The other had a force field that grew bigger the longer he ran, creating a mobile barricade and corralling everyone. To stay on-brand, I labeled them Rapidash and Rhyhorn.
Now that I was closer, I saw that neither Arsalan nor Flygon seemed overly concerned about leaving people alive. Flygon ripped through an assault rifle and the arm that was carrying it. A spiraling barrier of wind protected him from gunfire. Arsalan's stone soldiers had some kind of physics-bending effect, or were just that strong, because they left visible indentations in flesh and bone where they gripped.
Then I heard more gunshots and saw one of the men who'd been distributing supplies, identifiable by a sky-blue handkerchief wrapped around his upper arm, fall in a shower of blood. The kicker was that the bullets came from the direction of the SRG reinforcements. I was appalled by their callousness. These idiots couldn't see well through the intermittent sandstorm and rather than take care, they were choosing to fire blind.
It was all overwhelming. What had started as a riot had devolved into a true battlefield. Even civilians who had no powers were picking up dropped weapons, lashing out at the Syrian Guard to defend themselves. This was "riot breaking" as they knew it and it made me sick.
I had to do something. I stood up in the sky, overlooking the battle for the place where I could make the most difference. Then Nurse Johnson's advice rang in my head: Find Ursa Aurora. She was clearly the more palatable leader here. If anyone could get me a handle on the situation, it was her.
I found her after a moment. Unfortunately, she was currently directing her bears to defend against a brute in civilian clothes, a hidden cape who'd decided to unmask in the chaos or possibly a fresh trigger, while trying not to harm him. She was fighting like a Protectorate hero, to incapacitate and restrain, while the man was clearly fighting to end her. She could have dogpiled him with three bears, but was forced to split her attention to protect civilians who were still caught in the battle.
Around them, Rhyhorn and Rapidash worked together, using Rhyhorn's force field like a bulldozer to shove people together while Rapidash encircled them in a wall of flames. It was effective at keeping people in one place, but it didn't remove them from the battlefield. Worse, the flames covered the ones inside, making it harder to aim around them, and sent the rest panicking.
I couldn't dive in. Aurora had no reason to think I was an ally in this situation. If I dropped down on top of the riot, there was a good chance I'd only add to the chaos. Worse, I might distract the heroes, getting them hurt or killed.
I looked for somewhere else to land. Off towards the edge, what had likely been a safe distance away before the battlefield expanded to sweep him in, another tinker had deployed some kind of barrier. His safe space was like a calm in the storm and I could see aid workers and capes dragging downed people behind him. Thankfully, it seemed like there was some tacit agreement to not shoot at the barrier because no faction was trying to focus down the obvious medics.
I braked sharply, causing my torso to continue forward into a front flip. With my head pointed at the ground, I kicked off again into a sharp dive. I punched through a cloud of swirling sand and landed just in time to shield someone else, a civilian who'd fallen and had chosen wisely not to get up for fear of the flying hazards. Swirling my cape in front of me, I triggered the shield module and watched as a hail of bullets made my force field ripple.
The civilian shouted something at me in Arabic, but I ignored him. I picked him up by the scruff of his neck and skated backwards until I was behind the other tinker's bunker.
"What the hell happened?" I yelled.
"I don't know!" the tinker shouted back. He was young, about my age, probably a Ward then. I pitied him. This was a shitty situation to be in for someone who probably couldn't even drink yet. I at least had my past life to fall back on.
"I'm Creed, independent. You?"
"Shelter, Flechette, and Jouster from the New York Wards," he said. His voice was cracking, just on the bridge of hysteria.
I swore. Flechette was here? Lily. Foil. Sting. The closest person Earth-Bet had to a "chosen one." The stakes just got way higher in my eyes. More or less every cape in Gold Morning was replaceable, except her. I didn't know if she was here in canon or not, but if she died, we were so fucked it wasn't even funny.
That did it. Even had I not had that chat with Faultline last night, Flechette's presence here would have forced me to take their side. She was just too vital for me to do anything else.
"Report to Ursa Aurora. Independent, putting myself under the command of the local Protectorate leader. You've got to have SOP for this."
The imposition of protocol seemed to have helped him get himself in order. He nodded and spoke quickly into his mic. "Shelter to Ursa. Indie Creed is here, placing himself under your command. You have a radio in that helmet?"
He then rattled off a channel number I linked my pokenav to. A moment later, I heard a woman grunt into the mic. "Shit," she swore. There was more fighting in the background. "What can you do?"
"Medic. Ranged stun. Personal force field. I can fight too," I rattled off.
"Heal the ones near Shelter first. Then go incapacitate who you can and evacuate the ones who need it. Keep this line open."
Obvious, but that was fine, simple was good. I just needed the Protectorate to know not to take potshots at me. I nodded towards Jouster and Flechette, the latter drawing my eye more than once, and did my best to slot into their teamwork.
We quickly fell into a rhythm. Jouster dragged patients towards me, Flechette took potshots at people to keep them off his back, and I laid hands on the patients. We were making good progress. Slowly but surely, we were thinning the number of civilians. Even if they had lashed out in the chaos, we dragged as many behind Shelter as we could and fixed them up before shoving them away from the riot. It wasn't like they were going to charge back into the melee now that they'd been fished out.
Several minutes in, when a decent chunk of the fighting had died down, we heard our radio crackle to life.
"What do you think you're doing," came the guttural crackle of the SRG leader.
"Us? What the hell are you doing shooting at civilians?" Ursa Aurora said hotly.
"They are not civilians. They are terrorists. They became terrorists when they picked up weapons."
"You're hitting civilians in the crossfire!"
"They hide behind human shields. That is not our problem."
"That's not how we do things."
"That is how we do things." Flygon swept down and tried to wrench Flechette's arbalest from her. She yelped but held on. "You foreigners need to stop interfering with my soldiers."
"Your soldiers need to stop firing into civilian crowds!"
One of Prism's clones had come over and shoved a confoam grenade in Flygon's face, forcing him to fly away in a shower of scattered foam. Flechette simply removed the friction between her and the foam and slipped it off like she was taking off a sweater.
Prism's other two clones were trying to corral a man in civilian garb who seemed to be skating around with ribbons of scything energy in his hands. As I watched, one clone distracted him while a ghostly bear bowled him over from behind, a confoam grenade in its mouth. Then, that bear's head burst into light as a shrouded man helped up Ribbons.
"My men are keeping the law. They are terrorists so we shoot them. We are not soft, girl," I could hear the sneer through the radio. Syria wasn't exactly known for women's rights. I wondered if it had been a mistake for Legend to send Ursa as the leader of his contingent.
By the growl coming from Ursa's end, the dig hadn't gone unnoticed. It probably wasn't even the first time. "We're not letting you kill them, Arsalan."
"You are under my command in Syria. You don't let anything. Pull back. We will subdue the riot and take in the terrorists."
The connection fell silent for a few seconds.
"What now, Ursa?" Prism asked. I realized Shelter had cut Arsalan out of the channel on Prism's orders.
"Some of these are probably political dissidents," Ursa said. Her voice sounded tired, her fire gone out now that it was just her team and me. "We're pulling back. Syria's issues aren't our job."
"Not all of them."
"Most of them are just desperate," Flechette cut in.
"I'm aware, but I can't risk you guys," Ursa said.
"Bullshit!" the one I took to be Jouster said fiercely. He looked like he was a second away from charging the SRG, the definition of a gung ho cape. "We're heroes. I don't give a damn what the fucking pussycat says. I'm not going to stand around and let him kill people because it's convenient. Or arrest them so they can be killed quietly."
"It's protocol. You're more important. Between you and them, I'll choose you every time."
"And fuck protocol, Ursa. We're here to save lives. There's nothing normal about this situation. I say fuck him. We take him down and take care of this our way."
She was silent for several seconds. Judging by his reply, I wasn't sure if her orders to stand down would be followed. Truthfully, I wasn't sure what I wanted them to do. Part of me wanted them to pull back, it'd be the simplest way to keep Flechette safe, but another part empathized with the Jouster and the people here.
I idly knit someone's lacerations together and watched as three more bears materialized in the distance, creating a barricade as she and an aid worker pulled someone my way.
Ursa let out a defeated sigh. It was the sound of a parent who knew she'd lost control of the situation. "And the rest of you? Do you feel this way?"
"You know me," Prism said with an audible smile.
"I'm with my leader," Shelter added, though with a nervous gulp. Lackluster response aside, I glanced his way to find eyes full of conviction.
"Yes, ma'am." And Flechette made three.
Ursa took a deep breath and stood up straight. I heard Shelter open up the comms again. "No," she said firmly.
"No?" Arsalan asked. He'd reached the end of his patience. Like it or not, he did have the legitimate legal authority here. "If you assist them, you will be considered enemies of the state."
I'd heard enough. They'd made their decision so I'd have to go along with it. Once again, the gung ho heroes made things more complicated than they needed to be. I couldn't say I entirely disapproved.
I cut in with my customary shit-eating grin. "Well, that sounds grand."
"Medic."
"Creed. Get the name right, pussycat."
"You will return and treat my soldiers."
That caused everyone to look my way. I didn't appreciate the sudden spotlight, but it couldn't be helped. I was being told to pick a side. I could do the legal thing. Or I could join Ursa and effectively become an enemy of the state. Or, and this was always an option, I could just fuck off out of here like this wasn't my problem.
I'd promised Faultline. And Amy. And myself.
I was Creed; when I first started out, I took up that name because I wanted people to know, no matter whether I stood as a hero or villain, I was a cape with principles. I knew, at least in the abstract, what Earth-Bet did to capes, and wanted a reminder to be someone who could look himself in the mirror when all's said and done.
In light of that, my choice was obvious. I'd never been the legal sort, anyway.
"My Wards don't answer to you," Ursa snapped and I realized I'd not spoken in too long.
"The medic is not a Ward," Arsalan growled. "Go heal the soldiers. There are men who deserve healing, not terrorists."
I took a deep breath to calm myself. It barely worked. I'd seen this man stomp into a riot and instantly start putting people to death. Then he had the gall to demand that the only medic here, who wasn't even Syrian, be reserved for his men, as if they weren't responsible for half the bloodshed.
Faultline was right. In the end, I wasn't fooling anyone, not even myself. The mass-murdering fuckwit could die in a fire.
With deceptive calm, I finished up healing the patient and spoke, "Nah, I think I'm good here, pussycat."
"You will go join my men, boy."
"See, I'm no friend of Ursa's. I'm actually something of a villain, but I happen to agree with the heroes for a change. It's in the name. I'm all about contracts. Oaths. And I see the laws of war as a contract of sorts. It's not hard, you know? Don't shoot civvies. Don't disrupt hospitals. Generally don't be a dick."
I stood, pulling my patient to his feet so he could stumble away to his coworkers. My body was tense, Crown Chimera primed and ready to burst at speed. This would be my first battle since I crashed the Empire and Merchants. The stakes were so much higher than just a tussle between the gangs.
"The way I see it? Your men shot civvies. Your men made the riot worse. Your men forced the medics to evacuate, denying your own people life-saving treatment. You broke the rules, Arsalan, so the rules don't protect you or yours."
"Then you will die with the rest," he swore. Then, louder so his men could hear, he shouted something in Arabic. I didn't know what he said, but the way they looked at us made the intent clear.
I skated back until I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Prism.
"You could leave," New York's second-in-command suggested.
"I could, but I don't think I could face The GOAT if I did," I replied with a wan smile she couldn't see. "So, Ursa Aurora, Shelter's said so before, but I'll make it clear: Until we head stateside, I'm under your command."
"Much obliged, Creed. Do what you can to help. I don't know enough about you to command you." She quickly took control and began to bark out orders. She quickly had her group pull back and take cover with Shelter. With our side made up mostly of aid workers, we didn't have the manpower or weapons that the SRG did. They had a lot of soldiers, but we had a far better defensive encampment thanks to Shelter.
The rebels? rioters? terrorists? had largely set aside any quarrels between them to consolidate into a third faction, led by the men in tan shrouds. They included a shaker who made sandstorms, someone who could make glass constructs, someone who could phase through solids, and a blaster who could make all bullets track a target. A few of the recent triggers, or capes who'd been going plainclothes, had sided with them. Their lack of uniforms made it hard to tell who was and wasn't a cape, but most all of them had picked up at least one type of firearm.
A few people had upended some cars to use as cover. They looked like they were more likely to fight the SRG and the Lionguard, but would likely take the chance to take us out too to secure supplies if they saw the opportunity. I didn't know how this mess started, but they didn't seem like a priority compared to the actual armed soldiers.
"If we can convince them to work with us, we could subdue Arsalan," Ursa said to an aid worker. "How's your Arabic?"
I couldn't hear the other end, but her curse made the answer clear. I doubted words alone would work anyway.
That was all I could glean before Flygon swept around again. He headed for one of the rebels while ignoring the bullets that seemed to ping off a wind barrier emanating from his horn. He was fast, far faster than I'd given him credit for earlier. A scream of pain filled the air as he skewered a man on that horn, ferrying him into the sky. Then, with a contemptuous laugh, he threw him down on top of a car.
The sandstorm started to die down, which meant he was the shaker. He was too fast for anyone to strike at directly and both Ursa and Prism were groundbound. It'd end in a second if Flechette could land the hit, but she didn't look like she could make the shot, or would be willing to given the lethality of her power.
"Guess I have my opponent," I muttered. I kicked off, heading straight for the injured cape. "Ursa, I'm taking flyboy."
"Got it, see if you can save Dust Devil while you can. That might get them to work with us," she barked.
"Yes, ma'am."
I cloaked and cast Agility, racing over just in time to kick Flygon on the side. I felt like I'd kicked the oil tanker back home. He felt so dense and the barrier of wind around him automatically parried my foot, making it grind it skid away along the spin. Still, he was kept from diving back towards Dust Devil to finish the job.
I landed on top of the shaker and began to repair his vitals before he bled out. It wasn't easy; alchemy wasn't an instant magic spell. Every time I tried to focus, something would distract me. A bullet I had to shield us from, Jouster running lance-first into Rhyhorn, the flaming cyclones caused by Rapidash running in an overlapping circle, healing in the middle of a battlefield was a far different task than healing in a medic tent.
I couldn't do this alone. I reached for my pokenav and pressed the recall beacon. When I built the device, I'd made it with SAINT in mind. The pokenav wasn't just a place for SAINT to interface with my helmet; it was SAINT's home. There was, for lack of a better phrase, a porygon-shaped hole in its programming. I used it now to call him back. Coupled with our burgeoning aura bond and the Pledge Regalia's function as a scanner, he'd be able to hear it.
"Please tell me I can trust you, Wieldmaiden," I whispered. I scooped up Dust Devil into my arms and leapt, spinning in the air to avoid Flygon's horn by inches.
We settled behind an upended truck. A few of the men shot at me but I let the Germa Suit tank the bullets and got to work. I just needed a few seconds without having to focus on my shields.
"How is he?" someone asked in a thick accent. He was almost incomprehensible. In the din of combat, it took me a second to realize he was speaking English. He shouted something and got people to stop shooting at me.
"Spine's a mess. I'm just going to rebuild his internal organs," I said quickly. "He won't walk, but he'll live. Give me time."
The man nodded stiffly and began barking orders. I noticed that of the men in tan shrouds, he was the only one unarmed. Then he reached into his sleeves and drew out some bullets. He placed them on his palms and flicked each, launching them to seek out the soldiers in curving arcs. That made him the one the Wards called Deadeye.
I opened up my suit mic. "Ursa, I've located Deadeye and Dust Devil. You're on speaker. He speaks English. Talk."
I didn't know what was said, I was too focused on treating Dust Devil. All the pieces needed to be there. They weren't. Flygon had ripped a hole clean through his stomach. The wind barrier had only widened it, ripping up internal organs and turning the spine to so many splinters.
I had to work with what I had. I first converted his wool shirt to skin, melding it to his abdomen so he wouldn't bleed out. The result was a gray, hairy thing, patchy and disgusting, but it'd hold until this shit show was over and I could heal him properly. I then converted all the fragments of his spine into blood to replenish what he'd lost. Lastly, I tackled the task of slowly reconstructing his damaged organs. He wasn't fixed, not by a long shot, but he wasn't in danger anymore.
"I'll come back to regrow his spine later," I told Deadeye.
"Thank you." He was about to say more, but Flygon was back. He'd flown up high in a giant loop like a rollercoaster before using gravity to empower his charge. He let out a bark of wild laughter that sounded like the howling wind as he rushed our position. Deadeye tried to shoot him down but the barrier of wind kept him safe. "Duck!"
I stepped forward and swept my cape in front of me. My shield module came to life, forming an array of yellow hexagons before me. I tacked on Protect behind it and the world took on a greenish tint as the move took hold.
Flygon could have gone around; he was incredibly agile. But he saw me take a defensive stance and took it as a personal challenge. His entire body straightened out, becoming a spear shrouded in spirals of wind.
We clashed with a deafening roar and I winced as a pressure like a meteor shoved me into the ground. I gritted my teeth and watched as my shield's integrity dropped rapidly, from ninety-eight percent earlier to sixty. Twenty. Then it was gone, the shield module overwhelmed in a single, overwhelming strike. Protect took the rest, but I could feel my aura straining to contain the force.
It reminded me of that time I'd punched into Skidmark's dump-dozer. In a fit of pique, I'd called it Giga Impact. Except this time, I was on the receiving end and Flygon's move was unlike my own in one respect. He'd turned himself into a drill rather than a hammer, concentrating all the force of his momentum onto a single point and making himself exponentially harder to guard against.
I felt my Protect crack. The move was demanding at the best of times, there was a reason pokemon didn't use it constantly.
I readied myself. There wasn't a martial art on earth that could deflect what was effectively a miniaturized rod from god, but I did have Recover. If I let him skewer me and launched myself to the side with After Burner, I could probably drag him with me, redirecting his momentum from those behind me. It'd hurt like a bitch, but I had self-healing; these guys probably didn't.
Then I saw something that made me delirious with laughter. Off in the bottom left corner of my UI, a tiny, pixelated figure of a duck poked its head.
SAINT had arrived. And judging by the emoticons he kept spamming, he was pissed.
Without orders from me, he popped out into the world as Flygon broke through my Protect. Then, despite his best efforts, he came to a screeching halt as he was met horn-first against yet another Protect.
"Pory? Pory-GON!" SAINT cried out. The eviolite hanging from his neck shone brilliantly. Aura was fucky and right now, I was all for aura-based nonsense.
SAINT was not a porygon-Z. He had an eviolite. Ergo, he was a tank. This little, blocky duck was built like a vault door and I was all for it.
His Protect covered a small hemisphere in front of himself. He watched, thoroughly unimpressed as the rest of Flygon's momentum fizzled out.
Then I had the pleasure of watching the cape's eyes widen in panic as SAINT charged up a Thunderbolt. That got him to abort a punch towards my face, as if SAINT would let that connect, and backpetal into a steep rise.
"I'm going to follow," I told Deadeye. "No one else can keep up with him in the sky."
He nodded grimly. "We have no flyers."
"SAINT, you with me?"
"Pory."
I shot off into the air. It was unfortunate; I didn't want to reveal SAINT like this, but it couldn't be helped. There would be questions, but I'd just have to deal with those as they came. If push came to shove, The GOAT's organization would gain a new member.
I'd underestimated these guys. Though Flygon seemed to be their only flyer, he was a heavy hitter, fast and strong like very few capes in the world. I'd also failed to account for how willing they were to get lethal. It was one thing to know or even see, another for that killing intent to be directed towards me.
I wouldn't be making that mistake again.
Author's Note
SAINT ex-machina. He is truly the best duck. And you thought Bryce was the star of this show. Am I setting up a Dragonslayer arc? Hmm…
Random fact? Sure. Everything has a different terminal velocity, defined in layman's terms as the point at which you physically can't fall any faster, no matter how high the drop. This is because as you gain speed, you also press the air beneath you faster, building more resistance until the two forces, gravity and air resistance, balance out.
That should be intuitive, but what isn't obvious is that some animals can survive their terminal velocity. The most famous of these is the humble gray squirrel. Yes, that's right, squirrels don't take fall damage. Unlike cats, those lying bastards.
In any case, I'm done with the daily updates of my Pat-re-on backlog. Hope you enjoyed the week.
Thank you to all of my patrons. As many of you know, I update one of my stories once every weekend publically. However, I update much more frequently on Pat-re-on, usually 8-10 chapters a month spread across various stories. That means the number of chapters available on Pat-re-on is always growing. As of now, this is how far along each story is:
- ACL & Bunny Quests: Same as public
- Apocalypse: 1.13
- The Holy Grill: 2.4
- Homeless Bunny: 22
- Legendary Tinker: 8.5
- Plan? What Plan?: 4.13
- When is a Spoon a Sword?: 4.12
- Troll in the Dungeon!: 17
- Let There be War: 9 (Complete)
Total Chapter Difference (Pat-re-on - Public): 29
Bryce Kiley
2010, November 27: Damascus, Syria
Racing back to the refugee camp took me less than half the time it did ferrying the patients and Nurse Johnson. Without a literal ton of bodies to hold me back, I hopped into the air and cast Agility, leaving the fallback point in a streak of condensed vapor.
I returned to a scene of utter pandemonium. Rather than die down, it seemed like the inclusion of SRG reinforcements had only added to the violence. How many different factions were there? I saw the ghostly, ursine projections of the Protectorate leader, the gray and desert-tan uniforms of the SRG, and several figures who wore dust-brown shrouds over their faces. Beyond those three, I could see at least a dozen people in civilian outfits doing whatever they wanted, lashing out at whoever was closest.
From the north and east, the golems of Arsalan were making steady headway. I couldn't see much from above because of the dust clouds, but they looked to be grabbing and throwing people down, incapacitating them with what would in America be considered excessive force. They were bulletproof, the muffled pinging sounds from their stone armor made that clear. They were also supported by a flying figure and a pair of movers who fought with the men in shrouds.
As I got closer, I found that the flyer was either a changer or a Case-53. He had two sets of large, insectoid wings like a dragonfly. His spine protruded from his back around and over his neck, framing his head and looping out until it formed a spiraling spike of bone. He looked like a cross between a dragonfly and a unicorn and I named him "Flygon" in my mind. He was fast, zipping back and forth to skewer or pick up anyone who aimed at his leader. Even if he missed, a cyclone of wind followed his wake, leaching chaos behind.
The two movers weren't as fast, but they made up for that with area denial. One generated flaming trails with his footsteps, leaving behind a column of fire nine feet tall. The other had a force field that grew bigger the longer he ran, creating a mobile barricade and corralling everyone. To stay on-brand, I labeled them Rapidash and Rhyhorn.
Now that I was closer, I saw that neither Arsalan nor Flygon seemed overly concerned about leaving people alive. Flygon ripped through an assault rifle and the arm that was carrying it. A spiraling barrier of wind protected him from gunfire. Arsalan's stone soldiers had some kind of physics-bending effect, or were just that strong, because they left visible indentations in flesh and bone where they gripped.
Then I heard more gunshots and saw one of the men who'd been distributing supplies, identifiable by a sky-blue handkerchief wrapped around his upper arm, fall in a shower of blood. The kicker was that the bullets came from the direction of the SRG reinforcements. I was appalled by their callousness. These idiots couldn't see well through the intermittent sandstorm and rather than take care, they were choosing to fire blind.
It was all overwhelming. What had started as a riot had devolved into a true battlefield. Even civilians who had no powers were picking up dropped weapons, lashing out at the Syrian Guard to defend themselves. This was "riot breaking" as they knew it and it made me sick.
I had to do something. I stood up in the sky, overlooking the battle for the place where I could make the most difference. Then Nurse Johnson's advice rang in my head: Find Ursa Aurora. She was clearly the more palatable leader here. If anyone could get me a handle on the situation, it was her.
I found her after a moment. Unfortunately, she was currently directing her bears to defend against a brute in civilian clothes, a hidden cape who'd decided to unmask in the chaos or possibly a fresh trigger, while trying not to harm him. She was fighting like a Protectorate hero, to incapacitate and restrain, while the man was clearly fighting to end her. She could have dogpiled him with three bears, but was forced to split her attention to protect civilians who were still caught in the battle.
Around them, Rhyhorn and Rapidash worked together, using Rhyhorn's force field like a bulldozer to shove people together while Rapidash encircled them in a wall of flames. It was effective at keeping people in one place, but it didn't remove them from the battlefield. Worse, the flames covered the ones inside, making it harder to aim around them, and sent the rest panicking.
I couldn't dive in. Aurora had no reason to think I was an ally in this situation. If I dropped down on top of the riot, there was a good chance I'd only add to the chaos. Worse, I might distract the heroes, getting them hurt or killed.
I looked for somewhere else to land. Off towards the edge, what had likely been a safe distance away before the battlefield expanded to sweep him in, another tinker had deployed some kind of barrier. His safe space was like a calm in the storm and I could see aid workers and capes dragging downed people behind him. Thankfully, it seemed like there was some tacit agreement to not shoot at the barrier because no faction was trying to focus down the obvious medics.
I braked sharply, causing my torso to continue forward into a front flip. With my head pointed at the ground, I kicked off again into a sharp dive. I punched through a cloud of swirling sand and landed just in time to shield someone else, a civilian who'd fallen and had chosen wisely not to get up for fear of the flying hazards. Swirling my cape in front of me, I triggered the shield module and watched as a hail of bullets made my force field ripple.
The civilian shouted something at me in Arabic, but I ignored him. I picked him up by the scruff of his neck and skated backwards until I was behind the other tinker's bunker.
"What the hell happened?" I yelled.
"I don't know!" the tinker shouted back. He was young, about my age, probably a Ward then. I pitied him. This was a shitty situation to be in for someone who probably couldn't even drink yet. I at least had my past life to fall back on.
"I'm Creed, independent. You?"
"Shelter, Flechette, and Jouster from the New York Wards," he said. His voice was cracking, just on the bridge of hysteria.
I swore. Flechette was here? Lily. Foil. Sting. The closest person Earth-Bet had to a "chosen one." The stakes just got way higher in my eyes. More or less every cape in Gold Morning was replaceable, except her. I didn't know if she was here in canon or not, but if she died, we were so fucked it wasn't even funny.
That did it. Even had I not had that chat with Faultline last night, Flechette's presence here would have forced me to take their side. She was just too vital for me to do anything else.
"Report to Ursa Aurora. Independent, putting myself under the command of the local Protectorate leader. You've got to have SOP for this."
The imposition of protocol seemed to have helped him get himself in order. He nodded and spoke quickly into his mic. "Shelter to Ursa. Indie Creed is here, placing himself under your command. You have a radio in that helmet?"
He then rattled off a channel number I linked my pokenav to. A moment later, I heard a woman grunt into the mic. "Shit," she swore. There was more fighting in the background. "What can you do?"
"Medic. Ranged stun. Personal force field. I can fight too," I rattled off.
"Heal the ones near Shelter first. Then go incapacitate who you can and evacuate the ones who need it. Keep this line open."
