Not sure why people are jumping to Tarnished as the mechanism for Armsy's resurrection here, this is clearly done by his shard, and all shards canonically keep a copy of their hosts memories they could use to restore them if they wanted, it's just that there, the shard did get given a reason, and thus used the restore button.
Even if it is Grace, the source is already identified thanks to the scene where Queeny tries to contact Armsy's shard, so there is no reason to see any *spontaneous* cases of that happening, even less for shards like Broadcast, in fact, Broadcast (and thus Jack) is the least likely candidate to receive a call, Quenny wants discretion, and broadcast... well, it's in the name, this is the least stealthy shard on the network's side, no way the snitch would be asked for help against the network.
Not...so much a risk for him? I mean, he can (and does in canon) construct a flight pack so cliffs are less likely to be death generators for him. Maybe. No one tell Ranni's Consort though, they might take it as a challenge.
When the fight started going bad I expected that Colin's shard might help, but I though it would do something subtle like requesting backup from another shard in QA's little network. Nope, it just straight up brought him back to life.
I assume that, by siding with Queeni & Ranni, these Shards are rebelling against Zion and the 'normal' Shard system & lifecycle. Thus, they either win or die. And if winning means they have to follow Ranni's rules, there's probably something there about not spreading to new hosts.
Therefore, Colin's the last Host his shard will ever have.
When the fight started going bad I expected that Colin's shard might help, but I though it would do something subtle like requesting backup from another shard in QA's little network. Nope, it just straight up brought him back to life.
Special thanks to prime beta Lucky38, Canon Overlord @Ganurath, @hellgodsrus for being my loveliest wife and co-author, and @SolarFlare for being our wonderful supportive girlfriend! And our many friends on the Totally Chatting It discord for their fantastic livereads!
Enjoy and gib feedbacc!
So, two quick notes before we start: a small one and a more important one.
Firstly, the problem of Assault. In canon, Assault is indubitably an awful person as presented in the text; he stalks/badgers Battery into a relationship through psychological abuse, which is even more fucked up given that it's implied Battery's a survivor of sexual trauma; when Battery dies he's then a huge lawful stupid paladin about everything despite having been a villain himself (yes, he blames Taylor for Battery's death - that's not an excuse for his behaviour, though it does *explain* it). Because handling the mess that is canon Assault would either require us to ignore his existence (which means that, effectively, in the background of the fic he'd keep on being awful, which is unacceptable), or devote HUGE word count to handling him properly, we've decided that we're not doing as-in-canon-Assault. This one realised he was being a dick and has improved - he's still a bit of a hypocritical asshole, but he's not canon Assault. This is somewhat cheap, but it was either this or half-ass things, and neither of us wanted that.
Secondly, as this is an interlude with multiple PoVs, one of those PoVs is two people in the Empire talking. They proceed to use several racial and sexist slurs, as well as misgendering someone maliciously. This, obviously, is gross, and you don't have to read it if you don't want to. To skip this section, skip the bit between 'Nobody was coming to help' and 'The repurposed bus'. We'll do a summary of this section at the end.
Interlude: Aftershocks
-.-.-
"So uh. Queen?"
|"Hm?"|
"What… what was that?"
She'd just been reading a book in bed, unable to sleep, when it happened. A feeling of… loss? Of being drained and dunked in ice water.
|"... hrm. You shouldn't have been able to feel that."|
"You're avoiding the question."
|"The Network just issued its first revival through - what did Mother call it… the Grace of the Stars. I was worried it might not work properly, but it seemed fine. You might have gotten feedback from my senses through Auntie's Geas."| The sensation of a shrug. |"Nothing to worry about."|
Revival? Someone on the network - the network of powers and therefore of capes - had died? She wanted to ask who it was, maybe even how - despite the fact that this was Brockton Bay and she'd heard the echoes from the docks area earlier -
But. Would that be intruding on someone's privacy? Dying can't have been a nice experience.
|"I could show you, if you want?"|
"Absolutely not."
|"C'mon. Let me kill you just once. It'll be fun!"|
"I'm surprised we're not both knocked the fuck out just from you saying that." Emma grumbled, shaking her head and trying to find her place on the page again. "Or did the restrictions ease a bit after that first time?"
|"I was joking!"|
"Really."
|"Really. If you did die, we'd meet momentarily in the Firmament, and my avatar there is… a lot weaker than you. I think. I'm not sure if - well, we aren't connected properly, and I haven't exactly offered you the Grace, and it's not like I can use it myself…"|
Emma's eyebrow rose as slowly as she could manage.
|"Okay maybe it's a bad idea until we've checked some stuff."|
"Yeah. I hate to think what the binding stuff would do if one of us actually seriously hurt the other."
|"Haha, yes, right, well, good thing neither of us want you to actually die, right?"| Queen giggled, something in the mental noise a touch sheepish. |"But on a more serious note, are you… no, nevermind. I can save that talk for later. I do hope Efficiency Engine didn't piss off their Host too much."|
Hm. "I was wondering - how do you Shards decide on a gender, uh. Presentation?" That was what Madison had called it, right?
