This city never changed. Capes triggered and started doing things, then they died, or they were pressganged into the Protectorate or one of the gangs, and then things returned to normal. Well, until he made his move, a few months in the future. For now, this new cape, Songbird, had made a spectacle of herself, so he'd enforced some additional precautions for his mercenaries. Strangers were always annoying.
Maybe he'd get to recruit her later, or at the very least keep her focused on the Empire. Tattletale had already given him the names of all the Empire capes, if he sent some information her way before the big reveal, she might even help things along, or even impersonate one of the gang's leadership to increase the chaos.
In one timeline, he was sitting at home in a large armchair, sipping whiskey. Not the truly expensive stuff, that was reserved for throwaway timelines, but no cheap swill either.
In his other timeline, he stood in his office as Tattletale came in.
"What's up, boss?" she chirped with what he strongly suspected was fake cheer.
"Nothing much, follow me." he gestured at the door she'd entered through, then walked through it ahead of her. She didn't follow. With a wry grin beneath his mask, he turned to see her stiffen, horror spreading across her face as realization dawned. Ah, he loved that. Every time they had one of their little chats, she would come in as always and then, one second to the next, her demeanor changed as her power whispered in her ear the horrors she was about to experience. Sometimes, she fought, others she tried to kill herself, but it usually went like this. A resignation, a bare minimum of resistance until he got started. That always ended in screaming.
Tattletale didn't move until he gestured with his hand, then one of his men walked over to her and clamped his hand on her shoulder. As the three of them reached the room usually used for these purposes, after all, there was no need to make a mess even in a timeline that was almost certainly going to be dropped, the Coil in his home got up to refill his drink.
Drinking while forcing information out of someone was something only a sociopath would do, but he was just a man having a drink in his home, wasn't he?
As Coil began to do things that would turn the stomachs of most men, Thomas Calvert sank back down into a plush leather chair, not even really paying attention to the other timeline.
Until now.
"She's coming for you. She knew who you are, and now she knows where you are. Whatever you do to me here, in this simulation, won't last, but what she does to you, will. You are a dead man walking." She coughed painfully "And I will dance on your grave."
As Coil's fist slammed into her already bloody face, Calvert jumped out of his chair and hurried to his car. He'd get out town in one timeline, preferably this one where he hadn't utterly alienated one of his most important assets and stick to his base in the other.
The cape Tattletale was referring to was most likely Songbird, once he'd gotten her to confirm that, he'd sent his men on a hunt. There would be some trace, even someone who could look like anyone had to leave some traces of themselves.
As he reached his bedroom so he could grab some clothes, something lightly hit the window. His head jerked around, and for the briefest moment, saw something flicker outside, then a massive shockwave picked him up and flung him against the wall. The window might have been made from security glass, but even that produced sharp fragments that cut into his skin. His bed and wardrobe hit the wall on either side of him as he bit back a curse.
Songbird had clearly already found him. It was a bit unfortunate that his new timeline would be the one where he'd tortured Tattletale, but really, he was about to acquire another precog and he could always just use the methods he planned to use on his new Thinker on his old one as well. Back in his base, he immediately ordered his men to his residence. The cape might not have attacked as he wasn't there, but she was definitely in the area.
He was about to drop the timeline as a tall, slender, white haired man in a black uniform with red sleeves and a cape walked through the hole in the wall. He withdrew a ka-bar and an envelope out from behind his back, held the envelope up to Calvert's chest, and drove the knife through the envelope into his heart before he could react.
Then he did drop the timeline. Or tried to, at least. The timeline in his base continued to run as he ordered his men into action, but he was still there, lying in an ever expanding pool of his own blood.
"Wondering why you can't just snap this reality out of existence and return to your other timeline, the safe one? It's actually quite simple, Thomas."
Coil would have rolled his eyes if he still had the energy. Was this guy really monologuing?
"You don't create new timelines for you to experiment with, your power runs simulations of the outcomes of a binary choice, then masters you into following the better timeline while showing you the road not taken in real time.
If you die or something else horrible happens in one of them, your power doesn't choose that one." the man walked backwards, out of the hole, arms spread wide "But your power can't see me. It decided that whatever method of stress relief you are engaging in in the other timeline was something you did not want to be permanent and did not foresee you dying here, so you're stuck with this reality. You dropped the safe one hours ago."
"You're still 'cough' screwed" Coil managed to gasp out as his vison went black.
A couple of minutes later and slightly less than five hundred meters away, a young man began to walk away. If Coil had been home, he would be dead by now, the misdirection planted, the message delivered. Having the newly reskinned Illusion deliver a monologue about how all his precautions and careful planning hadn't saved him in the end had been quite unnecessary but had also felt strangely right for the death of a Bond villain wannabe. A pigeon manifested at his feet and, after a brief order, flew off to a nearby rooftop, where it tapped a button on a phone lying there, causing an automated message to be sent to the office of the Parahuman Response Team that a recently deceased supervillain's base would blow up shortly and appropriate measures should be taken.
The young man's feelings were in turmoil, while he was rationally aware of the fact that he had just saved countless lives, he had also ended one. He'd told himself he would sleep like a baby afterwards because Coil was such an awful human being, but he now knew that wasn't how this night was going to go.
---
This was meant to be followed up by the PRT/Protectorate response, but I wanted to get this out as early as possible and I'm tired.333wilderfastJul 24, 2021View discussionThreadmarks Interlude Armsmaster View contentwilderfastJul 25, 2021#104It was nine in the morning and Armsmaster was exhausted as he entered the residence that had once belonged to Thomas Calvert. Coil, he supposed. He'd been called out of bed by Director Piggot in the middle of the night over what basically amounted to a bomb threat. They'd evacuated a ten-block area over the warning, then they'd approached the location of the supposed supervillain base.
Surprisingly enough, the large group of mercenaries within had straight up surrendered. They'd wanted to run, but the Protectorate's presence had made that impossible. Apparently, the anonymous caller had been right, the base had been rigged to blow and none of them was capable of overriding it. Coil had set it up so that a code had to be entered every 48 hours or else the self-destruct would initiate. They'd received an automated message that he was being attacked in his home, the location of which a few of his most trusted lieutenants knew. When he hadn't responded, they had also received access to his home's video surveillance system as well as a recording of the incident along with preprepared orders to spread it around, his killer's identity was to be known far and wide as posthumous revenge.