Obvious, but that was fine, simple was good. I just needed the Protectorate to know not to take potshots at me. I nodded towards Jouster and Flechette, the latter drawing my eye more than once, and did my best to slot into their teamwork.
We quickly fell into a rhythm. Jouster dragged patients towards me, Flechette took potshots at people to keep them off his back, and I laid hands on the patients. We were making good progress. Slowly but surely, we were thinning the number of civilians. Even if they had lashed out in the chaos, we dragged as many behind Shelter as we could and fixed them up before shoving them away from the riot. It wasn't like they were going to charge back into the melee now that they'd been fished out.
Several minutes in, when a decent chunk of the fighting had died down, we heard our radio crackle to life.
"What do you think you're doing," came the guttural crackle of the SRG leader.
"Us? What the hell are you doing shooting at civilians?" Ursa Aurora said hotly.
"They are not civilians. They are terrorists. They became terrorists when they picked up weapons."
"You're hitting civilians in the crossfire!"
"They hide behind human shields. That is not our problem."
"That's not how we do things."
"That is how we do things." Flygon swept down and tried to wrench Flechette's arbalest from her. She yelped but held on. "You foreigners need to stop interfering with my soldiers."
"Your soldiers need to stop firing into civilian crowds!"
One of Prism's clones had come over and shoved a confoam grenade in Flygon's face, forcing him to fly away in a shower of scattered foam. Flechette simply removed the friction between her and the foam and slipped it off like she was taking off a sweater.
Prism's other two clones were trying to corral a man in civilian garb who seemed to be skating around with ribbons of scything energy in his hands. As I watched, one clone distracted him while a ghostly bear bowled him over from behind, a confoam grenade in its mouth. Then, that bear's head burst into light as a shrouded man helped up Ribbons.
"My men are keeping the law. They are terrorists so we shoot them. We are not soft, girl," I could hear the sneer through the radio. Syria wasn't exactly known for women's rights. I wondered if it had been a mistake for Legend to send Ursa as the leader of his contingent.
By the growl coming from Ursa's end, the dig hadn't gone unnoticed. It probably wasn't even the first time. "We're not letting you kill them, Arsalan."
"You are under my command in Syria. You don't let anything. Pull back. We will subdue the riot and take in the terrorists."
The connection fell silent for a few seconds.
"What now, Ursa?" Prism asked. I realized Shelter had cut Arsalan out of the channel on Prism's orders.
"Some of these are probably political dissidents," Ursa said. Her voice sounded tired, her fire gone out now that it was just her team and me. "We're pulling back. Syria's issues aren't our job."
"Not all of them."
"Most of them are just desperate," Flechette cut in.
"I'm aware, but I can't risk you guys," Ursa said.
"Bullshit!" the one I took to be Jouster said fiercely. He looked like he was a second away from charging the SRG, the definition of a gung ho cape. "We're heroes. I don't give a damn what the fucking pussycat says. I'm not going to stand around and let him kill people because it's convenient. Or arrest them so they can be killed quietly."
"It's protocol. You're more important. Between you and them, I'll choose you every time."
"And fuck protocol, Ursa. We're here to save lives. There's nothing normal about this situation. I say fuck him. We take him down and take care of this our way."
She was silent for several seconds. Judging by his reply, I wasn't sure if her orders to stand down would be followed. Truthfully, I wasn't sure what I wanted them to do. Part of me wanted them to pull back, it'd be the simplest way to keep Flechette safe, but another part empathized with the Jouster and the people here.
I idly knit someone's lacerations together and watched as three more bears materialized in the distance, creating a barricade as she and an aid worker pulled someone my way.
Ursa let out a defeated sigh. It was the sound of a parent who knew she'd lost control of the situation. "And the rest of you? Do you feel this way?"
"You know me," Prism said with an audible smile.
"I'm with my leader," Shelter added, though with a nervous gulp. Lackluster response aside, I glanced his way to find eyes full of conviction.
"Yes, ma'am." And Flechette made three.
Ursa took a deep breath and stood up straight. I heard Shelter open up the comms again. "No," she said firmly.
"No?" Arsalan asked. He'd reached the end of his patience. Like it or not, he did have the legitimate legal authority here. "If you assist them, you will be considered enemies of the state."
I'd heard enough. They'd made their decision so I'd have to go along with it. Once again, the gung ho heroes made things more complicated than they needed to be. I couldn't say I entirely disapproved.
I cut in with my customary shit-eating grin. "Well, that sounds grand."
"Medic."
"Creed. Get the name right, pussycat."
"You will return and treat my soldiers."
That caused everyone to look my way. I didn't appreciate the sudden spotlight, but it couldn't be helped. I was being told to pick a side. I could do the legal thing. Or I could join Ursa and effectively become an enemy of the state. Or, and this was always an option, I could just fuck off out of here like this wasn't my problem.
I'd promised Faultline. And Amy. And myself.
I was Creed; when I first started out, I took up that name because I wanted people to know, no matter whether I stood as a hero or villain, I was a cape with principles. I knew, at least in the abstract, what Earth-Bet did to capes, and wanted a reminder to be someone who could look himself in the mirror when all's said and done.
In light of that, my choice was obvious. I'd never been the legal sort, anyway.
"My Wards don't answer to you," Ursa snapped and I realized I'd not spoken in too long.
"The medic is not a Ward," Arsalan growled. "Go heal the soldiers. There are men who deserve healing, not terrorists."
I took a deep breath to calm myself. It barely worked. I'd seen this man stomp into a riot and instantly start putting people to death. Then he had the gall to demand that the only medic here, who wasn't even Syrian, be reserved for his men, as if they weren't responsible for half the bloodshed.
Faultline was right. In the end, I wasn't fooling anyone, not even myself. The mass-murdering fuckwit could die in a fire.
With deceptive calm, I finished up healing the patient and spoke, "Nah, I think I'm good here, pussycat."
"You will go join my men, boy."
"See, I'm no friend of Ursa's. I'm actually something of a villain, but I happen to agree with the heroes for a change. It's in the name. I'm all about contracts. Oaths. And I see the laws of war as a contract of sorts. It's not hard, you know? Don't shoot civvies. Don't disrupt hospitals. Generally don't be a dick."
I stood, pulling my patient to his feet so he could stumble away to his coworkers. My body was tense, Crown Chimera primed and ready to burst at speed. This would be my first battle since I crashed the Empire and Merchants. The stakes were so much higher than just a tussle between the gangs.
"The way I see it? Your men shot civvies. Your men made the riot worse. Your men forced the medics to evacuate, denying your own people life-saving treatment. You broke the rules, Arsalan, so the rules don't protect you or yours."
"Then you will die with the rest," he swore. Then, louder so his men could hear, he shouted something in Arabic. I didn't know what he said, but the way they looked at us made the intent clear.
I skated back until I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Prism.
"You could leave," New York's second-in-command suggested.
"I could, but I don't think I could face The GOAT if I did," I replied with a wan smile she couldn't see. "So, Ursa Aurora, Shelter's said so before, but I'll make it clear: Until we head stateside, I'm under your command."
"Much obliged, Creed. Do what you can to help. I don't know enough about you to command you." She quickly took control and began to bark out orders. She quickly had her group pull back and take cover with Shelter. With our side made up mostly of aid workers, we didn't have the manpower or weapons that the SRG did. They had a lot of soldiers, but we had a far better defensive encampment thanks to Shelter.
The rebels? rioters? terrorists? had largely set aside any quarrels between them to consolidate into a third faction, led by the men in tan shrouds. They included a shaker who made sandstorms, someone who could make glass constructs, someone who could phase through solids, and a blaster who could make all bullets track a target. A few of the recent triggers, or capes who'd been going plainclothes, had sided with them. Their lack of uniforms made it hard to tell who was and wasn't a cape, but most all of them had picked up at least one type of firearm.
A few people had upended some cars to use as cover. They looked like they were more likely to fight the SRG and the Lionguard, but would likely take the chance to take us out too to secure supplies if they saw the opportunity. I didn't know how this mess started, but they didn't seem like a priority compared to the actual armed soldiers.
"If we can convince them to work with us, we could subdue Arsalan," Ursa said to an aid worker. "How's your Arabic?"
I couldn't hear the other end, but her curse made the answer clear. I doubted words alone would work anyway.
That was all I could glean before Flygon swept around again. He headed for one of the rebels while ignoring the bullets that seemed to ping off a wind barrier emanating from his horn. He was fast, far faster than I'd given him credit for earlier. A scream of pain filled the air as he skewered a man on that horn, ferrying him into the sky. Then, with a contemptuous laugh, he threw him down on top of a car.
The sandstorm started to die down, which meant he was the shaker. He was too fast for anyone to strike at directly and both Ursa and Prism were groundbound. It'd end in a second if Flechette could land the hit, but she didn't look like she could make the shot, or would be willing to given the lethality of her power.
"Guess I have my opponent," I muttered. I kicked off, heading straight for the injured cape. "Ursa, I'm taking flyboy."
"Got it, see if you can save Dust Devil while you can. That might get them to work with us," she barked.
"Yes, ma'am."
I cloaked and cast Agility, racing over just in time to kick Flygon on the side. I felt like I'd kicked the oil tanker back home. He felt so dense and the barrier of wind around him automatically parried my foot, making it grind it skid away along the spin. Still, he was kept from diving back towards Dust Devil to finish the job.
I landed on top of the shaker and began to repair his vitals before he bled out. It wasn't easy; alchemy wasn't an instant magic spell. Every time I tried to focus, something would distract me. A bullet I had to shield us from, Jouster running lance-first into Rhyhorn, the flaming cyclones caused by Rapidash running in an overlapping circle, healing in the middle of a battlefield was a far different task than healing in a medic tent.
I couldn't do this alone. I reached for my pokenav and pressed the recall beacon. When I built the device, I'd made it with SAINT in mind. The pokenav wasn't just a place for SAINT to interface with my helmet; it was SAINT's home. There was, for lack of a better phrase, a porygon-shaped hole in its programming. I used it now to call him back. Coupled with our burgeoning aura bond and the Pledge Regalia's function as a scanner, he'd be able to hear it.
"Please tell me I can trust you, Wieldmaiden," I whispered. I scooped up Dust Devil into my arms and leapt, spinning in the air to avoid Flygon's horn by inches.
We settled behind an upended truck. A few of the men shot at me but I let the Germa Suit tank the bullets and got to work. I just needed a few seconds without having to focus on my shields.
"How is he?" someone asked in a thick accent. He was almost incomprehensible. In the din of combat, it took me a second to realize he was speaking English. He shouted something and got people to stop shooting at me.
"Spine's a mess. I'm just going to rebuild his internal organs," I said quickly. "He won't walk, but he'll live. Give me time."
The man nodded stiffly and began barking orders. I noticed that of the men in tan shrouds, he was the only one unarmed. Then he reached into his sleeves and drew out some bullets. He placed them on his palms and flicked each, launching them to seek out the soldiers in curving arcs. That made him the one the Wards called Deadeye.
I opened up my suit mic. "Ursa, I've located Deadeye and Dust Devil. You're on speaker. He speaks English. Talk."
I didn't know what was said, I was too focused on treating Dust Devil. All the pieces needed to be there. They weren't. Flygon had ripped a hole clean through his stomach. The wind barrier had only widened it, ripping up internal organs and turning the spine to so many splinters.
I had to work with what I had. I first converted his wool shirt to skin, melding it to his abdomen so he wouldn't bleed out. The result was a gray, hairy thing, patchy and disgusting, but it'd hold until this shit show was over and I could heal him properly. I then converted all the fragments of his spine into blood to replenish what he'd lost. Lastly, I tackled the task of slowly reconstructing his damaged organs. He wasn't fixed, not by a long shot, but he wasn't in danger anymore.
"I'll come back to regrow his spine later," I told Deadeye.
"Thank you." He was about to say more, but Flygon was back. He'd flown up high in a giant loop like a rollercoaster before using gravity to empower his charge. He let out a bark of wild laughter that sounded like the howling wind as he rushed our position. Deadeye tried to shoot him down but the barrier of wind kept him safe. "Duck!"
I stepped forward and swept my cape in front of me. My shield module came to life, forming an array of yellow hexagons before me. I tacked on Protect behind it and the world took on a greenish tint as the move took hold.
Flygon could have gone around; he was incredibly agile. But he saw me take a defensive stance and took it as a personal challenge. His entire body straightened out, becoming a spear shrouded in spirals of wind.
We clashed with a deafening roar and I winced as a pressure like a meteor shoved me into the ground. I gritted my teeth and watched as my shield's integrity dropped rapidly, from ninety-eight percent earlier to sixty. Twenty. Then it was gone, the shield module overwhelmed in a single, overwhelming strike. Protect took the rest, but I could feel my aura straining to contain the force.
It reminded me of that time I'd punched into Skidmark's dump-dozer. In a fit of pique, I'd called it Giga Impact. Except this time, I was on the receiving end and Flygon's move was unlike my own in one respect. He'd turned himself into a drill rather than a hammer, concentrating all the force of his momentum onto a single point and making himself exponentially harder to guard against.
I felt my Protect crack. The move was demanding at the best of times, there was a reason pokemon didn't use it constantly.
I readied myself. There wasn't a martial art on earth that could deflect what was effectively a miniaturized rod from god, but I did have Recover. If I let him skewer me and launched myself to the side with After Burner, I could probably drag him with me, redirecting his momentum from those behind me. It'd hurt like a bitch, but I had self-healing; these guys probably didn't.
Then I saw something that made me delirious with laughter. Off in the bottom left corner of my UI, a tiny, pixelated figure of a duck poked its head.
SAINT had arrived. And judging by the emoticons he kept spamming, he was pissed.
Without orders from me, he popped out into the world as Flygon broke through my Protect. Then, despite his best efforts, he came to a screeching halt as he was met horn-first against yet another Protect.
"Pory? Pory-GON!" SAINT cried out. The eviolite hanging from his neck shone brilliantly. Aura was fucky and right now, I was all for aura-based nonsense.
SAINT was not a porygon-Z. He had an eviolite. Ergo, he was a tank. This little, blocky duck was built like a vault door and I was all for it.
His Protect covered a small hemisphere in front of himself. He watched, thoroughly unimpressed as the rest of Flygon's momentum fizzled out.
Then I had the pleasure of watching the cape's eyes widen in panic as SAINT charged up a Thunderbolt. That got him to abort a punch towards my face, as if SAINT would let that connect, and backpetal into a steep rise.
"I'm going to follow," I told Deadeye. "No one else can keep up with him in the sky."
He nodded grimly. "We have no flyers."
"SAINT, you with me?"
"Pory."
I shot off into the air. It was unfortunate; I didn't want to reveal SAINT like this, but it couldn't be helped. There would be questions, but I'd just have to deal with those as they came. If push came to shove, The GOAT's organization would gain a new member.
I'd underestimated these guys. Though Flygon seemed to be their only flyer, he was a heavy hitter, fast and strong like very few capes in the world. I'd also failed to account for how willing they were to get lethal. It was one thing to know or even see, another for that killing intent to be directed towards me.
I wouldn't be making that mistake again.
Author's Note
SAINT ex-machina. He is truly the best duck. And you thought Bryce was the star of this show. Am I setting up a Dragonslayer arc? Hmm…
Random fact? Sure. Everything has a different terminal velocity, defined in layman's terms as the point at which you physically can't fall any faster, no matter how high the drop. This is because as you gain speed, you also press the air beneath you faster, building more resistance until the two forces, gravity and air resistance, balance out.
That should be intuitive, but what isn't obvious is that some animals can survive their terminal velocity. The most famous of these is the humble gray squirrel. Yes, that's right, squirrels don't take fall damage. Unlike cats, those lying bastards.
In any case, I'm done with the daily updates of my Pat-re-on backlog. Hope you enjoyed the week.
Thank you to all of my patrons. As many of you know, I update one of my stories once every weekend publically. However, I update much more frequently on Pat-re-on, usually 8-10 chapters a month spread across various stories. That means the number of chapters available on Pat-re-on is always growing. As of now, this is how far along each story is:
- ACL & Bunny Quests: Same as public
- Apocalypse: 1.13
- The Holy Grill: 2.4
- Homeless Bunny: 22
- Legendary Tinker: 8.5
- Plan? What Plan?: 4.13
- When is a Spoon a Sword?: 4.12
- Troll in the Dungeon!: 17
- Let There be War: 9 (Complete)
Total Chapter Difference (Pat-re-on - Public): 29
Creed needs to decide if wants SAINT to pretend to be a Case 53 or admit that the blocky 🦆 duck is an artificial intelligence.
Both options have pros and cons.
If SAINT pretends to be a Case 53, he could openly hang out at the Palanquine club and let 🦎Newter give him headpats. Newter is so touch-starved and would appreciate the physical contact.
I mean he could also argue he's a digital lifeform? He can't multiply by himself or grow infinitely online which is the big red flag for artificial lifeforms, so hes not a true ai, and he can enter the physical world, which puts him in a strange gray area.
So I don't see the PRT freaking out to much... Besides at how diverse of a tinker Creed is.
So I don't see the PRT freaking out to much... Besides at how diverse of a tinker Creed is.
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4.10 Seal
Fabled Webs
Lord Weaver, Glorious and Wise
- Location
- Arlington, VA
Seal 4.10
Bryce Kiley
2010, November 27: Damascus, Syria
The dragonfly bastard rammed me, shoulder-checking me as I climbed into the sky. I twisted around the blow and created a platform of condensed air perpendicular to the ground. I kicked off it, skating ust fine despite the impossible angle, before flipping into a kick that had Crown Chimera grinding futilely against his wind wall.
He turned and cursed me out in Arabic before dodging a Thunderbolt from SAINT. Then he rushed me, diving horn-first so that SAINT wouldn't be able to aim properly. I kicked off at a steep right angle, avoiding the strike but unable to retaliate meaningfully.
I glanced at my UI. Shield integrity: eight percent and climbing, but slowly.
It wasn't enough. I'd noticed that Flygon's wind barrier got stronger with his speed. My hypothesis was that his Shard converted momentum into a force field masked as a spiraling air current but it wasn't like I could pause and ask him to test it out for me. His blows weren't anywhere near as strong as that first strike without the time to build momentum and use gravity in his favor, but I didn't have my shield module either. I didn't think my Protect alone could stand up to repeated hits from him and wasn't in any hurry to confirm.
He was on me again in an instant, either overly confident that he could take me or unwilling to give a tinker time to plan. Unfortunately, no matter his reason, it was the right move.
Flygon was as agile as I was. It felt impossible, I was the only one standing with my feet, but his dragonfly-like wings gave him a maneuverability that boggled the mind. No matter how I tried to turn or juke, he was on me, trying to gore me like the world's most obsessive marlin.
"Mirage Road: Fogbank," I whispered, tossing out a thick cloud before vanishing into thin air. He rammed right through, sailing past and missing me by mere inches.
Thinking quickly, I hopped onto his back, clamping my legs around his waist and my arms over his wings. He yelped in surprise but quickly tried to buck me off. Forget a bucking bronco, I now felt an inordinate kinship with Pecos Bill and his tornado-rasslin' ways.
I'd thought the enhanced strength of the Germa Suit would be enough to clip his wings. To be fair, it was, but he had two sets of those and a miniature cyclone raging around him.
I grunted, more in annoyance than anything as the pair of wings I wasn't pinning with my thighs beat me over the head. He wasn't comfortable to sit on, especially with that raised ridge of spine that his horn jutted from. Now that I was closer, I saw that his spine actually formed a squat, dome-like shield over the junction where his wings met. It kept me from stabbing him in the joint and ripping the damn things out.
With the wind barrier constantly buffeting me and my head slapped around like a volleyball, I wasn't sure how long I could hold him.
He swore something in Arabic. No matter the words, the death threat was easy enough to understand.
"Yeah? Fuck you too, buddy," I swore back, my voice lost in the howling wind. "Thunder Wave! SAINT, Psychic!"
We lit up like a Christmas tree, but he didn't go down immediately. He spasmed in the air, rapidly slowing but managing to buck me off. Did his biology make him resistant? I didn't know, but he clearly had physiological adaptations of some sort.
He turned to face me with a hateful snarl as a coat of blue aura surrounded him. He lunged towards me, but was stopped in his tracks by the best duck in the world.
"Great job, SAINT," I called down to him.
"Pory!" he cried back in obvious strain. Porygon weren't natural psychics, not like alakazam. They had a natural proclivity for self-levitation and often learned psychic moves, but that wasn't quite the same thing.
Panicked, I whirled back and applied my own, only to feel the problem: Though we'd immobilized him, Flygon's secondary power was still active. I could feel the wind swirling faster and faster against our combined will, grinding at our minds like a sander. Flygon was like a car that had been lifted off its wheels; he might not be going anywhere, but the engine, his power, was still very much on.
I had to decide quickly. "SAINT, let go. Lock-On into Thunderbolt!"
"Gon?" I heard, our bond pulsing with clear worry.
"Do it!"
I felt the pressure on my mind double as SAINT dropped his share. Slowly but surely, like rope snapping twine by twine, I lost control. Until finally, I was forced to let go. My mind reeled; it felt like someone had smashed a sledgehammer into my brain.
That pent up gale launched Flygon at me like a missile. What little training I had in capoeira kicked in and I tried to sway out of the line of attack, but I wasn't able to fully evade with my head ringing like a drum. I did manage to get my right arm up in time, but that was cold comfort. His horn made contact with my forearm, spearing the space between my radius and ulna.
"GAH!" I screamed in pain. He tore into me with twisting force, dragging me along even as his twisting wind barrier ripped the bones out of their sockets. It felt like someone took a carjack and split them apart.
White hot pain shot up my arm and I blacked out a little. I would have lost then and there, had not SAINT's mind reached out to mine with utter fury.
The external shock was enough to bring me back to consciousness. Through bleary eyes, I saw that my suit had remained in one piece. My arm looked a lot like a ruptured sausage link, kept from ripping apart completely by an absurdly durable casing. I felt Flygon's hand around my throat.
The shock had passed and with the pain came clarity. SAINT couldn't fire despite the Lock-On because I was skewered on Flygon's horn. He feared the bolt conducting over to me. I clenched my teeth to bite down the pain and began forming a trail of mist beneath my feet.
I built up enough friction and, with a howl of agony, twisted myself free of his horn like a bottlecap.
Then SAINT's Thunderbolt hit with the vengeance of an angry god.
Flygon roared in pain before rushing down towards SAINT. His charge was met with a Protect, one much stronger than my own. He skidded off with a trail of sparks but knocked SAINT off balance, leaving him to teeter like a roly-poly toy.
I had to interfere; Protect wasn't meant to be used consecutively. I tucked in my mangled right arm and dove. The pressure on my exposed wound was immense, but I flipped upside down and kicked the air anyway, my concern for my partner overriding the pain.
The mist built up as I ran, mounting like a snowball that turned into an avalanche. No longer harassed and harried by Flygon, I could feel the water calling to me, reminding me of the open ocean where I first truly touched my Road. I remembered all the pain and suffering I went through, twisting my own spine apart repeatedly as I tried to turn a capoeira martelo into Ringo's supersonic thorn.
I'd been wrong then. The water could pierce, but only rarely. It could slice like Agito's fang, but almost never. No, most of the time, the sea was an unrestrained, crushing force. The breaking waves swept away everything in their path, eroding and grinding until it wore down and overwhelmed even the strongest defenses.
Crown Chimera had never felt like this before. It always ran smoothly, but now, it truly felt like mine. My regalia. My Road. I gathered the mist within, compressing it with the pressure of my dive. The force compacted more and more water inside the regalia, enough that had the frames not been made of seastone, they would have surely shattered to pieces, taking my feet with them.
I paid my UI no mind as the pressure readings climbed higher and higher. SAINT was my partner, my pokemon. It was only fair then that I copied a familiar name.
"Mirage Road: Crush Claw!" I roared. I contorted myself in midair, cleaving down in an ax kick that could have ruptured steel beams. A road made of condensed, superheated steam formed beneath my feet, allowing me to build ever greater momentum. It was no thorn, nor a fang. It was a hammer, the pressure of a breaking wave focused into a single, overpowering kick.
Flygon's eyes widened in horror as he realized his mistake: I could use gravity too. Our roles were reversed now, a perfect mirror of his earlier shieldbreaker dive.
He tried to maneuver out of the way. His wings strained and beat wildly, becoming four sets of blurs on his back. Avoiding my strike wasn't possible, not at this distance and with zero warning, but he might have parried it, twisting until he took the blow on his horn where the wind barrier was strongest and the rotation fastest.
Whether he could have or not, I'd never know, because a sheen of azure light enveloped him once again. Now, it was SAINT's turn to hold him for me. Not long, even a fraction of a second would do.
As always, my partner delivered beautifully.
My heel met the protective dome that rose above Flygon's spine. I took vicious satisfaction in feeling it crunch beneath my heel. Where my foot stopped, the water rushed forward, flooding the wound like a burst dam and rupturing it from within. He let out a horrific shriek of pain as he plummeted to the ground.
A plume of smoke and dust announced my victory, adding to the already hazy scene.
I looked around to take stock of the broader conflict. I was happy to see that the civilians had cleared out by this point. Either they were fighting or they'd fucked off by now. Or dead, but glass half full and whatnot.
I hadn't been the only one to keep busy. Now that the heroes had a unified mission and a fallback point, they'd acquitted themselves well. Prism had managed to lob several confoam grenades, coordinating with her clones to create a huge mass of replicated foam that regular soldiers couldn't escape. It didn't get everyone, but about half of Arsalan's unpowered forces were unable to take aim. She also proved to be a capable combatant up close, reabsorbing her clones in a flash of light to deliver crushing blows against Arsalan's lion-men.
Last I checked, Ursa Aurora was using her bears to corral civilians and coordinate with her team. Now that the unpowered were largely out of the way, she'd stacked her three bears into a phalanx of muscle, claws, and teeth and was straining to keep Rhyhorn in place. As I watched, the mover-brute's force field visibly diminished as he could no longer build momentum. When it had thinned enough, Jouster ran in and thrust a crimson, glowing lance from between the bears like an actual phalanx.
A massive explosion of fire bloomed from the point of impact, throwing yet more smoke and debris into the air. Most of the blast was directed conically outward, sparing the leader of the NY Wards. The blast shattered what was left of Rhyhorn's force field and sent him soaring away, smoke trailing from his badly burned body. I wasn't sure whether he was alive or not. It also cracked one of Ursa's constructs, but she merely replaced it with a wave of her hand. Those two made for a dangerous combination.
Flechette too had found her resolve. She still wasn't eager to shoot people dead, but she'd taken it upon herself to provide as much covering fire as possible. I could see bolts sticking out of cover as though they'd been fused to whatever they hit. Several men ran around screaming in pain as arrows that had been strategically lodged into their shoulders exploded in confoam, not enough volume to fully encase them, but more than enough to take them out of the fight.
