The scene was - like many of Shadow Stalkers recent arrests - unusually tidy.
When she had first popped up earlier in the year, she had demonstrated a clear escalation in ruthlessness and violence over the course of a few months.
It followed the usual pattern for a new trigger. When she first got her powers, she had been cautious and tentative. There had been sporadic reports from dispatch denoting lone drug dealers she had supposedly ambushed, along with the occasional sighting of her running along the rooftops at night.
Then, once she had a better grasp on her powers, she had modified her strategy, switching to a bow, and then a crossbow. Neither item was tinkertech, and both were easily accessible to just about anyone who cared to go to a hunting goods store. There had been some debate as to whether or not she was a Tinker at first, because of the strange way her bolts pierced their targets, but it had long since been verified that she was some kind of Breaker.
I should know. I spent a week following up with every vendor who could sell the equipment she would need for that, and then trying to sift through various transaction records to see if I could narrow down the girls civilian identity.
Typically we wouldn't do that, but it had been very clear to me from the start that the girl was going to kill someone eventually if she was left alone. All of her appearances were outside of usual school hours, and what few images I'd seen of her were consistent with a young teen - which meant she was Wards age.
It wasn't the most glamorous thing, but handling problems before they became problems was my job as leader of the local Protectorate team, whatever anyone else may say.
So when the call had come in that Shadow Stalker and another vigilante had called in a fight with another cape and some Empire thugs, I was quick to rush here. Shadow Stalker had recently changed her pattern. She had a new weapon - possibly Tinkertech in origin - that, while apparently non-lethal, had sent a rash of her victims to the hospital suffering from severe shock. Whatever that thing did - witness testimony indicated it was some kind of pain gun - it was about the cruelest possible way to take someone out without killing them. And 'not killing them' was heavily predicated on how quickly a paramedic could see to the victim in question.
If I was being honest, the weapon fit Stalker's MO perfectly. The problem was, I had previously already determined she wasn't a tinker. She wasn't likely to have the resources to buy something like that either, since she was a minor. Nor was she part of any team that could provide for her.
Thus, I was left to believe that she had teamed up with a Tinker, presumably the same one caught on camera with her weeks ago at the gas station.
Temporarily designated 'Pain Maker', the tinker demonstrated much less proclivity for stealth than Shadow Stalker, meaning I had been able to get a handful of security cam footage of him running along the sidewalk the last time he had been active. My initial analysis was that he had a specialization that touched on torture devices in some way. His only known technology was his armor - clearly an example of an early attempt at power armor - a beam weapon that froze whatever it hit, and presumably, Shadow Stalkers pain gun.
Shadow Stalker was a problem, but she was an easily managed one. Her ability to cause problems was limited. A tinker with this kind of specialty however, couldn't be left alone. I shuddered to imagine what the Empire could do armed with Pain Guns and other implements of mayhem.
I was apparently lucky this time, because unlike past examples of her work, Shadow Stalker and her partner had apparently decided to stay behind for once.
Turning away from my quick scan of the scene where the paramedics were already loading the thugs and the cape into an ambulance, I oriented on Pain Maker and began moving toward him. He stiffened slightly as we locked eyes, which I noted down for later. Power Armor with enough articulation to demonstrate microexpressions was rare. Even my own had certain limitations in that department, and I had been iterating on it for years. While I judged what he was wearing now to be a flimsy defense at best, I had to admit that it clearly had some effort put into it.
"Shadow Stalker. Pain Maker." I greeted them professionally.
Pain Maker made a choking noise.
"Armsmaster. I- wait what the fuck are you calling me right now?" He blurted out, jerking slightly away from me.
"It is a temporary designation. I can have it amended if you provide me with your chosen moniker." I soothed him, my jaw clenching at his attitude.
"Just- jesus christ Pain Maker? What earthly fucking reason-" he blurted in confusion, turning to gesticulate wildly at Shadow Stalker who was crouched on the roof of the van that had presumably belong to the Empire thugs.
"What would you prefer to be called?" I cut him off. If I wasn't fairly certain he was a teen, I was positive now. I also took a recording of his voice, since he didn't appear to be masking it in any capacity beyond the slight muffling effect from his balaclava.
He paused in his complaints to turn towards me and sighed.
