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Jester by Boredmc

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    Не могу читать через переводчик на оригинальном сайте - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14216025/1/Jester Помесь червя/токийского гуля Лусия Эйбл была нормальной (слегка безумной) девушкой, живущей нормальной жизнью, пока она не пережила худший день в своей жизни и не стала чем-то большим, чем-то опасным. Теперь она собирается жить своей жизнью и получать от этого удовольствие, независимо от того, сколько людей должно умереть на этом пути. У меня разногласия, если вам интересно, /Pj3Dttwses.
  You always dream about getting Powers.
  
  In this world of Hero's, Villains and Monsters, that is an irrevocable truth.
  
  There really aren't exceptions. Even just some random soulless businessman will at least have the passing thought of how much easier their life and job could be with the help of Powers.
  
  Even for those of us who knew what it meant to be a Cape. What it meant to 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘳.
  
  Even then, we would think, 'one super traumatic event in exchange for superpowers?' and we would think it to be a fair exchange.
  
  I mean really, get raped once and in exchange you become 𝘓𝘦𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘥. Who wouldn't take that deal?
  
  Naturally, a Trigger doesn't have to be a rape. In fact, from what rare few Cape's have shared their trigger events, or the unlucky few who had the misfortune of a more 𝘱𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘤 trigger, most of them aren't really as bad as a rape.
  
  Granted, you can't really do comparative suffering like that, since trigger events are deeply personal, but at the same time there are plenty worse ways to trigger, namely the Slaughterhouse Nine.
  
  Though if I'm remembering my statistics right, I'm pretty sure that there are only two people still alive who were triggered by the Nine, the rest having either killed themselves, gone insane and had to be put down, or died attempting a foolish revenge.
  
  Anyway, I've gotten off track.
  
  See, everyone dreams about getting powers.
  
  Even if you get a weak one like that girl in Stafford, whatever her name is. I just remember the memes about the 'Damsel in Distress'. To be fair, it is pretty funny watching that video of her 'valiantly' standing against her foes and throwing a dramatic arm forward that releases a ball of purple energy.
  
  Of course, that is when it stops being cool as her energy ball just zips around her target and hits her in the face.
  
  Now, you may be wondering how any of this is important enough to warrant an internal monolog, well that's quite simple.
  
  You see, about a month ago, I triggered. 𝘋𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘵. And even though the experience was sufficiently traumatic as the stories tell you, by the morning I was ready to put the whole thing behind me and move onto greener pastures, as it were.
  
  I had thought I understood my power, thought that it was a simple one.
  
  See, I triggered as a Brute. I'm not sure what level I would fit on the PRT's scale, but my estimate would be around a Brute 5.
  
  While I wasn't really that much stronger, well, relatively speaking that is. Against any non cape, I am undefeatable in terms of strength, however, more that physical strength, I found that I am 𝘥𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦.
  
  As in, knives and stuff literally 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘱𝘪𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘯. Do you have any idea how insane it is to stab yourself and for the 𝘬𝘯𝘪𝘧𝘦 to be the one that gives?
  
  Not only that, but I regenerate too. That's where I wager most of my Brute rating would come from because I regenerate pretty fast. Without that, I would probably only be a 3 or so.
  
  However, that is not all!
  
  For there is another aspect to my power.
  
  I have these two weird, pulsing red tentacle ribbon-like things that I can manifest from my lower back and they are super long and agile and far stronger than my body.
  
  To be honest, I am not really sure what rating they fit into. Brute or Changer? Probably one of those.
  
  Not that it really matters in the end, because yet again, I have avoided what I consider to be the most important aspect of my power.
  
  After all, this aspect is the reason that I am here, on some random backroad in the countryside driving a recently stolen vehicle and with a corpse stinking up the backseat.
  
  See, I eat people.
  
  Or to be more precise, 𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯'𝘵 𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦.
  
  It didn't take me long to discover that I couldn't eat normal food, not that that is a surprise really since everything I ate tasted like raw, rotten 𝘧𝘪𝘭𝘵𝘩 packed inside a cockroach infested sweaty leather boot, all topped with a hefty dosing of year old milk.
  
  In simpler terms, it tasted bad.
  
  At first I sort of just shrugged it off as a quirk of my power, I was too excited by the prospect of beating up Villains, and maybe Heroes too, to bother with the fact that I apparently didn't need to eat anymore.
  
  Of course, it was a week later that I started to get 𝘩𝘶𝘯𝘨𝘳𝘺.
  
  That was when I noticed that despite everything in the fridge smelling like hot garbage, my mother smelt 𝘥𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘦.
  
  Imagine the greatest meal you've ever eaten, now image you have been fasting for a week and you come home to the smell of that meal invading the entire building. It was intoxicating.
  
  However, even with how fucked up in the head I may be, the thought of my 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 smelling like 𝘧𝘰𝘰𝘥 made me panic.
  
  In that panic and hunger, I set out to eat everything.
  
  I tried every food available to me, every meat in the shops, every vegetable, every fruit, every biscuit and snack and drink.
  
  The only things I found that I could tolerate was water and weirdly enough, coffee.
  
  As the weeks past, I grew increasingly panicked.
  
  No one knew I triggered except my mom, but even then, I didn't tell her about how hungry I was.
  
  Though, she definitely notice that something was wrong, but she never said anything, letting me deal with my own problems until I ask her to help.
  
  I think that's what I loved the most about my mother, that we were both a little fucked up in the head, though myself clearly more so. See, we were both pretty apathetic individuals, and we were both very open with each other.
  
  In a normal family I think the conversation would have gone some thing like, 'is something wrong?', 'no', followed by an incessant back and forth, however with us it was always a lot more honest.
  
  "Is something the matter?" My mother asked me, fully aware that something was wrong but abiding social customs anyway.
  
  "Yeah, it sucks but I don't really wanna talk about it." I responded, withholding a grimace as another spike of pain shot through my gut.
  
  My mother simply looked at me in the eyes for a moment before shrugging and going back to her phone, "Fair 'nuff".
  
  And that was that.
  
  No needless arguments, no hidden words or lies.
  
  I feel tears come to my eyes and I let them fall even as I remain focused on the dark country road ahead.
  
  Of course, things can never end so easily.
  
  I think, if I lived a more average life, she might have survived, but I dropped out of school years ago and have been living alone with my mom, making meagre contributions to the rent via online work.
  
  Because of this, I didn't leave the house once while I hoped for the pain to go away. If I did, then maybe I would have killed someone else, but as it were, my hunger overtook me.
  
  I don't remember what happened exactly, it was sometime during the fourth week and I hadn't left my bed in days, then I heard my mom enter the flat and the next thing I remember I am kneeled down in our living room, covered in the same blood decorating the rest of the room.
  
  I remember trying to figure out what happened and looking down at the mangled remains of a corpse beneath me.
  
  Frankly it doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened.
  
  𝘐 𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳.
  
  It really says a lot about me as a person that rather than freaking out or crying or killing myself or something, all I did was tentatively lick my fingers, and once I discovered just how 𝘥𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 she tasted, I simply finished the meal.
  
  We are a pragmatic sort, my mother and I, so I at least know she would not have held any hard feeling on the matter. Probably.
  
  Granted, she would probably be a little miffed about me killing her in the first place, but I don't doubt that after the fact she would have simply shrugged and said 'waste not, want not' and all but told me to devour her.
  
  Like I said, we have always been a little fucked up.
  
  All of that, was only a couple of days ago.
  
  After having committed matricide, it was pretty obvious that I couldn't stick around, so after making sure nothing of my mother went to waste, I cleaned myself up, as well as the blood that had soaked into the carpet so that it didn't stink the place up, and then I got the hell outta dodge.
  
  I wasn't in a rush or anything, still aren't, but there was no need to waste time.
  
  I should have about 12 hours before my mothers absence is noted, and then another 24 before anybody will try and check up on her, at which point they will probably report her missing to the police.
  
  Then again, maybe she will just get fired and no one will call the cops, and since the flat won't start stinking up, thanks to my cleaning, it is entirely possible that no one will notice our absence until next months rent.
  
  So with plenty of time at my disposal, I was in no rush to leave and simply wondered around the edges of town, away from cameras and without any electronics on my person, until I found a truck, this truck, parked off the side of the road with it's owner sat in a foldable chair, fishing in a nearby lake.
  
  Though with it's size I would rather call it an exceptionally large pond.
  
  After looking around and making sure we were alone, I snuck up on the man. Not that it was difficult with the music he was playing and the beer he was drinking.
  
  Then I simply snapped his neck.
  
  Or, at least that was the plan.
  
  However, I hadn't exactly killed anyone before, at least not consciously, so even though I held no moral quandaries about it, I still hesitated, simply due to a lack of experience.
  
  The result was that I basically just roughly rubbed his face and scared the shit out of him.
  
  I must make an awful assassin because rather than 'pushing my advantage' or whatever, I just keeled over laughing my guts out.
  
  I mean seriously, he screamed like a dying chicken and jumped so hard out of his seat that he flew into the 'lake'.
  
  It was 𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴.
  
  Then again, I have always loved surprising people, as my mom had the misfortune of learning as I frequently hit around corners to scare the shit out of her, and she never learned.
  
  The guy was pretty pissed, but in the face of my wheezing laughter as I struggled to breathe, he calmed down enough to crack a smile and we ended up having a rather amicable conversation.
  
  To be honest, I kinda just forgot about what I was doing there in the first place. I only remembered once he caught a fish and mentioned eating it.
  
  With that reminder, I decided to go for round two and punched him in the face as hard as I could.
  
  I figured if we get into a fight then adrenaline would carry me to killing him without the natural hesitance. What I did not expect, was for him to simply go down and 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘺 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯.
  
  At first I thought I killed him in one punch and was ecstatic, but then he groaned and I figured I just gave him a concussion, which, while not as cool, was enough for my purposes.
  
  And that all leads to now, me, who has never driven a vehicle before, driving this mans truck with his body in the backseat for when I get hungry again.
  
  Then again, it has been about a day and I don't want to eat rotten meat, so I will probably just eat my fill in a couple of hours.
  
  As for my plans for the future?
  
  Well, I've always believed in making things up as you go, after all, your plans can't go wrong if you just don't make any plans.
  
  So for now, the first step is to find civilisation, because I am shit at geography and am simply picking roads at random, with no destination in mind.
  
  Either way, I hope I can have some fun wherever I end up.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  I am finally back! and with a worm fic this time, her power is that she is now a Ghoul from Tokyo Ghoul, if you don't know what that means, well there isn't much to it to be honest, kinda like a weird vampire but they eat the whole body, not just blood. You can google it.
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  2 Dreamer
  After a few more hours of driving I am starting to get tired.
  
  I've already eaten Mark, though I only had his arms and legs, since his organs started rotting and were yucky, and I since I don't know anything about body disposal, I just pulled over and threw what was left behind some trees.
  
  To be perfectly honest, even I find it kind of strange just how quickly I've adapted to the thought of cannibalism. I mean, I never doubted that I would get used to it, especially since I don't really suffer from any moral afflictions for it.
  
  As far as I am concerned, if eating people is what I gotta do then it's what I'll do. It's not like they matter anyway, after all, they aren't 𝘮𝘦 and really the only thing that should matter to anyone is ourselves because at least we know that we are real, you know?
  
  But even then, I had thought it would take me at least a week before I could eat humans as casually as, say, a burrito.
  
  However, after the first few tentative bites, I was already scarfing the rest down.
  
  Maybe it's got something to do with just how tasty people are, because I swear I have never eaten anything even half as good.
  
  Then again, maybe my body is making it taste extra good since it's the only thing I can eat.
  
  Eh, it doesn't really matter.
  
  What 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 however matter, is that I am sleepy and I am already a shit driver, having taught myself how only hours ago, without taking sleepiness into account.
  
  Which is why I find myself pulling into some homestead's house in the middle of the night.
  
  Ok, I don't actually know if it is the 𝘮𝘪𝘥𝘥𝘭𝘦 of the night or not, just that it's dark out. No need to be so pedantic.
  
  The house itself is nothing impressive, just a typical two floor house that you can find anywhere. Wait a minute, does the attic count as a floor?
  
  Who knows.
  
  As I pull into the drive at a speed that is probably too fast, I only barely avoid crashing into the blue pick up truck in front of the house by pulling the handbrake as I forgot which pedal was the stop one.
  
  Luckily for me, the lights are all off.
  
  Why is that lucky? Don't you want to ask to stay the night or something? I hear you ask.
  
  Well, allow me to reiterate something, just in case you missed it.
  
  𝘐. 𝘌𝘢𝘵. 𝘗𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦.
  
  I have already resigned myself to living like the Slaughterhouse Nine, only with a lot less torture.
  
  After all, it doesn't really matter what I want, not with the hand I've been dealt. People aren't exactly accepting of cannibals these days, who would have thunked it.
  
  Then again, maybe I could live of off people who donate their bodies or even synthetic meat. It does seem to be an option, but it's one that relies on other people so ultimately it's not one I really want to take.
  
  I think it's far more likely that I will simply be killed rather than helped, especially since I'm not even that strong so there really wouldn't be a reason to help me.
  
  These thoughts play through my mind as I walk around the house, looking for any open windows and to my great joy I find one.
  
  Unfortunately it's on the second floor but I don't think that should be a problem with my swanky new power.
  
  Bending my knees, I put all of my strength into a straight jump and though I do barely make it high enough, I was too slow in grabbing the sill which resulted in me falling on my ass.
  
  Ow.
  
  Ok then, take two, electric boogaloo. With a metaphorical hop and a skip that is actually just one single jump, I remember to have my hands ready this time and barely reach the windowsill, leaving myself hanging by my fingertips.
  
  Lifting myself up is enjoyably easy. Really, I've never been that athletic, so feeling so strong and nimble is still pretty awesome.
  
  When I peek through the window, I am greeted by a rather bland room, but I guess that's what I get for living in Ohio.
  
  I mostly ignore the sparse decorations, though I do notice the rather obnoxious Legend poster, 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘣𝘰𝘸𝘴. Moving on from the unsubtle poster I look to the bed where a girl about my age is sleeping.
  
  Taking care to be as quiet as possible, I pull myself into the room, thankful that I thought to wear loose pants instead of jeans or something that would make climbing into a maybe underaged girls room difficult.
  
  Funny how life is, a month ago my biggest concern was whether I should eat breakfast or just sleep in and have brunch.
  
  Speaking of brunch, my eyes trail to the poor, innocent girl who is probably enjoying her dreams about handsome gay men, I can only assume by the Legend poster, but maybe that's too assumptive of me.
  
  As I get closer, I can better make out what the girl looks like, not that she's really much to see, brown hair down to her shoulders and a pretty average face with only a small amount of acne. Upon closer inspection, I was wrong about my initial assumption on her age. Rather than 19 like me, I's say she's closer to 16.
  
  I don't know what her body looks like under the covers and honestly I don't really care, I'm not hungry right now.
  
  So instead, I simply wrap my hands around her neck, gentle, like a lovers embrace, and then I 𝘴𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘦𝘻𝘦 and in a disgusting cracking pop, her neck is crushed underhand before she can so much as understand what is happening.
  
  Somehow, I keep forgetting that I am kinda strong now, I thought that would be like, half a minute of thrashing around before she died.
  
  Ah well, just makes things easier for me I guess.
  
  Now to move onto the parents, or parent, who knows?
  
  But as I turn to leave, my eye catches a full length mirror on the wall and I notice something distinctly new.
  
  Most of me looks the same, a young woman with blonde hair down to my back, a pair of white ear studs in my ears and a face that could easily be called beautiful. Then again, maybe I'm just vain. I mean, it's not like I'm Alexandria, but I was offered a modelling opportunity once, not that I would ever willingly step into the shithole that is modelling.
  
  However, instead of my normally pale green eyes, I am sporting a pair of eyes straight out of a horror movie. Honestly they're terrifying and I 𝘢𝘭𝘭 all for it. The iris itself is a startlingly bright crimson, shining like a pool of blood. Flowing away from the iris are small lines of red, like little streams separating from a lake of blood they flow over my now black sclera and leak out a little bit around the eyes like a spiderweb.
  
  I'm not gonna sugar-coat it, I look fucking awesome. It almost makes up for the whole cannibalism thing. Ok, that's a lie, it's just hit me that I'm never going to be able to eat chocolate again, or drink coke, OH FUCK! I can't drink booze anymore!
  
  Man, this sucks, ah well, no use complaining, I should go find out whether it's parent or parents.
  
  Turns out it was singular, just some middle aged man who joined his daughter in having a broken neck, after which he joined her in her room as well, because I wanted the king sized bed he died on.
  
  Now, time to get some shuteye, I should make it to a city by tomorrow, I assume.
  
  Again, I don't really know where I am driving, but it would be nice to be in civilisation again.
  
  After getting comfortable, I close my eyes and slowly drift off to sleep.
  
  𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘰𝘳 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘺 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘴 𝘪𝘯. 𝘐 𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘵.
  
  𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘐 𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘪𝘳 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘴𝘺𝘳𝘶𝘱 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘱 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥.
  
  "𝘊𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘣𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘮. 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺?"
  
  𝘐 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘯 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘤𝘬, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘧 𝘐 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘐'𝘮 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘥.
  
  "𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯'𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘦 𝘓𝘶𝘴𝘪."
  
  𝘚𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘣𝘦𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘦, "𝘌𝘩𝘦, 𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘺 '𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵. 𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯'𝘵 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯 𝘵𝘰, 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘧 𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰. 𝘚𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘺."
  
  "𝘋𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 '𝘦𝘩𝘦' 𝘮𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘥𝘺𝘬𝘦. 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘢 𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘦, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘬𝘦𝘱𝘵 𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘦, 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵?"
  
  𝘐 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘴𝘩 𝘨𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘰 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘢𝘴 𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘤𝘶𝘻 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘺, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘩𝘳𝘶𝘨 𝘮𝘺 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴. "𝘞𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵, 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘵, 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵?" 𝘐 𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘴𝘬, 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘺𝘦𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘸.
  
  "𝘍𝘢𝘪𝘳 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩," 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘴, "𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘯'𝘵 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶."
  
  𝘐 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢 𝘴𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘩 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯, 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦.
  
  "𝘞𝘦𝘭𝘭, 𝘐 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺, 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘺 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘴𝘰 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘵, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘺?"
  
  𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘐 𝘥𝘰 𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘩 𝘴𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 '𝘐'𝘮 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘥, 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥' 𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘴.
  
  "𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵? 𝘐 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘐 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘭𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦, 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘢 𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧𝘧 𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘥." 𝘐 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘯𝘥.
  
  "𝘖𝘳, 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘴," 𝘮𝘺 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢 𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘴 𝘐'𝘮 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘱𝘪𝘥, "𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘱𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘬?"
  
  ... 𝘰𝘩. 𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯'𝘵 𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵? 𝘐 𝘨𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘐'𝘮 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘢 𝘰𝘧 '𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱' 𝘢𝘯𝘥 '𝘣𝘦𝘥' 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘺𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘺𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘴.
  
  "𝘌𝘩𝘦, 𝘰𝘰𝘱𝘴?"
  
  "𝘠𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵? 𝘈𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘦. 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳, 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘰."
  
  𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵?
  
  "𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘥𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯?"
  
  𝘚𝘶𝘥𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘦, 𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘩 𝘸𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴, "𝘞𝘈𝘒𝘌 𝘜𝘗!"
  
  Jolting up with my heart pounding in my chest, I take a moment to gather my bearings before I recognise the room I'm in and recall what happened yesterday.
  
  The dull covers slide down my bare body, so I like to sleep naked, fuck you, as I look out the window and the midday sun shining through it.
  
  Guess I slept in.
  
  Right, I should probably get going.
  
  First things first I head to the girls room to look for some clothes, as I kinda, mighta got some blood on mine.
  
  Now that I think about it, I should probably burn those clothes, and now that I think about that, I should probably do something about the bodies.
  
  Well, I say that, but it's not like I'm a cop or something, I don't exactly know how to 'cover my tracks' as it were, so I'm just going to go with the idea that the less information available to find the less likely I'll get caught.
  
  I mean, what could they know so far?
  
  Me and my mom have disappeared, reasons unknown, and then a short time later another family pair goes missing, reasons once again unknown.
  
  Most likely they will assume that we have both been kidnapped and presumably will be looking for the mysterious kidnapper in a few days at most.
  
  All this means that I need to hide the bodies.
  
  Eh, I'll just throw them in the truck and dump them behind some trees like the other guy.
  
  Man, I am really lazy about this whole hiding evidence thing.
  
  Ah well, I'm sure it'll be fine.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  3 Decisions Snoisiced
  If you asked Noah what it was like working for the PRT, he would tell you that he's just glad he was born in Ohio, because even if the job of being a PRT director was a massive headache most of the time, he could at least take solace in the fact that he doesn't have to deal with half the shit the other directors complain about.
  
  Hell, it wasn't that long ago that poor Armstrong had to deal with that 'Boston Games' incident, and what a shitshow that was.
  
  But not here in Ohio, other than those Orchard assholes, most of the capes 'round here tend not to be so violent. The only downside of that is that it means the villains aren't killing each other, leaving our Hero to Villain ratio almost as bad as Brockton Bay, and isn't that just a scary thought.
  
  However, the other shoe always has to drop, and the report on the table in front of him tells Noah that his days of relative peace are under threat of coming to an end.
  
  "So what you're telling me is, a probably cape powered cannibal is on it's way to Columbus, and we know nothing about them?"
  
  Noah looks around the room after he's finished speaking, taking in the sight of his advisors and heads of various divisions of the PRT, the only cape present being the leader of the local Protectorate, Bungee.
  
  "Well, I wouldn't say we know nothing, I've already gotten our Thinkers on the job of finding out as much as possible-"
  
  Before the young upstart, Duncan, can finish his sentence, Bungee cuts him off with a wry smile, "'Our Thinkers'? Just say you asked Cousin, no need to act like we have Watchdog on call."
  
  It takes some effort for Noah to keep a straight face at the pinched expression Duncan makes. Honestly though, the young man tries far too hard to make himself sound more important than he is. 'Our Thinkers' he says.
  
  We have one thinker, Cousin, and he isn't even that good at reconnaissance since all his power does is tell them about whoever they make contact with, from body type to their favourite food. He makes a great therapist but in the world of capes all he is really good for is violating those 'unwritten rules'.
  
  As an aside, he chose his name because he claims that only a cousin could possibly know so much about you even when you don't remember shit about them.
  
  Duncan's voice startles Noah out of his thoughts, bringing his attention back to the meeting at hand.
  
  "*Ahem* Point is, we do not know nothing." Duncan says with mild embarrassment that bleeds into irritation as Bungee once again speaks up before he can say more.
  
  "Then would you mind telling us what we Do know, instead of wasting our time?" Bungee could not be more obvious in his goading and Noah idly wonders why he is so upset with Duncan.
  
  Pushing down his irritation, Duncan acquiesces and starts properly briefing us on what we know about this supposed cannibal.
  
  "What we know is that their first victims were likely a mother daughter pair living in Utica. The two of them, Ashley Abel, the mother and Lusia Abel the daughter, disappeared one week ago today, Miss Abel didn't show up for work and was later reported missing, to compound with this, one Markus Finch was also reported missing at around the same time and his truck stolen.
  
  "Following tire tracks of Mr Finch's last known location we were able to discover the culprits general direction, following which Mr Finch's body was discovered dismembered and thrown into the foliage beside the road. The body was at least three days old by the time forensics found it and they say that his limbs were ripped off of the body and his torso was also opened in a similar fashion, though only his heart was missing. From this at least we can give a tentative Brute 2 for being able to rip limbs off with sheer strength."
  
  A few of the people present wince slightly at the gory description, and some even turn green as they open the manila folder and see the photo's taken by forensics.
  
  "Further down the same road, another pair of dead were discovered, a father and daughter this time. They were both found dead in the same room with the same cause of death, a crushing of the neck, once again proving that Brute 2 is a minimum. However, only the daughter, one Taylor Laborne, was mutilated, having one of her legs ripped off.
  
  "From the information available, I believe that our cannibal must have triggered some time between one week and one month ago, following which they engaged in cannibalism, likely devouring Miss Abel and her daughter in their entirety, but it is possible that only the mother was eaten and that the daughter was kidnapped instead-"
  
  Noah can't help but interrupt at that last bit of information.
  
  "Wait, what do you mean kidnapped? Where could this information possibly have come from?"
  
  "Ah, that," Duncan says with a snap of his fingers, "after Mr and Miss Laborne were found and this case opened, I sent Cousin to Miss Abel's flat, since their disappearances happened at around the same time as Markus Finch's and he discovered that while the flat had been cleaned, there was still some blood left on the walls and carpet and he used his power to confirm the identity of who the blood belonged to, however there was only Miss Ashley's blood left and none of the daughters, meaning she might have been unharmed."
  
  With that out of the way, Noah signals for Duncan to continue, which he does with a nod.
  
  "As I was saying, it is likely that Miss Ashley was completely eaten, and then Mr Finch was only half eaten, following which the Labornes were hardly touched in comparison. This leads me to believe that the first instance was out of starvation, either physical or mental, but with the later victims, I fear that they are becoming more... picky."
  
  The already sombre mood quickly plummets as everybody realises the implications of a picky cannibal.
  
  After all, if they only want specific parts, then they will have to kill more people to get their fill. Quite the frightening prospect.
  
  "This new cape is clearly still figuring things out, it would be best if we can put a stop to them as soon as possible. Do we have any idea where they may be now?" The head of the troopers demands.
  
  "Ah.. about that. Judging from the age of the bodies and the direction of the vehicle.. it's quite likely that they are already here, in Columbus." One of the techies hesitantly responds.
  
  Following which, orders are given and plans are made, after all, it's best to capture this new cape while they are still young and making mistakes.
  
  Still, Noah couldn't help but worry. Even now, that monster is walking around his city and all he can do worry and fear about what heinous acts they could be committing right this very moment.
  
  The only comfort he can find is the hope that they will have this cannibal behind bars by weeks end.
  
  ...
  
  Man, even ice cream tastes like shit.
  
  Wait, do you think you can make human flavoured ice cream?
  
  It shouldn't be too hard actually, to make a blood slushy or something.
  
  Eh, I'll think about it later.
  
  It does really suck though, see, after I arrived in a city, Columbus, the first thing I did was find some place to sleep, which was as simple as finding an abandoned house and breaking in.
  
  But after that, I finally took a moment to just 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘱 and relax. Naturally, that was when I had a 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘰𝘳 panic attack.
  
  I guess I was running on adrenaline or something, maybe shock. I mean, I 𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 my 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳!
  
  How fucked up is that? Then what, I just went about my day? Killed another guy then two more for what was basically no reason whatsoever.
  
  I think I was just in shock or something, maybe. It's not like I really regret any of it, well, I regret killing my mom obviously, but I didn't really do that consciously, so it doesn't count.
  
  However, I am a little.. miffed? That I was so casual about becoming a murderer. I mean, I always knew I was fucked up, my mom knew it as well, even if she never liked it. But to accept being a murderer so easily? Well, if I had any hope that there was still some humanity inside of me, it's safe to say that hope is lost.
  
  Well, no point in dwelling on things I don't like to think about. Instead, it is more important that I figure out what the fuck am I going to do with my life now?
  
  I mean, I can hardly even be called human anymore and I don't exactly have someone I can leech off of anymore to live like a NEET.
  
  Not that I want to now that I have 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘴. No, I want something 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦. I'm just not entirely sure what exactly it is that I want yet.
  
  Well, let's go over what I need. First there is food, which has a whole lot of problems attached to it, then there's shelter and preferably some luxuries as well, Wi-Fi, comfy clothes and furniture, shit like that.
  
  Now, most of that can be solved with money, though I think it will probably be easier to get the food myself, unless you can just, like, buy body parts from hospitals or morgues or something.
  
  Now, money. How do you make money? You get a job. Fuck working some shitty normie job though, I have 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘴. I 'ain't gonna be some desk jockey.
  
  So, how does a cape make money? I could join the protectorate. I have no idea what they get paid, but going off what they offer to the Wards and the probably considerable 'hazard pay' as well as the fact that the incentives have to be good enough to stop people from turning villain, I'd imagine they are paid well.
  
  There is only one problem with that however, you see, I really, 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 hate being told what to do. I value my freedom above all things, hence why I refused to get some shitty job beforehand, because I didn't want to work nine to five and that is enough reason for me.
  
  With that in mind, working for a, most likely heavily regulated, governmental organisation is probably not something that would work out long term.
  
  Like, I have had a job once, working in a Sooubway and I lasted all of two weeks before I was contemplating suicide and decided that it'd be best to quit.
  
  Well, I say quit, but I decided it would be more fun to get fired instead, so I just started giving free shit away to everyone who came in, I still remember those times fondly, 'Oh, you only want a six inch sub? Sure, but would you like a free muffin and maybe a few cookies? I'm getting fired so it's on the house.'
  
  Unsurprisingly, everyone was rather receptive of my aggressive charity. Aggressive because if they would refuse I would just keep offering shit until they accepted something.
  
  Ahh, fun times.
  
  With all that in mind, it seems I will have to use the other method for capes to make money, which is to say, crime.
  
  A shiver of excitement spreads through my body at the thought.
  
  𝘈𝘩𝘩, 𝘧𝘶𝘯 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘦𝘥.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  The time for crime is nigh!
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
  previous chapternext chapterchapter list
  4 Breaking Tropes
  So, crime.
  
  How does one do crime?
  
  More importantly, how does one make money doing crime?
  
  Honestly, this is kinda new territory for me, the most illegal things I've done being petty theft and throwing rocks with copper wire wrapped around them at telephone wires, so I wasn't entirely sure how to go about it, but then I had the most amazing idea I must have ever had in my life.
  
  Ok, that's an exaggeration, but it is a pretty good idea.
  
  See, I may not know how to do Le Crimes, but do you know who does know how to do La Crime? Criminals.
  
  It seems obvious when I actually think the words.
  
  Anyway, since I don't know how to make money doing crimes, I will just find criminals that do know how to make money, and then rob them of all their crime money.
  
  I mean, at that point, am I even a criminal? Is it illegal to steal from a thief?
  
  No idea, but I did just remember that I'm a murderer now so the argument of whether or not I'm a criminal is kinda pointless.
  
  Now however, I have come to a roadblock of sorts.
  
  You see, I did a little light theft last night to get a disguise, nothing extensive, just a beanie to hide my hair, and a Halloween mask depicting a scary lookin' clown, under which I also have a domino mask over my eyes and a surgical mask over my mouth, cuz what if the first mask falls off?
  
  It's not like it's designed for high intensity fights, not that I intend to get into any high intensity fights before even getting some more cash to fall back on.
  
  I also got some coloured contact lenses, only to then realise that there is no real point in doing so and throwing them away, since I can just change my eyes into the cool looking scary version whenever I'm doing cape activities, only to 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 realise that I can still use the coloured contact lenses for my more civilian activities, since I am 'missing' or whatever, maybe 'dead'.
  
  So then I had to get a new handful of contact lenses, cuz putting something in your eyes that has been thrown in the trash is just stupid. Then again, I seem to heal pretty well, so who knows? Not that I really want to test that regeneration any time ever. I am no masochist thank you very much.
  
  But even after all of that, when I was finally standing in my swanky new mask(s) and dressed up in some tight but flexible black clothing, I realised something of grave importance.
  
  I have no fucking idea how to find criminals.
  
  It's not like they just advertise themselves right?
  
  These thoughts led to me once again stripping and putting back on my normal clothes, putting my tentatively named 'cape outfit' in a bag, with the idea that if I, an attractive woman (fuck you, I'm vain), simply walked around the seedier neighbourhoods at night, maybe some gangster will come along and try kidnap me or something.
  
  I mean, I'm assuming that someone will try something if I just walk around for a few hours, and then when they do I can be all like, "Aha! You have fallen for my trap criminal! What's that? No, no I'm not a Hero, in fact, I'm a cannibal! Rawr!".
  
  ... Ok, I wouldn't say 𝘦𝘹𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 those words, but you get the general idea, it's like entrapment. I think. Honestly for all that I can be super smart sometimes, I am kinda dumb most of all the time, so I rarely really know what the fuck I'm talking about, but hey, just go with the flow and everything will work out in the end.
  
  Probably.
  
  So here I am, wearing tight jeans and a red crop top, just to be extra.. uh.. bait-ey? Uh, to be... more attractive as bait? Fuck the english language you get what I mean.
  
  I'm also wearing an open blue hoodie and a stylish white scarf to cover my mouth with, as well as one of my contact lenses, giving me blue eyes.
  
  Honestly, it's not much of a disguise, but it's not like I really need to be overly paranoid about this. I mean, if it was 𝘥𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘰𝘯 looking for me or something, I have no doubt that she would have found me by now with such a shitty disguise, but I'm willing to bet that at the most all anyone is doing to find me is running my face through some facial recognition software connected to traffic cams and CCTV and shit.
  
  I'm not sure if you have ever seen facial recognition software at work, but unless it's the super advanced stuff, then it's kinda very easy to avoid, so long as I don't start staring directly into every camera I see, and I highly doubt my case is priority enough to warrant the advanced shit.
  
  In conclusion, my shoddy disguise should be good enough that no one is going to find me. Why don't I wear a wig? Blonde hair isn't exactly a distinctive trait to track me down with dumbass.
  
  Fuck, I am so bored.
  
  I have been walking around for like, an hour or two, something in the middle, and other than a few wolf whistles that I didn't care about and some more lecherous gazes, nobody has so much as tried to molest me, never mind mug me!
  
  Arrgh! it's so frustrating!
  
  It almost makes me laugh, the thought that I am complaining about no one trying to molest me. Powers sure do make life interesting. But I stop myself from laughing, because that would make me look crazy, and crazy people don't get mugged, cuz you don't fuck with crazy people.
  
  They are after all, crazy.
  
  Half an hour later and I am really regretting my choice of ditching all of my electronics, even with the knowledge of how easy it would be to track me should I have kept them.
  
  I should have stolen a new phone before doing this, it's not like they could track me down from a phone that is completely unrelated to me, so long as I don't do anything that I used to do on my old phone, like log into my 'gram, not that I ever used the thing but you get the point.
  
  Frankly, I never really had any interest in anything social media besides the memes. I mostly used my phone to play Minesweeper or Solitaire. They're simple but I like them. Better than that 'rot your brain with a gazillion 12 second videos' app.
  
  However, my thoughts are broken as I 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 smell a pair of people rapidly approaching me from behind.
  
  Is it weird that the first indication I have of their presence is their 𝘴𝘮𝘦𝘭𝘭? Yes. Am I going to dwell on that fact? No.
  
  Instead, I am going to take this left turn into what seems to be 'Shady Alleyway Number 4'.
  
  Ohhh nooo~ it's a dead end~~ what ever am I going to do~?
  
  I jump a little when I get to the end of the alley, to sell the impression that I was just lost in thought or something and didn't realise I took a wrong turn, then I turn around to face my hopefully would-be muggers slash molesters.
  
  Looking at the two of them, I check them both out. The one on the left has short blond hair and blue eyes with pale skin, very aryan, while the other one has brown hair in a braid going down his back almost as far as my own and has matching eyes and dark skin.
  
  Hitler would be mad, seeing an aryan hanging out with a black.
  
  The pair of them aren't wearing gang colours, actually never mind, I have no idea what 'gang colours' look like nor how to identify them, but they are just wearing casual clothes, both wearing cargo pants, one black the other green camo, and they are both also wearing black hoodies.
  
  However, the blonds hoody is unzipped, showing a shirt underneath that has a stylized 'We're the three best friends that anyone could have!' with a chibi drawing of the Triumvirate underneath and a faded drawing of Hero behind a red X.
  
  Ok, that's a pretty funny shirt and I can't resist the undignified snort that comes out of me when I see it which makes him smile with what can only be pride.
  
  Before I can even open my mouth to say some movie worthy lines about muggers and having a bad time, the white guy speaks up first.
  
  "You like it? I had to custom order it, cost me like 70 bucks." He says whole gesturing to his body to properly show his shirt off.
  
  Once again, before I can open my mouth the black dude speaks up this time.
  
  "Ignore James, he has a horrible sense of humour, he was raised by a diener and a comedian and it left his sense of humour irrevocably broken." He says, while pushing the now named James' head to the side, even as he sniggers.
  
  "Wait, what do you mean a diner? Do you mean they worked 𝘪𝘯 a diner?" I ask without even realising that I have been dragged into a conversation when I was expecting a fight.
  
  "Nah, a diener, d-i-e, it's what you call someone who works in a mortuary, oh my name is Theo by the way, nice to meet you." Theo clarifies while extending a hand to shake.
  
  Without really thinking about it I reach out and shake his hand and introduce myself, only remembering half way through not to use my actual name.
  
  "Ah, uh, yeah, nice to meet you too, my name is.. Alice."
  
  This really isn't going how I thought it would go.
  
  "Well Alice!" White guy James reinstates himself into the conversation with all the grace of a dictator, "we only came over 'cuz we guessed you were new in town and didn't know what you were doing, see, your heading into Red Branch territory right now, so it'd probably be best if you take a detour or something, 'cuz those Irish pricks wouldn't let you just pass through without starting some shit."
  
  What.
  
  Are you telling me that not only am I not getting mugged slash molested, but they are actually just tryna be nice?
  
  This isn't going how I thought it would 𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭.
  
  "Uh, Red Branch territory? Can you like, mark out gang territory for me? So I know where to avoid?" I ask, thinking that this can be an even better opportunity than getting mugged.
  
  My question makes them both smile for some reason before Theo speaks up again.
  
  "Sure, you got a map though?"
  
  Embarrassingly, I didn't think to get a map to help me navigate this new city I have found myself in, which is pretty dumb in retrospect.
  
  Not that it matters, because apparently James works in the PRT and is the guy who does the tours so he just so happened to have a map of the city and a pen on hand.
  
  Following which, they do a little doodling and give me a map that has the basic outlines of gang territory and where the Protectorate patrols as well as a brief rundown on the cities capes and how the gangs act.
  
  Honestly this whole thing has been a godsend, these two are like a treasure trove of information and seem perfectly willing to share that information, and I don't forget to tell them.
  
  "Thank you so much, honestly, you guys are like a godsend, I won't lie, I didn't know even a single thing you just told me, so thanks a bunch for the info."
  
  "Hey, it's cool, times can be tough, we're happy to help and don't have anything going on right now anyway. Do you want us to walk you to wherever you're staying?" James offers with a surprising sincerity.
  
  Well, I can't just lead them to where I'm staying, since I broke into an abandoned house and that's not exactly legal, so I say the first thing that comes to mind.
  
  "Ah, actually, I just got here so if you could show me to a hotel or something, that'd be perfect." I say, not realising my mistake until it's too late.
  
  "Shit, you don't have somewhere to stay the night? You could crash at our place for a few nights if you want, just until you get yourself on your feet, I know how it is." Theo gives me a sympathetic look as he puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes it gently.
  
  Seriously, what the fuck is it with these two assholes being so damn nice!
  
  "Ah, I wouldn't want to intrude." Comes my lame response that James quickly dismantles.
  
  "Eh, it's cool, we live together anyway and it's a two bedroom but I crash on the couch most nights anyway, so you can take my bed 'till you get a place of your own to stay."
  
  They must have noticed my perplexed face because they both chuckle a little before they turn and lead me away, Theo patting me on the back as he does so.
  
  "Don't worry about it, we've both been there before, we know how it is. We won't pry but know that if ya need anything you can always ask and we'd be happy to help, and if you think it's unfair or something, then you can always pay us back later when you can support yourself."
  
  Goddamn what is in the water here.
  
  As I get led down the street by a pair of the nicest strangers I have ever met, a genuine, happy smile lights up my face for the first time in weeks.
  
  I guess I can always beat up criminals another day.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  I was going to do the stereotype, but then I figured that not everyone walking around at night is an asshole.
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  5 Interesting Conversation
  "Alright, we'll both get back while you're out, so just remember to lock the door behind you and we'll see you tonight!" James waves over his shoulder as he and Theo leave the flat early in the morning to go to their jobs.
  
  Yesterday really didn't go how I was expecting it to.
  
  For one, the boys held up to their promise and let me crash with them for now. We all went straight to sleep once we got here, the flat being in the centre of Columbus, a similar distance from the PRT(Parahuman Response Team) and CPD(Columbus Police Department) buildings, since that is where the two of them work.
  
  Yes, I do see the irony of living with two people who work in law enforcement, not that James technically does any law enforcement, since he's more of an intern, but Theo at least is on active duty.
  
  Frankly, the irony of the situation is far too funny for me to do anything to change it, though it is slightly annoying that I will now have to make sure to keep my blue contact lenses on whenever I'm around them.
  
  Now, as James said before he left, I am going to go 'job hunting' some time in the afternoon, which is to say I will be using my fancy new map to run around gang territory in my 'cape outfit' to see if I can't find me some crime money.
  
  I really have no idea what I am doing.
  
  Oh well, I'm sure I will figure it out in time.
  
  I leave the flat with my Bag of Belongings that holds literally everything I own right now, which is just a change of clothes, some canned coffee, because 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 a thing apparently, I was never much of a coffee girl before it was the literal only thing I can drink, as well as about a grand in cash, which is mostly made up of birthday and christmas money that I never spent.
  
  It's already late in the evening at 8pm when I leave, only an hour or so before the boys would be getting back and I walk around a bit, slowly making my way back to the territory of the Irish gang Red Branch, before I find a nice, out of the way alley that I can use to change into my 'outfit'.
  
  I leave the my bag in the alley underneath a dumpster, since I don't think it's gonna get collected anytime soon and I doubt any non cape could lift it.
  
  With that out of the way, I jump straight to the roof in a single bound and start running around, kinda just hoping something would happen.
  
  I feel like this isn't the most efficient way to go about this, but eh, I'm sure it will work out in the end, and I am proven right not even a full hour later.
  
  With the sun fully set, and the night sky greeting the world, I spy a pair of men wearing matching green bandannas who are doing what is clearly a shady deal with some other guy just on the corner of the street.
  
  If I had to guess, it's a drug deal, I'm not sure what gave it away, but it might have been the ziplock bag filled with white powder trading hands, but hey, what do I know? Maybe there's a sugar shortage and this guy can't live without his morning coffee with two sugars-
  
  Aaand he's just put some on his hand and snorted it.
  
  Well, that's fun. I'm just going to wait for him to leave before I go and have a 'friendly conversation' with those two fellows down there on the street like a pair of mortals, only cool guys like me ride the rooftops.
  
  That was such a lame thing to say, even without anyone to hear me I'm embarrassed for just thinking it.
  
  Whatever, they're alone now and no one else seems to be occupying the street, so now is my time to shine.
  
  Sneaking across the rooftops, keeping to the shadows, I arrive on the building that they are standing underneath and approach the edge, contemplating how to go about this.
  
  One option is to simply jump down, but the other, cooler option, is to use my freaky blood ribbon things that grow from my back and use them to hang upside down so they can only see my face without looking up.
  
  It would certainly add to the intimidation factor, the blatant use of powers means they wouldn't be able to rationalise things until they think they could stand a chance against me, but then there's the fact that no one knows about my ability and it's just common sense to keep an ace in the hole.
  
  Anyone who doesn't get that has clearly never cheated at, I mean, played poker.
  
  Decision made, I crouch on the edge and listen in on my vict- future conversation partners, so I can get a nice and dramatic opening to enter from, only to freeze once I actually start listening to them.
  
  "-ook, I'm not saying ye're fucked in the head, but how could ya possibly 𝘧𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘻𝘦 the fecking 𝘚𝘪𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯? Do ya not get how fucked that is?" Drug Dealer Numero Uno says with completely understandable incredulity.
  
  However, Drug Dealer Duo, clearly disagrees, "First of all, vore has been a fetish since the 90s, secondly she literally walks around naked, 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦, and you can't honestly tell me that the Siberian isn't really fecking hot, just physically speaking, lastly, don't kink shame me." Comes DDD's vehement rebuttal that stuns both Uno and I into momentary silence.
  
  After a moment passes, Uno regains his composure and proceeds to really rip into Mr DDD.
  
  "No, I will shame you, vore is fecked, it's literally cannibalism! What part of being eaten could 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘺 be fecking erotic!? Not ta' mention, who gives a feck if the Siberian has a hot body, she's still a 𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘣𝘢𝘭 and 𝘢 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘭𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘕𝘪𝘯𝘦! You need to see a fucking shrink Shaun."
  
  "I d'nay need a fecking shrink Sean!" DDD responds, his voice rising with his agitation, "It's not like my art is hurting anybody! Just 'cuz I like to draw it, doesn't mean I'm gonna fecking 𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺. It's just fantasy! I know you watch incest shit, you don't hear me saying your gonna literally fuck your mother, do you?!"
  
  I ignore Uno's response as their argument gets more heated and instead just think to myself.
  
  How the fuck am I supposed to insert myself into this?
  
  I didn't think they would be having such a strange conversation, and frankly DDD is making me a little uncomfortable, since he is basically fetishizing me.
  
  At the very least, I am definitely not going to be eating that guy, not that I'm really even hungry right now but still.
  
  Should I just jump down now? The argument doesn't seem to be ending..
  
  Maybe I can just act like I dropped down as soon as I saw them, and that I didn't hear any of their conversation?
  
  Fuck it, I will do that, I'm wasting time just sitting here otherwise.
  
  Decision made, I don't waste any more time and jump forward slightly, landing in front of them in a crouch, enjoying the way their eyes widen in shock at my sudden appearance.
  
  I had decided how I was going to act in my 'cape persona' back when I got my mask. See, I believe that a life you don't enjoy is not a life worth living, so whatever it is that I am doing, I strive to at the very least, make sure that I enjoy myself and have a little fun.
  
  So, considering the clown mask, which is pure white with a pair of eyeholes that properly display my own glowing red irises, with a pink tear trailing down below my right eye and a black triangle pointing up above my left and a wide, toothy smile with lips almost as red as my eyes and teeth that I painted black.
  
  I decided that it only makes sense to be more 'energetic' as it were.
  
  It also help for intimidation. It's basic math really, the human mind that is, push certain buttons and you get specific reactions, I've always felt that people overcomplicate the act of inter-personal relations.
  
  On one hand I could be demanding and threatening, but on the other I could be completely casual and threatening, and that is generally far scarier, since it gives off the image that you are so far beneath me that I don't even need to put on any airs.
  
  Pushing my thoughts to the back of my head, I leap up from my crouch and flash the two Irishmen a peace sign.
  
  "Aaand she sticks the landing! Hey there! Lovely night out huh?" I speak with a positively cheerful tone as the two fetishists gather their bearings and immediately set out to conform to stereotypes.
  
  "Who the fuck are you!? This is Red Branch territory, if you're here to cause trouble then fuck of, you might be a cape but that doesn't mean Cu won't feckin' spear you!" DDD threatens, even as he takes a step back after looking into my eyes.
  
  Honestly, after meeting with James and Theo, I'm kinda glad for the normalcy of a gangbanger being a typical gangbanger.
  
  Still, I want to keep up the juxtaposition between innocence and scariness, so I make sure to choose my words carefully, my every action measured.
  
  "Uwaaah~ so scary~" I whine as I take a step back and crouch down, putting my hands over my mask, but peaking through my fingers, making sure my eyes never leave theirs, even as I speak as childishly as I can, sounding like a child throwing a tantrum at first, before my voice drops low and quiet with a threatening edge that they clearly don't miss, "I only wanted to talk!~ But I guess we can skip to the end if you want?"
  
  Not waiting for them to respond, I lurch forward faster than they can properly react and grab them both by the face before slamming both of my hands down to the pavement below, making sure to control my strength so that I don't injure them too much.
  
  "My my~ You guys are like, sooo~ clumsy, falling over like that," I quip with the inflection of a typical white trash woman, "maybe if you answer some of my questions, I'll help you up?"
  
  Looking past where my hands are holding the two of them down, I can tell that my act of instability is working just fine if the fear in their eyes is anything to go off, why I can practically smell it.
  
  Wait, is that a feature of my power? Can I literally smell fear?
  
  Something to test later, business first.
  
  "F-fuck you! F-fucking p-psycho bitch! I ain't no snit-" Uno is, unfortunately cut off before he can finish by his own bloodcurdling scream as, once again faster than they can react, I move my hand from his face to his arm and using my leg on his torso as leverage, I rip his entire arm off from the base in one brutal move.
  
  "Sh-sh shhh. There's no need to scream, everything's going to be ok" I hush him, knowing full well how hypocritical it is to pretend to care for his well being at this point.
  
  But he isn't the important one here anyway, this show is all for ol' Triple D.
  
  And as Uno's whimpers die down to light sobs as he starts to get woozy from blood loss, I turn to my other new friend and one look in his blown wide eyes and I can tell that he will tell me everything I want to know, and so I started asking my questions.
  
  Less than an hour later and I am back to jumping across the rooftops, only this time with an actual direction in mind.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  And things will start kicking off now, I have a very vague plan, almost as vague as my plan was for Murder Wizard. All in all, should be fun
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
  previous chapternext chapterchapter list
  6 Making Friends Again
  It barely takes me ten minutes of roof hopping to get to the supposed 'stash house'.
  
  I've watched enough movies to know that simply barging in isn't a good idea, so I come to a stop on a building across the street from the small warehouse to allow myself a little observation.
  
  The building itself isn't a full warehouse, which makes sense since despite being towards the less populated parts of the city, we aren't actually in a warehouse district.
  
  Instead, it looks to me like the building was just a storage building for the business adjacent to it that has clearly been long out of business.
  
  From the worn down sign of the abandoned shop next door, I think this used to be a textile shop of some sort, so I assume the warehouse was used for making shirts or something.
  
  I shrug my shoulders at the redundant information and focus back on the warehouse.
  
  The front only has a single pair of double doors, so I assume there is a larger opening in the back for delivery trucks and the like. There also doesn't seem to be any guards that are readily apparent, but even from here I can smell the people inside.
  
  With nothing really jumping out to me, I decide not to bother with continued observation and instead make my way over to the building itself, keeping as quiet as I can as I scale my way to the roof, something made all the easier by the fact that I can make my own handholds by simply digging my superhumanly strong fingers into the wall.
  
  Once I make it to the top I am greeted by the disappointment that is a warehouse without a skylight.
  
  No cool, dramatic entrance for me I guess.
  
  Whatever, see if I care.
  
  Making my way to the back of the building, I look down from the roof and see that yes, there is in fact a loading bay, however, luckily for me the two small windows at the top of the garage door seem to be unbarred.
  
  With that in mind, I hop down from the roof, however due to poor form rather than landing in a silent crouch like I intended, I end up sort of just crumpling to the ground in a mildly painful jumble of limbs.
  
  Ow.
  
  Ignoring that, I jump back to my feet and use the age old tactic of digging my fingers into the wall like a spider to climb high enough that I can actually 𝘴𝘦𝘦 through the windows.
  
  When I finally do take a peek inside, I feel somewhat disappointed by what I see.
  
  I don't know what I was expecting really, maybe a line of half naked women cutting coke or something interesting like that.
  
  Instead, all I get is a group of four pasty white dudes playing poker. To separate them I quickly name them all. First there's Mr Buzzcut, then there's James Blond, Mr Baseball Bat and lastly, The Woman.
  
  I really shouldn't be disappointed, after all, the easier this is the better.
  
  But at the same time, I was really hoping this would be like in the movies.
  
  Eh, whatever, anything can be fun if you try hard enough, so I guess I'll just see how it goes and try to get a good mix of enjoying myself and making that sweet, sweet crime money.
  
  Now that I'm aware that this isn't some den filled with fighters, I don't really see the point of going the sneaky route anymore, so I decide to simply do what I avoided at the start.
  
  The classic loud and proud approach it is.
  
  Taking a deep breath, I steel my nerves, this is my first time, obviously I'm going to be nervous, and I mentally flip a switch to stop acting like myself and instead start acting like my cape persona.
  
  Taking one last deep breath, I plant my hands on the wall above the window, gripping deep into the cement, and I swing backwards until my body is horizontal, then as gravity takes hold of me I swing back down, letting go of the wall as I do so.
  
  Smashing through the glass feet first and flying into the warehouse was exciting, but rolling across the floor in a completely uncontrolled manner after I fail to stick the landing is just embarrassing.
  
  Thankful for my mask hiding my blushing face, I jump to my feet as soon as I stop rolling, and turn to face the Four Musketeers.
  
  A beat passes as they stand there, having gotten up while I was rolling on the ground, looking at me, unsure of what to do.
  
  I break the silence by sticking out one of my hands in a victory sign whilst the other rests on my hip like I'm posing for a camera and I lean forward slightly as I speak with my purposely childish voice.
  
  "Aaand she sticks the landing!~" I exclaim, conveniently ignoring the fact that I did 𝘯𝘰𝘵 stick the landing.
  
  "Uh, no you didn't." Mr Blond speaks up with uncertainty clouding his voice.
  
  You know what? Fuck you Mr Blond.
  
  I only need one of them to tell me where the money is after all.
  
  "Hey hey! Don't be mean~ it's my first time." I shyly rebut, covering my mask with my hands and wriggling on the spot.
  
  However, the moment they all turn to look at each other in confusion, I burst forth with my full speed, throwing a sloppy punch at Mr Blond.
  
  My punch lands square on his chest and I feel as my fist buries itself through and past his ribs, nearly coming out the other side.
  
  I also feel my wrist break from what I can only assume is shitty form.
  
  As Blond launches backwards and probably dies, I myself cry out, pain being an unfamiliar sensation and am cradling my wrist when I feel a metal bat crack across the back of my head, sanding me straight to the ground.
  
  Double owie.
  
  I try to roll with the force of the hit to get some distance, but once again my inexperience shows and I end up sort of just crawling forward, unbalanced.
  
  But I do make enough distance at least to get back to my feet and I turn around just in time to see the bat coming for my face yet again.
  
  Instinctively, I lean back and dodge the swing matrix style, though I'm pretty sure the only reason I actually succeeded in dodging it is just because my speed far outstrips his.
  
  Before I can get back to being upright, Buzzcut is following up after the bat swing, throwing a sweeping kick for my legs while I am unbalanced.
  
  Once again not really having time to think about my actions, I complete my backwards fall and plant my hands on the ground, lifting my legs over the sweep and pushing off of the ground to launch both of my feet straight into Buzzcut's gut, the result sending him flying a good few feet away.
  
  The bat comes down on me again like a hammer as I lay on the floor, and without really thinking, I reach up to block it with my arms.
  
  I panic for a moment, thinking that the bat is going to break both of my arms, but I clearly forgot about my brute rating as other than some slight pain, all the swing manages to do is make my arms dip inwards slightly.
  
  It's probably going to bruise, at least if I couldn't regenerate it would.
  
  Before he can pull away, I grab the bat and pull him down to my side, spinning us over so that I am straddling him, then I just start wailing on his face.
  
  It only takes a few punches before his face resembles less a face and more a pile of kinda gross gore.
  
  Panting lightly, I get back to my feet, idly getting the feeling that I was forgetting something.
  
  Of course, I am reminded of what I was forgetting when a staccato of what can only be bullets impact my back with all the force of a freight train, sending me crumbling forwards.
  
  It feels like when Mr Bat hit me in the back of the head, only a little worse, far more concentrated and in much greater numbers.
  
  But honestly, it's really not that bad, kind of like stubbing your toe I guess. It sucks, but only for a moment and it's not a pain that is difficult to power through.
  
  Still, I wait until the woman and at least one other person actually stop shooting me before even bothering to get back up.
  
  Only when I hear the clicks that I associate with an empty magazine do I stir, having simply relaxed my muscles as they effectively gave me a very shitty, kinda painful back massage.
  
  Slowly, rising to my feet, swaying slightly for dramatic effect, I stand there, facing away from them with my back hunched before I slowly turn my head to the side, twisting my body only minimally so that I can side eye them over my shoulder.
  
  "Heyyy~ that wasn't very nice~"
  
  Behind me I can see two people. One of them is obviously the woman from before while the other one is a dude that was presumably in a different room.
  
  Both of them are holding guns, the girl holding two machine pistols that I don't know enough about guns to identify, while the guy is holding a bigger gun, I guess.
  
  Again, I don't know a lot about guns, never having bothered to buy any since I didn't leave the house anyway.
  
  I spend a moment just basking in the fear they are showing, especially the woman, her fear is so strong I can practically 𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦 it, and it tastes 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨.
  
  I know 'exciting' isn't a flavour, but that's the best way I can describe it and I make sure to revel in it or a second or two before I actually turn all the way around.
  
  Once I am properly facing them, I tilt my head to the side slightly and take a single step forward.
  
  That seems to break them out of their shock and the woman takes a step back, losing her footing and falling on her ass, all without taking her eyes off of me, seeming to not even want to so much as blink.
  
  The guy however, seems to steel himself and backs up much more confidently, reloading his gun as he does so.
  
  Now, we can't have that, can we?
  
  In a single bound I am in front of him and swinging. Without panicking he gives up on loading his gun and instead takes a small step back to avoid my swipe and retaliates by punching the barrel of his gun into my throat.
  
  I'm sure it would have been effective enough to down the average man, but for me it was little more than a mild annoyance, making me choke and cough a little but not enough that I even have to back away.
  
  I smile when I see the realisation in his face that it's helpless to fight me, even if he is clearly more skilled and experienced than me, he simply lacks the raw power that I have available to me.
  
  I don't bother dragging things out either, snapping my leg up in what is probably an incredibly telegraphed move, but even if he can see it coming, there is nothing he can do to avoid it.
  
  I hope he realises that and has time to despair before my hit connects and he goes flying, even impacting the wall a good six feet behind him.
  
  That done, I walk up to the woman who has by now crawled backwards all the way to the wall and is staring at me in terror and with a smile in my voice and my legs straight, I bend at the waist until my face is only a few inches away from hers.
  
  I practically purr my next words so quietly that it might as well have been a whisper.
  
  "And then there were two.~"
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Gonna get a POV shift next chap that will reveal some things if you look close enough, also Lusia will finally get some direction to her life.
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  7 Interlude: Hailey Finnegan
  Guard duty is never fun, but I suppose that's fine, because at least it's safe, and I get paid either way.
  
  Still, the company could at least be better, Quinten is the only one here that's any good at poker, and he spends all his time in the back counting the cash and doing accounting or whatever.
  
  Numbers confuse me.
  
  However, apparently I tempted fate because my nice, quiet night of scamming these idiots out of all their cash is rudely interrupted by the crashing sound of glass shattering.
  
  My chair clatters to the ground as I spring to my feet but I ignore it as I focus on the source of the noise, idly noting the others standing with me.
  
  Whatever I expected to see, from the CPD's tear gas to a Hero or even a rival cape, I did not expect to see a girl crashing into the ground like she was just thrown uncontrollably through the window.
  
  Before anyone can say anything, the girl jumps to her feet in a single bound that I am fairly certain no normal human would be capable of doing, and if that wasn't enough to confirm that this girl is a cape, then what I see next is.
  
  With her back on her feet, we could actually get a good look at who we are dealing with.
  
  Most of her 'costume', if it can even be called such, is just black clothes you can buy in any military surplus store. From the black cargo pants to the black pullover and cargo jacket.
  
  I can respect that much at least, god knows we can never have enough pockets, but it's the last bit of the ensemble that really puts my hairs on ends.
  
  Her mask is that of a smiling clown with black teeth and crying a single pink tear, but that is nothing to really call home about, no, it's her eyes that send shivers down my spine.
  
  An almost instinctual feeling of fear overcomes me as I stare into those pools of blood she wears as eyes. A feeling like I'm being stared down by my natural predator suffuses my bones as I peer into those crimson orbs and I feel a madness emanating from them, trying to take hold of me.
  
  I've stood in front of some pretty scary capes before, but none of them gave me a feeling like this, like I am prey, food to be hunted and devoured.
  
  Then the monster speaks.
  
  "Aaand she sticks the landing!~" It says with the voice of a child seeking praise.
  
  I almost don't catch Frank responding to the thing in front of us so stunned was I, and I almost wanted scream at the idiot for getting it's attention, even if that ship has clearly already sailed, but before I can even turn to him, the monster speaks again.
  
  "Hey hey! Don't be mean~ it's my first time." It says as if it is not some evil creature but a shy schoolgirl instead.
  
  Then, as I finally turn to my fellows, hoping to convey with my eyes the danger we are in, I don't get to speak before the monster blurs from the corner of my eye to being in front of Frank with it's arm buried 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 of his ribcage.
  
  As Frank gets sent flying with a sickening 𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬 that makes me think that he will most likely never to rise again, I find myself taking an involuntary step backwards even as Markus takes a swing with his bat, hitting the thing on the back of the head but I know it won't stick.
  
  No. We need something stronger.
  
  With that in mind I turn to run for the back room where Quinten should still be counting the cash, as well as where we keep our guns.
  
  By the time I'm busting through the door, I hear a thud behind me and a cry of pain that I do my best to ignore, focusing instead on Quinten who is already on his feet, Glock in hand and held ready.
  
  "What the fuck is going on Hailey? What's with the noise?" His voice brings me a measure of calm and I do my best to emulate his confidence, but I still find it hard to get my words out through panting breaths.
  
  Taking a quick breath to steady myself, my words come out in a rush, "m-monster. There's a c-ape, a monster, we need g-guns."
  
  I don't wait for him to respond, instead just rushing to the other side of the room where we have a few Mac11's on hand of which I take a pair, making sure to throw an AR-15 at Quinten which he catches.
  
  I don't bother with anything else, there is no time, nothing else matters right now than killing that thing as fast as possible.
  
  With that thought driving me, I rush back into the main room, hoping beyond all hope that I am fast enough to save the idiots from the monster.
  
  Unfortunately, when I make it back, I am greeted with the price of my failure in the form of a disgusting 𝘴𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘭𝘤𝘩.
  
  Frank is still where I last saw him and just as still, Karl is also on the ground and he doesn't seem to be moving, and then, right in front of me is the monster, it's back to us as it straddles Markus.
  
  The monster gets up and I am able to guess where the sound came from when I see Markus' face, or more like what's left of his face.
  
  I think I gape in horror for a moment as the image of Markus' entire head being replaced by a pile of disgusting red and grey mush, not a single feature of his face remaining.
  
  Then comes the rage, which I guess is enough to overcome my fear as I level both of my guns at the thing's back and open fire, barely noticing Quinten beside me emptying the AR at the same time.
  
  I don't stop shooting even when it falls to the ground. I don't stop shooting even when my magazines click empty.
  
  I think I might be in shock. The thought comes so randomly that I lose focus for a moment.
  
  I may not have liked the idiots too much, but they were my friends damnit!
  
  But even if I talk a big game, the fear comes back even stronger once the Monster starts to stir from it's place on the ground.
  
  I can't help but watch in horror as the Monster slowly, 𝘰𝘩 𝘴𝘰 𝘴𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘺, get's to it's feet, swaying side to side as it does so, it's limp and blooded, 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘶𝘴' 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘥, arms swinging with it's movement until it stills facing away from us, it's back hunched like it's about to fall forward.
  
  Then the thing turns it's shoulders slightly, stretching it's neck to look at us over it's shoulder.
  
  The Monsters face nearly sends me to my knees as it's smiling visage suddenly seems far more terrifying as it is splattered all over with blood, the formally white face becoming more red than anything else and I swear I see it's grin stretch just a bit wider when I focus on it.
  
  It's red eyes bore into us, not even slightly bothered by the hail of bullets it just endured, in fact, it's eyes seem.. amused? But also with the promise of death. Like the cat playing with the mouse, knowing that once it stops being fun, the mouse dies.
  
  I don't like that I'm the feeling of being the mouse.
  
  "Heyyy~ that wasn't very nice~" It all but 𝘤𝘰𝘰𝘴 at us and it's all I can do to stay on my feet, as it is I just freeze, hoping that if I simply don't move a muscle it might leave me alone.
  
  After a moment that felt like a lifetime of just staring at us, it finally turns around, standing at it's full height that suddenly seems so much taller than when it first got here.
  
  It stares at us for a moment longer, it's head tilting to the side in a way that reminds me far to uncomfortably of a cat, my earlier thoughts coming back before it takes a single step forward and before I can even really think about it I am already on the ground.
  
  I don't take my eyes off of the Monster, trying my best to not even blink even as I frantically crawl backwards, jumping slightly when my back hits a wall and all I can do is watch.
  
  I see the Monster leap for Quinten in a blur of movement reminiscent of when she first moved against Frank, only Quinten manages to dodge the first, sloppy swing and even retaliate, however, what does it matter?
  
  So what if the Monster doesn't know how to fight?
  
  What does it matter? Knowing how to fight can't help you against Monsters.
  
  I'm proven right when all that It does in response to Quinten's strike is to choke out a laugh.
  
  It then twists itself, obviously going for a kick, taunting him by all but telling him what it's next move will be.
  
  But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you know how the Monster is going to attack. Because it is still the Monster, and there is nothing you can do.
  
  It's hopeless.
  
  The kick lands and I wince at the sounds of bones breaking and flesh tearing as Quinten is sent flying and impacts the wall with a splat, falling to the ground like a puppet with it's strings cut.
  
  I think I piss myself a little when the Monster turns it's attention to me, it's eyes alight with humour as it starts stalking up to me and all I can do is whimper as the creature bends down until it's face if only an inch above mine.
  
  I feel phantom breaths brush across my neck as the thing speaks to me with a whisper so low I felt it vibrate my bones as blood drips down it's face to land on mine.
  
  "And then there were two.~"
  
  I can hardly even focus on the Monsters words, instead my mind flashes to what my mother used to tell me.
  
  She told me stories once upon a time, stories of the fae.
  
  The fae can't be understood, she would say, not by us humans.
  
  She'd say how they were contradictions.
  
  "Say~ how about we make a deal~?"
  
  The most beautiful thing you will ever see, offering nothing but kindness and assistance and all they would ask in return, would be for a name.
  
  She would tell me how you must never tell them your name, because the fae are cruel and callous.
  
  They will abide their deals, but they will never stop their attempts to devour you.
  
  "You get to live, in return, all you have to do is keep me informed.~"
  
  Monsters in the guise of civility.
  
  They can't be trusted, but neither can they be denied.
  
  All you can do is your best to appease them in the hope that they will leave you be.
  
  "Do we have a deal?~"
  
  Resigned to my fate, I bring my shaking hand forward to accept the evil things blood slicked hand, a chill of dread going through my body when the skin of our hands connect.
  
  "Wonderful!~" It cheers, jumping into the air and pumping it's fist, as if all the death and violence that just happened was but a mere game.
  
  Then, it turns to leave, finally, 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 heading for the door, picking up Quinten's phone on the way.
  
  Right when it get's to the door, I almost breath a sigh of relief, however the air gets caught in my throat as the being stops in the open door.
  
  It turns to me.
  
  It speaks.
  
  "What's your name?"
  
  I whimper.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Hopefully I fixed the weird characters thing, it was italics getting fucked up for some reason.
  
  I hope this chapter does what I intend it to do, which is to show just how crazy Lusia is, because most of this story will be from her perspective and she doesn't really think she's crazy so things will seem like they aren't that bad, but from the perspective of others it shows just how mad she is.
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  8 Shopping Trip
  Only after getting Hailey's name and leaving did I remember the whole money situation, which meant I had to go back to grab all the cash I could find.
  
  Thankfully, I was able to sneak past Hailey, because otherwise I would have been super embarrassed.
  
  After that, all I had to worry about was cleaning all of the blood off of myself.
  
  I decided to go to that house I broke into on my first night here, since I at least knew that there was a working shower there.
  
  So after first retrieving my bag, I broke back in there and decided to just ditch the clothes because there was frankly way more blood covering them that I first thought.
  
  At least I managed to clean my mask without problem, so silver linings and all that. Then I simply got cleaned up, made sure there wasn't any blood in my hair, got changed, put my blue contacts back in and made my way back to the flat.
  
  It was a little past ten when I got there and the boys were both in the front room playing Mario Cart when I opened the door.
  
  "Hello! I'm back." I greet, but my only response is a pair of grunts as they both focus on playing Rainbow Road.
  
  Shrugging to myself, I make my way to James' room, or I suppose, my temporary room, and I deposit my bag by the bed, deciding to trust that they won't snoop around and notice the eight grand of cash under my clothes and the mask under that.
  
  I counted the money after my shower and it was about how much I was expecting to be honest, not a massive amount but still substantial.
  
  Certainly enough to tide me over, not to mention I can actually buy some new cape clothes now, but to be honest I'm thinking that stealing them might actually be a better idea, at least if I want to go for something distinctive.
  
  Because if there are only a few people with a specific item then if I wear it as a cape it's only a case of finding who has it you know?
  
  With my bag deposited, I return to the front room where the boys are in the final lap and James absently shuffles aside so I can join them on the edge of the sofa.
  
  After a minute of intense focus, broken only occasionally by a muttered curse, or a very loud curse, the game ultimately ends with James getting blue shelled and Theo taking first place right at the end.
  
  Naturally, this was followed by James yelling an impressive amount of vitriol, some of which was pretty racist, while Theo just laughed at him and I watched in amusement.
  
  Once that was finally over, James turns to me, now calm after getting that out of his system.
  
  "Sorry about that, Mario Cart is a very serious activity," he says before holding out a spare remote to me, "you wanna join?" He asks.
  
  With a smile on my lips I take the offered remote, "sure, but I get Princess Peach."
  
  My conditions accepted, we load up a new game and spend the rest of the night shouting, yelling, cursing and just having an all 'round good time.
  
  As I go to bed that night, I do so with a smile.
  
  The next day I slept in. By the time I actually got up, the boys were long gone and a quick check of the clock shows that it's a little past midday.
  
  Deciding that it's about time I got some luxuries back now that I have some money to fall back on, I take out some clothes and necessities out of my bag, leaving only my mask, money and a hoodie to cover them.
  
  That done, I am ready to feel human again and buy me a goddamn phone or two, as well as whatever else catches my eye.
  
  Damn, it's not even that much money and I'm already loving it, it just makes me want even more money.
  
  Maybe I could rob a bank or something? Just for the style points.
  
  Eh, I'll think about it later, right now I've got shopping to do.
  
  It doesn't take me too long to reach the main commercial area of the city dressed in a simple pair of tight blue jeans and a white blouse under a black zip up hoodie that I've left unzipped.
  
  At first I just wonder around, enjoying the city atmosphere of bustling people living their lives under the midday sun.
  
  As someone who grew up in the boonies, I've always held an appreciation for bustling cities like this. I mean, just looking forward I can see 𝘩𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘴 of people, each one living their lives.
  
  I just think there's something magical about that.
  
  So many people, so many stories, all gathered together.
  
  It really makes me reflect on my humanity, which is something I don't really like doing these days so I quickly look around for a shop that can distract me and quickly notice DracoTech store and against my better judgement, decide to make my way over.
  
  I mean, on one hand, buying tech that is literally designed by 𝘋𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘰𝘯 herself, the worlds single greatest tinker, is kind of a stupid thing to do for an up and coming villain/vigilante, whatever you want to call me.
  
  But on the other hand, I can buy tech designed by the worlds single greatest tinker.
  
  The pair of guards at the front don't stop me as I enter through the automatic glass doors and take a moment to just admire how it feels like I just stepped a decade into the future.
  
  The whole room is a startling white, but somehow it doesn't feel blinding, the counters are a light, comfortable blue and are holding items from phones to computers to- is that a microwave?
  
  There are about a dozen people meandering about, but there is no need to concern for space since the room itself is way bigger than a normal shop, more like a mall really, just dedicated purely to Dragon's shit.
  
  Seriously, isn't she supposed to be a Hero? How much free time does she have to design all of this shit?
  
  Then again, I'm not a tinker, maybe she can clone herself or something, work on multiple projects at once. Or maybe she just gets bored.
  
  I suppose she 𝘪𝘴 a dragon, it makes sense for her to want more variety to her 'hoard'.
  
  Shrugging to myself, I make my way over to where the phones are.
  
  I was planning to get a laptop and a phone or two, but if I'm getting a DracoTech phone then I won't really need a laptop, since the phone will be able to do anything any normal laptop could.
  
  That and I would be broke again if I tried to get both.
  
  DracoTech is 𝘯𝘰𝘵 cheap.
  
  I must have been standing here for a while, trying to pick the best deal but not really understanding enough about tech to have any idea what the words I'm reading mean, seriously, what the fuck is a 'quad-core', I assume it's like how cars have V8 and V6 and shit, but then again I don't know anything about cars either.
  
  Because I am brought out of my thoughts by one of the workers here.
  
  "Excuse me Miss, is there anything specific you are looking for? Perhaps I can be of assistance?" A pleasant voice comes from my side.
  
  By pleasant, I don't mean 'nice to hear', but more that typical, practiced customer service voice.
  
  When I look to my side, there is a guy dressed in a smart blue uniform that has a stylized dragon coiling around a birdcage on the right of his chest, Dragon's symbol, and he has equally smart black hair, jelled back, presumably so that is doesn't get in the way of his glasses.
  
  "Ah, yeah, I guess. I don't really know what all this stuff means." I say, gesturing to all the words and numbers surrounding the display phones.
  
  The guy, Dennis, if his name tag is anything to go by, smiles at my answer before responding.
  
  "Yes, it can be confusing for anyone who hasn't studied it," why do I feel like I just got insulted? "But if you just tell me what you are looking to use your phone for, then I can find one that will be the best fit for you." He finishes with a smile that feels a lot more fake than his earlier one.
  
  Not that I blame him, I might not have worked for long, but I understand that the customer service smile becomes a habit after a while.
  
  Still, I think for a moment, what do I want my phone to be capable of?
  
  Obviously, I'm not going to be using it for anything criminal, in fact, I'm not even going to connect it to the same WIFI as anything that I am using for criminality.
  
  It is, again, DracoTech after all, and I refuse to believe that it isn't chock full of spyware, everything is these days after all.
  
  So I'm only going to be using it for casual, civilian stuff. With that in mind, I speak.
  
  "Well, I only really need it to run Solitaire and Minesweeper. The internet too I guess, gotta keep up with PHO after all." I finish with a smile.
  
  When I look at Dennis however, his smile is twitching like he is struggling to keep it in place.
  
  What's up with that?
  
  "So, you want to buy a DracoTech phone.. to play Minesweeper?" He asks with a weirdly tense voice.
  
  I just nod my head, "Yep! Solitaire too though, and the internet of course."
  
  "R-right. You want to buy a multi-thousand dollar phone to play Minesweeper and Solitaire. Of course. In that case, please follow me." He says, raising an arm to the side in a gesture of direction that I happily take.
  
  I don't know why his voice seems all weird now though, maybe he just ate something bad and is feeling it?
  
  Eh, who cares.
  
  A few minutes and $1500 shorter and I am leaving the store, satisfied with my purchase.
  
  The first thing I do after leaving the store is install my two favourite games, then I just go back to wondering, joining the hustle and bustle once more.
  
  Now, time to buy some clothes.
  
  With that in mind, I go back to wondering about, window shopping and sometimes walking in a shop that seems interesting to browse.
  
  I buy myself a new set of 'cape clothes' from a military surplus store, completely forgetting my plan to steal them to avoid having the purchase of them traced back to me, too happy to just be spending money.
  
  I end up finding a store that sells 'burner phones', so I end up getting a pair of those too, but I don't turn them on yet.
  
  I don't really understand how tech works, so I'm just going to be paranoid about it and keep things as separated as I can.
  
  Some time later and an extra bag added to my other shoulder that I got from the surplus store, and I am looking around in a clothing store when I see a long black cardigan that for some inexplicable reason, I just feel like I 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 have.
  
  I don't know what it is about it, I guess that I'm just a big fan of the aesthetic, not to mention it is comfortable.
  
  A few minutes later and I am walking out of the store clad in a nice, long black cardigan that goes all the way down to my knees, with another two copies of it in one of my bags.
  
  Well, that's about everything that I might really need or want bought, not to mention my bags are full and I've spent like, half of my money.
  
  With that in mind, I start navigating the streets to get back home.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Woo, who doesn't love shopping?
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
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  9 Meeting Heroes
  My journey back to the flat unfortunately gets waylaid a few minutes later as I notice something in the near distance.
  
  There is an open area at a crossroads in the street that is currently rather crowded and it doesn't take me long to see why.
  
  There are heroes. A pair of them and they are apparently here to do a meet and greet or something and suddenly a frankly hilarious idea plants itself in my mind.
  
  What if I started collecting hero signatures?
  
  The thought is too funny to me so I quickly go to a nearby shop and buy a few postcards without really looking or caring about where they're from and take a pen out of my bag, because you should always carry a pen around.
  
  Then I simply join the cue.
  
  Five minutes later and I am standing in front of an honest to god pair of heroes.
  
  It's all I can do to not burst out laughing at the fact that they would probably be rather antagonistic if they knew what I was, and that's putting it lightly, instead when I am in front of them, they greet me with a smile.
  
  "Hello Miss, would you like an autograph?" The guy of the pair greets.
  
  He is wearing red spandex, as is customary I suppose, but thankfully he has a darker red armour plating over vulnerable spots, giving him a level of decency that pure spandex lacks.
  
  His mask is a simple red domino and does nothing to hide his smile that doesn't even seem strained despite the fact that he must have been standing here dealing with people for a while.
  
  Going by what James and Theo told me, this would be Epic. Supposedly he is a Legend-lite and chose his name because 'Epic is one tier below Legendary'.
  
  At least, that's what James says.
  
  "Ah, yeah, here, can you sign this?" I say, holding out the postcard but not the pen, seeing as he already has one in hand.
  
  "Not a problem!" He replies with a smile, taking the offered item.
  
  While he does that, I look over to the third cape present.
  
  She has long flowing black hair and distinctly Asian features and black eyes, her costume is mostly blues with a lot of lighter spherical designs on it that look like bubbles covering her body. She also has tasteful armour over the spandex to keep her modesty, and protection I guess.
  
  Though, to be honest, with how flat she is, I don't think she needs the armour to keep modest.
  
  She seems significantly less enthusiastic about this whole situation than Epic, but is pretty good at hiding it.
  
  I probably wouldn't have even been able to notice it if not for the faint scent of nervousness coming from her.
  
  Guess she doesn't like crowds.
  
  If I am remembering things right, this is Pop Stop and her power is something like time-stop bubbles, but in like, a weird way.
  
  She makes these bubbles, and then when they pop, everyone who hears the pop freezes in place for a half second or so.
  
  Sounds kinda weak until you realise she can make a shit tonne of bubbles and doesn't get frozen in place like everyone else.
  
  In the time I spent checking out Pop Step, Epic finished his signing and was ready to hand back my postcard.
  
  "Here you go, now if I find this being sold online I'll be mad m'kay?" He jokes as I take back my now signed postcard.
  
  I huff lightly in good humour at his joke and give a smile while offering my postcard to Pop.
  
  "Can you sign it too?" I ask and she obliges with a small, nervous smile and I turn back to Epic as she does that.
  
  "Say, if you get an apprentice, will you make them call themselves 'Rare' or something, to keep the theme?" I mostly ask just out of a lack of other things to say.
  
  However, he seems to like my referencing to the origins of his name if the widening of his smile is anything to go by.
  
  "Of course! Unless they're better than me I guess, then maybe 'Mythic'?" He jubilantly returns.
  
  "I just pity whoever end up with 'Common' as their name" I joke, making him laugh far more than is necessary for what wasn't even really that good of a joke.
  
  "Here." Interrupts the soft voice of Pop as she hands back my card which I take with what I hope is a comforting smile.
  
  "Thanks!" I say, but before I leave there is one thing I want to ask her, just in case we end up meeting in 'other circumstance', "Mind if I ask something about your power real quick?"
  
  "A-ah, sure, go ahead." She says after a quick glance at Epic who gives a reassuring smile.
  
  "Hoe does your power interact with velocity?" I ask, thinking that if we ever end up fighting that it would be good information to know.
  
  My question actually makes her smile and seem confident for the first time. I guess that she just likes talking about her power.
  
  Then again, she is a new signing so it stands to reason that she may have triggered recently, ergo her power is still new and exciting.
  
  "Well, it's actually pretty interesting. My power doesn't completely conserve or remove velocity, but rather, you know how if you were running and heard a loud noise or something and flinched, how you would slow down, but only a little bit? It's kind of like that, each 'pop' slows velocity by a tiny amount, but the reason I used that example is because it's variable and I figure that if you could keep to your top speed even when flinching then it probably won't take much if any of your velocity away."
  
  She takes a deep breath after getting caught up in her own explanation and suddenly starts blushing at having gotten carried away, but I pretend not to notice, just smiling in genuine interest.
  
  Because it is actually pretty interesting, not to mention incredibly useful to know.
  
  It also helps that she looks adorable with such a massive blush.
  
  "That 𝘪𝘴 interesting. I'd love to hear more, but I wouldn't want to keep you, but I tell you what, I don't know if this is improper to do considering," Here I pause to gesture widely to the two in front of me, "but this is my number, if ya wanna talk some more, I've got a lot of free time these days. See ya!"
  
  And with that I turn and leave, leaving Pop standing there with a postcard that has my new number on it.
  
  Is it stupid to give my number out to a hero, considering my position?
  
  Obviously it is, but for the same reason that I don't want to move out from living with James and Theo, it is just way too funny for me not to do it.
  
  I mean, what if she actually calls me? What if I become friends and hang out with a hero?
  
  Now that I am not standing in front of said heroes, I don't bother to hold in my laughter, ignoring the few weird looks I get from the people around me.
  
  God, I am so excited for the future, there is so much fun to be had, the only thing stopping me is time.
  
  Whatever, I'll just go back to the flat and waste some time until night comes, then I'll call Hailey and see about making some more easy cash.
  
  On the way back, I once more get distracted, this time by a magic store.
  
  I figured that since I'm going for the clown theme, then maybe I should learn some magic tricks?
  
  I mean, I already know a few card tricks, I got into them mostly because of my obsession with Solitaire.
  
  Seriously, there was a time where I played a few games of Solitaire every day for at least a few months.
  
  So I got a few decks of cards and a book on card tricks.
  
  I thought about getting more books but then I remembered that the internet exists, so there really isn't much point in paying for something I could get for free.
  
  Only then did I finally make it back to the flat where I moved things around between my bags and filled my new bag with cape related stuff, as well as most of my cash.
  
  My old bag is where I put everything else I own, only a few pairs of clothes staying outside of the bag.
  
  This way if I ever need to run quickly I don't have to worry about packing, needing to only grab my bags.
  
  Then I just spent the rest of the day in the front room with a deck of cards, alternating between playing Solitaire and trying out card tricks.
  
  Which is how the boys found me when they got back, sitting on the floor surrounded by and covered in cards.
  
  "You uh, you good down there?" James' uncertain voice asks me as he and Theo stand in the doorway staring at me.
  
  I don't respond for a moment, instead just staring at them with a perfectly blank expression.
  
  A card falls from my hair, landing on the floor with a slap.
  
  "I slipped." I lie.
  
  "Right.. and the cards?" Theo queries with a completely flat tone of voice.
  
  Slowly, oh so slowly, my arms reach out and start scooping the cards into a pile, all the while I do not drop eye contact with the two of them.
  
  Not a word is said and not an expression is made until all of the cards are in one big pile that I slowly start stuffing into my pockets.
  
  "... What cards?" I ask.
  
  Another beat passes in silence.
  
  "... So, how was work?" I ask, breaking the silence.
  
  Choosing to completely ignore the previous interaction, I get up and the boys come in as we pretend it never happened.
  
  Not long later and we are all chilling in the front room, the boys playing some casual fighting game while I play Solitaire on the floor, when Theo brings up something that immediately grabs my attention.
  
  "Oh, did you guys hear about that incident down by Cross and Third?" He asks, voice casual even with the violent button mashing coming from his side where James is presumably losing.
  
  "I don't really watch the news, what happened?" I'm surprised I manage to keep my voice level considering the butterflies I suddenly feel in my gut, because I'm pretty sure that do actually already know what he's talking about.
  
  He takes a moment to finish off James, causing him to groan in frustration and say something about 'uppercut spam', before he continues the conversation as they set up another match.
  
  "Yeah, there was reports of shots fired so we got the call. I wasn't one of the guys that responded to the incident, but from what I hear it was a drugs stash house, most likely for the Red Branch since it was in their area of operations."
  
  He cuts of his explanation for a moment to tell James he's not allowed to just keep picking the same character before getting back to it.
  
  "'Pparently it was pretty messy, three dead, one in intensive care and it's suspected that there was another victim that got away. Just from a quick look of the crime scene, it's pretty apparent that there was cape involvement, but since it doesn't fit the M.O of any of the known capes..."
  
  "You think there's a new cape on the scene." I gladly fill in for where Theo tailed of at the end of his sentence.
  
  "Got it in one." He confirms, almost making me smile.
  
  "Good," James pipes in with unexpected seriousness, "the heroes are already outnumbered, so even if they're a violent vigilante, this city needs anyone it can get."
  
  Huh, there's a thought.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Nothing to say here :p
  
  Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
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  10 Second Night Out
  After the boys have both gone to sleep, I leave the flat through the window with my 'cape bag' at a little past midnight.
  
  Earlier today, James gave me an idea.
  
  See, I haven't really had much of a plan for what I'm doing. Beyond making some money, my actions haven't really had much purpose.
  
  So why not be what James thinks I am, and just be a vigilante?
  
  It's not like it will hugely impact what I was doing anyway, it just means that I won't be robbing any banks and that I have to target villains specifically.
  
  I can live with that, it's certainly better to be fighting against assholes than innocents.
  
  But ultimately, it doesn't change what I'm planning to do tonight.
  
  Sitting in the middle of some buildings roof with my cape outfit fully donned, I wanted to wear my new cardigan, but decided I would keep that for my civilian identity, so it's just a mask and black cargo pants and jacket for me.
  
  I take out one of my burner phones and a piece of paper that I wrote Hailey's number on.
  
  This is the first time that I actually turned the phone on, since I decided it's best to be paranoid about these things, so it takes a moment before I am giving my... uh, minion? A call.
  
  Ring ring.
  
  Ring ring.
  
  For a moment I wonder if she's just not going to pick up, but right as I think that I hear a 'click'.
  
  "Who is this?" Hailey demands, making me smile to myself.
  
  "My my~ did you already forget about little old me?" My own teasing voice responds.
  
  I hear a sharp intake of breath through the phone before Hailey's far less confident voice speaks up again.
  
  "o-oh. W-what can I d-do fo-for you M-my Lady?" She asks, her stuttering honestly kind of annoying me, but in a cute way.
  
  That doesn't really make sense.
  
  Whatever, it's hardly important.
  
  "Hailey!" I exclaim, "My dearest friend! What's with that tone? We're all friends here, you can call me by my name you know?"
  
  There is a moment of silence before her hesitant voice returns with a positively perplexed tone.
  
  "Uhm, y-you. You never gave me your name?"
  
  Oh. Did I really not do that?
  
  Uh, oops?
  
  Guess I got caught up in the moment, ah well.
  
  "Don't be silly~ of course I told you to call me Tear. You must be forgetting things again.~" I respond, refusing to admit my own mistake.
  
  "R-right, sorry, my mistake." It's kind of boring how quickly she folds but whatever, time for business.
  
  "Well, at least you're acknowledging your mistake. Now! I find myself in need of some money, you wouldn't happen to know a place that has a lot of cash just, say, lying around, would you?"
  