The rebels and plainclothed capes weren't doing nearly as well, though whether that was because they weren't as well-trained as the Protectorate or because no one wanted to piss off Legend by murdering one of his Wards was anyone's guess.
A plainclothed cape that had been generating ribbons of power from his fingertips went down in a shower of blood and gunfire after gliding towards the line of soldiers as if on an ice rink. I had to assume he was a fresh trigger. His ribbon-blades remained in the air even after his death for several seconds, acting as hazards for the unwary.
Then, as I watched, a small squad of lion-men rushed into the group of rebels. They clawed at anyone in arm's reach, gouging out deep, perfectly even furrows into whatever they struck, whether that be flesh or stone. I shot a few Thunder Waves their way, but it seemed to do nothing to slow them.
A cape next to Deadeye stood to meet them as the rebel leader fell back. Sand swirled around his arms, forming dense hammers out of quartz crystals that battered the lion-men away. His counter allowed most of his allies to retreat in time as a hail of gunfire peppered their position, but that left the sole rebel brute alone and exposed.
Two lion-men collapsed onto him and tore him apart even as their heads exploded from Deadeye's curving bullets. It was a messy shower of stone and blood that made me queasy even after a day in the medic tent. There was a lot of blood I could see even through the smoke, more than there should be in the human body.
Johnson's words hit me like a hammer and I knew why Arsalan was so feared.
"They're alive," I spoke into the mic. "Ursa, the lion-men are only stone on the outside!"
"Are you sure?"
"I saw two lose their heads so yes!"
"Fuck. You heard him. Subdue"
I swore under my breath and continued to scan the field. The SRG mover was a blur, racing around the field and trampling people underfoot while using the chaos to his advantage to break line of sight so no one could draw a bead on him. It wasn't just that he was fast enough to make aiming difficult. The smoke hindered everyone but affected the rebels who had the least training the most. And unlike me, they couldn't climb into the air for a better view, as limited as that was.
The fire also burned long and hot despite the dusty sand, likely fueled by his power more than any mundane fuel source. It inspired a primal sense of panic in people and I could see him trying to circle the shelter to entrap the Wards and cut off Flechette's vision.
With Flygon down, I decided taking him out and putting out the fires should be my priority. "SAINT, Lock-On. Thunderbolt the one with fire steps. Don't let up. Make sure he stays down."
"Gon!"
I left SAINT to take aim and landed down behind Shelter. My arm was throbbing and adrenaline could only do so much. A gaping hole had been torn between the bones of my forearm, made wider by Fygon's tearing wind. I'd lost a lot of blood.
A medic rushed over. He took one look at my arm and swore. "Fuck. Creed, right? Clench your teeth; I'll set the bone."
I grunted but kept my arm curled into my hip. "Go see someone else. I'm fine. I have self-healing. Recover!"
I immediately felt nauseous as power poured out into the wound. At the same time, I put weight into my left arm and pressed the bones back in place. My dislocated ulna popped into its original socket, drawing an agonized groan from me. Tears stung my eyes and my vision became shaky but I did my best to stay conscious. I'd healed my spine before, but never in an environment like this, never after working most of the morning and fighting for my life.
When I drew my hand back, it was to find the bone in place and free of fractures. I finished the rest of my healing with alchemy. Whereas Recover relied solely on my own aura, alchemy drew energy from tectonic movements. It was slower, but I could save more energy this way. A combination of the two let me get back in the fight relatively quickly without exhausting my already strained reserves.
I watched as SAINT sent Rapidash scrambling. Lock-On turned Thunderbolt into a beam of electricity that followed him in a swerving arc. He took a blast to the side that sent him rolling. SAINT wasn't pulling his punches. I knew from personal experience that those things, while not outright lethal, hurt like a bitch. The attack left him smoking and scorched. Bloody tracks could be seen where he scraped violently against the ground as he was thrown about.
To his credit, Rapidash got up and stumbled away before SAINT could charge his next attack. He kicked up a plume of dust and smoke before avoiding the next bolt by interposing a car between them.
"Porygon-gon," he muttered unhappily.
"Stay behind the bunker. Snipe him as soon as he shows. Keep him pinned, okay?" I told him. "Switch to Shock Wave. It's faster than Lock-On."
"Gon."
I checked my UI while the last of my skin knit itself closed. My shield's charge was crawling up but it still sat at a meager forty-nine percent. I trusted my armor, but the flying bug-man showed me it was far from invincible.
Still, I was better armored than just about everyone and was the only one who could put out the flames. So long as I kept away from Arsalan and the lion-men and their weird claws, I'd be fine.
I dashed out of the bunker again, this time headed for the biggest fire I could find. There were half a dozen people trapped inside and although the fire wasn't collapsing in on them, they'd run out of oxygen quickly. One was dead and another was injured, but the rest had the sense to keep their heads down to avoid stray gunfire and smoke inhalation.
I ignored the gunfire aimed at me and turned my dash into a front flip. Crown Chimera ground itself against the road of vapor that formed beneath me and I could feel the water inside pressurizing more and more. Halfway through the flip, I swiveled onto my side until, for an instant, I sat parallel to the ground.
Twisting in midair, I brought the Mirage Regalia down in twin ax kicks, sending a plume of pressurized bubbles spraying out over the flames. "Lather Road: Bubblegum Crisis!"
The rain of bubbles collided with the flames. Each bubble was formed from pressurized water, condensed and spun at ridiculous velocities and held in cohesion with the help of the regalia and One Piece pyrobloin. They didn't pop like normal bubbles. They held so much pressure inside that they detonated with the force of hand grenades, creating vacuums of air that starved the fire of fuel.
"Everybody out!" I yelled. I immediately felt like a dumbass when I realized I didn't fucking speak Arabic.
I was lucky, ridiculously lucky. Or maybe the rest of the world placed a greater emphasis on foreign language education. Either way, one of the crouching men, a young man in his mid-twenties, raised his head.
I reached out a hand to help him stand. He said something in Arabic but I shook my head. He then switched to heavily accented English. "Out. Hero?"
"Hero," I nodded. "We need to leave."
I took my time freeing the people stuck in Rapidash's fire rings, doing my best to interpose myself between the civilians and the nearest source of gunfire. Once I reached the fallback point, the brave paramedics who hadn't abandoned their posts took over.
I ended up leading twenty-three men to safety. The trial by fire yesterday helped me to ignore the bodies of those I couldn't reach in time.
Sometime during my self-assigned mission, SAINT had nailed Rapidash with a well-placed Shock Wave, sending the shitty arsonist to la la land.
Good. That left just Arsalan.
Author's Note
For those curious, Pecos Bill is an American folk hero like Johnny Appleseed or Paul Bunyan and is every cowboy stereotype rolled into one. One story says he needed more rain on his land so he lassoed a tornado and rode it up through Tornado Alley.
I meant for Flygon (Arabic name unknown) to be the equivalent of Cinereal or Rime, a top-tier cape who, in America, would've been considered a city's ace. I hope he came off as that strong.
Bryce isn't a fighting savant like many shonen protagonists. He's not like Luffy who could win most fights by relying on instinct. He makes a lot of mistakes and takes hits he doesn't need to. Even when he stops playing around, he lacks that "killing intent" that a lot of action heroes have because he's a 21st century medical professional.
Thankfully, he's got SAINT to back him until he can stoke some of that shonen mojo. Having a defensive tank and mobile sharpshooter who also happens to be a respectable psychic is honestly unfair. He's about to get even more unfair with an Upgrade that I think he's earned by now.
Related animal fact: Dragonflies have an insanely high success rate when it comes to their hunts, sometimes estimated to be as high as 95%. This makes them the single most successful predator alive, at least by this metric.
Their success is due partially to their incredible speed, capping out at 33.5 mi (54 km) in some species, and maneuverability, with wings that even allow them to fly backwards. Flygon's agility wasn't exaggerated at all.
The second reason for their success is their eyes. They have a near spherical range of coverage with ~30,000 ommatidia per eye. Yes, their brain is the size of a grain of rice. Yes, most of it's dedicated to processing visual cues and hunting instinct.
Thank you to all of my patrons. As many of you know, I update one of my stories once every weekend publically. However, I update much more frequently on Pat-re-on, usually 8-10 chapters a month spread across various stories. That means the number of chapters available on Pat-re-on is always growing. As of now, this is how far along each story is:
- ACL & Bunny Quests: Same as public
- Apocalypse: 1.13
- The Holy Grill: 2.6.5
- Homeless Bunny: 23
- Legendary Tinker: 8.5
- Plan? What Plan?: 4.13
- When is a Spoon a Sword?: 4.12
- Troll in the Dungeon!: 19
- New Story Incoming(?): Nothing yet...
- Let There be War: 9 (Complete)
Total Chapter Difference (Pat-re-on - Public): 29
Bryce Kiley
2010, November 27: Damascus, Syria
The dragonfly bastard rammed me, shoulder-checking me as I climbed into the sky. I twisted around the blow and created a platform of condensed air perpendicular to the ground. I kicked off it, skating ust fine despite the impossible angle, before flipping into a kick that had Crown Chimera grinding futilely against his wind wall.
He turned and cursed me out in Arabic before dodging a Thunderbolt from SAINT. Then he rushed me, diving horn-first so that SAINT wouldn't be able to aim properly. I kicked off at a steep right angle, avoiding the strike but unable to retaliate meaningfully.
I glanced at my UI. Shield integrity: eight percent and climbing, but slowly.
It wasn't enough. I'd noticed that Flygon's wind barrier got stronger with his speed. My hypothesis was that his Shard converted momentum into a force field masked as a spiraling air current but it wasn't like I could pause and ask him to test it out for me. His blows weren't anywhere near as strong as that first strike without the time to build momentum and use gravity in his favor, but I didn't have my shield module either. I didn't think my Protect alone could stand up to repeated hits from him and wasn't in any hurry to confirm.
He was on me again in an instant, either overly confident that he could take me or unwilling to give a tinker time to plan. Unfortunately, no matter his reason, it was the right move.
Flygon was as agile as I was. It felt impossible, I was the only one standing with my feet, but his dragonfly-like wings gave him a maneuverability that boggled the mind. No matter how I tried to turn or juke, he was on me, trying to gore me like the world's most obsessive marlin.
"Mirage Road: Fogbank," I whispered, tossing out a thick cloud before vanishing into thin air. He rammed right through, sailing past and missing me by mere inches.
Thinking quickly, I hopped onto his back, clamping my legs around his waist and my arms over his wings. He yelped in surprise but quickly tried to buck me off. Forget a bucking bronco, I now felt an inordinate kinship with Pecos Bill and his tornado-rasslin' ways.
I'd thought the enhanced strength of the Germa Suit would be enough to clip his wings. To be fair, it was, but he had two sets of those and a miniature cyclone raging around him.
I grunted, more in annoyance than anything as the pair of wings I wasn't pinning with my thighs beat me over the head. He wasn't comfortable to sit on, especially with that raised ridge of spine that his horn jutted from. Now that I was closer, I saw that his spine actually formed a squat, dome-like shield over the junction where his wings met. It kept me from stabbing him in the joint and ripping the damn things out.
With the wind barrier constantly buffeting me and my head slapped around like a volleyball, I wasn't sure how long I could hold him.
He swore something in Arabic. No matter the words, the death threat was easy enough to understand.
"Yeah? Fuck you too, buddy," I swore back, my voice lost in the howling wind. "Thunder Wave! SAINT, Psychic!"
We lit up like a Christmas tree, but he didn't go down immediately. He spasmed in the air, rapidly slowing but managing to buck me off. Did his biology make him resistant? I didn't know, but he clearly had physiological adaptations of some sort.
He turned to face me with a hateful snarl as a coat of blue aura surrounded him. He lunged towards me, but was stopped in his tracks by the best duck in the world.
"Great job, SAINT," I called down to him.
"Pory!" he cried back in obvious strain. Porygon weren't natural psychics, not like alakazam. They had a natural proclivity for self-levitation and often learned psychic moves, but that wasn't quite the same thing.
Panicked, I whirled back and applied my own, only to feel the problem: Though we'd immobilized him, Flygon's secondary power was still active. I could feel the wind swirling faster and faster against our combined will, grinding at our minds like a sander. Flygon was like a car that had been lifted off its wheels; he might not be going anywhere, but the engine, his power, was still very much on.
I had to decide quickly. "SAINT, let go. Lock-On into Thunderbolt!"
"Gon?" I heard, our bond pulsing with clear worry.
"Do it!"
I felt the pressure on my mind double as SAINT dropped his share. Slowly but surely, like rope snapping twine by twine, I lost control. Until finally, I was forced to let go. My mind reeled; it felt like someone had smashed a sledgehammer into my brain.
That pent up gale launched Flygon at me like a missile. What little training I had in capoeira kicked in and I tried to sway out of the line of attack, but I wasn't able to fully evade with my head ringing like a drum. I did manage to get my right arm up in time, but that was cold comfort. His horn made contact with my forearm, spearing the space between my radius and ulna.
"GAH!" I screamed in pain. He tore into me with twisting force, dragging me along even as his twisting wind barrier ripped the bones out of their sockets. It felt like someone took a carjack and split them apart.
White hot pain shot up my arm and I blacked out a little. I would have lost then and there, had not SAINT's mind reached out to mine with utter fury.
The external shock was enough to bring me back to consciousness. Through bleary eyes, I saw that my suit had remained in one piece. My arm looked a lot like a ruptured sausage link, kept from ripping apart completely by an absurdly durable casing. I felt Flygon's hand around my throat.
The shock had passed and with the pain came clarity. SAINT couldn't fire despite the Lock-On because I was skewered on Flygon's horn. He feared the bolt conducting over to me. I clenched my teeth to bite down the pain and began forming a trail of mist beneath my feet.
I built up enough friction and, with a howl of agony, twisted myself free of his horn like a bottlecap.
Then SAINT's Thunderbolt hit with the vengeance of an angry god.
Flygon roared in pain before rushing down towards SAINT. His charge was met with a Protect, one much stronger than my own. He skidded off with a trail of sparks but knocked SAINT off balance, leaving him to teeter like a roly-poly toy.
I had to interfere; Protect wasn't meant to be used consecutively. I tucked in my mangled right arm and dove. The pressure on my exposed wound was immense, but I flipped upside down and kicked the air anyway, my concern for my partner overriding the pain.
The mist built up as I ran, mounting like a snowball that turned into an avalanche. No longer harassed and harried by Flygon, I could feel the water calling to me, reminding me of the open ocean where I first truly touched my Road. I remembered all the pain and suffering I went through, twisting my own spine apart repeatedly as I tried to turn a capoeira martelo into Ringo's supersonic thorn.
I'd been wrong then. The water could pierce, but only rarely. It could slice like Agito's fang, but almost never. No, most of the time, the sea was an unrestrained, crushing force. The breaking waves swept away everything in their path, eroding and grinding until it wore down and overwhelmed even the strongest defenses.
Crown Chimera had never felt like this before. It always ran smoothly, but now, it truly felt like mine. My regalia. My Road. I gathered the mist within, compressing it with the pressure of my dive. The force compacted more and more water inside the regalia, enough that had the frames not been made of seastone, they would have surely shattered to pieces, taking my feet with them.
I paid my UI no mind as the pressure readings climbed higher and higher. SAINT was my partner, my pokemon. It was only fair then that I copied a familiar name.
"Mirage Road: Crush Claw!" I roared. I contorted myself in midair, cleaving down in an ax kick that could have ruptured steel beams. A road made of condensed, superheated steam formed beneath my feet, allowing me to build ever greater momentum. It was no thorn, nor a fang. It was a hammer, the pressure of a breaking wave focused into a single, overpowering kick.
Flygon's eyes widened in horror as he realized his mistake: I could use gravity too. Our roles were reversed now, a perfect mirror of his earlier shieldbreaker dive.
He tried to maneuver out of the way. His wings strained and beat wildly, becoming four sets of blurs on his back. Avoiding my strike wasn't possible, not at this distance and with zero warning, but he might have parried it, twisting until he took the blow on his horn where the wind barrier was strongest and the rotation fastest.
Whether he could have or not, I'd never know, because a sheen of azure light enveloped him once again. Now, it was SAINT's turn to hold him for me. Not long, even a fraction of a second would do.
As always, my partner delivered beautifully.
My heel met the protective dome that rose above Flygon's spine. I took vicious satisfaction in feeling it crunch beneath my heel. Where my foot stopped, the water rushed forward, flooding the wound like a burst dam and rupturing it from within. He let out a horrific shriek of pain as he plummeted to the ground.
A plume of smoke and dust announced my victory, adding to the already hazy scene.
I looked around to take stock of the broader conflict. I was happy to see that the civilians had cleared out by this point. Either they were fighting or they'd fucked off by now. Or dead, but glass half full and whatnot.
I hadn't been the only one to keep busy. Now that the heroes had a unified mission and a fallback point, they'd acquitted themselves well. Prism had managed to lob several confoam grenades, coordinating with her clones to create a huge mass of replicated foam that regular soldiers couldn't escape. It didn't get everyone, but about half of Arsalan's unpowered forces were unable to take aim. She also proved to be a capable combatant up close, reabsorbing her clones in a flash of light to deliver crushing blows against Arsalan's lion-men.
Last I checked, Ursa Aurora was using her bears to corral civilians and coordinate with her team. Now that the unpowered were largely out of the way, she'd stacked her three bears into a phalanx of muscle, claws, and teeth and was straining to keep Rhyhorn in place. As I watched, the mover-brute's force field visibly diminished as he could no longer build momentum. When it had thinned enough, Jouster ran in and thrust a crimson, glowing lance from between the bears like an actual phalanx.
A massive explosion of fire bloomed from the point of impact, throwing yet more smoke and debris into the air. Most of the blast was directed conically outward, sparing the leader of the NY Wards. The blast shattered what was left of Rhyhorn's force field and sent him soaring away, smoke trailing from his badly burned body. I wasn't sure whether he was alive or not. It also cracked one of Ursa's constructs, but she merely replaced it with a wave of her hand. Those two made for a dangerous combination.
Flechette too had found her resolve. She still wasn't eager to shoot people dead, but she'd taken it upon herself to provide as much covering fire as possible. I could see bolts sticking out of cover as though they'd been fused to whatever they hit. Several men ran around screaming in pain as arrows that had been strategically lodged into their shoulders exploded in confoam, not enough volume to fully encase them, but more than enough to take them out of the fight.
The rebels and plainclothed capes weren't doing nearly as well, though whether that was because they weren't as well-trained as the Protectorate or because no one wanted to piss off Legend by murdering one of his Wards was anyone's guess.
A plainclothed cape that had been generating ribbons of power from his fingertips went down in a shower of blood and gunfire after gliding towards the line of soldiers as if on an ice rink. I had to assume he was a fresh trigger. His ribbon-blades remained in the air even after his death for several seconds, acting as hazards for the unwary.
Then, as I watched, a small squad of lion-men rushed into the group of rebels. They clawed at anyone in arm's reach, gouging out deep, perfectly even furrows into whatever they struck, whether that be flesh or stone. I shot a few Thunder Waves their way, but it seemed to do nothing to slow them.
A cape next to Deadeye stood to meet them as the rebel leader fell back. Sand swirled around his arms, forming dense hammers out of quartz crystals that battered the lion-men away. His counter allowed most of his allies to retreat in time as a hail of gunfire peppered their position, but that left the sole rebel brute alone and exposed.
Two lion-men collapsed onto him and tore him apart even as their heads exploded from Deadeye's curving bullets. It was a messy shower of stone and blood that made me queasy even after a day in the medic tent. There was a lot of blood I could see even through the smoke, more than there should be in the human body.
Johnson's words hit me like a hammer and I knew why Arsalan was so feared.
"They're alive," I spoke into the mic. "Ursa, the lion-men are only stone on the outside!"
"Are you sure?"
"I saw two lose their heads so yes!"
"Fuck. You heard him. Subdue"
I swore under my breath and continued to scan the field. The SRG mover was a blur, racing around the field and trampling people underfoot while using the chaos to his advantage to break line of sight so no one could draw a bead on him. It wasn't just that he was fast enough to make aiming difficult. The smoke hindered everyone but affected the rebels who had the least training the most. And unlike me, they couldn't climb into the air for a better view, as limited as that was.
The fire also burned long and hot despite the dusty sand, likely fueled by his power more than any mundane fuel source. It inspired a primal sense of panic in people and I could see him trying to circle the shelter to entrap the Wards and cut off Flechette's vision.
With Flygon down, I decided taking him out and putting out the fires should be my priority. "SAINT, Lock-On. Thunderbolt the one with fire steps. Don't let up. Make sure he stays down."
"Gon!"
I left SAINT to take aim and landed down behind Shelter. My arm was throbbing and adrenaline could only do so much. A gaping hole had been torn between the bones of my forearm, made wider by Fygon's tearing wind. I'd lost a lot of blood.
A medic rushed over. He took one look at my arm and swore. "Fuck. Creed, right? Clench your teeth; I'll set the bone."
I grunted but kept my arm curled into my hip. "Go see someone else. I'm fine. I have self-healing. Recover!"
I immediately felt nauseous as power poured out into the wound. At the same time, I put weight into my left arm and pressed the bones back in place. My dislocated ulna popped into its original socket, drawing an agonized groan from me. Tears stung my eyes and my vision became shaky but I did my best to stay conscious. I'd healed my spine before, but never in an environment like this, never after working most of the morning and fighting for my life.
When I drew my hand back, it was to find the bone in place and free of fractures. I finished the rest of my healing with alchemy. Whereas Recover relied solely on my own aura, alchemy drew energy from tectonic movements. It was slower, but I could save more energy this way. A combination of the two let me get back in the fight relatively quickly without exhausting my already strained reserves.
I watched as SAINT sent Rapidash scrambling. Lock-On turned Thunderbolt into a beam of electricity that followed him in a swerving arc. He took a blast to the side that sent him rolling. SAINT wasn't pulling his punches. I knew from personal experience that those things, while not outright lethal, hurt like a bitch. The attack left him smoking and scorched. Bloody tracks could be seen where he scraped violently against the ground as he was thrown about.
To his credit, Rapidash got up and stumbled away before SAINT could charge his next attack. He kicked up a plume of dust and smoke before avoiding the next bolt by interposing a car between them.
"Porygon-gon," he muttered unhappily.
"Stay behind the bunker. Snipe him as soon as he shows. Keep him pinned, okay?" I told him. "Switch to Shock Wave. It's faster than Lock-On."
"Gon."
I checked my UI while the last of my skin knit itself closed. My shield's charge was crawling up but it still sat at a meager forty-nine percent. I trusted my armor, but the flying bug-man showed me it was far from invincible.
Still, I was better armored than just about everyone and was the only one who could put out the flames. So long as I kept away from Arsalan and the lion-men and their weird claws, I'd be fine.
I dashed out of the bunker again, this time headed for the biggest fire I could find. There were half a dozen people trapped inside and although the fire wasn't collapsing in on them, they'd run out of oxygen quickly. One was dead and another was injured, but the rest had the sense to keep their heads down to avoid stray gunfire and smoke inhalation.
I ignored the gunfire aimed at me and turned my dash into a front flip. Crown Chimera ground itself against the road of vapor that formed beneath me and I could feel the water inside pressurizing more and more. Halfway through the flip, I swiveled onto my side until, for an instant, I sat parallel to the ground.
Twisting in midair, I brought the Mirage Regalia down in twin ax kicks, sending a plume of pressurized bubbles spraying out over the flames. "Lather Road: Bubblegum Crisis!"
The rain of bubbles collided with the flames. Each bubble was formed from pressurized water, condensed and spun at ridiculous velocities and held in cohesion with the help of the regalia and One Piece pyrobloin. They didn't pop like normal bubbles. They held so much pressure inside that they detonated with the force of hand grenades, creating vacuums of air that starved the fire of fuel.
"Everybody out!" I yelled. I immediately felt like a dumbass when I realized I didn't fucking speak Arabic.
I was lucky, ridiculously lucky. Or maybe the rest of the world placed a greater emphasis on foreign language education. Either way, one of the crouching men, a young man in his mid-twenties, raised his head.
I reached out a hand to help him stand. He said something in Arabic but I shook my head. He then switched to heavily accented English. "Out. Hero?"
"Hero," I nodded. "We need to leave."
I took my time freeing the people stuck in Rapidash's fire rings, doing my best to interpose myself between the civilians and the nearest source of gunfire. Once I reached the fallback point, the brave paramedics who hadn't abandoned their posts took over.
I ended up leading twenty-three men to safety. The trial by fire yesterday helped me to ignore the bodies of those I couldn't reach in time.
Sometime during my self-assigned mission, SAINT had nailed Rapidash with a well-placed Shock Wave, sending the shitty arsonist to la la land.
Good. That left just Arsalan.
Author's Note
For those curious, Pecos Bill is an American folk hero like Johnny Appleseed or Paul Bunyan and is every cowboy stereotype rolled into one. One story says he needed more rain on his land so he lassoed a tornado and rode it up through Tornado Alley.
I meant for Flygon (Arabic name unknown) to be the equivalent of Cinereal or Rime, a top-tier cape who, in America, would've been considered a city's ace. I hope he came off as that strong.
Bryce isn't a fighting savant like many shonen protagonists. He's not like Luffy who could win most fights by relying on instinct. He makes a lot of mistakes and takes hits he doesn't need to. Even when he stops playing around, he lacks that "killing intent" that a lot of action heroes have because he's a 21st century medical professional.
Thankfully, he's got SAINT to back him until he can stoke some of that shonen mojo. Having a defensive tank and mobile sharpshooter who also happens to be a respectable psychic is honestly unfair. He's about to get even more unfair with an Upgrade that I think he's earned by now.
Related animal fact: Dragonflies have an insanely high success rate when it comes to their hunts, sometimes estimated to be as high as 95%. This makes them the single most successful predator alive, at least by this metric.
Their success is due partially to their incredible speed, capping out at 33.5 mi (54 km) in some species, and maneuverability, with wings that even allow them to fly backwards. Flygon's agility wasn't exaggerated at all.
The second reason for their success is their eyes. They have a near spherical range of coverage with ~30,000 ommatidia per eye. Yes, their brain is the size of a grain of rice. Yes, most of it's dedicated to processing visual cues and hunting instinct.
Thank you to all of my patrons. As many of you know, I update one of my stories once every weekend publically. However, I update much more frequently on Pat-re-on, usually 8-10 chapters a month spread across various stories. That means the number of chapters available on Pat-re-on is always growing. As of now, this is how far along each story is:
- ACL & Bunny Quests: Same as public
- Apocalypse: 1.13
- The Holy Grill: 2.6.5
- Homeless Bunny: 23
- Legendary Tinker: 8.5
- Plan? What Plan?: 4.13
- When is a Spoon a Sword?: 4.12
- Troll in the Dungeon!: 19
- New Story Incoming(?): Nothing yet...
