Quest Complete! Who Am ICompletion Rewards:
1000 EXP
2 Loose SP
It had taken a few days but it looked like Cameron had finally become well known enough for my Who Am I quest to complete. It made sense though, she had been being kept busy for the past couple of days.
Robbed a jewelersGained:
100 EXP
Burgaled a wealthy residenceGained:
50 EXP
Stole corporate secretsGained:
200 EXP
Coil was sending Cameron on jobs nearly every day. Which was good because not only did it mean that she got to rise up in Coil's esteem much more quickly, but also revealed to me that experience wasn't just from doing quests or defeating enemies. I figured that if I went out and rescued people from burning buildings I would also get experience. Luckily there hadn't been any burning buildings in town for me to test that theory on.
I was also able to do work on the hero side of things, tracking down some of the criminals that Cameron had worked with and finding ways to take them down coincidentally. Not for all of them of course, that would be too suspicious, but the ones that seemed to be the most violent and likely to commit crimes again. All the work paid off and I even managed to eke out a level up from it all.
Defeated 4 jewel thievesGained:
100 EXPLevel Up!
Level 15
+1 SP Cap
1 Power Roll
The Power Roll was nice to get, especially since I had decided to start rounding out my list of powers. Mover and Blaster so far didn't have any tier 1 powers with them. Landstiener and Circus Acrobat were able to provide tier 1 equivalents to my rolodex of powers, but they wouldn't count towards my Tier 2 quest.
1d2=1=Mover
My final decision landed on Mover. My Tinker persona would give me plenty of long range options once she debuted in a week or so and while I had my jetpack I honest to god wanted to be able to fly under my own power. So I pulled up my system and rolled.
1d41=14=Infiltrator
Mover/Thinker: InfiltratorCost: 4 SPYou possess a mastery of entry and escape, making you a true expert in navigating barriers. Whether it's a high-security compound or a locked vault, you instinctively analyze the structure, spotting weak points and assessing the level of difficulty with startling precision. This grants you an intuitive sense of how "escapable" or "break-inable" any location is, as well as the best actions and plans to maximize your chances of success. While it can't overcome the truly impossible, your skill ensures that given enough time and resources, most barriers will fall before your expertise.
Oh that was good, not flying but good. Low SP but it still provided an insane amount of utility. Just to get a basic idea of how it worked I thought about the PRT headquarters downtown. I automatically sensed that breaking in and out would be highly difficult, but more than possible with my abilities. This would make replacing Cameron much easier and once I got more info on Coil's operations make gathering evidence a breeze. Hopefully my tier 0 powers were just as useful.
7d115=62+73+67+8+64+65+23=Book Osmosis+Biocompatibility+Bane of Paperwork+Black Bone+Sharp Teeth+Cypher+Precise Strike
Striker/Thinker: (Book Osmosis)Cost: 1 SPBy touching a book, you can absorb its contents and gain all the knowledge within. You will have a perfect understanding of the knowledge. However, if you try to absorb all the information too quickly, you may suffer from headaches, and you will have trouble remembering the material. You can also use this power while asleep, passively gaining knowledge of books you are touching as you rest. However, in this case, much of the information will be stored in your subconscious, making it harder to access directly. Instead, it may come to you in the form of instincts, dreams, or sudden insights. This does not protect you from hazardous information.
Brute: (Biocompatibility)Cost: 1 SPYour genetic makeup becomes somewhat malleable, able to temporarily adapt to foreign bodies entering your system or adapt your biological material to foreign bodies.
You can transplant organs, transfuse blood, and so on without fear of rejection even if the donor is an alien, a mutant, or anybody else. This works both ways, so you act both as a universal recipient and a universal donor. This even allows you to have children with races that are normally biologically incompatible with you, with the resulting offspring becoming true hybrids, gaining all the benefits and lessening the drawbacks of the parent's respective species.
Thinker/Shaker: (Bane of Paperwork)Cost: 1 SPYou have gained the ability to defeat the greatest threat to any being in a position of power: paperwork. No matter how much needs to be done, you can complete it in no more than 30 minutes and be done as if you dedicated yourself completely to the task with all of your knowledge and abilities.
Brute: (Black Bone)Cost: 1 SPYour bones have become unnaturally dense and refined, granting them incredible durability—capable of withstanding tremendous pressure and even deflecting blades. Though your flesh may still suffer damage, your skeletal integrity far surpasses that of an ordinary human, forcing opponents to risk shattering their own bones upon impact with yours.
As a result of the heightened rigidity in your skeleton and joints, your muscles can now exert far greater strength than they would normally, without fear of fractures or breakage. If you wish, your bones may even take on a black color.
Brute/Changer: (Sharp Teeth)Cost: 1 SPYour teeth become incredibly strong, like titanium, and are sharp like razors. You can also change their shape, color, and slight structure—defaulting to a shark-like appearance. Your oral cavity and tongue gain equal strength, ensuring you don't accidentally cut your tongue and if you try to chew on concrete or metal, swallowing such materials is not advisable.
Thinker: (Cypher)Cost: 1 SPYou are a natural hyper-linguist, and a subsection of your brain is built for storing and processing what you know about languages, including both their meaning and grammar. This applies to all forms of language, including but not limited to verbal, written, and even body language, given enough time. The process is faster the more languages you know and the more similar the new language is to ones you already know. This won't allow for you to immediately understand someone's language but will significantly speed up the process.
Striker: (Precise Strike)Cost: 1 SPYou can exert a precise force on any surface you are directly touching. This force may be exerted in any way you desire, whether it's a poke, slash, or even manipulating a tool. The maximum force that can be exerted is based on your own strength, and it gets more precise the slower you are. A quick punch would only have the precision of a poke, but touching for a minute would allow for atomic precision.
