A/N: The Worm and Gamer are not mine by copyright.I am just using the characters there to write a story of my own fantasy. And as such this is my first story and would like your constructive criticism.
Renewal
October 2009, Brockeridge Atlanta
A girl was sobbing near a cemetery to herself looking at the graves stones there. There were three each next to each other. It was well taken care of with fresh flowers presented in front of them. The girl was muttering sorry to herself again and again.
In the main road near the town hall of the place where that cemetery was located a van came to a screeching halt. After few minutes a Man in a Blazer and a Girl in a Blue frock with a Labcoat got down and stretched themselves.
"Well Poppet, Looks like we have arrived here. Now its time to start the show. Got your toys ready?", the man asked the little girl. The girl no more than ten years old nodded meekly. The man seeing her expression added, "Remember Poppet, Nothing matters in this life except exhibiting our base desires. You saw how people turned on each other given a little freedom from the rules tying them to civility. So enjoy the Show poppet. Don't be sad.", with that the man patted her head muttering, "Be a good girl for Uncle Jack now."
The man Jack, turned towards the Van and whistled. Three women got out, One an young adult middle eastern looking female wearing glasses as her garb, A nude catlike woman in stripes and another a woman riddled with burn scars. The latter however was fidgeting and looked as though she wanted the earth to swallow her up.
"Time to Start Miladies", with that he lit a match and threw it to the scar ridden woman whose gaze first widened and then took on a cruel visage over her face. The glass garbed woman, smirked and screamed. Silicates around them shattered and the blood massacre began.
The girl still crying the cemetery heard the cry and saw the glasses shattering around her. A horror stricken look came upon her before changing to rage. A rage which looked out of place on a high school student not more than eighteen years of age.
With that she turned towards the grave once more and swore, "Mom, Dad, Gemma I wont let the fucker who killed and defiled your corpses those years ago live anymore. This I promise as your daughter. Give me luck. Bye and Maybe I'll see you soon."
With that, she wiped away her tears and started to move towards the street, Away from the chaos as a fire started to blaze two blocks away and a figure in glass was flying in the skies showering everyone in the glass a few blocks in the other direction. Ducking in to a street on to her left, she immediately went to the basement in the house there.
Going towards a table, she opened a cache full of weapons. In a set of well practiced moves she assembled various weapons which were made of non silicate material and armored herself up. Within ten minutes she was ready. Nodding to herself, she moved out on her hunt.
The Girl went over the plan in her head. First she needed to disable their transport to prevent them from leaving the city. She slowly started searching for any undamaged Vehicles which was in a good enough size to carry equipment for their biotinker. She already the general direction from where the flames started.
Stepping over another body part, maybe a leg, she steeled her heart once more at the horror of the massacre and still going screams all over the town and moved towards the probable location in her mind making sure to keep to the small alleyways and deserted lanes to get there as she did not want to attract the attention.
Finally locating a Green Van, she noticed the Driver still sitting holding on to the steering wheel. He was wearing a manic grin on his face. A second later from her hiding place she saw a cat like woman appear near him and he stared at the woman who once damaged Alexandria, the unbreakable invulnerable woman of the Triumverate, She had the same manic grin as the Driver. Making herself small behind the dumpster near her spying position to not be discovered, she calmed her breathing and started taking shallow silent breaths. Wanting a distraction she took a smoking grenade loading it in custom sling before lobbing it off in the opposite direction. Where it hit a small bakery with a bang and made some smoke.
By the time the woman now identified by the girl as Siberian, moved to the place to investigate, she had loaded another grenade in to her sling. To test her suspicion she aimed at the car and let loose the grenade low which after traveling the hundred feet to Van, crashed in to the back of the now open van and released a fast dissipating smoke and then detonated. Mean while after launching, the observed the Siberian using her binoculars. When she heard the detonation of her special bomb, the Siberian disappeared. She patiently sat for a while, waiting for any of the much feared gang to come back, True to her expectations the Man in the Blazers, Jack Slash and the Glass Garbed woman Shatterbird came to the scene of their now smoldering transport. Jack had a look of rage in his eyes while Shatterbird was looking around in consternation.
Again, she loaded another grenade and shot it over to them, it went over them in an arc but by then Jack had located her perch. The explosion came but she was the one to black out.
When she came on to, she was not able to see. Her throat was dry and she couldn't feel anything below her neck. Her face felt like she had gone through a meat grinder. Rasping she tried to turn around a noise she heard.
"Well, Look who woke up poppet. The underpowered girl who took out your Aunty Siberian and Big sister Shatter bird. Why don't you give her some water? She looks like she could talk a bit. After all we need to be civil towards our guest as a good host right?", he laughed.
"Alright Uncle Jack.", a little kids voice answered him. That must be their new Biotinker, surmised the girl.
She felt a hand coaxing her mouth open and feed her some water. She drank it in sips before sputtering the excess fallen in to her mouth. The bottle receded.
"What do you want to say girl? Felt nice to kill some of us ain't it so?"
"Fuck you bastard. But yeah, it felt nice looking at the rage on your face as you saw that your pet projector burnt in Flames. Must have been nice seeing for someone else to figure out the secret."