- Let There be War: 9 (Complete)
Total Chapter Difference (Pat-re-on - Public): 29
Good job always good to see this story. The only thing I don't like is calling out his own attacks. I get doing it for the actual Pokémon. But Bryce doing it in the middle of life and death situations makes me cringe a little bit. But I enjoy everything else so can ignore it.
I do like a powerful but not flawless protagonist.
I do like a powerful but not flawless protagonist.
4.11 Seal
Fabled Webs
Lord Weaver, Glorious and Wise
- Location
- Arlington, VA
Seal 4.11
Lily Tondo
2010, November 27: Damascus, Syria
"Bubblegum Crisis!" I heard Creed shout, flipping through the air like a drunk seagull before collapsing down in a flurry of bubbles. Whatever the hell he did, he managed to quench the flames instantly, setting people free before they could suffocate in the smoke.
"Did he really name his attacks?" Shelter asked in disbelief.
"He rides roller blades and wears a cape. Why are you surprised?" Jouster grunted. I saw him duck behind one of Ursa's constructs, avoiding a bullet that would have taken him out of the fight.
"Yeah, but Bubblegum… Crisis…? That's not even gum!"
"Focus," Prism chided. "It doesn't matter how stupid his attacks are."
"Yes, ma'am."
The rebels were growing increasingly desperate. That flying guy had gone down when our unexpected ally engaged him in an aerial dogfight. I didn't see most of it, but the giant "Crush Claw" that spiked him into the ground like a volleyball was hard to miss. The one we'd been calling Bulldozer got taken out by a Jouster to the face. Then some kind of blocky duck appeared next to me and started shooting at Firewall.
I wasn't sure where the duck came from but it was kicking ass.
I decided to help it out. When Firewall ran behind some cover, I imbued my bolt with my power and took aim. I guessed at his likely position and fired, loosing a bolt that ignored every law of physics to fly straight through the brickwork. I missed, it wasn't like I could see through walls, but that was enough to spook him out of hiding, only for him to get zapped into a twitchy mess with a salvo of smaller lightning bolts.
Seriously, what was this thing?
"Flechette! A little help!" Shelter shouted, drawing me from my thoughts.
I followed his direction to find Ursa Aurora bogged down by eight of Arsalan's lion-men statues. Between them were the bodies of two people, one was Genie, one of Deadeye's, and the other was that fresh trigger with a slowdown field.
I could guess what happened. The rebels(?) probably tried to recruit one more cape for their side and sent Genie to talk to the new trigger, only for them to get outmaneuvered by Arsalan's numbers. Most of the rebels would have been dead had Creed not helped them out despite Deadeye's bullets. As it was, I could see only half of them still in the fight.
Prism ran in to support them. She'd already tried confoam but the constructs had torn through the foam with the same, uniform gouges as anything else. Her empowered strikes could send them stumbling back, but now that we knew the puppets were living people, she wasn't putting everything she had into her attacks.
"Enough. Surrender. You will be deported. Continue and you will die," Arsalan's broken English crackled through our comms. "You cannot harm the Lionguard."
I could. Easily. I hadn't taken shots at them because taking out the SRG soldiers with assault rifles was a bigger priority. Then I learned they were alive. I drew my arbalest and fired. My bolt turned into a silver streak, running clean through a puppet's knee.
At the same time, another puppet lunged, getting too close to an empowered but distracted Prism. Jouster saw and panicked. My leader swung his lance with detonating force. The point met the puppet and it erupted in a shower of stone and gore. Sandstone and coiling tendrils scattered alongside blood and viscera.
He froze in horrified shock. As gung-ho as he was, he wasn't a killer, none of us were. The lion-men were supposed to be statues, constructs made of sandstone with minor physics-bending powers on their claws.
Ursa shook Jouster but he was frozen in shock at what he'd done. Drenched in blood, I didn't blame him. She cursed and began to drag him back by the collar.
"Shit. Pull back!" Ursa yelled. She conjured three bears, one of which bowled a lion-man over, saving Jouster from retaliation.
The living stone ran at them. Two lion-men per bear held the constructs still while a third leapt onto their back and ripped into the bears, dispelling them quickly. Capped at just three constructs, Ursa couldn't remake the bears fast enough to stem the tide. I watched as Prism sacrificed two of her clones before running to catch up to them.
"You're a monster," I said. I couldn't keep the disbelief out of my voice. "They're people. They're fucking people."
"Weak," Arsalan sneered. "The Lionguard keep public order. They were criminals. Now they serve."
He took terrorists, political dissidents, and… and turned them into his puppets. I couldn't understand. How did someone like this exist? Was that the source of their striker power? I had to assume so.
If I could find the cape he infected, then maybe…
No, I didn't want to become a killer, not like this…
One of Ursa's bears wrapped its jaws around the arm of a lion-man before it popped, crunching through the stone-like armor. It reminded me of the way dad ate crab legs and bile flooded my throat. The man made no sound even as his arm was turned into a mangled pulp. He kept moving forward, heedless of his injuries.
Arsalan stepped forward and crouched. He leaned over one of the downed rebels and placed his hand on his chest. When he drew back, the stone around him that had been inert began to writhe and crawl into the man's flesh. The man screamed out in agony as living stone burrowed inside him. "Those who break public order will serve in the Lionguard. You have your community service, yes? I am meting out justice."
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Ursa spat.
"You are weak. This is justi-"
He was interrupted by Creed, the roller blading mercenary dashing out from the last of the doused flames to land a leaping kick against Arsalan. He swerved and twisted in midair in a complicated spiral that I only managed to make sense of using my power, curling his body before cracking it like a whip. The sudden, sweeping kick lacked the force from before, but the leader of the Lionguard was launched like a ragdoll regardless.
Arsalan's stone armor must have weighed an extra hundred pounds at minimum, but even that didn't stop him from arcing over the battlefield like a baseball. That the armor didn't shatter into a rain of dust proved it: Arsalan had brute powers, probably stolen from a criminal doing "community service" in his armor.
A blinding flash of electricity filled the area. The blocky duck rose up over Shelter's bunker and fired out a salvo of similar bolts to cover Creed. I was starting to think it was some kind of mobile turret, though why it was shaped like a duck and had the cartoony googly eyes was beyond me.
When the sparks faded, Creed was back with us, dragging the man who'd been infected by Arsalan's power. Creed ripped off the man's shirt, revealing a spider web of cracks in his flesh. Grayish brown, stone-like tendrils wormed themselves into his body as we watched. He shrieked and spasmed uncontrollably and I knew that sound wouldn't be leaving my nightmares anytime soon.
"SAINT, hold him down," Creed said. "Rest of you buy me time. I'm going to try to heal him."
"Understood," Ursa said. She turned to Arsalan. "What's the plan here? The rebels are out. The riot's over. You think this looks good for you?"
"No matter. Your Wards killed my men," he said. His stone bracers repaired themselves as we watched. "They will replace the men they killed."
"You're a sick fuck. The Protecto-"
"Will hear nothing. Accidents happen. Heroes died in the riot," he said with a calm nonchalance that sent chills down my spine. It was the calm of a serial killer who'd done this before. "How tragic for you. Your Legend will have my condolences."
"Stone's taking control of his nervous system," Creed muttered beside me. "Can't stun him. Shit, I haven't practiced inorganic to organic transmutation."
"What will you do?" I asked. There was a morbid curiosity I couldn't shake. He wasn't what I'd expected in a merc after all I'd read from PHO. I'd expected someone more interested in goofing off than saving lives. I was pleasantly surprised, a silver lining in a shit weekend.
"Eyes up front," he grunted. He laid his hand on the man's chest. The sigil on the back of his hand began to glow. "SAINT, hold him steady. Response to electricity indicates the infection spreads by taking over his nervous system. It's going to crawl up his spine and into the brain. I'm going to rip it all up and transmute his nerves into something harmless."
"That doesn't sound harmless!" That sounded the opposite of harmless. Last I checked, people died without a spine!
"Yeah? Do you know how to transmute stone to something that won't instantly kill him?" he snapped. "Because I fucking don't! There's a line between inorganic and organic transmutation, damnit! I don't do this and he dies! If I cut off his brain and preserve what I can, Panacea might be able to fix it."
I heard the desperation in his voice and felt like a bitch. What did I know about tinkertech? Creed was… He wasn't a hero. He was supposed to be a low stakes, joke villain who ran around Brockton acting like a clown, maybe punching a gangbanger once in a while and getting yelled at for selling tinkertech illegally.
But he was here anyway. Helping. Exceeding everything everyone knew about him and going above and beyond to save lives. He didn't deserve me riding his ass.
"I-I'm sorry," I apologized. I decided shutting my trap and going back to giving him some room to breathe would be my best bet. I turned back to the fight and started to take the lion-men out by their legs. Creed was right. Maybe Panacea could fix them. I'd get to find out so long as I didn't blow their heads off.
Despite our best efforts, we were losing ground. Normal bullets didn't work so it was up to us capes, but even we couldn't do much. Ursa Aurora and Prism slowed them down with constructs and clones, but they lacked raw stopping power. Jouster had the power but they'd kept him from getting close and my friend was still understandably shell shocked.
I loaded another bolt and fired, clamping down on the bile in the back of my throat. I didn't want to kill them. They could still be saved… they had to be…
I took out one's knee. He stumbled forward and lunged to slash one of Prism's clones to bits. Next to me, she flinched in phantom pain. I wasn't sure if she physically felt the assault, but watching yourself be ripped apart over and over again couldn't be fun.
I took out the other leg, but that didn't stop him either. The lion-man crawled towards us on hands and knees, heedless of any pain or injury. The only reason he wasn't running was because he physically couldn't with my bolts jamming his knee joints.
Behind them, Arsalan laughed mockingly. I'd never hated a person more, not even March. He knew we wouldn't go for the kill. He was confident that he knew how the Protectorate behaved.
He was wrong. I heard Ursa's voice crackle through the line. "Enough. S-class rules. Fight like your life depends on it."
She followed that up by picking up an assault rifle and letting loose towards Arsalan. It was textbook: Shoot the master. He laughed and tanked the shots, the stone armor easily withstanding bullets.
"Jouster, we need you up front. My clones will cover you," Prism urged. I could hear the regret in her voice but we needed him.
The turret called SAINT sent several arcs of electricity at Arsalan, but he'd kept a few puppets with him to hide behind. Next to me, Creed finished up whatever he was doing. The parasitic stone didn't seem to be expanding anymore so I hoped that meant he'd succeeded.
I saw my leader pick up his lance. His hand was trembling but there was none of that to be heard in his voice. "Yeah, you got it. I'm good."
They charged forward and met the lion-men. A conic explosion burst from Jouster's lance, blasting two of them into so much bloody sand.
I threw up. The acidic bile that had lingered in my throat came up like a fountain and dripped from my mouth. The stench of this morning's breakfast only made me retch again. I felt Creed place a hand on my back. He rubbed my back in gentle circles and held my hair so I could throw up in peace. It didn't really make me feel better, but I appreciated the sentiment.
"Breathe," he said, his voice unidentifiable through his helmet. "You're fine. It'll pass. Focus on what's in front of you. Step by step. Figure out what you want. Then what needs to be done. Then do it."
What needs to be done? I didn't know. There was a reason Jouster was Wards Leader, not me. I wasn't good at making on-the-spot decisions.
I didn't want this. All of this. This was an endbringer truce. It was supposed to be about helping people. I came to pass out supplies, maybe dig through some rubble, not, not what was looking like the first shots of a brewing civil war.
It'd… It'd all be over if someone took out Arsalan. The rebels fucked up too. Maybe they started the riot, maybe not. I didn't remember anymore. I didn't think it really mattered at this point. But that could get sorted later. Right now, Arsalan was the problem. If someone could remove him, then we could have some room to breathe. Report back to New York and let Legend handle things. He'd know what to do. He always knew what to do.
If someone could take out Arsalan…
I winced as the cold truth showered me like an ice bath.
I could take out Arsalan.
All this? I could put an end to it.
An end to the fighting.
Right now.
Hands trembling, I notched another bolt and took aim. I'd never shot to kill before. I'd been proud of that fact, that despite having a lethal power, I'd never resorted to taking another life. Deep in my heart, I'd prayed I'd never have to even while knowing it was inevitable.
One day, today, I'd be called on to take a life. One life to save many. Could I do that? Could I bring myself to pull the trigger?
My power flowed readily into the bolt, as smooth as every other time I'd used it. It felt no different than gliding down the street or doing stunts for children and tourists. I hated it. I felt like there should be more, more gravitas, with what I was about to do. Executing someone shouldn't feel the same as juggling a pen.
"It'll all stop if I do this. Just one shot," I whispered, tears clouding my vision. I'd always thought the only time I'd ever shoot with killing intent would be against an endbringer. Arsalan, for all the hate I felt, was a man. "Just one arrow…"
Then I felt a hand over my own, pushing the arbalest down. Creed shook his head. "I'm sorry. It doesn't need to be you, kid."
There was a pistol in his hand, one I was sure hadn't been on his person a moment ago. I'd remember that pistol for the rest of my life. It was gorgeous, beautiful in a way no weapon of death should be. It had a walnut finished handle and a gleaming, golden filigree along the black, metallic body that perfectly caught the light.
It was a masterpiece, something that could become the prized possession of any collector. It looked like something that a pirate captain would use, or maybe a treasured heirloom that belonged in a museum, a relic that'd sell for millions or be passed on in family lines.
For all that it was obviously a pistol, it didn't look like a weapon of death.
He held it out with a steady hand I envied. Everything about his stance was perfectly balanced, as if he knew exactly how to position himself for maximum effect.
His cape fluttered behind him. The orange accents of his costume stood out against the black and gray admiral's uniform. There was a grace and poise in the way he stood, a sense of purpose I doubted I'd ever had before. For a moment, I thought he must be the most dignified man in the world.
Then, a single gunshot rang throughout the battlefield, louder than any other. In the blink of an eye, it was over. Arsalan and the puppets he'd kept near him exploded into a crimson mist.
X
Bryce Kiley
2010, November 27: Damascus, Syria
I couldn't help it. I'd told her the words that a senior EMT once told me in my past life.
I'd been a med student then, doing a rotation in the ER when the EMT ran in with the victim of a car crash. His body was badly mangled, distorted into a pretzel when his motorcycle hit a semi. That he lived long enough to get wheeled in to us at all was a fucking miracle.
And yet, I froze. I froze like every other student did because human bodies weren't supposed to bend like that. I froze until the EMT slapped me silly and told me to get the doctor.
His words then helped me in the future, desensitized me until I could shut off the part of my lizard brain that was horrified at the state of some of those patients. That experience had also convinced me that ER wasn't for me; I'd transferred into pediatrics as soon as I fulfilled my academic requirements.
And… And I'd said those words to Lily. I'd told a girl to "Do what needs to be done," as if a sixteen-seventeen year old was supposed to make those decisions.
I watched Lily, Flechette, aim a killing shot at Arsalan. She was doing what she had to and I couldn't help but think that this was wrong. All of it. Earth-Bet was so fucked up. A teenager shouldn't be here at all, never mind be the deciding factor in putting down a homicidal asshole like Arsalan.
And yet, here she was. Because she was a hero. Because she was one of the few good souls in a world as fucked up as Earth-Bet.
She wasn't beautiful. Or graceful. Or any of those other words. There wasn't some cinematic lighting as the wind whipped her hair dramatically behind her.
In truth, she looked like shit. I couldn't see her eyes, but her mouth and chin were stained with vomit. Tears tracked down her ruddy, sand-blasted cheeks. Her form-fitting costume did nothing to hide how her whole body shook like a leaf in a storm. She was a mess, inside and out.
And yet, she raised her bow anyway. Because it needed to be done. Because this was the fastest way.
Because I told her to.
No.
I refused. I wouldn't dump this all on her.
Lily deserved better.
Maybe it was time I stopped waffling around and took charge for myself. Hadn't I promised Faultline that? Hadn't I said I'd be a hero now?
Before I was consciously aware of what I was doing, my hand was pushing hers down. I took a step and reached into my hip pouch. The Walker Pistol felt comfortable in my grip. It greeted me warmly, like a friend.
She wasn't the only one who could end this. A Walker Pistol loaded with a special bullet, a Muggy Ball. The kind of weapon made for Vinsmokes and awakened zoans, the kind that was laughably overkill against most capes. Unlike the Air Treks, raid suit, or TMs, this pistol existed for the sole purpose of murder; there was no other conceivable way this could be used.
How appropriate then that I'd take my first life with this gun.
I took a deep breath and centered myself. Even now, I couldn't lose my balance, not even if I wanted to. With a steadiness not my own, I took aim.
Arsalan didn't dodge. Why would he? He'd taken a near supersonic kick from Crown Chimera and stood up with nary a crack in his armor. He had brutes in his thrall somewhere. If I had to guess? Probably far away. They all seemed to share their powers like the Yangban anyway so why not keep the important infected safe?
He didn't dodge. And he had a split second to realize just why that was a terrible idea. Then he and every one of the infected near him turned into a fine mist. A massive fireball bloomed from his position, like when Mihawk deflected them with his sword.
Then, like puppets with their strings cut, the lion-men collapsed one by one, unable to sustain themselves without the master.
It wasn't lost on me. My first mission as a "hero" ended with me murdering someone.
Seriously. Fuck Earth-Bet.
Author's Note
And this (mostly) ends the Damascus mini-arc. Have you ever finished writing, reread it a few times, and couldn't feel satisfied but also couldn't say exactly why you felt dissatisfied? That's where I'm at. I feel like I could have done better with this whole thing, but I'm not sure how and didn't think I'd get an answer if I held onto the chapter for a few weeks longer so I published anyway. Ugh…
Some of you may have forgotten, but Bryce did make a pistol from One Piece. A Walker Pistol, a gun developed to pierce even the Germa suits and genetic enhancements of people like Vinsmoke Reiju. He also made Muggy Balls, tiny explosives capable of injuring awakened zoans. Put them together and you get an instant showstopper that isn't reliant on Bryce's aura reserves.
Protecting Lily is reason enough for Bryce to act, but that means more than just making sure she lives, right? Bryce (and maybe me too if I'm honest) has a bit of an idealized view of her. He's labeled her in his mind as one of "the good ones."
In other news, fuck Earth Bet.
Technically, today was supposed to be a Spoon day, but I decided on PWP because I didn't want the Damascus battle to sit on a cliff for too long. That, and I'm maybe planning a 5 day upload marathon for Spoon once I have the chapters I want.
Anyway, if you've enjoyed my works, you can find more advance chapters on Pat-re-on. I usually upload 8-10 chapters per month there instead of just 4 publicly, one of which is a brand new YJ/DxD story called A Life Worth Living. The hilarious part is that I'm only familiar with both via osmosis and I'm flying by the seat of my pants there. Alas, if that's what the commissioner wants...
The following is a list of my stories and the advance chapters you can find on FFN's no-no word.
- ACL & Bunny Quests: Same as public
- A Life Worth Living: 1
- Apocalypse: 1.13
- The Holy Grill: 2.6.5
- Homeless Bunny: 23
- Legendary Tinker: 8.6
- Plan? What Plan?: 4.13
- When is a Spoon a Sword?: 4.12
- Troll in the Dungeon!: 20
- Let There be War: 9 (Complete)
Total Chapter Difference (Pat-re-on - Public): 30
Lily Tondo
2010, November 27: Damascus, Syria
"Bubblegum Crisis!" I heard Creed shout, flipping through the air like a drunk seagull before collapsing down in a flurry of bubbles. Whatever the hell he did, he managed to quench the flames instantly, setting people free before they could suffocate in the smoke.
"Did he really name his attacks?" Shelter asked in disbelief.
"He rides roller blades and wears a cape. Why are you surprised?" Jouster grunted. I saw him duck behind one of Ursa's constructs, avoiding a bullet that would have taken him out of the fight.
"Yeah, but Bubblegum… Crisis…? That's not even gum!"
"Focus," Prism chided. "It doesn't matter how stupid his attacks are."
"Yes, ma'am."
The rebels were growing increasingly desperate. That flying guy had gone down when our unexpected ally engaged him in an aerial dogfight. I didn't see most of it, but the giant "Crush Claw" that spiked him into the ground like a volleyball was hard to miss. The one we'd been calling Bulldozer got taken out by a Jouster to the face. Then some kind of blocky duck appeared next to me and started shooting at Firewall.
I wasn't sure where the duck came from but it was kicking ass.
I decided to help it out. When Firewall ran behind some cover, I imbued my bolt with my power and took aim. I guessed at his likely position and fired, loosing a bolt that ignored every law of physics to fly straight through the brickwork. I missed, it wasn't like I could see through walls, but that was enough to spook him out of hiding, only for him to get zapped into a twitchy mess with a salvo of smaller lightning bolts.
Seriously, what was this thing?
"Flechette! A little help!" Shelter shouted, drawing me from my thoughts.
I followed his direction to find Ursa Aurora bogged down by eight of Arsalan's lion-men statues. Between them were the bodies of two people, one was Genie, one of Deadeye's, and the other was that fresh trigger with a slowdown field.
I could guess what happened. The rebels(?) probably tried to recruit one more cape for their side and sent Genie to talk to the new trigger, only for them to get outmaneuvered by Arsalan's numbers. Most of the rebels would have been dead had Creed not helped them out despite Deadeye's bullets. As it was, I could see only half of them still in the fight.
Prism ran in to support them. She'd already tried confoam but the constructs had torn through the foam with the same, uniform gouges as anything else. Her empowered strikes could send them stumbling back, but now that we knew the puppets were living people, she wasn't putting everything she had into her attacks.
"Enough. Surrender. You will be deported. Continue and you will die," Arsalan's broken English crackled through our comms. "You cannot harm the Lionguard."
I could. Easily. I hadn't taken shots at them because taking out the SRG soldiers with assault rifles was a bigger priority. Then I learned they were alive. I drew my arbalest and fired. My bolt turned into a silver streak, running clean through a puppet's knee.
At the same time, another puppet lunged, getting too close to an empowered but distracted Prism. Jouster saw and panicked. My leader swung his lance with detonating force. The point met the puppet and it erupted in a shower of stone and gore. Sandstone and coiling tendrils scattered alongside blood and viscera.
He froze in horrified shock. As gung-ho as he was, he wasn't a killer, none of us were. The lion-men were supposed to be statues, constructs made of sandstone with minor physics-bending powers on their claws.
Ursa shook Jouster but he was frozen in shock at what he'd done. Drenched in blood, I didn't blame him. She cursed and began to drag him back by the collar.
"Shit. Pull back!" Ursa yelled. She conjured three bears, one of which bowled a lion-man over, saving Jouster from retaliation.
The living stone ran at them. Two lion-men per bear held the constructs still while a third leapt onto their back and ripped into the bears, dispelling them quickly. Capped at just three constructs, Ursa couldn't remake the bears fast enough to stem the tide. I watched as Prism sacrificed two of her clones before running to catch up to them.
"You're a monster," I said. I couldn't keep the disbelief out of my voice. "They're people. They're fucking people."
"Weak," Arsalan sneered. "The Lionguard keep public order. They were criminals. Now they serve."
He took terrorists, political dissidents, and… and turned them into his puppets. I couldn't understand. How did someone like this exist? Was that the source of their striker power? I had to assume so.
If I could find the cape he infected, then maybe…
No, I didn't want to become a killer, not like this…
One of Ursa's bears wrapped its jaws around the arm of a lion-man before it popped, crunching through the stone-like armor. It reminded me of the way dad ate crab legs and bile flooded my throat. The man made no sound even as his arm was turned into a mangled pulp. He kept moving forward, heedless of his injuries.
Arsalan stepped forward and crouched. He leaned over one of the downed rebels and placed his hand on his chest. When he drew back, the stone around him that had been inert began to writhe and crawl into the man's flesh. The man screamed out in agony as living stone burrowed inside him. "Those who break public order will serve in the Lionguard. You have your community service, yes? I am meting out justice."
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Ursa spat.
"You are weak. This is justi-"
He was interrupted by Creed, the roller blading mercenary dashing out from the last of the doused flames to land a leaping kick against Arsalan. He swerved and twisted in midair in a complicated spiral that I only managed to make sense of using my power, curling his body before cracking it like a whip. The sudden, sweeping kick lacked the force from before, but the leader of the Lionguard was launched like a ragdoll regardless.
Arsalan's stone armor must have weighed an extra hundred pounds at minimum, but even that didn't stop him from arcing over the battlefield like a baseball. That the armor didn't shatter into a rain of dust proved it: Arsalan had brute powers, probably stolen from a criminal doing "community service" in his armor.
A blinding flash of electricity filled the area. The blocky duck rose up over Shelter's bunker and fired out a salvo of similar bolts to cover Creed. I was starting to think it was some kind of mobile turret, though why it was shaped like a duck and had the cartoony googly eyes was beyond me.
When the sparks faded, Creed was back with us, dragging the man who'd been infected by Arsalan's power. Creed ripped off the man's shirt, revealing a spider web of cracks in his flesh. Grayish brown, stone-like tendrils wormed themselves into his body as we watched. He shrieked and spasmed uncontrollably and I knew that sound wouldn't be leaving my nightmares anytime soon.
"SAINT, hold him down," Creed said. "Rest of you buy me time. I'm going to try to heal him."
"Understood," Ursa said. She turned to Arsalan. "What's the plan here? The rebels are out. The riot's over. You think this looks good for you?"
"No matter. Your Wards killed my men," he said. His stone bracers repaired themselves as we watched. "They will replace the men they killed."
"You're a sick fuck. The Protecto-"
"Will hear nothing. Accidents happen. Heroes died in the riot," he said with a calm nonchalance that sent chills down my spine. It was the calm of a serial killer who'd done this before. "How tragic for you. Your Legend will have my condolences."
"Stone's taking control of his nervous system," Creed muttered beside me. "Can't stun him. Shit, I haven't practiced inorganic to organic transmutation."
"What will you do?" I asked. There was a morbid curiosity I couldn't shake. He wasn't what I'd expected in a merc after all I'd read from PHO. I'd expected someone more interested in goofing off than saving lives. I was pleasantly surprised, a silver lining in a shit weekend.
"Eyes up front," he grunted. He laid his hand on the man's chest. The sigil on the back of his hand began to glow. "SAINT, hold him steady. Response to electricity indicates the infection spreads by taking over his nervous system. It's going to crawl up his spine and into the brain. I'm going to rip it all up and transmute his nerves into something harmless."
"That doesn't sound harmless!" That sounded the opposite of harmless. Last I checked, people died without a spine!
"Yeah? Do you know how to transmute stone to something that won't instantly kill him?" he snapped. "Because I fucking don't! There's a line between inorganic and organic transmutation, damnit! I don't do this and he dies! If I cut off his brain and preserve what I can, Panacea might be able to fix it."
I heard the desperation in his voice and felt like a bitch. What did I know about tinkertech? Creed was… He wasn't a hero. He was supposed to be a low stakes, joke villain who ran around Brockton acting like a clown, maybe punching a gangbanger once in a while and getting yelled at for selling tinkertech illegally.