Those were all incredibly useful abilities. Book Osmosis would probably be an enormous time saver, not to mention the utility in being able to read any financial records the bad guys keep as hard copies in an instant. Cypher was a good companion to my already expanded mental capabilities. I had looked over some primers for different languages just in case but with Cypher all the information clicked in a way that just made sense. Precise Strike was a multiplier for Tinkering, letting me manipulate things on a deeper more singular level. Bane of Paperwork was cute and I would probably love myself for rolling it in the future.
The Brute powers though were the biggest ones. After so long rolling for powers I was able to tell that there was going to be more to them.
Golden BodyCost: Projectile Genetic Template+Hysterical Strength+Pink Muscle+Black Bone+Lung+Reaction+Contortionist+Efficient Automatic Systems+Waste Not Want NotYour body is physically perfect, combining immense strength, endurance, and agility without any weaknesses. You do not age or deteriorate over time, remaining in peak condition indefinitely.
You possess strength at the absolute peak of human potential, capable of lifting up to 4,000 kg (8,800 lbs) under optimal conditions. Your endurance is limitless; you never tire, allowing you to exert yourself at full capacity indefinitely without the need for rest or recovery. Your durability is exceptional—your muscles and skin are as soft as silk to the touch yet resistant to extreme forces, withstanding low to medium-caliber bullets and immense pressure without harm.
Your speed and agility are unmatched. You move with the coordination of a master acrobat, reacting in milliseconds to any stimulus. Your body operates with absolute precision, ensuring that every motion is efficient and perfectly executed. No movement is wasted, no balance is lost, and no action is beyond your control.
Your lifespan extends far beyond that of ordinary beings. You are biologically immortal, able to live for thousands of years and more without experiencing physical decline. Time holds no power over you; you will never weaken, never wither, and never degrade. Your body does not scar, wrinkle, or suffer from wear, remaining as pristine and flawless as the day you were born.
Your appearance reflects this perfection. Every feature is symmetrical, every muscle ideally sculpted, and no imperfection mars your form. Whether in motion or at rest, you embody both power and grace, an existence without physical flaw or limitation.
Shattered LimitsCost: Hysterical Strength+Pink Muscle+Black BoneYour refined Pink musculature now has a perfect anchor in your Black bones. Previously, despite your enhanced muscles, you couldn't fully unleash their power without risking fractures. That limitation is gone. Your skeletal structure is now strong enough to withstand the full force of your muscles, allowing you to exert your full strength without fear of injury.
Strong JawsCost: Strong Teeth+Hysterical Strength+ContortionistYour jaws are enhanced to complement your teeth, significantly increasing both its range of motion and its bite strength.
With this, you could even fit and crush multiple bricks in your mouth if you wanted.
LegaleseCost: Cypher+Understanding+Bane of PaperworkYour ability to complete paperwork has been upgraded to include all kinds of legalese, and every bit of paperwork you now do is fool-proof within the legal system you work in. No lawyer or devil can find any loophole in any documents you've helped create.
Guided EvolutionCost: Biocompatibility+Type: HumanityYou are no longer at the mercy of random mutations. When you transplant an organ or a body part onto yourself, the constantly adapting nature of your DNA will assimilate all the positive traits of the transplanted body part and gradually spread them over to the rest of your body. These new traits will perfectly integrate with your biology, never hindering you or causing unwanted changes.
And I was right. Oh god this was the Brute equivalent of Favorite of Landsteiner or Comprehension. I held up one of my hands and just clenched and unclenched my fists. There was a new strength to them. Golden Body was basically the end goal of what Type Humanity was trying to do. I had skipped to the front of the line essentially. Golden Body alone would be able to turn me into a top tier cape.
And I was immortal now. I was going to outlive Madison, and Glory Girl, and literally everybody else I ever met unless I was somehow killed. Speaking of the only real way to kill me at this point would probably be to cut off my head or destroy my brain. This was…I didn't even know what this was.
Let's Play
I hadn't really been able to properly organize my thoughts about Golden Body even by lunch on Friday. Thankfully I was able to distract myself with my plans with Sophia and Emma.
Emma had finally confronted Sophia about that day on the trail and it had obviously gone wrong. Emma was pointedly ignoring Sophia while Sophia was looking at me with anger rather than the slight fear that she had been the past week.
Emma was also doing some sort of a power play by focusing her conversation with Madison instead of Sophia or me. I wasn't able to figure out if I was being 'punished' alongside Sophia or if she was just trying to show herself to be neutral between the two of us. Madison herself was slightly confused, but she was a social chameleon so she was able to figure out some of what was going on and started engaging with Emma.
The me at the cafeteria wasn't the only me that was active though. Cameron was in the middle of something big, having been called about a job today just last night.
"So you're the metal girl?" The large creature in power armor asked.
Cameron looked up at him. His face looked human, but also like it could just as easily not. Looking through the armor for any gaps, weak points to exploit if things went wrong she could almost see fleshy tendrils going through the machinery.
"Yup! I'm Cameron!" The metal girl said cheerfully. "And you're Trainwreck? You run the Merchants now, right?"
Her fellow Case 53 scoffed. "Pretty much I guess. Now I heard you can handle yourself in a fight, took down that Browbeef guy yeah?" Cameron nodded. "Good, because I'm going to need some extra muscle."
Cameron's handler had been light on the information, just that Trainwreck reached out through the fixer to hire her.
And that was the first lie that I had noticed, my powers letting me know that Trainwreck hadn't used the fixer's services. However he was still there making me wonder how exactly he had hired Cameron.
"Just point me at them and I'll take care of them!" Cameron was itching for a good fight since taking on Browbeat.
"Easy kid, we have until tonight. Let me fill you in." Cameron nodded her head vigorously. "So you know who the Ambassadors are?" Cameron shook her head. "Alright, well long story short they're a Boston gang trying to take the same turf I am. I've set up shop at the Trainyard, and them in the Boat Graveyard.
