Chapter 1271 - w

I tested my range of movement, then made a few alterations, including making my skull more avian. Once I was satisfied, I moved to the final step. All across my body, fur retracted and was replaced by down. A large fan of feathers pushed out from a stubby tail at the base of my spine, and massive primaries extended from what were once my index and middle finger. Secondaries followed, then tertiaries, following a plan I recalled from owls and other raptors. As each grew, I tested their motion, splaying and twisting them individually and all at once, the latter easier than the former.

Finally, I grew a beak. Sharp and hooked like most raptors, but with tooth-like ridges on the inside like fishing birds. I even tried to include a bit of iron for geomagnetic navigation, but couldn't quite hack it. Seems Shapeshifting wouldn't quite let me cheat that particular limit. Shame.

I opened my eyes and checked my wings. They were pitch black, with tiny white spots dotted randomly on the underside to hopefully look like stars. I wanted to be as stealthy as possible, especially as I saw many fumbles and crashes in my immediate future, even with Multitasking and what I knew about the mechanics of avian flight. I was really banking on Mythril skeleton helping me out here, but I'd also reinforced my organs and brain with carbon netting just in case.

I grinned—or, well, puffed up my crest, since I no longer had those particular facial muscles—and flared my wings wide, stretching them to their full span. I felt the slightest breeze ruffle my feathers, and turned automatically to where it was coming from. My new form didn't come with any special instincts, so I was leaning hard on my amateur bird-spotting knowledge to figure them out as I went.

Heart pounding in my chest, new lungs working cyclically and avian pupils wide, I crouched, leaned into the oncoming breeze just as it started to pick up, then brought my wings down while pushing up with my legs. Powerful, reinforced musculature brought feathered limbs downward with force like a sped-up hydraulic press. Enhanced bones flexed and held under the strain. Feathers locked together, catching the air and trapping it beneath them, forcing it to compress and generate lift. With my first mighty stroke, I heaved myself into the air, clawed feet losing touch with the rooftop with great speed…

And promptly ate shit.

Despite having known it was inevitable, I still chittered in disappointment as I pulled myself back to my feet and shook the dust from my feathers. I recentered myself, focusing on what I recalled of birds taking off, and tried again.

And ate shit again. And again. Aaaaand again.

…

This was gonna take a while.

Eventually, I remembered that I needed to walk before I could run, or in this case glide before I could fly. That was how baby birds learned to fly anyway: by jumping off something high and letting instinct take over. Well I didn't have that instinct, but I did have massive wings and magic bones, so I figured I could hack it.

And I was right. Gliding was as simple as sticking my wings out and letting the air carry me. It was slightly terrifying at first, especially since I didn't know how to steer, but I knew that would come in time. The fact that I was even able to glide a significant distance from the top of a building was already revolutionary in my eyes, so I focused on the positives of my achievement.

With Multitasking, it didn't take long at all to get the hang of gliding. I was able to focus on every muscle, every minute shift in posture, positioning, feather arrangement, etc. Soon enough, I was gliding loops around the park and landing with minimal stumbling. I even started figuring out diving and swooping, which was extremely fun, though an outside observer might've thought it looked ridiculous. Outside of the general ridiculousness a human-sized bird gliding around the city inherently contained, that was.

I stood at the edge of the building for what must've been the hundredth time or so, wings up and ready. This time was different, however. This time I'd be attempting to actually fly. Powered flight, using my wings to gain altitude. I was nervous, but also excited. Without giving myself any more time to second-guess, I launched into a glide. I took a moment to get into the rhythm, heart pounding with adrenalin, eyes focused on the buildings on the other side of the park.

Taking the avian equivalent of a deep, held breath, I dipped into a brief dive, pulled up just a bit, and tilted my feathers.

See, bird wings are fascinating mechanisms. In order to draw them up for another flap without pushing themselves down the same way they pushed up, they do two things. The first and most obvious is that they fold their wings, making their surface area much smaller and allowing them to cut through the air at the joint. This is why pictures of birds in flight often show them with a sort of kink in their wings. The second thing they do is they tilt their flight feathers so they're no longer in direct contact with each other. This functions much like a check valve system, allowing air to pass mostly unimpeded between the feathers on the upstroke while blocking it from passing on the downstroke, thus generating lift the same way a paddle pushes against water to provide thrust.

This meant, however, that for a brief, terrifying moment, the only thing holding me in the air was sheer momentum. My wings were bent and my feathers were turned. Air was free to flow through my wings like they weren't even there. Once I had extended my wings upwards as far as I was comfortable with and straightened them out, I practically slammed my flight feathers shut and pushed.

My stomach lurched, but the air caught under my wings. I felt my speed increase instead of taper off. I was still climbing, if only briefly. It worked!

Rather than get stuck up in celebration, I did it again. Open, bend, extend, close. Open, bend, extend, close. It became a rhythm, each action clunky at first, but eventually smoothing together into one single motion. I could practically feel my brain rewiring itself, burning the motions into my synapses like my life depended on it. Because, well, it kind of did at this point.

By the time I was confident I had it down and leveled out into a restful glide, I was higher than the tallest building on the skyline. I angled my flight towards the ocean, staring out over the sea of intermittent lights before black water. Even the glowing blue bubble that was the local superhero base contributed, its light reflecting off the dark waters in rippling waves. The clogged port was practically invisible without my night vision, and would've been barely noticeable from up here.

It was… peaceful. Beautiful.

"Hey!"

I squawked in fright and lost a few dozen feet of altitude before I managed to stabilize again, looking around for the source of the voice. It didn't take long to find her. She was a blonde dressed in a sheer white dress with a short skirt and gold highlights, as well as a spiky tiara that reminded me of the Statue of Liberty. Oh, and she was flying. Just casually flying backwards in front of and a bit to my right in full defiance of the laws of physics. If that didn't prove I was in a comic book world I didn't know what would.

"Yeah you! Bird thing! You a Changer, or what?"

First off, 'bird thing'? Rude. Second, something about the way she said 'Changer' implied some sort of title that I knew nothing about. Was she referring to my Shapeshifting? Maybe she wanted to know if I was a person or some random giant bird someone made or summoned.

Not sure what else to do, and not confident enough in my use of a syrinx to mimic a voice right now, I just nodded. The girl seemed to relax a tiny amount at that, but quickly crossed her arms under her rather generous chest.

I wasn't jealous. I could have any size chest I wanted! Plus, big tits are just a hassle!

I shook my head, realizing I'd missed what she'd said. I tilted my head, hoping that would indicate that I hadn't heard. I soon noticed I had begun veering in the direction I'd tilted my head and quickly corrected it.

"I said hero or villain?" The girl said, flying a bit closer and leaning towards me as she asked.

How was I supposed to answer that? Even if I could talk right now, I didn't consider myself a hero, but I was most certainly not a villain. Hopefully society here wasn't actually that binary, because that would be incredibly stupid. What if someone just had the power to… make milk last a little longer or something small like that? Would they be forced to choose a side, unable to hide from the world as they were branded hero or villain? And even if I was a villain, why the hell would I just tell her that?

I tried to express my sheer incredulity at her question through my eyes alone, then decided the middle of the sky was no place for a conversation of any kind. I pulled into a sharp turn, angling away from her so I wouldn't accidentally cause the world's most off-scale bird strike, and located my practice building. I pulled into a shallow dive, circling around it several times, before pulling up and leveling off for a landing. I stumbled a lot more this time, seeing as I'd had a lot more momentum, but I caught myself before running off the edge. Barely.

Unsurprisingly, Golden Girl followed me down, though she didn't land. She hovered just a couple feet above me, managing to look extremely intimidating despite her youth and the inherent ridiculousness of skintight costumes. I wasn't sure what it was, but being near her just gave me this powerful sense of danger, like she could turn me into a red smear on the pavement at any moment. I shifted back to my black dragon Nardo form, unconsciously making my claws a little longer and sharper. I wished I had my blaster card on me.

"You didn't answer my question," the blonde teen said. "Hero or villain?"

"If I was a villain, why would I tell you that?!" I snapped at her, already falling into a nervous rant. "Maybe I don't know what I am! Is life really that black and white? If I'm not a hero, I'm automatically a villain? What if I'm not hero material? What if I'm not smart enough, or strong enough, or brave enough? What if all I want to do is live my life as peacefully as possible, maybe figure out some cool things to do with my powers to make a living? And what kind of hero tries to intimidate someone she just met just because she didn't immediately answer a question when she couldn't fucking talk?!"

