Topic : The Slaughterhouse None
Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Posted on March 4th 2011 :
No, folks, you didn't misread, misinterpret, or made any other kind of mistake with the title of this thread. The Slaughterhouse Nine, America's greatest group of mass-murdering monsters, just got wiped out.
How ? Well, let me tell you.
Yesterday evening, the SH9 arrived in the small town of Bluetown, Indiana, and began doing their usual nightmarish things. As had become their pattern since Shatterbird joined the group, she went first, her scream destroying every standard electronic device in the entire town as well as injuring anybody who was close to a window at the time. So, normally we would only have learned about it once the Nine had already left, and the town was to be formally abandoned, another monument to the Nine's evil. God knows it wouldn't have been the first time it happened.
Instead, Lasombra showed up, and proceeded to systematically hunt down and kill the members of the Slaughterhouse. The PRT have confirmed the death of every known member of the SH9 (here is a link to their official announcement).Yes, even Crawler, the Siberian, and the bastard-in-chief himself, Jack Slash. Apparently, the SH9's leader was found on the road out of town, Lasombra having caught up with him while he was trying to run away after the Endkiller had wiped out the rest of his gang.
Normally, I wouldn't go into the details of how someone died on PHO, but in this case I feel I can make an exception and risk the wrath of the mods : Lasombra ripped out his heart, then pushed it down his throat before putting him out of all of our misery by crushing his skull to pulp.
(Edit : Given the circumstances and the identity of the victim, you get a free pass this time. Don't abuse it, and everyone else should keep the usual guidelines in mind.
-Tinmother)
Turns out things other than Endbringers can piss off Lasombra. Once he was done, he got in touch with the PRT (probably using whatever new line of communication has been established between them after the meeting between them and an unknown representative, see here for the report and speculations on the subject) and informed them of what he had just done, and that the survivors of Bluetown needed help.
The PRT immediately dispatched Alexandria herself to check the area, and they even hired Strider to bring emergency workers on-site as fast as possible. I have been told by a source inside the PRT that Strider waved off his usual fee for urgent services, though no word on whether he didn't ask for his usual compensation at all.
Now, here is the weirder part – yes, weirder than the thought of a bunch of monsters that have haunted the USA for so long being finally gone. Moments before Shatterbird's scream, Lasombra was confirmed to be on the scene of the fight against the Teeth in Brockton Bay, and had just handed over the Butcher to the PRT – you can find the thread on that particular clusterfuck here, but suffice to say, Butcher lost so bad Lasombra apparently removed her powers and the voices in her head, which nobody even thought was possible.
Since Lasombra was able to teleport from Brockton Bay to Canberra, him reaching Indiana from the East Coast isn't too strange. Still, according to my sources, as far as the PRT was able to put together the sequence of events, one minute he was handing over the de-powered Butcher to Legend, and the next, he was hunting down the Nine in Bluetown like they were a bunch of extras in a horror movie.
How ? I have no idea, but then, that's pretty much standard when it comes to the Endkiller, isn't it.
For those of you who're feeling emotional, here is the link to PHO's mental health resources. And for those who feel like helping, here is a link to a bunch of vetted charities who have done great work helping the victims of the Slaughterhouse Nine over the years.
Now, if you will all excuse me, I need to go pay my respect to the local memorial, then get blackout drunk to celebrate.
EyeOfHorus
Replied on March 4th 2011 :
Finally. My family and I have been waiting for someone to do it for so, so long, and now …
Finally, the nightmare is over.
Thank you, Lasombra. From the bottom of my heart.
Rigthsector
Replied on March 4th 2011 :
How the fuck did Lasombra know where the Nine were ?!
XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied on March 4th 2011 :
Obviously the Lord of Darkness can sense evil within his vicinity. The greater the act of evil, the greater the detection range. The Simurgh threatened an entire city with tens of thousands of people, so he felt it from across the world; the Slaughterhouse threatened an entire town, so he felt it across State lines.
In the light of this revelation, I expect a bunch of villains all across the world to start reconsidering their careers.
Sapphire_Prophet
Replied on March 4th 2011 :
Goddamn, the Teeth (including the Butcher, who was previously thought to be impossible to really defeat), and then the Nine ? That was a busy night for Lasombra.
EDIT : also, Void Cowboy is making a worrying amount of sense there, friends. Between that and … everything else, are we sure the Apocalypse isn't coming ? I mean, it would be just like Earth-Bet's luck that the moment things start looking up, everything goes even worse.
