Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sheathe of Elizabeth's knife tapped against her leg as she ran to cover, bullets spraying past her. She gave a nod to her squadmate, huddled behind the same broken window frame. At her signal, both answered the E88 thugs with a spray of laser fire, the tinker tech attachment on their guns glowing like hot coals. 

It was hard to believe a simple drug deal had gone so wrong. While Coil had provided equipment much better than anything these neo-nazi thugs had, quantity has a quality of its own, and the E88 did not lack support among the population of Brockton Bay.

She pressed a button on her helmet, finding the small switch with practised ease. “Command, I am requesting reinforcements. We are under fire from the E88. Raven-2 is down…”

A choked sound squeezed out of her squadmate, a familiar sound, though one she had hoped not to hear. A thump, as a body armoured in heavy equipment fell to the ground, and a gun clattered across the tarmac. She stared at the body. It was John, the number on the uniform matched his code. He was very still. 

She kneeled down over his body. A simple twist removed the tinkertech attachment from his gun, and slipped it into one of her pockets. Best not to let it be lost.

“...As well as Raven-5. Enemy numbers unknown, location of Raven-4 and 3 unknown”

The voice that answered was clear and steady. Professional. “Raven-1, reinforcements are on the way. Arrival time unknown, there are active conflicts involving the E88 and ABB in their path. Find a safe location, and wait for extraction.”

Damn . We’ve been caught in a territorial dispute. 

“Confirmed, I will attempt to find a hiding spot.” 

Not that there are many available hiding spots in a gunfight.

Unfortunately it didn’t sound much like a gunfight now. The gunfire had stopped, the sudden silence more piercing than the previous racket. 

Experience told her not to hold hope, this was not going to be anything good.  A small glimpse above the shattered window frame she was huddled behind confirmed her suspicions. A red and black costume on a tall, muscled man, accompanied by a small woman in a skintight red bodysuit, with a runic symbol on her chest. The suits were clearly padded and armoured, and both held themselves with the familiar stance of trained combatants, The thugs parted around them, looking at them with something akin to reverence or fear.

Victor and Othala. Othala isn't much of a threat alone, but together… This is a problem.

Victor's power allowed him to drain others of their skills. Being in his presence, him touching you, you looking at him. All of these drain your skills more and more. He had glutted himself on the skills of many professionals, becoming more skilled than any human could become in a lifetime. Othala was his partner, she could touch others and grant them one of an array of powers. She often served as a healer for the E88, granting regeneration, but when partnered with Victor she could make an already deadly and skilled opponent far more dangerous. Against parahumans with any degree of power, it was necessary if he wanted to win in direct combat. Against normal humans, it was akin to entering the boxing ring unarmed against a fully armed and armoured soldier.

Elizabeth was a normal human. She liked to think herself a bit better than that, that her skill and experience made her at least abnormal, but she couldn’t humour herself now. She was skilled, but she knew Victor had beaten and drained people far more skilled than her.

One of the thugs, a hulking man whose face was tattooed enough you could barely see the skin he was so proud of, thrust a finger in her direction. Othala tapped Victor's shoulder before turning to tend to the wounded skinheads. 

Elizabeth aimed and got ready to fire, holding Othala in her sights. She had a chance against an unenhanced Victor, she told herself, hoping that removing Othala would remove the enhancement.

Victor was on her faster than she could pull the trigger, vaulting over the window frame. A knee to her chest forced her backwards, catapulting her through the doorframe behind her.

Superspeed. Not good.

The butt of her gun shot forward, aiming for his midsection, a futile, instinctual attempt to attack. His dodge was almost lazy, not even bothering to use his enhanced speed.

Their eyes met. 

“My compatriots are dealing with the rest of the chinks. It should not be long. It seems necessary to send a message to your boss, if you are also operating in this territory. This territory is not yours anymore. It belongs to the Empire 88. Allow me to demonstrate for Coil what will happen, if he continues to operate here. We have the time.”

Victor was blocking the exit, and with that enhanced speed she knew she couldn't get past him. She was outmatched, wouldn’t be able to get a shot off, not at this range, not with that speed. She was outskilled, the longer she was here, the more true that will be. Her reinforcements won’t be coming any time soon. 

In summary, I’m fucked. 

Her best chance, she figured, was to delay until his superspeed ran out, and then escape. Until then, maintain distance, try and get a shot off. The one edge she had is her tinkertech enhanced gun, She needed to utilise that. It was a desperate hope, but it was a hope,

Victor closed the distance, a bolt of red. A sharp blow at her wrists, a pull, and she no longer had her gun. 

Shit.

He casually inspected the gun, observing the attachment at the end of the barrel, before flinging it securely on his back. “I’ve been curious to try one of these armaments for some time. Thank you for your donation.” His form was relaxed, steady, with hints of tenseness in the limbs, a spring ready to uncoil at any time. He wasn’t openly smirking, but she could hear that he wanted to.

Elizabeth took a step towards the door, and he was on her in a moment. Victors’ punches hit with superspeed enhanced force, aiming for chinks in her armour. Whether he knew the armours structure or was just that skilled it didn’t matter, they hit their mark.

She had no chance to respond, the speed of his attacks not giving her a moment to act, not a moment to escape, not a moment even to curl up. She knew how to get out of these situations, she had trained on what to do if she was overwhelmed in melee combat. Little of that training took into account superspeed however, and what little did was little better than ‘Hope and Pray’.

In a panic, she attempted to draw her knife. A simple strike at the wrist broke her grip, sending it clattering to the floor, her hope dashed. He gave it a dismissive glance, almost bored. Presumably, it wasn’t special enough for him to take. 

The beating continued. He didn’t seem to take an active sadistic glee in it, it felt more professional, like it was just business. Somehow that made it worse. If he was enjoying it, she wouldn’t be able to see so much of herself in him.

Time melted away, but eventually Victor stepped back. She did not know how long the beating had lasted, perhaps a second, perhaps an hour. At some point he’d manoeuvred her into a different room. She should have noticed that.

She also did not know why he was giving her a moment to breathe. Perhaps I was wrong about his sadism , she hoped. Either way, she refused to miss the opportunity.  

Victor was watching her like a predatory bird.

Elizabeth's’ hand reached for her helmet, ready to call for aid from her fellow soldiers. She had already tried it, but maybe, maybe this time they’d be close enough. 

Now, I press… What button do I press?  

The hand shook. She remembered pressing the buttons before, but… which one was it to contact the rest of her squad? She wasn’t sure. Nor could she recall the correct codes. Words that had fallen easily from her lips before couldn’t even form, the memory slipping away. Victor watched her, circling her like a raven circling a dying dog. 

She focused. There were protocols for this, she knew. Methods used to recall while under the influence of memory altering powers. She couldn’t remember them. 

Elizabeth found a button, one her skills were silent on but her memories insisted was correct, and went to press it.

Victors’ fist hit her head before she could, and all sense of direction was lost. She couldn’t tell where the blows were coming from, every part of her ached too much, her head was full of barbs and her vision swam. 

In a brief moment of clarity, she threw a punch, but it was sloppy, more a flail than anything professional. She couldn’t tell how it was sloppy but she knew it was, a ghost of a memory of her skills clueing her in. He easily avoided it, answering with a punch to her stomach. 

She couldn’t breathe. The acrid taste of vomit welled up in her, as spit was forced out of her mouth. His superspeed had long since ran out, but at this point she knew she was simply too unskilled to beat him. The beating continued, as sensation blurred together and was lost. She never lost consciousness, he never allowed it, the darkness at the edge of her vision always distant. Whenever the strength to fight back was mustered, it was like she was a new recruit, just learning to punch.

Her gun was gone, her knife was on the floor, he was too close, but every attempt to strike him was easily dodged. Her reinforcements couldn’t come, not in time. She couldn't call for help, she couldn’t remember how and he wouldn't allow her to. Her comrades were dead or missing, and she couldn’t remember how to avenge them. 

Everything ached, his blows having sunk deep. Even if she had her knife against his fists, she couldn’t do anything. Even if she managed to get the upper hand, he’d just draw her gun and use it against her. All her skill, hard fought for, amounted to nothing here. She was, for the first time in her life, completely and utterly helpless.

Elizabeth was no longer in that room.

Two great beasts dwarfed the sky. They were not like any life that had evolved on earth. The cells of their bodies seemed vast enough to swallow the moon. 

She had seen a video once of what the compound vision of an insect would be like, a thousand images of the same object from a slightly different angle, a slight twist of the head sending the images dancing. It was like each section of the beast's bodies was being seen through those eyes, but each image was laid on top of each other, blurring into each other such that she could somehow see them all and yet could not distinguish between them.

They expanded in dimensions unseen, pseudopods that were drills which were not pseudopods twisting through reality, tunnelling through the universe, like maggots through dead flesh. Watching it made her brain hurt. She felt like a child's drawing staring at the real world, something flat and simple catching a glimpse of something more complex than she could ever imagine. This extended beyond just their form. She knew, somehow, in the same way that she knew her own name, that these things were more than just beasts. They knew more than she ever would, than mankind ever had. 

They were communicating, and even the thought of the echo of their words was beyond her comprehension. 

Were they comrades, lovers, rivals? She couldn't tell. She could barely tell they were two. The twisting forms danced around each other, colliding and separating, such that she couldn't keep track of which segment she glimpsed belonged to which of the beasts. Perhaps they swapped them, perhaps she just couldn't see the distinguishing markers, like UV patterns on a flower.

They were vast beyond her reckoning, and Elizabeth was so very small in their shadow. Lovecraft, she recalled, said that the strongest and oldest fear of humanity was the fear of the unknown. At this moment, beneath the wonder and curiosity, she felt incredibly scared.

Victor was in front of her. The door was behind him. Her knife was on the floor. He’s stumbling, and seems to have fallen over. 

Elizabeth didn't know what happened, but she knew one thing. There is a song in her soul, her heart a wardrum, accompanied by pipes of bone and memory. It was in her blood, a song of bloody knives, of smoking guns. It felt familiar, an old friend. It wanted her knife. She dashed, picking it up, and the song harmonised with the blade, a new tune joining the melody. The song reached its crescendo, pouring into the instrument of violence. Her disorientation faded instantly, replaced with the familiar instinct and certainty of an old soldier.
He has an old injury, a scar on his knee. It is still sensitive, sore. His armour is weaker at the joint. She knows it hurts, knows how he got it, can hear the tune of an old battle, from before he became something more, before the medic allowed him to avoid the fruits of violence. 

The knife glints, red light reflecting off it for a brief moment. Victor moves to block the lunge, but he's off balance, confused. The knife sunk into the flesh of his knee, blood pours, coating it, satisfying it. A noise escapes his mouth, too controlled to be a scream, too pained to be a grunt, and he folds. She wants to stab him. The rhythm wants to stab him, to cut and main and tear. But there are the sounds of Othala shouting outside, and he is recovering. The rhythm screams at her, she screams at herself, but the fear in her heart is stronger than the thirst in her blade. Elizabeth gives him a parting slash on his arm, a little act of spite, and runs.

He tries to reach for her as she runs past him, but his knee buckles, and her long legs carry her past his reach, through the broken window in the next room.

Elizabeth can’t stop. Somewhere inside her she knows he won’t be able to catch up, but the thought of being near him, of him pursuing her twists in her stomach. 

A faint voice notes her luck, despite losing her sense of direction she had ended up on the opposite side of the building to the E88 thugs. Any relief she may have felt is drowned by the pain. She keeps running, until she hears the sound of an engine approaching, and a familiar truck barrels into view down the street. 

It lurched to a halt and two small squads of fellow soldiers, accompanied by a field medic, jumped out. The matte black of their equipment filled her with a sense of relief beyond any she had felt in a very long time. They smelt like gunpowder and blood, but their armour was clean.

She finally came to a pause, the pain of her bruises assaulting her, the will that kept her running gone in an instant. As the darkness at the edge of her vision finally claims her, she hears the medic approaching, their voice fading as she does.

Elizabeth woke up with a start. While she didn’t recognise the room she was in, its purpose was fairly obvious. The white walls, the hospital bed she was in, the sheets surrounding her bed.

She was in an infirmary. Coil kept several available throughout his territory, and while she has never been in this one, they don’t vary that much.

Why she was in it, she couldn't quite remember. There were bandages on her limbs and around her torso, and an IV in her right arm. Her body felt cool and numb, the false death that comes with painkillers, any sensation distant and faint. She couldn’t see any of the other beds through the cloth sheet surrounding hers, and the infirmary was near silent, save the beeping of the machines, near scentless, the artificial sterility of a hospital, and a dull plain white. 

At least, one of the infirmaries she could sense was silent, scentless and dull.

The other infirmary stunk, a smell like that of rot and dried blood soaked into the walls. It was the smell of a fresh wound, of your body failing you, of the approach of death. Her body wanted to gag, but she held herself firm, though the sight of the wall across from her did not help.  The wall was soaked with rotting blood, the wallpaper littered with deep cuts, bleeding like the skin of a dying giant. One of the cuts was leaking, a yellow puss-like ichor that squirmed with things that looked like maggots, or centipedes, or rats. But she knew they weren’t. The maggots were too thick, too wet, the centipedes squirmed with a thousand more legs than they should have, the rats had boils that would have killed any true rat. The creatures flailed in pain, squealing like tortured pigs, and rotted, still alive. The husks left fused with the walls, like fossils, covering the previous generations' forms. 

Accompanying all of this, was a distant, pained and mournful scream, the scream of someone who's lost a finger, an arm, a friend. 

It was like she had two noses, two pairs of ears, two pairs of eyes. With one set she saw the world as it was, the other the world as a nightmare. 

Elizabeth knew she should be panicking, staring at a world twisted, but she felt none of that. Instead, staring at the bleeding walls, all she felt was curiosity and disgust. She looked at the horror stricken walls like they were a strange piece of art. Something created to be pondered in the meaning of its malignancy. 

In the centre of her heart she could feel something else, a distant sound, a strange feeling. She turned her senses away, too tired for that.

Elizabeth knew what this meant. But as she gathered her thoughts, staring at her bandaged arms, at the bleeding walls, Elizabeth’ remembered.

The memories hit her with a force far beyond any of Victor's blows. She did not know if any of her squadmates, her friends, had survived. She needed to move, to get up, to know what happened. But even if her limbs were capable, she knew that she needed to wait. She had lost a lot, far diminished from the soldier she was even a few days ago, but she still knows that getting up could just make the injuries much worse. After all, she's already lost so much, best not to lose any of her body's functionality. She’d need it to continue. 

Elizabeth pushed the fear and grief to the back of her mind. As she let herself fall to sleep, two images filled her mind. The calm, impartial look on Victor’s face, the mask doing little to hide his lack of expression. The blood coating her knife, freshly ripped from his knee.

As she slept she dreamt of endless war, a battlefield that stretched beyond the horizon, that consumed the world, will consume the world, is consuming the world.

What were once trenches and dirt had become so drenched in blood to be a swamp, the bodies on the floor providing islands of stability in the wet muck, the sky choked with clouds of smoke from the gunshots. Voices that once shouted orders had long since gone hoarse, and then silent, and yet they still tried to scream their commands to unhearing troops, long deafened from the rattle of the guns. Tanks and planes had been occupied so long the occupants had fused to the machinery, the dead bodies of their fellows still pressing buttons, pulling triggers, the muscle memory so ingrained that they could do nothing else. The soldiers on the ground had never run out of ammunition, but their guns had fired so long the barrels had warped and broken, and the soldiers were reduced to running at their foes, beating them to death with the twisted clubs that remained. They all knew they must win, or the enemy would inflict violence upon them. The soldiers huddled in their trenches clenched pictures of family so worn as to be indiscernible, as the rumbles of the bombs hitting the earth filled their hearts with a great and terrible fear. In the distance, the commanders were glad they were not in the mix, but knew that a moment's failure could doom them, and so they fed more bodies into the grinder, ever fearful of the approaching foe.

Through it all a song was sung. It was not out of any mouth, or any instrument of human design. It was the rhythm of The War. Every blast and crack, every scream and gurgle harmonised into a vast symphony, one sung a thousand times before, sung a thousand times at this moment, to be sung a thousand times again. It was beautiful, it was foul, it was everywhere.

She saw all this, and something within her smiled, as a terrible hunger was satiated. 

As she woke in her infirmary bed, soaked in sweat, the memories of her dream faded. All that was left was a feeling of satisfaction, a distant melody she felt the need to hum, and an inexplicable feeling of dread.

Chapter Text

Elizabeth had rested for a long time. Medics had arrived, each bringing their own strange smells and sights, passing in and out of her room as she passed in and out of consciousness. One smelled like a misty night, with features cast in perpetual shadow and a voice that sounded impossibly distant to her second ears. Another had gangrenous fingers, shaking as they put on a set of latex gloves, and was perpetually followed by a set of heavy footsteps and the sound of deep breaths. She recognised them faintly. The mercenary company under Coil was small, as far as military groups go, so they had a small selection of medics. She hadn’t been injured severely enough before to warrant a lot of direct attention.

She knew what these second senses could be. There were protocols in place, procedures to follow if a mercenary gained powers. Codes to repeat, conversations to be had. Punishments to be administered, for false alarms.

Elizabeth needed certainty. After what she had been through, she needed to know this wasn’t a false hope. That she hadn’t been hit in the head too hard, or that Victor's power didn’t have some bizarre side effect. She needed to know this was real. 

The report would have to wait until it could be more comprehensive. 

There was a sliver of fear in her heart. She had ignored it before but she directed her senses to it now. She didn’t stare, for there was nothing to stare at. Nor did she listen, or smell, or touch. It was more like focusing on a memory, remembering the sensations you felt then. More a feeling than a vision. It felt like the passing of a vast beast, the wake of an underwater leviathan, unseen, unknowable and uninterested. Focusing on it, she could feel the footsteps of a mighty thing echoing in her mind, feet large enough to crush a city, body large enough to not notice the ruins. An ant, staring at a whale, and trying to comprehend the being in front of it.  It sat in a universe in a pit in her heart, heavy and distant. There was no feeling of symphony, as occurred with the knife and the rhythm of violence, just this great shadow.

It weighed on her.

Elizabeth knew she should be disturbed by the visions, and the fact she wasn’t scared her as much as the visions should have. There were many parahumans who were known to be mentally altered by their powers. They were dangerous and, worse, unpredictable. She didn’t like not being in control in her own head, not knowing the extent of the damages. She had already lost some of her ability to control her body, she wouldn’t let herself lose control of her mind. She was a soldier, and a soldier without control was useless.

The days passed in a haze of painkillers. The pain of her bruises distant and dampened.

Soon, she woke to a nurse. A heavyset man, his other self’s features distorted by mist and set in shadow.

“Sorry to disturb you, Ms Moore, but you have a visitor. His name is Christopher Jenkins. Do you know him?” At Elizabeth’s nod, the nurse inquired further. “Are you up for a visit?”

“Let him in.” Elizabeth croaked, throat sore.

The man who came through her door shortly after was familiar. Christopher Jenkins, one of Coils’ underlings. He was a soldier who had lost his right arm below the elbow in combat with Night. He no longer went into the field, but his experience was useful in other ways, so Coil kept him employed. 

His face bore distinctive scars left from Night’s partner Fog’s acidic mist, though he had been lucky enough to have sufficient equipment to avoid internal damage.  His prosthetic almost looked like a real flesh and blood arm, but the way the skin stretched was ever so slightly wrong, the skin was a shade darker than his already dark skin, and the trailing acid burn scars on his shoulder halted suddenly at his arm. It wasn’t noticeable unless you looked close, but it was noticeable.

He was dressed in casual clothes, likely to obscure the reason for his visit in case anyone was watching the facility.

Jenkins’ face was not unwelcome. He was known to be professional. Before his injuries he was far less so, a handsome man, known as a flirt, but he had become far colder since then. Most of his facial scars were covered with a face mask and a hood, but the pale white of his right eye and the mottled flesh around it were still visible. A glint of silver showed at the edge of his hood, where his close cropped hair was barely visible. He wore the scars on his body and arm proudly, sleeves partially rolled up to expose them, his coat undone with a low collared shirt beneath it. He carried himself with the controlled air of someone who knows well who they are and what they do.

His other face was a caricature. The acidic scars went so deep that she could see bone glinting beneath them, deep caverns in his face, the distant pale of bone beneath a light at the end of a tunnel. The edges of the scars glowed like embers, and yet cast no light. 

The right eye socket was completely empty, and his teeth were entirely bare, a corpse grin showing through, and his mouth empty and tongueless. His shoulder, where the prosthetic met the flesh, was surrounded by a ring of fire, eternally burning his flesh and yet somehow never burning beyond his shoulder. The flames bore no warmth, shed no light. The prosthetic itself was twisted, made of what appeared to be bone, a doll's arm ending in sharp metal claws, splattered with blood and mud. His body was emaciated, near death, and his chest did not move with any breath. He smelled of gunpowder and the sweat and tears of a battlefield, and was swaying slightly.

