Disclaimer: I own nothing but my original characters and works; all other characters and worlds belong to their respective owners. I'm just playing with them.
Betad by Beans, Priapus, Marethyu
The Blank
Chapter 01: Fucky Wucky
Fate is a hell of a thing.
There are a million reasons why this shouldn't work and why I should probably die here, and yet as I lunge forward, nobody stops me. Not even the dumbstruck man currently staring at himself in bafflement. I don't think he even notices that I've moved until I reached him, stabbing the dagger into his chest.
Not one of his three dozen or so men do anything either, all staring in disbelief as my tackle sends the man to the ground. He's bigger than me, all muscle, and has an entire gang of criminals with him, and yet as I stab him again and again… nobody moves to help.
Because reputation is a hell of a thing as well.
The Great Lung would never need help fighting a teenage boy. Even as the Great Lung bleeds out on the ground, coughing up mouthfuls of blood. The idea of going to his aid likely never even occurs to them, fearful that he'd kill them for daring to think that the strongest cape in Brockton Bay needs help from a mere goon.
It was the same reason none of them tried to stop me from stumbling to my feet, or picking up the discarded knife.
It's why the Great and Mighty Lung, Master of the ABB, who fought Leviathan to a standstill, dies to some half-dead teenager who picked fight over flight.
Rising to my feet over the corpse, I look around the room with exhausted eyes.
Again, fate and reputation are a bitch. There's at least thirty armed ABB thugs staring back at me. I'm barely standing after the beating I got as it is, they could swarm and kill me easily.
Once again, nobody moves.
Why? Because they're staring down a cape who triggered and then murdered Lung three seconds later. And if I can kill Lung, surely I could slaughter them all just as easily.
I couldn't, btw. I'm barely clinging to consciousness as it is, now that the adrenaline is fading. Someone shouts something and then an explosion happens, and yet I remain alive despite the odds.
…did Oni Lee just blow himself up? Clearly the shame of failing his master and/or gay lover was too much to bear.
Or, less likely, he tried to do his teleporting suicide bomber trick without the teleporting part.
That does it for the rest, seeing me brutally execute Oni Lee without even moving from my spot. The thugs flee for their lives, their will to fight broken.
Well, it is either my sheer aura or the PRT sirens that sent them scrambling, but personally I'm betting on the first one as a familiar looking figure in blue armour bursts in, pausing at the sight of the tattooed corpse in a metal mask at my feet.
"For the record, this is exactly what it looks like."
With my zingy one-liner said, my exhaustion and injuries get the better of me and I fall flat on my face, my last conscious image being Armsmaster's gaping mouth.
I'm so cool even the heroes are terrified of me, clearly.
– Emily Piggot –
"Can someone please, for the love of God, explain what the fuck happened tonight?" Emily finally asked.
"Lung attempted to do one of his usual shows of power, and it ended extremely poorly," Armsmaster replied plainly. The gathered capes looked at him, waiting for him to continue, but the Tinker remained silent for far too long.
"If I may," Dragon cut in from the screen. "I believe I have more or less worked out what happened tonight."
"Please, enlighten us," Emily said, making a note to cut Armsmaster's Tinker budget for the next month.
"As Colin said, Lung was attempting one of his displays of power, having rounded up 'traitors' from his territory to make an example of them personally. People who refused to join the ABB, or pay protection money, mostly. Some actual traitors who were leaking information as well," Dragon started, the screen changing to show some of the victims. "Then he got to one Shimaya Ryota."
"Lung was going to make an example of a kid?" Assault asked, his usual humour replaced with disgust.
"Correct. From the interrogations of some of the captured ABB members, it seems that Ryota got into a fight with an ABB recruiter. Specifically over his little sister, Rei, who they were attempting to pressure into working 'part-time' as a secretary at a bathhouse," Dragon explained. A wave of disgust filled the room at that. "During the fight, Ryota broke the recruiter's nose. Added on to his refusal to join the gang himself, he incurred Lung's wrath."