I snapped my mouth shut, fists clenching and unclenching as my body shook with adrenalin. I'd said too much—I knew I said too much. I just couldn't keep my mouth shut for ten seconds and answer her questions. For all I knew she was the teenage superhero equivalent of a cop and could arrest me for using powers without a license or something. They probably had some sort of anti-superpower cuffs or cells or something if supers were common. That'd be the first thing I'd try to develop if I was in charge of a government in such a world.

Suddenly, the pressure of fear let off, and the girl drifted back a few feet, uncrossing her arms and wringing her hands nervously. My fear was swiftly replaced by anger. What even was that? Some sort of killing intent power? I was already nervous enough!

"Sorry," She finally said, looking a bit embarrassed. "I got ahead of myself and made some assumptions I really shouldn't have. I didn't mean to accuse you of being a villain. That was uncool of me. Let's start over! Hi, I'm Victoria, aka Glory Girl. Nice to meet you. And you are…?"

I blinked, a bit dumbfounded. I snapped at her for making accusations and she just… accepted it? More than that, she then told me what I assumed was her real name. I mean, she wasn't wearing a mask, but I figured she just fell under the Clark Kent umbrella. Put on a wig and some glasses, maybe a little makeup, and you're a whole different person.

"...still figuring things out," I finally said, still wary. "I assume you're a hero?"

Now it was Glory Girl's turn to look surprised. "You don't know? You must not be from here. Sorry, I assumed… Anyway, yeah, I'm a hero. Part of New Wave along with my mom, Brandish; my dad, Flashbang; my cousins, Laserdream and Shielder; my aunt and uncle, Lady Photon and Manpower; and my sister, Panacea, who you may have heard about. She's the best healer on the East Coast!"

Huh. Must've been a different team from that Armsmaster guy. I glanced briefly towards the coastline, which wasn't visible from here. "So is the floating sci-fi base yours or does it belong to some other team?"

"Wow, you really aren't from around here," Glory Girl said. "That's the local Protectorate HQ. It serves as the main base for the entire ENE region, though they've mostly got their hands full with just Brockton Bay."

I almost asked what the Protectorate was, but I didn't want to out myself as some dimensional traveler in case that was illegal here or something, so I just nodded and made the appropriate understanding noises. Besides, I could put together from context clues that the Protectorate was probably either an official government-backed superhero team or a widespread corporate one.

"So," Glory Girl asked after a brief pause. "Are you stuck with just the giant bird and the lizard, or can you take other forms?"

I caught myself just before launching into an extensive explanation of my power, what it could do, and the experiments I'd been running with it, especially as that might get into the mechanics of my other abilities and traits. I had no idea how having multiple powers was treated here, but I'd seen and read media where it was everything from completely normal to somewhat rare, a sign of the Chosen One, or even indicative of dangerous mutations or other bad things.

Instead, I just narrowed my eyes a little, narrowing my pupils into semi-aggressive slits as I did so just because I could. "What's it to you?"

"Woah, hey, I didn't mean anything by it," Glory Girl said, waving her arms and backing off slightly. "I was just curious is all. I study parahumans as a habit, and most Changer powers are fairly limited in scope."

Parahumans? Was that what they called supers here? It made sense; not every setting had the same name for those with powers. Hell, even in the same setting they often had multiple names. Mutants, metahumans, benders, hunters, etc. It also explained what that Armsmaster guy had called me earlier, though I hadn't really been paying that much attention; I'd been much more concerned with being elsewhere as quickly as possible.

"I can do a few other things," I said carefully. "But I haven't tried a whole lot, yet. Still getting the hang of things."

Glory Girl nodded. "I get that. Listen, I gotta head back home, since tonight's a school night, but it was nice meeting you. Sorry about the whole 'accusing you of being a villain' thing. I was just a little upset about something and lashed out. Hopefully we can move past that and be friends?"

"Maybe," I replied, still fairly annoyed with her. "We'll see."

Glory Girl smiled, and I couldn't help thinking about just how radiant it was, cutting through some of my anger and frustration like a knife. She seemed fairly earnest, at least. "Awesome. Hey, do you have a temporary name I could call you? Just so I don't have to keep calling you 'bird girl' in my head."

I thought about it for a second. At first I thought to just have her call me Nardo, but I realized not only would that likely be out of context in this world, but I also just didn't like it as a name for myself, even temporarily. Plus, while my Nardo and its variants was my favorite form right now, it was far from the only one I could take.

I considered my powers, what I'd used them for, and what sort of names could be associated with them. Changeling came to mind, but naming myself after the infamous baby-stealer of the unseelie fae probably wasn't wise, especially if I wanted to beat any villain allegations. I thought back to my old changeling roleplay character from way back when that I never really fleshed out too much: Ruby. As an internal reference it made sense, although Ruby didn't know she was a changeling for most of her life, and discovering she was one, and that she'd replaced the original Ruby when she was a baby, was supposed to be the inciting incident for her whole story, which didn't quite line up thematically. Then again, it was supposed to be a story of adventure and self-discovery, both of who she was as a person and the powers that came with being a changeling. Plus, with Crystals, I could grow gems infinitely, and a ruby was a gem.

And I was massively overcomplicating this, as I tend to. It was a good thing my scales prevented me from blushing as I realized I'd just been staring silently at Glory Girl for several seconds. She didn't seem to mind, though. If anything, she seemed somewhat amused.

"Ruby," I finally said. "Just call me Ruby for now."

Glory Girl raised an eyebrow curiously, but didn't question it. "Alright, then, Ruby. Cya 'round. Hit me up on PHO. My handle is Glory Girl, and it's got a New Wave tag. Just make some sort of reference to your bird form and I'll know it's you."

"Alright," I said, somewhat awkwardly. I didn't know what PHO was, but if I had to guess it was some sort of social media platform, possibly specifically for heroes or people with powers. I hoped that didn't mean I'd have to prove I had powers somehow to get on; it would be difficult enough just getting access to a computer to log on, though some part of me seemed to whisper that the local library might have some computers to use. I decided to check that out later.

With a wave, Glory Girl flew off, quickly zipping out of view. I sighed. I'd gotten too reckless and had been spotted despite having planned for this experiment to be as stealthy as possible. I was lucky it had been a wandering hero that confronted me and not some villain or something. I would need to be extra careful from now on.

With that said, I couldn't hold back an excited grin. I'd done it! I'd flown! My avian design had worked almost flawlessly, and between the stronger muscles and lighter bones thanks to Crystals and Mythril Skeleton, I hadn't even had too many issues with the thrust to weight ratio that made most human-sized natural flight biologically unfeasible, something I'd worried about since I'd researched what it would take to get a human into the air with biological wings.

As I was quietly celebrating my victory on an empty rooftop, my face was violently assaulted by a laminated surface which somehow managed to lodge itself perfectly between my horns and block my vision. I yelped in surprise and stumbled, only managing to not fall over thanks to my long tail acting as a counterweight. I had a feeling I knew what had hit me.

Sure enough, when I pulled the paper from my face, I saw it was yet another Gacha card. I glared at it, wondering who exactly was running this whole thing and what they had against me in particular. I couldn't stay mad at it for long, though, as I read through the 'achievements' section that came with every card after the first:

Congratulations! You achieved stable flight without any directly related abilities or traits! Take x1 Gold Skill Gacha Ticket.

Congratulations! You diffused a hostile encounter with Glory Girl! Take x1 Silver Familiar Gacha Ticket.​

I smiled again. It was good to see the Gacha acknowledging my accomplishments just as much as I was. Perhaps more, even! I got a gold ticket for that! It just made me feel even more giddy and excited.