"Now their capes are a bunch of pansies, I could kill the fuckers in a heartbeat if I got to them, but thier boss is some bigshot in Boston and keeps sending them enough money, guns, and men to keep them in the fight." That just sounded like posturing to Cameron, but she was smart enough to leave well enough alone. "Unfortunately for those fuckers I found out when one of their shipments are coming in. Crazy asshats are actually going to be bringing stuff in by boat."
"Is it that weird?" Cameron asked. "I mean they're right by the water aren't they?"
"Nah. The entire upper coast is filled with old ass ships. Only person crazy enough to run a boat through there was Squealer, and only cause the broad's bullshit tinker crap was extra durable."
"Until the Ambassadors?"
Trainwreck nodded. "Until those asshats. Don't know if it's Tinkertech or they just got a good captain, but they have a shipment of guns coming in tonight. You're going to help me steal them and arm my own guys."
I didn't like the sound of that. Merchants with whatever weaponry Accord was willing to give his Ambassadors? Not something I wanted to let happen. I needed to get in contact with Glory Girl. I had class in the computer room after school so I should be able to contact her on PHO.
Lunch with my main body was spent just passively observing the rest of the table, Sophia in particular. She was getting antsy and would probably confront me again soon. That was a dangerous variable so it was time to spring it in a controlled environment.
I pretended to check the time and stood up. "I got to talk to Mr. Quinlan so I'm heading out early. See you guys in class." And left. As expected Sophia got up a second later and began to follow me.
I led her to a part of the school that was rarely frequented and waited for her to turn the corner. The second she did I grabbed her and pushed her against the wall.
"Did you need to talk to Mr. Quinlan too?" I gave my voice a sarcastic bend to it.
"Let go of me!" She tried to remove my hands but I stood firm. "What the hell is your problem? You're the one who said not to tell Emma anything!"
"No." My voice was firm and commanding. "I said that you wouldn't tell Emma what happened on the trail. She asked me and I don't lie to my friends."
"I've never lied to Em-"
I cut her off. "Oh Emma, I absolutely know Taylor can trigger. Yeah there's no doubt in my mind she has what it takes. Don't worry once its over she'll be able to be our friend, no she won't be mad at you, she'll even be fucking thankful we ruined her life!" My anger sunk into my words towards the end.
Sophia was silent.
"Don't forget, I'm on top." I slipped a bit of True Hypnotist into my words and eyes. "There's nothing you can do that I don't know about. Like your little jaunt last night to Lord Street? Three muggings and a drug dealer? I'm almost impressed."
"How?" Her eyes widened.
"I. Own. You. So just stay in your lane." I then let go of Sophia. She had been sufficiently cowed and wouldn't make any moves for some time. Enough for me to focus on Coil and then figure out a safe way to get rid of her without her exposing my secret identity. I walked away leaving the girl standing there stunned.
Let's Play
Cameron could barely hold her nervous energy as the sun set. Any second now the Ambassadors and their men would show up to wait for their shipment. Her and Trainwreck were hiding alongside some of his best men, waiting for their chance to strike.
Finally they arrived, the Ambassadors. They came with several large vans, most likely to transport the weapons they were receiving. They would be taking those vans for the Merchants on the way back.
The people that stepped out very obviously didn't belong in Brockton, or at least here in the Boat Graveyard. They wore clean suits and outfits without any actual stains or signs of wear and tear on them. Cameron had asked about them, and apparently their boss was some anal retentive freak that was obsessed with everything being perfect and fitting his aesthetic. Nothing made that more clear than when the two capes stepped out of the car.
First was the woman. Her outfit was all black, basically a ballgown, black as pitch with several gemstones studded into it. On her head she wore a black mask that covered the top of her face and had several spikes that protruded from it. All the spikes were symmetrical though. That one was Cassiterite. From what Trainwreck told him she could shoot out spikes that went right through anything other than his power armor. She wondered if her metallic skin was safe or if it would be pierced right through. Cameron couldn't wait to find out.
Following was a man wearing all green. Green suit, green tie, green undershirt. The only thing that wasn't green was his mask, a perfectly symmetrical copper lizard head that completely covered his. Lizardtail. Trainwreck didn't know what he could do, since he was almost never out in the field, and when he was he would be surrounded by goons that did all his fighting.
Cameron also noticed the large disparity in weaponry. The men they brought had some serious hardware, some machine guns, shotguns, even a few rifles. Comparatively all Trainwrecks men, which were much fewer in number, had were small pistols and a single shotgun that had probably belonged to the man's grandfather. Any real hardware that the Merchants had was captured when the previous leadership had been taken out.
This battle would have to be won through quality of capes, not of guns, so it was up to Cameron and Trainwreck.
The large Tinker turned to Cameron and mouthed "On three."
One
Two
Thr-
The countdown was interrupted by a streak of white and blond crashing into the largest congregation of men with guns.
It took Cameron a second to adjust to what was happening. That was Glory Girl, who had just crashed into the men. Her attention was then drawn to the other end of the Ambassadors, who seemed to have another parahuman going through their ranks.
I knocked out Ambassadors as fast as I could. The original plan was going to be to wait for them and the Merchants to start fighting, but very quickly I realized that it would become a blood bath if we allowed the two gangs to start shooting. The best course of action, at least in terms of minimizing loss of life, would be to go in first and take out the Ambassadors with guns non lethally.
As I tore through the unpowered goons I kept an eye on the capes. They reacted quickly, Cassiterite threw several black star shaped objects that started bouncing around, all heading towards Glory Girl. She would be fine if it was just one, but several were going to hit at the same time, causing her shield to fall. I made to move towards her, but all of a sudden a hand grabbed my leg and pulled me with a force I did not anticipate causing me to fall to the ground. I turned and saw one of the people I had knocked out was awake again, his eyes glowing green and I could see through Third Eye some sort of parahuman power was affecting him. That had to be Lizardtail. I kicked the offending goon and stood up, realizing that everybody I had knocked out was getting up and they all were affected by Lizardtail.