Jack, not visible to her, laughed.
"I am impressed. A non parahuman taking out two S- class capes and injuring me, taking my left had off and my right eye breaking my skull in the process. But, I am not angry. You see after we leave this place with your body dying on this table, I'll gather rest of my friends and recruit some more in the next city. Break down the helms holding the illusion of civility, I'll get new members clamoring to join us. What you did barely hurt us.", Jack proclaimed.
The Girl by now was Gnashing her teeth.
"You are hiding behind a little girl to give you invulnerability Jack. Probably terrorized her in to joining right?"
"I just merely showed her the truth. Why don't you tell her Poppet?"
"Yeah, Uncle Jack made me realize that no matter what one should always enjoy what they want freely and what everybody wants is Misery and Pain.", a young girl's voice replied flatly.
"Hah! Where's the cheer Riley. Why don't you show Uncle Jack some of your Ideas? You see girl...Riley found that you look like her pet muffles and she lost her pet when we met unfortunately. She wants you now to be her pet."
"No Uncle Jack.I like her. She reminds me of my favorite cousin Toph. Can we let her go? She's already blind and lost her legs. She can't do anything anymore, can you let her go, Please?", The girl begged.
The girls mind started to fill with cold rage at the man who caused this.
"Whats this Riley? You already have us for family. Burnscar over there in the hall is your Big Sister right? Now she's lonely missing Shatterbird and Aunty Siberian. Don't you want a little revenge. Remember how Siberian petted you and Shatterbird feed you after you joined us the first few weeks? Don't you want blood for that?"
The girl a small shuffle and sharp cry. "I don't wanna kill anymore. Mommy told me to be a good girl. I wanna go home". After which the girl felt a small pin prick on her hand. Which was the first ever feeling. Next she heard a small noise and a tearing sound.
"Not good Poppet. Trying to kill me with a Spider now. See you hurt yourself. Now who's going to help you?", the Psychopath asked. Only a whimper in answer. The Girl felt a chill to her bone. He was hurting a kid to do his bidding. But suddenly a wave of heat wash over her.
"Leave her alone Jackass.", A crash sounded after that.
"Whats this turn on Jack day? Good thing Crawler and Hatchet Face are not here with us to do their own thing. Join the Girl and Riley here Burnscar. Don't know how you got control of the flames, but you can die without seeing your Elle, Maybe I'll turn her to one of us instead of you.", Jack announced gleefully. There was a pain on her head and she saw white.
The Girl lost hope as her vision blacked out. She couldn't kill the Murderer who killed her family or save a little girl from his clutches. Ultimately she had done nothing, with Jack being alive, Slaughterhouse will continue. Her vision dimmed. She saw two great entities spiraling each other. One of the shards in them fell down on her.
[Destination]
[Agreement]
[Trajectory]
[Agreement]
[Initializing]
When she awoke again after the vision she was already forgetting, her brain was aching with the senses she was receiving. All was a cacophony of Loud Noise. She could see the Noise. She could see a figure lying over her body clutching her stomach and a small figure clutching her neck on the floor. Their hearts were slowing down and spider like creatures were now operating on both of them. She still couldn't feel her legs.
In the other side of the room another figure was struggling to stand up. Looked to be male. Seeing his heart beat, she felt rage and screamed. He fell over backwards hitting his head on the damaged part over the edge of a table there and crumpled.
She didn't stop screaming even after his heart stopped beating.
February 2011, Brockton Bay.
A small truck strode in to a Garage near a ramshackle house. A twenty something women with Red Hair and a face with freckles , a costly Travelers shade covering her eyes and also an annoyed look on her face got down. Her eyes were weary yet held a light looked determined after looking at the street. In an annoyed voice she yelled in to the back of the truck.
"Get up you sleepy heads. We are here."
A small pandemonium occurred in the back of the truck. A thirteen year old girl with black hair, brown eyes and Dusty colored skin came down first yawning as such and clutching a small dog towards her chest, following her another dusty colored woman in her late twenties got down or rather fell down after missing a step.
"Damn that operation last month. I should've listen to you guys and waited, i still can't get the balance. Atleast that burning bitch in my head is gone with those accursed powers", she mumbled. Looking concerned the first girl and the teen helped her up.
"Becca don't worry, you know Riley here. She'll fix you soon enough.", the Diver girl comforted Becca with a hug.
"Yes, Toph is right. Gimme a few weeks, you'll be right as Rain", Riley added with a bobble of her head.
Eyes misting up, "Its ok guys, now I can see Elle, who knows we can even help her also now that I am sane again.".
With that exchange the trio, started to unpack and walked in to their new home.
A week after the Girl called Toph with her ever accompanied shades started her usual morning regimen, running. As she ran through the nearby neighborhood, she was reminiscing her past year as well as monitoring the area for any potential threats. She didn't want to move again from this city after shifting town after town to avoid any trail to Brockeridge.
