Progenitor (Amelia Hebert AU)

[Metaldragon868]

Progenitor: Chapter 11

​

A/n: Warning-horror themes

/-|-\
\/-\_|_/-\/
/\-/_|_\-/\
\-|-/​

Find the scent, find the source.

Simple.

"I hate myself, sometimes," I muttered.

I'd assumed, foolishly, there could only be one other source of the sickeningly sweet smell combined with my own honeyed tracks in the world.

As I stared at yet another discarded corpse that smelled of rot, sweet, and seduction, in another abandoned alley in the charred husk of the Burnout, I had to grimace. This wasn't the second, third, or even fourth body like this I'd found. The rotting man in front of me was the eleventh such body I'd found that had that unholy scent.

The seductive sweetness mixed with that subtle honey, the rot, and blood to produce such a distinct and sickening smell. By now, I probably would have been vomiting, suffering a severe contact high, and growing increasingly delirious.

Instead, I just felt the smoldering heat of my rage stoked higher and higher by every body added to the tally.

"What is all this?" I asked the dead man, "What are the Merchants doing out here? What in god's name could be worth all this?"

I suspected I already knew the answer to that. It was horrific, terrifying, and gut wrenching, but it made sense given the data.

Experimentation.

A sloppy slapdash version of it, but every corpse I'd found had at least some trace of the strange sweet chemical, all in different amounts and with various additives. Some smelled of the staple hard drugs of the merchants, some didn't have the smell of honey, some had hints of ammonia, cannabis, alcohol, and dozens of other chemicals running through their system.

"So, the Merchants have a fancy new space magic drug and...they're trying to make it not kill people?" I theorized as I chewed through the data on this latest man's body. "I guess that makes sense. Whatever the hell this chemical is, it'd take you straight to your happy place. Kinda makes it hard to market, though, if it's liable to kill you outright."

Sure, hard drugs could kill you if you overdosed on them, and that went true for a lot of drugs and chemicals. Hell, you could overdose on oxygen. The problem, moreso, is what does it take to go too far?

There's a difference between medicine and poison, but sometimes that difference is merely in how much you take. This thing, for some reason, seemed to have an LD50 or median lethal dose, that was extremely low for some reason. Or maybe I was just seeing the dozen freak accidents out of hundreds of successful cases. After all, I only really had the horrific failures to work with. There could be hundreds of hidden variables I wasn't aware of since I was just seeing one end of the process.

I need more data I sighed.

Trying to build a working hypothesis from incomplete data, especially such skewed data, was working from a false start.

"Okay." I scratched my chin as I mused to myself. Through the various other instances of me running around, I knew I had enough privacy to not be found out, or feel like an idiot. "The source should give me the answers, or at least, provide new insights."

I was lacking something. Despite how many brains I'd consumed this night, nearly all of them were filled with rotten, corrupted, neurons filled with junk data. I could get a few useful memories here and there; some baseball player's batting average, a heavily secured door, the sound of a shrieking woman, the smell of a familiar antiseptic, and the name and taste of a cheesesteak someone thought was the best.

That last part was really important for some reason.

Either way, most of it wasn't really useful to me, even if it did make me hungry. The door, at least, was something. It looked pretty robust, covered in armored panels and high tech locking lugs. Certainly something the Merchants shouldn't normally have access to, but given we were in the Burnout, which used to be a very high profile business district, it wouldn't surprise me if it was a fancy tinker-tech door bought by some big corporation.

"A big corporation…" I muttered, standing up and looking around with all my eyes.

If I was the Merchants, and I was tinkering with a fancy new drug, what would I want? Even doped out idiots knew hospitals had stuff like morphine. It could also explain the Ammonia It wasn't the best antiseptic, but it was easy to come by and it could do a passable job of it. Hell, that was pretty much the Merchant creed right there. And then there was that red light in the darkness. I couldn't make it out very well, but something about its shape was familiar.

So what was a major corporation with a red logo, connections to the medical industry, and had a major presence in what was now the Burnout?

"Well, hello Medhall." I smiled as I looked at the broken skyscraper that had once been the pride of the city, the unlit image of Medhall's crimson crown upon it's shattered roof.

"Let's see what Anders left behind."

/-|-\
\/-\_|_/-\/
/\-/_|_\-/\
\-|-/​

I stood on the skeletal remains of a penthouse overlooking what used to be the proud and shining beacon of Medhall's presence in Brockton Bay.

Medhall is, by far, the largest company that started right here in Brockton, and the city's people had a not inconsiderable amount of pride in it. When the economic boom really hit the city, Medhall not only benefited greatly from it but was one of it's largest causes. In particular, it's partnership with Ladon Industries in the biotech sector.

The first Medhall tower became a symbol of the city's progress and the potential in every Brocktinite to rise above and make something of themselves.

Or, at least, that's how most people saw it.

Personally, I couldn't help but be a little cynical of the alleged white nationalist, Max Anders. He spoke a good game, I'd give him that, but the whole "good Christian values" combined with being one of the richest men in the city while not giving a single rat fuck about the poor and homeless in the city kind of rubbed me the wrong way. All the little comments about how we needed to "watch out" lest the Japanese immigrants in the wake of Leviathan try to "subvert our American identity".

I'm not trying to say that he's probably connected to the Empire 88, or that he himself is a neo-Nazi. All I'm saying is that I was in his old penthouse and the number of books on the rise of Hitler was enough to raise a few eyebrows.

At least, I was pretty confident this was his old penthouse, not that he had just the one.

"Probably used this as a crash pad because it was right next to his office," I mused as I looked out the shattered window. "Come here when he doesn't have time to drive out into the countryside or whatever."

Across the street was the remains of that oh-so-great symbol of Brockton Bay, broken in half with it's top floors crumpled into the pavement next to the foundation. It was a miracle of engineering the whole thing hadn't collapsed, probably because of those Ladon connections.

"I wonder if that means Ladon is connected to white nationalists?" I thought idly.

Then I remembered that Ladon was run by Hero, and the internet was about 80% sure his secret girlfriend-slash-wife was known Hispanic Alexandria. Nearly everyone else was absolutely sure they were perfect for each other. Many a PHO thread had been made about whether Dragon was their secret love child.

And that's just the beginning of the rabbit hole

I shivered.

"Yeah...probably not," I decided.

I turned back into the room, which was likely a billionaire's idea of a cozy bedroom before it looked like it had become a warzone. Given what happened on the 14th, that was probably true.

The mattress was overturned and riddled with massive bullet holes and scorch marks. A dresser had been propped up against the door to keep anyone from coming in. The massive holes ripped through most of the walls shows how well that worked out. Fragments of glass littered the floor, along with shell casings, metal fragments, ashes, dust, and blood.

Lots of blood.

I walked over to one of the dried up pools on the floor, crouched down, and stuck a finger into it. Feelers on the tip of it reached out and licked up some of the blood to analyze.

"Caucasian, female, blonde…" I trailed off as my network of minds and power went to work processing the details of the remaining DNA. Meanwhile, I sent out various rat-selves to take in samples from blood splatter around the room.

I frowned, none of it coming back as anything resembling Max Anders. Sure, they'd all fit the Empire's white standard, but that meant all of jack and shit. There wasn't even any proof that the man himself was involved with white nationalists, that was just wild speculation on my part.

Then I processed a splotch of blood by a window and paused.

She looks familiar I thought.

She wasn't terribly tall, though about average for a woman. Brown hair features one might call mousey and an overall underwhelming appearance. Pretty enough, I suppose, but compared to the blonde I'd found earlier it wasn't even a contest. But something about her rung a bell in the back of my mind. I dove into my repository, digging up old maps of my own neural net until I got a match and found…

"Kaden Anders..." I muttered, rubbing my chin.

She hadn't been in the public eye a lot, certainly nowhere near as much as her husband, but I'd seen her on at least one program, and that was enough.

"I suppose that proves the hypothesis," I mused somberly, "Shame what happened to her though."

I went back to searching the room, twisting my various selves running around into unnatural forms to maximize sensory abilities. Despite that, my seeker-selves weren't able to find anything of much use. Most of the remaining books were either too charred, too torn up, or too rotted away by the elements to be legible anymore, the few safes I'd found had been emptied a long time ago. Other than a couple of hidden remnants of the Anders family themself like hair or skin flakes, even a couple from the man of the house himself, there wasn't much in the way of intact DNA or fingerprints left to find.

No doubt the result of a combined effort of Archon giving no fucks, Anders covering his tracks, and the elements being an uncaring bitch. Suffice to say, there wasn't anything else of value here. Still, at least I'd managed to nab a partial sample of Max's fingerprint and DNA. Hopefully, it'd help me if there were any high-security locks still working in the depths of the old Medhall building.
And that gaping hole in the window, the one the residents of this penthouse must have escaped out of...the edges of it looked melted, like it'd been hit by some high-energy cutting beam. Almost like…

I slapped my cheeks to shake myself out of it.

"Come on Amy," I told myself, "Ain't got time for this grudge against the Empire today. Focus on one conspiracy theory at a time."

"Merchants, Amy," I muttered as I walked back to the window, "Merchants."

Speaking of Merchants, I had to admit they'd covered their tracks here well. I couldn't smell so much as the faintest whiff of my honeyed remnant, nor the sickening sweetness of their new narcotic. Probably whatever they'd stolen from Medhal at work there. If' I'd just tried to track this place down by scent, I'd never find it. Hell, technically speaking, I didn't even know if there were Merchants in there, it was just an educated guess.

I narrowed my eyes, twisting the rods and cones to be more like an Owl, and tried to peer into the darkness. Unfortunately, I couldn't see much of note from all the way out here, not that that meant anything.

The toppled building had been laid low from its once lofty heights and was damn near buried in rubble and the deep shadows stretched over it from it's devastated, neighbors. It was far from alone there, surrounded as it was by leveled buildings and ruined lives, but Archon had obviously made it a major target. Hopefully he hadn't managed to make off with any of Medhall's biotech.

Still, the building was, even half-destroyed, massive, which made it that much harder to surveil. Certainly many times larger than the widest I could expand my range. That wasn't saying a lot, my range was basically a small house, but it meant I couldn't just sweep the whole sprawling ruined complex no doubt infested with merchants all at once. I'd have to scour the building from top to bottom, maximizing my speed and range to optimize my search efficiency, and take the Merchants out one by one in painfully slow and thorough method.

Lovely.

"Well," I said to myself, stepping on the edge of the window, twisting my biomass into more useful shapes, maximizing information gathering, mobility, and stealth. Eyes to see with, tendrils to grab with, claws to climb with, and bulging muscles caged within bone all grew out of me as my body slid apart.

"Time to do some aggressive reconnaissance."

/-|-\
\/-\_|_/-\/
/\-/_|_\-/\
\-|-/​

Mac was walking through the safe house, one hand on his old beat-up baseball bat, the other on his cigarette. He shivered, hugging his jacket closer to himself and taking in a deep drag of the hot smoke in an effort to warm himself up.

"Damn it's cold" he muttered, pulling out the cigarette and tapping out some ash. "Fuckers can't even be bothered to turn on the generator."

The burning embers in the ash were one of the few sources of light in the hall. Out in the burnout, any connection to city services was long gone. No power, water, repair crews, trash collectors, nothing. Unlike most, though, they had a generator rigged up in the husk of the old Medhall.

"Bastards could just turn up the heat a bit, few candles...something to keep me from freezing my balls off in the dark," he grumbled.

Despite his muttering, he knew why they didn't.