Venturain
Replied on March 4th 2011 :
Sapphire_Prophet Don't jinx us, man. If anything, we were due some good fortune after the last … twenty years ? Thirty ?
But yeah, Lasombra has been busy. There are a lot of people who lost friends and family to the Nine who will be able to sleep easier now that these monsters are gone.
TRJ
Replied on March 4th 2011 :
Welp, time to run back to my local liquor store really quick to stock up before the rush. Between the Simurgh and this, Lasombra is going to single-handedly increase the profit margins of the alcohol industry across the country, just you watch.
Geronimo
Replied on March 4th 2011 :
Another weird bit to add to Lasombra's legend : according to a friend of mine in the PRT, while the corpses of the other Slaughterhouse members bore pretty obvious marks of how they were killed, Crawler was just laying there in the middle of a destroyed building. The crews were worried he was faking it at first, but they confirmed he was dead, despite not having any trace of injury visible. I'm sure they'll be able to figure it out once they find a dissecting tool that can cut through his hide, but until then, it looks like Lasombra decided Crawler was going to die, and so he died.
Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied on March 4th 2011 :
Of course. Of course Lasombra can make someone just die when he wants to. Why not ?!
SunlightLurker
Replied on March 4th 2011 :
Are we sure Lasombra isn't an Angel of Death sent by the Lord to cleanse the world of sinners ? Like, have we gotten an official answer from the Vatican on the subject ?
Laravelo
Replied on March 4th 2011 :
I mean, the Pope gave a speech after the Simurgh died honoring the parahumans who died bringing the False Angel down, but there was no direct mention of Lasombra in it that I recall off the cuff. Of course, religion and parahumans … don't tend to mix very well. After what happened when they first started appearing, every respectable religion decided to avoid getting involved.
Of course, I did say every respectable religion. There are plenty of groups online who already worship Lasombra as the Wrath of God sent down from Heaven (or, alternatively, let loose from Hell on some kind of special work program) to clean up our messes. Which isn't particularly reassuring, now that I think about it.
Lenny_has_arrived
Replied on March 4th 2011 :
Laravelo
Relax. I'm sure Our Shadowy Overlord will keep his worshippers from following in the Fallen's footsteps. I mean, he's made his position on the Endbringers pretty clear already.
Laravelo
Replied on March 4th 2011 :
Lenny_has_arrived
Yeah, I guess you're right. It's just … it's still difficult to believe that things can get better, you know ? I keep looking out for the trick.
Just a few hours after defeating the Butcher and wiping out the Nine, I was back at Arcadia Highschool, trying and failing to pay attention to the math teacher's lesson. Unlike the death of the Simurgh, the destruction of the Slaughterhouse wasn't a good enough reason to declare a national holiday. At least I wasn't the only one to be distracted : the news had been reporting on the two events non-stop since the PRT's official announcement, and Lasombra was a very popular topic of discussion in Brockton Bay.
Based on the pictures Legend had sent Tattletale and which she'd forwarded to me (through a series of digital intermediaries that, while they wouldn't stop a dedicated Tinker, at least should prevent the connection from being made by accident), Riley was still asleep. Cauldron was doing their own scans to double-check Panacea's work before letting her wake up, which was … understandable, I supposed.
I had received another message on PHO, this one from the PRT. They were starting preparations to move a few victims of the Simurgh to Brockton Bay, and wanted to confirm I was willing to try to remove the Endbringer's influence. I had sent back a simple 'yes', though in truth, I wasn't nearly as confident as I would like.
Master powers didn't work the same way Domination did, that much was obvious. They manipulated brain chemistry directly, making willpower virtually irrelevant, whereas I knew it was possible for particularly strong-willed humans to resist a vampire's mind control.
Yes, I had evidence that Domination could counter Master powers. But the Simurgh had been far, far more powerful and subtle than Gesellschaft and Jack Slash. She had combined her Master power with her precognition to maximize the harm her victims could inflict in the long-term, turning them into 'Ziz-bombs', as they were commonly called.