I was a little conflicted on the silver ticket, though. Had I really diffused anything? I'd just sort of yelled at her and she'd backed off. That didn't seem all that impressive to me. Then again, a ticket is a ticket, and I didn't want the Gacha to take it away between blinks or some other bullshit just because I didn't personally think I deserved it. Plus, it'd be my first familiar ticket, so that was a plus. Without letting myself dwell on it further (and to keep the troll Gacha from yanking it away from me), I pulled the silver ticket:

[Orochi]

|Uncommon Familiar|

Jujutsu Kaisen - A giant snake shikigami that can quickly attack and ensnare its master's targets. It can burrow into and travel through shadows, allowing it to engage in surprise attacks to ensnare or bite targets. The power of shikigami scales with your own energy levels.​

Damn, now I wished I'd actually bothered to watch all of Jujutsu Kaisen. It was a good show, I'd freely admit, but it just never held my interest. I'd run into a lot of shows like that—even a few stories. I didn't know why I grew bored of them, I just did.

All that to say, I had no idea how powerful this shikigami was. 'Giant snake' could mean it's as big as anything from a large python to Ouroboros, though I somehow doubted it would be anywhere near that large.

I looked over at the peeled off ticket, expecting it to transform into a giant snake like the items did, but nothing happened. I was confused, and just about to check the card to see if any new text came up when I felt something nudge against the mental space my unused abilities seemed to occupy. Something large and scaly. I somehow knew it was significantly larger than me in my Nardo form, yet was absolutely loyal to me.

A little wary, I tried tugging on that presence. Immediately, a massive snake appeared curled up around me, taking up a not-insignificant amount of space on the rooftop with me. Its head was as long as I was tall, and it looked like it could fit me entirely in its mouth with little trouble, especially given what I knew about snakes and their eating habits. It was mostly white, with a sort of off-white/yellow underbelly. Its back was decorated with black lines, with two crossing over its yellow eyes and an odd symbol on its head.

Despite knowing that the giant snake currently looking me in the eyes was loyal and would probably not hurt me, I couldn't help holding my breath and going completely still. I wasn't afraid of snakes; at least, no more than the average person; but having such a large predator so close to me, looking me in the eyes with nothing in between us, was terrifying. I tried to rationalize it; to tell myself that I was in control and that this snake was not going to eat me, but as much as I knew that intellectually, it didn't suddenly allow me to break free from my paralysis.

The snake, seemingly noticing my distress, lowered its head until it rested on the roof in front of me, no longer staring into my eyes. I just watched it, every muscle still tense, as I fought to get myself under control again, my mind screaming at my body to let me take the reins. After several seconds with no progress, the shikigami slowly slid into my shadow, disappearing from my sight entirely, though I knew it was still there. I could feel it in the back of my mind, waiting for me to call upon it.

Thankfully, with the massive predator out of sight, I was able to get a hold of myself in about a minute, then shuddered. Not at the memory of the giant snake, but more at the feeling of being trapped in my own mind as my body shut down. I hated that sensation, and unfortunately I was fairly well familiar with it.

I felt the Orochi stir in my shadow, like feeling a breeze on the backs of my legs. It seemed to be attempting to offer comfort of some sort, which, while appreciated, was not particularly helpful.

I decided what I needed was a distraction, and turned back to my card, which I'd thankfully kept hold of through my attack. I had a gold ticket to pull:

[Intermediate Blunt Weapon Mastery]

|Uncommon Skill|

You are fairly skilled in handling blunt instruments and weapons such as hammers, mauls and clubs. You know how to effectively move your body and weapon to make good use of it, being able to match most practitioners in skill and finesse.​

Well, I couldn't say that wasn't useful, but as a Gacha roll it was slightly boring. I didn't want to be fighting at close range if I could help it, anyway, and if I did I intended to mostly use my claws. Though, it would probably make using my Sunfury easier if I needed to, since flails are often a blunt weapon, and a quick check confirmed that I did know how to use them pretty well. Hopefully that would translate to a spiked flail made of hellfire.

I briefly considered whether brass knuckles counted as a blunt weapon for this skill, and found that, while technically yes, it didn't seem as refined as other, more traditional blunt weapons. I guess that one was reserved for some sort of CQC or hand-to-hand combat skill.

I quickly grew a small bat made of pure diamond and gave it a few test swings. It was heavy as hell and very unwieldy, despite my Blacksmithing skill, but I was still able to fall into a rhythm, flowing into the movements of a sort of impromptu kata to help center myself.

Once I'd spent some time swinging my stick around, I let it dissolve and took a deep breath, then called on the Orochi. The giant snake slid slowly from my shadow, almost as if hesitant, though I knew it was just trying to avoid startling me again. I managed to keep my cool, and even ran my hand over its surprisingly soft scales as it coiled around me. Once I got used to it, it was basically just another snake, albeit a really big one. I even tried riding on its neck and found it had no trouble moving both of us, though attempting to travel through shadows with it just resulted in running into the ground as it slid through beneath me, which was understandable but disappointing.

After about a half-hour of riding around on Orochi, I dismissed it back to the mental place I was beginning to refer to as "Gachaspace" and went to bed, shifting back into my human form. I realized as I was lying down that I hadn't made those carbon leggings I'd planned, instead having gone straight to my flight experiment. Whatever, I'd work on them tomorrow. For now, I lay my head on my too small pillow, closed my eyes, and waited to fall asleep.

Spoiler: Author's Notes Award Quote ReplyReport274AnnekaHansen28/10/2025Reader modeAdd bookmark Threadmarks Threadmarks Chapter 4: Ex Position Exposition Threadmarks AnnekaHansenI do LIKE writing, I swear! I'm just bad at it...28/10/2025 Awarded ×2Add bookmark#4I spent a long time when I woke up just laying on my pad and staring at the ceiling of my tent even as the sun shone through the fabric. I knew I needed to get up. I had things I needed to do today. I needed to get food, especially food I could stock up on that didn't need refrigeration, so I wouldn't have to spend a bunch of money eating out for every meal. I needed to grow some more carbon clothes, though those could technically be put off for now since I still had one extra pair of leggings. I planned to try and find a library so I could get online and find out more about this world and whatever laws it had around 'parahumans' and the use of powers. I also needed to go back to the market to make some more money, seeing as I was down to my last hundred bucks, which wasn't a great sign when it came to my financial goals.

I had a lot that I needed to do, but no real energy to do it. I knew the sensation, of course, though I'd hoped it would leave me alone for at least another few days; long enough to find something to offset it or earn some obscure Gacha magic to make it go away. But with all the excitement of the past two nights, with highs and lows in equal measure, my emotions had been rung out like a sponge. Really, it was no wonder the crash came today. At least I wasn't sobbing into the pillow.

Depression sucked. Clinical depression sucked even harder. Clinical depression on top of ADHD and a host of other shit I won't go into was a nightmare. Whatever gods or entities thought fit to dump me here didn't include my prescription medication to offset it, so it was only a matter of time before things got hard. The system itself seemed to actively encourage going out and trying new things, which helped a little, but even sudden superpowers could become mundane with time. There just wasn't enough to keep me going.

I raised my hand above my face and started just… playing with it. Not the serious experimentation I'd done before, pushing the limits of what I knew about biology in an effort to achieve flight, but just idle playing with whatever came to mind. My skin cycled through various colors, from standard human to full RGB, which then gave me the idea to try and make it shift automatically like a PC gamer's wet dream, but after my first attempt still required me to concentrate on changing it, I gave up.

I mixed in Crystals to grow patterns of strata on my skin, then tried what I imagined various Parshendi forms might look like, with or without shell. I tried tentacles, a single tentacle, a crab claw, even turning my hand into slime. I was able to make it green, mostly transparent, and bubbly, but the faint outline of bones remained visible inside and it didn't drip or goop like proper slime would have, which I took to be a limitation of the Shapeshifting ability. Can't turn myself to liquid. I got some amusement out of flopping it around like a rubber toy, though.

Eventually, I stopped playing around with my abilities and just went back to staring. On a whim, I swapped out Shapeshifting for Cat Form, both to see just how it was different and to then test the swapping cooldown on. I may as well do something while I lay there in self pity, after all.

To my surprise, Cat Form felt extremely different from Shapeshifting. Where the latter came with a phantom muscle sensation on every part of my body, Cat Form just felt like a single muscle that covered all of me at once, and was much less flexible than what Shapeshifting gave. This reinforced my belief that Shapeshifting was just a superior version, but I decided to try it out regardless.