Armsmaster had spent the last ten hours dealing with the fallout from that. The mercenaries needed locking up, the people who'd been evacuated needed to be put somewhere and someone needed to figure out what to do with the base.
Then, an hour ago, someone had posted a response to the video on PHO, laying everything bare, making the same information they'd gotten from the mercenaries and the envelope pinned to the man's corpse available to the public. The Public Relations office was already having apoplectic fit over the incoming PR disaster.
As he entered the bedroom of the now deceased PRT officer, Assault looked up from where he had been looking over the damage done to the wall.
"Piggot thought I might get some insight. I'm up to speed as far as our current knowledge extends, I've seen the video, read the contents of the envelope, verified what could be verified in the time I had."
The man hadn't been there last night and was annoyingly chipper.
"We'll need to bring Songbird in. She might have changed her form, but it's her. Her power is well known …" Armsmaster began but Assault talked over him.
"You know you can't just assume every new cape is the local shapeshifter, right? He honestly reads like a Thinker to me. He monologues to show of how smart he is, has detailed extremely, unnaturally accurate information on another cape's power, yet straight up misses a camera almost directly in front of him?
Either he's a Thinker, or he read Coil's diary."
"You really think this wasn't Songbird?" came Armsmaster's shocked outburst.
"Nah, I'm just playing advocatus diaboli. This likely was Songbird, though we definitely need to change that name after this.
However, we've glommed onto a single unconfirmed suggestion in a PHO thread based on the fact that a little girl sounded like a grown man, linked to a single incident with Stranger involvement. We have a good case for our assessment, but we need to remember we're piling assumptions on top of assumptions here." he shrugged "Whatever. My point is this guy is cocky as hell all operates very differently than what little we know of Songbird. Also, check this out."
He handed Armsmaster a piece of paper, soaked crimson. He didn't need his armor's chemical sensors to tell him what that was "What do you get from that?"
The paper was heavy, high quality cardstock that was still intact despite the liquid soaking it The note was handwritten, but with mechanical precision, using a wide, dark and indelible pen, allowing it to still be legible, applied with enough force that even if the ink had been washed away completely, the impressions would have still delivered the message.
"They wanted to get the message across no matter what, they planned for it to end up soaked. The paper and ink are not standard, but still extremely common and unlikely to lead us to the culprit. I …"
"Let me stop you right there, Armsy," Assault interrupted him, again, and tapped three places on the letter "Read those sections."
" 'If you kept your house clean, it wouldn't fall to us to take out the trash', 'he was planning on foolishly revealing the identities of every cape in the Empire in an attempt to drive it out of the city' and 'You should have realized he was a snake the second you saw him' ? It's quite rude and disparaging of Coil, is that what you mean?"
"It's not just rude, it's borderline racist, considering who the victim is. Think about it, if we didn't have that video, what would we have gotten out of this? A letter, pinned to the chest of a black PRT consultant, containing disparaging language, wall blown in with a wave of raw force, something consistent with powers belonging to a member of Empire 88? Especially considering the letter explicitly states that one of the reasons he was killed was that he was planning on exposing all of their secret identities?"
"We'd think the Empire did it. Maybe this individual really isn't Songbird and the Empire's new cape instead?"
Assault shrugged "I have no fucking clue what the truth is here. What we do know that someone thought this through. The letter was closest to the body in envelope while the documents supporting his claims were wrapped in a waterproof bag, with a layer of absorbent material in between to reduce seepage through the hole made by the knife. Someone wanted us to find this letter, soaked in the blood of a dead supervillain, with a clear explanation of why he did what he did and get a very specific impression.
Then he noticed Coil's little surprise and put all of this information in the same PHO thread in an attempt to justify himself. We're going to get this guy."
"Officially, for the murder of a PRT affiliate, even one who was secretly a supervillain, no effort should be spared. Unofficially however, we already have enough egg on our face. This comes directly from the director. A newly triggered Thinker appears in a city where Thinkers are actively hunted and cannot turn to the one place where they should have been able to turn due to our failures. As a result, they killed the supervillain hunting them, or hired a mercenary to do it for them.
Though his monologuing while standing over a dying man has dampened sympathies, this still looks far too much like very proactive self-defense.
In conclusion, we are to bring in this cape if we see him, Songbird is to be brought in on suspicion of being this cape, but neither are to be pursued with the vigor we would normally give it. Especially given that we don't know what other damaging information could be released if we push him to far."
"Damn." Assault spat "Supervillain or not, this is a blatant breaking of the unwritten rules. And I don't care that he was planning on breaking the rule first, this is way too far! I want to see this guy burn."
Armsmaster shook his head slowly and turned to look over the scene. Assault was an unusual person. A former supervillain who rescued people from birdcage transports, in part because he believed the birdcage to be inhumane, yet joined up with the Protectorate the second he was caught. Someone who could still make jokes at a murder scene and didn't take regulations and regulations too seriously at the best of times yet was up in arms over the breaking of a set of rules that really acted more as guidelines than the actual laws broken.
"I'll scan the scene in its entirety, then return to the Rig to process the information. You should go out and patrol, since this whole affair was dragged out in the public eye, someone might try something." Armsmaster dismissed his subordinate.
A few hours later, he was sitting in his office in the Rig when Director Piggot called him to her office, sounding furious.
"Just how badly have you been neglecting your duties, Armsmaster?" she shouted before he even had the chance to sit down and spun her monitor around on her desk "One of our PRT troopers, sadly one with a verified account, replied to the thread and challenged him on his choice to strike directly at Director Calvert and that he should have contacted the PRT or Protectorate in a way that kept the number of people who knew of him small while Coil was neutralized.
He responded by saying that this organization still had massive problems, Calvert was just the worst of them. Apparently, Shadow Stalker has been going on unsanctioned patrols, using lethal munitions, and we should really ask her school about an incident on the first day back in school after the winter break. As it turns out, she nearly killed a classmate with a 'prank' that the school covered up, partially due to her handler's influence.