Coil did not keep his mercenaries to an incredibly strict hierarchy. Instead they were separated into small squads, each with their own leader. They were all subordinate to Coil, and he would often assign individuals to temporary leadership positions, but there was no consistent hierarchy. Bar that they all worked for Coil, that is. However, many of the mercenaries were former military, and the need for hierarchy had been beaten into them. There were individuals that were often picked for the temporary leadership positions, and these individuals, while not given official titles, were treated as superior officers by most of the mercenaries. Jenkins was one of these individuals. 

“Moore, I apologise for interrupting your rest. However, I need a report on what exactly happened out there.” His diction was clipped, voice baritone, straightforward and professional. His voice had an odd rasp to it, leftover effects of injuries on his throat. His other voice sounded pained, strained and old.

The familiar routine settled over Elizabeth. There was comfort here, she didn’t have to think about what happened. About what to do, now that all she had worked for was gone.

“Sir. The exchange was going fine, there were no issues. Buyer was nervous, but all the money was there. We were ambushed by a group of armed E88 gang members. Unknown how they knew of our location. The buyer fled with the payment and drugs. We put up a good fight, but there were too many of them. Raven-2 and 5 died. Status of 3 and 4 is currently unknown. Victor and Othala then arrived. I was trapped in a building with Victor. He managed to steal my gun and the attachment. I managed to escape by surprising him with a knife to the knee and running. I was then picked up by the reinforcements. Status of Victor, the buyer, the cash and the drugs is unknown.”

Jenkins nodded, a steady motion. He walked around her bed, pulled up a chair and took a seat. He paused for a moment to think, cleared his throat, and began.

“That matches with what we have already heard. I can fill in a few blanks for you. Victor was not captured, he seems to have managed to escape. He left a blood trail, but it stopped eventually. He was likely picked up by an ally. The buyer has been located and punished for his theft, and the materials retrieved. The bodies of Raven-2, 5 and 4 have been retrieved, they had an encounter with Night and Fog.” His voice softens when he says the names of the E88 duo, something tired slipping in. “Additionally, we have retrieved Raven-4. She is alive and well, though she has a broken leg. As for how they knew of your location. It appears that, with Lung gone, the E88 have decided to press into and take ABB territory. The gang members likely ran into you while searching for ABB, and reported it to Victor and Othala. A run of bad luck.”

A run of bad luck. All I have worked for gone. John, Elijah and Lucia dead. A run of bad luck. 

He continued. “Considering you have had an encounter with Victor, I need to ask. Did he use his power on you and how severely?”

She took a deep breath, putting her thoughts in order. 

“Victor assaulted me for an unknown period of time, and did use his power on me. The current extent of damages are unknown, Sir. “ She lied. “Sir, may I request leave? I… I need a moment to think. Victor, he um…”

Jenkins looked sympathetic. It was unexpected, he hadn’t seemed the sort to express himself like this. Perhaps the situation brought back memories for him.

“I’m sorry. I can give you some time to recover, and a few days paid leave. Past that? You get a week more, unpaid. It’s the best I can do.” He was clearly trying to look less stern and stiff, but it didn’t look quite right on him, like he was trying to recall the correct position from years ago. Somehow it was stiffer than his old pose.

Coil paid well and covered injuries on the job, so she wouldn’t have to worry about medical expenses. It had been difficult when she first moved to America from England and realised how much she would have to pay for the doctors. When she had learnt that Coil would cover it, she was quite relieved. Being a mercenary is not the kind of job where you can avoid being injured, as the scars on her body could attest.

Nevertheless, that time off was better than Elizabeth had expected. Many of the other officers wouldn't have allowed her pay. 

“Elizabeth. Off the record. If you need to talk to someone.” He looked almost uncomfortable, unused to this. “I’d be happy to lend an ear…”

Despite herself, Elizabeth appreciated the offer. She would never take him up on it, it felt wrong to be so familiar with a superior, but the offer was nice. 

Though , she supposed, if my theory is correct then he might be my subordinate soon … Maybe I will talk to him .

“Thank you, sir. I’ll keep it in mind. ” She nodded “May I ask when I can be discharged? And where are my personal effects?”

He reset himself, reasserting the stiff backed professional pose he had previously.  

“You will be discharged soon, Mrs. Moore. The medics have judged that while your injuries were severe, you have recovered from the worst of it. You will be hurting a lot, for the coming days, they will want to do regular check ups until you are healed. There will then be a meeting to determine the future status of your employment.” She had clearly not fooled him with her lie about Victor, but he wasn’t openly calling her out on it. 

The soldier's expression had returned to its former professionalism. He pushed his seat away from her bed, stood up, and left. And she was left alone with her thoughts.

A run of bad luck .

Coil had made a big deal about his power. How it tipped the odds in their favour. Their little company had seen enough successes that she had no doubt as to its validity, but she knew it wasn’t perfect. Jenkins and her knew that very well. If he actually controlled destiny as he claimed, he would be tangling in bigger leagues than Brockton Bay. Either his power wasn’t strong enough to prevent this, or he had engineered it. The first was most likely, no power was perfect, and with all the conflict at the time he likely couldn’t manage everything. But the other possibility still burned at her. She would find some way to get back at Victor for this indignity, to take from him as he has taken from her. But if Coil was responsible? She wouldn’t allow this humiliation to stand unavenged.

Elizabeth was discharged the next day. She was given a crutch, even though she didn’t need it. Just in case , they said. She wasn’t quite sure how to handle it, it was long and clunky. Any way she tried to hold it felt like it restrained her movement more than it enabled it, made her more clumsy and open. She was tempted to just throw it away, but she knew the medics would be expecting it back and losing it may dock her pay. If she still was going to receive pay, that is.

She was given some spare clothes, though they fit her poorly. She was quite tall, broadly built and muscular even compared to her fellow mercenaries. They weren’t uncomfortably tight, but noticeably so. They had given her the opportunity to clean herself up in the mirror before she left. The bruises made her face hard to recognise. She had joked, in her head, that she looked even worse than usual. A beautiful woman she was not, she knew that, but she wasn’t unattractive, and she had the added attractiveness that anyone who puts effort into their body has. A sharp nose, thick jaw and large deep set eyes, a colour somewhere in the darker shade of green, though she had never bothered to identify the exact shade. Pale skin, but she got enough exercise to have a bit of a tan, even if she sunburnt easily. Her hair was short cropped, easier for her to control and keep out of her eyes, and was a muddy brown. 

Finally, they gave Elizabeth her personal effects. She did not take much out with her on the job. There was no ID, incognito was preferable, no money or wallet. All that she was given was her knife, in its sheath, her apartment keys and her burner phone. The phone and keys were quickly slipped in her pocket, but she hesitated over the knife. She could hear it, even from within it’s the sheathe, the song she could faintly remember from a few eternal days ago. If she was a parahuman, as she suspected, she knew it had something to do with this knife. She had done something to it. At least, she thought she had. It could wait until she got home.

They offered Elizabeth some money for a cab, but she refused. She needed a moment to clear her mind and take in the city, and she always found she thought best after a bit of exercise. She had been cooped up too long anyway. She slipped on her boots, a coat to protect herself from the rain, stood up straight, and prepared to march home. 

She paused, outside the building. Taking a deep breath, closing her eyes for a brief second, she began to march home.

The city was not as monstrous to her other senses as the clinic, but it was still noticeably different. Less a horror, more a painting of a half remembered nightmare of the city. 

The rain was far heavier, mixing with the thin layer of dirt collecting in the corners and sides of the roads and buildings. It looked like a dust storm had swept in, thick piles of detritus gathered in the corners of streets. The taller buildings were noticeably taller, while every other building was more compact and claustrophobic. There were some scorch marks and slashes in the buildings but most looked old, almost entirely repaired and cleaned. The fresh ones still smouldered, flames leaping out before being smothered into embers once more. Around some buildings, mostly bars, a light fog gathered. The sky looked wrong, choked with pollution, and everyone she passed in the street looked somehow lesser, weaker. What stars she could see in the sky were distant and cold, long dead eyes gazing emptily into the cosmos. 

The city smelled of a coffin made of money, the scent of a dead body mixing with the odour of regret and shame. It smelt like the corpse of a friend. This scent mingled with the smell of ash and the sound of burning flesh that drifted in the breeze from ABB territory, and the splatter and smell of freshly spilt blood from E88 territory. She could hear the rhythm of violence looming in the background, it was noticeably louder in the direction of E88 territory, the sound more strident. It didn’t quite sound like the song in the knife however. The song in her knife was a wardrum, the sound of sharpening blades and flying bullets. The violence of the city was tinged with another song, the rhythm distorted with mechanical screeching, the sound of bombs and warbling of static.

Around some people, the effects were stronger. One woman she passed had a face made of static, and her voice was completely unintelligible. A homeless man was practically caked in dirt, his sleeping back pulled around him like a mummy’s wrappings, his face about as skeletal as one. There was a police officer she passed, who’s nails had grown into sharp claws, and pupils had thinned into predatory slits. There was a woman sitting on a bench, scratching her arms, arms that, to her other eyes, were rotting off of her. 

Elizabeth tried to ignore all of this. She would think about it later. For now, she needed to breathe in the air, and take in a city that had long fallen apart, and comforted itself with the feeling that it had once been worse. 

The walk wasn’t too long. She soon found herself outside her home. She marched up the stairs to her apartment, small and poorly cared for, but hers. The keys jangled in her hand, sliding smoothly into the lock, and the door opened with a creak. 

The moment the door closed behind her she slumped, the will that kept her back straight gone. She dropped the crutch on the floor, holding her hands to her face. 

They were shaking, Elizabeth realised, distantly. She wanted to slump, to fall to the ground and lie there for an eternity. Until her bruises healed and her memory failed. But instead she trudged over to the centre of her living room, sitting by her table. It was large, making the apartment feel tight and uncomfortable in a way it never had for her before. 

There were no tears in her eyes. It was all too soon, even now, her restraint gone, she didn’t think it had quite hit her yet. It had taken her a week to start crying after her parents died, and even now she wasn’t quite sure if she had finished processing it. 

The apartment was bare and plain, the only hint of a hobby being a collection of board games under her desk, and a gun in a case by the wall. Elizabeth was not one to collect knick knacks, she preferred the freedom not having too much to leave behind granted her. Plus, she knew how easy it was to lose these little knick knacks. Even to her other eyes the apartment didn’t look too different. There was a mist heavy on the floor, but it seemed old and forgotten. Around some of her drawers the wood seemed aged and weak, and she could smell stale air from them. It had been a comfortable place. Her gaze drifted to the games, and remained there for a long while, staring into memories. She always had trouble making friends, something in her never knew how to form lasting bonds, how to interact with people. She envied Elizah for that, the easy way he got along with people. But being forced to interact with her squadmates, being dragged to events, it had forged a bond between them. She’d started her collection of games after befriending them. They were well worn, the product of many a weekend. They were why she had brought the larger table, despite how uncomfortable it made the room seem.

She did not want to look at the games any longer. 

Elizabeth’s hands shook as she made her way to the kitchenette of her apartment, flipping the switch of the kettle on, fumbling through the cupboards for a pot of instant hot chocolate. She’d been surprised when she moved to America to find her first apartment not equipped with an electric kettle. This one had been her first purchase when she moved here, and had kept with her through various jobs, and various employers. It was an old friend, though thinking of it like that now carried a taste of bitterness to it. 

A run of bad luck.

The heat of the hot chocolate helped clear her mind, pulling her from the haze of memories. 

She could mourn later, she told herself once more, now was the time to think. 

Elizabeth knew what this new sense meant, knew the implications. In that building, as blows rained upon her, something had happened, and now she had gained powers. She had worked with many parahumans in the past, both as fellow mercenaries and as employers, and she had fought many parahumans in the past, as both a soldier and a mercenary. Though she would argue that there is little difference. 

She knew well that feeling, of being faced with a foe of unknown ability, who could do things you could not counter with normal armaments. And she knew well the feeling of having that same ability on your side. 

She had seen armour sundered, bullet shots ignored, squadruns rent to pieces by strange energy. In her misspent youth, she had been on the ground in Africa, during one of Britain's failed and unnecessary imperialistic ‘peacekeeping’ attempts, when a teleportation tinker had risen to prominence as a warlord, and had suffered from one of his surprise attacks. The old scar on her hip still ached sometimes. He had eventually angered Moord Nag when he refused to pay homage to her, and had been eaten. A powerful parahuman put down by one even stronger. No amount of hard fought for skill could contend with things beyond skill, cosmic coincidence blessing random individuals with might to contest conventional force. For someone who had worked so hard to be as skilled as she was, it had always made Elizabeth feel bitter. To have all that work taken away and to become a parahuman at the same time, it elicited some complicated feelings.

The sheathed knife continued to sing, as she placed it on the countertop in front of her. She steadied her hand, and clumsily placed it on the hilt, uncertain how to hold it. She braced her other hand against the table, her bruises stinging, and began to pull. 

The sense of absence quickly faded once she touched it, and without thinking she found herself in a professional stance. The melody was louder, and she let it take her as she twirled, stabbing the air in a way her memories claimed she had practised a thousand times before. 

When Elizabeth was young, she had tried to learn to dance. She’d wanted to learn many styles, but she could never settle, and her build was not well suited for many of them. The talent wasn’t there, however, and she had found herself frustrated with how she could never quite get it to work. She could still remember how much her young self enjoyed it though, and that paled in comparison to what she was feeling now. 

When her coworkers were feeling more poetic they would describe combat as a dance. She often found it rather pretentious, but she didn't care right now. Her every step was perfect, her every slash and stab on time, her every thrust matching the beat. Even her limp somehow added to the rhythm, a trailing note behind her. The pain of her body was forgotten, and she simply danced.

She stepped, and slit a throat. Twirled, and tore a belly open. She laughed, and plunged her knife into an eye socket. She had her knife skills back. Her anger was swept away in a flood of elation. Not everything had been taken from her. She may not have all her skills back, but if she had done this to the knife surely she could to all her other tools. 

There was something delirious to her thoughts, drunk on hope. Not only could she return to who she was, she was a parahuman, she wasn’t mad. She was still in control, and could regain it all.

She pranced and twirled over to the gun cabinet by her bed, disembowelling an imaginary Victor on the way. 

Best to get started! Reclaim my old self . 

As Elizabeth bent down and reached for the gun, she placed her knife on top of the cabinet.

The skills were gone. It was as if she had just managed to climb out of an icy river, before slipping and falling back in. No longer could she remember how to hold the knife properly, how to stab and slash properly, where to cut to maim and hurt. 

Her hands were shaking again. She grabbed the knife and clutched it to her chest, feeling her skills return. It was comfortable, like finally finding clothes that fit, a grip that matched your hand. But that comfort could only do so much. She was starkly aware of every inch of herself, the aching bruises on her body, the quivering fingers of her hands, the absence in her mind.

She sat on her floor for who knows how long. She was shivering, her heart beating, her mind frozen. Torn from emotional depths to valley to peak once more.

Elizabeth wasn’t quite sure how long she sat there. It was darker outside, but not noticeably. But a noise eventually managed to shock her out of her fugue. Her phone buzzed. There was a text from Olivia, the last surviving member of the squad. She had heard that Elizabeth was finally up, and wanted to meet tomorrow. They needed to go to the bar.

Best to sleep on it. She sent a confirmation to Olivia, and dragged herself from the floor. She carefully, reverently, placed the knife back in it’s sheathe, before prepping for bed. She felt filthy, and needed a shower.

Chapter Text

The next day, Elizabeth was standing in her living room, staring at the door. She had gotten dressed in a plain shirt and blazer, with simple, black trousers. The blazer was thick enough to easily hide weapons, with the open front providing an easy way to reach inside if necessary. Her knife was strapped to her side, its rhythm matching beat to beat with her heart. Usually she would wear a tanktop, something that would expose her arms, but most of her current clothes did not provide sufficient space to conceal the knife. She was expecting Olivia to arrive soon, so had armed and armoured herself, prepared for an outing. Her hand fiddled with the knife, adjusting its position and she was focusing on the rhythm when there was a knock on her door. If she rushed to it, she knew she would look desperate, but if she took too long she knew it would seem she was unprepared. She took the requisite waiting period, and then opened the door. 

At the door was a tiny, fit woman. Her short, black hair was loose, and her physique was well muscled, the muscle one develops from both hard labour  and a desire to look good. Her leg was broken, and she had a crutch under her arm. She was dressed stylishly but barely, in very bright colours, though her outfit was more unkempt than usual, and was the sort of attractive that people call effortless, but really takes quite a lot of effort to maintain. Her visible arm (and the bandaged one, Elizabeth knew) was covered in an assortment of miscellaneous tattoos, stretching from her wrist to her shoulder. Some were lovely classical illustrations of animals, some were silly doodles, some were simple patterns. None of them matched, and it gave off the feeling that each of them was bought on a whim. A pair of shades covered her eyes, even though it wasn't sunny, and she wore a practical pair of boots that was incongruous with the rest of her flashy appearance. Her face was sharp, all edges and points, with ears adorned with an assortment of piercings. 

Elizabeth scowled. “Ah. Just who I didn’t want to see at my door.”

Olivia smirked back. “Well, it’s not like I want to be looking at your face either.”

They both paused for a moment, before a smile crossed their faces, their little greeting ritual completed. Olivia was Elizabeth’s squadmate, a good hand with a rifle, and frustratingly better at games than Elizabeth. 

She would always call Elizabeth Liz. Both to match her preferred nickname, Liv, and because she knew Elizabeth found it annoying. Elizabeth called her Olivia.

They made an odd pair. Olivia was shorter than most women, Elizabeth was taller than most men. Olivia was slim, Elizabeth broad. Olivia was carefree, Elizabeth was more controlled, or at least she likes to think so.

“Come in. It’s been a few days, is your leg okay?” Elizabeth gestured inside, but not towards the seats. They would have to head out soon, best not to get too comfortable.

“Yeah, it’s… it stings. Unless I can get on Panacea’s waiting list, it looks like I’m off active duty from now on. Don’t know if I’m reassigned or fired or what, but yeah.” Olivia limped through the door. She was clearly doing nothing to hide her limp, moving in the most comfortable manner instead of what may look best.

“Well, you were always terrible at the job anyway, so it’s not much of a loss?” Olivia was the second worst fighter in the squad, but that still made her pretty talented. She could take any of those E88 thugs one on one easily, two on one with some difficulty, and would still have a chance three on one.

Olivia gave a mock scowl. “Like you're one to talk. Surprised you're not already fired. Did you forget to use your gun again, or what?”

Elizabeth felt her breath catch. Her fingers drum a rhythm on her thigh, matching the drums of the knife. Early in her work under Coil, she had trouble figuring out the use of the tinkertech attachments. She had never been particularly good with technology. One unfortunate incident had resulted in a lot of teasing from the other mercenaries, and eventually she’d seen the humour in it. Not anymore.

She forced a smile. “No, I’ve not been fired. I’m actually expecting a big promotion, I'm going to be your boss.” A tinge of bitterness seeped into the last words. 

Olivia paused for a second. The look of concern and confusion on her face rankled Elizabeth. 

“...Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up. Are you doing okay?” Olivia said.

“I’m fine,” Elizabeth bit out. “Just need to think about some stuff.” She shook off her anger. “How ‘bout you? You said your legs doing okay but you said nothing about yourself”

A weak smile strained Olivias’ lips. “As well as I can be. A bit concerned about the job, not much work for a mercenary with a broken leg.” She shrugged “At least this will let me grow my hair out, always wanted to but, you know, the helmet. Leg hurts but eh, I’ve had worse.” Ig it was anyone else Elizabeth would have assumed they were downplaying their injuries, but Olivia has never been anything but honest, sometimes to a fault.

Elizabeth forced a smile. She knew Olivia would worry otherwise, best to divert her attention. “Now, are you ready to head out? We have somewhere to be.”

Olivia nodded, her ever present smile gone. “Yeah, this is gonna suck. But we need to do it. It’s tradition after all.”

It was barely a tradition, and one Elizabeth had hoped not to take part in, even if she recognised it was inevitable. But still, it was tradition. One of the older soldiers had brought it over from his old company.

Elizabeth took a deep breath and braced herself. 

“Give me a moment. I need to get ready.”

She adjusted her knife under her jumper. She shouldn’t need to use it but she needed it.

It was always a strange affair, a colleague's funeral. It wasn’t unexpected, this was a violent profession, nor was it undeserved, she had no illusions as to her profession's morality. John was a cruel man, and a good friend. But even an anticipated death is still a sad death, and bonds forged in combat can be strong. 

It was not a true funeral. There are alternate arrangements with their families for that, though Elizah’s remains were instead being arranged by his partner, as he was long estranged from his family. Additionally, the proper excuses for the deaths still needed to be manufactured, many families are not accepting of the mercenary trade and tend to be told they were security officials. Coil cannot exactly allow anyone to link the deaths to him. If people know they were working for him, they might be able to backtrack back to Coil, and in this world of Thinkers, one has to be exceptionally careful. They are going to be passed off as deaths from accidents, there will be a car crash somewhere in Brockton that tragically claims a few lives, too young to die, or a sudden illness, or a gang shooting. They’d stagger the deaths, avoiding it looking too suspicious. Still, even if it isn't a true funeral, there were still traditions for the loss of a comrade.