"Star Finder, I guess. It's not my first choice." He explained grouchily. I raised an eyebrow at that behind my visor. It wasn't what I was expecting, but I suppose it sort of matched Shadow Stalkers name in a strange way.
"Then, Star Finder, Shadow Stalker, please explain the situation to me." I requested before we could get sidetracked again. I wanted to get this part out of the way so I could ask the pair to come in to get registered. I would, obviously, suggest they join the Wards aswell - but as long as some kind of compromise could be reached, and I could caution Star Finder on the use of his equipment before things got taken too far, then I'd take it.
Star Finder tilted his head towards Shadow Stalker as though expecting her to speak, then sighed and returned to me.
Mentally I added 'subvocal communication device' to my mental list of his equipment.
"We were patrolling a block that way when a bunch of debris started to come flying at us. A window I was standing near broke and - actually just so we're clear, I didn't do any of that damage, a brick just flew past me into the window. I want that on the record." He started before immediately sidetracking.
I nodded at him, considering the woman currently being brought in. She looked old enough to join the Protectorate, if just barely. Hopefully she would be amenable when she woke up.
"Right. So, we came to see what was going on and saw those guys taking shots at her while she huddled up naked in the van. I put two and two together, and we took both of them down before anyone got hurt." He explained, clearly grimacing beneath his mask.
I was going to accept that for what it was - as I had already puzzled most of it out from the report from dispatch - but instead of ending it there he kept going.
"She's probably addicted to something. I wanna say drugs, but she could just be an alcoholic. You'll wanna run her last Panacea to help her detox without getting withdrawal symptoms or your pitch will fall flat." He offered.
That was... not information he should be able to pull out of thin air. And who was Panacea? I almost wanted to attribute it to a Thinker power. So, he either had a diagnostic device in that suit somewhere, or he was a grab bag, which meant he probably had a hard upper limit on how good his tech could get.
That would be good, in that it curtailed how bad he could get using just Tinkertech.
It was bad because a Thinker/Tinker combo presented it's own set of difficulties.
Ofcourse, I didn't allow any of my thoughts to show. My plan was still the same as it was before.
Eyeing the the gun Shadow Stalker currently still had in hand - her costume didn't appear to include a holster, which was sloppy - I changed topics.
"We would like to ask that you cease use of the Pain Gun Shadow Stalker has recently being wielding. I'm sure you're aware of the side effects but you can't rely on paramedics to prevent you from becoming a murderer. Things always go wrong in the field." I started lecturing.
Star Finder stared at me for a moment like I had just said something completely alien to him and muttered; "Side effects?" As though he had no idea what I was talking about - which I guess he didn't.
God save me from inexperienced Tinkers.Last edited: Jun 8, 202154628242117332Bowlerhat GuyFeb 26, 2021View discussionThreadmarks After Action Angst (Or lack thereof)View contentBowlerhat GuyPronounsHeFeb 27, 2021#68Wow do I feel fucking stupid.
I had made the conscious decision to stay behind back there. Mostly because I wanted to see if I could pass the Protectorate information they would need in order to keep Whirlygig from joining the Merchants. Like I've previously mentioned, my merely existing was going to throw off the timeline, so it wasn't like I had anything to lose by going all in on the temporal fuckery.
A vast majortiy of my foreknowledge was based on characters instead of events anyway. As long as Bakuda existed for instance, she was going to be a crazy bitch. I felt confident that if by some miracle she ended up somewhere besides Brockton Bay, it would take her very little time to go ape shit and cause a scene. I knew Bakuda and her ticks and psychology better than anyone else, just like I knew about basically every important person in the city for the next few years.
So, in that light, depriving the Merchant's of Whirlygig just made good sense. It would take minimal effort on my part, and if the attempt failed then I hadn't really lost anything in the first place besides some time. Even better, we literally found Whirlygig drugged up to her eyeballs and delirious. I wouldn't be surprised if the dizziness from her trip was a major factor in her resulting power. It didn't take metaknowledge to make any of those connections. The woman had clear marks on her arm and was obviously unwell. All I had done was draw Armsmasters attention to it.
And wow, Armsmaster. My power lit up like a christmas tree when I saw the guy. I wanted to murder him and steal all his stuff within seconds of encountering him. He set off so many of my latent murder hobo instincts that for a second I nearly forgot where I was or what I was doing. Ofcourse, that idea was stupid and therefore was to be ignored under the heading 'Conflict Drive Fuckery', but the point stands.
