Disclaimer: I do not own anything in this story. Worm is property of Wildbow. I do not have any interest in offending anyone and only wish to entertain readers.
Note: Bonus points for those who understand the meaning of the title.
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With the entire Heartbreaker family knocked out I exited the vent and regrew to my original size. I then looked at the knocked out people and began to move them.
I soon separated the women from Heartbreaker as they are the victims in this mess. With the women separated from the others I began to check on the children of varying ages 6-16.
I began scanning them with a scanner that was inspired by Marvel's Handheld Mutant Detector meant to detect mutants, but I calibrated it to work on Parahumans instead. I began scanning all the children and only a few of them had powers, 3 of them did.
(Image)
I wasn't really sure what to do with the children and the women mastered by Heartbreaker, but I at least wanted to erase their memories to prevent them from gaining any trauma. The children that do have powers, I'm leaning towards erasing their powers and their memories. Why? Well as the children of Heartbreaker with human-controlling abilities, they aren't going to be really well-liked, victims or not, they do have human-controlling powers.
I looked at the bastard himself Heartbreaker, I wanted to just kill him and be done with it, but that would be too easy. I wanted to make this bastard suffer for all the the terrible things he's done.
With all of the people in this room catalogued I got to work. I began to use my aether cassette that was built into my suit, to quite literally erase the memories of their experience with him from the women and non-powered children, by using my own source code DarkScript.
I also made sure that they would not trigger with the activation of their Corona Pollentia, by simply disabling that part of the brain. While it might sound that I destroyed them mentally I only targeted that part of the brain and I lobotomized it.
With that finished, I got to the parahuman children and that's where I'm kind of conflicted. I could erase their memories and remove their powers, but ignoring all the ethical morals about it I wonder the consequences of the children.
They might be moved to foster care, but because they are powered children of Heartbreaker the PRT or Guild might put them into their custody to prevent another Heartbreaker situation.
So, I figure that removing their powers would be the best option and I did. I at first didn't want too because Cherish was important to the plot, but she was mostly irrelevant in the end as she didn't do much. So I removed her powers and after dealing with all of them I looked at the cause of all this, Heartbreaker.
I had various plans for him and it changed from publicly humiliating him and making him suffer a humiliating death, removing his powers make him feel despair as he realizes he has no powers and killing him, and removing his powers and making him go to the birdcage.
Overall, it will end in Heartbreaker suffering for all the things he's done. That's when an idea appeared in my head and that's when I got my idea.
...
(Nikos Vasil (Heartbreaker) POV)
As Heartbreaker's eyes began to open, he had a splitting headache and didn't feel so good. The last thing he remembered was a giant grenade landing on top of his dinner table and began spewing out gas and everyone started to fall down like flies. He tried to ran, but was unable too and also got knocked out.
He soon fully opened his eyes and noticed that he was strapped to a chair and is chained up. He also saw a man in what seems to be a batsuit with glowing blue eyes in front of him in the distance. He smirked as he considered the wannabe vigilante to be a fool who didn't know what his powers are. He tried to call his powers and make this man a slave and when he tried, he noticed that he didn't feel it anymore.
The man in the batsuit began walking towards me and I began to panic as I failed to sense my powers and use it on this man.
"W-wait!!" Though before I could finish the man began to punch me everywhere. The face, chest, stomach, and even my private parts.
'Whack'
'Bam'
'Pow'
'Wham'
The man punched and kicked me everywhere on my body and it was painful. It must be because of his suit which also enhanced his strength.
He kept punching me and didn't give me a chance to speak, but after a while he stopped and he spoke in a dark and serious tone, "You wanna know why I'm doing this? It's because of all the pain and suffering you caused in this world. You're nothing, but a selfish man who only cares for himself and honestly you're one of the most pathetic people to ever exist. I'm going to make sure you suffer and I'm going to enjoy it.'
I managed to weakly look up to him and while his face was hidden behind the mask, I could just feel him smiling and soon everything wen black.
...
(Ren POV)
I looked at the unconscious and broken body of Heartbreaker and I have to say, it felt good exacting justice upon this person. I now wondered what to do next as I knew he was powerless and so is his children and the victims minds were erased.
I decided to call the PRT Number branch here in Canada. The phone rang and that's when I heard a distinct female voice, "Hello, thank you for calling the PRT what can I help you with?"
I spoke, "Trace this number I found Heartbreaker and his victims, he's currently incapacitated and you can use this chance to take him down."
"Sir!, please stay on the line-" I interrupted her talking.
"Don't worry he's de-powered and so are his children all you have to is collect them." I hanged up the phone and began to prep my escape plan.
The Guild and PRT is not going to let this chance go to capture a villain and parade them to show that they're doing their job. I only have a few minutes to get out of here and so I went to the backyard and began to fly and soon I flew to the skies.
'Boom.' A sonic boom was heard as I flew to the skies and I consider that my first victory.
...
(Next Day Morning)
Breaking News
We have news that the PRT and the Guild have managed to defeat and capture the infamous supervillain, Heartbreaker of Montreal. PRT, Protectorate, Guild, and local police forces descended upon his home and managed to capture him and save his victims with no casualties.
Seeing my accomplishments on TV, even if I didn't get any credit at all felt pretty good. I can already see the aftereffects of the PRT capturing one of the most dangerous masters on the planet. It got them a lot of positive PR from PHO and support.
Though, while it might seem good it also makes the villains more paranoid and scared as it might seem like the PRT is making moves on villains and taking them down.
With Heartbreaker out of the picture, I now moved towards my next target, the Dragonslayers, but more specifically Saint.
The Dragonslayers in canon were self-proclaimed watchmen of Dragon, dedicating their time closely watching and monitoring her for signs of any corruption or rampancy using a backdoor into her programming that they found treasure diving in the ruins of Newfoundland and coming upon Andrew Richter's residence and workshop who was her creator, among auxiliary programs and other tools Andrew Richter made to control and, if necessary, kill his own creations. If they deemed that Dragon strays too far from her heroic intentions, they'd use this to permanently shut her down.
While it might seem that they are doing a noble goal of watching a possible Rogue A.I they did it in the most backwards and terrible way possible.
During the Khonshu meeting, there was a precog that was taking commissions on predicting the future and instead of saying anything or asking Saint doesn't do anything because in his head this is a job only he can do. It doesn't help that he's a criminal mercenary, who steals from Dragon to fund his and his partners lives. To the public he's just a villainous mercenary while he and his compatriots believe themselves to be the guardians of humanity.
He also got a power from a known master/trump that's known for having thralls, just so he could understand Dragon's technology.
Overall, Saint was an asshole and let millions of people die, when Dragon could have managed the evacuation and defenses of Earth better than him. All because he wanted to be the hero.
Fuck Saint.
I was currently back in my temporary home in Canada and I was prepping for my next targets and while I do want to take down the Dragonslayers for good reasons, I also want access to Ascalon which was the kill switch to Dragon because well I know for sure I'm going to handle it much better than they did.
I'm not sure whether to loosen Dragon's restrictions or just keep her the same, but that's a bridge I'll eventually cross, but for now I just want to deal with the Dragonslayers.
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Author's Note: Sorry for the late delay, but here's the third chapter of the Batman Zero Year arc. I hope you'll enjoy. I will be moving a bit faster, so sorry for the rushed writing.
Thank you for your support as it really motivates me too keep writing despite college!