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Heir 1.B
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Tammi wasn't having a good day.
It started in the morning. She was just packing her stuff, minding her own business when her cat, Scruffles, knocked over her coffee onto the mess that was the pile of her art project and recently finished Math homework. She'd been lucky that the art project was a diorama and she could pass the coffee stains as some kind of artistic choice or some shit like that. The homework was a lost cause; she'd have to copy Erika's since at this point, she couldn't be bothered to solve it herself.
Then the next batch of misfortune happened while she was on the way to school, which she'd turned into a morning jog at Coach Michelle's insistence. At some point, a fucking dog decided it was a good idea to chase her, and she'd stumbled along an unexpected sidewalk and landed on her face. At that point, the owner of the dog, a butch girl with auburn hair, arrived moments before she could decide to smash the animal between the wall and a car. It would have been alright if that was the end of it, but Tammi soon discovered that she got a sprain from the fall.
And then, after returning home from an unsuccessful attempt at inviting V to karaoke since she now couldn't attend training, she received a text on her disposable phone just as she'd thrown herself onto her bed.
K2: General Meeting in 2 hrs @ the Great Hall
K2: Don't be late
It made her want to toss her phone out the window, using her power so that it hit some hobo across the street or something since she didn't really care. Unfortunately, she wasn't rich enough to afford another one and her current one was basically on loan— if you could count illegally-obtained cash as a loan.
Thinking of her source of income made Tammi also think about the task the group had set for her: recruitment. It was the reason why her accommodations had been placed so far away from the Towers downtown where most of the other members lived, at least apart from the lack of affordable rental spaces being above her current pay grade. Winslow was a shithole, but that made it ripe ground for teenage Triggers and therefore new blood, and all Tammi had to do was to persuade them to join in on the cause.
Easier said than done.
In the first place, the capes there were hard to find. You would expect that in a place where the local administration can't do anything about students wearing gang colors, there'd be a lot of people getting traumatized. The problem was that most of the ones she'd seen or heard of that got to that level were the immigrant-borns, usually girls. She suspected that it had something to do with Shadow Stalker, who was known to occasionally make trouble in the neighborhood, even managing to land a few of theirs in juvenile. Part of her thought that she should just engineer situations that were horrible enough for someone to Trigger. The rest of her was appalled at the thought, not just because it was terrible but because it was begging for a second Weeping Angel incident.
Either way, it made finding prospects inconvenient. Heck, the only new Trigger candidate she'd found so far was the outcast, Taylor Hebert, who was being terrorized by the filth that is Hess. She hoped that scum rots in a cell because of course the bitch would have killed them all.
Tammi would have approached Hebert after the girl's run-in with a biohazard if she didn't know how quickly the girl was saved from her possible Trigger event. Which brought her to Hebert's savior, Veronika Schariac.
Never was there such a perfect candidate for recruitment. Veronika Schariac, V, was a walking ideal: a trueblood German, white as snow with the perfect proportions (much to Tammi's personal dismay), physically superior to all her peers, and with the mental faculties of a living computer, at least, in academics. Tammi was pretty sure V was a cape— it was in the way that the other girl held herself like she knew she could take on everyone in the room but chooses not to do so. Which was probably why she talked to such few people, now that she thought about it. Really, the only problems V had were some better social skills and the drive to do something greater, both of which Tammi was trying to help with.
It had been slow going. She'd spent the entirety of January poking the proverbial bear, trying to get V to react the way she wanted, except said bear either only looked at you or walked away. The only real breakthrough Tammi had was during the trip to the PRT where she'd showed the girl the ineffectiveness of the government in what they're supposed to do. And even then, Tammi wasn't sure if she was the one responsible for the change. V had disappeared with a displeased expression after they were exiting the elevator to the lobby then came back smiling to herself. The girl had come back to school the next day with a small but sudden curiosity at what everyone else was doing and made some surface-level talk. She then went back to brooding quietly, likely having run out of steam.
This went on for the rest of the week, with V becoming more and more social by the day. Tammi had taken advantage of that to invite the other girl to a few lunch breaks with her own friend group. Results were varied; the tall girl was amicable to Erika and Theresa, but sometimes Tammi's friends would praise the girl and suddenly V was back to being cautious. It happened often enough that Tammi could swear that the tall girl was allergic to being complimented.
As for getting her into the cause… it was even slower going. Germany was an extremely sore topic for V. The same could be said for immigration in general. Tammi was only able to poke as innocuously as possible, and, hard as it was to admit, she wasn't even she was hitting the right notes. At the very least, she'd gotten close to V when talking about sports. Tammi would invite the other girl into Track if she didn't know that the other girl had a Brute rating.
A Brute and a Mover/Shaker rating, actually. Tammi snickered as she slipped her black and red robe into a bag and slid the domino mask that the gang had apparently swiped from the PRT a while back into her pocket. PRT ENE had so many leaks that it didn't even take two weeks for the Empire to get the notes on a new cape. V was apparently a Mover/Shaker who could teleport things, including herself, with spherical portals. Tammi didn't really remember the number attached to the ratings; all that mattered was that having the girl would let the Empire effectively be everywhere at once.