It seems you have dropped the ball so badly you don't even know what your own Wards are doing. You are stripped of your oversight of the Wards, effective immediately and your position as Protectorate leader is now in question as well. I hope for your sake that nothing else comes to light"
---
I feel like there's a bit of a glut of Interludes right now. Is that fine or does anyone have a problem with that?Last edited: Nov 28, 2024334wilderfastJul 25, 2021View discussionThreadmarks Chapter 9 View contentwilderfastJul 27, 2021#136On the way home, my summons list grew by one. It was an odd creature, even by the standards of what I normally got. It was called a Fleech, a weird leech like creature with a crocodilian jaw about the size of a cat.
I shuddered. For one, the creature was but ugly and terrifying, but also because this felt like blood money. I'd just had a person killed, and now the universe patted me on my back and given me a little bit more power.
I slowly headed towards my car, got in, and drove off. I headed directly home and stumbled inside, locked the door behind me, tore of my clothes other than my underpants and collapsed into bed.
I lay there, for five minutes, ten minutes, half an hour, and yet I was still awake. My mind was a spinning mess. Rationalization was a wonderful coping tool, yet lying in bed, thinking of nothing was always a fantastic breeding ground for evil thoughts.
Then that stupid little voice in the back of my mind chirped in that I may have been wrong about Calvert being Coil in the first place. It was bullshit, of course, and I knew that, every other piece of metaknowledge I had had turned out to be correct, but nothing I did could shut that voice up for good.
Then my mind threw up the occasional horror scenario that might grow out of this situation, from being arrested to the Empire simply seizing control and executing all of those they perceived as inferior, to a nuke going of as a final fuck you from Coil. Once again, all know bullshit, but it turns out my brain is rather stupid when not in use.
I could now lie here in bed, awake, spinning out, or … or I could do something else. Literally anything else.
After dressing in a loose t-shirt and sweatpants, I headed down into the kitchen to cook. I'd always loved cooking, and between it and the music pounding in my headphones, the bad thoughts went away and stayed away. Sadly, my choice of music, namely metal, had also chased away any chance of getting to sleep anytime soon, but that was actually alright. I had no classes, no work, no real set times I needed to be anywhere. I could afford to have a screwed up sleep schedule. Well, I probably should fix it in the long term, having an irregular sleep schedule was actually pretty bad for you, but short term? I could and would use being able to sleep or stay awake whenever I wanted to my advantage.
Two hours later, I felt tired again, yet I was too wound up to sleep. This setup tired yet unable to sleep reminded me dearly of the night before a test, but it seemed almost insulting to make that comparison. I tried to go to sleep for maybe five minutes, but then I decided to forego sleep for tonight, trying was not going to achieve anything.
So here I was, sitting on my living room sofa, Frogger on my lap, blinds closed to avoid the neighbors seeing him, reading a book. It was eerily reminiscent of my first night here, sitting here for hours, waiting for day to break.
An hour after that, I grew bored of the book, so I got up and grabbed my laptop and headed to the kitchen table. Scratching Frogger behind the ears with one hand, I opened up PHO. It seemed I had somewhat gotten addicted to this website. It was quite interesting, seeing people's responses to what superheroes and -villains were doing. Superheroes and supervillains. This was my life now and I still got occasional flashes of wonder when I thought about it.
My power made itself briefly known, telling me that, from now on, if I summoned something called Live Ammo, it would be upgraded. I also now had access to a crossbow I could summon at will, but I needed Live Ammo to use it. My power seemingly gave me a tired shrug when I wondered what I was supposed to do with these until then.
If I had been drinking something when I saw the top post in the local board, I likely would have had to buy a new laptop.
A friggin video. The bastard had had a friggin video camera in his house and had arranged for it to be spread far and wide a final fuck you to me. I'd deliberately used Explosive Finish to break my way in, the heat and lightless explosion reminiscent of Stormtiger's aerokinetic explosions, both in terms of appearance and aftermath, the letter left behind having several low-key racist phrases to give the impression of it originating from the hand of a Neo Nazi who had been unable to fully keep his prejudice out of his writing.
Unless I wanted to pretend the Emiya look for the Illusion was an Empire cape, my plan to frame them was dead in the water, and doing that would require cooperation from people I would rather see dead alongside Coil. Of course, if I started knocking of Empire capes, I was screwed. I'd had a good excuse with Coil, and with his death, I was done with his entire organization. E88 had fourteen capes and support from others oversees, going full murderhobo on them was not an option.
Now, I had to somehow change the public perception, make it clear why Coil had needed to die and maybe also try and convince people he wasn't Songbird. Having everyone panic over an imaginary Stranger/Changer had been fantastic … right up unto the point where I'd actually gained access to a Stranger/Changer. In hindsight, I should have used Emiya from the start to conduct this operation and visited the Undersiders with the Illusion wearing his likeness. The public at large didn't have that information, but any large-scale deception was now very much going to be a house of cards.
However, that was a problem for later. For now, I needed to prepare a statement. I opened a text editing program, surprisingly not Word, and began to type out a long letter, detailing Coil's numerous and grievous misdeeds, specifically highlighting his own past and planned breaking of the unwritten rules, kidnapping of a teenager in the form of Tattletale and Emiya's, who I had decided should pretend to be a Thinker, problem with being in a city where Thinkers were actively hunted and being unable to turn to the PRT. The rest was pretty much the same stuff the PRT had gotten from the body. Hopefully, it would keep everyone from hunting him and, by extension, me.
I had also prepared a series of letters to several of the Empire's capes, detailing that Coil might have arranged for their identities to be released in the event of his untimely demise. Doing anything to help Neo Nazis stuck in my craw, but this was preferable to the mess that had happened in canon. I'd put special effort in the letter to Purity, imploring that she get out of town and make sure her kids were never out of her sight, else some brain dead moron from CPS might make a mistake that caused her to blow up most of the city. I hadn't phrased it quite like that, but I think my meaning came across nonetheless. I also pointed out that while she was trying to become a hero, no one had been able to tell due to the fact that she was still targeting the same groups as she had during her time in the Empire and that she should instead join the Protectorate. Not in Brockton Bay, for obvious reasons, but they would probably accept her with open arms, having taken in people just as bad in the past.
I'd foolishly uploaded the video mocking the Empire from my home computer, trusting in the firewalls of the website, but this message identified the sender as the person who had killed a PRT employee, albeit one who was also a supervillain. I'd have the Illusion do that at an Internet Café.
I waited another hour to go out, it still being dark out, then headed out one dawn broke.
I had been lucky enough to find an internet café within one block of a post office, so I used that one.