I had been expecting a lot from that meeting. Knowing the mans complete lack of a sleep schedule, I had given it even odds he or Miss Militia would have shown up for our call. So I had gone into things expecting a certain level of doucheyness.
If he had made his tone deaf Wards pitch at me, I would have had something to say. I had planned for that, and was even kind of looking forward to being flippant and dismissive about it. If he had tried to detain us on bullshit trumped up charges, I had a plan for that. That plan was mostly 'Pain Gun and Run' but still. Heck, I had even been prepared for him to demand I had over some of my Tinkertech for whatever reason. He seemed like the type to think he could get away with that.
What I had not been expecting was for him to basically tell me that a gun that shot actual bullets might honestly be safer than the Mercy Pistol, followed by a lengthy lecture on the importance of understanding what my tech did before using it.
It should he obvious, but I never managed to do my flippant response to the Wards pitch he gave me right after that. I was too busy feeling stupid at the time.
See, the thing about Starfinder is that Non Lethal damage is Non Lethal damage. It just... didn't kill you. It couldn't kill you even.
Even now, I'm pretty sure that was true. I had just made one tiny little mistake.
I had been treating people as though they had health pools.
See, your average mundane gun should do roughly 1d6 points of damage. So, between 2 and 5 points on average. To me, the math looked something like this;
Your average person will die if shot a single time in the chest. Usually immediately, but sometimes from bleeding out. This meant that your average person must have roughly 5 points of health, give or take a few for build and body type. Bleeding damage started at 1d4 points of damage - which was about 2 points of damage on average, and accounted for outliers like people who didn't die immediately.
A Mercy Pistol did 1d6 points of Non-Lethal damage. I've explained before that I don't really know how that works considering it fires a laser - but it does. I'd seen that. Id watched Sophia unload on people without leaving a single scratch on them. I'd even caught the edge of one of those blasts myself and found it to be painful as all hell but not permanently damaging.
Here's the thing about that logic chain though.
Real people don't have health pools.
It was something I had felt vaguely niggling at the edges if my mind ever since I had realized how lethal Energy Ray could be. Energy Ray was a zero level spell. Mathematically, it should only hurt as much as getting punched. Well, getting punched by a very large man, but still.
It shouldn't under any circumstances be able to do a crippling amount of damage to a person. I just hadn't thought about it because well... I didn't want to. I didn't want to believe that I could casually murder people by pointing at them. I mean, I know Worm is a fucked up place, but it was still a place with Superheros. If I had to be one, I wanted to be the kind of Superhero who would make Superman proud. I didn't want to get into the insane moral compromises this place seemed to love. And really, I thought I didn't have to. I was the Overpowered Protagonist. I had the out of context power. The first thing I had ever built was a nonlethal weapon. I thought I could cheat.
The worst part a out this was that while I didn't natively know a single damn thing about medicine, my power did. I had just been ignoring it because it was blatantly biotinkering.
Because yes, Starfinder included a sizable amount of biotech. It was an area of expertise I had been consciously ignoring. Not because it was inherently dangerous, but because being a Biotinker was the next best thing to declaring oneself Satan in Worm.
The thing was, even if my Tinker power wasn't intended to provide medical knowledge, it kind of did anyway as a side effect. You couldn't surgically replace a persons stomach with a slug that made them psychic without the medical knowledge to do it without killing them.
And while I couldn't easily fake a PhD, the knowledge not being conscious, I should have a decent grasp on the basic mechanics of a human body.
Mechanics like shock, which had a number of unfortunate side effects, and which could be triggered by sudden spikes of extreme pain.
You know, like if someone got shot with a Mercy Pistol.
So fine, people are not Starfinder characters. I couldn't confuse my game knowledge with real life.
I could make educated guesses with that information.
What, you thought I was gonna get angsty over this? I'm a grown ass man, I can cringe over the situation, but I can only care so much about a bunch of thugs who survived anyway.
'So anyway, go for arms and legs for a while and avoid continuous or multiple shots.' I finished explaining to Soph as we made our way in a round about pattern towards our home.