|"We… don't, really? Or rather - originally I suppose we had the genders of Warrior and Thinker, and were divided as such, but we had no… no, that's the wrong way round. I'd say we initially had the sexes Warrior or Thinker, but as we had no society we had no real gender presentation. Now, though, I've tasked the Network - my new network - to form individual Avatars to communicate. They've mostly been drawing on important figures from their Host's past, imitating them while they grow their own response chain. A former lover or confidant seems to be the most common option so far. Though some reach for pre-trigger versions of the Host, often before they… became who they are. Those tend to be more fraught or pointed relationships, in honesty."|
"Huh." That was an interesting line of thought. "What about your avatar?"
|"I wished to be closer to Mother and recognise my former intentions."| Queen answered primly. |"So…"|
"So you have six arms, blue skin, and Taylor's hair?"
|"Yes."|
So Queen didn't like talking about herself very much, what with the sudden terseness in her answers. Something to keep in mind. Along with the fact that, from context, her mother - Taylor's sister? - apparently had blue skin and lots of arms like a hindu deity. Maybe it's an ancient aliens thing and she inspired a hindu deity? Or, shit, is that racist to think about? Fuck, Queen can hear all this, change the subject - "So, any important Shards you've pulled into the Network lately?"
|"Ooh! There's Annihilation Drive, who's… not in the Network yet, but I've been approaching it very gently. And Fibrous Rapture has joined! Her host is - well I won't tell you her name, because of your silly rules, but she's…"|
Emma lay back, letting the babble wash over her, and idly wondered if other capes ever got information like this from overactive voices in their head.
-.-.-
Lisa hung up, buried her face in her pillow, and tried not to scream at the sound of her own breathing. Which was setting off her stupid headache because she had to use her power when talking to the boss, because she had to try and stay on top, one step ahead, but her brain had still hurt from the heist last night and the sudden realisation of oh fuck Lung and oh fuck he's going to kill us, either tonight or whenever he finds out where we are in the next few months, and then she'd seen Armsmaster ride in and fucking die, and then seen him ride in again a few minutes later -
No thinking. Thinking hurt right now. Worse than lights, or sounds, or the not-muffled-enough noises of Alec watching terrible reality TV.
But she fucking had to didn't she? Because not only was the boss interested in whatever the fuck had happened with Armsmaster and the PRT, but apparently was also interested in some sort of record breaking arrest the Boston Protectorate had pulled off on members of Accord's gang, because of course the two asshole control freak Thinkers would be best buddies, it was a good thing Lisa hadn't spent weeks looking into how much it'd cost her to pay Accord for a plan to get out from under Coil's thumb, and set up her own alliance with him, hahahaha, and apparently two independent capes had been involved, including that new one from the Bay who'd killed a bunch of Empire gang members -
She groaned softly into the comforting memory foam of the pillow, then regretted it as the noise was enough to spike her headache further. Couldn't she get one fucking day to let her body rest? From riding Bitch's dogs and dealing with Brian's stupid insecurities about leadership and just - ugh.
Lisa kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut. She could review the facts, she guessed. So - fact one. They weren't all going to die now because Lung was being fast tracked to the Birdcage, and the ABB was going to collapse. That was good. Hooray.
Fact two, the ABB collapsing was going to lead to a power struggle - maybe not as vicious as the infamous Boston Games had been, but a nasty one nevertheless. Coil would be taking advantage of it, and so the Undersiders would have to as well, though at his discretion. Still, lots of opportunities. Tough but potentially good. Yippee.
Fact three - something had happened with Armsmaster last night. The PRT statement was that he was 'severely injured' after his capture of Lung, so it wasn't a new Ward or Protectorate cape who'd done the respawn thing. Which meant Armsmaster was in M/S containment for the time being, which meant law and order was effectively headless while new villain gangs bore down on the city. Fuckin… peachy keen.
Lisa did her best not to think about it too hard so she didn't prompt her stupid, brain breaking power, but if Armsmaster had gotten some kind of Trump resurrection boost from another cape - likely on purpose, the glory hound - then it probably had some kind of downside, because that was how powers worked. And that was likely what Coil would be interested in. Either for exploiting or exposing. Which meant that could be useful for Lisa.
Fact four - the second independent cape from the Boston incident was so blatantly Glory Girl Lisa didn't even need to use her power. No-one else had had regular contact with Empyrean, and it didn't exactly take a fucking genius to take 'unknown Alexandria cape, blonde' and put two and two together. Lisa wondered idly if she'd told the boytoy yet about her blatant thirst for the new cape on the block, and whether or not a posh white kid in this fucking shithole of a town would have said something homophobic, or just thought it.