"Okay, but how did that end with Lung and Oni Lee dead?" Emily asked, cutting in. She didn't need more evidence of how terrible the gangs were. She got that every single day.
"That's where things get complicated. When Lung made his appearance, he was already considerably grown. Our best theory is that he was 'fighting' Oni Lee to trigger his power. Simply put, he wanted to look more impressive and burn the traitors alive," Dragon continued. "The exact details are still unknown, but it seems that as it came time for Ryota's execution, he triggered. He'd already been badly beaten by the same recruiter as he waited for 'his turn'. What the eyewitnesses confirm is that Lung rapidly shrunk back to his usual size and in the confusion, Ryota grabbed one of the discarded weapons and charged Lung, stabbing him before he could work out what was going on."
"And nobody helped Lung?" Battery asked.
"Why would they? He's Lung. He doesn't need the aid of mere mortals," Assault laughed grimly. "Going to Lung's aid is how you get burnt alive for daring to suggest that Lung required aid."
Emily smiled grimly at that. Lung's own ego got him killed. How fitting. Hadn't Stalin's guards refused to call a doctor when he had a stroke out of fear that they'd be executed for acting without orders?
"Indeed. By the time it became clear that Lung did require aid, he was already dead and at that point they were too afraid to attack someone who could beat Lung," Dragon confirmed with a wry smile.
"What happened to Oni Lee?" Emily asked, moving on.
"That's still up for debate, but we believe that Ryota's power interacted strangely with his. He pulled the pin on his grenade and then just… stood there dumbly until it went off. The ABB members were convinced that Ryota had mastered him and made him kill himself, but I believe that he tried to teleport to Ryota and failed," Dragon explained. "To make it harder for people to react to him, he often pulls the pin and waits until the last second to teleport, using specially designed grenades Lung had made for him so he can safely put the pin back at the last moment. Whatever power interaction he had with Ryota stunned him for just a moment, and that was a moment where he was still holding a live grenade."
"Meh. This was always going to happen eventually. When your first, second and only attack is suicide, it's gonna end up with you dead sooner or later," Assault shrugged uncaringly. Emily didn't exactly disagree.
"What do we know about Ryota's power?" Emily finally asked.
"So far? Not enough. What we do know is that he is some kind of nullifier. Tinkertech fails to work if it is brought too close to him, around five meters in any direction and what little testing we could do with him unconscious has proven that powers simply don't work in that same space. Panacea attempted to heal him but, well, her powers turned off," Dragon explained. "We've discreetly tested it with available heroes, and any who enters the area around him loses access to their powers. This did cause an… unexpected interaction with Miss Militia."
"Harmful?" Emily asked, expecting the worst. Miss Militia just laughed.
"I fell asleep the moment I entered. My power removes my need for sleep, the moment I was within his range, years of sleep deprivation caught up with me," Miss Milita explained. "Harmful in that I hit my head on the way down, but perfectly natural beyond that. Honestly, I rather enjoyed it."
"And where is Ryota now?" Emily asked, frowning deeply as she considered things.
She had often heard people doing stupid little games where they talked about 'what power would you want if you were a Cape'. It didn't work like that, and she'd always rolled her eyes or scowled at the predictable 'Alexandria! Eidolon! Hero! Legend!' answers. Or the ones who said they'd want some infamous villain's power to use it 'properly'. Well, now she understood. The power she'd want more than any other was the power that just said 'no' to other powers. A power that looked at a cape, laughed in their face and took away their fancy toys. Since that wasn't an option, she'd take the second best thing of having the guy who could do that in the Wards.
Assault snorted under his breath, getting her attention and a scowl but Battery also seemed to be struggling to hide her amusement. So did Miss Militia now that she looked carefully.
"He's in the medical bay, as he was badly beaten before triggering, and can't be healed the usual way… last I checked he was being scolded by his mother. It turns out he hadn't told her about the ABB pushing him to join or their attempts to pressure Rei, trying to 'handle it himself'," Assault giggled.
The idea of the cape who'd just murdered Lung being scolded like a disobedient child did do a lot to improve her night.