I looked at Glory Girl, she had managed to fly herself out of the way of the stars; but Cassiterite wasn't letting up on firing them. I didn't have much time to do anything though because the Lizardtail affected Ambassadors had charged at me. Whatever had been done to them was making them stronger, faster, and much much harder to put down. Even the one I knocked out a second time had stood back up again.
It was like fighting a swarm of zombies.
I leapt out of the way of two of them who tried to grab me only to have my legs tackled out from under me. Once I was down again all the Ambassadors just began to kick at me. It didn't hurt, not with all my compounding powers, but it still was keeping me down. I didn't know just how strong Lizardtail was making them, so I needed to raise the strength I was using only a little bit at a time. If I accidentally used too much force and killed them instead of knocking them out I would never forgive myself.
So I was adjusting to fighting these empowered mooks and Glory Girl was stuck fighting somebody who was just a bad match for her. We needed backup.
Cameron looked on at the fight in jealousy. She was supposed to be down there. "I called dibs on Cassiterite!" She stood up and turned one of her arms into a shield and the other into a blade. "Trainwreck you take out the flying bimbo, I was hired to fight Ambassadors and so that's what I'm going to do."
Trainwreck cursed as she started rushing towards the battle but followed behind her anyways.
"Hey! Cassette tape!" Cameron shouted as she charged directly at the black clad blaster. To her credit Cassiterite didn't even hesitate as she changed the target of her assault to the metallic girl.
The villain raised her shield arm and as the black stars approached her they elongated into spikes that she intercepted with the shield. They didn't pierce all the way through and it hurt like hell but Cameron relished in the pain. She missed the heart pounding excitement of being in the middle of a fight.
Glory Girl didn't have much time to process the additions to the fight before a large metal suit of armor came leaping towards her. She mostly dodged out of the way, but a glancing hit caused her to stumble in the air and took out her forcefield.
She reorientated and stared down Trainwreck who had landed on top of one of the vans the Ambassadors had driven here. "So I guess you're my dance partner?"
"Guess so blondie." And Trainwreck raised up his armored fists and signaled for Glory Girl to come at him.
This was a much better scenario. Trainwreck was a very crude Tinker, he didn't make anything fancy, just the power armor with brute strength behind it and in a brawn vs. brawn battle Glory Girl was usually the one that came out on top. Cameron's metallic body was resisting Cassiterite's projectiles making her a good opponent against the Blaster.
Meanwhile with me. I had finally figured out exactly how much strength to use.
I grabbed the leg of one of the kicking Ambassadors and then swung him around to knock the others away. I used a burst of speed to get up and to a less crowded area to assess the situation.
All of the nonpowered Ambassadors had started swarming towards me, all affected by Lizardtail. Each one was maybe Brute 1, Brute 2 in terms of strength, and had a healing factor that made them troublesome to put down. I knew how to hit them without killing them, but they had a tendency to not stay down. Pain meant nothing to them, and so I was going to have to do something a little more physical to keep them from getting back up.
The first one that came towards me I kicked in the leg so hard it snapped in two. Broken bones were probably the most difficult thing to heal properly, even with a healing factor. That would keep that one down for a while.
Seeing their comrades leg bent the wrong way the other empowered mooks seemed hesitant to approach, but a shout of "There's twenty of you and one of her!" Spurred them into action. Time to break a few legs.
Cameron was still charging at Cassiterite when the arm she was using to catch all of her spiked stars jerked and caused her to lose balance. The spikes that had stuck to her shield arm had extended from the opposite end and had attached to the ground, holding Cameron in place.
"Nice try darling!" Cassiterite shouted as she threw a star aimed right at Cameron's head.
Right before it hit Cameron melted into liquid metal, not only causing the star to fly right through her but also freeing her from the ones that had caught her arm. She reformed on all fours, her fingers and toes extended into sharp claws and she began to rush towards Cassiterite, the extra grip from her claws propelling her forward.
Cassiterite threw star after star but most went wide of the metal girl and those that didn't she could dodge with ease. Quickly she was upon the Blaster and leapt forward to swipe at her with a claw. Then she felt several sharp objects impale her back.
"Rebounds are a real pain in the ass aren't they?" And then the stars that had reflected to hit Cameron in the back extended to the ground causing her to fall off balance. She easily liquefied herself to get free but Cassiterite had already retreated back and getting hit with so many stars caused her to lose a decent amount of mass.
I didn't have time to worry about my other self though because I discovered a new quirk of Lizardtail's powers. The less people he had under his power's effects the stronger the effect was. As I broke the legs of his men he would remove them from his power and then the others would get that much stronger. The more progress I made the harder things became, and it that wasn't a metaphor for my life I didn't know what was.
It didn't even matter too much until things got into the single digits. That was when each individual became a hassle. 9 and 8 were taken out by me slamming their heads together to knock them down and then twisting their ankles until their feet were pointing the wrong way. 7 managed to grab my arms from behind to give 6 the chance to attack me with impunity. I used my inhuman flexibility to leap over 7 and reverse our positions, removing his arms from their sockets in the process. 6 then continued his assault, and his punch had even bloodied my nose a little, but it also put his wrist into prime breaking position.
At that point 5, 4, and 3 backed away and the power left them. All that was left was 1, 2, and Lizardtail behind them. The two were big and strong, even without the empowerment. I wouldn't be surprised if these were Lizardtail's personal men, people used to being empowered by him. They both pulled knives from their belts. Karambits, small blades that fit into the small of their hands. The way they held them implied military training. I decided to name 1 John and 2 Bill. Just for fun. They started moving to be on opposite sides of me.