Creature comforts were a precious commodity in the Burnout. Even something as simple as a box of matches was something worth killing for. In this scorched land of dark and cold burned-out husks, turning the lights on would send a beacon out into the whole city saying "Hey, something special's happening here!"

Which is why Mac was patrolling the outermost halls of the ruined skyscraper in the cold and dark. Sure, this might've been Medhall once upon a time, but it was old news, a thoroughly looted husk of its former self.

It was also the reason he wasn't armed with anything more than a bat. Walk around with a baseball bat? People 'round here think you're a threat, but not necessarily doing anything important. Put a gun in your hand though? Walk'n round Medhall like you own the place? Suddenly you become real interesting.

But Mac wasn't born yesterday. Put on the outermost defensive line? Armed with barely anything while fucking around in the cold darkness where he couldn't see shit? Not even being told anything about what he was guarding? He was expendable to the guys upstairs.

For now.

"I'll make'em see." He grumbled as he strolled in front of a window, peaking out into the wider ruins beyond. "I'll make'em all see."

He chuckled, pulling out the stump of a cigarette and crushing it beneath his boot. "I'll make'em rue the day they could fuck with Shane Macdougal."

He laughed, letting his own imagination run wild with ideas of how he'd exact his vengeance. "I'll...I'll make those fucks walk patrol in their underwear. In January! And...and...replace the coffee with decaf, no, tea! Fill their shoes with sand, no, cover them with glitter, they'll never get it out."

He giggled to himself in the dark. Then he stopped when he realized he could hear something else. It sounded like…

"Scratching?"

Mac could hear scratching on coming from...somewhere. He tried to focus, but it sounded like it was moving.

"Moving through the walls…"

Before he could really contemplate the bad feeling sinking into his body, he saw something small poke out of a hole in the bottom of the wall. He stepped closer to try and get a closer look, but he couldn't see anything in the darkness.

Dammit it all he thought, pulling out his lighter.

Whatever it was, it had wormed its way out of the wall and was scurrying around the floor.

A rat? He thought. It was about the right size and shape for it. He shrugged, preparing his bat in one hand, igniting the lighter with the other. He leaned in closer to get a better look, bringing the tiny flickering flame out closer. The shadows abated, and with it, Mac stared out into the hall.

Nine eyes stared back.

He screamed, flailing in panic. In his desperation, he threw the lighter as far as hard as he could. The next thing he knew, there was a whoosh and some small thing on the ground was consumed by the fire of his light. It burned silently in the dark, the bright fireball a blinding light in the dark, he could scarcely even look at the thing.

When the fire died down, a charred, smoldering, lump of meat sat on the ground, his lighter beside it. He nudged the creature with his bat, but it didn't move. Tipping it over, rolling it around, and kicking didn't reveal much about it either. It seemed about the size and shape of a rat, but-

Nine eyes stared back

-He couldn't see any real details in it. It was just a lump of vaguely rat shaped charred meat. Had it just been a rat? But the eyes...had he imagined it?

Mac shook his head. He must've.

"It was just a rat," he told himself. "Nothing more than that."

"Just a rat, Mac," he repeated. "Just a-"

Then he heard the scratching.

Scratching, slithering, writhing, thousands of them sifting through the bones of the building. All moving deeper and deeper.

That, and the ever so faint sound of a child's laughter.

Mac faltered for a moment, then he grabbed his lighter up off the floor and ran.

/-|-\
\/-\_|_/-\/
/\-/_|_\-/\
\-|-/​

A/n: Sorry it's late

Had a bunch of class stuff last week like an Essay, Exams, etc etc. Didn't have time to finish the chap up.

Trav was super helpful in wrapping this up, and he says it's good to go, so thanks for that.

Anyways, the mystery deepens!

And Amy's become a horror show again.

Hopefully you guys can forgive me for being late, and that this is worth the delay.

Next chap should be up in...less time? Maybe? I dunno, less than two weeks probably.

We'll see what happens.

 

[GreenTamm]

Wait was Medhall just sacked? Or did that happen a time ago?

 

[the DragonBard]

Even doped out idiots knew hospitals had stuff like morphine. It wasn't the best antiseptic,

Click to shrink...

I wasn't aware it was an antiseptic at all, just a pain killer.

 

[Metaldragon868]

I wasn't aware it was an antiseptic at all, just a pain killer.

Click to shrink...

Fak.

Missed a word or two.

I'll fix it later, I got work now.

Edit: Should be fixed now. Let me know if you guys find anything else.

 

[ccstat]

Why am I only allowed to like this post one time? That was an awesome chapter! Great slow build of clues about the past and what Archon is all about.

Also, Mac is a horrible, awful person. I can't believe the depths of depravity his mind descended to when he was inventing methods of revenge. Glitter on their shoes? I shudder to imagine it. Truly this man deserves the horror he is about to experience as he flees from a relentless horde of mutant demons.

On a separate note, how did that one body get completely incinerated from a tossed lighter? Did Amy make a gasoline bladder in it or something?

 

[Bobberroo]

I don't like Archon. Their inclusion feels extremely sudden due to Amelia never mentioning them in the earlier chapters.

An example of that would be Archon and Annette. In the very very early versions of the story, Annette died as collateral damage from a fight between Lung and Purity. As time went on and as I developed the story more and more, I got to a point where I realized that didn't really work for various reasons. At the same time, Archon didn't really exist, at least not in the state he does now, but I was developing his...I suppose you could say timeline.

Click to shrink...

Oh huh. Yeah that would make Archon feel somewhat out of place. Archon is this big huge threat with the bombings and the massacres and going after good American man Max Anders who is totally not a nazi supervillain in his own office bedroom, and the government is moving military assets around just in case Archon decided to do anything and

I feel like Amelia should be mentioning them more in the earlier chapters and be a bit more concerned about Archon's existence.

 

[Tnoz]

Now back to CSI: Brockton Bay.

 

[Valdimarian]

I feel like Amelia should be mentioning them more in the earlier chapters and be a bit more concerned about Archon's existence.

Click to shrink...

My take on Archon from what we've seen is they're some sort of New Atlantis warrior country that seem intent on waging a covert war with the US. (I say Atlantis because if they were on the surface I suspect we'd have two Carriers and every long range bomber in the air force turn wherever they're based out of into a hole in the ground)

For most people they wouldn't be a day to day concern, especially in the early chapters where Amelia is more concerned with her sister than a shadowy foreign power.

 

[Metaldragon868]

I don't like Archon. Their inclusion feels extremely sudden due to Amelia never mentioning them in the earlier chapters.


Oh huh. Yeah that would make Archon feel somewhat out of place. Archon is this big huge threat with the bombings and the massacres and going after good American man Max Anders who is totally not a nazi supervillain in his own office bedroom, and the government is moving military assets around just in case Archon decided to do anything and

I feel like Amelia should be mentioning them more in the earlier chapters and be a bit more concerned about Archon's existence.

Click to shrink...

First, I'll point you to this mention in chap 6:

I groaned loudly, letting my inner child out again. "Fine."

"Right, so, the Show is all about being flashy and making people forget that each cape is a human with a laundry list of chips on their shoulder and have at least on fundamental aspect of themselves that is better than any human could hope to be. Get the right trigger, and you get a walking WMD with a grudge like Nilbog or Archon."

"But people don't think about that, they think about the icons. The Heroes and Villains. They think about the Show."

Click to shrink...

But that's no excuse.

So, second...yes.

I know there aren't many mentions of Archon at all in the early chapters. I did that intentionally, though it is something I want to fix.

Let me explain.

By the time I started posting this fic, It'd actually been stewing in a bunch of outlines, some first drafts, and a whole bunch of ideas for about a year. When i actually got it posted, there were two general timelines I'd narrowed it down to, but I really hadn't decided which one I was going to stick with, so instead I just had them hold the same track until I was forced to commit.

Because I'm a lazy procrastinator like that.

The first timeline was really only a slight AU. Other than the Amelia Hebert and Matriarch stuff, there wasn't actually too much different from canon worm. That was, in my mind, the safe timeline. I knew people liked canon worm's worldbuilding enough, and I knew they'd probably stick around if I kept to it.

Then there was the second timeline, with the risky heavy AU shit. That was the fun timeline for me, I loved making it and I knew I'd love writing it. But I was also fucking petrified about the idea of trying to introduce it to the audience. I had no idea how they would react at all to a heavy AU worm. Would they like all the differences, or would that be the final straw that made them split from this mediocre at best story?

So, again, I kept things indistinct enough that I could sorta use both without committing to either so I didn't have to worry too much about it yet. Then I did, and I made the commitment in the chapter that introduced Commander Piggot to go with the heavy AU because god dammit it's just more fun that way. It also meant, however, that my next step after the commitment was just diving in balls deep and showing off a breadth of AU elements so I was fully committed and could pussy out, while also trying to not beat people over their heads with endless exposition. In that same chap, the PRT interlude, I realized that I really could have and should have done more to build up these AU elements in all sorts of ways.

I could have people wearing never forget shirts, propaganda posters, more references to the Burnout, etc etc.

I actually mentioned that in an author's note for the PRT Interlude here:

So it's here, and I really hope you guys like it. There's a lot of worldbuilding I'm showing here, but I didn't want to beat you over the head with it. I hope it's organic enough not to put you guys to sleep. It's funny, and kind of frustrating, but while working on this I actually thought of a hundred other ways I could have better built up the world and hinted at stuff. Things like shirts that said "never forget" and recruitment posters and such. It would have really been a nice touch and I can add them later, might even retroactively add them in earlier chapters, but at the moment I can't change what I've already done.

Click to shrink...

That said, it's not really going to be that overt.

In order for the world to feel lived in, for me, one has to acknowledge that people in the world aren't going to constantly talk about everything that's different from our own. They aren't going to go into random exposition dumps because there's no point, everyone knows about the basic implicit facts of reality. In addition, if it's not new information, people aren't going to be constantly chatting about it.

As an example, despite the fact that the Iraq war and the conflict in Afghanistan were these big long conflicts that lasted a while and had this huge impact on all these things, Americans weren't constantly bringing it up in casual conversation. Especially not kids. Sure, when their are hot topics to talk about, like with the election, after a terrorist attack, or some big development in the war. In average day to day life, it was in the back of people's minds as just facts of the new reality they lived in, but not really their concern. They had other things to deal with.

So to does it go with Archon. Sure, he's big news, he's a big deal, he fucks shit up, but he's also old news. The conflict with him has been going on for about...hmm...5 years now. After that long, I'd figure that most people, while still scared shitless of him, don't think about Archon very often unless something related to him comes up or it's their job to worry about him.

My aim will be to add little details in the background, stuff out of frame of the main picture because, frankly, Archon isn't relevant yet. Not directly, anyhow.

So, in short, I know, I did it on purpose to procrastinate, I need to fix it but it's a pain in the ass, but either way it's still going to be subtle. I've got a dozen other little updates and changes to properly re-align some of the details of the story with where it's going now. Dunno if or when the updates and retcons will be happening, but I'm aiming for christmas.

Also:

My take on Archon from what we've seen is they're some sort of New Atlantis warrior country that seem intent on waging a covert war with the US. (I say Atlantis because if they were on the surface I suspect we'd have two Carriers and every long range bomber in the air force turn wherever they're based out of into a hole in the ground)

For most people they wouldn't be a day to day concern, especially in the early chapters where Amelia is more concerned with her sister than a shadowy foreign power.

Click to shrink...