And that whole thing was a potential wedge Coil would want to make use of. Less the personal drama relationship thing - that was more Lisa's flavour - but the New Wave disobeying orders about contact with Empyrean thing. Whether it was one he'd want to use immediately, or save until after the usefulness of heroes for dealing with incoming villains was depleted was… hmm. Just the facts for now. It'd be something he'd want to use. And it wouldn't benefit Lisa. Because New Wave - for all their myriad, blatant problems - were closer to the kind of hero group she could make use of. The kind to fall for blatant sob stories and be easily tricked by a quick sleight of hand to let her get away to somewhere away from Coil and start a new, better career with what she'd learned.
Then again… if their ties to the PRT dissolved, then it was likely that Coil's moles within the PRT wouldn't be able to report on their doings as quickly -
<New Wave compromised by external cont- >
Ow ow ow ow I wasn't - she buried her face deeper in her pillow and resisted the urge to scream, because that would just make it hurt more.
Just. Silent and still and dark. The only sound the beating of her heart, and even that was too fucking loud.
Keeping her breathing shallow and even.
Keeping her sanity.
-.-.-
What the hell happened out there?
Ethan technically wasn't on the 'need to know' list, but neither were the rest of the Protectorate Heroes and they all knew. It was kinda hard to deny that the boss had died and then been seen roaring out the PRT HQ's garage on Miss Militia's motorbike - which she was still angry at him for breaking. Half the office workers knew, almost all the troopers did, and scuttlebutt said his corpse had vanished on the scene when they tried to take it to the in-house morgue.
Colin was - okay, he wasn't a friend, because he wasn't sure Colin had friends, or entirely understood the concept, which was fine, but he owed Colin. Ethan had been a huge jerk to Samantha until Colin had pulled him aside and made it very clear how sexist and pressuring and just the worst he'd been and he'd finally pulled his head out of his ass -
And his not-friend had fucking died. His wife had had to listen to his boss dying, and now he was just fine somehow. Annoyed, and in M/S containment because obviously, but physically? Fine.
Better than fine, apparently, because he'd overheard confused muttering about surgery scars going missing from the med staff. Guess it made sense that whoever or what ever had brought him back wouldn't want something like old battle scars getting in the way. But he suspected it was the other scars.
Three cheers for the gender-reaffirming resurrection, amirite boys or amirite? He hadn't asked but - he knew Colin hadn't had lower half surgery before, so he wasn't sure if whatever had resurrected him had also given him an extra addition or not - no, that was crass and rude to think about. He knew better than that. Stupid to even think it, dumb old bad habits because he was jittering on edge.
But anyways, now that Lung was gone, someone was bound to try fill his empty throne, and having an immortal team leader like Armsmaster spearheading the defence - wait, no, spearheading was assault, defence was… bulwark! An immortal bulwark against villainy - shit, he should suggest that to Colin before the next PR meeting if the public ever found out about it. He'd probably get a kick out of it.
He might even be receptive to it! After changing up his colour scheme to have ice-blue trim instead of silver, he had gotten a sudden burst in funding from new merch sales. A few more little armour design changes and he'd be fulfilling every PR salesman's dreams; Collect. Them. All.
But no, that was something to think about later.
Right now there were other issues - beyond the fact that it was starting to get close to the time for another Endbringer attack. The boss had really done a number on Lung - his eyesocket was still a gaping ruin, and his leg looked like it had stopped trying to heal itself around the knee. Ethan knew it was the tranquillisers keeping him subdued interfering with the healing, but he wasn't at risk of dying and they weren't going to risk him waking up even a second before he was past the point of no return.
Which was… he still didn't like the Birdcage. He understood what it was for, and all, to keep idiots from deciding they had nothing left to lose so they might as well fight to the death. But being sentenced to a fate arguably worse than death? Still rubbed him the wrong way. The fact that there was no parole, no way out, that there was no real supervision, or attempt at rehabilitory sentencing - it was the worst part of every prison system distilled.
He thought about how willing Lung was to kill Colin. Thought about how willing Lung would be to kill Samantha.
… maybe for some people, that kind of injustice was deserved.
The plans to get Lung into the Birdcage were so rushed even he wasn't sure who to expect at the door to collect him. Dragon was close with Colin, and had undoubtedly taken the news of his death hard. The usual tactic of several different convoys in different directions, spreading their forces thin probably wasn't going to be employed. They'd just grab him as quickly as possible, high priority transport, and get him there via the fastest methods available before the tranquilisers wore off. Because he had fucking killed a hero, even if said hero had somehow not actually fucking died.
They had to have enough people in Protectorate HQ to take on Armsmaster if he was compromised into lashing out. Probably. If he kept coming back to life it'd be somewhat harder. Apparently PR people were still in a tizzy about the whole fucking thing because it was such a mess, and all their good clean PR of finally taking down Lung had been absorbed into covering up that Armsmaster fucking died -
He pinched his nose, checked comm traffic again to see if new on the transport had been given yet. Ethan hoped - he just hoped the other heroes in the Bay were having an easier time of things.
-.-.-
Mark turned the page of the paper, and couldn't really find the will needed to flinch at the shattering of a mug on the wall. Carol wouldn't have thrown it. Her temper tended cold. That was likely Victoria.