The Illusion's new form had been chosen quite deliberately to sell the idea that Coil had been killed by a Thinker. It was the Emiya form that had been plastered across the internet, but without the mask I'd added to him last night and he was bald, wearing glasses, a white polo shirt and blue jeans. Someone who could be identified as the cape from the video if you compared the two, but with enough differences to make it appear like he had taken reasonable precautions to hide his identity.
Then again, both the Empire and Protectorate had very good reasons to take care to obey the unwritten rules at the moment, especially against someone who, on the surface at least, appeared to be a powerful Thinker. And even if I didn't sell it, any confusion was a good thing.
So, I had the Illusion drop of the letters at the post office, head over to the internet café and begin to post. I wasn't actually in contact with him, that would be a dead giveaway to anyone paying attention, but both the Illusion and Song were quite independent.
She was to create a new account for the cape that had killed Coil, using the name Counter_Guardian and get herself verified with a picture I had taken of her earlier, in her costume.
While I waited a block away in my car, a new power came to me. I was now entitled to pick one more theme. At this point, I could easily just pick anything just because I felt they were cool. I had my theme for disguising my creature's biological nature, now I could pick literally anything.
My next summon hit me like a blow to my very soul. I could, now, make that comparison. Before someone had messed with it however, I might have likened it to getting a concussion while being hit in the balls with a sledgehammer, though the feeling originated from the very center of my chest. I fest like throwing up, like keeling over, I felt horrible, sick.
Something must have shown on my face as one of the passersby asked me if I was feeling alright, but I waved him off.
Xerneas.
Even the name rang in my head like a gong. It was the strongest summon I had to date, likely the strongest I would get for a long time. I knew he was intelligent, powerful, and weirdly enough, he got across the impression that he wanted to talk to me. Actually talk. As in, have a conversation.
Wow. This was going to be interesting. Also, the next thing on my list of things to do after this. The very second the Illusion was done. This absolutely could not wait.
I went closer to the internet café and looked over at my summon, who was still typing away. Damn. One moment I had all the time in the world, the next I was desperately counting the seconds. Not because I was going to die if I didn't do this right now, but because I really couldn't wait for this conversation to happen. It was bound to be important, even if I interpreted the sheer impression of mystical importance I got from him wrongly. But if I was right … this being wasn't just strong, it was important. Vital to something I couldn't yet see, but this conversation should clear things up.
It was with great restraint that I was able to prevent myself from continuously muttering 'hurry up' under my breath. That would have looked great on the CCTV footage if anyone ever looked it over. Which they might, if someone decided to come looking for the man who killed Coil.
An eternity later, though it was probably more like five minutes, the Illusion got up, exited the café and walked over into an alleyway. I dismissed her once she was out of sight.
I walked of in the opposite direction, got into my car and drove home. Once there, I did my usual spiel of packing myself something to eat, putting on heavier boots, etc. and headed back out into the boonies. I actually switched locations, driving to a different area that I had seen from the phoenix. I doubted someone had identified that area as a new cape's testing ground, but there was no need to take stupid risks.
Standing in a small valley as Shade swooped past overhead, doing his usual sweep, I took a deep breath to calm my troubled mind.
Then, he appeared. A tall stag like being, body a dark grey, almost black, azure from the neck up, seven antlers glowing in different colors.
"Hello, Keeper of the Celestial Menagerie." the voice was deep and melodious and it seemed to originate from … my head?
"Is that you? Can you … read my mind?" I asked, my voice almost a whisper.
"No, I do not possess that ability, but I am psychic." came the answer.
"You're the first one of my summons who is intelligent and can talk, and you seem to know who and what I am. Who are you? What am I and what is the Celestial Menagerie?"
"I am Xerneas, embodiment of life and the ecosystem, and I am one of the beings connected to the Menagerie.
The Menagerie itself was conceived by another deity of the wilds to ensure that nature and the ecosystems of many different worlds would persist even in the event of their total destruction. Usually, this is done by adding a creature's pattern to the repository that your soul has become. You then summon a Flickerbat, a Phoenix, a Colibri. Then, you keep summoning these creatures, resummoning the same one each and every single time. I, however, am slightly different. I am Xerneas and, unlike others of my kind, a singular unique entity that represents my worlds ecosystem. I only exist once and for me, you act as a resurrection point instead of merely holding a backup of my species' physiological makeup. While I am bound to the Celestial Menagerie I cannot be permanently killed. You are a failsafe for me personally.
While you may summon me as you do normally, if I exhaust myself to much, I will fall into a sleep that lasts for a millennium. It is highly unlikely that anything short of an Endbringer can cause me to tax myself that much, but it would behoove you to be cautious."
"Wait, do I need to be concerned about everyone's energy levels? How do you even know what Endbringers are?"
"The Menagerie usually recharges anything your creatures use while summoned, but I am too powerful to recharge, if it tried I would likely drain it of energy for days or even weeks.
As for the Endbringers, I might not be the one who created the Menagerie, but I am aware of it and, by extension, the Multiverse. Then your benefactor briefly contacted me when I was added to your list of summons and informed me of the threat you are facing.
I will stand by you, Wyatt Reyes, through the worst the Entity and its Conflict Engines can throw at you. This is our duty."
I got the power to borrow the sensory abilities from one of my summons and a new summon called a Zeta Metroid, a quadrupedal dinosaur-like beast with two large claws on each foot that was also capable of spitting fire and acid. I pushed them to the back of my mind and ignored them as Xerneas continued to speak.
"It is quite fortunate that you have gained access to me this soon, before age weakened you."
The stag leaned forward, nudged me with his nose and returned to his previous position while his horns dimmed slightly.
"As the embodiment of life, most of my powers lie in that area. I am an exceptional healer, capable of undoing even the most grievous of wounds and healing all ailments. However, one of the greatest gifts I can bestow is that of Biological Immortality and I have just granted it to you. The Celestial Menagerie shall endure and grow for as long as you live and now, that will be a long time indeed.
Every cell division will be perfect, no defects or differences between them, no mutations will ever weaken you, any wounds will heal perfectly, even limbs will regenerate eventually. Anything that does not kill you will be completely undone, given enough time."
Holy. Shit. Eternal Life. That was … the only word I could think of was overwhelming. The implications of that being possible, let alone me having it were, in a word, immense. Not to forget that there were a million possibilities, implications and possible complications that I was probably missing.