  It's probably bad form to just trust the word of some random gangster, but I'm not stupid, not always at least, and I see this as a win win situation.
  
  After all, either she is afraid of me enough that she will give me a location full of cash, or she will betray me and lead me into a trap.
  
  Now, you would think that's a bad thing, but I 𝘥𝘪𝘥 say I wanted to try being a vigilante instead of a villain, and what better way to prove that than by fighting off some villains?
  
  Then of course, there is the more foolhardy reason that I have simply never fought a cape before and I want to see how I match up, where I stand.
  
  So I am perfectly willing to walk into a trap to test myself a little, and it's not like I'm really afraid to die anyway.
  
  Now, don't get me wrong, I don't 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 to die, but I'm not going to shy away from the possibility.
  
  I've always believed in 'treat people how you want to be treated', which is why I just try to have fun, because for one it's fun, and for another it means that hopefully when other people interact with me, they will also just be trying to have fun.
  
  Now, since I have already killed a few people and am perfectly willing to do so again, then I should accept the possibility of the same happening to me.
  
  It would be mighty hypocritical of me to kill people and then say that no one is allowed to kill me after all.
  
  Still, I'll do my best not to die.
  
  With that in mind, I hang up on Hailey once she's finished giving me the location to another stash house, but one that should have much more money in.
  
  Apparently the Red Branch focuses most of their 'business' on the drug side of things.
  
  According to James' very simplified explanation, the Irish deal the drugs, the blacks do the racketeering and the rest are just racist.
  
  though, Theo was quick to point out that just because all the Red Branch are Irish, that doesn't mean all Irish are Red Branch, similarly, all Street Saints are black but not vice versa.
  
  The only other major player in the crime scene of Columbus is Famine, who named themselves such purely to insult the Irish, they are mostly white, but are apparently surprisingly ok with Asians.
  
  Apparently there's some nuance there, but I am too ignorant to really know the difference between different Asians, same way I doubt anyone in China knows the difference between a Floridian and someone from Washington.
  
  Anyway, I shouldn't get too absorbed in my thoughts right now, because it is time to make, steal, some fat stacks.
  
  That's what they say right? 'Fat stacks'?
  
  I'm not really sure what a 'stack' constitutes, but I'm going to go with the assumption that it translates to a thousand dollars, unless calling them fat actually denotes a higher number?
  
  Maybe a 'fat stack' is ten grand as opposed to a single 'stack' being one?
  
  Damnit, I literally 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 said I shouldn't let myself get absorbed in thought right now.
  
  Whatever, it doesn't matter.
  
  Focusing ahead, I make it to the location I was given, finding myself in a small warehouse district, suitably shady and out of the way whilst still being a part of the city.
  
  Perfect for criminal enterprising I imagine.
  
  Still weary of this being a trap, I make sure to do my due diligence in scouting the place out first, checking out the nearby buildings to find them mostly empty, bar a few homeless squatters.
  
  When the clock is closer to one in the morning is when I finally decide that I've done enough scouting and should check the inside of the building itself.
  
  I climb up to the roof, using the same method of forcing handholds into the wall through sheer strength and when I get there I am happy to see that there are windows this time.
  
  The roof itself is styled like one of those old factories with a sawtooth roof, and I make my way over to one of the windows.
  
  They are, of course, boarded up with wooden planks and cloth to cover where the wood doesn't, but it's not much of a challenge to reach in where some of the glass is already broken, and tear at some of the cloth to get a look inside.
  
  The first thing I notice isn't actually sight, but scent funnily enough, the lovely scent I have come to associate with humans, but mixed in is some weird scent, it's both good, btu also kind of bad.
  
  Oh well, I just shrug my shoulders and actually look inside.
  
  It pleases me that Hailey seems to have at least been mostly honest, seeing as this is clearly a stash house, just going by all the crates that have people working around, sorting stuff, holding clipboards.
  
  I suppose this is where the 'organised' in organised crime comes from.
  
  There are a few guards standing around with assault rifles of some kind, but I'm honestly not too worried about that, since I already know that bullets only hurt a little.
  
  Other than the main open area, there is also a loft of sorts in the back half of the building, presumably a managers office of some sort.
  
  Overall, there are only a dozen people, only half visibly armed, but I should probably assume they all have guns, not that guns are something I really need to fear.
  
  With that in mind, I'm more confident than I really should have been, which is probably to blame for how things went.
  
  Wanting a 'wow' factor more than subtlety, I don't bother with sneaking in and just get myself a small run up before launching myself into the boarded windows, smashing through them with a crash and a rain of splintered wood.
  
  All movement ceases as everyone stops to stare at me as I land in a crouch on some central crates, my arms spread wide from my fall.
  
  Behind my mask I can feel my mouth stretch into a grin almost as wide as the very mask that hides it.
  
  I've found that I really enjoy the theatrics of all of this.
  
  "Greetings! Evil doers! I am Tear and this is a stick up!" I yell, moving my hands to give them finger guns at the last part.
  
  Only to realise something is wrong.
  
  The first hint was how no one actually seemed all that shocked at my appearance, which I didn't notice at first, the second hint was how all the unarmed guys simply turned and left, meanwhile everyone with a gun raised it at me, still calm.
  
  Then, without any warning or talking, they all open fire at once.
  
  Now, I'm not actually faster than a bullet, and I wasn't really expecting them to go straight to violence, it goes against everything I know.
  
  Where's the witty banter!? The back and forth before the fight?! The cool one liners!?
  
  My surprise in the matter is why I don't react in time to dodge any of the bullets.
  
  Thankfully at least, my body is still as bullet resistant as last time, so I merely have to wait for the hail of bullets to stop, which it does after a few moments of almost pain.
  
  It hurt, but not that much, like getting shot by BB guns.
  
  It's enough that by the time the bullets stop, I am collapsed on the ground, curled up in a foetal position, with my clothes more or less in tatters but my skin unharmed.
  
  It hurt, but that's fine. What's a little hurt anyway? Pain is temporary, it all goes away to become history, so what's the point in holding onto it?
  
  Still hurt though, and as I drag myself to my feet, my eyes must have been expressing how I felt about it well enough if the way the six gunmen take a simultaneous step back is any indication.
  
  "Ow." My voice, lacking any of the playful tilt it had earlier.
  
  It's probably enough evidence of how annoyed I am that I even broke character.
  
  I decided to enter this cape business because I wanted to have fun.
  
  Getting shot without even being given a good reason or a nice conversation for my troubles?
  
  This isn't fun.
  
  Putting a hand on my neck, I tilt my head side to side, enjoying the cracks from working my joints.
  
  "That wasn't very nice.~" I say, attempting to get ack into character, but I think my voice came out a bit more threatening than I intended it to.
  
  Ah well, I guess if they don't want to play the game...
  
  With a sudden movement, I bend my legs and launch myself forward, aiming for the closest of the men, intending to deck him for all I'm worth.
  
  However, right before I am within striking distance, there is a sudden boom and the next thing I know I feel like I've run into a steel wall as the ground shakes and I bounce back on my ass with what feels like a broken nose.
  
  ... The fuck?
  
  Looking up from my spot on the ground as my nose knits itself back together, I realise that I may have jinxed myself.
  
  "Ah."
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  11 Cape Fight
  I suppose I'll be getting that cape fight sooner than expected then.
  
  Standing before me is a giant thing that only loosely resembles a man.
  
  It's standing at about 15 foot tall and it's body appears to be made out of rock, like a giant golem.
  
  His sheer size makes me wonder how in the hell I didn't notice him, but a quick look up shows that he was hiding in the rafters and I didn't see him because of the sawtooth design of the roof.
  
  Well, that sucks, and unless he just likes to hang out in rafters, that can only mean that I was expected.
  
  Looks like I will have to be having some words with Hailey.
  
  Ah well, and here I was complaining about tonight not being fun.
  
  At least it's only Clay, his power being that he can absorb rocks and dirt to form a golem like shell around himself.
  
  Sure he is kind of a heavy hitter in the Red Branch, but he is nothing like their powerhouses who I have no doubt would kick my ass.
  
  In other words, I think I can take him.
  
  Rolling backwards, I spring to my feet in what I wanted to be a smooth move but ended up kind of forced.
  
  Guess I'll work on it.
  
  "Hey there Clay man! I don't suppose we can talk things out like civilised folk?" I greet, not even slightly interested in talking things out.
  
  Clay ignores my question and takes a meaningful step forward, his leg brushing a crate and destroying it, showing the inside to be empty.
  
  Ah. I guess they already moved everything out, all in a day.
  
  You gotta admire the efficiency if nothing else.
  
  "Well, if we've got to fight, it's only right that we introduce ourselves properly first," I say before taking a theatrical bow, one of my arms swinging wide as I tilt my head to keep eye contact, which hurts with his height, "you may call me Tear, a pleasure.~"
  
  Clay stops for a moment, only a few feet away from me, seeming to be considering his words before he nods his head once and speaks with a deep rumble.
  
  "You talk too much."
  
  I don't make the same mistake of inattentiveness this time and am thus able to jump to the side to dodge the sudden palm strike he sends my way.
  
  His hand hits the ground with such force that it sends cracks spreading around it and I use the moment to rush forward, under the arm, to throw a punch at his stomach with everything I have.
  
  𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘥. 𝘚𝘯𝘢𝘱.
  
  "OWWWIE!" I scream as my whole arm just snaps like a twig while Clay only stumbles back a single step.
  
  Hopping back while cradling my arm as it slowly and 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘺 knits itself back together.
  
  Holy fuck that hurts.
  
  I'm so distracted by my still broken arm that I don't even notice Clay swinging for me until my breath is forced out of my lungs and I feel my back smash into and 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 the warehouse wall, into the dark streets outside.
  
  I spend a moment just lying there, my brain empty.
  
  I think I have a concussion.
  
  The night sky is so pretty.
  
  𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘥.
  
  Oh yeah, that guy.
  
  Damn, this isn't going how I thought it would at all.
  
  At least by the time Clay is looming over me menacingly my body has finished healing, my concussion going away and lucid thought coming back.
  
  I was kind of hoping he would say a one liner I could work off of, but instead he simply raises his massive foot over my head, well, my whole body really, and prepares to flatten me like a grape.
  
  Well, fuck you Clay.
  
  As his foot comes crashing down, I roll to the side, barely avoiding the unfortunate fate of a Goomba and scrambling to my feet, once again hopping backwards to get some space.
  
  Ok.
  
  I'm getting my ass kicked, so I don't think there's much point in hiding my abilities here.
  
  With that in mind, I relent to the constant itch in my lower back and with a feeling like stretching a muscle that hasn't been used in weeks, I feel my flesh bubble.
  
  Ripping through my already ruined shirt, a pair of long ribbon like tentacles stretch out behind me, both longer than I am tall by at least three times.
  
  They are probably about as wide as my thigh and an eighth as thick, if I had to describe how they looked, I'd say they looked like liquid blood pretending to be muscle, but with a slight purplish tint to it.
  
  Honestly, I find them beautiful to look at, and I make them sway hypnotically behind me as I face down Clay, standing tall and proud, even with my ruined clothes.
  
  At least my mask is fine.
  
  With my ribbons finally free, I feel like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders, every movement coming more naturally to me.
  
  I guess I shouldn't keep them cooped up, not that I even have a reason to anymore.
  
  "Well then big guy~ ready for round two?~" I taunt as my ribbons snap into place, facing him like a pair of vipers ready to strike.
  
  With a grunt, Clay rushes forward once more, throwing a simple punch, intending to crush me once again.
  
  But things are not so simple this time.
  
  Being stupid and wanting to test my ribbons, instead of dodging like I should, I instead launch both of my ribbons to meet his fist.
  
  Unfortunately, I have to abandon my test midway through as my ribbons simply bend and give way under his fist and I hardly move enough to avoid the giant boulder of a fist.
  
  Whatever, enough tests, I'm not strong enough to mess around yet.
  
  I should really start exercising.
  
  Jumping to the side, my ribbons follow after me and this time I'm the one rushing forward.
  
  I take a step to the side to avoid another simple punch and this time, instead of breaking my arm on his chest, I crouch down before him and dig my hands into the ground for leverage.
  
  Then I launch my ribbons like spears straight into his chest and with a grating sound, rock parts and my ribbons find themselves sticking clear through his body.
  
  The fight pauses and I sigh in relief, making the mistake of celebrating too early.
  
  I am rewarded for my fault by receiving a devastating kick that must have broken at least half of my ribs.
  
  Motherfucker that hurts!
  
  Looking up from where I land, I see Clay stalking towards me, none the worse for ware, the hole in his chest closing rapidly until he looks completely unharmed.
  
  Now that's just demoralising.
  
  Scrambling to my feet, I start a game of cat and mouse, getting grazed a few times where the pain in my chest distracts my movements.
  
  Think Lusia, think!
  
  He is clearly somewhere inside of the golem thing, I just need to find out where.
  
  Then, like a lightbulb going off, I remember that I'm an idiot.
  
  There is something else I noticed about my powers that for some reason I didn't really think much of.
  
  God I am stupid sometimes.
  
  See, when I look at people, I tend to get an idea of where to hit them, like... a biological diagram, but not as a visual, it's more of an instinct if anything.
  
  When I look at this thing, now much larger from adding the dirt and rocks disturbed from our fight to itself, it becomes a lot clearer.
  
  I felt its biology, and it only had one part which mattered.
  
  The heart.
  
  Clay, I figure, tucked away in the thick left leg of his construct.
  
  Well, not I know where to hit, it's only a matter of hitting it.
  
  With that in mind I stop my frantic running, and after dodging his next swing, I send one of my ribbons forward to wrap around his arm like a snake and I 𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘭.
  
  Thanks to using his own momentum, he comes stumbling forward even as I step past my own ribbon that keeps pulling him from behind me, meanwhile I poise my second ribbon, and like a cobra it strikes forward in a blur of movement, piercing through rock and flesh with ease.
  
  The fight pauses for a second time, only this time it is followed by a mans scream.
  
  Clay's construct starts falling apart with his focus otherwise occupied, and I walk over to where he is lying, impaled on the ground through his chest.
  
  I consider giving him some parting words, some cool one-liner or something.
  
  𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯'𝘵 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘰 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬 𝘩𝘪𝘮.
  
  My second tentacle snaps out like a whip and Clay is no more.
  
  I let out a long breath as the rush of combat fades into the dull throbbing of healing wounds.
  
  Ow.
  
  It's then that I notice.
  
  I'm hungry.
  
  Like, 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 hungry.
  
  I definitely wasn't this hungry earlier.
  
  I guess my regeneration is more draining than I thought then.
  
  My eyes find Clay's downed body and his scent reaches my nose.
  
  It's not the best, but I'm hungry so it will have to do.
  
  Reaching down I grab his body and head and look for an out of the way alleyway.
  
  Ten minutes later and I am on my way back to the flat.
  
  I ignore the sirens sounding out behind me as I find my cape bag that I have decided to just stash under a ventilation box on top of a building and I quickly get changed, the cold air not really bothering me as I do so.
  
  All told, I am back in bed in just over two hours.
  
  It really felt like longer.
  
  As I go to sleep, I resolve myself to start exercising.
  
  Just because my power gives me a brute rating doesn't mean I can't work to make that rating higher.
  
  "-and in todays news, in the early hours of this very morning, the police responded to a call for gunshots, only to arrive to a scene from a movie, the following video contains sensitive images, if you have any children watching I advise they look away."
  
  As the news caster finishes speaking, the screen cuts to show the remains of my fight with Clay, as well as the alleyway where I *ahem*, had a little snack.
  
  They then go on to explain who the blood pool is expected to belong to and how he was 'defeated' by a suspected new vigilante.
  
  "Laaame, it's not even gory, what's the point in the warning? It's just a big ol' pool of blood, hell, it looks more like someone dropped a paint can or ten."
  
  James' lackadaisical voice gets a snort out of me while Theo clips him over the head.
  
  "Have some respect will you? Someone died today." He chides James, but that only seems to annoy him.
  
  "So what? It was a criminal anyway, a gangster, a '𝘷𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘯'. Who cares if they die? Good riddance I say." The vitriol in James voice takes me by surprise.
  
  I didn't expect him to have such a grudge against villains, must be a story there.
  
  Theo shakes his head, clearly not wanting to rehash an old argument.
  
  "Still, we now have a violent vigilante running around the city, and you know what happens with those types, we don't need another Gavel running around."
  
  "Pah," James waves his hands, as if trying to disperse Theo's worry, "everyone learned their lesson with Gavel, if the newbie starts killing innocents then they will get birdcaged all the same, so I say let 'em at it 'till there aren't any villains left in the city, then just give them a nice pay check and ask them to move to the next city."
  
  "If you ever got a job as director you would be fired within a week." Comes Theo's dry response.
  
  Meanwhile, I just silently snicker to myself as I focus on my Solitaire.
  
  If that's what you want James, then I guess I will have to deliver.
  
  It would certainly be an achievement to have to my name, making a city truly free of villains.
  
  Even Eidolons city still has villains in it after all.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Lusia really needs to learn how to fight...
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  12 Meeting Heroes 2 Electric Boogaloo
  After my rather poor showing against Clay, I decided to take a break for a while so that I can get some exercise in.
  
  To that end, I considered going to a gym, but I know that I don't look like I should be able to lift what I can.
  
  Not that it's an incredible amount, in fact a properly trained man could probably lift more than me, but I've found that speed is more my strong suit than pure strength anyway.
  
  But since I don't want to be outed, I found an out of the way empty building and brought in some weights that I've used every day since, as well as going for really long runs.
  
  With my regeneration, my progress has probably been far faster than it has any right to be, the only downside being that I've had to eat every three or so days.
  
  Not that that has been much of a problem, there are plenty of gangsters out there.
  
  The news has gotten hold of my cape name too, so now just about everyone in the city has heard about the new serial killer/vigilante, depending on who you ask, 'Tear'.
  
  James has been in a pretty good mood recently too, and he always seems to perk up when he hears about another gangster 'disappearing'.
  
  Weird guy, but it's nice to know I'm kinda supported, makes me feel all warm and tingly in my tummy.
  
  Anyway, I also got a job.
  
  Mostly because after the first week I felt kinda bad leeching off of the boys' kindness.
  
  It was a bit of a pain to find someone willing to pay under the table since I've kind of abandoned my old identity and don't have any papers, but I ended up finding a nice, Asian run coffee shop called 'Anteiku'.
  
  I was mainly looking for coffee shops and cafe's to work in since at the very least the smell of coffee can outweigh the smell of everything else.
  
  Honestly, human food smells disgusting.
  
  The worst part is probably that the manager, Yoshimura, is super nice and all but forces me to eat sometimes, but for that exact reason I have learnt to take small bites and swallow them whole without having to taste it.
  
  I got some weird looks the first time before I realised that I should pretend to chew as well.
  
  All in all, I am doing a pretty good job playing the part of 'Alice Cain', and now, a whole month after my fight with Clay, I am finally moving into my own place.
  
  This is good news for a few reasons, one of which is obviously just the privacy, but the more important reason is that I promised myself I wouldn't go out again until I had a place for my own so that the boys don't notice anything.
  
  In other words, I will finally be going out to do some proper vigilantism, rather than just hunting for food.
  
  But that's for later, right now I've got to entertain the boys because since it is a Sunday and they both have the day off and decided that since I don't have a whole lot of stuff to move in, we are just going to hang out in the new pad for the day.
  
  I do need to get new furniture though. The flat came with a sofa and a bed, but they both suck.
  
  I'll do it later, for now we are playing poker on the floor, since I don't have a TV yet.
  
  "Aaand that's a three of a kind, get fucked losers." I celebrate with as obnoxious a voice as I can as I look down on Theo and James, sweeping up the prizes between us, making them both groan.
  
  Only about half of the pot is money, the rest are things from candy to pens to whatever we had on hand.
  
  Obviously, I don't want any of the candy, but it's the principle of the matter, so I'm not going to give them back.
  
  "This is bullshit, you're cheating." James accuses, looking for all he's worth like a pouting child.
  
  "Don't be such a sore loser, I'm not cheating," I am, "I'm just lucky, must be the new flat giving me it's blessings."
  
  I think my excuse is pretty good until I hear Theo's accusation.
  
  "I swear I saw two ace's of hearts."
  
  A bead of sweat rolls down my forehead as I keep my facial expression placid.
  
  "You must be seeing things," I lie, "anyway, that's enough poker, you guys don't even have anything to lose anymore and it's getting late, you should probably head home before it gets too dark out."
  
  Jumping to my feet after I finish speaking, I move to the door and swing it open with a smile.
  
  "'Kay byeee!" I exclaim as I usher them out.
  
  I'm pretty sure they both knew I was cheating but just let it be since we were hear to celebrate me getting my flat in the first place.
  
  They really are annoyingly kind.
  
  Whatever, it's late afternoon now and I've been getting antsy.
  
  I've also decided that I'm not going to go after Red Branch again anytime soon.
  
  In fact, I figure I'll just rotate between the three main gangs, take a bite, both metaphorically and physically, out of one gang and then move onto the next.
  
  As for the smaller gangs, well, I'll just deal with them as they come I guess.
  
  They aren't really that important in the grand scheme of things after all.
  
  Red Branch territory is the outer east side of the city, the Street Saints' is the north-western side and Famine is south-west while the centre of the city is obviously the PRT's and subsequently the Protectorates territory.
  
  The smaller gangs just make up what is basically border territories, living in the fringes with a few pockets of land being claimed by smaller groups.
  
  With all of that in mind, I have decided to go after the second biggest villain gang tonight.
  
  I have thought these past few days that maybe I shouldn't have gone after the biggest gang in the city on my first night out, and while I do now recognise the stupidity of doing that, I am still not going to learn my lesson.
  
  I mean, the way I see it, if I keep whittling down the gangs while keeping them somewhat even, then they will keep busy dealing with each other to focus fully on me.
  
  Well, that's the hope anyway, for now I should focus on actually finding some criminals to rob- I mean, some justice to serve.
  
  Which leaves me here, hopping around roof to roof, looking out for anyone wearing the blue colours that are generally associated with the Street Saints.
  
  I find it kind of dumb that gangs can just 'claim' colours like that. It really limits the available fashion in a given area.
  
  I roused from my thoughts by a weird feeling that has me feeling oddly tingly, making me stop in my roof hopping to look around for what might have set me off.
  
  It doesn't take me long to spot the pair of capes standing a few buildings away, also roof hooping, as is the cape way.
  
  It's just so much more convenient.
  
  It's also obvious that they are capes by the outfits they're wearing, but that's not the only fun part.
  
  I actually recognise one of them.
  
  It's Pop Step.
  
  She hasn't called me even though it's been a whole month!
  
  So rude.
  
  The person next to her provides quite a contrast too, she is wearing mostly reds but with a golden scale in the middle of her chest.
  
  It's kind of distasteful the way it sort of looks like the scales are weighing her budding breasts, especially since I'm pretty sure that's Redemption, who is one of the wards.
  
  Yay to child celebrities I guess.
  
  At least both of their masks are only domino masks, so I can still read their expressions somewhat. Probably a PR thing.
  
  Still, even if this isn't what I had planned for the night, I'm not desperately hungry and this seems like a fun thing to do anyway.
  
  With that in mind, I raise my arm and give a full body wave, becoming them over.
  
  After a few awkward moments, they do actually start making their way over to me.
  
  The way that they are jumping between the buildings tells me that they don't have a brute rating like I do, so I move to meet them in the middle.
  
  A few more moments later and we are all standing together on the same rooftop, silently staring at each other.
  
  I feel a lot more relaxed than they both look, so I decide to start us off.
  
  "Yo,~ you're Pop Step and Redemption right? It's nice ta meet'cha!" I greet with a smile even though they can't see it, and a two fingered wave.
  
  A brief moment passes, too long for a proper conversation, before I get a reply that unexpectedly comes from the ward.
  
  "Hey, like you said, I'm Redemption and this is Pop Step. Would I be right in assuming you to be Tear?" Her voice sounds awfully casual compared to the faint nervousness I can smell from the both of them.
  
  "Woahhh~ a hero knows who I am!? D'aww, how flattering.~" I squeal, covering the cheeks of my mask with my hands and squirming at the same time.
  
  Heh.
  
  My response leaves them both stunned for a moment as it's clearly not what they were expecting so naturally I decide to just ramp things up a little bit.
  
  "I would love to give an autograph but I'm afraid I don't have a pen on hand." I say disappointedly, kicking the roofs gravel beneath my feet.
  
  The conversation dies out there rather awkwardly as none of us really know what to say.
  
  That is, until Redemption gives Pop a nudge with her elbow that makes her jump slightly.
  
  "Ah! Right, uhm, are you working alone? The uhm, the statistics for solo capes are pretty bad, uhm, have you thought about joining a group? Like um, the Protectorate? Or the, uhm, the Wards, depending on your age?"
  
  I almost laugh at what must have been the single worst recruitment offer I have ever heard, but that would be mean so I just pretend to think it over instead, humming to myself.
  
  "Hum hum," I say, "I'm pretty happy by myself if I'm being honest, plus there's the fact that I'm pretty sure that I won't be allowed to keep doing what I'm doing if I joined you guys."
  
  Obviously I'm not going to bring up the cannibalism, but pretty much everyone who's aware of me is aware that I'm a murderer.
  
  Now that I think about it I'm basically just saying that I won't join because I want to keep killing people.
  
  That's probably not a good thing to say to heroes is it?
  
  My fears are confirmed when Redemption gets a sharp look in her eyes, though Pop still just seems to be struggling with talking in the first place.
  
  Agoraphobia maybe?
  
  "By 'doing what you're doing', you mean killing people don't you?" Comes Redemption's accusatory voice.
  
  I think Pop Stop just realised the situation as she is now actually focusing on the real world rather than whatever was going on in her head.
  
  "Yup! That is exactly what I mean!" I say with audible cheer, "it's nice to be able to do a little something to help the people every now and then, don'tcha think?"
  
  From the way they both frown, I feel like I'm about to have a fun conversation.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  I'm probably going to speed things up a little soon, since I've just been trying to get a certain scene to happen and I figured a way to put it in :)
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
  previous chapternext chapterchapter list
  13 Cape Fight! 2 Electric Boogaloo
  "𝘏𝘦𝘭𝘱 people? You are a 𝘮𝘶𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘳, how can you stand there and act like you're a good person!?"
  
  Redemption's voice is thick with contempt and an undercurrent of anger that is slowly but surely bleeding away any of the nervousness she had before.
  
  It almost makes me laugh.
  
  "Now now Red~ I think you're misunderstanding something.~" I respond with a singsong voice, clearly annoying her with my nonchalant attitude.
  
  Red wastes no time taking the conversational bait, completely ignoring my shortening of her name.
  
  "Then enlighten me." She commands.
  
  I allow myself to roll my eyes at her childishness, but I answer nonetheless.
  
  "Well~ I only said it's nice to help people, I never said anything about being a good person."
  
  It is adorable the way she tries and fails to understand what I'm saying, and I'm just hoping she will give me the opportunity to explain, after all, I can only go into more detail if she asks, otherwise I would lose the game.
  
  Thankfully, my prayers are answered and she continues entertaining conversation.
  
  "What does that even mean? Stop dancing around the point!" She all but pouts.
  
  I honestly half expected her to stomp her foot on the floor in indignation.
  
  "What do you think it means to be a Hero?" I ask, to which she just gives me a dry, annoyed stare. "Humour me."
  
  She does.
  
  After thinking to herself for a moment, still with an annoyed frown on her face, she responds.
  
  "A hero is someone who saves people." She practically spits the words out through gritted teeth.
  
  I pretend to consider her answer for a moment, rocking back and forth on the heels of my feet, before I snap my fingers.
  
  "Wrong!" Is all I say, forcing Red to respond.
  
  "Then what makes Hero?" She grinds out, her words seeming to inflict physical pain on herself and I am more than happy to explain my thoughts.
  
  "It's quite simple really, a Hero sacrifices. Be it time, effort or their very lives, a Hero sacrifices for the sake of others. So a Hero doesn't have to be 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥, so much as they have to be willing to sacrifice."
  
  My words bring her to a stop as they both pause to process what I said, and I can see how my words are having an effect, not a large one granted, but an effect nonetheless.
  
  All that they really need is time to process and rationalise what I say and they will find themselves thinking subtly differently.
  
  Man, this 𝘪𝘴 fun.
  
  "Stop avoiding the point! What does any of this have to do with you killing people!" Red half shouts as she decides to simply push the thoughts in her head aside to deal with later, focusing on the now.
  
  "To call yourself a hero and yet be unwilling to kill is pathetic. Are you such a coward that you would rather spill the blood of innocents, than risk getting even a drop to dirty your own hands?" I accuse.
  
  I can see the way my words anger Red. Honestly, she really needs to learn to control her facial expressions, she is very readable.
  
  I think that at this point she is only continuing this little debate out of pride and a refusal to admit defeat.
  
  "So what are you saying? That a hero has to be a murderer to be a hero?"
  
  "Must you see everything is such white and black? Let me give you an easy example, if Jack Slash was in front of you, vulnerable, would you kill him, or would you fight to subdue?"
  
  Silence is my answer, so I keep talking.
  
  "Naturally, you should kill him, that is why kill orders exist in the first place, for government sanctioned murder for the greater good. Now, we all know how awful Jack is, but there are plenty of horrible people out there, and every time you spare someone's life, then every life they take after the fact is blood on your hands."
  
  Unfortunately, right as Red opens her mouth to speak, our conversation is interrupted by an explosion in the distance.
  
  Our heads all snap to the side where we see a small plume of fire in the distance.
  
  Turning back to the others first, I speak up before they can.
  
  "So, how about we put this lovely little conversation on hold for now?"
  
  In lieu of answering me, Pop takes a step away and puts a finger to her ear where she is presumably listening to orders from above.
  
  Seeing the opportunity to push little Red a little further, I take a step closer to her before whispering, hopefully low enough that the mic I assume she has doesn't pic it up, though I don't really care if it does.
  
  "See, a hero doesn't wait for orders before moving to help people, do they?" Is all I say before I am running to the source of the explosion.
  
  Truthfully, I don't really care about being a hero, nor do I even want to be a hero.
  
  Then again, as a cannibal I somehow doubt that I could be a hero even if I wanted to be.
  
  But either way, it's fun to fuck with people, and who knows? Maybe my words will have some effect on her?
  
  That would be interesting to see.
  
  But for now I have to focus on the present.
  
  It doesn't take me long to make it there and the situation swiftly becomes clear.
  
  Down on the street below stand four capes.
  
  Well, it could be three capes and a bear, but I'm assuming the bear is Morrigan of Red Branch, since her power is to shapeshift into animals.
  
  She is looking to be in a pretty bad shape, her fur all singed and stained by some small amounts of blood.
  
  There are also a few bodies lying around that look like they were normal gangsters that didn't get out of the way of the cape fight soon enough.
  
  Standing opposite Morrigan is three Street Saints capes.
  
  First, the ones actually fighting Morrigan and apparently a rather well known pair, Matchstick and Dovah.
  
  Matchstick looks like he's younger than me, dressed in street clothes with a motorcycle helmet that has flame decals on it while Dovah is wearing what looks like genuine half plate armour and a helmet that has a horn sticking out of each temple.
  
  Apparently he's based off of some video game character, but I don't really play games, bar my two favourites of course.
  
  The two of them aren't too powerful by themselves, Dovah's power being an air canon and Matchstick being a relatively weak pyrokinetic, however the two of them synergise really well together.
  
  It was probably the mixing of their powers that caught our attention in the first place.
  
  That leaves the final Street Saints cape, Dynamite. His name threw me off a little when the boys were giving me my crash course on Columbus' capes because I assumed he was some kind of blaster, but apparently he was named after some boxer.
  
  Theo seemed genuinely upset that I didn't know who the boxer guy was, but even now I literally can not care enough to remember. Either way, apparently this guy is a fan.
  
  Dynamite is wearing a full face wolf mask and is for some reason shirtless. His power is rather debated, all that's really known is that he seems to temporarily make his surroundings turn into steel, or at least something analogous to it.
  
  The effect is already somewhat pronounced in that there is about a three foot ring of steel grey surrounding him in place of the roads tarmac.
  
  Now, the question is how should I interfere, because I am obviously not going to just 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘦, that would be 𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨.
  
  So far it just seems to be Dovah and Matchstick bullying Morrigan whilst Dynamite watches for some reason.
  
  Maybe this is supposed to be training or something? Or just a flex.
  
  I don't exactly know how gang politics work, so I'm just going to focus on the math.
  
  There are four of them. I wanna kill them all. Three are fighting one.
  
  So I could either help quickly finish off the one, and then probably have to fight a very uphill battle, or I can join forces with the one to fight a more even battle.
  
  ... Fuck it, that seems reasonable enough and all this thinking is annoying me because they are still fighting and I want to join in.
  
  The ideal is obviously a two against two, then I can turn on Morrigan afterwards, so with that in mind, I start sneaking around the fight, keeping to the rooftops and looking for an opportunity to take out Matchstick before anyone knows I'm here.
  
  'Plan' in mind, I wait and am quickly rewarded as Morrigan repositions herself, changing from a bear to a crow to fly across the street, closer to Matchstick.
  
  This causes him to rotate his position, making him even closer to me.
  
  Seeing the opportunity for what it is, I give in to the itch in my back and allow my extra limbs to bubble to life behind me.
  
  Slowly, from my position crouched on the roof, I angle my ribbons, pointing both of the tips at Matchstick's chest.
  
  I'd rather get both Dovah and Matchstick at the same time, but Dovah is simply too far away for me to reach.
  
  One is enough however, so I waste no more time and send both of my purplish tendrils of blood-muscle shooting forward as fast as I can.
  
  Even from this distance I can see the way his body locks up once he notices my sneak attack.
  
  I feel like I can 𝘴𝘦𝘦 how his heart skips a beat as he realises that he cannot dodge.
  
  And then, just like that, it's over.
  
  My ribbons pierce straight through his torso and out his back, immediately bringing the fight to a halt as everyone stares at his body as my ribbons heft his body back up to the roof with me.
  
  With everyone's eyes now on me, I stand up fully on the edge of the building.
  
  "Hellooo!~~" I yell, taking a theatrical bow, "I am Tear! Terribly sorry to interrupt, but if you'd be willing, Miss Morrigan, I believe you could use a hand?~"
  
  Instead of getting a proper answer, Dovah points both of his hands in my direction, but before he can launch his air cannons at me one of my ribbons snap out to wrap around a streetlight.
  
  Right as his pair of air blasts slam into the building, I am being pulled by my ribbon until I am dangling upside-down under the streetlight.
  
  Ignoring the angry Dovah, I turn to Morrigan, however she speaks up before I can reiterate my offer.
  
  "Oi, aren't you the bitch that killed Clay?"
  
  ... Ah.
  
  Even through the strangeness that is talking to a bear, I feel a little concerned at this turn of events.
  
  "... no?"
  
  Apparently that wasn't the right answer as Morrigan's next words ruin my plan.
  
  "Oi, Dovah. We've both lost people to this bitch now, how 'bout a temporary truce. You in?"
  
  This really isn't ideal.
  
  Dovah seems angry enough that he struggles to even grunt in affirmation, but Morrigan gets enough confirmation when he launches yet another blast of air at me.
  
  I don't get any time to recover from my dodge before a bear paw smacks into my side, sending me rolling to the side and before I even stop rolling, Dovah's other hand sends another air blast at me, launching me into a wall and cracking it.
  
  Ow.
  
  Dropping to the ground, I land on my feet and stumble a little before my regeneration properly kicks in.
  
  Looking up, I see Dovah and Morrigan on my right and a still silent Dynamite to me left, standing in a larger circle of steel than before.
  
  Twisting my neck to get that satisfying 𝘱𝘰𝘱, I prepare myself for a tough battle, still confident in my lasting power enough that I think I've still got a chance.
  
  Then, as I take a step forward, I hear a 𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘨 and suddenly everything changes.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  hahaha cliffhanger! lolololol git rekt scrubzz ahhaha.. sorry.
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
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  /Pj3Dttwses
  
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  14 :c
  𝘉𝘢𝘯𝘨!
  
  The sound, like a thundercrack, is sudden and unexpected.
  
  However, despite it's incredible volume, the sound is gone as soon as it comes, no ringing in the head, no time to so much as flinch.
  
  At the same time, everything in front of me flickers slightly, like the world itself is somehow lagging.
  
  Our Mexican standoff comes to an abrupt end as we look down the street where, behind Dovah and Morrigan, stand Pop Stop and Redemption.
  
  I suppose that's what Pop's power feels like then.
  
  The first person to speak up is actually Dynamite, who moves for the first time.
  
  "You two go deal with the Heroes, I'll teach our mutual friend here a lesson." His gruff voice commands and find myself surprised by how easily Morrigan follows his orders.
  
  Even as I turn to face Dynamite, I idly hear the roars of fire and bears down the street.
  
  "Hey there tall dark and handsome~ ready to start killing each other?~" I ask as we start closing the distance between us, my tails dancing behind me.
  
  Dynamite comes to a stop about ten feet away from me and speaks with a dismissive tone of voice that kind of annoys me.
  
  "Hmph, you are no fighter, your form is garbage."
  
  What kind of bullshit is that?
  
  "I killed your friend over there, I killed Clay."
  
  He just scoffs.
  
  "You killed them with your power alone, you are clumsy and unpractised. No 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮."
  
  He stands in front of me, hands in his pockets, staring down at me through the holes in his metal mask.
  
  "I'll give you a few free hits, come on."
  
  This asshole...
  
  Whatever, he wants me to get free hits?
  
  Then I will give him what he wants, I'm nice like that.
  
  With annoyance at his dismissal of me fuelling me, I bound forward and swing a punch with everything I have straight at his centre mass.
  
  Thud.
  
  I hit skin, then I hit metal. He doesn't even flinch.
  
  I however, do worse than flinch.
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬.
  
  I 𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮 as I hunch over, cradling my completely 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 right arm.
  
  I feel tears well up in my eyes as pain becomes my whole world and my vision goes white.
  
  There is a 𝘷𝘢𝘴𝘵 difference between breaking your wrist and having your 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘮 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳 all but 𝘭𝘪𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘦𝘥.
  
  After what felt like hours but was probably only a few moments, I can open my eyes through the pain to actually look at my arm, almost immediately wishing I didn't.
  
  I can see bones and flesh sticking out from the skin basically everywhere, as my arm does it's best impression of an empty sleeve by just hanging limply.
  
  Even as I can see bones and muscles slowly, 𝘧𝘢𝘳 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘴𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘺, realign themselves, stitching my arm back together.
  
  Not wanting to look at it anymore, I turn away, only for Dynamite's masked face to take up my vision.
  
  Anger surges me and I ignore my broken arm to swing for the side of his head with my other arm, hitting his mask hard enough to leave a dent.
  
  The sound it made was indicative enough of the force behind it.
  
  His head only tilted slightly, and he corrected himself to look down at me again.
  
  Meanwhile, my hand and wrist are 𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘥.
  
  "You're done then?" He rhetorically asks.
  
  Ah.
  
  ... Fuck.
  
  "I'm gonna take that as a yes."
  
  I open my mouth to respond but before I can say anything, my breath leaves me thanks to the force hitting my gut. I can barely hack out a cough before my vision explodes into stars., my legs becoming weak for a moment, making me stumble around like a drunk.
  
  Everything is spinning.
  
  He'd hit me with what I'd done, just... better.
  
  Punches from normal people don't really hurt, but from Dynamite, it feels like 𝘐'𝘮 the normal one.
  
  "If you had any form of skill, you might've been able to do something with those free hits."
  
  His words bring me back to reality, and I throw my now healed arms into punching his bare chest.
  
  I graze his skin, leaving it red with my own blood, but the 'clang' of each hit shows how little I'm actually doing to him.
  
  He grabs one of my arms, locking it in place, then he raises his fist.
  
  My vision blacks out, colours quickly popping into existence once more. It was like a kaleidoscope, colours everywhere. Half of it was red.
  
  I think he punched the side of my head six times before he let me go, making me stumble backwards.
  
  I think something broke, my vision was worse. I couldn't see properly.
  
  Something hits my chest and it feels like a train hit me.
  
  His foot? I think? He kicked me?
  
  I fly back, spinning over the ground to a stop.
  
  Slowly, my vision recovers and I force myself onto my hands and knees.
  
  Everything hurts. The world is spinning.
  
  "You're a tough one, that's for sure."
  
  His voice taunts me.
  
  It pisses me off.
  
  "It's not often someone can get up after taking a hit from me."
  
  A tail lashes out.
  
  It blurs, intending to sheer him in half.
  
  However, nothing is sheered.
  
  Instead, Dynamite blocks my extra appendage with his forearm, the force sending him sliding back a few steps.
  
  "That's better. You came into this fight with quite a bit of pride didn't you?"
  
  I get back to my feet, ignoring how my tail comes back to me without a thought.
  
  "You came at me, thinking you'd what? Out-box me? That you wouldn't need your power to fight me?"
  
  My vision still isn't perfect and my body is still healing, but I glare at him all the same, not even bothering to wipe the blood from my face.
  
  "But now you're thinking 'fuck it' right? 'Fuck pride, I'm gonna kick this assholes ass'?"
  
  He isn't wrong.
  
  I send both of my tails forward, one delayed behind the second, both intending to skewer him.
  
  "Good! Stop fucking around, and fight me!"
  
  I ignore his yelling and focus on my tails.
  
  The first one is dodged by a side step and the second blocked by his crossed arms as he rushes for me, his skin taking on the sheen of the steel that I am intimately aware lies beneath it.
  
  Before I can bring my tails back, Dynamite is in front of me.
  
  I barely manage to twist out of the way of his first swing, however I am off balanced to dodge the kick that follows it.
  
  However, instead of the expected pain, I feel the feeling of flying as my tails both dig into the ground where they are, behind Dynamite, and lift me up and 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 him.
  
  Huh, I can do that?
  
  Hanging ten feet in the air by my tails that I am using as stilts, I think about turning around, so that I am facing Dynamite again, and following instincts I didn't know I had, one of my tails pulls out of the ground and spins me around.
  
  Awesome.
  
  Now.. how exactly does this help me? I only have two tails.
  
  I'm not given any time to ponder that as a familiar 𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘨 sounds out, followed by a wall of fire appearing and charging down the street at me and Dynamite, who somehow seems to have been frozen for less time than me since he's already moved a little.
  
  Right as I prepare my tails to launch me away back to the roofs I hear another 𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘨 and the next thing I know all I can see is Redemptions red-silver flames.
  
  I expected burning, I expected pain, what I did 𝘯𝘰𝘵 expect is for it to only feel 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘮.
  
  Ok, warm is pushing it a bit, more like uncomfortably hot, like an unexpected sauna, I would imagine. I've never been in a sauna though so I can't be sure.
  
  A moment passes and the fire dissipates, leaving me standing on my two tails in the middle of the street, Dynamite nowhere in sight, with little Red and Pop taking his place.
  
  I try to process what just happened and I can't help but feel cheated.
  
  I mean, sure, I was getting my ass kicked a little, but I was just about to turn it around!
  
  They let him get away.
  
  A quick glance around doesn't reveal any unconscious villains, so I can only assume the other two got away too.
  
  Such useless heroes.
  
  "Tear! please come with us peacefully!"
  
  Haah?
  
  "You let them get away." I don't even know why I'm bothered about this, every good game is about give and take.
  
  You win some and you lose some.
  
  "You let them get away." As I repeat myself I learn something new about myself.
  
  This all might just be one big game.
  
  𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘐 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘐 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨.
  
  I'm moving before I can even think about it, my tails launching my body like a missile straight at the pair of them.
  
  𝘉𝘢𝘯𝘨.
  
  A wall of fire greets me, but I can still see the two of them behind it, and the fire doesn't hinder me in the slightest.
  
  I land right in front of them with such force that I crack the street and possibly my ankles too, but I don't care as I lunge up and lash my fist out with a shout to Pop's gut that takes the air out of her lungs.
  
  "Useless!"
  
  My form is still garbage, but these two are no brutes, so she folds around my fist before being thrown a few paces backwards, landing harshly on the ground.
  
  As I turn to Redemption, fire consumes my vision, but knowing how useless it is, I ignore it completely as I bring my now raised fist down on her face, sending her crumpling to the ground with a scream.
  
  "Failures!"
  
  Standing over the both of them, panting from exhaustion and pain and just so 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩, all I want to do is go home and take a nice nap, maybe grab some food on the way.
  
  But I am still angry, so I don't feel like leaving without saying a few words first.
  
  "You call yourself heroes!? Pathetic." I spit, "four villains were here today. One of them will never hurt anyone again. That was 𝘮𝘦. Three of them are free to keep doing what they have been doing. That. Was. 𝘠𝘰𝘶."
  
  Obviously, I don't 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 care about them being villains and doing villain stuff, but I want my words to 𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘵 these bitches for taking my prey away from me.
  
  Whatever, I got one, that's good enough.
  
  I can always get the others some other time.
  
  "Just remember what I said earlier, every time you spare an enemy you could have killed, any blood they spill is on 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 hands."
  
  Sighing to myself, I feel the anger leaving me at just how pointless this whole thing is.
  
  You win some, you lose some.
  
  If I throw a tantrum every time I lose something then I will never succeed long term.
  
  Whatever, I want to go to bed.
  
  Turning around, I don't look back as I leave, however I do make sure to grab Matchsticks body as I go.
  
  Waste not, want not after all.
  
  The next day, or I suppose, later that day, after a nice long sleep I wake up to a bunch of text messages from James and Theo, James even sending a few videos, about how the new vigilante took out another villain.
  
  Apparently someone recorded the whole thing and posted it on PHO, though they weren't close enough to get audio, which means no one knows why I suddenly attacked the heroes at the end.
  
  Then again, I don't really know why I did that.
  
  I just 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 didn't like that Dynamite just left before we properly decided a victor.
  
  It just really pissed me off, like if you're playing monopoly and once every property on the board has been bought, everyone just decides to stop playing.
  
  It's annoying.
  
  Still, it's nice to see how despite most people condemning me, there is quite a number of people on my side, even saying the heroes are in the wrong.
  
  That's fun at least.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Ok, so this chapter confused the shit out of me, because I really wanted to basically copy a scene from another fic (Centipede, google it), entirely because I wanted to get in a line about how Lusia has no form, but then I ended up struggling how to get it in, but now that that's over, I can finally kick things off for real, also I wrote and rewrote this chap so many times that I have no clue what I actually kept lol.
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
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  15 Interlude: Aiko Hasson
  Sitting here, surrounded by so many Heroes and even Director Balvan, I can't help but feel out of place.
  
  Because Despite what Ethan and Luke would say, I really don't think I'm fit to be Heroes like they are.
  
  I mean, look at Ethan, he is compared to 𝘓𝘦𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘥 himself and even if Luke isn't that good with his powers as Lost, he still manages to make the people around him feel safe and happy.
  
  Then there's me.
  
  Too nervous to even act like a hero and too weak to fight villains.
  
  It's supposed to be me giving the report on our encounter with the new vigilante Tear and the fight that followed, but instead here I am, head bowed and silent as Emma gives the report for me.
  
  Just like how when we actually met the odd vigilante, she had to do all the talking as I just stood there like an 𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘰𝘵 that just can't ever figure out 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰!
  
  But that does make me think about our meeting.
  
  The new vigilante is... weird.
  
  At the start, she seemed super nice and friendly and honestly I really liked how bubbly she was.
  
  She just seemed so.. 𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 and she has a confidence that I could only silently admire, too shy to speak up and leaving Emma to do all the talking for me.
  
  I should find the time to apologise to her. I know she's technically been a Hero longer than I have, but I am still older than her, I should be the responsible one, not the one acting childish.
  
  But I did manage to give the recruitment speech we're supposed to give if we meet an unaffiliated cape!
  
  Even if I did kind of bumble the words a little, at least Tear pretended not to mind, I appreciated that.
  
  But she declined, something I think is completely understandable really, government work isn't for everybody, I mean I'm only really here due to circumstance in the first place.
  
  Then things started going badly when Emma accused Tear of murder, which I didn't really want to bring up and I probably should have stopped the conversation then and there.
  
  Maybe then...
  
  But I didn't, and they kept arguing, well, Emma was arguing, Tear seemed to be having fun.
  
  Then Tear really started 𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨, and I don't think I can ever forget what she said.
  
  A Hero doesn't have to be 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥.
  
  A Hero 𝘴𝘢𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘴.
  
  Those words hit me hard, because it's true, isn't it?
  
  A Hero gives up their own lives for the sake of strangers.
  
  But I don't want to die.
  
  Why should I? When they have never done anything for me?
  
  I don't think I make a very good hero.
  
  Even with how little attention I'm paying to Emma's report, I notice how much of the conversation she omits and I can't help but think that Tear's words must be effecting her just as much as me.
  
  Emma is, after all, a lot more emotionally invested in this whole hero business.
  
  I remember finding it odd when we finally got to the fighting to see that Dovah was out with Dynamite instead of Matchstick, since they are supposed to be together most of the time.
  
  It was only after the fact that we found out that Matchstick was killed by Tear before we even got there.
  
  I felt nothing hearing about his death.
  
  Matchstick has many cases of arson pinned to him and plenty of deaths attributed to him. If he is to kill, then no one should complain if he gets killed himself.
  
  However, I know that I can't say these thoughts out loud, not here.
  
  Just another reason for me to not fit in.
  
  But we didn't really have the time to think about it before we had to fend off Morrigan and Dovah.
  
  Not that that was particularly hard, what with my crowd control and Emma's offence. The only thing that made the fight take as long as it did was Dovah's ability to push back Emma's fire.
  
  But with me there to delay him, the fire got closer and closer until he had to run away.
  
  Meanwhile Morrigan just turned into a bird and flew away, there wasn't really much we could do about that.
  
  It's only now that Emma is nearing the end of the report to I clear all these thoughts from my head and actually pay attention to the meeting.
  
  "-and then we moved over to where Dynamite and Tear had been fighting to see both of them facing off against each other, Tear standing on a pair of tendrils and Dynamite fully metal. Seeing that Tear was covered in blood and given how we were unaware of her apparent regenerative abilities, I made the decision to join the fight, hoping to avoid needless casualties."
  
  She says that, but I know that she didn't interfere to help Tear, but rather hoped to just take the both of them down, and that leads to the most interesting part of this whole thing.
  
  "However, Dynamite seemed to have notice us too early for my fire to do much to him before he could escape, Tear however was engulfed completely."
  
  Here, Emma pauses, understandably really, since what happened didn't really make much sense.
  
  "When I dispersed my flames, we found Tear in the same spot, unharmed and only slightly singed... my flames did not hurt her."
  
  Now 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 sends an almost visible ripple of murmuring and frowns through the room.
  
  Rather understandably, since as far as I am aware, Emma's fire burns hotter depending on ones 'sins'. It's like literal karmic retribution and it's part of what makes Redemption such a promising up and coming hero.
  
  Because all villains have committed 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 kind of 'sin', just imagine how effective her flames would be against the likes of the Slaughterhouse Nine.
  
  However, even heroes have been burned by her flames, even if only slightly in most cases.
  
  Which leads to the conclusion that maybe Tear is even less of a 'sinner' than everyone here at this table.
  
  Of course, that really depends on how her power defines 'sin'.
  
  Then of course, there is the 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 theory, as Carol is quick to point out.
  
  "This just adds further proof to what I've said before about Redemption's fire. It cannot somehow judge karma, but rather it would be more accurate to say that it burns hotter the more guilt you feel."
  
  It's a solid theory, and it actually makes more sense than something as arbitrary as karma being real, however it does bring about it's own problem if it's true.
  
  "If that's the case," Ben starts, bringing attention to the only thinker present, even if his power as Cousin doesn't really apply here, "then this 'Tear' must not feel any guilt, despite having literally just killed someone, and on top of this it means that she has never felt guilt in her 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦, except for maybe once. That leaves only one possibility for the kind of person our new 'vigilante' is."
  
  Nobody gets to call him out on making this more dramatic than it needs to be by pausing needlessly because Emma is already impatient and clearly just wants to leave already.
  
  "Well? Get to the point already!" She snaps, and it shows how everybody agrees with her since no one pointed out how she should be showing more respect to her seniors.
  
  Coughing lightly to himself, Ben does get to the point.
  
  "She is insane." He says, immediately elaborating before anyone can ask him to this time.
  
  "Everybody feels guilt at some point, even if it's something you forget about, you still 𝘧𝘦𝘭𝘵 the guilt at some point, and we've already got enough evidence to suggest that Redemption's power is retroactive, meaning that even if you don't feel guilty 𝘯𝘰𝘸, her power can still burn you.
  
  "For Tear to only be 'slightly singed', to the point that even her clothes are basically untouched, it means that she has lived her whole life without feeling guilt once, not even from small, meaningless things we feel bad about in the moment only to immediately forget. This could only be possible in someone who simply does not care about... well, anything really, ergo, she is insane."
  
  As he finishes, nobody jumps to be the next person to speak, simply absorbing his words.
  
  Personally, I think he's making her sound worse than she is. In my opinion, she is just not the kind of person to feel guilt, like, the 'no regrets' kind of person, who lives her life and accepts everything as it comes, focusing on the future rather than dwelling on the past.
  
  Besides, why should she feel guilty about killing a villain? I don't think I would.
  
  "Definitely insane," Emma agrees, "she seemed to take the whole situation as some kind of game, not to mention the way she talks and the literal clown mask, I'm pretty sure she is only a vigilante because it's what she finds amusing right now rather than any moral basis."
  
  I think Emma's still just upset with Tear and is being petty.
  
  "Potential insanity aside," Tiamat says, forcibly taking control of the conversation, "we should focus on the threat Tear poses should she decide the life of villainy to be more entertaining."
  
  I'm not sure how I feel about Tiamat as a person. Don't get me wrong, as a cape she's 𝘢𝘸𝘦𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦, one of the best, there's a reason she got the name Tiamat, mother of monsters, though I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be offensive to call case 53's like her monster capes, her being the strongest 53 shouldn't change that.
  
  Still, despite that she seems kinda petty, and rather prideful. It gets kind of annoying how she is constantly trying to one up Bungee to take his position as leader of our Protectorate branch.
  
  Though, to be fair to her, she really does deserve the position, but people are superficial at the best of times and her freaky, it feels mean to say freaky but it really is daunting to look at, dragon head and tail means that she is unlikely to ever get a higher position.
  
  It's pitiable really.
  
  With the question of threat rating coming up, it's Yumiko's turn to speak because even if her 'fox fire' isn't exactly a thinker power, she is really good at coming up with accurate threat ratings.
  
  "Changer four, Brute three, thinker one and mover one." Is all she says before going to her phone where I just 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 she is shitposting on PHO.
  
  However, Ben frowns at her words, "Thinker one? Where did thinker come from? She seems to be a changer/brute through and through?"
  
  Yumiko meets his uncertain words with the kind of expression you would give to a particularly dumb child, before she gives an exaggerated, put upon sigh and sits up, leaning forward slightly.
  
  "Because," She drawls, "if you were paying attention, you would know how despite following from a good distance, Tear managed to sense the approach of Redemption and Pop Step behind her. If I had to guess, it would be some variant of danger sense that lets her know if someone is watching her or something."
  
  Done with her bit, she flops back into her chair and goes back to ignoring us, but Ben doesn't seem satisfied.
  
  "Why does it have to be a variant of danger sense, and not just danger sense?" He asks, making Yumiko sigh, however she doesn't look up from her phone as she answers this time.
  
  "She was covered in her own blood, Dynamite doesn't have a mover rating, Tear's faster, you do the math dumbass if she had danger sense she wouldn't have been so messed up."
  
  The rest of the meeting was mostly boring stuff, we briefly covered the events after Dynamite got away where Tear beat us both down, but I'm just glad that we didn't have to dwell on it, the decision being that it wasn't something we have to hold a grudge for, nor is it necessarily an indication of open hostility.
  
  Still, it can't help but make me think about how quickly and easily me and Emma were both put down by just a low brute.
  
  However, for once instead of simply cursing my weakness, I try to think about what I could do better.
  
  Unfortunately, I come up with a blank for the rest of the day until I am in my room and see a little note on the desk.
  
  It's the number from that woman that seemed oddly interested in the specifics of my power a month or so ago.
  
  ... Maybe I should finally give her a call? She might have some more ideas for my power, I mean, I never thought about the velocity thing she mentioned last time and how I might be able to stop someone from falling to their death with it.
  
  ... Yeah, I guess I'll give her a call in the morning.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  This chapter also beat me up, because the page refreshed randomly and deleted a bunch of work :(
  
  Made me so mad I paced around and started working out lol.
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  16 Coffee
  Well, yesterday was both fun and also really sucked.
  
  For one, I got my ass kicked again, which sucks, and I have since decided that rather than just exercising, I should try learning how to actually fight and to that end I have started paying for a boxing coach.
  
  It's slightly annoying having to hide my actual strength from him, but it is also good training for not putting too much strength into things, I've broken a few glasses by forgetting my strength after all.
  
  I think it's going rather well, I mean, I'm apparently still awful, according to Luke, my coach, but he also says I have decent 'fighting instincts' so I assume it won't be too long 'till I stop breaking my wrists by punching brutes.
  
  However, that is not the most interesting thing that has happened since my last fight, see, something really unexpected happened the day after.
  
  Pop Stop, who I gave my number to over a month ago, 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 decided to give me a call.
  
  To be honest, I figured she'd just thrown my number away, but I do love surprises like this.
  
  Also, I find the whole situation of talking to her as 'Alice' right after our little 'interaction' as capes absolutely hilarious.
  
  All of this leads to now, were we decided to meet up when I get off of work, since Anteiku closes early on Sundays and I suggested that we simply meet here.
  
  After all, Mr Yoshimura is kind enough to let me use the shop for some 'private socialising' after it closes.
  
  Now that I think about it, I think the old man thinks that I'm bringing a date here.
  
  Huh, ah well.
  
  So here I am, still in my Anteiku uniform of a plain white dress shirt and deep maroon tie underneath a smart black vest, with a dark maroon skirt over a pair of black leggings.
  
  I think Mr Yoshimura used to be some rich persons butler or something with how he makes me dress, but I can't really complain since it means that once I take of the apron I am already dressed formally enough that I won't be out of place walking around, or meeting with a 'friend'.
  
  Either way, that leaves me wating here, brewing some coffee, something that I have been practicing with the help of Mr Yoshimura who makes the best coffee I've ever had, when Pop shows up.
  
  The sound of the shops bell tingling alerts me to her presence right before her scent does. She has that same, not very nice but still palatable, scent that every parahuman has.
  
  When I look over, I feel a wry smile take over my lips. We had agreed that whilst she would not be showing up in costume, for obvious reasons, she also wouldn't be revealing her identity to me, since I know her as Pop Stop.
  
  To that end, she has shown up wearing the most movie 'disguise' I have ever seen, from the overly large summer hat, despite it being close to christmas time, to the large black sunglasses and a fur scarf covering her lower face.
  
  Honestly, it kind of makes her look like a 'Madam', aka a female pimp.
  
  Other than the over the top disguise, she is wearing relatively normal clothing, a brown skirt that is about a foot longer than my own with stockings, as well as a beige blouse and a simple red jacket over the top.
  
  Even through her thick disguise, I can still see her blush slightly from the smirk on my face, I can practically 𝘴𝘮𝘦𝘭𝘭 the blood gathering in her cheeks.
  
  Waving a hand to the stools on the other side of the counter in front of me, I offer her a smile.
  
  "Please, take a seat, the coffee will be done in a moment, would you like a cake?"
  
  She had told me how she was also quite partial to coffee over the phone, which is great since it means I don't have to smell whatever else she would want to drink.
  
  "Ah, n-no, it's ok, just the coffee is fine, thank you." Her voice is quiet even in the otherwise empty room.
  
  Still, I'm fairly certain that her denial was out of politeness than an actual aversion to eating a slice of cake, so I decide to get her one anyway while I wait for the water to boil for a fresh coffee.
  
  "Here, it's on the house." I say as I pass over a slice of coffee cake before moving back to the boiling water and coffee beans.
  
  "I w-wouldn't want to impose so much, there's no need, uhm, I can pay for it though?"
  
  As she reaches down, presumably for her wallet, I gently put a hand over her own to stop her.
  
  "It's okay, we won't sell all of them anyway and we give them away anyway, when they're about to go stale, really it's fine and I insist, you've been glancing at the cakes enough that I'm half convinced you are trying to will them into your stomach."
  
  My gentle chastisement calms her down and my little joke relaxes her enough that I feel most of the tension drain from her as she settles down.
  
  The moments pass in silence as I prepare the coffee, just like Mr Yoshimura taught me. Swirl the water as you pour it to spread the flavour properly.
  
  I make pretty good coffee if I do say so myself, but Mr Yoshimura says that I am still 'too impatient to make perfect coffee', whatever that means.
  
  What part of my coffee making is impatient? I don't do it any different to him as far as I can tell.
  
  Part of me thinks he's just fucking with me.
  
  Still, when I am done and hand Pop her cup, I am vindicated by the groan of satisfaction that leaves her once she takes her first sips.
  
  See? Good coffee.
  
  "That is the best coffee I've ever had." Pop whispers, staring at her cup on the counter as if it holds the mysteries of the universe.
  
  I beam in pride at her words and give her the most exaggerated, most smug smile I can manage, "I know, I know, I truly am amazing, but it's a trade secret so I can't tell you how it's done unfortunately."
  
  My 'brag' gets a snort out of her that seemed to surprise herself.
  
  Maybe I was right about my assumption of agoraphobia then?
  
  "So!", I clap my hands, getting her full attention, "I don't think it was coffee that made you decide to call me now of all time, so what did you want to talk about?"
  
  She scratches her cheek with one finger in slight awkwardness at the reminder that she ignored my number for a whole month, only to contact me because she presumably needs something other than simple conversation.
  
  But after coughing once in her fist, she pushes that down and starts talking, immediately grabbing my interest.
  
  "Well, I remembered what you asked, about how my power interacts with velocity, and since you seemed to care more about how my power worked than getting a selfie or something like most people do, I was thinking you might be able to help me with something."
  
  Humming with genuine interest, I lean down on the counter on my elbows, idly using one hand to stir my coffee.
  
  I didn't actually think that I would be having an interesting conversation today, I thought it would be more a case of her wanting to make a friend who isn't a co-worker or somehow connected to her work.
  
  The only reason I agreed despite that is that it is just too funny to not try and befriend a hero.
  
  But it is certainly a pleasant surprise that the conversation might not be boring normal stuff.
  
  "I'd be happy to help." I say with a smile.
  
  "Right, w-well, uhm. You see, I recently had an, uh, 𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 with some other capes, and I'm not sure if you know, but I have only been in the Protectorate for a few months now, making me the newest member and I had never actually been in a proper cape fight before and I felt like I wasn't doing as much as I could and at the end I kind of got, uh, immobilised, without even being able to do anything about it, so I was hoping you might be able to help me come up with better ways to use my power?"
  
  Blinking from the veritable tsunami of words she just vomited out in a single breath, I take a moment to process all that she said while she herself takes a moment to breathe after her rambling.
  
  When I finally finish processing her words, it takes all of my will to not start laughing, the best I can manage is limiting my visible amusement to a large smile.
  
  A Hero is asking a not-quite-a-villain, how to better use their powers to beat them in a fight?
  
  This is the funniest thing to happen to me.. maybe ever!
  
  Ah, don't lose yourself Lusia, it would be a shame to give the game away when it's so much fun.
  
  With that in mind, I quickly placate the dismayed Pop Stop who clearly thinks I was making fun of her, which is correct I suppose, just not for the reason she believes.
  
  "Ah, don't worry Pop, it just makes me happy to see you acting so human. People like to see Heroes as beings that are larger than life. It's just nice to see visual evidence that you lot are just as human as the rest of us 'mortals'."
  
  My words do calm her down, but they also make her make a confused expression before it turns contemplative.
  
  I don't know what she's thinking, but after a moment she just smiles and relaxes some more as she gets the conversation back on topic.
  
  "Right, so, do you have any ideas? Because I feel like I've hit a wall and I at least need some inspiration to work from, you know?"
  
  "Yeah, I get you", and I do, "it's like writers block I'd guess, you just need some help to push through the wall and then you can go back to figuring things out for yourself."
  
  My words make her make an 'o' expression with her mouth that I can see now that she lowered her scarf so she could drink, and I continue after she doesn't.
  
  "Well, for now, how about you tell me how you use your power right now, as well as maybe give me a demonstration? So I know what to build of from?"
  
  She acquiesces to my request, and explains how she uses her abilities, while also giving me an example of how it feels.
  
  Obviously, I already knew basically all of this, but I do need a reason to know it so this is all necessary, even if my first bit of advice is something that I thought about a while ago.
  
  "Well, from the way I see it, your power is less like a shaker effect and more like a masters, effectively 'taking away' the 'time' of anyone who flinches at your bubbles, taking more 'time' the more they flinch, right?"
  
  She nods her head, clearly wondering where I'm going with this.
  
  "Well, you know you can make multiple bubbles, and pop them sequentially in order to keep someone freezing and effectively immobile. So why don't you try popping multiple bubbles at once? Theoretically, it should make a louder 'bang' and thus take more 'time' from whoever hears it, no?"
  
  Once I finish speaking, I am greeted to the sight of Pop's face slowly morphing into a dumbfounded expression as realisation overtakes her.
  
  I can almost see the moment that something seems to just 𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬 inside of her mind.
  
  "Why did I never think of that?" She breathes out, barely a whisper.
  
  When she finally stops staring into space, lost in thought, and finally looks up to me, she sees me smirking as I pointedly drink my coffee, purposefully making slurping noises once I see her looking at me.
  
  She immediately becomes embarrassed for a moment, before that feeling is seemingly wiped away by excitement.
  
  We go on to spend the rest of the day talking about intricate ways she could use her powers, as well as a lot of theories and physics.
  
  All in all, a very entertaining night.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  17 Interlude: Multi
  "-yeah yeah, just knock when it's time for my patrol, I want a nap."
  
  Closing the door to my room in the wards section of the PRT building, I take four steps forward before collapsing in a boneless heap onto my bed.
  
  I don't know how long I just lied there, my mind blank and my open eyes unseeing, but eventually I got the urge to move, and sat up on the middle of the bed, crossing my legs underneath me.
  
  Cupping my palms in front of me, I focus on that inexplicable 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 that is so much like instinct, but just not quite the same.
  
  The next instant, fire is born in my waiting hands, I know only from the in depth power testing I've been through that it takes exactly 0.0214 for the first spark to turn into the ball of flame I'm holding now.
  
  Apparently the number is significant for research purposes, but I'm not a nerd so I'm not really too sure about that.
  
  I think I spend a few dozen minutes just staring at my fire, lost in thought.
  
  When I first got my power, I was filled with a sense of 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦, of 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴.
  
  My power was 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵.
  
  It cut through all uncertainty and allowed me to punish evil, and protect good.
  
  My flames were the perfect judge. If you burned, then you were evil, how much you burned depended on how evil.
  
  We don't know if there's an upper limit, but the strongest it's ever been was enough to reduce a man to charcoal in 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘴.
  
  Yet, if it was simply hot, like scalding water, then you were innocent, or at least, innocent enough.
  
  I know that no one can be perfect and my power gave me an exacting line for who is good and who is evil.
  
  Many perished under my flames before the PRT brought me into the wards. From the assholes who triggered me in the first place, to murderers and rapists and podophiles.
  
  Their sins were their own undoing.
  
  Even after joining the wards and learning that just because they are evil, that doesn't mean I should fall to their level, that I should be better, that life is sacred always, and should always be given another chance.
  
  Even then, my powers never failed me, never killed anyone, my perfect, constant companion has never failed me.
  
  Any yet... and yet, here I am.
  
  Everything was going so well too, two more years and I would be able to join the protectorate, and with my total of five years of experience by that point, I would no doubt get an amazing salary.
  
  But more importantly, I would have more freedom to be a hero, to spread the flames of justice.
  
  But then, 𝘴𝘩𝘦 showed up.
  
  A new vigilante shows up and immediately sets out on a killing spree of the cities villains.
  
  When she was first brought up in the weekly meetings, it felt like everyone was staring at me, accusing me as if it's me out there instead.
  
  But that's stupid, I'm obviously not the only one who acts like that when we first get powers.
  
  Telling myself that doesn't make it feel like the stares are going away.
  
  I started seeing myself in the new vigilante.
  
  Projecting.
  
  That's what the shrink called it, she says that it's likely that my guilt is making me push all the parts of myself that I hate onto the new vigilante.
  
  With that in mind, when me and Pop Stop happened to come across her on a regular patrol, I did my best to be unbiased to her. To be fair.
  
  But then she started 𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 and oh. My. 𝘎𝘰𝘥. She is the most aggravating person I have ever had the displeasure to meet.
  
  I will admit, at the start, she seemed pretty fun actually, from her voice to the way she moved her body animatedly to emphasise her words.
  
  She was funny, and I was starting to relax, thinking that maybe she just needs the same guidance that I got, then maybe she could see the light, that we could even be friends.
  
  But then, after nudging Pop Stop in order to get my way too shy senior to give the sales pitch, things changed with Tears response.
  
  "Hum hum", she actually 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥 'hum hum'. Who enunciates their humming?
  
  "I'm pretty happy by myself if I'm being honest, plus there's the fact that I'm pretty sure that I won't be allowed to keep doing what I'm doing if I joined you guys."
  
  Like a bucket of ice water being dumped on me, I was reminded of exactly 𝘸𝘩𝘺 I had a problem with her in the first place.
  
  My next words came out almost subconsciously, and in hindsight, I'm not very proud of how emotional I got in the argument, nor by how easily she led me around, something I only noticed after thinking on the conversation later.
  
  Then she asked that stupid question, 'what does it mean to be a Hero'.
  
  I expected her answer to be something stupid or edgy, like 'a hero kills villains' or something that justifies her actions, but I didn't get that.
  
  She went on about how a hero sacrifices, and I hated how much sense she was making, how 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 it all felt.
  
  But then she said it, the words that hit me with all the force of a train.
  
  "Are you such a coward that you would rather spill the blood of innocents, than risk getting even a drop to dirty your own hands?"
  
  Those words, so much like my own back when I started.
  
  They pissed me off.
  
  They pissed me off because of the memories they brought.
  
  They pissed me off because of how much 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦 they made.
  
  But most of all, they pissed me off because they showed me that even after all this time with the wards, I still agree with her.
  
  I 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 it.
  
  I 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦 her.
  
  Because she just. Wouldn't. Stop. 𝘛𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨, and the more she spoke the more I felt like the past few years of my life have been a lie, that I 𝘸𝘢𝘴 right at the start.
  
  Then, the explosion came. A perfect excuse for her to stop talking.
  
  But I guess she wasn't done filling me with doubts, as before she left for whatever was happening, she came close to whisper a parting message.
  
  "See, a hero doesn't wait for orders before moving to help people, do they?"
  
  I hate it all so much.
  
  I hate that I can't get her insidious thoughts out of my head.
  
  I hate that I feel like I'm being mastered even though I 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 that I'm not.
  
  God knows we have enough Master/Stranger photocalls in place that it would have been noticed.
  
  But more than any of that, I hated that she was 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵, that immediately after she left, we had to wait for console to give us permission to investigate.
  
  That by the time we actually got there, Tear had already taken down one of the villains and held herself against the others.
  
  But even with everything about her pissing me off, the only thing I'm not mad at her for is, ironically enough, when she downed me with a single punch.
  
  Because even then, I 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘥.
  
  We let them get away.
  
  No. 𝘐 let them get away.
  
  I just...
  
  I just don't know what to think anymore.
  
  Everyone here, from my shrink to my fellow Heroes, even the troopers if I ever talk with them, they all agree that life is sacred and should be spared.
  
  That villains should be punished according to the laws, that you can't make those decisions yourself.
  
  But is that really true?
  
  How many people would Matchstick have killed, how many buildings burned, if he had been spared?
  
  How many lives were inadvertently saved?
  
  The answer, is that we cannot know.
  
  Honestly, that just pisses me off even more.
  
  𝘒𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬 𝘒𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬
  
  Extinguishing my flames, I turn to face the door as it is opened and a head pokes in, Grace's.
  
  "Hey! Your patrol is in five minutes!" Is all she says before her head disappears as she goes back to doing whatever she does these days.
  
  She doesn't even close the door behind her, making me sigh to myself.
  
  "Ditsy girl will be ditsy I guess."
  
  Still, hopefully this patrol will be able to clear my doubts somewhat.
  
  A girl can dream.
  
  ...
  
  It's not often that Sean, or as he's better known, Equaliser, of Red Branch, thinks about 'home'.
  
  After all, Sean hates his family.
  
  You see, Sean's family is a part of the Fallen, meaning Sean was bred to be a Fallen parahuman.
  
  The Fallen themselves, are a decentralised group of cultists and fanatics that worship the city destroying monsters known as the Endbringers.
  
  The Yamori family was a minor family and was a mix between whites and Asians, but Sean was born white enough that he could join a gang like Red Branch without anyone suspecting his ancestry.
  
  Especially after taking up the name Sean.
  
  The Yamori branch is also just as specialised as all the other families, however unlike the others that focus on a specific Endbringers main powers like the McVeays who mostly had dynakinetic powers, emulating Behemoth.
  
  Or the Crowleys who generally had non-self targeted duplication powers, just as their 'god' Leviathan has his Water-Echo, or the worst of them all, the Mathers who worship Simurgh, the Hopekiller and generally have Master powers.
  
  The Yamori branch focuses on the actual 𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 of the Endbringers, meaning most of their members have strength and regenerative powers, but not only that, they also tend to have anti-power Trump abilities, to represent how the Endbringers remain unaffected no matter what power is thrown their way.
  
  This means that it was pretty easy for Sean to join Red Branch, as he inherited a Trump power that lets him turn off the powers of anyone he touches.
  
  The best part is how the effect sustains itself after he lets go of them, even if it's not for long, it's enough to mean that a single touch means victory.
  
  However, one does not simply 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘦 the fallen.
  
  It's never that easy.
  
  But, Sean's uncle, the current head of the Yamori clan, Jason, made Sean a deal.
  
  He won't be hunted by the family, in exchange, he needs to help the family fill up the gap his absence made.
  
  In other words, he has to kidnap a cape to send back every now and then.
  
  He's just glad that they only accept people with Trump or regenerative based powers, so he rarely has to actually deliver on that promise.
  
  However, there is a new cape in town, a vigilante. One that has already caused Red Branch some problems, even killing one of our members.
  
  At first it was nothing of note, just an annoyance that will either join someone or be eliminated soon enough.
  
  However, that was until the video of her fight against Dynamite came out.
  
  When he say how well she regenerated, better than anyone in the Yamori clan, a sudden thought came to Sean's head.
  
  Who doesn't love hitting two birds with one stone?
  
  Unfortunately that meant he had to call his uncle, not to mention the planning that will be needed.
  
  But it's worth it, making for one less player against Red Branch and getting Jason off his back for a while.
  
  All it will cost is the life and future of one unfortunate girl, a price Sean is more than willing to pay.
  
  ...
  
  Meanwhile, that same girl is having problems of her own.
  
  "Goddamnit! How the fuck does this work!" I yell out my pent up frustration at the screen in front of me.
  
  Naturally, it doesn't respond, instead mercilessly continuing to show the slight of hand video I have been trying and failing to copy for the past TWO HOURS!
  
  But sacrifices must be made so that I can be a better clown, after all, a good clown knows at least a few magic tricks, and even if I've belatedly realised that I can't really use a deck of cards in a fight, slight of hand can still be a helpful thing to know.
  
  Sighing, I rewind the video.
  
  Haaah, it's going to be a long night.
  
  I hope something interesting happens soon.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Things are about to pick up soon :)
  
  Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  18 Coffee 2 Electric Boogaloo
  "-I 𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘳 you are cheating somehow, no way you get a royal flush right after a four of a kind. It's total bullshit. I know it. You know it. He knows it."
  
  I blatantly ignore James' complaining as I sweep up the poker chips on the table.
  
  I found these when I was shopping the other day, I don't know why but it surprised me, like I had this idea in my head that only casino's had poker chips.
  
  Either way, it's been a week since I met with Pop, who has kept in contact with me since, though we've been only been able to meet up once due to her busy schedule.
  
  But since it's a Sunday and both of the boys are off from work, I invited them to my place to try out my new chips, not to mention practicing my slight of hand.
  
  Obviously, I am cheating my ass off, however since my purpose is to practice my slight of hand rather than to cheat them out of their money, I have been cheating to purposely lose too.
  
  Leaning back into my new and super cushy egg chair, I idly roll a chip across my knuckles, even as I give James a disdainful look from across the table.
  
  "Hey now, don't be such a sore loser, you don't see Theo complaining do you?"
  
  My words make all three of us look at the table below, where I have the most chips, making a small pile, and James has only a handful of chips left, meanwhile Theo has several stacks of chips, almost as much as myself.
  
  It's like democracy. All I have to do is pay off enough people that things go my way, so I have been controlling the game such that only James is losing, while Theo is making about two thirds as much as me.
  
  Theo slowly turns to look from his pile of chips, to mine and then to James' before finally looking James in the eye.
  
  "Everything seems legit to me."
  
  And thus, my bribing was successful.
  
  James' shouts of corruption and colluding are ignored as Theo deals another hand, as I have been banned from dealing, and we continue until James runs out of chips.
  
  After we finished playing poker, the boys started playing street fighter on my new fancy TV while I just kept practicing my dexterity with my cards.
  
  I'm honestly getting really good at it, enough that I can almost do everything in this card juggling video I've been watching.
  
  I can't wait for when I can start doing card tricks in my cape persona, that's when the fun can truly begin, because honestly, going out and robbing the gangs isn't really even fun anymore.
  
  Not only have I only fought with one cape in this week, despite going out every night, he actually ran away, the coward, and since Hermes' power is that his velocity doesn't diminish without his say so.
  
  At least he can only go as fast as is humanly possible, but he is far better at cornering than me, so he got away.
  
  At this point, I'm mostly targeting Street Saints since they at least have a trump, Blacked, who can enhance their normals to have a minor striker power that enhances their punches.
  
  I don't let them punch me, but it get's boring if I know that even if they hit me that I won't even feel anything.
  
  Not that the enhanced gangbangers' punches really hurt all that much, but at least it gives me a reason to dodge.
  
  On top of that, it's been great using them as practice for my new and still improving fighting skills.
  
  Why, Luke almost complimented me the other day.
  
  At the very least, with how active I've been these days, I've certainly been eating well to say the least.
  
  However tonight I shall be hitting Red Branch again, since I hit a Famine storehouse the other day, but they have a disappointingly lacking amount of money to steal.
  
  I suppose the gang is only like, four members, making them not just the smallest gang in the city, but the smallest group with only half the members of the next smallest gang.
  
  Wait, actually I think there are only four wards here, less than half the number of Protectorate who stand at ten.
  
  So they are the joint smallest group, meaning they don't have a lot of business.
  
  Frankly the only reason they can hold territory is because two of their members synergise so damn well together, the other two are basically useless.
  
  I mean, they have the weakest brute in the city who is so unremarkable that PHO named him 'Baldy' after the only thing recognisable about him.
  
  But anyway, it is Red Branches turn to get robbed by me and I'm hoping for a parahuman to show themselves this time.
  
  It would be pretty boring otherwise.
  
  So here I am, hopping around Red Branch territory in the chilly night, thinking about christmas.
  
  After all, it's only about two weeks away and even if I don't really care about it, I still feal like I should do something nice for the boys, because I definitely still haven't paid them back yet, not to mention Mr Yoshimura.
  
  I guess I could get something for Pop too.
  
  Eh, we'll see.
  
  It took me a little bit longer than normal to reach my location, and that is thanks to having a friend in each of the CPD and PRT.
  
  Theo and James are not the best at keeping secrets, so it isn't particularly difficult to get insider knowledge on how the two three letter organisations are doing things.
  
  Though, James isn't exactly anyone important so it's not like he can really have access to information regarding the parahumans and what they're doing.
  
  Still, I make it without trouble and while I'm not expecting them to be ready for me, I am expecting a parahuman to show up.
  
  With that in mind, I take some time to scout around, using my senses to figure out if anybody is looking at me, or if my nose can pick out anything interesting.
  
  However, the result is not at all what I was expecting.
  
  I could only smell one person inside of the building, rather than the dozen or so I was anticipating.
  
  ... This is another trap isn't it?
  
  ... Ah well.
  
  The last first time I got in a cape fight was from Red Branch ambushing me and while I still don't know how they seem to always know when I'm going to target them, that doesn't change the fact that walking in that building will lead directly to a cape fight.
  
  Smiling lightly, I give myself a quick once over to make sure I am presentable for whoever is waiting for me.
  
  Mask? Check.
  
  Outfit? All good.
  
  Deck of cards? Wouldn't leave home without it.
  
  Bits and bobs that I might need, like spare change? Check.
  
  All right then, lets not keep them waiting any longer.
  
  Pushing my tails out my back, I attach them both to the roof of the building, above the front door.
  
  Then, with a simple step, I am free falling.
  
  The next moment, my tails flex and tighten, swinging my body feet first straight into and 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 the front door, sliding on it to the end of the room where I jump off, right before it hits the wall.
  
  Now standing in the middle of an open living room, I turn towards it's other occupant, tails ready and expecting an instant transition into combat.
  
  However I am once again left surprised at an unexpected sight.
  
  Rather than a hostile cape trying to kill me, what I see is a man, sitting on a chair and facing me with a bemused smile and exasperation in his eyes that are partially hidden by his plain white domino mask.
  
  I don't actually know who this guy is, but I assume he's a hidden ace of Red Branch or something similar.
  
  Rather than a cape outfit, he is dressed in an immaculate black suit that must be designer and instead of standing combat ready, prepared to fight, he is just sitting, with a cup of tea in one hand and a little plate in the other just below it.
  
  At least, I assume it's tea. It's brown and smells just as awful as every other drink that isn't coffee, but who knows really.
  
  Not really sure what to do in this situation, I just sort of stand there for a moment, staring at him as he stares back, before he puts down his tea and picks up the pot.
  
  "Tea?"
  
  He breaks the silence first, nodding his head towards the seat in front of him that has an empty cup in front of it and, still slightly off balance, I forget to add the 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘳 to my response.
  
  "I prefer coffee."
  
  Without missing a beat, he put down the tea pot he was holding and picks up another next to it.
  
  "I have that too."
  
  He says as he pours a cup of coffee in what is presumably my cup.
  
  Shaking my confusion off, I decide to play along with this, since it seems fun.
  
  Not to mention, this reception is 𝘧𝘢𝘳 greater than Clay, who didn't even want to talk at all.
  
  At least this guy gets it. This is the proper level of dramatic.
  
  However, only after I take a seat and pick up my cup to give it an appreciative sniff, do I realise a problem.
  
  How am I supposed to drink with my mask still on.
  
  A glance at my drinking companion shows that he is aware of my plight and finds it funny.
  
  But the jokes on him because with smug satisfaction, I reach into one of my pockets and take out a metal straw, which I waste no time putting in my cup and under my mask to take a nice, long sip.
  
  This isn't exactly what I had in mind when I got the straw, I was more thinking I could try drinking from someone's neck with a straw like a baby vampire that hasn't grown their teeth yet.
  
  I thought the mental image was funny, sue me.
  
  Still, I slurp up a nice, big mouthful of coffee and swallow it.
  
  Bleh.
  
  What shit coffee.
  
  "Well, it is nice to meet the new terror of the streets in person, you are quite the difficult person to track down."
  
  In response to his words I tilt my head in genuine confusion, remembering to speak with the proper inflections this time.
  
  "Really? That's odd~ I'm not exactly being subtle.~"
  
  The mysterious man doesn't respond, instead he simple turns his head slightly, facing the splintered door lying at the end of the living room with a big pair of footprints on top.
  
  "Evidently." Comes his dry response.
  
  "So! Mr Mysterious~ To what do I owe the pleasure?~" I ask, even as I start playing with my tails, mostly just to keep them moving around so that he doesn't forget that they're there.
  
  I wrap one of my tails around my torso, both because it's comfortable and in case of surprise attack.
  
  "I actually have two reasons for being here, one is business, the other personal, where would you like me to start?"
  
  "Hmm~ let's get business out of the way first, that way we will have plenty of time to be 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭.~"
  
  He smiles at my emphasis but doesn't waste any time talking.
  
  "Well then, firstly I am here on behalf of Red Branch to offer you a position-"
  
  Here I cut him off by failing to withhold a snort of amusement. Like hell would I be willing to work for someone. I hate being told what to do.
  
  "-but I see that there is no point in pursuing that, instead the personal matter. You see, I have quite the fascination of powers, and I find changers such as yourself most interesting, so I was hoping you would be amenable to allowing me to examine your, ah, tails?"
  
  Ok, I may be dumb but I am not stupid.
  
  Then again, maybe this will lead to something interesting.
  
  Still...
  
  "What's your power?" I ask, just in case his power is something like, 'if I touch you then fuck you, you die'.
  
  "My power allows me to temporarily copy one other power, it's why I got the title of 'Equaliser', I like to feel how different powers feel different to use, it's very interesting to me."
  
  Hmm, he doesn't seem like he's lying, while I can't hear his heartbeat, I can sense his blood flow which is basically the same in affect and his blood flow isn't changing, so I think he's telling the truth.
  
  It would still be pretty dumb to let him copy my power, but I came here wanting a fight damnit, and fighting my own power would probably be pretty interesting if nothing else.
  
  Eh, fuck it, what's the worst that could happen.
  
  Without saying anything, I reach one of my tails over to him, and once it is in front of him, he gently runs his hands over the tail.
  
  I'm sure if this was a movie or something this would be where I shiver from pleasure or something retarded, but the sense of touch from my tails is incredibly dulled, so I barely feel it.
  
  However, right when I am expecting a pair of tails to erupt from the mystery man's back, something very different, happens.
  
  My tails both burst into blood mist and return to my body that suddenly feels weaker than I can ever remember as it feels like every cell in my body has suddenly decided to go to sleep.
  
  Shock turns to anger and I turn to Equaliser but I don't bother with anymore talking, instead lunging over the table, hands stretched for his throat.
  
  However, I never make it past the table, my body suddenly failing me I collapse onto it, spilling tea and coffee everywhere as my eyes grow heavy.
  
  The last thing I see is Equaliser's frowning face.
  
  Then.
  
  Darkness.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  The more chapters there are, the more opportunities for the Electric Boogaloo there are ψ(｀∇´)ψ
  
  Longer chap than normal because FINALLY! Finally the story is actually going to kick off, because this has all been prologue so far lmao.
  
  Advanced chapters with the links below!
  
  /user?u=41732867 (get rid of the first slash)
  
  or
  
  /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord!
  
  /Pj3Dttwses
  
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  19 Literally Just 2k Words of Torture
  A/N: WARNING! The title isn't an exaggeration, this entire chapter is literally all torture. This is where I earn that Tokyo Ghoul tag, so if you're squeamish, then maybe just skip the chap, personally, I think it's fine, but I'm the one writing it, so that probably just says more about me :p Enjoy!
  