The glasses clinked on the wooden surface of the bar. It was well polished, with a few barely visible crevices left by intrepid drunks throughout the years. Not that there were that many years, it being a relatively new place. It wasn’t a nazi bar, as people who didn’t live in Brockton may expect. Non-Brocktonites always over and underestimate the E88s reach. Instead, it was a small bar, just outside of E88s territory, the sort of place that you find often in the fringes of the territories of Brockton Bay, that is very careful not to allow any overt display of gang membership, but knows it can’t get too strict or it may attract too much attention.

“Anything else ma’am?” The waitress asked, looking nervously at the two well muscled women. She had the paranoid air of anyone confronting a muscled, injured person in Brockton Bay. That she couldn’t quite tell whether they were muscled for sports, vanity, or brutality and who was not eager to find out. In most places brutality would be the last assumption, but in a place so frequented by gang thugs, it shot up the list.  For Elizabeth it was the last, for Olivia it was the last two, not that the waitress knew that. The injuries probably made her paranoia worse. She likely assumed they were from a fight, which is accurate but still presumptuous.

“That will be all, thank you” Elizabeth replied.

In front of them were six glasses, three each. Two were filled with rum, two with cider, two were some cocktail Olivia had had to remind Elizabeth of the name of. None were Elizabeth’s preferred drink, she preferred not to drink alcohol at all, but they were the favourite drinks of their comrades. 

The first drink, rum, Lucia’s favourite, tasted terrible, but she held her grimace back. On the opposite end of the table, Olivia was already drinking the last. She seemed to have enjoyed it.

This little ritual did not happen often. Despite it being a violent city, fatalities were not frequent. The soldiers were very well trained and well equipped, and full on gang fights were not particularly common. Though with Lung being gone, she wouldn't be surprised if the city would be getting very active in the future. Despite his brutality, he, the Protectorate and Coil had been the only forces stopping the E88’s expansion. 

Elizabeth nursed the second drink, the cider, Elizah’s favourite. The silence between her and Olivia was awkward. Neither of them were quite sure what to say. They could talk about their lost squadmates, but it felt unnecessary to Elizabeth. They had both known them for the same amount of time, any story the other could mention is something the other already knew, and would just pick at the open scar. Elizabeth didn’t like the idea of that scar. She didn’t care about any of the physical wounds on Olivia, those are par for the course and would heal with time, but the emotional wounds may last longer, and would have a greater impact on her performance. Olivia seemed ready to speak several times, but something kept putting her off.

Elizabeth couldn’t help but feel a tad jealous. She knew it was ridiculous, but they had both been injured, they had both lost friends. But all of Elizabeth's training, her life's work, had gone to waste. Sure, she attained power out of it, and she knew that many would pay anything for a power of their own, but she had worked hard for those skills, putting sweat, blood, tears and years in. And she lost them in an instant.

As she sat, she let her mind wander. Elizabeth was a mercenary at heart, though she would not admit it to herself. Reduced she may be, but she still recognised value.

Parahumans were very valuable on the battlefield, she knew this well. And now, so was she, though it felt strange to think of it as such. Her worth had changed so much over the past day, she had lost all value and gained it once more in a moment, with no effort of her own. It was galling.

Was it a worthy reward? A fair trade?

She couldn't answer the question, not even to herself.

Her power's value was unknown. The extra senses were interesting, but barely useful in a combat setting. The knife let her know how to use it, and, she realised, it had told her of Victor’s injury. If others could use her items, she was valuable indeed. She had seen how much even low level tinkertech could improve a soldier's value, it was how Coil kept his territory secure with only one parahuman.

But she didn't know how easily she could churn these items out. She had heard of tinkers having to work months for simple tech, and others creating masterpieces in a week. She was not a tinker, but she knew that a hero in this city, Dauntless, could imbue powers similarly to her, but he took repeated infusions to build up any significant strength. She could feel, in that new sense, that the knife wouldn't allow a new symphony to be added to it, it was satiated with what it had. And she wasn’t sure how happy she would be to lend her items out. The feeling she had only yesterday, that moment of elation. It was hers. But she knew she would need to push past that. One parahuman isn’t worth as much as someone who can empower others. 

Beyond merely the strength of her power, Elizabeth knew what it meant to have them. Whether she wanted to or not, she was a part of the game. The cape game had rules, and rhythms, to be part of it meant a code name, a mask. She wasn’t unfamiliar with a code name, callsigns were used in the field, or a mask, her equipment concealed her face and her employer asked her to be anonymous, but being part of the game also meant interacting with capes. They were strange, she had seen that, and she was now one of them.

She was also well aware of how difficult it is for a normal human to beat a cape. Coils’ soldiers were well trained and equipped, and yet it took all of that just to match a rank amateur civilian given the power to shoot lasers out of their eyes. 

But, Elizabeth realised again, she isn't a normal human any more. And if she is going to be a part of the game anyway, well, supervillainy could pay well. Especially supervillainy for hire. With the loss she had suffered, she’d need something to offer. She had worked with a supervillain soldier for hire before, a man called Molehill, and while his power wasn’t amazing, he still raked in paychecks far eclipsing hers, and had a reputation beyond a nameless soldier. 

Elizabeth considered Olivia.

She would not consider them incredibly close. But then again, she had not considered any of her squadmates close friends and nevertheless, she still hurt. 

Olivia could keep a secret. It was necessary to be a mercenary working for a superpowered gang leader. Olivia also was known to flaunt the rules to a degree, never enough to get into trouble, but some. She treated guidelines as something to play with but never to break.

She was also a bit of a fan of both superpowered law enforcement and law breakers, far more than Elizabeth. Elizabeth was the sort of person who knew how she would fight local parahumans if the situation called for it. Olivia was the sort of person who had very strong opinions on what local parahumans would win in a fight. If anyone would have some advice on being a parahuman, it would be her.

Elizabeth tapped the knife by her side, before opening her other senses. Olivia’s features were cast in a thick dark fog, casting deep shadows and hiding her face, blinding her eyes. Her mouth glinted through it, broken bloody fangs shining like a crescent moon.bThe broken arm was leaking blood, the bandages lightly charred and covered in dirt, like she’d been burnt before being buried alive, and was tipped with fingers as sharp as blades. A more normal looking fog kept appearing around her, but seemed to be forcing its way through the gaps in her teeth, down her throat. She was swaying, Elizabeth noticed, like Jenkins. If Elizabeth focused, she could just about hear a tune on the wind, a melody so distant and familiar, like a childhood lullaby. Much like Jenkins, she smelt of gunpowder, though she lacked his battlefield smell. Jenkins, Elizabeth remembered, was ex-military, while Olivia had come from the security business. What skin was visible had old scars, heavy bruises and other wounds on it, the markings of a life spent dealing and being dealt violence, as if every injury she had ever had had stopped just before fully healing.

Another problem with these senses. It is very hard to know what they are telling me .

She had a feeling that the senses had something to do with fear, or trauma, but what did this vision mean? Clearly there was something to do with violence, with the smell of gunpowder and the blood, but was Olivia scared of the dark? What did the mist and the claws mean, why was she swaying? Elizabeth wondered if all thinker capes found their powers so obtuse. If so, it’s a wonder any of them became masterminds. 

Elizabeth reached to start the cocktail, and noticed Olivia looking at her.

“You done staring at me, Liz? Thought that was supposed to be rude, aren’t you guys supposed to be all polite?”

Olivia had made a few jokes about the English when they had first met, which hadn’t bothered Elizabeth at the time. But as time went on, and she kept repeating the same jokes, it slowly got more and more irritating. Which seemed to have been what Olivia had been aiming for. 

Elizabeth braced herself and threw the cocktail down her throat, slammed a tip for the waitress on the table, and took a deep breath. 

“Olivia. I’ve got something to talk to you about. We can’t do it here.” 

Olivia raised a perfectly managed eyebrow. 

“Liz. We just got here, I was hoping to you know, reminisce, get something to eat, get drunk. The whole nine yards.” She sounded peeved. None of that sounded fun to Elizabeth, and she had more important matters to deal with.

“We can reminisce later, we can order something in, you can get drunk on your own. Let’s go.” She stood up before Olivia had the chance to reply, and started throwing her coat on.

The look on Olivia’s face was almost venomous, before it shifted to something half intrigued, half annoyed. She would need more convincing, so Elizabeth brought out the big guns.

“Liv, if you come, I will buy you as many drinks as you want tomorrow and I’ll pay for the takeaway.” Olivia got up very quickly after that, and was almost out the door already before she turned back.

“You coming or not Liz? This better be good.”

Elizabeth tapped her side, where her knife’s sheethe was hidden behind several layers of clothing.
“You’ll like it, don't worry”

Olivia didn’t talk to Elizabeth on the drive back. She was clearly still annoyed, even if the offer had mollified her to a degree. Olivia had never liked when her plans were interrupted, one of the few areas in her life that she wasn’t careless. Giving the silent treatment was a bit much, but then again, Elizabeth didn’t have anything to say to her in public either, so it worked out.

The first words out of Olivia’s mouth when she closed the apartment door behind her were. “Well, what is it?”

Elizabeth unfastened her knife’s sheath, and handed it, handle first, to Olivia. 

“Draw the knife.”
The look on Olivia's face started baffled, looped beyond that to mild anger, then further back to confusion. Her eyes slowly looked down at the knife, then back at Elizabeth's face.

“Is this… what is this? Are you initiating me into a cult? I don’t look good in robes, Liz.” The exasperation fought with confusion in her voice.

Elizabeth’s voice hardened. “Just draw the fucking knife.”

The instant Olivia touched the knife her bearing shifted. Her stance became more ready, prepared to burst forward to any moment, her eyes seemed to sharpen, her teeth bared slightly. Overall, she looked aggressive, sharp, angry. Her demeanour was like a drawn blade. Then she dropped the knife. 

Elizabeth smiled inside. So other people can use them.

“You’re… you triggered.”

“Yes.”

The look on her face was half parts concerned and excited. Elizabeth interrupted her before she could speak. “I know you're gonna ask something like ‘are you okay?’ Stop. I know what you actually want to ask.”

Hurt flashed across Olivia's face, a brief glimpse before curiosity won out.

Elizabeth continued. “I don't know the specifics. I can see weird things, I pushed something into the knife and it changed, gives me and apparently other people skills to use it and gives you hints on how to hurt people. Got something else I can push in that feels… like the feeling of being scared of your own insignificance, but I haven't felt anything I can put it in yet.”

“Plus the knife looks weird.” Olivia interrupted.

Elizabeth paused for a moment.

Olivia was nudging the knife on the floor using her crutch, flipping it and inspecting it. To treat something so important so casually was aggravating, like watching something drink irn-bru out of the holy grail. Elizabeth knew, however, that if she made her annoyance clear Olivia would just do it more.

“What do you mean?”

“You haven't noticed? It's weirdly red, like it's been splattered. Looks really sharp, much more vicious than normal. I don't know, it's hard to describe. Just looks weird. Plus it does a lot more than just give hints on how to hurt people. I could detect old injuries, I could tell how you would react to being hurt, could tell where to stab you to inflict the most emotional pain, how to inflict injuries that would anger you. Said you would really hate losing a finger. It was a lot. ”

Elizabeth hadn’t noticed anything different about it. She had been too caught in the exhilaration to see that, but looking at it now, she cou;d see how the light that reflected off the blade glinted red, how as it moved it seemed almost hungry. It wasn’t something you’d notice unless you knew the knife had been changed, but it was still noticeable.

Elizabeth paused. “I… I didn’t get any of that. I could sense some old injuries but it was all physical .Do you think, maybe, that it works better when other people use it? Or at least differently.”

It would just be Elizabeth’s luck if so. She thinks she has gained something that could give her value again, only to find that the best use would be to sit at the back like a civilian. She would not let that happen. It doesn’t matter if it’s optimal, she had her pride. 

“Maybe? But could be anything. Maybe the charge runs out and other people use it quicker, maybe the power is stronger but less stable, I don’t know, I’m not a scientist. Know Coil’s got a few under his thumb. Just spitballing here. Can you make more?”

“I think so, but it feels… It feels like I need specific ingredients. I mentioned before, that… insignificance I have? It feels like it needs the right… vessel. I had a similar thing briefly with the knife, felt the same way a new recruit feels the first day of combat. I put it in the knife, and now the knife does that.”

Olivia’s face was set in an expression Elizabeth rarely saw on her. Contemplation. “Huh. You've got a weird power Liz. Feels kinda like Dauntless but more tinkery? In that you need to work for it more. Any idea how to get the ingredients? What the weird feeling is? You said you were seeing stuff right?”

The idea of having a power she would have to put work in appealed to her. It gave her something to work towards. It was better than those brutes who just flung fire everywhere, or those Brutes that relied on strength and not skill or effort. 

Elizabeth nodded. “I have a… second set of senses? A second set of eyes, nose, ears, that I can open. It lets me see the world… distorted. I have a theory that it's based on trauma, or maybe fear. But there's a lot of unusual symbology. The city was covered in dirt to my other senses, but I doubt everyone here is scared of dirt. The medical centre I went to was oozing pus from the walls, which makes potential sense, fear of infection maybe. But there were also rats and centipedes and other vermin living in the puss. Jenkins visited yesterday and his prosthetic was made of bone and had metal claws. So if it is trauma I’m seeing, maybe the power gathers fear? If so, I pushed someone's fear of violence into the knife, but where does the insignificance come from? It all makes no sense.”

“Huh.” Olivia murmured “I've heard of some thinker powers being a bit fucked but that's strange even from what I've heard. What do I look like?”

Elizabeth wondered, briefly, whether to tell her. If it was based on trauma, it may bring back bad memories, and stop the conversation. But, her reaction could also tell Elizabeth more about her power. “It's a bit hard to see the specifics to be honest. You're covered in this dark shadow mist, your teeth are just visible and are very bloody, got bloody metal claws, you get the idea. What little skin I can see is heavily bruised, this fog is sort of manifesting around you and travelling down your throat, which is another strange bit of symbolism.”

Olivia looked unsettled for a moment, before it retreated behind a mask of interest. “Well… I can confirm it works off trauma at least. It’s a bit embarrassing to admit but I used to be really scared of the dark.” A light chuckle forced its way out her mouth, as believable as an unblooded soldier's bluster. “There was this night where the light in my room broke and I spent the whole night terrified. As for the insignificance, maybe… People faint for a bit when they trigger, some people see things, maybe the insignificance comes from that?” 

A darkness that thick probably would not come from a mild childhood scare, but Elizabeth didn’t push. She was curious, but there were more important things to discuss.

“So you think what? Victor hallucinated some violence and something big…?”

The look on Olivia's face was almost incredulous.

“Yeah, sure. Victor hallucinated that.” Her tone was irritating, an almost tired note to it. “Anyway, sounds like you need an item related to these… figments? You gather. Can't exactly think of anything that embodies insignificance though. Does it have to be a weapon? How about a picture of the sky?”

Elizabeth thought it might work for a moment, but suddenly the infinite distance between her and the abyss of insignificance within her seemed to increase. It felt like it was rejecting the idea.

“That… doesn't feel right. I don't think it has to be a weapon, I passed a broken needle on the street that it felt like I could use, if I had the right thing to fill it. Though a needle could be used as a weapon…”

“Okay, well I've got no clue what to use your little insignificance figment on. Think you probably need to get some more. Knives cool and all, but with that alone you're not going to be much of a… villain? I'd guess you're gonna stay a mercenary. Unless you wanna become a hero?” Her tone shifted to teasing. “Pretty drastic career change but you do you.” While she was clearly joking, she sounded like she wouldn't care either way.

It was obvious she was joking, but Elizabeth took it seriously for a moment. Could she be a hero? Heroes are paid well, and are well valued. Her criminal past could be a stumbling block, but she doesn’t have to tell them about that. Coil would probably be able to easily find out her identity, but she could still work for him as a mole, or work in another city. The nature of her powers, feeding off fear, may not be so heroic, but the Protectorate accepted capes with far worse powers. There was a hero in Vegas who could skin people, and she doubted her items would get that bad. There was a more ideological stumbling point however.

“I don't see the point of being a hero.” Elizabeth simply stated.

Olivia gave a little hum, batting the knife to slide it towards Elizabeth and shifting her position to lean further on the crutch. “That's a weird way to phrase it. The point is to make money, enforce the law, and for some, protect people. Point seems pretty obvious.”

Elizabeth remembered her tour of duty. Parahuman warlords were popping up all over the place. There was a steel man somewhere in Europe, a fire woman in Asia, a teleportation tinker in Africa. Britain was having a lot of anxieties about the rise of parahumans, and the warlords were being shown on the news constantly, so to try to quell the disquiet and show off how big and strong they were, the government at the time decided that we must intervene. They weren't the only government to do so, the US sent some troops along with some other countries. Intervention wasn't actually needed, these warlords weren’t exactly The Sleeper, and not many countries allowed the troops in, but Britain wanted to put on a show and flex the old imperialistic muscles. Britain always loves to roleplay being an empire again. She had been young, dumb, patriotic and not a little bit racist at the time. She had been taken in by all the news and propaganda and had joined the army. She had actually believed that they needed to intervene and that they were actually going in to help people and so and so forth. 

I was an idiot, basically. She thought.

She went out there, got some injuries, and saw the world. None of the interventions actually helped. The closest she had come to actually helping the countries she had visited was when she was assigned to guarding aid packages in regions that were largely suffering for non-parahuman reasons. 

All her patriotism and racism had been based on the idea that Britain and British culture was somehow better than the rest of the world, but actually going to the rest of the world demonstrated how wrong that was. The belief got destroyed further when she finally went home. Sure she was a lot less racist, but she still held some of those views. She believed that the rest of the world was going to fall to chaos, but Britain would stand strong. 

Soon after she got back Britain fell to chaos. A hero was assassinated live on television, the police triggered someone during a protest and several people were accidentally melted, parahuman anxiety was on the rise, gangs were popping up everywhere, Lambton rampaged for the first of many times and everything seemed to be getting worse. Then the Endbringer attacked. 

She had to bury her mother and father, and watched as the post Endbringer attack chaos happened. Saw a few parahuman warlords attempt to rise, same as she had seen out there, and nearly all fail. Some just became more gang leaders, some became independent villains, some bit off more than they can chew and died. She saw a government try and fail to reestablish control, very heavy handedly, and saw it managed to seize it back eventually, but its control was flimsy and heavy handed, a tower of cards ready to topple. And she had looked around and realised something.

The fight had come home. This was what was going to happen regardless. It doesn’t matter what country, once random people on the street get otherworldly power, once giant monsters start attacking, once governments lose their monopoly on power, the structures of society are going to fall apart. The government had managed to reestablish order, but this would happen again, and it would be rebuilt flimsily again. And again, and again, weakening every time. How can normal society survive when someone like Heartbreaker could seize control of a government in moments, when someone like Lambton could kill a town before the authorities could properly respond, when a nation has to move just because Sleeper decided to have a morning walk? 

Funny thing is, despite all her previous bluster, Britain was quite early on the societal breakdown compared to other nations. So much for its stability.

“I… I don't see the point in enforcing the law and trying to stabilise a society that is going to collapse. We've seen it with warlords all over the globe, there's more containment sites every few years. So why don't I become a hero? Because it's pointless. You're trying to maintain a power structure that's falling apart. And you're making enemies of the people that are going to be on top. If society is going to fall apart, I would rather be the right hand woman of the person who’s going to be in charge, then the soldier they send in to try to stop them. I’m not an accelerationist, not going to try to push the collapse forward, I will enjoy society while I can. But I am putting myself in the right place for when it collapses. Society is going to fall apart eventually, I might as well be on the winning side. I feel Coil’s got some good odds. Not to rule a country or anything, but a city? I think he can do it”

Besides, heroes were restricted from lethal force, barring kill orders. Capes also tend to fight other capes frequently, she considered, and that's an opportunity she would not let pass. Victor was very active in Brockton Bay, and not so important that he could not go missing.

Olivia raised an eyebrow. “You really think that? Didn’t expect your reason to be so… ideological. I think you're wrong, to be clear. I don't think it's inevitable. You're taking it as a given, but there's always going to be an adjusting period. It used to be a lot worse but it has gotten better. Just look at this city, the E88 of today is horrible, but nowhere as bad as when Allfather was in charge, the Teeth were far worse than the ABB, Coil better than the Marche. Besides, you claim to dislike it so much, to view it as chaos, to not be an accelerationist, but aren't you hastening it here? It's not like warlords and parahuman feudalism is inevitable, we don’t have any in this country after all.”

“You don’t?” Elizabeths’ tone clearly conveyed that she could not believe what she just heard. The expression on Olivia’s said that she could not believe that Elizabeth couldn’t believe what she had just heard. Elizabeth pressed on. “What’s your image of a parahuman warlord?” 

Elizabeth was well aware her own definition of what a parahuman warlord was was very broad, and would likely include most gang leaders in Brockton Bay. 