Holy. Shit. I would live forever. For. Ever. I only barely managed to get out a "Thank you" before I began to turn things over in my head. I could not be permanently incapacitated, so I would only need a healer if I was grievously injured and I could live for the rest of eternity if I managed to solve the problems of this world.
But those were only the consequences on a personal level. Xerneas was extraordinarily tough, tougher than almost any brute out there, save the Endbringers, Alexandria and maybe a ramped-up Lung. The closest comparison to canon that I could think of was Echidna, in terms of raw physical strength, durability and regeneration. He was clearly a peerless healer, if the casual immortality was anything to go by. Also, the way he spoke about the Endbringers … not as though they were an unstoppable enemy, but something that might be powerful enough to overdraw his energy. He didn't come across as being particularly arrogant, and if that was an accurate estimation of his abilities … ho boy.
"Just what are you capable of doing? You seem confident in your ability to defeat Endbringers." I hoped my voice didn't betray my doubt.
"I cannot outright defeat the Endbringers, they are too durable, and my power is focused in areas other than combat and damage dealing. I can, however, hold them back for a time while healing the damage our allies receive.
In addition to my healing powers and not inconsiderable physical abilities, I can project energy, increase gravity in an area and greatly boost my own physical attributes for a time.
Finally, I can boost all manner of preternatural powers and abilities around me, if they are wielded by an ally. This can be limited to simply increasing the strength of their powers, but it is also capable of letting them surpass their limits in other ways, affecting new types of materials or overcoming more conceptual blocks."
Holy shit. I know I had though it a lot in the last hour, but holy shit. This being was stronger than my every other summon to date put together and capable of clobbering anyone save the Triumphirate, Endbringers and the Entity. The Siberian also maybe belonged on that list, but only if Xerneas stuck to striking at the projection, not Manton.
The only real limitation was his energy, if I used him to wipe out the Merchants, that may cost me my ability to take the fight to the greater foes. Although, sobering up all of them at once might be good for a laugh.
"Wow, that is a lot. I do have a few more questions. You mentioned others of your kind, but you are unique, what did you mean by that. Also, how long does your energy take to recharge if you don't overdo it, how much do you anticipate having to use against the Endbringers?"
"When I spoke of the others, I was not referring to a species as such, but the collective type of being called Pokémon. As for energy, I …"
I didn't hear the rest of what he said. Pokémon? Those couldn't be real, right?
… says the man living in one of his favorite novels. If it had been my favorite, I would be living in an Inn right now, a large sign 'no killing Goblins' outside the door.
Many of my other creatures likely came from other pieces of fiction as well, though I couldn't think of any of the top of my head.
A minor power, the ability to allow a single creature to fly, swim or burrow, if they couldn't before, though I decided to ignore it for now.
Besides, there were a million possibilities for why any of my summon might also be found in other pieces of fiction, from the authors being psychic to every possible story being real somewhere in the multiverse.
"Sorry, could you repeat that? I was deep in thought." I asked in an apologetic tone.
"Of course. I can fight an Endbringer while healing allies and not using any powers that actively require energy for a couple of hours. Using my fairy aura, that's the one that boosts powers, would cut that time in half, and that time will drop further the more of my active powers I use.
I recover faster if I do not fully exhaust myself and at those levels of engagement, I should be able to recover my powers in time for the next attack."
----
So, I hope I did Xerneas justice here, feel free to cast judgement.
So, I just realized that Wyatt never actually learned of the term "Celestial Menagerie", so I decided that Xerneas mentioning it warranted some further explanations.
Also, are there any legendary Pokémon with a more offensive focus? I was wondering if maybe Xerneas could reference a relative that would be better suited to endslaying, but I don't know enough about Pokémon and looking for one would take a long time.
New creatures this chapter
Fleech from Oddworld (Fleech)
Xerneas from Pokemon (https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Xerneas_(Pokémon)#Main_series)
Zeta Metroid from Metroid (Zeta Metroid)287wilderfastJul 27, 2021View discussionThreadmarks Chapter 10 View contentwilderfastJul 28, 2021#160After I'd dismissed Xerneas, I took the time to sit down and relax for a moment. Mind you, I hadn't just dismissed him, I'd said goodbye and done the usual polite things one did when bidding goodbye to someone, not just sent him packing without a word. I had just received several world shacking revelations, but I was still here and (probably) sane. Now was as good a time as any to think about some other things.
First up, picking a theme. My first and currently only theme was there to disguise my creature's biological nature, and while my next one could be literally anything now that I had something to cover that requirement, Shadow was a pretty obvious pick for my next one. Constellation was great and all, but during the Empire raid, its flashiness could have easily bitten me in the ass. Damn, that felt like a lifetime ago.
I really should have picked Shadow right of the bat, but I hadn't really thought things through back then.
Reaching inwards and checking my soul and the creatures and powers attached to it, though I now knew that was called the Celestial Menagerie, was second nature by now. The array of creatures had grown significantly since I'd last checked. With merely a thought, I reached out towards the themes, brushed aside them all save for the deep black splotch in their middle and yanked it into the open slot.
On a whim, I decided to summon a couple of creatures to see actual creatures wearing the themes. Sapphire appeared in a flash, every joint highlighted by a star, lines flowing along his skeletal structure. He was positively adorable. I gave him a brief pet when he landed in my palm, then he flew off once more. My pigeon, summoned for the very first time, looked far scarier. It manifested as a near featureless mass of shadow, eyes the dark red of venal blood while his claws were darker than even the rest of him, seemingly sucking in the light out of the surrounding area. The two birds began to flutter around my head while I summoned Festus. Festus. That name had seemed so familiar before, why? And how the hell had I known that his name meant 'happy'? That one year of ancient Greek hadn't left me with a particularly deep vocabulary and that word wasn't in it.
'You know Festus means happy, right? We're going to save the world on happy the dragon. '
The quote just popped into my head but who had said it? Someone had shown up with a mechanical dragon made from bronze and … Leo! Leo Valdez and … Jason Grace. Demigod children of Hephaestus and Jupiter, respectively. The Percy Jackson book series, it was actually pretty obvious now. The Carnivorous Sheep I'd gotten earlier could actually well be from the same series. That series was one of my favorites, the very first book series I'd not only read on my own, but the first one I'd read in English. It was probably a weird thing to still be proud of as an adult but, oh well, I didn't much care. End of the day, though? The more important thing was that at least some of my creatures were from pieces of fiction I'd read. How? Well, I'd already thought about the implications of this earlier. Then again, this wasn't really something I could use to my advantage, nor did I gain any benefit by thinking about it. The metaknowledge from each setting would be useful if I ever ended up there, but that was about it. Maybe I could ask to end up one of those places after I was done here?