But he was here anyway. Helping. Exceeding everything everyone knew about him and going above and beyond to save lives. He didn't deserve me riding his ass.
"I-I'm sorry," I apologized. I decided shutting my trap and going back to giving him some room to breathe would be my best bet. I turned back to the fight and started to take the lion-men out by their legs. Creed was right. Maybe Panacea could fix them. I'd get to find out so long as I didn't blow their heads off.
Despite our best efforts, we were losing ground. Normal bullets didn't work so it was up to us capes, but even we couldn't do much. Ursa Aurora and Prism slowed them down with constructs and clones, but they lacked raw stopping power. Jouster had the power but they'd kept him from getting close and my friend was still understandably shell shocked.
I loaded another bolt and fired, clamping down on the bile in the back of my throat. I didn't want to kill them. They could still be saved… they had to be…
I took out one's knee. He stumbled forward and lunged to slash one of Prism's clones to bits. Next to me, she flinched in phantom pain. I wasn't sure if she physically felt the assault, but watching yourself be ripped apart over and over again couldn't be fun.
I took out the other leg, but that didn't stop him either. The lion-man crawled towards us on hands and knees, heedless of any pain or injury. The only reason he wasn't running was because he physically couldn't with my bolts jamming his knee joints.
Behind them, Arsalan laughed mockingly. I'd never hated a person more, not even March. He knew we wouldn't go for the kill. He was confident that he knew how the Protectorate behaved.
He was wrong. I heard Ursa's voice crackle through the line. "Enough. S-class rules. Fight like your life depends on it."
She followed that up by picking up an assault rifle and letting loose towards Arsalan. It was textbook: Shoot the master. He laughed and tanked the shots, the stone armor easily withstanding bullets.
"Jouster, we need you up front. My clones will cover you," Prism urged. I could hear the regret in her voice but we needed him.
The turret called SAINT sent several arcs of electricity at Arsalan, but he'd kept a few puppets with him to hide behind. Next to me, Creed finished up whatever he was doing. The parasitic stone didn't seem to be expanding anymore so I hoped that meant he'd succeeded.
I saw my leader pick up his lance. His hand was trembling but there was none of that to be heard in his voice. "Yeah, you got it. I'm good."
They charged forward and met the lion-men. A conic explosion burst from Jouster's lance, blasting two of them into so much bloody sand.
I threw up. The acidic bile that had lingered in my throat came up like a fountain and dripped from my mouth. The stench of this morning's breakfast only made me retch again. I felt Creed place a hand on my back. He rubbed my back in gentle circles and held my hair so I could throw up in peace. It didn't really make me feel better, but I appreciated the sentiment.
"Breathe," he said, his voice unidentifiable through his helmet. "You're fine. It'll pass. Focus on what's in front of you. Step by step. Figure out what you want. Then what needs to be done. Then do it."
What needs to be done? I didn't know. There was a reason Jouster was Wards Leader, not me. I wasn't good at making on-the-spot decisions.
I didn't want this. All of this. This was an endbringer truce. It was supposed to be about helping people. I came to pass out supplies, maybe dig through some rubble, not, not what was looking like the first shots of a brewing civil war.
It'd… It'd all be over if someone took out Arsalan. The rebels fucked up too. Maybe they started the riot, maybe not. I didn't remember anymore. I didn't think it really mattered at this point. But that could get sorted later. Right now, Arsalan was the problem. If someone could remove him, then we could have some room to breathe. Report back to New York and let Legend handle things. He'd know what to do. He always knew what to do.
If someone could take out Arsalan…
I winced as the cold truth showered me like an ice bath.
I could take out Arsalan.
All this? I could put an end to it.
An end to the fighting.
Right now.
Hands trembling, I notched another bolt and took aim. I'd never shot to kill before. I'd been proud of that fact, that despite having a lethal power, I'd never resorted to taking another life. Deep in my heart, I'd prayed I'd never have to even while knowing it was inevitable.
One day, today, I'd be called on to take a life. One life to save many. Could I do that? Could I bring myself to pull the trigger?
My power flowed readily into the bolt, as smooth as every other time I'd used it. It felt no different than gliding down the street or doing stunts for children and tourists. I hated it. I felt like there should be more, more gravitas, with what I was about to do. Executing someone shouldn't feel the same as juggling a pen.
"It'll all stop if I do this. Just one shot," I whispered, tears clouding my vision. I'd always thought the only time I'd ever shoot with killing intent would be against an endbringer. Arsalan, for all the hate I felt, was a man. "Just one arrow…"
Then I felt a hand over my own, pushing the arbalest down. Creed shook his head. "I'm sorry. It doesn't need to be you, kid."
There was a pistol in his hand, one I was sure hadn't been on his person a moment ago. I'd remember that pistol for the rest of my life. It was gorgeous, beautiful in a way no weapon of death should be. It had a walnut finished handle and a gleaming, golden filigree along the black, metallic body that perfectly caught the light.
It was a masterpiece, something that could become the prized possession of any collector. It looked like something that a pirate captain would use, or maybe a treasured heirloom that belonged in a museum, a relic that'd sell for millions or be passed on in family lines.
For all that it was obviously a pistol, it didn't look like a weapon of death.
He held it out with a steady hand I envied. Everything about his stance was perfectly balanced, as if he knew exactly how to position himself for maximum effect.
His cape fluttered behind him. The orange accents of his costume stood out against the black and gray admiral's uniform. There was a grace and poise in the way he stood, a sense of purpose I doubted I'd ever had before. For a moment, I thought he must be the most dignified man in the world.
Then, a single gunshot rang throughout the battlefield, louder than any other. In the blink of an eye, it was over. Arsalan and the puppets he'd kept near him exploded into a crimson mist.
X
Bryce Kiley
2010, November 27: Damascus, Syria
I couldn't help it. I'd told her the words that a senior EMT once told me in my past life.
I'd been a med student then, doing a rotation in the ER when the EMT ran in with the victim of a car crash. His body was badly mangled, distorted into a pretzel when his motorcycle hit a semi. That he lived long enough to get wheeled in to us at all was a fucking miracle.
And yet, I froze. I froze like every other student did because human bodies weren't supposed to bend like that. I froze until the EMT slapped me silly and told me to get the doctor.
His words then helped me in the future, desensitized me until I could shut off the part of my lizard brain that was horrified at the state of some of those patients. That experience had also convinced me that ER wasn't for me; I'd transferred into pediatrics as soon as I fulfilled my academic requirements.
And… And I'd said those words to Lily. I'd told a girl to "Do what needs to be done," as if a sixteen-seventeen year old was supposed to make those decisions.
I watched Lily, Flechette, aim a killing shot at Arsalan. She was doing what she had to and I couldn't help but think that this was wrong. All of it. Earth-Bet was so fucked up. A teenager shouldn't be here at all, never mind be the deciding factor in putting down a homicidal asshole like Arsalan.
And yet, here she was. Because she was a hero. Because she was one of the few good souls in a world as fucked up as Earth-Bet.
She wasn't beautiful. Or graceful. Or any of those other words. There wasn't some cinematic lighting as the wind whipped her hair dramatically behind her.
In truth, she looked like shit. I couldn't see her eyes, but her mouth and chin were stained with vomit. Tears tracked down her ruddy, sand-blasted cheeks. Her form-fitting costume did nothing to hide how her whole body shook like a leaf in a storm. She was a mess, inside and out.
And yet, she raised her bow anyway. Because it needed to be done. Because this was the fastest way.
Because I told her to.
No.
I refused. I wouldn't dump this all on her.
Lily deserved better.
Maybe it was time I stopped waffling around and took charge for myself. Hadn't I promised Faultline that? Hadn't I said I'd be a hero now?
Before I was consciously aware of what I was doing, my hand was pushing hers down. I took a step and reached into my hip pouch. The Walker Pistol felt comfortable in my grip. It greeted me warmly, like a friend.
She wasn't the only one who could end this. A Walker Pistol loaded with a special bullet, a Muggy Ball. The kind of weapon made for Vinsmokes and awakened zoans, the kind that was laughably overkill against most capes. Unlike the Air Treks, raid suit, or TMs, this pistol existed for the sole purpose of murder; there was no other conceivable way this could be used.
How appropriate then that I'd take my first life with this gun.
I took a deep breath and centered myself. Even now, I couldn't lose my balance, not even if I wanted to. With a steadiness not my own, I took aim.
Arsalan didn't dodge. Why would he? He'd taken a near supersonic kick from Crown Chimera and stood up with nary a crack in his armor. He had brutes in his thrall somewhere. If I had to guess? Probably far away. They all seemed to share their powers like the Yangban anyway so why not keep the important infected safe?
He didn't dodge. And he had a split second to realize just why that was a terrible idea. Then he and every one of the infected near him turned into a fine mist. A massive fireball bloomed from his position, like when Mihawk deflected them with his sword.
Then, like puppets with their strings cut, the lion-men collapsed one by one, unable to sustain themselves without the master.
It wasn't lost on me. My first mission as a "hero" ended with me murdering someone.
Seriously. Fuck Earth-Bet.
Author's Note
And this (mostly) ends the Damascus mini-arc. Have you ever finished writing, reread it a few times, and couldn't feel satisfied but also couldn't say exactly why you felt dissatisfied? That's where I'm at. I feel like I could have done better with this whole thing, but I'm not sure how and didn't think I'd get an answer if I held onto the chapter for a few weeks longer so I published anyway. Ugh…
Some of you may have forgotten, but Bryce did make a pistol from One Piece. A Walker Pistol, a gun developed to pierce even the Germa suits and genetic enhancements of people like Vinsmoke Reiju. He also made Muggy Balls, tiny explosives capable of injuring awakened zoans. Put them together and you get an instant showstopper that isn't reliant on Bryce's aura reserves.
Protecting Lily is reason enough for Bryce to act, but that means more than just making sure she lives, right? Bryce (and maybe me too if I'm honest) has a bit of an idealized view of her. He's labeled her in his mind as one of "the good ones."
In other news, fuck Earth Bet.
Technically, today was supposed to be a Spoon day, but I decided on PWP because I didn't want the Damascus battle to sit on a cliff for too long. That, and I'm maybe planning a 5 day upload marathon for Spoon once I have the chapters I want.
Anyway, if you've enjoyed my works, you can find more advance chapters on Pat-re-on. I usually upload 8-10 chapters per month there instead of just 4 publicly, one of which is a brand new YJ/DxD story called A Life Worth Living. The hilarious part is that I'm only familiar with both via osmosis and I'm flying by the seat of my pants there. Alas, if that's what the commissioner wants...
The following is a list of my stories and the advance chapters you can find on FFN's no-no word.
- ACL & Bunny Quests: Same as public
- A Life Worth Living: 1
- Apocalypse: 1.13
- The Holy Grill: 2.6.5
- Homeless Bunny: 23
- Legendary Tinker: 8.6
- Plan? What Plan?: 4.13
- When is a Spoon a Sword?: 4.12
- Troll in the Dungeon!: 20
- Let There be War: 9 (Complete)
Total Chapter Difference (Pat-re-on - Public): 30
Lily is honestly pretty awkward to describe morally especially with all the fanon around her. Starting with the easy stuff she's just honestly not as good in canon worm as in fics. In her introduction she's shown to be really judgmental and does this thing where she assigns people strikes for doing or saying something she doesn't like before just writing them off when they hit 3. She's also pretty crazy and extreme since purely because Skitter a villain was talking with Parian from the shadows Lily used her power to put a bolt in her fusing it to her skeleton such that even if she got away she'd need to go to a hospital where she'd be captured and then in the following conversation showed a black and white mentality very similar to Brandish where just because Skitter was a villain she couldn't have good intentions or do good things while heroes had to have good intentions and if they did bad things it was by mistake with any evidence or argument to the contrary being waved off as you're a villain so you're lying with even Parian saying she wasn't really being fair.
Ward then complicates the matter by confirming the hints in worm that she may be a cluster cape, showing their trigger and saying their bleed mechanic. Specifically we see the pov of Japanese honour student pushed to excel pre trigger March who had a big music audition but on the way after passing Lily who seemed like a wild party girl on the platform Lily's sister started a fight which knocked March and her mum onto the rails. March survived because her mum shoved her into a recession before March saw her get splattered. March then went into shock and by rote tried to still go to the audition but she was in shock and off balance so flubbed it and crashed hard. That's important because their cluster mechanic is that they give away the bits of themselves that they don't like about themselves and in March's messed up mental state she gave away a lot of stuff like her sense of responsibility and work ethic while picking up bad things like Homer's drug habit.
In Lily's case as said before she seemed to be a wild party girl but picked up March's traits leading her newfound sense of responsibility to have her join the wards. It also makes her relationship with Parian even squickier since it is also shown that shortly before Lily had had multiple relationships fail due to her being too domineering and controlling which probably caused her to give that bit away as she suddenly decided to be a complete doormat for her next one which when Lily approached Parian about it is exactly what Parian wanted with full absolute 100 % control over each and every decision.
Ward then complicates the matter by confirming the hints in worm that she may be a cluster cape, showing their trigger and saying their bleed mechanic. Specifically we see the pov of Japanese honour student pushed to excel pre trigger March who had a big music audition but on the way after passing Lily who seemed like a wild party girl on the platform Lily's sister started a fight which knocked March and her mum onto the rails. March survived because her mum shoved her into a recession before March saw her get splattered. March then went into shock and by rote tried to still go to the audition but she was in shock and off balance so flubbed it and crashed hard. That's important because their cluster mechanic is that they give away the bits of themselves that they don't like about themselves and in March's messed up mental state she gave away a lot of stuff like her sense of responsibility and work ethic while picking up bad things like Homer's drug habit.
In Lily's case as said before she seemed to be a wild party girl but picked up March's traits leading her newfound sense of responsibility to have her join the wards. It also makes her relationship with Parian even squickier since it is also shown that shortly before Lily had had multiple relationships fail due to her being too domineering and controlling which probably caused her to give that bit away as she suddenly decided to be a complete doormat for her next one which when Lily approached Parian about it is exactly what Parian wanted with full absolute 100 % control over each and every decision.
Fabled Webs
Lord Weaver, Glorious and Wise
- Location
- Arlington, VA
Lily's definitely a lot more complicated than people think. I think usually, people see her as Sting rather than a person in her own right. Though to be fair to her encounter with Skitter, it was following Leviathan and Skitter's admittedly done some terrible things. In a city without rule of law, her willingness to cripple a warlord to catch her later isn't a completely monstrous decision imo.
That said, yeah, Lily's a bit of a doormat relationally though I'm not sure how I want to play that out. I think this is one of those cases where I might lean heavier into fanon than canon. I'm aware of Lily's many issues, but like I said in the A/N, I do have a soft spot for her.
That said, yeah, Lily's a bit of a doormat relationally though I'm not sure how I want to play that out. I think this is one of those cases where I might lean heavier into fanon than canon. I'm aware of Lily's many issues, but like I said in the A/N, I do have a soft spot for her.
- Location
- 𐌂 ̢͎̩̤̲̙͓̑̀͂͒̀͆̏𐋏 ̛͏̫̚𐌀 ̛͉̥̩̤̰͈̂̅͒͊͟𐍈 ̣͛𐍃 ̡̅̈́
What if this first killing shot (prevented by Creed) was one of the straws to break her metaphorical spine? Making her more desensitized to the violence in general and be more ready to be violent? Also, I think, her actions in original story were affected by many factors, not only by who she is as a person. Stress, biases, exhaustion, other people, present environment... People are complicated after all. Even the best of us can do horrible stuff, if they think they are doing the right thing. 🤔
Edit: Actually, being a doormat... Perhaps we may have on our hands a case of overcompensation for a flaw that a person does not like in themselves.
Edit: Actually, being a doormat... Perhaps we may have on our hands a case of overcompensation for a flaw that a person does not like in themselves.
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- Location
- Louisville KY
- Pronouns
- He/Him
What if this first killing shot (prevented by Creed) was one of the straws to break her metaphorical spine? Making her more desensitized to the violence in general and be more ready to be violent? Also, I think, her actions in original story were affected by many factors, not only by who she is as a person. Stress, biases, exhaustion, other people, present environment... People are complicated after all. Even the best of us can do horrible stuff, if they think they are doing the right thing. 🤔
Edit: Actually, being a doormat... Perhaps we may have on our hands a case of overcompensation for a flaw that a person does not like in themselves.
I fail to see how desensitizing a child to kill could be seen as a positive. By Bryce taking it from her hands, it will still give her a point of reference in her mind on doing it if required but it would also help in being able to justify it mentally and emotionally if/when she ever has to take that step.
I'm thinking that Lily will have a more nuanced outlook on the Hero/Villain dichotomy from this CF of a fight. We can see the beginnings of this when she's thinking about the joke villain going above and beyond in saving lives.
- Location
- 𐌂 ̢͎̩̤̲̙͓̑̀͂͒̀͆̏𐋏 ̛͏̫̚𐌀 ̛͉̥̩̤̰͈̂̅͒͊͟𐍈 ̣͛𐍃 ̡̅̈́
I was talking about, how it could go different, if Creed did not exist... Although, he probably did butterfly away a lot of things. I am not sure there are clear positives about this situation. This is a shitstorm to be honest. 😔
Edit: Ok, before I ruined my mood... What are your guesses on what specialty will be next, people? There were a lot of anime and manga.
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Less that it's monstrous and as I said it's extreme because she did it very early into the conversation done as an ambush when they were having a non hostile conversation plus well even if you account for Lily expecting her to go to the hospital the bolt got fused into her skeleton a hospital is not going to be able to fully fix that to say nothing of Lily not being a doctor so fusing metal to the skeleton like that could easily have complications she doesn't know about. Additionally, well it's a rather sharp escalation and crossing the whole nothing permanent thing and with Skitter of all people if you want to factor in her whole warlord rep.
For the relationship bit you can pretty much do whatever because it's precanon so she hasn't made the become a doormat decision yet which means she's probably still in the controlling mode.
Edit: Actually, being a doormat... Perhaps we may have on our hands a case of overcompensation for a flaw that a person does not like in themselves.
It's less that it's a case of overcompensation and that it's their cluster bleed effect where they give away bits of themselves they don't like about themselves. Homer has a drug addiction he doesn't like having so he gives it away and it goes to March who due to the mental break didn't like her work ethic and sense of responsibility so she lost them. With Lily there for the relationships she didn't like how she was controlling and domineering in her relationships which had ruined at least 4 of them and then she suddenly isn't and is willing to go full doormat while March shows those traits tho not as bad because for March her shardspace glimpse tempered things so while she does have a strong kiss for Lily she also knows when they die they'll be stored together for thousands of years in their shards so is in no rush and is fine with them both having fun with other partners in the meantime.
- Pronouns
- He
Bro what's with all the double spaces it's really hard to look atWhat if this first killing shot (prevented by Creed) was one of the straws to break her metaphorical spine? Making her more desensitized to the violence in general and be more ready to be violent? Also, I think, her actions in original story were affected by many factors, not only by who she is as a person. Stress, biases, exhaustion, other people, present environment... People are complicated after all. Even the best of us can do horrible stuff, if they think they are doing the right thing. 🤔
Edit: Actually, being a doormat... Perhaps we may have on our hands a case of overcompensation for a flaw that a person does not like in themselves.
- Location
- 𐌂 ̢͎̩̤̲̙͓̑̀͂͒̀͆̏𐋏 ̛͏̫̚𐌀 ̛͉̥̩̤̰͈̂̅͒͊͟𐍈 ̣͛𐍃 ̡̅̈́
Double spaces? I am pretty sure, I exist only in one right now... Are you talking about how I like to use specific Alignment of the text? Well, I don't like to leave the right side of the text wall uneven for some unknown reason. It is really hard to look at, when there are a lot of words written.
Edit: I think, I've got this habit from my years in university, and from writing omakes/snippets. 🤔
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4.12 Seal
Fabled Webs
Lord Weaver, Glorious and Wise
- Location
- Arlington, VA
Seal 4.12
Bryce Kiley
2010, November 27: Damascus, Syria
The battlefield fell eerily silent. Men who'd been screaming for this or that were now quiet, shocked at the rapid conclusion of this mess. Villains and heroes, civilians and rebels, all eyes turned as one towards the one responsible: me.
I stood, frozen with the weight of what I'd done. I held the literal smoking gun and took in the bloody mist that had once been Arsalan. By my side, Lily looked up at me with a mixture of horror and relief. It was over, and she hadn't had to pull the trigger.
I wasn't sure how I ought to react. Hell, I wasn't sure how to process this at all. I felt… normal. I felt like I hadn't just killed a man and I wondered why. Was this how everyone felt? Or was I just a special kind of fucked up? Killing a man should feel more impactful than frying an egg, right?
Or maybe I was in shock and my brain had yet to fully grasp what I'd done. Maybe my time as a medic kept me from feeling queasy.
I didn't know, but I knew I had to act. I had to seize the initiative; that was the best way to take charge of my own narrative.
I forced myself to lower the gun slowly, purposefully, as if this wasn't my first time taking a life. It gave me a few seconds to think about how I wanted to play things. Claiming The GOAT told me to kill Arsalan was right out; there was no way in hell I was implicating Amy, whether anyone knew at the moment or not. More, saying "A thinker made me come here to kill someone," was exactly the kind of sketchy bullshit that drew all the wrong kind of attention.
There was only one real answer in the end. I was Creed, a bold, campy mercenary who was more or less a heroic rogue in denial. The name said it all: I was a man of my word. In the end, maybe that was for the best.
"Well now, I think there's been enough bloodshed for one day, don't you?" I said, voice measured and calm, quiet yet carrying in the silence of the aftermath. I'd never been more grateful that I'd had the foresight to install a voice modulator. "Now if you don't mind, I'd like to start cleaning up by healing the injured. Civilians first. Then heroes. The SRG? You lot can go fuck yourselves."
"You killed him," someone, I didn't catch who, whispered. "You killed him…"
"I did. And someone please translate what I said into Arabic. We've got work to do."
"That's not-"
"Right? Just? Heroic?" I turned to face the one talking.
He was young, probably only seven or eight years older than me. He had on a sky-blue helmet and the patch that denoted him as a volunteer medic. He was probably on his first international deployment, almost certainly the first time he'd seen someone be summarily executed like this. I could just picture the kind of man he was, fresh-faced, recently out of undergrad, maybe looking to make a difference in the world before going off to med school for "real" studying.
I wasn't sure what I was expecting. Condemnation? Praise? I doubted he knew either; his eyes looked so uncertain. It wasn't like I'd acted for anyone here, save Lily. I wanted her to keep her innocence for a little while longer.
There would be so much on her shoulders in the future. Sure, it was possible that I could one day become stronger than Scion with the Tinker of Fiction, but who knew when that would be? If the end came before that point, she was our best chance, quite literally our silver bullet. Sparing her this little bit of pain wasn't wrong, right?
That wasn't so bad, was it?
I took a deep breath that didn't register externally and continued. "I'm sorry. I am. I don't like that I had to kill someone. But I know that this was the fastest way to end the fighting. I maintain that I acted under emergency protocols. Even heroes have those, or am I wrong, Ursa Aurora?"
"You're not wrong," the leader of our group said. She eyed me with a hefty dose of wariness mixed with approval. Truth was, though I'd nominally placed myself under her command, I wasn't sure what I would have done had she decided to censure me here and now. "Arsalan… I won't say he needed to die, but I won't condemn you either, Creed. Come on, men. Do as Creed said. We have work to do."
It was with an uneasy silence that we got to work. Conversation was kept to a minimum as people were brought to me for healing. Others worked together to clear out the corpses, moving them to one side or another. More men detained the surrendering SRG soldiers and confiscated their weapons.
Despite my words, Ursa Aurora had me start with the lion-men who had been infected by Arsalan's power. With the master dead, his thralls were likely to quickly expire.
From what we'd gleaned later, Arsalan was a master, brute, and trump hybrid capable of generating a "living stone" that could take over a person's nervous system. It also gave him, and all his thralls, access to an infected cape's power. I suspected the stone interfaced with the victim's corona pollentia somehow.
One of his thralls had a breaker effect that allowed him to bypass most forms of armor, carving aside a set geometric shape determined by the motions of the wielder. Another was a thinker who could coordinate many different people. There were more. He was rather infamous in Syria for press-ganging capes under threat of infection, especially if those capes had been born to a lower class or had little socio-political backing.
That was how the SRG and the Assad regime retained power in a world of parahumans, and why there was an underground movement with a disproportionately large number of capes in rebellion against said regime. Even considering the immense potential of Arsalan's power, using it like this sounded especially short-sighted, but I chalked that up to the general arrogance of people in power.
I tried. I really did. But I wasn't good enough. In anticipation for an event like this, an emergency of some kind, I'd prioritize studying the notes of Marcoh, Tucker, and other biomedical alchemists. I assumed that my combat capabilities were sufficient for the moment and decided to make myself invaluable by developing my abilities as a healer.
It… I still couldn't say it was the wrong decision, I'd saved so many already, but it meant I had no idea how to save these men. There were only so many hours I could study and remain productive. I knew only the barest theories on inorganic transmutation. Everything the Elric brothers, Colonel Mustang, or Major Armstrong and the like could do was completely beyond me.
Even should I dissolve the stone into simple sugars or the like, the corona was inextricably melded into the lithic network, to the point that dissolving the stone would also mean irreparably damaging their frontal lobes. I had no idea how to grow that back.
I shook my head. "They're gone. I can't heal them."
"You've fixed nerves before, right?"
"I have, but replacing their skin, nervous system, and restructuring their brains after fractals of stone grew through their gray matter at the same time is a little beyond me," I said bitterly. "Just… Just get me the next guy…"
"I… Okay…"
In the end, there was only one survivor whom Arsalan had ever infected, the man whose nervous system I'd dissolved into simple sugars seconds before I'd killed Arsalan. The stone hadn't had the chance to branch into his brain or propagate too far into his system. He was a vegetable, for the moment, but at least that was fixable. I'd likely want Amy's help for that one.
I also got around to healing Dust Devil, whose name turned out to be Malik. The capes here apparently didn't bother with secret identities, at least not in the heroes and villains sort of way as in America. Regrowing his spine earned us Americans a fair bit of goodwill from the rebels and more than one clapped me on the shoulder with respect for what I was doing.
"He says you did what needed to be done," said the translator Ursa assigned to me. "Arsalan was a tyrant who needed to be put down."
"The rules exist for a reason. Those who violate the rules don't get to claim their protection," I said robotically. I still believed that. Arsalan needed to go. The fighting needed to stop. But having blood on my hands wasn't an easy feeling.
When I first started out, I'd just wanted to have fun. I cared about my family, making shit, and messing with the shit I'd made. Occasionally trolling people, maybe making dumb memes on PHO. That was it. It struck me that I was now a very different man than the one who'd first programmed SAINT. It seemed that the more I explored life as a cape, the more Earth-Bet would intrude.