Hmm...you're sorta on the right track, certainly with the second statement. First part though, not so much.

I will say this, Archon is very much rooted, at the least, in canon. It's simply been horrifically twisted to suit my vision by the altered circumstances this AU has created.

Let me know if you have any other questions on that. Hopefully, some of you have found this helpful.

 

[JumperPrime]

I will say this, Archon is very much rooted, at the least, in canon. It's simply been horrifically twisted to suit my vision by the altered circumstances this AU has created.

Click to shrink...

A different permutation of the Machine Army? Maybe the guy who exploded was a Terminator?

 

[Mogget]

Have we heard about Heartbreaker at all in this story?

 

[freakytiki34]

I get Heartbreaker vibes as well, from the Hail Archon thing, and he'd be the right generation. Early trigger bakuda fits the bombing theme but not the devotion. How conventional are these explosives they keep using?

I'm not familiar with Ward canon, so that's all I have for now.

 

[Metaldragon868]

Progenitor: Chapter 12​

A/n: Oof, this is late

/-|-\
\/-\_|_/-\/
/\-/_|_\-/\
\-|-/​

All according to plan

If I'd had something resembling a human mouth, I'd probably be smiling right now.

The Merchants were running scared. I could hear them screaming, their hearts pounding in their chest as they beat feet to get out of there. The smell of fear permeated the air, thick with sweat and ash. All of it coming together to make me feel like a conductor at a great orchestra.

As much I'd want to pull a mom and just drown the whole building under a tide of bodies from all angles, my range precluded that option. I'd be forced to work with the next best option.

An inward spiraling pattern using my massed amount of bodies to create layers that would find people and work to herd them into either the stronger parts of me to take them down, or away from the building entirely so they got out of my way. I didn't particularly care if the Merchants were alerted to this. With how fucked this building was, there were millions of nooks and crannies I could hide in if anyone came in force, and in this darkness, it wouldn't take much effort to avoid a human's pitiful senses and get the hell out of dodge if things got hot.

Though, honestly, I'd probably just lurk in the shadows and watch them work to see if they did anything interesting.

Fortunately, the nature of my powers meant I could be more flexible in my response to things than mom. While I couldn't make a massive swarm of bugs to cover everything and be everywhere, I could shape smaller forms with the specialized sensory organs to use echolocation and take sonar scans of the whole building to get a good map of it. It wasn't the best for real-time tracking of everything because of the delay, but it was pretty good for getting a map of the layout and a good idea of the general location of all beings.

It also let me know that there was a basement, a sub-basement, and a void of emptiness that consumed all sound below that like a wall. I'd checked and there were no vents, corridors, or pipes that led directly into it, at least nothing that wasn't blocked with a heavy-duty filter that had defaulted into a hermetic seal after the building lost power. In fact, there was really only one channel that looked like it would go down there, and it was in the center of the building.

Which meant that had to be my target.

Whatever was down there was probably one of the few things still intact in this whole building. If Archon hadn't made off with it, and the Ladon, Medhall, or the Government hadn't reclaimed it, then whatever super special top-secret project down there was still alright. Or, at least, as alright as anything in Merchant hands could be.

Don't the Merchants have a Tinker? I thought, Squealer, right?

She could probably do something with it. What, I didn't know. As far as I'd heard, most Tinkers tended to have a specialty, and the rumor was that Squealer's was vehicles. No one knew what all that meant for sure since all anyone had really seen from her so far were big rigs, monster trucks, and hot rods made from junk that worked far better than they should, but she'd also been quiet recently.

Back when I'd infiltrated the merchants with the Black Ooze, a couple of members had remarked about not seeing anything new from her. Something that was weird, apparently, because she usually pulled out a new car every other day to show off in some street race in the Burnout.

So I thought, looking at the void beneath my various feet, That's probably why.

Well, I can get to that later. Right now, I have more…

I frowned internally as my mental map updated. My recon-selves darted back and forth over the area, trying to take in as much information as they could to make sure I was getting it right.

No...this can't be right. Why the fuck…

But, the more I looked at the sonar returns, changes in air pressure, distant sounds, and shifting sents, the more it became clear.

Why are the Merchants running back inside?

Sure enough, everyone I'd thought I'd scared off had actually just taken some winding path to go deeper into the ruined Medhall building. This certainly wasn't an organized retreat or anything, I was sure of that. The panic was clear in the air and in their movements. I could practically hear them shitting their pants from all the way out here.
Problem was, said panic had apparently told them to go deeper inside. Was it training? Were they desperate? Was there some other factor I wasn't aware of?

I tabled that line of thinking as fast as it cropped up. I could worry about it after I was done here. Right now I had to hurry and try and salvage something out of my plan.
I moved, the writhing swarm that composed my being surging forth like the floodwaters of a hurricane. I darted through vents, under walls, into cracks, and every point of free access I could find to cut through the building and get ahead of the Merchants. Moments later I was working on the deeper layers.

I'd probably missed something, bypassing what lay in between, which was why I'd gone for a spiral in the first place, I wanted to be thorough. But I didn't have time for that anymore. Having gotten ahead of the scouts rushing back into the center, I tried to scare them off again. I was more than capable of fighting these guys if I had to, but I wasn't really here for them. I was here for what was on the sub-basement. As long as they got out of my way, I didn't care about them.

Unfortunately, they were still being a pain in my ass.

It's like herding fucking cats.

As much as I was trying to scare them off, they were either taking a stand or forcing me to knock them out. Hopefully, I could end this without going too-

Boom Boom Boom

-Wait, what? I paused, trying to figure out what just happened.

I...that son of a bitch shot me… I thought, incredulously and still trying to comprehend exactly. ...with a god damn fire breathing auto-shotgun!

How? Why?! What the fuck?!

How in the hell did the Merchants even have an assault auto shotgun? Sure, it was an outdated model that still relied on chemical propellant, but it wasn't so long ago that such a gun was the cutting edge of military-grade firearms, what with their variable loads ranging from buckshot to the famous inferno rounds that beat back Nilbog. I remember them being all over the marketing and propaganda until the government managed to get their hands on Ladon's advanced mag-rifles.

Well, that and the disintegrators.

Still, in anything that wasn't an active warzone, an auto shotgun like that was absurdly dangerous, not to mention difficult to find. It'd be one thing for the Empire to have a stash, they actually had connections and money. Even the ABB had a better shot than these bottom of the barrel two-bit thugs.

This is bullshit I thought as three of my smaller forms burned to ash in mere moments. I could have probably slowed it down if I wanted, but it was better to just take the hit to the biomass there rather than lead him back to the rest of my swarm. It wouldn't take too much effort to hunt down some rats or something. It still wasn't what I'd call fun, however.

I grimaced and pulled back.

Okay...bigger problem than I thought.

Then there was a loud hum and the lights turned on for the central set of rooms.

Well fuck.

They had a backup generator, it seemed. Before, they'd just been using lamps, probably to keep the draw on this building down so it didn't look suspicious to anyone snooping around. On its own, not a big issue. But the lights would make being stealthy so much harder in these cramped corridors. Combined with the fact that they actually had something resembling heavy weapons, ones that actually fucking hurt, and were going to start growing in numbers, things were not going according to plan.

Goddammit, how hard is it to just fucking leave. I groused, I just wanted you out of the way, and now you've gone and set yourself up for the Alamo.

I paused, my various forms retreating back into the shadows as I plotted my next move.

Hmm...that could work.

There weren't, overall, that many of them. Plus, they were bunching up for me. I guess they thought there was strength in numbers.

Cute I smirked, pooling my forms together and remolding my swarm. I think it's time to take the kid gloves off.

You wanted the Alamo? Let's see how you deal with Tyran.

/-|-\
\/-\_|_/-\/
/\-/_|_\-/\
\-|-/​

Mac ran deeper into the office building, in spite of his heart's greatest desire.

He just had to make it to the checkpoint.

He'd rather be anywhere other than here, but he couldn't leave. This was all he had, the only solid anchor in his life. The Merchants might be shitty thieving drug peddling assholes that eked out a living at the bottom of the trash heap merely because no one else bothered to crush them, but it was a damn sight better than being out there.
At the end of the day, Mac would rather be trash at the bottom of the rung than a nobody starving in the cold dark of the Burnout.

So he ran, deeper and deeper into that howling darkness, fearing for his soul with every step. He could hear something writhing through the vents in the ceiling, wriggling in the gaps between the walls. It sounded like something had infested this place down to the bones.

"Cape shit," he whispered to himself, "Gotta be."

He couldn't think of a known cape in the bay that could do shit like this, not off the top of his head anyways. There were a lot of them, though, so he could be forgiven for missing one.

Still, he didn't think he'd miss a cape that was the second-fucking-coming of Nilbog. Maybe it was something from out of the Plaguelands?

But...then how the hell did it get way the hell out here, then? Are there more of them out ther-

His foot caught something in the dark, sending him stumbling. He turned around, trying to catch sight of it. His eyes caught a faint flicker of something moving with a wet slither.

Mac swallowed his bile and ran harder.

He just had to make it to the checkpoint. Karl andBen, they'd be waiting there. Maybe even Jess'd be back from wherever she'd been. Coffee, space heater, radio, and guns in hand. Once he got there, it'd be in their hands. He'd be done his part. They could take care of things and he, some grunt with a bat, would just try and stay out of the way.

It'd be fine. Everything would be fine.

Mac saw red light creeping around the edges of a door up ahead of him. He slammed into it shoulder first, hand reaching out to the knob to twist it open. Instead, when he hit the door, it was stuck. It barely moved an inch, as if something heavy was propped up against it.

"Come on you damn thing," He muttered, slamming into it again. It barely budged.

He heard something skittering behind him. He whirled around, pulling out his lighter and holding it out like a torch to pierce the darkness. Instead, the shadows fervently clung to the air, as if mocking his foolish desperation.

"He he he"

He pushed past his fear, dropping his bat, stowing his lighter, and bracing both arms against the door. He twisted the knob and threw his whole weight against the door.
Ever so slowly it creaked open. He pumped his legs harder and harder, feeling as if he was driving himself against a wall. With every inch, more and more red light poured into the dark void, bathing him crimson. Finally, after what felt like hours, there was enough space for him to slip through the door. He turned to pick up his bat-

-and saw something on the other end of the hall stare back with too many eyes-

He lunged through the doorway, pushing himself through the crack as fast as he could. On the other side, he slammed the door behind him, propping it closed with both hands. No sooner had it closed than did he feel something slam into it on the other side.

The flimsy wooden door rattled and shook. The oak board plagued with fire damage, rot, mold, and negligence trembled and splintered. Claws dug into it's frame, digging out shards of wood as they carved into it, scratching ever closer to their goal. Ever closer to Mac. He could hear them, clawing, screeching, slithering, chittering, skittering, snarling, hungering-

Silence.

Mac blinked.

Silence.

There was nothing to hear but the whistling of the wind. They were gone. The door shook no more. In spite of that, he dared not open it.

It was only when he made that decision that he realized he left his bat on the other side. He sighed, and looked down towards the red light.

There he saw him, illuminated by a road flare lying on the ground, back against the door, revolver in his bloody hands and black sludge on his neck. His eyes were blank, staring at nothing, his hands limp.

Ben

"Oh fuck…" Mac whispered.

Ben didn't so much as twitch. He just lay there, like a doll with it's strings cut.

Mas hesitated. He didn't know what to do next, his simple plan cut to pieces. He was buried in the building, an unknown parahuman threat looking to be the second coming of all he'd ever feared surrounding them, and all he had was a lighter.