Olivia shrugged. “I think if anyone with actual political education heard what I’m about to say they’d punch me. But I guess… parahuman in charge of a territory where the standard governmental control isn’t present, that’s aggressive and wants to expand. Something like that?”

Elizabeth surprised herself by chuckling. “Oh. Like Nilbog. Or Pastor.”

“Fair enough.” Olivia exhaled an exaggerated, mock sigh. “But one or two warlords do not make a collapsed society. Besides, don't think I didn't notice you did not address my other points.” She shrugged. “Either way, I doubt I’ll change your mind, so I won’t bother trying. Believe what you’ll believe, I don’t care. If you're staying a mercenary, I’d tell Coil tomorrow, he’ll give you a big pay rise, put you up on the top, help you figure out the powers. He’s a good boss, give you a good deal.”

“Now it’s late, and I believe you promised me takeaway. I’d offer more thoughts, but I think Coil’s testing facilities can probably get better ideas about your power than my random ramblings. I was already planning on keeping you up very late.” Olivia winked playfully. “Wanna sleepover?”

A sigh escaped Elizabeth’s mouth. “Alright, what do you want to order?”
“You know that Chinese place? Block or two away, the one that those idiot wanna-be E88 kids tried to shoot up because they thought it was an ABB front.”

Elizabeth did not like Chinese food. She didn’t dislike it either, but it wouldn’t be her first pick. But nevertheless a promise is a promise.

“Fine.” She got her phone ready. “But I pick what we are watching. Huddersfield played Man City yesterday and I missed it. I want to watch recordings of the game. First one in the repaired pitch, it took them a while to fix the damage Firecracker did.” The British tendency to football hooliganism had got a bit worse after some of those hooligans gained the power to light things on fire with their mind, and the stadiums had suffered in the process. Olivia had heard a lot about this incident from Elizabeth, as Firecracker had come up as an example of a thoroughly mediocre villain. 

“A bit of soccer?” Olivia put heavy emphasis on the word soccer. “Sure, why not.”

“Also, you’re sleeping on the sofa.” Elizabeth threw in.

“Damn. Can’t believe you’d do this to a poor, injured woman.”  By looking at the expression on Olivia’s face, you would think Elizabeth had killed her dog. It quickly twisted into something that seemed to be attempting to be inviting. “Can’t I join you in bed, Liz? Be a bit tightly packed, but I think we can make it work.” 

Olivia did this sometimes. Mock flirting. She seemed to find it funny, but Elizabeth wouldn’t fall to the bait. Besides, it would just aggravate their injuries.

The takeaway was ordered, the television turned on, the spare blanket laid out. It was a pleasant night. Olivia did not join Elizabeth in the bed, and did sleep on the sofa, with a versatile plethora of exaggerated groans bemoaning Elizabeth’s cruelty. Elizabeth, meanwhile, enjoyed a sleep she would swear was dreamless. Though she would hesitate to ever describe it as peaceful, without ever quite knowing why. 

Chapter Text

Coils’ bases were rather stark. Elizabeth had always been glad that, despite how Coil is clearly overly fond of Bond villains, he didn’t make his base as extravagant. As interesting as living in a volcano would be, it would also be highly impractical, and the commute would be extreme. Coil island would also be a terrible name, not that SPECTRE island was any better.
 However, it had quite a pleasant break room. Coil made sure to keep all his workers, soldier or otherwise, satisfied, and that apparently included making sure they enjoy breaks. It was a skill of Coils, he was very good at giving people what they wanted, however minor that may be.
 The chairs were soft and comfortable, with plenty of space for each person. Contrasting with the stark white of the rest of the base, the walls were nicely painted and the floor well carpeted. There was a coffee machine, and a plethora of different drink choices, including fizzy drinks in a small fridge. The only thing it lacked was any alcohol and a good window. The alcohol made sense, you don’t want drunk mercenaries running around, and it would be difficult to have a pleasant view from an underground window.
 The workers in the room were a miscellaneous mix of three soldiers, clearly distinguished by their level of muscle and scar tissue, two base maintenance workers, less well muscled and fewer scars, and an expert Coil had hired, who didn’t look like he’d exercised or been in a fight in his life.
 Among those mercenaries was Samuel Hastings.
 Samuel Hastings was a tall man, his red hair greying, his face scarred and adorned with a well kept beard. He was built broad and skinny, with skin like old dry parchment, and was probably the oldest soldier under Coil. He was old enough to have been old when parahumans first started appearing. It spoke much about his skills that he was still working. With her skills, she had reasonable confidence she could beat him in a fight. But now it was difficult. He was more skilled than her, but he was old and would underestimate her, and her power currently wouldn’t do much. 
To her other senses, Hastings was shrouded with a thick fog that obscured the faces of everyone it touched, he smelled of gunpowder and poison gas, and a wet retching sound emanated from him. His skin was covered with exotic burns and marks, and looked oddly shrivelled. Not due to disease, or starvation, but something more otherworldly. 
Hastings was carefully eating a cucumber sandwich, not letting a single crumb touch his immaculate brown suit. Why a soldier was wearing a suit in the base of a gang lord she was not quite sure, but it felt strange whenever she saw him not wearing it. Like seeing someone wearing a full set of armour with the exception of the chestplate.
The break room was near empty, and all the workers were giving him a wide berth. Hastings was a good soldier, well respected as a commander in the field, but he was a terribly boring and fastidious person, and had a tendency to try to pull people into conversations and not let them leave.
 So the few people there were quite surprised to see Elizabeth approach him. He would not have been Elizabeths’ first choice to approach. While she had full respect for the man as a mercenary, she had avoided him since he had talked to her for a whole hour about his weekend fishing trip while she had been trying to eat lunch. However, he was the most direct line to Coil currently present on the base, and while she would prefer to wait until someone like Jenkins was here, any contact works.
 Elizabeth stood in front of him, and waited. She knew he would try to make her wait as a power play, but she also knew to play into it, or he would be difficult. She had left her crutch behind. She didn't want to show any weakness.
His eyes slowly raised to meet hers, clearly upset at being interrupted in his break. Upon seeing her, it schooled itself into an expression of intrigued concern, his irritation quickly banished. 
 “Moore? Why are you here, you have the week off?”
A deep breath filled her lungs. “Sir, I need to talk to you in private”
He looked at his sandwich, an expression of regret on his face. 
“It can’t wait, sir.”
“Come, the meeting room is empty.” With a sigh and a grumble, he put his sandwich back in a simple plastic box in his briefcase and stood. “I hope this is worthwhile.”
 The other workers in the room put up a pitiable attempt at not obviously watching them as they left, but Elizabeth didn’t let it bother her. Any pretensions of hiding her identity would be very thin, a mercenary quits or suffers trauma and someone with the same build, voice, and personality appears as a cape for hire, it wouldn’t be difficult to figure out.
So there was no reason to be concerned that they might realise what’s happening. She already essentially lived with a secret identity anyway, no one outside Coils organisation knew of her work as a soldier under him, so it wouldn’t change much of her life. Additionally, it’s not like she had many friends or any family to threaten.
Despite his clear desire to get back to his meal, Hastings’ pace was steady and unhurried as he led the way to the meeting room. She knew where it was already, of course, she had been to planning sessions there. But she knew it would mollify him to take the lead, he was old-fashioned in multiple ways, including being rather sexist. Having both a perceived subordinate and a younger woman leading him would irritate him further. 
Elizabeth had had a moment of doubt, earlier this day, thinking about Olivia's words. That Elizabeth could be a hero. Elizabeth had wanted to be a doctor when she was young, she had wanted to help people. It was one of many reasons she had joined the army. But parahumans, and the war, had drained that out of her.
The doubt had been quickly vanquished. Elizabet was a mercenary, and that's all. It’s what she was good for. No point in trying to be anything else.
The meeting room was empty, no worries of anyone overhearing them before they were ready. It was a bare and clean room, a stark white table surrounded by office chairs in the centre, with an electric whiteboard decorating one wall. Simple but efficient, it did its job well. Elizabeth had been called on occasion to give reports in this room, though they were more often given one on one.
“Sir, I…” Before Elizabeth could finish the sentence, he interrupted her.
“Well, out with it!” Hastings bit out. She did not make any remark on how she was just trying to be out with it, as that wouldn’t be professional. Nevertheless, she marked it down in her mind. She would technically soon have a higher authority than him, and it would be pleasant to pay him back for the disrespect.
“I would like to report a Code 705-A-Z, Sir. Me, specifically.” Coil had borrowed much from the PRT, including a long list of situations requiring specific codes. He made new codes, of course, but the list itself was fairly similar.  In this case, a code 705 indicates that someone working under Coil had triggered, A indicated it was a soldier, Z indicated that they had openly approached with this information and wished to stay employed. 
It was a fairly popular theory in the ranks that he was a former PRT member, though the specifics of the theory varied per individual. Most would simply say he was a dissatisfied PRT officer, but some took it further. Olivia had spent a great deal of energy trying to convince everyone that he was in fact Director Piggot in disguise. That was a ridiculous idea, but in a world of parahumans anything is possible. 
Elizabeth had herself strayed from any speculation. It wasn’t of any importance to her the past of her employer. So long as she had orders and pay, she would be happy. If his identity wasn’t a threat to her, it didn’t matter.
Hastings’ face went blank. His bushy eyebrows seemed locked in position, paralysed. He took a moment to catch his breath. “Ah, I see. Yes, this is serious. I… I will report this. Do… Do you have any other details?” All of the assertiveness and decisiveness in his voice was gone. Elizabeth knew the man, she knew that it would take more than something unexpected to reduce him to being this meek. He had stood before neo nazi thugs, ABB gangsters and more and remained steadfast. 
Elizabeth briefly opened her other nose, curious, and noticed a new smell was coming off him. The smell a primate detects when it catches the scent of human civilization, a choking smell of oil, metal and plastic. 
“Object empowerment, and some form of emotion detection. Exact limitations are currently unknown”
It was hard to summarise this new sense. Calling it emotion detection was accurate, but it was like calling sight light detection. True, but sight is much more than that, and the sights you see affect you more than that. Similarly, empowerment felt wrong. She didn’t empower her knife, she changed it, infused it, made it sing. But she was practical, and what worked worked. 
As she said sir, his face twitched slightly, like he was uncomfortable with being called that. She had called him that earlier, with no response, so why had it changed?
“Do you have any proof?”
“I have a knife that has been empowered. Anyone who holds it gains knife skills and a minor thinker power focused on hurting others.”
She reluctantly offered him the knife, but he didn't take it. He just stared at it for a moment, apprehensive, before nodding.
“I will inform Coil. He will want to meet you.” His face was expressionless and stiff, his hand moved slowly, as if he was scared of making sudden movements, as he reached for his radio. “High priority message for Coil. We have a code 705-A-Z sir.”
 The reply from the other side was swift. 
 “Emotion detection, object empowerment” A different voice spoke through the radio, too muffled to understand. Hastings’ nodded to Elizabeth. “He wants to see you”
This time, she led the way.

Coil's office was both simple and extravagant. There were no decorations on the wall, and he had an unadorned desk, with a computer and monitor placed upon it. But the desk was expensive, made of mahogany, and she recognised the computer as a brand that would require him to shell out quite a bit of money to afford, more money than she'd ever spent on a single item. It was clearly designed to inform visitors that the owner of the room had money and was willing to spend it, but not to make you think he was gaudy or frivolous.
Hastings had stopped at the door, given her a brief nod and left.
It was another strange piece of behaviour from him. Hastings’ liked being in charge, he was a petty man like that. In any other situation he would have loomed in the corner, spoke over her, tried to seize any bit of authority he could. The only person he didn’t do it to was Coil.
Elizabeth had met Coil in person before, but never this close and never one-on-one. With previous employers she was often interviewed before being hired, but Coil had just hired soldiers without any such preparation. 
Despite never being close to him, Elizabeth had, however, been present when he gave orders. He seemed distant then, speaking through intercoms or standing in front of the soldiers.
 It seemed odd, but the first thing that struck her was how tall he was, and lanky, the white and black costume making her think of a silver birch. His costume was skin tight, and black, with a white snake coiling around his body and resting its head on his. All his features were hidden and imperceivable, the tight bodysuit reducing it to almost a mannequin's visage. She would never say this to his face, but she’d always found the snake a bit much. The light level in the room was low, which, when mixed with the dark black of his costume, made the snake stand out and further blurred his features and the shape of his body. It was almost certainly deliberate.
To her other senses, he smelled strange, of the eye of a puppet, and surrounding him was the sound of twisting flesh, of inhuman footsteps getting louder. His body was distorted, looking more like something a human would have evolved into than a human, the length and musculature of his limbs and gauntness of his torso exaggerated and the features of his face flattened. His body would ripple occasionally, as if invisible hands were attempting to sculpt him into another shape. No matter where she looked, his eyes and the eyes of the snake on his costume looked directly into hers, and the scales of the snake looked sharp, bladed and painful. The gunpowder and blood smell still followed him, but it smelled more like that around Olivia than Jenkins. 
Coil was not obviously armed, but she had seen people conceal more in thinner costumes, and he had a whole desk to open. Usually, Elizabeth would say she could win against someone like him with some difficulty, but the added factor of both their powers made it difficult to predict and his attitude made her doubt his chances. He moved so casually, the movements of a man constantly assured of his own safety. She knew it was illogical, basic manipulation on his part, but it worked in unsettling her.  
He leaned forward as he spoke, clasping his hands together. His voice slid out of his mouth, slow, careful, well-articulated. He sounded like a businessman.
“Hello, Ms. Moore. I have heard you have something interesting to show me.” He waited. It was a minor power play, but a power play nonetheless, taking the initiative but making her offer information.
Elizabeth resisted the urge to take a deep breath. It would make her look nervous. Which she was. Job interviews had never made her nervous before but that was because she had been very confident in her abilities. She could not be confident in her current abilities because she had only the faintest idea what they were.
“Sir, I encountered Victor yesterday. After which, I seem to have gained some form of extrasensory perception. I believe it to be related to trauma, or fear. The world is different when I use them, there seems to be a lot of strange symbolism.”
“Symbolism?” Coil interrupted. “May I have more specifics?”
“Before that, Sir. There’s more. During the encounter, I somehow collected fear. A fear of violence and what I believe to be a fear of insignificance. I pushed the violence into my knife and it changed it. Whenever I wield my knife I get ideas of how to hurt people, weaknesses in armour and the like, and they… I remember how to use it.”
Her hands were shaking. She had been in combat before, but never before she had never had any issues.
Why. Elizabeth thought. Am I so weak now? Now that I have more power?
Coil interrupted her self pitying. “You remember how to use it? Ah, I see. You had an encounter with Victor, didn’t you?” His tone was obviously trying to sound sympathetic. She almost believed him. 
“Yes. Sir.” Elizabeth tried not to spit out. “I think it works for other people too. Olivia Carter tried it, and she could use it too. The power it gave her was stronger.”
His bearing shifted, almost invisibly. He had looked interested before, but now he looked hungry. “Stronger how?”
“It told her how to hurt in more detail, including dealing both physical and emotional pain. How to hurt people to cause the most emotional pain, I mean.”
Coil leaned back in his chair, contemplative, before pressing a button on his table. “That is a very intriguing power, Ms Moore. May I call in an assistant to test this knife?”
She couldn't bring herself to say yes, so instead she nodded. Elizabeth didn’t like the idea of someone else having her knife. It was hers, it gave her the strength she had lost. To just give it away, let another take her skill, it felt wrong.
“Would you require a mask? I can have one retrieved for you.” Coil seems to have misread her hesitation. She wouldn’t correct his misunderstanding.
“No, sir” Elizabeth didn't particularly care about having a secret identity, and she wanted to get this over with.
Coil gave a brusque nod, before reaching for a button on his desk, and speaking into his computer.
“Mr. Harper, could you please come to my office?” Elizabeth vaguely recognised the name. Not one of the mercenaries, a short man, who helped maintain the bases. A muffled reply came from a speaker on the table, and shortly thereafter a man entered the room. He had the slightly flabby build of someone who doesn't eat much, but also doesn’t exercise. He wouldn’t be much of a danger, even for a civilian. 
“Mr. Harper, I would like to ask you to do me a favour. You have never learned how to use a knife in combat, correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Excellent. Ms. Moore, do you mind giving Mr Harper here your knife for a brief moment? Now, Mr Harper, when holding this knife you should know how to use it.”
Her hand shook, hovering over the sheath for a brief moment. She took the knife out of its sheath, and passed it to the man.
As Elizabeth held the knife she felt a glimmer of its hunger. It felt… uncertain if it could hurt Coil. It told her he had some aches in his joints, that he was skilled but out of practice. Sung of old scars, how he would lead with his right, how his costume was especially lightly armoured around the midsection. But it also told her it wouldn’t matter, that she could hurt him but never harm him. Coil liked to claim his power was destiny manipulation but that didn't feel right. Perhaps a cloning power? She would harm the clone but not the original? But that wouldn't explain his asinine coin flip trick. She was jolted out her speculation when the knife left her hand.
Harper looked intensely at her, the hand with the knife twitching. He stabbed the air a few times, a short familiar rhythm, before he passed it back to her. 
Elizabeth tried not to grab it too obviously desperately. She knew she had gotten way too attached to the knife far too quickly, and she also knew that her boss was a super villain. If Coil knew how attached she was, he could easily use it against her. She hoped the relief she felt as she clutched the knife was not visible.
“Huh, it’s strange but yeah… I felt like some kind of knife martial artist.” He laughed “She’s telling the truth, sir”
A smile was audible in Coils’ voice. “Excellent. I thank you for your assistance, Mr. Harper. Now please leave, you will get a small bonus as thanks for participating in this brief experiment.” Coil paused, deliberately and dramatically. “Oh, and it should go without saying that if you speak of this to anyone there will be severe consequences.” He spoke formally but sternly, like a boss asking his employee to check his emails, not a supervillain threatening someone.
Harper paled, and walked out of the room with the pace of a man who wished he was running. 
Coil waited for him to leave, before turning his attention back to Elizabeth. She could appreciate this about Coil. He was very methodical, very step by step and business-like. 
“Are you familiar with what a trigger entails, Miss Moore? You may have heard the term before, that it is when parahuman gains powers, but do you know what that actually entails?” She did, but she had enough experience to tell when her employers wanted to monologue. “Most trigger events are instant moments of trauma, though some are slow. It is certain to me that yours was the first. Triggers are always traumatic, this is purposely obscured to stop people attempting to artificially cause them, but they are. They also cause disorientation in nearby parahumans, a moment of unconsciousness. As such, it is likely that the E88 knows of your trigger. Victor is many things, but being unobservant is not one of them.”
Coil leaned forwards. His tone was full of false concern and the care of a superior to a subordinate. He seemed to be trying to impress on her the dangerous situation she was in, likely to push her further into his grasp.
Elizabeth wasn't too bothered by it. She didn't need driving further in his grasp, he paid well enough, and would soon be paying better.
Something of that must have shown on her face, as Coil suddenly shifted tracks. He dragged his mouse around, clearly miming bringing up a file that he would have been a fool not to already have ready. 
 “I see you have been given one week leave? Extend that, you have 3 weeks, triple pay, to recuperate. In this period, try to rest, recuperate. Additionally, I ask that you think about any facilities you may need for your power, or any requests for me. I can be quite generous to parahumans working under me, I can fulfil any desire you have. Within reason, of course. If you decide to exercise your powers in that period, I will pay exorbitantly for any items you make. After that period, we may discuss a more official contract. Is that acceptable to you?”
Elizabeth had distracted herself with the issue of her employment and had forgotten to consider the time off. Extending it didn’t make her feel better, it made her feel worse. She did not want to rest, she needed to be busy. 
“Sir. I would rather get to work as soon as possible. As my power requires me to gather materials, it may be best for me to get started. Let's negotiate pay now, sir."
Coil named a very large number. Elizabeth couldn't help a slight widening of her eyes. She was already paid well, but this? It was a considerable sum. . It was far far above her previous pay. How much money did Coil have to throw around? She knew he was rich, you would have to be to set up all these bunkers, but if he's so rich what's he doing playing super villain? He can be far more powerful playing in more conventional markets. Maybe he is just playing around. Or perhaps he too realised the direction society was going. Perhaps he was putting himself in a position of power for the feudalism to come.
No matter the source, it was good pay. Still, she wouldn't go without an attempt at negotiating. She was a unique resource. She knew her value, she could squeeze more.
“I want twice that.” She paused, before throwing in with a tone whose bite surprised her. “And I will not be selling any of my items. You can rent them, but they are mine. Additionally, I need information on where I can acquire… fear, I guess we can call it.”
Somehow, with an expression that could not be seen, Coil still managed to look smug. Like the cat that caught the canary. Elizabeth wasn’t sure if it was just because he had a new parahuman or if she had undersold herself. It is hard to evaluate the worth of a truly unique resource like a parahuman.
“That is acceptable to me. We will discuss rent for individual items on a case-by-case basis.” 
Elizabeth couldn't help but wonder if she could have pushed for more money. He had just accepted it. Could she have gone for triple his named price? Quadruple maybe? She couldn't help but notice he hadn't pushed to rent the knife. Perhaps he had noticed how possessive she was of it. That was concerning, it was a weakness he could push at.
He continued “As for sources of fear, I have some ideas. Tell me, do you require specific items, or will anything work?”
“I do not know for sure. I believe I require specific items, sir. Certain things feel… empty, willing to accept them. I would believe perhaps that they have to do with the type of fear, or perhaps the objects have to be something that has a history of causing fear. I haven't found anything that the fear of insignificance fits with yet, sir.”
“We will have to perform some testing. Do you have any suggestions of what we may need to test? It is your power.”
“I suppose… Human versus animal fear? Whether the object needs to be an object that has been feared in the past and what that means? Is it just an object people have feared or an object used in the process of something that caused fear? Does the symbolism affect the result?”
Coil nodded. “I believe I can access some items seized as evidence during a crime. The police sell some, and may lose others. We will see if those work. I will pursue some possibilities for animal fear. I am aware of a local farm that is being investigated for animal cruelty that may have some potential use, as well as the local dog fight rings. More personal items are harder to acquire, but it is possible that some pawn shops will have some. I will reimburse any purchases you make. There is also the possibility of manufacturing objects ourself, but it would be best to know more specifics before looking into that. I would ask you to write a report into the symbolism you have mentioned, on the chance that it is relevant..”
 This was one of the advantages of working for a supervillain like Coil. If Elizabeth was an independent cape, she would have had to spend hours finding a source, testing and analysing. With Coil she just needed to ask.
He continued “If you are to be a parahuman, you will also need a costume and a name. Have you had the time to think of any ideas?”
Elizabeth hadn't. She knew about the performance art of parahuman fights, but it hadn't seemed that urgent to her. She had recognised that the impression you make as a parahuman is incredibly important, but she had had other things to think about.
Still, she already had a costume. 
“Sir, I'll just use my uniform. Its essentially a costume”
 Coil seemed surprised. Did he expect her to demand something extravagant? Elizabeth wasn’t the type.
“Are you certain? I prefer my parahumans to make a certain impression.”
Elizabeth nodded.
“I am certain, sir. Besides, with my items, my uniform is likely to change severely. The uniform will serve as a good base”
 Coil seemed dissatisfied.
“I will pay for a more reinforced version. Even with my funds, outfitting my mercenaries with the best of the best of the gear is… difficult. But one parahuman? You are more valuable than a normal mercenary, and so will be treated as such.”
That was more satisfactory, but it still wasn't perfect. She could see his plan already, and she would prefer not to appear overly favoured. It would harm their teamwork.
“Only if my team does too. I can tell you're plan already, you can see my items are better used by others, you're going to put a selection of mercenaries under me to use them. I'll accept the better uniform so long as they get it too.”
“Very well. I will order a uniform for you now, then your subordinates when you have chosen them.”
Elizabeth's finger paused on the sheath of her knife, before her fiddling began to assume a steady rhythm. She hadn't even noticed she had been touching it.
Elizabeth had tried to clean it last night, but couldn’t quite remember how to properly do it. It seemed that it was folded under knife skills, for some reason. Luckily, the blood from stabbing Victor had disappeared from it, though it unsettled her that she didn’t know how or why.
Coil had said he could grant any request she wanted. She had an idea.
“Sir. I have one request, for now. We can talk to others later. Victor. I don’t care if it’s sooner or later, but I want to kill him. I want it to be slow. I know I cannot get revenge on the whole of the E88, but him? I can do him. Give me that, sir, and you have my loyalty. Give me the rest of the E88? And it’s undying.” Some of the control had been lost from her voice, something hurt and manic showing beneath. Elizabeth knew this was a bad look, she looked desperate, angry, things he could easily manipulate. She couldn’t find it in herself to care.
Coil leaned forward in his chair, the fabric around his mouth moving, the imprint of a smile seen in the shadow of that form. “I had already planned on taking down the E88, so this is a minor request. I can offer you much more. But, I see this is important to you, understandably. For your loyalty, Ms. Moore? He is already dead, he just has not realised it.” Coil pulled a clunky burner phone from under his desk. “Take this, it has my assistant's number on it. Anything you want, message it, and I will provide it. Anything you want to give me, tell them. I will be contacting you soon for work.”
As Elizabeth left his office, she knew he was smiling behind her. He had gained a valuable tool. She could feel a smile forming too. She had become valuable once more.