'What about the balls.' She asked with complete seriousness. My legs twitched together in reflexive sympathetic pain, but again, Nazi's and Slavers.
'Should be fine.' I conceded.
'Good. Fuck Armsmaster. What does he know?' She huffed, and I was surprised to find her tone included a mild amount of betrayal. I guess that since she didn't know anything about the inner workings of the PRT, she might actually still respect the guy, at least a little bit. I mean, in her whole predator/prey thing thing, Armsmaster would probably rank as an Apex Predator or something, at least just based on his published accomplishments. It wouldn't be surprising if she sort of expected some praise for her actions. After all, she was trying to be a hero. It was easy to forget that amidst all the obvious sadism and brutality, but there were much easier avenues for her to go down if her only interest was in satisfying her urges.
'Eh, I should have thought of the Shock thing anyway. I'll do better next time.' I councilled, trying to mitigate things. I didn't particularly like Armsmaster, but only good things could come from Sophia respecting him.
'Whatever. Hey, you didn't tell me you had like a cape radar thing.' She brushed me off, changing the subject.
'John. I'm not fucking stupid. You knew I had powers right away. You knew that chicks deal, and I'm pretty sure she just triggered.' She pointed out smugly, leaving me briefly stunned.
It was really easy for me to forget that Sophia wasn't an idiot. She wasn't very talkative, and cerebral pursuits weren't her bag.
But she wasn't stupid.
Case and point, I'm pretty sure she just quoted me at me.
'Ah. Well. I don't have Cape radar. Not... really. Uh... call it an instinctive Thinker power? Sometimes I just know stuff." I deflected, while also leaving the door open for myself to pull knowledge out of my ass. It wouldn't fly with anyone who knew anything a out powers, because theyd start asking questions. Soph however...
'Mm.' Didn't give a shit and took me at my word.
So, we made our way home.
There was one good thing about the night. Those morons had some cash in their truck. Not alot, but if I was frugal, it would be just enough to finish my Mining Jack.
And once my Armor was working, then I could start to safely go hunting for more cash.
The city did have a surplus of criminals, after all.51827732165321Bowlerhat GuyFeb 27, 2021View discussionThreadmarks Just a Bit Anti-Social View contentBowlerhat GuyPronounsHeMar 1, 2021#111"Jesus, kid. Again?" One of the gyms regulars asked me incredulously as I meandered my way through the front door and towards the changing rooms. I couldn't have told you his name because I didn't remember it.
"I pay for it don't I?" I countered with a lazy shrug.
"Dunno why..." the guy muttered as I went past him. For reasons I didn't fully grasp, the patrons of the gym were weirdly uncomfortable around me. They didn't seem to dislike me per se, in fact many of them cheered me on during the very public beatings Mr.Laborn called training. I just made them uncomfortable. Maybe that was because I aas a child that acted like an adult, or maybe it was something else.
If I was being honest I didn't really care. I had a hard time remembering people that didn't matter to me in the first place.
It was currently Monday, and like the dutiful student I was, I had politely begged off of 'hanging out' with anyone to quickly jog home with Soph, where I could grab a change of clothes and make the trip to the Gym.
Mind you, I never actually agreed to hang out in the first place, being fairly anti social even with people in my own age group. When I was in class or otherwise forced to pretend I was a thirteen year old, I mostly just tried to be quiet. I might add my two cents if the ambient topic of conversation was something I was knowledgeable about, but since my current peer group was overwhelming made up of teenage boys, that topic was, with a painful regularity, teenage girls.
So you know. Not much to add there, because it weirded me out.
A side effect of this was that while I wasn't anyone's favourite person, I was at least considered worth having around. Which was why I continued to receive invitations despite never once having accepted one.
With tired, lazy steps, I made my way to the changing room, where I swapped to my workout clothes. I was exhausted. I hadn't gotten more than a few hours of sleep over the entire weekend, because I had spent the entire time finishing my armor and all its accompanying upgrades. I don't know when it happened, but I had become deeply invested in that thing in a way that probably bordered on creepy. My Mining Jack was the difference between me being a C lister and... well a B lister really. I certainly wasn't going to be fist fighting Alexandria in it.
Still! I wouldn't quite call the experience a Tinker fugue because I had been fully aware the entire time I was doing it. I had just... hyperfixated.