"What are we going to do? His identity is well and truly shot at this point. Three dozen ABB thugs saw his face, half of them knew his name," Armsmaster pointed out with a small scowl. "Retribution is inevitable. There'll be a power struggle in the ABB, and any who want to take over will likely target him and his family to 'avenge' Lung."
"That isn't even mentioning the likelihood of the Empire moving in now that we're in a post-Lung world," Dauntless pointed out with a frown.
"True, but there is something else to consider," Emily pointed out, enjoying their confusion for a moment. "We could never truly hit the Empire without giving Lung an opening, and vice versa. Now, there is no Lung to act if we hit the Empire hard. Is Brandish still on site?"
"She is," Armsmaster said, with what could almost be called excitement in his tone.
"We need to act fast, because I have no doubt that Kaiser already has his skinheads ready to make their move. All hands on deck. We move into the former ABB territory and hit them hard and fast, every hideout they didn't think we knew about. We'll work with the BBPD to grab all the high-ranking non-capes, ensuring that there simply isn't an ABB for any out of town capes to wander in and take over. I will request Thinker support to track down their new Tinker before Bakuda can even start to stabilise, or go out of control without anyone holding her leash. Then, we'll work with New Wave to hit the Empire hard if, or when, they try to take the now empty territory, reworking our patrols to keep them penned into their 'territory' for now while we sort out the ABB territory," Emily decided. "Armsmaster, I want you making countermeasures for Bakuda. I really doubt a bomb tinker is going to just slip away quietly. Ryota and his family will be placed into the highest level of protection we can manage, moved to a safer territory with patrols going through it."
She might have had to maintain the status quo for years, but she didn't like it any more than anyone else did. She'd even say she fucking hated it… so when someone else flipped the board, all she could do was capitalise on the momentum. Some might call this heavy handed, but she'd remind them of the Boston Games and the risks of out of town gangs like the Teeth moving into the city if the territory was left unattended.
She went to speak, distracted by Renick arriving.
"My apologies, but I thought I'd come straight to you," Renick said with a small satisfied smile on his face. "I've been speaking with our young guest and his family."
"Oh?" Emily asked, well aware that Renick wasn't the type to interrupt a meeting for no reason. "I take it you made an offer?"
"Oh, not at all. He beat me to the punch. Ryota wants to join the Wards, but he has some conditions," Renick explained, getting a raised eyebrow and a gesture to get on with it. "Four things. Firstly, he wants a nicer house and better job for his mother. He wants a transfer to Arcadia for him and his sister. He wants to be called 'Zetsu' and finally… he wants Miss Militia's, Vista's, Armsmaster's and Alexandria's autographs. But he's willing to accept Legend or Mouse Protector if we can't get Alexandria."
"Zetsu?" Assault asked, frowning slightly in thought as he 'subtly' got his phone out to search it. He didn't need to as Velocity spoke up.
"It roughly means 'to sever, cut off, discontinue, or… to suppress," Velocity answered with some amusement. Suppressing powers, or a reference to his stabbing Lung to death? Maybe both.
"Quite. He seems rather excited to be the first Japanese hero in Brockton Bay," Renick explained, Emily frowned for a moment. Ryota wouldn't be the first, but Lung tended to kill them before they could really do anything because they'd inevitably try to protect their home turf which was his hunting ground.
"That's all he asked for?" Emily asked, genuinely surprised. Two of those things were things they would have done anyway, one was just a matter of image and it wasn't worse than fucking Clockblocker. Plus, the fact that he wanted autographs meant he was already a hero fan.
He had to be careful, she just might start liking him rather than only tolerating him at this rate.
"He also asked to keep the knife that he killed Lung with," Renick admitted. "His mother told him he wasn't allowed a knife and he retracted it."
"...I'll see about getting him Alexandria and Legend's autographs," Emily said after a moment of thought. "Miss Militia, can you contact Mouse Protector?"
"I'm sure she won't mind making the trip. We might be able to get her help with the Empire situation as well," Miss Militia agreed easily.