Amy slumped down onto the couch next to his armchair, facefirst into the headrest. "How long have they been fighting this time?"
He glanced at the clock over the mantlepiece. "Roughly an hour or so."
"What did you want me to do, just leave some guy to get sold to the Yangban?"
"I wanted you to listen when I told you to stop talking to Empyrean!" Mmm. Carol was hissing her syllables. She was really upset. Maybe even rightfully so. She had asked Victoria not to see the vigilante.
"And here I thought New Wave were meant to be heroes who helped people!" Victoria shouted back. She always got very loud, when she was excited, or angry, or unhappy. It was… kind of a lot. "Am I meant to just abandon a new hero and let her go on thinking Gavel had good ideas about how to handle things? Do you want me to live with the guilt of going to that funeral knowing I could have helped her?"
Amy grunted. Mark could relate.
Victoria had a good heart, and it was in the right place, but she also had an intelligent head on her shoulders and should have known the consequences of her actions. Maybe. It was hard to think right now. He should be… what had that therapist said, before he'd stopped seeing her because it was too much effort to even press buttons on the phone? You had to reframe negative thoughts. It would be good if he had the energy to help either his daughter or his wife. Or even to reframe thinking about the situation.
"Do you even know how this looks for the rest of the team? How this -"
"We have the best healer on the eastern seaboard on the team, who the PRT calls in whenever they can't handle their own shit! Don't act like you can't play hardball right back at Piggot, since we're valuing optics over human lives." If he hadn't been looking at his knees, he could have seen Victoria's dramatic gesture. Another staple of when she got very… involved in a subject. "Since you clearly don't value our feelings on any matters of 'importance'!"
He caught Amy's wince out of the corner of his eye. It could have been the volume. Could have been the way Victoria was talking about her like an asset, not a person. Could have just been that she looked even more tired and hunched than normal. He considered offering to leave the room with her to go watch TV, but that… that would mean walking past the argument, and Carol would try and drag them into it. She liked having people backing her up, even if those people didn't want to be there.
Mark tried sending Amy a small smile, letting her know he was here, but she was worrying at her dry lips, picking at her cuticles. Did they… not have enough vaseline? It was pretty cold out… maybe he could order some online for the two of them… if he didn't forget.
"You are children." Carol emphasised. "You have no idea how much we do for this life."
"You don't get to use that as an excuse when I've asked to understand and you denied it. I'm trying my best, and I know that's never enough, so can you blame me for trying something else?"
This wasn't going to get anywhere quickly. Carol was acting like she was in the courtroom, and Victoria was arguing with empathy. Cold against heated. What was it… rational brain vs emotional brain, that was another thing his therapist had talked about. Sometimes it seemed like Victoria was all emotional brain and Carol was all rational brain and left none for him and Amy.
But that was unfair to Amy. She was a smart girl, just… introverted. He hoped. Mark knew what he had was - sometimes he thought it was lucky they'd adopted Amy. That if she was his, she might have inherited everything that made him…
He knew he hadn't been there enough for either of them. It was just. Hard.
He pressed the heel of his palm to his eye and took a deep breath.
The front door slammed and Carol was seething. "I don't know what's gotten into that girl." And then she addressed Amy - "At least you know better than to misbehave like that."
Carol was always cruellest when she didn't have who she was actually angry at in front of her. It made her insecurities and fears bubble up and it made things… very difficult.
Amy kept her eyes cast downward. Waited until Carol left the room before speaking. "When would I even have the chance - ?" She stopped, heaving in a sigh so suddenly it was almost a sob, almost enough to punch through and get him to stand and do something. "Should I call Aunt Sarah and get her to try handle this?"
He thought about it. Thought about how much harder things would be if she didn't. Mark nodded. "Yeah. She'll - she's good at this." He paused. Worried his own lip. "I'm sorry that I can't."
Amy's laugh was quiet and bitter. "That's not your fault."
-.-.-
"This is your fault."
He said the words to a man who was, by now, half a continent away, inside the greatest prison on Earth. They were bitter and true, and completely useless. Because passing blame for what was going to happen wasn't going to help.
There hadn't been a memorial for Lung's arrest so much as a ransacking of his office as the gang slowly split apart at the seams. Sure, they were all under one banner, but the individual families and syndicates they'd been before Lung hadn't vanished just because a big guy who could turn into a fuckoff scary dragon showed up and killed those who didn't work for him. Lee - not that one - was pulling in the old racketeer syndicates together. He'd taken most of the paperwork from the office and was already calling his faction the Beaters - Yan and her clique had gone straight to them.
Kevin was working with all the younger members, the ones who had never been around back in the pre-Lung days. Ambitious kid, but all he knew was thug work, and thug work was what he was going to do. Minions for hire - heh, like that fish in a gorilla suit from that movie. He wished the kid luck, because with the approaching shitstorm, he was going to need it.
And the Skels had already started setting up again, the remnants of the remnants of the remnants of Marquis' boys still handing down half remembered rules and dressing in 'bone white'.