  Waking up is not some jarring experience.
  
  There is no sudden jerk to consciousness, no jumping out of my skin.
  
  I simply go from nothing, slowly gaining lucidity, lying with my eyes closed, my mind reluctant to fully wake.
  
  Only, after a moment, I realise that I am not lying down.
  
  I am sitting.
  
  "Oh good, you're awake." The surprisingly cultured voice immediately grabs my attention.
  
  Suddenly fully conscious, memories flood my mind of my meeting with Equaliser.
  
  I'm not sure what happened exactly, but if I had to guess, he lied about his power.
  
  Obviously.
  
  He's probably a power nullifier, which would explain why the coffee was so shit, it was probably drugged.
  
  "This is my room, make yourself comfy." The voice continues, and it's only then that I actually open my eyes, which immediately widen.
  
  The room is 𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘷𝘦, like a small stadium, or a large ballroom or something. The floors are chequered black and white and the walls of red metal beams form a dome.
  
  Am I in an observatory?
  
  The room looks even larger for the fact that nothing is inside of it except for the man in front of me who is built like a truck, with white hair, a black dress shirt with a lime vest over the top and white dress pants.
  
  "I'm glad you're here. I've wanted to invite you over for a while now. Since the moment I heard of you in fact."
  
  My body feels lethargic.
  
  I try to stand, only to realise that my hands and feet are chained to the legs and arms of the chair.
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬.
  
  My attention is once again brought to the man before me who now has one of his hands raised, showing off a pair of golden claw rings on his middle and pointer fingers, the latter of which is the cause of the sound as he used his thumb to crack it.
  
  Before I can speak, he keeps his monologue going.
  
  "So please," He says as he puts on a mask before finally turning to face me allowing me to see his 'face',
  
  He is wearing a white hockey mask, with a pair of holes above and below his eyes as well as six small holes over his mouth.
  
  But that's not what grabs my attention, no. All I can focus on are his 𝘦𝘺𝘦𝘴.
  
  They are wide and bloodshot and more than anything they just sparkle with malice, with cruelty and madness, with 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺.
  
  Even with how interesting my last couple months have been, this is the first time I have ever been confronted with such madness and I can't help the intake of breath.
  
  I feel my body start to shake just from looking him in the eyes.
  
  "Do your best not to disappoint me, alright?"
  
  His voice, once calm and cultured takes on a cadence that more matches his eyes, one of violence and pain.
  
  A shudder rakes my body and I hear my heartbeat in my ears.
  
  A whimper escapes my throat and shame burns alongside the fear that I am reduced to such a state just from his eyes alone.
  
  He turns away from me, moving back to his table, and it's only then that I notice his.. 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴.
  
  From scalpels to a particularly large dark golden plier that I really don't like the look of, especially since it is covered in dried blood.
  
  But that is not the object of the madman's attention, no, that honour goes to the syringes on the other table.
  
  "Power suppression fluid," He says while clearly suppressing his sick glee, "do you know what that does when it enters a parahumans' body?"
  
  I stay silent, not trusting my voice to speak clearly and not wanting to entertain his rhetorical question.
  
  "It suppresses all power activity. When that happens, brute flesh might as well be construction paper, just as far as my scalpel is concerned."
  
  It is clearly getting harder for him to hold back his insanity as his words start to have a slight chuckle to them, like he's struggling not to laugh.
  
  Then he picks up one of the syringes, pushing it slightly to allow a single drop of liquid to drip down.
  
  "Slices right through it, just like a normal human."
  
  He starts to approach, needle in hand and I can't help the way I push my self backwards against the chair, trying to get as far as I can, nor can I help the whimpers that escape me.
  
  "The only problem is, hypodermic needles can't break your skin."
  
  There is something is his voice that tells me he is actually happy about this 'problem'.
  
  "So I have to stick it in the one spot it will go through."
  
  He pauses to lift a finger to his masks eyehole even as a horrible feeling consumes my gut.
  
  Grabbing his lower eyelid, he pulls it down while looking up.
  
  "That would be the mucus membrane, right in here."
  
  My eyes widen as my fear doubles.
  
  Quickly, I open my mouth, not really knowing what I'm going to say, but hoping to prevent this.
  
  Alas, he doesn't care.
  
  𝘗𝘶𝘤𝘩𝘪.
  
  "AAAAAHHHHHHH!" I 𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮 as I feel as the needle is ruthlessly plunged into my socket with no regard for proper medical practice whatsoever.
  
  I feel the fluid 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 of me as it leaves it's confines and immediately I start to feel weaker.
  
  My tails were already not responding to me, but now it feels even worse.
  
  I'm reminded of how I felt before I lost consciousness, of my blood falling asleep, at least, that's how I can best describe the feeling.
  
  I scream again when the needle is ripped out of my eye without care.
  
  It only takes a moment before I can see again.
  
  I wish it took longer.
  
  In front of me, the man stands, holding a scalpel this time.
  
  "W-wait, w-we can t-talk, r-right? T-there's no need for all of this, r-right?"
  
  He leans closer.
  
  "Oh but Tear, my dear. I 𝘥𝘰 need this."
  
  His hand raises.
  
  The scalpel is brought down, digging deep into my forearm.
  
  I grit my teeth as I scream, trying my best not to give him the satisfaction, but my groan of pain only seemed to motivate him further.
  
  The wound on my arm closes as he makes a new one on the other, only for that to close just as easily.
  
  I scream.
  
  He doesn't care.
  
  I scream.
  
  He doesn't stop.
  
  I scream.
  
  Slice after slice, flesh is carved from my body.
  
  My arms.
  
  I scream.
  
  My legs.
  
  I scream.
  
  My organs.
  
  I scream until my throat tears.
  
  But just like everything else.
  
  It heals.
  
  He cuts me.
  
  I scream.
  
  "You should know."
  
  I focus on his voice, the insanity a blessing from the pain.
  
  "The scalpel is my least favourite tool."
  
  A shudder racks my body as his tone tells me this respite will only be brief.
  
  "I actually prefer 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴."
  
  He hefts the large golden plier in front of me, brandishing it like a child during show and tell, waiting for praise.
  
  "Let me show you why."
  
  He raises his arm.
  
  "It can be used for blunt force, like breaking bones."
  
  Then, with incredible force, he brings it down.
  
  Right. Through. My Knee.
  
  Blood paints it's mosaic below us.
  
  I 𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮.
  
  "Or," He brings the freshly bloodied plier to my hand and grabs a finger. 𝘖𝘩 𝘯𝘰. "It can be used to pinch and pull."
  
  He 𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘴.
  
  With a sickening, squelching, 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘳, my finger is ripped off from the base, like particularly stringy cheese, I see my flesh stretch as it tries to resist the force.
  
  One final tug, and it comes off in another spray of blood.
  
  I scream.
  
  "Or, it can even be used to cut."
  
  He spreads the pliers wide, putting my wrist in the sharp part.
  
  Then, with a simple clamp of his hand, my own comes of.
  
  I scream.
  
  "Now. I need you to do something for me."
  
  I can't even see his face, everything is just too blurry-
  
  Am I crying? I am.
  
  I'm still whimpering.
  
  I try to focus, but it's hard to see past the pain.
  
  I hear his words anyway.
  
  "What is", he pauses and I can only tell that his face is in front of mine by the hot breath that lands on my face, "one thousand, minus seven?"
  
  The question throws me off, making me forget the pain for a moment as confusion takes hold.
  
  Unfortunately, that doesn't last.
  
  My leg heals.
  
  The plier is raised.
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘩.
  
  I scream.
  
  The plier is raised.
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘩.
  
  I scream.
  
  "One thousand."
  
  The pliers grip my finger.
  
  A sound uncomfortably similar to that of crunching on chips rings out.
  
  I scream.
  
  "Minus seven."
  
  The pliers grip another finger.
  
  My voice, full of panic shouts out.
  
  "One thousand minus seven is nine hundred and ninety three!"
  
  𝘚𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘭𝘤𝘩.
  
  I scream.
  
  "Minus seven!"
  
  Another finger.
  
  "Nine hundred and eighty six!"
  
  𝘚𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘭𝘤𝘩.
  
  I scream.
  
  Over and over again, he takes my fingers, my hands and I scream.
  
  He crushes my legs, my arms and I scream.
  
  He takes my toes, my feet and I scream.
  
  Over and over and overandoverandoverandover𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰-
  
  "AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!"
  
  I scream.
  
  "How far have you counted? I've lost track again."
  
  "F-five hu-ndred... f-ifty... nine..." I choke out between sobs and whimpers.
  
  Through eyes blinded by tears, I see the man, Jason, I think he said, put down his pliers.
  
  "Take some time to recover, I'll be back in a little while."
  
  I don't even have the energy to rejoice his absence, phantom pain of a thousand cuts still burning through my body.
  
  I hear something behind me and I hate the way I shrink away from the sound.
  
  I've become so pathetic.
  
  A man steps into view, holding a mop of all things.
  
  I only then notice just how much blood covers the floor.
  
  I don't know how much blood a human body is supposed to hold, but I know that there is far, 𝘧𝘢𝘳 more of my blood on the floor than should fit inside a human or ten.
  
  I start crying all over again just from seeing another person who is not Jason.
  
  "H-hey." I call out, desperate for anything that isn't pain.
  
  He doesn't respond.
  
  "H-hey!" I repeat, louder.
  
  He ignores me.
  
  "H-hey, p-please help me. Please, I'll do anything you want, 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨." I say, and I'm pretty sure I mean it too.
  
  Right now, I would do anything to escape this hell.
  
  They don't say anything.
  
  "HEY!" I shout, anger overtaking me.
  
  "Fucking listen to me asshole! Help me! Please..."
  
  My voice that started so full of energy, quickly dissolved into a pleading whimper.
  
  He says nothing.
  
  He just kneels down and grabs my foot and starts cleaning it with a rag.
  
  It takes far longer than it should to clean the blood of my foot.
  
  It's only then I realise that my pants have been torn off and now more resemble shorts, while my jacket is gone, leaving me in a white shirt that has similarly been ripped to have short sleeves.
  
  My hands are now chained behind me.
  
  I give up on asking for help.
  
  I need to get out of here.
  
  But what can I do?
  
  I can't use my tails, and that fucking drug is still in my system.
  
  I can feel it weakening me, infesting my body like a virus.
  
  I breathe in deep through my nose, and for a moment, I luxuriate in the scent of 𝘧𝘰𝘰𝘥.
  
  My eyes track the scent down to the cleaner.
  
  I need to eat.
  
  Food will wake up my body, I'm sure of it.
  
  Only, how am I supposed to do that?
  
  Before I can even answer my own question, I realise that the cleaner is done and gone.
  
  Then, despair enters the room once again.
  
  "How far did you manage to count?"
  
  My response comes without thought and Pavlov comes to mind.
  
  "F-five hun-dred... fifty.. two..."
  
  The monster walks in front of me, dragging an oil barrel behind him.
  
  He kneels down and lifts up one of my feet, putting a toe between the pliers.
  
  "I've got a bucket here. I want you to fill it to the brim!"
  
  He pulls.
  
  I scream.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Alt Title: Ice cream you scream.
  
  Teehee, sorry to everyone who doesn't like this chap, but this is a tokyo ghoul/worm crossover, two stories who are famously cruel to their protagonists :D
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  20 More Torture and Delusion
  A/N: heh ψ(ќ‿ќ)ψ
  
  At some point, he put a blindfold on me.
  
  The lacking sense just made everything else hurt more.
  
  Since the start, Jason told me to count backwards from one thousand, out loud, in increments of seven.
  
  I didn't understand why at first, then I realised he was trying to keep me as sane as possible.
  
  "O-one hu-dred... t-twenty.. five."
  
  So that I'd be aware of every single cut that followed.
  
  I was clinging to every number.
  
  "One h-hundred... ei-ghteen."
  
  Meanwhile, he took my arms, my legs.
  
  Again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯!
  
  Every time, my arms and legs grew back.
  
  Each time was a reminder.
  
  It's never going to end.
  
  Suddenly, all the sound disappears.
  
  I feel a hand rest on my cheek, warm and gentle, completely unlike what I've experienced for I don't even know how long.
  
  I raise my head, shocked and hopeful.
  
  "W-who..?"
  
  The hand moves to my blindfold.
  
  As the cloth falls to the floor, one singular thought comes to my mind.
  
  𝘞𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘦.
  
  Everything is white.
  
  The floor extends as far as the eye can see in a sea of pure white flowers.
  
  Never have I wished so desperately to know more about flowers than at this moment, if only so I could properly articulate the beauty of the sight before me.
  
  The only place the flowers are absent is in a ring around myself, where the floor is simply covered in their petals.
  
  But what shocks me most, is who stands before me.
  
  "M-mom?"
  
  My voice, wavering and weak, calls out, too many emotions present to properly interpret.
  
  "B-but.. how?"
  
  She looks exactly the same as she always has.
  
  "It's been a while, Lusia."
  
  Even with my eyes locked onto my mothers, I still see the petals turning red under her feet.
  
  "Wow, you look awful. Been through the ringer huh?"
  
  My mothers tone, so unlike how I remember her catches me off guard enough that I struggle to respond.
  
  "What a laugh."
  
  W-what?
  
  𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬.
  
  She lets out a small giggle even as I continue to stare incomprehensibly.
  
  "Sounds like the master is home."
  
  In a kaleidoscope of colours, the world of flowers collapses and I am once again in the accursed room.
  
  In front of me, I see Jason walking through the door.
  
  He's back.
  
  He's going to hurt me again.
  
  He walks closer.
  
  I don't even have the energy to flinch away anymore.
  
  Instead I just sit there, with my head bowed, crying.
  
  I hate it.
  
  I feel so pathetic, but the tears won't stop.
  
  It just hurts so much.
  
  Heh, Tear's face is full of tears.
  
  "So have you figured out the reason why you're here?"
  
  He speaks, and I can barely hear him over the sound of my heartbeat and my own sobs.
  
  "It's your regenerative abilities. That kind of power doesn't come standard in your run of the mill brute."
  
  The excitement in his voice is palpable. Clearly he is delighted by my ability to survive.
  
  He brings one of his hands up, grasping the forefinger with his thumb.
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬.
  
  The sound reverberates in the room that is empty of sound aside from my own shaking and whimpering.
  
  "All thanks to, what does he call himself now? Equaliser?"
  
  Equaliser.
  
  The name is something to focus on other than the numbers.
  
  He's the reason I'm here.
  
  I'll kill him.
  
  Beside me, Jason moves, holding up his hand as if he's presenting a gift.
  
  Between his pinched fingers dangles a bug, writhing and wriggling around, trying to escape his grasp.
  
  My eyes, already blown wide strain to widen even further as he brings it closer to my face.
  
  "Are you familiar with the Chinese red-headed centipede?"
  
  My teeth crack with how hard I'm clenching them, but they are fixed in the next moment.
  
  "Nasty little shit, this."
  
  I swallow, the salty taste of my own tears giving me the smallest measure of comfort.
  
  "I'm going to let it run around in your ear for a little while." He speaks with childish glee.
  
  No.
  
  N-no no no no nonononononono𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘰.
  
  P-please no.
  
  "You don't mind, do you?"
  
  "P-please. P-please no, please, st-stop, I'm begging you! Please! D-don't do it! No! No! Please! S-stop! Don't come near me! STO-"
  
  He doesn't listen.
  
  He never listens.
  
  He doesn't care.
  
  "AAAAAHHHHHHH!"
  
  I 𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮.
  
  I feel it crawl through my ear, all the way inside of my skull, to my brain.
  
  I feel it's legs stab into my mind, a hundred hot needles burning, searing, 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯, never ending, constant, 𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭 pain.
  
  "AAHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAHA!"
  
  I scream𝘭𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩.
  
  It's too much.
  
  I can't take it.
  
  I have to 𝘥𝘰 something.
  
  I have to 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦.
  
  "𝘈𝘏𝘈𝘏𝘈𝘏𝘈𝘈𝘏𝘈𝘏𝘈𝘏𝘈𝘏𝘈!"
  
  I stomp my feet and jerk back and forth, as much as I can in my binds I just have to 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦 to put the burning 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 into something!
  
  "𝘼𝘼𝘼𝙃𝘼𝘼𝙃𝘼𝙃𝘼𝙃𝘼𝘼𝙃𝘼𝙃𝘼𝘼𝘼𝙃𝘼𝙃𝘼𝘼𝙃𝘼𝘼!"
  
  Jason laughs with me.
  
  He says something.
  
  I don't hear it.
  
  I 𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮𝙡𝙖𝙪𝙜𝙝.
  
  "YOU WANT TO DIE, DON'T YOU!"
  
  I do.
  
  "YOU WANT IT ALL TO 𝘌𝘕𝘋! HAHAHA!"
  
  I do.
  
  "𝘽𝙀𝙂 𝙈𝙀! 𝘽𝙀𝙂 𝙈𝙀 𝙏𝙊 𝙆𝙄𝙇𝙇 𝙔𝙊𝙐! 𝘽𝙀𝙂 𝙈𝙀 𝙏𝙊 𝘿𝙄𝙀!"
  
  I do.
  
  "P-p-puh-lease. Puh-lease kill me, please, l-let me d-die."
  
  The world fades away again.
  
  "This really is pathetic, don't you think, Lusia?"
  
  M-mom.
  
  S-save me.
  
  Please.
  
  I'm sorry, please save me.
  
  "What did you really think would happen?"
  
  I don't know.
  
  "You would just go out and fight villains, and nothing would come from it? No one would come for you?"
  
  I don't know.
  
  "Did you just think you could do what you want, recklessly, and no one would do anything about it?"
  
  I 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸.
  
  "You really thought you could just wing it, all alone? That you could ignore the world and just do your own thing, without consequence?"
  
  I'm sorry, mom.
  
  I didn't think.
  
  I didn't think anything like this would happen.
  
  Please.
  
  Save me.
  
  "From what?"
  
  𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘥. 𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘥.
  
  I'm back in the room.
  
  If it was possible, my eyes would have widened even further.
  
  W-why is this happening?
  
  𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦?
  
  "All the suffering in the world, stems from a lack of individual ability."
  
  Jason's voice is back to the calm and cultured tone it started at, but all I can focus on is what's in front of me.
  
  "The person who taught me that was a real cunt, but that doesn't make her words any less true. It's an important lesson to learn, you'll see."
  
  His large, strong hand grabs my head, forcing me to look ahead. Not that I could bring myself to look away.
  
  "You know, I've been thinking. I've been going about this the wrong way. Ripping off your digits has been fun and all, but what I really want to rip apart is your 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥."
  
  James and Theo continue to writhe in front of me, bound and gagged with wide eyes and a fearful stare that bores into my own.
  
  I don't know what they see, but they stop wriggling so much and just stare.
  
  "So I devised a little game that should do the trick."
  
  Jason's voice raises with his excitement.
  
  "OHHH YEAH! A COUPLE OF FRIENDS! LET'S PLAY!"
  
  Even with Jason bellowing behind me, all I can think is a single word.
  
  "H-how?"
  
  Why are they here?
  
  𝘏𝘰𝘸 are they here?
  
  "Haven't you noticed?"
  
  Noticed? Noticed what?
  
  It takes me a moment. Only after looking back at the boys, do I realise.
  
  They recognise me.
  
  My mask.
  
  I don't have my mask.
  
  "What? Did you think I would obey those silly rules? It wasn't hard to track down your friends once we took that little mask of yours off."
  
  I'm s-sorry.
  
  "Now, you're going to pick which one I kill!"
  
  Heh.
  
  He clearly doesn't know who he's dealing with.
  
  I almost cry, hearing James' muffled voice cry out 'cliché' as he rolls his eyes.
  
  "I-I'm sorry. I'm so, s-so, sorry."
  
  That's all I can do, apologise.
  
  I tune out Jason's boisterous voice.
  
  I just stare my friends in the eyes.
  
  Doing my best to apologise with my eyes.
  
  Jason moves forward and grabs Theo by the throat, lifting him.
  
  I stay silent.
  
  James' tears join my own in diluting my blood that covers the floor.
  
  I can't pick.
  
  I can only let them die.
  
  Theo spares me one last glance even as his face turns purple, and he winks.
  
  𝘚𝘯𝘢𝘱.
  
  He falls to the ground.
  
  A sob leaves my throat but I say nothing.
  
  Jason moves on to James and picks him by the back of his neck.
  
  It's for the best.
  
  My eyes lock onto James.
  
  He understands.
  
  It's better to die, than to join me.
  
  I'm sorry.
  
  Through tear soaked eyes.
  
  He smiles.
  
  𝘚𝘯𝘢𝘱.
  
  The world falls away once more.
  
  It all hurts.
  
  So, so much.
  
  It's just so pointless.
  
  "Your friends. Tell me about them."
  
  I turn to my mom for a moment before I return to staring at the ground.
  
  "They were kind."
  
  "Is that all? Look. That's them over there."
  
  I look up.
  
  I see James, Theo and I.
  
  We're sitting in their flat, it was soon after I moved in.
  
  "What's happening?"
  
  "I just moved in, they liked to play street fighter. It was fun listening to them argue, so I'd sit with them and play Solitaire."
  
  The image moves, James jumping into the air in victory before the room dissolves and a new one takes it's place.
  
  "And what's happening now?"
  
  We're in the flat again, only there is a lot less energy in the air as we watch the news.
  
  The reporter is talking about the death of the villain Clay.
  
  I remember the day vividly.
  
  "I had just killed Clay, they were talking about it on the news. Apparently James' girlfriend was killed in the collateral of one of Clay's fights. James was happy. I felt happy for him."
  
  She scoffs at me, drawing my eyes to her mocking look.
  
  "And look where that got you."
  
  The scene changes again.
  
  We're walking into a mostly empty room.
  
  "And this?" She asks.
  
  "The day I got my own flat. They came over and we played poker until late. It was fun."
  
  I focus on the image for a moment, just losing myself to the delusion.
  
  It shows the time I cheated to give both Theo and myself a royal flush, while James had nothing.
  
  That was when they stopped letting me deal.
  
  I find myself smiling, only for my dear mother to evaporate my good mood.
  
  "Not as fun as the activities that followed though, not to mention how pointless it all is."
  
  It takes me a moment to remember what she's talking about before I realise that I went out that same night and killed Matchstick.
  
  "Pointless?" I echo.
  
  "Well, where are they now? You spent all this time building up a bond only for it to be torn to pieces in a moments effort by a single madman. If that's not pointless, then what is?"
  
  "They were fun. I was happy."
  
  "Were you? Were you happier with pointless 'friendship' or when you were playing the 'game'?"
  
  My argument dies on my lips as soon as it is formed.
  
  I want to disagree, to say she's wrong.
  
  But the truth is that I have never felt more alive than when I am playing the game. I have never felt happier than in those moments.
  
  Then again, that's what got me into this mess in the first place.
  
  "But aren't games boring without the threat of loss?"
  
  It's true, I wouldn't find it so fun if there was no threat.
  
  "Besides, haven't you always said that you just want to have fun? I seem to remember you saying that a life you don't enjoy isn't a life worth living."
  
  I can't disagree with what she's saying. I have always only wanted to have fun, so I opt to remain silent.
  
  "So why are you not having fun right now? Why are you acting so pathetic?"
  
  A burst of anger spurs my sarcastic response.
  
  "Oh I don't know, maybe the constant torture has something to do with it?"
  
  A scoff is all I get in return.
  
  "Love and hate, pain and pleasure. They're all just two sides of the same coin. 𝘗𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 and 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨. Love can easily be twisted into hate just the same as hate can easily become love. Why can't the same apply to other things? All you have to do, is see the humour in the situation."
  
  That's stupid, but to escape the pain, I am willing to try stupid.
  
  "Think about it. Why are you here? Because some unknown cape asked you to let them use their powers on you, and you agreed. Isn't that funny?"
  
  It is, if only a little.
  
  "And all the suffering you have been through, all that torture. All because you thought 'what could go wrong'."
  
  Heh.
  
  "Don't you see? Everything is just one big joke. Nothing in this world matters, so stop wasting time moping around, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘯𝘫𝘰𝘺 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧."
  
  Ha.
  
  Haha.
  
  Hahahaha.
  
  Thank you.
  
  My eyes drift close a smile takes over my lips.
  
  I get it now.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Woooo torture is over! I feel like I kinda rushed the end of the chap a bit, mostly cuz I couldn't think of the right words to say, but eh, it's good enough.
  
  Also, this will be the only time that I directly copy anything from anything (wait.. I mean scenes, not like, the world and characters cuz.. y'know.. fanfiction)
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  21 Freedom!
  Opening the door to my theatre, I have to fight down the feeling of 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 that wells up.
  
  No matter how much fun it is, now is not the time, not with the Heroes closing in.
  
  It's unfortunate really, I was having so much fun with little Tear too.
  
  Well, once we get set up somewhere else the fun can continue.
  
  For now, all I really need to do is break her enough that she won't be a hassle to move.
  
  But that's fine too, since I don't need to hold back.
  
  She'll heal, after all.
  
  As I get closer, I take a moment to observe how much she's changed in these ten days.
  
  For one, we had to change her clothes after I got a little too.. 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘺, so now she's just wearing a simple, ripped and worn black T-shirt and white shorts.
  
  But more than that, there are two other noticeable changes.
  
  For one, at some point, her toes and fingers started growing back with black nails. I don't really understand why, but the nails seem to be sharper and sturdier, so I assume it's some kind of minor adaptation.
  
  The other major change is her 𝘩𝘢𝘪𝘳. It's now white, like mine.
  
  Oh how happy it makes me. To see such visual evidence of my art.
  
  Truly you are a gem Tear. A diamond in the rough.
  
  All I have to do is break you first, then I will make you shine.
  
  With your power and mine combined... 𝘰𝘩𝘩𝘩 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦~.
  
  Ahhh~ stop getting distracted.
  
  Business first, pleasure can come later.
  
  "Listen up, Tear. The Heroes are coming soon, so I'm afraid our time here has come to an end. It's time to go 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦."
  
  She doesn't respond, but that's expected really.
  
  She hasn't been very responsive these days, simply sitting there with her head bowed.
  
  It's not as fun, but at least it shows that she is nearly broken enough to be introduced to the rest of the family.
  
  Finally standing in front of her, I use my power, ballooning my arm to three times it's normal size, and raise it high.
  
  "I'm going to break every bone in one move to make this quick!"
  
  However, right as I prepare to crush her into a pancake, something unexpected happens.
  
  She 𝘭𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘴.
  
  Not the pained, insane laugh from when the centipede was first put in her head, but a genuine, mirthful, 𝘭𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩.
  
  It was so unexpected that I ended up freezing, only broken from my reverie when she looks up at me.
  
  Only, her look simply makes me more confused.
  
  Because she is 𝘴𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨.
  
  A happy, genuine and 𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵 smile. Like some gap-toothed child who just got offered a whole candy store.
  
  It's so disconnected to the situation that words fail me.
  
  Tear does not have the same problem as she opens her mouth.
  
  "What a laugh."
  
  Her tone. It takes me a moment to understand it, it's so foreign to me.
  
  Condescending.
  
  Insulting.
  
  𝘔𝘰𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨!
  
  No one has dared mock me in years!
  
  My thumb draws to my forefinger.
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬.
  
  It infuriates me! So much that I feel anger burning through my veins like a hot fire.
  
  "What a pathetic man you are.~"
  
  𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘦!
  
  With rage fuelling me, I bring my enlarged hand down on her, intending to crush her into a paste.
  
  𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘮!
  
  A cloud of dust explodes up from the impact.
  
  However, right as I'm thinking that it didn't feel right, Tear comes flying out of the dust cloud in a blur.
  
  She flips over my body, catching the chains around her arms over my throat as she stands on my back.
  
  I feel her mouth brush up against my ear as she whispers her words.
  
  "Thank you."
  
  Before I can process that, I fall forward from the force of her pushing off of my back, breaking her chains against my throat to no effect.
  
  I take a second to understand everything that just happened and when I do I turn to face where Tear now stands, wiping some blood from her mouth.
  
  That brings my attention to the familiar feeling of my regeneration kicking in and I bring a hand to my ear, only to feel blood and bubbling flesh.
  
  "You bit me!" I can't help but call out in shock.
  
  "Yeah", she smiles, "and you taste vile~ like daddy issues and disappointment.~"
  
  My thumb reaches out again, for my middle finger this time.
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬.
  
  She finishes speaking and I feel my rage becoming apocalyptic in its intensity.
  
  Both of my arms swell out, becoming larger and stronger as I charge down the bitch that dared to 𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘦 me.
  
  With a scream of rage, I send my fist crashing down on her, but she jumps over it, going for an axe kick, like a fool.
  
  Both of my arms shrink down to normal before she reaches me and when she does, I grab her leg and lock it down.
  
  "You're mine!" I yell.
  
  But before I can even do anything, she 𝘵𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘴 her whole body, breaking and bending the leg in my hands like a Twizzler as she uses it to gain momentum in her spin to deliver a devastating kick with her other foot straight to my head.
  
  𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘮.
  
  Another cloud of dust is kicked up where I impact the wall.
  
  With rage burning in my ears and starting to drown out my thoughts, I watch as her leg snaps around until it is back in place, as if nothing ever happened.
  
  "What? Did you think that after everything you put me through, something like 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 hurts?~"
  
  Her words push me over the edge as logical thought leaves me.
  
  "I'll kill you! I'll kill you! 𝙄'𝙇𝙇 𝙆𝙄𝙇𝙇 𝙔𝙊𝙐!"
  
  ...
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬.
  
  I shudder at the feeling of pain and pleasure that comes from breaking my own finger like that.
  
  It's funny.
  
  I spent so long in that chair, feeling like I was going insane.
  
  Yet now, here I am, standing perfectly calm while Jason screams bloody murder at me.
  
  Out of the dust cloud he comes, both of his arms enlarged to gross proportions.
  
  I also notice the fact that his ear seems to have already grown back.
  
  That makes me smile.
  
  After all, I haven't eaten anything since I got here.
  
  I am very, 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 hungry.
  
  With his enlarged arms on the ground like a gorilla, he uses them to propel his body at me.
  
  Once he gets close enough, one of his arms slams down in a move that even I can tell is telegraphed.
  
  I simply leap backwards, just out of reach.
  
  His strike makes the ground shake as the entire room rumbles from the force of his blow.
  
  I idly think to myself how he certainly seems stronger. But he's not the only one.
  
  I'm only noticing it now, as I am dodging his obvious blows.
  
  But ignoring the weakness from my hunger, my body feels stronger than ever.
  
  I jump over another blow and land a clean kick on his face that doesn't really seem to effect him.
  
  I suppose it's like that saying, 'broken bones heal stronger'.
  
  Well, my bones have been broken plenty of times now.
  
  Jason goes for an overhead strike and I slide underneath it, bringing my fist forward, I throw the best punch of my life right into his stomach.
  
  He barely flinches.
  
  With me being so close, I can't avoid when he grabs me, wrapping my body fully in his massive hands.
  
  I feel my bones being crushed before I feel like I'm flying as he throws me across the room.
  
  𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘮!
  
  I impact the wall and immediately crater it, causing yet another cloud of dust to well up.
  
  My body heals the next moment and I walk out of the dust, smiling at Jason's face, frothing with anger as it is.
  
  It makes me smile.
  
  More than that, I can feel my body waking up, the flesh of Jason's that I ate proving to be enough stimulation to wake it up from whatever drug he injected me with.
  
  "Well now.~" I say, bringing my thumb to my middle finger.
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬.
  
  My lower back bubbles, and with a feeling akin to stretching an atrophied muscle, my tails finally free themselves once again.
  
  "I believe it's my turn?~"
  
  From swaying behind me, thicker and more solid than I remember them but just as long and flexible, my tails, pulsing with red blood and shades of purple, snap forward, pointing to Jason like a pair of flesh spears.
  
  No more words are spoken.
  
  No more words need to be spoken.
  
  We both charge at each other, two forces refusing to yield.
  
  Deciding to use my range to my advantage, I leap into the air before we meet and send a tail whipping out at his face.
  
  He blocks the first with his left and the second with his right, however right as I reach the peak of my leap and start falling, 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘳𝘥 tail bursts out of my back and impales the ground, keeping me aloft.
  
  Rather than wasting time thinking about the fact that I can apparently grow more tails, I instead make use of the opportunity to keep harassing Jason, bringing my other two tails back around for another strike.
  
  This repeated for another few blows before I bring both of my tails up high at the same time, bringing them both down at once in a crushing force.
  
  𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘮.
  
  I drop down, putting my feet back on the ground as I observe the new dust cloud.
  
  The next moment I have to jump backwards, bringing my tails up in front of me as a shield as Jason bursts forth, swinging a wild punch.
  
  The force of the punch joins that of my jump as I get sent a good distance backwards, but Jason is already on me again before I can do anything, leaving me only the option of blocking again.
  
  I have to fold my tails over themselves so that they can properly function as a shield against him, but even then his hits send me sliding back once more.
  
  My tails take a few more punches before I find an opportunity to counter.
  
  Jason sends another telegraphed punch for my head, except this time, I drop my shield and duck low, sliding underneath his extended arm before I brace my body on the ground and launch my tails up and into his arm as a singular spear.
  
  They pierce clean through, splitting his arm in half and making him call out in pain and rage.
  
  I dodge his other arm as it tries to retaliate by jumping over it, joining my tails in the air, where I do a front flip to build up my momentum and send all three tails crashing down onto Jason in what can only be the single hardest strike I have ever dealt.
  
  Jason 𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 into the ground and as I touch down, I see him lying there, twitching as his arm bubbles and regenerates.
  
  Heh.
  
  My smile truly starts to strain my face as I walk closer to him, one of my tails idly lashing out to pierce through his still whole arm, pinning it to the ground.
  
  His scream of pain makes me laugh.
  
  "Hahahahahaha! What's wrong, Ja~son? Does it hurt~?"
  
  My other two tails dig in through his legs, letting them join his arm.
  
  "AAAHHHH!" His screams make me so 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘥 that I just take a moment to revel in them.
  
  "𝘈𝘩𝘩𝘯𝘯𝘯~ Jason.~~"
  
  Once again I bring my thumb to my forefinger, needing a release for all this 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨.
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬.
  
  Climbing on top of Jason, I straddle him, splaying both of my hands on his bare back.
  
  Then I start to squeeze, then, 𝘐 pull.
  
  "AAAHHHHHH" He screams as his flesh is ripped from his body and deposited straight into my waiting mouth.
  
  𝘋𝘪𝘴𝘨𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨.
  
  I reach for another bite.
  
  "Tell me Jason."
  
  I grab his flesh.
  
  "What is.. one thousand.. minus seven?"
  
  I 𝘗𝘶𝘭𝘭.
  
  And this time.
  
  This time, Jason 𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴.
  
  𝘈𝘢𝘩𝘩𝘩𝘯𝘯𝘯𝘯.~~
  
  Yesss.~
  
  Leaning close, so close that my lips brush sensually against his fully regrown ear, I give it a 'light' nibble, whispering in a low, sultry voice as my excitement gets the better of me.
  
  "Scream for me Jason~"
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Man, I am so tired right now.
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  22 I the Author, did not see this coming
  After devouring Jason, I had thought that I would be satisfied, and don't get me wrong, it was certainly satisfying.
  
  But id didn't leave me feeling full like I had expected it to.
  
  He was a regenerator after all. I probably ate around three Jason's worth of Jason, and he's already a pretty bit guy.
  
  But even then, it simply isn't enough.
  
  However, I thought I found a solution to that particular problem once I looked around the cracked and broken room.
  
  The barrel.
  
  The barrel that I know for a fact is filled with flesh, since it's my flesh that filled it.
  
  Naturally, since I have no problems cannibalising other people, eating my own flesh wasn't a problem for me.
  
  But even after all of that, I was 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘩𝘶𝘯𝘨𝘳𝘺.
  
  I suppose that all that getting ripped apart and having to repeatedly regenerate really drained me.
  
  I had already noted that my regeneration makes me more hungry, and I had been doing a lot of regeneration, so it does make sense that I desperately need to refill my 'batteries'.
  
  Luckily for me, the Yamori clan was considerate enough to mostly consist of brutes with at least a minor regeneration factor, which meant that as I worked my way through the facility I found myself in, I was able to gorge myself on many people who were capable of providing more flesh than their own bodyweight.
  
  They were all weak compared to Jason too, the only one who didn't go down immediately was some woman who my tails refused to pierce, though my bare hands worked just fine.
  
  If I had to guess, she would probably be some kind of power resistant brute, since it was only my powers direct manifestation she was resistant to.
  
  Funnily enough, it was only as I was ripping her in half that I realised how my nails have turned black for some reason.
  
  When I actually focused on them, I found that somehow whatever material it is that makes up my tails, some weird blood-adjacent if I had to guess, has seeped further into my body, remaking my nails out of the same material.
  
  But it's not really that much to focus on, so I just ignored it after the fact.
  
  However it did bring me to inspect the rest of my body which brought my attention to the other physical change I have gone through.
  
  My hair.
  
  I was never particularly vain about my hair, but right now, with my hair looking a sickly pale white, I can't help but hate it.
  
  Combined with the unhealthy pallor of my skin, I look like I'm about to keel over from cancer at any moment and I really hate it.
  
  I'm going to have to get some hair dye.
  
  Not to mention some new clothes. I also still have the cuff parts of a pair of handcuffs on each of my legs and arms, but I will take them off once I'm home free, just in case I meet some heroes, with this I can at least have some proof that I was a prisoner and not a cultist.
  
  But first I have to actually leave this place and figure out where exactly I am.
  
  ... Now that I think about it I should have probably asked one of the people I ripped apart.
  
  Well, I was hungry and they could regenerate, I can hardly be blamed for indulging myself, I had a lot to catch up with after all.
  
  At least I'm somewhat satiated now.
  
  Still, I've walked through a bunch of corridors and up at least three flights of stairs. Surely I should be nearing the exit by now.
  
  As I am walking down the now considerably more silent corridor, my nose catches the now familiar whiff of a parahuman and I take another detour through a door on my left.
  
  When I walk inside I am greeted by what could only be called a thirteen workshops mixed together with at least one junkyard.
  
  In other words, it's a complete mess with such a variety of things present that I don't think it would really be possible to figure out the specialty of whoever works here just by looking.
  
  That is, if I didn't recognise the syringes decorating a far countertop.
  
  Panning my eyes around the well lit room, I pause when a 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥 comes into view.
  
  Huh.
  
  Wasn't expecting that.
  
  He is shaking slightly, but his face is perfectly neutral.
  
  I'd imagine that just like everyone else I've 'met' here, Jason has 'educated' this kid too.
  
  He's probably only 8 or 9 if I had to guess, with brown hair and eyes on pale skin, though not nearly as unhealthy looking as my own. Just pale.
  
  If not for having my fill with the others below, I probably wouldn't have bothered to observe the kid before devouring him, but I am glad that I did because I get the feeling that I know what this kid's power is.
  
  Better to make sure though.
  
  "Yo~ my name's Tear," I got my mask back after leaving the room, which was a pleasant surprise, "what's your name?~"
  
  My singsong voice seems to relax him somewhat, which is odd, since that's the exact opposite reason I do it in the first place.
  
  "M-my n-name is," here he pauses and closes his eyes, taking a deep breath to calm himself, "my name is James."
  
  The word hits me almost like a physical blow and I can't help the startled laugh that escapes my throat.
  
  What a laugh.
  
  James.
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬.
  
  𝘈𝘩𝘩𝘩~
  
  I bring my thumb away from my broken finger which fixes itself in the same instant as I focus back on the child, James, who seems to just be confused about why I laughed.
  
  "Tell me James, are you the one that made those syringes over there?"
  
  What a joke, that the first person I actually talk to after everything shares his name.
  
  If the next person to introduce themselves to me calls himself Theo then I might just kill them, or buy them flowers or something.
  
  I don't know, it would just be really funny, so I'd have to do 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 to show my appreciation.
  
  Little James' voice brings me back to the room from my musings.
  
  "U-uhm, n-no. I don't know where the syringes come from, but I did make the stuff inside?"
  
  Heh, kid's got attitude.
  
  I want to get a new mask at some point, one that shows my mouth.
  
  I feel like if I am going to be smiling so damn much, people should at least be able to see it.
  
  Eh, thoughts for later.
  
  For now, I have to decide what to do with the brat.
  
  Hmmmm. I know.
  
  "Well James~, it appears that I have brutally murdered your entire 'family'~, and I will also continue to do so if there are any that I've missed until the Yamori name is nothing but a memory.~ How do you feel about that, I wonder?~"
  
  To my unexpected delight, little James doesn't respond with anger or by cowering in fear, instead he is the most expressive I've seen him in all the five minutes that I've known him.
  
  Jumping up and pumping both of his fists, little James shouts at the top of his tiny little lungs.
  
  "YES!"
  
  I can't help it. The image is just too much.
  
  I burst out laughing, clutching my sides as I collapse to the floor.
  
  A mix between the unexpectedness of the reaction, and simply being deprived of joy for the past while leaves me in shambles as I struggle to breathe on the floor.
  
  "You're weird, clown lady." Little James accuses, his face all scrunched up in a way that just makes me laugh harder.
  
  "hahahahahahahaaaaah!"
  
  Eventually, I come down from my high and jump to my feet.
  
  "Well! Would you like to come with me, James?" I offer.
  
  You see, I've been thinking.
  
  My dream mom was right, I have been acting way too blasé about this whole cape thing.
  
  There are two key areas that I have completely ignored.
  
  Information and connections.
  
  I need information and I need allies to get me out of trouble when I inevitably overestimate myself again or do something stupid.
  
  With all of that in mind, having a tinker in my pocket would be pretty handy. Especially a trump tinker.
  
  "What would that en- uh, enta- um, en-tal-" While he starts off confident, he starts struggling with one of his words, struggling to pronounce it.
  
  "Entail?" I offer, making him smack one of his fists into a palm as he nods.
  
  "Yeah! Entail. Uhm, what would that entail?" He asks.
  
  Little James is surprisingly reasonable, then again in an environment like this, I don't think he ever really had the choice to be just another dumb kid.
  
  Deciding to treat him as maturely as he's acting, I respond honestly.
  
  "Eh, not much really~ I just wanna have fun, nothing more nothing less. Don't you wanna have fun too?~ Cuz I won't make you do anything if that's what you're worried about, I just want you to use your power to help me have fun, and in return I will use my power to help you have fun. Fair right?~"
  
  He acts like he's pondering it for a moment, holding his chin in the palm of his hand.
  
  I can't help but think that he's just copying something he saw in a movie once.
  
  "I find the deal acceptable!" He declares as if he was ever going to say no.
  
  I mean really, I'm like the cool aunt offering candy.
  
  Now that I think about it, aren't I technically abducting a child?
  
  Does it still count as abducting a child if they were in an abusive home? Or is it ok then?
  
  Eh, whatever, pocket tinker get.
  
  "Neat! Well in that case, let's gather up all your shit, as well as whatever you need that we can carry, then let's dip, cuz I'm pretty sure some real stick in the mud types are on their way."
  
  What level of fucked up is this?
  
  Is it grooming or did I just adopt a kid?
  
  Eh, still doesn't really matter in the end.
  
  It takes a little while, but we gather all of his finished projects in a backpack that he wears while I put on another backpack that has the equipment he wants to keep.
  
  Ten minutes later and we are finally outside the complex.
  
  Turns out it was just some bunker-esk basement underneath a barn.
  
  Probably originally built as a nuclear survival thing during the cold war, only to be repurposed as a hideout of sorts.
  
  Once we got into the barn proper, we found a few pick up trucks, all of which had the keys already in their engines.
  
  After immediately crashing the first truck, having forgotten how to drive, since I still haven't had any lessons, we were eventually driving away through side roads in one of the other trucks, heading towards the lights of a city that I assume is Columbus.
  
  "You really are a terrible driver." Little James comments after I accidentally hit the side of the road again.
  
  "Yeah, well you're a small little baby boy and can't even reach the pedals, otherwise I'd be happy to let you drive."
  
  Completely ignoring the insult, little James' eyes practically sparkle as he looks at me.
  
  "You'd really let me drive!?" He exclaims.
  
  Giving him I dry look, I go to respond, only to be cut of by bumping against the side of the road again.
  
  Right, keep your eyes on the road when you're driving.
  
  Keeping my face forward this time, I respond honestly.
  
  "What do you expect? It's stupid to let a kid drive, but I'm 𝘧𝘶𝘯, not responsible."
  
  He seems pretty pleased with that, enough that he doesn't even insult my driving the whole rest of the drive.
  
  When we're nearing the city proper, I see some distant police lights heading the direction we came from, and it makes me laugh again as everything really settles in.
  
  Honestly, the most unexpected part was how I somehow ended up adopting a kid, but hey, I 𝘸𝘢𝘴 getting bored.
  
  Maybe this will be fun.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Did not expect to pick up a kid, but hey, with James gone, little James can take his place for fluff.
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  23 A good influence
  After making it back to the city, the first thing I did was check my flat, only to find that it is already up for rent again, which made me really wonder how long I'd been gone.
  
  Luckily for me, I had the foresight to keep my bug out bag outside of the house, hidden under a disused air conditioner on top of a building.
  
  Which is nice, because at least I have most of my money and some necessities.
  
  It is a shame to put an end to 'Alice', but I didn't really think she'd survive forever so it's not too big of a deal.
  
  After that it was just a case of finding another empty house and breaking in, whilst also making sure to ditch the truck some distance away.
  
  Then after that it was just a matter of carrying all of little James' stuff, as well as James himself, since he'd fallen asleep, to the new house and getting settled.
  
  This leads to the next day, where I have a whole list of things I need to do.
  
  First things first is finding some hair dye. I've decided to go with brown hair and not bother with contacts this time.
  
  Then I need to do some clothes shopping, for both James and I.
  
  Oh, and food too, James needs normal human food.
  
  Then I need to get my hands on some information.
  
  After that, I am going to experiment with my powers, because the thing is, powers don't really 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦, everyone knows this.
  
  You can't train powers, you get what you get and all you can do to improve is gain experience and find more creative ways to use your powers.
  
  Like Pop Stop, her power is never going to change in radius or frequency, because powers don't change.
  
  This made me assume that my two tails was the limit of my power, that it wouldn't change from that, so I never really bothered.
  
  But clearly, my power is more than that, so I've got to do some tests with that.
  
  Then, and only then, comes the most important item on my list.
  
  Finding Equaliser and ripping his spine out.
  
  Well, I don't really care how he dies, just so long as he does.
  
  However I won't simply rush into Red Branch territory looking for him like I no doubt would have two weeks ago.
  
  It's wild to me that I was apparently in that room for ten whole days.
  
  Who knew that all it takes is ten days of constant torture to find the true meaning of life.
  
  Because as much as I hate Jason, I am still thankful to him for helping me understand.
  
  Also, it's christmas tomorrow, so I want to get through my whole list today so that I can give Equaliser a proper christmas present.
  
  I finish getting dressed shortly after going through my list one more time and head down the stairs only to be greeted by piles of junk that has somehow materialised surrounding little James in the kitchen.
  
  "... James.. what the fuck?"
  
  At the sound of my voice, he turns to face me and shrugs, completely unrepentant.
  
  "I was hungry but there wasn't any food, then I got bored and you said boredom sucks so I started doin' stuff."
  
  "..Fair enough, I can't really argue against that. Well, I was about to go do some shopping, wanna come with?"
  
  I don't bother asking what he was doing, because it's clearly some tinker stuff and not only do I already know his specialty, but I also kind of just don't really care what he does with his free time.
  
  It's not like I'm actually his mother after all. I'm not even twenty yet, I'd have had to have been eleven or twelve to have birthed him.
  
  Still, it is really weird to me that I am asking a child if they want to hang out. The joys of not having any friends I guess.
  
  Ah well, he is a pretty cool kid.
  
  His eyes sparkle as he looks back at me with a smile.
  
  "Really! I've never actually been outside before!" He cheers.
  
  Huh, awesome.
  
  That means that his face won't be ticking any cameras for missing child posters or something.
  
  That settled, I bundle all my gross hair into a beanie while little James get's ready, and then we are out, stalking the streets with a bag full of cash and a mind full of shopping.
  
  At least for me that's the case, because after we left the house, only after making sure no one was on the street, something that wasn't too difficult considering how out of the way the street is, James' head was like it was on a swivel as he keeps looking around everywhere.
  
  As we walk to the nearest mall, I find myself eyeing the floor and it's light dusting of snow.
  
  Honestly, I wasn't expecting snow here, not even such a small amount as this, but I guess it's a christmas miracle or something.
  
  But the reason it actually draws my attention is the fact that I don't actually feel the cold.
  
  Well, that's not entirely accurate. I can feel that it 𝘪𝘴 cold, I just don't 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 cold, even though I'm only wearing thin jeans and a normal white shirt. All I have to 'protect' me from the cold is the beanie I'm using to hide my hair and the scarf I'm using to hide some of my face.
  
  Eventually, James actually notices the snow, having been too distracted by looking at everything else to really notice it beforehand.
  
  He tugs on my sleeve to get my attention, and speaks once I look at him with a raised brow.
  
  "What's that?" He asks me, pointing down.
  
  "It's snow. It's something that happens when it's cold enough. Do you know how it rains sometimes?", He nods, "well, it's like that, but when it's cold enough then the rain turns into snow, which is basically frozen water, like a mix between ice and sand. You can even clump it together into what we call a snowball."
  
  Turning back to the snow on the ground, he looks at it with a curiosity that only a child could have, reaching a bare hand out to grab a handful.
  
  Mentally, I add warm gloves to the shopping list.
  
  "What's the point in making a snowball?" He asks me after he crushes the snow into a ball.
  
  Getting a devious idea, I hide my smile as I pause in my steps and turn to him.
  
  "I'll show you." I say, holding my hand out expectantly.
  
  He obliges me and gives me the golf ball sized sphere of snow.
  
  "Ok, now don't move." I say as I move behind him.
  
  Then I simply raise my arm, aiming for the back of his neck so that it goes down his back as well.
  
  Honestly, I thought about not doing this, about throwing it at someone else and picking him up and booking it, but then I realised that he wouldn't understand why it's funny if he's never experienced it himself.
  
  So I let the ball lose.
  
  𝘗𝘴𝘩.
  
  𝘚𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘬!
  
  When the snowball hits him, he jumps into the air like a startled cat and lets out a scream that also sounds like a startled cat.
  
  By the time he turns around to glare at me, I am already bent over and laughing, my hands on my knees.
  
  "Haha- you- yo- hah- you scream like a girl! Hahahahaha!"
  
  I notice James running at me, but I pretend not to as I let him tackle me to the ground, my back making a small puff of snow raise around us.
  
  With me under him, James starts shovelling the snow around my face and neck to under my scarf, making me squeal as I pretend that it's cold, laughing as he does so.
  
  I let it go on for a moment longer before I sit up, the action knocking him to his butt in front of me.
  
  Looking at each other with matching smiles on our faces, I speak to the panting child.
  
  "𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵, is why you make snowballs."
  
  "Humph, you could have just said so." He pouts, but his smile betrays him, so I just shrug in response and get to my feet before offering him a hand up.
  
  "Now c'mon, we can throw some snowballs at strangers later if you want, but not until we get us some gloves, 'kay?"
  
  With an innocent smile on his face, he takes the offered hand and we are once more making progress to our shopping trip.
  
  It doesn't actually take long before the streets are getting pretty crowded, buzzing with activity as people prepare for the festivities to come tomorrow.
  
  Eventually we do make it to a mall, and the first thing we bought was some clothes.
  
  For myself I only actually only got another cardigan like the one I used to have, but other than that I am not desperate for clothes so I can get more later.
  
  For James we just got him a simple warm blue jacket and gloves as well as a scarf on his insistence.
  
  Now however, it is time to feed the beast.
  
  We take a bit to find a place to eat, not due to a lack of options but because I wanted to find a place that at least had some good coffee.
  
  I just pretended I couldn't hear James as he complained about walking past so many food stalls.
  
  At one point, a mother and her kids passed us by and took one look at James yapping at me and me completely ignoring him and then gave me a sympathetic smile before moving on.
  
  I suppose from her point of view James is likely to be the one being unreasonable.
  
  Heh, bold of her to assume that I can't be more unreasonable than a child.
  
  Still, I eventually found a place that smelled palatable enough and we made our way over.
  
  "Fiiinally! I thought I was going to starve!" James exaggeratedly complains as he collapses into one of the chairs outside the café.
  
  "Yeah yeah brat", I wave him off, "what do you want to eat?"
  
  "Pizza!" He yells, making my eyebrow twitch.
  
  "They don't do pizza here."
  
  "Humph, fine then, a burger." He huffs out, crossing his arms and looking to the side.
  
  "They don't do burgers either dipshit, read the damn menu then pick something."
  
  Like a lightbulb going off, I see realisation spark in his eyes as he lunges for a menu to start perusing.
  
  Meanwhile, I focus on the gasp I heard from behind me as what is presumably another mother is sitting with a family of five and looking at me with the most scandalised expression I have ever seen.
  
  With her is who I presume is her husband and three kids. Obviously I don't know their exact ages, but if I had to put it in words, they were kid-sized, teen-sized and gross-puberty-moustache-sized, only the middle one is a girl.
  
  While the youngest is focused on some colouring book, the others are all staring at me, the teen in mirth, the older guy who should shave also in amusement, while the mother looks like I just told her that I thought Hitler might have been on the right track.
  
  Heh, train pun.
  
  Wait no, that was a shit pun. It was too obscure for anyone to even find it funny, and now that I think about it, wasn't it Mussolini that did the whole "The trains will run on time!" speech thing?
  
  Eh, doesn't matter.
  
  Anyway, the husband is similar to his wife, but rather than scandalised, he has that look that only middle aged white people get where he is all disapproving because he can't accept anything different to what he knows as being right.
  
  Seeing that James is taking his time, I turn myself in my seat so I am sitting on it side on and face them properly.
  
  "What? You dipfucks got a problem with how I'm raising my child? I bet my kid could kick your kid's ass any day bitch, fuck around and find out."
  
  With that out of the way, I turn away from the appalled looking parents as they try and fail to inform their own kids that what I just said was not in fact funny, but actually very rude.
  
  Looking back, I see James with his knuckle in his mouth holding in his own laughter.
  
  That makes me smile, and soon we are both laughing, only laughing harder when the parents drag their kids, who are also laughing, away from the café.
  
  Well, that was fun.
  
  "You pick anything yet?"
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  So, she accidentally adopted James 2 Electric Boogaloo. that's something I guess
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
  previous chapternext chapterchapter list
  24 Definitely a good influence
  After getting some food inside of little James we were finally done with the essentials, which basically just means that now we can just shop for whatever we want.
  
  I insisted we do some more clothes shopping first, because other than the jacket and winterwear, little James doesn't actually have any clothes other than what he was wearing when I found him.
  
  "Do you particularly care what kind of clothes you get?" I ask as we walk into some store or other that isn't too crowded.
  
  "Nope! Can we just grab the first things we see? I wanna check out the arcade already!" I let out a snort at his bluntness and give him a shrug.
  
  "Aight then, how 'bout this, you go grab yourself three changes of clothes, all in the same size, and meet me by the changing rooms so we can make sure they actually fit, meanwhile I'll quickly go grab something else, 'kay?"
  
  "Kay!" He half shouts before literally taking off running down the isle, making me smile with his enthusiasm.
  
  I'm glad he is as fun as I hoped he would be. Fun and useful, could I ask for anything more?
  
  Anyway, I shouldn't stand around.
  
  With that in mind, I head over to where the hair dye is and grab a few boxes of brown dye. That done, I make my way to the changing rooms.
  
  Though, calling them 'rooms' is a bit of a stretch, since they are more like cubicles really.
  
  There is already a woman there sitting on the benches when I arrive so I speak up when I approach.
  
  "Hey there, mind if I take a seat?" I ask, startling the woman in front of me. When she turns around I am able to get a good look at her.
  
  Brown eyes, blonde hair and a face that's more cute than sexy with a smattering of freckles. I never really understood what the 'girl next door' look was supposed to mean, but looking at this woman I feel like I kind of understand.
  
  Pretty enough to get your attention when you are near each other, but not pretty enough that you would remember her once you move on. Then again, maybe I am misinterpreting that phrase.
  
  "Oh, no, no I don't mind at all." She says, scooting over a little on the bench even though there was already more than enough room for me.
  
  We sit in silence for a second or two before I get bored and realise she isn't going to start conversation.
  
  "So, who are you waiting for?" I ask, making her look at me in confusion.
  
  "What?"
  
  "Well, you're just sitting here, and one of those curtains", I nod to the changing cubicles, "is closed, so I assume you're waiting for someone too?"
  
  The time it took for me to finish speaking seems to have been enough for her to gather her bearings enough to recognise that she is in a conversation now, as her response is a lot more casual this time.
  
  "Yeah, I'm waiting for my daughter, she has an armful of clothes in there with her and honestly I'm not expecting her to be out for another twenty minutes."
  
  I smile at the playful lament in her tone and sigh sympathetically.
  
  "Ahhh, the joys of teenage girls I assume?"
  
  "Yea, she just turned fifteen recently. She's going out to some party for christmas tomorrow and has suddenly decided that nothing in her wardrobe is good enough, hence the sudden shopping trip."
  
  The way her shoulder slump despondently gets a chuckle out of me that makes her harumph jokingly in return.
  
  "What about you", she asks, "who are you waiting for?" As if to answer for me, the moment I open my mouth to respond, little James comes barrelling down the isle, jumping to a stop in front of me and throwing a pile of clothes at my face.
  
  The pile hits my face with a soft 𝘵𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘱 before falling down to my lap to reveal the dry look on my face.
  
  "You're supposed to try them on first dumbass, not throw them at me."
  
  I say, taking a shirt and a pair of pants from the pile and throwing them back before gesturing to the open cubicles.
  
  He gets the idea heads over, still running, and closes the curtain behind him.
  
  "I take it that that little one is yours then?" The lady who's name I still don't know asks. Unfortunately for her, I'm still bored.
  
  "Not exactly, he's actually my uncle." I lie.
  
  The look of confusion is expected but still amusing, not that I let that show. Instead, I keep talking with a straight face, my tone light and casual, as if discussing the weather.
  
  "Yeah, see my dad got my mum preggos when he was only 13. She was 16, it was quite the scandal at the time. At the same time, my dad's mom, my grandma, she gave birth to my dad when she was 15, then she had my uncle when she was 41, making him about 12 years younger than me despite being my dad's brother."
  
  Looking at the bafflement on the woman's face, I almost break out laughing.
  
  "O-oh. Uh, that's, huh. I don't really know what to say to that to be honest."
  
  Right as I'm about to respond and embellish the story to include incest and be even more confusing, little James bursts through the curtain with such force that he brings it down with a clang with him as he collapses to the ground.
  
  Well, at least the new clothes fit well enough.
  
  They didn't impede his fall to the ground one bit. "They fit! Can we go to the arcade now!"
  
  With a wry smile on my lips I get to my feet with little James and gather up all his new clothe in my arms, balancing the hair dye on top of it.
  
  "Sure, you little tyke. Let's go pay for this, then we can check out the arcade." I say as I start walking away, little James hot on my heel.
  
  "Later!" I yell back to the woman, "good luck with your daughter!"
  
  With that, our journey to the arcade begins.
  
  Unfortunately, we are on the opposite side of the mall from the arcade, so it takes a while to walk there. As we are walking, and after little James has had a moment for his excitement to die down a little, he turns to me from my side and asks me a solemn question.
  
  "So, what 𝘥𝘰 you plan on doing anyway?" I only raise my eyebrow at his question, prompting him to elaborate.
  
  "I mean, you said I could join you, but what are you even going to be doing, and what do I have to do?"
  
  He really is mature for his age. Or all eight year olds are this mature and I've simply never interacted with one before.
  
  Still, I've already decided to be completely, mostly, honest with mini James. Mostly because I don't want to experience that cliché where someone, for example, doesn't tell their kid about how they are some prophesised kid, but then they obviously end up finding out anyway and proceed to run away, thus making the prophecy self-fulfilling.
  
  Obviously the situation isn't exactly the same, but the point lies that honesty really is the best policy. It's amazing how far a little communication can go.
  
  "Well, the first thing on my agenda is to finish off your family. There's one guy left right now, but he's my priority. Other than that, I am planning on founding an organisation of sorts, more of a club really. That is what I am inviting you to join.
  
  "You see, my organisation shall be called The Clowns, and when I say it's more of a club, that's because there won't be a leader or anything like that, nor will we even have to spend much time together, it's more like an alliance of mutual beneficence between likeminded individuals."
  
  After I finish speaking, I see mini James looking at me with his face all scrunched up. Right, that might have been too many big words for him. However before I can continue explaining it, he interrupts me.
  
  "..I think I get it. It's basically like making friends, right?"
  
  I mean, that kind of takes the mystery out of it, but he's not really wrong.
  
  "I guess. It's not as cool when you put it like that though." He ignores my pouting as he puts his chin in his hand and visibly ponders.
  
  "So, if it's like a group of friends, then what's the uh, the link that connects everyone? And why Clowns?" He asks.
  
  I smile down at him, a full smile showing too many teeth in a way that would probably disconcert most people.
  
  He isn't even phased.
  
  "Because~ little James", I practically 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘳 at him, "clowns always get the last laugh."
  
  After that, we both lapse into a comfortable silence for a while, both of us lost in our own minds. Indeed, I plan on making an organisation.
  
  Really, it's more to be a web of connections, so that people like myself, who want to make this world a little bit more enjoyable, people like me who understand the truth of life, can have more resources available to them if they ever have anything fun planned.
  
  Not to mention, like mini James said, we could then enjoy each members plans together, like one big happy group of psychopaths.
  
  Really, my idea is a lot like the Slaughterhouse Nine, I've come to realise. Only, I want my group to be far less short sighted.
  
  Because while a slaughter every now and then might be fun, facing against an entire city, it's also repetitive and even more than that, if you just keep killing everyone, then eventually there won't be any more fun to be had.
  
  After all, it's the people that make the fun, so if there's less people then there's less fun. It's simple maths really.
  
  Little James' voice drags me back out of my thoughts to the earlier conversation.
  
  "So what your saying is that I can join the Clowns and that I can then just do whatever I want? And you'll help me with it?"
  
  "Close but not quite. What I'm saying is that you can join, following which you will have no obligation to anything, you can do what you want. But if you need help for something, then you can ask the group, and if it sounds fun enough, someone might be willing to help you out."
  
  The conversation once more falls to silence as mini James contemplates things.
  
  Eventually however, we do reach the arcade as planned and I give little James a handful of dollar bills and tell him to go wild, following sedately after him as none of the games really interest me.
  
  That is how we spent the rest of the afternoon. Mini James running around from one machine to another, burning through all of my, literally, blood money.
  
  We got a few disapproving looks from people who were probably thinking that I was an irresponsible parent... which to be fair isn't too far from the truth.
  
  But eventually mini James tired himself out at around mid evening time and we decided to call it quits for the day.
  
  At least for mini James anyway.
  
  Because the day is far from over for me, as after we made it back to the house and put our stuff away, well, I put our stuff away, little James just went to bed, I got myself ready for a long night.
  
  The first thing I did was dye my hair, since it takes time to set so I figured I'd do it first. Then I went to the living room and sat myself down on the floor where there is plenty of space, following which I focused inwards. Time for some experimenting.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  The site I'm writing on just had a fucking seizure with formatting and deleted literally every single space that I have written, so now I have to go through everything while pressing space and enter to fix it all :(
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  25 Helter Skelter
  Sitting down, I cross my legs and focus on the small of my back, where my tails come from.
  
  Closing my eyes, I try to will forth my tails as slowly as possible, trying to get a feel for the process, instead of just letting it happen naturally.
  
  I feel the way they pierce through my skin and slowly bubble to the surface, only to rush forward like drawing air through a straw and coalesce into the pair of ribbon like tails I have grown familiar with.
  
  Though, now that I think about it, they aren't quite like how I remember them to be. They are thicker and seem much more sturdy, or perhaps condensed is more accurate.
  
  While they could best be described as liquid muscle when I first got them, right now they seem more like actual muscle. Actually, they seem sturdier, with a solid feel to them, even though the surface still flows like blood.
  
  With my initial observations out of the way, I try to bring out a third tail, like I did against Jason.
  
  It comes a lot more naturally that I had expected.
  
  Honestly, I was expecting to have to struggle and focus to bring it out, but then again I have already done it before so perhaps it should have been expected.
  
  However, now comes the real test.
  
  This time, I do actually have to focus in order to keep going and push out a 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘵𝘩 tail, that joins it's identical siblings in hovering around me, oddly like I am enclosing myself in a pair of wings.
  
  Only if it was a horror movie, considering the fleshy-ness... biblically accurate wing-tails?
  
  Whatever, I'm getting distracted.
  
  Renewing my focus on the area of my back that seems to store my tails, I try to bring out one more tail.
  
  Only this time, it does not come out so easily. Instead, it resists with a feeling akin to straining against plastic wrapping, like it's surrounded by a ball of cling film.
  
  But I 𝘤𝘢𝘯 feel it there, so I know it's possible.
  
  With that though driving me, I 𝘱𝘶𝘴𝘩, flexing muscles that I didn't even know I had.
  
  Finally, with the (not even slightly) mighty sound of bubbling and forming flesh, a fifth tail leaps out to join it's twins, dancing around me like a happy puppy.
  
  Ok, it's more like me swaying my tails from the excitement of more than doubling their total number.
  
  I make a half hearted attempt at drawing out another one before simply giving up, knowing instinctually that it isn't going to happen.
  
  Still, progress!
  
  With that done, I take some time to properly admire my freaky horror movie style blood muscle tentacles for a bit.
  
  Sometime, I really love my power, but then I remember how I will never be able to drink apple juice ever again and then that love disappears.
  
  Damn.. I miss apple juice.
  
  I used to drink so much of that shit that my dentist told me to stop because the normally harmless amount of acid in them was starting to erode my teeth away since there was a time where I would drink like, four litres of it a day.
  
  𝘏𝘢𝘢𝘢𝘩.
  
  Whatever.
  
  My diet aside, it's nice to know that I now have access to more tails, it will certainly be a boost to my combat capabilities, that's for sure.
  
  After passing some more time by playing around with my new set of tails and making sure I am properly comfortable and aware of their presence, I notice that night has properly set in and check the time.
  
  22:30
  
  Alright then. Time to get back to work.
  
  It only takes a few minutes to get fully dressed in what is now my only set of black military surplus clothes and mask, and it's only the work of a dozen or so more minutes before I have a bag full of stolen clothes that I drop off near the house, intent on grabbing it on my way back.
  
  For now however, there is work to be done.
  
  Namely finding myself a good source of information.
  
  Now, at first I was wondering how I was going to find an information broker, assuming there is one, but then I remembered something and decided to go back to my roots so to speak.
  
  Because while I may have been pretty stupid and reckless with how I started things out, I was right about one thing at least, and that is that criminals know how to do crime.
  
  Thus, if I want to find an information broker, I simply have to ask someone who is already in the loop to fill me in.
  
  Naturally, when I say 'ask' I might be underselling the experience slightly.
  
  I don't bother calling that woman from before, since I'm pretty sure she's dead or something. Instead, I simply head on over to the seedier neighbourhoods where, despite it being the night of christmas eve, there is not a single decoration in place and thugs are still wondering about.
  
  The only thing notably different now compared to my 'patrols' before, is that I am not actually wearing my clown mask, only covering my face with the simple domino and surgery mask that I wore below it.
  
  The reason for that is because I am operating under the assumption that no one knows that I am alive.
  
  Naturally, anyone who knew that the Yamori captured me might suspect that I am the reason behind their demise, however that is only suspicion.
  
  As of right now, as far as anyone is concerned, Tear is either simply missing, or assumed dead via Fallen.
  
  I would like to keep it that way for now, lest Equaliser decide to run or hide or something, thus no clown mask for now.
  
  Unfortunately that also means no using my tails just yet, not that I should need to, since I don't plan on facing any capes before I kill Equaliser.
  
  After hopping around for a while, I eventually stumble across a pair of hoodlums who seem to be up to no good.
  
  It took me a while mostly because I actually want someone who is somewhat in the loop, so I was waiting to find someone with gang colours and gang tattoos, like this pair of unfortunate souls before me.
  
  Walking on the rooftops beside them, I wait for them to cross a dead end alleyway, and then I jump down, landing between them both in a single bound, before grabbing both of their shirts with an arm each, and flinging them both down into the alley.
  
  The force of my throw sends them tumbling over themselves with shouts of pain as my newly enhanced strength shows itself.
  
  I don't bother playing the game with these two nobodies, I'm too focused on getting my revenge to even really care that much about it, at least not enough that I would bother with people who won't even be able to appreciate it.
  
  Instead, I rush into the alley with them and grab the both of them by their throats, squeezing hard enough that they can't call out, but not so hard that they start to die.
  
  Looking into their eyes, I see a mixture of anger and fear as well as a bunch of other emotions that I can't be bothered to identify.
  
  Personally, I think there is far too little fear to make this a productive conversation, and really I only need one of them to talk.
  
  With that in mind, I bring all of my tails, and let go of the guy in my left hand who is promptly speared through each of his limbs while another wraps around his mouth to hide his agonised screaming.
  
  With him pinned to the floor in a slowly growing pool of his own blood, I drop the other guy, who immediately falls on his ass and starts trying to backpedal away from me.
  
  I choose to ignore his pleading and begging and instead stomp down on one of his shins, breaking through it completely until the only thing separating my foot from the pavement is a single layer of his skin.
  
  I have to bring one of my tails from the other guys' leg to cover his blood curdling scream.
  
  Only once the both of their voices have died down to simple whimpers and cries do I speak.
  
  "Now that that's out of the way, I will ask you questions and you will answer them. Failure to do so will result in more pain, similarly, giving me an answer I don't like will do the same. For reference, right now I like honesty. Nod if you understand."
  
  After both of them give me their shaking, fearful nods, I release both of their mouths.
  
  "Good. Now, first things first, if I wanted information, who in the city would be likely to have it?"
  
  Since I am such a nice person, I give them a moment to think, since pain is no doubt clouding their minds right now.
  
  "T-t-there's a g-guy, 𝘨𝘶𝘭𝘱, J-Jinx. H-he sells in-information"
  
  Perfect!
  
  Well, that was easy.
  
  Looking down on the pair of men, I mentally shrug.
  
  I've already got them here, might as well see if they know anything nice about their gang.
  
  Twenty minutes later and I am back to hopping roofs, only this time with a direction in mind and honestly not all that much more information, but a much more full stomach.
  
  It doesn't take me too long before I find myself standing in front of an out of the way bar in an empty street.
  
  Looking up at the depilated sign, I raise an eyebrow at the name.
  
  𝘏𝘦𝘭𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘚𝘬𝘦𝘭𝘵𝘦𝘳.
  
  Isn't that a Beatles song?
  
  At least they have class I suppose.
  
  As I walk up to the door, something really confusing happens.
  
  I trip. And 𝘧𝘢𝘭𝘭.
  
  On an empty street, 𝘐, a parahuman with an enhanced physique and enhanced senses, 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘦𝘭𝘭.
  
  I haven't felt so much as off balance since I got my power, meaning it was so unexpected that I didn't even catch myself and just ended up eating tarmac.
  
  After that confusing and embarrassing moment, I make sure to watch my steps as I walk up to the building.
  
  I ignore the 'Closed' sign hanging from the door and twist the handle, only to pull on what happens to be a push door.
  
  The inside is a surprisingly shitty looking bar. I mean really, I wasn't expecting much, but the beige paint is peeling off of the walls and most of the wood looks like it's growing mould, not to mention the simple fact that there are only three tables taking up less than half the floor space.
  
  Clearly, this is not an establishment going through good times.
  
  After looking around for 'Jinx' and not finding him, I put my nose to work and check for any scents.
  
  Luckily for me, he is actually here, simply in the room behind the counter.
  
  So I walk up to said counter and take a sit on one of the stools, only for it to immediately break under me, making one of my tails shoot out without conscious thought to catch me from falling.
  
  Getting my feet back under me, I feel myself smile, amused by the way so many things have gone wrong in such quick succession.
  
  Deciding to simply stand, I knock loudly on the counter a few times until I hear the sound of someone stirring.
  
  A moment later, and a despondent looking man walks through the doorway with a bottle of booze on hand that I can smell on his breath.
  
  "Sorry, but we're closed." He mumbles as he walks up to the opposite side of the counter as me.
  
  "I'm aware, however I'm in something of a hurry, and I believe you are the only one who may be able to point me in the right direction."
  
  He leans one elbow on the counter, resting his face on his palm and puts his bottle down, only for him to put it too close to the edge, leading to it immediately falling to the floor and smashing.
  
  I can't help it.
  
  I laugh.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Was totally supposed to make Jinx a woman called Itori, like in Tokyo Ghoul, but then I completely forgot and now it's too late to change.
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  26 I was so fucking tired writing this
  Only after taking a minute to calm my laughter down, during which Jinx simply stared dispassionately at me, can we begin proper discussion.
  
  "So," He starts with a tired drawl, "what brings you here with such fervour to ignore my closed sign, mystery lady."
  
  I smile beneath my simple mask at his tone, but since I want to get this part over with quickly, I give a simple and blunt answer.
  
  "I was told you are good with information. I want to know where I can find a cape known as Equaliser."
  
  Jinx doesn't pause in raising a new bottle to his lips as I speak, though he does raise an eyebrow as he gulps down his booze, speaking shortly after.
  
  "Equaliser huh? Mind if I ask what business you have with him?"
  
  Seeing no reason to lie, for much the same reason that I had no problem showing those thugs my tails, I give jinx the simple truth.
  
  "I'm going to kill him. Preferably in a way that hurts, but I'm not too bothered with the how. I'm more interested in the when and where."
  
  A beat passes as Jinx stares into my eyes, seemingly trying to figure out how serious I am being.
  
  Evidently he likes what he sees, because he soon bursts out laughing.
  
  Not a pleasant laugh mind you, but the kind of malicious, schadenfreude only present in those enjoying the suffering of others.
  
  I find it to be quite pleasant to the ears.
  
  "Hahaha, well, sucks to be him I guess. Sure, I can tell you where to find him, but what do I get in return?" He asks.
  
  Now, obviously I expected to have to pay for the information, that's why I brought a few thousands dollars.
  
  I have no idea how much information is supposed to cost.
  
  However, I've just gotten an even better idea.
  
  "Hmm, how about an invitation?" I ask, forgetting my earlier thoughts of being in a hurry as soon as an entertaining idea presents itself.
  
  Jinx's unmasked face squints in suspicion at me, his blue eyes being surprisingly expressive in showing his distrust.
  
  "An invitation to what exactly?" He carefully asks of me.
  
  "I'm glad you asked~ it's quite simple really~ I'm founding a new group, and I'm inviting you to join~ isn't that great?"
  
  Belatedly, I realise that I'm not focused on Equaliser anymore and am dragging myself back into playing the game, but I don't really mind.
  
  Whatever response I was expecting from Jinx, it certainly wasn't the deadpan expression that I got.
  
  "I'm not sure if you've noticed, but there 𝘪𝘴 a reason that nobody wants me in their organisations." Comes his dry response as he raises his arms to his sides, gesturing to the bar around us and it's rather poor state.
  
  Though, that's an understatement, it really is falling apart at the seams.
  
  "What is that reason anyway? I've not exactly been in the city for long, so I'm not familiar with everyone just yet~ care to fill me in?~"
  
  He just snorts and picks his bottle back up and takes another swig.
  
  "My power is aptly named Misfortune. It basically just makes it so that everyone around me, myself included has really shitty luck. Honestly, it's a miracle I'm even still alive at this point."
  
  Huh, I guess that makes sense then.
  
  Also, doesn't that mean his power affects causality? Though to be fair, it could be more along the lines of large scale telekinesis tied to some kind of precognition.
  
  That would be more convoluted, but it would at least make more sense than fucking with causality.
  
  Still, that is certainly a fun power.
  
  "So you see now why I am a rogue, and why no one wants me in their organisations?" The self-deprecation in his voice is plain to hear and it makes me smile a little bit further.
  
  "Yeah~ I totally understand. I'd definitely not want someone like you in any organisation I was a part of.~"
  
  Right as I notice the well hidden disappointment and hurt flash through his eyes, I speak up again before he can.
  
  "It's a good thing I'm not inviting you to a proper organisation then, isn't it?~"
  
  I watch as Jinx pauses with his mouth open to speak as my words register in his brain and stop him short.
  
  After the moment passes, Jinx adopts a pensive frown that I find adorably amusing, as he considers me with frustration evident on his face.
  
  "... What exactly are you getting at?" He all but demands.
  
  Leaning back slightly, I reach behind me to where I had my actual mask hidden and bring it forward.
  
  "Allow me to properly introduce myself~ I am Tear!~ Founder of the Clowns!~ It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance!~" I cheerfully introduce myself as I put my mask on my face, fully in character now.
  
  "And how exactly is this group different to other organisations? Also, why Clowns?" He asks, sounding dubious but I feel like I also hear a little bit of hope in there.
  
  With his power being what it is, he must be pretty lonely, or, even worse, bored.
  
  Now, time for the sales pitch, because having an information broker on board would seriously be awesome.
  
  "Simple~ because it is not really an organisation, rather it's more like a club. A network of likeminded individuals, each with something of their own to offer the others, be it resources or information or simple muscle. All so that we may each indulge in our singular goal.~"
  
  At this point my excitement at the very idea that I have envisioned in my mind has caused me to raise my voice as I start pacing around in front of Jinx, orating my thoughts with undisguised passion.
  
  "Why Clowns, you ask?~ Well, that goes back to what I just said~ the common link that brings us together, the single goal that our lovely group of troublemakers will peruse?! It's actually really simple you see. The purpose of our group is just to have fun~ to spread chaos and destruction and to revel in it!"
  
  Panting slightly from my little passionate speech, I round on Jinx, pinning him down with my glowing blood red transformed eyes, I approach him and lean forward on the counter until my face is only a few inches away from his.
  
  "After all~", I whisper, "Clowns always get the last laugh.~"
  
  I can tell that he's almost convinced. I can practically 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 the effect my words have had on him.
  
  He just needs a little.. push.
  
  So, with my voice still a whisper, I keep talking. Tempting him in a fashion not unlike the devil offering a deal.
  
  "Just think about it~ ever since you triggered, misfortune has followed you everywhere, locking you in a crappy building like this just to survive. Don't you want to truly 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦? Even better, don't you want the world to understand the struggle you've faced? All you have to do is take up a Clown themed mask, and you can do away with this boring life of yours. You could use the information you gather to secretly set up cape fights and stir chaos. Maybe even start a gang war? Doesn't that just seem so much 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 than the life you live right now? So much more fun?"
  
  Here, I finally back off, letting him digest my words and come to a decision.
  
  A few minutes pass in silence as he considers my offer.
  
  Eventually, he seems to have made his decision, and I'm sure that even through both of my masks, my smile must be 𝘱𝘢𝘭𝘱𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦.
  
  "If- if I join you. What exactly will that mean for me? What responsibilities will I have? How will this work?" He asks, his voice a mix of cautious and excited.
  
  Bleh, responsibilities.
  
  "Nothing like that~ as I said, this is not an organisation. There is no structure, no leadership. If you join then all that is required of you is that you have a 'Clown identity', whether it's separate from your other identities or not is up to you. The whole point of the group is to be free and have fun, so just do whatever you want but with the knowledge that if you need help, then so long as what you need help with is fun, then you can come to the group and someone will probably want to take part in the fun. In a way, you could just consider the group something akin to a group of friends."
  
  Jinx blinks dumbly at my explanation, before retorting with a confused expression on his face.
  
  "Wait, so you're telling me that all I need to do is get a clown mask and that's it? No responsibilities, so quotas, no nothing? I just continue doing whatever I want?"
  
  I give a little chuckle at his words before shrugging noncommittedly.
  
  "I hate being bored. I decided to found the group for two reasons." I say, holding up two fingers before lowering one as I continue speaking.
  
  "One, is for when my boredom eventually gets the better of me again and I end up doing something dumb and getting in over my head I can know that there are people who might be willing to give me a hand. The other reason is again that I hate being bored and I figure that if I am a part of a group of people, all of whom simply want to enjoy themselves, then I am far more likely to be invited to entertaining situations."
  
  Jinx once again stares at me for a moment in bafflement before he simply nods to himself.
  
  "Huh. Alright then, sure, I'll join." He confirms, making me happy.
  
  "Awesome! Welcome to the troupe!" I cheer, giving him a double thumbs up that makes him laugh.
  
  However his laughter trails off rather awkwardly after a moment.
  
  "So uhh, what now?" He asks, scratching the back of his head.
  
  "Nothing much really. Depends if you want to join as Jinx or if you want to create someone new. Personally I'd say it'd be better to do the latter, as you will probably still be spending most of your time as Jinx, since you'll only need to be a Clown when acting as a Clown, e.g. when you're causing mayhem and chaos and stuff."
  
  We then spend a moment just chatting. We talk about what his Clown mask might look like while also making sure to exchange numbers so we can actually contact each other.
  
  I mean sure, he isn't much. But it's more a proof of concept, that some people will be willing to join me.
  
  It's just a case of finding the right people.
  
  Speaking of finding the right people, I snap my fingers as I remember why I came here in the first place, drawing Jinx's attention with the sudden movement.
  
  "Right! I totally forgot, but the whole reason I even came here was to learn where I could find Equaliser. Mind pointing me in the right direction?"
  
  Like a lightbulb going off, recognition strikes Jinx as he too remembers the start of this conversation.
  
  "Right, you did say something about that. Sure, I can help, though I am still curious as to why you want him dead so badly?"
  
  I simply offer him a one shouldered shrug in response, speaking lightly.
  
  "I'm just finishing the job. His family hurt me so I am going to wipe them from the face of the earth, simple as that."
  
  The room once more falls to silence as my words hang in the air.
  
  "You know, you're actually quite scary."
  
  Heh.
  
  "Damn right I am.~ Now, I believe you were telling me where I can find someone?"
  
  With that, Jinx doesn't delay any further and starts filling me in on the information that I want.
  
  Twenty minutes later and I am leaving Helter Skelter with a smile on my face and a skip in my step.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  aaarrrghghg
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  27 Finally an info dump
  After leaving Helter Skelter, I did a quick lap of where Jinx said Equaliser will be tomorrow and then went home to do something I loathe.
  
  To make a plan.
  
  Now, I'm generally not a fan of thinking too hard on things, but I am willing to make an exception this one time.
  
  Besides, it might actually be fun to do, so long as I only do it the once.
  
  Like experimenting, you won't know you hate it until you try.
  
  Anyway, when I got back to the house, mini James was still sleeping, which sucks because I was hoping to get some anti-power drugs from him so that I could rip Equaliser in half with my bare hands.
  
  Guess I'll just have to ask him in the morning.
  
  Now, onto the planning.
  
  I even got a notebook to write things down.
  
  Man, I am such a disciplined and organised person.
  
  Anyway, have you ever heard the phrase, 'no rest for the wicked'? Well, that is apparently applicable because even on christmas day, villains don't hold back.
  
  In fact, according to Jinx, villains tend to be even more active on christmas day, since the Youth Guard made it so that Wards get christmas off and the Protectorate Heroes are all but forced to hang around the main streets where the christmas celebrations are happening.
  
  Apparently it's mostly for PR reasons rather than actually protecting all the party goers.
  
  All of this means that the villains are basically free to go wherever they want in the less popular parts of the city during christmas.
  
  However they will try and avoid fighting with Heroes, also for PR reasons, so they just end up fighting each other and pushing for territory.
  
  Now, Red Branch, the gang that Equaliser is a part of, is the larges organisation in the city, purely in terms of parahuman membership.
  
  Well, technically at least. If you count the Wards and Protectorate as one group then they have the most members, but since the Wards are all minors, the Youth Guard doesn't like the two being considered one whole.
  
  Anyway, according to Jinx, my target is likely to have two other parahumans with him tomorrow, which means I have to figure out who it could be and plan around that.
  
  So to revise, who is in the Red Branch?
  
  First is obviously the leader, Cu Chulainn. He's a high level brute, and I mean that as in he could, with help from his rather notable skill with his spear, go toe to toe with 𝘈𝘭𝘦𝘹𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘢 if only for a minute.
  
  As in, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 Alexandria, the one they named flying brutes after because she is such a staple, member of the Triumvirate and co-founder of the Protectorate, as well as the woman who despite being a Hero for over a decade and having taken hits from many, many powers, has only ever been injured 𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦.
  
  Even against 𝘌𝘯𝘥𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘴, she comes out unharmed.
  
  In other words, she is one scary as fuck individual who could probably bend me into a pretzel.
  
  And this guy is fast enough to react to her, strong enough that she can't just completely ignore his blows and skilled enough that he could hold his own.
  
  Then again, maybe I am overestimating him, since he only fought her once and she beat him in like, 37 seconds I think.
  
  Still, that's 𝘈𝘭𝘦𝘹-motherfucking-𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘢 we're talking about here. The number of people that have lasted past her first move is 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘺 low.
  
  In conclusion, I really don't want to fight Cu.
  
  Thankfully for me, no one else wants to fight him either, which means that he rarely leaves his house, since everybody will just run away anyway.
  
  Not to mention, he 𝘪𝘴 their leader, so it's probably reasonable to strike him off the list of potential capes that will be with equaliser.
  
  Well, that's one down, only eleven more to go.
  
  Wait no, ten more to go. I forgot that Clay isn't really an option anymore.
  
  Heh, fuck you Clay.
  
  Now, the other scary cape in Red Branch is Cath Palug. She turns into a giant monster cat and rampages around in a seemingly uncontrollable rage.
  
  Oh, and she's also as physically strong as Cu, if not a little stronger.
  
  Apparently she used to rampage around every month or two and Cu would have to beat her into submission every time so that she didn't destroy his territory.
  
  However, that was until Merlin came along and basically 'tamed' her. In other words, they are basically best friends and are all but connected by the hip. If you see one then the other is likely to be nearby.
  
  But, similarly to Cu, Cath doesn't get out much, since everybody would probably team up against her. It certainly doesn't help how much she resembles and Endbringer-lite.
  
  Though really, that's an unfair comparison, since Endbringers destroy whole cities every two to three months, and Cath is certainly not nearly that strong.
  
  I think it's just a case of overblown reputation really. But still, she is unlikely to make an appearance, which means Merlin is also unlikely, though that is less of a big deal since he's just a relatively weak elemental manipulator.
  
  Cold winds, weak fires, nothing that would really bother me.
  
  Now, who else is there?
  
  Smith is a cold arms Tinker, so he doesn't do any fighting, he just makes swords and spears and shit.
  
  Hermes, who I met before, tends to work alone, since his speed means that others can't properly keep up.
  
  Siegfried, according to Jinx, likes to keep to his harem rather than going out and fighting, so he won't be out unless Cu makes him.
  
  Which he probably will, all things considered, but due to his personality, I kind of doubt that he will be willing to work with anyone who isn't a woman, so that might rule him out.
  