Chapter Text

Elizabeth took in the sight of the sea. 

The waves softly rolled in, and out. Their movement undisturbed by the debris around Brockton bay, undisturbed by civilians playing in the sand at this dark hour.

This was her place. 

When she needed a moment to think, here she went. It was a small patch of beach just outside Brockton bay, just far enough outside that the sounds and lights of the city were faded. She’d had to take a cab here, but it was worth it.

 Her thick waterproof coat hung loosely off her, protecting her from the elements.

The vastness of the ocean stretched in front of her, reminding her of home. It always used to calm her. She had grown by the seaside in Brighton, and had always hated the number of tourists who would be present, ruining the sea. This little empty stretch reminded her of the few days where the sea would be near free of visitors, those winter nights where she would sit with her parents and sister and watch the tide. 

When she had moved to Brockton Bay, she had made sure to find something like it. It has been a while since she had worked by the sea, and she wouldn't miss the opportunity.

Even to Elizabeth’s other eyes it was calming. Though the sky had a strange gravity and distance to it, like she could fall in it eternally, the depths of the ocean were pitch and unknown, the water an inky impenetrable liquid, the shadows deeper and impenetrable. There was beauty even in that. It did not calm her. 

None of it could.

Her hands marred each others’ wrists with long white marks, an idle movement yet vicious all the same. She wasn’t entirely sure when she started, but she had been at it a while. Luckily there wasn’t any bleeding, yet.

Her knife hummed at her side, low and patient, like a cat waiting to pounce.

 She should have been holding her crutch, but she had found a rock to sit on. The crutch was laying on the floor. She didn’t need it.

Elizabeth was lost.

The high of the meeting had faded, and now all that was left was uncertainty and loss.

She had acted shamefully in that meeting. She had lost control, had brought emotions into her work and worse than that she had exposed them to her employer. It was not professional, it was not smart and it wasn't what a soldier should do. But it couldn't be reversed now, she had made her mistake.

She did not know if she had made the right choice, staying under Coil. She had been caught in the feeling of it all. The uncertainty, the self-doubt, the need for validation. Perhaps she had made another mistake. Wouldn’t be her first. Her life was a sequence of mistakes and going with the flow. It seems even with the powers, her true nature wouldn’t change. 

Was she only a mercenary out of the inertia of her life, or was there something more? She wasn't sure.

Elizabeth held some comfort in the fact that, despite all these changes, her life wouldn’t change. She would still be a soldier, if a bit of an unconventional one. 

She held hope that she could just fall back onto her old rhythms. Go into work, take orders, train her body and mind, go home, eat and sleep, or have a day with her colleagues, depending on the day. A dull rhythm, but a satisfying one.

She knew the hope was false. She was starting from zero in so many ways. Zero skills, that she had worked on so long. Zero reputation, for the villain she would be had no deeds to her name. Zero knowledge, for her power was still unknown to her. She hated being at zero. 

Her whole life she had worked to win. To be better. To be good at what she chose to do. 

Elizabeth knew why well enough. She had been competitive as a child, but it had gotten much worse when she joined the army. The army was mostly men, and she had had to fight tooth and nail to prove herself, to put herself above them. It has been worth it just for the looks on their faces, even if joining the army was an idiotic decision. It had been gratifying, to know that the effort she put it in had borne fruit. 

She knew her power already put herself above them in the eyes of many. But it was foreign to her. It would take a while to adjust. 

Elizabeth sighed. The ocean didn’t look as she wanted it to. 

I would like… to go home .

Back to Brighton, back to the beach, chock full of frustrating tourists. Back to her mother and father, her sister. She wanted to be held in her parents arms. Back to times before the endbringer, before that beach was wrecked, before the tourists stopped coming, before her parents died and her sister was lost. Back to drinks in the pub and fish and chips by the water. 

Before the world started collapsing.

I am such a child. I’m so weak. I am too old to run back to mommy. I have better control than this.

Her nails tightened and dug deeper into her wrists. 

It couldn’t happen. The world had changed, it had changed the moment a man with golden skin appeared, floating over the ocean. Days at the beach with the family were a thing of the past, the world she knew was falling apart. They were all just squatters in the ruins.

I am moody today, aren't I. She reprimanded herself. It didn't help.

“Hey Liz!”

She would have reacted a lot worse to a sudden voice behind her, but there was only one person who dared call her Liz.

Olivia was framed by the fading light, catching on her face and highlighting the sharp angles of it. She was wearing a distractingly tight pair of black trousers, unwise with her injury, and a green tank top with a band logo on it. A pair of sunglasses were perched on her head. The muscles of her unbandaged arm was on full display, strong and efficient, her tattoos visible and eye-catching. A bag was slung over her shoulder, awkwardly placed around her crutch. She wasn't carrying any weapons. 

“Thought you’d be here.” The smirk on her face should have been infuriating, but there was a strangely soft bend to it. “You weren’t answering your phone and I thought, hey, I know her favourite little hiding place, I can get a taxi down. You’re paying for that by the way.” 

“I’m not paying for anything. And it’s Elizabeth.” Elizabeth hadn’t noticed that she was smiling until she heard it in her own voice. It was nice to have someone chase her down. “Come over, the rock’s uncomfortable.”

Olivia barked a laugh in response. “Why am I not surprised?”
Despite her words, she hobbled forward with her crutch. The rock didn’t have much space for both of them, so it would be an uncomfortable fit. As she rested close, Elizabeth made sure to adjust her sleeves over her wrists before Olivia saw them. 

“So… Just staring at the ocean eh? How's it look, y’know, to the other eyes?”

“Like someone very scared of the ocean and the sky painted it. It’s quite pleasant.”
Olivia began fumbling in her bag. “To each their own I guess, sure. Sounds lovely. I'll stick to the normal water though.” She pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

Elizabeth watched her fumble with her bag further for a moment. She’d clearly forgotten a lighter.

“Here.” Elizabeth flicked the lighter she’d pulled from her other pocket, lighting the cigarette Olivia had pulled out. Elizabeth knew Olivia forgot these sortof things often, so she'd started carrying around a lighter for her. It was to help team cohesion, Olivia got antsy without a smoke.

She knew she should say something about how those things would kill her, an empty warning about lung cancer. How the side effects may impact her performance. But her friend had heard those words before. Besides, it was more likely she’d be shot before the cancer could ever metastasise. Better to let her enjoy her habits. Elizabeth would be a hypocrite to judge her for that.

Olivia gave a long sigh of satisfaction as she exhaled a cloud of smoke. “So… how'd the meeting go?” She was staring up at the sky, as Elizabeth stared into the water.

“Well enough. Got a hell of a pay rise”

Olivia idly nodded her head. “Yeah? What you gonna use it for? New flat?”

“I like my flat.” She sounded affronted. 

“It's tiny, shit, and the whole street smells weird in the morning.”

Elizabeth couldn't really argue with that.

Olivia continued. “Not even like… you could pick up a new hobby? Get a guitar, depress us all with your rendition of Canary’s greatest hits.”

Another puff of smoke. Elizabeth stared out into the ocean. She hadn’t really picked up any hobbies for a long while, not since her parents death. She had tried to pick up a few of the old ones, sewing, football, diving. She’d just lost the spark for it.

“Not really feeling up for that.”

A pause. 

Another puff of smoke.

“Well that's just fucking depressing.”

Elizabeth also couldn't argue with that.

Olivia turned her head to Elizabeths. “At least the views nice. Remember when you told the others about this spot. John took the piss out of you for having a brooding spot like a moody teen, but then Lucia wanted to come down and do some bird watching. He shut up then, you know how he was about her.”

A laugh escaped Elizabeth. “He was pathetically desperate. Wasn't very subtle when he let her win games either. Can't imagine doing that, she was pretty but she wasn't that pretty.”

Olivia looked incredulous. “Oh no, she was definitely that pretty, I did too once or twice, when I was feeling her out. Alas, she was straight. No more free wins for her.” Her voice was casual but it felt forced, something straining beneath.

“Huh, Never caught you out. Shouldn’t be surprised you were also that desperate.”

“Well, unlike some people I know subtlety.” Elizabeth's brief laugh was followed by another puff of smoke.

“You never let me win right?” If asked, Elizabeth would reject any suggestion she sounded concerned.

A sly grin crossed Olivia's face. “Of course not.” 

“That’s what I thought.”

There was silence for a while.

“I do miss them.” Olivia broke the quiet.

Elizabeth stared into the distance. “Yeah.” It was a weak reply.

They settled into a comfortable silence once more, as the waves came in, and out, and the smoke was breathed in, and out. 

Olivia finished her cig, and rummaged in her bag. “Got a few presents for you.” She flashed two pieces of paper. Tickets. “Alien: Apotheosis just came out. Reboot of the old Alien franchise, you know. I don’t really watch horror so I don’t know if it’s any good but hey, if it’s good we can enjoy it and you might be able to get something for your power from it. If it’s bad, at least I’ll have fun”

“You haven’t looked at any reviews or anything?”
“Liz, you know me. You’re the sort who checks if somethings good before wasting your time. I’m not the sort who looks at reviews. Now come on, I'd hate to waste my money.”

The report Coil had asked for was already written. There hadn’t been much for her to put, and it was an easy distraction. She had nothing else to do.

“Very well.” A quick look at her watch confirmed to Elizabeth that if they wanted to make their viewing, they should probably head off soon. “Let’s get going. Can’t miss it.” 

The path back to the road was beautiful too, though not as much as the sea.

When they left the cinema, the sky was dark. 

They both stood for a moment, and stared into nothing. There wasn't much else to do after what they'd just experienced. A few of the other movie goers passed by them. The cinema had not been full.

Olivia broke the silence. “That… was truly terrible. I don’t know where to start. Why did they retcon the xenomorphs as an alien biotinker spawn? Why did they give the Paramorph lasers in a horror movie, that wasn’t scary at all? The PRT officers didn’t seem to know how to handle a simple brute blaster despite that literally being their job.”

Olivia grabbed Elizabeth's arms and turned her to look directly into her eyes.

“Liz, I am so sorry I made you watch that.”

Elizabeth stared her right in the eye back. The street lights behind her were lighting up her face, her eyes glistening in the light. Her makeup drew her attention to them, simple eyeshadow making the green stand out.

Elizabeth pitched her voice as serious as possible and said, with the tone of a priest at a funeral.

“Olivia, I will never forgive you.”

Olivia laughed in her face.

The film had not been useful for her power. It seems everyone there had known what they were getting into, treating it more as a comedy than a horror. The closest she'd gotten to anything useful was a brief spike of fear that tasted of freshly butchered meat and smelt of maggot ridden flesh at a surprisingly well done chestburster scene. But even that wasn’t strong enough to collect.

“It shouldn't surprise you, but I didn't get anything from that.”

A coy smile came across Olivia’s face. “Well, Liz, let me make it up to you.”

For a moment, Elizabeth thought she was going to do something else, but instead Olivia looked around, and pulled her into an empty alleyway.

Elizabeth let it happen. This was unusual enough to pique her interest.

If you were to draw the most stereotypical city alleyway, it would be this. There was trash laden by the walls, which were dirty themselves. It was dark and unpleasant, and there was an odd smell in the air. Not many escape routes, though one could take cover behind the bins.

Olivia rummaged in her bag, and pulled out a small wooden box. 

“Here.”

Elizabeth stared at the box, and then Olivia’s expectant face. 

“This is vengeance for the knife thing yesterday.”

Olivia grinned and echoed her words. “Just take the fucking box”

The lid was hinged, and the insides were padded with black foam. When she lifted the lid, the only contents were a single, shattered lightbulb. Or at least that's what her normal senses saw.

To her other eyes it was an empty vessel, an unfilled cup, waiting to be filled. It made the world darker by merely existing. The shadows in the alleyway deepened, the noises of the world became alive, every slight sound distorting into something almost the sound of a living thing .The wind became almost breath against her neck, the creaking of buildings almost the steps of some strange creature, the roar of cars in the distance distorting into something almost like the growls of a predator. The air felt suffocating and tight around her, and she could smell something nearby, something alive and close, yet at a moment it shifted to nothing. It was like an optical illusion, when she didn’t focus on it it was there, but when she focused her senses it wasn’t. A thick fog was trailing along the floor, almost liquid, obscuring vision even further.

The darkness was deepest and almost pitch black in the bulb itself, a sphere of deep black cradled by the broken glass. Just barely, she could see the filament of the bulb, which was a black somehow darker even then the pitch surrounding it. It was less an actual colour, and more the complete absence of it, a darkness that shall never exist in the real world so long as there is a star left in the sky.

The world around was twisted into a nightmare of the dark and the things that may lurk in it.

Elizabeth had never seen an item that could be used by her power before. Part of her was glad that the signs were so obvious, the other part wondered how the hell Olivia had this,

The look on Olivia’s face was insufferably smug, but there was something else there. Like the smugness was partially forced. 

“So it works! Nice surprise eh. I considered getting down on one knee, but thought it’d be a bit much.”

“Where did you get this Olivia?”

“It’s a long story. When I was younger I was scared of the dark. My parents would get very upset if I had my main light on overnight, but they let me have this lamp. Got scared one night, flailed, and knocked this off my bedside table. I was too scared to tell my parents, and woke up early, brushing the shards under my bed and putting the light back. I spent, I don't know, two weeks? Huddling under my blanket in the dark, not sleeping. Eventually I got over it, but I kept the bulb as a reminder. Thought it would be useful.”

Something rang untrue about the explanation. Elizabeth knew Olivia was raised by her uncle. Part of her wanted to open her other senses and see if her power offered any clues, but the look on Olivia’s face stopped her.

Olivia was still smiling but it looked more forced. There was something very vulnerable in her expression. She would feel hurt if Elizabeth investigated further, Elizabeth knew. Elizabeth still wanted to.

Elizabeth looked away, hiding her face. This was clearly something important to Olivia, even she could see that. “Thanks. It was dumb giving this in public, but thanks.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Elizabeth saw Olivia's smile soften once more, whatever vulnerability underneath retreating. “Ah, that was almost affectionate. You’ve grown! Besides, public? We are in a dirty alleyway, people probably think we are doing a drug deal. Only issue would be if an officer saw us.”

Olivia was a good colleague. She was dutiful, and of all of the soldiers in the base, she was the one Elizabeth could trust the most. Olivia had some affection for her, where the other mercenaries under Coil ranged from respectful, indifferent, to scornful. She was also a cape fan.
She would be useful.

“Olivia.” Elizabeth started “Do you want to keep working together? I don't know how long it'll take for you to be able to take an active role again but-”

“Stop talking.” Olivia reached up, stretching her hand high to put a finger on Elizabeth’s lips. “Of course I will be your second in command!”

Presumptuous.

“I never said anything about that. I've got better options.” Elizabeth had to force the offence into her tone, past the mild amusement.

“Ah but you were thinking it. I could tell by the mushy look in your eyes.” 

Elizabeth would have protested at the description, but convincing Olivia out of her delusions was a fight she had long given up. 

Had this whole gift been her trying to soften me up for the role . Elizabeth couldn’t help but wonder. It isn’t what I would do, but…

Olivia continued. “I better get a pay rise too?”

A question any good mercenary would ask. As any good opportunist.

“Of course you will.” Elizabeth confirmed “Better equipment as well, already asked the boss.”

“Nice!” Olivia thrust her fist in the air. Then she put her fist down, straightened her face, and stared at Elizabeth's. “And we are gonna kill those fuckers right?”

The sudden change in tone was startling. Olivia had gone from an almost cartoonishly cheerful tone and pose to something vicious and angry.

“The E88?” It was obvious, but Elizabeth couldn’t help but ask, in her startled state.

“Who else?” Olivia's voice was sharp.

Elizabeth nodded slowly. “Victor first. Then I'll try the rest, doubt we'll get all of them. But we can get some.”

She'd already requested this of Coil. It was not a mistake to give it to Olivia too.

The others dying had been part of the job. Regretful, but part of the job. If Victor had just killed her, she'd have accepted it. But he'd taken more from her than her life. Her hands were shaking. Her body was swaying, lightly, as was Olivia's, almost imperceptible but still there.

Olivia nodded back.

That was when it started to rain. A sudden, surprising torrent, the sort that sweeps by and drowns the world for an hour. The tension was instantly broken.

“Shit. I’ve gotta walk back.” Olivia was blinking in the rain. Her thin shirt and pants were not fit for this weather, and were quickly becoming soaked through. ”I didn't bring my coat.”

Can't have my second in command getting ill. Cold rain and injuries aren't a great combination .

Elizabeth shrugged her coat off and dropped in on Olivia. She drowned in it, almost disappearing under it. 

“You sure Liz?” Her voice was muffled by the fabric.

“Just take it. I’m English, this is nothing. A bit of cold and wet? That's Britain ninety-nine percent of the time.” 