I started by tugging gently, just enough to start to feel some changes. I felt an itchy sensation on the sides of my scalp and at the base of my spine, soon followed by a sensation not too dissimilar to pushing my fingers through holes in cloth, but on my head and tailbone. I recognised the sensations coming from a tail quickly, as I'd had plenty of practice with one recently, and shifted to my side to keep it from being squished. My right ear twitched as a small strand of hair brushed against the inner shell, and I instinctively reached up to brush it away, my fingertips brushing against soft triangles with a slight tickle. These things were pretty sensitive.

I reached behind myself and dislodged my new tail from my sleeping bag to look it over. It was the same brownish-blonde color as the rest of my hair, which wasn't surprising. I guessed the ears on my head—which thankfully supplemented my human ears rather than replacing them—likely looked the same. My senses were, of course, enhanced, as I'd come to expect from my transformations, but what took me a moment to realize was that I was also incredibly flexible. Like, put my foot behind my head without an ounce of strain, flexible. It didn't even bend my mithril bones.

After putting my foot back down, I shrugged, said "Fuck it," and pulled the muscle all the way. One moment, I was lounging on my sleeping pad in just my underwear and sweater, then next I was on my back again, much lower down, and completely naked. I could see my light-brown paws in front of my face, feel my feline spine pressed against the pad, and smell—

Oh hell, I'd slept in this tent once before showering. How had I not noticed? It reeked in here! The scent of garbage was overpowering to my feline nose, and I wondered if I'd just subconsciously reduced my sense of smell with Shapeshifting to deal with it before.

Shit. Well, if nothing else, it gave me another excuse to get out and start the day.

As I pulled myself to my paws, I realized something else that was different about Cat Form: mainly, I was smaller, now. That may seem obvious, but Shapeshifting had a limit that kept me from changing into anything with a different mass to myself. Crystals let me cheat that a bit by adding mass on, but it wouldn't let me reduce it, and my little slime experiment earlier suggested it might not have let me just slough off parts of my body, either.

Additionally, Cat Form seemed to take my clothes with it when I changed rather than just trapping me in an oversized graphene sweater. I could see a number of niche or cheaty uses for that, depending on whether or not it counted equipment I was wearing or carrying like Polymorph and Wildshape do in D&D. For one thing, theft would be a lot easier if I could just strap a large object to myself and turn into a cat to store it away.

I giggled a little at the mental image of a literal cat burglar, even though I knew I likely wouldn't be stealing anything any time soon. To my surprise, it came out relatively normally. I tried speaking, and aside from my voice being a bit squeakier, it worked just fine. I guessed this really was an anime-style transformation, which I was okay with.

I tried swapping Cat Form for Shapeshifting to see if it would maintain my form or change me back, but ran into a wall. When I pushed on the ability to try and swap it, instead of the small resistance it usually gave before coming free, it just refused to budge. No amount of mental strain dislodged it, though I could feel the grip steadily weakening as I pushed on it. I imagined that must have been the cooldown I was sure would exist. Good to have confirmation, though I wished I had some way of knowing exactly when it would be freed, especially since I didn't have any sort of watch or timer on me.

I briefly considered changing out Crystals for Shapeshifting, but decided against it. Diamonds may not be a girl's best friend, but they were a hell of an ally when she was being shot at if she could produce them endlessly, which in most circumstances still meant they just weren't a girl's best friend.

I didn't actually hate diamonds, okay? I just hated the stereotype.

Feeling a little better, at least enough to get myself moving, I shifted back to my catgirl form, then eased the transformation slowly more towards human until my tail was small enough to hide in my leggings without too much issue but I could still keep my enhanced senses. I decided I would simply prod at the ability slot every now and then to determine its cooldown while I went out shopping, then swap it for Shapeshifting when I had a moment away from prying eyes.

After breakfast had taken an uncomfortable chunk out of my remaining funds, and realizing I wouldn't have enough to get all the things I thought I might need, I ended up stopping by the Market first to sell off more crystals. I sold a ruby to that nice jeweler, but unlike the sapphire it only netted me about $30 for the one, which was a bit of a disappointment. I told him I had other stones to sell later, to which he told me to check if my 'grandmother' had any loose diamonds or diamond jewelry around, since that would apparently give me the most money for the least effort.

Fucking diamonds. I loved to hate them, but if they were my best shot at removing my curse, I could swallow my distaste and sell them, though I'd probably need to vary their sizes and qualities. I just hoped the lack of engraved serial numbers wouldn't screw me somehow. I had seen a show once where that had been a major plot point, and I had no idea just how true it was.

I told him I was "still going through her stuff" and that I'd let him know. Despite the disappointment with the ruby, he was my main selling point for the more high-value gems for now.

Afterwards I spent more time selling to other jewelry makers and crafters, quickly determining that I should probably look into setting up a stall myself, though I'd have to learn how to make something actually useful from my crystals on my own, since Blacksmithing was not the same as whitesmithing, aka jewelry-making or silver-smithing, though my foundation in the former might help a bit with learning the latter.

After my time at the market, I got lunch and went shopping for non-perishables and some containers in which to keep them. I was tempted to skip on utensils and just grow whatever I needed myself, but I didn't want to invite scrutiny if someone found my little camping spot and discovered a pure diamond spatula or something. Once I was done, I'd cleared out pretty much my entire profits for the day, but was feeling a little better about my own survivability.

I'd ended up swapping Crystals for Cat Form to try testing my worn gear hypothesis. Unfortunately, while it did transform my clothes and the money in my pocket, my backpack and other bags were not transformed, and I was nearly crushed when they fell down on top of me. Luckily my feline reflexes protected me. I then figured out that the cooldown was roughly ten minutes between ability swaps, give or take a few minutes since the cheap watch I'd bought had transformed with me along with my clothes, which stopped it working for as long as it was absorbed.

After a quick stop by my camp to drop things off, I consulted the little tourism pamphlet I'd picked up to find the local public library. The easiest one to find was simply "Brockton Bay Central Library", which apparently also had something called an "Endbringer Shelter" under it. I didn't know what an Endbringer was, but judging by the name, it wasn't anything good.

The pamphlet also had a convenient map of the general areas that were considered gang territory, though without any visible borders since they were constantly changing, as well as a short blurb about each gang, their notable parahumans, and what they each represented.

The Empire 88, the gang whose territory I'd apparently stayed in on my first night, was a white-supremasist nazi gang with a penchant for assaulting minorities, including people with 'alternative' sexual preferences. Like myself. I made a note to avoid them. They had the greatest number of parahumans—or "capes" for short—in the city; even more than the local Protectorate, which seemed odd to me.

The Azn Bad Boys (what an awful name), or ABB , were a pan-Asian gang held together by Lung, that scary half-naked fire guy I'd been attacked by just last night. He only had one lieutenant: Oni Lee, the teleporter who could apparently also clone himself and was probably insane. That explained why simply being near the dude and surviving had apparently been enough to earn me a ticket. The ABB did your standard gang stuff, but there was a warning about a rumored human trafficking side of the business and to avoid being young, female, and non-Asian in their territory; especially alone or at night.

I briefly imagined what might happen to any man unfortunate enough to try to rape me while I had both Shapeshifting and Crystals active. It wasn't a pleasant image for the imagined attacker, though I knew it would likely be a bit more complicated than what I was imagining. Still, it kept me from dwelling too much on the implications. Hopefully with their main enforcer in jail they would collapse, though I doubted it. This city was starting to look a little too much like Gotham for my tastes, and Gotham never gets a moment of peace. As far as I knew, at least. I wasn't a huge Batman fan.

The third gang was the Archer's Bridge Merchants. Other than being led by a pair of obvious druggies going by Skidmark and Squealer—the latter of which was apparently something called a Tinker specializing in vehicles—they were just some bottom of the barrel drug dealers that had no official territory beyond a small suspected central base location close to the trainyards up north.

The map itself was obviously out of date, being from September of 2010, though I wasn't sure by how much, since I hadn't really thought to check the current date while shopping. Something else I'd have to remedy.

To that end, I found the nearest bus line going in the direction of the library and waited, climbing on board when one arrived. It was study time.

I'd never personally been in a large city's central library, but I'd seen photos, so I wasn't too surprised when the greek-esque building came into view, nor when the interior looked sort of like a museum with bookshelves; large framed paintings hung on the walls like exhibits. I spent a bit wandering around, looking for the public computers, before I simply stopped by the front desk to ask. Apparently they were on the second floor.