The results were great, especially after I had managed to discretely turn my half of our captured cash into more parts for tinkering.
Unfortunately, by the time I was done, I'd had just enough time to sneak back home before everyone woke up, and head to school. Worse, since Mr.Laborn seemed dead serious about not missing a session with him, I was now stumbling into the gym like a walking corpse.
Taking a deep breath, I did my best to focus on what I had to do in the here and now. I was going to take advantage of the unending stamina of your average child, and combine it with my adult ability to do things that sucked, and get through this.
Then I was going to go home, and black out.
---
Mr.Laborn was kind of a hardass, but never let it be said he was an irresponsible hard ass.
I grunted as he rocked forward, shoving me backwards. My body rolled with the motion while my feet quickly switched up so I would still be balanced in my new position without leaving me vulnerable.
Mr.Laborn waited approximately one second to make sure I had done it right and kept my center of gravity steady, before doing it again.
And again. Aaaaaand again.
This was apparently all I was going to be doing today. Keep my arms up, keep my stance balanced, don't get knocked over or fall down.
The last week had been entirely dedicated to making sure that I knew how to fall safely. It was apparently a safety measure, since almost every other aspect of my training was going to include a significant chance of falling on my face. If thay happened, Mr.Laborn had told me, he wanted to be damn sure I didn't snap my neck in the process.
I was a little frustrated with the pacing, I have to admit. I hadn't actually been taught how to fight yet. Not how to make a fist, not where to aim, not how to throw a punch or throw my opponent.
I was just learning how not to get knocked over the second someone bigger than me - which was nearly everyone right now - decided to lay me out.
As frustrating as it was, I quickly fell into a rhythm, my focus entirely narrowed down to just keeping my balance and moving my feet while Mr.Laborn shoved me at varying speeds and strengths. Sometimes it was a light shove, just enough to unbalance a normal person. When that happened, I was supposed to shift my feet in a way that brought me forward, so that I could counter, even though I wasn't actually performing the counter. Other times, it was a hard shove, with all the mans weight behind it. In this scenarios, I was supposed to let myself move back and then quickly juke to the side to avoid a follow up.
I don't know how long we were at that before my trainer finally called a stop, and I suddenly became aware of the sheer amount of sweat pouring off of me. It occurred to me that I hadn't stopped to rest or take a break in the entire time I had been training. For a bried moment, I entertained the idea that maybe my level - which unfortunately hadn't gone up after the thing with Whirlygig - might actually raise my stats or something.
Then the edges of my vision started to fuzz and I realized, no, no they did not.
"You alright?" Mr.Laborn asked me gruffly, reaching a hand out to steady me.
"Yes. Sorry, didn't get a lot of sleep." I explained shaking stars out of my eyes.
"Your part time job keeping you up?" He asked carefully. I knew he probably meant caping. He had taken to the concept with shocking ease once I had laid it out for him. I wasn't just a Cape, I was the most abuseable, easy to target, and in demand kind of cape there was. A Tinker. The period of time between when I started and when I got my full kit online was when I would be at my most vulnerable. That was why this training was so important to me. I didn't want to be totally helpless if a Coil goon threw a black bag over my head two steps out of the school and dragged me off. I honestly didn't even know what I could do about that. The guy didn't actually split timelines, but he might aswell for my purposes.
"A bit yeah." I explained between huffing breaths. I was so glad I didn't have asthma anymore.
"Sit down, I'll get you some water." He grunted after stepping away to examine me for a moment.
I grunted a wordless response, crouching to slide out from beneath the rows surrounding the ring. The second I had done so, two other men quickly clambered up onto it to spar or have a match or... whatever more martially inclined types call it when you fight for fun.
A minute later I was sitting with a towel over my face, definitely not sleeping, when something cold touched my neck, causing me to yowl like an angry cat and jerk away from it.
There was a subdued snort, and when I pulled the towel off of my head Mr.Laborn was standing infront of me with a bottle of water in hand.
"...thanks." I grumbled, knowing anything else would be ungrateful.
"Mm. You need a ride home?" He asked me after a minute. I blinked at that.
"The gym is open for a while still though?" I queried hesitantly.
Mr.Laborn shrugged.