In that moment, he felt as if he'd been plunged into a pit of soul-crushing despair.

Then he heard the sound of school children giggling, as if dancing around him through walls, floors, and doors. He heard his colleagues screams echoing down the hall, their howls a mixture of terror and rage. He looked back at the door he'd come through, closed shut to a gaping maw of skittering darkness. In that moment, Mac felt something else.

Spite.

He snatched up Ben's revolver, picked up the road flare, and charged into the darkness.

And from it, unseen and unheard, echoed these words in cruel amusement.

Come into my parlor, said the Spider to the fly.

/-|-\
\/-\_|_/-\/
/\-/_|_\-/\
\-|-/
​

A/n: Oof, this is late. Very late.

Sorry about that. I'd actually been planning on getting this thing out there by thanksgiving, since I had it mostly done by last...tuesday? I think?

Problem was that the one section I needed to bridge that gap between one part of the chap and the other, a segment that shouldn't have been too big, was the biggest pain in the ass to write. It was only, like, 500 words and it took me four days. Such a pain.

In the end, chapter 12 got bloated up to about 5k words, and I decided I could cut it into 2 chapters instead so I'd have a safety for next week. Which I do now.

So next week's secure, we'll see what comes later. Sorry if there isn't as much detective work in this one, or even actual things happening, as you may have wanted. This is, again, really half the chap, but I'm spacing it out to have more consistent updates.

And thank Trav for helping me actually get this thing together.

Anyways, I hope ya'll enjoy this, and let me know if I missed anything.

 

[badoatmeal]

You wanted the Alamo? Let's see how you deal with Tyran.

Click to shrink...

This is a fun line.
...but, uh, what's Tyran? Google's just giving us a town in Wisconsin or an old form of "tyrant".
Is it an in-universe thing, or are we just missing it?

Then he heard the sound of school children giggling, as if dancing around him through walls, floors, and doors.

Click to shrink...

Poor Mac. He's like that one character in the horror movie who seems like he shouldn't be alive anymore, but it's really just because the monster hasn't finished playing with its food.

 

[TDKnave]

This is a fun line.
...but, uh, what's Tyran? Google's just giving us a town in Wisconsin or an old form of "tyrant".
Is it an in-universe thing, or are we just missing it?

Click to shrink...

Google search Tyranids. That'll probably give you an idea of what she's planning.

 

[Tnoz]

I'm really enjoying the Detective Horror Monster thing that Amy's doing. Maybe that should be her future cape name.

"I'll solve the case, while also making you shit yourself in terror."

 

[DestinyPlayer]

I'm really enjoying the Detective Horror Monster thing that Amy's doing. Maybe that should be her future cape name.

"I'll solve the case, while also making you shit yourself in terror."

Click to shrink...

And now I'm stuck wondering how would an organic version of Inspector Gadget look like.

 

[ScottotheUnwise]

And now I'm stuck wondering how would an organic version of Inspector Gadget look like.

Click to shrink...

"Grow, Grow, Organic Skis!" ... <sounds of panic and crashing>... "Not the Organic Spring Arms and Insecti-legs!"

edit:

-and saw something on the other end of the hall star back with too many eyes

Click to shrink...

Should this be "stare" ?

 

[Metaldragon868]

This is a fun line.
...but, uh, what's Tyran? Google's just giving us a town in Wisconsin or an old form of "tyrant".
Is it an in-universe thing, or are we just missing it?

Click to shrink...

Google search Tyranids. That'll probably give you an idea of what she's planning.

Click to shrink...

Yep

Tyran - Warhammer 40k - Lexicanum

wh40k.lexicanum.com

I'm really enjoying the Detective Horror Monster thing that Amy's doing. Maybe that should be her future cape name.

"I'll solve the case, while also making you shit yourself in terror."

Click to shrink...

Hmm...

Ideas...

And now I'm stuck wondering how would an organic version of Inspector Gadget look like.

Click to shrink...

IDEAS!

 

[ccstat]

My main concern at this point is that she will be too good at terrifying people, and end up with a dozen cluster triggered Merchants exploring their new kill-it-with-fire-Oh-God-why style powers as they flee from the horror horde chasing them.

 

[Metaldragon868]

Progenitor: Chapter 13​

A/n: You know the drill

/-|-\
\/-\_|_/-\/
/\-/_|_\-/\
\-|-/​

As Mac ran through the halls of the old Medhall building, he found the only thing he could truly rely on was his memory and his ears.

In this darkness, he could scarcely see a thing, even with the road flare. The red light that shone upon everything only served to warp the meager circle of illumination around him into a twisted crimson vision of itself. The way it bathed the few things he could see in that scarlet light set him on edge, it made every shadow look as if it was some nightmarish creature from the depths of hell.

Dust and ash filled his nose and choked his lungs with every hungry breath he sucked down. He could scarcely feel anything other than the sporadic rumbling of the building as people moved around along with that thing chasing them. Combined with the gunfire, Mac was starting to feel like he was reliving the 14th.

Pops and bangs echoed through the devastated building. The staccato of submachine guns fired at flitting shadows, the punch of a shotgun blasting through plaster, and the roar of his fellow merchants fighting for their lives filled the air. All coming together like a symphony of terror.

Then he heard a heavy thump reverberate through the floorboards, followed by a familiar dull rumbling hum. Mac stopped, cocking his ear and straining to make sure he was hearing things right. A second later, the hall flashed with light and the buzz of electricity.

Mac winced, shielding his eyes with a hand. When he lowered it, he saw that the ceiling lights had come on, the ones that still worked at least. He figured it was probably less than half that was supposed to, but the patchy illumination was leagues better than the darkness of moments ago.

He breathed a sigh of relief, wiping some sweat from his brow. When Mac noticed how much the sound of it stood out, he realized that the building had gone quiet. The once thunderous cacophony fell into nothing. All he could hear was the mild hum of fluorescents, his racing heart, and his heaving breath.

He looked around cautiously, suspicious about what such a calm in the middle of the storm could mean.

"Mac!"

He jumped, aiming his borrowed revolver at the source with a trembling hand. Once his eyes adjusted to the light, it was all he could do to keep from dropping the gun in shock.

"Jess?" He blinked, staring at her like a slack-jawed idiot.

The thin slip of a pale woman rolled her eyes in that way of hers, practically drowning in her thick acid green jacket. She smacked the gum in her mouth, brushed aside her short brown hair, and gave him a dull look.

"Yeah, no shit numbnuts."

"I-"

"Save it," She brushed him off, "We're gathering in the central hall. That's where everything's at, generator, radios, guns, you name it."

"Uh...yeah." Mac nodded dumbly, he'd figured as such. It was where he'd been headed in the first place, it'd just taken him longer in the dark.

She gestured for him to follow and he jogged to catch up to her.

"You seen Karl?" he ventured after a moment.

"Yeah," Jess smirked, "He's having the time of his life with his new toy."

Mac frowned, knowing the gun Karl was no doubt worshipping as they spoke.

"I haven't seen you around in a while."

She shrugged. "Been running errands here and there."

Mac nodded absently, he figured as much.

They walked in companionable silence for a while before entering the central hall. Cracked stone pillars lined the sides, and what might have once been a polished marble lending a sense of wealth and gravitas. The ceiling stretched high above them and rows of doors were in the walls, all leading to the wide array of elevators at the opposite end of the long chamber.

Sure enough, there were dozens of other Merchants in there, all of them arming up with various guns they'd scavenged from around the Burnout. The center of the room was dominated by the large rumbling generator that looked like it was cobbled together out of rusty scrap and strong language.

Next to it was a bulky radio set with a couple of guys fiddling with it. All it was playing was some kind of static, so Mac figured they were trying to get it to work so they could call for help. Though, it sounded like they were getting close to something given the faint snippets of words and a catchy tune they managed to catch. Maybe someone was blasting their own mixtape from a pirated station nearby?

Mac shrugged and turned away. He didn't know the radio game, that was their problem. Instead, someone else had caught his eye.

Leaning against a column and brandishing his massive assault shotgun with a drum magazine and one part pride and another apprehension, was Karl. He looked like a viper wound up and ready to strike at anything and anyone that gave him the excuse.

When Mac and Jess got closer, Karl noticed them and looked up. He gave them a wave and a smile that was all teeth.

"Well Jess," he chuckles, "You're a sight for sore eyes. Surprised you're still alive too, Mac."

Mac scowled at the larger man. "Yeah, no thanks to you."

Karl belts out a laugh and pats Mac on the back. "You made it out alright! And look!"

He spread his arms out to the whole lobby. "You've got nothing to fear! Whatever Nilbog wannabe shit for brains is coming after us ain't getting through ol' Bessy!" He grinned as he patted his gun proudly.

"In fact-!"

THWUMP

Suddenly, all the lights went out and the room was bathed in darkness once more. Shouting erupted, chaos filling the hall. Through it all, Mac could still hear the loud rumble of the generator at work.

But underneath that, just at the edge of his hearing, Mac could hear the chitting, slithering, skittering sound of a thousand creatures snickering in the darkness.
Then he felt the earth shake beneath his feet. Something was coming for them, something big.

"Karl-" Mac started.

"Yeah," Karl cut him off, standing up straight and moving to get a sightline on the door the sound was coming from. "I heard it too."

Karl walked up to the door and kicked it open, revealing the gaping maw of a hall shrouded in darkness.

"Come on you son of a bitch," Karl groused, hefting the shotgun up to his shoulder.

The series of thumps coming down the hall grew louder and more frequent, yet the all-encompassing shroud of darkness hung steadfast, revealing not so much as an inch of the massive frame lumbering towards them.

Karl let out a guttural shout and fired.

BOOM

The gun's roar was like the clap of thunder, blinding and deafening all at once. A sound so loud you could taste it. In an instant, the world turned deaf, all other noise oppressed into silence, as Mac flinched under the sheer concussive force of such a beast going off. The massive eight gauge explosive slug hurtled down the hall, only to tear a massive hole in the opposite wall when it detonated, sending another shockwave of light and sound down the hall.

Then he fired again.

BOOM

And again.

BOOM

And again.

BOOM

The drum mag fed the auto-shotgun round after round, and Karl fired them one after another into the dark abyss. With each miss, the tiny burst of light on the other end illuminated something moving towards them. It's footsteps like the rumble of thunder, it's indistinct bulk like a wall of writhing muscle.

Mac could see Jess shouting from beside Karl. He couldn't hear the words, but her lips screamed, "Kill that fuck!"

Then, Mac spotted something down the hall. A flicker of movement, gone just as soon as it appeared, but it almost seemed like something in the hall had darted to the right…

BOOM

"Karl!" Mac shouted, trying to get his attention, but the man couldn't hear him over the roar of his gun. It seemed, at that moment, that the only sound that was allowed to exist in that hall was that of rolling thunder.

Still, he tried again.

"Kar-!"

BOOM

Mac froze, his heart jumping into his throat.

BOOM

Another flash of light, revealing an open door that he knew had been closed. On the other side of the door, a dark abyss.

BOOM

A giant's dark chitinous hand reached out, covered in writhing tendrils and grasping mandibles.

BOOM

An enormous frame is illuminated in the dark.

BOOM

Mac shouted, he screamed.

BOOM

Nobody could hear him. There was only the rolling thunder.

BOOM

The thunder and the beast.

BOOM

The beast reaches forward

BOO-

And suddenly there was nothing.

Like a gaping wound in reality, where once was deafening sound, now there is a deafening silence.