John leaned forward as if to rush me, but I saw through the feint and dodged a slice right to my neck by Bill. I swung my arm at him but he caught it and John rushed in with a flying knee right to my elbow. A normal person would have had their arm snap like a twig, hell, even my arm might have as well just a few days ago. However my new bones were built different and despite creaking under the stress they didn't falter. I then swung my leg around to slam into John from behind as he was still landing from his strike. The hit landed but despite being sent flying he was unharmed as he stood up. While I was attacking his friend, Bill took the opportunity to take his knife and jam it into the soft spot of my elbow and pull it towards him as he let go of my arm.
I leapt back but the damage was done. My flexor tendons were cut and my arm was useless until they healed. That could take up to a minute, maybe less depending on just how efficient Golden Body made my cells. That did mean a full minute of fending off John and Bill with one arm.
They were still below me in terms of physical strength but that didn't mean that their combat training didn't make them a threat. Right now I put them at maybe a little less than half my full potential with just Golden Body, and that also meant I would be fighting somebody that essentially had Golden Body plus military training once I took one out. It was time to get serious.
I began to overclock my heart with Landsteiner. Then
Surge
And the instant I felt my body's abilities multiply by five I cranked Sandevastan to the max. For a split second my abilities were equivalent to that of a high tier cape like Alexandria. And thanks to my speed that split second lasted as long as I needed it to.
Faster than a hummingbird could flap its wings I rushed forward and with one hand twisted the arms of John and Bill 360 degrees.
From the perspective of an outsider I just suddenly appeared behind the two and their arms were twisted like a pretzel.
For a second nobody moved. And then blood started streaming from my nose, eyes, and ears. "Fuck." Before Golden Body I would have died having done that. Now I could survive it, but I wouldn't be able to do it again for a while and I wouldn't be very pretty during recovery tonight.
I was still functional right now though and so I ran towards Lizardtail and knocked him out with a quick punch to the temple.
I looked over at Glory Girl. She had won her brawl with Trainwreck, having destroyed one of his arms, and then threw him into a nearby beached boat.
Cameron was heavily injured, having lost maybe twenty percent of her body mass, but Cassiterite was downed at her feet. So I had won, but it wasn't over.
Glory Girl moved to my side, giving me a shoulder to lean on as I caught my breath from overclocking myself. We both stared down Cameron who was panting hard, but still had her arms transformed into claws.
Glory Girl was still at full strength, her battle against Trainwreck difficult but not draining, so she could handle Cameron by herself. But of course we didn't want Cameron to be handled since she was our woman on the inside with Coil.
I could easily make her retreat, and Glory Girl and I could make a convincing show of looking for her, but it was going to be annoying getting trust back after Cameron abandoned the person that contracted her. At least it was better than having to blow her cover.
I was about to update the thought program controlling Cameron when something caught my eye in the bay.
Cameron was facing down two capes and fully expecting the fight of her life, but then their eyes widened and she turned to see what looked to be a large yellow boat headed right towards them. The metal girl didn't even have time to react before it slammed right into the part of the docks that she was standing on.
Glory Girl grabbed me and pulled me back away from the crash and my mind processed exactly what was going on. The boat wasn't yellow, rather there seemed to be an aura of yellow surrounding the boat, and somehow the nautical vehicle was just ignoring any impacts against the sunken boats that littered this part of the bay. That had to be the Ambassadors' shipment of weapons and the yellow aura the reason they could make it through the Boat Graveyard. That was as far as my mind went before a woman stepped out of the helm. She seemed to be the center of the yellow aura, and so I couldn't tell if she was a blond woman wearing a yellow dress similar to Cassiterite's or if she decided to deviate from what was probably her power's color scheme. Oh, and she was holding two AK-47s.
She immediately started firing and Glory Girl and I took cover behind one of the vans. I offhandily noted that she didn't seem to be suffering any recoil from the guns. Cameron was out for the count, buried underneath the boat that just landed. She could make it out eventually but not in time to help us fight without using powers I hadn't assigned to her.
From the sounds of the bullets I could tell she was getting closer to us, and that meant so was her aura. I had no idea what the yellow woman could do, but I wasn't too keen to find out.
"Shard, how're you feeling?" Glory Girl checked in on me.
"My body is screaming at me to take a warm bath and I'm still bleeding out my right ear but other than that I'm fine." Glory Girl laughed as much as one could when under fire. "And well I admit I was expecting some resistance once the boat came in but a yellow woman shooting at us with machine guns wasn't really on the top of the list."
"Her name is Citrine I think, my parents have mentioned her during debriefs about neighboring cities. She's Accord's number two. No idea what she can do though."
"Well that's helpful." All of a sudden the shooting stopped.
"She has to be reloading. You stay here, I've got her!" And before I could protest Glory Girl flew out of cover and right at Citrine. I peeked over our bulletridden cover and saw Glory Girl going in like a meteor, then suddenly stopped not far from Citrine with a shocked look on her face. Citrine shot forward and slammed the butt of one of her guns into Glory Girl's gut, completely unimpeded by her forcefield. That was not supposed to happen. The shimmering aura that always surrounded Glory Girl was gone. Her shield was missing.
To Glory Girl's credit she immediately adapted to not having her protection and started throwing punches, but this Citrine woman was trained well, I was even willing to hazard that she was better than John and Bill. Glory Girl was getting her ass kicked, and the only way to help her was to go into the yellow aura. I really hoped I didn't regret this.
I turned up Sandevastan and ran through the aura as fast as I could, grabbing Glory Girl and dragging her with me outside of the aura. Once out I returned to normal speed, my body aching. I wished I hadn't been so rash in using my powers to take down Lizardtail's goons.
The woman turned and looked at me then began moving towards the downed cape I had taken out not long ago. She reached down and grabbed him by his collar. "Buy me time Lizardtail." And all of a sudden the green cape stood up under his own power, in more ways than one. Through my Third Eye I could tell that he was using his power on himself. That wasn't right, if he could do that before he would have, there was no reason to hold back previously. Realization washed over me. This woman had somehow removed his Manton Limit.