The line to use the computers was thankfully short, and I quickly slid in behind a middle-aged lady in a red jacket just as she was leaving. The first thing I did was check the date on the library's homepage: April 11th, 2011.

I paused at that, though more in consideration than shock. I'd pretty much figured out I'd gone back in time, given the differences in the prices of goods, the seemingly slightly lower technology level—I'd seen a number of people still using flip phones—and just general instinct. That said, it was still a little bizarre. I felt younger than I was when I left, and some checks had shown that I was slightly shorter than I had been as well, but in 2011 I'd have been ten years old, and I was certainly older than that now. So why was I younger? How much younger was I? Was I just imagining it? Assuming I wasn't, what arbitrary factor decided how old I would be when I got here?

Rather than get stuck on questions I couldn't answer, I set about trying to find some useful information. Luckily for me, Google was still the biggest search engine online, and at this point it hadn't turned into a complete ad-ridden, ai-infested crap-shoot, so I was able to actually get some useful information out of it.

I started with some simple definition terms: Parahuman, Protectorate, Hero, Villain, and Endbringer. The top result for all of them led me to a website called Parahumans Online, which I vaguely remembered someone mentioning last night while I hid in my diamond shell. For most of the terms, I just did a brief scanover of the wiki. The Protectorate were government-backed and had recruitment ads plastered everywhere. A hero was more synonymous with 'professional parahuman cop' than an actual hero, which didn't bode that well and bore looking into in detail later. Villains were defined as any parahuman that uses their powers to break the law, which wasn't surprising, though my brief scan didn't seem to indicate a parahuman had to be registered under threat of being branded a villain or anything, so I should be safe on that front. There were also something called "rogues", which were non-heroic, non-villain parahumans that sold their services for profit. That definitely bore looking into later.

The thing that caught my eye the most, however, was the information on the Endbringers. And boy, was there much to see. I ended up spending a ton of time just deep-diving into the wiki rabbit hole on the subject, and everything I learned made my heart sink further.

In short? Humanity was slowly swirling around the drain towards extinction, and the Endbringers, as well as a few other "S-Class" threats, were largely responsible. There were three of them: Behemoth, Leviathan, and the Simurgh. My Christian upbringing made the descriptions of the first two fairly clear just by their names, though "Simurgh" was a new word to me.

Behemoth was the first: a massive dynakinetic—apparently this world's term for a creature that can manipulate all forms of energy—that rose up from beneath the Earth's crust wherever it damn-well pleased to wreak havoc on anything and anyone in its path until it was either driven off or it reached and destroyed its target, usually some form of important land-based infrastructure, such as pipelines and power plants.

It was known as the "herokiller" due to its 30-foot "kill-aura" that bypassed the "Manton Limit", a term for the separation between powers that affect living beings and ones that affect inanimate objects. It was responsible for the deaths of a lot of parahumans when it first appeared and before its aura was understood. Like the other two, Behemoth was extremely tough, with only the strongest of parahuman powers being able to damage it more than superficially, and it would always come back fully healed for its next emergence. It first appeared in Marun, Iran, to attack the oil field there in December, 1992.

The next Endbringer to appear, nearly four years later in June of 1996, was Leviathan. It first appeared in Oslo, Norway. As its name implied, Leviathan was a massive monster from the sea, though it didn't physically resemble any specific creature, mythological or otherwise. It was the speedy one of the trio, able to accelerate to speeds upwards of 110mph in an eyeblink on two legs. It was slightly less durable than its older sibling, though not enough to be meaningful. Leviathan specialized in taking out coastal cities and sinking landmasses with its hydrokinesis, as demonstrated when the fucker sank the islands of Newfoundland and Kyushu! Japan was devastated by the attack, with economic and civil instability rapidly subsuming the entire nation and sending refugees across the world, but especially to America. The transformation of China into the aggressive and expansionist Chinese Union Imperial certainly didn't help matters.

Leviathan was largely responsible for the slowing—and in some cases, nearly outright stopping—of overseas shipping and trade, which helped explain why Brockton Bay, an obvious industrial port city, was doing so terribly economically. Leviathan was theorized to be the endbringer responsible for the largest number of civilian casualties of the three, and certainly a massive contributor to economic instability. It killed off anime in its cradle in this world! For that alone, it had to die.

Attempts at levity aside, the third and arguably most terrifying Endbringer was the Simurgh. She looked like an angel, with pale, marble-like skin, a serene expression, and nearly a dozen wings of varying sizes sprouting from and covering her body. She was known as the Hopekiller, and reading through her wiki, I could see why.

The Simurgh was a powerful telekinetic that could copy the Tinker powers of anyone in her radius, which on its own, combined with Endbringer toughness, made her an absolute bitch to fight. But the real issue was her scream. See, the Simurgh was the only known entity in this world with a form of telepathy. Anyone in her radius would hear a psychic scream or song, which got louder and louder the longer they were exposed. After a certain amount of time, they would become something known as a "Simurgh bomb", as some insidious manipulation or instruction was implanted in their head that was set to go off at the worst time possible to create maximum destruction and misery. An otherwise kind, gentle man might fly off the handle and kill his whole family, or a coworker might say just the wrong thing at the right time, convincing someone to end their own life just before a major scientific breakthrough, or any number of complex and creative things.

The Simurgh was a powerful precognitive and postcognitive, meaning she could see the past and future both. This meant that everything she did, every choice she made and person she influenced, was meticulously chosen to maximize pain, suffering, and death. If a parahuman was exposed to her song past the threshold, the bracelet they wore to the fight was designed to explode and kill them rather than let them become her tool. She was the kind of threat that had brother turning on brother, friends and neighbors suspecting each other, and every action questioned as part of some plot, leading to the popular meme of "everything is a Simurgh plot" online. If she wasn't driven off in time, which was usually the case, whatever city she attacked had to be placed in full quarantine to keep the compromised populace from escaping into the wider world and wreaking havoc.

When the Simurgh first arrived in Lausanne, Switzerland in 2002, she didn't even attack at first. She just floated there, looking serene, and attracting tourists, scientists, and all manner of attention. Only after the world had started to hope that she might be a positive sign of things to come, and the city flooded with people, did she finally commence her attack, starting with her infamous scream. She was responsible for countless tragedies, many smaller in scale but no less so in severity. The most notable being her corruption of the Tinker Sphere, who had been working on a moonbase project at the time. She caused the deaths of his entire family and drove him insane, turning him into the ruthless serial-killer Mannequin, a member of a psychotic villain group called the Slaughterhouse Nine, which were considered an S-class threat on their own. But that was a whole other rabbit hole I set aside until later.

The Endbringers attacked cyclically, escalating with each new Endbringer to appear. With just Behemoth, the attacks came roughly every eight months. Now, with all three, they attacked every three and a half months on average, cycling between Behemoth, Leviathan, and the Simurgh, though the order had changed before. The most recent attack was by the Simurgh on Canberra, Australia, which was apparently the capital at the time. (I'd always thought that was Sydney, but I'd never been very good at remembering capitals.) The city, of course, ended up quarantined.

After reading through all that, and determining that whatever story world I'd found myself in was definitely on the grimdark scale, I decided I needed a mental break so as not to fall into yet another panic attack or turn into a sobbing puddle at a public library. To that end, I started browsing Parahumans Online, or PHO. I read through the rules and new user introductions, then started browsing the Brockton Bay board. I did a cursory checkover of known Parahumans, including a group of underaged Protectorate junior heroes called the Wards (and countless advertisements trying to recruit underage parahumans to said Wards), and discovered that the ABB in fact had a third cape named Bakuda, who was apparently a bomb tinker and had made her debut by holding Cornell University hostage before being caught, arrested, and broken out by Lung before being brought to the bay.

So the ABB wasn't going to collapse any time soon. Oh well, I hadn't expected it to.

I soon stumbled upon a discussion page for the events of last night. It seemed Armsmaster was taking credit for taking down Lung after he was "weakened fighting a rival gang". No mention of Bug Girl or anyone else at all. If she was some edgy hero, I could see her being kind of pissed at the blatant credit stealing—I know I would be. It wasn't any of my business, though, since I'd barely been involved. I skimmed over some of the responses to the thread out of curiosity, not really finding much of substance. That was until I stumbled across a post that did make reference to me, or at least seemed to:

►Tt

Replied On Mar 11th 2011:

Gem. Saw you after the fight. Hope you're okay. We should talk. Meet?