Mac blinks, unable to comprehend this new reality.

Karl is gone. Simply...gone. The dark abyss and the beast their only companion.

Suddenly, a battle cry echoes through the room. Gunfire erupts, flashes of muzzle fire illuminating the darkness in fits and starts.

Mac could see walls torn apart by gunfire. He saw dozens of...things descend from the ceiling. They weaved between the bullets, darting through the crowd. In another flash of light, he sees something latch onto a woman's neck. A man tries to tear something off his face.

Even as this chaos unfolds around him, bullets flying, friends screaming, assaulted by some fresh new abomination. It was like something straight out of the horrors of the Nilbog campaign.

Mac screamed, unable to take it. He turned around, ready to take Jess's arm and get out of there.

A tendril lashed out from the darkness, wrapping itself around Mac's head and neck. He felt a trail of pinpricks, like ice-cold needles dancing along his skin. The surface of its skin almost looked coated in tar. He froze in terror and looked down the long tentacle, only to find something incomprehensible at its end.

"J-Jess?" He whimpered.

She looked at him with all nine eyes spread across her face, each one pitch-black yet shining with bright reflection along with every muzzle blast. Her arms split open into long tentacles, branching out like the roots of a tree only to ensnare unsuspecting Merchants in their grasp, just like him. She parted her lips. On a human, he might have called it a smile, but for Jess, her mouth split open to reveal a line unnatural needle-like teeth stretching from ear to ear.

"Hush Mac."

Everything was going numb, his mind felt slow and his eyelids heavy. He collapsed to the ground, unable to stand up anymore. He tried to fight it, but the darkness rose up like a wave and consumed him. As he was dragged from the waking world, he heard her whisper in his ear, her tone soft and multitone.

"Only dreams, now."

/-|-\
\/-\_|_/-\/
/\-/_|_\-/\
\-|-/​

Finally

I put the last merchant down with a level of care that surprised me. The more I'd looked into things here, the more their actions seemed to be born of desperation. That, and most of these guys were at the bottom of the rung, just doing anything they could to survive out in the Burnout.

That didn't forgive the experiments that had resulted in over a dozen deaths, or what they'd tried with Emma, but it did provide a measure of context. Not everyone here was a raging asshole, and not everyone had much choice in the matter.

Maybe that's just the memories talking I considered as I pulled myself back together.

Various scattered lumps of flesh, skittering selves, and lumbering abominations clumped together, the meat melting together at the seams. It bubbled up, twisting and writhing, protein chains linking up as tendrils of flesh wove themselves back into my desired form.

I suppose that's what I get for taking them I think as I once again took a human form, leaving a few recon selves scattered about nearby just to keep an ear out, I looked around the room with human eyes.

All the Merchants in the building were stable and unconscious. The cocktail I'd used to render them unconscious a combination of a strong anesthetic, sleep aid, and amnestic. It'd sap the fight from them, put them into a natural, if deep, self-sustaining sleep, and they'd be barely able to remember anything about the past few hours. What little they could remember would be so muddled with the bizarre dreams they'd had that, combined with complete lack of any remaining physical evidence of my more nightmarish presence, they wouldn't be able to really tell what did and didn't happen. While I'd been at that, I'd also decided to leech some memories out of them. Nothing specific, just a surface scan of brain patterns to get a general read.

Suffice to say, most of them weren't thinking about how to get babies hooked on crack.

Some of them had been hit by the stray bullets flying around. Nothing fatal this time, but looking at some of the injuries I realized I'd really just gotten lucky. Honestly, this was the kind of thing Mr. Smith drilled into me and Taylor's head enough that I should have probably known better. A stray round can go through walls and houses before finally killing some random bystander a whole block over.

"Stupid," I muttered as I made my way around patching people up. "Mental note, even if bullets can't kill you, everyone else isn't so lucky."

I couldn't replace anything, not in any permanent way, but I could give them the best damn bandaid in existence. I cleaned out the wounded, dug out the bullet if it was still there, triggered rapid coagulation, platelet collection, cell growth, and cleared out any internal blood pooling inside them. It was the kinda thing that would need a full trauma team, a clean room, and no doubt thousands of dollars in state of the art equipment, some of which was ironically enough made by Medhall. I could do it dozens of times simultaneously as an afterthought.

"Well, at least that's over with," I muttered, getting up and walking over to the row of elevators at the back of the lobby.

There were seven of them, each no doubt elegant and refined in their own way back when the building was still running. Now, they were falling apart, rusted, and in some cases torn to pieces.

All except the central one.

The platinum slabs still held a measure of luster, the doors rigid and aligned. There was even a dim red light at the top of it, making it stand out in the darkness.

"Red light, huh?" I rubbed my chin. It reminded me of one of the memories I'd picked up from the corpses outside, but it didn't fully align.

It was also a sign that there was another source of power for the building somewhere. Unfortunately, I could also tell it was locked. Even by my standards, the security for it was airtight. Literally, in this case. The whole thing was hermetically sealed and ensured that I couldn't get so much as a microbe through. Looking at the sonar maps of the building, I could tell easily enough that this was the only shaft that went down into the sub-basement.

"I guess Medhal doesn't fuck around."

I walked up to the door and knocked on it with the back of my fist. There was a dull, thick, bang from it.

"I'm going through you somehow," I mused as I looked at the pad beside the door. It looked like it was some kind of fancy security scanner, the type of thing a rich biomedical corporation working with The tinkertech corporation would have. "Or I could just rip you open."

Probably wouldn't be that hard, all told. The central elevator did look bigger and more robust than the others, but all I needed was to make a crack in the armor and I could slip in.

"I suppose we'll find out-" I stopped.

Pausing, I looked around with my recon-selves, probing the depths of the building for another ping.

Then I found it.

"Well...fuck," I sighed, turning back to renter the ruined depths of the humbled skyscraper. "Looks like I missed one."

So I guess that's how you got here. I thought as I directed my attention out of the building, seeing the frame of what looked like a motorcycle parked down the street. But shouldn't I have heard a motorcycle rolling up?

With how dark things were out here in the burnout, I'd had to turn up my night vision, which meant sacrificing color and definition, which meant I couldn't really get much in the way of details for it. Given the fact I hadn't been able to hear it, I had my suspicions it was a Squealer special stealth bike, but without getting a good look it could just be a fancy Ladon E-bike. Then again, they could have pulled up during the firefight. It's not like that was exactly quiet.

Oh well, I shrugged, dividing my body into a thousand slivers in the dark, it doesn't matter either way.

"This shouldn't take long."

/-|-\
\/-\_|_/-\/
/\-/_|_\-/\
\-|-/
​

A/n:
Alright, I honestly feel kinda sorry about this chapter. Not because it's bad, but because it treads a lot of the same ground as the last one.

Now, the reason for that is that 12 and 13 were originally the same chapter. If things had gone the way I'd wanted, this whole horror thing with Mac would have been over and done with in one chapter, and then the next would have gone over the extra. Instead, it ran long and I figured I could split them in half to give me some more room to breath. Which it did, got chap 14 just about done.

So I'm sorry if you guys are getting tired of that theme. I promise we'll be on something new soon-ish.

Anyways I gotta go to work right quick, so anything you guys catch or whatever else you bring up I won't be able to respond to for a few hours, though I will respond. I'm posting this here first cause, again, I want to be sure nothing's broke or whatever.

Anyways, thanks again Trav for all your help with this. You're a great sounding board and you fix the grammatical nightmare that I'm sure this unedited work is before you work your magic on it.

Let me know any comments or concerns ya'll got, until then,

Bye for now.

 

[Metaldragon868]

Progenitor: Chapter 14


/-|-\
\/-\_|_/-\/
/\-/_|_\-/\
\-|-/​

A/n: Merry Christmas

I swarm through the dark depths of the building, weaving through rubble and corridors alike, all to chase down that one remaining target. The faint and distant sound of footsteps upon broken glass and tile rung in my head. The sound of a heartbeat reverberating across my skulls. I could taste it in the air, the faint whiffs of gunpowder, sweat, and anticipation. A chittering ping echoed throughout the building, and moments later came the return.

There you are, I grinned, the pleasures of the hunt at the forefront of my mind, 2nd floor, 5th corridor. Here I come.

A recon form, small, scurrying and covered in eye and ears rounded the corner. Hidden in the dark, it spied on the last Merchant in the building. Immediately, I frowned. Whoever they were, they were doing a good job clinging to the shadows. Even with my enhanced night vision, I could only gather so much from their silhouette. I could tell they were a woman, but that was really only from her scent.

Regardless of who she was, she seemed to be a cut above most of the other Merchants I'd found in here. She moved more methodically, slow and smooth, yet lacked the hesitation I'd seen in others. I moved the recon-self to try and get a better angle, not that I had much of a chance of catching much light this deep into the Bur-

Bang

I blinked, an expression spread across my multitudes. In my hesitation, three more shots ripped through the air, massive chunks of lead tearing through the meat of my small form. Even if it didn't really kill me, the sheer force behind them caused the small body to all but explode.

Still, it wasn't dead. I formed eyes upon the floor and walls from the still writhing sacs of flesh and gore that had been strewn about. With them, I was barely able to catch a flash of the gun she used on me as she moved into another room.

A handgun? I thought, slightly confused as ran over the image I'd captured again and again.

It looked like a revolver, similar to the one that the Merchant woman I'd dealt with weeks ago had used, but...different. Sleeker, and certainly more hard-hitting.

I'd been expecting a rifle, but I suppose a handgun cartridge made some sense. From what I remembered, they tended to fire larger slugs at lower velocities, so it'd have less penetration but a larger impact. A rifle would probably go right through my smaller forms, while the pistol blew them apart.

Well, I thought as I reallocated my biomass in the shadows, there's a way to fix that.

I tracked her as she moved through the building as it gestated. She moved with a faster pace now, searching rooms with a purpose. The more I watched, the more it seemed familiar. The way she checked corners, walls, and the ceiling in rapid but thorough scans.

Maybe she's a veteran of the Nilbog Campaign? I considered. I suppose it doesn't really matter in the end I mentally shrugged.

Time to end this

As the woman moved into a large room filled with rubble, a tendril lanced out from the shadows and wrapped around an ankle. A lightning-fast shot blew apart the connecting stands and left a wriggling lump of flesh latched onto her boot. I tried to dig through the thick leather of it, but a gloved hand ripped me off and threw me into the air before another snapshot blew it apart.

No matter.

Something burst out of the rubble beside her, numerous arms reaching out with serrated claws for her. She immediately twisted and fired three shots from the hip in a flash of motion, but the bullets crumpled against it's hardened carapace. It tackled her to the ground, tendrils filled with anesthetic coiling inside it's mouth. They catapulted out of it's face, twin stingers ready to inject my custom cocktail into her bloodstream. She twisted her head away from one and snatched the other with a gloved hand. I twisted the innards of my body, creating hundreds of smaller claws and stingers to tear open and seek any bare scrap of flesh to infect.

Suddenly, I felt a pressure against my abdomen. A pressure that erupted into a fire that raced through my being, scorching it all into ash.

Pain

True pain exploded through my collective as a massive chunk of my biomass suddenly went dark. I looked through my other eyes in the room and saw the large form I'd made hovering over her, it's body dissipating into glowing embers in the air. The massive creature that had composed half of my entire biomass disintegrated before my eyes.