Removing the Endbringer's influence would be difficult, and I couldn't afford to mess it up. Damage to my image aside, I would be directly responsible for whatever the afflicted individuals did after I'd pronounced them clean. Dozens of capes had claimed to be able to heal victims of the Simurgh; in several cases, it had even seemed to be true, until the 'cured' Ziz-bombs had gone off in gruesome fashions that had ended up killing the idea. The fact that it was entirely possible (likely, even) that the Simurgh had orchestrated the whole thing to intensify the despair she'd inflicted on Humanity as a whole, as well as kept others who might actually have a shot at saving her victims, probably haunted the nightmares of more than one high-ranking official.
And even if it worked, and I managed to cure these people … then what ? There were entire cities where the Simurgh had been able to Sing for too long before being pushed back, whose populations were still alive behind quarantine walls, sustained by shipments of supplies dropped by drones. There was an absolute informational blackout on what took place behind these walls; even speculating about it was enough reason to be banned on PHO.
Would I need to go to each of the quarantined cities and heal everyone inside one by one ? I would if that was what it took, but the logistics of it all were dubious, and there was the risk that the Ziz-bombs would turn on each other as my actions activated some kind of contingency the Simurgh had implanted in their minds just in case.
I sighed. No doubt there were people far more qualified than I already wondering about these questions in the PRT. I had to trust they would take all those potential issues into account, and focus on doing what I could to help the poor people who had been turned into weapons against Humanity by the Endbringer.
I would also need to handle the bounty money from killing the Nine. Even with Bonesaw technically still being alive, Tattletale had told me she didn't think there's be an issue : Cauldron would smooth any bureaucratic mishap, just to avoid getting on my bad side.
The money would join the reward from the Simurgh in helping revitalize Brockton Bay, though Tattletale had mentioned even she would need help to handle that much cash properly, without causing an inflation crisis or otherwise accidentally wrecking the city's already precarious economy. Maybe the PRT … no, not the PRT, they only dealt with parahuman crime. Perhaps some government body or other might be willing to provide trustworthy assistance ? I mean, we still had a semi-functioning economy even after years of Endbringer attacks, so clearly someone knew what they were doing.
It would be something to keep in mind. Despite what my younger self had believed, you couldn't solve all the problems in the world just by punching bad guys really hard – it was just the part of the job that felt the most satisfying.
Amy wasn't sure what exactly she was doing here. The hip café on the Broadwalk wasn't anywhere she would usually go, but here she was, sipping overpriced coffee from a novelty cup while sitting in front of an ex-villain while both of them were in their civilian identity.
Vicky had been far too enthusiastic when hearing Amy was going to meet someone in a café in private after school, gushing about how her little sister had gotten a date without her needing to drag her out of the house and introduce her to someone. Amy had tried to set the record straight that this absolutely wasn't a date, but she wasn't sure her sister had been convinced.
At least she hadn't followed along while wearing some paper-thin disguise like this was a romantic comedy, the healer mused ruefully. That would have gone very wrong, especially given who it was she was meeting.
Tattletale – no, Lisa, Amy corrected herself – had been waiting for her at the café's entrance. She'd chosen their table against the back wall (paying a sizeable tip to the waiter to ensure it), and activated a device she'd purchased through Toybox that was supposed to make spying on their conversation almost impossible (the 'almost' was because, in a world of parahuman powers, you could never been 100% sure of pretty much anything).
"Now, then," the Thinker said once they were half-way through their respective drinks. "Let's talk."
Amy mumbled something – even she wasn't sure what – while taking another sip. Lisa didn't let that discourage her, and she went on :
"The boss would have removed your powers if you asked him." They were using masculine pronouns when talking about Lasombra, because of the previous 'almost' regarding their anti-eavesdropping measures. "He would have asked if you were really sure, probably given you time to think it over, but he would have done it. And he still will do it if you decide it's really for the best."
Although Amy had only spent a few moments in Taylor's presence, she agreed with Lisa's assessment. It was weird that the most terrifyingly powerful cape in the world wanted only to help people, as far as Amy could tell.
"However, you need to think this through," said Lisa. "Nobody complained when he removed Butcher's powers, because the alternative was feeding another cape to the Inheritance. But removing the powers of a beloved healer like you, who has saved the lives of hundreds of parahumans during the Endbringer battles alone ? Endkiller or not, there would be some nasty fallout. Telling people you did it willingly would make it even worse, and would have put a target on your back for every mourning person in the country with a dead family member you could conceivably have healed."
