A Child Prays. 0.1
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In a kitchen, leaning against a fridge, a blonde haired girl looked up from her late-night pudding snack to answer her cellphone.
"Hello?" She answered, and waited for the man on the other end to give her directions. "Understood."
Snack quickly finished, the girl went to her room, and pulled out the costume she kept hidden deep in the back of her closet. Blood Red and Void Black decorated the outfit. Dressing in it quickly, the girl retrieved a spare set, and then exited her house through the window.
She made her way across the city, following the shadow trails that her predecessors had mapped out for the quickest of ways to traverse the city.
A city changed, of course, and yet some of these routes did not change in turn.
Magic, some would say; but in a world with Parahumans- Capes of the Hero and Villain types- magic was a thing some accepted as real.
The girl came to a rooftop, where two of her team mates waited for her.
"So... Winslow High school," The boy remarked. "Any idea why anyone would still be in school this late at night?"
"We were told to speak to the 'child locked away,' weren't we?" the other girl asked, gruffly. "Probably a bullying incident gone wrong. It wouldn't be the first time one of our contracts came from a ghost."
"They're alive. This is an urgent matter, remember?" The first girl said.
"Then we'd better get in there fast, then," The boy said.
And so the trio descended upon the high school. The front gate was locked- but it mattered little. They simply vaulted over it using the shadow paths. Breaking into the front door was all too easy. The boy drew out his lock picks, and the lock quickly gave way.
Thus, they entered the school.
"Child Locked Away," The first girl mused upon the Night Mother's vague wording, then decided. "Check the Lockers first."
"Right," the other two nodded, and then all three split up to search for any signs of life- or death- within the slumbering school.
The familiar smell of rot reached the second girl's nose first- and she honed in on a locker. "Oi. I found it, I think."
Then, there was a groan inside the locker.
No time was wasted- the second girl pried off the lock and then nearly tore the door off the hinges a second afterwards in her impatience.
A flood of rotten, blood covered cloths and stinking, smelling chunks of butchered meat came tumbling out of the locker, followed a moment later by the girl entrapped within. The first girl knelt down quickly to inspect their client.
"She's alive... Barely. We've got to get her out of these clothes and quick." She nodded, now understanding why she was ordered to bring a second set of clothes. "I'll take her to the showers- you two... make sure that this never happens again."
"Roger," the second girl nodded as the first girl quickly picked the locker girl up as carefully as she could, and then ran off to find the gym showers.
Now alone, the second girl and the boy turned to look at the locker.
"Holy Fucking Shit," The boy cursed upon seeing what remained within it. "What did they stuff in there with her? A biohazard site??"
"Looks like a mix of butcher meats from that robbery around Christmas, and..." the second girl's face twisted beneath her mask, obviously scowling. "Used Tampons? You're right, this is a biohazard site."
"So how are we supposed to make sure this never happens again?" The boy asks.
"Isn't it obvious, Alec?" The second girl's face twisted into what was definitely a determined smirk.
"Mmmh, not really?" The boy's tone of voice made it very clear that he knew what she was talking about. "Spell it out for me, Rache."
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The next day, Sophia Hess, Emma Barnes, and Madison Clements came to Winslow Highschool early, expecting to be able to be able to pull their "Prank Victim" our of her locker and then to thoroughly clean the damned thing so no evidence would remain of their so called 'Prank.'
What these three girls found was nothing what they expected, however.
The school's front door was already unlocked- strange, and worrisome. But maybe Taylor had managed to escape on her own?
Then, they found the lockers.
Taylor's locker had very obviously been vandalized. The door had been torn loose, and the insides set on fire before being spilled out onto the floor- painted across the locker doors and the floors and the walls of everything surrounding the locker.
If the smell before had been grotesque, now it was downright awful.
Madison fainted from the sight alone.
"What the hell..." Sophia swore as they quickly pulled Madison out of that hallway block. "Did Hebert trigger??"
"I... I don't know..." Emma glanced around. "She's going to be really mad if she-" And then she stopped.
Sophia turned to look at what Emma had seen, and paled. She saw a hand print painted on the window of the first available classroom door- it was pitch black, and very clearly painted on by a stamp, because, "written" beneath it in black paint, in a clearly mechanically produced font, were two words.
"WE KNOW."
"W-who's we?" Emma asked, although she already knew the answer. With a not-so-slight bit of fear gripping at her heart, Sophia breathed out three words...
"The Dark Brotherhood."
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So I had an A.U. fic idea where somehow the Dark Brotherhood from the Elder Scrolls series is (Somehow??) set up on Earth Bet. After I got to this point, I couldn't figure out a way to continue it without going into really dark places.
Essentially, the premise is that Taylor, trapped in the locker, manages to contact the Night Mother with her cries, using her own trapped body as a stand in for the corpse effigy used in the Black Sacrament. Her cry is a very unusual one, because while Assassins are dispatched, it is not to kill anyone, but just to get her out of the damned locker.