For a moment, I froze, my mind racing as I tried to process just what I'd seen. It was impossible. Was that a power? Was she a parahuman? I hadn't managed to get a scan of her body yet. That seemed the most likely answer, but…

But I knew that effect. Hell, everyone did these days. The way my body had dissolved into motes of light, wholly and completely, it could only really be one thing. The weapon that Hero himself had fashioned to win the Nilbog campaign. The large, sleek, glowing weapon held in her hands only confirmed my fears.

A Disintegrator.

What?...What?...HOW?!

An auto shotgun was one thing, but this? This was a monster, capable of vaporizing any biological lifeform and melting gaping holes in anything else with one blast. Only things with durability on the level of the Endbringers or Alexandria could withstand endure a blast against it. It was said that a Disintegrator would either annihilate you, or it wouldn't leave a scratch, there was no in-between.
As I tried to crunch the massive piles of data I'd gathered from the experience of half my entire being getting disintegrated, I couldn't help but agree. More importantly, though, it meant I couldn't fool around anymore. This wasn't a joke, this was a frankly terrifying level of power in the hands of a gang. That could not be permitted under any circumstances.

As the woman stood back up and shouldered her Disintegrator, I gathered what forces I had left, shaping them into the weapon's only weakness. I only had one chance, if I let that weapon go who knows what kind of devastation the Merchants could unleash?

She looked around carefully, no doubt wary of any more creatures.

I growled, fury and anger at what she'd done to me fueling my purpose. My entire being growled with me. Hundreds, no, thousands of genetically fine-tuned insectile creatures chittered loudly in the ceiling, walls, and floor.

The woman looked around, fear finally creeping into her form. She turned her Disintegrator towards the wall, as if to blast her way out.

I wouldn't give her the chance.

Like a wave, I crashed upon her.

To say she fought back would be like saying a man resisted the raging tempest of a Typhoon. It was over in an instant, the insurmountable deluge of me smothering her light like a man's fist snuffing out a candle. I bypassed the only two blast of the gun she managed to get off, latched onto her bare neck, and bit in. My custom venom poured into her veins. I could see the way her nervous system reacted, her brain stuttering into a lower level of operation as sleep overcame her.

Moments later, she collapsed to the ground face-first as a boneless heap.

My swarm gathered at her feet, and slowly formed me piece by piece.

Serves you right I thought, sneering at her sleeping body, you merchant piece of…

Hold on

Something about her DNA...hell, her whole body, was familiar to me. Very familiar.

I swallowed thickly, I have a bad feeling about this.

I gently grabbed her shoulder and turned her over with one hand, and with the other, I converted the outer layers of flesh into a bright bioluminescent organ. Light erupted in the room, illuminating everything as I twisted my eyes back into a traditional human spectrum. The moment I turned her over, I cringed.

There was no mistaking that those Kurdish features.

"Ah shit," I cursed, grimacing at that star-spangled bandanna as the last flicker of consciousness left those familiar brown eyes.

"I am so fucking grounded," I sighed despondently as I allowed my face to flush with shame and embarrassment. Already my mind was spinning through the millions of ways I was now fucked. I gave the unconscious woman a guilty look.

"Sorry Aunt Hannah."

/-|-\
\/-\_|_/-\/
/\-/_|_\-/\
\-|-/​

That took longer than I'd thought

I'd been fiddling with the lock for the high-security elevator when the beetle-shaped partition I'd left on Aunt Hannah alerted me to her rising brain activity. I could sense the way she slowly regained muscle control, REM falling out of cycle, and her melatonin returning to normal levels. I briefly consider injecting GABA and glycine to artificially impose sleep paralysis so she couldn't shoot me in the back with a disintegrator before I'd explained everything, but I threw that out with barely a second's thought.

The last thing I needed here was to get myself in even more hot water.

Instead, I walked up to her with slow measured steps, even as I could feel her mind slowly recalling the pieces of the past hour. Or, well, attempting too. I'd still injected her with amnestic/anesthetic I'd given everyone else, I'd just given her a counter agent to go along with it so she wouldn't be as affected. Even still, she'd been well and truly asleep for nearly half an hour, and I couldn't be sure how much of her short term memory had remained.

Sure, I'd given her a counter-agent to the amnestic/anesthetic I'd injected into her bloodstream, but as far as I could tell that only reduced the effects, it didn't negate them. Case in point, it'd taken her nearly an hour to finally wake up. Who knows how much she'd lost?

There we go

I saw her eyes flutter and felt her heart stutter as her mind dig itself out of the gutter. Her breath trembled, muscles twitching in growing awareness. I could sense the moment when she realized she wasn't somewhere familiar, the way tension snapped into her form. Aunt Hannah hid it well, I had to admit I was impressed. I couldn't see it on her form draped on the chair, she'd even managed to force her power to keep the form of the Disintegrator on the floor, but I could read it in the chemical breakdown of her body from my beetle on her arm.

Intentionally making my footsteps loudly scuff the floor, I tried to let her know I was coming so she didn't get spooked when I crouched down in front of her. I tried to catch Aunt Hannah's eyes, but she was stubbornly keeping them closed. Frowning, I opened my mouth.

"I know your awake."

It was at that moment that I realized two things. First, I'd actually forgotten to discard my disguise of tall, muscular, black man in his prime with an almost unnaturally deep voice. Second, that, Aunt Hannah could be a terrifyingly fast draw under pressure.

Within one blink of me realizing my mistake, I was staring down the barrel of her Disintegrator, the light at the end radiating with the ominous glow of a dying star, the whole weapon trembling with fury a billion hounds fresh from hell tearing at their frayed leash.

"Move, and you die," Aunt Hannah growled.

I dropped the disguise, the false flesh falling away like so much raw fat cut from the bone. The inert biomass plopped to the floor, splashing out our feet, and leaving me in my bare skin of Amelia Hebert staring at my Aunt Hannah with a stunned expression.

She paused, lowering her gun and staring at me with wide eyes and a slack jaw. "Amy?!"

I sagged, smiling at her in relief, "Yeah, Aunt Hannah, it's m-"

She shoved the Disintegrator into my face again.

"Prove it," Aunt Hannah said, a dead serious look in her eye, finger on the trigger.

"...Uh" I stared at her stupidly, jaw slack.

"PROVE IT!" She roared.

My mouth ran before I could think better of it.

"I first met you in person after Aunt Grace dragged you into a girl's night out with mom, and they dragged you home because you couldn't hold your liquor and wouldn't stop hitting on other patrons, and you threw up on my backpack and mom got mad 'cause it ruined my school stuff but Aunt Grace was super happy 'cause she said it'd finally dislodged the stick you'd shoved up your ass the size of-mmrph"

"Up up up" Aunt Hannah shushed me with a hand on my mouth. Her Disintegrator had disappeared in a flash of green light, and an emerald war fan appeared in one of her pockets.

"That's…that's enough..." She began hesitantly, unable to look me in the eye. Not that it could hide the embarrassment radiating off of her. "...I believe you, Amelia."

She glanced at me from the corner of her eye. "Put on some clothes."

I rolled my eyes. Humans.

Still…

"Fine." I sucked up the inert ooze around me and peeled off a set of pseudo leather clothes from my skin.

Aunt Hannah gave me an odd look before eyeing the room around us. At a guess, I opened my mouth.

"All the Merchants are asleep on another floor. They shouldn't wake up for a few more hours. Even if they do, they're all tied up." I shrugged, gesturing to my own bare face. "We got privacy, you can take off the mask."

Aunt Hannah looked hesitant, but after a moment she finally tugged down her star-spangled scarf. "Merchants?"

"Yeah, the…" I blinked, "You don't…"

She looked at me uncomprehendingly.

"Oh no…" I said quietly as it dawned on me.

"Amelia." She scowled. "Oh no what?"

"You...may have forgotten more than I thought?"

"Forgotten?"

"Yeah, I mean I tried to counter the amnestics I gave you, but it looks lik-"

"Amnestics?!"

"Uh...yes?"

"...!"

"In my defense, you used a Disintegrator on me first."

"...!"

"...granted I did kind of ambush you with a tentacle monster."

Aunt Hannah buried her head in her hands and groaned, exhaustion pouring off her.

"Just...just explain what happened. And where we are."

"Uh...do you promise not to get mad?"

She peeked out from her fingers to level a withering glare at me.

I cringed.

"Right, well, see, what happened was…"

About five minutes of very awkward explanations later, Aunt Hannah was staring at me with the kind of abject disappointment, shame, and complete disbelief that I'd really only seen on my father. After what felt like hours of pained silence, she finally opened mouth.

"What," She said flatly.

"Well...I mean…" I started, "it seemed like a good idea at the time?"

"You say that like you made a mistake," She said with a dangerous gleam in her eye.

"...yes?" I said, nearly wincing at the pitch.

"And it was?"

"Um...drugging you?"

Aunt Hannah gave me a pitiless smile and a humorless chuckle, her dark eyes promising nothing but grim tidings in my future.

"I'll let you think on that," She said, getting up and patting me on the shoulder as she walked to the door. "In the meantime, I'll be heading towards a window before we get blown up."
I blinked.

"Wait, What?!"

I yelled, jumping up to my feet and chasing after her.

"You didn't think I came out here alone, did you?" She asked, a smile in her voice.

"I mean...I did, actually." I frowned, "But if you weren't the only one out here, why'd you come in alone?"

"Well, it's hard to remember, since the past hour is a bit fuzzy thanks to somebody," She said pointedly.

I winced. "Sorry."

"Hmph," She kept moving.

Still, I could tell she didn't know where she was going.

"Let me lead the way," I said, jogging in front of her, "It's the least I can do."

"Yes," She said drily. "It is."

Oh yeah, I'm going to have a fun week I grimaced, already envisioning the endless taunts from dad.

A few turns later, I'd taken us to the outer wall facing a row of broken windows.

"This'll do," Aunt Hannah said, pulling on her power in a flash of green light to summon a sledgehammer. A few bashes against the fractured glass to clear out the sharp edges, and she dismissed it.
While she worked, I couldn't help but worry about what she'd said. "So...blowing up?"

"Yeah," She nodded, turning her power into some kind of boxy-device attached to pistol grip and a collapsible stock. "Yeah, well it's a bit fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure I went out with a drone escort."
"A...a what?" I blinked in disbelief, "You guys fly drones up there?"

"Yeah, all the time," Shen shrugged and clicked a button and a blinking green laser light shone out of one end. "But they're autistic, so it's fine."

At my befuddled look, she explained. "That means they're specifically designed not to communicate with other devices, especially through digital networks. Instead, they rely on things like laser or quantum coms to interact with whatever station they're tethered to. Combined with the best Ladon encryption codes out there, they're as close to unhackable as you can get."

"There's an ocean of difference between 'unhackable' and 'mostly unhackable'." I pointed out.

"Well, the only way you could get access to them is by directly plugging into the drone, or into the station it's tethered to. Even then, you have to get through encryption algorithms devised by the greatest tinker in the world." Aunt Hannah responded, "command figures the power projection and long term support that the drones offer is more than worth the risk. Given how effective they've been since we introduced them, I have to agree."

"I feel like most people would be opposed to the idea of a bunch of robots hanging over their heads watching their every move just waiting to turn on them." I frowned.

"Yeah, well it's not exactly common knowledge. They use stealth tech to stay quiet." She explained, nodding at her device and leaning out the window to point it up into something in the Brockton Bay skyline. "And I need to tell it that I'm ok before command shoves missile or two down our throat."

"They're armed!?" I shouted, feeling the hysteria creeping in.