"I know it was a bad idea," the healer grumbled. "I knew even as I was about to ask. I just …"
"You just saw an easy solution to a problem you've been struggling with for years and reached for it despite the consequences. I understand, believe me. But if you don't want to be stuck healing all your life, there are other options we can explore first. If the boss says that he needs you to work on something for him and you can't spend as much time in the hospitals as a result, people will grumble, but what else are they going to do ? Go up to him to complain ?" Lisa snorted. "I would pay to see someone try."
So would Amy, if only because studying the biology of someone drunk or high enough to do something so monumentally stupid would be interesting. It might even surpass some of the Merchants she'd worked on in the past.
"If anything, it would force the hospitals to be more selective in who they send to you for healing. Be honest with me, Amy : out of everyone you've healed in the last month, how many of them actually needed your help ? By that I mean, how many of them suffered from something that modern medicine couldn't heal as well, just slower ?"
Amy took a moment to think about it. It was difficult, because after a certain point, all her patients melted together in her head into one amorphous mass, constantly pulling at her guilt and demanding more of her time.
"Maybe … a third or so ?" she guessed. "It used to be more than that, but there've been a lot less gang violence since Lasombra started out, so I've been healing less people with gun or knife wounds when the hospitals were overwhelmed."
"See ? And don't tell me that you must spend your every waking moment helping out either. That's a path to burnout. Even trained, professional doctors take time for themselves. You cannot help everyone; not even the boss can do that."
"Alright," Amy conceded. "I will think about it."
"I know you will," said Lisa with a smug smile that reminded Amy that she was talking to a Thinker, who probably already knew the decision she would make.
It was annoying, but Amy would have to bear it, if only because Lisa was associated with Lasombra, and debt or no debt, she didn't want to make the Endkiller angry at her by, for instance, giving his pet Thinker a constant ache in her nether regions or something like it.
"Now, let's talk about the other thing you wanted to ask Lasombra," said Lisa after a quick frown that told Amy she'd probably guessed her current train of thought.
"Do we have to ?" Amy whispered.
"I think we do, if it was important enough to you that you were about to ask the Endkiller for it," said Lisa, a lot more seriously than before. "Changing your sexual orientation through the use of Master powers is something the E88 would do, Amy. Actually, fuck that; I'm pretty sure it's something their associates in Europe have actually done. That, in itself, is a good indicator that it's a bad, no good, terrible idea. As a rule, you don't want to do anything Nazis did. Unlike removing your powers, I know for a fact Lasombra would never have done that for you, no matter how much you asked him."
Amy knew that. She had been tempted with using her powers to do just that far, far too many times not to be fully aware of how completely fucked up the whole idea was. And yet, the moment she'd been presented with a chance to do it to herself, she had succumbed to temptation instantly.
Some hero she was –
"Stop that right now," Lisa ordered, frowning. "You are a teenager living a highly stressful life due to reasons entirely outside your control, and your crush on your adoptive sister is one of the few sources of dopamine available to you."
"Couldn't you put it less … clinically ?" she grumbled.
"I could, but you're used to that kind of language from your time working as a healer. Also, I need you to remember that crush of yours is neither illegal nor immoral – it's just awkward and, since your sister is straight as far as I can tell, not going to amount to anything. Which you are perfectly aware of already, of course, and that only makes you feel worse." Lisa sighed. "You need more sources of positive emotions in your life. Going back to the idea of the boss pulling you out of the hospitals, that would give you more free time – and, more importantly free time that would be unsupervised by your adoptive mother."
For one long moment, Amy stayed silent. Then she spoke, hating how small her voice sounded to her own ears :
"What do you suggest I do, then ?"
"Well, my first thought was dragging you to one of the city's strip clubs and have you enjoy a night of complete and utter sapphic debauchery, but then I remembered that you're a minor, and we live in a country where that means you can't enjoy that kind of thing even if you're old enough to be sent to an Endbringer fight," Lisa deadpanned, chuckling at how red Amy could feel her cheeks had turned. "All jokes asides, you could use your power in different ways. Let's start with the most obvious : with your power and knowledge of biology, how would you go about creating something which can cure the most common form of cancer without requiring your personal presence ?"
Amy blinked. "Well, I would need to create a lifeform that could travel through the patient's body without harming them, identify the cancerous cells, and target them without doing damage to the healthy ones around them …"
What followed could only be described as a manic episode, during which Amy rambled at Lisa, who merely listened, nodded at the appropriate bits, and put a pen and notepad in front of the biological Striker for her to write down the ideas bursting through her brain.