"I can have my son take you. Just got his license." He said with a mixture of matter of factness and pride in his tone. I paused to wrack my brain for a moment, trying to remember the exact nature of Brian's relationship with his Dad. He loved the man, if I recall right. He just thought the guy was a shit father. At least, to Aisha. Which... fair, I guess.
"He won't mind?" I asked tentatively.
"He'll do it if I ask." Was the firm response.
No, Mr.Laborn, that wasn't what I asked. Yeah, I could suddenly see where Brian was coming from on that front.
I weighed my options. On one hand, Grue would know where I live, since I didn't have a reason to obscure it that wouldn't scream Cape. On the other, I had been trying to find an excuse to prod the man about his son for a while now.
"Suuuure..." I stretched out, still.unsure of things. Then something else occured to me and I tensed.
"You didn't tell him about-" I whispered to him.
"Your part time job? No. Rumours have already got that covered." He told me dryly. I blinked stupidly at him, then panned my head around the gym to find a handful of people watching us talk to eachother with obvious sympathy.
Oh. Right. I had basically opened conversation with Mr.Laborn by telling the entire place my parents were dead. What kind of dick would question that?
Satisfied by my intepretation of things, I released a sigh of relief.
"Let me just shower and change." I said, standing up perhaps a bit too quickly.
It took me ten minutes tops to rinse of and change. Unlike your average teen, I wasn't awkward about having to shower in a room full of other men, which was hilarious, because the other men typically found my presence uncomfortable enough that they rapidly left whenever I turned up.
Presumably, they felt about me the same way I felt about teenage girls.
Ick.
When I emerged from the changing rooms, Brian was already there, speaking with his father near the entrance. I wouldn't have recognized him by sight alone, but he was clearly the only other teen present in the building, and bore a obvious resemblence to his father, in so far as he was brawny looking without appearing muscelbound.
Spotting me, Mr.Laborn quickly cut off his conversation with his son and introduced us.
"John, this is my son Brian. I hope you'll get along." He said, weirdly loudly.
I glanced at him in confusion, then turned back to Brian, extending a hand to him.
"Hey. Sorry about this." I offered carefully, darting a look to Mr.Laborn that I wasn't sure Brian caught. He was eyeing me in the speculative sort of way I occasionally saw Soph eyeballing Capes she saw on the news. It was a look that patently said 'I could take this guy in a fight' and it made me uncomfortable because it was probably true.
Grue had the power to emite billowing clouds of inky blackness that completely blinded anyone in them. They absorbed all light, most forms of projected energy, and dampened sound such that you had to yell to be heard above a whisper.
Everyone but Grue, who could see through the stuff like it wasn't there.
All things being equal, Grue was probably.one of the more powerful Capes in the setting, limited only by the fact that he held no interest in straight up murdering people, and hence didn't use a gun. He just got ignored a lot because what he did wasn't especially flashy.
"Don't worry about it. Your only a few blocks away right?" He asked, to which I nodded, giving a more detailed description of where we were going than 'over there somewhere' which was basically what he had gotten from his Dad while I showered.
From there things were pretty quick. Brian's car was an old beater that probably shouldn't have started up at all, but did anyway, and we pulled out into the road. We sat in mostly awkward silence for a second before Brian spoke up again.
"So, is it true?" He asked me flatly, his free hand nervously tapping the wheel until he noticed and stopped it.
"Uh...is...what true?" I asked, genuinely confused by the question, since Mr.Laborn had already said Brian didn't know I was a cape.
Unless he was already an Undersider and Lisa knew somehow. When did the Undersiders form? Was Lisa already in the city? Shit. If she knew, Coil knew, which meant-
"That you're my half brother?" He pushed just as the light turned green and he hit the gas just a bit too hard, bouncing my head against my seat.
...what the fuck was this now?
I mentally backtracked everything that had happened, trying to piece together how that was the conclusion he had come to.
I had shown up out of the blue on Mr.Laborn's doorstep, loudly declared my parents were dead, then asked to speak to him in private.
Then I inexplicably started getting personal lessons from the man, who obviously layed me more attention than most because I had been very upfront about my desire to survive to adulthood. I wasn't here for sport.
Mr.Laborn, obviously not being able to tell people that I was a cape, had therefore just let rumour form an excuse for him.
Apparently, that I was his illegitimate son.
I swear I went cross eyed for a minute.