  I'll put him down as a maybe.
  
  Now, who else?
  
  There's Morgana, who I met briefly when I killed Matchstick. She is pretty active and doesn't have any known holdups, not to mention that as a woman I doubt she really wants to spend any time around Siegfried, so she seems likely.
  
  That's good at least, since her whole power is transforming into animals, and I could suplex a bear any day of the week... probably.
  
  Ok, I have no idea how strong a bear is, but they get shot and I can't get shot, so I assume I'm better than a bear.
  
  Then there's Bathory, who is also a woman, but apparently she's.. how to put it... a raging whore.
  
  She's the 'Madam' that runs Red Branches brothels, so I could see her sticking with Siegfried. Her whole power is only that she turns into a blood mist, like a vampire.
  
  Except that's all she can do, so she would be more of an annoyance than a threat.
  
  Then there's Ba'al, who shoots zaps of electricity from his hands. According to the videos of him fighting online, the zaps aren't really that tough. Certainly not to the level of an actual lighting bolt.
  
  He is a possibility too.
  
  The only other cape in Red Branch, excluding the obvious that is my target, is something of a mystery.
  
  Mystery enough that James and Theo didn't even know about him to warn me.
  
  According to Jinx, there is another member who goes by the name Solomon.
  
  He says that Solomon is only ever contacted by Cu or by his lieutenants and that other than to them, his face and powers are a mystery to everyone.
  
  However, Jinx is good at what he does.
  
  When he told me how he gets his information, I spent a solid five minutes laughing my ass off.
  
  Since his power is 'Misfortune', it means that everybody around him is super unlucky.
  
  But it doesn't have a set are of effect and is kind of bullshit to be honest.
  
  Because he can just try to log into a random persons account with a randomly chosen password and get in no problem.
  
  You know why? Because it would be really misfortunate for the person who's account he is 'hacking' if he managed to guess the password right.
  
  Not to mention, he just gets wrong number texts involving critical information sometimes.
  
  It really is bullshit, and I would call it unfair if not for the fact that he suffers from the same misfortune.
  
  That's why he doesn't have any online accounts for anything. Because literally anyone could try to guess his passwords for anything, and they will almost always get it right.
  
  To prove it he made me guess his mothers maiden name, and unless he was bullshitting me, it is Mary.
  
  Anyway, the point is, Jinx has good information, and while he doesn't know everything, he says that Solomon is likely some kind of precog Thinker.
  
  Which really does make sense the more I think about it, because every time I've tried something big against Red Branch, there has always been a cape sitting there waiting for me, as if they somehow already knew I was coming.
  
  However, there are obviously limits to his power, and likely some pretty hard ones, otherwise I doubt Clay would have ever died.
  
  But since he's a Thinker, he isn't going to be fighting.
  
  Now, who does that leave as a possibility for fighting tomorrow?
  
  There's Equaliser, obviously, then there's Siegfried, Bathory, Morgana, Ba'al and 𝘮𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 Hermes.
  
  So let's think for a moment.
  
  What are the objectives tomorrow?
  
  Well, they will be fighting on two fronts, against the Street Saints and Famine respectively.
  
  Now, Famine has the least members, but the combination of their leader 'The Bomb', who can turn himself into an explosion, with Janus, who is a short distance teleporter, makes them really difficult to beat.
  
  Even if the other two members are basically useless, one being a brute who is so underwhelming that he was named 'Baldy' by ParaHumans Online, after his most notable feature.
  
  PHO doesn't fuck around.
  
  The other is just some laser eye guy who called himself Horus hoping to be allowed into the mythology loving Irishmen, only to be rejected because he isn't Irish, and then became racist and joined Famine.
  
  The dude must have a really fragile heart, I bet that if you told him plants can feel pain that he'd cry.
  
  Moving past that loser, there is the Street Saints.
  
  They only have seven members after Matchstick kicked it and most of them are brutes of some kind, the only exceptions being the leader who can erase any inorganic matter that he touches, really making him a Tinkers worst nightmare.
  
  The other exceptions are Dovah, who I've met and this dude Romulus, who is a Master that can summon a bunch of spectral wolves.
  
  With that in mind, when going against Famine you really need to focus on just being able to not die, while against Street Saints, you need to be able to either keep your distance, or kick the shit out of people.
  
  With that in mind, I predict that Siegfried and Bathory will be heading over to the border with Famine, as both of them can survive explosions.
  
  Hermes will probably join them from a distance while the other three, Equaliser, Ba'al and Morgana will probably head for Street Satins.
  
  After all, a bear can kick most peoples asses and Ba'al could snipe their Alexandria package who got the unfortunate name of 'Uncle Tom' form PHO after he was too nice in his first showing, out of the sky.
  
  Then there's Equaliser. He can just punch a brute and depending on how their power works exactly, could make them vulnerable by erasing their powers.
  
  Then he can just shoot them or something, I don't know.
  
  Would have been nice to know all of this 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 I met the asshole himself.
  
  Ah well. You know the best part though?
  
  Since they will be heading to their border with Street Saints, there is a non-zero chance that I will meet Dynamite again.
  
  We'll see who has garbage form this time.
  
  Thus, with a smile on my face and evil thoughts in my mind, I head to bed, prepared for the most entertaining christmas of my life.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  phew, that was a lot of thinking.
  
  I have plans that I can't implement until more time has passed and more stuff has happened, which sucks, but it will be great when it happens. Very fun :)
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  28 Happy Xmas
  Sitting by myself on a rooftop that sits between Red Branch and Street Saints' territory, I bob my head along with the music I have playing quietly from my phone as I wait for the nights entertainment to show itself.
  
  "So this is christmas~" I hum to myself along with the song, kicking my legs back and forth over the edge of the roof.
  
  I'm not too worried about being noticed, since other than my mask I am wearing all black, and even then the masks smile is also black, so I doubt anyone is going to see me from a distance since night time has already shown itself.
  
  "And what have you done~"
  
  I made some last minute preparations with little James before I left, while also calling up Jinx so that he could enjoy the show.
  
  That is the whole point in joining the group after all, to be able to enjoy each others games.
  
  "Another year over~"
  
  However, apparently the process by which mini James makes his anti-power juice takes time, but we still had the syringes that he made before I, well, murdered his family and kidnapped him.
  
  Anyway.
  
  He wasn't able to make more for me, but it wasn't to difficult to make a new syringe that injects itself once it pierces skin.
  
  In other words, I just need to throw the needle at him rather than get close to inject it, which would be a problem considering his power.
  
  It's as I'm thinking this that I espy the star of todays show walking down the street with a rather large gathering of Irishmen, distinguishable by their red and green clothing.
  
  Now that I think about it, it's very thematic that they're wearing christmas colours.
  
  I wonder if they've even realised it.
  
  Also, I feel incredibly vindicated to realise that I was right in my predictions on the capes that would show.
  
  Unfortunately it seems that the Street Saints are late, as I can catch no sight of them despite the Red Branch gangbangers being about to pass the building I'm sitting on.
  
  "War~ is o~ver." I sing under my breathe as the song comes to an end.
  
  𝘚𝘪𝘨𝘩.
  
  "You're right John Lennon, war is over." I say as my smile slowly starts to grow.
  
  "The games however, have just begun.~"
  
  With those final words, I take a single step forward, my foot hovering over the edge of the roof for a single moment before the rest of my body joins it.
  
  Then, I 𝘧𝘢𝘭𝘭.
  
  Do be sure to entertain me, it would be a shame if this ended too soon.
  
  ...
  
  Life had been going rather well for Sean, or Equaliser as he's better known, if he does say so himself.
  
  It was a little rough a couple of weeks ago, what with that new vigilante showing up and making us take a few hits, but then all my problems seemed to just spontaneously decide to go away together.
  
  First with Jason coming along, resulting in the removal of the annoyance, and then, just the other day, I get news that the PRT's raid on my old family ended up with nothing to show for it except for a whole lot of blood.
  
  I did briefly consider if it was the vigilante, Tear, who killed them all and made her escape, but I know Jason, and I highly doubt that any upstart like her could best him.
  
  Not to mention, the whole clan was over a dozen people, over half of which were brutes with varying levels of regeneration while the others were all trumps of some description that fucked with powers.
  
  In other words, it's pretty much a death trap for any cape to get out of.
  
  Personally, I see it being one of two situations.
  
  Either Jason pissed the wrong person off, kidnapped the wrong person or something and this was the work of some group getting revenge.
  
  Probably a decently sized group too, maybe even another branch of the Fallen?
  
  Either way, I personally think the other option is more likely.
  
  I think it was that bitch Tiamat going full psycho and just not holding back at all and annihilating them all.
  
  It would explain why the PRT is being so hush hush about the whole thing, not wanting to out one of their capes as the psycho that she is.
  
  A brief shudder wracks my body that I am unable to stop as memories of Tiamat fighting come back to me.
  
  She is one terrifying woman.
  
  A true one person army, as the very world itself changes and turns into soldiers to fight for her.
  
  Shaking my head to clear away the memories, I focus on what's important right now, which is the fight I am marching towards, my only real backup being a glorified bug zapper and an assortment of animals.
  
  The normals only have guns after all, and the only one who might show up that can be bested by bullets is Dovah, which is exactly why he won't be showing up.
  
  Really, I understand that we won't be gaining any territory today, even with the Heroes so distracted, because without our heavy hitters, we can't really do much more than defend.
  
  But then, 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 our heavy hitters, we suddenly have to fight a much larger number of people.
  
  Quite frankly, it's only that bitch Tiamat that is stopping us from basically taking over the city, since she could probably fight literally every cape here by herself and win.
  
  Granted, there would be a whole lot of collateral should that happen, hence why she tends to stay back, having a metaphorical staring contest with Cu and Cath.
  
  As we are walking down the early night street, I am suddenly put on edge as I notice Morrigan out of the corner of my eye twitch slightly in a way I know means that her enhanced senses have just picked something up.
  
  Right before I can ask her what she hears, that question answers itself.
  
  Our group comes to a halt as a figure lands in the middle of the street in front of us in a silent crouch.
  
  Thankfully, nobody has to think twice before the pull out their guns and point them at the slowly rising figure, Ba'al and Morrigan similarly preparing their powers by pointing and transforming respectfully.
  
  However, it's as the figure raises it's head to look at us that a sinking feeling settles in my gut.
  
  I recognise that mask.
  
  "He~llo~ Irishmen~ what a coincidence to see you on this auspicious summer morning.~" She practically sings as she makes a dramatic bow.
  
  Even with her blatantly getting the time wrong, all I can focus on is her eyes.
  
  Since the moment she stood in front of us, her glowing crimson orbs and blackened smile have never left my own.
  
  "Now! I must apologise~ after all, I didn't have the time to plan out a proper game~ so we will just be playing something simple.~"
  
  She hasn't so much as glanced anywhere else.
  
  It makes me realise something.
  
  She is here for me.
  
  It makes sense, since I'm the one who sent her to Jason.
  
  But for her to be here, that means that it 𝘸𝘢𝘴 her that ended the Yamori.
  
  "The game is thus~ you all flail around in the vain hope of killing me, and if you are entertaining enough, then maybe you get to live!~ Doesn't that sound fun?~"
  
  She killed Jason.
  
  And now she's here for me.
  
  I feel the others looking at me, waiting for instructions.
  
  I am more than happy to give them.
  
  "What the fuck are you waiting for? Kill that bitch!" I shout, immediately followed by the staccato of a dozen guns going of at the same time.
  
  But it doesn't matter.
  
  She killed Jason.
  
  Bullets aren't enough.
  
  Turning to Ba'al beside me, I lose my cool a little and shout at him.
  
  "Why are you just standing there!? Fucking kill her!"
  
  Only with that does he seem to realise the severity of the situation as he points forward at Tear who has just been standing there, taking the storm of bullets, all the while her eyes have never left my own.
  
  𝘡𝘢𝘱.
  
  The bolt of electricity slams into the Clown, however all it manages to do is force her back a single step.
  
  As if it was some kind of signal, as soon as the bolt disappears, the gunshots also pause, allowing us all to witness the effect of the assault.
  
  I didn't expect much. In fact, all I expected was some torn clothes and unhurt skin.
  
  Instead, the sight we are greeted with is something else.
  
  In the dark lighting it's hard to properly see, but as we focus on her, it's possible to see how her body seems to be.. 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨, for lack of a better word. Like she's made out of water.
  
  The reason why becomes clear as she 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘮𝘴 open, like a flower, only if the petals were tentacles of blood and flesh.
  
  Slowly, her tentacles spread away from her body where they were wrapped around her like a snake, until there are four pulsing ribbons of flowing muscle swaying around her body protectively.
  
  "Well~ you're certainly trying to kill me~ but you aren't being very fun about it~ don't you know that guns are like, sooo~ last decade?" She says before each of her ribbons suddenly pierce the ground around her as she crouches down, leaning forward.
  
  "So how about I make it more fun, hm?~"
  
  I realise what is about to happen only a moment before it does and am too slow to shout out a warning before it's too late.
  
  The ground around her 𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘴 as her body is launched forward, her tails following behind her.
  
  She slides to a stop in front of the closest man and doesn't even pause or hesitate in burying her arms straight through the mans chest until they come out the other side, completely covered in blood and flesh.
  
  Then, she 𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘴 her arms aside and 𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴 him in two, literally ripping him to pieces with her bare hands.
  
  Nobody needs instructions at this point as everyone moves to fight, or run, in the case of most of the normals.
  
  I want to complain about it, but as I watch her ribbons snap forward and pierce through the chests of four separate men and fling their bodies around with wanton ease, I understand completely that this simply isn't a fight that the powerless can take part in.
  
  But all is not lost, and Ba'al and Morrigan both know this without it being said.
  
  All I need it to touch her, and the other two can finish her off.
  
  That's all we need.
  
  A single touch.
  
  By the time that Morrigan reaches her, Tear is using a pair of ribbons to rip a man in half above her, allowing blood and guts to spill all over her body and mask as she stares up at the cadaver.
  
  Morrigan opens by simply trying to crush the smaller woman under her heavy bear hands, but Tear just uses the two ribbons that aren't holding halves of a man to lift herself up and over Morrigan, landing on her back.
  
  From where she stands on Morrigan's shoulders, Tear makes a mocking bow towards me, once again maintaining eye contact.
  
  Suddenly, she tilts her entire body to the side, only managing to keep her balance by using her ribbons as a counterweight and at the same instant, another bolt of lightning passes by where she was a moment ago.
  
  "Miss me, miss me, now you gotta kill me~" She sings, sounding far to happy for the situation at hand.
  
  Then, before I can even get close enough to her that I can join the fight, I have to watch as the two ribbons that ripped that guy in half both drop the body and instead wrap themselves around Morrigan's shoulders.
  
  I'd never heard a bear scream before, but that is what happens as Tear starts to pull Morrigan apart.
  
  However, before she can get too injured, Morrigan transforms once again, turning her body into a crow and trying to fly away.
  
  "Gotcha.~" Comes Tears sadistically joyful voice as a third tail snaps out like a whip at Morrigan's crow body, the foul material cutting through flesh with ease until Morrigan's body reforms as a corpse, cut in two sides that hit the ground with a wet slap.
  
  "Woahhh~ did you guys see that! That bird just turned into a person!~ Hahaha!" The madwoman gasps and points as if she isn't the one here killing us.
  
  With a scream, Ba'al launches a slew of bolts at the insane Clown, but she dodges each and every one of them with simple side steps and leaning out of the way as she runs up to him, making him take panicking steps backwards.
  
  Meanwhile, I can only stand and watch as the demon gets closer, knowing that a horrible fate awaits me if she gets to me.
  
  Ba'al doesn't last more than a few seconds once she gets in arms reach of him, as she simply moved her arms to his neck so fast that they blurred, and then simply snapped his neck with no preamble.
  
  "Ahhh~ that felt nice~", she sighs, before turning back to me, the only other person left, everyone else having died or ran away, "and then there were two.~"
  
  Dear god.
  
  Please save me.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  How much wood could a wood chuck chuck? According to Thomas, 700lbs on a good day with the wind at their backs.
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
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  29 Interlude: Noah Balvan
  If you'd asked Noah what it was like to be a PRT director a month ago, he would have said how the work was tough but rewarding and that compared to the other directors, he has it easy.
  
  That would have been the case one month ago.
  
  Now however, is a completely different story.
  
  It's the middle of the night on christmas day, and while Noah 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 be spending what little free time he has with his lovely wife Mary and his adorable little boy James.
  
  Instead, he found himself the unhappy recipient of a phone call for an emergency meeting despite the fact that he was already in bed and ready for a good nights sleep.
  
  Which is why he is now walking into one of the PRT buildings' many meeting rooms with still dishevelled hair and hastily put on clothes.
  
  As he enters the room, he gives up on trying to tie his tie, and just lets it hang around his neck. Hopefully, it will help drive home the point that he would much rather be in bed right now.
  
  But with his job being what it is, work takes priority over everything else. Inside the room he looks around to see who's present.
  
  He first notices Tiamat's draconic head which is looking as vaguely dissatisfied as usual as well as Kitsune, or Yumiko since she hasn't bothered to wear her costume.
  
  Because, in her words 'It's christmas. The villains will be busy killing each other today so it's not like we'll have anything to do anyway'. It is slightly annoying that no one could really refute her words, but considering this meeting, it's likely that she wasn't actually right for once.
  
  Other than those two, there is another pair of Heroes present in the Arthurian duo, formally trio, of Excalibur and Avalon.
  
  They are both as quite as usual, still having not moved on from their leader, Arthur's tragic death.
  
  The other capes are all busy with either patrolling the busy streets or, in the case of the Wards, enjoying some time off with their families.
  
  Other than the parahumans present, there is also the Deputy Director James, who just so happens to share the same name as Noah's son.
  
  "Alright, I'm here. Now get to the point so I can get back to bed." Noah demands as he takes his seat at the head of the table.
  
  Not batting an eye at his grumpy boss, Deputy Director James taps on his tablet a few times before the rooms projector blinks on and everyone's eyes move to the wall where images are now being displayed.
  
  "This is CCTV footage that was captured approximately two hours ago, at 2200 hours." Deputy James says as the video starts playing.
  
  In the grainy footage, it's hard to see what is happening properly.
  
  One can barely make out some flashes of varying colours at the edge of the screen. All said, the video was rather uninformative, making everyone look at James in confusion.
  
  "About two hours ago, a group of Red Branch members, including several capes, were assaulted and for the most part, killed. The only footage we have of the incident is this."
  
  A wave of frowns spread across the room with the exception of Yumiko, who is still on her phone, and Tiamat, who looks like a dragon, so who really knows what face she's making.
  
  "Do we know who killed them? For that matter, how do you even know how many capes were present?" Avalon asks.
  
  However, James simply grimaces instead of properly responding, before tapping a few more times on his tablet and speaking again.
  
  "Because that video 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 have been all the information we had. However that is not the case, and I am unsure if it is a good thing or not."
  
  With that said, a new video shows up on the wall, showing a freeze frame of a close up shot of a mask.
  
  The mask itself is obviously fashioned in the style of a clown, with the big red nose painted in the middle as well as a pair of upside down red hearts over the eyes, with a matching pair of thin black triangles pointing down from the eyes. Other than that, the mask is bare white, with nothing denoting a mouth.
  
  James gestures to the projection as he speaks further.
  
  "A little less than two hours ago, at 2210 this video was released on various sites online, most notably through a new PHO account that was created only minutes before the video was posted by a man calling himself the Fool."
  
  With that, he hits play on his tablet, and the video starts rolling.
  
  "He~llooo people of America! I am the fool, and today, I have quite the video for youuu. Take a look!"
  
  The now named Fool shouts as the video cuts to show a familiar night street.
  
  What follows, is one of the goriest fights that anyone at the table had ever seen, as the cities newest vigilante 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 rips through a group of Red Branch members, including a pair of capes who didn't seem to even slow her down, never mind diminish the showmanship she was showing.
  
  For a little longer than two minutes, the people present watched as Tear danced around the group of men, twirling, spinning and jumping, even bowing theatrically as she landed on Morrigan's bear like form.
  
  The video ends with Tear standing in front of the lone Equaliser, and as she leans forward slightly and blows a kiss, the screen cuts back to Fool's face.
  
  "By golly! What a scary video!", Fool gasps, putting a hand on his heart as he leans back, pretending to be afraid, only to suddenly stop the act and turn back to the camera.
  
  "Isn't it funny that in the past two years, the PRT hasn't removed a single villain from this city, yet all it took was one vigilante a month and a half to get rid of five?~ What a laugh!" He ends with a shout, before laughing in a loud, fake laugh that sounds more like someone just saying the word 'Ha' repeatedly.
  
  Then, without any preamble, the video simply ends, the screen turning to black.
  
  Silence prevails in the room as everyone processes what they just saw.
  
  It's bad enough that a video like that is now circulating online, but the worst parts are how it not only seems to be the debut of a new cape, but one who clearly isn't friends with the PRT.
  
  Noah is the one to break the tense silence, bringing everyone's eyes to his own, even Yumiko understands that now isn't a time to be playing on her phone and pays attention.
  
  "Do we have any leads on who this Fool is?" Comes Noah's terse voice.
  
  Unfortunately his only response is James shaking his head.
  
  "Not a clue." Naturally, a more detailed explanation as to how they know nothing will be given later, but the 'what' is more of a priority than the 'why'.
  
  "And the vigilante, Tear? was it? I thought she disappeared. Do we have any ideas why she's back now?" Noah asks, continuing his interrogation.
  
  "Nothing definitive, but it might not be a coincidence that her disappearance and reappearance happened to coincide with that of the Yamori family of Fallen."
  
  This peaks Tiamat's interest enough that the typically taciturn dragon woman speaks out her own question. "Then, are you implying that the mess we found in the bunker those Fallen were living in was the result of this vigilante?"
  
  She asks in a voice that is surprisingly human considering her face, which has no doubt been a great disappointment to many people.
  
  It's understandable that she is focusing on that aspect of the information revealed, as Tiamat doesn't get to 'stretch her legs' so to speak, very often since her power requires a rather large amount of collateral damage.
  
  But since the Fallen were both out of city limits and, well, 𝘍𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘯, she was given the green light to go all out and she was looking forward to it.
  
  Only to be disappointed as all that was left behind was an empty abode and a whole lot of drying blood.
  
  "That is our assumption, the main thing that is calling doubt is the fact that we had assumed that the eradication of the Yamori branch of Fallen was done by a group, as even if they aren't one of the notable Fallen branches, for one person to eliminate them all is certainly not possible for a cape with the ratings we had assigned to Tear."
  
  James' response just gets a derisive snort out of Tiamat as she turns to glare at Yumiko, who only spares her a disinterested glance before pulling her phone back out and going back to ignoring everyone.
  
  "Looks like you were wrong Yumi. I thought you 'had an eye for this sort of thing' hm?" Tiamat goads.
  
  However, as with all verbal bouts, Yumiko remains unphased as her bored voice sounds out.
  
  "Hmmm. Guess I was wrong then. If she was captured by the Yamori, and subsequently escaped via murdering them all, then her Changer and Brute ratings can probably be bumped up to a six each." She says with a shrug, not even looking up at Tiamat even as she glares in return.
  
  "Indeed", Noah interrupts, forestalling the approaching one-sided argument, "put through a request for reassessment of Tear's threat rating, with a recommendation of Changer and Brute 6, Thinker 1 and we might as well bump her Mover rating up to 2 while we're at it."
  
  With that said, Noah waits for his deputy to finish noting things down before continuing.
  
  "Do we have any idea how Red Branch is planning on responding, or how many people have seen the video and their reactions?"
  
  Coughing lightly to clear his throat, James looks back at his trust tablet and starts reading out reports.
  
  "So far we don't know how Red Branch is going to respond, as the video is still new. We will likely have an answer tomorrow and it's assumed that with the same person taking away a third of their capes by themselves that Cu Chulainn is likely to make an example of her himself. It's also likely that Cath will come out so that they can show that they still have fangs, otherwise the other gangs would probably try something, thinking them weak."
  
  Noah groans and palms his face at the thought of all the conflict that is about to break out, all because of a single cape doing what she wants.
  
  "As for the video itself, it already has a decent amount of views, a number that is still growing. The response is widely split, with a number of people condemning the PRT for being ineffective and praising Tear for enacting 'justice' on the villains and that number would probably be higher if not for the simple fact that her... proclivities when it comes to violence have turned off a lot of people from supporting her."
  
  Noah Grimaces behind his hand at the reminder of the very gruesome video he just watched.
  
  "However the majority of responses seem to be a mix between condemning Tear and calling for us to bring her in, either for reformation or imprisonment is debated."
  
  With a deep sigh, Noah resolves himself to do his job properly, no matter how much sleep he has to sacrifice.
  
  "Tiamat", said dragon woman perks up slightly at Noah's address, "until I say otherwise, you are to patrol around Red Branches less populated territories. We need you ready to respond in case either of their big hitters decide to come out to play."
  
  Now, Noah isn't someone who can cold read dragons, but he is fairly certain that it is a glint of satisfaction that flashes through her eyes at his words.
  
  Or maybe she's just hungry, who knows really.
  
  Sighing once more, Noah goes about giving orders and preparing is subordinates for the shitstorm that is likely on it's way.
  
  𝘐𝘵 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘦 𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘺, 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘵?
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Just watched Riddick again for like the fifth time. I don't know why I like it so much since it's really not that good, prolly just a nostalgia thing.
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
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  ko - fi /bored_works
  
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  30 Prep
  After finally getting sweet sweet vengeance, I went home and rested for a day, just chilling with mini James as he tried and failed to explain the science behind his drug to me.
  
  At some point I got a call from Jinx, or Fool, as he decided to name himself, which 𝘪𝘴 admittedly a fitting name for him, considering his power.
  
  Overall, I'd say he sounded much more chipper than when we first met. It seems that playing around and enjoying the suffering of others was all he needed to get out of his funk.
  
  That's nice I guess.
  
  I also watched the video he posted of me kicking ass, that was cool. Especially so because I apparently have fans now. Pretty wild huh?
  
  But other than that, I'm getting bored again, even though it's only been a day.
  
  I just feel a little antsy, not to mention my back has been itching all over for a while now, and it's only gotten worse today, so I just feel like I should be doing something, but I'm not sure what.
  
  Part of me just wants to get in another fight, but with someone who can actually fight back this time.
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬.
  
  A shiver passes through my body as pain and pleasure caress my mind, bringing my attention to my hand where I have just broken one of my fingers with my thumb.
  
  Guess I got a little exited at the thought.
  
  I'm pretty sure all the torture turned me into a light masochist, just as a way of handling the pain.
  
  Ah well, who would say no to a little extra pleasure?
  
  Speaking of, I get up and leave mini James to his tinkering as I head down to the basement.
  
  It's not a very large room, plain with concrete walls.
  
  The only thing in the room is a single chair, inside of which sits a single man, bound and blindfolded, muttering incoherently to himself.
  
  Oh yeah, when I said I was 'resting' for the day, what I actually meant was that I was educating my good friend Equaliser on 𝘦𝘹𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 what his little stunt put me through.
  
  "How far did you manage to count?" I ask, echoing my memories with Jason.
  
  As he stutters out a response that I don't even bother listening to, I walk up to him, getting blood all over my feet from the pool of it around the chair.
  
  Taking a good look at him, I mentally lament the fact that he doesn't share my regenerative capabilities, because he looks like a mess and I know that he isn't going to get any better.
  
  For one, he simply lacks his hands and feet, both appendages ending in stumps.
  
  His face is also unrecognisable, covered in cuts from when his face got all bruised and swollen, so I just cut all the swollen flesh off.
  
  I really do wish he had regeneration, then I could use him like an infinite food generator, unfortunately he is unlikely to last past tomorrow.
  
  I guess I went a little bit overboard.
  
  Oh well, it's not like it's all my fault. After all, I brought little James down here for an anatomy lesson, not to mention a little bit of bonding over light torture and unethical medical practices.
  
  That's the reason he is missing some organs, his torso left open to the world, or at least to anyone in the basement.
  
  Turns out, James can do more than anti-power drugs, as our little experimentation devise has told us.
  
  We think that it's more like an 'anti-something' drug specialisation, such as anti-inhibition, or anti-pain tolerance.
  
  I'm personally quite the fan of the latter one.
  
  Still, he has kind of stopped providing useful test results for little James, and I'm bored of him.
  
  He doesn't even scream anymore, not to mention that just doing the same thing over and over again simply isn't fun.
  
  But just as I'm crouched in front of him, about to put him out of his misery and allow the rest of his body to join his hands in my stomach, I am suddenly struck by inspiration.
  
  I have decided how to have fun!
  
  Ohhh~ and it's going to be a good one.
  
  Hehehuehehaha.
  
  Ahh~ it's all coming together in my mind.~
  
  Alright!
  
  "Looks like you get to live a little while longer Sean, lucky you.~"
  
  With that, I head back out of the basement, ready to set some serious machinations into play.
  
  Ok, it's not actually 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 complicated, especially since some people have already watched the video of my massacre and have spotted a little something at the end.
  
  See, I wasn't just blowing kisses for fun, though that was part of the reason, but I actually had a needle with James' anti-power drug in my mouth, and I spat it out when I blew the kiss.
  
  By now, people have already replayed the video in slow motion at the end and seen the needle, meaning there is already speculation online that Equaliser is still alive and kicking.
  
  Well, he is alive at least, to say he's kicking might be wishful thinking however.
  
  Point is, I have leverage right now.
  
  Both the bigger gangs have taken hits from me, Red Branch much more so, meaning neither of them like me very much.
  
  Now, the Red's will probably be wanting my guest back, since their numbers have taken enough of a hit that without the fact I already got one of them, they would have the same number of capes as Street Saints.
  
  Now, obviously I can't fight the whole gang at once, but that's fine, because I don't want to even do any fighting with my genius plan.
  
  After all, the heroes are Heroes, so they will naturally fight the big bad villains in my place, the only question is how to get it to happen.
  
  But! Just Red Branch against the PRT isn't very fair for the bad guys, so I have a plan to get Street Saints involved as well and it's actually quite simple.
  
  I'm just gonna kidnap one of their capes, that way they are both competing for the same prize.
  
  Now the only question is who I'm going to nab, not that it really matters, so long as it isn't the leader.
  
  Fortunately, this is why we make friends in the first place, I think as I bring out my burner phone that is exclusively for Clown business and send Fool a text that I will be popping by the bar later.
  
  After all, even with the assurance of burner phones, you can never be too careful with all the bullshit and random powers out there.
  
  Hell, there's even that rogue Alexander who is some kind of weird ass Tinker that makes living jars that he calls 'Warrior Jars'.
  
  Honestly, the fact that he's even survived as a rogue in this city is probably just because a lot of the people find the little jars cute so no one wants to destroy them.
  
  Anyway, I make it back to the front room to see that little James has disassembled the TV again and I am not even going to bother stealing a new one this time.
  
  It's a good thing that I spend most of my free time playing solitaire anyway.
  
  "Yo virgin, in your unprofessional opinion, how long would you give our guest before he kicks the bucket if we leave him alone?"
  
  My sudden question brings little James' attention away from the weird science voodoo magic he was doing and he immediately frowns and asks his own question instead of answering mine.
  
  "What the fuck does virgin mean?" He asks, visibly puzzled.
  
  Right, he doesn't know all the words yet. I should buy him a dictionary or something, that's basically equivalent to going to school.
  
  Wait a minute.
  
  "Do you want to go to school?" I blurt out.
  
  He looks at me strangely for my non sequitur answer, which is slightly hypocritical but who's counting?
  
  "Not really? Why would I want to hang around with a bunch of kids?" He asks, seeming genuinely confused.
  
  "Oh, I don't know, maybe cuz you're also a kid? Also you can learn useless stuff, like trigonometry and shit."
  
  To be completely honest, I don't actually know what trigonometry means, since I did drop out of high school.
  
  "No, that sounds boring." He decides after a moment thinking, and I can't really fault the reasoning.
  
  "Fair enough", I say with a shrug, "anyway, a virgin is someone who hasn't had sex yet."
  
  My explanation makes him smile slightly while furrowing his brows.
  
  "Is it supposed to be an insult?" He queries.
  
  Rolling my eyes I answer honestly, "Yes."
  
  That just makes him huff out a breath.
  
  "Why would I be insulted by that? Sex sounds gross, I'd much rather stay a virgin." He says with a scrunched up face.
  
  I let out a soft laugh at his words and bring out one of my phones, putting it on record and pointing it at him.
  
  "Can you say that again? For future reference?" I try to hide my eagerness, but I don't think I succeed too well if the look he sends me is anything to go by.
  
  However, being a dumb kid, he just shrugs and repeats himself.
  
  I am going to show him this video so, so many times once he hits puberty.
  
  Just thinking about his reactions sends me into a fit of giggles that is only broken by his voice that stops me dead and fills my veins with ice.
  
  "Are you a virgin?" He asks in an innocent voice that certainly doesn't feel innocent.
  
  "Moving on! About what I asked earlier, how long would you give Sean?" I ask, expertly changing the conversation in a way that surely no one would be able to notice.
  
  Thankfully, the loser virgin actually answers my question directly this time.
  
  "I'unno, maybe a couple days? I mean, if I treated him he could probably just survive, even if he'll need prosthetics, and I don't know how to make those."
  
  Huh, it must look a lot worse than it is then, because I would have given him a few hours.
  
  Then again, I am not a medical professional and my Thinker power only really tells me how to best kill whatever I'm looking at, and even then it's not like I 𝘴𝘦𝘦 anything per say, it's more just like killer instinct.
  
  "Cool, would you mind patching him up then? I kinda need him to be alive for something fun I'm cooking up." I say, happy that things are working out so far, even if it's literally the first step in my plan that is still gaining steps.
  
  Mini James practically jumps to his feet as he runs over to me and begins shaking me by my arm.
  
  "Really!? I'll only do it if you let me come this time!" He shouts, clearly still upset that I told Fool about my last stunt but not him.
  
  Thinking on it for a moment, I decide that it will probably be fine to dump him on Fool to watch over, after all, my vague plan that I am concocting is likely to leave me unavailable for a bit.
  
  "Sure, I'll introduce you Fool, the current final member of our little band of friends. You can watch with him." I decide.
  
  "YATTA!" He suddenly yells, confusing me.
  
  "What?"
  
  He turns to me with a dumb smile as he moves to gather the equipment necessary to keep Equalise alive.
  
  "Yatta? I saw it on TV!" He exclaims before running off downstairs with a bag full of tools.
  
  Shrugging, I decide to just ignore that and move on, heading for the backdoor so I can make my way over to Helter Skelter, making sure to have my costume packed away in my bag, just in case.
  
  First thing first, I need Jinx's help in finding a Street Saint that I can nab, then I will only really need one more piece of info and the games can truly begin in earnest.
  
  𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯'𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘪𝘵~
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  I am not that good at tetris and want to be better
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  31 Interlude: Jinx
  Life had been pretty shitty all round for the man formally known as Lachlan.
  
  Born to a happy middle class family of immigrants, his life was set up to be pretty good right from the start.
  
  That was until he turned six and contracted some disease that he was never told the name of.
  
  Luckily there 𝘸𝘢𝘴 a known cure for it, unfortunately however, the treatment was incredibly expensive.
  
  However, his parents being as loving as they were, did not hesitate to pay that cost, falling into a lifelong debt. Shortly after that, his father happened to loose his job to to clerical error.
  
  This meant that his mother had to stop being a housewife and get a job as a waitress while his father tired his best to find proper work again, ending up being a simple office worker as no one would hire him for anything better.
  
  Then, by pure happenstance there was a gas explosion in the neighbour's house while they were out celebrating Lachlan's seventh birthday and their house ended up burning down in collateral.
  
  With both of his parents' new incomes not even matching his fathers' old income, they couldn't get a good house and ended up having to move to the poorest neighbourhood, even having to sell their car just to pay for the deposit.
  
  Because of this, they went from middle class to lower class and eventually to poverty as even with a double salary, it wasn't enough to pay for everything.
  
  But life goes on.
  
  Until it doesn't.
  
  By the time Lachlan turned thirteen, with his family firmly in poverty and no way out in sight, tragedy struck again as his father, who was on his way back from work at the time, got hit by a bus after it bounced off of a pothole and onto the path he was walking down, ending his life immediately.
  
  Not a month later, and his mother joined his father in the afterlife after being struck by lightning in a freak storm, leaving him alone and destitute.
  
  That was when he triggered.
  
  Everyone believes that his power is an aura of misfortune, and he won't do anything to dissuade that idea, but Lachlan was pretty sure that wasn't actually his power.
  
  He believed that his power simply made everyone else equally as misfortunate as himself.
  
  Thus, he threw away his name, the final tether he had with his old life, and took on the name Jinx, for that is what he is.
  
  What followed was many long years of struggle, only made marginally better by being more experienced dealing with his own bad luck than anyone he came across, allowing him to eke out a living, eventually becoming an information broker.
  
  Not a very successful one, naturally.
  
  However, after all this time, it seems that fortune finally decided to smile on him for once as on one average day, madness walked into his bar.
  
  Since then, he's never been happier.
  
  At first he was sceptical, doubting.
  
  After all, the woman who walked into his bar was most definitely insane, not to mention incredibly scary, all without seeming to properly realise it.
  
  After all, there have been a number of people over the years who have offered Jinx a job. They have all either died or their organisations have fallen apart.
  
  Eventually people learned to simply stop hiring him.
  
  But then Tear shows up, offering him not a job but what basically amounts to a friendship.
  
  But he was bored and alone enough that he was willing to take even the slightest chance at feeling joy once again.
  
  He certainly hasn't come to regret his decision so far.
  
  After he accepted her offer, he honestly expected her to die the next day, for her little quest for revenge would have some unexpected twist that would kill her.
  
  Yet, she survived. Not only that, but she gave a good show while she was at it.
  
  After suffering for his entire life, it would be a lie for Jinx to say that he doesn't enjoy seeing someone else getting the short end of the stick for once.
  
  Getting a chance to plat the 'Fool' was something that Jinx enjoyed a lot as, for the first time in forever, he had an actual reason to be expressive.
  
  Then, only a day after the fact, he gets a message from Tear, saying how she would be coming over as well as something about 'the games finally beginning in earnest'.
  
  Which leads to now, with Jinx staring into Tear's very unnerving crimson orbs through her masks eyeholes, with a single thought running through his head.
  
  𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 is 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘦.
  
  Heh.
  
  I suppose she wouldn't be so fun if she was sane, would she?
  
  "So what you're saying is, you want to kidnap yet another villain. I can get that at least, but your next step after that one. All I can say is, 𝘸𝘩𝘺?" I ask with all the incredulity I can muster.
  
  "Because~", she intones with her typical carefree tone, "it's the only way to make a good, proper show for you to enjoy!~"
  
  I find it amusing that she is even pretending that she is doing this for any reason other than her own crippling boredom.
  
  Honestly, I kind of doubt that she is going to live that long. I just get the feeling that her boredom is going to kill her sooner or later.
  
  Still, I can't exactly argue against it, because not only does it sound like an amazing show to watch, as she said, but her plan 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 actually seem feasible the way she has it.
  
  With that in mind, I simply sigh instead of responding.
  
  "Oh! Also, I'll introduce to you the currently only other member of our little group so that you can watch him while I'm occupied." She says, as if just remembering something important.
  
  Honestly, I'm hesitant to believe anything she says is as simple as she puts it, since even if I haven't known her for long, one thing I know for sure is that Tear doesn't do 'simple'.
  
  "... when you say 'watch him'. What exactly do you mean by that?" I ask, and I just know that beneath her mask she is grinning at me when she answers.
  
  "Exactly what I said dummy~ he is after all, only like, eight-ish.~"
  
  A moment passes in silence as we stare at each other in a game of chicken to see who will break first.
  
  Naturally, I can't compete with insanity, so I decide to just ignore what she just said and pretend I never asked.
  
  "So, do you have any idea on who specifically you wanna nab?" I ask, getting the conversation back on track.
  
  She puts her chin in her palm for a moment, seeming considering and I have no idea if she is actually considering or if she has already made a decision and is simply doing this for the theatrics of it.
  
  Like I've said, madness is impossible to predict.
  
  "I was thinking that shadow guy, since he's pretty weak during the day, which is when I want the show to start, so him being gone would have the least impact on everything."`
  
  You know, it really annoys me that she is actually smart, because she seems so 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘱𝘪𝘥 most of the time that I forget it and I'm pretty sure she doesn't do it on purpose.
  
  It's like she is really smart but chose to just be stupid instead for some reason.
  
  Then again, I could totally see her saying something like 'knowing everything is boring, I'd rather be stupid so everything is a surprise, cuz it's more fun that way!~'.
  
  Yeah, that's definitely something she'd say.
  
  "Aight then, I can probably help you out, but you'll have to wait a day or two, since most information regarding peoples locations have turned useless, what with everything being shuffled around to account for the chaos you've already caused, so I'll have to do some sniffing around."
  
  Even though it wasn't really a compliment, I can tell that she took it as one. Not that I blame her really, because she was right. It really 𝘪𝘴 fun to watch the chaos and know that you played a part in causing it.
  
  "Speaking of", she starts, sounding oddly cautious, if only slightly, "I was thinking about that. Eventually I'm going to leave Columbus for the wider world, because I don't believe there should be more than two Clowns operating in any one city. After all, we may accidentally get in the way of the others' fun, so we should all have our own playgrounds. So I was wondering if you could go national with your information gathering?"
  
  Ah, that's why she's slightly cautious.
  
  Because she truly 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 just want to have fun, and not just that, she wants me to have to fun too, now that I am a 'Clown' as well, so she's worried that she'll be asking me to do something I don't enjoy.
  
  Heh, jokes on her. The whole reason I became an information broker was just because I love snooping through peoples stuff.
  
  "Sure, I mean I kind of already do it a little, so it's not a problem to actually focus on what's going on in other major cities, rather than just reading peoples emails and stuff." I say with a shrug.
  
  "Yatta!" Tear suddenly shouts, pumping one of her fists into the air like she's striking a pose, or doing the shoryuken from street fighter or something.
  
  The silence that follows her outburst is loud and awkward as she just stands there with her fist raised and I don't really know what to say.
  
  Eventually, the silence gets to be too much, and I end up blurting out my confusion.
  
  "What?"
  
  As if the silence was holding her hostage, she only drops her pose after I spoke before bringing a finger to her chin, pondering.
  
  "James said it earlier. Apparently he saw it on TV and I'm not sure if it's actually, like, a word, or if it's just supposed to be an exclamation, like 'oohrah', you know?"
  
  She speaks as if discussing a great mystery and I respond without thinking too much.
  
  "It's probably the latter I'd guess, considering the obvious context."
  
  She nods along with my words and plants one of her fists in the others palm.
  
  "Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Anyway, imma head out now. See ya tomorrow!"
  
  And with that, she's gone, only tripping over the floorboards once, leaving me alone once more.
  
  Sighing to myself, I look over to the counter holding all the bottles of booze and consider for a moment.
  
  ..Nah, I should find out where Shade is going to be tomorrow instead.
  
  After all, with his power that makes him stronger in shadows, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out when he's going to be out, the only real problem is the where.
  
  Welp, time to get to work I suppose.
  
  ...
  
  Meanwhile, elsewhere in the city a certain man is sitting down, playing games on his phone as he sits through the 'night shift'.
  
  After all, his power is only at it's best during the night.
  
  𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨, the man thinks.
  
  All this extra work just because of one vigilante screwing with the cities power balance.
  
  Those Irish pricks have been going wild since that video got out and it's probably only going to get worse over the next few days.
  
  At the very least, it means our rivals are weaker, so we should be able to take more territory and make more money, so silver linings and all that.
  
  Though honestly, I don't think it's really much to worry about, after all, the vigilante is basically already dead, Cu won't just let her go after all, and meanwhile I don't really have to worry about anything, since I'm likely to only be fighting normals and it's not like they can do anything against me.
  
  All the while, I will be making more and more money, I think with a smile.
  
  Yes, life is looking up for the man known as Shade.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Heh, Dramatic Irony.
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  32 It Begins 2 Electric Boogaloo
  After getting his location from Fool, it wasn't all that difficult to capture Shade.
  
  After all, even though he gets stronger by absorbing the darkness around him, he can only peak at about as strong as Siegfried and I'd say that's about as strong as I am, except I have twice as many limbs, so it wasn't much of a struggle.
  
  I didn't really know where to put him, so I just used one of the other empty rooms in the house we were staying at.
  
  It's not like we used all the bedrooms after all. Both of us hardly even sleep anyway, with little James tinkering all the time and me exercising and playing solitaire.
  
  I also decided to snack a little on Shade, after all, he'll be much less inclined to run away if he doesn't have any hands or feet.
  
  But with the both of them captured, I can finally move onto my next step, and I'd better be quick about it because the city has turned into a boiling pot and I have to set my play into motion before people just start fighting anyway.
  
  Which is why I am here, four days after my happy christmas, walking into the cities biggest bank in my full costume during the middle of the day.
  
  Naturally, as soon as I enter everyone's attention immediately snaps to the cape, me, and I respond by unleashing a pair of tails and spearing them into the middle of the floor before using them as a pair of legs and raising myself into the air.
  
  Hanging in air, I look down at the people below me who are in varying states of emotion that rapidly becomes more unified as I speak.
  
  "Attention everyone!~ I am robbing this bank.~" I say, enjoying the way everyone's faces simultaneously become doused in fear.
  
  Some people make a break for it, running for the door and screaming all the while and because the sound was piercing and annoying, I sprout a third tail and 𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘮 it through the ground in front of the loudest of the runners.
  
  The sound of the impact echoes through the room and brings silence and stillness that I immediately fill with my own voice.
  
  "Now then~ there's no need to scream like a dying pig, good sir~ that being said, if you do wish to leave the building, you are free to do so~ I won't stop you.~" I say, making confusion join fear in the range of emotions being shown.
  
  Slowly and tentatively, someone starts edging towards the front door, everyone's eyes on him the whole time, including my own.
  
  Seeing that I am not stopping him, he gets more confident and when he actually makes it to the door, he simply turns into a dead sprint and runs away.
  
  The fact that I really didn't stop him makes everyone else significantly less afraid and they immediately begin funnelling out the door.
  
  Well, I say funnelling, but it's more like a stampede, one that could very easily trample and hurt someone.
  
  Now normally, I wouldn't care. However, I do need to make a proper impression for my plan, which means no injuries.
  
  With that in mind, I simply speak up, projecting my voice so that they all hear me.
  
  "Oi. If any of you dimwits hurt someone else in your rush to leave, then I will break your legs.~" I say, my voice starting dry and ending sweet.
  
  The crowd stops almost as one, a few of them looking back at me in fear before they start moving again, much more orderly this time.
  
  Once the last civilian is out of the door, I am left alone with two pairs of security guards.
  
  "Hey boys~ your job not let you leave in situations like this huh?" I say as I lower myself down until I am standing on a central table, following which I just take a seat on its edge, my tails laid out on the ground behind me.
  
  The guards look at each other for a moment, their hands not leaving the tasers at their sides before one of them smiles wryly at me.
  
  "Perks of the job Miss." He says with a shrug.
  
  "Dang, sounds tough. I woulda thought that you'd have some rule about not bothering to fight capes, kinda like the whole thing about tellers doing what the robbers say, since the 'boys upstairs' hate paying for lawsuits and stuff."
  
  Visibly confused about my conversationalism, I see the guards acting unsure about how to proceed.
  
  I mean, I do get it. I said I was here to rob the bank, so they're supposed to be 'subduing' me, but not only am I a cape, so they know they don't stand a chance at stopping me, but I am also just sitting here talking with them.
  
  Deciding to throw them a bone for what to do, I speak up again.
  
  "Well, I kinda do need hostages, as an assurance, so Imma 'beat you guys up' now, you know how it is." I say with a wink.
  
  As my words register, each of them pulls out their tasers, however I am simply too fast for them as by the time their tasers are out of their holsters, I am already among the group.
  
  I run past the first man, grabbing the back of his vest and throwing him at another guard, then I rush up to another and drive my fist lightly into his gut, making it seem worse than it is so I can lean into his ear.
  
  "Just stay down." I whisper, and I hear him comply as his body hits the ground while I'm turning to the final guard, who shoots me with his taser.
  
  I feel the current run through me, but rather than debilitation, Id more describe it as a pleasant sensation.
  
  With him doing that, I just run up and punch him, once again slowing down at the point of impact to make it seem worse than it is.
  
  He goes down and starts an Oscar worthy performance of groaning in pain.
  
  Walking up to the first guy, who is also pretending to be downed, I lean down and start dragging him to the middle of the room, whispering to him.
  
  "Do you know where any rope I can use to tie you guys up is?"
  
  He just responds by shaking his head, which sucks, but then I get an idea as I see a pair of curtains covering a window.
  
  Five minutes later and four (totally) incapacitated guards are tied up by a few curtains in the middle of the room.
  
  I really feel for these guys, having to pretend to be beaten up so that their bosses can't complain about them not doing their jobs properly once he eventually looks through the camera footage.
  
  With that out of the way, I move to the end of the room, farthest away from the door, idly taking a handful of bills from behind one of the counters as I go.
  
  Then I just jump up onto the counter, sit cross-legged, my side facing the entrance, and I take out a deck of cards and start playing solitaire.
  
  What? I'm not just going to sit here whistling while I wait for the heroes.
  
  𝘚𝘩𝘸𝘪𝘱, goes the cards as I flip them over.
  
  The next four minutes are spent simply playing cards and it's as I'm finishing up my second game that the sound of a 'Heroic arrival' outside garners my attention.
  
  And sure enough, the next moment there is a pair of heroes heroically flying through the banks entrance with heroism, only to heroically pause in heroic confusion at the villainous sight of me villainously playing solitaire as the guards sit together tied up, uh, civilianally?
  
  Shaking off distracting thoughts, the woman of the two floats a little closer to me before not quite shouting at me.
  
  "Tear! You are under arrest! Please come quietly or we will bring you in by force!" She demands threat- I mean, uh, heroically.
  
  However, I merely smile deviously underneath my mask, for it is now that I shall enact my master plan.
  
  My three tails sway rhythmically behind me, their solid forms looking deceptively fragile with the liquid like texture that colours their purplish hues as I slowly get to my feet on the countertop.
  
  As I rise, I keep my head bowed as I let out a chuckle that is dark and foreboding.
  
  Only once I am on my feet, do I look up at the pair of Heroes, my eyes glowing their crimson shine.
  
  Slowly and dramatically raising my arms up from my sides, I open my mouth.
  
  "I...
  
  [5 minutes earlier]
  
  "Come on PalPal, won't you lighten up a little bit? If you keep being so impersonal you'll scare all your fans away you know?" I tease as we fly around Columbus.
  
  I know we aren't likely to find any trouble today, since our analysts say that the gangs are practically gearing up for war, and we are currently in the 'eye of the storm' so to speak.
  
  Whether or not that will stay the same tomorrow is anyone's guess though.
  
  "I have 𝘵𝘰𝘭𝘥 you Epic, don't call me that. My name is Ashurbanipal and if you must shorten it then just call me Ash. Also I don't care about having fans, I'm a Hero, not some celebrity." Comes her predictably boring response.
  
  I swear, it's like the woman just can't lighten up.
  
  It's no real surprise that she hardly has any fans, or just people that like her in general.
  
  It kind of sucks that I have to do patrols with her just because we are the only flyers on the side of the angels in this city.
  
  I'd much rather do my patrol with someone fun, like Lost.
  
  Though to be fair, there is a reason that Lost patrols alone, since his power causes him to get lost all the time.
  
  But when his power turns him into light, it's understandable that he gets lost all the time, since one moment he will be walking forward, then he will use his power for half a second and will have suddenly moved at the speed of light and lapped the planet like six times, ending up somewhere random.
  
  I swear his photo album has pictures from every country in the world.
  
  I suppose one positive is that he has had to learn a whole lot of languages.
  
  As I am opening my mouth to continue teasing PalPal in a vain attempt to make her less stiff, my communicator goes off, attracting my attention.
  
  "Console to Epic, we've got a report of a bank robbery in progress due south of your location." Comes Cousin's voice, making me nod.
  
  "Copy that Console, we're on our way", I say, motioning with my head the direction to PalPal, "any information on our perp?" I ask, wanting to go in prepared.
  
  "Yup! 'pparently it's that vigilante that's caused all this fuss, Tear. Alone."
  
  Huh, guess that's former vigilante now.
  
  Damn, it also means I owe Yumiko money now.
  
  It takes a few minutes of flying to make it to the bank and by the time we do there is already a police cordon most of the way set up and the streets instantly quieten down at the sound of the both of us impacting the ground almost hard enough to crack it.
  
  Gotta watch out for that property damage after all, no matter how much cooler it is to crack the ground with out landing. We're only allowed to do that when landing in front of criminals in order to intimidate them.
  
  Still, after we arrive a police officer makes his way over and explains the situation which summed up is that Tear went in, let most of the civilians out and is keeping the guards as hostages.
  
  Since nothing seems to be afoot and no demands have been made, we swiftly decide to simply go inside and apprehend her.
  
  However, once we fly into the building, the sight that greets us is an unexpected one. The guards are all tied up, that was expected, but the now villain wasn't robbing the place, but was just playing cards instead.
  
  This feels like a trap, is this a trap?
  
  PalPal shouts at the villainess the usual line, but she doesn't respond right away, instead, slowly getting to her feet.
  
  The way her tails sway behind her make me feel like prey being stared down by something higher on the food chain, and as her blood red eyes lock onto mine, I feel a shiver run down my spine.
  
  Then, she opens her mouth to speak.
  
  "I...
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Teehee cliffhanger :P
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  33 Sun Tzu is Wise
  "I..."
  
  The tension in the room is palpable as the Heroes await my grand proclamation.
  
  "Surrender!~" I chirp, completely ruining the mood of the room as my arms keep raising until they are in the classic surrendering pose, while my tails dissipate, returning to my body.
  
  Silence befalls the room for a moment, only broken by the man I recognise as Epic's deadpan voice.
  
  "... what." He says as I hop down from the counter, leaving my cards there.
  
  "I surrender~ you have bested me truly~ your Heroic visage is simply too intimidating for a small little villain like me, so I have surrendered in my cowardice.~"
  
  I say before dramatically holding a hand to my chest and doing a half spin, collapsing on my back as if I just got shot by an arrow in a Shakespeare play while throwing the handful of cash I grabbed earlier at Epic's face.
  
  Truly, my acting is impeccable.
  
  Unfortunately the moment is ruined by the Alexandria wannabe who huffs out a breath and puffs her chest out, as if she did something.
  
  "As you should. Now don't resist." She says as she pulls out a pair of handcuffs, and I do not resist, allowing her to pull me to my feet and start dragging me out of the bank.
  
  Epic finds his way to my other side, making for a rather impressive escort that I probably couldn't escape even if I wanted to.
  
  Good thing I don't want to escape then.
  
  "So, is this a trap?" Epic says, garnering my attention and making me smile wryly, "because this feels like a trap."
  
  𝘛𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘶𝘵.
  
  Clicking my tongue at him, I do my best to give him a look of distain, which is difficult when being woman-handled, raising my head to look down on him, even though he's taller than me.
  
  "Did you not pay 𝘢𝘯𝘺 attention to the great Sun Tzu?~ If you did you would know that he said "The wise warrior avoids the battle.", I am simply being wise~ Sun Tzu says so."
  
  Epic snorts before quickly straightening out and pretending he never broke composure.
  
  "I think you might be misinterpreting his words slightly." He says with audible amusement which I mirror.
  
  "What is there to interpret?~ He says it's wise to avoid battle, I just avoided a battle and thus I am wise.~" I say, my logic beyond refute, as proven by Epic who does not refute it, simply shaking his head instead.
  
  We make it outside the bank and are immediately assaulted by the stares on a large number of people, including the flashing of cameras from some people who I assume to be press.
  
  Almost without even thinking about it, I go to wave, only for the cuffs around my wrists to clank behind me back, stopping me and making both the Heroes heads snap towards me.
  
  Under their cautious stares I just shrug one arm before leaning slightly closer to Epic and whispering to me.
  
  "Psst hey, my hands are kind of occupied, would you mind waving to my fans for me?~"
  
  Epic's face, or what I can see of it, turns to stone, metaphorically, as he wills himself not to make any kind of expression. A brief look over my other shoulder tells me why as the girl boss is giving him a rather intense glare.
  
  Looking forward, I talk to myself under my breath, purposefully speaking loud enough that they can barely hear me anyway.
  
  "Such an intense glare~ I bet she could make bank stepping on people and making them call her mommy.~"
  
  Epic's composure breaks as be barks out a single laugh before regaining control of himself, Ashurbanipal (what a mouthful) meanwhile responds by gripping my arm hard enough that I'm pretty sure it would have turned to mush if I was a normie.
  
  Haaah~ so easy to rile up.
  
  Conversation pretty much dies out there and it's not long later that the PRT prison transport shows up and Ashpal literally throws me into the back of it, my foot catching on the edge of the van for a moment and from the feel of it, fracturing slightly, not that I so much as flinch.
  
  I could probably sue for that, not that I know anything at all about laws or how they work.
  
  I've never been one to be told what to do in the first place anyway, but needs must I suppose.
  
  A short and rather uncomfortable drive later and the doors open once again, only this time it's to the sight of a dozen PRT troopers decked out in their full gear.
  
  PRT troopers look even more intimidating than the SWAT teams do, with their featureless full face masks and black body armour, not to mention the fact that they are visible armed.
  
  Right now half of them are pointing foam guns at me that shoot out the PRT's famed containment foam, designed by Dragon herself it is said to be capable of subduing the toughest of brutes with how sticky it is and the fact that it hardens almost immediately, leaving anyone sprayed with it stuck for a good while.
  
  Speaking of being stuck, there are also three Heroes standing there with the two lines of troopers.
  
  Two of them are obviously Epic in his red suite and Banban in a more grey and boring bodysuit, both flyers just with Epic having lasers while Ashu has to beat people with her fists like a true girl boss.
  
  The other cape present surprises me slightly, as if I'm not mistaken, it is Bungee, the current leader of the Columbus Protectorate, even though his power isn't that strong.
  
  However he makes up for that by being smart and skilled, or so I've heard.
  
  Really, he doesn't look that intimidating, wearing a casual brown pants and belt combo paired with a simple white tee and matching brown jacket.
  
  Even his mask is unassuming, being just a simple looking lower face mask.
  
  If I saw him on the street, I probably wouldn't even know he's a cape.
  
  Well, that's obviously a lie since all capes smell barely palatable, so it doesn't really matter what he looks like.
  
  Still, his power is a tricky one, but it should also be easy to counter if it comes down to a fight, since his power needs physical contact as only his hands spawn the weird glowing pink substance that apparently has 'both the properties of rubber and gum'.
  
  Not to mention his power isn't exactly subtle, so I'm sure it'll be fine if we do end up in a fight, not that that's the plan.
  
  Whistling at the display, I poke my head to either side, as if looking for someone important.
  
  "My my~ don't tell me that you're all here for little old me?~ I'm honoured.~" I chirp down at them, much to their apparent dissatisfaction.
  
  Except for Epic of course, he gives me a quick smile instead, the charmer.
  
  "Indeed we are Tear, now if you would please follow us, Ashurbanipal and Epic will lead you to a cell." Bungee says, motioning with his head for me to start walking, which I do.
  
  A pair of troopers follow us as the two Heroes flank me, bringing me through several grey halls before arriving at an elevator.
  
  The elevator itself is smooth and clinical, looking very high tech, something that is further enhanced by the grid of lasers that suddenly shoot out of it's sides and wash over our bodies a few times, presumably scanning us.
  
  "So fancy~ it's like a James Bond movie.~" I whisper, garnering opposing reactions from the pair, each with one of my arms in their grasps.
  
  The elevator seemed to just close and open, the ride was so smooth that I hardly even noticed that we moved.
  
  'Banipal gives me a shove and I start moving out of the elevator, entering another hallway, this one lines with at least two doors on either side that I presume are holding cells.
  
  But not only that, there are also a metric fuck ton of laser's that are gridding and scanning the whole hallway.
  
  Honestly, it's a bit much.
  
  "There are probably more efficient bug zappers you know?" I say with a strained voice.
  
  Seriously, I compared it to a James Bond movie earlier, but that would be a sever underestimation. There really are way too many laser's here.
  
  "Acro might have gotten a bit carried away designing it." Epic says with a wry smile, only to wince as Palpal elbows him in the side behind me.
  
  "Don't engage the villain." She says, making me think that someone really needs to wrench that stick out of her ass.
  
  "No need to get jealous Ashibanipani~ you'll always hold the number one position in my heart.~" I say to no response.
  
  Dang, I was hoping for at least some kind of reaction. Then again, I don't really know what face she's making behind her visor, so maybe her eyebrows are twitching madly and she's just hiding it really well?
  
  Imma go with that, because it makes me feel better about myself.
  
  We arrive in front of a cell and the door swishes open on it's own, revealing a small room, probably only six foot by six foot with a bed that is little more than a mattress placed on a slab of folded metal while the 'toilet' could more be compared to a urinal dug into the ground while the walls are all a dull grey.
  
  How inviting.
  
  The walls are also incredibly thick, as a glance to the doorway shows me, easily a foot and a half thick.
  
  To my surprise, the pair of heroes both take a step backwards while the two troopers both move forward, one of them unlocking my cuffs while the other takes off their helmet, revealing them to be a woman.
  
  I would have been surprised, since the full body armour doesn't really give away gender, but I could smell the woman all over her.
  
  That was a strange way of phrasing that.
  
  After my hands are free, that trooper wonders off, doing whatever, while the now helmetless woman opens her mouth.
  
  "Enter the cell." She says, voice taciturn and to the point.
  
  Shrugging my shoulders in response to her professionalism, I do as told and walk into the cell, only to be surprised again as the woman walks in with me and after receiving a bundle from the now returned trooper, closes the door behind us.
  
  Alone in here with her, I can't think of what I should be doing so I panic slightly and say the first thing that comes to mind.
  
  "Don't tell me you've got a thing for bad girls?~ But we've only just met~ I'm not ready!~ But if it's you..." I say, squirming and cupping my cheeks as I twist around myself.
  
  I feel a great deal of satisfaction watching the woman struggle to retain her professionalism.
  
  "Strip." She commands, clearly falling back on her training to avoid having to think.
  
  "My~ so forward~ well, if that's what you want.~" I say as suggestively as I can, doing my darndest to be seductive.
  
  With this game in mind, I start slowly and sensually peeling off my clothes, making sure to make as much of a show of it as I possibly can.
  
  Once I start to smell the her blood rushing to her face, I count it as my win as a faint blush starts to form right as I begin stepping out of my underwear, revealing my incredibly sexy body, and that is a completely unbiased opinion I will take no criticism.
  
  "Like what you see?~" I whisper with a wink as I run one of my hands down my chest, the other poised on my hip as I lean slightly forward to properly accentuate my assets.
  
  Unfortunately, she simply powers through, relying on professionalism to ignore my words.
  
  She hands me a change of clothes. A pair of boring grey coverings consisting of a loose pair of pants and an equally lose tee.
  
  After carful deliberation, I decide not to potentially delay my grand show just for a little fun here and put on the outfit without any further teasing.
  
  "You may keep your mask, but I must inspect it first, so please put this on and then pass me your mask." She says, handing me a bag which I put over my head without fuss.
  
  Heh, jokes on you, I have double layered masks!
  
  No point in revealing that though, so I do as told, handing over my mask and putting it back on under the bag once she is done checking for whatever she is checking for.
  
  That done, I take of the bag to see the woman collecting all of my belongings and knocking on the door, only stopping to get the bag back from me before she speed walks away.
  
  Funny.
  
  Unfortunately, I don't get the chance to say anything after that as the door slams shut in front of me, leaving me alone.
  
  Not really knowing what to do, I just stand there for a moment, before simply sitting down on the 'bed'.
  
  Boredom quickly sets in and I flop backwards, hoping to get some sleep to pass the time quicker.
  
  Ten minutes later and I am coming to terms with the fact that I just got myself locked up alone without even a deck of cards to play with.
  
  How lame~ who thought this was a good idea?
  
  This sucks.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  I feel like I wrote myself into a hole cuz there is so much shit happening in the chapters I'm writing rn and I have to keep track of it all :( I just know I'm gonna forget something.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  34 Interesting Conversation 2 Electric B
  After spending some time sitting around, bored out of my mind, the door to my cell eventually whirred open after maybe an hour to show yet another faceless PRT trooper pair.
  
  "Please follow us." One of them says, motioning for me to follow, which I do, not bothering with saying anything with such a lacklustre audience.
  
  A minute later and I am sitting in a slightly larger room with a single metal table welded to the floor and a chair on either side of it, with a small stack of them in the corner.
  
  It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this is an interrogation room, so I take a seat on one of the chairs and kick my legs up onto the table as I relax and wait for my interviewer.
  
  Honestly, I'm kind of disappointed so far, not only does my prison uniform not have the classic black bars, but this interrogation rove doesn't even have the classic one way mirror.
  
  They have no respect for tradition here.
  
  Thankfully, I don't have to wait too long before the door is opened again and I am pleasantly surprised to see the persons who enter.
  
  First through the door is Bungee, leader of the local Protectorate. He takes the seat opposite me with only a small, friendly smile as greeting.
  
  Following him is a woman that I don't recognise from sight alone, but a bit of deductive reasoning, mostly around the fact that I have met all the other women in the local Protectorate bar the dragon, and she doesn't look very draconic.
  
  Thus, I figure that the lithe Asian woman is Kitsune, with the power of 'fox fire', which from what I can gather is just normal fire but blue.
  
  Interestingly enough, Kitsune's costume is similarly casual and mundane like Bungee's is, though her mask has more decal than his, being a detailed fox mask covering her upper face, allowing me to see her neutral frown.
  
  As I am observing them, so are they observing me and as Kitsune gets a chair from the corner to join Bungee opposite me, we seem to enter a little game of who speaks first.
  
  Naturally, I like to win my games, so I wait for them to start, however they appear to be pretty willing to wait as well.
  
  It takes a minute or so of us just looking at each other before one of them speaks, though I get the feeling that it was more because it's their job rather than because they couldn't handle the silence.
  
  "I'm curious Tear. So far you activities in this city have been limited to", here he pauses, letting the silence linger as he circles one of his hands, as if trying to find the words, "𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘵 vigilantism." He finishes.
  
  Nodding along with his words, I glance to Kitsune as Bungee takes a breath to keep talking, noting how she seems to be ignoring the situation entirely, leaning her head back and staring at the ceiling.
  
  However, I do notice when her eyes glance down to meet my own and we hold a stare down for just a moment before she goes back to studying the ceiling.
  
  "But now, all of a sudden you seem to turn away from your life of vigilantism, doing a poor excuse of robbing a back just to surrender as soon as a Hero showed up. Why is that? Guilty conscience get to you?"
  
  Bungee's finishing words get an unexpected laugh out of me as soon as he says them, and I can't hold back the ridicule in my voice as I respond to him.
  
  "Guilty? Hah! What a laugh, guilty. What do I have to be guilty of?" I ask with mocking, blatantly ignoring what happened with mom, but that was a one time thing so it doesn't count.
  
  But other than that? What have I done to be guilty of? Killing murderers and criminals? They should be paying me.
  
  ... Then again, I guess there was that one guy right after mom... and those two after him.. also what I did to Equaliser might have been a bit much.
  
  But other than all those things! I'm practically a saint!
  
  "You've murdered over a dozen people in the nearly two months you've been active in Columbus." He says, voice dry and accusing at the same time.
  
  His words hang in the air for a moment as the both of them look at me expectantly, Kitsune raising a single eyebrow in a way that makes her amusement abundantly clear.
  
  In lieu of responding, I decide to ardently study the wall to my right, however, Bungee isn't done speaking.
  
  "And that's just the confirmed kills, there are another few dozen murders you are under suspicion of, making for a total of around forty dead. That's an average of more than one victim every other day."
  
  Hey now, a girls gotta eat.
  
  Heh, I'm 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 not saying that.
  
  Apparently I didn't hide my amusement at my own thoughts well enough if the sudden tightening around their eyes is anything to go by.
  
  Ah well, might as well roll with it. With that in mind, I relax back into my seat, and favour the pair of them my own amused stare.
  
  "Well, what can I say?~ I only killed bad men~ the sum total of lives lost this year has probably actually gone down a little bit by getting rid of them~ so you are welcome~ feel free to thank me anytime.~" I say with a visible smirk, raising my arms to cradle the back of my head in a picture of relaxation.
  
  Bungee frowns at my response, clearly not having as much fun as I am.
  
  I mean honestly, the excitement is getting to me a little.
  
  Logically, I know that nothing much is really happening right now, or liable to happen for a short while yet, but the anticipation is 𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 me here.
  
  At least in the cell there wasn't anything to remind me of what's to come, but here it's all I can think about!
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬
  
  Ahhh~
  
  Everyone's eyes snap to my hand, hovering slightly beside my head with a freshly broken middle finger.
  
  Oops, guess I got a little too excited again.
  
  "Well anyway!" I say, changing the subject, "weren't we supposed to be talking about my vicious crime of robbing a bank and the subsequent surrender therein?~"
  
  However, contrary to my desires, the exact opposite happens as Kitsune surprises both of us by speaking up for the first time.
  
  "Not just yet, I have some questions of my own." She says, earning a hard stare from Bungee that tells me that this was not revised.
  
  Seeing as I'm not really in a position to say no, I just incline my head in response, something she only really waits for out of politeness.
  
  "Would the names Taylor Laborne and James Laborne mean anything to you?" She asks in a tone that makes me think she is pretending to not care about the answer.
  
  Then again, she could be pretending to be pretending, I don't know this woman.
  
  But anyway, I have never heard those names before in my life, so naturally I choose to lie.
  
  "Oh yeah, didn't they write the declaration of independence?" I say with the kind of confidence only seen in the terminally stupid.
  
  Neither of them laugh at my joke, instead seeming to just choose to ignore it.
  
  "How about Markus Finch?" She continues.
  
  "That's the guy who discovered milk right? Wonder what he was doing down there?" Comes my blasé response.
  
  However Kitsune powers through my bullshit and speaks again and her next words stop my thoughts dead.
  
  "What about Ashley and Lusia Abel?" She asks, and the first thought that comes to mind is that I can't show a different reaction.
  
  The second thought that comes to mind is that pausing to think is a differing reaction and so my third thought is to say something stupid again.
  
  "Didn't they star in Ilsa the She-Wolf?" I say, accidentally insulting myself.
  
  I know I wanted to say something stupid, but why the fuck was 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 the first thing that came to mind?
  
  I sure hope this isn't some Freudian slip, otherwise I'm going to have to head over to the Nazi capital of America to have some very awkward conversations.
  
  More importantly than fucked up cinema, why the fuck is she asking about me? And what was with the other names? Something like asking lots of questions so you ask without thinking?
  
  Seriously, what does my original identity have to do with anything?
  
  But no matter how much I want to know, I know that I can't ask, lest I risk more suspicion.
  
  With that in mind, I open my mouth, only belatedly realising that I completely missed whatever facial expressions Kitsune made while I was monologuing, making me panic slightly about letting something slip.
  
  "Come on~ give me something harder.~" I say, my practiced voice brining me a measure of calm as I fall back into the role of Tear the Clown, deciding to just forget about that and think about it later, when I'm not with company.
  
  Thankfully, Kitsune takes a back seat once again, leaning back with a hum and letting Bungee take over again.
  
  "𝘈𝘩𝘦𝘮, right then. Back to the beginning. To get straight to the point this time, for what reason did you want to surrender yourself as a villain?" Bungee says, his voice stern, as if he isn't expecting me to say any more random shit.
  
  Luckily for him, he's right, since answering this question is literally the only reason I'm here in the first place.
  
  "Simple." I say, taking my feet off of the table and leaning my elbows on it instead. "Security."
  
  "Security?" He parrots in confusion.
  
  Raising my arms slightly in a half shrug, I lean back into my chair as I respond.
  
  "I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I might have kinda accidentally slightly annoyed a gang or two just a teeny tiny bit~ and now I fear for my own life~ I certainly can't fight them myself after all,~ so I thought, who could keep me safe from the dastardly villains? Who 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 keep me safe?"
  
  Here I make sure to give the pair the finger guns as I keep talking, purposefully allowing a slight, barely noticeable quiver to enter my voice, knowing that the better I hide it the more believable it will be.
  
  "I came to the conclusion that the only way I'm not dying was if the brave Heroes protected me, but I was unwilling to risk bureaucracy getting in the way of my immediate safety, and figured a cell here was better than anywhere out there~ and so here I am!~"
  
  Step three of operation: Virgin Circus is a go!
  
  As a side note, the name is about it being my first proper 'play', it is not a statement on any of the 'actors" sexual activity.
  
  "You think the gangs are coming for you? Seriously enough that you would rather be in a prison cell than out on the streets? Do you have a reason to believe you are being hunted, beyond just the simple facts of what you've done?" Bungee asks, rapid fire.
  
  Nodding my head, I answer the only question that wasn't rhetoric, barely managing to keep the laughter out of my voice as I do so, since it is very ironic for me to be answering this.
  
  "Yup~ I have a friend who's good at keeping an ear to the ground and I trust them when they brought up my mortal peril.~" I say, dying of laughter on the inside.
  
  Obviously I know that they are out to get me. Hell, I know exactly 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 and likely 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 they are going to come for me as well.
  
  It's only natural, since I'm the one tipping them off.
  
  With a great sigh, Bungee gets to his feet, Kitsune following his lead.
  
  "Someone will be here shortly to ask you some more in depth questions. In the meantime, do you have anything else you'd like to say before we go?" He generously asks.
  
  I think for a moment, putting a finger to my chin as I ponder what I could ask for that they would reasonably give me, until I come to the obvious conclusion.
  
  "I wouldn't mind a deck of cards to play with so I don't die of boredom?" I ask.
  
  "I'll see what I can do." Bungee responds with the smile of an angel before turning to leave.
  
  However right as he is about to cross through the door, I call out to him, making him stop.
  
  "Hey wait! One more thing. Do you think I could get some clothes with the proper black and white stripes?~ I just want this to all feel more authentic you know?~"
  
  He just huffs and leaves without responding, closing the door behind me.
  
  Left alone with my thoughts, they eventually wonder back to the near future.
  
  𝘈𝘩𝘩𝘯~ I can't wait.
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬!
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  I really gotta stop calling people James. It's just that I name people by just using the first name that comes to my head, but at this point James is just stuck in my head so it's just always the same V/\V
  
  Also, since I doubt anyone will know it without googling it, Ilsa: she wolf of the SS was an old movie that was basically a porno set during the holocaust, based on real people. shit's fucked up
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  35 Interlude: Yumiko Jamesu (-joke)
  "How certain exactly are you that Tear is the cannibal from October?" Director Noah says from his seat behind his large desk.
  
  It's only the two of us in the room right now, as I only give my reports to the Director directly.
  
  The perks of formally working in a counter intelligence unit I suppose, not that anyone outside of this room actually knows anything about me.
  
  See, I've always been the observant type, that's how I got into counter intelligence in the first place. Then, after a job gone wrong, I triggered and suddenly became even more valuable.
  
  Now, I spend my time working as both a Hero and a spy for the PRT, making sure that any dangerous elements, such as an incredibly powerful and spiteful dragon woman, aren't going to pose a threat.
  
  However, that is not what I am here for right now, so I focus back onto the reason I called for this debriefing.
  
  "Very. We were already suspicious of her, what with the cannibal appearing and disappearing around the same time as Tear's first appearance, compounded with the fact that since she's arrived in Columbus the number of missing persons cases has increased by around 900%."
  
  The Director's face scrunches up at the number I give him due to me habitually using statistics to make something sound worse than it is.
  
  It's less impressive than it sounds, since there are only a few hundred cases of people disappearing in Ohio annually, which isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it leaves about 3.25 people disappearing in a city like Columbus every month on average.
  
  Tear has certainly been active, especially if she is as exclusively cannibalistic as I assume, with roughly thirty cases of people disappearing with her as the prime suspect.
  
  The number would be even higher if some of the victims weren't written off as dead, though they could probably all be written of at this point.
  
  Naturally however, exceptional cases like Tear won't be counted towards the states annual missing persons statistic, since that would make them look bad.
  
  "Yes yes, I knew all of that, but you never spoke up before about this, so what changed?" The Director asks, getting straight to the point.
  
  Nodding once, I explain.
  
  "The Yamori incident." I say, making him raise an eyebrow. "Investigations into the person or persons involved have failed to bring up anything substantial, however there was a theory thrown out that it was Tear who was responsible."
  
  "And now you think that theory holds weight?" He asks with a raised eyebrow.
  
  It makes sense. After all, without any evidence that it actually was Tear who cleared out the Yamori, her threat rating only got changed to a five, four, two and one for Changer, Brute, Mover and Thinker respectively.
  
  Certainly a nice spread, it's rare for anyone to have more than three ratings, except for Trumps of course, but their powers literally work around powers themselves, so they can't be expected to play by the same rules.
  
  The numbers themselves however aren't too high, making her seem more like a grab bag cape, someone with lots of small powers rather than one big one, on paper at least.
  
  So just by looking at her numbers, one wouldn't think she could be responsible for the Yamori incident, not to mention that from his perspective, I'd imagine that the Yamori incident has nothing to do with figuring out the cannibal cape.
  
  "Indeed I do. Partly because the bodies of the Yamori clan were missing, save for blood splatters, something that would work with the theory that they were killed by a cannibal, but again, there is no evidence for it, so I didn't say anything. However, during the interview earlier today, something she did made it click in my head."
  
  Pausing to take a breath, I picture the moment in my mind and keep talking.
  
  "After being confronted about the number of deaths she has caused and giving a lackadaisical response that seems to be par for the course with her, she cracked her middle finger with her thumb. To be more accurate, I believe she broker her finger, but with her regeneration there will be no way to tell without asking her."
  
  From the confused look Director Balvan gives me, I assume that he hasn't made the same connection that I have and decide to fill him in before he asks.
  
  "Jason Yamori was known to have a similar tick, one he would use in attempt to centre himself when he was getting emotional. I believe that Tear was captured and tortured by Jason and ended up adopting this tick from him in the process. This would also compound our suspicious of Tear being the cannibal due to the aforementioned bodies disappearing.
  
  "Due to this, after Tear cracked her finger I asked her about the victims of the cannibal from Utica, however she didn't show any reactions that she recognised any of the names, giving joke responses to each person. I think she might have paused slightly at the mention of the Abel pair, but I could be mistaken."
  
  After I finish speaking, we stay in silence for a moment as the Director thinks things over, eventually simply sighing.
  
  "Even with all of that, without any evidence there isn't really anything we can do, is there? Do you actually have anything substantial, beyond circumstantial evidence?"
  
  That's the kicker though, isn't it? Without any actual evidence, she could easily claim innocence if she is smart about it, and beyond that mask of lackadaisicality I do believe that she is quite intelligent.
  
  Then again, I've been wrong before.
  
  But again, I have no evidence beyond a simple gut feeling, so I answer the Director curtly.
  
  "No sir."
  
  I'm sure he notices the annoyance in my tone at the fact that my word alone isn't enough. Even if I'm not arrogant enough to think that my word should always be enough, that doesn't mean it's not annoying sometimes that they can't just take my word for it.
  
  With a deep sigh, the Director slumps back in his seat and when he next speaks the tiredness in his voice is apparent.
  
  "While I have you here on the topic, do you have any other thoughts about our most recent guest?" He asks.
  
  I don't have to ponder for long before I give him my answer, since I haven't stopped thinking about her since the interview which was already a few hours ago.
  
  "She's smart. I think. She knows what she's doing at least. I don't know how to describe it but it's like she's wearing a mask beneath a mask."
  
  At his uncomprehending expression, I try to put it differently.
  
  "It's like.. like she is acting, except instead of just acting as 'Tear', it felt like she was acting like someone acting as Tear, like a disguise inside of a disguise."
  
  Pausing to let the Director mull over what I said, I think more about the woman I just interviewed.
  
  "As I said, she knows what she's doing. She wants something, something beyond simple safety from being here. I don't know what it is that she want's exactly, but I'm pretty sure that she's getting it and we're playing right into her hands."
  
  The Director thankfully takes my words seriously, knowing me well enough to trust them.
  
  "Do you have a reason for thinking this? And do you think that whatever her goal is, that it's bad for us?" He asks, getting straight to what matters.
  
  "Just gut feeling sir, and I don't believe that what she wants is malicious towards us. To be frank, she is unpredictable, so I can't be sure what it is she wants exactly. It is possible that she simply wants to be a Hero but for whatever reason couldn't bring herself to simply ask. It isn't an unheard of situation with some capes."
  
  Director Balvan smiles and I get the feeling that he's imagining Tear as an embarrassed child who doesn't want to admit that they want something.
  
  "So you think she wants to be a Hero, but can't bring herself to join us without us bending her arm, so to speak?" He asks with mirth.
  
  "Indeed sir, it could be that she wants to change but is psychologically incapable of bringing out that change herself, like a more extreme version of getting a personal trainer to help motivate you in the gym, or it could simply be a pride thing, a refusal to give up her ways until truly backed into a corner." I explain curtly.
  
  Honestly, I don't have a problem with the woman. After all, it's like she said herself, what has she done to feel guilty of?
  
  Provided she is the cannibal, which I believe is very likely, then she has only killed five innocents, and if that was shortly after her trigger as I suspect it was, then it's likely that she wasn't in a good state of mind at the time.
  
  There is a reason that laws were passed to give leniency to any crims committed shortly after a trigger event after all.
  
  Then, after getting her bearings, what was the first thing she did? She set out and started cleaning the streets of filth while also keeping her appetite under control so that she can avoid hurting any innocents again.
  
  Personally, I hope things go well for her, but I highly doubt they will, since even if she does join us, the moment the public finds out about her cannibalism, then unless she has one hell of a public image, she will be all but crucified on the spot.
  
  During the time I was thinking, Director Balvan seems to have come to a decision as he raps his knuckles on the table to get my attention.
  
  "Alright. Set up the usual plea deal for situations like this, she can take up a new identity and transfer to another city as a probationary member of the Protectorate, provided she accepts being put under watch and having reduced pay until she is considered reformed. All of this is naturally under the condition that she confess to any crimes she has committed, as well as to whether or not she is in fact the cannibal as we suspect."
  
  I feel a slight smile tug on my lips at Tear getting at least a chance. Maybe I'll ask to be transferred with her, to help get her settled in as a Hero, every villain turned Hero needs a 'handler' so to speak after all.
  
  It's certainly something I wouldn't mind because she 𝘪𝘴 actually pretty funny. I mean, 𝘐𝘭𝘴𝘢 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘰𝘭𝘧? Really?
  
  Not that I am ever going to admit to understanding the reference, but it was difficult to keep a straight face.
  
  Alas, I am a professional, I think as I wonder through the building, lost in thought.
  
  It would be nice to have a new friend too. It's been a while since I've had someone I can just talk to and hang out with. The closest thing to a friend I have here is Grace and she's only fourteen so it's not like we can really relate to each other most of the time.
  
  Really it just speaks to the personability of everyone else.
  
  Only Ethan and Luke really get my humour and Luke is always lost, hence the name, while with Ethan it's just still awkward from that time he made a move on me.
  
  𝘚𝘪𝘨𝘩.
  
  Whatever, you can't have everything.
  
  For now, instead of thinking about all this crap, I should go look for some things, namely a striped prisoner outfit and a deck of cards.
  
  I feel that smile coming back full force at the thought of her 'requests'.
  
  I can totally understand her wanting the classic outfit, it's like tradition.
  
  After wondering around for a bit however, I come to the unfortunate conclusion that there aren't any stereotypical prisoner outfits in the building.
  
  Where could I find what I am looking for?
  
  Hmmm.
  
  Wait.
  
  Isn't there a cosplay shop somewhere on Broad Street?
  
  Location decided, I start making my way out of the building.
  
  Maybe they'll even have the classic ball and chain too?
  
  With a smile on my face, I head out into the thriving streets of Columbus looking for the most stereotypical outfit I can find.
  
  I'm sure she'll appreciate it.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Ples gib favourites, or even better, money. I wanna eat my local pizza again but can't be spending £12 on a single food. :(
  
  Though, and I can't stress this enough, as much as I love getting support, that is only if you are financially stable.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
  previous chapternext chapterchapter list
  36 Interlude: Darnell Jackson
  Around a circular table sits six people. Five men and one woman, all with the same black skin as everyone else in their gang.
  
  The room itself is heavy with such tension that it feels as if it could be cut with a knife.
  
  Understandable, considering the reason for this gathering.
  
  "I assume you've all seen the video?" Eraser begins, speaking about what is on all of our minds.
  
  He is answered by a round of nodding heads, nobody saying anything.
  
  I can't speak for the others, but I know that the reason I can't bring myself to speak right now is simply the video itself.
  
  I can remember it with startling clarity.
  
  The scene opened facing a dull grey wall splattered with blood in a dark, but still visible room.
  
  Then the camera swings as someone takes hold of it, only for it to twist around to show a face that covers the whole screen.
  
  Though, rather than a face, it would be more accurate to say a mask. A 𝘊𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘯 mask. A familiar clown mask.
  
  Then she started talking, her voice light and cheerful even when her eyes gleamed like the reapers' scythe, the ominous red seeming much, much more dangerous than when I met the mad Clown.
  
  𝘏𝘦𝘺𝘩𝘰𝘰!~ 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘚𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘚𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘴!~ 𝘐𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘺 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘥𝘢𝘺!~ 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘮𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘥𝘢𝘺~ 𝘐 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘮𝘺𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘢 𝘨𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳~ 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘨𝘰 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘰?~
  
  The camera then pulled back, far enough away from her to know she had someone else recording, showing her whole body.
  
  But it's what was behind her that held my, and likely everyone else's attention.
  
  There was Shade who disappeared the other day without warning.
  
  Only, he didn't look as I remember him to, dark and edgy but with kindness underneath. The only reason he even joined us was because of the system itself failing him, otherwise he would have probably ended up on the side of the angels, something he vehemently refuses every time it's brought up.
  
  Instead of the Shade I remember, no, instead of the Freddie I remember, the person that sat behind the mad Clown was nothing but a shadow of a man, with sunken cheeks and scars and open wounds decorating his bare chest, he hardly looked like a man at all.
  
  He looked more like some Frankenstein monster that hasn't been finished yet.
  
  But even with all of that, I could tell who it was the moment I saw him. I could never not recognise anyone who I've gone out drinking with so many times.
  
  Distantly, I recognise the conversation of the room resuming.
  
  "Then, I don't think I should have to say it for everyone to know what happens next. Right?" Eraser says, igniting the fire burning inside everyone's chests.
  
  "You don't have to say anything boss. Because even if you told me not to, I'm gonna see that white bitch dead. For Freddie." Romulus says, his voice strained as he speaks through gritted teeth.
  
  His words get a rousing agreement from everyone present, as they all exclaim their shared desire for the bitches death.
  
  All but one.
  
  All but me.
  