Eventually, she blinked and returned to reality to find the table nearly covered in pieces of paper, each of which looked like something out of a mad scientist's lair. Despite her power's assistance, Amy hadn't managed to crack the problem – if it was that easy, generations of scientists would already have managed it even without parahuman assistance – but she had several detailed options to explore through experimentations.
"That was … huh," she said, dumbfounded. Her power had never done anything like that; but then, she had never tried anything like that either. "Is that what Tinkers feel like when they go into a fugue ?"
"I haven't seen one work in person," replied Lisa (still smiling), "but it's probably similar. Anyway, how do you feel about me setting up a lab for you somewhere in town, something secure and up to the PRT's standards for safety and containment, then getting in touch with the boss so that he can give you an excuse to go there regularly ? If this is the first thing you're working on, you could even tell everyone the truth about what you are doing. Maybe someone will try to invoke NEPEA-5, but I would give it even odds they will be drawn and quartered by the general population before the boss even needs to get involved."
Thinking of the exhausted, hopeless looks she had seen on the faces of far too many people in the terminal stages of cancer – too many for her to heal them all, especially with their bodies already ravaged by years of sickness and radiation treatments – Amy had to agree. Besides, if she remembered correctly, NEPEA-5 was intended to keep parahuman powers from destroying the economy by introducing unfair competition to existing industries, and the whole point of this was to achieve something the current healthcare industry couldn't do.
And if Big Pharma did send lawyers or thugs after her to stop her from making a cure for cancer just so that they could keep making money from treating it … well then, she would feel absolutely no remorse in sending Lasombra after them. The resulting celebrations might even beat the ones from taking down the Slaughterhouse.
Still … "The PRT won't be happy about it," Amy pointed out. "And neither will Carol."
"The PRT won't do anything that might piss off the boss, so long as we can assure them we're being smart and not risking another Ellisburg," Lisa waved off. "As for your adoptive mother … let me handle her if she tries anything, alright ?"
Amy considered the idea of Lisa and Carol meeting for a few seconds. Then she decided the screaming would be worth it just for the look on her adoptive mother's face when she realized she was talking to Tattletale, and she couldn't arrest her because she was working for Lasombra now.
"Okay," she said. "I will do that."
Speaker 1 : "I see everyone is here. Then let us begin this emergency conference. As you all are aware, the Slaughterhouse Nine were annihilated yesterday by Lasombra. What's most concerning for us is that this took place in Bluetown, Indiana; meaning that Lasombra was able to detect the Slaughterhouse Nine four states over. And, at the time, nobody was aware that the Nine had hit the town. Shatterbird's scream and Mannequin's Tinkertech had completely silenced it, and given how isolated it was, it would have taken some time for people to notice something was wrong."
Speaker 2 : "That's … a pretty far-ranging Thinker power. Are we sure it's Lasombra himself who detected the Nine's strike, though ? And not someone else who got in touch with him and passed on the information ?"
Speaker 3 : "According to our sources in the PRT, Lasombra was literally speaking with Legend after handing over the unconscious Butcher when he 'froze up' and teleported away. Putting the timeline together, that was right before he appeared in Bluetown. It's still possible that his Breaker form allows for communication through some kind of Tinkertech, but so far, there's been no sign that the Endkiller has any kind of organization behind him."
Speaker 4 : "What does that mean for us ?"
Speaker 2 : "To start with, the death of the Slaughterhouse Nine means that we can start investing into operations inside towns we would previously have disregarded due to the risk of them 'visiting'. But where Lasombra is concerned … I think it's pretty clear we need to stay well clear of him. However he learned of the Nine's location, we have to assume the same method could be used against our own operatives."
Speaker 5 : "Come on now. None of our people are as depraved as the Nine. If that's what it took for Lasombra to drop everything and teleport there – "
Speaker 2 : "Do you want Lasombra to get angry at us all because one of us did something stupid while on his radar ?! I don't. And given that New York is well within Lasombra's established range, that's a problem."
Speaker 3 : "Uppercrust leads our cell there. He isn't doing well, but the system defenses he's provided for coast cities, including Brockton Bay, means that our relationship with the PRT is on the positive side of things there. I'll make sure he and his subordinates know not to do anything that might draw the Endkiller's attention."
Speaker 2 : "Good. Do we know what Accord is planning to do ?"