"Not like that," She waved me off nonchalantly, "Not these ones anyhow. Best they got are some less than lethal measures like foam grenades or stun lances. It's biggest weapon is its sensor and communications package."

"The PRT has a direct line to the Naval base out in the. Wouldn't take but a few calls to send some UCAV's to check the situation out. Maybe even some Marines or a couple of cruise missiles if they're feeling trigger happy."

"Are you fucking insane?!" I exclaimed, "You'd really turn the middle of the city into a warzone?"

"We're already at war, Amelia" She answered coldly.

The display on her device lit up, a happy little chime pining off it. She smiled with her eyes as the faintest smirk played upon her lips. "We're good. Looks they sent Armsmaster this way instead of a missile. Heck, knowing him he might still swing by."

I scowled, my bones twisting under my skin in discomfort. The idea of armed drones hanging up there, waiting to rain down destruction at any moment feeling deeply unsettling. And the idea that Aunt Hannah knew about it and was ok with it?

It made me feel sick.

It wasn't too much longer for Aunt Hannah to finish her work up. She sent a few updates to her eye in the sky, and console made sure she was alright. I figured part of it included codes and passphrases for making sure she wasn't mastered or under duress. The most surprising part was what she said next.

"Alright," She said, pulling herself back inside the hall, her posture ever so slightly more relaxed than before. "Gave console the update on the situation, and about how I'll be finishing my investigation. Also told them about you."

"You told them about me?" I said, taken aback.

"Well," She rolled her shoulders, the boxy device in her hands flickering into a basic gauss pistol holstered on her thigh, "Not you specifically, but that I'd met up with an independent friend and I'd be looking into things with them."

"Huh," I said, relieved, "I guess that makes sense. Wouldn't want them to freak out if they catch a glance of me with you."

"Yeah, I'll probably get grilled about it later at base, but we have protocols for this kinda stuff." She agreed.

"What are you gonna tell them?"

Aunt Hannah sighed, her shoulders slumping forward, "it's probably going to be a messy conversation and involve a whole lot of redactions."

I furrowed my brow, "Why would you be redacting anything?"

"Because your identity is classified." Aunt Hannah explained.

At my blank, stunned, expression she continued.

"The government has files on your whole family, Amy. They did it because of Annette. It's not a particularly special case, either. My understanding is that we've got detailed files on the personal lives of every major parahuman operating in North America." She said, "It's just that those files are classified at the highest levels. Most people working in the PRT don't know they exist, let alone what's inside them. The only reason I have access to your mother's file is because, well, I helped make it."

"So you just have fucking specs on all of us!" I shouted, "You're analyzing our every fucking moment, trying to see if we step out of line or what you can use as leverage?"

"Or course." She shrugged, "the 14th was a wakeup call. We thought we understood Archon, but we'd never seen that level of sleeper cells coming. It was the kind of threat we'd never considered since the cold war, and even then, nothing on this level. The fact that he'd discovered a loophole to avoid precogs only made it all the more terrifying."

"If we have to sacrifice a little freedom to keep this nation's people safe, I'll gladly pay that price."

"That's easy for you to say," I scowled at her, "you're a part of this system, you're a cog in the machine. What about the rest of us? How do we know that the government won't abuse this power? How do we know they won't use this information to quietly silence the troublemakers?"

"They're laws in place to stop that. Checks and balances. The constitution provides for-"

"Like that really matters." I cut her off, "The constitution is only a piece of paper, it only matters as long as people listen to it. If the whole government decides it likes it nice comfy throne and it wants to burn that ancient scrap of whims in front of us, what the fuck are you gonna do about it?"

She stared at me for a long hard moment. There was a conviction in her eyes, a fiery light of pride and truth that refused to be snuffed out. But how the fuck was I supposed to back down? How was I supposed to just nod along to the idea of this country becoming a police state?

Finally, she opened her mouth. "You need to have faith in the American people, Amelia."

"I would think you'd know something about that."

I exploded in fury, my skin literally bristling flickering in an array of aggressive colors, bones cracking and jutting out of my flesh in jagged spikes, and eyes flashing with orange bioluminescence.
"Don't you fucking dare!" I growled, "You don't know the first thing about faith!"

Aunt Hannah just looked at me coldly and said, "I know if we'd had these policies two years ago, your mother would still be alive."

And like that, all the fight drained out of my body. In its place, I felt a cold discomfort.

Is...is that true?

I didn't want it to be, but...it made a certain kind of sense. I wanted to deny it, but no one could deny the kind of damage Archon's sleepers had done, or that it had lead to mom's death. Would it have been enough? Would that kind of tradeoff been worth it? I was hardly the only person who lost something that day, what about everyone else? Would they have been spared pain if the government had played big brother earlier? Was freedom worth the price for safety?

Suddenly, I wasn't so sure anymore.

"...Sorry," I muttered, shrinking in on myself. I felt small now, like an idiot child put in her place. I felt like I should have been right, I wanted it so badly to be true. But…
But at the end of the day, I wanted my mom back.

"Sorry," I repeated, hanging my head, "I just…"

Aunt Hannah stopped me with another hand on my shoulder. "I know," She said simply.

There wasn't any anger on her face now. No more stone or coldness. The fire was still there, but it was now burning with the warmth of understanding.

She didn't need to say anymore.

"Come on," She walked back into the building, "If I remember right I came out here to investigate the spike in Merchant activity. I'm hoping I can ask some of those guys you got tied up about the recent kidnappings, border expansion, and this 'black ooze'."

I chuckled mirthlessly. "Ah...yeah...about that…"

She sighed tiredly, "I'm not going to like the answer to that, am I."

"If it helps, dad already chewed me out over it?" I offered.

"Hmm. We'll see how he feels about it after this newest escapade."

I winced.

"Er, well, in that case I already have my own lead on some stuff,"

She eyed me from the side, "Oh?"

I chuckled, feeling a bit nervous now that I was on the spot. "Yeah…"

Although...now that I think about it…

"Yeah...and I think you can help me out with it."

/-|-\
\/-\_|_/-\/
/\-/_|_\-/\
\-|-/​

A/n:
Alright, next chapter out. Hope ya'll are having a nice holiday season. More importantly, I hope ya'll like this chapter.

I had both my beta's go over it, and they said its good, so here you go. Most worried about the whole Aunt Hannah thing since, well, there wasn't much in the way of leadup for it.

Ah well. I've got a plan and it either works or it doesn't. No use worrying about it now.

Next chapter will be out...in a week? Maybe?

I'm doing a lot of updating to a bunch of stories right now and I'm working on posting a new one. Most of it's reviving dead stuff, like the quest I did, Hunger, and a Law of Iron. Once this arc is over I'll probably shift over to monthly posting, as planned.

Though I dunno, maybe my new story will bomb harder than Nagasaki and I'll fall back to this.

We'll see what happens. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the season and this chapter.

I'll worry about everything else later.

Now I got to get back to trying to prep my new fic for posting.

Joy.

 

[ccstat]

Thanks for the Christmas gift! I was really excited to unnwrap this update.

Most worried about the whole Aunt Hannah thing since, well, there wasn't much in the way of leadup for it.

Click to shrink...

The hints of it in the Annette flashback were clear enough that this feels like the payoff of foreshadowing rather than a surprise. I honestly wasn't expecting to get more info on that relationship yet, so it was pleasant to see it brought up so soon.

"I am so fucking grounded," I sighed despondently ...
"Sorry Aunt Hannah."

Click to shrink...

I really expected her to double down on the amnestics at this point, and hope that her involvement went entirely forgotten. It was nice to see the responsibility Danny has encouraged / drilled into Amelia have made her a lot better at owning her decisions than many teen protagonists in wormfics.

I scowled, my bones twisting under my skin in discomfort

Click to shrink...

This was a very unpleasant sentence to read, just after being reminded that this autibiokinetic can do all sorts of unnatural things with her body language. Excellent job repurposing a common phrase to have greater significance / meaning.

Though I dunno, maybe my new story will bomb harder than Nagasaki and I'll fall back to this.

Click to shrink...

It's probably bad form to want this to be the case. I will do my best to hope for your success there instead of selfishly trying to sabotage your other projects so I get more Progenitor.

 

[Metaldragon868]

Progenitor: Chapter 15


/-|-\
\/-\_|_/-\/
/\-/_|_\-/\
\-|-/​

A/n: Sorry for the delay and how sparse this chapter is.


The two of us stood in front of the elevators in the main lobby. All in all, we were quite the contrast. I was currently a young, tall, muscular caucasian girl with pale skin, freckles, and decked out in enough leather to run a biker gang. Aunt Hannah beside me, on the other hand, was a comparatively short, bronze-skinned, woman with a runner's build decked out in olive green unpowered light armor, combat webbing, and enough star-spangled glory to run the fourth of july.

I walked up to the door, namely the keypad, while Aunt Hannah looked pensively at the secure slabs of metal. I wasn't sure what she was thinking, either if they were intimidating to her, suspicious, or wondering how much boom she could get away with using to knock it down before someone chewed her out for it.

"So…" I began, " I was going to see if I could trick the biometric sensor into thinking I'm Max Anders since I figure if anyone would have access it'd be the big boss,"

Then I caught the ghost of a smile on Aunt Hannah's face and frowned.

"What?"

"Nothing," she waved it off.

I held my gaze for another moment, before shrugging it off. "Anyways, I figure I can get a good enough estimation of his DNA, and I could probably match his voice and appearance perfectly if I wanted. The real problem would be trying to match fingerprints."

I hummed as I tapped my bottom lip, thinking through the problem again. Already my neural net was burning through solutions. "See, your fingerprints aren't tied to your DNA, they're shaped by your life experiences. So's a lot of things, actually, like height. Even identical twins can grow up to have different heights and prints based on diet, exercise, and basic wear and tear through life."

"Still, I did manage to get a couple of partial prints off his penthouse down the block. It's not perfect, but it is a basis to work with," I continued as I walked up to the panel to inspect it closely. "You know if I'm lucky I might even be able to grab a couple of prints off this thing."

I leaned in closer, modulating my eyes to pick up finer details of close up objects. Picking apart the details in the dust on top of the glass, I could get something, but it was looking like they were far from well preserved. I wasn't surprised, I'd barely gotten anything from his penthouse and that hadn't just been the scene of a firefight.

Still…

"I might be able to cobble something together," I said, reaching out with a finger to pick up the dust and get a reading. "At the very least, I might be able to get a base to start working on some combinations. Shouldn't take me more than a few thousand tries to get."

I turned to the number pad, where it looked like there a few more. All the better, really. "Just sit tight and I'll-"

Clamp

I jumped, jerking up at the sound, only to notice a strange disc-like object attached to the doors. With a few clicks, it expanded into a series of rings attached to the door at roughly the height of a person.

I opened my mouth, "What's-"

Aunt Hannah cut me off by yanking me back away from the panel. She pressed some kind of trigger-like device in her hands, and the rings on the door began to hum. She looked down at the screen wrapped around her forearm. As she worked on it, the door began to heat up and glow, the waves of superheated air radiating off it distorting the light. After tapping a few buttons and manipulating the screen for a few moments, she shrugged and pressed the trigger.

The door exploded inwards in a blinding cloud of superheated gas, vaporized metal, and plasma. As my eyes took in every scene, the radiation forcing me to replace the cells just as fast as they burned out from the intensity, I could see the cloud of plasma deflected away from us and pushed back into the door and elevator by field of distorted air emitted by the rings.