Send a message.

There were a couple replies, mainly calling the message spam or saying it should be in the Contacts thread, which was apparently a place for rescued damsels to post their information in the hopes that their dashing hero would reach out or something. A quick check of the user's post history revealed they'd done exactly that: a post labeled "Bug" with a similar message. I assumed that was for Bug Girl, which meant this was likely the unknown third party that had shown up with the warg-sounding things near the end while I was panicking in my makeshift diamond bunker trying to get in contact. Possibly the Undersiders, if what my Gacha card said was any indication.

I paused and considered for a while. I had no idea who these people were, but the name Undersiders sounded like some edgy boyband or a pre-teen's idea of a cool biker gang that they would later learn sounded too close to underwear and would be teased for it relentlessly. Either way, it didn't exactly scream 'hero team' to me. My best bet would be if they were some sort of rogue group, but I highly doubted that, and a quick wiki search proved me right; something I honestly should have done sooner.

The undersiders were a relatively small-time teen villain gang specializing in quick smash-and-grab jobs and escapism. Their members were Grue, a skull-masked biker that could exude darkness; Tattletale, whose wiki page only showed a blurry picture of what may have been a blonde in a lavender costume; Hellhound, who was apparently publicly known as Rachel Lindt, was super aggressive, could turn dogs into giant monsters, and had apparently run away from a foster home after tearing it up and injuring the family; and one other member that wasn't actually listed anywhere.

After reading through what little the wiki had to offer on the group, I admit I was tempted for multiple reasons. For one, they didn't seem all that dangerous, comparatively, and I could use whatever information I could get in this world. They might have wanted to try and recruit me, given how friendly they were being (assuming this Tt was who I thought they were and I wasn't just misinterpreting things), but there was nothing forcing me to accept their offer. If push came to shove, I could probably just cover myself in diamonds and run away. Additionally, more information on them could be either given or, potentially, sold to the heroes, or even just used to update the wiki a bit. It would be neat to update a villain wiki with first-hand knowledge so long as I didn't focus overly much on the implications.

Finally, and this was influencing me more than I cared to admit, they were potentially someone to talk to. Assuming they weren't asshole delinquents or something, which was reasonably likely given the circumstances, they would be the people closest to me in terms of age I'd talked to that wasn't some merchant (not the gang) or cashier. Bug might also be there, and I wouldn't mind another chance to talk to her; see what her deal was.

There had to be some sort of rules underpinning this whole hero/villain thing, and one of them did mention telling me a few things about how it worked. Plus, my wiki trawling earlier indicated that heroes and villains were known to cooperate from time to time, usually in the face of larger threats. I wasn't a hero, but it was possible that might apply to myself in some fashion, too.

I had been ready to dismiss the idea as stupid and ignore the message, but after thinking about it for a while, I eventually decided I at least wanted to see what was up. I would 100% scope out any meeting site ahead of time, and would go in disguise even under my diamond armor, but at this point I'd basically convinced myself to go. Maybe it was an effect of being physically younger again, or my depression pushing me to seek out social contact of any kind in a vain attempt to feed my starving extroversion that my sister insisted I still had and hadn't converted to full introvert.

And that got me thinking of my family. I put that firmly out of my mind and typed out a direct message to Tt:

From: Anonymous

Subject: re:Gem

This is Gem. I saw your post on the Lung takedown thread. Assuming that was you who tried to talk to me in the alley, I'm tentatively willing to meet. I'm new in town, so addresses might be tricky. Could we meet at that spot?

It took a few minutes to get a response, during which time I browsed more comments from the thread, but it was still relatively quick:

From: Tt

Subject: re:Gem

Sure thing! I was gonna suggest that anyway. Bug will be there, if interested. Meeting at 3, no rush. We'll be dressed casually, if you catch my meaning. Cya there.

"Dressed casually", huh? If that meant they were showing up unmasked, it definitely meant this was a recruitment attempt. Despite that, I still found I wanted to go through with it, though I'd be making my armor more subtle than what I'd initially planned. Something I could wear under my clothes so as to look like I'm respecting the implied 'no costume' rule. I would of course be changing my face. Maybe something Irish, with green eyes and ginger hair. Or maybe chestnut.

Finding a piece of scratch paper and a pencil, I wrote down the topics I planned to research later and closed down my tabs, wiping the browser history and cache as well, just in case, then shut down the computer and left. 3 pm wasn't a lot of time to get to the meeting point, but I knew I could make it. And if I was a few minutes late, oh well, though I didn't enjoy being late to anything.

Exiting the library with a polite nod to the front desk, I found an out-of-the-way place to change my appearance, enhancing my muscles and senses just below the point the changes would be visible externally and growing diamond-scale armor under my clothes and a subdermal carbon armor-weave anywhere my clothes didn't cover. It should make me fairly bullet-resistant, stab-resistant, and generally harder to hurt. After a brief consideration, I also added the carbon netting around my organs and brain I'd come up with for my avian form, just in case. In theory, I should've been able to walk off being struck by a train with all the reinforcements. In practice, I'd just do my best to avoid getting hit by a train. Or anything else for that matter.

Feeling confident(ish), I made my way back towards the place I'd nearly been cooked alive by a naked dragon man for the sin of being in his general vicinity—and being white, probably, if the pamphlet was to be believed—to meet up with a group of known teenage criminals out of depression, curiosity, and a probable lack of critical thinking.

I ended up being several minutes late. It turned out that running blindly for your life and cowering in a bunker doesn't do great things for one's sense of direction, and I already had a hard time remembering where things were in this city. I'd long since given up on retrieving my Onyx Blaster, since I had no clue which roof I'd stored it on.

I ended up backtracking from the bus stop I'd gotten on the bus towards Winslow and wandering around until I smelled smoke. A little while later, I heard voices coming from one of the rooftops. Teenaged voices, if I was to be any judge. Two I recognized as Bug Girl and possibly Tattletale, though I only barely recalled the latter.

I took a moment to collect myself, then made my way up the fire escape to the roof, spotting two girls and two guys. One was clearly Bug Girl, since she was the only one in costume and the only one I'd actually seen. The other girl was blonde, with bottle-green eyes, a freckled nose and cheeks, and a sharp, self-assured grin that screamed "I know more than you do". She also had a figure I would've killed for before I got Shapeshifting. If it weren't for the grin I'd think she was cute. I assumed she was Tattletale, since she was the only other girl there and I saw no sign of Rachel Lindt or her monster dogs.

Next to her was a tall black guy with dark cornrows that went down to his shoulders. He was ridiculously tall, reminding me of my brother, though unlike my brother, he was built like a brick shithouse. Seriously, this guy was ripped. If I was into muscular guys, I'd have been drooling.

Finally, the shorter guy might've been a little more to my tastes, though just a bit too far in the opposite extreme. A pretty boy with curly black hair that reminded me of my friend back home, with a somewhat pointy chin and bright blue eyes. I was turned off by the dead, bored look in his eyes. Something about him just set me on edge, like he was lying to the world just by sitting there, wearing a mask that no one else could see.

Bug Girl had turned to face me before I'd even climbed up onto the roof, and it only took a moment for the others to follow suit. The blonde girl studied me briefly, her grin sharpening just the smallest amount before relaxing a little. It was so quick and subtle I was sure I'd have missed it were it not for my enhanced vision and the fact I had been looking directly at her when it happened.

"And our second guest arrives! Got a little lost, did we?" Probably-Tattletale said.

"Something like that," I said, affecting a slight Irish accent. I'd even adjusted my vocal system to alter my voice just a bit, though I wasn't sure how well it'd hold up to expert scrutiny, since my cadence and vocal habits would probably still be the same. "Like I said, I'm new here."

"She didn't come in costume," Pretty boy said, holding his hand towards Probably-Tattletale and wiggling his fingers. "Pay up."

The grin came back. "Ah, but she did. A Changer/Stranger power as well? Very impressive. And you've enhanced your senses, so that'd earn you a Thinker sub-rating. That's quite the versatile power set you've got there, Gem."

I started, unable to keep the surprise off my face. How did she know I'd enhanced my senses? And that I came in disguise? I would freely admit my Irish accent wasn't perfect, but I knew my Shapeshifting at least was incredibly precise. I highly doubted she'd gotten a look at me when I was hiding behind my diamond shields. Could she see through obstructions? Was that her power; x-ray vision? It'd make sense for a name like Tattletale, I supposed.