Speaker 3 : "I've been in touch with him about that. He intended to stay well clear of Brockton Bay, despite the collapse of the gangs opening some very profitable opportunities. I don't know how he's adjusted his approach to take the Nine's destruction into account."
Speaker 1 : "Call him and share the intel we have, see how he reacts. As for us, I suggest we focus on our efforts on the West Coast and leave the East Coast to Lasombra. And since we know he has the ability to teleport all the way to Australia if he feels like it, I would also suggest all of us direct our cells toward our more legal operations."
Speaker 5 : "That's going to be a hard sell for a bunch of our people."
Speaker 1 : "Which is why I'm not making it a requirement or an order, just a suggestion. What I want to make an official position, however, is that our organization as a whole does not intend to enter into a state of conflict with Lasombra. Any and all members whose actions lead to such a state will be disavowed and left to the Endkiller's mercy. Who is in favor ?"
Speaker 2 : "Aye."
Speaker 5 : "Aye."
Speaker 3 : "Aye."
Speaker 4 : "Aye."
Speaker 6 : "Aye."
Speaker 1 : "Very well. Meeting adjourned."
Transcript from an online conversation between the leaders of the Elite, recorded by a bug put in place by Watchdog's field operatives on March 5th, 2011.
"Omen's abilities have proved incredibly valuable to a number of investigations. During her time in Boston, her assistance has led to the dismantling of three separate drug running operations on the East Coast. She has also helped save the lives of several operatives by revealing that they had been identified and were about to be eliminated.
Since Brockton Bay has Legend and Lasombra, along with one of the most powerful Protectorate teams on the East Coast, it has been decided that the daily questions which were previously used to ascertain the city's security (whose use was already questionable due to Omen's inability to predict Lasombra's actions) will instead be reassigned to the pool of questions available for the agencies."
Internal PRT memo, sent to the ENE branch's headquarters on March 6th, 2011.
"So, we are sure she has lost her powers ?" asked Director Piggot, looking up from the report on her desk to the armored hero standing on the other side of it, still wearing his armor and carrying his trademark halberd.
"Our brain scans indicate that Quarrel's Coronal Pollentia has shrunk down to the size of someone with the potential for Triggering," replied Armsmaster. "Of course, we don't know what the Butcher Inheritance made it look like previously."
"It's not like we could ask any of the previous Butchers to lie down for an MRI scan," Piggot snorted at that mental image.
"Indeed," deadpanned Armsmaster. "Apart from the scans, her behavior indicates that she no longer hears the voices of the previous Butchers, and I am certain she has attempted to use her original power many times – only a few of which were when I deliberately engineered for her to have access to something her power could use as a projectile, might I add – only for it to fail to manifest."
That was less irresponsible than it might sound, since Armsmaster would have made these tests only when he was the only one in the room with Quarrel, and wearing his full armor to minimize the damage she could have done if her power had suddenly come back.
"It is possible that she will Trigger again in the future, which raises all manner of fascinating questions on whether she would get the same powers as the ones she got before, but, well." Armsmaster shrugged, which was a slightly disturbing sight with his suit emulating the motion. "We aren't going to experiment on her to check."
"No, we most definitely are not," Piggot agreed. There was a reason the true nature of Trigger Events was kept from the general public : it was to keep idiots and monsters from trying to artificially cause them. Once the connection had been made, many attempts had been made (including by the US government; Piggot wasn't blind to her own country's faults), and they had all ended disastrously.
Which anyone with half a lick of common sense could have told you, because what else was going to happen when you tortured someone until they broke and gained superpowers ? And yet, enough morons kept trying it that keeping the truth of Trigger Events under wraps had become common policy across the globe.
The fact that children of existing parahumans had a tendency to Trigger more easily was a whole other can of worms that Piggot was damn glad it wasn't her job to think about.
"Keep Quarrel in our own cells for now," the Director ordered after a moment's thought. "If the BBPD asks us to send her to them instead, tell them we don't know what Lasombra did, and we don't know whether it will last."
"We were able to capture all of the Teeth members who accompanied the Butcher to Brockton Bay," Armsmaster pointed out. "Unlike when we captured parahumans belonging to the ABB or the E88, the odds that there will be an attempt to free Quarrel from captivity are statistically insignificant. The Teeth aren't known to have many friends in other gangs. The only reason for someone breaking her out I can think of is if someone wants to kill her themselves, and the presence of Legend and Lasombra in the city should be enough to dissuade anyone with even a modicum of common sense."