  Because all I can think about, is that this is all my fault.
  
  I could have killed her, back then.
  
  I should have.
  
  Maybe if I did...
  
  𝘞𝘦𝘭𝘭~ 𝘪𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘩𝘦'𝘴 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘩𝘺, 𝘴𝘰 𝘐'𝘭𝘭 𝘥𝘰 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘩𝘪𝘮.~ 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘚𝘩𝘢𝘥𝘦~ 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘚𝘩𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘢 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘺~ 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘶𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘶𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺, 𝘩𝘦'𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦. 𝘚𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘢 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘰~ 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴.~
  
  I remember her saying, with such demented glee that I felt my skin crawl.
  
  Then she moved up to him and slapped him in the face a few times to no response, his head simply remaining limp, so much so that I feared he was simply dead.
  
  But then she leaned down to his ear and whispered something. I don't know what it was, but once she did so, Shade's eyes shot wide open and his head raised as he let out the single most 𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘦𝘥 scream I have ever heard in my life.
  
  "Dynamite."
  
  The sound haunts my dreams, and I can't help but think it will continue to do so for a long time to come.
  
  This is all my fault.
  
  If only I'd killed her.
  
  If only.
  
  "Dynamite!"
  
  But instead, I had to watch as my friend was reduced to a broken man, eyes sifting around frantically and breathes coming so fast to sound almost constant.
  
  Moving around Shade to be standing behind him, she caresses his shoulders gently, stroking his head like he's some kind of pet.
  
  𝘕𝘰𝘸, 𝘐'𝘮 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘐'𝘮 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴~ 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭, 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦.~ 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘦𝘦, 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺 𝘢 𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘦.~
  
  Her voice, already audibly psychotic starts to tremble the more she speaks as excitement starts to overwhelm her.
  
  The camera moves closer and at the same time, she leans forward over Shade, uncaring about aggravating his wounds or about the blood she gets on herself simply from being in contact with him.
  
  𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴.~ 𝘿𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙮 𝙖 𝙜𝙖𝙢𝙚?~
  
  "DYNAMITE!"
  
  The loud noise jolts me out of my thoughts, bringing me back to the room where everyone is staring at me, the concern in their eyes apparent and warming.
  
  It only makes me feel even more guilty, like I betrayed their trust by letting this happen.
  
  "Sorry, got lost in thought." I say, trying and failing to not sound as morose as I feel.
  
  "It's fine. We understand, just try to focus okay?" Tom says, always the kind one, even after getting that horrible nickname because of it.
  
  But I just don't feel like poking fun at him about it right now, so I just nod my head and leave it at that.
  
  Eraser picks the conversation back up by bringing our focus back to what matters right now.
  
  "Now, as I was saying. In her little... message." He says, frowning at the mere mention of that video, an expression matched and enhanced by those present.
  
  "She said how she has hidden Shade somewhere, and that the 'game' is that we have to capture her in order to get his his location." He explains.
  
  Everyone nods with his words, having watched the same video.
  
  I have no idea how she managed to get the videos into each of our personal phones, but with a good enough hacker, it's not something impossible to do, so questioning it is pointless.
  
  "Now, you might not all be aware of this, but yesterday the bitch held up a bank and apparently surrendered immediately and is currently sitting in a PRT cell. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what her 'game' is." He says, somehow making the frowns of the room even deeper.
  
  "The whore wants us to fight the Protectorate." Spits out Blacked, ironically the only woman here, with disgust evident in her tone.
  
  That makes the tension in the room even worse, enough that entering the room would feel like walking into a lion's den as everyone considers the implications.
  
  Because the simple fact is that we cannot win against the Protectorate.
  
  In fact, we'd hardly stand a chance against them. Just Tiamat alone would be enough to handle everyone here at once, so long as Eraser is excluded, since he counters her pretty hard.
  
  Hard to beat someone who erases inorganic matter when your power is to control said inorganic matter.
  
  "So what! We just leave him to die, even after whatever shit she's put him through!" Dovah shouts, quick to anger ever since Matchstick kicked the bucket.
  
  Even if no one likes his words, no one disputes them either, because what would reasonably happen if we assaulted the PRT building?
  
  We might as well just be handing ourselves over to them.
  
  Fortunately, before we can wallow in defeat without even being given a chance to fight, Eraser speaks up again.
  
  "Luckily however, we are not the only ones she is targeting. I got an extra message from her and it seems she really wants this to be a grand 'game', as she has invited Red Branch as well. Same as us, she has kidnapped one of their members, Eraser, and sent them a similar video to the one she sent us."
  
  For all that he sounds calm and collected as he speaks, to anyone who knows him well enough, that number being incredibly limited outside of this room, it is clear that he is filled with barely contained wrath and contempt.
  
  His words send mixed feelings through everyone present, as on one hand, it suggests that we will actually be working together with Red Branch, despite being bitter enemies for years, while on the other hand, it means that we could actually have a chance at getting Shade back.
  
  "So we have to work with the potato munching motherfuckers for a day, big fucking deal. It's not like we'll be the first people to explore the concept of 'the enemy of my enemy'. So what are we waiting for? Let's give the pale cunts a call and fucking smoke this bitch!" Dovah's anger filled voice fills the room as he stands and slams his hands on the table for emphasis.
  
  "Well said Dovah. However I have already talked with Cu Chulainn to discus this-"
  
  Unfortunately, Eraser doesn't get to keep talking as Romulus speaks up with a dissatisfied tone.
  
  "You spoke to those leprechauns without even consulting with us first?" He says with a frown on his face.
  
  Eraser simply favours him with a blank stare that we all can see is hiding an inferno of wrath.
  
  When he speaks again, his voice is deathly calm, blank in a way that is clearly forced and incredibly unnerving.
  
  "Similar to you, I don't particularly care what you do or say right now. Either way, I will be getting Shade back, your opinions on how I do so are unnecessary."
  
  Nobody interrupts him after that, especially not Romulus, who sits back, sufficiently cowed.
  
  "Now, as I was saying. I spoke with Cu Chulainn about this and we reached an agreement. The day after tomorrow, Tear will be getting a prison transport out of the city. When that time comes, we will intercept it, push back any heroes that try to stop us, or even kill them if you have to and we will retrieve her. However, only once both our capes are safe does she die. Understood?"
  
  Everyone is understandably eager at the prospect of killing her, but we all understand what our priorities here are.
  
  "Sure, but I want to be the one to kill her." Says Dovah, his voice filled with pain.
  
  But before anyone else can speak, I do so myself.
  
  "No."
  
  "No?" He parrots in both disbelief and anger.
  
  As he goes to speak again, I cut him off, staring him down and letting all of my anger, my resentment and my guilt come to the surface as I do so.
  
  "No. This is all my fault. I didn't end her when I had the chance, and now Shade has suffered for it. I will be the one to kill her, to wash away my shame."
  
  The resolve in my voice must have been apparent, as after holding eye contact for a moment longer, Dovah simply huffs and collapses back into his chair with a deep frown and furrowed brows.
  
  With that out of the way, the discussion moves back on to what exactly is going to be happening tomorrow and the day after and how we are going to be dealing with Red Brach exactly.
  
  All until Tom asks a question of his own.
  
  "So who's actually going to be taking part in this, from both us and Red Branch?" He asks Eraser, who looks back at him with a savage grin and answers with a single word.
  
  "Everyone."
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Bro you have no idea how much I struggled naming this dude, after googling for common black names in america, I tried thinking for a good second name, but the first thing that came to mind was James and while I would find the hilarious, it's probably getting over done for you guys lol.
  
  Even worse though, was that I then thought about naming him Darnell Obamna, which would also be hilarious, but probably racist in some manner, so I decided to just google for common black surnames as well.
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  37 Interlude: Sarah Livsey
  The time is 16:43 on the first day of 2008 and from all across America thousands of people are opening the same website and tuning in to watch the same livestream.
  
  As the clock ticks closer to five in the afternoon, thousands become tens of thousands as the view count continues to skyrocket on the new website known as FoolsNet.
  
  Included among the number of people who followed the link from PHO to here is a high school freshman by the name of Sarah Livsey.
  
  She, like many others, likes to spend some of her free time trawling through internet forums online, looking for anything interesting to happen.
  
  That was how she came across the first and only video uploaded by 'Fool', showing a rather gory scene of a violent cape fight that had her feeling queasy for days.
  
  Yet, she has not learned her lesson, as here she is again, waiting to see whatever it is that Fool is going to be showing this time.
  
  Really, it's like a car crash. You don't want to watch, but you just can't look away.
  
  For the past seventeen minutes, Sarah has been texting her friends on her phone with FoolsNet up on her computer.
  
  This is because so far, nothing has been happening. The camera is just showing some empty, wide street that looks to be on the edge of the city with large empty and worn buildings lining the road.
  
  The camera itself is clearly stationed on the corner of a roof, as one can still see the edge in the roof in shot, not to mention the large distance form the ground, allowing it to see a good distance.
  
  Normally, one would just assume they are watching a traffic camera of some kind, but since this is FoolsNet, it is assumed that something like the last video will happen again.
  
  This is proven right as something finally changes once the clock hits five.
  
  "He~llooo! Dear viewers! It's your favourite Fool here with a special show for your viewing pleasure!~" Fool shouts with joviality as he hops into frame, standing with the camera at the edge of the roof.
  
  He looks straight at the camera, his back to the street it's facing as he speaks again, his mask doing a poor job of hiding his exuberance.
  
  "Now!" He shouts, pointing one of his fingers in the air in a way that reminds Sarah of her teachers about to give a lecture.
  
  "You must be wondering what today's show is all about? Well, allow me to educate you! You see, in approximately", here he pauses to glance at his wrist, that clearly doesn't have a watch on it, "four minutes, a great show is going to play out on this here street!" He says, pointing behind him.
  
  All of a sudden, a sinking feeling settles in Sarah's gut, like an instinctual knowledge that she is about to see something insane, something she has never seen before.
  
  She can't decide if it's a good thing or not, yet once again, it is like a car crash.
  
  You just can't look away.
  
  "But first! Some backstory! Now, I am sure you are all aware of my last video where the naughty vigilante gruesomely delivered justice upon the wicked!~ Well, it seems that the villains here aren't all too happy with her, and now they're out for blood!" He shouts, palming his cheeks as he gasps in shock that even Sarah can tell is fake.
  
  "Unfortunately for them, Tear was captured by the valiant Heroes and detained! Foiling their plans of revenge before they could even begin! But that once again brings us to this street~" He says, moving so that he is standing closer to the camera, still in shot but out of the way so that we can see down the street.
  
  Facing the same direction as the camera, Fool brings one of his arms forward, as if presenting a gift.
  
  "Because just over there, is Tear's prison transport, where the heroic Heroes are escorting her out of the city!~" He says with glee.
  
  At the same time that he started speaking, a convoy of vehicles turned the corner at the end of the street and once he was done talking one could see the full extent of it.
  
  Seeing it, all Sarah can think is.
  
  𝘐𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢 𝘣𝘪𝘵 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘦?
  
  For Sarah, it is a perfectly reasonable conclusion to come to, as instead of simply a couple of vans, what is driving down that street is more akin to a convoy.
  
  There are eleven vehicles total, eight of them being the SWAT trucks that the PRT troopers used that have been upgraded to be more like APC's while the other three vehicles are armoured transport vans.
  
  They are in a simple formation of two trucks, one van, two trucks et cetera, and presumably the middle one is the one that houses Tear.
  
  Not only that, there is also a pair of Heroes that Sarah doesn't recognise, being from another city, flying above the convoy.
  
  "As you can see from the security present, it seems that someone must have tipped the PRT off about what is about to happen! I wonder who did that?~" Fool says, bonking his head and one can imagine that he is sticking his tongue out at the same time.
  
  "Now! It is time for the show to begin!" He shouts, only to be even louder in what he says next.
  
  "IN THE LEFT CORNER, WE HAVE THE PRT AND PROTECTORATE! CAN THEY DEFENT THEIR PRISONER, OR WILL THEY SUCCUM TO EVIL!? I CAN'T TELL YOU THAT, BUT I CAN TELL YOU THIS! IN THE RIGHT CORNER, WE HAVE A DOUBLE TEAM OF RED BRANCH AND STREET SAINTS!" He shouts.
  
  Then he pulls out a prop microphone and walks forward slightly, so that the camera angle shows the convoy just in front of him before leaning back and staring into the sky as he screams out his next line.
  
  "ARE. YOU. READY. TO~ 𝙍𝙐𝙈𝘽𝙇𝙀𝙀𝙀𝙀𝙀𝙀!"
  
  As his scream rings out, a slew of green balls, about the size of basketballs but glowing radioactive green, fly out from in front of the convoy.
  
  The vehicles swerve to avoid them, but the first and second van as well as one of the trucks in front of it are hit directly while one of the trucks behind it is barely scratched by it.
  
  That doesn't seem to matter however as all three vehicles rapidly dissolve into nothing, leaving the people inside of them moving forward at the same speed and rolling over the ground in a way that looks painful.
  
  By this point Sarah's phone is lying forgotten by her side as she grips her seats armrests in a white knuckled grip, watching the events with fervour, not even noticing the view count skyrocketing.
  
  Only thanks to skilled drivers and good brakes do the vehicles behind the now completely evaporated ones not run over their own people.
  
  Fool disappears behind the camera for a reason that becomes obvious when the screen zooms in on the people who fell out of the first van.
  
  Or, more accurately, the Heroes who fell out of the van.
  
  There, slowly getting to their feet are three heroes that Sarah doesn't recognise, as well as one that she does.
  
  After all, how could she not recognise the famous 'Mother of Monsters' Tiamat?
  
  In the short moment it takes for those on the ground to get back to their feet, the other vehicles have all formed a formation around the person who fell out of the centre van.
  
  Troopers start pouring out of the vehicles and start taking up positions with both foam guns and what looks like real guns poised and ready.
  
  At the same time, the back of the second van opens, letting our four more Heroes for a total of ten.
  
  Two of them hardly even look like Heroes since they are hardly even wearing costumes. In fact, the only reason Sarah is sure that they are Heroes is the fox mask on the woman and the pink glow on the mans hands.
  
  The other two Sarah finds vaguely familiar unlike the others, and it takes her a moment to remember the Camelot trio and how their leader's death was all over the news a couple years back.
  
  Avalon, the unbreakable shield and Excalibur, the kings sword.
  
  Two of the Heroes rush to the centre where lies a woman in a stereotypical prison outfit with a clown mask on her face that has a single pink tear streaking down one eye and a long black triangle above the other with a large black toothed smile finishing the face.
  
  The Hero in the fox mask helps the prisoner into a seated position that they couldn't do themselves due to the chains binding them and restricting movement.
  
  Before the Heroes can finish regrouping however, another round of green balls fly out for the formation, only this time they were prepared.
  
  One of the flyers manages to shoot down some of the balls with a barrage of lasers with the fox girl helping him by sending a ring of blue fire forward.
  
  But it's one of the Heroes with Tiamat that stops most of them using a bow to shoot rapid fire and not once missing her target.
  
  After just a moment, the balls are all gone before they could even do anything.
  
  The camera zooms out again to show the whole formation and a good amount of land around it and everyone hears Fools voice once more.
  
  "Place your bets boys and girls~ because the show is about to begin."
  
  With bated breath, Sarah tries to mentally prepare herself for whatever she is about to watch, equal parts excited and scared about what she is going to see.
  
  ...
  
  I had to wait around in a cell for two days before anything of interest really happened.
  
  It was honestly a pain in the ass, and I'm glad it's now come to an end.
  
  At least Foxy was nice enough to fulfil my requests and got me the classic prison look, with striped long sleeves and pants.
  
  She even got me a ball and chain, but it got taken away right after by the spoilsports in uniform.
  
  To properly complete the look, I've even flatly refused to wear any shoes, showing off my black nails, courtesy of Jason.
  
  At least Foxy got me a deck of cards, so I wasn't completely bored, just mindlessly playing solitaire over and over again.
  
  Though, I did have to admit to my cannibalism in order to actually get transferred out of the city like I wanted to.
  
  But I made sure to mention that I only turned vigilante because I was scared what they would do to a cannibal and that now that I've had time to think about it, that they should be able to provide me with synthesised or cloned human meat, or even just 'cure' me.
  
  Naturally, they ate that shit up, making me think that maybe I am just too convincing an actor.
  
  Honestly, I don't really care about the reason, all that matters is that I am here, alone in the back of a transport van and covered in chains locking me in place.
  
  Well, I could get out at any moment thanks to my tails, but that would be counter intuitive.
  
  But with everything finally coming into play, from my messages to the gangs, to the 'anonymous' tips I set up for the Heroes, everything is coming together.
  
  I even had James cook up a little something special for me.
  
  Unfortunately I can't just have him mass produce anti-power drugs, since we don't have the materials for it and he thinks that he was probably using the blood of some of his family with an anti-power power.
  
  But that's fine, I still have one dose of it left, and that's only for insurance.
  
  I am knocked out of my thoughts rather roughly as the vehicle I am in is assaulted by a green glow, starting from the front and moving to the back, annihilating everything it touches until the van is no more and I am sent rolling forward on the street with my momentum, along side the two troopers up front.
  
  Tied up as I am, I can't get up from where I lay, faceplanted to the ground.
  
  That is, until Foxie's voice makes itself known to me and a pair of hands lift me up into a sitting position.
  
  "You ok Tear? It seems you might have been right to worry, but don't fear, we'll protect you." She says with an encouraging smile.
  
  I match her smile with a much less child friendly one beneath my mask.
  
  𝘈𝘩𝘩𝘩~ 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨.~
  
  I almost squee in delight as a slew of green balls fly towards us, only to be stopped by the return fire of the Heroes.
  
  Sitting there, eyes peeled and smile wide, one thought powers through to the forefront of my mind.
  
  𝘋𝘰 𝘱𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘯 𝘢 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶?
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  So, a canon character finally makes an appearance... kinda. for those unaware of worm, Sarah is going to trigger and change her name to lisa where she will work as a villain alongside worms protag
  
  P.S, Jinx's power only works on people near him or people interacting with him in some significant way, so he made sure to be far enough away from the fight that his misfortune doesn't effect anyone.
  
  Though, everyone watching his stream 𝘪𝘴 being affected by his power... heh
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  38 Fight!
  "Quickly, before the Red team shows up, allow me to introduce the players for team Blue!" Fool shouts in a rush before moving the camera to zoom in on the flying capes.
  
  "Up in the air we have Epic and Ashurbanipal! Both fliers but only the latter is a brick while the former shoots laser's! They are basically like Legend and Alexandria if they were less impressive!~" He says before swinging the camera down to show the Heroes who were in the same van as Tiamat that have now grouped together.
  
  "And down on the ground, we have most of the members of the independent Hero team, the Argonauts! First is Asclepius, who is a biological Thinker, then there's Theseus who is a hydrokinetic and finally Atalanta, who is a really good shot!"
  
  Fool pans the camera to each person as he introduces them, allowing the viewers to see their matching outfits that look to be a mix between old Grecian and modern in design.
  
  "But enough about them, back to the government sponsored Heroes!~" He shouts, panning the camera once again.
  
  The next pair to be shown are wearing light armour, designed to keep flexibility whilst also having that medieval aesthetic.
  
  "Here we have the tragic remains of King Arthur's team! Excalibur, the kings sword can shoot out beams of energy while Avalon, the kings sheathe can become an immovable object~ but without their king to properly guide them, they are an awfully depressing pair.~"
  
  Fool doesn't even pause after mocking them of their greatest sadness and moves the camera again, this time showing three two heroes, and the villain being transported.
  
  "And over here we have Kitsune and Bungee standing with the objective of today's game Tear! Kitsune throws out fire wheels and Bungee makes weird glowing pink stuff that has both the properties of rubber and gum!~ Powers really don't make much sense sometimes.~" Fool seems to lament.
  
  Finally, the camera pans to the final Hero, the draconic woman taking up the screen as Fool zooms in as much as he can.
  
  "And lastly, we have the star of Blue team! The Mother of Monsters herself! TIAMAT! Now, I'm sure I shouldn't have to introduce her, so I won't bother~ Especially since it seems that Red team has arrived.~"
  
  Indeed, the camera zooms back out as a pack of spectral wolves jump out from the surrounding buildings to charge at the defensive line of Heroes, testing them.
  
  "It seems that Romulus is the second member of team Red to make a move~ as is obvious, he makes cute little wolves.~" He says as the wolves get destroyed in various ways before they can even reach the formation.
  
  Suddenly, the street gets flooded with life as people swarm out of the buildings and alleys around the circled trucks, showing just how prepared they were for this ambush.
  
  The PRT troopers start spraying their foam guns, hoping to capture their opponents before they can even do anything.
  
  Unfortunately it doesn't work out for them as on one side the foam is disintegrated by green balls of now familiar energy.
  
  Meanwhile, on the other side the foam is thrown away to the sides by the combined efforts of a pair of capes.
  
  At the same time, Fool's mouth is working a mile a minute as he tries to give introductions and keep up with the fight at the same time.
  
  "It seems the independent villain Melty is once again with her power that evaporates inorganic matter meanwhile Dovah, with his air cannon and Merlin with his elemental control are using the wind to keep their mooks safe from foam!"
  
  Fool takes a deep, gasping breath as he continues to record the confrontation as it is happening.
  
  Epic and Ashurbanipal each fly over the gangsters in a hope of removing the capes protecting them from play, but before they can do so they are each ambushed.
  
  A black man comes flying out of a building next to Epic and tackles him through the next wall and into the inside of the building, separating their fight.
  
  At the same time, a pale shirtless man with a giant bastard sword comes bursting through a wall and delivers a full strength swing that connects with Ashurbanipal and sends her careening through the building behind her and into the second one, being quickly followed by the grinning man.
  
  At the same time, Fool is struggling to keep up with the action as he hastily starts introducing people.
  
  "That was Uncle Tom who is a worse Ashurbanipal and Siegfried who's a brute but can't fly! and now it's Bathory and Hermes assaulting the Argonauts! Bathory turns into mist and Hermes is fast!"
  
  As Fool's frantic voice says, the camera shows as a blood red mist dashes towards the three argonauts who have huddled together outside the formation, leaving the protection the vehicles offer for the non capes.
  
  As the mist approaches, Atalanta looses an arrow that explodes inside of it to little effect as it simply moves closer, reforming into a woman with a pair of long knives who immediately swings at Theseus before dispersing into mist again to avoid another arrow.
  
  However, as they were distracted with Bathory, Hermes runs up to them from behind with his own pair of daggers that he immediately uses to slash the back of Atalanta's legs, having to back off without doing anything more as Asclepius swings his staff to protect his teammate.
  
  While this is happening, Bungee and Kitsune swap with Avalon and Excalibur, leaving them to defend the objective, as Excalibur's power is too lethal to use against normals and Avalon is the perfect defence.
  
  Kitsune starts throwing fire towards the pair of air benders, knowing that her fire moves with enough velocity that the winds will only strengthen it and it is hot enough that small amounts of water will simply turn to steam.
  
  As she does that, Bungee takes the other side, swiftly moving through the enemy numbers, tapping each of them and leaving them more stuck than the foam would have done as he moves closer to the only rogue cape present, everyone else being part of a group.
  
  All this while, the Heroes' heaviest hitter Tiamat hasn't made a move, even if she could realistically fight everyone present and win.
  
  The reason for that is made clear as another villain makes himself known as a man of steel runs towards the Argonauts, intending to help his fellows knock them out of the fight.
  
  Before he can do so however, the ground in front of him comes to life as a golem lurches up from the tarmac and slams into him, wrapping it's arms around him to hold him down.
  
  The moment Tiamat's power enters use, all hell breaks loose as one of the so far untouched buildings a little distance away crumbles to the ground as a giant figure crashes onto the street.
  
  The figure is a gigantic bobcat-like monster with a white body and red back with red dotted patterns across it's body.
  
  It has a long tail that ends in three points, a mouth that could swallow a man whole filled with long and sharp fangs and a long tongue with long pointy ears.
  
  Not only that, but it has eight legs and stands almost as tall as a two story building and even longer, all while being built like a living tank.
  
  As the beast roars, a deafening sound that can be heard halfway across the city, Fool keeps trying to keep his viewers aware of who's who.
  
  "Steel man Dynamite shows up and manages to bring Tiamat into the fight causing Cath Palug to join the fun!~"
  
  Cath Palug was one of the main reasons Tiamat hadn't joined the fight, because she knew that the moment she does so, the amount of collateral damage is about to skyrocket.
  
  However, perhaps unexpectedly, as Cath charges the formation of troopers, Tiamat does nothing to stop him, instead animating golems all around to help everyone else with their fights.
  
  Ten, twenty, fifty.
  
  In the time it takes Cath to move forward half a dozen steps, the materials that make up the surrounding buildings as well as the ground outside of the formation of trucks has rapidly been transformed into an army of inanimate golems that don't waste time in pushing back the villains.
  
  Right as Cath is a single step away from Tiamat and about to crush her, a colossal beam of black energy 𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘴 into the beast, sending it crashing backwards, cracking the ground beneath it's sudden weight.
  
  However, as Excalibur moves forward to keep bullying the monster cat, Tiamat suddenly raises a straight line of golems away from her that are immediately destroyed, only the pair closest to her unharmed.
  
  As the dust from her destroyed golems settles Tiamat is able to see the red spear that is pierced through the golem third closest to her, having needed seventeen golems just to stop it's velocity.
  
  Looking up, Tiamat sees what the camera already can.
  
  "It looks like Red teams two leaders have finally stepped into the fray, launching a strong opener on Tiamat that is unfortunately ineffective!~ For those unaware, the spear wielding handsome man is Cu Chulainn, leader of Red Branch with a simple high level brute power while the less handsome guy without any spears is Eraser who can erase inorganic matter! Together they make quite the counter to Tiamat! I wonder how this will go!~"
  
  Even though he's already thrown a spear, it is clearly not a problem for Cu Chulainn considering the amount of spare spears on his back.
  
  Tiamat doesn't allow them another chance to get her by surprise and starts digging into the ground underneath and around her and as she rapidly builds up an army of golems around her, the two gang lords charge at her.
  
  Every swing with his spear shatters at least one golem as the Irish villain runs forward, not managing to keep ahead of Eraser despite the man not having any brute powers augmenting his strength.
  
  This is because Eraser's power doesn't rely on him touching things with his hands, which makes it so that every time a golem brushes against him, it, and everything inorganic within a two metre diameter behind it simply disappears, allowing him to run straight for Tiamat.
  
  But Tiamat is no fool and she knows that Eraser counters her perfectly, so she doesn't bother sending most of her army at him, instead choosing to swarm Cu Chulainn.
  
  Eraser is the first person to get close to her and he pulls out a sword, courtesy of Red Branches cold arms Tinker Smith, but right as he swings for her, Avalon launches himself in front of her, freezing himself in place in mid-air and and causing Eraser's sword to clatter off of him helplessly.
  
  As he is still recoiling from that, Avalon unfreezes, his momentum nowhere to be seen as he twists and falls to the ground, quickly rising with a punch to Eraser's gut that sends him back a few paces.
  
  Avalon moves forward to chase him and throws another punch, clearly showing his boxing training.
  
  Eraser manages to weave around the first few blows before he finds an opening and swings his blade to cut across Avalon's leg, only for it to spark and do nothing as he freezes right before the point of impact.
  
  Before the sparks even disappear, Avalon is moving again, throwing a sharp punch to Erasers arm that makes him drop his weapon.
  
  At the same time, Cu Chulainn has slowed to a stop as he fights a constantly replenishing army of golem, leaving him with no time to breathe as he constantly has to spin around, defending and destroying the golems with ease.
  
  With everything going on, nobody except for those watching online, notice as Tear starts to move.
  
  Without getting up from where she is sat, one can barely make out as one of her tails, shrunk down in size, snakes it's way from her back down to her foot, where it cuts half of it off in a single move.
  
  As the blood ribbon grabs the cut off flesh, her foot grows back as if nothing happened almost immediately.
  
  The ribbon brings her flesh behind her, where her arms are tied and then after a moment, brings it to her mouth, where she quickly disposes of the evidence that anything happened.
  
  No one can figure out why she did that, and no one ever will.
  
  Soon however, the event is quickly forgotten as the intense battle continues to rage on.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  ; there is so much going on it's hard to keep track...
  
  Also, this is me five chapters ahead coming back to say this, but damn this fight kicked my ass.
  
  Also, Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  39 Fight! 2 Electric Boogaloo
  FYI, I made a map in paint of the situation from last chap, but I can't leave links in chapters, so Imma link it on my profile if you're interested :)
  
  Fighting my way through the untrained gangsters wasn't particularly challenging except for the sheer number of them.
  
  Even with the troopers behind me providing supporting fire with rubber bullets, I could hardly make any headway in approaching Melty. All I have to do is take her out of the fight and then the troopers will be free to foam all of these mooks and I can help the fight elsewhere.
  
  Alas, I am only one man and there is only so much I can do against these numbers.
  
  Both of the gangs ambushing us are estimated to have a membership count in the hundreds, something that is being proven right now by the hordes of men united against us.
  
  It doesn't help that Blacked has apparently decided to use her Trump power to boost Red Branch's gangsters as well as her own, something I discovered after taking a glancing blow that almost dislocated my arm.
  
  It's like facing a horde of Brute 1's, not something I can really deal with efficiently.
  
  Even then, those that aren't currently capable of punching a hole through a brick wall are all armed with guns, mostly small arms but it's still a whole lot of bullets coming our way.
  
  Luckily, I am able to coat my entire body in my power, letting it absorb the kinetic energy of the bullets until they are effectively harmless, not that I am completely immune, but it helps keep me alive from pot-shots since I'm not wearing full body armour like the troopers are, safe behind the armoured trucks.
  
  Thankfully, that problem doesn't remain one for long as Tiamat joins the battle, evident by the army of golems that form out of the floor and walls around me, filling everything in sight with human shaped holes.
  
  I know we were expecting an ambush, but with the level of opposition seeming to be literally every combat ready cape in both gangs, as well as what is probably every single one of their normal members, I can't help but think that we are missing some critical information about why they want Tear so badly.
  
  Enough to even work together, even going so far as to recruit a rogue in Melty.
  
  However, even with the small army of golems making the fight much easier, battle isn't a time to be lost in thought.
  
  Taking a deep breath from the brief respite Tiamat afforded me, I start moving again, charging straight for Melty.
  
  The mooks try to stop me but are intercepted by golems of brick and tarmac.
  
  Though, some still make it passed Tiamat.
  
  A pair run towards me just the same as I do them.
  
  The first to reach me throws a wild right for my chest and I twist my body to the side and bend my knees, bringing my hands up to slide across his arm.
  
  The second one reaches us then and throws their own punch, much more practiced than the first.
  
  Dodging to the side, I snap one of my hands forward and tap him on the chest, making him immediately lurch to the side as my stretched out power recoils, bringing them crashing together, stuck with each other.
  
  Without paying the pair anymore mind, I keep rushing forward, spinning and jumping past anyone that gets in my way, tagging people and the ground intermittently to keep them locked down.
  
  Eventually, after what felt like an hour but was probably only a few minutes, I reach Melty with a band of golems at my back, keeping the gangsters from reaching me.
  
  It really is quite scary to see Tiamat in action, knowing that she can fight a small army better than you without even being there. Especially once you consider that she is probably fighting everyone else's battles as well right now.
  
  Shaking my head, I focus on the girl in front of me, because that's what she is really, a girl. She barely looks fifteen, even if our analysts have pegged her at sixteen.
  
  She is dressed in a dark tie-dye outfit that almost looks like camo, but is still clearly tie-dye if you focus on it. Her mask is also tie-dyed, though much more colourful as it decorates her lower face.
  
  Frankly, she looks terrified right now. Even if she's trying to put on a strong front, I have enough training to recognise the dilated pupils and the slight shake of her hands and legs.
  
  I come to the obvious conclusion that she doesn't really want to be here, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the gangs likely 'asked' her to use her power to help them and that she felt that she couldn't really refuse.
  
  "Surrender peacefully." I demand, deciding on diplomacy and hoping she will take the rope I am offering her.
  
  With movement that borders on frantic, she raises her arms and takes an instinctual step backwards, eyes darting around as she starts speaking rapidly.
  
  "I-I-I didn't- I mean, I- they said- I couldn't- please- I-I'm sorry- I-" She says, her words jumbled and chaotic as she is too overwhelmed to speak properly.
  
  Mentally sighing to myself about kids getting in over their heads, I raise my hands placatingly and interrupt her with a calm voice, trained for de-escalation.
  
  "Take a deep breathe Melty, it's ok, no ones going to hurt you, I just need you to get on your knees and to keep your hands raised ok? Can you do that for me?" I ask as I start to slowly approach her.
  
  I observe her keenly, noticing the way she subconsciously takes the breath I asked her too and how she calms down slightly thanks to the fact before she drops to her knees with her arms raised and head bowed.
  
  I try to ignore her muffled cries as I turn to signal the troopers, past the gangsters between us that are still fighting with Tiamat.
  
  Getting my signal, they swap from rubber bullets back to foam and blanket the entire alley up to where I am, burying the gangsters completely.
  
  I don't know how many times I've thanked Dragon for developing containment foam, but the fact that it is breathable, letting us simply cover people in a cocoon, is incredibly helpful.
  
  Turning back to Melty, I am about to try to console her and bring her back to our defensive line with Tear until a piercing noise yanks my attention, making me spin back around to face the street.
  
  The sight that greets me paints a grim frown on my face as the sound grates itself deep into my ears as if to personally insult me.
  
  Resolved to get back to the main fight and limit casualties, I turn back to Melty and quickly speak to her.
  
  "Melty, just this once I will let you off, so go on and get out of here, and try not to get yourself mixed up in any messes like this again. Maybe consider joining the wards." With that, I don't wait for her response as I spin on my heel and run back into the fray, making sure not to touch any of the orange containment foam.
  
  Idly, I send one last thought back to Melty, hoping that she does end up joining the wards, for her own safety, before casting all thoughts aside and focusing on the battle in front of me.
  
  ...
  
  Crouched down behind the armoured trucks with the faceless troopers, I can't help but lament my new job.
  
  Counter intelligence sounds interesting, like something in a spy movie, but honestly it really isn't.
  
  For one, I certainly didn't get shot at as much as I am now when I worked in CI.
  
  As a brief lull in the near constant gunshots that preceded it opens up, I quickly peak over the truck and send a wheel of fire tearing down the street and burning up the cannon of air that was heading our way, intending to disrupt our formation.
  
  "WHY ARE THERE SO MANY OF THE FUCKERS!" A trooper to my left screams out, still barely audible over the renewed gunshots.
  
  I can't blame them for wondering. It must be just about every fucking gangster in the dams city shooting at us right now.
  
  Even worse is that they are probably all powered up by Blacked.
  
  I don't have confirmation of that just yet, but the line of gangsters groaning on the ground a few feet away from out trucks thanks to a generous amount of rubber bullets attests to the fact, as I can only assume they were hoping to punch the truck out of formation to make a way in.
  
  Another wave of foam flies over our heads in an attempt to capture them and I throw a ring of fire with it, hoping to stop it from being blown away.
  
  Alas, Merlin blocks my fire by erecting a wall of earth in its path, allowing Dovah to once again shoot it off to the side.
  
  Cursing to myself, I hear someone respond to the earlier trooper.
  
  "FUCK SHOULD I KNOW?! MAYBE THEY'RE JUST CELEBRATING NEW YEARS!?" Another trooper shouts in return, and I ignore the ensuing banter as I focus on trying to figure out a solution.
  
  It's times like this that I really wish we were allowed to use lethal force, but as they say, the first two letters of the PRT are PR for a reason.
  
  Wouldn't want the public to think we Heroes were anything less than morally perfect after all.
  
  The thought makes me glance back to the centre of the formation where Tear sits alone.
  
  I notice the way her head keeps snaping from side to side, looking at everything happening around her, even twisting her body in a way that seems painful to see behind her.
  
  With how much she is shaking, compounded with her frantic movements, I can't help but come to the conclusion that she is terrified right now.
  
  Being chained downs in the middle of such a conflict must be reminding her of her time with Jason that no doubt gave her a rather severe case of PTSD.
  
  However, as much as I might want to comfort her, protecting her comes first.
  
  I do notice that there is some blood around one of her feet, but I quickly focus back on the fight, assuming it to have just been an injury from when her transport got destroyed, not to mention that it's already healed since she seems fine.
  
  The fight continues as a stalemate for a minute or so, even with Tiamat backing us, her focus is too split up to properly handle them, not to mention, she has to also focus on keeping things non lethal.
  
  After all, getting punched in the face by a golem of rock can very easily be lethal, even more if she forms her golems with claws and blades like I know she can.
  
  But as it is, she has to fight at a disadvantage, we all do, that's the price of being on the side of the angels and it really sucks sometimes.
  
  Another wave of foam passes overhead as we simply aim to keep the stalemate until someone else is available to assist us.
  
  However, as I rise again, repeating the same action, knowing it won't work, things change.
  
  I throw a ring of fire, just like last time. And just like last time, Merlin blocks it while Dovah protects them all.
  
  Only, this time I don't duck back down.
  
  Instead, before I even realise what I'm doing, in an almost haze like state, I throw another two rings of blue fire.
  
  Except this time I don't aim for non lethality, instead I aimed for the largest concentration of them, not for a second even doubting my decision, despite knowing that I will be in a shit tonne of trouble for doing so.
  
  The gangsters in front of me clearly weren't expecting a change to the rhythm of the battle as a large number of them are engulfed in flames.
  
  A chorus of agonised screams ring out as I duck back behind cover, not understanding my own actions.
  
  It only takes a moment for me to remember all the master/stranger training we all get put through so that we may be able to identify and possibly neutralise anything that is effecting out minds in some manner.
  
  At first I think I'm being mastered, but since I seem to still have proper control over my body, I scratch that theory off and consider my mind properly.
  
  If anything, it's like being drunk, only without the intoxication.
  
  Getting a theory, I decide to test it and turn to the trooper next to me.
  
  Then I simply think about slapping their ass, something that I am far to professional to ever actually do, and yet before I can even comprehend it properly, my hand is already on their ass.
  
  "I DON'T THINK NOW'S REALLY THE TIME!" He shouts out in a weird mix of annoyance, confusion and amusement.
  
  I ignore him however as I turn on my com and shout urgently into it.
  
  "MASTER! THERE'S SOME KIND OF MASTER EFFECT ON ME THAT I THINK HAS REMOVED MY INHABITIONS! BE CAREFUL OF YOUR ACTIONS!" I shout, letting everyone know that there is an unknown on the field.
  
  With that in mind, I am almost afraid to attack again, the screams from earlier still audible.
  
  Yet, even as I am thinking that, I find myself standing up and throwing another slew of fire at the enemy, only stopping when a pair of troopers pull me back down.
  
  Shit.
  
  Why can things never be simple?
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Did you know that the author of Jujutsu Kaisen hates Gojo because he's too overpowered? Well, I'm having a similar problem, in that I didn't create these characters with the idea of them fighting in mind, so now I am figuring out who would win as I write.
  
  I am so unprofessional :
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  40 Fight! 3 It Goes On
  A/N: Just because I can't remember if I already explained it for those that don't know Worm, the Triumvirate is the group of Heroes that lead the protectorate, being Alexandria, who is superman without the laser's, Legend, who is just the laser's and Eidolon, who is whatever he feels like. There was also Hero, but Siberian killed him, also they are all super powerful. Anyway.
  
  When we started planning this assault, it was immediately obvious that I would have to take on one of their fliers, considering that since Morgana kicked it, I've now become the only flyer in the city who isn't with the heroes.
  
  With that in mind, it became a question of which hero I should fight, the woman with the too long name, or her fellow Triumvirate downgrade.
  
  But the simple fact is that no matter how much she is weaker than Alexandria, something that everybody except for her seems to realise, she is still stronger than me, even if only slightly, so a fight between us wouldn't accomplish anything.
  
  Which is why I went for Epic, knowing that at his best, his laser's will only hurt me a little and that our manoeuvrability is pretty even.
  
  So as soon as I saw him moving, I dragged the both of us into one of the nearby office buildings, hoping the limited space will be to my favour by making the fight a close quarters one.
  
  Immediately after bursting through the wall, Epic twists us so that I am facing the direction we are flying so that he can use our momentum to help him blast me off of him using a blast of red energy from his chest.
  
  The impact itself hardly hurts since he was in the area of impact as well and he lacs my Brute rating, so if he actually tried to hurt me, he would have probably killed himself and no one wants that.
  
  However the weight of the impact was still enough to push me away.
  
  Now, I may not be a scientist, but even I can only accredit 𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘳'𝘴 having 𝘸𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 to power fuckery.
  
  After blasting through a few disused desk cubicles I get ahold of my flight enough to strafe to the side, allowing a violent crimson beam pass by where I was.
  
  Looking up, I see Epic flying backwards, obviously planning to leave the building to allow for better movement, not something I can allow.
  
  Thinking quickly and knowing I won't be able to just catch him by charging at him, I begin flying towards him while picking up the nearest throwable object, which just happens to be a water cooler that happens to still be full, and throw it at him as hard as I can.
  
  It crosses the distance between us in a blur, but Epic reacts fast enough to send a laser to destroy it.
  
  Thankfully, the jug full of water on the top isn't destroyed with the rest of the cooler, disconnecting instead and continuing with it's velocity.
  
  With no other choice, Epic is forced to dodge the jug, strafing above it.
  
  But that single moment of him slowing down was all I needed to close the gap and reach him.
  
  Right as I am about to reach him, he launches a blast straight for my face, but with gravity assisting my flight, I am barely able to dip underneath it and lash out with one arm as he tries to gain more distance.
  
  Managing to grab a hold on his leg, I twist laterally and throw him into the ground hard enough that he crashes through it and into the floor below, impacting the floor but not breaking through a second time.
  
  Not wanting to give him any time to breathe, I charge right behind him, hoping to get him in another grapple so I can overwhelm him.
  
  Only, the moment before I reach him, he splays his arms to his sides and lets out a pair of low powered blasts that reverberate around him and kick up a cloud of dust, covering him completely thanks to the building being abandoned for so long.
  
  Seeing the cloud deforming to my right, I grin.
  
  "Gotcha!" I shout as I crash forward, only to obliterate a chair instead of Epic.
  
  With no time to react, Epic lands a clean hit on me, his laser's hitting me centre mass and launching me into the wall hard enough to crack it, but not hard enough to send me outside.
  
  As I focus back forward, ignoring the slight ringing in my ear, I see Epic floating in the middle of the room, with the dust settling around him and the chaotic red glow of his laser's surrounding him.
  
  He sends me a cocky smirk that pisses me of in a profound way, then he speaks, his voice light and casual. Mocking.
  
  "𝘎𝘰𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘢." He says, parroting me.
  
  I respond by ripping a chunk out of the wall and throwing it at his face.
  
  Naturally, the chunk of concrete is blown to dust immediately, his attack not even slowing as it reaches for me.
  
  I dodge the first beam by flying under it and the second over, but the third I simply tank, brute forcing my way though, only to realise that I have hardly actually gotten closer to him.
  
  Deciding to repeat my earlier success, I start throwing everything I pass by at him, forcing him to split his attention enough that I am able to get close again.
  
  This time, I don't throw him away and instead I mount him as I fly us both into the ground and start punching him in the face.
  
  He returns fire with his laser's, but he can't hit me hard enough to dislodge me without also hurting himself, so he starts looking for weak spots, even making a cheap shot at dick.
  
  Thankfully for me, my Brute rating covers my whole body, leaving no spot weaker than the other, something that Epic learns intimately as his laser's bounce off of my eyes.
  
  It's a delicate balance, hitting him hard enough that he will feel it, but not so hard that it kills him.
  
  After all, killing a hero is never a good thing, not that I even really want to kill him in the first place, Epic is one of the good ones after all.
  
  However, my beating of Epic doesn't last long as the ground below him suddenly comes to life, opening up a hole for us to fall through, only for arms to reach out and grab me, allowing Epic the opportunity to separate us.
  
  It only takes a moment to break free of the inanimate grasp and join Epic in the floor below, but in that time I don't fail to notice the smirk of satisfaction that grows on his face and I know that my own expression is the exact opposite.
  
  Tiamat has joined the fray.
  
  That means that our own big hitters will also be joining in the vain hope that they might actually be able to stop her.
  
  "How about you just give up?" Epic 'kindly' suggests, "it's not like you lot could beat Her, even if she was alone. If you come peacefully I can put in a good word to lower your sentence."
  
  Despite the polite tone he's using, I find myself getting even more pissed off at him and the fact that I know he is doing it on purpose just to get this exact reaction out of me just pisses me off even more.
  
  "Don't talk like it's already over!" I shout as I charge forward once again, crashing through a line of golems made from office ware that try to stop me to no effect, the materials simply not sturdy enough to have any effect.
  
  However, right as I am about to reach Epic again, I notice a bunch of sunbeams appearing on the floor, like the shade of a tree, making me look up.
  
  The sight of hundreds of humanoid golems coming crashing down on me will be forever burned into my mind as Tiamat seemingly decided to simply turn the 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 into golems.
  
  The weight of it is enough to bring me crashing down into the bottom floor, but before I impact the ground, I quickly twist myself so that I am vertical.
  
  When I hit the ground, I make use of my power to not bend or buckle, using my own body as a spear to dig through the pile of golems, and using the floor as extra leverage, I jump with all my strength, the boost in speed allowing me to break through the pile of debris.
  
  Not expecting such a sudden counter attack, Epic is caught unprepared as I launch my battered form straight into him.
  
  Pushing my power as hard as I can, I manoeuvre until I have him in a choke hold, barely even noticing as we fly over the main battle and ignoring a sudden chorus of agonised screams to focus on knocking Epic out.
  
  Struggling to breathe, Epic writhes around in my grasp, launching sporadic blasts of energy that do nothing.
  
  Eventually, Epics struggles start to cease, until he stops moving entirely, falling unconscious.
  
  Then, without thinking I simply let go of him, our fight over, and let him drop to the ground as I survey the situation below.
  
  The first thing I notice is how much of a chaotic mess the street is in, but after looking at it for a moment longer, I start to see the pattern to the chaos.
  
  The second thing is the sheer 𝘯𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 of golems Tiamat has, and still is, erecting. From the horde keeping Cu boxed in, to the golems moving to join the already impressive horde around the Argonauts, more noticeable due to the orange men made out of dried containment foam.
  
  Then I turn to see the final part of the battlefield and am shocked into stillness by the sight of the charred and half melted bodies decorating the side of the street, just outside of the ring of PRT armoured trucks.
  
  It's then, with startling clarity, that I realise that we are losing.
  
  We are losing badly, and it is all because of Tiamat. Without her, the battle immediately turns to our favour.
  
  The thought turns my attention back to the woman in question, and in doing so, brings Epic back into my line of sight, making me realise something.
  
  He's going to die.
  
  Without his flight, a fall from this height will kill him.
  
  For some reason it takes me a moment to realise why that even matters, but then the realisation hits me with the force of a semi.
  
  "SHIT!" With a curse, I dive down after him as fast as I can, but I am not fast enough and he impacts the ground with a sickening crunch only moments before I reach it, just a mere dozen or so feet away from Tiamat herself.
  
  Fuck, is all I can think as I look at the definitely dead hero.
  
  "NOOOOOO!" Comes a grief stricken cry that shocks me out of my reverie, making me turn to the side, my mind still too chocked to think about flying.
  
  That proves to be my undoing as the moment I turn I am greeted by the sight of an enraged Bungee's glowing fist engulfing my field of vision.
  
  Even knowing it can't hurt me, I still flinch back from the strike, only to suddenly be pulled back the way I came from, faceplanting into the ground.
  
  The impact doesn't effect me, but my mind is still occupied on why I would do something as stupid as dropping Epic to his death like that.
  
  Unless...
  
  Maybe I've been mastered?
  
  But why?
  
  I am brought out of my thoughts by a sudden feeling of danger, my hair standing on end like I am facing certain death.
  
  Frantically, I spin around, looking for the source of the feeling, only to stop dead in my tracks as I see a tower of black energy rampaging towards me.
  
  Recognising Excalibur's power at work and knowing just how dangerous it is, I immediately turn and attempt to flee, only to make it two metres before Bungee's power snaps me back to right were I was.
  
  I have no time to try anything else before overwhelming pain envelops my entire being as I feel myself being torn apart, down to the very molecules as darkness takes over the world.
  
  Then, nothing.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  I spent legitimately 20 minutes trying to come up with a funny chapter title, but I couldn't think of anything to go with 'Fight! 3' the way that electric boogaloo goes with 'anything 2', so I ended up using phrase finder to find phrases to do with 3 and ended up just making use of a Robert Frost quote, where he describes life in 3 words.
  
  There is an updated map with last chapters events on my profile too.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  41 Fight! 4 the Fourth
  A/N: Just saying but there's another updated map on my profile, though it's getting increasingly hard to understand lol
  
  Watching the chaos unfold around me, I can't help but gape in sheer 𝘢𝘸𝘦, even as I shake from excitement and honestly maybe a little bit of arousal at the same time.
  
  The sight is just so 𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵.
  
  Never in my life, have I ever felt so fulfilled as I do right now, watching this display of... 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘰𝘴~ and knowing that 𝘐 am the cause of it almost brings me to climax!~
  
  𝘈𝘩𝘩𝘩𝘯𝘯~ 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘢 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘰𝘰~
  
  I can't help the soft whine that leaves my throat at the thought, but no, I'm not a player in this game, so even if I want to, it would ruin it if I joined in, like playing capture the flag and the flag suddenly pulls out a gun and shoots you in the back.
  
  No, I can't ruin the game.
  
  Instead, I will just do my best to enjoy it, something I find very easy to do.
  
  While watching Bungee dance and weave his way through hordes of gangbangers is indeed an impressive sight, it simply lacks the... 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘰𝘴 I'm looking for, the mayhem.
  
  Same with on my other side, where Kitsune and some troopers are trading fire with with a bunch of them as if this is supposed to be trench warfare.
  
  It totally ruins the game if they don't actually 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 you know? Just hiding behind cover and trading fire doesn't count.
  
  At least those Argonauts know how to do it properly, standing out and facing the dastardly villains with bravery befitting their title.
  
  Sucks for them that they're so bad at it though, because as much as Atalanta is kick ass with that bow of hers, she kind of falls apart in CQC, leaving her teammates to pick up the slack, which at least one of them is doing.
  
  I honestly don't know which is who, but one of them is doing an amazing job of fighting Hermes with his staff, somehow keeping up with pure skill against an opponent much faster than him.
  
  The other one meanwhile is working together with Atalanta against Bathory and somehow they are still getting their assess kicked.
  
  Then again, I guess I can't be too harsh. It would be difficult to fight someone who can just straight up ignore any of your attacks.
  
  But her weakness is pretty easy to figure out, so they must not be the brains of their group for the fight to still be ongoing.
  
  Fortunately for my attention span, a sudden change brings about renewed interest as Dynamite makes his appearance, something that seems to spur the star of today's show into action as Tiamat finally comes out to play.
  
  That is enough to bring the chaos of the battle to a whole new level as the ground and the walls and everything else suddenly starts coming to life, taking shape until I am surrounded not just by armoured trucks, but by an army of fake men.
  
  𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵, is when the fighting picks up in earnest, as I watch Tiamat get engaged by the heavy hitters of the villains.
  
  I almost let out a whistle after glancing around in appreciation of how scary the dragon lady is.
  
  She's basically just fighting everyone herself, relegating the other heroes to support.
  
  But as fun as that is, I do notice one thing that rather annoys me.
  
  As much as everyone is fighting, no one is actually 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨.
  
  It brings me back to a conversation I had with Jinx where he was explaining some of the finer details of how capes operate. A lot of what he said seemed pretty stupid to me, like the 'unwritten rules'.
  
  Basically summed up as; don't target a capes families, don't unmask a cape and don't kill capes.
  
  Apparently it's something about keeping things from escalating and reducing collateral, but to be honest I stopped paying attention pretty quickly.
  
  But anyway, apparently capes tend to hold back a lot when they fight, like what's happening now, and I think that's boring.
  
  Which is why, even if I didn't fully believe him at the time, I still made sure to make preparations in case the fight wasn't fun enough.
  
  With that in mind, I bring one of my tails out, willing for it to be much smaller than it usually is, only moderately surprised when it comes out about half as wide as my leg.
  
  I wasn't actually sure if I could do that or not, but it's nice to know I can.
  
  I make it slide down my body, underneath my clothes until it hits the bottom of my pants. Here, I quickly look around to make sure no one is watching me and seeing that everyone in my immediate vicinity is otherwise occupied, I move.
  
  My ribbon strikes down on my foot, cutting it in half and grabbing it in the same movement.
  
  By the time I've dragged the cut off half to behind my back where my hands are tied, my foot has already grown back to full without blemish.
  
  Fiddling around for a second, I find it difficult to navigate behind me at first, but quickly get the hang of it and start looking for my secret ingredient.
  
  It is not difficult to find it, considering its solid glass material a stark contrast with my own squishy flesh.
  
  After grabbing the little tube, I quickly stuff my foot in my mouth and swallow it down with only a couple of bites.
  
  No reason to leave myself lying around after all.
  
  Finally, after all of that, I have in my hands a vial filled with a compressed gas that mini James somehow cooked up that supposedly lowers the inhibitions of anyone it comes into contact with.
  
  Of course, I made sure he made me an antidote first, though considering his specialty is 'anti-something' drugs, he insisted that I call the antidote an 'anti-anti-inhibitions' drug.
  
  Shrugging my shoulders, I crush the vial in my grasp, allowing it to quickly spread through the air.
  
  It's colourless, but not completely odourless, at least not to someone with enhanced senses like me anyway.
  
  Obviously I wasn't expecting any immediate changes, so I went back to watching the Argonauts, though at this point it's more like I'm just watching Tiamat fight.
  
  What was two villains beating up three heroes, has suddenly turned into three villains getting beaten around while three heroes take pot shots.
  
  Seriously, being able to turn into steel doesn't do much against an army of golems, some of whom are also made from steel, though I will admit, it is very, very cathartic to watch Dynamite getting his ass kicked so thoroughly.
  
  As for the other two, Hermes' speed doesn't really help him much when he's fighting against a hive mind of mannequins. I give him another twenty seconds before he's out.
  
  Then there's Bathory. honestly, it just makes me even more disappointed in the Argonauts that even when she's not actually here, Tiamat could still figure out how to win, while also fighting how many other battles?
  
  See, Bathory seems to have some kind of limit to how long she can be in her mist form, and the amount of time she has spend as mist has been going down with the fight, making me think it's a case of needing to breathe.
  
  Thus, the obvious counter is to just keep the pressure up so that she has to stay as mist until she can't anymore, which Tiamat is doing just fine.
  
  Right as it looks like the villains are about to be defeated, a series of piercing, agonised screams ring out, rapidly bringing my attention to my right side, where Kitsune is.
  
  What I see makes my grin turn even more feral. I have no doubt that behind my mask my smile is wide enough to show far too many teeth.
  
  I guess the drug is working.
  
  I watch as Kitsune's fire tears through a crowd of men, reducing them to cinders or even better, leaving them alive but half melted to the ground.
  
  It takes all of my willpower to not burst out into the mad cackling that I am desperate to release, something that gets even harder as a pair of people fly overhead.
  
  Epic and Uncle Tom.
  
  Watching Epic die was a little upsetting, because I did actually quite like him, but honestly that just makes this even funnier.
  
  Think about it, I set all this up, fully intending for a lot of people to get hurt, and yet I end up hurting even myself, isn't that just hilarious?
  
  My shoulders start shaking even harder as I desperately try to hold in my laughter.
  
  Then, it becomes clear that the drug really is kicking in as Bungee goes and sticks ole Tom to the ground, following which Excalibur disengages from the monster cat and launches a beam of death at Tom.
  
  Wait a minute.
  
  You do realise that Tom is standing in between you and the ring of troopers, right Cali?
  
  I fail to hold in a few chuckles as I am forced to wriggle to the side in order to avoid the tower of dark energy that engulfs Tommy boy and then proceeds to 𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦 it's way through the formation of trucks, carving a straight line almost through it's centre.
  
  Honestly, I wasn't actually expecting there to be friendly fire, not that I am complaining. I am certainly happy about this development.
  
  As if Excalibur's attack was some kind of hidden signal, everyone seems to step up all at once.
  
  I briefly spot Kitsune attacking Dovah and Merlin now that there aren't anymore normals in the way before my attention returns to my front as I see Cath's gigantic form crashing into the horde of golems around her boss.
  
  However, that is about all the villains manage to accomplish as Tiamat's golems start shifting, their hands turning into claws and swords as their bodies stop seeming do humanoid, turning to efficiency over aesthetic as they change into killing machines that quickly dogpile the pair.
  
  At the same time, off to the side I see Avalon kicking Eraser's ass, wailing on the man even after he falls to the ground, decorating his hands and the area around Eraser's face with tantalising blood.
  
  Following the sound of another scream, and ignoring the way my head is snapping around like a kid in a candy store, I get to watch as Hermes is skewered by three spear like limbs, while Bathory seems to reform unconscious thanks to Tiamat's relentless barrage of attacks.
  
  Unfortunately for her, Tiamat doesn't seem to much care about the fact that she is unconscious and proceeds to beat her into the ground anyway.
  
  Damn, she really is just a one woman army.
  
  Even with the strength both of them are capable of, Cath and Cu both fail utterly to even get close enough to hurt Tiamat, especially once the three other heroes around her join in.
  
  Well, I think it's fair to say that this is a win for the heroes.
  
  Heh, as if.
  
  What is a good show without a plot twist at the end after all?
  
  With that thought driving me, I carefully bite my tongue off and once it has regrown, I use my new tongue to search for the tube I had hidden inside of it.
  
  After all, I was turning myself in to the heroes, they would obviously confiscate any of my stuff, so I had to figure out a way to sneak in my surprises, and I was pretty sure they checked the ole holes.
  
  They didn't, but whatever, better to be safe than sorry.
  
  With my regeneration, it was no problem to hide stuff inside of me, since I can just get it out like right now.
  
  After a bit of struggling, I eventually point one end of the tube a little bit out of my mouth, and then I realise that my mask doesn't have a mouth hole.
  
  𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘩
  
  Quickly bringing one of my tails back out, in it's miniature form again, I use it to lift my mask up a little, then I puff my cheeks and I 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘸.
  
  The needle inside of the tube flies straight and true, managing to hit the draconic woman in the thigh from where she stands, thirty feet away from me without her even realising it.
  
  I wonder how this will change things.
  
  Who knows, maybe the heroes can still pull through? They do have the numbers advantage now after all.
  
  A moment passes and then without and warning whatsoever, each and every golem suddenly grumbles to the ground.
  
  The battlefield stills as everyone looks at Tiamat in shock and confusion, though none look quite as confused or shocked as the woman herself.
  
  There we go, that should even things out a little bit.
  
  Was that a good use of my last 'fuck your powers' drug? Probably not, but I think it's worth it.
  
  A good show is forever after all.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  I started writing this after being awake for 24+hours again, not really very happy with how it turned out but eh, what can you do.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  42 Fight! 5 It Don't Stop Coming
  A/N: Once again, new map on my profile
  
  Ethan wasn't used to cheering for villains, which makes sense, considering his now former occupation.
  
  Yes, former. It seems the life of Madcap, jail buster extraordinaire has come to an end.
  
  Not that he ever actually broke anyone out of any prisons, but he did make a living breaking people out of prison transports to the birdcage.
  
  After all, the birdcage is the kind of prison where they truly lock you away and throw away the key.
  
  No one knows where it is, aside from probably being in Canada. No one knows how it works, all we know is that no one has ever escaped.
  
  There are a number of people who don't even believe it's real and that anyone sentenced to the birdcaged just gets shot or something.
  
  Either way, Ethan set out to spare people from that fate, for a fair price of course.
  
  That was until a sexy new Hero decided to stop him and after failing seven times, she actually managed to succeed.
  
  Thankfully for the man formally known as Madcap, the PRT was willing to offer him a deal.
  
  His only condition was that he be partnered with the Hero who caught him, Battery.
  
  Naturally, with her calling herself Battery, Ethan couldn't help himself and called his new Heroic persona Assault.
  
  Ahhh, the glare she wore when she heard it, it still makes him smile thinking about it.
  
  The best part is that they've only been partners for a day, so there is plenty of fun to be had.
  
  With all of this in mind, Ethan is slowly getting used to being a Hero, rather than a villain.
  
  Which is why, Ethan is not used to cheering for the Heroes.
  
  But when he was scrolling through the web, looking for something to do, since he's not allowed out unless it's with a 'fellow' Hero until his probationary status runs out, he came across a livestream by some clown guy calling himself Fool.
  
  At first he thought it'd be something fun, he is dressed like a clown after all, and Ethan loves fun. But alas, he instead ended up watching a cape fight.
  
  Not just that, but quite possibly the largest cape fight he's ever seen. In fact, he's only ever heard of Endbringer fights having so many parahumans.
  
  At first it seemed like it would be a classic case of villains underestimating Heroes as Tiamat seemed to have everything under control, more or less, which is expected of the only cape he recognised of the bunch.
  
  That was until everything started going to hell in a handbasket.
  
  Ethan was gripping the arms of his chair so hard that the only reason it wasn't being crushed under his grip was the active use of his power.
  
  When that black beam shot through the ring, he thought it couldn't get any worse. But apparently dozens of people dying just wasn't enough as Tiamat's golems start tearing the villains to pieces, ending life after life.
  
  Until, she wasn't.
  
  All of a sudden, the army of false life just suddenly 𝘧𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵.
  
  "Woah~ looks like someone's having performance issues.~" The Clown says, though Ethan hardly pays him any mind.
  
  Instead, he is focused on the single thought that he can manage before the chaos before him redoubles.
  
  𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬?
  
  The question of why did she stop dies before it can form as one of Cu Chulainn's spears sails through the air in the next instant, making full use of the sudden opening.
  
  With everyone still in a mix of shock and confusion, nobody is able to react in time as the spear pierces straight through Tiamat's chest, the force of the throw dragging her body backwards until she is pinned to the side of one of the remaining PRT trucks.
  
  Ethan can only gape in horror as the villains push their new advantage with renewed vigour.
  
  Maybe becoming a Hero was actually a stroke of fortune, he thinks, if it means being given the chance to stop scenes like this.
  
  ...
  
  It wasn't supposed to go like this, is all Sydney can think as she watches her boss' spear pin Tiamat to a truck.
  
  It was supposed to be a simple retrieval. We go in, grab the Clown and leave. That's it. There wasn't supposed to be some big fight.
  
  Yet, so many people have died, friends and enemies alike. All I wanted was to get Sean back, but we've already lost more people than we were hoping to gain and now Tiamat's dead or dying.
  
  I don't know what will come of her death, but one thing I do know is that it won't be good for us.
  
  Frankly, the Red Branch might just be dead.
  
  But that doesn't mean I'm just going to stop. Not now, not here and especially not when the bitch responsible for all of this is sitting around right in front of me.
  
  I just hope Merlin is ok.
  
  However a fight isn't the time to think about such things, so instead of dwelling on my thoughts, I focus on getting the people in front of me out of my way.
  
  Excalibur makes the mistake of launching a beam at Cu, something that he dodges with ease, giving me enough time to close the distance.
  
  Raising my four front paws, I slam them both for Excalibur, planning to get their offence out of the way first by pancaking him.
  
  Predictably, his fellows get in the way, Bungee making a screen of his power that absorbs my attack to no effect and Avalon who just stands in the way, my arm breaking from the force it impacts him.
  
  But that's fine, I was never supposed to succeed in the first place.
  
  As Cu likes to say, people love having a target to focus on, so what's better for grabbing peoples attention than a gigantic monster bob-cat like me?
  
  With both of them holding me in place, Excalibur is free to launch another blast directly on my chest, but once again it does no damage, even if the force sends me stumbling back.
  
  However, as I stumble, Cu charges in, making use of their distraction and Excalibur's cooldown to land a solid right hook that sends the man sprawling to the ground.
  
  In the same movement he spins and strikes the blunt end of his spear into Bungee's forehead, faster than he can react to it, putting him down.
  
  At the same time, Avalon lands a punch on Cu's back, but his Brute rating is enough that he doesn't even react to it, but just the same, Avalon doesn't react to his return punch.
  
  But already knowing how his power works, Cu is ready.
  
  The moment Avalon freezes, Cu stabs a pair of spears into the ground around him, then he does so again, until he has no more spears left and Avalon is trapped in a newly created cage, unable to move.
  
  That's when I join him and as much as I want to go and rip the bitch in front of me to pieces, I still wait for Cu to direct me.
  
  "Go help out Merlin. I'll have a nice chat with the clown." He says, his eyes not leaving the woman who is still sitting in the centre of the chaos looking incredibly relaxed for someone sitting in the eye of the metaphorical storm.
  
  Still, I don't need to be told twice and quickly start running towards the fire slinger that's giving Merlin a tough time.
  
  It only takes me a couple of bounds to reach her, to which she twists around and throws a ring of fire at my face that burns nothing.
  
  Not in the mood to bother with giving her a chance to speak, I simply bat her to the side, sending her flying into one of the relatively untouched trucks.
  
  With that done, Merlin and Dovah make their way over, both sweating rather heavily.
  
  "Hey Cat, thanks for the assist." He says with a smile that I cannot match in this form.
  
  All of our heads snap to the same direction as we hear a scream, one that did not belong to Tear as I expected it would, instead being the Argonauts who are being beset upon by a pack of spectral wolves and an angry silver man.
  
  "It's about fucking time he did something", Merlin says before turning to Dovah, "why is he only now helping huh?"
  
  Dovah suddenly starts looking nervous, glancing between Merlin and I before sighing, understanding the position he is in and answering honestly.
  
  "He was supposed to grab the bitch while everyone was distracted. Obviously we didn't think things would end up like this." He says and although I want to be mad at him, I just can't.
  
  The grief in his voice is just too real and too relatable right now. After all, at least one of his friends is now dead and his leader might be joining the fallen, if he hasn't already.
  
  With that in mind, I just let out a huff and turn to join Cu, who is crouched down in front of Tear, just staring at her in silence while she shakes.
  
  Dovah meanwhile, sees that his teammates have the Argonauts under control and runs over to Eraser, hoping beyond hope that he is still alive.
  
  Cu briefly tilts his head to acknowledge our presence before focusing back on Tear, who is still shaking, almost violently.
  
  At first I thought it was out of fear, something that Merlin clearly thinks as well, going by what he asks Cu.
  
  "What did you say to her to get her shaking so much Boss?" He says, trying to sound conversational but failing to hide the way his eyes drift towards Hermes' still form, littered with holes.
  
  But that is when Tear starts laughing.
  
  𝘓𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨.
  
  As if this is something to laugh about!
  
  I feel my rage growing at her 𝘩𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 laughter and right as I am about to lash out, Cu stops me, resting one of his arms on my front right paw.
  
  After a moment, during which the only sound of the now still battlefield is that of her mad laughter, she eventually manages to collect herself enough for Cu to attempt conversation.
  
  "You think this funny? Dozens of my men have died today, hundreds of men overall, and you 𝘓𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩? Tell me, what is so funny."
  
  As much as he sounds casual, there is a steel to his voice that anyone could notice, a rage hidden behind his words.
  
  Apparently, this woman is either oblivious or stupid, as she elects to ignore that steel.
  
  "Hahaha- you said- hah- you said it yourself no? So much destruction, so much death~ hahaha! Can't you see!~ Haha isn't it just such a laugh!? Hahaha" She says, her voice filled with laughter and madness.
  
  Filled with shock, I tilt my head so I can look her directly in the eyes, and what I see somehow manages to scare me.
  
  Don't get it mistaken, the woman herself doesn't scare me in the slightest.
  
  But those eyes, those pulsing crimson orbs are something else.
  
  Filled with malice and malice and insanity and blood and 𝘦𝘤𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘺.
  
  It's then that I realise, she isn't just happy about this, she 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 for this, this madness.
  
  She is truly, insane.
  
  The two with me seem to come to the same conclusions if their visible discomfort is anything to go by, and Cu decides to just get to the point.
  
  "Equaliser. You are going to tell me where he is." Cu demands, only to receive more laughter in response.
  
  "Hehehe- why should I tell you? Haha, you're going to kill me anyway~, so why should I?~ Hahahehehe" She laughs, falling to her side as her laughter becomes too much, not helped by the chains binding her.
  
  "You will tell me, or I will make you tell me." Cu demands again, however this time his words seem to suddenly sober her up as her laughter cuts off without warning, leaving her smiling eyes staring directly at Cu in silence.
  
  "Oh~~ and how to you plan on doing that exactly, hmm?~ Torture?~ I'm afraid it's a bit too late for that.~" Her voice comes out with it's own chilliness, a strange mix between jovial and dangerous.
  
  "It doesn't have to be you. I lost loyal friends today, perhaps I should return the favour and take from you?" Cu says, his anger colouring his tone more than before.
  
  However, Tear remains unphased, drooping her head to the ground as she answers in a strange tone.
  
  "Will you now?~ Well, I won't mind if you do. But you might find it a difficult task. After all," Here she pauses momentarily, just long enough to look back up at us, her closed eyes somehow conveying her smile through her mask.
  
  "𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺'𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘭𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘺.~"
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Gotta get a Kakashi reference in there.
  
  This fight scene has been kicking my ass and it's finally coming to an end.. hopefully.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
  previous chapternext chapterchapter list
  43 Fight! 6 There's a Second Phase?
  A/N: Final map update on my profile :)
  
  Looking at the trio in front of me, I can't help but lament that maybe getting Tiamat out of the picture skewed the balance of the fight a little bit more than I first realised.
  
  Really, I thought that doing so would lead to a long and close battle, but from the time Tiamat's powers shut down to all the heroes being out of commission must have been less than a minute.
  
  Still, I have no regrets. If I am to die here then I will die happy, having just witness the greatest show of my life.
  
  Not that I am simply going to lie down and die, but escaping from the two capes in front of me will certainly not be easy.
  
  Oh, and I guess Merlin is here too, but he's kinda weak so I don't bother thinking about him.
  
  Perhaps sensing my reticence, Cu Chulainn gives up on trying to intimidate me and instead crouches down to eye level, giving me a rather intense look.
  
  "You've had your fun, haven't you? What purpose is there in leaving Equaliser to die? It's not like you will be able to see anything that comes of it, so in these last moments of yours, could you please just do something nice, and tell me where my friend is. Please?"
  
  Moved by the honest plea and the vulnerability he is showing, I can't help but review my actions with guilt and remorse and decide to do my best to atone by telling him what he wants to know.
  
  ... Heh, as if.
  
  Instead of any of that, I smile as I start talking, making sure that my tone is as mocking as I can make it as I do so.
  
  "Gee, if you insist, fine then.~ Though I hope you're a good runner,~ cuz I'd give him, ehhh, about, half an hour? Something like that, I don't know what the time is. But last I saw him he was in pretty bad shape~ I don't know who hurt him, but I'm sure it was deserving~ either way, he has less than an hour left if he doesn't get treated.~"
  
  Without any warning, I am suddenly eating tarmac as a strong hand smashes my head into the ground hard enough to crack the ground and shatter my mask.
  
  Luckily, I still had my backup masks and as they are cloth rather than hard, they don't shatter.
  
  Which is good considering that without being given a chance to say anything, my head is hoisted up and then slammed back down again.
  
  Then a few more times just for good measure, until the ground is caked in blood and my face is deformed and broken.
  
  Ow.
  
  Pulling me up by my hair, Cu brings our faces close together as he breathes out a single demand through gritted teeth.
  
  "Tell. Me. Where he is." He says with incredible intensity, not even commenting on my maskception.
  
  With a smile on my freshly healed face, I give him his answer.
  
  "Corner of Hawthorne avenue, the house with the blue roof." I lie.
  
  It's not like he can tell after all, so I just said some random location that is about thirty minutes away by car.
  
  The truth is that the loser is probably already dead. After all, he only needed to be alive long enough to convince their comrades to try and save them.
  
  "Run fast~ time's running out.~" I mock as Cu lets me go and gets to his feet, turning to his companions.
  
  "You two check on Bathory, then go find where the fuck Sieg is and meet me back in the usual place." He orders before turning to me.
  
  "As for you. Well, it's like you said. You're already dead."
  
  The moment he says that, I burst forth with all of my speed, all of my tails forming behind me to push me even faster.
  
  The chains binding me break easily, as they didn't use the super tough restraints on account of my cooperativeness.
  
  In less time than it takes to blink, I am upon Cu, intending to kick him away and make a run for it.
  
  Only for him to sidestep my kick with ease and then drive his arm straight through my chest, obliterating my heart.
  
  Suddenly impaled, I freeze and look down at the arm piercing me and feel a globule of blood rise up my throat, only to be coughed up inside of my mask, splattering my face with blood.
  
  Huh.
  
  Then, again without saying anything, he rips his arm out and grabs me by the leg, picking my body up in a dizzying movement only to 𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘮 me back into the ground with incredible strength, shattering every single bone in my body.
  
  "You regenerators are tough, but you always have limits." I distantly hear him saying before the next think I know is his boot descending upon me.
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘩
  
  A field of beautiful and familiar red flowers that I now know to be spider lilies greet me.
  
  It takes a moment for me to gather my bearings and understand what is going on before it hits me.
  
  "Am I dead?" I ask no one in particular, not really all that surprised when I receive an answer anyway.
  
  "Unfortunately not dear." I hear from behind me.
  
  Turning around, I am greeted with a familiar sight.
  
  "Mom. You look well." I greet, ignoring her apparent opinions on the fortune of my continued life.
  
  "Thank you. A shame I can't return the sentiment." She teases, making me smile as the tension in my shoulders that I didn't even know was there relaxes.
  
  "So, I'm not dead?" I ask, making her roll her eyes.
  
  "Not yet."
  
  "I distinctly remember Cu's boot coming down on my face, and I'm pretty sure that means my head is going to pop like a grape." Is my dry response.
  
  "So? You'll get better."
  
  Huh, well that's good to know.
  
  "Cool, but that doesn't really explain what is happening right now. Why are you here? Last time it was to berate me." I ask, not quite pouting.
  
  "I'm here to berate you of course." She says with saccharine cheer.
  
  "Of course." I blandly echo.
  
  "Say, do you even know what your power is?" She asks, confusing me for multiple reasons.
  
  "The part with the tentacles and super strength or the part with the fucked up genie in the shape of my mother that doesn't actually even grant wishes?" Comes my biting remark.
  
  "The former." She says without missing a beat.
  
  Sighing to myself, I resign myself to just going along with whatever fever dream is happening right now.
  
  It worked out well enough last time after all. If it ain't broke and all that.
  
  "My power enhances my body and gives me tentacles of freaky blood muscle, while also making me eat people." I answer, feeling like a kid getting called on in class.
  
  𝘚𝘪𝘨𝘩.
  
  "You are a smart girl Lusia, you really are. So 𝘸𝘩𝘺 is it that you seem to choose to be such an idiot?"
  
  I just shrug my shoulders at her accusing tone.
  
  "Dumb people have way more fun than smart people. Besides, what have I done for you to call me an idiot haah?"
  
  The both of us just stare at each other in silence for a moment.
  
  "... Ok, apart from kinda but apparently not dying. But that was for a good cause do it doesn't count!" I quickly defend my reckless actions, as I am fully willing to die for my entertainment.
  
  Shaking her head at me, my mom walks closer to me and cups one of my cheeks with her palm. I don't do anything to stop her.
  
  "Your power is so much 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 than you have realised. If you'd just pay a little bit of attention to it, you would have realised as well." She says, confusing me as I try to think about what she is alluding to.
  
  She interrupts my thoughts by continuing her own words.
  
  "You have been limiting yourself. You think of your power as just the tentacles, not even considering it taking any other shape. You are holding yourself back. Haven't you been feeling your back 𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘦?"
  
  I have, for a while actually, my back has been itching like crazy but I've just been ignoring it honestly.
  
  "Stop holding yourself back. Just let it all go. Let everything out." She says, like the whispers of the devil.
  
  Deciding to trust her, I do as she says.
  
  I feel deep within myself, into that metaphysical well that I draw from to manifest my tails.
  
  I feel it, feel what is contained within me.
  
  Then I simply relax.
  
  I stop controlling it, stop trying to keep it in line or bounding it to any particular thoughts.
  
  I just let everything go.
  
  For a moment, I bask in the warm feeling that spreads through my being, like being enveloped in a warm hug, but a million times better.
  
  Then, I open my eyes.
  
  ...
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘩
  
  Watching Boss splatter the little psycho's skull across the road might just be the most satisfying thing I have ever seen.
  
  The only thing that could have made it better is if it was me who did it, but I'm not picky.
  
  After checking her pulse to make sure she's dead since you can never be sure with regenerators, Merlin and I watch Boss rush away, heading for Equaliser as fast as he can and I can only hope he makes it in time.
  
  "C'mon Cat, let's go see if Bat has kicked it or not." Merlin says, dragging my attention away from the corpse as he tries to help my mood with levity.
  
  Unfortunately, I can hear the grief in his voice just as well as I can feel my own.
  
  As we walk over to Bathory, which just happens to be where the remainder of the Street Saints have gathered, standing around Dynamite who is nursing a bad arm, one thought comes to the forefront of my mind.
  
  What a shitty day today has been.
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬!
  
  Both of us still at the cracking sound that reverberates through the empty street, only to be followed by even more cracks mixed with a disgusting squelching noise.
  
  Slowly, almost but not quite fearfully, we turn back to the source of the noise.
  
  There, where Tear lay broken and dead, we can see clearly as her body rapidly puts itself back together, flesh bubbling and growing as it fills in the gap where her heart was as well as rebuilding her entire head.
  
  It is disgusting to watch, yet compelling in its own morbidly fascinating way.
  
  Only, it doesn't stop.
  
  Even after her body is rebuilt, her flesh keeps bubbling, keeps growing.
  
  Strange, chitinous-esque armour flows and wraps around her torso, shaded an obsidian black tainted only the slightest bit by hints of a purple hue. It continues to grow, as her recognisable ribbons burst out of her back, now numbered six, still pulsing with that eldritch purple mixed with the red of fresh blood.
  
  Then, as if that wasn't enough, a massive, thick tail of mulched flesh pushes its way out just below the ribbons, easily as thick as her body, until it stretches to five feet away from her and suddenly splits itself into dozens of tiny tentacles, each a small part of one whole.
  
  Too shocked by the sight, none of us move a muscle as she continues to grow, the chitinous flesh growing over her arms until they are hulking, dragging on the floor beneath her, each arm as wide as her waist and topped in vicious looking claws.
  
  Then, the creature before us leans forwards, hunching itself from where it now stands, facing away from us, as from her back, a pair of crimson and purple clouds of cackling energy 𝘣𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘴 its way out of her back in some twisted mockery of sprouting wings.
  
  The creatures new limbs start swaying and dancing around, like a scorpions tail they sway about, as if they are exploring a new environment, testing the limits of their manoeuvrability.
  
  A few moments pass in silence as we all collectively gape at the horror before us until I decide to take action, planning on putting it down for real this time.
  
  Only, as soon as I take my first step, each of the abominations new limbs 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘪𝘭 followed by stilling completely.
  
  Then it moves, straightening itself out for a moment, only to tilt backwards, as if it is going to fall over.
  
  Mid way through it's fall however, it catches itself with it's multitude of tails, it's arms laying uselessly by its side as it twists its head diagonally, making a horrible cracking noise like it's breaking it's own neck just to look at us.
  
  When I finally do see its face, I watch as its blood pours over it, hardening to form a pure white mask that covers it's face without any openings.
  
  That is, until the lower half of the mask cracks open, transforming into a maw of razor-esque teeth, already dripping with saliva as a too long tongue lolls out of it's mouth, hanging off from the side of the mask.
  
  "𝘿𝙤𝙉'𝙩 𝙔𝙤𝙐 𝙜𝙀𝙩 𝙄𝙩?" It says in a distorted, dangerous voice that sends shivers of genuine fear down my spine.
  
  "𝙇𝙞𝙁𝙚 𝙄𝙨 𝘼 𝙘𝙄𝙧𝘾𝙪𝙎. 𝙞𝙏'𝙨 𝘼𝙡𝙇 𝙟𝙐𝙨𝙏 𝙢𝙀𝙖𝙉𝙞𝙉𝙜𝙇𝙚𝙎𝙨 𝙀𝙣𝙏𝙚𝙍𝙩𝘼𝙞𝙉𝙢𝙀𝙣𝙏."
  
  With that chilling statement as a signal, it 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘴.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  My god, this boss fight has a second phase!
  
  Don't worry, the fight will finally end next chapter... hopefully.
  
  God I hope it ends next chapter.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
  previous chapternext chapterchapter list
  44 Fight! 7 Final Phase
  In a blink, the monstrous new form of Tear disappears, reappearing upside-down above Dynamite.
  
  Held in place by a pulsing violet ribbon each, Dynamites limbs are spread wide, with the other two ribbons piercing the ground in front of and behind him in order to hold Tear up above him, alongside her hulking arms standing either side of him.
  
  As it hovers above him, it's head looks straight down, bending at a 90 degree angle that hurts to look at, making it's brown hair that is showing ugly white roots dangle beneath her.
  
  It opens it's grotesque mouth, saliva dripping down onto Dynamite as it's distorted voice sounds out.
  
  "𝙎𝙢𝙀𝙡𝙇𝙨 𝙇𝙞𝙆𝙚 𝙂𝙖𝙍𝙗𝘼𝙜𝙀, 𝙜𝘼𝙧𝘽𝙖𝙂𝙚, 𝙂𝙖𝙍𝙗𝘼𝙜𝙀, 𝙮𝙊𝙪𝙍 𝙛𝙊𝙧𝙈 𝙞𝙎 𝙜𝘼𝙧𝘽𝙖𝙂𝙚."
  
  While saying this, it lowered itself down until their faces are only a foot apart, at the same time, it's thick tail carefully moves down to Dynamite, splitting into dozens of thin copies halfway through.
  
  "M-monster." Dynamite stutters, horrified and shaking as much as his bindings allow.
  
  Suddenly, the tiny tentacles burst forward into his body, striking in different places before slowly pushing themselves further into his body, making him scream out as unbearable agony suffuses his entire body.
  
  Even with flesh of steel, the tentacles pierce his body with ease and begin digging their way through his bones and organs until his body stills, incapable of moving without the threads of blood allowing it.
  
  As this is happening, the monster simply stares down at him, it's face carving into a far too wide smile as it's cracked jaw starts salivating even more, like a ravenous beast.
  
  Yet it does not strike, seemingly lost in simply watching, mumbling to itself in a voice that sounds like ten.
  
  "𝑻𝒉𝑰𝒔 𝒊𝑺 𝑴𝒚 𝒓𝑶𝒐𝑴, 𝑫𝒐 𝒀𝒐𝑼 𝒍𝑰𝒌𝑬 𝒊𝑻? 𝒑𝑼𝒕 𝑻𝒉𝑹𝒐𝑼𝒈𝑯 𝒕𝑯𝒆 𝑹𝒊𝑵𝒈𝑬𝒓."
  
  It's insane ramblings and the odd clicking sound being made as her appendages wave around, as if a new-born, curious about the world, make the scene even more alien, increasing the fear of everyone present to the point that they cannot even bring themselves to move, silently listening as the monster rambles on, making no sense.
  
  "𝑾𝒂𝑺𝒕𝑬 𝒏𝑶𝒕, 𝒘𝑨𝒔𝑻𝒆 𝑵𝒐𝑻. 𝒏𝑰𝒏𝑬 𝒉𝑼𝒏𝑫𝒓𝑬𝒅 𝑨𝒏𝑫 𝒏𝑰𝒏𝑬𝒕𝒀 𝒕𝑯𝒓𝑬𝒆! 𝑯𝒆𝑯𝒆𝑯𝒆!"
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬.
  
  The sounds of bones breaking rings out like an unholy gong, shocking everyone out of their trances as they notice how Dynamite has just broken his own finger.
  
  Except before anyone can even react, Dynamite suddenly starts to bloat, his face locked into a rictus of pain, his mouth open in a silent scream as his body starts to slowly expand.
  
  Then, the expansion suddenly accelerates immensely, his body 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 outwards in a horrific display of human anatomy, painting the street with blood and viscera.
  
  The sudden turn of events make everyone watching recoil in disgust and shock, yet, when Dovah reflexively steps backwards, his foot kicks a piece of debris over, making a clanking noise.
  
  A noise that immediately causes the Monsters eyeless face to snap in his direction, its stretched smile seeming to have even more teeth than before.
  
  "𝒀𝒐𝑼 𝒕𝑨𝒍𝑲 𝒕𝑶𝒐 𝑴𝒖𝑪𝒉. 𝑷𝒓𝑬𝒕𝑻𝒚 𝑭𝒍𝑶𝒘𝑬𝒓 𝑴𝒆𝑨𝒏𝑺 𝒅𝑬𝒂𝑻𝒉!~"
  
  With another burst of movement, the Monster rushes for Dovah, however before it reaches him, it is intercepted by an even larger monster as Cath moves to defend her fellow villain, even if they are not on the same side normally.
  
  "RUN!" Her giant form shouts, and even though she is normally impossible to understand in this form, everyone understood her meaning rather easily and only Merlin hesitates to obey.
  
  However after shouting her warning, Cath ignores the others and focuses all of her attention on the smaller, but far more monstrous thing before her.
  
  Ramming herself straight into it, Cath grabs the Monster in her jaw and bites down, only to be unable to bite all the way through, making her change strategies and start running as fast as she can head first into anything sturdy looking in sight, breaking through everything using the body in her mouth.
  
  But even after destroying multiple buildings with Tear not even trying to fight back or escape her grasp, Cath realises something.
  
  𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨.
  
  With that though diving me, I change tactics. Raising my snout high, I swing it down, releasing the thing from my grip and sending it crashing into the ground at a speed that would kill any normal human the moment they touched the ground, but I've already seen that that is enough.
  
  Before it even touched the ground however, I am already raising my paws, and I bring them down as hard as I can, repeatedly.
  
  The earth quakes as the sounds of my attacks reverberate like gunshots, but I don't stop, not until the ground in front of me is cratered and dust is everywhere in the air from the ruined building surrounding us.
  
  Finally stopping in my attacks I stand there, panting from excursion but not letting my guard down, as I wait for the dust to dissipate so that I can see how much damage I've done.
  
  Not that I have to wait long, as the dust cloud is suddenly blown away as the very air itself moves to grant me vision.
  
  I don't need to look to know it's Merlin, and as much as I want to tell him to leave, I know he won't listen. So instead I focus on the hole I made in the ground.
  
  Inside lay Tear. Her new form broken and battered, the chitinous armour covering her body cracked all around, or simply missing in places, while all her extra limbs lay helplessly by her side.
  
  I almost let myself believe that it's over for real this time, that she's finally dead.
  
  But then one of her 'wings' suddenly snaps up, followed by a soft sound that almost resembles a charge of electricity before a 𝘣𝘭𝘶𝘳 leaps forth from it, passing me by.
  