"Abso-fucking-lutely not. Holy shit, is that what the G.I Jackasses at the gym think? Is this why everyone is so weird around me? What the fuck?" I blurted out, causing Brian to sharply look towards me then back at the road.
"Dad said-" he started.
"Your Dad is a nice guy Brian, but apparently not a very smart one. My parents died and now I live with my Aunts abusice boyfriend in the Nazi capitol of America. I decided I didn't want to die in this shithole, so I found the first gym that wasn't obviously owned by Nazi's and begged for someone to teach me. That's it, that's where I'm at right now. I have not one fucking thing to do with you besides posessing enough melanin to be a target in this hellhole." I explained, my surprise and annoyance at that surprise temporarily causing my brain to mouth filter to click off.
"...So you're just some orphan kid?" Brian asked me incredulously.
"Yes jackass, I'm 'just some orphan', thank you for that." I replied irately.
Brian had the good grace to wince at that.
"Sorry, just the guys at the gym were talking about it. If my mom found out she'd..." he paused, clamping his mouth shut, but I got the gist. If his Mom thought Mr.Laborn had cheated on her while they were married - which they weren't anymore - she'd probably try and take him to court for all he was worth.
Not because she actually cared, but because to my knowledge her current modus operandi was to just sleep with guys who could provide her with drugs, money, or both.
Ripping Mr.Laborn off for all he was worth would go a long way to supporting her habits, which was, I guess, kind of why they weren't together anymore.
"Don't worry about it. No court could prove it because its not true." I said with a snort. Hell, even if it was true, I had so many options for making sure Mr.Laborn came out of things okay that it almost didn't matter. Worst case scenario I could just tell the PRT to make the mean lady go away as a condition for me joining.
But again, I wasn't in any way related to Brian, so that was entieely irrelevant.
After that, though the ride was short, we managed to talk a bit more, with Brian relaxing slightly once he realized my existence wasn't going to screw his dad. I could actually see why everyone assumed we were related. Despite being just this side of Sixteen, I almost forgot I was talking to another teenager while I was with him. It was actually sort of eerie.
Regardless, we made it to my apartment and I waved him goodbye before hazily stumbling into my bedroom, shucking off most of my clothes, and falling into bed.
----
It was Thursday night.
Despite wanting to finish my armor and immediately sortie out to beat the shit out of Nazi's with it, logistical concerns kept getting in my way.
Now that my Mining Jack was done for instance, I could safelt replace the Junk Armor spell in my Spell Core with something more useful. Unfortunately, that 'something more useful' was something I was going to have to program from scratch, which wasn't exactly easy. So I spent the majority of my Tuesday on that.
Then on Wednesday, I had another session with Mr.Laborn. I kind of hoped I'd see Brian again, but he apparently was at the Gym at a different time than me. He was doing his highschool classes online - somehow - so he had more freedom to act during the day than any normal highschooler should.
So here I was on Thursday, finally, finally ready to take my suit out for a spin.
It was bulky. Like, old timey diving suit bulky. The entire thing was basically one large thick baggy suit, similar to your average space suit, but covered in armoured plates, and possessing a large mechanical harness around the torso and back that made up nearly half the bulk of the entire suit.
The harness itself was where I had put the majority of my time, integrating a set of Jump Jets into the back. Don't 't ask me how I managed to turn a car battery and ten pounds of electronic junk and scrap metal into a jump jet. Powers are bullshit that way.
The jets wouldn't let me fly - they werent stable enough for sustained flight. What they did do was self evident. They scooted me roughly twenty feet in any direction. If that direction was straight up, I'd probably fall and break my legs, but that wasn't how I planned to use them anyway. No, using my new Jump Jets I could finally travel by rooftop with Soph, instead of having to constantly hear her bitch about how I was slowing her down.
The helmet for the thing - a glossy astronauts dome that obscured my face and had my heads up display on it - handily listed how much fuel my jets had left, and how many spells I had available.
If I had one complaint about the thing, it was that I needed a ladder to get into it.
Thats right, the fucking thing was so bulky that to get into it, I had to pull the helmet off, climb over top of it, slide into the next hole, and then grab my helmet and click it back into place.
It was annoying, but I didn't mind that much. I was bullet proof (against low calibre weapons at least) and could fly (sort of).