"Villains aren't exactly known for their common sense, Armsmaster," replied Piggot. "And in any case, I'm not so much worried about someone trying to free Quarrel than I am about someone deciding to shank her in jail and the paperwork nightmare that would land on my desk. Better to keep her secure in one of our cells until the legal questions are cleared and we can wash our hands of this whole thing."
Legally speaking, this situation could be best described as 'complicated'. Could Quarrel be prosecuted for her crimes after she had become the Butcher, or did an insanity defense apply ? By all accounts, she had chosen to challenge the previous Butcher for the inheritance, but any half-decent lawyer could argue that the very fact she'd done so was proof she wasn't in her right mind at the time, given the well-documented insanity of every incumbent since Butcher II had been killed by a Protectorate hero who had promptly been driven mad by the voices of the two villains in his head.
Holding Quarrel responsible for her actions as Butcher XIV would indirectly mean condemning said hero for the crimes he'd committed during his brief stint as Butcher III before being killed by another of the Teeth's parahuman members.
In the end, though, Quarrel hadn't been the Butcher for long, and they had a long list of crimes they could pin on her before that. Once the legal mess was cleared up, she would likely end up spending a long, long time in jail, but it would be a normal jail, not one for parahumans – let alone the Birdcage.
The fact that Lasombra could now remove capes' powers was a whole other can of worms. Piggot should have been ecstatic that there was a way to turn parahumans back into ordinary people; if nothing else, it promised an alternative to the anti-constitutional nightmare that was the Birdcage. The issue, of course, was that rather than this capability being in the PRT's control, it was in the hands of the most powerful independent hero on the planet, who also happened to be based in her city.
Then again, she thought with grim amusement, it wasn't like they could have stopped Lasombra if he went off the reservation before this latest capability was revealed. If nothing else, maybe the added threat of losing their powers and being brought back to everyone else's level would keep any idiotic challengers at bay.
"On to another matter," said Piggot. "What do we know about Panacea's little trip with our very own Endkiller ?"
The disappearance of New Wave's healer from the hospital had caused a brief panic, kept from turning worse only because Brandish had announced she'd received a text (onto her personal phone no less) claiming Lasombra himself had need of her services, her safety was guaranteed, and she would be returned promptly.
Of course, there'd still been the question of whether the text had actually been sent by Lasombra (or rather, Tattletale working on the Endkiller's behalf). But a quick check of the cameras in the hospital's vicinity using some software lent by Dragon (which definitely didn't break a couple of privacy and surveillance laws merely by existing) had shown a brief burst of static at the time of the healer's disappearance, and when she had come back safe and unharmed (if a little nauseated; apparently Lasombra's Mover power wasn't pleasant for other people), the alert had been completely dropped.
"She refused to say anything when I asked her, claiming patient-doctor confidentiality," said Armsmaster. "My lie detector didn't pick up on anything specific, but I'm reasonably certain she is hiding something she believes would find very important. Maybe Lasombra got injured while fighting the Slaughterhouse Nine ? I initially thought he might need her to help some of their victims in Bluetown, but if that were the case, there wouldn't be a need for Panacea to stay silent on the matter."
"I find it hard to believe the Nine could succeed where the Simurgh failed," Piggot mused, before shaking her head. "Then again, the Simurgh did hurt him enough that it took him a few days to recover. Maybe the Siberian got in a few hits before he killed her."
It was still hard for her to process that fact. The Slaughterhouse Nine were gone. They had been the bogeymen of the United States in general and the PRT in particular for decades, and now, they were finally gone. The organization had lost many, many people to their rampages over the years, occasionally managing to kill one of the less important members in return. There were still God knew how many troopers trapped in Gray Boy's loops across the country (there was probably an official count somewhere, but Piggot had a suspicion it was kept highly confidential on moral hazard reasons).
But now, at last, there wouldn't be anymore victims of the Slaughterhouse Nine. Emily had no doubt there would be other mad parahumans (but she repeated herself) in the future, some of whom might even seek to 'claim the crown' left by the Nine, so to speak. Whether such lunatics were crazy enough to go after Lasombra to prove their superiority to Jack Slash's gang of serial killers, she didn't know.
"We will have to leave that alone for now," she decided. "Pressuring her would anger New Wave, and if Lasombra asked for her help, the last thing I want is to give him a reason to be angry at us."
"Understood," Armsmaster nodded.