  My head follows the movement with delayed horror as I recognise the direction it is traveling and the moment I finish turning I am forced to witness as Merlin drops to the ground with a spike of white bone shot through hie left eye.
  
  It almost feels as if the world falls away and loses all meaning as my most precious person is taken from me before my very eyes, a deep and profound sense of sadness and grief filling me.
  
  That grief rapidly turns to rage but when I turn to the target of my rage, I see no one.
  
  Suddenly without a target for my anger, I start frantically looking around until I hear it.
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘩
  
  My head moves so fast that even transformed I'm surprised my neck didn't snap.
  
  There, using her gargantuan arms in place of her legs stands Tear with Merlin's body dangling in front of her, held up by her tentacles with one arm raised to Tear's cracked face where I can see that his hand is missing with fresh blood dripping down the Monsters porcelain face.
  
  "𝑱𝒖𝑺𝒕 𝑺𝒍𝑬𝒆𝑷 𝒊𝑵 𝒕𝑯𝒆 𝑻𝒓𝑼𝒄𝑲, 𝒊𝑫𝒊𝑶𝒕."
  
  In my state of shock, I ignore it's nonsensical words as I simply stare at where she defiled Merlin's body, idly noticing as all the damage I had done to it rapidly heals itself until it doesn't look any worse than at the beginning.
  
  No, in fact it looks 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 than how it started. More streamlined, like it's still improving.
  
  Then she takes another bite making me lose all senses of patience and simply charge her with a roar of pure loathing.
  
  As soon as I start moving, she tosses Merlin away like he's trash not worth her time and moves to meet me head on.
  
  She swings forward, landing on the ground with her own two feet and right before I reach her, she digs all six of her ribbons into the ground around her.
  
  Then when I swing down with my front two paws intending to repeat my actions earlier and crush her, she raises her own arms, almost as large as mine and swings both of them up, meeting mine in the middle.
  
  I expected to simply crush her with little resistance, but instead neither of our blows gain the advantage over the other.
  
  Instead, the impact causes a boom to sound off like a bomb as a shockwave spreads out around us, shattering the debris that makes up our battlefield into even smaller pieces thanks to the sheer force being released.
  
  However, while am I momentarily surprised by our even match enough to pause for a microsecond, Tear evidently isn't as her tail, now fully formed as a thick singular tentacle, whips itself around and into my side with incredible force, causing another booming noise to sound out as I am sent tumbling to the side.
  
  I quickly get to my feet and ready myself to defend or attack, only to see the Monster hovering itself 20 feet in the air, standing on her ribbons with her tail split up and splayed out behind her like a fucked up halo of gore, her crackling wings helping sell the image of a demonic, eldritch angel.
  
  "𝑾𝒉𝑨𝒕 𝑨 𝒍𝑨𝒖𝑮𝒉.~ 𝑰𝒕 𝑾𝒂𝑺 𝒂𝑵 𝒂𝑪𝒄𝑰𝒅𝑬𝒏𝑻!" It half yells, sounding playful at first and then suddenly defensive.
  
  But I don't care what it has to say. I only care that it dies.
  
  With no plan coming to mind, I stick with the basics and launch myself at it once again, not caring about strategy.
  
  Before I even get within arms reach of it, it's ribbons simply lift it slightly higher up making me fly under it, during which I see the ribbons all leave the ground and feel it land on my back.
  
  When I hit the ground, I immediately try to move, to shake the Thing off, but before I can even try, I feel a pair of heavy impacts right on the back of my head that drive me straight into the ground and even though I recover quickly, I am unable to move afterwards as it's ribbons wrap around me, locking my legs in place.
  
  At the same time, I feel the pair of massive arms wrap around my neck as Tear's masked face appears right in front of one of my eyes.
  
  The blank white mask with only a gaping maw of razor sharp teeth slowly starts to morph one again as I line cuts open vertically through the centre of the mask, starting at the middle and ending right at the top.
  
  That cut then starts to widen, to open and show what lies beneath.
  
  Slowly, a single blood red eye makes itself known, pulsing with malice and bloodlust and filled with violence, the single eye, far larger than any eye has the right to be, and it stares deep into my soul, filling me with a primal fear that I have never felt before in my life.
  
  Then, six more cuts open up, three either side of the large eye but horizontal this time. Each one is much smaller, matching the size of a normal persons eyes however once they open I can see that they hold the same sadistic glee within them.
  
  The eyes of the Monster stare at me for a moment, before it's horrid mouth opens once again and I can taste the coppery tang on it's breath as it speaks.
  
  "𝑪𝒐𝑵𝒔𝑻𝒓𝑼𝒄𝑻𝒊𝑶𝒏 𝑷𝒂𝑷𝒆𝑹. 𝒉𝑶𝒘 𝑭𝒂𝑹 𝒅𝑰𝒅 𝒀𝒐𝑼 𝒄𝑶𝒖𝑵𝒕?"
  
  It makes no sense and I can't understand it, but that doesn't change the way I start to shiver as my fear starts to overcome my anger, something that is only exemplified when her tail comes into view once more, dangling in front of my head.
  
  It splits into two and one half moves towards one of my eyes, while the other moves to the other.
  
  It's the moment that the two halves both split into many smaller tentacles that I realise what is about to happen.
  
  Closer and closer they come, my fear rocketing with each inch of distance they cross.
  
  Then, pain.
  
  Intense, unbearable 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯.
  
  I 𝘩𝘰𝘸𝘭 as agony envelops my mind and body.
  
  I feel myself screaming, 𝘳𝘰𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 in suffering but I cannot hear it over the feeling in my skull.
  
  But after what felt like hours, eventually it stops.
  
  The pain goes away.
  
  Everything, goes away.
  
  𝘐'𝘮 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘔𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘯.
  
  Meanwhile...
  
  "Our strength may be equal, but only I can fly! It's over Siegfried! I have the high ground!" Ashurbanipal shouts as she hovers threateningly above him.
  
  "You underestimate my power!" He screams in return, leaping at her.
  
  It will only be after another few hours have passed that either of them will learn about the other events of the day.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Fucking FINALLY! Dear god this fight killed me. You can bet that the story is going to be significantly more tear focused for a while, not to mention fuck writing any fighting in the next few chapters.
  
  Also, I have once again not gotten any sleep for 24 hours as of writing this.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  45 Morning After
  "With the death count at thirty six and rising and the number of injured still being counted, the PRT still refuses to give any comment on the health of the injured Heroes in yesterdays disaster, but it has been confirmed that Epic and Tiamat are among the number of the deceased. A loss that will surely be felt across the whole city as we all mourn their passing.
  
  "This disaster has been unlike anything our fair city has ever seen before and with the number of capes in the city dropping so drastically, the question on a lot of peoples minds right now is, where is the parahuman who was in the centre of this tragedy. Where is Tear, what is she going to do next and most importantly, what will that mean for us? This has been James Theodore, coming to you from CNN with more at six."
  
  Rubbing the bridge of my nose, I try my best to recall what happened yesterday, the images of the destruction I apparently caused doing little to help me.
  
  A few hours ago I woke up behind some dumpster in a dirty alley with very little recollection of how I got there and with nothing being apparent around me to say that the show is still going on, I assumed it to be over and headed home for a nice long shower.
  
  Only after getting washed and into a fresh change of clothes, making sure to put my new 'uniform' to the side to be washed since only the edges are flayed and I want to keep wearing it, did I make myself comfortable on the couch and turn on the spare TV that I hid from mini James.
  
  That lead to me seeing the news and getting rapidly confused by my own memory, or lack thereof.
  
  I remember the fight, the beautiful, 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘶𝘭 fight and I remember the villains winning and Cu Chulainn talking to me, but that's when things get blurry and everything after that is just blank.
  
  It doesn't help that the news is only showing the aftermath of the fight, rather than the fight itself, which I'm pretty sure Fool would have been recording.
  
  One thing I do notice however is that I feel 𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘨, like I just got the best massage in all of time.
  
  That's probably part of why I'm content to just wait here in the house for my fellow Clowns to get here, assuming they will even come here.
  
  Either way, I am beyond comfy and fully willing to just rest and relax for a while.
  
  Before I even realise it, I am jolted awake by the sound of a door slamming, not even having realised I fell asleep.
  
  Idly noticing that the news is still talking about my play, something that makes me smile, I turn to the source of the noise which was the back door slamming shut and am greeted by the sight of mini James running up to me with a thousand watt smile.
  
  Only for him to trip over his own feet and faceplant, letting me know that Jinx is here before he even turns the corner, but little James isn't bothered and just gets right back up and jumps at me, giving me a big ole hug, one that I return, spinning us around to disperse his momentum.
  
  Pulling back from the embrace, he looks at me with stars in his eyes, shaking from excitement.
  
  "That! Was! AWESOME!" He all but yells at me, making me smile even wider.
  
  "Hell yeah it was~ I am pretty awesome after all~" I say, not even needing to think to know what he's talking about, my voice filled with exaggerated ego in order to hide the actual ego underneath.
  
  That is when Jinx walks into the room, also with a smile on his face, one that holds too many emotions for me to properly understand.
  
  At least, he's happy. That much I can tell and that's all that really matters.
  
  "Yo~ when you said you had a good show planned, I gotta say that I never expected it to be quite as... 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘧𝘶𝘭 as that, though I certainly enjoyed it." He says as he meanders his way inside.
  
  As he is moving closer, Jinx instinctually takes a sudden side step, avoiding the light bulb as it disconnects from the ceiling and falls right where he was standing, shattering on impact.
  
  All three of us stare at the shattered bulb on the floor for a moment.
  
  "... Are you gonna pay for that?" I ask, my voice as dry as the Sahara.
  
  "Did 𝘺𝘰𝘶 pay for it?" He returns with a raised eyebrow, and I can only concede the point with a nod.
  
  Mini James happily takes the opportunity of the lull in conversation to but in, speaking a mile a minute.
  
  "Hey, what was that thing you did where you turned into a giant monster!? How come you never did it before? Can you do it again? I wanna see! Show me! Show me!"
  
  I cut of his energetic rambling by grabbing his face so he can't make any more noise, looking down at him with a smile.
  
  "Slow down you little tyke, I literally have no idea what you are talking about, what do you mean I transformed into a giant monster?" I ask, genuinely curious.
  
  However my words make the both of them give me funny looks as if they aren't sure whether or not I'm being serious.
  
  "... This is a joke, right?" Jinx says, sounding uncertain.
  
  Raising one of my eyebrows I turn to him.
  
  "Are you laughing?" I ask.
  
  "No."
  
  "Then obviously it isn't a joke. After all, I'm hilarious. If I was making a joke, you'd be laughing." I say, my voice full of mock seriousness, and I am vindicated when Jinx lets out a humours snort.
  
  "See? That was a joke, and you laughed." I say, chin raised with an exaugurated upper class tone of voice. "Now, would you actually explain to me what you mean when you say I transformed into a monster?"
  
  As I say that, I realise that Jinx is just standing there staring at my face and not responding.
  
  Assuming he's lost in thought or something, I decide to get his attention by using what is closest.
  
  That just happens to be mini James who I pick up and lightly throw at Jinx, making them both fall the the floor with a yell.
  
  "Oi! What was that for!" Jinx yells while little James just starts laughing on the floor, clearly enjoying having been tossed.
  
  I can't help but think that Gimli would be disappointed.
  
  The thought makes me laugh, which I think makes Jinx think I was laughing at him. Not that I am going to bother correcting him.
  
  "You weren't answering me, so I had to get your attention.~" I say, my voice saccharine sweet, making his brow twitch.
  
  "By 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 James at me?" He pointedly asks, his angry face doing a poor job of hiding the amusement in his tone as he clearly found it funny as well.
  
  I just shrug in response to his glare.
  
  "He was the closest throwable object.~" Is my blithe answer.
  
  "Normal people don't consider other people as throwable objects." He counters blandly.
  
  "Normal people are boring." I state, matter-of-factly.
  
  He ponders for a moment instead of responding before grudgingly nodding his head.
  
  "Touché, normal people 𝘢𝘳𝘦 boring." He agrees.
  
  With that out of the way, I decide to bring things back on track a little.
  
  "You still haven't answered my question."
  
  Smiling in what seems to be light embarrassment, he scratches the back of his neck.
  
  "Ah," he says, "sorry 'bout that, it's just that I realised that this is the first time I've actually seen your face without the mask."
  
  That brings me up short as I think to myself, is this really the first time?
  
  A moment of though provides the answer that yes, it is the fist time he's actually seen my face.
  
  Then again, we have only known each other for like, a week or so, so it's not really all that surprising.
  
  Damn, it really feels like it's been longer than a week.
  
  Hell, I've only been a cape for like, three months or something but so much has happened that it's felt like years.
  
  Shaking away my memories, I focus back on Jinx and give him a lascivious smirk and lean forward slightly towards him.
  
  "Well?~ Do you like what you see?~" I whisper as seductively as possible, ignoring the way mini James fake gags off to the side.
  
  Jinx doesn't even miss a beat before responding.
  
  "Ever hear the phrase, 'don't stick your dick in crazy'?" He says with a smirk of his own.
  
  The response was so unexpected that I let out another laugh, which he mirrors with a chuckle of his own.
  
  "Still though, I 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 actually like to know what the hell you guys meant about me turning into a monster." I ask, serious for once since this is kind of important.
  
  He still looks quizzically at me for my question.
  
  "Do you really not know? How?" He asks, seeming genuinely baffled.
  
  I give him another careless shrug of the shoulders.
  
  "No clue. I remember up to Cu Chulainn talking to me, then everything kind of blacks out and the next thing I know I'm waking up in some abandoned alley." I patiently explain, wanting to know how my show truly ended.
  
  "Well, better to show you than just tell you." He says as he takes off his backpack and sets it on the table, me and mini James joining him on the couch on either side.
  
  At first I am confused when he opens the bag and starts taking out bubble wrap, before he takes out a laptop that is wrapped in even more bubble wrap and I remember exactly what his power is.
  
  I suppose, having lived with it long enough, he makes sure to be prepared.
  
  Booting it up, he opens his own website, FoolsNet, and clicks on the archived livestream of yesterdays events before skipping ahead to the end, where my memories end.
  
  "Here, watch and see." He says as he hits play.
  
  Watch I do and the more time that passes, the closer my jaw gets to hitting the ground as I watch myself transform into some kind of Lovecraftian nightmare.
  
  Holy fuck, that looks so cool. Is that really me?
  
  When the video ends, the other two are both looking expectantly at me.
  
  "What?" I demand, "this isn't like in the movies, I'm not just going to see this and suddenly get 'flooded with memories'. I still can't remember jack shit about this, which sucks cuz that looked cool as fuck."
  
  Jinx just looks amused, but mini James is as excitable as ever.
  
  "Can't you do it again!? I wanna see! Pleaseee?" He chirps, going as far as doing the legendary puppy dog eyes.
  
  I just roll my own eyes at him in response.
  
  Obviously I am going to try and replicate it, he doesn't need to say anything to make me.
  
  Closing my eyes, I focus on my power.
  
  The first thing I feel is an odd sense of freedom, like anything that was holding me back before is gone now.
  
  The next thing I notice is that I no longer have only one 'source' of whatever it is that my extra limbs are made up off, instead I now seem to have four.
  
  The one I've always had is located in the small of my back as it has always been, then there is another one beneath it, where my tailbone is. The other two are higher up on my back, one between my shoulder blades and one higher, nearly at the back of my neck.
  
  With a building excitement, I focus deeper on my power, gathering my mind, and then I start to 𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘭.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Someone commented in an earlier chapter, predicting that her kakuja was going to be a copy of kaneki. I assume that was cuz've the torture scene being like his, but that was literally just for two reasons.
  
  One is because I wanted the black nails and Two is because I needed to give Tear a reason to make friends instead of just being alone forever.
  
  P.S I totally forgot that Eto's kakuja mask is basically exactly the same as Tears, I swear on my balls that that was not intentional, I was trying to make her kakuja somewhat original, and I just thought it was cool. Ah well, I'll change it up later to not copy.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  46 Changes
  Starting with what I know, I pull out my faithful ribbons, enjoying the ease in which they manifest, now numbered six. Then I move lower and start to pull again. This time the feeling is slightly unfamiliar, but just as natural as a tail as thick as my waist sprouts out of my back, forcing me to stand up from the sofa to accommodate it.
  
  With that done, I move up this time and focus on the 'source' between my shoulder blades, except this one doesn't so much as pull out as it 𝘣𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘴 out.
  
  Not stopping, I move to the final 'source' and repeat the process, feeling a weight grow and spread down my arms until it touches the floor, then it grows some more, making my arms about as long as my body.
  
  At the same time, almost unconsciously, I feel as 'fuel', for lack of a better word, from each of the 'sources' spreads out until it envelops my whole body in a warm embrace that makes me feel safe on an instinctual level.
  
  Only when I feel it starting to crawl it's way up my face do I open my eyes to be greeted to the sight of Jinx and mini James staring at me with dropped jaws and awe in their eyes.
  
  I feel myself preening under their stares as the hard, blood-like material covers my face, leaving me completely blind.
  
  Well that sucks.
  
  Understanding that I haven't been making proper use out of my power, I try something that I never even bothered to think was possible before.
  
  I try to change my power.
  
  I focus on my face, on the hardened blood that masks it, and I will myself to be able to see, focusing entirely on that single desire.
  
  Then, suddenly and without warning, light streams in as I can see again.
  
  No, even better than that, I can see with clarity that I have never experienced. I can see all the tiny little details of Jinx's face, every pigmentation in his eyes.
  
  I also notice that my field of view has sharpened incredibly, like everything in front of me is crystal clear.
  
  But as I am thinking about my field of view, I suddenly stumble as the strange feeling of having multiple perspectives suddenly assails me as I find myself even able to see things by my side and focus on multiple objects at the same time.
  
  It only takes me a moment to get used to the feeling before I am moving all of my new eyes around with a familiarity I can only attest to instinct.
  
  With my newfound clarity of sight, I put my attention back on the pair in front of me, looking at them with three side eyes each, with my main, larger eye on Jinx.
  
  Both of them are still staring at me with their mouths agape, though while Jinx merely looks impressed, I can practically see the stars in mini James' eyes.
  
  I open my mouth to speak, only to be halted by the fact that I don't have a mouth, but like with my sight, that problem soon solves itself.
  
  I feel the hardened mask of white flesh that covers my face crack open, forming a large mouth, one that runs from one side of my face to the other, making it far too long, lined with a row of sharp serrated teeth.
  
  With that done, I can finally speak.
  
  "𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐥? 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐨 𝐈 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤?" I ask, surprising myself with the strange distorted effect layering my voice.
  
  "You! Look! AWESOME!" Mini James once again shouts out, leaning forward to admire whatever I look like, but hesitant to actually touch me.
  
  "It's certainly scarier in person." Jinx agrees with a nod, holding his chin between his thumb and forefinger as he looks contemplatively at me.
  
  "𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐚 𝐦𝐢𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐫? 𝐎𝐫 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐚 𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠? 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐚 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐨.~" I say, trying not to sound impatient, but I really would like to get a proper look at myself.
  
  Jinx quickly complies, even as little James just keeps staring at me, by getting out his phone and flipping it around to face me in selfie mode, allowing me to properly examine my new look.
  
  Funnily enough, the first thing that I actually notice is that the gross sickly white that my hair has become is starting to show again at the roots, but I quickly focus on the much more distinctive changes my body seems to have gone through.
  
  For one, my body is covered in some kind of segmented, chitinous-esque armour that is at first glance pure black, btu a closer look shows that it is decorated by veins of super dark violet that almost blend in completely.
  
  The armour itself is also pretty big, making me stand at what must be about seven feet tall, nearly two whole feet taller than my normal height.
  
  However, even with that, my arms are longer still, dragging on the ground like a gorilla's, thick and powerful in a way that reminds me of Jason.
  
  Heh, that's funny.
  
  It also pisses me off a little.
  
  So I try to change things again.
  
  I focus on my arms alone this time, from the tips of the claws all the way to the 'source' at the top of my back, and I will it to change, to shape it to my desires.
  
  Once more, my body, my power, obeys and I start changing yet again.
  
  My arms grow thinner and shorter, the excess mass extending out from the back of my elbow like a reverse sword. The mass covering my arms keeps changing slightly, morphing and condensing, becoming more streamlined as time passes and I get lost in the modifications until I feel that I am done.
  
  My arms, once massive and unwieldy, now more resemble a thick muscular, skinless arm, sharing the same colour palate as the armour covering my body.
  
  They are still wide, probably about half of my waist wide, but now they only extend a little bit further than normal arms, with the wicked retractable claws adding further length.
  
  But the most notable feature is still the giant blade of flesh sticking out from the elbows back, reaching as far as my ears when I stand with my arms straight down at my sides.
  
  With that distraction out of the way, I continue my earlier inspection, my eyes being drawn to the most visually apparent addition to my body, the pair of giant plumes of crimson purple energy in the snape of wings, sparking with electricity.
  
  A simple flex of will is enough to cause the 'wings' to flap, and following an instinctual feeling, I take aim at the wall across the room, and I 𝘱𝘶𝘴𝘩.
  
  The next instant, with a thrum of electricity a spike of bone is launched through the air almost faster than my eyes can see as it buries itself into the wall.
  
  Huh, guess I can do that now.
  
  With giddiness driving me, I move on to the final new addition, and turn my focus towards my new tail.
  
  The thick appendage swings itself around my body and into view, it's pulsing, flesh like form not matching my body armours colours, instead simply looking like a tentacle of mulched flesh.
  
  It is disgusting to look at, like a nightmare manifested in reality.
  
  Yet, 𝘐 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯'𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘪𝘦𝘳.
  
  Then somehow it get's even 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 as it splits itself into a hundred pieces, like a jellyfish, only far more homicidal.
  
  Lastly are my ribbons, hovering around me like an extended ribcage, but they look mostly the same, just a bit bigger and tougher looking, not to mention there are six of them now, which is pretty cool.
  
  "𝐃𝐚𝐦𝐧" Is all I can say after properly admiring my new look.
  
  Yet there is only so long one can stare at something cool before wanting to do other things, so after spending an appropriate amount of time admiring myself, I eventually disperse the transformation as I start to notice just how hungry I am.
  
  No, not just hungry, I am practically 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨.
  
  Holy shit, the more I think about it the hungrier I feel.
  
  I need to get some food in me before I go crazy again.
  
  But I don't want to snub my friends, so I walk over to the fridge and grab the emergency rations and quickly devour them, my hunger not abating even in the slightest.
  
  However I can hold myself together for a while yet, so I turn back to Jinx.
  
  "So, how are people reacting to my show? What's the word on the street?" I ask, simply wanting to know what's going on in the city.
  
  My question causes a malicious grin to grow on his face as he retakes his seat on the couch, where I join him after preparing three cups of coffee.
  
  "Well, I'd say that the main reaction is a mix of panic and fear. You've got to understand something here Tear. Before you came to Columbus, there were 47 capes operating in the city. Since you have arrived, that number has gone down by 18, or 19 if Excalibur doesn't pull through." He explains, making a lightbulb go off in my head.
  
  "Oh shit! I totally forgot, but who even died? I don't really know the casualties." I exclaim, mildly embarrassed that I forgot to even think about who survived.
  
  Jinx favours me with a wry smile and a roll of the eyes, but he answers nonetheless.
  
  "Well, from the Heroes side things weren't too bad comparatively, at least in terms of numbers, as the Protectorate only lost four members in Bungee, Epic and most importantly, Tiamat. That last one will probably be what has the biggest effect overall out of the whole game, since she was known nationally.
  
  "Then with the Argonauts, they only lost one, Asclepius, though Atalanta also lost an arm, which sucks for her since she uses a bow as her main choice of weapon. My guess is that she's going to go crossbow from now on, that or her leader, Argus, is going to make her some kind of robo-arm."
  
  Before Jinx can continue his explanation, he is interrupted by mini James.
  
  "I want a robo-arm! Can I get one!? Please!?" He yells excitedly.
  
  "Jesus Christ, how much sugar did you feed the brat", I say to Jinx before turning to answer mini James, "sure, you can have a robo-arm, just let me rip your arm of first, or it won't work."
  
  As expected, he pulls away when I reach for his arm, his face showing sudden hesitancy.
  
  "Why would I want a robo-arm, that'd be stupid." He says, blatantly forgetting his earlier words.
  
  But I just smile and focus back on Jinx, who gets the hint and resumes explaining.
  
  "On the villains side, Street Saints lost Dynamite and Uncle Tom as well as their leader Eraser while Red Branch only lost Hermes before you ended Merlin and Cath, making all three major gangs in the city now about even in terms of parahuman membership. Not to mention, most of the capes left are the weaker ones, so your presence here has single-handedly decimated most of the cities parahuman combat power."
  
  Ahh, if that sentence didn't send shivers up my spine then nothing would.
  
  "Man,~ you really know what to say to make a woman happy.~" I mutter, the joy in my voice evident as I bask in the sheer amount of death I have caused and the chaos that will follow it.
  
  "Only the insane ones," He responds, "though I do gotta ask, what exactly are you going to do now?"
  
  That is the question isn't it.
  
  This city is pretty much done for in terms of entertainment, what with most of the impressive capes dying.
  
  Besides, it feels like it would be wrong of me to hang around after putting on such a show.
  
  It's like rotational farming, you've got to let an area recover before you can use it again.
  
  So with that, my decision seems pretty clear.
  
  "I'm probably going to hit the road again." I answer, my voice firm but contemplative as I wonder about where I shall go.
  
  "We're leaving?" Mini James suddenly asks, his head tilted to the side in a manner I am sure he got from the TV.
  
  However, the truth is often cruel.
  
  Sorry to break your little heart kid.
  
  "No. 𝘐'𝘮 leaving. You're staying here."
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  The problem is that I am easily distracted, so I never get any writing done during the day, then when all I want it to go to sleep, that is the only time I can actually focus on writing, as I can't just click a single button on my favourites tab to be doing something else so I can't get so easily distracted as all I want is to sleep, but I won't do that if it means fucking up my schedule.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
  previous chapternext chapterchapter list
  47 The Last Supper
  I know intellectually that the heartbroken look mini James tries to hide should make me sad or regretful or something, and while I certainly don't 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 seeing it, I find myself not really caring all that much.
  
  I guess that's just the kind of fucked up I'm at now. But it all really boils down to the truth of life that Jason helped me realise.
  
  Life is a circus. It's all just meaningless entertainment.
  
  Feeling sad, guilty or otherwise negative emotions isn't entertaining. So I simply refuse to feel them.
  
  "What do you mean I'm staying here!? You're leaving me!?" Little James shouts with righteous indignation.
  
  I just roll my eyes at his tantrum.
  
  "No need to sound like we're breaking up brat. But yeah, I'm gonna hit the road and I don't really want either of you to come with me." I bluntly admit, getting the facts out straight away in order to lessen long term resentment.
  
  Contrary to mini James' reaction, Jinx looks like he was expecting this kind of thing and is happy to just stand aside as I work mini James through his feelings.
  
  "But why!?" He yells, tears coming to his eyes that do absolutely nothing to garner an ounce of sympathy from me, though I 𝘥𝘰 prefer when he's smiling and laughing.
  
  That's half the reason I invited him to join my Clown club in the first place.
  
  "Simple," I shrug, "the whole idea I had in mind when founding our little club of Clowns is that there would rarely be more than two of us active in the same city at once. After all, the whole idea is that we are each having our own fun but we know each other in case we ever need help for our fun, or want to share it with someone that understands."
  
  I pause for a moment to breathe and let them digest my words properly before I finish my explination.
  
  "After all, too many of us in one place and we might accidentally ruin each others' fun. Besides all of that, I just want a change of scenery, meet some new people, maybe make some more friends. It's not like we can't just call each other. We all have phones."
  
  While little James certainly understands my words, I can tell rather easily how much he dislikes them, something he emphasises by actually stomping his feet petulantly.
  
  "But why can't I come!? Why do you have to leave me!" He shouts, far more emotionally than I think I am genuinely capable of.
  
  Looking down on the kid, with his balled up fists and quivering lip, I answer in the same manner I've treated him since the start.
  
  With full, brutal honesty.
  
  "I'm sure you remember what the two conditions to joining our little club are, but just in case, allow me to reiterate. You must want to have fun, above all else and you must have something to offer the others, be it muscle,"
  
  Here I gesture to myself, before moving my arms to point to Jinx.
  
  "Information," I say before returning to little James and pointing at him.
  
  "Or resources." I finish, waiting a moment until I see that he is ready for me to continue, which I do.
  
  "Now, when I invited you to join me, you had the first condition down and you still do. But you only met the second one because I was under the assumption that you could keep making those power suppressants. Seeing as that is in fact 𝘯𝘰𝘵 something you are capable of, then that only means one thing,
  
  "𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳. At least nothing of significance enough, since we are supposed to be an exclusive group with high standards. So the simple fact is that I don't want you to come with me, because as much as I might like you, entertainment comes first and I don't want you getting in the way of mine."
  
  Perhaps one could argue that I am being a bit too harsh, but I would disagree.
  
  Mini James isn't so pathetic that something as pointless as words would break him.
  
  To my great joy, I am proven right as instead of breaking down into tears and self loathing, his eyes firm, still sad but also determined as he speaks with a seriousness that doesn't match his stature.
  
  "Then, what should I do? How do I get something to offer?"
  
  I try to hide my smile, but I guess these things can't be repressed as I feel a smile of pride take over my face.
  
  "Fuck if I know. You're a drug Tinker though, so become a drug lord or something. If you've got control of a significant enough portion of the cities underworld then you would have plenty enough resources to earn your membership, and I've even already softened down the scene for you. Taking over shouldn't be impossible, especially if you can convince Fool to help you out."
  
  He takes my blasé words to heart and starts looking contemplative, loosing himself to his thoughts and thus allowing the adults in the room to speak.
  
  "I figured you'd leave, but I didn't think it'd happen so soon. You got a time? Or are ya leaving right away?" He asks, his face impassive but his voice still carrying hints of acceptance.
  
  "Probably a day or two. Though, I'll make sure to let the Heroes know that I'm skipping town. That way you two probably won't have to deal with them sending in a bunch of heavy hitters to replace those they lost. If they know I'm not hanging around then you'll only have to deal with another couple of average capes instead."
  
  He tips his head slightly at my words, a thoughtful frown coming to his face.
  
  "Thanks for that. Do you want me to help set James up as a new drug lord?" He asks lightly while eyeing me intently.
  
  I just lean back into the sofa and respond without a care in the world.
  
  "Doesn't matter what I want. I do what I want, you do what you want. That's the whole point of being a Clown and it's the whole reason I don't want too many of us in the same area. If you want to help him out, do so. If you don't then don't. So long as you keep doing whatever it is you want to do, then I don't really care what exactly it is." I answer truthfully.
  
  I really do hate being told what to do after all, it's why I got in so much trouble in school. Before I dropped out that is.
  
  Any Clown is a friend of mine and I don't want my friends to be doing anything other than what they want to do.
  
  Unless of course it goes against me doing what I want, but that should be obvious.
  
  "Well, I'll probably help the kid. Building up a new drug empire does sound fun. Though keeping it stable after the fact sounds like a lot of work, so I'll probably leave him be once it's all set up." Jinx says, a slight smile gracing his face for a moment.
  
  After that, the room falls to companiable silence as we all just sit and think and relax.
  
  A few minutes pass like this, until the sound of soft breathing is interrupted by Jinx speaking again.
  
  "Any plan on where you're gonna go?" He idly asks, the question suddenly coming to him.
  
  Lying relaxed on the sofa with my eyes closed, I hear Jinx snort and feel pretty safe in the assumption that it's in reaction to the no doubt devilish smile that graces my face from his question.
  
  "Oh I have an idea all right. I'm going to visit the Big Apple." I say, my voice laden with excitement and anticipation.
  
  Jinx however, just sighs heavily, though a quick peek through my eyelids shows a fond smile resting on his face, despite the deadpan voice.
  
  "What did I expect. You really are insane, you know that?" He asks rhetorically, sounding more like he's talking to himself than to me, but I answer nonetheless.
  
  "Sanity is overrated. Only insane people can experience tragedy and have a good laugh about it, ergo, insane people are more fun than sane people. My logic is irrefutable, get fucked."
  
  Clearly, my logic truly is irrefutable, as no one refutes it, the room descending back into comfortable silence.
  
  It was only after a while later and a bit more small talk that I retired to my room for some proper experimentation with my powers, followed by a good nights sleep.
  
  Two days later, and I am ready to hit the road again.
  
  Mini James is doing his thing, inventing new drugs and getting ready to start mass production while leaving everything else to Jinx who is setting the necessary things up to start a criminal enterprise.
  
  'Fool' meanwhile, has been benched for the moment, as Jinx decided that he's going to be something of a record keeper and that Fool is mostly only going to come out to 'spread the fun', so to speak.
  
  That leaves me here, hopping across the roofs of the city, heading in a certain direction that Jinx assured me would allow me to meet a certain someone.
  
  Like clockwork, I see a pair of Heroes patrolling down on the street, exactly where he said they would be.
  
  Making my way over as sneakily as possible, I wait until I am walking beside them, only thirty feet higher as I am on the roof and they are not.
  
  Obviously I recognise one of them, since I they are who I wanted to meet in the first place, but the other one is new to me, not that I can't figure out who it is.
  
  Mairon, a Ward with the ability to manifest sparkling rings of energy that have varying effects on those who pass through the ring, or more often those who are forced through the rings, since he can move them.
  
  No doubt he would have been helpful to have during my game for the heroes, but as he is a Ward he was no doubt banned from joining, since it's one thing for adult heroes to die or be injured, but it's another thing entirely for a child hero to do the same.
  
  Not that it makes much of a difference. I'm pretty sure that Cu Chulainn is the only cape left in the city that can even stand against me, and I'm honestly just not all that interested in fighting him.
  
  Besides, I've got to leave 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 challenge for little James. He won't be able to grow if he doesn't overcome any difficulties, and I think the Irish Brute could be a good thing for him long term.
  
  Anyway, enough of such thoughts, I should be focusing on the future instead, though the present is even more important right now.
  
  With that in mind, I silently jump down from the roof, touching down on the street as silent as a cat, bending my knees just in time to absorb all of the force of my fall.
  
  Being barefoot helps in the stealth department, as I have decided that my prison outfit is now a permanent part of my outfit, so that I can be mocking the PRT every time I go out.
  
  Walking up behind the unassuming duo I mentally thank that they aren't talking, meaning I don't have to figure out when to introduce myself to the conversation.
  
  Instead I simply walk up to them and lunge once they are about to spot me, wrapping my arms around their shoulders like an old friend.
  
  "Hey there!~ Little Red! How's it been?~" I ask, enjoying the way they both jolt, attempting to make distance but unable to escape my grasp.
  
  Then my vision is covered in fire as Redemption bathes me in her power.
  
  It feels warm, no different from last time.
  
  That brings me relief. I mean, obviously I know I didn't feel any guilt over my actions, but Epic died, and I 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘥 Epic, so I was worried that I might have felt guilty, but doing this proves that I am just as insane as I like to be.
  
  "Hey now, that's no way to greet a friend~ I only want to have a quick chat.~" I say, my amusement growing as I can 𝘴𝘮𝘦𝘭𝘭 the fear growing in the pair, stuck in my grasp as they are.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Fuck I need to stop writing this shit when I'm so tired. I literally just finished it and I can't even remember shit about what I wrote, so sorry if this chap is ass.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  48 Corruption is Easy
  "P-please don't eat us" Mairon whimpers under my right arm as the embers of Redemptions fires, that only touched me in an impressive display of control, dissipate into nothingness.
  
  "My my Little Red~ what have you been telling your friends about me?~" I tease, utterly ignoring the growing fear I can smell on the pair, "shouldn't you be introducing your friend and I?~ I don't believe we've met~"
  
  From the way both of them twitch, I figure that someone in their ears just told them something. Obviously I don't know 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 they were told, but just going by the PRT's modus operandi when it comes to the Wards, I would assume it's something along the lines of.
  
  Don't piss off the cannibal serial killer cape that may or may not have purposefully caused a mini war in the middle of the day.
  
  In other words, play along.
  
  "U-uhm, this is Mairon. H-he's a Ward like me. Uhm, Mairon, this is Tear. We've met." Red introduces, only slightly nervous, though I get the feeling that she isn't actually all too scared of me hurting her.
  
  I may not have been a cape for long, but I have certainly been 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 in my time, and I have come to know the tone of someone fearing for their life very intimately.
  
  It sounds to me that she is scared of something less imminent, which rules out it being a fear of her companions death and or bodily harm.
  
  Hmm, what a conundrum.
  
  Still, I am in the middle of a conversation, can't just space out now, can I?
  
  "Now Red~ I thought we were closer than that, especially after having such a heartfelt debate.~" I say, referring to what I belatedly realise is actually the only conversation we have had, if you don't count the brief exchange of words we had when I punched her shit in.
  
  Then again, I can't actually remember if she said anything that time or if it was just the other one.
  
  Fuck, am I getting worse with names and faces?
  
  A moments thought tells me that no, that is not the case. It's simply that this city no longer interests me, thus those bound to the city no longer interest me, such as the heroes here.
  
  And frankly, I don't really see the point in bothering to remember things that don't interest me anymore.
  
  Ah well, there will be plenty of interest in the Big Apple, even if I don't plan on staying for all too long.
  
  I still have to actually 𝘨𝘦𝘵 there though.
  
  Anyway, the conversation goes on thanks to Red, who finally speaks up after shuffling uncomfortably for a few steps as I guide them to keep walking.
  
  Idly, I see a civilian walking across stop to stare at us, I just give him a quick wave, but he ignores me in favour of taking his phone out to record us.
  
  Man, people really have no self preservation instincts these days. It almost makes me want to kill him on principle.
  
  "... How are you still immune to my power?" Red asks, her voice barely above a whisper, shaking with an edge of desperation.
  
  I feel Mairon tense up even more and watch with amusement as he gives Red a look that even through his mask I can tell is a 'what the fuck are you doing' kind of face.
  
  I ignore him in favour of nodding to Red with a hum, gesturing for her to elaborate, something she does, no doubt in spite of the person in her ear telling her to do the exact opposite.
  
  I wonder if she's going to get in much trouble for this?
  
  Though to be fair, she could pretty easily get out of said trouble if she plays her cards right.
  
  You know what? If what she says is fun enough, I'll give her a little hint on how to avoid said trouble. It's not like it's complicated after all.
  
  "You set up that hole thing, didn't you?" She says, not afraid of me in the slightest, something I take mild offence to but find too amusing to do anything about, still managing to sound like she is lost in her head as she continues.
  
  "We don't know for sure, but you suddenly showing up and surrendering yourself, and the attack that we knew was coming, only we expected half the force and they seemed to also be expecting much less resistance. Then you did what you did at the end. You killed those people. Worse, I heard that you even 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘣𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘥 them."
  
  After finishing her mini rant, her words getting more frantic the longer she spoke, she slows to a stop which I allow and turns to face me properly.
  
  At this point, I actually 𝘤𝘢𝘯 hear her earpiece as she gets shouted at, though I can't pick out the words, I'm sure they aren't too hard to guess.
  
  "So 𝘸𝘩𝘺. Why won't my fire burn you? 𝘞𝘩𝘺." She all but pleads, the desperation in her voice becoming clearer by the second.
  
  Well, not that I think it's really much of an accomplishment here, but I think I've made the expert deduction of what she is so afraid of.
  
  She is afraid that her ideals are falling to pieces by meeting me, because she doesn't seem to understand that her power doesn't understand morals and only seems to actually burn based on how much one views oneself to have sinned.
  
  So naturally, against someone insane like me, it hardly works. After all, I have done nothing wrong, except for mom, but I didn't do that consciously so it doesn't even count.
  
  Everyone who I've killed, indirectly or directly? They don't matter. Nothing matters.
  
  Not me, not them.
  
  Everything is meaningless, and I'm just trying to enjoy my meaningless life while it lasts.
  
  But saying that will probably actually help her come to terms with her power and be an overall healthier individual after the fact and that sounds boring, so instead of any of that, I say what she doesn't want to hear.
  
  "Because your fire burns the wicked, the 𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘭, and I am simply not evil. Now don't get me wrong, I am no saint, but I am not evil either. So I've killed a few people? So what? Death is a part of life and ending life early is a part of nature. You have to kill to live. It has been that way since life first began. It's coded into our very DNA."
  
  Even though the only emotion I can actually sense is fear and it's subsets, nervousness, shyness et cetera, I feel like I know exactly what the pair before me are feeling anyway.
  
  Mairon still hasn't said a word, not knowing what to do but clearly wanting me to shut the fuck up, fearing for the effects my words will have on Red, but too scared to actually speak up and say anything about it.
  
  Meanwhile Red seems to be taking my words like gospel from the mouth of the devil, in that she wants to accept my words, but is refusing to simply because it is me that is saying them.
  
  Really, she should be listening to that part of her telling her not to trust me, because I'm kind of a bitch.
  
  Still, I am sort of on a time limit since I'm sure that there are some hero reinforcements on their way and while I'm not afraid to fight them, I am similarly simply uninterested in doing so and would actually rather like to leave today.
  
  With that in mind, I decide to put the final nail in the coffin of this conversation.
  
  "Do you know what's truly evil?" I say with 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘴, getting Reds full attention immediately, "not death, but 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. Death leads to life. Death gives us food. Death gives us safety, just look at the army, soldiers prepared and taught to kill, all in service of their home. But what does deception lead to? It leads to nothing but corruption, in the home or in the law. It leads to heartbreak and injustice, to judges and juries giving unfair trials. Deception is evil, not death. So your power will not burn me, as I do not make a habit of lying. I am not evil."
  
  Desperate for an answer to her inner turmoil, Redemption happily latches onto my words, my little lecture burning itself into her skull.
  
  I can already see the effects immediately.
  
  Her shoulders loosen, as if some hidden tension just boiled away and her posture becomes more relaxed than before.
  
  Yeah, this has definitely been fun enough to give her another little nudge.
  
  "You're probably gonna get into trouble for talking to me right?~" I ask, already knowing the answer.
  
  The question makes her scowl slightly.
  
  "Yeah, though that's an understatement if I've ever heard one." He says, sounding as annoyed as she looks.
  
  I just smile behind my mask.
  
  "Well, just saying but your bosses will probably Lie to the Youth Guard and tell them we never met today, because they know that if the Youth Guard found out about any Wards being alone with me, that they would make a huge fuss about it. So all you have to do is threaten to spread the word and any punishment you could face from talking to me will be dropped immediately.~"
  
  Her eyes widen slightly, though whether it's from the mere idea of threatening her superiors or the realisation that it is she actually could do or something else entirely, I couldn't say.
  
  Either way, I still haven't said what I actually came here to say, so I quickly speak up so as to end this interaction sooner.
  
  "Well anyway!~ I only came to say goodbye to my favourite little red riding hood.~ See, I've decided I want to travel~ but I wanted you to know not to look for me first~ just in case you know?~" I say, to their apparent surprise.
  
  Deciding not to stick around, I let the both of them go and take a step back, preparing to leave, before Mairon suddenly shouts out, sounding just as surprised as I am about him suddenly finding his voice.
  
  "Wait! Where are you going to go!?" He exclaims, almost immediately clamming up after the fact, as if he expects me to take offence.
  
  Though, by the way he keeps trying to meet my eyes and then looking down immediately after, I get the feeling that he just finds my crimson eyes to be extra intimidating.
  
  Or maybe he just has a foot fetish and keeps looking down since my prison clothes looks better barefoot in my opinion.
  
  "Now now Mairon dear~ being too clingy will just push people away you know? A girls got to keep her secrets after all.~" Is all I say in response before I simply turn around and start to walk away.
  
  Only to inexplicably pause mid step.
  
  Now you wait a damn motherfucking minute.
  
  A thought just occurred to me after saying Mairon's name just then.
  
  But it can't be... right?
  
  No fucking way it's true. That would just be absurd.
  
  ... Still, I have to confirm.
  
  Slowly, I put my foot back down and half turn so I can face the boy himself, decked out in modern body armour that is styled to look medieval, with and edgy, spiky theme to it's silver splendour.
  
  "... Mairon." I state, making him stand straighter, "did you actually fucking name yourself after the motherfucking 𝘋𝘢𝘳𝘬 𝘓𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘚𝘢𝘶𝘳𝘰𝘯?" I ask with incredulity overwhelming me.
  
  Forgetting his fear for just a moment, he suddenly fist pumps and turns to a suddenly exasperated looking Redemption.
  
  "A-HA! I 𝘵𝘰𝘭𝘥 you guys that someone would get it! I knew I wasn't the only cape who knew Tolkien!" He shouts with jubilance, right up until he turns back to me, likely wishing to talk more about Tolkien's works or something, only to abruptly remember who I am.
  
  That is when he clams up again, gaining a sheepish smile as he scratches the back of his head and takes a step back.
  
  "Aha.. sorry." He mutters, but I just shake my head with a put upon huff.
  
  Without another word, I turn around and simply leave, heading out for greener pastures, looking forward to whatever it is that comes my way.
  
  ... Though maybe I do quickly loop back around to kill that guy who recorded us.
  
  Like I said, it's just a matter of principle.
  
  You don't see superpowered serial killers in the street and just record them. You run or you beg. Or at least call the cops or some shit.
  
  With a sigh, I drop all thoughts in my head regarding the city of Columbus. Well and truly ready to move on and find some more toys to play with.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  ... so I am once again writing this after being awake for too long, but the good news is that I just finished reading a good wormfic that was distracting me, so I'll probs do better tomorrow... maybe.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  49 On The Road Again
  From Columbus Ohio to New York is about an eight hour drive, so to pass the time I have been musing on my power.
  
  It really is far more malleable than I ever thought it would be.
  
  For one, I have found that I don't explicitly have to have my extra's come out from my back. I can just as easily, say, bring my ribbons out from my stomach instead.
  
  It's actually pretty easy to do too, though I think I'm going to try and keep that under wraps, because it would be funny as hell if someone thinks that my power can only come from my back, only to get skewered right in front of me.
  
  A bonus of that is that I would be able to see their faces directly.
  
  But even with all my musings, there is only so much I can do to pass the time while driving and beyond simply moulding my appendages that I should really come up with proper names for into different shapes, nothing really happens.
  
  That is, until about halfway into the journey when it is starting to get dark and I am getting bored of the monotonous drive.
  
  At that point, I decide to pull into a small town called Bedford.
  
  Now, as I am only passing through, I don't bother to stop and take out my new phone that I bought yesterday to look up the local cape scene.
  
  However, as I am making my way to a motel to rest in, my drive is interrupted by something I deem interesting enough to delay me.
  
  Driving down the road as I am, in the late hours of the evening, I am greeted by the sight of what appears to be a robbery of some convenience store.
  
  Not just that however, as despite most of them wearing dark clothes you would expect from night time thieves, 𝘰𝘯𝘦 of them is wearing a far more elaborate costume and mask.
  
  In other words, a cape.
  
  She is wearing a light grey shawl over baggy clothes made up of dark browns and greys, with another piece of cloth wrapped around her head that has a few strands of dark hair spilling out and a cap sticking out the front.
  
  Her mask is a simple black domino with a balaclava covering her lower face and as she stands in the street, waving her hands and shouting at who I presume are her underlings.
  
  I watch with interest as her eyes seem to leave their sockets and start floating above her head, looking both ways down the street.
  
  Of course, she notices me, but as I am simply staying in my car and not doing anything, she seems to deem me a non factor and gets back to 'work'.
  
  That is when another cape arrives, this one I presume to be a hero, purely based off of their brightly coloured costume, filled with yellows and greens as it is.
  
  They start shouting something another at each other, and I belatedly realise that I could actually hear the words if I roll my window down.
  
  But then I decide that I don't really care, as I just got an idea.
  
  I watch for a bit longer as the two of them proceed to fight. The villain's power is clearly to split her body apart which is nifty, while the hero's I guess to be something along the lines of sudden acceleration, but with a cooldown.
  
  Unfortunately for the hero, they seem to have the disadvantage and it isn't long before the villains underlings are out of sight, bounty in tow.
  
  Realising this, the villain makes use of the fact that they can apparently telekinetically control their dismembered parts to split into pieces and fly away, easily escaping the disgruntled hero.
  
  Though I do notice that she carried her feet with her hands, so I assume that her power doesn't technically let her fly, meaning she can't levitate her feet.
  
  Not much of a limitation really, it just seems like a mild annoyance really, or a smokescreen of some sort.
  
  Ah well, it's not like it will matter for long.
  
  Ignoring the downtrodden hero, I pull in to the motel and go book myself a room, paying only for a single day and still nearly emptying myself of my cash.
  
  I really should get a bank account or something.
  
  I assume there is some kind of banking option for villains that won't get my funds frozen. Then of course, all I will need is to actually make some money, but that really shouldn't be too hard.
  
  Especially with my idea in mind.
  
  After paying for the room, I get myself settled in, throwing off all of the covers, because it's a motel and they are probably covered in all sorts of disgusting shit.
  
  Then I just play some solitaire for an hour or so, followed by some minesweeper before I finally decide to stop being lazy.
  
  Moving to my backpack, I take out my cape outfit, consisting of only my black toothed smiling clown mask with my titular pink tear, as well as the striped prison garments I have grown surprisingly attached to.
  
  They 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 a gift from a friend after all.
  
  It only takes a brief moment to get changed and then after double checking that my door is locked, even putting a set of draws in front of it, I climb out of the window and start making my way more or less where I assume the earlier villain to have gone.
  
  Now, you may be wondering how I am going to find her?
  
  Well, the answer to that is quite simple actually.
  
  Bedford is a very small town, so I am just going to run around until I pick her out, something that shouldn't be too hard considering how easily I can smell peoples locations combined with the fact that capes smell distinctly different than normals do.
  
  It only takes me another hour and a half before I find their scent and then another ten minutes to follow it back to a small block of flats, only three stories tall.
  
  Making my way on over, get inside easily enough by just pushing a small blade of whatever my power is made up of out of my elbow and using that to destroy the lock.
  
  I could have pushed it out of my hand, but it's easier to do it this way, presumably because it's closer to the 'source'.
  
  No alarm goes off thankfully and I continue following the scent until I am on the second floor and standing in front of apartment number 4.
  
  Here I pause as I think to myself, how should I do this?
  
  Then I remember that I am already in costume and without spare clothes, so I can't exactly pretend to be a neighbour asking for sugar or some shit.
  
  Ah well, no need to make it complicated.
  
  It's not like it will matter anyway.
  
  If fact, there's no point in even bothering to risk anything. I might as well just go with an anticlimactic victory.
  
  Though I should be careful not to just kill her immediately, after all the whole reason I'm here is that she seems to be reasonably successful as a villain, so she probably has some cash stacked up that I can 'requisition'.
  
  Decision made, I knock on the door three distinct times.
  
  𝘒𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬
  
  "One minute!" I hear her shout, muffled and quiet as it is through the door.
  
  At the same time, I bring out my new tail alone and bring it around until it is facing the same way as me, before splitting it into pieces, like a frayed wire tip.
  
  I line each of the tiny lines that make up my tail against specific points on the door and I wait until I hear her soft footsteps approaching.
  
  Then, once I can feel that she is just on the other side of the door, I 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦.
  
  My tails burst forward, easily penetrating the door and I quickly wrap them around the woman inside, hoping that she can't split herself into too small pieces to escape, something I guessed was a limitation because if she could turn herself into a fine mist, I'm sure it's something she would do more often.
  
  As planned, the only sound that gets out is the soft thunk of the thin door being penetrated and the muffled scream of surprise that comes from little miss villain.
  
  Feeling that she is fully withing my grasp, my tail produces even more miniature wires of flesh, which now probably number around a hundred or more, which quickly move to start ripping the door to pieces, so that I can walk through without letting go of her.
  
  "Hi there.~" I whisper to her once the door is out of the way, meeting her wide brown eyes with my own blood red ones.
  
  Moving forward, I carry her ahead of me into the front room, my tail easily capable of carrying a single woman without strain.
  
  Once I take a seat on her sofa, I manipulate her so that she is kneeling before me, just because I can.
  
  "Now~ you may be wondering what is going on right about now hmm?~ Well, it's quite simple~ you see, I am in the need of some money and after watching your successful job earlier, I figured you'd be good for it yeah?~" I explain to her.
  
  Idly, I notice just how scared she seems to be and I can't help but wonder if she is just a coward by nature or if I'm scarier than I thought.
  
  Then again.. there may be another reason.
  
  "Say~ do you know who I am by chance?~" I ask, receiving a frantic and shaky nodding in return.
  
  Ah, that explains it then. She must have seen Fool's video.
  
  "... Are you a fan?~" I ask, purely for my own amusement as she, rather predictably, starts nodding her head with even more fervour.
  
  I get the feeling I'm being lied to.
  
  The thought makes me smile.
  
  "I'm going to release your mouth now~ if you shout or scream, then I'm sure I don't need to explain what will happen?~"
  
  She shakes her head and with that, I do as I said I would and stop covering her mouth.
  
  While she is gathering her bearings, I speak up once more.
  
  "Since you're such a big fan of mine, I assume you won't have a problem with telling me where you keep all of your money?~" I ask, my voice saccharine sweet.
  
  "N-n-no", she gulps, managing to speak further without stuttering, though her voice still wavers noticeably, "I keep it all in the top right cupboard."
  
  I nod in thanks to her, glad for the simplicity of the situation, but after glancing over to her kitchenette I decide not to bother getting up and instead just sprout some ribbons.
  
  A pair of my ribbons, shaded with a lighter violet than my armour that is almost dark enough to be black or my tail that is the deep red colour of flesh, reach out behind me and open up the top right cupboard, taking out a black sports bag and bringing it over.
  
  Opening it with my hands, I am pleased to find that it is indeed filled with cash.
  
  With a smile on my face, I turn to face the woman once again, seeing that she has relaxed marginally now that I have got what I want.
  
  Sucks for her I guess.
  
  "Thank you.~ Now you can tell me where you keep the 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵 of your money, and I can be on my way.~" I say, causing her eyes to widen once again and her breath to hitch.
  
  Struggling in my grasp for a moment, she quickly starts talking again.
  
  "T-that's it! That's everything! I swear it!" She exclaims, but I don't have any ability to tell truth from lie, and she's already dead anyway, so I might as well double check just in case there is more money.
  
  "Now now~ don't lie to me young miss~ I can tell when you do.~" I lie, ignoring the irony for the moment as my tail makes its way back to covering her mouth to silence her.
  
  With her unable to make too much noise, I bring her arm over to my slowly watering mouth and I roll up her sleeve, lifting my mask as I do and start rubbing my lips over her forearm for a moment, staring her in the eye as I do so, watching, feeling how her fear grows with every moment.
  
  Then, under her unwilling stare, I take a hearty bite out of her arm, relishing in her muffled scream more than the barely decent taste.
  
  Once she has calmed down a little, I free her mouth again as I speak.
  
  "I'll ask again~ where is the rest of your ill begotten gains?~" I ask, pretty sure that I already know the answer anyway.
  
  "I-I-I don't h-have anyth-ing else. P-please believe me." She pleads, but I don't listen.
  
  Instead I just cover her mouth again and open my own for another bite, a smile gracing my features.
  
  Repeating the process again, I speak once more, my tone unchanging.
  
  "Another chance~ where is the money?~"
  
  Half an hour later and I am making my way back to the motel.
  
  It turns out that she really didn't have any extra money lying around anywhere else.
  
  Ah well, you live and you learn.
  
  Heh.
  
  Poor choice of words.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  It is one in the morning
  
  Also, just fair warning but the next few chapters are kind of a buffer as I tried to figure our what to do for the next arc, so they might not bee too great, but I've got an idea now and I already know what I'm going to be doing the the next arc's after it.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  50 Magic is Fun
  Waking up, I feel refreshed and ready for another long drive, but I decide to walk around a bit first, to see if there's anything I want to buy with this bag full of money that I just so happened to find in my room with me.
  
  With that plan in mind, I get my backpack that has all my stuff, with my costume buried at the bottom and I get dressed in a nice rosy red sundress that matches surprisingly well with my re-dyed auburn hair.
  
  Not my usual style I'll admit, but a sundress takes up less space in my Bag of Belongings™.
  
  I don't really feel a need to bother with disguises, because while I did admit to being a cannibal, I never admitted to being Lusia Abel and they never saw my face, so I'm probably not being looked for.
  
  Especially since I'm under the assumption that 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 are under the assumption that I killed, uh, me.
  
  What a weird sentence.
  
  Anyway, with that done, I grab both of my bags, the money being too plentiful to transfer to a single bag, and head out of the room to check out of the motel.
  
  I take the car with me further to the centre of town, where all the shops are and find an out of the way place to park it again and start my roaming once more, only taking a few handfuls of cash instead of the whole bag, because that would be stupid and I am well known for my good decision making.
  
  Note the sarcasm.
  
  Though I do bring my other bag, so I'm only leaving behind my money. I make sure to lock the car and then double check it before I leave, just in case.
  
  Ah well, a life lived on purely good decisions sounds boring as hell.
  
  If shit doesn't go sideways every now and then, then where's the fun?
  
  Gotta have a bit of unpredictability in your life.
  
  Humming to myself as I wonder around, I take note of how few people there actually are, maybe a couple dozen or so in sight around me, despite being the literal centre of the town.
  
  The difference between here and Columbus is certainly notable, though I think it might be even more jarring once I reach the city of oversized apples.
  
  Or is that singular? I know the city got it's nickname from some guy ages ago who noticed a big apple or something, but I have no idea if there was only the one.
  
  Why do I even care?
  
  With that last random thought, I am brought back to the real world as I spy something interesting.
  
  A magic shop!
  
  There's an idea, I spent so much time and effort learning magic tricks and slight of hand yet I've only ever used those skills to cheat in poker.
  
  With a smile on my face, I enter the little ramshackle store, making a little bell jingle as I do so.
  
  I am immediately greeted by a plethora of novelty items, from finger traps to marbles to- is that a whoopie cushion?
  
  At the end of the store is what can only be described as a stereotypical old magic store owner.
  
  The old man meets my eyes from behind a counter, his fancy suit and bowtie matching his widows peak receding hairline as if he was born to sit where he does now.
  
  "Yo!~" I greet as I walk up to him, raising one arm in a two fingered wave.
  
  "To what do I owe the pleasure young lady? Have you an interest in the arcane?" The old man replies, straightening in his seat as he does so.
  
  "Eh, not really." I bluntly answer, making his eyebrows twitch, "I do like cards though, mind selling me a deck or four?"
  
  With a wry smile he seems to flip a switch, clearly realising that I don't really care about the whole 'spooky kooky magic' shiz.
  
  "This 𝘪𝘴 a shop young miss, I'll be happy to sell you whatever you desire." He says as he leans to the side slightly and grabs four decks of cards, placing them on the counter.
  
  "Whatever I desire?" I ask with a mischievous smile, "in that case, I want to buy your bowtie."
  
  His face twitches slightly more violently this time as he clearly struggles to keep his face professional.
  
  "I'll be happy to sell you whatever has a price tag." He corrects, nodding down to the decks of cards, though I do note that he hasn't scanned them or typed anything into the till like you normally would, but I don't think further on it as I am having fun messing with him.
  
  Silently and deliberately, open the little plastic covers that hold the price tags for the things on the counter and take one of them out, his eyes never leaving mine the whole time as I move forward and attatch the tag to his bowtie.
  
  Both of us stare at each other in silence, neither one of our faces so much as twitching as I lean back and pretend to look around for a moment before jumping slightly, as if shocked to find something I was looking for.
  
  Then I point to his bowtie, and in a voice lacking any inflection I speak.
  
  "Ah. A bowtie. Exactly what I was looking for. I'd like that one please."
  
  He doesn't respond and we hold eye contact for a moment longer before his irritated voice sounds out.
  
  "Get the hell out of my shop." He says without heat, his face contorting into one of amused irritation.
  
  I just smile and let out a short chuckle in return, before actually looking around for anything interesting to buy.
  
  "Uhhh, I'd also like one of those" I say, pointing to what basically looks like eyeliner, but I assume is more used for face paint stuff, "and some of that too." I finish, this time pointing at the silly string behind him.
  
  What? I might find a use for it, who knows?
  
  Better to be prepared than not.
  
  "Anything else?" He asks after gathering it all and I ponder for a moment, checking around the store for anything that catches my eye.
  
  Fortunately, I do happen to see something interesting, and I add it to the pile of stuff with a grin.
  
  "That will be $28.37, after tax." He says even though he still hasn't rung anything up, making me raise an eyebrow.
  
  "First off, I don't pay taxes. Secondly, how do you even know how much it is? You never put the things in the machine." I say, gesturing to the unused till.
  
  "Young Lady." He huffs, "I have been working here for thirty five years. I know every price like the back of my hand. I can do the math in my head. If you don't trust it, feel free to count."
  
  When he finishes speaking, he turns to see me staring intently at the back of my own hand.
  
  "Huh, there are more veins there than I though there were. You must look at your hands a lot then, to know the store so well."
  
  I briefly enjoy the way he stares uncomprehendingly at my rather odd response, but I don't wait for his brain to catch up, and just smack a handful of cash that I didn't bother to count but is probably more than enough down on the counter.
  
  "Welp, I'll take your word for it Mr Geriatric. See ya!~" I say, quickly gathering my stuff and turning to leave, fast enough that I only hear is shouted response once I'm one foot out of the door.
  
  "I'm not that old!"
  
  Heh.
  
  With that out of the way, I set out to have some fun before the long, boring drive ahead of me and make my way to the most travelled part of the little town.
  
  There are a good dozen or two people walking around here, so it seems good enough.
  
  First thing I do is walk up to a parked car and take out the eyeliner pencil and proceed to use the wingmirror to help me draw two clown tears, one under each of my eyes, then just for the added distance I add the classic long triangles above each eye.
  
  With my face successfully clownified, I move to the middle of the street, thankful that cars are supposed to keep to the edges to allow more walk space here.
  
  Now, I know that wearing the tear makeup is probably not a good idea, but I'm not in costume and am genuinely just doing magic, so no one will make the connection.
  
  Probably.
  
  Hey, that's why I added the triangles anyway! My mask...
  
  ... Damnit, my mask does have a triangle above the left eye.
  
  Eh, oh well.
  
  I'm sure it will be fine.
  
  Focusing back on the world at large, I notice that some people have taken notice of me and I give them each a wide smile before equipping my brand spanking new, genuine magicians top hat.
  
  Turning to the people closest to me, a young couple from the looks of it, both with brown hair and average features. No doubt when they are older they are going to live in a suburban house with a picket fence, a dog and two point three children.
  
  "Greetings friends! Lovely day don't you think? How about a magic trick to make the day even better hmm?~" I exclaim, moving in front of them, but not so much that I am blocking their way.
  
  After all, if you're too pushy then it will make people instinctively want to say no. If you don't give them a way out of an encounter, then they will seek one, even if they would otherwise enjoy said encounter.
  
  They briefly glance to each other, unspoken words being not spoken, before the woman, probably about a year younger than me, pushes her boyfriend forward a little bit, volunteering him to speak.
  
  Naturally, he has little choice then but to acquiesce, not that he seems particularly upset by the fact.
  
  "Sure, I've never actually seen any magic in person." He says with a smile.
  
  "Excellent!" I cheer with exuberance, enjoying myself.
  
  "In that case!~" I say as I bring out a deck of cards and fan them out in front of me, "pick a card, any card~".
  
  He does and I quickly close the deck and speak up again.
  
  "Now, memorise it and show it to your girlfriend but don't let me see! Good! Now slide it back in the deck, anywhere you want.~"
  
  He does so and I shuffle it in a manner that seems very thorough, but really isn't.
  
  Then, with a flourish, I flick one card out of the deck and catch it in the air, holding it to myself for a moment before I dramatically reveal it to the pair.
  
  "Is~ 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 your card!?" I proclaim, head held high with pride and smile wide.
  
  "... uhhh, no. It's not." The guys says awkwardly, clearly having debated with himself simply lying and saying I got it right.
  
  What a nice fellow.
  
  "Aw shucks!" I exclaim disappointedly, kicking the ground with a pout on my face.
  
  Right as they are about to say something else however, I suddenly snap my finger and raise my head, as if I just realised something amazing.
  
  "Wait a minute! Of course I don't have your card!~ After all, I can only imagine that your heart only belongs to 𝘰𝘯𝘦 woman." I say with understanding before turning to the girlfriend.
  
  "Would you mind checking your pockets? Maybe your left one? Just as a wild guess with no basis in fact?" My voice clearly shows that I already know the answer.
  
  Yet, as expected, she frantically checks her pockets before pulling out an ace of hearts.
  
  "Was that your card?~" I ask pointlessly as the guy just nods dumbly, clearly impressed.
  
  Then the girl suddenly jumps him and kisses him, clearly affected by my words of romance.
  
  Man, aren't I just the best wingwoman?
  
  After they both calm down a bit more, the guy turns back to me with a smile and a look in his eyes that I just know tells of his appreciation for my act.
  
  "That was impressive, do you accept tips?" He asks with a smile that I reciprocate as I take off my top hat and flip it in front of him while I whisper under my breath.
  
  "Oh, I can accept more than just the 𝘵𝘪𝘱."
  
  "What?" He says, his hand pausing where it is depositing some notes in my hat.
  
  "What?" I echo, refusing to acknowledge the words that slipped out.
  
  For the next couple of hours, I spent my time practicing my magic tricks, gathering quite the crowd and actually making a decent bit of money.
  
  Hell, I could probably actually make a living just from doing this.
  
  Not a very lavish living granted, but a living nonetheless.
  
  Ah well, you know what they say, places to be, people to kill.
  
  Not that I have anyone in mind, but I'm sure something will come up eventually.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Early chap because I am tryna fix my sleep schedule, which is normally not difficult for me, but I have to work around my upload schedule to make sure that I am not asleep in the afternoon/evening, as I prefer to post my chapters around 4-6pm.
  
  But I am 'bouta pass out here, and one in the afternoon is close enough, so imma hit post here and then go enter the void that is my dreamless sleep.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
  previous chapternext chapterchapter list
  51 The Inevitable PHO Interlude
  A/N: Just an FYI, but idk how this site is going to take the formatting for this chap, so if it looks wild just give it a minute or two for me to fix it and then reload it :)
  
  Pulling in to New York, I can't help but be struck by just 𝘩𝘰𝘸 many people there are.
  
  I knew, intellectually, that the Big Apple is the biggest, most populated city in the US, but that doesn't change the fact that I've grown up moving between small towns, like Utica, which had a population of around two thousand.
  
  Compared to New York's eight 𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘯 or so, it's a rather insignificant number.
  
  Point is, I'm not really used to all these crowds, though I can't even imagine how I'd be reacting if I hadn't already spent some time in Columbus, which is also pretty big, just less dense.
  
  But I deal, and it only takes me a little while to find a nice, out of the way hotel I can stay in for a bit.
  
  ... Okay, it took me over an hour and I might have gotten lost a couple of times.
  
  It's a big city and there are a lot of things everywhere.
  
  It's all honestly very distracting and I don't think I really like it.
  
  After all, I live for the simple things in life, like solitaire.
  
  God, if solitaire was a real human, I would totally fuck them, regardless of gender.
  
  Anyway.
  
  Seeing as it is already dark, and I am tired from the drive, I decide against doing anything in what's left of the day and decide to just chill inside instead.
  
  After chilling and playing games on my phone for a bit, I decide to open up PHO to see if anything interesting is going on, or if there's anyone I can easily shitpost.
  
  Gotta love bullying people online.
  
  Only, I quickly see a 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 interesting thread indeed and decide to make a new account to commemorate it.
  
  𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐎𝐧𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬.
  
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  𝐓𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐜: 𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐘 𝐅𝐂𝐔𝐊 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐄𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒!
  
  𝐈𝐧: 𝐁𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬 ► 𝐎𝐡𝐢𝐨 ► 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐮𝐬 ► 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬
  
  𝐉𝐚𝐫𝐎𝐟𝐎𝐳 (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (Not a real jar)
  
  Posted On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  Holy Crap guys,
  
  for those that are somehow unaware and didn't watch the livestream that was happening on, (the video is still available there, but I wouldn't recommend it for anyone faint of heart) there was a MASSIVE cape fight literally like, twenty minutes ago from posting this.
  
  Tho again, if you haven't seen it, it IS hella gory, no censorship, especially at the end. *Shivers*
  
  I don't know what he did, but that metal guy didn't deserve that.
  
  Anyway, I have no idea what the lead up to these events were, as I live elsewhere, so if anyone is In The Know, please enlighten us.
  
  Also, I got this screenshot [𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐆𝐄] which shows just about everyone facing each other just before the fight really started, and as you can see, it's a whole lotta capes, even without all of them being in the pic!
  
  (𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝟏 𝐨𝐟 𝟒𝟔)
  
  ►𝐅𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐄𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬 (Verified Cape) (Verified Fool)
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  Glad you enjoyed the show!
  
  Unfortunately there is nothing else in the works right now, but stay tuned and you will be the first to hear when there's a new show! ;)
  
  ►𝐎𝐠𝐥𝐚𝐧 (Snek)
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  ►𝐒𝐚𝐦 𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐋𝐨𝐩
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  Holy crap... I think I might need a change of pants after watching that.
  
  How did she even get up after that? She had a Hole in her Heart as well as having her Entire Head reduced to mush. That's the two things that are usually enough to end most regenerators but she shrugged it off like nothing.
  
  ►𝐑𝐫𝐫𝐫𝐭 (Temp-Banned)
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  Talk about opening up to the world lmao.
  
  ►𝐒𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐲
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  Rrrrt - Are you seriously joking about this right now?
  
  Also, is no one going to talk about how it was actually the Heroes that started killing people first?
  
  ►𝐋𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐚
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  I heard from a friend who's dad's co-workers' cousin knows a guy who knows a guy who is tight with some people of the more unsavoury kind and apparently that lady in the prison 'fit (Tear? I think?) did something or other that pissed off both the gangs in the video and I guess they mutually decided to fuck her up.
  
  ... clearly that didn't go too well for them, but them's the brakes I guess. (What does that even mean anyway?)
  
  ►𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐨𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐲(Banned)
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  I can't believe Tiamat got speared like that, can anyone confirm if she's like, actually dead or what?
  
  Cuz if she is gone then it means the monster capes just lost like, a significant portion of their firepower
  
  ►𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐞𝐟
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  Carbonkenny - First off, they are called Case 53's, or irregulars. It's offencive to call them monster capes. Secondly, why are you talking about them like we're at war or something? Case 53's aren't some whole new race asshole.
  
  Does anyone know what the death count is? Also, what happened to that flying woman and the sword guy without a shirt?
  
  ►𝐉𝐚𝐫𝐎𝐟𝐎𝐳 (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (Not a real jar)
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  ChaoticThief - I know right? They sort of just fucked off and never came back... maybe they ended up having a steamy romeo/juliet moment?
  
  Rrrrt - You shouldn't say things like that, some people are really sensitive and if they hear it they'll just Come Apart By The Seams
  
  ►𝐑𝐫𝐫𝐫𝐭 (Temp-Banned)
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  JarOfOz - You're right, I'd hate to see someone Explode over something like this
  
  𝐄𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐚𝐠𝐞. 1, 𝟐, 𝟑... 𝟒𝟒, 𝟒𝟓, 𝟒𝟔
  
  (𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝟐 𝐨𝐟 𝟒𝟔)
  
  ►𝐊𝐚𝐧𝐞𝟒𝟒 (Veteran Member)
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  Anyone got any idea why she turned into a giant monster at the end there?
  
  Also, is it just me, or did anyone else get reminded of Crawler when she came back all monster-y like that?
  
  Not to mention, apparently she eats people? Am I the only one making the comparisons in my head right now?
  
  ►𝐌𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐞𝐥 𝐏𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐲 (Verified Petty) (Temp-Banned)
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  Lol, OP can't even spell fuck, what a looser
  
  ►𝐃𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝟑𝟐𝟏𝟒𝟓𝟔
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  FoolishEndeavours - Aren't you the guy who streamed this? You should know why this was happening right?
  
  ►𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐨𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐲 (Banned)
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  ChaoticThief - Don't act like they see us as equals, the simple fact is that we are not the same, and I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to do some genocidal shit so that they aren't the minority anymore
  
  Michael Petty - Oh the irony
  
  Also, I think it's probably a bit too early to be making any connections to the Slaughterhouse 9
  
  ►𝐅𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐄𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬 (Verified Cape) (Verified Fool)
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  Of course I know~ It might not be as grandiose as you think though~
  
  The simple truth is that I asked Tear to give me a good show, so that I could start my career with a Bang, so to speak.
  
  Frankly I never expected it to be such a loud bang, but I can't say I'm disappointed~
  
  ►𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐞𝐟
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  Carbonkenny - Did you seriously just suggest that Case 53's will GENOCIDE everyone else? The fuck is wrong with you?
  
  ►𝐉𝐚𝐲𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐁𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  ChaoticThief - I can kind of see where he's coming from to be fair, cuz with people like him being assholes and discriminating for no reason, there's probably plenty of resentment being built up. Not that I think they would ever do something like that, cuz they are still human, even if they look a lil diff
  
  ►𝐓𝐢𝐧𝐌𝐨𝐦 (Moderator) (Veteran Member) (Wiki Warrior)
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  Please keep the discussion on topic, if you have other things to talk about there are other boards, also please tone down the discrimintation.
  
  Also, keep in mind that NSFW videos, images and links will result in a ban. I won't lock the thread purely because it only gives the name of the site rather than any links, but you're skirting the line.
  
  ►𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐨𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐲(Banned)
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  JayFireBlood - 'Look a lil diff' he says. Bitch please, there's a reason there called monster capes, they look nothing like us.
  
  I mean, just look at the one in the video? I'm not sure if you missed it, but SHES A FREAKIN DRAGON!
  
  How can you see someone like that and say that they are just like us? Can you breathe fire?
  
  I think they should start trying to cure the freaks, I'm sure some cape could do it
  
  ►𝐓𝐢𝐧𝐌𝐨𝐦 (Moderator) (Veteran Member) (Wiki Warrior)
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  Aaaaand that's enough of that.
  
  Seriously, what did I just say? Keep the discussion to the topic of the thread or I WILL lock it.
  
  𝐄𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐚𝐠𝐞. 𝟏, 2, 𝟑, 𝟒... 𝟒𝟒, 𝟒𝟓, 𝟒𝟔
  
  (𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝟑𝟑 𝐨𝐟 𝟒𝟔)
  
  ►𝐉𝐚𝐫𝐎𝐟𝐎𝐳 (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (Not a real jar)
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  TinMom - Oh almighty moderator, I won't get in trouble if the thread gets locked right? It's not my fault.
  
  P.s how can I prove that I am in fact, a real jar?
  
  ►𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐊𝐚𝐧𝐞
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  Kane44 - I am the real Kane and I Will fight to prove it
  
  JarOfOz - Don't give the shipping fanfiction writers ideas, you know how they get, also, if you send a video of a jar somehow typing a post, I'm sure they'll give you the tag
  
  ►𝐄𝐠𝐠𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  I know it's kind of fucked up... but did anyone else actually kind of enjoy the stream? I don't know what it is, but that Fool guy has a kind of energy to him that just makes him fun to listen too, especially the way he was desperately trying to keep up with the action.
  
  ►𝐍𝐢𝐛𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐞
  
  Replied On Jan 1st 2008:
  
  Anyone know what she's doing now? Or what she's going to be doing at least? If she even survives the next 24 hours anyway
  
  ►𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐫 (Unverified Cape) (Banned)
  
  Replied On Jan 4th 2008:
  
  Nibbashamble - If you wanna know what I'm doing you can just ask you know?~
  
  ►𝐍𝐢𝐛𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐞
  
  Replied On Jan 4th 2008:
  
  Holy shit are you really the one in the vid? How are you alive? Oh and yea, what are you doing now, i guess
  
  ►𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐫 (Unverified Cape) (Banned)
  
  Replied On Jan 4th 2008:
  
  'Course it's me~ as for what I'm doing?~ Simple really~ I'm fucking your mom! Haha get rekt loser, i'm going to find you.
  
  ►𝐓𝐢𝐧𝐌𝐨𝐦 (Moderator) (Veteran Member) (Wiki Warrior)
  
  Replied On Jan 4th 2008:
  
  Please do not make threatening statements and remember to keep things civil, threats on a real life person will result in a ban.
  
  ►𝐅𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐡 𝐢𝐧 𝟏 𝐁𝐨𝐰𝐥 ( ✷ ‿ ✷ )
  
  Replied On Jan 4th 2008:
  
  ◉ ‿ ◉
  
  ►𝐎𝐠𝐥𝐚𝐧 (Snek)
  
  Replied On Jan 4th 2008:
  
  𝐄𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐚𝐠𝐞. 𝟑𝟏, 𝟑𝟐, 33, 𝟑𝟒, 𝟑𝟓... 𝟒𝟒, 𝟒𝟓, 𝟒𝟔
  
  Putting the phone down, I stare into space for a moment with a slowly growing amused smile.
  
  That's got to be some kind of record right?
  
  I've had this account for less than an hour and it's already banned for the next week.
  
  Whatever, I don't really care to be honest, because while it is nice to see people taking notice of my play, I also don't really care, since I did it for my own amusement anyway.
  
  And speaking of my own amusement, I should really think about what I am going to do now that I'm here.
  
  Honestly, I don't really feel like getting into more fights so soon, so I'd rather find something else to do, at least for a short while anyway.
  
  Though, what am I supposed to do then? What do people do for fun when they don't have powers?
  
  Go clubbing? I guess?
  
  Eh, fuck it. I will go clubbing.
  
  Who knows, maybe it will actually be interesting?
  
  It's something to cross of my bucket list at least.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  So! It wouldn't be much of a wormfic without at least one PHO interlude. There probably won't be any more of these, but there might, idk, it was a bit of a bitch to write, even with the worm pho interlude wizard to help me.
  
  Also, I took the liberty of using a couple of my dear readers' tags for the interlude, as you may notice. Most of the names however, are those of my lovely patrons :)
  
  Also also, who knew the hardest part of commissioning an artist would be finding one that matches what I'm looking for?
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  52 Making Friends Again 2 Electric Booga
  I've never been clubbing before.
  
  The thought comes to me as I walk down the dark streets of New York, still filled with the same hustle and bustle despite the sun having set, though to be fair, it's not like it's at all dark, what with all the lights everywhere.
  
  As I wonder around, looking for anywhere or thing interesting enough to catch my attention, I continue to mull over my thoughts.
  
  In fact, I've never even actually been to a party before.
  
  A proper party that is, not like, birthday parties that are just family. Though it's not like I've never been 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘥 to parties before, I've just never really felt like going.
  
  Now that I think about it, I never really had any friends, just friendly acquaintances.
  
  It's kind of weird how much more active I am now that I have powers, but I can't deny that I am certainly enjoying myself.
  
  Speaking of enjoying myself.
  
  A short distance ahead, I spot what is clearly a popular club, with the line for entry extending quite a bit.
  
  Not really finding the idea of so many people in such a small place but still firmly of the 'in for a penny' mindset, I decide that this place seems good enough.
  
  A quick glance down the line shows me nothing that I didn't expect coming here, namely the disparity in the woman to men ratio.
  
  It's not really a surprise to me though, since I have always had an interest in how people behave, but it's still nice to see, as it will make me stand out less.
  
  That is kinda important, since I am not planning on doing anything cape related today. This is a purely bucket list crossing off activity.
  
  One good thing at least is that I appear to have been right in my decisions of what to wear today, going by the fact that most of the other women are in similar variations of dress.
  
  That is to say, I am wearing a nice and loose sunny shoulder-less crop top, with a red and blue plaid skirt that stops a little above my knee, allowing a thin slip of my thighs skin to be seen from the gap between the skirt and my plain black stockings.
  
  Naturally, the look is finished off by a short leather jacket that has more zips than it needs, as well as a pair of modest heels, enough that I stand taller than most of the other women, but not quite enough that I am eye to eye with most men.
  
  All in all, I think I'm looking pretty sexy.
  
  Not that I'm planning on getting laid or anything, sometimes it's just nice to dress up and really feel good about yourself.
  
  Plus it only feels right, considering the location.
  
  I pause a small distance before the line, hesitating slightly.
  
  I think I should make a game.
  
  It doesn't have to be anything over the top, but if I can approach this like it's part of a game, I will probably have more fun, the only question, is what should the challenge be?
  
  Something fun.
  
  Hmmm.
  
  Eh, let's keep it simple, the aim of today is to pickpocket as many people as possible for as much money as possible.
  
  Simple, fun 𝘢𝘯𝘥 if I get caught then it means I can maybe kill someone.
  
  With that distinction made, I move forward again with a renewed smile on my face.
  
  I take my place at the back of the line, ready to simply wait until it moves forward, however my chances of staring into space for however long are dashed when one of the women in front of me turns around, a loose smile on her face.
  
  She's wearing a proper dress, also shoulder-less, like my top, coloured a dark blue that matches her eyes. Her head is a dull maroon that speaks of faded red hair and goes down to her shoulder blades.
  
  "Heeey! You mind helpin' a girl out?" She slurs, clearly already intoxicated.
  
  I have to restrain myself from sniffing disdainfully at the scent on her breath.
  
  Not only is it simply an unpleasant smell for my enhanced nose, but I've also never really been a fan of the idea of getting intoxicated.
  
  After all, drinking takes away your inhibitions and I am already sorely lacking in that regard 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 the addition of alcohol.
  
  Still, I keep my face one of placid interest, a light smile playing on my lips, giving the image that I am simply happy to be out and interacting with people, as the woman continues talking, drawing the attention of her friends as she does so.
  
  "Claire here", she wraps an arm around one of her supposed friends, similarly dressed only in green and much more noticeable high heels, "only came after we basically forced her to and is worried about being hit on, for 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 reason."
  
  As she talks I look closer to Claire, my interest growing, if only slightly.
  
  Only now that it has been pointed out do I actually take notice of the slight tenseness in her shoulders and rigid manner in which she is moving her head, making her blonde hair wave slightly every time.
  
  "So seein' as you're alone?" I nod at the statement turned question, allowing her to continue, "maybe you could pretend to be her girlfriend or somethin'?"
  
  Before I can even respond to that, I am cut off by a long drawn out groan from Claire that makes me think that this might not be an uncommon experience for her.
  
  "My gooood Julia! will you stop asking random strangers, no offence-"
  
  "None taken." I smile as she quickly goes back to complaining to Julia.
  
  "-to pretend to date me? Do you have any idea how awkward it was the last time?" She finishes with a heavy breath, her chest rising and falling as if she just got back from a run, face flushed with heat.
  
  It's cute really, getting so worked up like this.
  
  "She's got a point Jules, we should at least know their name before handing Claire over to them, right?" Comes the last of this group of girls.
  
  She has brown hair, cut short with most of it flowing over to the right side of her head, with her left side being slick to the skull instead.
  
  It honestly looks pretty good.
  
  Unlike her friends however, she isn't wearing a dress, being dressed more like myself instead, only instead of a crop top she has a typical white button up shirt that she has twisted in the middle to turn it into a makeshift crop top.
  
  Below that she has a pair of tight, and I mean 𝘵𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 jeans, with a hoodie wrapped around her waist.
  
  All in all, she looks like some kind of boarding school delinquents' girlfriend.
  
  "Too true, too true", I respond with a smirk, engaging myself into the group, "in that case, my name is Eve. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." I bow slightly, my smirk remaining firmly in place as I do so.
  
  I'm really having fun with the whole coming up with fake names stuff, though if anyone figures out the common factor then I'll be pretty easy to catch, but that's just part of the game.
  
  It wouldn't be any fun if there was no risk.
  
  "Wait, so does this mean you're cool with being Claires excuse to turn people down?" Julia's widened eyes clearly show that she wasn't expecting this to be so easy, but her smile betrays that she is happy with the development regardless.
  
  "What!"
  
  Claires shout goes ignored as I respond honestly to Julia.
  
  "Well I don't see why not. I was supposed to be coming here with a couple of friends but they all backed out last minute. I however, am determined to have a good night out today anyway, so here I am. As such, I wouldn't say no to some good company."
  
  By honestly, I naturally mean I didn't speak a word of truth.
  
  "Huh, well damn then. That was easy." Julia opens and closes her mouth a couple of times, clearly not sure of what to say next.
  
  Thankfully, before the silence can start to get awkward, the woman who's name I haven't got yet perks up.
  
  "Hey, why do you speak like that anyway? All fancy-like I mean. Like, who even says 'acquaintance' anymore? I couldn't even begin to guess how that's spelt."
  
  I don't speak fancy-like, I just use proper words most of the time.
  
  Then again, she doesn't seem the brightest.
  
  Either way, I simply give her a wry smile as I answer, raising my arms in a half shrug.
  
  "Eh, I grew up reading a lot. I know a lot of fancy words, it would be remis of me to not make use of them no?"
  
  It's mostly true, but also that I just like using long words sometimes. Long words can be cool, like peripetia.
  
  After that, we have some more casual conversation, during which I find out that the third girls name is Jasmine, and I integrate myself into the group pretty easily.
  
  Eventually, we make it to the front of the line and from that to the inside of the club.
  
  The fist thing that comes to mind as I step through the door is.
  
  𝘓𝘰𝘶𝘥.
  
  Then we move closer to the bar and I notice how 𝘩𝘰𝘵 it is. Thankfully at least, my power seems to come with some kind of basic resistance to temperature, so the heat doesn't really bother me.
  
  When we make it to the bar, I realise a slight flaw in my plan, in that I don't think they will be serving coffee, which means I'm going to have to figure out some way of pretending to drink.
  
  Fun.
  
  "-and what about you Eve? Whaddaya want?" Jasmine waves her hand ambiguously as the three of them turn to me.
  
  "Rum and coke please." I smile.
  
  It's mostly out of nostalgia really, since while I rarely ever drank, I did on a couple of occasions and rum and coke was my favourite.
  
  We sit around at the bar for a bit, just talking as we work through our drinks until Julia eventually runs out of patience and orders a round of shots.
  
  "Alright ladies! To the dancefloor!" She exclaims, lifting her shot glass in cheer with the res of us matching her.
  
  Only Claire seems to have any struggle downing the shot and in no time at all we are squeezing our way into the mass of bouncing and bobbing bodies, taking effort to avoid being completely separated.
  
  I keep with Claire, taking her hand and jumping around with her, not really knowing how to dance, but having fun all the same.
  
  It's hot, and while that itself doesn't bother me, but it's also stuffy and humid.
  
  People are everywhere, bumping into and around me.
  
  The loud music leaves a deep rumbling across the dance floor, matching with the sounds of dozens of feet stomping and jumping about.
  
  It's stifling, and being surrounded by so many people like this without the option of using my power, for the sake of my own game, brings back memories I would rather forget.
  
  Thankfully, I am able to snap myself out of it by remembering my game and with that I start bumping into more people, snatching wallets and bare cash left and right, stuffing the unexpectedly deep pockets of my jacket full.
  
  With that task to focus on, I actually find myself enjoying myself a little, my smile smile growing just that little bit more genuine.
  