If all it took was autographs to get the power to turn the almighty and powerful capes into regular people who could be put in cuffs and dragged in for their day in court, she'd get him the autographs of every hero in America.
Opening her mouth to respond, she paused as she got an emergency call from Costa-Brown. She thought for a moment, before calling the meeting to an end with everyone leaving with their marching orders. She had an actionable plan to bring order to Brockton Bay, now she just had to sell it.
– Rebecca Costa-Brown (Alexandria) –
The Brockton Bay experiment was well and truly fucked.
This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, as it was only one of their testing grounds, and the fact that it had failed was, in itself, good information.
Coil was dead.
It was pure bad luck on his part. He had been on a risky 'timeline' when Ryota triggered, only for him to realise he couldn't end the timeline and ended up dead in his panic. It turned out, frequently torturing your own men in throwaway timelines had consequences after all. He hadn't finished off the man before trying to end the timeline, only for him to forget about the badly tortured merc at his feet in his panic. Coil was not a fighter, and the moment of distraction was all his victim needed to turn the tides. He was overpowered and strangled to death, before being shot several times with his own gun after he was already dead. This had likely happened before in throwaway timelines but this time, there was no throwing things away. Some power interaction had locked him into a timeline he intended to discard, and now he was dead.
Contessa was already making sure nobody ever connected a dead PRT consultant and former strike team agent to Coil. The mercs would disappear, the most unreliable being taken out by Contessa, and it would seem like Coil had simply fled the city rather than face 'Zetsu'.
Emily was desperate to get to keep someone that perfectly fit her disdain for capes. Someone who could just walk up to any cape and turn them into a regular human. Contessa couldn't path him, of course, but that was not a major hindrance. She had worked around the Endbringers, Scion and Eidolon for years. If anything, the fact that he could block her paths meant he might just be worth keeping. Path to Victory was undeniably one of the strongest powers in the world, so anything that could trump it was worth considering as a potential silver bullet.
But there was another reason that Zetsu had gained her attention. Contessa had, for reasons that nobody knew at the time, falsified a medical report and replaced it with the real one. The two reports were near identical, except for one blatant difference.
One showed a Corona Pollentia and Gemma, clear signs that the subject was a parahuman. The other showed no such thing, appearing to be nothing more than a regular human. She'd seen the footage, and neither Lung nor Oni Lee had shown signs of being near a trigger event. Sure, Lung had been shocked but not due to a trigger vision, but simply because his powers, that he was so reliant on, had abandoned him.
Ryota was not a natural trigger, but neither was he a Cauldron cape. He didn't even interact with Contessa in the same way usual blindspots did. If she attempted to make a path that would interact with Zetsu, her power just… refused to activate. It didn't give her faulty or incomplete paths, it just didn't respond at all. She could work around him, as shown by her ability to get into the medical bay and replace the report before anyone could read it, despite it being one room over from him, but the moment he would be involved in a step, her power just gave up.
She'd arranged for other Thinkers to get involved, and she got the same result each time. Thinker powers just refused to acknowledge that Ryota existed. It had led to a lot of frustrated, admittedly arrogant, thinkers trying to push their power to give them anything only for their power to remain stubbornly silent. As far as powers were concerned, there was no Ryota, just an empty space where a human teenaged boy should be.
Hers was no exception.
Her memory retention was close to perfect. Almost flawless. So, imagine her shock when Doctor Mother asked for an update on the Ryota situation and she, with 100% seriousness, asked 'who?'. Her memory came from her powers. Her powers didn't want to admit Ryota existed. She remembered all the work she'd done, the conversations she'd had, and yet despite never so much as seeing the boy in person, her brain had wiped any mention of him. Every mention of his name, every picture of his face, it was all gone. It was like there was static in her mind, remembering the conversation but his name was just covered by it, inaudible. The picture she saw of him, the video she watched, she remembered them but without him inside them.
Lung? Yeah, he just shrunk then died to a knife. Who was holding the knife? Don't be silly, it just did that by itself.
It was not a fun experience.
The counter for this particularly aggravating power interaction was simple. She had to use a door to go into the next room from Ryota, inside his aura without him seeing her, read it all herself to memorise it with her own very human memory, then get out of his range to retain it.