Before I could spiral into paranoia, the big guy, who I was guessing was probably Grue—and I dearly hoped his name was just a cute reference and his darkness didn't actually eat people—spoke up: "Sorry, she does that sometimes. She can't help but poke at people." He took a few steps forward and stuck his hand out. "Name's Brian. It's nice to meet you. Thanks for your help with Lung last night."

I instinctively shook his hand, noting his strong grip, then stepped away a little shyly. "I didn't really do anything. I just hid."

"You distracted Lung long enough for Bug here to get to a safe place and continue harrying him," He said, shaking his head. "Trust me, a good distraction is worth a lot in a scenario like that."

"I'm Lisa, by the way," Almost-certainly-Tattletail said, raising her hand to draw my attention. "A.k.a. Tattletale, though you already guessed that. I'm the brains of the group."

"And I'm still Alec," Pretty boy said, sounding just as bored as he looked. "Are we done with introductions, now?"

"Time for the presents," Lisa said, grinning again. She bent down and picked up a plastic lunchbox I hadn't noticed was there and held it out to me. It had a cartoonish rendering of Armsmaster on the front. I noticed Bug Girl had a similar lunchbox with a woman in a black and grey costume on the front that looked vaguely familiar. I had a feeling I knew what I'd find inside the box, but I accepted it cautiously anyway.

Sure enough, when I opened the box I found stacks of cash tied in paper bands. Eight of them, it looked like, at $250 each according to the bands. I did some quick ma—

"Two grand," Lisa said, interrupting my thoughts. "As a thanks for your help, or a signing bonus. You've already figured out why we really wanted to meet."

"Can you not?" I asked suddenly, looking up from the money. Her constant 'I know what you're thinking' game was starting to piss me off. "It's really annoying, which isn't exactly helping your case."

Lisa actually winced. "Sorry. Like Brian said, it's a habit. Either way, the money's yours. No commitment, just a request that you play nice if we ever bump shoulders again in the future should you decide to walk away, though I do think you should listen to our offer, first."

"This money's stolen," I said, closing the lunchbox hesitantly. Two grand would be a nice chunk of change to help get any plans off the ground, and it was already in the hands of villains. I couldn't exactly give it back, since that would be letting them get away with it, but I couldn't keep it, either. My best bet was probably to turn it in and report where I got it, but I really didn't want to draw attention to myself.

Lisa shrugged. "Probably, but it came from the boss's paycheck, so who knows? You did agree to meet up with a bunch of villains. Just take the gift. If you try and turn it in or something, it'll just end up lining some politician's pocket while you take the blame."

I glared at her. The wiki said the only true psychic was the Simurgh, but this girl was coming uncomfortably close. I knew I was impressionable and easily convinced. I had to stand firm on this. Stealing was wrong and hurt the economy, which seemed to be going down the drain already and didn't need the help. However, at the same time, she did have a point. I'd heard stories of people trying to turn in stolen goods or report crimes only to become prime suspects. Hell, even just being in a certain place when someone else started trouble was enough to lock people away without trial for years because it was convenient for the current institution. With how dark this world seemed to be leaning, I wouldn't put it past it to pull exactly that sort of crap on me. And I did need the money.

"...fine," I said finally. "You have a point. I'll take the money. Put it back into circulation. This doesn't mean I accept your recruitment pitch, though. I'm not a villain, and I don't intend to become one."

Brian glanced at Lisa, and something seemed to pass between them, though I wasn't sure exactly what.

"That's fine," Lisa said with a shrug. "Like I said, it's a gift. For now, let's just talk. I know you're new to the cape scene in Brockton Bay, and the cape scene in general, so there's a few things you need to know. Bug, you should probably hear this, too."

I listened skeptically as Lisa explained her "cops and robbers" philosophy and about something called the "Unspoken Rules", which were a sort of gentlemen's agreement between capes. In short, villains that were caught could usually escape fairly easily, since they were normally placed in standard prisons not rated for parahumans. They also weren't unmasked unless they earned a "birdcage sentence" or kill-order, the Birdcage being a Tinker-built supermax prison that held the worst of parahumans just short of kill orders. It was supposedly inescapable. Three "strikes" or arrests would often earn a birdcage sentence as well.

The Unspoken Rules were fairly loose and mainly consisted of rules of engagement, such as no unmasking capes, hero or villain. No attacking civilians for the most part, though things like robberies would often have hostage situations. No attacking of critical infrastructure, since everyone relied on it. A general "avoid killing" rule that was more about mutual escalation of violence, and finally no assaulting defeated capes. Sexual assault in general was highly discouraged, and anyone caught doing it would likely face a mob. That confused me, since it was apparently common knowledge enough to print in a tourist pamphlet that the ABB ran a trafficking ring. I wasn't against it by any means, and fully intended to drive a harsh lesson into the gonads of anyone who tried to rape someone on my watch, but it seemed somewhat contradictory.

Lisa then explained a really stupid law known as NEPEA-5. It was supposedly targeted mostly at Tinkers as a way to regulate their apparently irreproducible technology as well as Shakers who could produce materials to keep them from inflating the economy, but in practice it made it borderline illegal for a parahuman to make money with their power because it was "anti-competitive". The way she explained it made it seem like it was tailor-made to push parahumans into either joining the government-regulated heroes or becoming villains just to get by. No wonder parahumans who just wanted to do business were called "rogues", the system was stacked against them and they had to fight to break free. Though Lisa also claimed that parahumans tended to jump to conflict as a method of resolving problems far easier than the average person, which made sense for a grimdark superhero world.

The more I heard, the less I liked where I'd ended up. Sure, the concept was neat for a story, but actually living here sucked ass. The government sounded just as if not more corrupt than back home, there were giant indestructible murder machines attacking major cities every few months, the system was designed to force parahumans into arbitrarily black and white hero vs. villain roles, the economy was tanked everywhere but especially here, racial violence and bigotry were more common than mild weather events, and no one seemed to want to bother with altruism anymore since humanity had basically lost all hope of surviving the next thirty years or so.

"We're all trying to make the best of what we've got," Lisa said, shrugging. "I won't go into it here, but each of us have our own reasons for turning to villainy. We pretty much just go after targets that can take it or that deserve it. Rival gangs, corporate assholes, corrupt politicians… I won't say we're good people, because that's blatantly false. We're just doing what we have to to get by."

I sighed, fighting off depressed silence to speak up. "That just perpetuates the cycle. Even if you can't fix the problems, you shouldn't add to them. I'm…" I trailed off, thinking over my words carefully. "...I'm not so desperate that I'd knowingly hurt people to get by, even indirectly. I'm just not that kind of girl."

Brian nodded. "We understand that. I hope you at least understand that we have reasons for doing what we do, though. People, or in Rachel's case, dogs, that rely on us."

"And we can always keep in contact," Lisa offered. "Just so you have people to talk to. If you want to try and break into the rogue business I could give you some advice or supply some contacts. It's not my specialty, obviously, but I'm pretty good at figuring things out." She gave me a wink at that.

"I… suppose I could do that much," I admitted. "But I don't have a phone. Or your number."

Lisa smirked at me. "Well, I can solve at least one of those issues for you right now. The other one you'll have to take care of yourself, though I'm sure you can afford it."

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a handwritten card. On it was her name: Lisa Wilbourn, and a phone number. I wondered if she just carried around cards with her everywhere, or if she'd prepared for this exact scenario. When she caught me staring, she just winked again. "Also, if you need a place to crash, the loft has a couch you could sleep on, though you'd obviously have to promise not to tell anyone where it is."

I raised an eyebrow. "That seems awfully trusting."

Lisa shrugged again. "You already know our names and faces. If we're gonna be friends, we have to trust each other at least a little bit."

That made me feel guilty. They'd unmasked to me and been nothing but friendly, and this entire time I'd been in disguise. I hadn't even told them my name. It wasn't like there was a legal identity to tie it to, anyway. Speaking of which…

"Um, actually, there is something I could use your help with, if you can. You said you could give me contacts. I don't suppose you have anyone that could… supply me with an identity?"