The exact mechanics of her power were eluding me, she did something to the boat to let it ignore hitting downed ships, she removed the recoil of her guns, Glory Girl's personal forcefield vanished, but not her flight or her aura, and she seemingly removed Lizardtails Manton Limit. Did she remove certain things inside her aura? That was too simple but I didn't have enough data.
My mental processes had to be shoved to the background though because Lizardtail rushed forward towards me. Glory Girl was still catching her breath so even in my weakened state I ran to meet him. His strength and speed were inferior, but his healing seemed better than mine because he appeared completely fine as we met with an exchange of punches compared to my more sluggish movements. As we met I was also engulfed in Citrine's aura. I waited for something to happen but nothing did and I dodged under a blow from Lizardtail and returned it with an uppercut that knocked him off his feet. At this point Glory Girl had recovered and rushed in again, and I watched her hoping to see the moment that her shield disappeared but it never came. Instead her approach to Citrine was stopped by Lizardtail leaping up and pulling her down. She kicked him off of her, but her powers remained completely unaffected.
"My powers are still working. Any idea why?" Glory Girl asked me as we caught our breaths, retreating right outside the yellow aura. The less time spent in it the better.
"She can affect powers, that's why Lizardtail can all of a sudden empower himself. But it only works on one power at a time. At least that's as much as I can figure out." That didn't explain how the boat worked.
"Okay, any reason she empowered Lizardtail instead of depowering you?"
That I was even less sure about. Thinking through it, Glory Girl's flight wasn't affected even though her shield was. So maybe only one power could be affected at a time. I had countless so Citrine could just not have known which one would result in shutting me down, which was none considering how compounding my powers became. Or it could be based on time. Different types of power could take different amounts of time in the aura before being 'decoded' so to say. Glory Girl's shield might just be an easy power to get rid of comparatively.
I growled. It was all conjecture and without more data I couldn't get an answer. "Not enough data. She's too much of an unknown."
Glory Girl turned to me with a wide grin. "Only way out is through?"
"Hell yeah. Just make sure to stay between me and the gun. We don't know when she'll turn off your invincibility again." I whispered that part. She nodded and we repositioned. Citrine and Lizardtail hadn't sat still during our conversation. Citrine had reloaded the rifle she had been using before and Lizardtail was honest to god stretching.
Both of us slowly inched towards the other, waiting for the first move to be done. Then, barely an inch before we would enter the yellow aura, Citrine raised her gun and fired. In an instant I used my arms to cover my head and upper chest. I could survive anything, but I didn't want to tax my healing any more than I had to.
The heavy bullets slammed into me, but only barely broke skin falling away from my golden body. However in the instant my vision was blocked by my own arms everything became yellow and I felt two heavy hands grab me. Lizardtail. A sudden knee to my gut just about took my breath away even through Solidarity, and I decided to return the favor by headbutting him hard enough to shatter his nose. Unfortunately that gave Citrine time to reorient her aim and fire a spray of bullets at Glory Girl.
I slipped into bullet time and almost instinctively used Sandevastan but I stopped when I saw the position Glory Girl had put herself in.
I returned my thoughts to normal time and Glory Girl had already floated to less than a foot above the floor, with the bullets passing right over her, and then started flying right above the ground to avoid the follow up. With Glory Girl safe I made a leap to the woman creating the aura we were fighting in, only to be grabbed full body by Lizardtail and dragged to the ground. His nose was already healed, he definitely had a way better healing factor than I did. It almost made me wish this fight was at the trainyard and not the docks. At least at the trainyard I could find some earth to stand on and heal Sandevastan's damage with Antaeus, here there was nothing but dead concrete.
Lizardtail kept his grip on me and was trying to put me in some sort of hold, I didn't know what kind but I wasn't about to find out. Contortionist meant I was as slippery as a snake when I reversed the hold on him, I hadn't used my parahuman flexibility in this battle yet so he was taken aback.
Then Unwavering Grip meant when I put him in a headlock nothing he could do would shake me loose. He tried to dig his chin to avoid the hold, but I activated Meathead, increasing the size of my muscles by three. My strength was now about the quality of my muscle and some non biological backing now so I didn't use it as often, but here I was able to use it to reduce the space his neck had to exist in.
Normally it would only take seconds to knock somebody out like this, but of course Lizardtail had parahuman endurance and a healing factor. With Diagnostic I could tell choking him out was going to take way too long.
Meanwhile Glory Girl had been forced to go into close range with Citrine. Her maneuvering was the best out of all of New Wave but it was still unrealistic to consistently outrun an automatic weapon. So she had to close the distance, get past the effective range of Citrine's gun. Unfortunately that meant getting into a hand to hand fight with a woman who seemed better trained than most soldiers.
Glory Girl was tough, she was experienced, but she was also a Brute. In my research on parahumans I noticed that many Brutes fought with the expectation of exchanging blows. You hit them and then they hit you. Even I fell prey to it sometimes, the blows that hit me weren't always to charge up Yang It!. Citrine though wasn't a Brute. Instead she fought like somebody who would die if she took a single one of the devastating blows that Glory Girl sent out, and with Glory Girl not having any powers to boost speed, only strength, that meant that Citrine's fighting style was winning out. Plus she had her own win condition the same way Glory Girl did. Citrine still had her gun in her grip, using it to push Glory Girl away or bash her with it, a consistent way for Citrine to break the shield, and wherever the barrel of that gun was pointing was where Glory Girl couldn't be or she's face a spray of bullets of which only the first would be stopped.
I had absolute faith that Glory Girl could win the stalemate. It was just tha-my train of thought was interrupted by feeling a piece of rusted metal pierce my side. I looked down and saw Lizardtail had grabbed some loose rebar and stabbed it into my side in an attempt to get me to loosen my grip. Thanks to Painkiller I only felt a fizzy sensation and the rusted shiv couldn't penetrate my muscles deep enough to cause any damage so I didn't break my grip.