Oh, and she had to do it under the effects of a powerful stimulant to prevent her from collapsing from sleep deprivation. But not a tinkertech one because it wouldn't have worked in his aura.
It was an embarrassingly humanising experience. Doubly so because her body suddenly remembered that it had all manner of functions that hadn't been working for years and all rushed back into play. It was not a fun experience at all.
But all inconvenience could be forgiven for two simple reasons. She was far from the only thing being inconvenienced. The moment Ryota had 'triggered', two things happened, far far from Brockton Bay.
The Simurgh had freaked out and flown further into space, hiding behind the moon. And second… Scion had flown into a building. It was already a meme online, but Scion, as he had been flying through a city, he'd suddenly seemed distracted and had flown straight into a building in his path. He'd then proceeded to stay perfectly still for 47 minutes, 31 seconds, before vanishing.
Not leaving, just… disappearing entirely. Some described it like 'a bubble popping' and something hit her. She'd seen things do that before. Specifically, she'd seen projections pop like that. What did this actually mean? She had no fucking idea, but something about Ryota distracted Scion and then made him change his usual patterns entirely. Something about him made the Simurgh run away.
And she was very eager to find out what.
Working without the guidance of the Path would be difficult after being so reliant on it, but when Doctor Mother had asked, Contessa's advice was 'tie him to a missile and launch him at Scion'. It turned out that the Boogeyman of cape society, the lynchpin of Cauldron's operations, the reason the world was still standing, did not love having her power so thoroughly beaten.
But Contessa's sulking aside, Ryota had risen up high on her list of potential silver bullets, and when the price for his recruitment was some inconvenience and an autograph, she'd pay that happily.
– Ryota Shimaya –
It turns out, having the ability to say 'haha fuck you' to every other power has its downsides. I got my ass beat bad, and despite Panacea being brought straight to me, I remain a walking, talking, shitposting bruise of a man.
"So, how grounded are you?" Rei asks, far too amused despite my near-death experience. You fight a gang and kill a dragon for her and she still mocks you. She truly is the paragon of little sisters.
"She can't ground me, I'm a badass hero now," I snort, still riding the high.
"So, like two weeks?" Rei asks.
"Yeah, pretty much. Seriously, it's like she doesn't appreciate my heroism," I shake my head. "But it'll last like an hour. I think she was mostly in shock over the whole, 'dumbass son killed Lung' thing."
"I told you we should tell her about those assholes. But no, 'I have it under control'," Rei laughs. "Yup. Entirely under control, clearly. Was getting kidnapped and beaten half to death part of 'the plan'?"
"Hey, the ABB isn't going to bother you again and I think Shun literally pissed himself. I bet the rest of the gang ain't thrilled with him for getting me involved," I reply with a grin. Wait, he didn't respond to me texting him earlier. I wonder…
Eh. At best, he's an ABB shitstain who was trying to pressure my sister into giving happy ending massages. If they got him, I hope it was slow. Cunt.
"My hero~" Rei deadpans, nudging me with her shoulder. "But… uhh, thanks. Seriously."
"For saving you or for getting you Miss Militia's autograph?" I ask.
"The autograph, obviously. You're settled on birthday presents for at least two years. Five if you manage to get Alexandria's," my cape nerd sister replies instantly. "You still have to get me christmas presents though."
"You're only saying that because you were literally born on Christmas," I point out.
"Because I'm God's gift to man. Well, I'm not getting no presents. I'm already making a list of other heroes I want you to get me autographs from," Rei admits shamelessly.
"God better have kept the receipt," I snark. "But I suppose that I, the Great Hero Zetsu, can get my mortal peasant sister such gifts, if she praises me enough."
"That's still a stupid name," Rei points out, cut off by me flicking her face.
"Fuck you, it's a great name," I counter.
"Weeb," Rei says with a roll of her eyes.