When it was done, the rings hung in the air for another moment, before collapsing to the ground with a clatter, unharmed by the small sun it'd created. The elevator, however, was a different story. A neat hole had been melted into the once pristine platinum doors, ringed with white-hot metal. The inside of the elevator was little more than cooling slag, even the floor had been melted away and dripped down the shaft.

For a moment, I was at a loss for words.

"Come on, Amy," Aunt Hannah said, patting me on the shoulder again. The ringed device on the ground disappeared in a flash of green light, and some kind of oversized grapple gun mated with a harpoon gun appeared in her hand. "We're gonna need to head down."

"What the hell was that?" I finally said.

"What, that?" she answered nonchalantly, "Just a breach kit."

"You're telling me the way you guys open doors is to make a fucking star?" I exclaimed.

"Don't be melodramatic, Amy," she waved me off, "This is for special and heavy ops, and it's a variable yield smart device. It scanned the area and found no traps or alarming sensors, so I decided to cut out the middleman with the most expedient method."

She gestured to the now missing floor of the elevator. "I knew it'd clear out the area, and it gave us our route down."

Aunt Hannah walked up to the door and planted her feet. She braced the gun against her shoulder and fired it at the floor with a powerful Thump. The massive spike slammed into the ground, it's tip buried in the marble floor, then it began to hum and vibrate. As it spun up, the spike moved like a drill and dug it's way deeper into the floor.

When it was done, she tested the anchor with a few tugs. Satisfied, she backed over to the door and looked down the hole.

"You need a ride down?" she asked as she attached the cable to some kind of harness on her combat webbing.

I sighed, forcing the weirdness and discomfort away from me. Aunt Hannah lived in a different world from me, dad, or even Aunt grace. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised how much of a different outlook it'd all given her. I'm not sure even Mom had lived anything like her life.

"No," I said, already dissolving into a swarm of fireflies. "I'll be fine."

As she looked at my growing swarm of glittering lights, I saw a genuine smile stretch across her face. The way the edges of her eyes crinkled ever so softly, her lips pulled into a gentle grin, the glow of my being bathing her sun-kissed skin in warm light, it all reminded me of happier times. The smell the ocean breeze and barbeque, the sun sitting low on the horizon and the fire illuminating the night, and the sound of laughter and joy.

I pushed the memories away before the pain became too much.

"Well, then, here we go," she said, then jumped back.

And down we fell, into the depths of hell.

/-|-\
\/-\_|_/-\/
/\-/_|_\-/\
\-|-/​

At the bottom of the elevator was another heavy security door. I briefly considered trying to open it myself in an effort to show off in front of Aunt Hannah, but looking over my stores I wasn't really up for it.

I couldn't get tired, not precisely as humans meant it anyways. I could get bored, and I suppose I wasn't immune to a certain level of mental fatigue from doing stressful or repetitive things, but truly natural human exhaustion and tiredness were trivial things for me to cycle out of my system. I could, however, run low on resources. Biomass in particular, but there were other inorganic compounds and elements that I liked to have stores of to utilize at a moment's notice.

With Aunt Hannah having disintegrated about half of me, and roughly half of my stores along with it, I was running low. I wasn't in danger of death or anything, and I still had plenty enough mass to maintain the shape of Amelia Hebert, but anything outside that was stretching things a bit. I had very little wiggle room and I didn't feel like pushing it if I didn't have to.

Besides, watching her blow doors down with a ball of plasma wasn't getting old anytime soon.

As the glowing edges of the ring rapidly cooled when exposed to open air and the breach kit clattered to the ground again, I decided to comment on the decidedly unsubtle approach we'd gone with.

"I sure hope no one heard that,"

Aunt Hannah just shook her head and chuckled. She flexed her fingers and the breach kit disappeared in another whirl of green light. It flowed back to her like a loyal dog, reappearing in her hands as what looked like a spec-ops version of the standard military gauss rifle. It was shorter than most of the others I'd seen, and had another barrel slung under the primary one, along with a variety of other attachments I couldn't begin to guess at.

"Come on, Amy." She gestured a hand forward and I followed her up to the simmering hole in the door.

We stepped through the hole and immediately I knew something was wrong. The lights were off, so we couldn't see much, but the molten glow from the breach gave me something to work with. Shifting the rods and cones around in my eyes allowed me to fine-tune my vision to suit the dimming light, not that there was much to see.

We were in a hall. A long hall that slowly sloped downwards until I couldn't see anything but a dim red glow at the end. By our right was a guard shack with what looked like gun emplacements, and by our left was what looked like a small monorail that followed the hall with a trolley designed to hold packages, but not people.

The walls were made of, from what I could tell, concrete and the floor was a kind of sleek tile. There were defunct cameras in the corners, vents along the tops of the walls, and dead lights in the ceiling. A sleek strip of paint labeled this area sub-basement 2, and pointing down the hall was an arrow labeled, "Hazardous Biological Experimentation Lab 1 & 2".

That was disconcerting enough on its own, but I could also smell something. Various body fluids, ammonia, grease, oil, battery acid, and most notably, honey and sickening sweetness. The scent was faint, but it was definitely much stronger than anywhere else I'd gotten it in the city.
Aunt Hannah took another step forward, but I held a hand out to stop her.

Most worryingly of all were the tiny divots and scratches in floor, along with various holes punched into the concrete. They were small and precise, but deep, likely from some high-velocity gauss weapon of a low caliber if I had to guess. There was no pool of blood or anything where we were standing, in the entryway, but the blood I could smell from the shack and further down the hall didn't exactly make that a good thing.

"Careful," I said, frowning as I continued to break down the chemical composition. I decided to let the worry show on my face so she'd know I was serious. "I can smell the chemical I've been tracking down here. I don't know if the drug's airborne or how it'll affect you, but I can't recommend getting a lungful."

"Plus…" I continued, taking in another strong whiff just to make sure, "...There's blood. Lots of blood. And I think something shot its way through here."

She held my gaze cooly for a moment, her eyes searching my expression for something, but eventually nodded carefully. She reached into her combat webbing and pulled out a band of bent metal about the size of a thick and wide hairband. She pressed a button and it expanded into a segmented metal mask. When she placed it on her face, the metal segments expanded and contracted to conform to it.

After a moment of reformatting, a silvery liquid metal flowed out of specific ports along the side and covered the front of the mask in a shimmering, flawless, almost mirror-like surface. At the edges of it, though, my eyes could pick up what looked like tiny cameras, sensors, and even ventilation along the jaw.

"Alright," Aunt Hannah said, her voice coming through with an ever so slight digital effect, "Hud's not picking anything up right now, but I'll trust your judgment, Amy. I should be good with this, whatever we find down there."

I nodded in agreement. "I should probably go first then, just in case."

"Just in case?" she questioned.

"Well, I'm the tank here. You're the squishy ranger."

"What?"

"It's…" I sighed. "I'm the regenerative brute/striker...thing. You're mostly just a bog-standard human that's also the 3rd most powerful blaster in the world. I can get shot in the face and make the guy who did it eat the bullet. You still need bandaids."

"...Fair point." She stepped back and allowed me to take point with a sweep of her arm.

I nodded my appreciation. "Thank you for letting me be the bullet sponge."

She swiped her hand along the jaw of her mask, and the liquid metal face of it rippled. Aunt Hannah's smile appeared, not merely a facsimile or a basic smile, but picture-perfect replication of Aunt Hannah's smile with everything from her dimples to the pores of her skin appearing in the silvery surface. It was there for a second, the equivalent of her flashing a grin at me I supposed, and then it was gone, the mask once again a featureless matte grey surface.

I just shook my head and started moving down the hall.

At this point, I was feeling pretty much numb regarding Tinker shock. It was always such a surprise whenever I was hit so bluntly with how advanced Ladon was by now. Most people couldn't afford the good stuff from them, which wasn't surprising considering they were basically a Tinker/Supergenius STEM think tank that also happened to work to turn a profit. The Government, on the other hand, was their biggest customer. People like the PRT and DoD got all the fanciest toys from Hero.

I'd heard it said that compared to the rest of us, they were working with tech at least 30 years ahead of our time. A gap that was growing every day. The fact that so much of it required an infrastructure base that didn't yet exist on a scale to feed their needs was probably the only reason everyone wasn't running around with Disintegrators and such.

Which reminds me…

"Hey, Aunt Hannah?" I spoke up. I didn't bother turning around while I kept up my pace, I didn't need to when I had eyes in the back of my head. "How does it feel to be able to pull more tinker tech out of your ass than Armsmaster?"

She twitched in that way which meant she was suppressing a snort. "It's not tinker tech," she pointed out with a smile in her voice.

"I mean." I shrugged. "It's technology made by a tinker so…?"

"Not by themselves," she countered, "it's Ladon tech, made by the best human minds and tinkers working together to break boundaries."

"Ok, yeah, that's the company tagline, but I mean...come on."

"Well, as far as my power is concerned, it's not tinker tech."

"A disintegrator rifle isn't tinker tech?"

"If you want, I could spend the next five days explaining in painful detail how each part was manufactured and it's function in disintegrating any and all biological material," Aunt Hannah answered dryly, summoning the weapon with a swirl of green light.

"No thanks." I cringe, gently nudging the barrel away from me." Getting half vaporized was more than enough detail for me."

Aunt Hannah was quiet for a moment, probably for a wince. "Sorry about that, again. Are you sure you're alright, Amy?"

"It's...well, it's what I get for trying to shoggoth all my problems." I tried to shrug it off. "I'm sorry for ambushing you like that."

She nodded, and for a long moment there was almost total silence. Just the sound of our feet plodding along the long sloping hall to keep us company. As comfortable as it was, something about it felt off, like it had come on the wrong beat or it was out of line with the script. I kept wanting to say something else to fill the silence, but it always felt like it'd been too long since I'd said anything and I couldn't just pick up where I left off without being awkward.

And what if Aunt Hannah wants the silence? I thought, chewing my bottom lip where she couldn't see me fidget just to make myself feel better. I mean, she's the professional here. Silence probably makes sense for all that tactical stuff.

"...You know…" Aunt Hannah eventually said, breaking me out of my thoughts.

I struggled not to whirl around with my jaw slack and go "Huh?"

Instead, I just twisted my head so I could look at her from the corner of my human eyes.

She tapped her mask again, a faint smirk briefly appeared, "Armsmaster does love to whine about all the toys I can pull out."

I chuckled. "That's hilarious. I can already imagine the salty Armsmaster mem-"

A tile shifted under me.

Click

Then the world went blank.

/-|-\
\/-\_|_/-\/
/\-/_|_\-/\
\-|-/​

A/n: Right, so again, sorry for the delay.

And I'm sorry for how sparse this chapter is. It was supposed to be roughly twice as long, but I've been working on it for more than two months, and I realized that this is the end of February right here.

This is as much to get something out there as it is for me to get some kind of momentum in my writing for Progenitor again.

So I'm sorry this is all I got.

However, the good news is that the next chapter is...well, it's at least planned out. I say it's written, and it technically is, but Trav has some points about it that i need to fix, and I need to get the tone right, and it's this big whole thing.

I'm going to try and get it done soon, but I make no promises on when it comes out.

Again, sorry I can't deliver more sooner, and I'm sorry this whole thing is getting dragged out. At this point I'm mostly focused on making any forward progress as opposed to solid leaps and bounds.

Hopefully, you'll allow me that at the least. And hopefully I didn't miss anything major in my rush to post.

 

[NecroMac]

yea, I do believe that Armsy would be really salty about MM, unless something already have humbled him in this timeline