A couple of days after the attack news that S9 had attacked the town reached the outside world, the PRT came to see if any survivors had been left alive. They were disappointed as usual as the trio was long gone from the place. Onsite the PRT found the now Identified Dr. Manton and Shatterbirds remains as well as Jack slash's corpse. In the basement they found a dismembered body with burn scars and a small girls body which had DNA to the earlier samples they found in the other city. With that they declared four of the seven now present S9 to be dead. Crawler and Hatchet face was found to be missing while Mannequin was captured after a long hunt in Boston and was executed on the spot by the hero Mouse Protector.
After they had killed Jack Slash, She had asked Riley to set up clones of them for the PRT to find. They needed to escape from public identity to recuperate and for Becca and Riley to set up alternate identities and also they needed to deal with Becca's alternate personality while moving. Agreeing to that, Riley according to Toph's suggestion set up the clones bodies and also had made a mild relaxing drug to be consumed by Becca to keep her aggression at bay which was what was found to be the trigger for her alternate personality.
After that to move out, they searched the town for any vehicle which could help them move from the town to any other location. Finding an old beat down car, they took it and left Brockeridge and also their old lives, as a Trio of an Ex- Avenger, an Ex- Murderer and a recovering Mentally Ill Parahuman.
They had moved from town to town using the money they had scrounged from Brockeridge, they changed the Vehicle, after which using Riley skills their looks and using an black market broker with all their money for new identities. In their last stop in Boston, they using an abandoned warehouse operated on Becca to remove Corona Pollentia as well as Corona Gemma as whenever her power activated her alternate personality Burnscar showed up. This was done after a burning incident in their previous stop due to a thug cornering Becca and tried to mug her during which his gun accidentally went off shoot her in the thigh resulting her alternative personality to show up. Which then proceeded to burn the mugger as well as set the nearby buildings to fire before the blood loss knocked her out. During this time, Riley was in the motel sleeping while Toph was out getting supplies for their journey.
Shaking her head from reminiscence, she saw a park in which a couple of kids where running around in excercise. Deciding to join them she move towards them when she saw it. The boy did some thing which caused some weird waves to come from his body before settling down while the girl was carrying some disturbing amount of insects in her hair as well as body. Intrigued she started following them discreetly.
Their conversations intriguing. She followed the boy home after the meeting and noted his address. She wanted to know more. "Can they be helpful capes again?" Was the question in her mind when she went home. Riley was still in the basement setting up her Lab while Becca was sleeping, tired from the journey.
She didn't want to bring either of them in to the superhero business after what they had been through. Becca especially.
Thinking, she went to meet Riley in the Basement. As she had suspected, There was a growing scientist's lab under the basement. Though she had forbidden Riley from using Bonespiders again to distance Riley from her villainous past.
"Hey Kiddo. Hows the Lab coming up?", she asked.
"I need lot more equipments Toph. If we are staying her permanently I can start building some more complicate equipments and some autonomous drones to help me, not the bone spiders but some other designs. I also have some more experiments to be carried out for which I need some monkeys as well as test rabbits. But, should really go to school?", she pouted.
"Yeah Riley, you need to make some friends. I know that we are your family. But, you need friends of your age too. And apart from your tinkering you need to learn other skills Riley. And I also need to get my GED as I had dropped out of High School. School'll be fun too. Give it a try.", after giving a thoughtful glance she gave an enthusiastic nod.
"I have a question actually. I found some interesting kids, maybe highschool while running. They may be new parahumans, but I overheard they are going to become independent superheroes. I am thinking to talking to them. What do you think?", Toph asked.
Riley considering the question in her head, "I think you can guide them and give them some skills. We did collect some local bounties over our travels for money. That could help. You can join them but you should let me also come with you. It'll be fun.", she started serious and then reverted to her kid persona. Rolling her eyes at Riley's antics, She ruffled her hair to which Riley stuck her tongue at her.
"Its okay Kiddo. I know what you want. Let me tell you again, what you did under Jack was under his compulsion. You were little kid for god sake. I know you want to make it right. The right time will come. And I will help you help people again. Who knows here in Brockton Bay we may actually get to help people. Just wait a little longer while I scope out the scene out there. First we need to make sure it is safe for you and that I can protect you. You know people out there will do anything for tinker especially for a Tinker of your Specialization. So wait a bit, little Rabbit".
Coming to an understanding they chatted up a bit about what Toph had learnt about the neighborhood, before getting ready to get the house ready and livable.
In the evening Toph wearing her now Trademark glasses, was out in the neighborhood of the boy. Her powers gave her control and ability to sense sound. With which she could see. Her brain has now been required to not use her eyes which was already damaged.
This power though gave her a great surveillance ability in the area around her. Using it, she saw the boy and the girl getting in to a heated discussion. Hearing about their passionate speech, she smirked and entered the house, clapping. They froze.
"Hello Guys. M'names Toph Sanders and Good Speech. Heartfelt but naive. This is a Goodway to die by discussing your powers in the open even if you felt you were prepared. Shall we take the conversation to somewhere private like a basement?", and smirked looking at their flabbergasted faces.
A/N: Jask Slash's power is a bit wonky after the blast as he couldn't do his usual shtick to convince other parahumans to see his way due to brain damage. Changed the chapter as I felt the last one was not satisfying. Let me know what you think. Another Chapter will be out next week or sooner.