Meanwhile the Menagerie updated. I finally gained a piece of Live Ammo, though it hadn't really been that long since I'd gotten the useless upgrade. The Menagerie felt almost apologetic as it gave me a creature called a Fuzzle, a ball of fur with a massive mouth that I could shoot at walls or the floor to have it stick there, ready to chomp down on anything that got close. The upgrade turned it into a Rabid Fuzzle, which was far more ferocious. Neat.
It was joined by a new summon and a new power. The summon was a Hippocampus, a fish-horse hybrid that could be ridden. And damn, I knew where this guy was from.
"I'll call you Rainbow." I said to the air, though I was talking to my summon. I'd have told him face to face, but he was an aquatic lifeform.
The power, on the other hand, was incredibly appropriate to the world I was in. It was called Resource Network and allowed me and my summons to share a pool of resources, from fuel for spells and the like, though I only had that in the context of my card summons, to health, stamina and fatigue. I further had plenty of control over what was distributed and how much of it I gave or received. In essence, I could protect myself by sharing out my damage across every summon I had, stave of fatigue, draw the mystical energy for the Song and the Illusion from one of my mystical summons, etc.
What had made it so appropriate for this world however was the ability to put emotions into the swarm … I meant Menagerie, to stop myself from freaking out or showing my emotions. Remind anyone of a certain bug controller?
Anyway, on to testing new summons and powers. Now that I was out here again, did not have any pressing demands on my time and had enough powerful summons to be safe even if I put almost my entire arsenal on cooldown, I could afford to experiment with everything, including the ones I had only briefly or never summoned.
The Deathgripper and Phoenix would remain unsummoned and Inky was always there anyway, but every creature I had that could survive on dry land appeared in the clearing before me.
Shade was flying overhead, but Frogger appeared on my shoulder, the snail on his head as a bizzare hat.
Before me however? A gargoyle, a hippo sized sheep, a massive red deer, a floating ball of plasma with eyes and hands, a monkey with leaves growing out of its head, a disgusting green leech thing, a horse sized dino thing, a living ball of metal, a mechanical spider, a fairy and an immense bronze dragon.
I walked over to the Fleech and asked "Do you have any interesting abilities I should be aware of? Nod if you do."
It shook its head and I dismissed it. I might use it to freak out Piggot if I ever felt like poking that bear.
I'd like to say I acted my age, preserved some sense of decorum, behaved as it behooved for the guardian of the Celestial Menagerie. I'd be lying if I did. I climbed on top of the sheep and lay down in its soft fur, rubbed the adorable pansage's head, jumped on the Crimson Indrik's back and had him running around the clearing while I shouted 'faster, faster' and in general cut loose. Away from anyone who could judge, after surviving death and successfully eliminating my most immediate threat, I finally let myself act like a carefree kid. I'd earned it.
The dino thing, the Metroid, made an impressive showing when I ordered it to unleash it's breath attacks on a nearby boulder. Furthermore, it had an incredibly powerful energy draining ability that could easily kill people in a way that would be hard to identify. If I ever decided to kill people but could not be identified, using a unique method that practically screamed parahuman power while definitely not being my power would come in handy.
Sure, it was cool and all, but I dismissed it.
Over time, the clearing began to grow empty again as I dismissed the summons I no longer needed. This left me with just Festus, the Indrik and the two birds. Now, it was time to try out my powers.
First up was Grant Movement, which I used on the Indrik and told it to start flying. It began to gallop on the air, greatly reminding me of the reindeer that pulled Santa's sleigh. I must confess I spent another good half hour just riding around on the Indrik.
Once I had finally gotten that out of my system, I tried out Animal Senses, targeted on my mount.
My vision suddenly went seemingly blurry, but the darkness between the trees at the edge of the clearing brightened, allowing me to see more than I would have before, but in far less detail. On top of that, I could see out of the corner of my eyes far better, my field of view greatly increased. I could probably see the opposite wall of a room simultaneously with this.
My hearing seemingly stayed the same, though I could better tell where sounds were coming from.
My sense of smell, on the other hand? It was incredible. Deer could tell if a predator had been nearby even hours or possibly days ago, it was easily their strongest sense. I was just glad I hadn't tried it out in a city, especially a city like Brockton Bay. Now just to check … it turned out I could stop drawing on any given sense to preserve my human capabilities. As the next test, I dismissed the Indrik while holding on to its senses. I retained them, so I let them go, returning to the human baseline, then drew on them again. Now that I was drawing on an animal not currently summoned, I was able to distinctly identify which senses I could borrow and how they compared to mine.
Then my summons list updated as I got access to something called a Spynum. It was a dark blue orb with a face, spherical gloves and feet, wearing a Robin Hood hat and wielding a bow. It's eyesight was fucking amazing when I borrowed it. I casually summoned it and looked it over with its own fantastic sense. It's surface looked unusually smooth.
Ok, cool. I dismissed it and focused on my next power, Resource Network.
I currently only had Inky, Festus, the Pigeon and Sapphire out. With four summons anything I shared would be reduced to a fifth if the others didn't add anything. My emotions flowed out of me as I began to share them while making sure nothing flowed back to me from them. Everything became … muted. The happiness I felt was almost not there anymore. However, that wasn't what I wanted this power for. I let it all in. Every stupid thought, everything I'd pushed out of my mind the night I'd killed Coil, everything. every dark feeling I could dredge up and … I didn't really care. Carefully, I began to put my mental barriers back up, pushed the darkness out of my consious mind, waited five minutes, and let everything flood back.
The world brightened again.
That stunt could seriously help with things like guilt, but it was incredibly dangerous. I resolved never to use that aspect of the power outside of a serious emergency.
"Sorry guys" I muttered as I pulled a knife from the backpack and pricked my finger. As I withdrew the blade, the wound closed four fifths of the depth and looked far better than it normally would have. My summons, on the other hand, jumped as one as I stabbed myself. A tiny gouge appeared in Festus' claw, only visible because his body was so immaculate, but every single one of them had shared the damage. It was a fantastic possibility, but not something I would be experimenting very much with.