"Dragon slaying otaku," I reply simply. "Weeb is for non-Japanese people. I didn't get into fights with Empire kids for nothing, you know? Oh shit, I need to shittalk Eric-"
"Please stop actively poking them," Rei sighs. "So, you're sure about this Wards thing?"
"Eh," I admit. "I figure it's for the best while I get shit worked out. I mean, I fucking killed a guy yesterday. I don't wanna go villain, but being an indie hero is just asking for a Fleur situation because I don't think I can negate just being shot," I admit with a shrug. "Plus, the PRT can help with the whole 'whoops I killed the ABB boss and we live like five doors down from an ABB stronghold' thing."
"Can't believe we're transferring to Arcadia," Rei admits.
"Disappointed to be leaving your friends?" I ask.
"Are you kidding? What moron would want to stay in Winslow? I won't deny I'm gonna miss some people, but none I like enough to want to willingly stay in that shithole," Rei says instantly. "Besides, while you were napping, the PRT went hard on the ABB. Turns out that without a big rage dragon sitting on them, they're easy pickings. Remember Daiyu?"
"No," I admit shamelessly.
"Ugh. In my year, chinese girl, wears a lot of green?" Rei asks, seeing zero recognition on my face. "Whatever. Point is, her older sister got grabbed like three weeks ago but Dauntless and Miss Militia busted her out of one of the 'Farms' last night, along with a load of other girls. Glory Girl and Laserdream trashed some drug labs. Armsmaster apparently raided the lab of some tinker they had alongside fucking Dragon. I didn't even know the ABB had a tinker but apparently she was trying to plant bombs in peoples heads or something. Didn't get far before Halbeard beat her ass like a drum and dragged her in."
"Shit, I should have asked for Dragon's autograph too," I curse.
"I'm sure she'd be happy to provide one," a new voice says, making us both jump. The squeak that follows as we spot a softly smiling Legend in the doorway definitely came from Rei, not me.
"I, uhh, didn't think you'd come in person," I admit after a moment. "Wait, am I in trouble for the whole shanking thing?"
Legend seems amused at that question as he approaches with his iconic smile, which falters for a moment as he gets close enough and the slight glow he was giving off just… goes away. He pauses, looking down at his hand before he chuckles to himself. I just said no powers allowed to a fucking Triumvirate member.
"No. Lung was already Birdcage-bound, and the only reason he didn't have a Kill Order was simply because our Thinkers thought it would cost too much to take him down if he had nothing to lose. A reverse-dated Kill Order has already been signed, and legally your actions were very much self-defence," Legend reassures me. "As for me being here, the PRT has decided it is best that we make a show of power to prevent any unwanted outsiders trying to slide into the place of the now defunct ABB."
…defunct?!
I really am the greatest hero of all, truly. Behold my power, destroying an entire gang while knocked out on pain meds in a hospital bed. Witness my almighty influence or some shit.
As Legend welcomes me to the Ward program, I confirm something in my mind. My power is a gamechanger, and today I swear this. I'm going to walk up to some of the most feared villains in the world… and hit them with a big stick.
Imma hit them all.
— Bonus Scene — Max Anders (Kaiser)
With Lung gone, they were in a new Brockton Bay this morning. Lung had always been his biggest threat, the true enemy that had prevented the Empire Eighty-Eight from taking over the city entirely. The beast was just too powerful to be challenged directly, and even indirect challenges could result in a giant rage dragon burning down half your territory to save face.
But breathing the air of a Brockton Bay no longer tainted by Lung, he smiled deeply. He knew he had to act fast before the vacuum drew in more challengers. Even the Merchants were trying to make a move, but they were easily slapped back into their place. No, he needed to fear the Teeth, the Elite, and other gangs that could pose an actual threat to his plans.
While the ABB collapsed, he would show that the Empire was strong, that they were stable, that-
"Max!" Victor shouted, his smile replaced with a scowl at the interruption of his thoughts.
"This had better be good," Max warned, giving Victor a disapproving stare.
"Alexandria and Legend are here," Victor half-shouted. "Alexandria just swatted Hookwolf like a fly, and captured him, Stormtiger and Cricket."
…fuck.