  I don't know how long we were on the dancefloor, though I don't think it was too long, before Claire pulled me close in order to shout in my ear so that I can actually hear her.
  
  "I'mma go sit down! Wanna come!?" Her face betrays how she is rapidly growing more and more uncomfortable with where she is, and my pockets are getting full, so I nod and start leading us to the edge of the room, where the booths are.
  
  We get to a booth and Claire quickly lets go of my hand so that she can collapse into one of the cushioned seats.
  
  As I move to join her, I suddenly freeze but quickly smother that reaction and take a seat without her noticing anything odd.
  
  "Someone's eager~ not a dancer?" I ask, but my focus is firmly elsewhere.
  
  Just before sitting down, I smelt something. Something 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨.
  
  Casting my eyes wide, I take notice of an Asian woman partying hard and definitely high an probably too many drugs, yet I notice the way that she never truly loses her balance.
  
  I watch her tip like she's going to fall, only to catch herself perfectly at the last second. Every. Time.
  
  I turn away, looking back to Claire, even if I continue to ignore her as my focus remains on the woman, catching her putting another tab of something in her mouth from the corner of my eye.
  
  A small, playful smile rises on my lips, something that Claire apparently mistakes as a response to whatever she said.
  
  But I don't care about her anymore.
  
  After all, the smell of a 𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘦 is far, 𝘧𝘢𝘳 more interesting.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  If anyone can guess who the mysterious cape is from the extremely limited amount of information available, I will be very impressed.
  
  Fyi, she is a canon cape, but I think she only shows up in Ward, Worm's sequel, and I haven't actually read Ward, so she's probably going to end up pretty OC anyway.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
  previous chapternext chapterchapter list
  53 Don't Do Drugs
  A/N: Changed the cover to look more like the current Lusia, though she obviously won't have her ghoul eyes out as a civilian.
  
  Naturally, I am not simply going to walk up to the mystery cape, that'd be boring.
  
  Not to mention, I don't want to just ditch Claire if I can help it. Not because I'm nice or anything, it would just feel like cheating.
  
  No, it would be more fun if I manage to keep Claire around. Plus, she is kinda cute, so I don't really mind.
  
  That just leaves the question of 𝘩𝘰𝘸.
  
  Then again, I don't think it'll be too hard. Claire doesn't exactly seem the most... decisive, shall we say for lack of a better word.
  
  Turning my focus back to the woman in question, I flash her a smile, even as I start sorting through all the wallets in my pockets, taking out the cash and subtly throwing the wallets on the floor.
  
  "So, you don't like dancing. Then why don't we find some other way to have fun while your friends enjoy themselves?"
  
  I am thankful that the music is at least slightly less blasting at the edges of the room where the booths are, so while I still have to speak louder than my normal talking volume, at least I don't have to shout anymore.
  
  "Yeah? What do you have in mind?" She raises an eyebrow to go with her question and I give a wolfish grin in response.
  
  "I was thinking we could introduce ourselves to the fine partygoers over there", I nod my head in the direction of the cape and the dozen or so other people around her, "and introduce ourselves, maybe get ourselves a little pick-me-up."
  
  She follows the tilt of my head, noticing the same group that is clearly on one hell of a bender and I pretend not to notice her sudden discomfort in favour of wriggling my eyebrows at her instead, keeping my grin firmly on my face.
  
  "Uhh, I don't know about that. I've never done, you know, before." She waves her arms around as if trying to mime the word 'drugs' instead of just saying it.
  
  With a shake of my head, I slide across the booth until I am sitting next to her.
  
  Turning, I fold one of my legs up on the seat so that I can fully face her and I lean close, close enough that my lips brush against her ears so that she can properly hear my sensual whispers.
  
  "Come now~ even if we're just playing pretend, I'd still like to show you a good time.~"
  
  Moving even closer I push my body against hers and slowly and lightly trail one of my fingernails up her stomach making her breath hitch and blood flow to her cheeks as I keep whispering to her like the devils temptation.
  
  "It's not like we'll be doing anything hard, just some light stuff. Don't you want to enjoy yourself?~ It'll be fun~ all you have to do is let loose a little~ we're already here, might as well make it a night to remember.~"
  
  The hand that was trailing over her body rises to her face, gently tilting it until we are facing each other.
  
  Her breath is ragged and her eyes are cloudy as she loses herself in the moment and I deliver the final blow by bringing my lips just to the edge of her own, barely brushing them.
  
  "What do you say?~" When my breathy whisper makes her shudder I know that I've got her.
  
  "F-fine. But I'm not doing like, heroin or anything like that." She says, looking down and away slightly out of embarrassment.
  
  With her acquiescence, I move back, giving her some space to calm down as I flag down one of the workers and order a pair of shots for everyone at the capes table, as well as a pair for Claire and I.
  
  I also pre-emptively pay for it with what is probably a very generous tip, since I just grabbed a handful of twenties to hand over.
  
  It's not like it's my money anyway, so I have no problem blowing it all.
  
  I still have plenty left over from whatever her name was. Wait did I even get her name?
  
  Eh, who cares.
  
  I wait until I see a server approaching the table with two trays full of shots before I make my way over, dragging Claire with me by her hand.
  
  There are eight of them and a quick assessment of their group dynamic tells me that the cape is very much the odd one out.
  
  For one, she looks way too young to be allowed in here, something I am only noticing now that I can get a good look at her face.
  
  I'd peg her for fifteen or so.
  
  But with how recklessly she is consuming, both alcohol and drugs, it's clear that there is something going on in her life that probably sucks, but I'm not a therapist, so I don't care.
  
  I get the distinct feeling that the others are only even hanging around her because she is paying for things, because they are mostly just ignoring her while she makes one hell of an effort shunt her brain into a different reality.
  
  Bursting up to them, I greet them with a cheerful, if slightly naïve smile.
  
  "Hey there! My name's Eve and this is Claire, we come bearing gifts!" I exclaim while gesturing to the server that arrives at that moment.
  
  A cheer goes up from the table at the sight of free booze and they immediately become friendly.
  
  Some greetings are exchanged, but I ignore them all until one of the guys says something I actually have to respond to.
  
  "To what do we owe the pleasure!?" His slightly slurred voice asks.
  
  "I was just looking for a pick-me-up to make the night even better!" I half shout, to be heard over the music, with a wink to match my smirk.
  
  He nods in understanding with a smile of his own to match mine.
  
  "I getchu! Here! Molly!" He exclaims, chucking a little bag over the table in front of me.
  
  I have no idea what 'molly' is, but fuck it, in for a pound.
  
  With a shrug, I take out two pills and chuck the little baggie back before handing one of them to Claire with a slightly nervous smile, as I don't want her to feel isolated by acting too comfortable, she might get cold feet if I do that.
  
  Instead, my 'nervousness' gives her the courage to keep going and with a quick non verbal countdown, we both pop the pills in our mouths and then down it with a shot.
  
  I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to combine alcohol and drugs for health reasons, but once again, I don't really care.
  
  One good thing about doing shots though is that I can quickly swallow the whole thing without having to taste it's rancid flavour.
  
  I am however noticing that rather than getting tipsy, I'm just starting to feel ill, which makes me think that alcohol probably doesn't effect me anymore.
  
  Drugs on the other hand clearly do, as after maybe half an hour of just hanging around and drinking the occasional shot, I start to feel it kicking in.
  
  The world get's filled with light, it's colours becoming more saturated than ever while all the noise of the club suddenly starts washing over me, like water over a rock.
  
  I feel myself start salivating as all of a sudden all I can think about is the tantalising scent of all the humans around me and under my incredulous stare I watch as people start transforming into all the food I've missed.
  
  Around the table, various anthropomorphic foods sit, tempting me with their mere presence.
  
  Suddenly, I am spun to the side and stare wide eyed at the walking pizza slice that looks like it's trying to talk to me, but naturally no words come out, because it is a pizza slice, and pizza can't talk.
  
  Right as I am thinking of taking a bite, something else manages to distract me.
  
  To my side is one person. The only person here in fact.
  
  She's a little girl, fourteen or fifteen years old with Asian features and I can't help but be drawn to her for the simple fact that she is another person while everyone else is food.
  
  How strange.
  
  "He~y! What's your name?" I say, waiving at the little Asian girl, "do you know the way to Narnia?"
  
  I think I got lost.
  
  I see a flashing light from the corner of my eye and turn around to see it, only to blink and realise I didn't turn around.
  
  Ahhh~ the sky is falling.
  
  ...
  
  A long, drawn out groan leaves my throat and it takes a hot minute before I even remember that I exist.
  
  𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬.
  
  I try to open my eyes, only to immediately slam them shut as what feels like the fucking 𝘴𝘶𝘯 glares straight into my brain, bringing about a stinging pain that thankfully fades pretty quickly, along with the ringing in my ears that I didn't even notice.
  
  Once again. 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬?
  
  After spending a couple of minutes slowly cracking my eyes open, giving them plenty of time to adjust to the light, I finally manage to get a look at where the fuck I am.
  
  A quick glance answers most of my prominent questions as I notice that not only am I inside of someone's bedroom, but I am also in their bed, stark naked.
  
  I am 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 not alone, as there are two other women in the bed with me.
  
  One of them is Claire and the other I don't even recognise, but one thing they both have in common is their incredibly.. 𝘳𝘶𝘧𝘧𝘭𝘦𝘥 appearance.
  
  Clearly, we had an eventful night.
  
  As the headache peters out into nothing, most likely thanks to my power, I let out a satisfied smile.
  
  I might not remember jack shit about how I got here, but my blackout self clearly had fun, so I count that as a win.
  
  The last thing I remember is finding that cape.
  
  It kinda sucks that I still don't know anything about here, since learning that was the whole reason I approached her anyway, but I don't bother dwelling on it.
  
  It's not like it's the end of the world after all and there's always next time.
  
  A quick glance out of the window tells me that it is probably in the early hours of the morning and after focusing on my hearing for a moment, I gather that no one else is up and about around me.
  
  Deciding to simply dip, I carefully get up and spend a while searching for all of my stuff and getting dressed.
  
  I also decide to just grab any cash I come across, because why not right?
  
  Then, without preamble, I simply leave, probably to never see either of them again.
  
  As I make my way back to my hotel room, I reflect on the experience.
  
  It was certainly something, but I can't remember half of it and what I can remember wasn't even all that fun.
  
  Yeah, I don't think I'm going to be doing anything like that again. It kind of sucked to be completely honest.
  
  Ah well, it's one more thing crossed off the bucket list.
  
  But now I want to do something fun again, lest boredom find me again.
  
  Luckily for me, I do actually have something of a plan for not only having some fun but also establishing my Clowns in the minds of those who matter.
  
  I don't really care if random nobodies know about us, I only really want people with pull or importance to be properly informed, namely capes that are part of larger organisations.
  
  Then again, this is kind of a long term goal. It's not like I can establish a group in just a few months after all. We need more members first and then we need to simply do more shit so we can get some credibility.
  
  I'd imagine my little play will at least put us on some peoples radars, but I want more than just that.
  
  Ah well, I'll leave that for later. For now I'm going to have a shower and a nap, then just chill until my plan starts moving forward.
  
  Idly, I realise that I can't even remember the name of that girl anymore.
  
  With that thought, I move forward with a small chuckle and a relaxed smile that is starting to feel like a permanent fixture to my face.
  
  There are fun times ahead, I can 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 it.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  It is 10 in the morning.
  
  In other news, recently I finally got the achievement for slay the spire for getting to ascension 5 on each character, though I have already got to 7 for the rogue snake lady, whatever her name is, Watcher? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  54 Too Tired to Think of a Title
  The question of finding something to do is actually a whole lot easier to solve than you might think, thanks in no small part to the Teeth.
  
  You see, the Teeth are a gang of anarchists and sadistic psychopaths, mostly edgy teenagers and young adults really, lead by the Butcher.
  
  And while the Teeth themselves aren't really too much to write home about, the Butcher certainly is, as their power is simply that should they be killed, their consciousness, as well as any powers they have, will be transferred to their killer, then that killer becomes the new Butcher and leads the Teeth.
  
  Thus, the cycle continues, likely indefinitely.
  
  Thankfully, the powers that get carried over get watered down slightly, otherwise they would be hella powerful with all the super strengths they have stacking with each other.
  
  Right now they are at Butcher XIII, who only recently succeeded the position, which is nice, because it means he might not be too insane yet.
  
  After all, the Butcher has the voices of all the other Butchers in their head, and just considering the fact that Butcher one and two managed to drive Butcher three to suicide in a 𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘬 just by themselves, having a dozen similar such voices probably won't be doing anyone's sanity any favours.
  
  Then again, Butcher three was the only hero of the lot, so they were probably extra mean to him and his heroic sensibilities.
  
  Either way, the important part is that you 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘶𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳. Something made difficult by the fact that they will gladly kill you, and are in all likelihood fully capable of doing so, especially if you are holding back.
  
  All in all, they are one scary motherfucker who nobody really wants to risk fighting.
  
  ... I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this.
  
  The Teeth like to bounce between Boston and New York on more or less a monthly basis and it just so happens that they were in Boston when Butcher XIII took the helm a couple of weeks ago.
  
  In other words, they are due to arrive here in the ensuing days, and nobody is particularly happy about it, especially since the new Butcher will be wanting to make an impression, so as to give himself a reputation beyond his namesake.
  
  Not that it will really make a difference. He is the Butcher and everyone knows exactly what that means and that's all that really matters.
  
  Which is why I pinged a message off to Jinx asking him to let it be known that parahuman muscle is in the city and available for hire, even against the Butcher.
  
  I've decided that it is about time I earned some honest money.
  
  Naturally, by 'honest' I just mean money that is being given to me willingly but eh, semantics.
  
  That was after I got back to my hotel from my earlier escapades with what's-her-face and the other one.
  
  Now, it is the day after and I have an 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸.
  
  I'm practically bubbling at the thought as my excitement gets the better of me.
  
  It's just that I've never been to an interview before, and it's going to be with Uppercrust of all people, the leader of the local branch of the Elite, which is the single biggest criminal organisation in America!
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬
  
  Ahhh.~
  
  I shudder from a healthy mix of pleasure and pain for a moment as I calm down from my emotional high.
  
  Right. Focus.
  
  I do want to give a good impression after all.
  
  I want my Clowns to have a reputation of being reliable.
  
  Ok, maybe reliable isn't the best word. More like 𝘦𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦.
  
  I want people to know that if they hire us, then whatever they hire us to do will be done, just possibly at the cost of a little bit of chaos,
  
  It's all about setting a precedent.
  
  Take the Slaughterhouse Nine for instance, everybody knows that they are just a bunch of murder hobos who will in all likelihood torture and kill everyone they interact with.
  
  But! There was that one time, funnily enough also involving the Teeth, over in the Nazi capital of America, Brockton Bay, when there was a bidding war for the Nine's services in killing the other bidders.
  
  The Teeth won the bid and the Nine killed some heroes for them, then they showed how they felt about being told what to do by wiping the Teeth out, down to just the Butcher who they drove out of the city, which was their powerbase at the time.
  
  Doing so, the Nine set a precedent.
  
  You 𝘤𝘢𝘯 hire them, only with the understanding that once they have killed whoever you want dead, they will be coming for 𝘺𝘰𝘶.
  
  In other words, it's a stupid thing to do if you aren't planning on killing yourself immediately after making the offer.
  
  Now, I actually happen to want me and my Clowns to be invited to things and to be interacted with, so I can't set that kind of precedent.
  
  Instead, what I want people to think when considering hiring my Clowns is that we 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 get the job done, whatever it is, the only price being a decent chance of the location experiencing a little bit of chaos.
  
  Well, that wouldn't be the 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 price, obviously there would still be the money getting used to hire us, but that doesn't sound as cool.
  
  So I am very excited for this meeting as it is an opportunity to set a precedent for my Clowns in the minds of the capes of America.
  
  With all of that in mind, I made sure to wash my new mask (I had to get a new one after Cu crushed the old one into a fine powder via introducing my face to tarmac, it looks the same as the old one) to ensure that I am as presentable as possible.
  
  This leads to now, as I am arriving at the meeting location, which happens to be a simple looking office building in a less populated part of the city, at four in the afternoon.
  
  It's kind of lame that we're not having the meeting at midnight and in an abandoned warehouse with dusty crates and cobwebs under the full moon, but whatever, there's always next time.
  
  In the interest of not being stupid, I didn't actually wear my costume the whole way here, instead I brought a it in a bag and came in normal clothes, only changing about a block away.
  
  This is why I am shouldering a messenger bag over my classic prison outfit that has some tasteful wear and tear thanks once again to Cu, for smacking me about.
  
  Of course, to finish the look, I am still shoeless.
  
  With a pep in my step, I walk fearlessly through the front door of the building, noticing how it does indeed seem like an unused building, if not for the faint tracks on the floor where dust has been moved.
  
  However, no one pops out to greet me, which means that this is either a test or a power play.. maybe both.
  
  I decide to move forward with the assumption that it's a test, because if it's a power play then I will deal with that when the time comes. It's not like I particularly care about power plays, it honestly seems a little silly, making someone wait and for what?
  
  So you can be all 'muahaha, you stayed over there 'cuz I told you to muaha'.
  
  A light chuckle tries to leave my throat at the image and I don't stop it.
  
  I do however, start scanning the area with my better senses rather than my eyes, starting with scent.
  
  Almost immediately after focusing on the sense, I smell the odour of a parahuman nearby, but I think they must have been chilling in the room for a while because the scent trail doesn't really lead anywhere.
  
  That problem is solved once I 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 start focusing on my hearing.
  
  One thing I've noticed about my enhanced senses, is that just using the word 'enhanced' feels like an understatement, something that is proven true once I start to take note of the sound of a heartbeat.
  
  Turning in the direction of the heartbeat, I find nothing. Just an empty wall with a couple of chairs sitting against it.
  
  Some kind of Stranger? Invisibility powers most likely, limited to sight, maybe other things but probably not.
  
  Or it could be something else, like a projection of some kind, or maybe it's actually Uppercrust's power at play.
  
  As these speculations pour through my head, I keep starting directly where I feel like the mystery person's eyes should be, and I feel my grin start to stretch wider as I notice the sound of his heartbeat picking up.
  
  Not moving a muscle, I continue staring in their direction, while keeping an ear out for any other heartbeats, until a whole 5 minutes pass and they finally crack.
  
  The space in front of me peels away in a kaleidoscope of colours and in the blink of the eye, there is now a woman standing in front of me, right where I was looking.
  
  She is dressed in a simple black suit, with pants despite gender stereotypes, with a matching black domino mask that covers down to the tip of her nose, framed by her short and curly brown hair.
  
  At her appearance, I jump backward slightly and bring my hands up to cover my mouth in 'shock'.
  
  "Woah~ where did you come from!~" My voice sounds out, like a baby experiencing the wonders of object permanence for the first time.
  
  Unfortunately, being the boring '𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭' that she is, she ignores my remark entirely.
  
  Instead, she simply straightens out her jacket and turns on her heel.
  
  "If you would please follow me." Her voice sounds rehearsed, like she's practiced the line so many times that it no longer holds any life.
  
  "Happily!~" I exclaim, bouncing after her at a carefree skip as she leads me to an elevator.
  
  She enters first, and I notice how she doesn't stand in the middle of the small box like I'd expected her too, choosing to be closer the the edge instead.
  
  I make the assumption that it's because she is uncomfortable with being around me, something supported by her heartbeat that betrays her calm façade.
  
  Naturally, my response to this is to simply stand right next to her, such that our shoulders are touching and I feel a sudden increase in her heart rate the moment we make contact.
  
  Something tells me they are well informed about me, because I doubt she's just a natural coward.
  
  Ah well, reputation is more valuable than gold to a cape, so I'm not going to complain.
  
  "No elevator music?~ Isn't that against the Geneva convention?~"
  
  To both of our shock, she actually does respond this time, though clearly it was a speak before you think kind of moment.
  
  "I don't know if elevator music was a thing when the Geneva convention was signed."
  
  Her body tenses once she realises she accidentally spoke to me, like I'm some animal that's going to attack her or something, but I pretend not to notice and decide to be nice for once and do a little educating.
  
  "Ah ah~ someone doesn't know their history.~ While the Geneva convention was first signed back in 1864, that was only the first part of four, with the latest being back in, like, '49 and elevator music started being a thing around the '30's, back when the empire state building first opened it's doors."
  
  She is unable to stop herself from turning to me in blatant shock and I bask in her surprise. Clearly she's had the image of me in her head as some kind of rabid animal that can't even understand algebra for some reason.
  
  Good. This is the whole point of doing this in the first place. To establish a precedent, that even if we may play dumb sometimes, we shouldn't be seen as idiots.
  
  "Which means, it is totally possible that not having elevator music is prohibited by the Geneva convention.~" I finish, amused by her poor attempts to remain stoic.
  
  Unfortunately, before I can say anything else, the elevator pings, signifying our arrival and jolting her our of her reverie and back into 'serious boring business' mode, squared shoulders, straight backed and a face carved of stone.
  
  The elevator's doors slide open to reveal exactly who I'm here to see.
  
  𝘜𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  I'mma change the cover to look like what Lusia looks like rn btw.
  
  Now that I type that out, I feel like it'll probably be rather obvious without me saying anything.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
  previous chapternext chapterchapter list
  55 Meeting
  The room is wide and well lit, like a CEO's office, only with less decoration.
  
  The spartan look to the room tells me that this is only a temporary meeting location, rather than somewhere that sees much active use, which makes sense.
  
  No need to invite an unknown parahuman into your house after all.
  
  At the opposite end of the room from the elevator is a large mahogany desk, I don't actually know if it's mahogany, but I would assume it is.
  
  The desk itself has a few files and a laptop on it, but nothing else.
  
  Most importantly, there are the three people behind the desk.
  
  Flanking each side stand a man and woman respectively, the man on the right and the woman on the left, my left that is.
  
  Like the one exiting the elevator with me, they are all wearing black business suits, though their masks are both more encompassing, covering their whole faces, only leaving holes for their eyes.
  
  It's kind of annoying that they all have matching outfits, because a lot of capes dress around their powers, like a pyrokinetic dressing in red for instance, but with them just wearing suits, I can't make any guesses on their powers just from looking at them.
  
  I honestly don't even know if it's intentional too, since image is one of the most important things for a cape and I'm sure the outfits help the image of this being the most professional villain group in the country.
  
  With the information available limited, there is very little I can deduce.
  
  One thing I can tell though, is that neither of their heartbeats are fluctuating at all or beating all that fast, which means they don't think they are in danger which makes me think that they are both CQC type capes.
  
  That would make sense, considering they are probably here to be bodyguards for the man they are flanking.
  
  Which brings me to the man sitting in the chair.
  
  Uppercrust.
  
  Honestly? He's not really what I was expecting.
  
  For one, he is old.
  
  Like, 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘺 old. Not to the point that he has a hunched back, he probably keeps himself in shape, but he has the short grey hair and the wrinkled face and I'm pretty sure that's a liver spot peaking out from behind his simple domino mask.
  
  It's certainly a rarity for capes to be old, not only because most triggers are teenagers, but mainly because the life span of a cape is generally not too long.
  
  The lady who greeted me walks past me to stand beside the other woman, leaving me the only one on this side of the desk.
  
  Shrugging mentally, I walk up the chair on my side of the room and leapfrog over it's back to sit myself down.
  
  Once I am in the seat, I notice a subtle change in Uppercrusts demeaner that proves his experience as he easily understood my unsaid message.
  
  It really is amazing how much information can be traded with so little interaction.
  
  Earlier, he left me waiting without a clear reception, something that was most likely a power play of some kind.
  
  Then, I come in here and I am outnumbered four to one, while my side of the room is completely bare while his at least has a window and some life to it, another power play.
  
  Even then, there is the fact that his chair is like, twice as big as mine, another stupid, subtle power play.
  
  Like, on one hand, I get that image is important, but on the other hand, I think all this stuff is stupid.
  
  So I showed him that.
  
  Normally someone in my position is supposed to wait to be offered a seat, doing so would set a clear power balance, or I could take my seat without paying him mind, this would make us seem more even but would also be insulting should I not be capable of backing my actions up with power.
  
  It's all really complicated and stupid in my opinion, so I flipped the board a little.
  
  By hopping over the chair to sit in it like that, I have both made the power play of sitting as if I own the place while also making it clear that I think such power plays are stupid thanks to my childish method of seating.
  
  Once again, it is surprising how much shit can go on in so little time.
  
  With his elbows on the table and his fingers folded in front of his face, Uppercrust leans towards me, his eyes pinning me to my seat, glistening with wisdom gained through years of life.
  
  "Tear. I will cut straight to the chase." His stern, baritone voice slowly sounds out, "The only reason I even 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥 the thought of meeting you is because of the Butcher. Even then, I am of half a mind to simply call this off and send you on your way. So tell me Tear, why should I listen to a single thing you have to say?"
  
  Blinking at the sudden hostility, I lean further back into my chair, lifting one leg over one of it's arms and resting an elbow on the other so I can rest my face on a closed fist, becoming the picture of relaxed.
  
  Seeing one of the 'guards" eyes twitch at my casualness draws a smile from me, not that they can see it but you can hear a smile, even if you don't realise it.
  
  "My my~ is this what they call negging?~" I say in a teasing tone of voice before continuing in a slightly more serious but still light-hearted tone "Why are you even so against spending time with me?~ We've never even met!~"
  
  I finish with an audible pout, turning my head to face away from him, making me have to side-eye him to meet his eyes.
  
  After I finish speaking, I discreetly glance at each of the people in the room, a faint feeling 𝘸𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 settling in my mind. Not like a bad feeling per say, more like something just isn't as it's supposed to be, though I can't quite think of what it is exactly.
  
  But as I am looking between the four of them, my eyes land on the girl I met first and I take note of the fact that her heartrate has calmed down considerably.
  
  Clearly she feels more comfortable with her friends with her.
  
  My attention is brought back to the room by Uppercrusts stern response.
  
  "I have seen the video Tear. I have seen what you can do. What you have done. Why would I ever allow an unstable, 𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘴 element such as you to operate with my people?"
  
  Without really even thinking about it, I laugh out loud, as if he just told a great joke, and it's a genuine laugh too, just probably not for the reason he would think.
  
  It's just that he considers me dangerous.
  
  Him, a gang lord who has been in the business for decades, possibly one of the first parahuman gang lords and most likely the only one still alive from back in the day.
  
  Yet he sees 𝘮𝘦 as a threat, someone who has only had powers for about three months.
  
  If that's not a good joke, then I don't know what is.
  
  Still, I should probably actually respond.
  
  My laughter dies down and I bring the hand that isn't holding up my head up and rest a finger on my cheek, visibly pondering.
  
  "Don't you think you're making a mountain out of a molehill here?~ It's not like this needs to be as complicated as you're making it you know?~"
  
  Even as my leisurely voice sounds out, I am only half paying attention to the conversation itself, most of my focus on finding the source of that niggling feeling I've been feeling in the back of my skull that something is off.
  
  "Is that so? In that case, please simplify it for me." He demands.
  
  A burst of air leaves my nose out of brief amusement before I suddenly still as it all clicks in my mind.
  
  My nose.
  
  It's 𝘴𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵.
  
  𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 what's been off. I can't smell any of them.
  
  Instead of answering right away, I get to my feet and take a half step forward, briefly looking side to side, yet seeing no indication of what I know is there.
  
  Deciding subtlety is for losers, I quickly take a stance and in the same motion, use my entire weight to throw a punch forward.
  
  My arm moves in a blur, right up until my fist reaches the line where his desk ends where instead of simply continuing uninterrupted through the empty air, my arm is stopped dread in it's tracks with a sickening 𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘩 followed immediately by a loud and sharp 𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬, like a gunshot, that only makes Elevator Girl flinch back.
  
  My entire arm 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 and it 𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘵𝘴, yet not nearly as bad as what Jason did to me, so I don't even blink at the pain, instead to preoccupied with the sight of my splattered blood floating in mid-air, slowly dribbling down what seems to be the clearest piece of glass ever, only visible by the long and encompassing cracks spreading out from the point of impact.
  
  "I see." I hum to myself, bringing my already healed arm to my chin even as I watch as the cracks slowly seem to repair themselves, fading from sight as they do so.
  
  I guess it was Uppercrust after all that was making her feel safe.
  
  I suppose I really should have expected this. He is a Tinker whose specialisation is barriers after all, it only makes sense that he would place one between us.
  
  Looking back at the people in front of me, I ignore the sudden tenseness in the guards as they no doubt prepare to fight me and look Uppercrust right in the eye even as my blood hangs between us.
  
  "Thought as much.~ It's almost like you don't trust me, aren't we buddies?~" I ask airily with a faint wine in my tone.
  
  "I do not trust you and we are not friends." Is his bland answer and I stick my tongue out at him in response, knowing he won't be able to see it.
  
  "Welp!~ As I was saying~ it's quite simple really. From the moment the Butcher shows up in New York and for the duration of time it takes for them to leave, I will go where you tell me to, protect what you tell me to and fight who you tell me to fight, when you tell me to fight. We can even do a contract if you think that sort of thing will effect me.~"
  
  His chair creaks slightly as his weight moves back while he mulls over my words.
  
  "And what of payment? I assume you want to be paid." He asks, and I quickly jump in with an affirmative.
  
  "Yup."
  
  "Then how can I trust that you won't simply run off with the money without actually doing what I would be paying you for?" He finishes and I can tell that he already wants to hire me.
  
  I should rephrase that, it feels misleading. It would be more accurate to say that I can tell how he 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴𝘯'𝘵 want his own people to tangle with the Butcher.
  
  "Oh that's an easy one," I say, waving away the question as if it's obvious, "just don't pay me 'till the job's over. Problem solved.~"
  
  I can practically 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 his raised eyebrow and hear it in his questioning tone.
  
  "And you trust me to deliver? What is stopping 𝘮𝘦 from simply not paying you after the fact?"
  
  This time it's my turn to roll my eyes, something that is not very subtle with my bright red eyes.
  
  "Of 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦 I trust you.~" I say with a wink.
  
  Right as he opens his mouth, no doubt to ask 𝘸𝘩𝘺 I trust him, I speak again, interrupting him.
  
  "I trust you because you've been in the game for a while and I trust that you are not stupid.~ I trust that you understand the danger a single parahuman with nothing to lose can cause to an organisation. I trust that you understand that making me an enemy for no reason would be foolish and I trust that you are no fool."
  
  The slight quiver of his lips is the only sign I get that he is pleased with my little speech and I can tell that he has already made his decision even as he continues to 'interrogate' me.
  
  "Do you think that you could stand against us? Against the Elite?" He asks, sounding genuinely curious beneath the general sternness of his voice.
  
  I obviously don't think I could face the Elite alone. Kill a bunch of them? Sure, easy. But to actually 𝘸𝘪𝘯? Unlikely.
  
  Still, he only asked if I thought I could stand against them, not whether or not I could win, so I don't hesitate to respond.
  
  "Yup!~"
  
  A snort brings the attention of the room to the only other male present and he speaks up the moment our eyes lock.
  
  "That would be a lot more convincing if you could even brake Boss' barrier." He taunts.
  
  Before even thinking about my response, I am already speaking and it's only after my words are out that they register in my mind and I immediately regret them.
  
  "I held back dipshit. You don't just go around breaking shit when someone invites you over~ not to mention that I didn't want to give you too much of a scare.~"
  
  I can 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳 the smirk in his voice as he retorts, Uppercrust not seeming to mind the dialog.
  
  "Oh yeah? Then you wouldn't mind proving that, would you? After all, knowing your strength will help us gauge how much you are worth."
  
  Well shit.
  
  I turn to Uppercrust, silently asking his permission and hoping that he says no.
  
  "I don't mind. The actual barrier itself can be broken as many times as is needed. It will fix itself soon enough."
  
  Damnit.
  
  Well, you know what they say, no backsies.
  
  Readying my fist, I take a punching stance again only this time I push some of my power through from the highest 'source' and down through my arm, all the way to my fist, bursting out to form three small, blood red spikes, each about an inch long and protruding from between my knuckles.
  
  God I hope this works, it will be beyond embarrassing if it doesn't.
  
  With my knuckle dusters formed, I throw the same punch forward.
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬
  
  My arm pauses.
  
  𝘚𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳
  
  And jolts forward another few inches before I bring a stop to the swing, my arm sticking through a hole in the air where the invisible barrier has been broken.
  
  Outside I calmly pull back my hand and relax as the conversation moves on and we discuss the finer details of things.
  
  Inside however, I breathe out a massive sigh of relief.
  
  Fuck that would have been embarrassing if I failed. I'd probably just leave the city in that situation.
  
  Clearing that thought away, I focus back on the conversation.
  
  Especially when it comes to how much I'm going to be paid.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  This chap is 25% longer than normal. Be grateful.
  
  Edit: I accidentally didn't write anything yesterday and now I have to do at least double to catch up again, so the 25% extra is actually a 75% decrease.. at least for the patrons, you fellow poor folk don't got to worry about not getting your daily fix, so yeah, I will circle back and say you should be grateful.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  56 Butcher XIII
  𝘚𝘭𝘶𝘶𝘶𝘳𝘱
  
  "Must you drink so loudly?" Sighs Elevator Girl, who I now know is called Hideout, from my side as I loudly suck my drink through a straw.
  
  As it turns out, it 𝘪𝘴 possible to turn people into slushies and I have been thoroughly enjoying the fresh flavour.
  
  It's been a few days since my meeting with the Elite, time which I used to advance my culinary repertoire, and the Teeth finally showed themselves yesterday.
  
  Thus, my contract has officially begun and I am technically no longer unemployed. So.. yay, I guess.
  
  Anyway.
  
  Right now, and for the past few hours as well, I have been sitting on this roof with only Hideout and my cards for company.
  
  Apparently Hideout is only here to use her power to hide me until the Butcher shows up, though I think she's also here to make sure I don't do anything 'untoward', like robbing the place I'm supposed to be protecting.
  
  I don't even know what it is that I am protecting, though I'm guessing either guns or drugs, or maybe both. But Uppercrust is apparently convinced that the Butcher knows about this place and is likely to hit it today, thus my presence here.
  
  He's also made it plenty clear that Hideout is only here to keep me company until Butcher shows up, and that I will be on my own at that point.
  
  I happen to be perfectly fine with that. If anything, I prefer it this way.
  
  After all, I have a number of new muscles to stretch and I've been doing a lot of practicing and experimenting with my powers and have a whole lot of new tricks to test out in live combat.
  
  But that's for when they actually show up, for now there are more important things to focus on.
  
  "For your information, yes I 𝘥𝘰. Slurping is a sign of appreciation and the louder the slurp the greater the sign of appreciation.~"
  
  Hideout just huffs from where she sits beside, keeping an eye on the road below while I focus on my game of solitaire.
  
  The pair of us are sitting inside of her power, which basically allows her to 'draw' out a ring on the ground which makes anyone inside of the ring invisible to anyone outside of it.
  
  Pretty nifty for making sure no one sneaks up on us, though I think I would be fine without her.
  
  Not that I mind the company.
  
  "What are you even drinking anyway?" She asks, not turning her head away from the street.
  
  Deciding both to fuck with her and that it would probably be best if I'm not honest anyway, I answer blandly, with the kind of tone you would expect to be used if I was saying 'water', only water is not what I say at all.
  
  "Vinegar."
  
  She nods her head disinterestedly for a brief moment before freezing as she properly comprehends what I said.
  
  Her head whips around to face me fast enough that I would be worried for her neck if I actually cared for her wellbeing.
  
  "𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵!?" She half screams, still conscious enough of the situation at hand to attempt to keep her voice low even through her shock.
  
  I carefully lift my head from my game and stare her dead in the eyes, something that makes her have to try and hide a slight flinch, no doubt due to the crimson tint of my own eyes.
  
  "It's vinegar. 𝘗𝘶𝘴𝘴𝘺." I practically spit, my tone daring her to question my choice of beverage.
  
  As it is, she merely sits there for a moment, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water as she tries and fails to come up with a response.
  
  A moment later her problem is solved for her as I burst out laughing, her little consternated face being too much for me to handle as I fall to my back, holding my sides with one arm and pointing at her with the other so that I am literally pointing and laughing.
  
  Predictably, she flushes and turns away, focusing back on her job and pretending to ignore me.
  
  Once I get my laughter back under control, I sit back up and go back to my game of solitaire, which I've almost won.
  
  "I jest, I jest~" I say to the irate woman, appeasing her slightly, only to annoy her again with my following words, "It's actually just the tears of orphans.~"
  
  I hear her huff and from the corner of my eye I can see that she is once again focusing on the road even as she opens her mouth to continue with out conversation.
  
  "If-" She starts, only to be immediately cut off by the sound a pair of loud engines rocketing towards our location.
  
  Both of us snap to attention and stare down the street, one of us with weariness and the other anticipation. I'll give you three guesses as to who's who, but the first two don't count.
  
  As I was hoping, we are both greeted by the sight of a pair of trucks that look like they belong in a Mad Max movie, what with all the spikes and skulls turn the corner on the end of the street, barrelling down towards us with music blasting out that is barely even audible over the incredible thrum of their engines.
  
  Well, let it be known that no one ever accused the Teeth of being subtle.
  
  Damn. I am suddenly brought short by an intrusive thought and I spare a single regretful glance to my cards. I was so close to finishing too... heh, that's what she said.
  
  Shaking my head clear of my mental whining, I decide to quickly go through what I know of the capes I'm about to face. Uppercrust has a lot of information and all but forced me to listen to it all.
  
  The spoilsport doesn't understand the concept of spoilers. It's much more fun if I have to actually figure out the powers myself.
  
  Either way, I know what I know and what I know is that there are currently only six members.
  
  First there is Spike, he can turn himself into a pincushion. The method to countering him seems to basically be 'don't hug him'. He probably also has a minor Brute rating, but not enough that it really matters.
  
  Then there's Hemorrhagia. I have no idea how it's supposed to be spelt, and to be honest I kind of forgot how to pronounce it properly. She can control blood, but not a lot of it and has some kind of self biokinesis.
  
  She's basically just a person with armour and weapons that she can change as she wills it, and it doesn't matter if she can control blood if I just rip her head off.
  
  After her we have Slasher, and I imagine that he only added the -er on the end of his name to avoid association with Jack Slash, because not even the Teeth want to be associated with the Nine, especially after they kicked their asses out of Brockton.
  
  He can just turn his arms and feet into blades that aren't really all that much better than normal swords.
  
  Pretty weak to be honest and I'd imagine that if he manages to survive today that he wouldn't have lasted all that long anyway.
  
  Then there is Animos, probably the only one of them that is in any way dangerous. His power is that he can transform into some werewolf looking thing, but that alone wouldn't be too impressive.
  
  What makes him a credible threat is that his howl, when transformed, temporarily disables the powers of anyone within it's cone of range.
  
  I don't really know how that works on Brutes like me and frankly I don't intend to find out.
  
  There is another stooge cape, but apparently they don't come out much. Uppercrust says that it's either that they are a Tinker or that they are just too green.
  
  Then, saving the best for last is of course the Butcher themselves.
  
  The more you think about the Butchers powers, the less you generally want to fight him.
  
  Naturally, this means that I get more excited as I mentally go through the list.
  
  First there's the pain blast and while it can induce cardiac arrest in normals, I'm sure I will be able to handle it. Then he can see hearts and arteries and stuff through walls, though apparently not through Hideout's power.
  
  That's just form the first two Butchers, the third was the only hero of the lot and he supposedly had some kind of danger sense and that only leaves ten more to go.
  
  He can make an wounds he inflicts to fester, which is really just an extra 'fuck you' in my opinion. He can teleport short distances, though he explodes every time he lands, so it's not exactly stealthy.
  
  He can shape matter in limited amounts, so there's no real point in trying to disarm him. He can make those near him go into a mindless rage and he's also immune to pain.
  
  Then, finally, he has super strength stacked at least six times over. Though since the Butcher only passes down watered down versions of the powers, it's not as incredible as it sounds, but still a high tier brute.
  
  Most likely stronger and more durable than me without my armour.
  
  Ah, I just realised that the current Butcher's original power was one of those Brute ones, so maybe he will actually be stronger than I thought.
  
  Oh well. There's always the mucus membrane if his skin proves too tough. Thanks Jason.
  
  By the time I've finished reviewing what I am going up against the Teeth in question have all clambered out of their cars and formed a small mob on the street below us.
  
  "Well?" I hear from my side and as I turn I see Hideout gesture to the crowd below, swinging her arm out as if she is presenting them and giving me the kind of look you would give a dog when it's refusing to drop something.
  
  "Yes 𝘮𝘰𝘮." I say with a roll of my eyes as I walk up to the edge of the roof, standing with my toes dangling over the edge.
  
  Reaching into my pocket, I pull out a vital instrument for my plan of action.
  
  "Why are you putting on glasses?" I hear from behind me.
  
  "Shut up. It's all part of the plan." I say before ignoring her and focusing.
  
  Indeed, I truly am a genius, I have no idea how I come up with all these amazing plans.
  
  Maybe I actually am a Thinker after all?
  
  Shaking my head clear of thoughts, I allow my excitement to well up and suffuse my being.
  
  A smile grows on my face and I take a deep breath and hold it for a moment.
  
  As I let go of the breath, I take a step forward, immediately plummeting to the ground.
  
  About halfway down, I twist forward and kick back, pushing off the building behind me to launch myself forward, directly at the Butcher.
  
  However, despite coming from behind, right as I am a few feet away, they suddenly snap around to face me, but by that point I am too close for them to do anything about it.
  
  But right as my fist is about to connect with their face, they simply disappear, as if they were but a mirage.
  
  Having already seen this coming, I don't hesitate for a second to change targets.
  
  I hit the ground with a roll and as soon as I get my feet under me, I launch myself forward once again, straight at Animos who is already transformed and has his maw open, no doubt about to scream at me.
  
  Unfortunately for him, he never gets the chance as my knee impacts his jaw, closing his mouth with an audible 𝘴𝘯𝘢𝘱 and sending him flying to the other side of the street.
  
  Before I can feel any satisfaction from it however, I suddenly feel extremely hot and it actually takes my brain a moment to register that I am flying through the air.
  
  It's only when my face smacks into the ground that I properly understand what just happened.
  
  Slowly pushing myself over onto my back, I lift myself up with a groan, resting on my elbows.
  
  I am greeted by an angry looking Butcher approaching me with a steady gait.
  
  Heh, you fool, you have activated my trap.
  
  It is time for my ultimate plan to come into effect.
  
  "Wait!" I shout right as he is within arms reach of me, making him pause. "You wouldn't hit a girl with glasses, would you?~"
  
  He responds by kicking me in the face.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  I kinda fucked up. That cape she met in the club? That was supposed to be an important plot point, cuz that cape is important-ish. but Tear blew it by getting fucked up and now I don't know how to fix it. :(
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  57 Friendly Spar
  Ow.
  
  Wiping the remains of my prop glasses from my face I get to my feet and scan the line-up facing me.
  
  I think Butcher has realised that the others aren't going to be able to do much as other than the couple of people who are trying to wake up Animos, I guess the bult up momentum was enough to knock him out cold, everyone seems to be forming a half ring, looking for all the world like they are just here to watch a street show.
  
  All except Butcher of course, he is walking menacingly towards me instead.
  
  Idly I take note of the fact that he isn't wearing a mask, something that's understandable considering his affliction, but other than that he fits the general theme of the Teeth in that he's wearing bones and spikes and skulls and other voodoo shaman looking shit.
  
  Still, my first plan may have failed, but that's what contingencies are for.
  
  From out of a hidden pocket that I actually had to sew into the costume myself come a folded piece of fabric that I rapidly extend and hold over my head.
  
  In bright tie-dye colours are the words 'Make love not war!' framed by peace symbols.
  
  "Why must we fight? can't we all just be friends?" I say, ignoring the fact that I struck first.
  
  Without breaking his stride, he grunts out a response.
  
  "I'm going to rip your head off and fuck the neck hole." He threatens.
  
  Well then.
  
  ... That's certainly something.
  
  Dropping my banner, I hold up one of my hands in a hold gesture, one that he blatantly ignores.
  
  "That's a lot to unpack." Is my deadpan response.
  
  "It's going to be a lot to unload." He quickly responds and I can't help the undignified snort that leaves me.
  
  "Haha, ok, that was a good one." I laugh, nodding my head in approval.
  
  It really was a good one, if kind of gross to picture, if only since it's my decapitated head.
  
  By now, he was close enough that the time for witty pre fight banter is about over, but that fits perfectly into my third plan.
  
  I'm sure it will work this time.
  
  In another rapid movement, I reach into another pocket, only this time I throw my hand forward in the same movement, sending a cloud of glitter towards my foe.
  
  "Glitter bomb bitc-"
  
  My triumphant cry is interrupted as Butcher disappears and reappears behind me, throwing me forward with a 𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘨 like a grenade going off.
  
  The heat washes over me to little effect and I roll with the momentum to get back to my feet, silently thanking whoever designed my clothes to be fire resistant.
  
  Though not immune, I realise as I quickly pat out the burning edges of my shirt.
  
  "Welp. I guess it's time we started beating the shit out of each other now huh?" I state with a smile.
  
  Normally it would be the time I started trying to kill him, but well... we all know how that would end and I like my head without voices thank you very much.
  
  Wait...
  
  I like my head without any 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 voices. Then again, it has been a while since I've had a schizophrenia moment.
  
  Not to mention, I'm not even supposed to fight him to a victory or defeat. I only need to stall long enough for Uppercrusts men to get clear and for the protectorate to arrive so that they can deal with him instead of me.
  
  Doesn't mean I'm going to make it easy for him though.
  
  In a burst of speed, I rush forward to engage the Butcher, only to suddenly feel an intense 𝘢𝘨𝘰𝘯𝘺 wrack my body.
  
  It only makes me stumble a single step before I am back to moving as if nothing happened.
  
  Now don't be mistaken, it hurts like hell. Almost as bad as everything Jason did to me, but by now pain isn't something that really concerns me.
  
  If anything, it just adds a certain.. 𝘧𝘭𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘶𝘳~ to the battle that only makes my smile wider.
  
  I lead with a right to his sternum that he counters perfectly, knocking my blow wide but I use the momentum to spin around, landing a roundhouse kick right into his ribs.
  
  He only grunts from the impact, taking a single step back before he responds with a flurry of punches that I weave between, keeping my feet fast and light so that he can't land a single blow.
  
  He may be stronger and more durable, but I am certainly faster and more flexible, something I use to my advantage to the best of my ability.
  
  Suddenly I see an opening, but some instinct warns me not to take it, so I don't and the next instant he stumbles, if only for a tenth of a second. But that is enough for me to take advantage of and my fist finds itself embedded right in his chest, knocking the wind out of him.
  
  However he apparently doesn't much care for the ability to breathe as he ignores the impact from my punch and retaliates by grabbing my still extended arm with one hand and punching me in the face with the other.
  
  Once. Twice. Three times before he swings my whole body by the arm and slams me to the ground.
  
  Before I land, I twist my entire body, dislocating my shoulder as I do so, and manage to land a solid kick right in his face, making him stumble back and lose his grip on me.
  
  Dust kicks up around me as I roll over the ground a few times before coming to a stop.
  
  I think there's something to be said about the science of fighting and, more importantly, I feel like I've finally been able to understand that science recently.
  
  I won't go so far as to say I'm a master martial artist or anything, but I'm pretty good at the whole fighting thing by now, and one thing I can tell from our brief exchange is that he is no slouch either.
  
  It shouldn't be surprising, since he has thirteen sets of memories, each experiencing plenty of fights themselves.
  
  The only thing that I think really evens things out skill wise, is that he is constantly being distracted by the voices in his head, lowering his skill level enough to match my own.
  
  Ah well. The introduction is done with, not it's time for the fight to start for real.
  
  Evidently he agrees as he pulls out a pair of daggers, if daggers were the size of a short sword.
  
  In response to him arming himself I allow my original, and favourite, construct to push itself out from my back and hover menacingly behind me.
  
  My ribbons hardly look anything like they used to. For one, the colours are simply much more vibrant and the ribbons themselves are visibly denser, looking as though they have been compressed many times over.
  
  Then, to add to the changes, they now each have small, barely noticeable, inverted spikes running along their lengths, giving them better grip and allowing them to tear through flesh with ease. They also each end in a sharpened point, like a spear tip.
  
  My foe disappears but I was expecting it and two of my ribbons dig into the ground either side of me.
  
  When the explosion washes over me, it only manages to push me slightly, rather than sending me flying, yet I still have to rush to lift myself into the air as Butcher's blades slice through where I was a moment ago.
  
  As he is still recovering from his swing, I make my ribbons bring me crashing right back down, aiming to crush his skull into the ground.
  
  He disappears again and an explosion appears above me, sending me into the ground faster than I was anticipating, leaving me unable to land properly, crashing right into the tarmac.
  
  Before I even have a moment to gather my bearings, another force impacts me as Butcher lands on my back, planting his feet in the middle of where my ribbons are emerging from and driving both of his blades through one of my lungs each.
  
  Like a flower blooming in reverse, my ribbons rapidly coil around Butcher, attempting to crush him.
  
  Right as I start to feel his bones creaking from the force, he is no longer there and another explosion sends me rolling across the ground, momentum that I use to spring back to my feet.
  
  I can't beat him in a contest of strength. I can't use my speed to catch him by surprise and even if I manage to trap him, he can teleport away at any moment.
  
  By all accounts, there is very little chance I can even hope to win.
  
  𝘈𝘩𝘩𝘯~ 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨~
  
  My body tingles with energy and 𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 and an overwhelming desire to do 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 to alleviate the feeling overcomes me for a brief moment before I manage to gather myself.
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬.
  
  𝘈𝘩𝘩𝘩~
  
  That's better, now I can focus.
  
  Butcher disappears again, but this time I manage to catch him on his arrival by simple striking out in every direction with my ribbons and the moment I catch sight of him, I leap forward.
  
  I throw a punch to his face and he catches it, pulling my arm to the side just as I was hoping he would.
  
  Our eyes lock for only an instant before his snap towards my arm and he suddenly leans his head to the side, dodging the sharp blade of deep purple blood-metal that extends out from the back of my elbow.
  
  Once again, he throws me away, hard enough that my back cracks the wall of a building on the side of the street, almost shattering it entirely.
  
  Right. He can see my blood. He must have seen it flowing there early.
  
  Fuck. He can 𝘴𝘦𝘦 my 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘥.
  
  Well then, I guess I'd better up the ante a little then.
  
  Instead of dissipating the blade, I pull from the highest 'source' and just like with my ribbons blood like muscle flows out of my back, wrapping around my shoulders and making its way down my arms.
  
  Unlike the violet of my ribbons however, the arms that form are a purple so dark that the resemble black, looking to be made of obsidian.
  
  A moment later and my arms have been covered in a thick, muscular armour ending in wicked claws and with a long, sharp blade sticking out the backs of the elbows.
  
  Bending my neck side to side, I resist a shiver at the pleasurable feeling of my neck popping back into place.
  
  "Up for round two?~ Or can you only last a single round?~" I taunt, my ribbons spreading out invitingly around me.
  
  Suddenly, my field of vision is filled with flame and two of my ribbons dig into the ground behind me to counter the force trying to push me backwards, leaving me with the sight of an angry Butcher right in front of my face.
  
  My ribbons launch me over him like a slingshot and I land right in the middle of the street, where our fight started, just in time for Butcher to appear in front of me once again.
  
  Heh.
  
  His blades were already in motion to slash me before he even arrived and the world seems to slow down as his blades approach me, but I ignore them in favour of staring Butcher right in the eyes and I feel an exhilarating sensation when I notice his eyes widen.
  
  But he has already committed to his attack and he has no time to change or react as a blood red spear launches itself out of the ground right behind him and into his back, piercing halfway through.
  
  The surprise attack makes him falter in his own and I quickly parry away both of his arms with my own and counter attack by piercing his shoulder with my left hands claws while my right arm bends and swings, allowing the elbow blade to cut a deep gash into his leg.
  
  Before I can push the advantage, he is no longer there and I turn to face the direction of the explosion, smirking at the sight that greets me.
  
  The Butcher, standing among his Teeth, bleeding and battered, even if he doesn't seem bothered by the pain and the wounds are already healing. It still means something that he ended up like this in the first place.
  
  But before I even get the chance to gloat, we are interrupted by the sound of roaring engines as a number of vehicles pull around the corner, each clearly emblazoned with the PRT logo and one car ahead of the rest rapidly drifts to a stop, alighting a pair of young woman in costumes.
  
  As if it wasn't obvious already, I hear a ping come from one of my pockets, Hideout's way of telling me that I don't need to hang around anymore.
  
  The Protectorate has arrived.
  
  Still, I can't help but pout a little.
  
  It was just getting interesting too.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  I am legitimately unsure of how long I have been awake as of right now. My flatmate has left for work twice in the time I have been awake and she only leaves for work at about half six in the morning. So it's been at least 24 hours, but I think I'm closer to 36 at this point.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  58 Party Poopers
  Of the two of them, the only one I recognise is Prism.
  
  A somewhat new member of the Protectorate, graduating from the Wards program just last year and the only reason I know anything about her is that she is one of the capes that Legend himself has taken under his wing as quasi protégé.
  
  You can see it in the way she walks. The calm assurance that she will be fine no matter what happens. Clearly she is being groomed for some kind of leadership position.
  
  He must clearly already trust her a great deal to be willing to send her after the Butcher with only on cape as immediate backup.
  
  It's not like he can go himself after all. No one wants to risk a member of the Triumvirate becoming the next Butcher.
  
  Well, personally I think it'd be quite funny, but I don't think that's a particularly popular opinion.
  
  The street enters a strange sort of three way stand off that really looks like the start to a bad joke.
  
  On one side there's me, a Clown dressed up as a bloodstained prisoner with tentacles coming out of my back and large clawed hands, then opposite me stands a gaggle of men and women dressed in leathers decorated by bones and desiccated heads with other such paraphernalia, one of whom is bleeding rather severely.
  
  Lastly is a pair of young women, making the stand off turn into a triangle.
  
  They are dressed in resplendent, skin-tight and colourful costumes that show off their muscled bodies, Prism more than the other woman, and managing to do so without even seeming sexualised.
  
  Prism and whoever the other person is, hideout probably told me but I kind of tuned out most of the things she said, both face us, eyes flitting between me and Butcher as if they aren't sure who to go after.
  
  "Welp!" I shout while clapping my hands together, drawing everyone's attention to me as I lift one of my hands, pointing a thumb over my shoulder.
  
  "I've got places to be~ so I'll be the first to leave.~ Pleasure meeting you, bye!~" I quickly explain, my constructs dissolving and returning to their 'sources' and I spin around and just start casually walking away before a sudden shout makes me pause mid-step.
  
  "Stop! You can't just leave! You have committed several crimes, including but not limited to murder! You will come with us peacefully or I will have to use force!"
  
  With deliberate slowness, I twist my torso around slightly so I can look behind me at the one who just spoke, finding it to be the hero I don't care to know the name of.
  
  Without responding, I share a brief glance with Butcher and see that he is just as amused by her outburst as I am.
  
  Clearly she doesn't really understand the situation here.
  
  Butcher is stronger than both of them put together and I can fight him to a standstill, without even going all out, yet she seems to think that she has the upper hand here?
  
  Heh, that's actually pretty funny.
  
  "Well~ if you really want me to stay?~" I say leadingly before turning back to Butcher before she can respond. "Say, I'd be willing to put our differences aside for a moment if these heroes really want the numbers to be even~ what do you say?~"
  
  My innocent question has the result I expected it to as Prism quickly pulls her teammate back a step to shut her up and speaks up herself.
  
  "We are only here in response to a call about the Butcher showing up. That is our primary goal, no one else need get involved unnecessarily."
  
  Despite the professional tone, I can 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 her unease at the thought of having to deal with us both at the same time.
  
  No doubt she already understands that even without me here, she isn't going to capture the Butcher. That just wasn't in the cards in the first place.
  
  With what I know of the PRT, she is probably just here to show the public that the heroes are actually doing something and maybe in the hopes of weakening the Teeth by taking in the other capes and normals.
  
  Either way, Uppercrust doesn't want me fighting when I don't have to, so it's none of my business really.
  
  With that in mind, I simply shrug my shoulders and continue walking, as if I was never interrupted.
  
  A moment later and I hear the sounds of battle from behind me, but I don't bother to watch.
  
  I've already fought the Butcher and I doubt watching them do the same will be nearly as entertaining.
  
  A short walk later and suddenly I can hear the sound of a car starting, despite the empty street.
  
  Following the sound, I keep walking until a black Porsche suddenly appears before my eyes as I pass through Hideout's power field and I don't hesitate to open the passenger side door and let myself inside.
  
  I've never been much of a car person, but it doesn't take a genius to know that this is a nice car. Probably her personal car too.
  
  Neither of us say anything for a while as she focuses on driving and I simply lean back and reminisce on my most recent fight.
  
  Multiple things stand out to me about it, beyond the simple enjoyment gained, and 𝘣𝘰𝘺 was there enjoyment gained.
  
  For one, I have really gotten a knack for this whole fighting thing. It feels natural to me now, even though I'm still relatively new.
  
  It's like I was born to fight. To hunt.
  
  Like I'm a predator finally coming into my instincts.
  
  Though I can't deny that I got a little lucky there at the end.
  
  It was only a couple days ago that I realised that I could actually detach my extra appendages. Not only that, but I also keep some level of control over them, even if they are not connected to me.
  
  I've been experimenting with it and while I won't be making any long term items, I 𝘤𝘢𝘯 at least leave some clusters of whatever material is in the sacs in my back around as a kind of trap.
  
  Something that Butcher experienced personally.
  
  That is where the luck comes in though.
  
  The Butcher can see arteries and hearts and stuff. Plus the start of our fight shows that he can see my 'source' travelling through my body, which means that it was only by chance that he didn't see the trap before it could spring.
  
  Of course, crediting everything to luck would be a mistake as there was plenty of planning that went into it.
  
  Like my little display at the start that served to make him let his guard down, enough that while the glitter bomb was in the air he never noticed me preparing the trap.
  
  It's a shame that we couldn't finish our fight, because while I know it seemed that I was the victor, I'm pretty sure he has another trick or two up his sleeve that might have been able to turn the tables.
  
  Not to mention, next time he won't be underestimating me, and there will be a next time, make no doubt about that.
  
  My contract lasts until he leaves the city after all, so we'll probably fight a few times in the coming month.
  
  I'm looking forward to it.
  
  "Are you ok?"
  
  The words startle me out of my thoughts and I turn slightly to give Hideout a glance, even as she keeps her eyes on the road.
  
  A smile blooms on my face and I make sure to do my best to sound like a schoolgirl in love when I respond.
  
  "D'aww, so you 𝘥𝘰 care?~" I coo at her.
  
  The only sign of her annoyance is the slightest twitch of her brow and tightening of her hold on the steering wheel.
  
  Only after taking a deep breath does she respond, her voice tight and controlled.
  
  "You had two swords digging a hole straight through you. I just need to make sure that you don't need medical attention."
  
  I nod sagely at her words.
  
  "Indeed, they got me good. But you should have seen the other guy.~" I jest, getting no more than a short exhale of breath to show for her amusement.
  
  The rest of the drive was done mostly in silence, with the occasional small conversation sprouting, all the while I was wondering what the others are getting up to now that I'm not with them.
  
  Hopefully they're having fun at least.
  
  ...
  
  Jinx has one single opinion on what he is and has been doing for the past week or so.
  
  This sucks. Why did I ever let Tear convince me that this was a good idea?
  
  Anyone who claims it was actually my idea is lying and will be shot.
  
  At least James isn't making things difficult. In fact he's actually making things a whole hell of a lot easier, for which I am grateful.
  
  But who ever said starting a drug empire would be easy?
  
  It's still kind of weird to be working with a literal child though. Then again, misfortune does not discriminate, and he has been doing well enough anyway.
  
  It hasn't been long since Tear left for greener pastures, something I knew she would do. Both because that's just the kind of person she is and also because there's no chance that when I finally manage to make a friend that they would actually stick around.
  
  No, I couldn't be that lucky.
  
  But even then, I'd say things are looking up for me, even if I keep spending a lot of time worrying about when the other shoe is going to drop and everything is suddenly going to go to shit once again.
  
  Still, with the drugs that the kid has been making, I've been making steady progress in bringing together the scraps of the gangs left over from Tear's grand opening.
  
  Some people have started calling it the twenty minute war, since it's rare for so many parahumans to fight each other at the same time.
  
  But things are working out rather well all in all.
  
  I'm already in the process of recruiting some capes for James while also putting out feelers for the more difficult to recruit capes, to see if any of them might be wanting a fresh start with us.
  
  All in all, I'd give it a month or two before we are distributing drugs across the entire city and by that point the amount of money we will be making will be substantial to say the least.
  
  The only problem I can really see is Cu Chulainn, who has become something of an independent villain, claiming a small plot of land and fighting anyone who tries to intrude on it.
  
  It really seems as though he simply wants to be left alone, something I am more than happy to respect as I have a rather strong desire to not be folded like wet paper.
  
  After finishing yet another boring day of phone calls and managing, I decide to give the kid a visit. Make sure he's actually eating instead of just spending all his time in his 'lab'.
  
  I suppose it's a Tinker thing, to get so lost in their work that they neglect the needs of their bodies.
  
  I'm pretty sure there's a term for it, like a Tinker fugue or something.
  
  These idle thoughts leave my mind as I enter James' lab and am quickly faced with a sight that is probably only a step or two down from what it's like to watch Bonesaw work.
  
  In the middle of the room, on an operation table that is low to the ground, is a man who is convulsing wildly inside his restraints while a cacophony of sounds play around him.
  
  At the same time, there is James, standing over the man with a variety of tools by his side.
  
  He injects the man with clinical precision and I watch with a morbid sense of fascination as the man's skin slowly starts to turn inside out.
  
  You know what? Never mind.
  
  I'm sure he's got things handled by himself.
  
  I'll just go get back to work.
  
  Rome wasn't built in a day and all that.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  I still haven't slept since after I wrote chap 55. In other words, by my count I have been awake for about 43 hours.
  
  So.. wooo, I guess?
  
  It's definitely a new personal record, but it's going to have to come to an end as I am about to collapse. I'm pretty sure I'm going to sleep for like, 13 hours at least.
  
  I'll time it and update you next chapter :)
  
  Edit: Was just looking through this and realised that I missed an opportunity right at the start for a skyrim meme. "Stop! You have violated the law!"
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  59 Interlude: Clara Williams
  "-with that all being said our profit margin 𝘩𝘢𝘴 taken a hit, but we knew that would happen anyway and I am happy to say that our losses are actually barely one tenth what we expected them to be."
  
  Satisfied murmurs spread throughout the conference room at the unexpectedly positive news, from everyone except for a certain someone who continues to stare into space, a lot on their mind.
  
  "Good." Begins a stern, authoritative voice, "now, I believe that is the perfect segue to the next item on our list. Hideout-"
  
  I startle at my name suddenly being called and snap my head to face Uppercrust, a faintly reproachful but sympathetic look in his eye.
  
  Before I can even stumble over my words in a poor attempt of pretending I was actually paying attention, he continues what he was saying uninterrupted, no one else bothering to point out my inattentiveness.
  
  "How is our guest settling in?" He asks and all of a sudden the attention of everyone in the room is on me.
  
  I nervously swallow, not comfortable with having just about everyone more important and more powerful than me hanging off my every word.
  
  Oh god, why did I have to get this job?
  
  Oh right, because no one else wanted it and I'm not yet important enough to have turned it down.
  
  Damnit.
  
  Doing my very best to keep my voice level, I start to recite the report that I have all but memorised.
  
  "She's doing well. Tear has also kept to the rules from what I can tell. She hasn't gotten into any fights that weren't expected of her and hasn't severely injured any Heroes or civilians. She has also limited her, erm, 𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 to known criminals, only targeting rapists, murderers and other such people, while ensuring that there is no evidence of her involvement. In fact she's done it well enough that if not for the fact that we already know that she's been, er, 𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨, I would have never known that she's done anything."
  
  The rooms jubilant mood takes a swan dive at the grim reminder of the nature of our hired help, but no one says anything about it.
  
  After all, what can anyone say that hasn't already been said? That she's a monster? That it's reprehensible?
  
  While all these are certainly true, Tear has been open with us about the fact that she simply cannot eat anything else, that she literally doesn't have a choice in the matter.
  
  It's like those monster capes, only somehow even worse.
  
  Because at least they can still say that they are human on the inside.
  
  Tear? She's a monster through and through, and she never even had a choice.
  
  Just a bad roll of the dice.
  
  That's made the opinions on her rather split, between people saying she's a monster that we shouldn't be associating with and the others who simply pity her, conscious of the fact that the only reason our very own powers aren't forcing the same curse on us is simply a matter of luck.
  
  Choosing not to comment on the uncomfortable topic of forced cannibalism, Uppercrust moves the conversation forward once more.
  
  "And her accommodations? How is she taking to them?"
  
  𝘈𝘩.
  
  "About that." I hesitantly start, my tone somehow making everyone focus on my words even harder.
  
  See, we gave Tear a flat to stay in during her tenure here with us which in and of itself, is nothing special.
  
  The only problem is that all of our 'guest' homes are bugged to hell and back, both for audio and video.
  
  Now normally this would actually be a good thing, since it lets us keep track of people.
  
  Unfortunately...
  
  "She found all the bugs."
  
  The room stills as I drop that bombshell and I notice a couple of people nervously clasp their hands, no doubt worrying that they might have annoyed the super powerful psycho cannibal.
  
  To be honest, I'm not really sure whether or not the truth of the matter is actually a better outcome or not.
  
  "And her response to this was..?" Someone asks, but I don't respond right away.
  
  I feel a faint heat start to crawl up my face and open my mouth a few times, trying to find the right words to explain the situation.
  
  Then I notice the increasingly uncomfortable or annoyed looks of those around me and decide to try and just rip the band-aid off.
  
  "She uhm. She gathered all the cameras and mics and she uh, she put them.." I pause slightly, trying and failing to fight my blush as memories I would rather forget surface in my mind, but with a deep breath, I eventually manage to rush out my words, "she put them all in the washroom. The shower specifically."
  
  Nobody says anything and for some reason my stupid brain takes that as an invitation to keep talking.
  
  "The shower that she 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘴." I say with emphasis, but at this point I'm too lost in my head to leave things to ambiguity. "That she uses 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘺. From multiple angles."
  
  The silence of the room rapidly makes a transition from contemplative to awkward as they comprehend my words.
  
  But yet again, my brain decides to just keep talking.
  
  "She talks to the microphones." I add, furthering the awkwardness. "She's certainly not shy." Ohmygod can I just shut up for one second!?
  
  Heedless of the serious image that we are supposed to be maintaining, I bury my face in my hands, not just from embarrassment but also just so that I stop talking.
  
  Huuu, I'm never going to live this down.
  
  But seriously, what is wrong with that girl!?
  
  Who does 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵, knowing that people are watching!?
  
  Ugh, the memories are burned into my brain.
  
  "𝘈𝘩𝘦𝘮. That aside, has she done anything that would indicate maliciousness or otherwise unfavourable behaviour?" Uppercrusts voice brings me back to the room and I quickly shake my head clear of distracting thoughts.
  
  "Uh, no. I mean. No Sir. She is a little unpredictable when she fights but I think that it is, somewhat ironically, the Butchers presence that is keeping her from doing anything extreme, since she seems to be more focused on when he will make another appearance than any of her other fights."
  
  Left unsaid is what will happen when the Butcher 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 show himself again, which will be sooner rather than later in all likelihood, seeing as it's nearly been a week since he first showed himself and got pushed back.
  
  "Do we know what she is doing right now?" Someone else asks and I almost sigh at the question, answering blandly.
  
  "She's probably playing solitaire." Since it looked like he wasn't going to be satisfied with that, I continue before he can ask me to. "She spends about seven to nine hours every day listening to music and playing solitaire."
  
  Now 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵, more than anything else somehow manages to cause the most eyebrows to rise, which makes me sigh in defeat.
  
  As the person responsible for Tear, it is incredibly tedious for me to keep watch of her and I decide that I might as well explain what her schedule looks like while the topic is relevant.
  
  "To my knowledge, she gets up early every morning and trains for a couple of hours before shitposting on PHO until she gets banned, which usually only takes about half an hour, then she disappears for a couple of hours and comes back with a bag of uh, 𝘧𝘰𝘰𝘥. After that, if nothing comes up she just plays solitaire, or occasionally some minesweeper, until it's late and she finishes her day with some more training before going to sleep and repeating it all again."
  
  It was somewhat startling to realise just how 𝘯𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘭 she is, for a given definition of normal.
  
  With my part finally over, the rest of the meeting proceeds normally, but I barely pay any attention to it, only enough that I won't miss anything important.
  
  By the time the meeting ends, I am glad for it to finally be over and I allow myself to finally get lost in my own thoughts as I walk back to my car to head back to where my comfy bed is waiting for me.
  
  As I drive, I find my thoughts drifting back to Tear, something that has become increasingly common as the days go by, and how our relationship has changed so drastically in such a short amount of time.
  
  When we first met I was, quite frankly, terrified.
  
  We'd all already been given a brief on her known capabilities as well as what she had done up till that point and to be blunt, there was little I wanted more than to simply have nothing to do with her.
  
  But orders are orders, so I pushed down my fear and did my job.
  
  Then she actually 𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘥 and at first all was well, for about ten seconds before she suddenly started staring 𝘥𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘺 𝘦𝘺𝘦𝘴, despite my power being active and I felt all of my newfound confidence dissipate into air.
  
  I felt like the wight of the world was holding me in place, like those crimson orbs of hers were looking straight into my soul, like the eyes of the Devil.
  
  For a moment, I'd stopped breathing.
  
  I thought that I was dead.
  
  It was such a simple thing, almost relieving in a morbid sense.
  
  Because as I looked into her eyes, I realised that to her? I was nothing.
  
  She was a predator and I was the prey. I knew in that moment, that should she want to kill me, there would be absolutely nothing I could do to stop her.
  
  It was the single most terrifying experience of my life.
  
  Yet I live, and Tear is thankfully a lot less homicidal than I originally thought.
  
  It didn't take long before I was treating her more like a friend than someone who's going to kill me.
  
  She is surprisingly magnetic, like she has a charisma that she herself doesn't even seem to notice.
  
  I'm not sure what it is exactly. Maye it's her simple zest for life?
  
  She always seems to be enjoying herself and she makes sure to try and let the people around her find that same kind of enjoyment.
  
  It makes it very easy to lower your guard around her and treat her as if she's a friend.
  
  That's not to say she doesn't still scare the shit out of me, but it's just not for the same reason anymore.
  
  Now, what scares me is that I don't think she really sees people as 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦.
  
  It's like she's one step ahead of us on the food chain and she's only entertaining us because she thinks we're cute or something.
  
  To put it simply, it's like she sees us the same way we would see a pet.
  
  I don't really like the idea of being seen as a pet, but it certainly beats being seen as food.
  
  Almost without realising it, I have made it to where I am staying currently, a flat in the same building as Tear. The flat opposite hers for that matter, to better help me watch over her.
  
  Part of me thinks that someone just wants to kill me and is going about it in a really roundabout way.
  
  Mindlessly, I put the key in the keyhole and twist, granting myself entry to the temporary accommodations.
  
  I drop the keys in a pot as I walk past, towards the kitchen where I try to make myself some tea, only to notice something odd.
  
  A brief look around shows that there are many things that are not where I left them and while that would normally put me on edge now it merely makes me feel exasperation.
  
  Shaking my head, I make my way over to my bedroom and to my none existent surprise, I find it to be already occupied with Tears lone head sticking out from under the covers.
  
  I don't so much as blink at her lack of a mask, having known her face since her first day here.
  
  She has taken to breaking into my flat instead of staying in her own, something I neglected to mention during the meeting, mostly out of embarrassment.
  
  "Tear," I sigh, getting her attention, "how many times do I have to tell you. You have your own bed, stop using mine."
  
  Her blood red eyes stare into my own, alight with amusement and I feel an involuntary shiver go down my spine, forcing me to be the one to look away first.
  
  "And how many times do I have to tell 𝘺𝘰𝘶, that you can call me Lusia, or just Lucy?~" She practically purrs, her voice taking on a sensual, seductive quality that has me studying the floor intently.
  
  "Will you just get out of my bed? Please?" I ask, trying not to sound like I'm begging.
  
  "Sure.~" She says, and in my surprise at her compliance, I make the mistake of looking back up at her.
  
  I am greeted with the sight of Lusia slowly lifting herself up, my covers falling down her chest with agonising slowness, first showing her smooth, pale shoulders before falling down completely to reveal her whole upper body, completely in the nude.
  
  I catch myself staring, entranced by her smooth, unblemished body for a moment before snapping back to reality and turning to face the ceiling, ignoring the slight weakness I start to feel in my knees.
  
  Without bothering to put on any clothes, she walks up to me, completely nude, until she is standing not a hairs breadth away from me.
  
  She is taller than me, by about half a foot. It's not much but it's enough that she has to lean forward before her lips can reach my ear.
  
  "But do you 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 want me to go?~" She whispers, barely loud enough for me to hear and my knees almost give out as I remain rooted in my spot, her words making me unable to move. "Or would you rather.."
  
  Her hand reaches around me to land on my ass and she pulls us closer together in a sudden movement.
  
  With my breathing as heavy as it is, I almost miss her words entirely as she finishes her sentence.
  
  "..I stay?~" Her hand travels up my back, a single finger tracing my spine all the way up until it reaches my bra strap.
  
  Legs shaking and voice quivering, I try my best to reject the feelings blooming in my chest.
  
  "I'm s-straight." My protest sounds weak even to me.
  
  She moves her head back slightly so that she can put her face right in front of mine and she takes to large steps forward, forcing me to go back with hem until I feel my back hit the wall and another jolt of pure 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 pulses through my body.
  
  Her lips ghost over mine for a moment and I find myself leaning towards then, even as she pulls away.
  
  "So is spaghetti.~" She says as I pull my head back, my blush taking over my entire head.
  
  Her other hand moves lower this time, starting on my stomach and moving 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯.
  
  "𝘜𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘭 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 wet.~" Her whisper, as well as everything else is too much for me and my knees buckle completely, causing me to fall forward, where she quickly catches me.
  
  I feel myself get lifted and the next thing I know I am on the bed, lying on my back with Lusia above me.
  
  Her eyes look deep into mine and I see that same predatory glint and just the same as when I first saw them, they terrify me.
  
  Only now I cannot deny that fear isn't the only thing they make me feel.
  
  Her body leans over mine, pinning me to the bed and I feel my heartrate quicken, from fear or excitement I couldn't say.
  
  "Now,~" she purrs at me, moving her face right in front of my own, "what is my name?~"
  
  A whimper escapes my throat, but I am too lost in the moment to even feel embarrassed about it.
  
  Instead, I look back at her and I answer in a moan.
  
  "Lucy.~"
  
  A devilish smile that causes conflicting feelings inside of me grows on her face as her lips finally capture my own, her fingers drifting deeper, and 𝘥𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘳.
  
  "𝘎𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭."
  
  A soft mewling sound escapes my throat and I swiftly lose all coherent thought as I am drawn into her gravity, lost in her eyes and overwhelmed by her 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  So! This kind of came out of nowhere. Didn't see it coming. Literally, Hideout was gonna be uppercrusts daughter and there was gonna be this whole thing of him trying not to give preferential treatment but doing so anyway (I was basing it of the green guys in John Carter)
  
  But I guess that's prolly not going to happen anymore lol.
  
  ALSO ALSO! Keep in mind that if ya want smut, you're gonna have to bribe me (I really want someone to bribe me(Cuz it means I get more money(and I'm broke)))
  
  Also Also Also, I ended up sleeping for 14 hours before forcing myself to get up, only to go back to sleep about 12 hours later for another 13 hours, so everything is more or less evened out now :D
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  60 Butcher XIII 2 Electric Boogaloo
  It was a little over a week after my fight with the Butcher before I got the opportunity to see him again.
  
  In the mean time I've only been in a couple of fights, twice against the heroes, which was boring as hell since they couldn't hurt me and I wasn't allowed to hurt them.
  
  Though I did get to meet that woman who was with Prism again. Turns out she's called Astrologer and she basically calls down meteorites from the sky which are pretty easy to dodge, not that the damage they cause when they land is really too debilitating for me.
  
  The only other fight I've been in was one against the Adepts, who are a bunch of losers that think powers are actually magic and that they should chant and do rituals and shit.
  
  Naturally, I showed them plenty of 'magic' tricks, though I don't think they properly appreciated them.
  
  As a side note, one of the Adepts that I fought ended up leaving the gang and moving city.
  
  I won't even pretend to not be proud of that fact.
  
  In fact, I ended up celebrating the achievement with a few Adept mooks. Not that they seemed to enjoy the celebrations as much as me.
  
  All in all, it's been a fun week.
  
  But none of it was as fun as fighting with the Butcher.
  
  Which is why I was glad when Clara came and told me that Uppercrust wants me to go cause a commotion at a certain place in Teeth territory so as to distract the Butcher.
  
  I don't know what the Elite are going to be using the distraction for and frankly I don't really care, something that I'm pretty sure Uppercrust likes about me.
  
  I don't ask questions.
  
  Not that I need to anyway, Clara likes to complain about her workload when we're cuddling after another of our 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 nights.
  
  Speaking of Clara, I have never in my life met a bigger sub than that woman.
  
  Seriously, when I glare at people it usually makes them want to run away and hide, for Clara it makes her knees weak for a whole other reason.
  
  Though I can't deny that it is incredibly fun to be with her, especially since if she ever annoys me then it usually leads to a steamy few hours where I work out any and all frustrations I have on her.
  
  But whatever entertainment she offers, it still doesn't match up to the Butcher.
  
  Which is why I get annoyed when Clara holds me back as I am stepping out of her car where I am supposed to cause a commotion.
  
  "Be careful. He won't be holding back this time." She says with genuine concern while holding onto my sleeve as I am one foot outside of the car.
  
  Half turning around, I lazily glare at her, causing her to blush and look down.
  
  "So?" Is my cold response as I shaker her hand off and as I step out of the car fully, I can't help but wrinkle my nose slightly at the 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘳 scent.
  
  I quickly glance back to Clara, looking down for a moment and seeing the slight dampness that I expected.
  
  Too easy, I sigh to myself as I close the door behind me.
  
  I'm probably going to get bored of her soon enough. There's just no challenge with her.
  
  Good thing I'm not planning on staying in the city for long anyway, and the sex is good at least, so I guess I'll just keep her 'till I leave.
  
  Who knows, maybe she could even be a nice little source of inside information.
  
  It's always good to have contacts after all.
  
  Ah well, enough of that. It's time to earn my money.
  
  With that in mind I look around, noting the area to be a semi abandoned but relatively well maintained industrial district, with warehouses and factories as far as the eye can see.
  
  The mega structures of New York are barely visible in the distance over the top of the wide buildings around me.
  
  I assume that the Teeth have some kind of operation set up around here somewhere, otherwise Uppercrust wouldn't put me here to be a distraction.
  
  Though, I also assume that whatever operation it is isn't right here, since I get the feeling that he doesn't actually want me to kill anyone, just to be close enough that Butcher has no choice but to show.
  
  Then again, maybe his people are going to be robbing some place nearby while we fight.
  
  But that all circles back to a previous point, that I just don't really care about any of that.
  
  So with a sigh, I decide that I might as well get started.
  
  In a burst of sparks and blood, a pair of orange-red wings of liquid like energy explode out of my back, growing until they are both larger than my body.
  
  I take a moment to simply admire them as the crack and sparkle quietly behind me.
  
  A simple thought has one of the wings wrapping around me so that I can reach forward and lay a hand on it.
  
  Closing my eyes, I focus on my wings and I think about 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘵 and 𝘧𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘦 and gradually I start to feel my wings becoming hotter.
  
  This is something else I've discovered. I can heat up my extra appendages.
  
  Unfortunately, I can only make them hot to the touch, not hot enough to set anything on fire, nor can I actually cause them to alight with flame.
  
  Today proves to be no different as my wings only get about as hot as scalding water, not enough for my purposes.
  
  But that's fine. I was prepared for it anyway.
  
  From one of my pockets comes a water balloon and I rear back and throw it at one of the buildings around me, splashing the entire front wall and covering it with the balloons contents.
  
  Then I raise one of my wings and take aim.
  
  The next moment, with a crack and a thoom, a blur shoots out of my wing and digs itself into the building, revealing the blur to be a long, bone white spike, crackling with electricity that catches the liquid on the wall and causes the wall to light up in flames.
  
  Gasoline based water balloons, though really there's no point in calling it a water balloon anymore.
  
  That done, I take out another gasoline balloon and move on to the next building over and repeat the process.
  
  Now, we wait.
  
  By the time nearly a dozen buildings are on fire I have already ran out of balloons and am just shooting bone spikes at anything that's not already on fire, Butcher 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 arrives.
  
  I hear the familiar explosion before I see him and am already prepared for him when another explosion sounds off, this one much closer as the Butcher appears in a ball of flame not twenty feet away from me.
  
  𝘔𝘢𝘯, that looks cool.
  
  "Yohoh!~" I greet with a wave, "you're finally here!~ I was really starting to think you wouldn't show up y'know?~ You really shouldn't leave a lady waiting like this~ you'll never get married otherwise.~"
  
  His face twitches at my cheerfulness and he clenches his fist for a second before relaxing them and sighing.
  
  "Four and six want you to know that they like you." He sounds almost defeated and smacks the side of his head with his palm while I process that revelation.
  
  Rather quickly, a bright smile grows on my face and I hug my body and start twisting around as I respond, doing my best impersonation of Clara.
  
  "Awww~ well I like you too!~" I admit assuredly, and it's not even a lie.
  
  "Yeah well, they also want you to kill me, so you can be the next Butcher, so naturally I'm going to have to kill you, if only to get them to shut the fuck up!" He ends his statement with a pointed shout that I'm pretty certain was directed to the voices in his head.
  
  Haaah, it must be nice to always have company.
  
  Unfortunately for Four and Six, I don't really want thirteen people in my head.
  
  One or two? That's fine, I could deal with that. But thirteen?
  
  I wouldn't be able to hear my own thoughts over all that noise.
  
  Solitaire would be ruined for me, since it's something to be enjoyed in silence or with music.
  
  But back to the conversation at hand.
  
  "Don't worry hun~ that's exactly what I like about you.~" I confess with a wink while blowing a kiss forward.
  
  The way his face twitches makes me think that the other Butchers had a lot to say about my response, but apparently Thirteen decides that the tome for conversation is over.
  
  He disappears from in front of me and I don't hesitate to bring out my ribbons, launching them out of my back in a fan shape right as an explosion sounds out behind me.
  
  I feel my ribbons brush against something and turn around to face him, only to see nothing and have another explosion go of right next to me.
  
  Before I even get the chance to stumble away, a hand reaches out and grabs ahold of my arm and pulls me against the force of the explosion.
  
  I see the blade coming for my throat as soon as the flames start to dissipate and I raise my legs and twist my body horizontal in response, pushing my legs out in a kick that barely makes him stumble.
  
  What it does do however, is stop him from being able to pull me closer, giving me the slightest bit of extra time I need to ready my counter.
  
  Right as his blade is inches away from decapitating me, it, along with the Butcher, disappear and not a moment later a three foot long spike of bone sparkling with electricity pierces the ground where he once stood.
  
  The thing about danger sense is that it generally takes precedence over everything else, and thank fuck for that, otherwise we might have both just ended up dying.
  
  No idea what would happen to the Butcher in that case.
  
  He appears a short distance away and I get up to face him, causing us to enter another stand off.
  
  With a menacing slowness, he draws his other blade and I figure that the greetings are over with and match him by allowing my claws to take form, cladding my arms.
  
  With my wings out, I have one more of my extras than last time, only missing my tail, yet somehow I feel like the fight isn't going to go as well for me as last time anyway.
  
  He certainly won't be falling for any simple tricks this time around.
  
  Instead of attacking right away, he gets a pensive look about him that makes me think he's talking to the other twelve and I decide it would be rude to interrupt.
  
  A moment later and he meets my eyes.
  
  "Why don't you just join me? As a member of the Teeth you will have full right to challenge me for the position of Butcher and most importantly six will stop fucking shouting at me."
  
  He sounds annoyed even as he makes what is no doubt a final offer of peace.
  
  Unfortunately, I find peace to be boring and would have rejected on principle even without the voices to consider.
  
  "Sorry hubby~ but I'm not much of a joiner.~ So imma have to regretfully decline.~" I say with a sigh.
  
  He doesn't look the slightest bit surprised and his lip even twitches upward slightly.
  
  "Four says he figured you'd say that." He says with a grin that could scare the elderly into having a heart attack.
  
  I answer his smile with one of my own and we both ready our weapons for another bout.
  
  Only this time, I can tell that he is having nearly as much fun as I am.
  
  Well would you look at that, I think to myself ironically, it looks like I'm actually making friends, who'd have thought it.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Lusia is falling in looove~~~
  
  Not really but also she kinda is.
  
  She is a complex person beneath the simplicity of her desires.
  
  Butcher XIII is perfect for her because right now they are about the same in terms of power levels. Lusia is faster and more flexible with better staying power, while Butcher is stronger and more durable with better versatility.
  
  They are just about even and neither one can actually beat the other into submission without some measure of luck and she is having a great time fighting him, enough that she's basically falling in love in her own fucked up way that makes her want to rip his limbs off to show just how much she loves him.
  
  Sorry about the long A/N, but I just really like the depth I've built up here between the two of them and I wanted to make sure that y'all can properly appreciate it.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
  previous chapternext chapterchapter list
  61 A Love Story
  A fist appears in front of my face with the concussive force of his explosion behind it and I twist around, raising my leg in a roundhouse kick that hits nothing but air.
  
  My ribbons all snap into a triple X shape over my back just in time to block the pair of oversized daggers that come crashing down, pushing me to the ground.
  
  I have almost no time to recover and have to use my wings to parry the next blow that comes for my neck.
  
  My wings are the least durable part of me and I feel a spike of pain lance through me as half of one of my wings gets sheered clean off, even as I use the force of the blow to scramble back to my feet.
  
  He disappears again, but this time he appears right in the path of one of my ribbons that wraps around him and pulls him towards my waiting claws.
  
  He disappears again, but I saw it coming and never actually bothered to commit to the attack, allowing me to spin around and parry his blades with me left arms elbow sword, completing the spin by lunching forward with my right, intending to tear into his chest.
  
  However, instead of the sensation of piercing flesh all I feel is fire washing over me as he teleports again, only half a foot to the side and as my strike goes wide, I realise something.
  
  This isn't a fight.
  
  I dodge his counter strike by such a tight margin that I feel it clip my ear and I return with a knee to the stomach.
  
  We aren't fighting.
  
  He twists around my knee and sends an elbow for my face that gets blocked by a ribbon.
  
  We are dancing.
  
  Two more ribbons follow, shattering the ground where he stood, hitting nothing.
  
  This is no tale of violence.
  