I worked as if by rote. One by one, I fixed the ones that could be fixed and stabilized the ones that were beyond me for Amy's care. Then, when the heroes had finally received their checkups, we heard the sound of jeeps driving closer.
Men in SRG uniform jumped out, fully armed for war. I didn't recognize the rank insignia of the Syrian army, but I could guess that the older middle-aged man with many stripes and stars over his breast was important in some capacity. Just when we'd begun to relax, the tension ramped up again as they pointed their guns at us.
"Violators of the endbringer truce, surrender," the man said gruffly. "You have killed loyal soldiers of the Syrian Republic."
Ursa stomped forward with a glare. "No chance in hell. Is that the angle you're spinning this? Your men violated the truce when they began shooting into crowds."
"Arsalan was maintaining public order."
"By executing civilians?"
"By combating domestic terrorism. It is an easy mistake to make for outsiders," he said with a sneer. "If you surrender now, you will be detained and extradited to the American government. After proper reparations have been paid of course."
He looked at the broken form of Flygon and the smear that had been Arsalan before his gaze turned to us, no doubt trying to figure out which of us had taken down the Lionguard's strongest capes. When his eyes found Shelter and me, they turned hungry. Compared to two projection-creating masters, a girl with an oversized crossbow, and a boy with a pointy stick, he likely assumed the tinkers were the contributing variables.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the rebels take off their masks and meld into the background. That was the trouble with "terrorists" and "freedom fighters" alike: Trying to find them after the fact was an exercise in frustration.
And yet, their actions pissed me off. There were laws of war, rules to the way we ought to engage in combat. Blending in with some of the civilians I'd treated helped them in the immediate, deflecting blame and attention to Ursa Aurora, but it set a disgusting precedent.
It allowed the SRG and men like the one before me to justify wholesale slaughter of civilians. After all, the "terrorists" could be hiding there, ready to shoot them in the back the moment they turned around. Tactics like this were as likely to turn Syria into a hellscape as Behemoth.
"That's not happening," Ursa said firmly. She wasn't looking for a fight, we were all thoroughly sick of bloodshed at this point, but she looked ready for one nonetheless.
We followed her lead and took a defensive stance. SAINT, who'd floated guardedly at my side until now, began to spark with implicit threat. I glanced at my HUD to check my shield's integrity. Forty-three percent. Not great if they had any decent blasters or brutes, but I should be fine against conventional bullets.
I shifted forward a bit, standing half a step in front of Lily to better cover her with my cape. I didn't get into this bullshit to have arguably the most important person in the local multiverse die on me now because some dipshit got trigger-happy. If she died, I'd have to find March and hope the cluster bloomed true, and she was…
I'd really prefer Lily alive.
Then, when it looked as if we'd resume hostilities, the wind picked up and the world was obscured in the shadow of Dragon's arrival. Her chosen unit for the endbringer cleanup had been Glaurung, I didn't know what model, named for the very first dragon of Middle Earth, the "Father of Dragons."
As per its namesake, Glaurung was fucking massive, as large as four eighteen-wheelers placed side by side. It was one part transport craft and one part drone-dispenser. Most of its body was a loading bay that had been filled with relief supplies, Guild members, and drones designed for search and rescue.
It hovered there, a monument to the sheer amount of resources Dragon had at her disposal. Sure, it was big, but I was reminded that this was but one of her dragonflight, and likely one of the older models meant for support and auxiliary services rather than direct combat. That didn't matter though; the pressure its mere presence exerted on the field was immense, tangible proof of her gaze.
Then one of the loading bays opened and two figures walked down on a set of stairs made from iridescent sheets of light. One was the statuesque, quasi-nudist form of Narwhal, her horn adding an extra foot to her already impressive height. The other was Wieldmaiden, the Pledge Regalia strapped to her back.
"Looks like we came at a good time," Narwhal said. Her tone was light, as if she was discussing the weather. A myriad of force field scales fluttered around her, forming a blizzard that seemed to change shape from one moment to the next.
We let out a collective sigh of relief. With their arrival, the scales had shifted considerably. Rather than tired, inexperienced capes who could be intimidated, they were now dealing with some of the biggest names in the world. In both personal power and experience, Narwhal far outstripped the Protectorate heroine. She had a reputation second only to the Triumvirate, and for good reasons. Ursa stepped back and nodded, wordlessly deferring negotiations to the leader of the Guild.
I slid over to Wieldmaiden and motioned for my Pledge Regalia back. She looked at me blankly before she finally registered what I wanted. Shrugging it off her back, she handed it over with a pat on my shoulder.
"Sorry, brute package. This thing's lighter than it looks. After a while, I didn't even notice the weight," she said apologetically, but still at a low whisper so we wouldn't disturb Narwhal and the SRG's shouting match. "You did good here."
"Thanks. Sure don't feel like it," I whispered back.
She winced but did her best to put on an easygoing smile. "Yeah, that's what they don't tell you about being a hero: Sometimes, it's not about making the right choices; it's about picking the least shitty option in a whole host of shitty options."
"Greatest good for the greatest number?"
"You can see it that way if you want. Some of my colleagues do. Personally? I think of it as doing what lets me sleep easy at night. Let people smarter than me quibble over philosophy; I'll just do my best and be satisfied with that."
"But what if your best isn't good enough?" I asked her, frustrated with myself.
Earth-Bet was often called a grimdark world. Personally? I was starting to realize that it was "grimdark" not because terrible things happened to good people, but because it felt as if nothing I did would be good enough. My very first outing from Brockton and I was already feeling it; there was a sense of hopelessness that made me wonder why I bothered at all.
I studied medicine to help; but that left me unprepared to help the lion-men. I made a normal, rational, maybe even the optimal decision, but found myself lacking when shit hit the fan. In the end, I'd had to take a life a single day after resolving myself to become a hero.
"Then it's not," Wieldmaiden said plainly. I wanted to snap at her, but then I saw her eyes. Beneath the cavalier facade, there was pain there, hurt, from all the times she'd come up short. "And I have to live with that. I'm not good enough. So I try again and again until I am. Or maybe I find a different problem I am good enough to solve. I work with others so I can make a bigger impact. That's how it goes, Creed."
I remained silent at that. She… was right… And I wondered what it'd taken to develop a strength of will like hers. I couldn't help but think that she'd use my power better than I could.
"You're a very strong person," I said softly.
"Ahaha… I'm no one special, kid."
"And terrible at taking compliments."
"You did good with that scanner thing," she deflected. "And we could use someone like you in the Guild. You know, when you're older."
"I'll think about it," I said, with a sincerity that surprised me.
The Guild really wasn't a bad option, truth be told. I certainly respected Narwhal and Dragon more than Alexandria and Eidolon. I'd have to deal with Saint and his merry band of brainwashed imbeciles, but that was always part of the plan eventually. Perhaps, in another life, one without commitments to Brockton Bay, I would have considered it in earnest.
The two of us fell into a comfortable silence. We watched as Narwhal grew increasingly irate, until she finally put her foot down and began to dictate terms.
I liked to think I knew a respectable amount about the laws of war, but what I knew, I'd gleaned from documentaries and a few courses back in undergrad. Clearly, some things were different on Earth-Bet. There was probably a whole subset of international relations scholars dedicated to studying the impact of the endbringer truce on the global community.
More than that, I was tired. Emotionally. Physically. I had to practically regrow my arm thanks to Flygon. Then I spent what aura I had left fixing up who I could from the rest of the battle. The last thing I wanted to do was pay attention to a glorified blame-game on just who broke the truce first and the obligations of organizations providing international aid.
None of it mattered in the end. The fact was, Narwhal and Dragon didn't give a shit what the SRG had to say and they'd just have to be satisfied with their polite, politically correct "fuck off."
The biggest concession the SRG got for this "misunderstanding" was that the Protectorate, I found myself being lumped in with them, was banned "indefinitely, pending internal investigation," from Syrian soil. The Guild would take over all Protectorate assets, with verbal consent from Ursa Aurora, and all PRT and Protectorate personnel would be on the nearest ship back stateside.
Or in our case, via Strider because the Syrian government really didn't like us.
X
2010, November 27: New York, NY, USA
"So, how was your first deployment, kid?" Strider asked, his courier's cap skewed in a jaunty slant. We stood atop the roof of the Protectorate HQ in New York. And I had to admit, it was good to be stateside again, particularly with such a breathtaking view.
"You say that like I joined the military," I said dryly as I looked out over the skyline.
"You went to an endbringer cleanup. It may as well be a deployment."
"For two days. Let's not get too excited, Strider."
"I'm trying to tell you you did good. Just take the compliment."
"Yeah, thanks. How's the gear treating you? Everything working fine?"
"It's great. I've got my entire life packed up in this here suitcase," he said, patting the hard plastic fondly. "Seriously, I had an egg crepe thing from a street vendor in Hong Kong, went to a business meeting in Abu Dhabi, and stopped by in Damascus to ferry you guys home. It's good to know I have a shield module on-hand too."
"Wait, Strider has your tech?" Jouster asked, stepping up to us with the other two Wards at his sides. "I didn't know that."
"We have a business arrangement," the world's most valuable mover said. "He paid for it with an updated costume that includes a force field generator and the expansion bag."
"Damn, nice."
"How does your shield work exactly?" their tinker asked curiously. "Are you making hardlight projections? Or shunting off kinetic force to a different dimension?"
"Woah, woah, Shelter, let's not get into tinker babble right after we get back."
"It's interesting stuff, Jouster. You saw how well Creed's tech stood up."
"Ursa told me all about it," came another voice. It was deep and soothing, with an unmistakable undertone of iron that I recognized from a dozen TV appearances despite never having heard it in person. Legend just had one of those voices. I hadn't even noticed him; he didn't make a sound as he floated through the air.
"Hopefully she told you the exact circumstances behind my actions," I said guardedly.
I… I had no plan here. Even were I not exhausted beyond belief, this was Legend. I didn't have a way to fight him, not even close. SAINT could evolve, I could have picked up combat transmutation and fully mastered Crown Chimera, and it still wouldn't have been enough. The man had a reputation he'd earned a hundred times over.
The best I could do was to turn invisible and hope his freakish eyes wouldn't be able to track me because he sure as shit wasn't the type to carpet bomb his own city just for little ol' me. Or maybe, I could reach Strider and have him port us out before things got too heated.
Slowly, subtly, I inched towards Strider. I wasn't subtle enough because Legend shook his head with a small smile that had no business putting me at ease, but somehow did.
"Relax, I'm not here to take you in, Creed. You showed up to heal after an endbringer battle; you deserve the protections of the truce more than most. Ursa had nothing but good things to say about you, especially your willingness to take on one of the best flyers in the Middle East for them."
"I was the only one who had the mobility," I said simply.
"Yes, and I heard you were vital to opening negotiations with the rebels. You didn't have to be there; you could have left with the medical camp. Why did you return? You literally took bullets for people you didn't even know."
I wasn't sure what to say. How did I explain? I'd relied so much on Amy to be my moral compass, all the while trying to pull her past her black and white mindset. How did I describe the conversation I had with Faultline? Or the bodies I saw over the past few days? How did I explain how much I'd changed as a person in these short months?
"I… I guess you could say I had a crisis of conscience," I told him sincerely. It was about as accurate as I could get without laying my heart bare to the guy.
"If only more villains could have those," Jouster joked.
"You saved our bacon there. You would make a great hero," Ursa said as she walked over with Prism in tow. "You were one today. You saved lives and made hard choices. It's not pretty, but you stepped up when you could have left with the medics."
"I could do with a lot less excitement," I replied. "There's a line between the Protectorate and Jack Slash. I like to think I can be a decent person without joining up."
"Either way, here," she said, offering me a card. "It's my card. We like to have Wards go through a thorough debriefing after missions like this. I know the word 'psychologist' sounds scary, but it really does help to talk things out. We'll respect your anonymity, guaranteed."
I took it gingerly. Coming from her, or more likely someone not from Brockton, I almost believed her. "Thanks. I'll consider it."
"That's all we ask," Legend replied. He held out a hand for me to shake. "I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but I think you can really make a difference in the world. Your healing, costumes, and even your turret construct can all help save lives. I hope you'll give it some thought."
"Hero, huh? I'm just some punk kid trying to figure out his lot in life. If I'm to be a hero, it'll be on my terms, running on my Road."
So saying, I stamped the ground, pouring out a plume of mist that covered my position. When it cleared, I was long gone.
Author's Note
I know what some of you will say. You might say there shouldn't be such a big wall between inorganic and organic transmutation, but I disagree. There are a handful of exceptions, Ed himself being one of them, that can perform both proficiently, but for the most part, people specialize in one facet of alchemy and remain in that niche.
This was true of Marcoh, Tucker, and even Mustang, who focused on a super-niche gaseous variant of inorganic transmutation. The exceptions to this rule are homunculi, Hohenheim, or the main character who is widely regarded as a genius talent.
I am largely treating FMA's alchemy like any other high-level academic discipline. Doctors who are also lawyers or engineers exist, but they're rare. It's already a big enough cheat that Bryce has gotten this proficient with biological alchemy in a single week.
Yeah, it's only been a week since the specialization change. Bonkers, huh?
Most of all? Bryce can fail. I'm sure that with the Tinker of Fiction, godhood is an inevitability, but for the moment, he just can't account for every circumstance. Even when learning an objectively incredible skill, like biological alchemy, he can still feel unprepared.
Thank you to all of my patrons. As many of you know, I update one of my stories once every weekend publicly. However, I update much more frequently on Pat-re-on, usually 8-10 chapters a month spread across various stories. That means the number of chapters available on Pat-re-on is always growing. As of now, this is how far along each story is:
- A Colorful Life: Same as public
- A Life Worth Living: 2
- Pokemon: Apocalypse: 1.14
- The Holy Grill: 2.6.5
- Homeless Bunny: 24
- Legendary Tinker: 8.7
- Plan? What Plan?: 5.2
- When is a Spoon a Sword?: 4.13
- Troll in the Dungeon!: 21
- Let There be War: 9 (Complete)
Total Chapter Difference (Pat-re-on - Public): 27
Bryce Kiley
2010, November 27: Damascus, Syria
The battlefield fell eerily silent. Men who'd been screaming for this or that were now quiet, shocked at the rapid conclusion of this mess. Villains and heroes, civilians and rebels, all eyes turned as one towards the one responsible: me.
I stood, frozen with the weight of what I'd done. I held the literal smoking gun and took in the bloody mist that had once been Arsalan. By my side, Lily looked up at me with a mixture of horror and relief. It was over, and she hadn't had to pull the trigger.
I wasn't sure how I ought to react. Hell, I wasn't sure how to process this at all. I felt… normal. I felt like I hadn't just killed a man and I wondered why. Was this how everyone felt? Or was I just a special kind of fucked up? Killing a man should feel more impactful than frying an egg, right?
Or maybe I was in shock and my brain had yet to fully grasp what I'd done. Maybe my time as a medic kept me from feeling queasy.
I didn't know, but I knew I had to act. I had to seize the initiative; that was the best way to take charge of my own narrative.
I forced myself to lower the gun slowly, purposefully, as if this wasn't my first time taking a life. It gave me a few seconds to think about how I wanted to play things. Claiming The GOAT told me to kill Arsalan was right out; there was no way in hell I was implicating Amy, whether anyone knew at the moment or not. More, saying "A thinker made me come here to kill someone," was exactly the kind of sketchy bullshit that drew all the wrong kind of attention.
There was only one real answer in the end. I was Creed, a bold, campy mercenary who was more or less a heroic rogue in denial. The name said it all: I was a man of my word. In the end, maybe that was for the best.
"Well now, I think there's been enough bloodshed for one day, don't you?" I said, voice measured and calm, quiet yet carrying in the silence of the aftermath. I'd never been more grateful that I'd had the foresight to install a voice modulator. "Now if you don't mind, I'd like to start cleaning up by healing the injured. Civilians first. Then heroes. The SRG? You lot can go fuck yourselves."
"You killed him," someone, I didn't catch who, whispered. "You killed him…"
"I did. And someone please translate what I said into Arabic. We've got work to do."
"That's not-"
"Right? Just? Heroic?" I turned to face the one talking.
He was young, probably only seven or eight years older than me. He had on a sky-blue helmet and the patch that denoted him as a volunteer medic. He was probably on his first international deployment, almost certainly the first time he'd seen someone be summarily executed like this. I could just picture the kind of man he was, fresh-faced, recently out of undergrad, maybe looking to make a difference in the world before going off to med school for "real" studying.
I wasn't sure what I was expecting. Condemnation? Praise? I doubted he knew either; his eyes looked so uncertain. It wasn't like I'd acted for anyone here, save Lily. I wanted her to keep her innocence for a little while longer.
There would be so much on her shoulders in the future. Sure, it was possible that I could one day become stronger than Scion with the Tinker of Fiction, but who knew when that would be? If the end came before that point, she was our best chance, quite literally our silver bullet. Sparing her this little bit of pain wasn't wrong, right?
That wasn't so bad, was it?
I took a deep breath that didn't register externally and continued. "I'm sorry. I am. I don't like that I had to kill someone. But I know that this was the fastest way to end the fighting. I maintain that I acted under emergency protocols. Even heroes have those, or am I wrong, Ursa Aurora?"
"You're not wrong," the leader of our group said. She eyed me with a hefty dose of wariness mixed with approval. Truth was, though I'd nominally placed myself under her command, I wasn't sure what I would have done had she decided to censure me here and now. "Arsalan… I won't say he needed to die, but I won't condemn you either, Creed. Come on, men. Do as Creed said. We have work to do."
It was with an uneasy silence that we got to work. Conversation was kept to a minimum as people were brought to me for healing. Others worked together to clear out the corpses, moving them to one side or another. More men detained the surrendering SRG soldiers and confiscated their weapons.
Despite my words, Ursa Aurora had me start with the lion-men who had been infected by Arsalan's power. With the master dead, his thralls were likely to quickly expire.
From what we'd gleaned later, Arsalan was a master, brute, and trump hybrid capable of generating a "living stone" that could take over a person's nervous system. It also gave him, and all his thralls, access to an infected cape's power. I suspected the stone interfaced with the victim's corona pollentia somehow.
One of his thralls had a breaker effect that allowed him to bypass most forms of armor, carving aside a set geometric shape determined by the motions of the wielder. Another was a thinker who could coordinate many different people. There were more. He was rather infamous in Syria for press-ganging capes under threat of infection, especially if those capes had been born to a lower class or had little socio-political backing.
That was how the SRG and the Assad regime retained power in a world of parahumans, and why there was an underground movement with a disproportionately large number of capes in rebellion against said regime. Even considering the immense potential of Arsalan's power, using it like this sounded especially short-sighted, but I chalked that up to the general arrogance of people in power.
I tried. I really did. But I wasn't good enough. In anticipation for an event like this, an emergency of some kind, I'd prioritize studying the notes of Marcoh, Tucker, and other biomedical alchemists. I assumed that my combat capabilities were sufficient for the moment and decided to make myself invaluable by developing my abilities as a healer.
It… I still couldn't say it was the wrong decision, I'd saved so many already, but it meant I had no idea how to save these men. There were only so many hours I could study and remain productive. I knew only the barest theories on inorganic transmutation. Everything the Elric brothers, Colonel Mustang, or Major Armstrong and the like could do was completely beyond me.
Even should I dissolve the stone into simple sugars or the like, the corona was inextricably melded into the lithic network, to the point that dissolving the stone would also mean irreparably damaging their frontal lobes. I had no idea how to grow that back.
I shook my head. "They're gone. I can't heal them."
"You've fixed nerves before, right?"
"I have, but replacing their skin, nervous system, and restructuring their brains after fractals of stone grew through their gray matter at the same time is a little beyond me," I said bitterly. "Just… Just get me the next guy…"
"I… Okay…"
In the end, there was only one survivor whom Arsalan had ever infected, the man whose nervous system I'd dissolved into simple sugars seconds before I'd killed Arsalan. The stone hadn't had the chance to branch into his brain or propagate too far into his system. He was a vegetable, for the moment, but at least that was fixable. I'd likely want Amy's help for that one.
I also got around to healing Dust Devil, whose name turned out to be Malik. The capes here apparently didn't bother with secret identities, at least not in the heroes and villains sort of way as in America. Regrowing his spine earned us Americans a fair bit of goodwill from the rebels and more than one clapped me on the shoulder with respect for what I was doing.
"He says you did what needed to be done," said the translator Ursa assigned to me. "Arsalan was a tyrant who needed to be put down."
"The rules exist for a reason. Those who violate the rules don't get to claim their protection," I said robotically. I still believed that. Arsalan needed to go. The fighting needed to stop. But having blood on my hands wasn't an easy feeling.
When I first started out, I'd just wanted to have fun. I cared about my family, making shit, and messing with the shit I'd made. Occasionally trolling people, maybe making dumb memes on PHO. That was it. It struck me that I was now a very different man than the one who'd first programmed SAINT. It seemed that the more I explored life as a cape, the more Earth-Bet would intrude.
I worked as if by rote. One by one, I fixed the ones that could be fixed and stabilized the ones that were beyond me for Amy's care. Then, when the heroes had finally received their checkups, we heard the sound of jeeps driving closer.
Men in SRG uniform jumped out, fully armed for war. I didn't recognize the rank insignia of the Syrian army, but I could guess that the older middle-aged man with many stripes and stars over his breast was important in some capacity. Just when we'd begun to relax, the tension ramped up again as they pointed their guns at us.
"Violators of the endbringer truce, surrender," the man said gruffly. "You have killed loyal soldiers of the Syrian Republic."
Ursa stomped forward with a glare. "No chance in hell. Is that the angle you're spinning this? Your men violated the truce when they began shooting into crowds."
"Arsalan was maintaining public order."
"By executing civilians?"
"By combating domestic terrorism. It is an easy mistake to make for outsiders," he said with a sneer. "If you surrender now, you will be detained and extradited to the American government. After proper reparations have been paid of course."
He looked at the broken form of Flygon and the smear that had been Arsalan before his gaze turned to us, no doubt trying to figure out which of us had taken down the Lionguard's strongest capes. When his eyes found Shelter and me, they turned hungry. Compared to two projection-creating masters, a girl with an oversized crossbow, and a boy with a pointy stick, he likely assumed the tinkers were the contributing variables.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the rebels take off their masks and meld into the background. That was the trouble with "terrorists" and "freedom fighters" alike: Trying to find them after the fact was an exercise in frustration.
And yet, their actions pissed me off. There were laws of war, rules to the way we ought to engage in combat. Blending in with some of the civilians I'd treated helped them in the immediate, deflecting blame and attention to Ursa Aurora, but it set a disgusting precedent.
It allowed the SRG and men like the one before me to justify wholesale slaughter of civilians. After all, the "terrorists" could be hiding there, ready to shoot them in the back the moment they turned around. Tactics like this were as likely to turn Syria into a hellscape as Behemoth.
"That's not happening," Ursa said firmly. She wasn't looking for a fight, we were all thoroughly sick of bloodshed at this point, but she looked ready for one nonetheless.
We followed her lead and took a defensive stance. SAINT, who'd floated guardedly at my side until now, began to spark with implicit threat. I glanced at my HUD to check my shield's integrity. Forty-three percent. Not great if they had any decent blasters or brutes, but I should be fine against conventional bullets.
I shifted forward a bit, standing half a step in front of Lily to better cover her with my cape. I didn't get into this bullshit to have arguably the most important person in the local multiverse die on me now because some dipshit got trigger-happy. If she died, I'd have to find March and hope the cluster bloomed true, and she was…
I'd really prefer Lily alive.
Then, when it looked as if we'd resume hostilities, the wind picked up and the world was obscured in the shadow of Dragon's arrival. Her chosen unit for the endbringer cleanup had been Glaurung, I didn't know what model, named for the very first dragon of Middle Earth, the "Father of Dragons."
As per its namesake, Glaurung was fucking massive, as large as four eighteen-wheelers placed side by side. It was one part transport craft and one part drone-dispenser. Most of its body was a loading bay that had been filled with relief supplies, Guild members, and drones designed for search and rescue.
It hovered there, a monument to the sheer amount of resources Dragon had at her disposal. Sure, it was big, but I was reminded that this was but one of her dragonflight, and likely one of the older models meant for support and auxiliary services rather than direct combat. That didn't matter though; the pressure its mere presence exerted on the field was immense, tangible proof of her gaze.
Then one of the loading bays opened and two figures walked down on a set of stairs made from iridescent sheets of light. One was the statuesque, quasi-nudist form of Narwhal, her horn adding an extra foot to her already impressive height. The other was Wieldmaiden, the Pledge Regalia strapped to her back.
"Looks like we came at a good time," Narwhal said. Her tone was light, as if she was discussing the weather. A myriad of force field scales fluttered around her, forming a blizzard that seemed to change shape from one moment to the next.
We let out a collective sigh of relief. With their arrival, the scales had shifted considerably. Rather than tired, inexperienced capes who could be intimidated, they were now dealing with some of the biggest names in the world. In both personal power and experience, Narwhal far outstripped the Protectorate heroine. She had a reputation second only to the Triumvirate, and for good reasons. Ursa stepped back and nodded, wordlessly deferring negotiations to the leader of the Guild.
I slid over to Wieldmaiden and motioned for my Pledge Regalia back. She looked at me blankly before she finally registered what I wanted. Shrugging it off her back, she handed it over with a pat on my shoulder.
"Sorry, brute package. This thing's lighter than it looks. After a while, I didn't even notice the weight," she said apologetically, but still at a low whisper so we wouldn't disturb Narwhal and the SRG's shouting match. "You did good here."
"Thanks. Sure don't feel like it," I whispered back.
She winced but did her best to put on an easygoing smile. "Yeah, that's what they don't tell you about being a hero: Sometimes, it's not about making the right choices; it's about picking the least shitty option in a whole host of shitty options."
"Greatest good for the greatest number?"
"You can see it that way if you want. Some of my colleagues do. Personally? I think of it as doing what lets me sleep easy at night. Let people smarter than me quibble over philosophy; I'll just do my best and be satisfied with that."
"But what if your best isn't good enough?" I asked her, frustrated with myself.
Earth-Bet was often called a grimdark world. Personally? I was starting to realize that it was "grimdark" not because terrible things happened to good people, but because it felt as if nothing I did would be good enough. My very first outing from Brockton and I was already feeling it; there was a sense of hopelessness that made me wonder why I bothered at all.
I studied medicine to help; but that left me unprepared to help the lion-men. I made a normal, rational, maybe even the optimal decision, but found myself lacking when shit hit the fan. In the end, I'd had to take a life a single day after resolving myself to become a hero.
"Then it's not," Wieldmaiden said plainly. I wanted to snap at her, but then I saw her eyes. Beneath the cavalier facade, there was pain there, hurt, from all the times she'd come up short. "And I have to live with that. I'm not good enough. So I try again and again until I am. Or maybe I find a different problem I am good enough to solve. I work with others so I can make a bigger impact. That's how it goes, Creed."