“Thanks. I’ll get it back to you tomorrow” 

Elizabeth watched Olivia's back as she walked away, waiting for her to disappear around the corner. She looked up with both eyes, at the sky that to one appeared simply grey and to the other was an inverted bottomless pit in the sky, god’s bucket turned over. She sighed, and started the trip home.

“It’s fucking freezing.” She whispered to herself.

This is going to be miserable .

Elizabeth had been right, the weather was miserable. 

After changing into her pyjamas and having a mug of hot chocolate, she was sitting on her bed in the quiet about to get ready to sleep.

The buzzing of a phone from the bedside desk cut through the silence. The sound was muffled by the wooden table, but in the quiet was still loud enough to interrupt her thoughts. For a moment she was confused, knowing her phone was charging across the room, before realising that it was the burner phone. The one Coil said he would call her from.

She rushed to pick it up. Best not to leave a superior officer waiting.

“Sir?” She greeted him. 

“Ms. Moore” Coil's voice slid from the phone. “I apologise for disrupting your leave, and for the hour of this call. I had just come across a useful opportunity for you, and thought it best to inform you. You see, I have received information from a mole I have in a small villain group, the Undersiders, that they are planning on robbing Brockton Bay Central Bank in two days. They are known for hit and runs, so this is a notable step up, but they are unlikely to severely hurt anyone in the bank. Considering your powers… requirements, I thought this may be a useful situation for you.”

“Sir. Is this an order?” She snapped out, almost by instinct. He had given no explicit order, but she knew the expectant tone. It was an order without an order.

“No, I would not tear you from your reprieve like that. It is merely an opportunity that I thought you might not want to let pass you by.”

She tapped a rhythm against the sheathe of her knife. Her worth as a parahuman was in her strength, weak parahumans are still valuable, but she needed to become stronger to prove her value. She didn’t know their powers, but any fear will be useful, especially as she needs to experiment with her power. To experiment with her power she needs fuel to feed the items, she needs fear, and civilians find villains very scary.

“What time is it? I will be present.”

“Wonderful." She could tell he was smiling. "I will forward you all the details soon.”

Elizabeth stood up, and walked towards her computer. It seems she wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight. She needed to put in some research. It would be unwise to place herself in the firing line without knowing her opponents capabilities.

Chapter Text

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♦Topic: How do people gain powers?

In: Boards ► Powers

BellBoy89 (Original Poster)

Posted on February 2, 2011:

I was just wondering how people gain powers?

I've heard people talk about trigger events, but also long triggers. Do all powers have a clear event that caused them?

Do some powers rely on items to function?

(Showing Page 1 of 1)

► ModernMallard   (Moderator)

Replied on February 2, 2011:

Thread locked

Threads on how to gain powers are banned due to continuous posting.

As you are a new user you may not know this, so we will not infract you, but please read the rules.

There is a megathread for the purposes of this question, that can be found:

Here

Additionally there are official PRT documents:
Here

Please refer to these. 

End of Page. 1

■  

♦Topic: Power Granting Megathread 5

In: Boards ► Powers ► Megathreads

WeepAgainstTheMachine (Original Poster)

Posted on October 13, 2010:

After repeated attempts at making similar threads have clogged the server, it has been decided we need a general megathread about how powers are gained.

This original post will be periodically updated to match newer research, but older versions will be kept and can be referenced. This will only be a brief summary. This post will also be copied and always be the start of each megathread, as no doubt these will fill.

The purpose of these is to talk about and answer questions about the origins of powers.

Current research has identified 2 categories of power. What are known as slow and fast trigger powers.

All powers come through a trigger, a period of intense emotion, but some triggers occur over a long period of time and some are sudden.

A fast trigger occurs when someone experiences a sudden breaking point of extreme emotion. These are usually negative emotions, but there have been reports of people triggering from joy and love. It is unknown if negative emotions are more common because people more easily trigger from them, or because negative emotions are more common. The person in question gets the power immediately after said trigger, and the power tends to have some relation to the trigger.

A slow trigger occurs over a gradual period of persistent emotion. This results in people gaining powers over time, these powers gaining stronger until they tend to stabilise around a rough peak. These powers tend to be more general, being related less specifically to the triggering emotion, and share general symbology you can find details on here. It has been reported that some of these powers only come to fruition after death, with the power reviving the cape, and slow trigger capes tend to all have a minor brute rating.

Slow trigger powers tend to be a lot less stable, with far wider Sechen ranges (a scientific term for how powers can vary in presentation based on environmental conditions). They also tend to have higher mental and physical effects on the users, with many reporting a need to use their powers to survive. Furthermore these powers tend to rely a lot more on totems, ritual and mental imagery on the part of the user. It is thought the inherent flexibility of these powers also allows them to cheat the ‘rules’ more often and so are more able to create  persistent effects. Many spawn and manifestations are linked to slow triggers.

There are some theories that powers can be artificially granted, but these are unproven. If so, this may make a third category.

As a final note here, I would like to state that some people try to induce triggers in themselves and others. This is not a good idea. Research has found that a very small proportion of the population has the potential to gain powers. The odds are against you, you will likely just end up harming yourself. Below are several articles in which civilians did just that, to disastrous effect.

Link

Link

Link

Below are all the articles where it worked correctly. You will notice there are no articles. 

Stay safe, and don't be an idiot.

Link to previous summaries

(Showing Page 98 of 98)

► ZipZapZup

Replied on February 2, 2011:

The dormant power theory is unproven hackery

There has bene no power demonstrated that requires such specific conditions as the theory suggests

If youre bringing that up to prove your argument, you must be desperate

► OFishErHater

Replied on February 2, 2011:

Then explain capes like Oberführer. His power requires gun to use, a specific gun from World War II. Hes been disarmed, and his power stops working.

What if he never found the right gun? He would be without a power. 

► ZipZapZup

Replied on February 2, 2011:

And that doesn't mean theres thousands of parahumans with bizarre conditions like, oh, I need it to be a rainy day in January and I need to feel a little depressed to be able to shoot my lasers

The use of totems and ritual in power use is well known. There's a shit ton of powers that need specific materials/items to work. Hell, element-specific manipllators (e.g Silikakinetics like Shatterbird) could be argued as a broad example of this. Plus people have been able to meditate and do rituals to manipulate their Sechen range 

Powers are weird. It doesn't mean there's 1000 hidden parahumans around. Unless there's proof, it will remain a stupid theory.

► OFishErHater

Replied on February 2, 2011:

But hidden powers requiring ritual and specific items would explain how there's so many stories of ancient parahumans. 

Like, you talk about those rituals, but a lot of the people using them copied from old folk lore. 

It would make sense if potential for powers existed a long while and only recently the conditiions for use have loosened. Previously people had to use ritual and specific items to access even weak powers. 

► ZipZapZup

Replied on February 2, 2011:

Oh for fucks sake have I been wasting my time talking to an ancient parahumans guy? 

Come back to me when you have an opinion worth considering

► BellBoy89  

Replied on February 2, 2011:

Sorry to interrupt?

I just wanted to ask about powers that require items to use? You mentioned Oberführer?

You talked about the use of totem items in powers, what sortof totems are there?

► OFishErHater

Replied on February 2, 2011:

Here's some official information about it

Link

Link

Link

Basically, some people require specific items or conditions for power use. Oberführer is a Gesellschaft cape that can fire bullets that drive people into murderous rages. But the thing is, only bullets from a specific gun, a WW2 heirloom. Theres some capes that need to channel objects through items they hold, like needing a metal spear. 

More info can be found in the links, we are a bit busy here.

Listen Zip, have you got any proof that those old stories aren't parahumans?

► ZipZapZup

Replied on February 2, 2011:

I can't disprove that as its inherently undisprovable, but I know you'll take that as a victory so I fucking quit

Enjoy being wrong

And don't think I didn't notice you sneaking Sampson et al., 2009 in there, that's the paper that started this whole bullshit.

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 96, 97, 9

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♦  Private message from ZipZapZup:

ZipZapZup: Hey, sorry things were getting heated back there

I saw your question. Despite being an idiot, OFishEr gave an alright summary

I have to ask - are u asking this out of curiosity, or are u asking it for yourself? 

Cause whichever it is does change my response. 

ZipZapZup: I know its a suspicious thing to ask, but I won't tell anyone. Don't even know who you are. 

I'm studying parahumans at uni, so thought I could help.

I can tell you who I am, if it helps, as collataral. 

BellBoy89 : You don't need to do that.

And yeah, I've got powers. 

ZipZapZup: Wow. 

Okay, got any questions?

I am a parahuman researcher (in training)

BellBoy89 : So I have this bell.

And when I ring it, it buries me. I think I can bury other people but I haven't tried it yet. 

ZipZapZup: bells a weird one for that. Feels off theme :(

How does the burying work? Does it dig a hole for you, does it move the earth around you? I need a few more details

BellBoy89 : Oh sorry, I should have clarified. You ever heard of a safety coffin? They were coffins with bells or flags attached in case you were buried alive. It's one of them. I've heard that there is an expression “saved by the bell” that comes from them, but I don't know if its true.

BellBoy89 : Know it’s a bit weird to have. It was an heirloom, my grandma lived in America and I was going to stay with her while I did my geology degree. She died and I inherited a lot of strange heirlooms, including the bell. She was a bit of a hoarder and loved weird historical stuff.

I rung it and I got trapped. It's really tight, I felt like I was going to suffocate, but it felt weirdly comfortable. Like a warm embrace. Eventually I got out, 10 hours had passed and people were looking for me. 

BellBoy89 : Oh and, it's a bit of both. I can make it more one way or the other, but it both raises the earth and lowers me. 

ZipZapZup: Did you have any periods of faintness while you were sorting through the items? How attached were you to your grandma? 

ZipZapZup: sorry thats really rude to ask

BellBoy89 : We were really close. We had been living together for 2 years as I did the degree. 

I did feel faint for a moment, but i thought it was just because it was a dusty attic

ZipZapZup: It sounds like you might have had a fast trigger. Slight periods of faintness are recorded, like a missing moment. A lot of emotions caused by sorting through a dead loved ones things (My condolences btw, I will pray for her)

Your mind and through that your power probably seized on the bell in the moment, causing it to be a channel for your power

BellBoy89 : I guess that makes sense...

It doesn't feel right but you're the expert.

BellBoy89 : I've been feeling a bit weird since. 

I want to be surrounded by the earth, to be warm and comfortable. It just feels so nice, being buried like that.

I've always liked the earth (there's a reason I'm a geologist) but this feels different. I go caving sometimes, and there's always a tight squeeze or a moment you're just surrounded by earth and darkness and it's always been quite tranquil for me.

ZipZapZup: You're sure you're experiencing mental changes since the power?

I'm sorry don't want to alarm you but as a (hopeful) professional I have to be honest

Some parahumans experience pretty extreme mental changes, and these can start small

I would talk to the Protectorate. They will try recruit you, but they can give you help.

ZipZapZup: This is beyond my level of expertise.

BellBoy89 : Can I even join? I'm not American.

ZipZapZup: You can. The protectorate has protocols for this. What they will do is train you up, and have you on for a while you are in America, then let you return to France. A lot of countries do it with foreign students or workers that gain powers, helps build relations between all the different hero groups. Some pretty famous capes were trained in foreign countries. Ever heard of Incandescence in Spain? 

BellBoy89 : No.

And you're sure I should seek help?

The mental changes sound scary, but they can't be that bad right? I only want to bury myself.

ZipZapZup: Burying yourself could still harm you 

Also, you haven't tried using your power on anyone else, who knows what that could trigger

Please, don't be reckless, this stuff is dangerous. I would be really angry if I saw an article about the new Bell Bearer villain terrorising america

It would also fuck over your degree, a students' nightmare

Do you need some articles to prove it? There’s a lot of good research by Harvard Uni, The Magnus Institute in the UK, A lot of good research coming out of Russia

BellBoy89 : No no, it’s okay, I will trust you. Allright.

I'll call tomorrow.

Thanks for the help.

Could be nice being a hero :)

ZipZapZup: I'm glad to help.

Looking forward to hearing about your debut!

Maybe I'll be able to get an autograph :)

■

♦  Private message from ZipZapZUp:

BellBoy89: Link .

You asked to hear about the debut!

■

♦Topic: Undertaker Debut - Protectorate Cape

In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Boston 

Corvusorvus (Original Poster)

Posted on March 1, 2011:

We have a new cape in Boston!

Undertaker has joined the protectorate.

Not much has been seen yet as he hasn’t been in any fights, but he seems to have some sort of geokinesis, with a weird grave digger theme.

Here’s some images from the debut and a transcript:

Link

Link

Transcript

Video

(Showing Page 5 of 5)

► AluminimMan  

Replied on March 1, 2011:

Judging by the accent he’s french - think he’s a transfer?

► StrangeCucumber 

Replied on March 1, 2011:

Pole attached to his back with the bell he can ring is a weird touch, but it kinda works. They’ve clearly done something to let him keep flexibility and stop the bell ringing when it shouldn’t.

We gonna get some edgy teens this halloween as this guy.

► CHIL

Replied on March 1, 2011:

@AluminimMan 

Yeah he’s either recently moved to the US or he’s only here for Uni

Seems right age

► BeastLord

Replied on March 1, 2011:

Do we have any idea power specifics? You dont often have a guy whos just straightforward x-kinetic

Also why outfit so dirty? Even at press release. feels like theyd clean it

► AluminimMan

Replied on March 1, 2011:

He kinda unsettles me TBH. IDK what it is… Just a weird feeling.

Good to have a new hero though!

End of Page. 5, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4

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♦  Private message from ZipZapZup:

ZipZapZup: Thanks for sending me the autographed figure!

Nice to have it to remember me helping a new cape!

BellBoy89: Hey, have you got any information on spawn in the US?

The PRT are trying to prepare us but the doc is really dry

ZipZapZup: Ive got a lot of dry scientific papers! You can just look up Spawn and specific spawn on the PHo site to find threads on em. Knwo you don’t need vampire info, everyone knows vampires, but you can just use search bar

BellBoy89: Thank you, I will give it a try.

Glad you like the figure btw! I wasn't sure about the costume but it was hard not to be gloomy with the gravedigger theme I wanted. 

ZipZapZup *New Message*: Still up for meeting up next month?

BellBoy89 *New Message*: I'm looking forward to it. :)

■

♦Topic: A Guide to the Spawn of the United States: Spider-Husks

In: Boards ► Places ► America

DrDim (Original Poster)

Posted on March 5, 2010:

So this is a continuation of my guide to the most common spawn in the United States. 

My next entry I am going to do one on Breed's bugs, one of the few exterminated species of spawn, just for curiosity's sake.

I do however need to cover one thing:

Some people argue Case 53s or “Monster Capes” are a type of spawn. I have had requests to make a thread on them.

I do not consider them so. Ignoring that as they keep appearing, their creator wouldn’t be dead, there’s no proof of spawnhood and they show a far more advanced human intelligence than any other spawn.

Additionally, people can be quite dehumanising with these theories, and I see no reason to entertain them.

Spider-Husks:

Location: They are found throughout the UK, US and some parts of europe.

Frequency: They are hard to get an accurate count for, due to soon to be mentioned facts, but it is estimated that many major cities have between 1-3 active, but not all cities. That’s a very vague count, but that’s kinda what happens with these guys.

Provenance: The original parahuman hasn't been identified, but they have been provisionally dubbed Arachne by the PRT. Believed to have originally started somewhere in europe, but they were too wide spread by their emergence for their birthplace to be properly identified.

Nature and Powers: They are colonies of spiders that seem to have some form of hive mind. What they are most known for is hollowing out corpses and riding in the skin. They source the corpses themselves. 

They have some ability to mentally command people, it's pretty weak but notable, and they use it to lure people into secluded areas and take them. If you know it’s coming it’s easily resisted, but they are quite subtle in their manipulation. It isn’t quite known how intelligent they are, but they are clearly well made/designed/spawned ready to manipulate people.

They're unfortunately pretty good at mimicking humans, hence why people aren't sure how many of them are around.

Appearance: Due to their nature, they look pretty much identical to humans. A few weird mannerisms and movements, but no more than a normal weird person (ignoring oxymoron, you get what I mean). They are only really identifiable if the skin breaks, showing the spider stuffed insides beneath.

Response and chosen prey: They mostly prey on the homeless and drunk, vulnerable people who are overlooked, so if you see any weird people hanging around homeless shelters that give people strange urges, alert the PRT. Or don’t, because that could be anyone. This issue is why they are so persistent, they’re so good at mimicking humans that most are only found when they get into fights and the skin bursts into spiders. The PRT has devices that can identify them if alerted, but something like 99% of alerts just tend to be people who are slightly weird or have taken a lot of drugs. A lot more people get harmed by the paranoia that someone is a Husk than by any actual hosts.

If you do somehow get confirmation that a person is a host, call the PRT, they won't believe you but at least you will have alerted them and they will send an officer. Then try to suffocate the spiders using pest killers, a fire extinguisher, anything like that. They are very vulnerable to suffocation, the individual spiders need to breathe a lot and if enough die the skin will collapse. It will try mentally command you not to, but it can be resisted if you are prepared.

(Showing Page 39 of 39)

► ZeruelsChild

Replied on March 16, 2010:

You know, I've heard this theory the original cape could turn into spider puppetears and bred with normal spiders and that's how we got thes guys

Not the weirdest cape thign out there

► thgiRsaWmurtsuL (Temp-banned)

Replied on March 16, 2010:

@ZeruelsChild

That's dumb.

Don't think we've seen any cape changer forms with inheritable characteristics.

If they were a tinker who made modified spiders who could still pass on their traits that would make more sense, but surely the genes would be getting diluted over time? So we should be seeing fewer.

► ZeruelsChild

Replied on March 16, 2010:

That does make more sense

But also it's cape shit, so they can defo just ignore gene passing down rules.

► ApOc

Replied on March 16, 2010:

Hey @DrDim

Are you planning on doing one on the Locusts?

Made by the guy Apollyon from the Wormwood endbringer cult. They've been popping up all over the place and Wormwood executed Apollyon for making them. So confirmed Spawn now.

Though maybe becayse they spwan all over it's actually a country wide Manifestation that makes spawn?

► thgiRsaWmurtsuL

Replied on March 16, 2010:

@ApOc

Not an endbringer cult. Split off from some of The Fallen, but they're doing their own weird stuff.

Also if you read a few pages ago, you'd find ones in the works. 

► DrDim  (Original Poster)

Replied on March 16, 2010:

Working on Locust report now, going to post after breed’s bugs. 

Side note: Update on Spider-Husks - they have been spotted moving into some areas of Australia

Article link

End of Page. 1 , 2 , 3 ... 37 , 38 , 39

■

♦Topic: Breed Bugs Exterminated: One Spawn down!

In: Boards ► Places ► America

SupaCali (Original Poster) (Banned)

Posted on February 23, 2008:

Amazing news!

They've been a scourge for a lot of years, but the PRT, in a big operation with the Protectorate, Guild and Watchdog, have confirmed that the last of breeds bugs (no one uses the PRT name) have been exterminated.

They've killed a lot of people through the years, and have managed to hide in rural areas every time to avoid extermination, but we finally got em boys!

They're as dead as their creator! One of the few and only cases of a spawn being rendered extinct.

For our international readers, the US defines a spawn as an autonomous self-replicating manifestation of a parahumans power still extant after the parahumans death. Or in english, cape minions that still live after their creator dies. A lot are attributed to unknown capes, as an explanation for why there’s weird monsters everywhere.

Breeds bugs (that's their name now) were created by a cape called Breed, parahuman serial killer. They were a lot physically weaker than when he was alive, but they would bury in people, paralyse them, and make them into flesh-hives. It was an awful way to go, and the world is ever so slightly lighter by them having left the world.

Can I have a big cheer of Fuck Breed? 

  (Showing Page 25 of 25)

► JEEEEERRY  

Replied on February 28, 2008:

Fuck Breed!

► DrDim

Replied on February 28, 2008:

FUCK BREED

► HopeSpring (Verified Cape)

Replied on February 28, 2008:

Rot in hell Breed.

May the rest of the nine follow.

End of Page. 1 , 2 , 3 ... 23 , 24 , 25

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Cedric’s costume was very comfortable. Tight and confining, still easy to move in. 

He couldn't help but fiddle with the gloves and the placement of the bell. It was a nervous tic, after all, this would be one of the first large operations he had been part of. The guide had been very useful for getting ready, but he still felt unsteady.

He had been active for a short period already, took down some minor criminals in patrols, but he hadn’t been put up to anything really superpowered yet outside sparring sessions.

The assessors had insisted that his power was perfect for quick takedowns, even most capes wouldn't be able to escape being trapped in a lot of earth.

Cedric had been given extensive training on how to avoid suffocating people, how much air a human body can hold. The bell… his power, wouldn’t let him create a non-airtight prison, it had to bury them alive. It was weird that, for his first major mission, he was to ignore all that training.

Legally speaking, all spawn are not considered living creatures. They can be freely exterminated and hurt without any legal or ethical issues. So he was free to suffocate them.

The idea sent a thrill down his spine.
He stopped and breathed deep in and out.