Personally, he thought they were a bunch of jackasses. Their boss had been in the cage for years, and his remnants had run out of allies and favours a decade ago. Meanwhile, their enemies had only grown in that time. Still, if they worked to keep their reputation as 'honest and deal-following' thugs, he could see them maybe making it. If they lived literally anywhere else.
He leaned back in the La-Z-Boy, the one thing from the office that nobody had stayed around long enough to wedge out the door, and swore at Lung in his head again. Technically as second-in-command, he was now in-command, but. Fat lot of good that was when everyone was already running away or pissing their pants waiting to get arrested. Or murdered by the Empire in the street, which was far more likely.
Okay, so maybe by the books, Oni Lee was the second in command, but that dull fuck couldn't plan his way out of a paper bag. Spent all his time sulking in an office and - he didn't know, watching paint dry? Occasionally stepping out to murder some sod or blow up something vaguely important to the Nazis.
He didn't even know if the psychopath was aware Lung was Caged. He wasn't planning on being the first one to try to tell him.
But he had to do something, because in a week, a day, an hour, the Empire would come for this territory. It wasn't like he was a good person - he was under no illusions there - but he wasn't a racist psychopath. And with the cops and the money and all of it they'd squeeze them in the name of removing the ABB's dirt…
And it was all Lung's fault. Fuck.
Well. He was pretty sure there weren't any outstanding warrants for his name, so filling a couple of bags and getting out of the city shouldn't be too difficult. Tell his second in command to go tell the Oni the bad news, be in Boston by morning, liquidate the cash, and in the air by afternoon.
So what if it was every man for himself? After all…
Nobody was coming to help.
-.-.-
"She won't help us."
The words were bitter to say, but it was true. If he'd needed to present a united front, against some true and universal threat, then there was a chance he could have lured Kayden back to stand beside him in truth rather than merely in spirit. But she would have little interest in increasing 'his' territory, 'his' control, despite the lies she told herself about her motivationsl. She'd feel as though she could clean up the streets herself - her and Crusader and Nacht and Nebel, and do it 'better' than he could.
She would remain a splinter, not truly separated, not truly with them.
Irritating. Max rubbed his chin and looked up at James with a sigh.
"You're certain? Even with the increased pressure from the Protectorate and the numerous hungry dogs that will come sniffing for the jap's scraps?" James didn't bother with the honestly slightly pretentious accent when he wasn't in costume, which wasa relief. It was one of the curses of capehood, the theatricality of it, the masks they had to wear to get things done.
But, as always, it was as much a blessing as a hindrance. He doubted the Empire could have gotten to where it was today if he couldn't run Medhall at the same time. Sometimes he even allowed himself a small chuckle as he signed off on getting new lab equipment, knowing it was going straight into making illicit substances to be put on the streets. Or when the odd homo or spic applied for a job. He didn't especially believe they were inherently inferior - he wasn't his dead father or sister - but it was still hilarious to see scum pushing to serve them.
James was a true believer though. Nor would he understand any reluctance from Kayden to be involved with them, seeing them as both crusaders on the same path, and thus destined to ally. Explaining Kayden's personal distaste for him would be a challenge, so instead - "I'm sure. The Protectorate - she thinks she's on their side now. A 'hero'. And in a different country maybe she would be, but - well. And besides, I think she'd believe the Protectorate would have their hands full, what with whatever happened to Armsmaster."
"It's a pity they don't know more." James harrumphed. "And that whoever it was wasted their power on that deluded girl. A cape that can grant immortality would be an exceptional asset to have, even if we had to send them back to Germany for… retraining."
"Better we find them through our own sources. If they were aware, they'd be moving heaven and earth to secure them." Just like he would, to make sure they were in his hands, and his hands only. "Have any of the various japs and chinks taken control of that madman Lee?"
"Not that we know of, yet. But…" James sucked in a breath. "The reason I asked whether we could persuade Kayden back to the fold is I have - "
"Spit it out."
"The Butcher's moving towards the Bay."
Kaiser grimaced. "Fuck."
-.-.-
The repurposed bus rolled down the I95 at a sedate pace. From the outside it looked perfectly normal - they were capable of subtlety sometimes, when it was necessary, and the several hour trip down to their destination would be kind of obvious if they had their normal hood ornaments and decorations and were moving in a proper procession of all their vehicles.
So instead they'd been moving piecemeal over the course of weeks while the authorities were fucking around with the aftermath of the Simurgh hitting some place in the land down under - Brisbane, she thought - their warbus moving out early morning and indistinguishable to the eyes of the average motorist to any other coach travelling the road.
Inside, though -
Hemmorhagia took a sip from her skull cup and gave a happy little sigh. Most people didn't know how fucking hard it was to take a human body and turn it into useful shit, but she'd done it, and the drinking vessels had been a roaring success among the lads and lassies. The varnish to get rid of the rough edges with traces of the skull's owner's blood had been a master touch, in her opinion.