I remained silent at that. She… was right… And I wondered what it'd taken to develop a strength of will like hers. I couldn't help but think that she'd use my power better than I could.
"You're a very strong person," I said softly.
"Ahaha… I'm no one special, kid."
"And terrible at taking compliments."
"You did good with that scanner thing," she deflected. "And we could use someone like you in the Guild. You know, when you're older."
"I'll think about it," I said, with a sincerity that surprised me.
The Guild really wasn't a bad option, truth be told. I certainly respected Narwhal and Dragon more than Alexandria and Eidolon. I'd have to deal with Saint and his merry band of brainwashed imbeciles, but that was always part of the plan eventually. Perhaps, in another life, one without commitments to Brockton Bay, I would have considered it in earnest.
The two of us fell into a comfortable silence. We watched as Narwhal grew increasingly irate, until she finally put her foot down and began to dictate terms.
I liked to think I knew a respectable amount about the laws of war, but what I knew, I'd gleaned from documentaries and a few courses back in undergrad. Clearly, some things were different on Earth-Bet. There was probably a whole subset of international relations scholars dedicated to studying the impact of the endbringer truce on the global community.
More than that, I was tired. Emotionally. Physically. I had to practically regrow my arm thanks to Flygon. Then I spent what aura I had left fixing up who I could from the rest of the battle. The last thing I wanted to do was pay attention to a glorified blame-game on just who broke the truce first and the obligations of organizations providing international aid.
None of it mattered in the end. The fact was, Narwhal and Dragon didn't give a shit what the SRG had to say and they'd just have to be satisfied with their polite, politically correct "fuck off."
The biggest concession the SRG got for this "misunderstanding" was that the Protectorate, I found myself being lumped in with them, was banned "indefinitely, pending internal investigation," from Syrian soil. The Guild would take over all Protectorate assets, with verbal consent from Ursa Aurora, and all PRT and Protectorate personnel would be on the nearest ship back stateside.
Or in our case, via Strider because the Syrian government really didn't like us.
X
2010, November 27: New York, NY, USA
"So, how was your first deployment, kid?" Strider asked, his courier's cap skewed in a jaunty slant. We stood atop the roof of the Protectorate HQ in New York. And I had to admit, it was good to be stateside again, particularly with such a breathtaking view.
"You say that like I joined the military," I said dryly as I looked out over the skyline.
"You went to an endbringer cleanup. It may as well be a deployment."
"For two days. Let's not get too excited, Strider."
"I'm trying to tell you you did good. Just take the compliment."
"Yeah, thanks. How's the gear treating you? Everything working fine?"
"It's great. I've got my entire life packed up in this here suitcase," he said, patting the hard plastic fondly. "Seriously, I had an egg crepe thing from a street vendor in Hong Kong, went to a business meeting in Abu Dhabi, and stopped by in Damascus to ferry you guys home. It's good to know I have a shield module on-hand too."
"Wait, Strider has your tech?" Jouster asked, stepping up to us with the other two Wards at his sides. "I didn't know that."
"We have a business arrangement," the world's most valuable mover said. "He paid for it with an updated costume that includes a force field generator and the expansion bag."
"Damn, nice."
"How does your shield work exactly?" their tinker asked curiously. "Are you making hardlight projections? Or shunting off kinetic force to a different dimension?"
"Woah, woah, Shelter, let's not get into tinker babble right after we get back."
"It's interesting stuff, Jouster. You saw how well Creed's tech stood up."
"Ursa told me all about it," came another voice. It was deep and soothing, with an unmistakable undertone of iron that I recognized from a dozen TV appearances despite never having heard it in person. Legend just had one of those voices. I hadn't even noticed him; he didn't make a sound as he floated through the air.
"Hopefully she told you the exact circumstances behind my actions," I said guardedly.
I… I had no plan here. Even were I not exhausted beyond belief, this was Legend. I didn't have a way to fight him, not even close. SAINT could evolve, I could have picked up combat transmutation and fully mastered Crown Chimera, and it still wouldn't have been enough. The man had a reputation he'd earned a hundred times over.
The best I could do was to turn invisible and hope his freakish eyes wouldn't be able to track me because he sure as shit wasn't the type to carpet bomb his own city just for little ol' me. Or maybe, I could reach Strider and have him port us out before things got too heated.
Slowly, subtly, I inched towards Strider. I wasn't subtle enough because Legend shook his head with a small smile that had no business putting me at ease, but somehow did.
"Relax, I'm not here to take you in, Creed. You showed up to heal after an endbringer battle; you deserve the protections of the truce more than most. Ursa had nothing but good things to say about you, especially your willingness to take on one of the best flyers in the Middle East for them."
"I was the only one who had the mobility," I said simply.
"Yes, and I heard you were vital to opening negotiations with the rebels. You didn't have to be there; you could have left with the medical camp. Why did you return? You literally took bullets for people you didn't even know."
I wasn't sure what to say. How did I explain? I'd relied so much on Amy to be my moral compass, all the while trying to pull her past her black and white mindset. How did I describe the conversation I had with Faultline? Or the bodies I saw over the past few days? How did I explain how much I'd changed as a person in these short months?
"I… I guess you could say I had a crisis of conscience," I told him sincerely. It was about as accurate as I could get without laying my heart bare to the guy.
"If only more villains could have those," Jouster joked.
"You saved our bacon there. You would make a great hero," Ursa said as she walked over with Prism in tow. "You were one today. You saved lives and made hard choices. It's not pretty, but you stepped up when you could have left with the medics."
"I could do with a lot less excitement," I replied. "There's a line between the Protectorate and Jack Slash. I like to think I can be a decent person without joining up."
"Either way, here," she said, offering me a card. "It's my card. We like to have Wards go through a thorough debriefing after missions like this. I know the word 'psychologist' sounds scary, but it really does help to talk things out. We'll respect your anonymity, guaranteed."
I took it gingerly. Coming from her, or more likely someone not from Brockton, I almost believed her. "Thanks. I'll consider it."
"That's all we ask," Legend replied. He held out a hand for me to shake. "I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but I think you can really make a difference in the world. Your healing, costumes, and even your turret construct can all help save lives. I hope you'll give it some thought."
"Hero, huh? I'm just some punk kid trying to figure out his lot in life. If I'm to be a hero, it'll be on my terms, running on my Road."
So saying, I stamped the ground, pouring out a plume of mist that covered my position. When it cleared, I was long gone.
Author's Note
I know what some of you will say. You might say there shouldn't be such a big wall between inorganic and organic transmutation, but I disagree. There are a handful of exceptions, Ed himself being one of them, that can perform both proficiently, but for the most part, people specialize in one facet of alchemy and remain in that niche.
This was true of Marcoh, Tucker, and even Mustang, who focused on a super-niche gaseous variant of inorganic transmutation. The exceptions to this rule are homunculi, Hohenheim, or the main character who is widely regarded as a genius talent.
I am largely treating FMA's alchemy like any other high-level academic discipline. Doctors who are also lawyers or engineers exist, but they're rare. It's already a big enough cheat that Bryce has gotten this proficient with biological alchemy in a single week.
Yeah, it's only been a week since the specialization change. Bonkers, huh?
Most of all? Bryce can fail. I'm sure that with the Tinker of Fiction, godhood is an inevitability, but for the moment, he just can't account for every circumstance. Even when learning an objectively incredible skill, like biological alchemy, he can still feel unprepared.
Thank you to all of my patrons. As many of you know, I update one of my stories once every weekend publicly. However, I update much more frequently on Pat-re-on, usually 8-10 chapters a month spread across various stories. That means the number of chapters available on Pat-re-on is always growing. As of now, this is how far along each story is:
- A Colorful Life: Same as public
- A Life Worth Living: 2
- Pokemon: Apocalypse: 1.14
- The Holy Grill: 2.6.5
- Homeless Bunny: 24
- Legendary Tinker: 8.7
- Plan? What Plan?: 5.2
- When is a Spoon a Sword?: 4.13
- Troll in the Dungeon!: 21
- Let There be War: 9 (Complete)
Total Chapter Difference (Pat-re-on - Public): 27
- Location
- England
I don't think 'line' works well there. Maybe, 'grey area'? Or 'There's room between'?
You're overselling legend there your odds aren't high but they aren't 0 because of how janky worm powers are Legend doesn't have that much durability. I'd also note he's likely to not be peak human in fitness because it's noted that he basically always flies and even when he doesn't and is on the ground his flight power is still lessening his weight. The only boost beyond human lvs he has is that if injured he automatically slips into his breaker state which uses a portion of the atk's energy to heal him which means death by 1000 cuts doesn't really work. However, that's also a weakness because he gets trapped in his breaker form until he heals from the damage so he can be taken out of a fight entirely or at least for a long time by taking a big hit and Bryce is able to hit hard enough for that.
Would also say I'd really like to see a case where after an endbringer fight like that and the prt goes poking for info like that it gets pointed out to them that they are breaking the truce by doing so.
Would also say I'd really like to see a case where after an endbringer fight like that and the prt goes poking for info like that it gets pointed out to them that they are breaking the truce by doing so.
When I read the chapter, the impression I got from Bryce's self-recrimination was I focused on improving my medical alchemy, but I wasn't good enough at medical alchemy to save these people who had an unusual and uniquely challenging condition, so it's my fault for not (somehow) focusing even harder on getting good at doing medicine. Typical blindly-self-blaming shonen protagonist bullshit, in other words, which meant it lacked emotional impact.
Reading your AN, though, it's pretty clear what he meant is that if he had chosen to put more effort into refining normal combat applications of alchemy, that would have given him more experience working with inorganic materials which would actually have been more helpful in this specific medical application than his more conventional medical practice was. So he's blaming himself for excessive focus that actually ended up hindering the goal he was focused on, which is a very useful lesson: life is unpredictable, and preparing for a wide range of circumstances and outcomes leads to better performance when you run into the unexpected.
It might help to add a line to make this more clear.
Reading your AN, though, it's pretty clear what he meant is that if he had chosen to put more effort into refining normal combat applications of alchemy, that would have given him more experience working with inorganic materials which would actually have been more helpful in this specific medical application than his more conventional medical practice was. So he's blaming himself for excessive focus that actually ended up hindering the goal he was focused on, which is a very useful lesson: life is unpredictable, and preparing for a wide range of circumstances and outcomes leads to better performance when you run into the unexpected.
It might help to add a line to make this more clear.
- Location
- Australia
"There is a vast amount of space between"
4.12.5 Sabah Azimi
Fabled Webs
Lord Weaver, Glorious and Wise
- Location
- Arlington, VA
Interlude 4.12.5: Sabah Azimi
Sabah Azimi
2010, November 26: Brockton Bay, NH, USA
I checked New Wave's official site for the fourth time, just to be sure. I'd checked last night of course. And the day before that. And for about a week solid if I was being honest. I let out a sigh of relief when I saw what I'd been looking for: There it was, under Panacea's profile, in big, bold letters, giving me hope.
[Tis the season to be grateful. We have been blessed by you, our supporters, and would love to pay some of that forward. As part of our desire to spread the holiday cheer, Panacea will be active all weekend at the Brockton Bay General Hospital from 9 AM to 6 PM.]
The whole thing stank of public relations. Like most people, I considered New Wave to be a failed movement that mostly stayed relevant thanks to pretty privilege on Glory Girl's part and Panacea's ridiculously useful power. Even Laserdream and Shielder didn't really do hero work anymore. But right now, I didn't care. A near delirious wave of hope and relief filled me, the kind that made me want to cackle like a loon for minutes on end.
Bryce was right. Panacea would show today.
Winning a trip from Panacea was quite literally like winning the lottery for people with chronic illnesses. No one could deny that she did her part, but there was always one more, always someone with a better sob story or a luckier draw than dad's. That had been the case for months on end, ever since the doctors diagnosed his heart condition as terminal and put him on the list.
And a single call from Sierra changed that. My friends improved our chances so much that it was all but guaranteed Panacea would visit our room sometime today.
Sierra told Bryce. And Bryce told Amy. I'd been so pissed with her at first. She'd broken my trust. Of course I knew Bryce was Amy's friend; I was the one who helped him shop for a suit for his Homecoming!
But I also knew Amy didn't take requests.
I thought dad would be moved down the list. I thought there was some ledger in the hospital and his patient ID would get crossed off, that we'd forever lose our chance at the lotto because Bryce couldn't keep his mouth shut. It wasn't worth it. Asking was never worth it because it was tantamount to giving up hope.
Because everyone knew Panacea didn't take requests.
Except… Maybe she did? Maybe Bryce meant more to her than any of us realized.
Or maybe this was all a huge coincidence and she'd already been planning a visit for Thanksgiving weekend. Maybe she just happened to mention at lunch that she'd be around and Bryce passed that info to me.
It didn't matter. So long as Panacea visited dad, I could… I could kiss the little guy. I'd officially adopt him. Or give him a huge hug or something. I didn't know what I'd do but I owed him big time. Maybe I'd make him a jacket or something.
Bright and early, I waited in dad's hospital room for Panacea. I wanted to thank her personally. She probably got a thousand little gifts, shows of gratitude from people she'd saved, but I had to make the effort myself. It struck me that I should have asked Bryce what she liked instead of settling for a box of chocolates.
I hummed happily and held dad's hand as the nurses ran their standard tests. We talked about Iraq, about the way things used to be, about how we found ourselves in the United States. He always had the funniest stories about his brothers growing up.
Dad and I didn't get along all the time. He still thought the "fashion thing" was just a phase, that making it as a designer was like plucking a star from the night sky. I hadn't told him I'd switched majors yet, definitely not that I switched because of a pushy boy. He might actually buy a shotgun then.
And he still didn't like that I was lesbian, said it was unnatural and that a "good man" could convince me otherwise. The number of "handsome, young men" he'd introduced me to who just so happened to be single was… higher than necessary.
But… But for all his faults, he was babi, the man who read me bedtime stories and killed all the spiders and kept my little brothers out of my hair. He'd hear me out, no matter my troubles. I'd never once felt afraid of confiding in him even as we disagreed on so many things. He'd never raised a hand to me or my brothers. He'd worked himself to the bone with a smile on his face so we could live without worry, so we could be proud of our babi, he'd said.
I loved him so, so much. Our family needed him. I needed him, more than words could ever say.
We shared a light breakfast and, after swapping stories about my brothers, he fell asleep. He was so much more tired these days. His illness seemed to sap his energy, leaving him bedridden much of the time. The only reason he wasn't a permanent inpatient was because we couldn't afford the hospital bed. If we could, perhaps Panacea would have stumbled on him sooner.
I still didn't know what was wrong with him. The doctors said he had a weak heart, but what did that mean exactly? Cancer? A bad pacemaker? Something genetic I'd have to start worrying about in fifteen years?
I just wanted this to be over.
After a while, nearing noon now, I heard a knock at the door.
"Come in," I called. The door opened to reveal my two best friends, even if I was a little miffed at one of them at the moment.
Sierra's dreads bobbed up and down. They'd always reminded me of a poodle's floppy ears. She looked so cute and pouty that it was hard to stay mad at her and I knew I'd forgive her soon enough. In her hands was a wicker basket filled with flowers and fruit that she rested on the bedside table.
Michelle was wearing a sporty, classy outfit as always. She had her brown hair in a ponytail and I could see a thin film of sweat over her pale skin. She'd probably joined Sierra after a morning run. In her hands was a paper bag printed with the logo of a sandwich shop across the street.
"H-Hey, Sabah. How are you?" Sierra asked, "Or I guess, how is he?"
"He's asleep, Sisi," I replied softly. "Why are you two here?"
"Umm… I just… I felt bad. I'm sorry for telling Bryce," Sierra said with a sheepish smile.
"And I'm just here for moral support," Michelle added. She handed us each a sandwich. "Heard you could use the company right now."
I accepted lunch gratefully. Chicken and provolone with cucumbers, dried tomatoes, and light mayo. My girls were the best. "Don't. I'm not… I'm not mad. I was, but… I know he meant well. How is he?"
"Bryce? He's hanging out with a friend. Mom said he'll probably sleep over for the weekend," Sierra said. "Has Panacea…"
"No, she hasn't been by." I put on a confident smile for them. "I'm sure she will be around though. She must be somewhere else in the hospital."
"Yeah…" Sierra looked down with a wince. "About that…"
"What? What's going on, Sierra?"
"I thought maybe she'd have come by before leaving-"
"Leave? Leave for where? Why would Panacea leave?"
Michelle put a hand on my shoulder and gently pushed me back into my seat. I hadn't realized I'd gotten up.
"Chill, Sabs, it's not Sierra's fault. Or Bryce's," she said soothingly.
But I didn't want to be soothed right now. I wanted to know why Panacea wasn't at the hospital. "Michelle, what's going on?"
She took out her phone and opened it to a PHO page. My eyes glided across the page, seeing but not understanding. After several moments, I began to read:
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Topic: Behemoth in Damascus
In: Boards ► United States ► New England ► Brockton Bay ► News & Announcements
Brilliger (Original Poster) (Moderator: Protectorate Main)
Posted On Nov 26th 2010:
As of 9:53 AM, we received confirmation that Behemoth has attacked Damascus, Syria. All members of the endbringer response team are to meet for relocation to the Boston waypoint at the Brockton Bay PRT headquarters.
I repeat: If you are planning to attend the battle, head to the Brockton Bay PRT headquarters.
Transport to Boston will be provided, and from there, to Damascus.
A second wave of transports will be provided once the battle concludes. Please keep your phones on. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
As of now, the endbringer truce is in effect.
(Showing page 1 of 2)
►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
FIRST!
*The user has received a 3 day ban for this post.
►Brilliger (Original Poster) (Moderator: Protectorate Main)
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
No. Shut up. Not the post for this. You didn't break any rules, but have some fucking tact, Void.
►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
I'm just relieved I don't know anyone there.
►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
[Brilliger,] do we know who will attend from our side of things? I have access to the [endbringer response roster,] but that's more of a statement of intent rather than a binding document.
►Brilliger (Original Poster) (Moderator: Protectorate Main)
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
For good reason, [Bagrat.] I think you know why. We can't make people attend, especially an endbringer battle on foreign soil. We'll see who shows but we won't know for sure until it happens.
►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
No matter what, hero or villain, thank you for your sacrifice.
►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
Yeah, what he said. Shit just got as real as real gets.
►Xyloloup
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
Wait, what about New Wave? Panacea was supposed to do a tour of the hospital today, right?
►Answer Key
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
I doubt that's going to happen anymore. Either Panacea will be on the ground there shortly, or she'll be resting up and preparing to go help clean up the aftermath.
►Xyloloup
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
Fuck. Why now?
►White Fairy (Veteran Member)
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
Endbringer attacks are never "convenient." There's no such thing. My condolences. It seems like this time, your relative pulled the short straw.
►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
[Found it.] New Wave posted a retraction of Panacea's hospital visit. She, alongside her family, will be attending the aftermath of the Damascus battle to conduct search and rescue and provide emergency aid.
End of Page. 1
The world spun around me. Behemoth attacked Damascus. Panacea wasn't coming. The rest of the thread was bloated with people saying Panacea should stay, people raging at having their hopes dashed. It got so bad that Brilliger had to lock the thread entirely.
I couldn't blame them. It felt like someone had swept the floor from beneath my feet. A wave of despair crushed down on me like a physical force. I fell to my knees as dad slept on, unaware that we'd just lost our biggest chance to meet her. Panacea was supposed to fix this. One minute. Just a single, damned minute of her time. Was that too much to ask for?
Dad was… He was supposed to get better…
In that moment, it felt like Behemoth had somehow selected my dad specifically to fuck over. Like the entire world was out to get us.
'You could have arranged for this sooner,' a niggling voice whispered in the back of my mind. 'You knew Bryce was friends with Amy.'
Try as I might, I couldn't dispute that. I knew. And I didn't ask.
'Because you're a coward. Because you're terrified of rejection.'
I… I failed.
Again.
I was never good enough. Not at engineering. Not at confronting pushy boys. Not at being a good daughter. I couldn't even ask Sierra's little brother for a favor. I knew he liked me. He would have happily talked to Panacea for me sooner.
One question.
One. Fucking. Question.
And I couldn't even do that.
I felt Sierra wrap her arms around me. I sank into the taller girl's embrace as she whispered in my ear. "She'll come back," she promised. "Panacea will come back and we can ask later. It's going to be okay."
I took a deep breath. It wasn't okay. Again and again, I was relying on others. Again and again, I wasn't good enough to fix any of my problems on my own.
Sierra and Michelle were amazing. They were always so confident, so much stronger than me. An evil, bitchy part of me wanted to snap at her, tell her that it was her fault somehow, that she didn't know what it was like.
Except she did. Her dad died this summer. She knew exactly what this was like. Back then, Sierra, Michelle, and I had snuck a bottle of wine and gotten blackout drunk in Michelle's row house. We held her as she sobbed for hours. She confided in us then that she had to be strong for her mom and little brother, that she had to be the one to keep things together.
It made things so much worse to know I still had hope and she didn't. Dad wasn't gone yet. He wasn't dead yet. Panacea would come back. Bryce could reach out to her, ask for a favor or whatever he did.
I took in a ragged breath. Why didn't any of that make me feel better? Why was I still shaking? It would be fine. I just… I just needed to be patient.
'And wait for someone else to fix your problems,' that snide voice in my mind whispered. 'Be the damsel in distress. Be patient. Wait for a savior. Wait to receive someone else's charity. That's all you're good for.'
The world swam around me in dizzying spirals. Was I crying? I couldn't tell anymore. I hated this. I loved my friends but I hated this. I hated feeling weak. I hated feeling helpless. I hated how nothing seemed to be going right in my life. And most of all, I hated myself.
I wished I was stronger. I wished I was more confident, more proactive. I wished I had Panacea's powers so I could save dad. Or had Michelle's confidence so I could tell pushy boys to go fuck themselves. I wished I had Sierra's relationship with her family. Then maybe they'd accept me loving fashion and being gay.
I just…
I wished I could be like other people…
[Destination]
[Agreement]
X
I groaned pitifully as I returned to consciousness. Countless stars danced behind my eyes, a meteor shower that I blinked away. I opened my eyes and looked up at Michelle's concerned face.
"Hey, sleepyhead," she teased gently, brushing my sweat-soaked bangs from my eyes. "You okay?"
I got up slowly. She and Sierra had taken two of the hospital chairs and placed them side by side so I could rest. They placed my head on Michelle's lap and Sierra had taken to leaning against the wall to give me space to lie down.
"Y-Yeah, I think I just cried myself to sleep," I said. I gave my friends a grateful smile. "Thanks, girls. I guess I was more tired than I thought."
"Are you sure, Sabs?" Sierra asked, naked concern plain to see. "One second I was giving you a hug, then you passed out. We should get you checked out."
"N-No, I'm fine."
"You don't seem fine…"
"I am," I insisted. Or… I thought I was. Now that I was fully conscious, I could feel something different inside me. It felt like a spool of thread, a ball of yarn with three threads poking out that I could unwind.
I was also hyper-aware of my own clothes, tight jeans, a cute, pink top, and a puffy, cream jacket I thought would look stylish with a light-green, knit scarf. It was like I could feel every fiber, every thread, every weave and knot that made up my outfit.
I looked up at my friends and realized I'd been mistaken: it wasn't just my own clothes. I could feel them all. Everything from the curtains to dad's hospital gown to the stray thread that was coming loose from Sierra's jacket. It was like a whole new world had been revealed before me, a new sense for fabrics that I hadn't had before.
I stumbled back with a gasp. I leaned against the wall and tried to make sense of it all. It wasn't hard to reach the obvious conclusion: I, Sabah Azimi, had powers.
Somehow.
"Sabs, I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to cry yourself unconscious," Sierra said. "And you shouldn't be stumbling around either. Sit down, please."
"Yeah, you're worrying us, Sabah," Michelle added.
"I-I.. Yeah…" I stumbled back to the chair and took a seat. I stared down at my hands and took deep breaths. Slowly, I began to collect myself, coming to terms with the fact that I'd triggered.
I knew about triggers of course. Everyone did. Or, at least the basics. It was parahuman science 101, the kind of thing that got covered once for a test and never mentioned again in polite company. Something bad happened. A prospective parahuman got pushed to the edge. And then… BAM! Powers.
I let out a hollow chuckle. I supposed this was mine, the need to help dad? Or maybe the need to stop being helpless. So why was it that my power was to… see and feel fabrics…?
Was I that pathetic? Did I really have nothing else my power could latch onto?
Before I could lambast myself further, I felt a cup being pushed into my hand. Sierra had left and come back before I'd even noticed, a cup of steaming liquid in hand.
"Tea, Sabah," she said softly. "One of the nurses got it for me. I know it's not like the tea set you have at home, but-"
I took it with a grateful smile. "Thanks, Sisi. It's fine. Any tea sounds amazing right about now."
I took a sip and let the warm liquid soothe me. Looking at both of them, I wondered, why? Why me? Why did I get powers and these two didn't? It wasn't like their lives were filled with nothing but sunshine and rainbows. Hell, Sierra could have gotten powers this summer.
Except she hadn't. I knew that for a fact because she would have told me. Told us. That's just the kind of person she was; she was quick to trust, kind, and loyal. She was open and confident and engaging without being naive. She wasn't afraid of confrontation, nor was she afraid of being vulnerable between friends. She was exactly the kind of woman I wanted to be.
Maybe that was why she didn't get powers and I did. She turned to us, relied on us, when she was at her lowest, whereas I wanted to shoulder it all alone until I started to crumble under the weight.
I drained the tea and let the heat stoke a fire in me. No more. I didn't want to be that person anymore. It wasn't as if I had no one. I had amazing friends. Maybe it was time I acted like it.
"I have powers," I blurted out before I lost the courage, tears welling in my eyes again.
"What?"
"I-I think that was a trigger. I can feel fabrics now. Threads. From far away," I said. I was babbling now. Once I started talking, it all came out like a flood. "I felt helpless. I wanted to be someone else. I wished I had powers like Panacea. And then-"
"Oh, Sabah," Michelle whispered, pulling me into a hug.
Sierra joined in on my other side and the three of us stayed like that, in a quiet cuddle pile until dad woke up. I almost laughed hysterically at that. His daughter triggered two feet away from him and he didn't even notice.
I hated this. All of it. My world was turning upside down. But so long as I had these two with me, I couldn't help but feel like I'd be just fine.
X
2010, November 27: Brockton Bay, NH, USA
Sierra was the biggest cape nerd I knew. Well, not quite, but the biggest cape nerd I trusted. Which was kinda huge given the circumstances. Michelle and I liked to make fun of her sometimes, but I wouldn't trade her for the world right now.
According to her, powers were almost always combative in some form. Whether that was to protect or to hurt, or to figure out ways to hurt, there were very few capes whose power could not be used for fighting. In that light, Panacea was a freak of nature, an anomaly that confused the hell out of even the best parahuman scientists.
It was why, by her estimation, I had to be able to do more. There was no way my power was simply to perceive fabrics within thirty feet.