I had faith that Glory Girl would win, but only if the same conditions were kept. Citrine also had one eye on me and Lizardtail. The moment Lizardtail went down she would switch the focus of this weird aura of hers to knock out Glory Girl's shield and if that happened could I get to them fast enough to keep Glory Girl from being killed? If I let go of Lizardtail then we could at least join the melee and I could watch Glory Girl's back, but I showed my hand with Contortionist and my body wasn't recovering from the Sandevastan/Surge/Landsteiner combo as fast as I would have liked while he would recover from this chokehold in almost no time at all.
Then there was also the option that Citrine could give up on Lizardtail and go for a mutual kill between him and Glory Girl. Time slowed to a crawl as I rushed to figure out the best course of action. Citrine was just too much of a variable. I had no idea what she would do and at any moment she could pull another rabbit out of her ass with her aura I didn't understand.
The fight had to be over fast, and this stalemate was the opposite of fast.
I let my perception of the world return to normal and used both of my legs to kick Lizardtail straight at Citrine. She dodged and he caught himself in the middle of being a missile and landed on his feet. The important part though was Glory Girl could retreat and we could get back into position with my up front.
We were right back to the beginning, except all of us were breathing much harder. Even me with my Golden Body was having a time of it. I had never felt more alive.
"Glory Girl, you good?"
"Yeah. You?"
"Never better." I had to expand what in my arsenal I was using. I didn't like using my corrosive blood against living things, but Lizardtail could heal. I increased the speed at which my blood flowed through my body and started to reorganize my attack plan. Then the ship that Glory Girl had thrown Trainwreck into exploded.
"You threw me into a boat you fucking bitch!" The crude tinker strode out of the shipwreck with fury in his eyes. The arm that Glory Girl had smashed was already replaced by components in the ship. My Tinker brain could tell that it was a rush job though, even by the standards of the rest of Trainwreck's armor. It wouldn't last more than two blows with Glory Girl. Then I saw the fuel tank obscured by rusted metal and realized that was the point. Trainwreck had built himself a bomb for an arm.
I tried to remember how well Glory Girl's power worked against explosions and realized she never told me. I moved my eyes between Trainwreck and Citrine. Between a rock and a hard bomb. How the hell was I supposed to end this battle quickly in this state. It might be worth it to unveil a new power as Shard. Otherwise I couldn't win. My thoughts were interrupted by a sigh of relief from Citrine.
"Finally." Citrine said softly. "I have to say, I've never had to sort through so many frequencies before. You are quite unique." I saw Lizardtail's power leave him and I tensed up, prepared for anything.
I wasn't prepared for my body to feel like it was attacking itself. I felt my biology betray me as my independent cells rioted and began destroying the systems that they were meant to protect.
"AAAGGGHHH!!!!" I couldn't help but scream out in pain, Painkiller failing me. Glory Girl acted on instinct and flew me into the air, out of the yellow aura. The rebellion stopped, but the pain didn't as my body all of a sudden switched gears to trying to fix what it had just broken. The suddenness of it was too much and I lost consciousness and the last thing I saw was a look of shock on Citrine's face.
Cameron managed to ooze herself out of the bottom of the crashed ship and found herself in the oddest Mexican standoff she's ever seen(also her first but what does that matter). Glory Girl was floating in the air holding an unconscious Shard, Lizardtail was holding an unconscious Cassiterite in his arms and standing next to a yellow woman inside a yellow aura, and somehow Trainwreck had returned from his being thrown into a ship and had replaced the broken parts of his armor with the ship wreck he had been in.
"So that's the deal then?" The yellow woman asked. "We go back to Boston, Glory Girl gets the guns, and the Merchants get the Boat Graveyard." She was completely lost but Glory Girl and Trainwreck both gave their affirmations.
The metal Case 53 moved to stand next to Trainwreck. "Hey, what's happening? Why did we stop fighting?"
The tinker regarded her with surprise that she was still alive. "Too many losses on all sides. If we keep fighting chances are one of us gets dead."
"Yeah, them probably." Cameron complained, although she wasn't actually going to kill anybody. Maybe just some slight maiming. "I heard what she said, you're giving up the guns? Just like that?"
"The guns were a way to kick the Ambassadors out. If giving them up means we don't have to deal with those fucks its worth it."
"But-"
"Let it go. This is my operation and you're just hired muscle. You do what I say when I say it, got it?"
"Fine." Asshole. The second part she didn't say outloud.
So the Ambassador capes went away in one of the surviving cars, Glory Girl pulled the beached ship into the bay disposing of the weapons until some cop or the other came to grab them before flying off with Shard, and Trainwreck retreated with his Merchants back to his base.
Cameron had declined getting a ride from them, deciding to make her way back to the motel on her own. She was mad disappointed though, having to stop fighting basically halfway through.
Next time though she was fighting to the end.
Let's Play
I heard muffled sounds above me, as if I was hearing through a pane of glass.
"What do you mean you can't heal her?"
"I mean her biology is too different for me to actually affect without accidentally messing things up."
"You're Panacea! Your whole thing is biology!"
"That's like me telling you to punch a rock and have it turn into the Venus de Milo!"
"Loud." Was all I said. The voices were way too loud.
"Shard!" Something was shaking my body, enough that I risked opening my eyes. Glory Girl. That was Glory Girl. As my mind started to restart in this body I reconnected to my greater consciousness with the me in the scrapyard dimension and Cameron. We had lost.
I sat up and took in my surroundings. I was in a bedroom, an unfamiliar one. There were a few posters on the wall, of both famous capes and bands, and on a desk nearby were some books on parahuman theory. This was Glory Girl's room. I reached up to double check my mask was still there, thankfully it was.
"You brought me to your house?" I asked, my voice hoarse.
"Snuck you in more like it. My parents kind of don't know that you're here."