He had talked to Ms. Yamada about this. Regardless of how much his power might want him to hurt people, he was in control. 

I am the captain of my soul.

His focus was broken when Bastion slapped his back.
“Hey Frog, you ready?”

The slap had driven the air out of his lungs. Cedric was a university student, who subsisted off cheap takeaways and poorly made meals. Despite that, he had thought he was physically fit up until he joined the Protectorate. The first training session had quickly disproven that.

“Oui… Sorry, yes, sir”

Bastion gave a boisterous laugh. He was frustratingly loud. He had started calling Cedric frog the immediate moment he heard his voice. 

All the other heroes really liked Bastion, he was cheerful and loud and extroverted. But Cedric had seen how he looked at some of his fans, and how his expression had changed when Cedric had mentioned his ex-boyfriend.

Cedric was grateful that he’d be returning to France soon. They wouldn’t be much better over there, especially not with the Gesellschaft influence over the cape scene, but at least he wouldn't have to work under a man doing the bare minimum to disguise his distaste. 

Cedric focused on the plan.

Bastion locks down this side of the building. Cedric crushes the hosts. Conductor zaps any spiders that escape. There were other teams covering other sides of the building and PRT officers on watch just to make sure there were no escapees. 

This was an almost unprecedented opportunity. The PRT knew that Spider-hosts must breed and spread somehow, but the nests were hard to pin down. The Massachusetts PRT has identified multiple hosts and tracked them to this abandoned warehouse. Considering how rare they are, if they clear this out, then the citizens may not have to worry about being predated on for a few years longer. 

They had waited for nearly all of the hosts identified to be present in the building. There was one not present, but this was the most they had seen present at one time. This was their best opportunity.

“I’m ready.”

Bastion grinned.

“Alright.” He raised his hand and the signature shimmering forcefield appeared, cutting off the exit from the warehouse.

The Undertaker raised his hand, and clicked the button on his glove.

The Bell started ringing.

Chapter Text

Elizabeth tapped the sheath of her knife as she stood in line at the bank. It was well hidden, buried under a heavy coat, but she could still feel the comforting shape of it. There were no issues with her account, but the queue was very long, and the Undersiders were expected to arrive before she would reach the desk. If they didn’t, she would be very disappointed in them. She would also have to make an excuse for why she was there, which would be frustrating in its own way.

It felt strange, being on this side of things. Usually she was more the victimiser, not the victim.

The lobby was fairly bare, with tall narrow windows by the sides, long queues leading to desks with clear barriers separating the bank tellers and the customers. There were thirty-nine people, herself included, present. Not many areas to take cover, nor ambush from. But hopefully, as the Protectorate was away from the city, this should be quick and not escalate unnecessarily. Events should go as follows: Stand among the hostages, gather fear, watch the Undersiders leave. She thought it best to be ready just in case, however. 

A quick scan through the room with both her own eyes and her other eyes revealed nothing too special. There were a few security guards, one civilian very poorly concealing a pistol, but no other threats. Everyone was distorted in some way to her other eyes. It was a mildly horrifying realisation, that no one, not even the children, were untouched by trauma. 

There was one mousy brunette in particular her eyes kept being drawn to. The girl had some minor distorted features, strange fleshy hands with bare bone and muscle, a body emaciated and overworked, eyes with heavy exaggerated bags under them. Her body had an inhuman cast to it, resembling a strange castoff subspecies of Homo sapiens : Long spindly fingers with thin webbing between them; no nails seen; a mouth that expanded and stretched across her face; and skin a slightly off shade.

But all these were overshadowed by the fog. Her every pore leaked a thick haze that formed into abstract humanoid shapes, the only detailed part of their body being their eyes, that were disconcertingly realistic. They were staring at the girl, judging her, berating her in an unintelligible almost-language. The fog was so thick on her that to Elizabeth’s other eyes, the girl should have been invisible. Yet Elizabeth could see through it all. 

The girl felt like she was on a precipice. The mist was coming from her, but it was entering her, and cocooning her, such that it was hard to tell where the mist began and the girl ended. The fog people spread throughout the bank, all staring at her. It felt like the broken bulb, a heavy trauma that leaked into the world.

The girl was looking back at Elizabeth. She looked angry. Elizabeth looked away, best not to get into a confrontation now. 

Elizabeth had looked the Undersiders up the previous night. There were several unknown elements, always a concern with parahumans, but Grue and Bitch had piqued her interest. Bitch’s dogs were extremely threatening, she knew she wouldn't be able to fight one. But she also knew that all the civilians would know that, and helplessness is terrifying. Similarly, darkness is one of the most primal fears of man, something she hoped would provide her with the fuel she needs. The fear of the dark would work perfectly for the bulb.

Still Elizabeth had seen the aftermath of cape fights, she had been involved in many of them. This could turn nasty very quickly, and even the most supposedly harmless of capes can become very harmful when backed into a corner. She needed to be ready to fight at any moment's notice. 

Tattletale appeared to lack any powers that were a direct threat in a fight, and what pictures were available of Regent made him look scrawny. Coil had informed her that Regent's powers caused twitches, dangerous in a fight, anything that throws you off is an easy victory for most opponents. Exceptions made for certain parahumans of course. But Elizabeth felt that the murderous instinct of the knife could guide her well past any twitching. She knew she could take them. 

It was Grue, Bitch and the new girl that were the issue. In the land of the blind, the one-eye man is king. The ability to see was a huge advantage in a fight, and Grue clearly had experience. While the knife's instinct may guide her through it, if he manages to shroud her he will likely win. 

Bitch, or Hellhound as the PRT kept futilely trying to label her, Elizabeth could beat one on one. Bitch had muscle to her so she’d be difficult to handle, but still probably a win. But if she calls the dogs, that’s a loss for Elizabeth. Her research had misled her that Bitch had control of her dogs, but luckily Coil had informed her that they were just well trained. That gave Elizabeth much better odds, she just needed to prevent Bitch from signalling to them. It was still a long shot.

The new girl was difficult to take the measure of. Insect control was a broad label, it could be anything from intense focus to control a small swarm, to precise control over a few blocks. Elizabeth may be able to avoid the first, but the second? She couldn’t stab a swarm. If a fight does start, she needed to either take the new girl out immediately, or avoid her notice. Coil’s mole didn’t know enough specifics. Or they did, and Coil had not told her. 

It was frustrating thinking of her as the new girl. It was clunky, and reminded Elizabeth that she hadn’t chosen a code name yet herself. A code name tells the world something about the cape in question, she needed to pick the right one, but it wasn’t easy. 

She couldn’t go too extravagant, she wouldn't get taken seriously if she couldn't deliver. Everyone knew of a cape that had named themselves after a god or monster and been mocked to irrelevance. 

Some capes can live with more humorous names, Molehill had a whole rant about his name and how he’d selected it as both a joke and to be underestimated, but it would rankle Elizabeth’s pride to be thought of as a joke. 

A thought for another day. There were screams of surprise coming from outside, one security guard was pulling his gun. A scent filled the air, the fear of violence, but not the familiar fear in the knife. The knife was the fear of being stabbed and beaten, this was the fear of being mauled. The smell of animal fur, the sound of a bear's roar and of heavy, muscular limbs hitting meat. It was time.

The dogs that entered the room were fascinating. Monstrous things, big enough to wrestle a car, covered in thick muscle, leathery skin and sharp bone plates, still spraying blood from their transformation. They were more fearsome in person. The pictures had not given their size justice.

Elizabeth did not have long to admire them, for the room was plunged into darkness. More than the lights simply being turned off, it felt like she was swimming in inky nothingness, her movements slightly delayed, her ears slightly stuffed. The screams were no longer audible, at least to her normal ears.

Her other senses could feel the darkness settling into her heart. Her other eyes did not sense anything, the darkness all encompassing, but her other nose, her other skin, her other ears could sense something near her. It smelt like someone standing behind her, unseen, the smell of a man’s sweat as he drew too close. It felt like metal on skin. It sounded like an unintelligible voice from an unseen face. It tasted like an attacker in the dark, and the fear slid down her throat and settled in her heart. 

Elizabeth had never consciously experienced the gathering of fear, that moment lost in the post-trigger haze. It felt good, like a warm meal filling your stomach. It felt horrible, like the memory of the worst experience of your life.

Already this trip has been productive. Olivia’s gift will already be useful.

When the darkness lifted, the first thing Elizabeth noticed was the swarm. The tide was not unexpected, but was vaster than she anticipated. This was not someone who can control a small swarm. It was hard to even make out individual species in the mass, all the vibrancy some insects bear drowned in a tide of dull browns and blacks.  The darkness lingering in the corners of the bank enhanced the effect. It was hard to tell what was shadow and what was exoskeleton. Already she could sense the fear gathering in the crowd's face, a crowd whose faces were now marked to her other eyes, their eyes white and blind.

The Undersiders entered together, but Elizabeth couldn’t help but note that Grue was ever so slightly ahead, Bitch ever so slightly behind. 

One of the dogs had parked itself at the bank vault, while two were parked at the entrances. For certain villains, she would have expected the use of three dogs to be an affect, an allusion to Cerberus, but Rachel Lindt, by all reports, was not that type of villain. Elizabeth approved of that.

Rachel Lindt herself was not more fearsome in person. The pictures had accurately shown her muscle, and Elizabeth's’ assessment of her was not changed by seeing her with her own eyes. Strong, but the strength you attain through hard manual labour, not hours at the gym. Broadly built, with a square scowling face covered by a clearly cheap dog mask. Other than the mask, she was dressed as a civilian. A heavy coat with a thick fur collar, practical boots, simple trousers and shirt. No armour, no protection. It spoke to a level of misplaced confidence in her ability to avoid combat, a level of foolishness in her belief she can avoid combat, or a level of impractical frugality in not spending money on expensive armour. 

Grue was a more stereotypical villain. He was wearing black motorcycle leathers, a motorcycle helmet with a full face visor covering his face. The motorcycle helmet was clearly modified, a stylised skull carved into the visor and vents at the side to release his darkness. It was impressive, though she couldn’t help but wonder how much it cost, and where he bought it. He could have crafted it himself, but it looked too professional for that. He had been reported to have previous jobs in neighbouring cities, and there are individuals who produce villains costumes, perhaps he got into contact with one of them. 

His costume did not have much armour to it, but what it had was subtle, well hidden, likely prioritising range of motion. It made sense, he wasn’t likely to be hit much when he couldn't be seen.

Regent was scrawny, as the pictures had shown. His uniform appeared, at first glance, to be all show. A fancy venetian mask with a crown, billowy shirt and pants. It was a very renaissance style. He looked like he'd be into theatre. Elizabeth had tried theatre once, she hadn't been good at it. She expected the clothes to be, to some degree, armoured, and the fancy sceptre he had was reportedly a taser. A bit of a concern, but not much. He looked like his limbs would break if you breathed on him wrong. 

Tattletale had a gun. It was in a belt around her waist. That was a concern. Her uniform was skintight, no armour to be seen underneath. Not a wise decision. Perhaps she thinks she can talk her way out of any fight. She might not be wrong.

The lavender was an interesting choice for a hit and run villain, not exactly difficult to see. It was stylish, which has its own benefits, with black lines running down the costume bending to form a stylised eye on her chest, but it did not seem a particularly practical uniform.

The new girl looked impressive, the uniform was well made, though overly stereotypically villainous in style. Elizabeth couldn't identify the grey fabric it was made of, but it was covered in plates of some kind of armour. Her mask was quite imposing. It had yellow lenses, structures forming an imitation of mandibles, all coming together to make her look suitably insectoid, like she'd carved the face off a giant ant to wear. The hair coming out the back of her mask was a vulnerability, far too long and easy to grab. Though, perhaps, it was a purposeful display of confidence. 

A tide of insects had followed her into the room, as well as several myriapods, arachnids and more. Elizabeth had made sure to do a bit of research on the local arthropods the previous day, and had dated an entomology student when she was younger, so she had some knowledge here. They would make it difficult to get into melee range. 

Insect control is not a fitting descriptor . Elizabeth judged. I will need to warn the other soldiers. As a descriptor, arthropod control with a note about the quantity she could control and the clear precision of her control, would do.

“Fifteen minutes,” The new girl spoke first. That was a surprise, Elizabeth would have expected her to defer to a more experienced member, like Grue, or the thinker, Tattletale. “We won’t be here any longer than that. Stay put, stay quiet, we’ll be gone before fifteen minutes are up. You’ll be free to give your statement to the police and then go about your day as usual. This isn’t a TV show, this isn’t a movie. If you’re thinking about being a hero, don’t. You’ll only get yourself or someone else hurt.” 

Her voice was commanding, but Elizabeth couldn’t help but notice how young she sounded. This wasn’t an officer’s voice, trained to command and order. This was a child.

Just then, she remembered part of their files she had put out of her mind. She looked at Tattletale, at the slightly still immature shape of her cheeks. At how the new girl had some ever so slight awkwardness in her pose, something she may outgrow later. She was sure if Regent’s outfit wasn’t covering his face, she would see some baby fat on him too.

They're all kids . Elizabeth thought, mortified. I’m being held hostage by teenagers .

At least Bitch and Grue seemed mature enough, for their age.

Olivia will never let me live this down .

The new girl was still talking.

“If you are thinking about running, making a phone call or getting in our way, this is a good reason to reconsider.  This little creature and her one hundred sisters that I just brought into this room are under my complete control.” A spider was dangling from her outstretched finger. “She’s a black widow spider. A single bite has been known to kill a full grown human, or put them into a coma. You move, talk, try to find or kill the spiders I just put on your bodies, in your clothes, in your hair? I’ll know in a split second, and I’ll tell them to bite you several times.”

I’m being held hostage by a teenager who can easily kill me . Elizabeth amended her earlier thoughts. This nonsense is why the world is falling apart.

Still, the fear in the bank reached another crescendo. A single crescendos, yet one that felt simultaneously a single note and two. One was a feeling of necrotising corpses, the other a feeling of burning nerves.

Elizabeth focused her senses on the latter, and only noticed she made a choice when the former faded. It wasn’t so much a choice between two fears, so much as it was plucking a single colour of thread out of a tapestry.

She could feel it, the slight nip at the skin as a bite sinks in. The smell of your body spasming, pain overwhelming you, the smell of sweat and urine mixing as your bowels fail you. The sound of screams and pleading. This time she could see it too. To her other eyes the world shimmered, like a projection on a billowing curtain, and just for a moment she saw past the curtain, to a world of fire and hurt, where everyone loses all they love and keeps losing and never stops, for the world always leaves them just enough to love again. Where there’s always more skin to mark, always more life to suffer through, always another poisonous bite to sink in.

She tasted it as it burnt down her throat and settled into her heart. It tasted like poisonous agony.

Elizabeth couldn’t help but wonder what sort of item she would need for that. A set of well used pliers, perhaps.

Tattletale was looking away, so Elizabeth took the opportunity to open her other senses fully. 

Bitch’s dogs were simultaneously sadder and more horrifying. Their features were caricatured, the claws sharper, the teeth longer and barely able to fit in their jaws, the bone plates jagged and bloodied. They were covered in impossibly deep cauterised wounds, like a knife being jabbed into playdough, all pointing towards the centre of their forms. Some wounds had healed and scarred over, others leaked blood constantly, pooling on the floor below them. Their faces were sad, and their ribs visible through starvation, though some were starting to fill out. Perhaps, she wondered, this signified a recovery from the previous starvation. Along with the scarred over wounds, no longer bleeding but never gone.

Bitch’s body was distorted in that post-human manner they all were, canine features twisting uncannily on her human face, like a dog's skin stretched over a human skull, with fur made of plastic from her mask. Her body, previously muscular, took on the image of starvation. But it wasn’t like she herself was starved, more like she was made of wax, and burning hands had sculpted her body into starvation, with slight burns on her clothes and skin still left from the process. Carved into her arms and her chest were various images of the decayed form of a small dog, its fur soaked and damp. The starvation made sense from a life on the streets, but the sculpted shape Elizabeth couldn’t help but find unusual. What did fire have to do with Bitch’s past? 

Bitch’s hands were paws, with long sharp claws, every inch dripping with blood from where they had torn through the flesh of her fingers. She smelt of old fog, of small stale meals, and emanated the sound of pursuing boots. 

The world around her distorted further. It was like Vista was twisting the space between her and any other human, such that a human three steps away was nine, such that she could never actually be near another person. Not that she would want to, considering what happened to the others. The voices and faces of all around her blurred and distorted, like they were seen through a heavy fog. Language became indecipherable gibberish, faces became twisted and foreign, unreadable. Bitch looked terribly confused. 

It’s as if humans are something innately alien and distant. Impossible to understand. Elizabeth couldn't help but feel as confused as Bitch looked. She could think of no detail of Rachel Lindt’s quite public history that would result in this.

Regent’s other self was wrapped in wires. Most of the wires were not loose enough to constrain, instead hanging off of him and following his movements, like cut strings loosely wrapped around a puppet’s limbs. But there was a set wrapped around the top of his head, like a crown, and around his chest. Those were barbed, and directly over his heart and forehead they glowed red, burning hot. Some of the wires stretching off his limbs reached out to the horizon, taut puppet string, though to where she could not tell. Alongside the wires, wrapped around his neck, was a reel of film, facing inwards. Where it hung slightly, she could see it was all pictures of the same eye, focused on his face. His mask was fused with his face, the features exaggerated and mocking, cruel yet indifferent, the post-human cast present once more in his features and form.

The wires, perhaps control? And a fear of being watched… A controlling parent perhaps?

As Grue walked through the bank, his steps were the beat of a war drum, the sound of a door slamming shut, of fists hitting skin. His shadow consumed the room, less a shadow and more a flood of dark water. Despite that, it did not hide his form. His costume was bruised and burnt, as if his costume was his skin and he had been beaten by fists of molten metal. The skull image on his mask was distorted, bloody and cracked with skin hanging off. The face of a man recently beaten to death, with wild animals having begun the slow process of removing the outer layers of flesh. 

Fear of violence, clearly. Inflicted on others and himself? The dark is unsurprising. It is why I took up this trip.

Grue’s body smelt of someone else's, of someone's flesh wasting away, a body sustained by illegal substances, far beyond a safe level of consumption, always a wrong step away from overdose. Strands of web followed him, carrying shards of broken glass, one with the tip of a syringe still attached. She could hear the sound of someone else being hurt from the air around him. It sounded like worry and concern. 

Fear of addiction in someone else, perhaps? Where would the web come from, though ?

She could not see his features to know if they too had the same inhuman cast as the other parahumans she had seen, but the slightly strange shape of the musculature and the length of the limbs made her think it was likely. 

Much like the brunette girl, he felt like he was on a precipice. His shadow weighed heavy on the world, the dark water of its mass looking like it was reaching up, stretching fingers of pitch into his mask. If Elizabeth saw underneath, she was sure those fingers would be forcing his mouth and eyes open, stretching deep inside every orifice of his face, entering him, flowing from him, becoming him. 

Elizabeth did not know what this could mean, but it did not look good.

The new girl, the costume on her other self was made of rotting fabric strewn with insect corpses, the lenses of her goggles broken glass. It looked too tight on her, her breathing was shallow and unsteady, coming out as a thick mist that twisted unnaturally, wrapping around her and distorting her form. Rusted metal bands were sewn into her costume around her chest and stomach, constricting her. In gaps in the fabric, deep wounds were cut in her skin, and the rotten fabric reached and stuck into them, the flesh around a sickly green. Mocking laughter followed her, and she smelt of stale air and sickly sweet rot.

The smell of mist clung to her too, but so did the smell of rotting blood, the sound of mocking laughter. Additionally, the old sound of insect legs skittering, a fear long gone, and the smell of cobwebs. The cobwebs, the mist and the laughter all overpowered the other smells, so that she only noticed the others with focus. She had expected the fear of insects and spiders to be the same, but somehow she could tell these were different smells.

Confinement, disease, probably bullying. Fairly typical… But there’s that mist again. Seems many parahumans are touched by it, but I have no clue what it could mean. 

Something changed, as Elizabeth looked at her. Slowly, living insects began to pour out of her wounds, scattering around the room, seeking out the bank goers. Her features began to change, the costume becoming more of a skin, and her features assuming the same post-human cast Elizabeth had seen on Coil, this time like a human whose genes were roughly mashed together with an insects. Everyone in the room's eyes turned towards her, always watching her, always judging her.

She is new to the scene. Is this, perhaps, what it looks like when someone becomes something to be feared?

As Tattletale turned back towards Elizabeth, she gave her a quick once over before closing her other senses. She had the same post-human cast as all other parahumans Elizabeth had seen, though hers was less specific. A strangely large head, mildly vestigial seeming limbs, eyes taking up half again the size of a normal humans. 

Tattletale was covered in secrets. Elizabeth was shocked, for a moment, to see secrets of her own written on the thousand strips of paper that entombed Tattletale. Things she had never told anyone. The strips crawled into Tattletales mouth, forcing themselves inside, into her eye sockets and her ears, fusing with her tongue. It looked uncomfortable, the affected areas twitching. Her teeth and fingers were incredibly sharp, made of the paper hardened, and they bit into her own flesh. 