And she'd been right.
We were crammed in Sierra's room, testing the limits of my power. We found that the spool of thread I felt inside of me were more like bendable straws, three strands that I could sheath over the threads I touched. My power then spread from that single thread to others that made up the article of clothing, allowing me to control the entire article of clothing from a single strand.
But I only had three of these "straws," and so, right now, three shirts I was making dance in the air.
"This doesn't sound right," Sierra said. "What are you supposed to do? Strangle someone to death with their own shirts?"
"I wouldn't do that anyway," I said tiredly. "Sisi, I think my power kinda sucks."
"Hey, at least you can make clothes faster now?"
"Joy," I drawled. "That'll get all the villains to quake in their boots."
"Is that what you want to be?" Michelle asked. "A hero?"
"I don't know. I just… I don't know, Michelle…"
"Maybe something will happen if someone puts on the clothes."
Then, before I could stop her, Michelle shrugged off her top and snagged one of Sierra's shirts that were hanging in the air. She was taller than Sierra so her shirt fit more like a crop top on her, but she was the type of girl who could make anything work.
My world exploded. I'd always been aware of the world around me, about thirty feet or so. Every fabric in the area was known to me in a sixth sense I'd not had before I got my power. That of course included the three shirts I'd latched on to.
Now, everything about Michelle's body was laid bare to me, from her athletic form to her general health. It was a bit much, so much information that I doubted I'd be able to put them to words. I might have to brush up on my biology lessons. More, it felt as if my senses expanded with her as the locus, another thirty feet of awareness in which every fabric could be perceived.
"Woah," I gasped.
"So I was right? Awesome! What's your power do?"
"I can feel you. And the fabric around you."
Sierra hummed. "So it'd be good for scouting? Or telling whether someone is healthy?"
"Not scouting, I think," I said hesitantly. "I'm only aware of fabrics and Michelle so I don't think it'll be very useful for that. But maybe, if I made a set of bracelets that could be taken off quickly, I could tell when someone's sick."
"Triage via fabric then? Cool."
"I don't know. It's still not a very strong power. And it's not as if I'm a nurse. I can see Michelle's blood pressure, but I don't know what a 'normal' level is."
"We can work on that. See? I told you it's better than just controlling three pieces of clothing at a time."
"Maybe. I feel like there's more though. I think… Michelle isn't the right wearer, if that makes any sense?"
"Let me try then," Sierra said, putting on the second shirt. "Anything?"
"No, sorry."
"So nothing to do with ownership then. It'll come in time. After all, even Legend had to have started from somewhere."
"Yeah, thanks, girls."
We talked a bit more. There were more ideas, but none bore much fruit. Michelle and I were about to get out of Sierra's hair when my phone dinged to inform me that I had a message on PHO. I opened it to find a note from an account I didn't recognize, though given the screen name, there wasn't really anyone else it could be.
Be-Rice: Hey, Sabah, sorry about Panacea. I know it's no one's fault that Behemoth attacked yesterday, but I still feel terrible for getting your hopes up. You know how I'm pretty plugged into New Wave gossip? Yeah, well, I recently got sent [this] PHO post.
Be-Rice: Long story short, Creed attended the endbringer aftermath to test out some healing tech. He's exactly the kind of mercenary douchebag who'd use an attack to pressure Panacea into verifying his tech's effectiveness, but… it works. He published a video recording of her saying as much. As far as she's concerned, it's as good as her healing and he's holding a raffle for free healing to advertise or something.
Be-Rice: He's selecting ten random draws from the first 1000 replies to his PHO thread. I replied obviously, but I figure we should maximize our chances. I know this isn't a replacement for Panacea. I'm still going to talk to her for you again on Monday, but it's worth a shot, right?
Be-Rice: I've gotta go. Talk to you later, Sabs.
And suddenly, all thoughts of my new power flew out the window.
Author's Note
After some thought, I decided I should post more chapters per week. It won't be every week, but I'll frequently post at least two.
Well, here's Sabah's trigger. Objectively, she could have simply decided "Oh, well, I'll ask Bryce to set something up for me when Panacea gets back." But trigger events don't make logical sense. It's not really about whether something is "fixable" as much as it is the person's emotional state and I hope I portrayed that right.
Sabah's overwhelming sense of despair, self-loathing, and a wish to be someone she perceived as "better" than her were enough to see her trigger.
As for her power, I just had to do something with threads. People who are familiar with Worm will probably be able to guess what the "more" she's feeling is.
The name "Sabah" comes from the Arabic word for morning. As I understand it, "moon" is a fairly common term of endearment for young girls, just like "sweetie" is in America. Sabah's dad calls her his little dawn as a play on that.
Thank you to all of my patrons. As many of you know, I update at least once a week. That said, I update much more frequently on Pat-re-on. If you would like to drop a tip, read my stories early, or vote in monthly polls, come and visit.
As of now, this is how far along each story is:
- A Colorful Life: Same as public
- A Life Worth Living: 2
- Homeless Bunny: 24
- Legendary Tinker: 8.7.5
- Plan? What Plan?: 5.3
- Pokemon: Apocalypse: 1.15
- The Holy Grill: 2.6.5
- Troll in the Dungeon!: 22
- When is a Spoon a Sword?: 4.14
- Let There be War: 9 (Complete)
Total Chapter Difference (Pat-re-on - Public): 30
Sabah Azimi
2010, November 26: Brockton Bay, NH, USA
I checked New Wave's official site for the fourth time, just to be sure. I'd checked last night of course. And the day before that. And for about a week solid if I was being honest. I let out a sigh of relief when I saw what I'd been looking for: There it was, under Panacea's profile, in big, bold letters, giving me hope.
[Tis the season to be grateful. We have been blessed by you, our supporters, and would love to pay some of that forward. As part of our desire to spread the holiday cheer, Panacea will be active all weekend at the Brockton Bay General Hospital from 9 AM to 6 PM.]
The whole thing stank of public relations. Like most people, I considered New Wave to be a failed movement that mostly stayed relevant thanks to pretty privilege on Glory Girl's part and Panacea's ridiculously useful power. Even Laserdream and Shielder didn't really do hero work anymore. But right now, I didn't care. A near delirious wave of hope and relief filled me, the kind that made me want to cackle like a loon for minutes on end.
Bryce was right. Panacea would show today.
Winning a trip from Panacea was quite literally like winning the lottery for people with chronic illnesses. No one could deny that she did her part, but there was always one more, always someone with a better sob story or a luckier draw than dad's. That had been the case for months on end, ever since the doctors diagnosed his heart condition as terminal and put him on the list.
And a single call from Sierra changed that. My friends improved our chances so much that it was all but guaranteed Panacea would visit our room sometime today.
Sierra told Bryce. And Bryce told Amy. I'd been so pissed with her at first. She'd broken my trust. Of course I knew Bryce was Amy's friend; I was the one who helped him shop for a suit for his Homecoming!
But I also knew Amy didn't take requests.
I thought dad would be moved down the list. I thought there was some ledger in the hospital and his patient ID would get crossed off, that we'd forever lose our chance at the lotto because Bryce couldn't keep his mouth shut. It wasn't worth it. Asking was never worth it because it was tantamount to giving up hope.
Because everyone knew Panacea didn't take requests.
Except… Maybe she did? Maybe Bryce meant more to her than any of us realized.
Or maybe this was all a huge coincidence and she'd already been planning a visit for Thanksgiving weekend. Maybe she just happened to mention at lunch that she'd be around and Bryce passed that info to me.
It didn't matter. So long as Panacea visited dad, I could… I could kiss the little guy. I'd officially adopt him. Or give him a huge hug or something. I didn't know what I'd do but I owed him big time. Maybe I'd make him a jacket or something.
Bright and early, I waited in dad's hospital room for Panacea. I wanted to thank her personally. She probably got a thousand little gifts, shows of gratitude from people she'd saved, but I had to make the effort myself. It struck me that I should have asked Bryce what she liked instead of settling for a box of chocolates.
I hummed happily and held dad's hand as the nurses ran their standard tests. We talked about Iraq, about the way things used to be, about how we found ourselves in the United States. He always had the funniest stories about his brothers growing up.
Dad and I didn't get along all the time. He still thought the "fashion thing" was just a phase, that making it as a designer was like plucking a star from the night sky. I hadn't told him I'd switched majors yet, definitely not that I switched because of a pushy boy. He might actually buy a shotgun then.
And he still didn't like that I was lesbian, said it was unnatural and that a "good man" could convince me otherwise. The number of "handsome, young men" he'd introduced me to who just so happened to be single was… higher than necessary.
But… But for all his faults, he was babi, the man who read me bedtime stories and killed all the spiders and kept my little brothers out of my hair. He'd hear me out, no matter my troubles. I'd never once felt afraid of confiding in him even as we disagreed on so many things. He'd never raised a hand to me or my brothers. He'd worked himself to the bone with a smile on his face so we could live without worry, so we could be proud of our babi, he'd said.
I loved him so, so much. Our family needed him. I needed him, more than words could ever say.
We shared a light breakfast and, after swapping stories about my brothers, he fell asleep. He was so much more tired these days. His illness seemed to sap his energy, leaving him bedridden much of the time. The only reason he wasn't a permanent inpatient was because we couldn't afford the hospital bed. If we could, perhaps Panacea would have stumbled on him sooner.
I still didn't know what was wrong with him. The doctors said he had a weak heart, but what did that mean exactly? Cancer? A bad pacemaker? Something genetic I'd have to start worrying about in fifteen years?
I just wanted this to be over.
After a while, nearing noon now, I heard a knock at the door.
"Come in," I called. The door opened to reveal my two best friends, even if I was a little miffed at one of them at the moment.
Sierra's dreads bobbed up and down. They'd always reminded me of a poodle's floppy ears. She looked so cute and pouty that it was hard to stay mad at her and I knew I'd forgive her soon enough. In her hands was a wicker basket filled with flowers and fruit that she rested on the bedside table.
Michelle was wearing a sporty, classy outfit as always. She had her brown hair in a ponytail and I could see a thin film of sweat over her pale skin. She'd probably joined Sierra after a morning run. In her hands was a paper bag printed with the logo of a sandwich shop across the street.
"H-Hey, Sabah. How are you?" Sierra asked, "Or I guess, how is he?"
"He's asleep, Sisi," I replied softly. "Why are you two here?"
"Umm… I just… I felt bad. I'm sorry for telling Bryce," Sierra said with a sheepish smile.
"And I'm just here for moral support," Michelle added. She handed us each a sandwich. "Heard you could use the company right now."
I accepted lunch gratefully. Chicken and provolone with cucumbers, dried tomatoes, and light mayo. My girls were the best. "Don't. I'm not… I'm not mad. I was, but… I know he meant well. How is he?"
"Bryce? He's hanging out with a friend. Mom said he'll probably sleep over for the weekend," Sierra said. "Has Panacea…"
"No, she hasn't been by." I put on a confident smile for them. "I'm sure she will be around though. She must be somewhere else in the hospital."
"Yeah…" Sierra looked down with a wince. "About that…"
"What? What's going on, Sierra?"
"I thought maybe she'd have come by before leaving-"
"Leave? Leave for where? Why would Panacea leave?"
Michelle put a hand on my shoulder and gently pushed me back into my seat. I hadn't realized I'd gotten up.
"Chill, Sabs, it's not Sierra's fault. Or Bryce's," she said soothingly.
But I didn't want to be soothed right now. I wanted to know why Panacea wasn't at the hospital. "Michelle, what's going on?"
She took out her phone and opened it to a PHO page. My eyes glided across the page, seeing but not understanding. After several moments, I began to read:
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Topic: Behemoth in Damascus
In: Boards ► United States ► New England ► Brockton Bay ► News & Announcements
Brilliger (Original Poster) (Moderator: Protectorate Main)
Posted On Nov 26th 2010:
***ATTENTION***
As of 9:53 AM, we received confirmation that Behemoth has attacked Damascus, Syria. All members of the endbringer response team are to meet for relocation to the Boston waypoint at the Brockton Bay PRT headquarters.
I repeat: If you are planning to attend the battle, head to the Brockton Bay PRT headquarters.
Transport to Boston will be provided, and from there, to Damascus.
A second wave of transports will be provided once the battle concludes. Please keep your phones on. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
As of now, the endbringer truce is in effect.
(Showing page 1 of 2)
►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
FIRST!
*The user has received a 3 day ban for this post.
►Brilliger (Original Poster) (Moderator: Protectorate Main)
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
No. Shut up. Not the post for this. You didn't break any rules, but have some fucking tact, Void.
►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
I'm just relieved I don't know anyone there.
►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
[Brilliger,] do we know who will attend from our side of things? I have access to the [endbringer response roster,] but that's more of a statement of intent rather than a binding document.
►Brilliger (Original Poster) (Moderator: Protectorate Main)
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
For good reason, [Bagrat.] I think you know why. We can't make people attend, especially an endbringer battle on foreign soil. We'll see who shows but we won't know for sure until it happens.
►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
No matter what, hero or villain, thank you for your sacrifice.
►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
Yeah, what he said. Shit just got as real as real gets.
►Xyloloup
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
Wait, what about New Wave? Panacea was supposed to do a tour of the hospital today, right?
►Answer Key
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
I doubt that's going to happen anymore. Either Panacea will be on the ground there shortly, or she'll be resting up and preparing to go help clean up the aftermath.
►Xyloloup
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
Fuck. Why now?
►White Fairy (Veteran Member)
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
Endbringer attacks are never "convenient." There's no such thing. My condolences. It seems like this time, your relative pulled the short straw.
►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Replied On Nov 26th 2010:
[Found it.] New Wave posted a retraction of Panacea's hospital visit. She, alongside her family, will be attending the aftermath of the Damascus battle to conduct search and rescue and provide emergency aid.
End of Page. 1
The world spun around me. Behemoth attacked Damascus. Panacea wasn't coming. The rest of the thread was bloated with people saying Panacea should stay, people raging at having their hopes dashed. It got so bad that Brilliger had to lock the thread entirely.
I couldn't blame them. It felt like someone had swept the floor from beneath my feet. A wave of despair crushed down on me like a physical force. I fell to my knees as dad slept on, unaware that we'd just lost our biggest chance to meet her. Panacea was supposed to fix this. One minute. Just a single, damned minute of her time. Was that too much to ask for?
Dad was… He was supposed to get better…
In that moment, it felt like Behemoth had somehow selected my dad specifically to fuck over. Like the entire world was out to get us.
'You could have arranged for this sooner,' a niggling voice whispered in the back of my mind. 'You knew Bryce was friends with Amy.'
Try as I might, I couldn't dispute that. I knew. And I didn't ask.
'Because you're a coward. Because you're terrified of rejection.'
I… I failed.
Again.
I was never good enough. Not at engineering. Not at confronting pushy boys. Not at being a good daughter. I couldn't even ask Sierra's little brother for a favor. I knew he liked me. He would have happily talked to Panacea for me sooner.
One question.
One. Fucking. Question.
And I couldn't even do that.
I felt Sierra wrap her arms around me. I sank into the taller girl's embrace as she whispered in my ear. "She'll come back," she promised. "Panacea will come back and we can ask later. It's going to be okay."
I took a deep breath. It wasn't okay. Again and again, I was relying on others. Again and again, I wasn't good enough to fix any of my problems on my own.
Sierra and Michelle were amazing. They were always so confident, so much stronger than me. An evil, bitchy part of me wanted to snap at her, tell her that it was her fault somehow, that she didn't know what it was like.
Except she did. Her dad died this summer. She knew exactly what this was like. Back then, Sierra, Michelle, and I had snuck a bottle of wine and gotten blackout drunk in Michelle's row house. We held her as she sobbed for hours. She confided in us then that she had to be strong for her mom and little brother, that she had to be the one to keep things together.
It made things so much worse to know I still had hope and she didn't. Dad wasn't gone yet. He wasn't dead yet. Panacea would come back. Bryce could reach out to her, ask for a favor or whatever he did.
I took in a ragged breath. Why didn't any of that make me feel better? Why was I still shaking? It would be fine. I just… I just needed to be patient.
'And wait for someone else to fix your problems,' that snide voice in my mind whispered. 'Be the damsel in distress. Be patient. Wait for a savior. Wait to receive someone else's charity. That's all you're good for.'
The world swam around me in dizzying spirals. Was I crying? I couldn't tell anymore. I hated this. I loved my friends but I hated this. I hated feeling weak. I hated feeling helpless. I hated how nothing seemed to be going right in my life. And most of all, I hated myself.
I wished I was stronger. I wished I was more confident, more proactive. I wished I had Panacea's powers so I could save dad. Or had Michelle's confidence so I could tell pushy boys to go fuck themselves. I wished I had Sierra's relationship with her family. Then maybe they'd accept me loving fashion and being gay.
I just…
I wished I could be like other people…
[Destination]
[Agreement]
X
I groaned pitifully as I returned to consciousness. Countless stars danced behind my eyes, a meteor shower that I blinked away. I opened my eyes and looked up at Michelle's concerned face.
"Hey, sleepyhead," she teased gently, brushing my sweat-soaked bangs from my eyes. "You okay?"
I got up slowly. She and Sierra had taken two of the hospital chairs and placed them side by side so I could rest. They placed my head on Michelle's lap and Sierra had taken to leaning against the wall to give me space to lie down.
"Y-Yeah, I think I just cried myself to sleep," I said. I gave my friends a grateful smile. "Thanks, girls. I guess I was more tired than I thought."
"Are you sure, Sabs?" Sierra asked, naked concern plain to see. "One second I was giving you a hug, then you passed out. We should get you checked out."
"N-No, I'm fine."
"You don't seem fine…"
"I am," I insisted. Or… I thought I was. Now that I was fully conscious, I could feel something different inside me. It felt like a spool of thread, a ball of yarn with three threads poking out that I could unwind.
I was also hyper-aware of my own clothes, tight jeans, a cute, pink top, and a puffy, cream jacket I thought would look stylish with a light-green, knit scarf. It was like I could feel every fiber, every thread, every weave and knot that made up my outfit.
I looked up at my friends and realized I'd been mistaken: it wasn't just my own clothes. I could feel them all. Everything from the curtains to dad's hospital gown to the stray thread that was coming loose from Sierra's jacket. It was like a whole new world had been revealed before me, a new sense for fabrics that I hadn't had before.
I stumbled back with a gasp. I leaned against the wall and tried to make sense of it all. It wasn't hard to reach the obvious conclusion: I, Sabah Azimi, had powers.
Somehow.
"Sabs, I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to cry yourself unconscious," Sierra said. "And you shouldn't be stumbling around either. Sit down, please."
"Yeah, you're worrying us, Sabah," Michelle added.
"I-I.. Yeah…" I stumbled back to the chair and took a seat. I stared down at my hands and took deep breaths. Slowly, I began to collect myself, coming to terms with the fact that I'd triggered.
I knew about triggers of course. Everyone did. Or, at least the basics. It was parahuman science 101, the kind of thing that got covered once for a test and never mentioned again in polite company. Something bad happened. A prospective parahuman got pushed to the edge. And then… BAM! Powers.
I let out a hollow chuckle. I supposed this was mine, the need to help dad? Or maybe the need to stop being helpless. So why was it that my power was to… see and feel fabrics…?
Was I that pathetic? Did I really have nothing else my power could latch onto?
Before I could lambast myself further, I felt a cup being pushed into my hand. Sierra had left and come back before I'd even noticed, a cup of steaming liquid in hand.
"Tea, Sabah," she said softly. "One of the nurses got it for me. I know it's not like the tea set you have at home, but-"
I took it with a grateful smile. "Thanks, Sisi. It's fine. Any tea sounds amazing right about now."
I took a sip and let the warm liquid soothe me. Looking at both of them, I wondered, why? Why me? Why did I get powers and these two didn't? It wasn't like their lives were filled with nothing but sunshine and rainbows. Hell, Sierra could have gotten powers this summer.
Except she hadn't. I knew that for a fact because she would have told me. Told us. That's just the kind of person she was; she was quick to trust, kind, and loyal. She was open and confident and engaging without being naive. She wasn't afraid of confrontation, nor was she afraid of being vulnerable between friends. She was exactly the kind of woman I wanted to be.
Maybe that was why she didn't get powers and I did. She turned to us, relied on us, when she was at her lowest, whereas I wanted to shoulder it all alone until I started to crumble under the weight.
I drained the tea and let the heat stoke a fire in me. No more. I didn't want to be that person anymore. It wasn't as if I had no one. I had amazing friends. Maybe it was time I acted like it.
"I have powers," I blurted out before I lost the courage, tears welling in my eyes again.
"What?"
"I-I think that was a trigger. I can feel fabrics now. Threads. From far away," I said. I was babbling now. Once I started talking, it all came out like a flood. "I felt helpless. I wanted to be someone else. I wished I had powers like Panacea. And then-"
"Oh, Sabah," Michelle whispered, pulling me into a hug.
Sierra joined in on my other side and the three of us stayed like that, in a quiet cuddle pile until dad woke up. I almost laughed hysterically at that. His daughter triggered two feet away from him and he didn't even notice.
I hated this. All of it. My world was turning upside down. But so long as I had these two with me, I couldn't help but feel like I'd be just fine.
X
2010, November 27: Brockton Bay, NH, USA
Sierra was the biggest cape nerd I knew. Well, not quite, but the biggest cape nerd I trusted. Which was kinda huge given the circumstances. Michelle and I liked to make fun of her sometimes, but I wouldn't trade her for the world right now.
According to her, powers were almost always combative in some form. Whether that was to protect or to hurt, or to figure out ways to hurt, there were very few capes whose power could not be used for fighting. In that light, Panacea was a freak of nature, an anomaly that confused the hell out of even the best parahuman scientists.
It was why, by her estimation, I had to be able to do more. There was no way my power was simply to perceive fabrics within thirty feet.
And she'd been right.
We were crammed in Sierra's room, testing the limits of my power. We found that the spool of thread I felt inside of me were more like bendable straws, three strands that I could sheath over the threads I touched. My power then spread from that single thread to others that made up the article of clothing, allowing me to control the entire article of clothing from a single strand.
But I only had three of these "straws," and so, right now, three shirts I was making dance in the air.
"This doesn't sound right," Sierra said. "What are you supposed to do? Strangle someone to death with their own shirts?"
"I wouldn't do that anyway," I said tiredly. "Sisi, I think my power kinda sucks."
"Hey, at least you can make clothes faster now?"
"Joy," I drawled. "That'll get all the villains to quake in their boots."
"Is that what you want to be?" Michelle asked. "A hero?"
"I don't know. I just… I don't know, Michelle…"
"Maybe something will happen if someone puts on the clothes."
Then, before I could stop her, Michelle shrugged off her top and snagged one of Sierra's shirts that were hanging in the air. She was taller than Sierra so her shirt fit more like a crop top on her, but she was the type of girl who could make anything work.
My world exploded. I'd always been aware of the world around me, about thirty feet or so. Every fabric in the area was known to me in a sixth sense I'd not had before I got my power. That of course included the three shirts I'd latched on to.
Now, everything about Michelle's body was laid bare to me, from her athletic form to her general health. It was a bit much, so much information that I doubted I'd be able to put them to words. I might have to brush up on my biology lessons. More, it felt as if my senses expanded with her as the locus, another thirty feet of awareness in which every fabric could be perceived.
"Woah," I gasped.
"So I was right? Awesome! What's your power do?"
"I can feel you. And the fabric around you."
Sierra hummed. "So it'd be good for scouting? Or telling whether someone is healthy?"
"Not scouting, I think," I said hesitantly. "I'm only aware of fabrics and Michelle so I don't think it'll be very useful for that. But maybe, if I made a set of bracelets that could be taken off quickly, I could tell when someone's sick."
"Triage via fabric then? Cool."
"I don't know. It's still not a very strong power. And it's not as if I'm a nurse. I can see Michelle's blood pressure, but I don't know what a 'normal' level is."
"We can work on that. See? I told you it's better than just controlling three pieces of clothing at a time."
"Maybe. I feel like there's more though. I think… Michelle isn't the right wearer, if that makes any sense?"
"Let me try then," Sierra said, putting on the second shirt. "Anything?"
"No, sorry."
"So nothing to do with ownership then. It'll come in time. After all, even Legend had to have started from somewhere."
"Yeah, thanks, girls."
We talked a bit more. There were more ideas, but none bore much fruit. Michelle and I were about to get out of Sierra's hair when my phone dinged to inform me that I had a message on PHO. I opened it to find a note from an account I didn't recognize, though given the screen name, there wasn't really anyone else it could be.
Be-Rice: Hey, Sabah, sorry about Panacea. I know it's no one's fault that Behemoth attacked yesterday, but I still feel terrible for getting your hopes up. You know how I'm pretty plugged into New Wave gossip? Yeah, well, I recently got sent [this] PHO post.
Be-Rice: Long story short, Creed attended the endbringer aftermath to test out some healing tech. He's exactly the kind of mercenary douchebag who'd use an attack to pressure Panacea into verifying his tech's effectiveness, but… it works. He published a video recording of her saying as much. As far as she's concerned, it's as good as her healing and he's holding a raffle for free healing to advertise or something.
Be-Rice: He's selecting ten random draws from the first 1000 replies to his PHO thread. I replied obviously, but I figure we should maximize our chances. I know this isn't a replacement for Panacea. I'm still going to talk to her for you again on Monday, but it's worth a shot, right?
Be-Rice: I've gotta go. Talk to you later, Sabs.
And suddenly, all thoughts of my new power flew out the window.
Author's Note
After some thought, I decided I should post more chapters per week. It won't be every week, but I'll frequently post at least two.
Well, here's Sabah's trigger. Objectively, she could have simply decided "Oh, well, I'll ask Bryce to set something up for me when Panacea gets back." But trigger events don't make logical sense. It's not really about whether something is "fixable" as much as it is the person's emotional state and I hope I portrayed that right.
Sabah's overwhelming sense of despair, self-loathing, and a wish to be someone she perceived as "better" than her were enough to see her trigger.
As for her power, I just had to do something with threads. People who are familiar with Worm will probably be able to guess what the "more" she's feeling is.
The name "Sabah" comes from the Arabic word for morning. As I understand it, "moon" is a fairly common term of endearment for young girls, just like "sweetie" is in America. Sabah's dad calls her his little dawn as a play on that.
Thank you to all of my patrons. As many of you know, I update at least once a week. That said, I update much more frequently on Pat-re-on. If you would like to drop a tip, read my stories early, or vote in monthly polls, come and visit.
As of now, this is how far along each story is:
- A Colorful Life: Same as public
- A Life Worth Living: 2
- Homeless Bunny: 24
- Legendary Tinker: 8.7.5
- Plan? What Plan?: 5.3
- Pokemon: Apocalypse: 1.15
- The Holy Grill: 2.6.5
- Troll in the Dungeon!: 22
- When is a Spoon a Sword?: 4.14
- Let There be War: 9 (Complete)
Total Chapter Difference (Pat-re-on - Public): 30