"Well they will soon if you don't stop yelling at me." The third person in the room said sarcastically. Panacea. Glory Girl's sister. I had met her once before, if you could call it that, in the hospital.
"Well I'm fine, so I'll just sneak out so you don't have to worry about-" I made to stand up but then everything started to spin so I fell back into Glory Girl's bed. "Okay I might need a second." Or an entire weekend. Whatever Citrine had done to me…
"Listen, I got in contact with M and she's telling your parents that you're staying with me tonight. Not ideal I know," She cut off Panacea before she could speak, "but you need to rest and I figured this was a safe spot."
I wanted to argue but the pounding in my head made it hard to come up with a reason to. "Okay, but just for tonight. I…" My consciousness was already starting to fade out, "I don't want dad to worry." I mumbled and my main consciousness went dark.
Let's Play
After I woke up I decided to take Glory Girl's advice and spend the rest of the weekend just relaxing both my body and my mind. The only uses of my power were to replace the Cameron instance, heal in my backyard using Antaeus, and use any remaining clones in the Scrapyard Dimension which totally didn't count as working or exerting myself and also Glory Girl didn't know so she couldn't call me out on anything. I hadn't rolled my new powers yet so she had no reason to complain.
Defeated 2 of Acord's AmbassadorsCalculating Rewards Based on ContributionGained:
2000 EXP
+2 Loose SP
2 Cape Power Rolls
I wasn't even paying active attention to Cameron. Only if something big happened would my brain alert my self-designated main consciousness. So I was just spending Sunday night reading a book the old fashioned way word by word. I honestly forgot how much I liked just taking a second to be by myself. My solitude for most of high school was imposed by others so I instinctively started to hate being alone. It wasn't bad when it was my own choice though. Just me and a good book.
Cameron's phone rang. It was the ringtone that Coil had said meant urgent pick up no matter what.
"What's up boss?" Cameron immediately stood to attention even though there was nobody else in her hotel room.
"I have need of your skills." Coil's actual voice came in from the other side of the line, not any of the many proxies the metal girl had spoken to since that first night.
"Anything."
"There is a car waiting outside," He actually sounded nervous, stressed. "He will take you to an active combat zone. A group of parahumans under my employ are locked in combat with Oni Lee. I need you to extract them."
"Oni Lee?" Cameron racked her brain to remember who he was, then it clicked. The right hand assassin of the ABB. "Lung's number two?"
"Yes, which is why time is of the essence. His boss is not far behind and I need the Undersiders to escape intact. So get moving, now!" Cameron had never heard Coil's voice so filled with emotion so she immediately started running out to where the car was waiting.
The Undersiders were under attack by Oni Lee and Lung was not far behind. I reached into my pocket dimension and brought out the rough sketches of the ABB that I had made. If they weren't actually out in costume I would just seal the memories of their location but I had to check.
Oni Lee's position was up in the part of the docks controlled by the ABB and he was teleporting, often. I could tell by the fact that for less than a picosecond his essence would disappear and reappear a tick in a different direction than before.
And Lung was…approaching fast enough that there was no way for Cameron to get there in time to avoid fighting Lung.
So as things were going now Cameron was going to jump into a fight between the ABB and the Undersiders. She couldn't say no without falling in standing with Coil or appearing suspicious and if she went there was a decent chance the clone could get seriously injured fighting Lung, maybe even die and blow her cover.
Then there was the fact alone that Lung was going to fight. He was notoriously lazy as a cape, rarely actually going out to fight but every time he did the cost was terrible, especially if whoever he fought was strong enough to last long enough for him to get deep into his transformation.
Cameron plus the Undersiders which included Grue who wasn't a big hitter and more built around escape and subterfuge, Regent who had low level telekinesis that only affected people, Tattletale who wasn't a combatant from what little there was on her, and Bitch…
I thought about the woman who helped me and Glory Girl fight Hookwolf, Cricket, and Stormtiger.
"Oh shit."
I was going to have to go fight Lung while Cameron saved a group of thieves.
Name: Taylor Anne HebertGolden Human LVL 15SP Cap11Loose SP9Tier 1 Powers(22)Mover(1)Shaker(3)Brute(3)Breaker(2)Master(3)Tinker(2)Blaster(0)Thinker(1)Striker(1)Changer(3)Trump(2)Stranger(1)Tier 0 Powers(74)Synergy Powers(22)Power Upgrades(6)Power Roll(s) Available
April 10th
A.N.
Early chapter because I don't know when I'll have time to sit down and post tomorrow. Always have my phone though so I'll be responding to comments with utter desperation as always.
So yeah, we technically have just hit the beginning of canon. I really wasn't sure whether or not to include the Lung stuff, or at least the event. Like would there have been enough butterflies to remove the event? Or is using it a tired cliche?
Then I decided, fuck it. I like the Lung fight. It's a touchstone to canon for viewers. It lets me introduce the Undersiders. It lets me write a cool fight scene.
Speaking of fight scenes I hope the Merchant/Ambassadors/Shard and Glory Girl fight scene was enjoyable. Cassiterite and Lizardtail I are two of the Ambassadors killed by the Slaughterhouse 9 in canon. We got a pretty good description of Cassiterite's power thanks to WOG and we know Lizardtail is some sort of healer and so I made him somebody who can empower others because it makes for a good fight scene and would explain why he would be sent to Brockton.
As for the Citrine moment, a large part of that is wanting Taylor to lose. She's been steamrolling except against the Simurgh and I wanted to humble her. Citrine was sort of the perfect way to do so. Her power has a trump aspect and is noted to be able to turn off the protections a power has for themselves and Taylor's body is now basically a superweapon that if aimed incorrectly could destroy itself. That's also how she was able to switch Lizardtail's manton limit. Because they've worked together for so long and trained together she can deactivate the limit of his power with her power. It is something born from years of working together and from their powers being uniquely compatible. Most other people she would try that with would just be killed by their own powers.