Fear of knowledge, both directed at her but also perhaps… knowing too much?

As she strutted down the bank, she left behind a mist that smelled of the grave, of lost friends and friendships lost. The eye on her costume blinked, always looking up, directly at her face, and resembled a camera more than an eye.

Her tongue was a noose, and it stretched out and towards the new girl's neck. That one, Elizabeth didn’t feel the need to guess the meaning of.

That last image burned itself into Elizabeth’s mind, as she closed her other senses.

All but Regent and two dogs were heading to the vault.

It made sense. Regents power would stop any sudden resistance, the dog would guard well, any noise would be heard by the others who would come help. If the new girl could sense through her insects, they also had a constant alarm. It was a simple, but effective strategy. Elizabeth would have also left Grue behind, to isolate any potential massed resistance. 

Tattletale twisted the stainless steel wheel of the vault seemingly arbitrarily, before there was a heavy scrape, and they all began shifting it open.

They left the hostages with Regent, disappearing into the vault. Shifting sounds as filled bags were moved and muted conversations could still be heard, as well as the occasional view of the villains, often of Tattletale having a quick glimpse out of the doorframe. Made sense for the thinker to keep an eye on things.

Regent was acting like an idiot. He would strut around the room, gesturing randomly with his sceptre towards a civilian whenever they least expected it. Out of all of them, he was the one who most acted like the overconfident brash teenager he was. That was irritating in its own way, but it made him predictable. She knew his type. He would joke around, poke at the helpless civilians, have a laugh but never do anything serious.

The mousy brunette looked furious whenever it happened though. Elizabeth couldn’t help but find it mildly amusing, how she managed to dredge up more anger and self righteousness each time it happened. Every time her face seemed twisted enough, it managed to twist further. It was almost mesmerising.

Regents foolishness, however, provided Elizabeth a perfect opportunity. She shifted, whenever he looked away, slowly positioning herself out of sight of the vault or bank door and slightly closer to Regent. She only had a melee weapon at present, and if the situation escalated she would want to be ready.
It would be unwise to attack, but even less wise to be unprepared to do so.

Meanwhile, Regent had noticed something outside, and had begun frantically gesturing to a watching Tattletale. There was a swear on her lips, inaudible but her expression carried her meaning.

When the rest of the Undersiders rushed out the vault, Elizabeth could only conclude that the situation had escalated. 

It could be the police, but they were ill equipped for this situation. Grue looked very angry at Tattletale, and there had been no calls for terms or to surrender to arrest, as Elizabeth would expect of PRT officers. A well equipped PRT squad was a force to be feared, but they had guidelines to follow.

The Protectorate was out of town, so it couldn’t be them. Could theoretically be other villains, but doubtful. 

New Wave, perhaps? 

Or…

Realisation struck Elizabeth like a clown's mallet. There was one other group of heroes in Brockton bay.

She closed her eyes briefly, and her sigh echoed with the resignation of many teachers she could remember, disappointed in their class. 

I am going to be stuck as a hostage in the crossfire between two groups of teenagers. 

She opened her eyes. 

Hell of a day.

Chapter Text

The Undersiders were muttering to each other, clearly planning something. 

Being teenagers, it was probably going to be something quite foolish. Though, some of them were also experienced villains, a status you do not get without some skill. So perhaps Elizabeth was underestimating them.

Elizabeth did not like this, being so helpless against arrogant, young parahumans. Especially with her state, her body was still bruised. That could get in the way in the coming fight.

The Undersiders turned to the hostages, and the new girl began speaking.

“This is what you will do. We will choose eight of you to come forward. In a short while, Grue here will be placing his darkness over the door. When he does so, you will leave and move as fast as you can. He will then extend his darkness past you, at which point you will lay on the ground with your hands on your head.”

Elizabeth mulled the plan over in her head. A direct confrontation was unlike the Undersiders from what she had read, but it was bold. It being unlike the Undersiders was likely what they were betting on, catching the Wards off guard. 

 The hostages would serve as a good distraction, as villains there’s little risk to their reputation if the hostages get hurt and far more to the heroes. It would prevent the Wards from just opening fire. The darkness would provide a cover for the Undersiders to advance, the Wards would hesitate before attacking anyone coming out of the darkness lest it be a hostage.

Eight hostages was an interesting choice. That would put thirty one in the bank. It could be wiser to send out five, select similar builds to themselves, enhance the confusion. That also would heighten the risks of a Ward taking a shot and entering a precarious mental state, something to take advantage of. That might be a tad too ruthless for a gang of teenagers, however, even a gang doing this plan. 

Surprisingly well thought out, for a gang of juvenile delinquents. 

The new girl continued. “I will repeat myself. This isn’t a TV show or a movie. If you have some clever idea to call out or alert the Wards, there are still black widows on you. I will know, and it will only hurt you. Do you understand?”

Tattletale stood forward and started selecting the eight hostages. She would point her finger, say “You.” and have them walk out of the crowd. 

Her selection process at first seemed rather arbitrary, but Elizabeth picked up on a pattern. She had selected hostages that were younger but still adults, no bank workers, and all hostages were the individuals that had put up the least resistance. 

It was a smart choice. Selecting the least likely to suffer injury without making yourself appear monstrous, no one potentially useful to you, and the most likely to follow instructions.

Elizabeth would have liked to open her senses, see how the fear affected the hostages, but with Tattletale watching the crowd it was potentially too risky. She had no clue what her thinker power was, but best to give it no hints. 

Soon enough, the Undersiders had their tributes gathered in front of them.

The darkness came from Grue like a flood of water, smothering the doorway. 

She wondered what the Wards on the other side were thinking. They were children, more experienced than most children, but children nonetheless. They were going to lose. 

They only had Clockblocker to handle the dogs, they were not prepared for the arthropods awaiting them, nor had any good way to deal with them. Especially as the weight of biomass may interfere with Vista. 

It was idiotic to send them out here. They were children. They should be handling minor crimes at most, not full fledged parahuman combat.

The Undersiders were children too, but they were children who had murdered in Bitch’s case and who had a lasting criminal career in Grue’s and who had shown a degree of ruthlessness in the new girl’s. 

Criminal children who lacked proper supervision, against law enforcement children whose supervision was clearly lacking.

What a farce. Throwing their youths away for idealism. Giving away years to hold society together for a second more, all to be another name on a memorial.

Elizabeth sighed. 

What a world we have made for the young.

The hostages had been sent forward. The civilians stumbled and panicked, obviously not thinking through the panic.

Bitch was mounting her dog, ready to ride into battle, before Tattletale stopped her to tell her something. Advantage of having a thinker on the team, clearly they had gained some information that would give them an upper hand. 

The canine cavalier left, followed by a horde of arthropods, dropping from the ceiling with a weight that felt almost audible. It was an impressive force, an army in it’s own right. Meanwhile, Tattletale sauntered back to the back of the bank, leaving the actually difficult work to her teammates.

Elizabeth couldn’t help but note the new girl positioning herself near the windows. She must have some arthropod senses, or she would have no idea where they are or what they are doing. But if she has to position herself like that, they clearly aren’t good enough. A potential weakness in an otherwise formidable power. 

The fight wasn’t visible, but with Grue and Regent running out, and the new girl watching from the windows and Tattletale absent, Elizabeth felt it an opportune time to open her senses and position herself correctly.

Immediately, she detected a spike of fear from outside, a collectable crescendo. It felt similar to her knife, a rhythm of blood spilt and bones broken, but not the same. Like a different song by the same composer. 

She could feel it, the weight of furred flesh. The smell of an animal's approach, of claws bared and bloody and breath heavy and panting. The sound of roars and bellows, of meat hitting meat. The world shimmered, the curtain pulled back, revealing a blood-stained forest. Where nature is red in tooth and claw, where there are no predator or prey anymore, no purpose in the fight but the fight, but the pounding of hearts, the gore on antlers and fang. Where the blood has spilt enough to nourish the trees. An eternally red forest.

It forced itself down her throat, and it tasted of animalistic violence. 

I presume that’s the Wards encountering the dogs. She shook herself out of her bliss and terror.

Sitting here while a fight ranged outside felt so alien to Elizabeth. Usually she would be getting involved, whether shooting from a distance or in the mess itself. It was unusual, like a star footballer watching the local amateur team.

Elizabeth tried to take the opportunity to reposition. Further from the hostages, so any attempt to threaten them would have difficulty targeting her, out of view through the door and windows. Keep her avenues of exit open though, so close enough to the door to run through. The darkness would be a hindrance, but she would just have to keep going until she broke through. 

As she shuffled into a space between windows, arm ready over her sheathe, her travels were interrupted by another crescendo. A split one once more. One thread was the crawling feeling of insects legs, the other the suffocating feeling of being trapped in place. Elizabeth hesitated, thinking of the new girl, before pulling at the suffocating crescendo. Better not to potentially arm an enemy. 

She could feel it, the smell of stale breath, of a tight space full of insects, the sound of desperate breathing, of legs crawling across wood and across flesh. The feeling of legs pushing against your eyelids, your nostrils, every orifice in your body another space for them to fill. No empty space between your surface and the world. The strain of muscles aching against confines, bruises and aches intensifying.

The world shimmered once more, revealing a field of coffins in open graves. Insects filled the small breathing gaps between the outside world and the coffin, always crawling in, never crawling out. A world where there is always more space for your company to fill, and never enough space to move, where there is always just enough breath to breathe but never enough to breathe freely. 

It squeezed itself down her throat, and it tasted of being entombed with company.

If that was what Elizabeth thought it was, then she couldn't help but be mildly impressed with the new girl. It takes a certain mindset to drown someone in bugs. She hoped that whichever Ward, or Wards, were on the other side of that treatment was given sufficient care after the fact. Gentler events had severely impaired the capabilities of other mercenaries, Elizabeth couldn’t imagine what trauma that would give a child.

Though the girl herself didn't seem to be doing well. Perhaps her actions had made her feel ill? She was wavering on her feet and muttering to herself.

This would usually cut down on the intimidation factor, but surrounded by arthropods in the middle of a fight? It instead imbued her with a slightly manic energy. It made her seem unpredictable, scary in a way a movie psychopath is. Elizabeth wasn't falling for it, the girl wasn’t even old enough to drink, but she could see the civilians were appearing even more nervous, that feeling of poisonous agony intensifying.

The brunette girl was doing something with the civilians. For a long while, she had looked like she was intensely focusing, but now she had moved to touching them, briefly whispering to them. Perhaps she was comforting them? The touches felt too brief for that, but Elizabeth didn’t consider herself an expert on comfort. Quite the opposite really. The long, fury-filled scream from the fight outside was probably not helping the girl's efforts. 

“Bitch, Vista, Clockblocker, Gallant are out of action, I think,”  The new girl’s voice calling to Tattletale cut through Elizabeth’s distraction. “We’ve got Aegis handled for the time being.  Not sure what happened to Browbeat, but there’s only him, Kid Win and the person on the roof to deal with, now.  We can make a break for it soon.” 

Her choice of words and tone were much less imposing than before. Her inexperience was showing, now she wasn’t directly addressing her hostages she forgot to act intimidating. There was urgency, and a slight queasiness, present, but none of the hard edge from her earlier speeches. 

Tattletales' shouted reply was full of the characteristic smugness of a teenager who thought she was clever. “One last thing to do, I’ll be right back. Keep an eye on things here.”

“What?  No - Tattletale!  Dammit!” The new girl whined back as Tattletale ran back into the offices. It was not wise to not have all team members in on the plan, though it was also not wise to yell your plans. In this situation, with the opposition otherwise occupied, it could be forgiven. Tattletale should communicate as much as possible. 

While Elizabeth doubted they would do this, she thought it would be wise for the Undersiders to spend the income from this endeavour on some form of non-hackable means of communication. In all likelihood, the money would instead find itself into local takeaways and game stores.

Somehow, the pair still in the bank did not notice what the brunette was doing. She was directing the hostages up the stairs at the back of the bank. Touching each briefly, before leading them. She hadn’t made her way to Elizabeth yet, as she had placed herself as far from the rest of the hostages as possible to avoid them getting in the way. 

How the brunette was doing this without the new girl noticing was difficult to tell. It was brave, but perhaps foolish. A strange sound from outside, a crackling, burning noise like a coal generator vomiting, covered the sound of their retreat, but the widows should have alerted the new girl. 

Unless…

Short girl, frizzy brown hair, touched hostages to do something. Her face was fairly average, not very memorable, but those details were enough to put a pseudonym to the face. 

Panacea.

Amy Dallon, touch based biokinetic, did she do something to interfere with the widows? Her power must be more versatile than Elizabeth thought, to interfere with another parahuman this way. And judging by how the new girl was wobbling, it must have been unpleasant indeed. 

Elizabeth supposed this was an advantage of being an open cape - You could operate in your civilian identity without worry.

The hostages froze. The new girl had thrown herself to the side, one unlucky movement and the whole scheme would be ruined. Lucky for them, and unlucky for the Undersiders, that the new girl kept her focus outside. The overconfidence of a teenage parahuman. She would soon learn the price of relying too much on powers. 

Elizabeth tapped the knife in its sheath, comforting herself with the skill within. 

A flare of light and sound erupted from the windows, a flashbang. A flashbang, against a team with Grue? That had the potential to be extremely ineffective, it spoke of desperation or lack of thinking. Either way, it would not be going well for the Wards. 

An urgency and anger had entered Panacea’s movements that wasn’t there previously. That was good, she understood how close she had come to being discovered. 

Eventually, she made her way to Elizabeth. The girl looked so young, how old was she? She looked around how old Elizabeth’s sister had been. To be an open parahuman at her age, with all the expectations and ideology involved.
How unfortunate. 

She whispered. “I’m interfering with the psychos bugs. I need to touch you, then you leave through the…”
“No.” Elizabeth surprised herself. She opened her coat, flashing her knife. “I will help.” 

Elizabeth would not let a child fight for her.

Panacea hissed back. “You’re not a cape, just leave.”
“We don’t have time to argue. I can handle myself.”

Her face twisted into a mask of frustration, before seizing Elizabeth’s wrist.

“Fine.” Her whisper was biting. “But I’m touching you up. You’re a mess of bruises. Where the fuck did you get them?” 

Elizabeth did not answer. The aches and bruises disappearing did not feel like anything. It was like the feeling of taking off a heavy backpack after a long march, a non-feeling that was as satisfying as any feeling.

Elizabeth pulled her knife, and felt the certainty of expertise fill her once more, the movement of her limbs smooth and fast once more.

Panacea had somehow armed herself with a fire extinguisher while Elizabeth had been distracted. It was almost comical in her scrawny little arms, but even from an untrained individual, a heavy object can do quite a bit of damage.

“Be careful with that. Don’t hit her head, could kill, and don’t-”

The brat rolled her eyes at her.

“I know, I heal people. Let’s go.”

Elizabeth looked at the fire extinguisher, then the child in front of her.

“If you’re planning to try knock her out with that, that’s a bad idea. I will hold her hostage, knife to her throat. If you just swing once, she can keep fighting. You hide, keep interfering. If Tattletale comes back with her gun, you need to be out of eyeshot.”

The Dallon girl groaned inaudibly, before whispering back. “Fine, whatever, go.”

The knife sung of the bug girl as they approached. She was untrained, only mildly fit, unused to physical combat. Without powers, an easy fight. But when the knife whispered of how to fight her, it warned of insects approaching, of biting swarming pain, of an attack that could not be stabbed away. It sounded almost perturbed. 

However it still had some suggestions. The girl favoured close combat, despite her lack of skill or training. She would open with the baton at her side. It was extendible, a good stab would damage the mechanism and leave her with a paperweight. It wouldn't stop the bugs. It would be satisfying, but not as satisfying as a knife at her throat. 

The knife also at her side may be an issue, but Elizabeth had the element of surprise. She was confident. 

The bug girl was laughing, in the middle of a fight. It was just like a rookie, to get distracted like that.

Still, Elizabeth was thankful. It did well to cover her approach. Panacea huddled herself under a table, behind a chair. She was still holding the fire extinguisher, awkwardly placed under one arm while the other tapped her phone.

Not the best concealment, but no time to plan further.

Taking a teenager hostage wouldn’t be her proudest moment, but as her childhood priest had told her: Do unto others, as they would do to you. She was pretty sure she was misquoting scripture there, but it worked. 

Elizabeth pounced, arms coiling around the girl, steady as steel, stance firm as a tower. The metal was firm against the child's throat, cold as death.

“Do not move. Do not move your bugs. Do not speak, or squirm, or even breathe wrong. A slit throat is not a pleasant way to go. Nod if you understand.”

The girl nodded. This close Elizabeth could see her eyes through the lenses, unfocused and panicked. She was breathing deeply, swaying slightly. She understood the situation she was in. 

The crescendo emphasised that fact. 

Elizabeth could feel it, the creaking of the guillotine rope, the smell of polished wood and steel, the sound of the guns firing. The cold barrel at the back of your head, the rope around your neck 

The world shimmered, but Elizabeth closed her other eyes. The sight would be too distracting. 

It was down her throat before she could blink, and it tasted of death awaited, but sudden.

But even more so, to Elizabeth? It tasted like satisfaction.

“Girl.” The bug girl tensed slightly, and Elizabeth tightened her grip. “Not you.”

Panacea looked up. 

“Who are you texting?”
“My sister, she’s here.”

Glory Girl, invulnerability, flight, enhanced strength, awe aura. A formidable ally, likely to turn the tide outside. 

“How’s she getting in? Can she be subtle?”

The expression on Panacea’s face said it all.

Elizabeth sighed. “Have her assist outside. The Wards are outmatched, they’ll need the help.”

Elizabeth then noticed she had placed herself in a rough situation. She could not risk the bug girl figuring out some way around whatever Panacea was doing, so she could not remove the knife. But someone needed to deal with Tattletale.

She was not sure why she had rushed in here, but it had clearly been a terrible decision. It was probably Victor’s fault, he must have drained more than just her combat skills. 

Tattletale had a gun. Panacea had a fire extinguisher. She couldn’t give Panacea the knife, and it was only the knife’s peculiar properties that made it actually able to cut through the girl's costume.

The only option was to wait it out. 

Still, one thing was bothering Elizabeth. 

“Girl.” Panacea opened her mouth. “Not you. Bug girl.” Elizabeth ignored the affronted snort from the healer. 

Bug girl stared at Elizabeth. 

Ah, right. “You can talk.” 

“...Yes?” Her voice was hesitant, all her earlier confidence fled. 

“What’s your code name? I’m sick of thinking of you as the new girl.”

Panacea interjected. “Why do you care? Why aren’t you doing something more?”

Elizabeth restrained herself from rolling her eyes. 

“We can’t do anything right now. You need to keep doing your thing, I need to keep the girl hostage. We need to wait out the fight outside. Now girl, name.”

“I… I don’t have one yet?” 
“How about Vermin? Oh, or Maggot? Those seem fitting.” The Dallon girl seemed to be gearing up for a self-righteous rant, so Elizabeth cut her off with a shake of her head and a light glare.

Elizabeth hummed, a familiar swaying tune she couldn't place. Those names were a bit much. 

“You didn’t think of a name before doing this?” The judgement was palpable in her voice. “Fine. I’ll think of you as Swarm for now.”

Swarm seemed about to object, before she nodded. 

“Panacea.” Elizabeth made sure to use her code name. If she had called her Amy, or Dallon, or girl, it might seem less like a combat situation. Elizabeth needed the girl ready. “Can you check how the fight is outside?”

The girl gave a quick nod, before shuffling awkwardly, unnecessarily keeping in cover the whole time. 

Her little peak out of cover was followed by a loud curse. That wasn’t a good sign.

“What, Panacea? Report.” Elizabeth couldn't afford the girl getting panicked. 

“Vicky and Aegis are handling the dogs, but everyone else is down.”
Elizabeth chewed on that.

“Undersiders?”

“The fuckers are fine. Regents even playing with Kid’s guns.”
Not an ideal situation. Still, we have a hostage. We may be able to delay. Or perhaps…

“Swarm.” The panic in the girl's eyes had long faded, and she looked almost victorious. 

Time to quash that.

“How do you take off your costume? Panacea here needs some bare skin.”

A capture could be possible.

Swarm tensed. She looked panicked. She felt panicked. 

Panacea seemed delighted, stalking out of cover towards Swarm. Elizabeth had been planning to head towards her. “Oh, I’m gonna fuck you up. I can do anything with your biology, you know that Maggot?” Elizabeth ignored the name. Snhe probably shouldn’t let the girl rant, but she seemed like she needed to bleed off some stress. Plus Swarm’s fear was reaching a nice peak. “I’m gonna ruin your taste buds, make everything taste like bile. Make you cough every day. Make you fat. That’s a good one, I’ll make you-”

A voice cut through the rant. “I don’t think you will, actually.” Tattletale’s handgun was pointed at Panacea, who was now completely exposed. 

Wonderful.

Tattletale nodded to Swarm. “Hey Bug. Things aren’t going so hot, huh?”
Elizabeth was very tired. She did not want to have to negotiate with this smug little hellion.