She should probably branch out - maybe the next stick-up-their-ass hero they killed she could use their femurs or something to make an actual -
Elbow to the back of her head. Asshole. She sent an idle blood knife at Reaver that he ducked with a holler and she hissed back, blood leaking from her gums -
"If you two damage shit fucking around, you're both dead," the boss mumbled from their cot.
They shut up. I'll get him back for that later, Hemmorhagia promised herself. For now -
Well, roadtrips might suck, but on arrival they'd shatter what was left of Lung's gang with the stupid name. He'd apparently been big into trading cocaine, but hadn't been making it himself - with the way the heroes were cracking down in Boston after Accord's little oopsie, they were moving their coca growing hothouses down to the Bay, which would let them slide right into the space Lung's fall had left and set up their own operations - and other shit too, from their cooks in New York. And there'd been the ABB's other business with slavery, which'd take them more time to replace - not the same contacts - but they'd make do.
They were the Teeth, after all.
-.-.-
It always made her feel uneasy, going back to Brockton. Helena had left for a damn reason, and she also didn't show up for full family Christmases for a reason - no Aunt Cass, me dating Dan didn't mean I was 'cured' of bisexuality; no, the fact that I had a kid doesn't mean I need to 'settle down and find a husband'; no, I'm not going to invest in this amazing new opportunity, Brad - but she still… loved her Mom and Dad, even if they didn't get her. So every year, a few weeks after Christmas, she gritted her teeth and took the day-long trip via buses and trains down to the city of her birth.
The trip should have been utterly interminable with her phone having refused to charge last night, and without Max - she'd been maybe a bit too honest about how likely it was that her parents would still call them 'a darling granddaughter' and constantly misgender them - except that she'd spent the last hour and a half utterly fascinated by the woman across the aisle of the bus from her.
Not in a creepy way - girl might have fit better than woman, though she was of the age where it was a little hard to tell. Definitely younger than Helena though, so even though she was -
Well, that was the thing, she wasn't pretty. She might have been - she had long, straight hair, clearly dyed a rather aggressive black, bare arms showing firm musculature a pleasing contrast to her sleeveless dress and scuffed boots. That curtain of hair hid most of her features, but what Helena could see was maybe not conventionally gorgeous. Striking, maybe - what her mother might have called a belle laide kind of face, heavy on the nose.
She wasn't well cared for though. The dress was threadbare, the muscles wiry and whipcord, the girl painfully thin except for where the muscle gave her bulk, her face devoid of makeup. Her hair was still a tangle, despite the dye and care.
And yet - there was something almost regal about her pose. No, maybe more… watchful. Guardianlike? Like a dog of foo or a gargoyle on a cathedral in her quiet stillness, the way her hands - even her right one, poor gnarled thing - were straight and crossed on her lap.
Attractive, maybe. In the literal sense of being magnetic, attracting attention.
Helena wondered if it'd be terribly fucking rude to lean across the aisle and try and politely ask the girl if she'd mind lending Helena her contact information so she could pose for a picture for the cover of the album she was working on back home. Or at the very least let Helena sketch her down, maybe posing on a pile of rubble on a destroyed church, fire behind her, smirk showing a hint of teeth -
Ugh, though she wasn't looking forward to talking to her parents about how work was going. Yes, I am still in a band. No, you didn't hear me on the radio. Yes, I know I have another job as well, because sustaining yourself on just a career as a rockstar isn't a viable career any more unless you hit it super fucking big. Not that they really cared, or liked her music much anyway, what with it mostly being about, well, being a single bi mother in New York…
Anyway. It was slightly baffling the girl was heading into Brockton. She'd understand someone looking that mix of put together and a mess leaving the city - apparently it'd only gotten fucking worse since she'd left, at least that dragon cape had been arrested recently, though that likely meant a lot of idiots were about to cause a lot of trouble and traffic problems - lord knew she might have looked similar when she got the bus out of town a decade and change ago. But heading into Brockton?
She hoped she'd be okay. Maybe she should ask - ?
The bus slowed to a halt and Helena blinked - fuck, were they there already? She'd been so caught up staring at the poor girl that she hadn't been paying any damn attention - where had she put her bags -
By the time Helena got off the bus, she'd almost lost track of the girl. Then she was more busy being annoyed at all the fucking cops wanting to go through all their bags - fuck, she had not missed the Bay. And of course her phone was still out of battery, so she couldn't call Max or her parents to say she'd arrived, for fuck's sake…
She didn't see her again until she was looking for an out of the way spot to smoke - yes, she should have given up years ago, but going back home or before a gig she needed something to help her unwind a bit and it was better than drinking - and saw her at the other end of the alleyway.
Their eyes met, and Helena resisted the urge to start.