In combat, this boosted my survivability to downright absurd levels, truly ridiculous if I had Xerneas summoned and had him actively healing everyone. Sharing mystical energy would have to wait until I actually found a summon I could draw from. I really should have tested it when I had everyone out, oh well, lessons learned and all that.
I could also transfer things like fatigue but testing that would have to wait until I was actually tired.
Now, I had just two more things to try out and these were the ones I had really been looking forward to. Creature Haunting and Festus.
I walked forward and hopped up on he dragon's back, tried to, at least. I only got halfway up, grasped at the indentation on his back where I was obviously supposed to sit and pulled went the rest of the way in an undignified scramble.
"You're a good boy, aren't you? Smart, too?" I asked as I patted the base of his neck.
He craned his head back to look me in the eye and nodded, making me grin in response.
"Alright then, let's go" I shouted as he took a running start and began to fly. Thankfully, I'd remembered to pack a parachute.
It took almost ten seconds to clear the clear the treetops and we almost clipped the uppermost branches of the trees at the edge of the clearing, but that was fine.
Festus was not the same as a Phoenix. If the flaming bird was a speedboat, the draconic mech was a goddamn battleship.
This flight was different than my last. Where the Phoenix had beaten its wings rapidly, Festus' larger wingspan allowed him to get away with a far slower frequency of beats, turning the motion into a rhythmic rocking motion rather than the rapid shaking of the bird.
"Show me your fire" I ordered, then belatedly added "Please don't set anything on fire."
I needn't have bothered. Festus was, while not on the level of Xerneas or the Illusion, quite intelligent and had pointed his head skywards before I had even started on the warning. A huge gout of flame shot forth with an almighty 'Whoosh', the heat palpable even from where I was sitting.
Ok, that was probably very visible, so I needed to finish this quickly and then get the hell out of here.
"Ok Festus, I'm going to use Creature Haunting now, please fly over to the clearing and land there, I don't know where I'll emerge when I disengage the power." he nodded, and I activated my power.
One moment, I was sitting on a massive, 30 meter long draconic machine, the next I found myself in a far larger body, legs and arms far shorter in comparison to my torso, but I had gained two wings and a tail. I could feel the wind rush past me, no longer cold but merely slightly cool. A heat burned in my chest, sending energy through my body and concentrating deep within my throat, ready to be exhaled in an immensely destructive blast.
Yet I could not move anything, my limbs seemingly acted of their own accord, they … they were Festus' limbs. I sighed without breath, softly cursing myself for forgetting that. Suddenly changing my body had been seriously disorienting. Hopefully, I'd get used to it. Then again, I'd definitely need to try out possessing all different kinds of creatures to learn how to interpret the different senses too. I'd do that once most of my summons weren't on cooldown.
A few seconds later, Festus landed in the clearing and I disengaged Creature Haunting. Now that I was doing it, I could feel that I could come out wherever I wanted, so I chose to return back to my seat on his back.
To dismount, I used my last power I had, to date, not tried out. Unhindered Movement allowed me to phase through my summons, so I activated it, slipped downwards, and realized I couldn't see jack because standing up, my head was still phased inside Festus' torso.
Therefore, I took a few steps to the side until the confusing mess of spinning gears and light that was his insides was replaced with the clearing in my vision.
I patted Festus' side and dismissed him. I really should get out of here. The Menagerie briefly made itself know as it granted me something called a Mini Quark, a cartoonish superhero looking thing that could act as an opponent for sparring.
I walked to the car and drove home.
On the way, I began to seriously think about what my power level. I'd started out with a meh-tier Master power that let me summon a Flickerbat and slowly grown. From there, I had gained several creatures like the Deathgripper that could go toe to toe with mid-tier capes such as Kaiser of Krieg, but those same capes could also kill them fairly easily and I would lose them for a day after that.
Xerneas alone was Triumphirate tier, but other than that, I was still a street tier fighter, albeit one who with excellent survivability due to Resource Sharing.
Actually, Xerneas alone would probably be classified as an A-Class threat if he showed any hint of hostility. The only reason he wasn't S-Tier was that his considerable powers weren't particularly offensive in nature. His healing was true healing, not biokinesis, therefore the worst he could do was massively accelerate the growth of every plant in a large radius and wreck the city that way, but that was still limited in scope.
Xerneas had mentioned some of the other Pokémon were on his level but with a more offensive powerset. I shuddered as I imagined what he might be capable of. They would definitely be S-Class threats.
Xerneas had been friendly enough, but if the others worked just like him, almost independent, I was very much terrified.
When I got home, I showered, changed to my casual, at home, outfit, and headed to my workshop.
I now had an abundance of unique materials that I could work with and now I could also start on designing an outfit for my primary cape persona.
Hm, what did I want to look like? And, more importantly, what did I need to be able to do while wearing it?
The first few things came easy. I needed to be able to move freely while wearing it, it needed to provide a certain degree of protection, it needed to look good.
However, there were several more special requirements unique to my situation. For one, I needed to be able to put on Ferro at the drop of a hat. I also wanted to show off some of the beings I could summon.
My first though was a leather outfit similar to what a hunter would wear, maybe reinforced with small plates of celestial bronze. Wait, that would make it a Brigandine, wouldn't it?
Whatever, semantics were a secondary concern. Another real concern was how I would end up looking in it. Then, I facepalmed and summoned the Illusion.
It looked just like me, though I'd put it in differently colored clothes, this was disconcerting enough as it is. Then I began to add the suit. A full body leather suit, small studs covering the outside where the metal plates were plated on, though the inside would be covered by a layer of the tough Carnivorous Sheep wool, though that wasn't visible on the Illusion.
The belt itself was your basic, military style utility belt with a large pockets.
I had also added a mask. It was actually part of a cowl connected to the armor at the back of my neck. It was mostly a leather covered helmet, though, and I'd decorated it with small blue Colibri feathers.
I was happy with the design for the most part, but the belt looked incredibly bulky.
I focused and the Illusion began to change, the belt slimming down while pockets began to appear on a newly manifested light trench coat. That looked better, now to see if it would fit with Ferro … he was on cooldown.