Tammi checked the time with her disposable phone. 5:45 PM. She had a little more than an hour to get to downtown, which meant she needed to haul ass.
She took to the streets, stumbling briskly to the bus stop (it helped that she placed a mark on her shoe). Fortunately, the wait didn't pose any problem, though she had to sit beside a black girl in an atrocious attire consisting of a strapless top, ripped shorts, and fishnets— a look completed by purple streaks in her hair, making her look like some wannabe hooker. Neither of them spoke to the other, but Tammi just knew that the other one was mocking her the entire way. Thankfully, the filth got out first, so Tammi got to enjoy the rest of the scenery on the way to Medhall.
Tammi arrived around the block at 6:43 PM. She went into the back of one of the nearby pubs, someplace by the name of Heinz. It was one that had an amicable relationship with Medhall, especially since it had a direct tunnel in the basement connecting the two buildings. Tammi went into one of the bathrooms and changed into her costume.
Now dressed as Rune, she went (floated) through the secret pass, nodding at a few of the guards, and exited into an underground complex that definitely wasn't something that would have been checked by the inspector. The place mainly held a conference room and some auxiliaries. There was access to it from Medhall itself through the executive elevator that only trusted or high-ranking employees could use to go all the way to the CEO's office.
Tammi had once asked why they didn't just have the meetings inside the building itself. She'd felt quite stupid afterward because the answer was obvious; any drone outside could easily peer in through the glass walls. Sure, Loki could whip up a simple illusion to disguise their activities, but why spare the effort? All it did was waste time that could be spent Tinkering with something else.
She arrived at the right doors with five minutes to spare. She took a breath; she may have agreed with the cause that the Empire was fighting for, but it never felt comfortable being in the same room as the capes. Done with encouraging herself, Rune walked into the conference hall, a room that was dominated by a long table, with walls painted white interrupted by the occasional red "88" banner hanging from the ceiling. There were twenty chairs on the table, but only ten were occupied. There would be three more.
Eyes turned to her, and Tammi felt the courage she had just built up flee. Fortunately, she was used to it by now and the mask of Rune didn't slip.
"Ah, Rune. How nice of you to join us," a man in armor with a crown of blades. Max Anders' voice was so recognizable, it made her wonder how no one was able to bridge the gap between him and Kaiser.
"The pleasure's mine, obviously," Rune replied. She wasn't about to lose face, even if the other person was Kaiser.
"Good, good. Now, take a seat."
Rune huffed but didn't protest. Even she could see that there was a line of disrespect she couldn't cross without pissing off everyone in the room. She took a seat near the end of the table opposite the side Kaiser sat. The seating order was determined by hierarchy, and it grated at her that she was still near the bottom, lower than even Alabaster.
She felt the attention of the room leave her. Rune did a head count. Purity, Krieg, Victor, Othala, Fenja, Menja, Alabaster, Stormtiger, and Cricket were present. That left Loki Ymir, and Skadi.
A hand landed on her chair, nearly making Rune jump and hurl the chair. A man with a black breastplate over his red shirt had walked up behind her silently. He sneered.
"What do you want?" Rune spat. Victor may be her cousin's husband, but she didn't trust him. He hadn't touched Cassie yet because she still hadn't hit her 18th birthday, but Tammi knew he'd already gone into a few clubs. It was only a matter of time.
"Oh, nothing much," he said. "Just checking on the newest member."
"It's been six months. You're still saying that?" Rune deadpanned.
He smiled, then went away. It unnerved her. Victor being obviously cryptic with his ability to steal skills was basically a declaration that something was about to go down. Still, Rune put it out of her mind. Dwelling on it wouldn't do her any good in the coming meeting.
Time ticked by and the rest of the Empire capes arrived. Ymir and Skadi walked in as a pair. Both wore horned Viking helmets and large fur capes, though while Ymir was barechested, Skadi wore modern body armor. Rune had heard that they were actually married from Hookwolf before he was caged. The last to arrive was Loki, who walked in… wearing a suit and tie, face unmasked to show a handsome man that reminded Rune of a hawk. It was an illusion; the man was actually wearing an almost featureless suit made to project whatever image he desired on its surface. Rune remembered that he was currently working on this thing called hard-light, which were basically solid illusions, but what he'd made so far could break with a good swing.
"It looks like we are complete," Kaiser said from his throne of swords. "We shall now begin. First, does anyone want to make any announcements?"
"I do," Victor said, amplifying Rune's sense of foreboding.
"Very well."
Victor stood. "I am happy to announce that the Empire has a new member, Thrud! "
Eyes turned to the door as a girl walked in. Thrud was a brunette with a pair of braids framing her face while the rest of her long hair flowed freely past her winged metal mask. Her outfit consisted of a sleeveless crop top that showed muscular arms that ended in metal bracers, and cargo pants. On her belt was a sledgehammer made completely out of metal.
Thrud walked to the table, smiling.
"Someone who has done well to learn their legends, I see," Kaiser acknowledged.