Lisa actually looked sympathetic at that. It was subtle, barely there, but she didn't attempt to hide it this time. "I can help with that. I have some experience with that sort of thing. You don't have to tell me, but… runaway?"

I watched her face carefully, waiting to see if she'd try and puzzle it out anyway with whatever power she had, but she seemed to be genuinely waiting for my answer. After a few seconds, I sighed. "In a manner of speaking. I didn't exactly have a choice in the matter." I lifted my head, deciding to show just a little bit of trust. With a mental tug, I unraveled my disguise, though I kept the defensive and sensory augments as well as I could. Lisa seemed fascinated, Alec bored, and Brian a little squeamish. I couldn't figure out what Bug thought, since she still had her mask on.

With my transformation completed, I put on a weak smile. "Hi, my name's Anneka. It's nice to meet you."

Congratulations! You got a cash bribe from a known villain group! Take x1 Silver Choice Gacha Ticket.

Congratulations! You received an open invitation to the Undersiders! Take x1 Silver Trait Ticket.

Congratulations! You befriended Lisa Wilbourn without joining the Undersiders! Take x1 Advantage Silver Familiar Ticket.

The card had been waiting for me on the stairs to the fire escape as I went back down, disguise once more in place just in case. I didn't like the implication that I'd accepted a bribe from villains, but I understood, in a way, that's exactly what it was. They'd paid me as a way to get me to listen, and as a way to keep me from using whatever information they gave me against them, though with the Unspoken Rules, I understood that outing them would be potentially problematic anyway. I'd have to verify everything Lisa told me, but it seemed to make sense so far.

Getting a ticket for befriending a villain also felt off, but at least it meant her offer of friendship was probably genuine. I got the feeling she was a runaway herself, hence why she was familiar with the process of establishing a new identity and why she'd shown genuine sympathy when I'd made my impulsive request. I had no idea why she would have run away from home, but I couldn't help returning her sympathy.

This card was less a card and more a small booklet. The first "page" after the achievement section had the choice ticket on it; a big rectangular multi-ticket like the one I got from my first curse wheel. The last one had a single double-sized advantage ticket and a single trait ticket.

I almost pulled the ability section of the first ticket immediately, but hesitated. I wanted more abilities so I could get more ability slots, since being able to use multiple abilities at once had already proven massively advantageous. At the same time, though, traits were sometimes like abilities that didn't require slots, such as Multitasking and Mithril Skeleton. On top of that, items could be magical or technological in nature, and familiars apparently came with their own abilities they could use.

If I got another ability, it'd bring me closer to another slot, sure, but it wasn't likely to be immediately useful, and I doubted a silver ticket would get me something as broken as Shapeshifting and Crystals, which both came from platinum tickets. Meanwhile, every trait I'd gotten so far had been useful in some way, even if only superficially in the case of Chompers. I didn't know what sorts of skills were available, nor whether they'd allow supernatural things like magic or force training or something. Item tickets so far had given me only weapons, but I got the feeling that wasn't all it could provide.

I was leaning towards trait for the choice, but for now decided to pull the other two to potentially make the decision easier, starting with the regular trait ticket:

[Digestive Expulsion Independence]

|Trash Trait|

You never piss or shit. Don't ask where all the waste in your body goes.

First, ew. Second, I could see how that was a trash trait, and from a silver ticket that hurt a little. But unlike my only other trash pull, this was actually directly applicable to my situation. With the Homeless curse, I didn't really have access to a bathroom, and doing my business in a public park was terrifying and humiliating. Now I wouldn't have to worry about that. It was far from the best thing I could have gotten, but I'd take it.

Next, I pulled the Advantage Familiar Ticket:

[Crow]

|Trash Familiar|

A very smart and loyal crow companion with intelligence on the level of a human, she can spy on people and relay the information to her master.

--------------------------------------[OR]--------------------------------------

[Bell Gargoyles]

|Uncommon Familiar|

Darksouls - A pair of powerful gargoyles that tower over the average man, wielding supernaturally sturdy weapons. One is capable of breathing out fire, and the other, lightning; they have superhuman physiques strong enough to shatter walls with their blows. As your energy levels increase, you can summon more gargoyles to serve under your command.

What was with these trash rolls? That said, it wasn't an instant gargoyles pick. Honestly a pet crow sounded really nice, and the fact that she was intelligent enough to spy and relay information sounded incredibly useful. I've long liked crows to a degree, though I preferred ravens for their color and slightly greater mimicking abilities. If this was a normal ticket and I'd pulled the crow, I'd have been plenty happy to have her.

However, the bell gargoyles were just objectively better in terms of ability. I never played Dark Souls, but assuming they were at least mini-bosses, they'd be damn tough and very capable in combat. They'd make excellent bodyguards if shit hit the fan. For survivability, they were just better.

That sucked. I wanted to take the crow, but I should take the gargoyles. It was a dilemma I never considered I might have with the Gacha, and I was notoriously bad at making decisions. Now I had two big decisions I needed to make instead of one!

To distract myself from the agonizing decision I was presented with in trying to distract myself from another decision, I decided to pull the traits tab from the advantage ticket. Hopefully it'd help me decide on this new decision. Somehow. I doubted it:

[Introspection]

|Common Trait|

You are very well aware of how you are. You know when you are affected by what effects, when you are poisoned, when you are feeling ill or uncomfortable. Nothing about you escapes your attention.

Great. Now I could tell just how fucking stressed and depressed I was. Thanks, Gacha! I really needed to know just how much my life sucked and how I was making it worse by perseverating on stupid shit and spiraling closer and closer to a nervous breakdown! I could also tell that I was most certainly no longer under the effects of my meds, what vitamins I was low on, the status of my cycle… Actually, this was a pretty useful trait, thinking about it. It would tell me when I was being poisoned as well, possibly before I would have noticed it myself. I wondered if it worked on what the wiki called Master powers; powers that manipulated a person's thoughts, emotions, or actions. Not to be confused with Master powers, which were powers that created and controlled minions, because "mind control" and "summoning" were obviously the same thing.

Also, according to this trait, I was indeed autistic to a small degree, which was never actually determined since other things got in the way. Nice to have that confirmed, I guess?

It didn't help that much with the familiar decision, unfortunately. It helped me calm myself down enough to start thinking again, though, so it did technically help a little. Having a crow companion would help keep me more emotionally stable, and she could be kept with me even in my "civilian" identity, since she wouldn't be a massive fire-spitting axe-wielding stone demon. She could probably find things for me, and I might even be able to teach her to talk, sort of like a parakeet.

The gargoyles, on the other hand, would be immensely useful in combat. If things kept going the way they had been so far, I would certainly be getting into fights. Not to mention I still had that Mortal Enemy curse. I doubted they'd be able to defeat whoever my enemy was, considering they were supposed to be Epic level and the gargoyles were just Uncommon, but they might help me escape if my enemy came after me before I was ready. They also might help me build up more abilities and other tickets.

Ultimately, the choice came down to practicality vs. emotions, and again, the logical choice was, of course, the gargoyles. They were extremely versatile, with super strength, flight, weaponry, and fire and lightning breath. They could defend me, help me escape in a bind, and aid me in building up tickets to face my Mortal Enemy whenever they appeared.

I kept thinking about it all the way back to my tent. Finally, with the trees around me and no one likely to see, I made my choice and pulled the ticket.

"I'm gonna name you Parker," I said, scratching my new companion under her beak. She cooed and nuzzled against my finger, making me giggle and shift my finger to the top of her beak, which she seemed to like even more.

I smiled, loving on Parker in the silence of my one-person tent. A Spring breeze blew gently through the trees, swaying the branches and scattering debris. It was cool, but not cold enough to make me shiver. Just enough to remind me that I was on the coast and that Winter was not long over. It was serene.

I felt it before it happened, Introspection letting me know exactly what I was feeling, but that didn't stop the tears from flowing. I pulled Parker close to my chest, squeezing my eyes shut and stifling a sob as she pressed her head against the bottom of my chin, rumbling softly in a comforting manner. I even summoned Orochi, the giant snake having to hide partway in my shadow to avoid overfilling the tent as it pressed against me, its body far warmer than a snake had any right to be.

"I want to go home," I whispered, holding them both close. They just snuggled against me tighter, offering what little reassurance they could.

For far from the first or likely last time after coming to Brockton Bay, I curled up, held tight to what little I had, and let myself cry.