"If we're lucky, this situation with the Teeth will be resolved by the time the test with the Simurgh victims begins," Emily continued. "Until then, we will have to keep an eye out and prepare to handle the new influx of tourists Lasombra's victory over the Slaughterhouse will bring to the city."
As the hometown of the Endkiller, Brockton Bay had already seen an increase in visitors. Before the battle of Canberra, the city's only positive claim to fame had been Panacea's presence; even if the healer refused to sell her services, there were still many people with terminal conditions modern medicine couldn't help with who made the journey to the city, and that had brought a steady stream of revenue that, while not city-changing, had still been useful in keeping the town's precarious finances standing.
There were a lot more tourists now (Piggot hated to use the term 'pilgrims', though it might be more accurate), coming from all over the world, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Endkiller. And there would be more now, Piggot was sure of it.
"Unless the new visitors to the city are parahumans, they aren't in our remit," Armsmaster said carefully.
"I know, I know," the Director sighed. "I still expect the Mayor to ask for help in maintaining the peace, though."
On the one hand, having the local politicians comfortable with asking the PRT and Protectorate to provide assistance with mundane matters was much preferable to them looking at the organizations with distrust. On the other hand, it did mean a lot more paperwork ended up on Piggot's desk. At least her resources weren't so thinly stretched nowadays, thanks to Lasombra taking out the gangs – and she could always drop anything too political on Legend, so long as he remained in the city.
In her hotel room, Mama Mathers looked down at the newspaper her dear son had brought her and frowned at the headline. It was the same news she'd been seeing on every channel the old, static-laden television in the corner of the room could access.
So. The Slaughterhouse Nine had been defeated by Lasombra. They had been filthy unbelievers who indulged in their own vices with their blessings instead of using them for their intended holy purpose of bringing Humanity together in worship of the Holy Endbringers, but they had been powerful all the same. She had been hoping to recruit some of their members into the faith for some time, but that would never happen now.
No matter. Unlike them, Mama Mathers didn't intend to fight Lasombra directly. It had never been her way; the blessing she'd gained from Cauldron's vial was very potent, but it didn't make her invulnerable. Lasombra's Breaker form was clearly immune to parahuman powers : he couldn't have stood against the Simurgh otherwise. So she would have to force him to drop it in order to enthral him.
Many people were going to Brockton Bay, hoping to catch a glimpse of the so-called Endkiller. It made the journey of the faithful easier, concealed as they were among the masses. She would use these very people against Lasombra : under her influence, they would tear the city apart, causing chaos her true followers would exploit.
All powers had weaknesses; even her own did, if only in that she was just as vulnerable to a bullet to the skull as any non-blessed mortal. Lasombra had done a good job of concealing his so far, but she would drag them into the light of day. It would take a lot of work and sacrifices, but she was determined. Nearly the entire might of the Mathers Clan had begun moving toward Brockton Bay at her command, bringing their own blessed members with them.
Her plan was still a work in progress, and she intended to spend some time gathering information and tools before making her move. In the end, however, she would force Lasombra to submit, admit his deceit, and release the Simurgh from wherever it was he had imprisoned her after creating that facsimile of her head he'd used to deceive the rest of the world.
The return of the Angel would bring even greater despair to the unbelievers, and force them to accept the truth of the Endbringers' divinity – as had surely been the Simurgh's plan all along, using Lasombra as her unwitting pawn. As for Lasombra, he would either be killed or turned into her personal attack dog, Mama hadn't yet decided.
AN : Happy New Year, everybody !
Just so we're clear, I'm not foreshadowing a Lisa/Amy romance, because I don't trust myself to write it well. No, what's happening is that in this timeline, Lisa didn't see Taylor on her first night out and immediately clock her as suicidal, and by the time the two of them did meet, Taylor was doing a lot better mentally.
(Yes, somehow absorbing the powers of a vampire Antediluvian was good for her mental health. I'm not sure whether that says more about the world of Worm in general or Taylor's circumstances in particular.)
Amy, meanwhile, is a deeply depressed girl with avery dangerous power. So Lisa is doing her best to keep that particular bomb from exploding, while at the same time doing what she couldn't do for her brother.
Oh, and the Fallen are here, because this is still Worm, and you need to really fight for it if you want nice things. The more I read about Mama Mathers' powers, the more horrified I become.
As always, I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter, and look forward to your thoughts and comments.
Zahariel out.