After making the executive decision to not get started on actually making the costume until I had checked if it worked for everything I needed it to, I headed out to go shopping.
First off, I went to a bookstore and bought what felt like half their stock of Fantasy and Sci-Fi books as well as several Cookbooks. One of the recipes included was a pigeon pie, so next up, I went to the grocery store to buy the ingredient for that.
Then, when I headed back, I thought about my grandma's lasagna, decided I wanted to make some tomorrow, nearly headed back in, realized I had stuff that needed to be refrigerated with me, swore, drove home, but the stuff away and finally returned to the store. I really, really needed to start putting more planning into my meals.
After I had finished making and eating the pie, I went out to buy some more cape related stuff. I bought a bunch of burner phones from several different stores, only one from each and I skipped several before I went in another one and paid with cash. I had been pretty careless in the past and I wasn't taking any chances this time. I also bought an extra laptop and printer I would only use for cape related stuff and stuck it in the workshop.
Just as I finished that up, I got the power to maintain a single summon past its 24h limit. I instantly picked Inky, that way I would never have her disappear in my sleep and leave me defenseless at an inopportune time.
Then I got an adorable lynx-thing called a Caraglow. It could also heal. I named him Magnus and petted him.
And then? Then I finally, truly relaxed for the first time since coming to this world, sat on my couch, and read a book, Magnus' head in my lap. For an hour. Then I started browsing PHO and got the unstoppable urge to throw some interesting information out there and maybe contact Taylor to tell her that Sophia was, in fact, Shadow Stalker, but that wasn't really possible given that I didn't know her username. Also, posting anything disruptive from my home computer might cause trouble. I typed out a few premade posts for the Illusion to post from the Internet Café later with its verified account. Hopefully it would strengthen the Thinker hypothesis and distance Songbird from the murder. I also wrote a letter to shove in the Hebert's mailbox.
Then I went to bed.
---
The Percy Jackson quote might not be exact, but it is correct in spirit. My copy of the book is im my parent's house (an hour's drive away), so I'm not going to check anytime soon. If anyone has the book on hand and wants to give me the correct quote, I'll gladly update it. The quote is from book one of the Heroes of Olympus series (second series), first book, near the beginning when Leo unveils Festus.
Also, I have never played Ratchet and Clank but the Wiki says that Mini Quarks are tutorial enemies but doesn't have much more information, so I decided to make them training holograms.
New creatures this chapter
Fuzzle from Oddworld (Fuzzle)
Hippocampus from Percy Jackson (Hippocampus)
Spynum from Kirby (Spynum)
Mini Quark from Ratchet and Clank (Mini Qwark)
Caraglow from Monster Sanctuary (Caraglow)252wilderfastJul 28, 2021View discussionThreadmarks Interlude Kaiser View contentwilderfastJul 29, 2021#171Max Anders sat at his desk and glared at the letter. The damn letter had been sent to Max's house but was clearly meant for Kaiser. It had been written in German, used the proper address of 'your imperial majesty' of the German Emperor and overall made it very clear that the sender knew who he was.
Respectful means of address aside, the entire letter dripped with condescension and malice, once referring him as a pathetic excuse for a human being.
It was also printed out on red paper, giving an almost sinister air.
Past the vitriol however, it contained some pretty vital information. Coil, who he now knew had been a member of the PRT, had been collecting his capes' civilian identities and there was a good chance that information would be released soon.
The sender made very clear that he only sent out this information so that, should this occur, the Empire did not wreck the city.
Whoever this was, they were either an exceptional Thinker or they had access to all of Coil's files. If they were the cape from the video, he really wanted to recruit them, even if they had been absurdly hostile during their communications. The Empire technically had a Thinker in Victor, though his abilities were quite different than what most people though of when they thought about Thinkers.
He wrote down a note to talk to people about the Thinker, not wanting a note that was obviously about gang stuff to be lying around his civilian office, especially not now. For the same reason, none of the burner phones he used as Kaiser were even in the building. A note about 'talk to the Thinker' should be easy enough to explain away.
Actively finding the Thinker would be almost impossible, but if anyone ran across him in the street, they should immediately pitch recruitment.
He was deep in thought when the door flew open and Krieg stormed in, furiously waving a suspiciously familiar red letter.
"Max, have you seen this?" he yelled, only to freeze when he saw the letter on Kaiser's desk.
"You to? Dammit." Kaiser muttered "I was hoping they didn't actually know who everyone is."
"They might not. Geoff, Dorothy, Brad, Nessa and Jessica all got ones, I haven't heard from the others."
"Tell everyone to make sure they have an exit strategy available. We need to be prepared in case that prediction comes true."
They spent the next half an hour considering and dismissing ideas, when the door blew open again. Max could faintly hear his secretary yelling in the background, trying to tell the person standing outside he was busy, but her efforts were futile.
Kayden stood in the doorway, glaring at them, then marched in, slammed yet another letter down in front of him and started yelling.
"This is it. You spent the last year holding Aster over my head, telling me I couldn't leave, but that stops now. They're in danger because of who you are, because of who I used to be.
I am leaving and I'm taking them both with me."
The impulse to tell her to calm down died on his lips. She was glowing slightly, her hands steadily increasing in brightness until they had almost reached the level they did when she was actively attacking. Whatever he had to say, he needed to be careful.
"Look, I know getting that letter must have been upsetting, but …"
"No buts. No ifs, no what abouts, no buts." she reached into her purse and pulled out a sheath of paper "Divorce Papers. I expect to get those back, signed, within the week."
"I … can we talk about this like reasonable adults?"
"Reasonable?" her voice quieted to a normal speaking level and grew cold
"You unfaithful, insufferable, hypocritical son of a bitch. Reasonable went out of the window a long time ago. With this letter, it has left the goddamn country. I am leaving and taking your children with me."
"Kayden, wait." he yelled and jumped as she walked out of the door. She paused, turned, and, just as he reached her, shut the door in his face. Literally in his face. Max stumbled backwards, clutching his bleeding nose.
A week later, two extremely competent lawyers from a prominent New York firm showed up at Medhall and made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that he should sign the divorce papers. He did.
Two weeks later, the New York Protectorate revealed a new cape, a Blaster/Mover almost on Legend's level, going by Nova.
---
I'm not sure if those two were already divorced at this point in time, however, I seem to remember the whole custody of the kids was a big thing, so I just decided to write them like this.