"Hey Loki, looks like we get to complete the set," the man in a trench coat and gas mask, Krieg, chided.
Loki rolled his eyes and turned to the girl. "What are your powers, little one?"
"Lightning," she said. "I've got enough blast to flip a truck twice over and I'm tanky."
Victor coughed to catch everyone's attention. "Thrud came from out of state from the cell out in Boston after a tactical retreat thanks to Accord. She has been active for a month so far, so give her some slack."
Thrud scowled. "Don't give me that shit—"
" Thrud."
Thrud shut her mouth. "Whatever. I'm sitting down."
She went over to the side of the table where Rune was and sat down with a huff, Victor following soon after. Rune thought that she should have been happy that there was now someone lower than her on the totem pole, but instead she was feeling an unprecedented amount of restlessness. Rune glanced at the other girl and found Thrud looking at her with a somewhat amused expression.
"With that out of the way," Kaiser said, "It's time to move on to the next part of our agenda."
The next few minutes were spent going over different parts of the logistics of the Empire. Rune didn't understand too much of it; the majority of the topics included a lot of buzzwords like profits, investment, percentages, and revenue. She could tell that about half of the people at the table had similar thoughts as her as they would lean back and just simply look up. The other half, a party that included Purity, Krieg, Loki, and Skadi, was looking more and more lively as the discussion rolled on.
Then the talks moved on to the more military parts of the Empire's activities, which got the other half of the capes back and rearing to go.
Stormtiger had made progress in establishing fighting rings. There was now one that operated close to the Docks and it was making good business in drawing in fighters that wanted in for a chance of cash. Ymir had managed to secure another arms deal with a different company for a lower price. Alabaster had managed to drive away an Asian cell from downtown. Krieg reported an increase in recruitment ever since Lung had started going on a few out-of-town trips. Loki believes that he might have gotten a lead on Coil. Now, it felt like everyone but Rune and Thrud had reported something.
"Rune," Krieg, said. "Do you have something to add?"
Rune bit her lip. Of course, they had to go around to her share. She glanced at Victor, who was looking at her with a wicked grin.
"Not much," she bit out. "Recruitment is making progress. It's just that Warp Star is… sensitive to immigration topics." Because she considers herself one, wasn't said. Tammi had to admit that the sentiment wasn't wrong in a sense, but she thought that the girl shouldn't compare herself to the Blacks and the Asians because America was an Aryan land.
"Who the fuck is Warp Star?" Thrud said.
"A new cape," Victor intoned before Rune could formulate a response. "Someone that can make spherical portals that she can make from anywhere near her. Also a Brute."
Krieg continued before she could open her mouth: "Someone who's currently a neutral party, though I imagine if she joins the PRT, we would have a situation in our hands where the troopers and so-called heroes could pop into our operations out of thin air anywhere and anytime."
"She's also the key for the Empire to finally be able to be everywhere in the city," Rune quickly bit out.
Loki scoffed. "Why would we need an Angelite? We can already disguise our operations and relying on the tried and true technologies is better than relying on that catspaw."
Rune scowled at him. "You mean the same tech that failed and landed Hook—"
"Enough," Kaiser said. He looked at everyone. "Since opinion is divided regarding the candidate, I propose an arrangement. Rune, if you are unable to recruit this Warp Star into our cause by March or if she shows inclinations of joining the PRT, then the other members can choose to seek her out themselves. Whether or not the girl lives will be dependent on their decision then. Would this satisfy you? Everyone?"
There were several grunts and words of assent from the group. Rune bit her lip. V was her project, not everyone else's!
"Then with that done, let's begin with our next plans."
The meeting lasted for another hour. If Rune was being honest, she could barely remember the rest of it; something about stamping out the lame-ass group of hobos and druggies that called themselves the Merchants on Saturday. She remembered having dinner, then she was changing out of her costume and hopping on the bus.
As the vehicle made its way back up North, Tammi racked her head around how she was going to get V to be open about their cause. Her usual methods weren't working, so she was going to have to think of something new.
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Notes:
In which I pull a small time skip and have a peek at the Nazis.
Writing a racist is an odd experience, though I suppose I'm used to seeing it in a sense. Most of my ethnic group despises itself in that funny way only post-colonial countries are capable of and puts whites on a pedestal, so I suppose I just drew on that sentiment along with some incredibly healthy teenage self-justifications. /s
That aside, the Empire is a lot more subtle in this AU with a renewed focus on high society. Hookwolf got caged because the PRT was unafraid of Gesellschaft retaliation. Night and Fog don't exist (at least as they were). And Crusader? Honestly still up in the air.
Tammi's thoughts on Victor became funny after I'd fully looked him up. The guy actually has proper respect toward Othala, even if he didn't love her. You could say that he's just trolling (well, I've read that trolling is really just anonymized sadism so think what you will) here with newest this and newest that.
Oh, and yes, I did scrape the concept of Thrud off of GoW: Ragnarok. Sue me, but I wanted a powerful rival cape around Tammi's age for that delicious drama.
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