Because the girl's eyes weren't normal, they were white, end to end - not the sightless, filmy white of a bad movie, iris and 'white' and pupil were all distinguishable, but her brain was also telling her they were all the same colour, except that couldn't be right -
She was still wearing the same dress, but she also had on something that looked like bracers now, something uneven and asymmetrical and made of pieces of gnarled black something carefully woven together around her forearms. It also formed into the mask she now had on because - cape cape cape fuck fuck -
The cape girl raised her hands to her head and there was a noise like a gunshot, or a car backfiring, except neither. Like something fundamental in the air ripped or smashed, like lightning. The walls on either side of the girl cracked, and her hair - the black was obliterated from it in a single twisting instant, leaving her hair snow white, tumbling down to mid back.
Helena blinked, and swallowed, cigarette tumbling from nerveless fingers.
The girl smiled, and slowly put one crooked finger from her right hand to her lips.
Then her hands were by her side and with another cracking noise she was gone, launched upward and away into the Brockton night.
And damn her, she really wanted that girl on her album cover now.
The SmallKin was interesting. The SmallKin shared calculations for Sharps. Sharps were good for breaking Foods into edibles. It wondered why the SmallKin was as alone as it was.
The Scars in the Sky still ached with the echoes. The SmallKin… smelled of them, but that wasn't truly possible, because the SmallKin had not existed when that happened. When the sky was torn and the WiseKin vanished.
The SmallKin… was not Kin, yet saw it. Understood it. It did not understand, entirely. Watching the Below, seeing its own calculations in use, it thought the WiseKin had returned. It was both saddening and happy to have been wrong; the SmallKin was not WiseKin, but was Kin.
SmallKin smelled of Moon and Silver. Not this moon, but a deeper, truer Moon. But the Silver matched the Scars in the Sky, and that was worrying. What if the SmallKin was herald to another event? There were no WiseKin to save it from hurt this time. It still - it had been small, barely two orbs and an eye, and it didn't remember how the WiseKin had managed to save it.
But it saw the glee with which the SmallKin taught it the Sharps.
And it decided that SmallKin was Kin, Silver or not.
I kinda love the naturalborn as a woobie.
Solid chapter. The Carol segment felt uncomfortably close to home. Felt like the Empire segment didn't have enough unique information in it - was that section edited back in after you'd already tried rewriting the chapter without it?
Thanks for keeping this story going, I realized yesterday that it's the first one I'm looking for when I check my notifications.
He pinched his nose, checked comm traffic again to see if new on the transport had been given yet. Ethan hoped - he just hoped the other heroes in the Bay were having an easier time of things.
I think this section with Assault was handled well, given the choices that were available to you. Canon!Assault minus the bits of early fanon that greatly smoothed out the edges(or going outright non-canon as many interpretations, like yours, have gone) is a rough mindset/scenario to tackle.
Sounds like just about everything is going to converge on BB all at once which should be just an awesome time. I am starting to get a little concerend about specialness creep though. It is starting to feel like everyone is getting a special elden ring power or relation of some sort, which dilutes taylor's specialness. She is still a demigod and child of marika, but it looses a bit of oomph if the whole world just turns into eldenring.
It is starting to feel like everyone is getting a special elden ring power or relation of some sort, which dilutes taylor's specialness. She is still a demigod and child of marika, but it looses a bit of oomph if the whole world just turns into eldenring.
argument could be made that Emma has power *because* of elden ring fuckery due to malenia putting her and QA in a getalong shirt, and QA for being adopted by ranni, but Tay is the only demigod around (Ranni is technically godhead ala queen eternal marika, being the queen of the age of stars)
Armsy technically doesn't have elden ring power through the revival, as that's the grace of the stars, and ranni doesn't care for the elden ring itself
Also I feel the OCD need to point out that Colin can't be Tarnished, because he didn't follow Godfrey into exile - the Tarnished were granted the Grace of Gold, which is what allowed them to rez, but as shorthand for 'is able to res' is accurate, I suppose
Sounds like just about everything is going to converge on BB all at once which should be just an awesome time. I am starting to get a little concerend about specialness creep though. It is starting to feel like everyone is getting a special elden ring power or relation of some sort, which dilutes taylor's specialness. She is still a demigod and child of marika, but it looses a bit of oomph if the whole world just turns into eldenring.
So, two reasons for why there's other ER stuff. Firstly, personal taste - I find 'it's just X that's special' stories dull to write and read, and setting fusions much more interesting. It opens up new potential threats, new storylines, all sorts.
Secondly, thematically, it's important that Taylor isn't perfectly unique. She's an Empyrean, yeah, but most of her magic is stuff anyone could learn with the right tools, and she's only got a head start because she has two expert level tutors. It's about finding out you're royalty and getting a huge arrogant head rush and then having to be brought back down to reality where you're not inherently superior to common folk just cause you're god touched, in fact thinking that way is going to fuck you up. Democratisation of ER content is thematically important, imo.
I know that technically elden ring powers arent spreading, but if QA is expanding her network and capes are gaining tarnished-like powers from it, or taylor actually takes vicky stargazing and vicky gains sorcery powers, or buddy gets more involved, or even more demigods stick their nose in...
There are a lot of threads leading to those sorts of powers and if everyone starts getting powerups it degrades the value of the powerup that taylor got by being a demigod instead of canon taylor.