I finally felt like I was making progress!
Now I just needed to get myself a proper weapon. Preferably a nonlethal one, though I suspected that wasn't going to cut it as my potential pool of enemies grew from the local racists to well... the local Kaijuu.
I tried not to think about the Endbringers too much. I could tell people jow to beat them, but that actually just made everything worse, because when one died, more would show up right afterward. It was like a boss rush that got continuously harder over time.
'Is this it?' I asked Soph, eyeballing the squat two floor building she claimed to have scouted previously. Unlike myself, Soph was active every single night, practically without fail. Despite her aggressive tactics and personality though, she wasn't foolish or reckless. When she had spotted gangsters going in and out of this building over multiple nights, she had decided to wait and watch.
This was how we had recently learned the Alabaster was probably here. It was also jow Soph had found her previous stash house, the one that had payed for all my starting gear.
Needless to say, I was nearly as excited to wreck the place as she was.
'Yeah, I saw that creepy white bastard pull up yesterday. Dunno if he left or is still here guarding it.' She reported intently.
Soph had, to my great surprise, taken to the concept of punching anove your weight class using cooperation just a bit too well.
It was good, because she told me stuff now.
It was bad because she really took the 'above your weight class' part seriously. She was all but itching for a fight with another Cape, and something told me she hadn't timed this outing to coincide with my new setup by mistake.
This being Worm, I full expected half the Empires Capes to inexplicably be in that building, not just Alabaster, who was arguably their least dangerous Cape.
'Second floor window?' I asked again, trying to figure out where to enter from.
'You wanna go through the same entrance? Why not split up, hit them from opposite sides?' She challenged.
'Because-' I began but was cut off by a voice behind me.
"Hey there. Are you new?"
I froze. I didn't recognize the voice, which meant I had no idea who was behind me. Evidently, Soph felt the same, because we both spun around at once, Soph going ghost while my Spell Core spooled up an Energy Ray.
Then I froze, because there was a literal knight watching me quizzically from the opposite side of the rooftop I was on, accompanied by a little girl in a green outfit.
"Gallant and... Vista?" I queried slowly, not lowering my hand.
"Yeah. Sorry, didn't mean to scare you." Gallant apologized, stepping forward slowly with his hands raised.
The fuck you didn't.
"Sure. What do you want?" I asked, slowly lowering my arm and signalling Soph to do the same.
"Obviously to see what you two are doing." Vista pointed out in a squeaky preteen voice. My heart went out to her. If this was the image she had started with, it was a small wonder she had such trouble getting people to take her seriously when she was older. The edgy need to be treated like a badass was nowhere in sight on this younger version of her, and she kept her hands behind her back while rocking antsily back and forth in that special lackadasical way only ten year olds can manage.
"...Empire stash house. Alabaster is probably there." I said, turning back to the building and crouching down to stare at it some more.
"You guys can take the bottom floor if you want. We can race." Soph said savagely, shifting to watch the building while keeping Gallant and Vista in her periphal vision.
"Console says we should pull back and wait for backup." Gallant negated pretty much immediately, reminding me that there was probably a PRT officer listening to this conversation through him.
Actually, it was kind of weird that they were here at all. Didn't Soph say the PRT usualy stays out of this neighborhood? We were practically at the edge of Empire territory too. No way the Wards would be allowed to statt a fight here.
Unless they weren't here for a fight. Which meant they were probably here to pester me and Soph. On any other day, I'd be all for it. Gallant had seemed like an okay guy when I was reading about him, circumstances behind his power and datingl life aside.
The problem was, I really couldn't afford to give up the loot from this place, which I would definitely have to if the PRT stormed it.
"Ah. That sucks. Second floor window?" I repeated to Sophia aloud, changing gears mid conversation.
Seemingly understanding my meaning, she nodded at me once, probably grinning like a feral cat beneath her mask - which I really should replace at some point.
Without warning she got some distance from the ledge, judged the angle she would need, and sprinted off, turning into her shadow form at the apex of the leap and drifting clear across the open road and into the building.
"Cheers bud." I waved, stepping off the ledge myself and activating my jets, which immediately jerked me forward in a light arc that caused me to sail straight through the window with a loud crunch as the glass and its plastic frame succumbed to my sheer bulk.
And then, I was in.