This puts the local chapter of the Brotherhood into a pickle- this girl has obviously drawn the Night Mother's eye in some way, otherwise her very unusual request to be freed from the locker wouldn't have made it through the chain of command to send not just one, but three of the local assassins to the school. Does this mean they're supposed to take the girl in? And if so, how far are they allowed to go in getting revenge for their new recruit?
Setting Notes:
The Local Brotherhood chapter as I wrote the above consists of Coil as either the local Sanctuary Head or just the resident Speaker/Silencer, with Rachel, Alec, and Amelia being the three assassins dispatched to retrieve Taylor. The murder he publicly performed in Elisburg was his first Contract/proof of dedication. His powers are unchanged for the most part, and he finds that they are a wonderful aid when it comes to dealing with confusing situations like Taylors. What can they get away with when it comes to pushing the boundaries of getting this girl her revenge?
Since you can't import *JUST* the Brotherhood without importing other things from the Elder Scrolls setting, Rachel's A.U. power is being a werewolf. The PRT rated her as a Changer/Brute before she suddenly disappeared off the radar, when she was recruited into the Brotherhood.
Alec's father was a Contract Target that Alec himself put out on the man. The Assassin sent to complete the job would have fallen to Heartbreaker's powers if Alec hadn't intervened, earning him an always open spot in the Brotherhood. Alec would take the offer up in a few years, and would get shuffled between sanctuaries until finally winding up in Brockton Bay. His power is less a Mastering of people, and more a Mastering of Locks. He can pick a lock on the first try.
Amelia's real father was the former local Whatever-Position-Coil-Now-Has, and this means the Brotherhood is literally the Family business for her despite still being adopted by the New Wave family. She has her canon power, or an Elder Scrolls-y variation there of, and is the local team's best healer. She's a lot better off than in Canon because she's often times able to use her power to its fullest extent in really creative ways on Contracts, to the point that the Shard doesn't complain much when she spends her obligatory hours-at-a-time in the Hospitals healing people.
I'm not really sure what to do with Taylor. She'd make for a good viewpoint to explore the nuances of the Brotherhood as an organization, but would she be a person who willingly kills people? If she doesn't join in an official way, I could see her acting as a sort of Morality pet to the rest of the group. Needless to say, one or two of the trio (Or maybe all three) doesn't survive past arc 1.
Lisa/Sarah is the Current Listener, and is nowhere to be found in Brockton Bay. In an amusing inverse to Canon, this makes her Coil's Boss. I'm undecided if Brian is a member of the Brotherhood or not. Most likely, not. He's probably a Ward in this version of reality. If Aisha got her canon powers, she'd likely become that one annoying person who hangs around the Sanctuary (and nobody is sure how she got past the front door) but the Brotherhood can't really do anything about her because the moment she overstays her welcome, she disappears from memory.
The Slaughterhouse Nine attempted to be born by going head to head against the Brotherhood in their formative years... the Brotherhood made sure the Nine's only mark in the history books was that of a footnote. Cauldron once tried to Path To Victory their way into the Brotherhood's Favor... as it turns out, Sithis's children are Pre-cog immune, and this didn't go so well for Cauldron.
The Brotherhood is considered to be a Boogeyman of sorts to the world at large. While the Black Sacrament ritual is "Banned" in some/most/all countries that doesn't stop people from performing it. Only those desperate enough to do the ritual end up getting their Contracts accepted. Anyone doing it "For the Lulz" usually doesn't get heard, and any Law Officers doing it to arrest Brotherhood Members are sent a very nice form letter in their mail that basically says "Nice Try."
As for Scion, if other elements of the Elder Scrolls setting were imported as well, well... let's just say "Sheogorath is keeping him occupied" and leave it at that for now.
Since a story focusing on the Dark Brotherhood would be pretty dark just for the fact that the Brotherhood are assassins... I can't really see this kind of thing going anywhere without having a huge "MATURE" Rating slapped onto it. If I ever did continue it, it'd likely be on another site, and would probably go something like this:
Depending on the Trio Survival Rate to determine the POV character, someone in the PRT decides it's finally time to take the Brotherhood down and starts attempting to purge the Local Chapter into nonexistence. If Cauldron is still alive and really pissed off for the previously mentioned failure to get the Brotherhood under their thumbs, they may put resources into the Bay to help push this effort along. Cue the local Gangs getting pressed by the PRT's increased resources, and possibly some anger directed at the Brotherhood for setting off the powder keg in the first place.
At some point, Purity would pull the Sacrament to contract Kaiser's death, which would basically kickstart things into even higher gear than before... Endbringer attack? Brotherhood gets a very odd forewarning, and manages to get out of town just as whichever one it is drops down on the Bay. A thought that just occurred to me could be that the Simurgh is acting as the voice of the Night Mother, but that just feels like a cheap kind of twist to pull and makes the Crossover potential for other Elder Scrolls elements a bit harder to put into play.
...and Look. Just look at this. I feel like I ended up writing more in setting notes than I did in actual snip content.
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