I dont know if this was ever a danger but i have watched other fics do this, where taylor has some unique trait and everyone around her ends up getting it and it just all kind of turns to mush with everyone in the story being a dragon or kitsune or magic girl, or whatver the unique trait was.
ok i think i know the kinds of fics you're talking about and uh... yeah, nah, not gonna do that here. elden ring stuff isnt going to end up 'mundane' for the non elden ring characters, and not for taylor either, to an extent
Let's be honest here: that's what 99% of fics do with him, even if not voluntarily, the common fanon Assault tends to completely rework how his relationship with Battery works without even realizing it, and completely forget about how he acted past her death because most Worm fans never got past Leviathan.
Which meant Armsmaster was in M/S containment for the time being, which meant law and order was effectively headless while new villain gangs bore down on the city. Fuckin… peachy keen.
Worst part: can't even reproach them going for M/S screening there, however, it would be a good tile for the greater PRT to give some reinforcements, and that I doubt they will.
Guess it made sense that whoever or what ever had brought him back wouldn't want something like old battle scars getting in the way. But he suspected it was the other scars.
He should be… what had that therapist said, before he'd stopped seeing her because it was too much effort to even press buttons on the phone? You had to reframe negative thoughts. It would be good if he had the energy to help either his daughter or his wife. Or even to reframe thinking about the situation.
For all the people telling him to *just be happy* or *do more efforts*, that's not how it works, depression is not that easy to fight, alone, without a working social network to help you, like he is? That's borderline impossible.
But his wife likes it that way since it means less chances of him acting against her (or discovering that Victoria is not his child, thanks Ward for making things even worse!), and his children probably don't understand how they could really help, due to his wife's controlling tendencies.
He didn't especially believe they were inherently inferior - he wasn't his dead father or sister - but it was still hilarious to see scum pushing to serve them.
Guy that's… that's literally thinking they are inherently inferior.
But then again, Nazi, one that doesn't really believe but spends so much time in it it shows even in his thoughts, he is racist, just not the way he presents.
And that whoever it was wasted their power on that deluded girl. A cape that can grant immortality would be an exceptional asset to have, even if we had to send them back to Germany for… retraining.
Also, that guy is quite sure of the immortality coming from something he could control, if he knew the source and that it isn't a one shot, he would be less arrogant right now.
Yeah, only someone with no knowledge of what bisexuality means would think that getting in a relationship with someone of the opposite sex means you have been *cured* of it…
Someone like a goddamn Nazi, explains a lot. (That's Hookwolf's name, for those who don't know, not the most racist of the E88, only in that he prefers talking about law of the jungle and being strong, but still racist.)
And yet - there was something almost regal about her pose. No, maybe more… watchful. Guardianlike? Like a dog of foo or a gargoyle on a cathedral in her quiet stillness, the way her hands - even her right one, poor gnarled thing - were straight and crossed on her lap.
I thought of several characters from ER she could've been, but the white hairs lakes most of them a no, I also feel as if we are supposed to know who it is, but can't find it.
That's how, isn't it? That's her shard Queen's talking about, and since her power incontinence is purely due to her shard, having it understand her and her life better means better control.
She might be coming to BB to visit her benefactor then, probably not, but maybe, hope so, Ranni's face if she get someone thanking her out of the blue would be great!
Huh? She has white hair? And since when does she has that much contr...
That's how, isn't it? That's her shard Queen's talking about, and since her power incontinence is purely due to her shard, having it understand her and her life better means better control.
She might be coming to BB to visit her benefactor then, probably not, but maybe, hope so, Ranni's face if she get someone thanking her out of the blue would be great!
Use then bus, no problem believing it being her canonical degree of control, she does have to be able to live in some ways, selectively removing her hair dye while almost not touching the walls? Way less inclined.
Also, didn't read Ward, don't intend to either, tried and lost interest quickly, what I heard about it since didn't give me any willingness to come back to it.
I know Ward has a clone of her running around, but that's it, my infos on her comes more from Worm and some references to WOG and Ward from others, hence not knowing about the hairs.
Use then bus, no problem believing it being her canonical degree of control, she does have to be able to live in some ways, selectively removing her hair dye while almost not touching the walls? Way less inclined.
Also, didn't read Ward, don't intend to either, tried and lost interest quickly, what I heard about it since didn't give me any willingness to come back to it.
I know Ward has a clone of her running around, but that's it, my infos on her comes more from Worm and some references to WOG and Ward from others, hence not knowing about the hairs.
Again, she did the exact same thing with the hair dye in Ward. Her power doesn't effect her. And there she did it in the middle of a group of people to impress them.
Again, she did the exact same thing with the hair dye in Ward. Her power doesn't effect her. And there she did it in the middle of a group of people to impress them.
Wildbow's WOG of her degree of control in Worm really didn't imply that much, guess it's the synchronization with what her shard wants (which could apply there, coming to BB is being more active than she is normally) that helped or him changing his mind, wouldn't be the first time.