  He lunges forward with one blade, swinging the other and I thrust my left hand to meet the first blade, allowing it to pierce through my palm and into my arm while letting me grab it's guard with my claws, even as I duck under the second, sending my ribbons forward in retaliation.
  
  This is a tale of 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦.
  
  He is half a second too slow in releasing his blade and gets clipped by my ribbons before he ca disappear, leaving one weapon behind that I pull out of my arm and snap in half.
  
  We are like lovers.
  
  He appears in front of me again, swinging down with his remaining sword, only to disappear to behind me.
  
  Dancing to a tune that only we can hear.
  
  I spin, but he is already gone, teleporting back to where he first appeared and launching a kick into my side that shatters half my ribs and ruptures one of my lungs.
  
  It's beautiful.
  
  He tries to push the advantage, but he's not the only one who can ignore pain and he quickly has to teleport again in order to avoid my ribbons flailing behind me.
  
  I wish this moment could go on forever.
  
  He appears in front of me and I swing my claws but he catches them both and prepares to kick me in the chest, no doubt hard enough that he would rip my arms clean off.
  
  Is this feeling what love is?
  
  Before his foot can even start to come crashing towards me, dozens of thin tentacles spear out of my stomach towards him, only a couple manage to pierce his foot before he is gone again.
  
  Him, like the sky.
  
  The tentacles come together to form a singular thick trunk that swings out wide, crashing through a building where he was a moment ago.
  
  Always within sight.
  
  He appears above me this time, dropping down with a heavy kick that uses gravity to its advantage.
  
  Yet impossible to grasp.
  
  Six ribbons pierce towards him and hit nothing as he appears crouched in front of me, landing an uppercut to my gut that sends me airborne.
  
  Me, like the sea.
  
  Four rapid teleportations disorient me enough that he lands a clear blow with his remaining blade that cuts one of my arms clean off.
  
  No matter how it is disturbed.
  
  I land on my ribbons, holding myself over the ground as a new arm rapidly grows in place of my old one.
  
  It always returns to how it was.
  
  He appears before me again, but I already saw it coming and he has no time to react before my tail slams into him, sending him crashing through a building, too disoriented from the hit to teleport.
  
  The only signs of our affection.
  
  The building crumbles, unable to handle the extra punishment, just the same as all the other buildings around us.
  
  Are the scars we leave on the earth.
  
  He rises from the rubble and for a moment, our eyes meet and it is as if time stops and the entire world falls away as we spend an eternity lost in each other.
  
  I'm in love.
  
  The moment passes, and he is moving again. But I can feel it in the way he attacks me, the way that he tries to kill me. I can feel that he understands.
  
  We are lovers.
  
  His sword slashes at me and I don't bother to defend, allowing him to land his hit so that I can land my own before he is gone again.
  
  Dancing to a tune no one will ever know.
  
  𝘉𝘦𝘦𝘱! 𝘉𝘦𝘦𝘱!
  
  And then, like waking up from a dream, it is over.
  
  I look down to my side, at one of my pockets that is miraculously still in good condition.
  
  Inside of it, is the phone the Elite gave me to conduct business with them and that tone was to let me know that now is the time to disengage and head back.
  
  It almost makes me cry.
  
  I suddenly find myself feeling lost, just staring at the phone in silence.
  
  It's over. Ruined.
  
  It feels like for the first time in my life, I had a glimpse at something beautiful. Something ephemeral.
  
  Something that I might never feel again.
  
  They say true love only strikes once.
  
  An explosion, a familiar sound that brings me nothing but joy, sounds off next to me but I can't even bring myself to look up.
  
  Into the cage formed around me by my ribbons walks Thirteen.
  
  He doesn't say anything and when I finally look at him, we both remain silent, simply staring into each others eyes.
  
  Then he glances down at my phone and he simply grunts and turns on his heel.
  
  Then he just.. walks away.
  
  Left alone in a cage of my own limbs, I don't know how long I stand there, staring into nothing.
  
  Will I ever feel that again?
  
  Do I even want to? If it will leave me feeling so empty afterwards?
  
  I don't know.
  
  Maybe I never will.
  
  But when I eventually hear the sounds of an engine approaching, I turn to see Clara's car stopped just where the street starts to turn into rubble.
  
  When she gets out of the car to stare in my direction, concern evident on her face, I manage to smile to myself.
  
  If nothing else, at least I have someone I can work out my feelings on. Maybe I'll even find an answer.
  
  In the end, even after an incredibly vigorous night, the answer I came to was rather simple, if disappointing.
  
  I have come to a conclusion that the feelings I experienced that night are likely to be a one time thing, or perhaps just incredibly rare.
  
  It was a moment.
  
  A moment of beauty make no doubt about it, but not something that can be recreated. Not intentionally at least.
  
  Like an aurora.
  
  It's beautiful when it happens, but we have no control over it and once it's over, we can only mourn it's passing, all the while we look back on the memory and celebrate that it exists, even if only in our minds.
  
  But after a couple of days of moping around, I decide that I should just move on.
  
  After all, I want to have fun and enjoy myself. Spending my time complaining about things is counterintuitive to that goal.
  
  With that in mind I decide to take a stroll, wonder around and clear my head a little, maybe even find something interesting to take my attention.
  
  So naturally the first thing I did was visit the empire state building.
  
  I would have gone for the statue of liberty, but thanks to the amount of delusional villains that have either tried to steal or destroy her, it is rather tightly guarded.
  
  Not to mention the fact that anyone trying to mess with the statue will find themselves face to face with a rather annoyed Legend very quickly, seeing as he can move just shy of the speed of light.
  
  Now, while I may be confident in my power, Legend is of a whole different breed and I don't fancy being turned into a disco ball.
  
  I don't know what I really expected though, I've never really been one for appreciating sights like this.
  
  To be honest, the only thing I really thought about while standing all the way up there was how long it would take me to hit the ground if I jumped, and whether or not I would actually die.
  
  In the end, I left the building disappointed.
  
  But I can't deny that the walk allowed me the opportunity to clear my head a little. Enough that as I am making my way back home I manage to catch a faint whiff of a vaguely familiar scent, so light that I wouldn't have noticed it if my head was still full of thoughts.
  
  Deciding to follow the trail hoping to find something entertaining, I come across a strange sight and it takes me a moment to realise where I recognise the scent from.
  
  Lying down in a random alleyway in a mildly deserted area of the city is a young woman, more of a girl really.
  
  But what makes me pause is that she is a cape. Not just that but a 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘳 cape.
  
  It's the little Asian girl from the club a couple weeks ago.
  
  Honestly, she really looks like shit.
  
  Smells like shit too.
  
  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that she hasn't stopped partying since I saw her, with how bad she stinks.
  
  Still, she is a cape and that by itself makes her infinitely more interesting than anyone who isn't one, so I decide to not just leave her lying here.
  
  Decision made, I heft her up into a bridal carry, wrinkling my nose slightly as her stink wafts deep into my nose.
  
  My god this girl needs a thorough cleaning.
  
  Ah well, I'm sure Uppercrust won't mind if I bring a guest to his guest flats right?
  
  I mean, they 𝘢𝘳𝘦 guest flats. It's literally their whole purpose to house guests.
  
  Eh, I'm sure it'll be fine.
  
  ...
  
  "You cannot just bring random people of the street here!" Clara shouts at me as I start running the shower, letting it heat up while I strip the girl of her gross clothes.
  
  My own clothes will probably be way too big on her, which sounds like it would be funny, so I'm definitely not getting anything more fitting.
  
  I start humming lightly to myself after I put the girl in the tub and start cleaning her, using liberal amounts of shampoo and conditioner.
  
  Ok, to be honest I just poured a bunch of everything available on her because, and I cannot express this enough, she 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘴.
  
  "Are you even listening to me!?"
  
  I wonder what her power is though? Hopefully it's not something boring, otherwise this whole thing would have been a waste of time.
  
  Well, not a complete waste I guess, since I could just eat her if she's too boring.
  
  Wait, will I get addicted to whatever drugs are in her system if I eat her?
  
  Hmm, maybe I should hold out on that then.
  
  "Uppercrust is 𝘯𝘰𝘵 going to be happy about this! These are supposed to be 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘦 rooms! We can't just let guests stay in places that are known to the PRT!"
  
  Finally deciding that Clara is getting a bit too hysterical, I turn around and quick as a flash I grab her throat and push her against the wall, pressing out bodies together.
  
  She immediately stops talking and starts blushing instead.
  
  "It's fine~ she doesn't even know where we are~" I say say with a roll of my eyes, "and even then, it's rather hypocritical to call these private rooms no?~" I finish, referencing the cameras that this place was covered in when I first got here.
  
  Naturally, I got rid of all of them once Clara and I started.. exploring deeper relations, shall we say.
  
  Unfortunately, there is one thing I forgot to consider with my current course of actions, something that becomes quickly apparent to my enhanced nose.
  
  Ah, fuck it.
  
  I spare the little Asian girl a glance for a second before deciding that she'll be fine there for a while.
  
  I have plenty of time before she wakes up.. probably.
  
  With that thought carrying me, I lean forward and lock my lips with Clara's and pick her up, briefly spending a moment to turn off the shower so the girl doesn't drown as I take us to the bedroom.
  
  I'm sure nothing bad will ever come of my impulsiveness.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  The first half of this chapter left me so emotionally drained that I had to wait till the next day to finish it as I literally spent like, four hours just sitting and staring into space after writing it.
  
  I just love it so damn much and I don't even care if anyone disagrees cuz ur just wrong. Tear felt Love, for the first time in her life. It was a fleeting, ephemeral thing that she will most likely never feel again and it was like eldritch madness.
  
  By that I mean that people misunderstand that type of madness as some kind of insanity, when in reality it is simply comprehension. It's momentary understanding of something so incredibly profound that you will never be able to understand it again and that, more than anything, Burns you from the inside.
  
  Just take a moment to imagine it, something so Beautiful that it stirs your very soul. Something that makes everything make sense, but then it's gone and you're back to how you normally are. You Know for certain that there is a level of understanding that exists out there, but no matter what you do, you will never feel it again.
  
  It is both beautiful and incredibly painful and I love it.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  62 April
  Flip.
  
  Flip.
  
  Flip.
  
  Shuffle.
  
  And then it starts all over again.
  
  One card turns over, showing that it can bo moved over another, starting a chain reaction that moves even more cards, flipping the ones underneath it, further allowing more cards to stack and more cards to flip.
  
  The simplicity of the game is always enough to bring me calm.
  
  To me, solitaire is like meditating.
  
  It lets me relax, forget the world and simply enjoy some peace.
  
  Then the door to my bedroom opens.
  
  It's already the morning by the time she is getting up and it's a good thing Uppercrust doesn't need me for anything 'till the evening today.
  
  I look up from my cards and give the girl a smile, one she doesn't return, too busy throwing her eyes around, observing the entire room and everything in it.
  
  I'm happy to see that I was right. She 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 look funny dressed in clothes many sizes too big for her, but I make sure not to laugh as I don't want to give a bad first impression.
  
  I also made sure not to leave anything cape related in here.
  
  Not because I particularly care about hiding it. I just wanted to see how she'll react, or if she will notice anyway, since that would mean she's a Thinker.
  
  "Yo~ you're finally awake!~ I half expected you to be in a coma or something.~ Want some coffee?" I offer without dropping my smile.
  
  With my words, she finally actually looks at me, briefly glancing at the cards on the table before returning her eyes to mine.
  
  "Who are you? Where am I?" She asks, ignoring my question.
  
  "I am your father." I respond with a poor attempt at a deep voice.
  
  The deadpan look she sends me shows that she clearly doesn't appreciate the reference.
  
  Tch, kids these days.
  
  "The name's Lusia," I say with a roll of my eyes, so far beyond caring about keeping my identity a secret, "and you're in the matrix."
  
  Another deadpan stare but her lip twitches this time.
  
  Heh, I'll get you eventually.
  
  I don't bother elaborating on where we are though, since it really should be pretty obvious at this point. Unless she wants me to give the address or something, but I don't even know what it is so I couldn't do that anyway.
  
  "So do you want that coffee?" I repeat and she nods her head, so I make my way to the kitchen, my guest plodding along after me.
  
  The coffee is brewed in silence as she simply watches me work the familiar motions.
  
  I spend the time observing her, making sure not to try and make it subtle, because if she's a Thinker then she will notice and be more likely to clam up if she thinks I'm trying to pry information out of her or something.
  
  But if I simply openly observe her then she is more likely to see it as simple curiosity and be less defensive about it.
  
  One thing that comes to mind is that she is most definitely a Thinker, or maybe a Tinker by the way her eyes are constantly flitting around the place.
  
  I assume it's a Thinker thing, her power feeding her full of information everywhere she looks, but it could also be a Tinker power telling her how she can take everything around her apart and build a death star.
  
  Damn, it would be so fucking cool if she could build a death star.
  
  But I'm leaning more on her being a Thinker because I have also noticed her balance.
  
  It's not really something I would pick up on without actively looking for it, but she hasn't so much as stumbled once despite the fact that she should be feeling at least some kind of hangover right now.
  
  I finish preparing the coffee and I pour us both a mug and take a sip.
  
  Honestly? It's not great. But my options are kind of limited to say the least.
  
  At least I have human slushies now, but I can't really prepare that for two.
  
  ... unless I do?
  
  I have to try 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 hard to avoid smirking at the thought of serving someone a human slushie.
  
  God, that would be so fucking funny.
  
  After a moment of casual silence the little Asian girl finally decides to speak up.
  
  "So," she starts, "is this the part where you make me 'an offer I can't refuse'?"
  
  Her body tenses minutely as she speaks, no doubt preparing for a fight or something.
  
  Jeez, someone watches too many movies.
  
  I don't bother hiding my smirk anymore as I respond.
  
  "I was thinking something more along the lines of a name. I can't just keep calling you the little Asian girl in my head after all.~"
  
  I can tell the way my response catches her slightly flat footed and my smirk only grows when she scowls at me, no doubt because of the nickname.
  
  "Just call me April." She demands in that way that kids do when they think they're being intimidating.
  
  It's cute really.
  
  It's also obviously not her actual name, but eh, who cares really. It's just a name, we only need them to help communication. It doesn't really matter what the form of address is specifically, so long as we know who we're talking to.
  
  "Now tell me what you want already." She growls and it takes genuine effort to stop myself from pinching her cheeks.
  
  I'm glad this is as fun as I was hoping it would be, even if not for the reason I had in mind.
  
  "What makes you think I want anything from you?~ I just saw you passed out in the street covered in filth and decided to balance out my karma a little by cleaning you up and getting you somewhere where some rando can't come along and doing unspeakable things to you in your sleep.~"
  
  Her glare lessens slightly, most likely do to the simple truth in the statement, but it doesn't disappear completely, telling me that she isn't buying it.
  
  "Besides, what could you possible even offer me? You were passed out in the middle of an alley, dressed in old and worn clothes and looking like you can't remember what a shower is and you're not even an adult so it's not like you could offer your body, so tell me. What could I possibly want from you?"
  
  It's an interesting thing, that she both understands the truth of what I am saying, making her want to place some measure of trust in me, but she can also tell that I'm not quite being honest, making for quite the dichotomy.
  
  Definitely a Thinker then.
  
  "You're a cape." She suddenly states in leu of answering me and I blink at the random non-sequitur.
  
  "Pardon?" I blurt out in mild confusion, wondering what gave it away, or if her Thinker power is simply good enough to notice anyway.
  
  Unexpectedly, she seems to gain some confidence at my question and I can't help but notice the way her chest seems to puff out slightly as she opens her mouth.
  
  "When you were making the coffee your hands were changing direction faster than a normal person would be able to, as if you can ignore the velocity you were moving with, meaning you either have some kind of Mover power or a Brute one. I'd go with Brute though because you didn't seem to have any problem holding a hot mug of coffee despite not having any callouses on your hands to protect you from the heat."
  
  There is a certain smugness to her tone as she all but lectures me.
  
  She does bring up a good point for if I ever want to go undercover though because I never even thought about the fact that fresh coffee is generally too hot to keep in your hands.
  
  Now while I'm sure that I could have come up with some kind of witty or intellectual response, I get the feeling that she likes to be the smartest person in the room, so I decide to go with something else instead.
  
  "Takes one to know one.~" I playfully rebut while sticking my tongue out at her.
  
  She doesn't respond to my knowledge of her being a parahuman, most likely already figuring I know, and instead she simply reiterates her earlier question.
  
  "What do you want." She asks, slightly less hostile this time.
  
  I just shrug my shoulders, which is a completely honest reaction and decide to just treat her the same as mini James, by which I mean honesty is the best policy.
  
  "Who knows?~ Maybe I wanted to find out what your power was~ maybe I wanted to see if you were interesting~ maybe I wanted another cape friend~ maybe I wanted to see if you'd try and kill me or something.~"
  
  Her face is enough to tell me she isn't happy with my answer so I decide with a sigh to try again.
  
  "Look April, there was no great reason nor do I really want anything from you. I'm just plagued by a horrible boredom that never seems to want to go away and I figured you might bring about something interesting. If anything, all I want from you is for you to just do whatever it is that 𝘺𝘰𝘶 want so that I can watch and be entertained."
  
  Honesty is always the best way to get to the heart of the matter as quickly as possible, no round about pointless conversations or misunderstandings. Just straight to the point so that everyone understands the situation.
  
  I don't know if her power can tell if I'm lying or not or if she simply thinks it can, but either way a lot of the suspicion in her eyes dies out with my words, though the caution remains, which is to be expected.
  
  "So if I walk out that door, you won't stop me?" She says, gesturing to the front door and raising an eyebrow.
  
  I give her another shrug.
  
  "Eh. If you're just gonna leave then I'd rather take you out with a blindfold or something, cuz I don't own this place and it would be silly to piss them off by giving the location away, but yeah, you want to go then feel free, I've already had a night of fun that was ostensibly thanks to you, so I'd say we're square."
  
  It helps that everything I'm saying is true, something that won't change until I know for certain whether or not she can tell lies with her power.
  
  I really do consider us even. I got her cleaned up and in exchange she inadvertently caused a very steamy night between Clara and I.
  
  That's a pretty fair trade in my books.
  
  Of course, I never said anything about finding her again, but that's besides the point.
  
  She goes back to her coffee and for a few moments we once again bask in silence.
  
  She breaks the silence once she finishes her coffee.
  
  "You got anything I can eat in here?" She asks and I smile as I am reminded of my earlier thought about slushies.
  
  I reach under my counter and pull out a big ol' jar of jerky and open it, taking a slice out and biting half of it in one go before tilting the jar to her.
  
  "Jerky?" I offer with hidden anticipation.
  
  She takes a tentative bite and immediately makes a face, though given the lack of disgust, I doubt it's because of her discovering the source of the meat.
  
  "No seasoning? It's bland. You got anything else?" She asks, clearly making herself comfortable.
  
  Not that I mind, because she takes another bite even as she complains about it.
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬
  
  The sudden feeling of pain and pleasure is enough to distract me from laughing out loud and it only garners a brief glance from April before she goes back to the jerky.
  
  "Nah, I don't really do variety with what I consume. Just plain jerky and coffee for me." I answer with the smile of someone who knows they are making bad life decisions but will continue o do so anyway.
  
  She gives me a queer look as she swallows another bite.
  
  "That can't be good for your health." She states, full deadpan.
  
  "Eh, superpowers for the win right? I'm sure I'll be fine.~" I respond with good humour, waving away her concern.
  
  "Speaking of," she ventures, "what is your power anyway?"
  
  Suddenly, I get a fun idea and with a grin I open my mouth to answer.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Aaaaaand that's a wrap baby!
  
  Muahaha, cliffhanger-kun is here bitches!
  
  Also, Fuck that little bitch. She is so much fun in my head but it is so fuckign difficult to write Thinkers, or just preternaturally intelligent people in general. There is a reason for the saying about characters never being capable of being smarter than the author who wrote them, and I don't have any bullshit thinker powers so it's difficult to imagine how 'April' is seeing the world.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  63 Polite Conversation
  Opening my mouth, I answer with a sunny smile.
  
  "Well, I think it would probably be easier to just show you.~"
  
  Then, without giving her a moment to prepare herself, I bring my hands up to my head, putting one palm under my chin and the other on the back of my head.
  
  And with a sudden movement, I 𝘱𝘶𝘴𝘩 and the next moment I find myself looking at the fridge behind me.
  
  𝘚𝘯𝘢𝘱!
  
  The sound of my neck breaking must have been deafening if not for the fact that it is quickly out done by the sound of my neck snapping back into place as my vision blurs and suddenly I am looking forward again, staring straight into April's shocked eyes.
  
  Ahhh, that actually felt pretty good you know?
  
  Not the breaking part, but now that my necks back to normal it feels like I just visited the best chiropractor ever.
  
  "Couldn't you have just like, said 'regeneration'? Cuz that was gross." April says as she turns her scrunched face up at me.
  
  "Sure I could have, but where would be the fun in that?~" I respond with a mischievous smile, wiggling my brows at her.
  
  A soft snort leaves her which I count as a win and I open my mouth again before she can ask any more questions, because it's my turn.
  
  "Well, I've shown you mine, don't you think you should show me yours?~" I say while giving her an exaggerated wink.
  
  She seems to mull things over for a second before ultimately deciding that it's only fair to show a little honesty.
  
  "I'm pretty good at timing, as in I could probably choreograph a city wide operation down to the second, and I can turn things I touch into bombs." Is her bland response.
  
  The timing thing sounds impressive, but kind of boring so naturally I focus on the much more interesting part.
  
  "You can turn things into bombs?~ Mind giving a demonstration? Unless the explosions are too big of course.~" I ask, getting mildly excited by the thought of explosions.
  
  Explosions are cool, sue me.
  
  She just shrugs her shoulders and picks up her empty mug when out of nowhere, spreading from her point of contact with the mug is what can only be described as a watermark, or perhaps one of those ink blot things used in psychology.
  
  The watermark starts spreading over the mug and when it is about to reach its apex, she turns and throws it behind her into the living room.
  
  The moment the mug is in the absolute centre of the room, it explodes. The force of the blast isn't enough to scorch the walls from the centre of the room, but I do notice one rather important result of the explosion.
  
  "My cards..." I quetly bemoan as my cards are scattered about the room from where they were.
  
  I was only a few moves away from winning.
  
  Teary eyes, I turn back to April and give a pitiable sniffle.
  
  "How could you." I whisper, heartbroken.
  
  Then she suddenly starts laughing at me and my sad face rather rapidly transitions into an irritated one.
  
  "Oi, you're supposed to apologise." I complain in monotone, but she clearly doesn't care.
  
  "Hahahaha! Sorry- haha- sorry, sorry. You just looked so stupid! Hahahahaha!" She can barely get her words out as she clutches her stomach and I can't help but think that it really wasn't that funny.
  
  "'Oh nyo~ my cards' hahahahaha!" She bounces her head side to side as she speaks with a mocking tone, imitating my voice in that annoying way children do.
  
  Ok, now that's just mean.
  
  It takes her a moment to calm down enough that she is just huffing and breathing heavily and I try to bring the conversation back on track with a roll of my eyes.
  
  "Is that Manton limited?" I ask, getting a confused look from her still amused eyes but I don't know what she's confused about so I just raise my eyebrow in question.
  
  "Hehe- sorry." She starts quietly before clearing her throat with a cough and starting again properly. "What's a Manton limit?"
  
  Oh right, she's not just new but also a literal child, so she doesn't know things and stuff.
  
  Man, it's just like mini James... I really gotta stop hanging out with kids, it's getting weird.
  
  Shaking off the random thoughts I answer Aprils question.
  
  "The Manton limit, named after Doctor William Manton, is the term for when a parahumans power can only affect either organic or inorganic matter. It's the reason pyrokinetic and such can't just spawn a fire inside of your brain and insta-kill you."
  
  She seems thoughtful after my brief explanation but I decide to give another example just to make sure she actually understands, because I know mini James would struggle to understand things that weren't clearly explained.
  
  Damn, should I have been a teacher or something? I seem to be good at this.
  
  Nah, that'd be boring as fuck.
  
  "Think about Chevalier, you know him right? Second in command hero here in NY? Well, his power lets him combine two things into one, keeping the properties he wants from each of them. The Manton limit is what's stopping him from being able to mix people together, or like, trees n' shit."
  
  With a more in depth explanation, April clicks her fingers as if she just had a eureka moment which I take to mean she understands now, something she confirms not a moment later.
  
  "I get it. So are you asking if I can make organic stuff explode, just like inorganic?" She asks, looking mightily curious herself.
  
  "Yup!" I confirm with a sunny smile.
  
  "I don't know to be honest." She confides, still looking thoughtful.
  
  Still, I can't let an opportunity like this go just after she laughed at me, so I make sure to put on my most mocking and condescending face as I respond.
  
  "You 'don't know'? You don't even know how your own power works? What are you, stupid?"
  
  That immediately knocks her out of her thoughts and makes her scowl at me once more, something that makes me smile.
  
  "I haven't had them long!" She rapidly defends with vigour before continuing more sedately, "besides, I haven't really had the opportunity to test them out. I've been busy."
  
  Ah yes, busy getting as fucked up as humanly possible, such an unavoidable circumstance.
  
  Still, I don't call her out for it, partly because she had just been through her trigger and no one makes good decisions following that.
  
  She gives me a queer look after I don't respond immediately.
  
  "Aren't you supposed to tell me that I shouldn't have been wasting my time doing what I've been doing?" She asks, seeming genuinely confused.
  
  "Why should I?" I respond, matching her confused tone, something she clearly notices going by the way her eye twitches.
  
  "You 𝘥𝘰 know I've been 'busy' doing drugs and alcohol right? Isn't that something you should tell me to keep away from?" The scepticality is practically dripping from her voice as she levels a pair of half closed eyes at me, filled with suspicion.
  
  I'm almost insulted at the accusation.
  
  Me? Doing something responsible?
  
  Like that could ever happen.
  
  "Hey, fun's fun, no matter how you have it, so long as you are enjoying yourself I have nothing to say about how you live your life." I answer with a wry smile.
  
  I do, genuinely and truly believe that everyone should simply enjoy themselves and have fun. What's the point in even being alive if you're not enjoying yourself after all?
  
  "Huh. Cool." Is her lame response and I decide to once again bring the conversation back to where we were.
  
  "Yup. Anyway, you wanna find out if you're Manton limited or what?" I ask with a grin of anticipation, one that she rapidly finds herself matching.
  
  "Sure, but how exactly should we go about doing that?" She asks, making me roll my eyes at the obvious question.
  
  I roll one of my sleeves back and offer the arm to her.
  
  "Just use your power on me." I say but she looks hesitant so I quickly add, "it'll be fine~ I'll get better.~"
  
  Apparently she didn't need much convincing because as soon as I finish speaking she reaches forward and places her hand on my own.
  
  We both watch in fascination as the watermark appears and starts to spread across my hand.
  
  It doesn't take as long as the mug to reach its apex and when it does I can tell it works from the sudden pain of having my hand eviscerated.
  
  However, if that was not enough to tell that the power works just fine on organic material, the explosion of blood and gore that completely covers not just my counter but also my face, her face, the cupboards and even the fucking ceiling.
  
  Wow.
  
  Just, wow.
  
  It's like a funking Jackson Pollock painting.
  
  I hope Uppercrust has people that come in and clean here, because I am not dealing with that.
  
  "Holy shit." Is the amazed whisper that leaves the blood covered April as she stares at her own hands.
  
  𝘊𝘭𝘢𝘱!
  
  Clapping my hands to get her attention is both just a good way of getting attention but also a subtle flex of my own powers because it's nice to remind people that you have them and I don't want her getting too big a head.
  
  "Welp! Unless you are fond of wearing 𝘮𝘦, I'd imagine you'd want a shower right about now. We can continue this lovely discussion afterwards." I say with a smile, noticing the way her eyes, filled with interest, follow my newly regenerated hand.
  
  In the end we both shower and I give her another set of my clothing, leaving me in my only clean set left.
  
  Do you think Uppercrusts cleaning people include people who do laundry? I don't really feel like doing it myself and I've never asked.
  
  Well, now that I think about it, I've been here for nearly three weeks and haven't done a single piece of laundry despite my clothes being clean every time I put them on.
  
  So I think it's safe to assume there are cleaners, which is great news.
  
  Eventually, we are both seated in the living room, a fresh coffee in front of us both that we sip from sedately, both thinking about our own things.
  
  "So," I begin, getting her attention from where she was staring into her new mug (she really is working her way through all my shit) "now that that's all over and done with. What do you plan to do now? Or in the future at least?"
  
  "What's it to you?" Is her immediate response that makes me roll my eyes with a sigh.
  
  "You're wearing my clothes and have literally just been covered in my blood after turning my hand into a confetti cannon. I should think that we're past the point of being pointlessly defensive about menial things."
  
  My deadpan reminder makes her flush slightly as she seems to concede the point and starts thinking to herself, no doubt about what it is she wants to do with her life and, more specifically, her powers.
  
  It doesn't seem to take her long to come to her decision.
  
  "I want to play the game." She says, and while I have an idea of what she means, I still want to hear her say it herself.
  
  "What do you mean exactly? What 'game'?" I raise an eyebrow and lean forward with supressed excitement.
  
  "You know.." she starts, waiving her hand around as if to gesture to the world itself like her answer is just that obvious, "the Game. Of Heroes and Villains, going out and fighting each other with drama and schemes and plots and stuff. I wanna play."
  
  At this point, I am not bothering to hold back my grin and I have no doubt that it grows to positively devilish proportions.
  
  "Well,~ in that case, I have an offer that you might be interested in.~"
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Bleh, March is here and I am happy about that, but she isn't 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩 yet, so I kinda struggled to write her, cuz right now she is a 13/14 year old girl who's just gone through an incredibly traumatic event and is positively fucked up because of it, so she isn't quite as fun as I'd liker her to be yet.
  
  Not to mention, I just don't like this kind of domestic conversation. There's no Drama, no Excitement, just two people talking over coffee ;-;
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  64 Heart to uh, Mask? 2 Electric Boogalo
  "So where'd you find the brat?" Butcher asks me from my side.
  
  We are both sitting at the edge of a tall building, well I'm sitting, he's standing.
  
  We're too high to be seen by anyone on the street without them actively looking up which is good since everybody below thinks that we're off fighting again.
  
  This is probably going to be the last time we fight, as he's already told me that he's going to be leaving for Boston in a couple days, but country to what Uppercrust thinks, I asked that we not actually fight this time and he agreed.
  
  Mostly because he knows that a fight between us will lead to nothing, just the same as before, but I like to think that part of the reason he agreed is just because we're friends.
  
  "Just found her on the street. Didn't think she'd be so impressive." I answer, dangling my feet over the edge with my eyes locked onto the spectacle below.
  
  And what a spectacle it is.
  
  I decided to bring April along with me for my job, though apparently her name is actually May, as like a work experience kind of thing. It would be lame if a Clown lost on there debut after all.
  
  But she is doing much better than expected.
  
  Down below is the entire current Teeth roster, minus the Butcher obviously who is up here with me.
  
  Yet against all five of them she is not only holding her own but she's actively winning, if slowly.
  
  It's really incredible to watch her work, from the way she dodges attacks by a hairs breadth, even managing to perfectly avoid Quarrel's arrows despite her power making it impossible for her to miss.
  
  Then there's the marbles I bought her when we were shopping for her bunny mask that she's throwing around that somehow manage to explode only when it brings the most benefit to her.
  
  Of course, one cannot forget her third power, the one that she didn't tell me about at first.
  
  She can make any weapon she wields into a 'perfect' weapon.
  
  So far she seems to be able to cut through just about anything, something the Teeth are quickly coming to be weary of.
  
  "She got a name yet?" He grunts, looking disapprovingly at his subordinates as they get smacked around and led on.
  
  I even caught him wince when May lead Animos to roar at Hemorrhagia, causing her powers to turn off long enough for her to land an exaggerated spinning kick to her face.
  
  "March." I answer simply as I keep getting distracted from the way she fights.
  
  She explained to me that when she really uses her Thinker power it's like time slows down for her, and like any self respecting Clown, she makes use of the extra time to inject some theatricality into everything she does.
  
  It's honestly really cool to watch.
  
  "March? Like the month?"
  
  I snort at Butchers confused words, to which he responds by stabbing me in the shoulder.
  
  What an asshole.
  
  Still, I smile as I explain, happy to talk about it and happy to talk to him.
  
  "We watched Alice in Wonderland the other day, that's where she got the bunny mask from, the March Hare and she likes those old soldier uniforms from the 1800's, and they march, I guess, so that's what she went for. We just need to wait a couple days for my order to come through and she'll be all set."
  
  The order I'm talking about is of course her costume. Uppercrust did seem a little surprised at my request but a brief explanation of the situation was enough for him to put an order through for me.
  
  Though it is naturally exorbitantly expensive but I don't have expensive tastes and my contract with the Elite pays well anyway, so I'm not hurting for cash.
  
  They even helped me set up a bank account with this guy called Number Man, who apparently does all the banking for all the villains, which really makes me wonder how people are ok with some dude controlling like, all of the illegal money in the country, but whatever.
  
  The costume will be done and delivered at about the time that the Teeth are going to be rotating back to Boston, so I'll probably be leaving shortly after as well.
  
  Which means that there will once again be only one Clown in this city and maybe I will find someone worthy of the position in the next, then I can just let the organisation grow by itself as Clowns recruit more Clowns.
  
  Though, I feel that I should make it clear that anyone who just invites a bunch of rando's into the club is going to get eaten.
  
  ... Eh, I'm sure it's implied.
  
  "She's good." He says and I can tell that he means it, mostly because she 𝘪𝘴 good so it's just a simple fact.
  
  I wouldn't let her be a Clown if she didn't have something to offer after all.
  
  You know, I just had a thought.
  
  "Hey Thirteen, wait do you have like, an actual name I can call you? Cuz Thirteen seems impersonal and Butcher doesn't flow of the tongue very well for conversation."
  
  He gives me a strange look for a moment before returning to spectating the fight down below.
  
  "Don't you know it's frowned upon to ask a cape for their name?" He questions, not really sounding like he cares.
  
  "Sure, but it's also generally frowned upon to be the Butcher or to eat people, so I'd say we're past that point don'tcha think?" I respond with levity before abruptly turning to face him and holding my hand out for him to shake. "The names Lusia by the way, or you can just call me Lucy~ nice to meet ya!~"
  
  He huffs but shakes his head and takes my hand regardless.
  
  "William, or you can just call me Bill." Is his gruff response.
  
  "William huh? Bill, Bill, Billy the Butcher!~" I exclaim with a smile, even as he starts to crush my hand under his grip.
  
  "I'm already regretting this." He says, but I know he's all soft on the inside (he's not) so I ignore him.
  
  "Sure you do big guy Wilfred- ow!"
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘩.
  
  Pulling back my mangled hand, a shiver passes through my as my bones reform and my hand snaps back to how it is supposed to look.
  
  "Now that was just mean.~" I pout, but I can't quite hide my smile.
  
  "Anyway," I start, "as I was saying Billy, you know how you invited me to join you?"
  
  Now 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 immediately gets his attention.
  
  "You reconsidering?" He asks, pretending he doesn't care about my answer.
  
  Too bad.
  
  "Nah, unfortunately not. It's actually quite the opposite. You wanna join me? The only conditions to being one of my Clowns is to want to have fun and have something to offer, you certainly fit the latter and I'm sure you fit the former well enough, so whaddaya say?~"
  
  He gives me a long, searching look and I actually manage to tear my eyes away from the fight to match his stare, showing how serious I am about this.
  
  Because I would like him to join me.
  
  Sadly, life does not always go to plan.
  
  "Not possible I'm afraid." He answers after a long moment of silence and I quickly go back to watching the fight, hoping to hide my disappointment.
  
  Carefully keeping my voice level, I speak without looking back this time.
  
  "Why not?"
  
  He doesn't even hesitate a second to respond.
  
  "The Butcher leads the Teeth. That is absolute. The Butcher. Leads. The Teeth."
  
  I open my mouth to rebuke, to tell him that being a Clown isn't even slightly restrictive. I mean, we already have one member who is leading a large organisation, or at least a soon to be large one.
  
  But he cuts me off before I can even start.
  
  "The Butcher 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 leads the Teeth. That is all, the Teeth is all. I cannot join anyone else. Sorry Lucy, but this is just the way it is." He explains, putting a hand on my shoulder as he does so and I am unashamed to admit how I lean into the touch.
  
  I guess you can't have everything.
  
  Luckily for me, the scene below changes as the Teeth manage to surprise March and catch her off guard, quickly resulting in the fight going downhill for her.
  
  No doubt she'll be down and out in a minute or so.
  
  "Welp!" I exclaim, pushing back my negative thoughts and focusing back on what's important. Having fun. "I guess that's our que huh?~"
  
  He follows me as I get to my feet and head for the opposite side of the building to where the others are fighting and jump off.
  
  by the time I land on the ground, he's already there, waiting for me.
  
  "So!~ How do you want to go about this?~" I ask, referencing how we are going to sell that we were totally fighting this whole time and not just chatting.
  
  Instead of responding verbally, he reaches forward and takes hold of my forearm.
  
  Suddenly, a bad feeling settles in my gut, one that only increases when I look up at him and see the evil smile on his face.
  
  "We can talk about this.. right?" I plead with a smile.
  
  "Nope." Is all he says before his muscles all suddenly tense.
  
  Well fuck.
  
  Is all I have time to think before my feet leave the ground and I rapidly start expelling mass from all of my 'sources' to wrap around my body.
  
  I smash through the first wall before I can really grow anything and I feel most of my bones break and rapidly heal but by the time I hit the second my ribbons and wings are out and wrapped around me.
  
  By the time he lets me go and I feel myself flying through another wall and into the open street I have my arms covered, though I leave out my tail and body armour.
  
  Mostly because I know that we're not really going to fight, but also because I feel like I should save my armour for impactful moments, like a trump card that the villain pulls out right when victory is in sight for the heroes.
  
  Plus the armour drains me way faster than anything else.
  
  Don't get me wrong, I could last a good hour or so going all out, but I would be 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 after the fact and I don't exactly need the boost it gives me right now, so I just don't bother.
  
  The fighting on the street comes to a stop as I get to my feet, unravelling myself like one fucked up flower in bloom.
  
  March quickly hobbles in my direction, an arrow sticking out of her thigh, while the Teeth just stare uncomfortably at me, most of them also injured.
  
  𝘉𝘢𝘯𝘨!
  
  The Butcher appears as dramatically as he always does, with an explosion, and we have a short stare down, only the two of us knowing that we aren't going to suddenly start fighting.
  
  Then he just turns away from me with a grunt and starts walking away. I barely catch him start calling his Teeth useless as they leave and I turn to March with a smile.
  
  "D'you have fun!?~" I excitedly ask, jumping towards her like a happy dog.
  
  Pausing for a moment at the thought, I start waggling my ribbons back and forth like a dog, making March bark out a quick laugh, followed by a wince of pain.
  
  No doubt because of the pointy object unconsensually penetrating her body.
  
  Heh.
  
  "Honestly?" She starts, taking a moment to get her breathing under control. "Hell yeah I did! That was awesome! I kicked that one guy in the face and made the dog guy turn the blood girls power off and I kicked 𝘩𝘦𝘳 in the face only because the bow bitch got distracted by one of my bombs I threw at her earlier and then sword guy couldn't even 𝘩𝘪𝘵 me!"
  
  She only stops vomiting words because she runs out of breath and she just stands there panting, looking mildly embarrassed about her enthusiasm but I can tell that she's smiling under her mask and that makes me smile in return.
  
  "It 𝘪𝘴 fun, isn't it?" I respond, making her relax, knowing I'm not going to judge her which makes me mentally roll my eyes, thinking about teenagers and how much they seem to crave affirmation. "Now, while I am glad you enjoyed yourself, and I 𝘢𝘮 happy about that, you are injured and don't have my heeling powers, so lets get you some treatment yeah?"
  
  She nods tiredly and takes a step only to immediately fall, only avoiding kissing the pavement because of me expecting this and catching her.
  
  "Tch tch, just go to sleep. I'll take care of things." I soothe as I gather in my arms in a princess carry.
  
  Before long she takes my advice, probably out of a mix of simple exhaustion, since she is a child and isn't used to this kind of high intensity stuff, and light blood loss.
  
  I just shake my head with a sigh as I start walking us back home.
  
  I'm sure Uppercrust has plenty of people with medical training. Maybe even someone who does coaching that I can hire to teach March how to fight and get into shape when I'm gone.
  
  I do stop once, only for a moment to look behind me at the direction the Butcher left.
  
  𝘚𝘪𝘨𝘩
  
  You really can't have everything.
  
  Then I look down at the sleeping Clown in my arms and a light smile replaces my melancholic features.
  
  But just because we can't have everything, that doesn't mean that what we've got isn't awesome by itself.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Fyi, the title is a reference that only the Real Ones™ will get, and to those of you that get it, THAT'S RIGHT BABY! WE'RE GOING ALL THE WAY BACK FOR THOSE ELECTRIC BOOGALOO'S BITCH!
  
  Also, I am finally starting to be capable of light parrying in For Honor. I don't doubt that the vast majority of you will have no idea what that really means, but for those of you that do I hope you will understand just how happy I am about this, especially since my console is old so the indicators always come in late and I have to heavy before I even see a hint of read
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  65 Interlude: Uppercrust
  Uppercrust is a businessman.
  
  Those of a lesser mind might equate him to just another gang lord, but they would be fools.
  
  But he has always been a businessman. Back before the Elite was formed and they were just a collection of parahumans trying to make a living off of their powers.
  
  Now, every single one of the original members of Uppermost, the group that proceeded the Elite, are dead, leaving only Uppercrust.
  
  Now the group he is a part of, the Elite, is nothing like what it used to be, the leaders either replaced or retired to allow more cutthroat, callous, 𝘵𝘩𝘶𝘨𝘴 to take the helm.
  
  All Uppercrust can do is keep a healthy distance from the rest of the Elite, which is why he set up on the east coast, despite the Elite controlling the vast majority of the west coast.
  
  As a businessman, he is always happy when he makes a good deal, or finds a good business partner.
  
  Suffice to say, Uppercrust is feeling rather quite happy recently.
  
  It all started with a strange new cape walking through his doors.
  
  It's not often that a parahuman manages to garner such a fearsome reputation so quickly, so she was certainly worth hearing out.
  
  At first his men were worried, saying he shouldn't meet her personally, because she is dangerous and might do something foolish.
  
  But they are all blind to what I see, or perhaps simply inexperienced.
  
  I have seen many, many capes come and go over the years and one thing he has come to learn is that a lot of them aren't very intelligent.
  
  Yet what that Tear did? Setting up a confrontation with over twenty capes that left the majority of them dead or dying while getting out relatively unscathed?
  
  That kind of thing takes planning. It takes brains, plus a helping of skill.
  
  So I knew she wasn't as uncontrollable as people were making her out to be, it's the only reason I agreed to meet with her in the first place.
  
  Yet, even that did not prepare me for the person who showed up at my door.
  
  I expected many things from her and prepared for each of those eventualities, yet I still ended up being caught flat footed with the person I received.
  
  She wasn't baring her teeth to the world, being aggressive or throwing her weight, real or imagined, around. She wasn't making threats or acting as if she believes herself above us.
  
  Which is good, because that was the worst thing that could have happened.
  
  But neither was she new and uncertain, unsure of herself and how to act in these kinds of dealings like most people are for the first time, and I have no doubt that this was the first time she's been in this type of interaction.
  
  Neither was she scheming and twofaced, nor was she even remotely uncomfortable with the situation. In fact, she really seemed to be in her element when the discussions began.
  
  But what I actually found, was a woman who knew exactly what they were doing.
  
  She knew what she wanted and she knew exactly how to get it, all without showing an ounce of weakness and somehow managing to avoid insulting me or the Elite at the same time.
  
  Anyone who knows anything about negotiations and power plays knows that it's a fine line to tread between showing strength and insulting the other party.
  
  Yet, she managed to do so perfectly enough for me to suspect that she has a Thinker power helping her.
  
  Though, over the years I've gotten rather skilled at spotting Thinkers and I am pretty sure that she isn't one and that it's just natural intelligence, which just makes it even more impressive.
  
  And her opening move was a masterpiece of interpretive communication that almost made me want to applaud her for it.
  
  With just the simple act of sitting down, she set the tone for not just the ensuing conversation but for all future interactions we may have together. Truly magnificent.
  
  But I think the part that surprised me most was simply when she walked through the door with Hideout.
  
  Because I could tell from a glance that Hideout was, while not completely comfortable, relatively relaxed.
  
  Relaxed?
  
  I know for a fact that she was terrified of the mere thought of meeting the 'Cannibal of Columbus', yet 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘩𝘰𝘸 Tear managed to eliminate that fear almost entirely and actually make a good impression on someone who already had a bad impression of her.
  
  That shows a level of charisma that is incredibly rare, to so easily make someone with such a bad opinion of you to someone who is, if not friendly then at least cordial.
  
  Again, it left me suspecting that she has more powers than she lets on, but once again I believe that it's simply all her.
  
  Frankly, it makes me relieved that she is so open to communication, because I really, 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 do not like the idea of making an enemy of her.
  
  Because despite what I said, I fully believe that she could singlehandedly do more damage to the Elite than the protectorate has ever done, if only because she wouldn't care about the repercussions.
  
  Yes, she is an incredibly dangerous individual, but she is a rational one and someone who can be dealt with, which makes her an asset.
  
  And what an asset she has shown herself to be.
  
  Typically when the Butcher makes his rounds to the Big Apple our profits tank by at least 30% for the month and we barely bring the margin back up before the Butcher is back again.
  
  30% is a very large amount of money with how much we pull in being the biggest gang in New York.
  
  Yet, despite this, just by hiring Tear to keep the Butcher away for a month, we actually managed to make a 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘪𝘵 from his arrival as we were able to push into the Teeths territory while Tear was distracting the Butcher.
  
  Granted, that wasn't part of the contract and with her intelligence it wasn't difficult for her to figure out that I was making use of her beyond what we agreed, even without asking about it.
  
  However, like I expected, she didn't make a big deal of it. In fact, she didn't even mention it.
  
  Instead, she simply asked me to get her a costume made at a discount.
  
  She used the words 'friends and family discount', but we both know that this is her asking for reparations for my slight breach of contract without making a big fuss about it.
  
  The most interesting part for me, is that she doesn't even seem to realise how much of an incredible business sense she has.
  
  It's like she doesn't even have to think in order to show the same level of skill in something that I have spend decades mastering.
  
  Truly, she is frightening individual and I haven't survived as long as I have by making enemies with scary people.
  
  Instead, it's better to have friends.
  
  That's why I've already ordered my men that they are never to bother that new cape that she seems to have taken a liking to, March, was it?
  
  However it seems that she was not done surprising me, as the day after the Butcher left she passed a message to me through Hideout to discuss 'business'.
  
  As a side note, I am very impressed with Hideout. She has really grown into herself with this new assignment.
  
  I suppose the severity of it was all she needed to truly grow as she has come to be unflinching and unafraid when it comes to dealing with Tear, and just more confident in general.
  
  It's a remarkable improvement and one that I believe will be deserving of a promotion once the others see how she has changed.
  
  Now, at first I had expected that I knew what Tear wished to discuss. Like last time, I made preparations for a variety of topics she might bring up, from support for March or, what I was most expecting, her realising that she was worth far more than we agreed to pay her.
  
  Seriously, the amount she was willing to work for was a large part of the reason we actually made a profit by hiring her, rather than just avoiding losses.
  
  Because she asked for basically nothing in the big picture, so I was more than ready to increase her payment to more standard levels for someone of her capabilities.
  
  In fact, considering her performance and surprising professionalism I was prepared to pay even more.
  
  However this time I at least prepared myself to be surprised again, and I am thankful I did because she once more managed to subvert my expectations.
  
  Why, I remember how the conversation went as if it were yesterday (it was).
  
  I was in my office, alone with only Quinten and James behind me, as they insisted on being, just in case Tear really is going to try something.
  
  I don't tell them that they would be unlikely to actually have a chance at stopping her. I don't need to. But understanding that won't change their stubborn minds, so I allow it.
  
  Then Tear walked in, flanked by Hideout, and immediately she starts looking around with exaggerated interest, taking in every detail of my actual office this time.
  
  No doubt she is taking in a lot more information that even she realises.
  
  Her mask, mirroring the smile that I am certain is beneath it, is just as unnerving as always. Though most of that is due to the glowing red eyes of a predator that hide behind it.
  
  She pauses for a microsecond as she is walking closer to take a seat and with the way she tilts her head slightly and looks at me, seeming distinctly amused through her surprisingly expressive eyes I realise that she's already noticed.
  
  I didn't think I'd need the barrier this time, but I figured she'd get a kick out of seeing it anyway and I'm happy to see that I was right.
  
  "Crusty!~ How is my favourite Crust of High Elevation doing today?~" She enthusiastically greets as she takes a seat without being offered.
  
  I feel my 'guards' bristling behind me at the perceived disrespect but honestly I find it refreshing.
  
  Let the young be young. She can be boring and formal when she's boring and old.
  
  Then again, I highly doubt she'll settle for such a mundane ending to her life.
  
  "I'm doing quite well actually. I've been reading reports all week about this month has been the single most profitable month we have ever had while the Butcher is in town, thanks to you." I smile honestly with the praise.
  
  She preens at the praise and leans back into her chair as she responds.
  
  "Yeah well, you know what they say about clowns and rivalries.~" She trails of at the end as if what she's saying is obvious but she was clearly the only one in the room who wasn't confused.
  
  "What do they say? About clowns and rivalries?" I ask, genuinely curious.
  
  But she just tilts her head and gives me an even more confused look than the one I was giving her.
  
  "I dunno? I thought you knew?~" It's then that I realise that she is just joking around and I mentally add acting to her growing list of skills, as I really thought she was confused for a moment there.
  
  "There was a reason for this visit?" I sigh, choosing to just pretend the previous interaction didn't happen.
  
  She perks up and all of a sudden her demeaner rapidly shifts from the careless, cheerful clown to something else. Something.. dangerous. 𝘗𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺.
  
  It makes me uncomfortable and gets my full attention faster than anything else has in years.
  
  Then she opens her mouth and I am once more surprised by the intelligence and forethought that she seems to be randomly capable of, but by the time she is walking back through my doors after a long and eventful conversation I find myself unable to hold back a grin of my own.
  
  I've always loved finding good business, but who ever knew that a half mad cannibal clown would make for such a good business partner.
  
  As I lean back in my seat, thinking on her words and the future, I can't help but compliment that that woman sure has a way with words.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Heheheuhahaha what dealings are being made, what did they talk about? Who knows?~
  
  Well, at least one person has a pretty good idea, but they helped me flesh the idea out anyway so that's kind of a given.
  
  Also, I really enjoyed writing uppercrust. I like these political conversations with double meanings and such :)
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the links I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  or
  
  ko - fi /bored_works
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  66 On The Road Again 2 Electric Boogaloo
  "Can't you stay just a bit longer?" May whines at me as I pack my belongings into my recently purchased motorcycle.
  
  It's a Kawasaki KL something something numbers, I didn't remember what it was called, the guy selling it said a lot of words and most of them were new to me, so I kind of just blanked for a moment.
  
  But it's a nice bike.
  
  It's like a dirt bike but with less of the internals showing and with a couple little boxes on either side to hold stuff and the middle even opens up to hold even more stuff.
  
  It's a perfect amount of storage space when you consider my severe lacking of stuff.
  
  But today is the day I leave New York.
  
  The Butcher left a couple days ago and frankly this place isn't really my scene. I want something with more character.
  
  Or maybe it's just the new contract Uppercrust offered me for the Elite, because it promises to be fun and I am definitely looking forward to it.
  
  Especially with how open ended the job is. I mean, 'destabilise the area' leaves a lot of room for interpretation, and I fully intend on doing a lot of interpretation.
  
  Jamming the last of my clothes into the compartment under the seat, I slam it shut and turn back to May who is wearing clothes very similar to my own, except they actually fit her now that she isn't just wearing my clothes.
  
  Still, red looks good on her. It really brings out the bloodshot in her eyes.
  
  "Nope~ I already told you about my new contract, and besides this place isn't really my kind of scene.~ Too many people~ it's overwhelming for a country girl like me y'know?~" I step forward and ruffle her hair as I speak, causing her to swat my hand away with a scowl.
  
  "Don't you think it's a bit of a dick move to bring me into this and immediately ditch me?" She pouts, folding her arms over her chest.
  
  I just shrug in response. "Hey, I delayed to see you in your new costume and I delayed to watch your proper debut with it on. 'Sides, I gave you that phone with all our numbers in it didn't I? You can just call if ya miss me.~" I finish with a wink.
  
  The phone I was talking about is my aptly dubbed 'Clown phones', which are just burner phones that I put the numbers for every Clown in. Hopefully that contact list will be significantly larger in the future.
  
  "Humph, who would miss you?" She huffs, bringing a smile to my face, especially since I know that she only said that because she knew I'd find it funny.
  
  Heh, speaking of funny.
  
  "Hey, before I go there 𝘪𝘴 one last thing I wanna tell you." I get on my bike as I talk and put the key in the ignition.
  
  I've never actually driven a motorbike before, but how hard could it really be? I've used a normal bike before, that's basically the same.
  
  "You remember what I told you about my diet?" I ask, causing her to simply raise an eyebrow, not even slightly put off by the subject of cannibalism.
  
  "Uh, yeah? You can only eat people else you get super ill right? It sucks for you but I don't see how it's relevant?" Her words just make my smile wider and she starts glancing around nervously, knowing that my smile likely doesn't mean anything good for her.
  
  "Well, you know how I didn't have anything in the fridge 'till I gave you some money to buy yourself some food with?" I continue, anticipation building with her growing unease.
  
  "Yea..?"
  
  "Right, and what was the second thing I offered you, after you first woke up?~" She closes her eyes for a second to recall the moment and she looks just as confused and uneasy when she opens them again.
  
  "Yeah..? It was some jerky, right?" An eyebrow is raised to join her uncertain features and my smile somehow widens even further.
  
  "Right, right. And what did I do right before I offered you some?~"
  
  "Uhh, you were making coffee?" The uncertainty in her tone almost makes me laugh, but I try to clarify anyway.
  
  "Yeah, but after that?~"
  
  "I don't know? You ate one of the jerkies I guess?" I don't see a single hint of understanding enter her eyes and I decide to start the engine early, just in case.
  
  I've already had a much more.. intense shall we say, goodbye with Clara, so this really is the last thing I have to do before I leave.
  
  "Uhuh, uhuh, and remind me again, what happens when I eat anything that isn't human meat?~" I just know that she's going to get it now, and I am proven right not a moment later.
  
  "You get super.. sick..." Her eyes widen as her words trail off with sudden realisation hitting her like a truck.
  
  Welp, that's my cue to leave.
  
  Without wating for anything, I twist the handle accelerator thing, whatever it's called, and start zooming away, barely tilting my head to the side to instinctually avoid a thrown knife that would have no doubt pierced through my head like butter.
  
  Behind me, I barely hear her yelling over the growing distance.
  
  "EEEWWWW YOU MOTHERFUCKER THAT'S FUCKING DISGUSTING! YOU MADE ME EAT PEOPLE! FUCK YOU! NEVER COME BACK OR I WILL CUT YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF!"
  
  "Hahahahahahahaha!" I can't help but laugh as I drive away and as I get further away, I manage to only just catch the sounds of her raging turning to reluctant laughter thanks to my enhanced senses.
  
  After all, I made sure to teach her that everything that's funny should be funny, even if it's only so at your expense.
  
  And 𝘨𝘰𝘥, I am so fucking funny, I can't stop laughing about it.
  
  In fact, I don't stop laughing about it hours later, and even then I still find myself breaking down into chuckles anytime I think about it.
  
  Man, she is not gonna be happy with me for a while.
  
  Ah well, at least she's not sad about me leaving anymore.
  
  I am also looking forward to whatever revenge she is going to pull to get back at me, I'm sure it will be funny, whatever it is.
  
  But for now, other matters of a more mercenary nature are a focus of mine.
  
  The job I've been offered is to head all the way across the country to Denver Colorado and to 'destabilise the area' so that the Elite can have an easier time moving in.
  
  How exactly I am supposed to destabilise the area seems to be up to me, which is great, plus it gives me a reason to go on a nice long road trip.
  
  You know, see the sights, meet new and interesting people, maybe kill them.
  
  It all depends on how I'm feeling really.
  
  But what is most important is that it is a 25 hour drive. a little bit less, since I'll be speeding for most of it.
  
  Which means I'm going to have to take a couple of pit stops and it just so happens that my old haunt, as it were, Columbus is on the way so I figure I'll stay the night there and give my adorable little Clowns a surprise visit.
  
  I'm curious to see how things have changed in the month I've been gone.
  
  By the time I'm entering the city night has already fallen, but that doesn't stop me from noticing a couple of changes already.
  
  For one, the general mood seems to be more relaxed, if that really even makes sense.
  
  That's probably just because it was a little chaotic when I left and now people have moved on from my show.
  
  The other, far more interesting for all the implications, thing I notice is the new graffiti that I recognise to be gang tags, except they are not of a gang I know.
  
  The tag itself is just a red heart most of the time, but some of the more detailed ones have a stylised J in the middle of it.
  
  Little James and Jinx haven't given me any updates on how the drug empire is going, but for now I'm just going to assume that these tags are for his gang.
  
  I swear though, if they have somehow managed to lose out to another gang in the time I've been gone then a lot of people are going to die.
  
  This city is supposed to be something of a gift to little James for being the first Clown to join me after all and I'd 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦 to see someone else playing with his toys.
  
  Pushing those thoughts aside, I make my way over to Helter Skelter and am mildly surprised to see the lights on.
  
  It's not like he actually gets any business with his luck. I'm pretty sure the only reason he even owned a bar in the first place was so he could order large amounts of booze without anyone batting an eye.
  
  So I didn't actually expect it to be open.
  
  Honestly, I was hoping I could sneak in while he's asleep and tie him upside-down by his ankles and wake him up like that. Then I'd say some fitting movie line like 'Mr Anderson'.
  
  Ok that doesn't actually seem that fitting now that I think about it, but it would have been funny anyway.
  
  Ah well, guess he has guests then.
  
  I'm sure he won't mind me crashing the party.
  
  I thought about literally crashing the party by driving straight through the door, but this is a new bike and I don't want to break it yet, so I park like a boring normal person and turn the engine off.
  
  Walking up to the door, I can smell that there are at least five people inside, most of them parahumans which is the only reason I don't have an exact number.
  
  Because the stench of parahumans is much more encompassing than normals, so it can hide their own scent behind it.
  
  Deciding that I still want to make an entrance, I prepare myself to kick the door open, hopefully off its hinges, because that would be cooler.
  
  But as I raise my leg, something else entirely happens.
  
  I thrust my leg forward, moving my weight with it to counter the force of the hit, yet right as my foot is about to connect with the door it swings open and I end up hitting air and falling forwards through the door in a tumble of confusion.
  
  I'm sure I could have reacted fast enough not to fall, but doing this felt more appropriate.
  
  From my place on the ground I look up and am beholden with a tall, spindly man wearing an unfamiliar mask.
  
  It only covers from the nose up, leaving the smirking mouth visible. The eyes themselves don't have any decoration around them, but above them is a different story entirely as an ornate red crown is painted there, with golden lined blue hearts decorating the crest of the crown, giving it a certain level of majesty.
  
  There is also a fancy looking letter K on his right cheek that I assume is important for identification purposes.
  
  Going by the heart theme, I assume he's related to the new tags.
  
  Without bothering to get up from the ground, I twist myself slightly so that I can look further into the room and see that I was right, there are at least five people inside.
  
  There are eight of them including Mr K and now that I am inside I can tell that only two of them aren't capes which is an interesting proportion. It's not often the capes aren't outnumbered, especially since anything cape related generally just doesn't have any non capes involved at all.
  
  Looking around, I only see one familiar face in Jinx, who is sitting on a metal stool smirking at me despite the fact that the ceiling is clearly dripping on his shoulder and that I can see the remains of at least two separate wooden stools behind him.
  
  But there is another recognisable scent, if not face and that is when I turn to a mysterious person who's identity is totally not given away by the fact that they are the only person who looks like they are four feet tall.
  
  Clearly, little James has gotten himself a makeover.
  
  I can feel my smile widening in a mixture of anticipation, pride and simple happiness.
  
  𝘓𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘩𝘦'𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬.~
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Hit 2k words and realised that if I kept going it would be like another 3k chapter so I decided to split it here.
  
  Also, anyone who says anything bad about my MS paint art is objectively wrong and should get checked for Brain Rot. I've heard that devoting yourself to Talos can cure it, but don't quote me on that.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  67 Helter Skelter 2 Electric Boogaloo
  Little James is standing closest to me, holding a confetti cannon aimed right at my face that I think I am going to become intimately familiar with in a moment.
  
  He is wearing an asymmetrical costume or reds and blacks with an elaborate joker mask and hat combo with those bits of fabric hanging off either side and above his head, each with a jingling bell at the end.
  
  His mask also has a large cheshire grin on it, similar to my own except his isn't blacked out like mine is. Finishing the look is a letter J in the same location as Mr K's K and just as fancy looking.
  
  Then off to one side there is another pair of capes. One of them is a tall, buff man who's mask covers only half his face and is chequered red and black with each of the squares having a heart of the opposite colour inside of it.
  
  Next to him is a shorter, more stocky man who's mask covers his whole face and is pure black with only a large red heart taking up the upper half of its surface while there is a letter A that looks like it has been drawn over twice where his mouth would be.
  
  It actually looks kind of cool. The letter does, at least.
  
  At the same time, on the other side of the room there is another three people, though only two of them are standing together, the two non capes might I add.
  
  The one alone is a young woman, probably younger than me at a glance, though still way older than mini James, so maybe 15 or so?
  
  Seems about right.
  
  She's wearing a mask that is basically exactly the same as My K's, just with the letter Q instead of K and somehow it's only then that I actually get the card theme and assume them to be 'King' and 'Queen'.
  
  With the age difference, I sincerely hope that that is a purely symbolic thing and not in reference to any interpersonal relationships, else I might have to actually teach little James something responsible.
  
  What would he think of me then?~
  
  The final two are both wearing normal clothes, though with a lot more red than one would likely normally wear, so I assume that is the gangs main colours.
  
  It only took me a brief moment to glance around and take in the faces, or masks, of everyone present, which means that the moment I look away from the two non capes, I have no time to say anything before a plume of confetti smacks right into my unmasked face.
  
  "SURPRISE!"
  
  I ignore mini James' shout in favour of staring blankly at the floor and pretending that the confetti cannon hurt me more than it did, which is not at all.
  
  "... ow." Is my lame response as I turn to look accusingly at Jinx, forcing a tear to my eye.
  
  He just chuckles at my glare and I decide that the floor is comfortable and don't bother getting up as I roll to face little James.
  
  "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've got this niggling sensation that I was expected?" My annoyed tone does a poor job of hiding the amusement beneath it, but that amusement does and even better job of hiding the genuine annoyance that I am feeling.
  
  I was supposed to surprise them yet I got the tables turned on me, how lame.
  
  It's kind of fun though. I wonder how they knew I was coming? I'm pretty sure there shouldn't have been anything or anyone to let them know.
  
  The only answer I can think of is that March called ahead to exact her revenge as quickly as possible, but that doesn't really check out for a few reasons, such as the fact that she's never spoken to either of them before in her life.
  
  "Yup! Jinx came up with this surprise for you after hearing about what you were gonna do to him!" Mini James exclaims, showing exactly zero regard for selling out his compatriot.
  
  Something that Jinx clearly doesn't appreciate as my accusing eyes land on him once more.
  
  As we continue staring at each other, the tension in the room rises slightly, everyone becoming slightly nervous. Well, everyone except us Clowns as the next moment I start laughing with Jinx and little James joining in shortly thereafter.
  
  The others in the room let out some weak chuckles but I ignore them as I get to my feet and wrap little James up in a hug, spin him around and finish by throwing him at Jinx.
  
  "WAAAHH!" The sound of his joyful scream as he flies for Jinx is quickly followed by the crashing sound of both of them falling into a pile of broken stalls.
  
  Suddenly the smell of blood crashes into me and I realise that Jinx has been impaled by one of the stool legs.
  
  "Hahahahahahaha!~" Naturally instead of moving over to help I just burst out laughing even harder, bending over with one hand on my waist and pointing at him with the other.
  
  Eventually things calm down. Little James gives Jinx an injection of 'anti-bleeding' which works as advertised and we end up sitting around a table, the three of us, with everyone else standing or sitting around the edges of the room.
  
  "So!" I start with a clap. "What's new?~"
  
  Little James looks to Jinx but he gestures for him to speak, which he does with fervour.
  
  "I am 𝘴𝘰 glad you asked! First of all I started that gang like what you said. We're called Red Hearts, in memory of Red Branch since we ended up taking in most of their members when the gangs all collapsed, oh yeah, the gangs all collapsed after your show but anyway.
  
  "Red branch fell apart, same as Street Saints and then when I was founding the Hearts this guy shows up at my door and he's all like 'Hey I know you're starting a gang and all and it just so happens that I have a bunch of people looking for a flag to rally to since their bosses mostly kicked the bucket' and I was like, hell yeah that's awesome!
  
  "Turns out that guy was some dude called Solomon who used to be a part of Red Branch, and like, the right hand of Cu or something. Anyway it turns out that he's kind of a dick cuz he was totally down with betraying Cu and he's also a massive pussy so sometimes I call him sex but he can see the future sometimes and that's how we knew you were coming-"
  
  "PAUSE!" I shout, interrupting his passionate story telling.
  
  I bring my hands up to form a T and take a deep breath.
  
  "Time out. You're saying that one of the leaders of Red Branch betrayed the other and then came to you offering you manpower?" I ask, confused as to why that would happen.
  
  "Yup!" He exclaims with a smile, giving no further explanation.
  
  "... Right. And where is this Solomon guy now anyway?" I hedge with a twitching brow.
  
  "Oh, he's right over there." I turn my head to follow where he's pointing and find myself looking at Mr K.
  
  Huh.
  
  Did not see that coming.
  
  Kind of explains why he reeks of fear even with the confident smirk on his face though.
  
  "You know what? Just finish your story time. I'll save my questions for the end." I decide, leaning back and gesturing for him to continue.
  
  "Right so anyway, he came over and was all, 'Hey I got people, you need people' because apparently I was willing to offer him a better life than Cu offered, which I didn't know but that's future seers for you I guess so now he's my right hand but he probably won't betray me like he did with Cu.
  
  "'Cuz like I said, he's a big ol' pussy and it's kind of an open secret here that I'm a Clown and they all know that you're a Clown and they 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 have all seen what you're capable of, so he won't turn on me just to avoid you. Thanks for that by the way!~"
  
  I find myself snorting a chuckle and as I turn back to Mr K I find him to be a lot less confident looking which makes me grin wider.
  
  "Happy to help.~" I drawl as I take a slice of jerky from a pocket and take a bite.
  
  "Uhuh. But yeah, Red Branch merged with me and what I had at the time to become Red Heart and I finally decided on a cape name! See, I'm going for a theme, so Solomon is now King, or the King of Hearts you know? Her over there is Queen, though she used to be known as Melty."
  
  I turn over to look at the girl and observe as she seems to shiver the moment my attention falls on her. Not very 'queenly' of her.
  
  Ah well, she's only young. She has plenty of time to get better.
  
  "Then there's Jack, he used to be Siegfried," he gestures to the guy with the chequered mask before moving to point at the guy next to him, "and next to him is Ace, formally Smith, Red Branches Tinker who made all of Cu's spears."
  
  With introductions out of the way, he pushes his chair out and stands on it, striking a pose.
  
  "Then there is I! Joker! Hahaha!~" His over the top laughter widens my ever present smile and as he jumps back down into his chair he leans forward with his elbows on the table and a face full of expectation. "Well? What do you think?"
  
  I huff a laugh at his question and don't hesitate to respond, as honest as I have always been with him.
  
  "I won't lie.. it's fucking 𝘢𝘸𝘦𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦~ I mean holy shit! You sure have done some work.~" He beams at my praise but I'm not finished talking and my next words come out more mischievously. "Certainly better than calling yourself Princess.~"
  
  Little James suddenly chokes on nothing and slams his head on the table while Jinx is suddenly far more interested in the conversation.
  
  "Princess?" Jinx asks and I am more than happy to explain.
  
  "Yeah~ he said that his old 'home' was like the tower and his uncle was the dragon, which makes me the knight in shining armour and that leaves him as the princess.~"
  
  Jinx starts pointing and laughing at mini James, even as he groans into the table.
  
  "It made sense at the time." He groans out, drawing out the last word.
  
  Suddenly he sits up and claps, loudly announcing, "As I was saying! The cities gangs went through a whole reshuffle and now I basically control the entire underworld of the city. The Street Saints as well as Bathory from Red Branch came together and reformed themselves into Holy Saints led by Romulus cuz I guess he was getting inspiration from the Holy Roman Empire with his name.
  
  "But they don't really amount to much, with little to no territory and hardly any normals working for them. The only other gang was Famine but since they were basically founded on racism, they didn't really have anything to do now that there aren't any singularly racial gangs left and we came to a deal where they basically work for me now.
  
  "Red Hearts manages the drugs of the city, a lot of which were designed or improved by yours truly while Famine, now rebranded as Dollars manages the protection rackets. Though I tried to do that thing you told me about where we forcefully lower rent and then make them pay what they're saving to us so that we aren't actually costing 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 any money, just the land owners and no one likes them anyway.
  
  "But that distinction helps with our image as people just see us Red Hearts as the drug people while all the 'violent' criminals are with the Dollars. Not much else has happened I guess. The Heroes got a couple new protectorate members and managed to convince one of the Rogues to join their Wards program but that didn't really matter since one of their other Wards decided to quit and go vigilante anyway.
  
  "Also I think that other Hero group was planning on leaving the city, so that's cool I guess. Oh! Oh! I'm also a millionaire now! How crazy is that? Turns out that controlling all the drug sales of a city with like, 800,000 people in it makes you a shit tonne of money, not that I can use it all myself since I gotta pump it back into the biz, but it's still fun to say.~"
  
  Holy shit, he's already a millionaire?
  
  I mean, I knew there was a lot of money to be made in drugs, plus the protection shit and whatever else he has going on, but 𝘥𝘢𝘮𝘯 that did not take long.
  
  It takes me a moment to close my gaping mouth from the shock of everything he's told me and when I do I end up speaking in a breathless voice before my brain can even catch up with what it is I'm saying.
  
  "Damn kid, thats... 𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘨." I all but whisper before I turn to face him, looking him dead in the eyes with a smile full of the pride that I feel burning in my chest.
  
  The next words that come out of my mouth are filled with such truth that no one could ever claim them to be a lie and they cause tears to glisten at the edges of little James' eyes even as a thousand watt smile takes over his face.
  
  "I'm proud of you."
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Ugh, this pit stop is taking longer than I thought it would.
  
  Also yeah, shit has changed thanks to lusia's actions in the time she's been gone. I have no idea if it's reasonable for him to have made over a million bucks by now or not but fuck it, it sounds nice to say.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  68 Nothing Stays Buried Forever
  After the happy reunion I decided to stay an extra day and leave the next morning so I can spend some more time catching up.
  
  Though to be honest most of the time was spent in James' lab with him showing me all the fancy new drugs he's come up with and let me tell you, some of them are absolutely 𝘧𝘢𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨.
  
  Like the one that straight up stops the body from regulating heat, causing the guy he used it on to show me to slowly overheat until his organs just failed and he died to room temperature, which is probably the lamest death I could think of.
  
  Also, the guy in question was one of the two that were at the reunion because apparently they were both skimming a little too much of the top so he got them to come as a gift for me if I was hungry.
  
  But I wanted to see what his drugs did more than I cared about overeating, so I guess it just sucks to be them, because I just would have killed them.
  
  Suffice to say that would have been a mercy.
  
  Ah well. Life's a bitch, and by that I mean I'm a bitch. Deal with it.
  
  Eventually however, night came once again and I decided to go for a nice midnight stroll before bed for nostalgia's sake.
  
  Because it sure feels like it's been longer than just a month since I've been here.
  
  It's as I'm walking through some backstreets, just enjoying the night-time breeze, that I abruptly feel a group of eyes lock onto me.
  
  Now I don't show any outward reaction to it, because where there are people there is usually a couple of people looking at me, so I've come to be able to ignore the sensation of eyes on me, but that doesn't mean I won't know something is up when I feel five sets of eyes suddenly gain an intense interest in me.
  
  Luckily for me the wind changes to blow from behind me and I am able to catch their scent and vaguely tell how far they are from me by how strong it is.
  
  It's also nice that it tells me that there aren't any capes among them, though I kind of wish there were.
  
  It would certainly make it more interesting.
  
  Either way, I turned down the meal James offered me and I'm still not really hungry, but I've learned that I can seemingly eat as much as I want without ever truly getting full.
  
  So why not right?
  
  If free food is going to offer itself up for me, I might as well at least take a bite. It would be wasteful not to.
  
  As I'm thinking this, I sense the group getting closer and figure it would be a reasonable time for a woman out alone at night to turn to check behind her.
  
  The five of them are all pasty white men wearing red so I assume they're from James' gang, or to be more accurate they are from Red Branch and just followed the changing tides, as it were.
  
  Now I'm wondering if they know I'm somehow involved in the gang and this is something with more meaning to it or if it really is just them wanting to either mug or gang rape me.
  
  I'm excited to find out!
  
  Unfortunately I'm pretty sure I've already figured it out. Since they're wearing gang colours so blatantly it's unlikely that anyone within the gang sent them after me and no one who wasn't in that room when I got here should know anything about my involvement.
  
  That sucks.
  
  I hate figuring things out. It takes the mystery out of everything. It's why I prefer being stupid.
  
  Oh how blissful life must be as an idiot. Nothing to worry about due to not understanding why things are problems, everything is new and interesting.
  
  Speaking of idiots though, I pretend to be shocked by the sight of five mean looking men behind me and pick up my pace while keeping in mind to limit myself to 'scared human woman' speeds, rather than.. well, cape speeds.
  
  As predictable as idiots are, it is no surprise to me when they pick up their pace and I have to remind myself that I should have to look back to realise that and I do so, immediately breaking out into a full sprint afterwards.
  
  "Help!" I scream as I run, mostly just to sell the picture to my pursuers rather than any real expectation for help to show up.
  
  I also make sure to keep my speed at a level that seems reasonable while keeping ahead of them, until I spot a nice and cliché looking alleyway and slow down slightly as if I'm running out of steam.
  
  In a miracle of coincidental timing, the first of the men just so happens to reach me at the perfect moment to pull me into the alley without breaking his momentum, almost as if it was planned or something.
  
  I think I've just realised a downside of being terminally stupid. You can't tell an obvious trap when you see one.
  
  I mean, it's not like I'm trying particularly hard to sell the image here. I only shouted for help once and have been keeping pace with them running for like, three minutes.
  
  Ah well, I just want to see where this will go. I do love new experiences after all, especially when I can just kill everyone if I end up not liking it.
  
  Me and Legs McGee crash into one of the alley walls with a yelp and a grunt respectively and he wastes no time in turning and throwing me to the ground.
  
  I put a little bit of effort into selling the part, but just one look in this guys eyes tells me that it doesn't really matter how I act, so I don't bother myself too much.
  
  I just crawl backwards with a vaguely distressed look on my face, even as I am paying more attention to my thoughts than the situation at hand.
  
  Clearly they are planning on gangbanging me, the only question is, should I let them?
  
  I mean, it's a new experience and it might even be fun.
  
  'Sides, it's not like any of these retards are gonna leave this alley alive anyway. Might as well have some fun before they go right?
  
  It's as I'm thinking this that the other four make their way into the alley, one of them seeming rather out of breath.
  
  They all approach me in a manner I'm sure should be menacing but to someone who can rip a steel beam in half with her bare hands just looks like, basically nothing really.
  
  "You can scream all you like girly. Ain't no one gonna hear ya." Mr Receding Hairline says, clearly having studied the book on how to be the most stereotypical creep ever.
  
  "Heh heh, I like it when they scream." Another adds, obviously competing with his friend on who could sound more like a rapist.
  
  I can't really be bothered to come up with a proper comeback that would be fitting of someone in my supposed position so I just go with the 'too scared to compose proper words' kind of thing and start whimpering incoherently instead.
  
  They seem to rush to hold me down and I let them, still trying to decide if I should just kill them all now or later.
  
  Another of the dumbasses chooses to rip my shirt off, which was just unnecessarily rude. He could have just taken it off, no need to rip it.
  
  I liked that shirt too.
  
  The guy on top of me leans down until we are face to face, both of our eyes blown wide, mine from 'fear' and his probably from drugs, which actually makes this whole thing make more sense.
  
  Then he goes for my lips and I 'try' to struggle away but he doesn't let me. Only he doesn't just force a kiss on me. No, it couldn't be that simple.
  
  Instead, he 𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘴 my lower lip and suddenly I am not there anymore.
  
  "-𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴 𝘶𝘴! 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘫𝘶𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘶𝘴!"
  
  𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘬. 𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯'𝘵 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦.
  
  𝘐 𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘨𝘨𝘭𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘐 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴 𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦.
  
  𝘔𝘺 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘪𝘯 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘵, 𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘪𝘥 𝘣𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯'𝘵 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦.
  
  "𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘺 𝘨𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘶𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘴!"
  
  𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘴 𝘐 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘦.
  
  𝘈 𝘭𝘰𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺'𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯.
  
  𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺'𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘦.
  
  𝘐𝘵 𝘴𝘶𝘥𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘮𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘯𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘦𝘢𝘨𝘭𝘦, 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘣.
  
  "𝘛𝘰 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘎𝘰𝘥 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘶𝘴 𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦!"
  
  𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨?
  
  𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘦?
  
  𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵?
  
  𝘔𝘺 𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘸𝘭𝘴, 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘨𝘰𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘷𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘴, 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘢𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘺 𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺.
  
  𝘐𝘵 𝘣𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴, 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘐'𝘮 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘺𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘱𝘰𝘯 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘭𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘧𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘵𝘰 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘦.
  
  𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘢 𝘮𝘢𝘯.
  
  𝘈 𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘦.
  
  𝘏𝘦'𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴. 𝘏𝘪𝘴 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘦, 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵.
  
  𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘪𝘯 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘺𝘦𝘴.
  
  𝘋𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘥. 𝘔𝘢𝘥. 𝘐𝘯𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘦 𝘦𝘺𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘰𝘯, 𝘯𝘰 𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘰 𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘺.
  
  𝘚𝘪𝘤𝘬, 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘦𝘺𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘴𝘶𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘦𝘭𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯.
  
  𝘏𝘦 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘩 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘭 𝘧𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘦𝘺𝘦𝘴, 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘶𝘱 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘦.
  
  With a gasp I wake up from the memory and still feel residual fear flowing within me and acting purely on instinct I push everyone away from me and get to my feet before I can even process what is happening.
  
  By the time I am back on my feet gulping down deep breaths of air I am back in reality, remembering what was happening and choosing to shove those memories back down into hell where they belong.
  
  Glancing around I see that the guy who was on top of me is now slumped against a wall while the other four are getting back to their feet and glaring at me.
  
  Yeah. I am not fucking dealing with this shit right now. I've always preferred being on top anyway.
  
  Only, right as I am about to start ripping them into pieces and crushing the pieces into a pile of red sludge to be left for the dogs. I notice the familiar scent of a cape, one that I actually recognise.
  
  So instead of engaging my desire to just kill them all, I just stop.
  
  Stop moving, stop seeing, stop everything.
  
  I just close my eyes and breathe, centring myself.
  
  I feel a warmth wash over me and some faint noises that I ignore as I focus more on doing what I can to force myself to forget once again.
  
  Some things are simply better left forgotten after all.
  
  In no time at all, my breathing is back under control and I am once more feeling comfortable and generally amused, all thoughts of unpleasant memories shoved deep into a pit, never to be seen again.
  
  With a deep breath I open my eyes and immediately smile at the sight as well as the smell cooking flesh.
  
  In front of me, the men are now looking rather burned up and either have passed out from the pain or are too busy whimpering to themselves from it to really be paying attention to the world at large.
  
  "Are you hurt?" I hear from behind me and I turn around without bothering to try and hide my smile.
  
  Standing there at the end of the alley is a woman I recognise, with her foxy mask and mostly regular clothes Kitsune doesn't strike much of an imposing figure.
  
  The fire burning around her however is another story entirely.
  
  "Only emotionally.~ I liked this top.~" I respond, gesturing at me visible bra and as she follows my gesture I notice her face scrunching up momentarily before she turns back to the men to glare at them.
  
  I kind of wanted her to question my casual response but I guess I forgot that a lot of victims of things like this tend to seem perfectly calm as a way of coping or something so she probably just thinks I'm deflecting.
  
  "I've already called a pickup for them, while we wait for them to show up is there anything I could do for you?" She edges forward, clearly doing her best to not startle me, which I find funny.
  
  "Something to cover up would be nice."
  
  She doesn't hesitate to take her jacket off and walk up to me, wrapping it around me with a gentle smile.
  
  I decide that now's a good time to reveal myself, because I really don't care about my identity being known anymore, and I think this could be a fun conversation.
  
  "You know, this is the second time you've gone out of your way to get me some clothes~ thanks for that.~" She almost immediately becomes weary, but clearly not enough that she suspects my identity.
  
  Instead she just moves to the wall next to me and leans against it.
  
  "Have we met before?" She tries to sound nonchalant, actually she does sound nonchalant but I can cheat by having a vague sense of other peoples feelings. At least the negative ones like fear, unease and weariness.
  
  "I guess you could say that." I start in a pondering voice, like I'm thinking out loud before I abruptly point at the burned men and continue while activating my eyes at the same time. "Are you gonna finish that?~"
  
  Beset upon by my crimson orbs, she pushes herself away from the wall and rapidly backpedals a few steps away from me, summoning fire around her hand as she does so.
  
  "𝘠𝘰𝘶." She growls at me.
  
  My return is much peppier as I point both of my thumbs at myself and exclaim with joy.
  
  "Me!"
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Fuck you I wrote Yumiko too well and really enjoyed it so now we're gonna get another yumiko interlude, deal with it.
  
  I didn't originally actually plan for things to go like this, I actually had something else in mind for Yumiko that was for much later but damn it I want her back now so here she is.
  
  Honestly, she is my favourite person to write so far (other than Lusia obviously) followed closely by Uppercrust.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  69 Interlude: Yumiko 2 Electric Boogaloo
  Making distance is the priority against Brutes, but she's shown to be plenty dangerous at range as well so I transition to keep my hands in front of me, ready to reduce anything she sends my way to cinders.
  
  I struggle to keep my breathing under control as memories of pain flash by me.
  
  "What are you doing here? I thought you left? What do you want!?" The only reason I'm even talking instead of attacking is the sure knowledge that this is a fight that I cannot win.
  
  Damnit. I disabled my bodycam for the sake of her privacy and I can't talk through my comms without raising a hand to my ear and I do not want to give her a reason to attack.
  
  "Relaaax~ why so tense? Aren't we friends?~" She takes half a step forward but stops herself when she sees me matching her to keep us separated.
  
  I only manage to stop myself from turning this entire alley into a furnace by reminding myself that I'll probably die if I did.
  
  "You orchestrated a conflict that cost the lives of four Heroes. Friends. All the while leaving another one in a coma and another without her arm. You're little stunt left me in a three day long coma!" It's a struggle to catch myself from ranting at the madwoman who caused so much destruction in so little time.
  
  To think that I actually wanted to be friends with her.
  
  She doesn't seem affected by my raised voice and turns her side to me, walking over to one of the downed men, humming contemplatively the whole way.
  
  "Were they really? Friends, I mean?" Her question brings me up short because no, I wasn't really close to any of them.
  
  It's hard to get close to people in my line of work and it saves everyone a whole lot of pain if I just stay alone instead.
  
  But that doesn't always work out.
  
  Ethan.
  
  "You killed Epic." Is all I say, not denying that they weren't my friends, but not accepting it either.
  
  She doesn't respond for a moment, choosing to poke one of the men with her foot.
  
  "I didn't kill him." Her defence is typical and makes me scowl.
  
  She crouches down and starts staring at the man beneath her.
  
  "Your actions led to his death." I bite out but she only snorts in response.
  
  "I suppose.~" She pauses, her mouth pursing as she finds the words and when she looks back at me her face is so 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 that it makes me want to scream. "I didn't want him to die. I liked him. He was fun."
  
  In spite of my training in controlling my emotions, I feel myself growing more angry every time she opens her mouth.
  
  Just because I rejected him, that didn't mean...
  
  And now she speaks as if 𝘴𝘩𝘦 mourns him?
  
  "Funny, you don't sound all that upset." I spit the words out, wondering when the hell backup is going to arrive. Console can remotely activate my body cams after all, they should have done so by now to check in. "And fun? You say he was 𝘧𝘶𝘯? Is that the only reason you wanted him to live? So he could be more entertainment for you!?"
  
  With her head bowed, I almost miss her whispered response.
  
  "You're wrong."
  
  Before I can respond she gets to her feet and turns to face me again, her face looking genuinely hurt and no matter how much I want to see it as fake, I just can't.
  
  "It's not about my entertainment Foxy. He was fun. People these days are so depressive. Everyone's given up and no one even really bothers trying to just have fun and enjoy themselves anymore. Epic? He had fun. He 𝘴𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 fun. And now that he is gone, that little bit of joy he brought into the world is gone. If that's not something to mourn, then what is?"
  
  I hate this.
  
  I hate her.
  
  I hate that I want to empathise, that I want to accept her words.
  
  Instead I speak again, hoping my words can keep my mind from swaying to her side.
  
  "All this talk of mourning, but you don't seem to have spent much time grieving, if you even did at all."
  
  She doesn't even blink at my accusation, only smiling a sad smile.
  
  ""Do not stand by my grave and weep, I am not there". Do you know that quote? Epic is gone yes, it sucks but it has happened. What does mourning bring him? What does it bring us? Epic was fun. The best way to respect him, is to have fun. To move on and enjoy this beautiful world we live in. That's what I think at least."
  
  Realising that I'm not winning this conversation, I decide to switch tracks and stop playing at something she is clearly prepared for.
  
  "It doesn't change the fact of how many lives have been lost because of you."
  
  Unfortunately, it doesn't help as she is just as swift with her response as before.
  
  "And what of the lives I've saved? Take these five here," her sweeping gesture reminds me of the men around us. "What is going to happen if they get arrested? They were fully planning on gang raping me you know?~ But it's not like I can testify with my position, so what is their punishment going to be, really? A small fine and six months community service?"
  
  I don't answer. Because she's probably right. Without her to testify they would get away with a slap on the wrist most likely.
  
  So I don't speak, even as I am already thinking what she is no doubt about to say.
  
  "Do you think such a punishment will make them stop? That there won't be more innocent women, possibly even children considering these types of people? But if they were to simply... no longer be capable of doing such crimes, wouldn't that be better for the world?"
  
  As she finishes speaking five pulsing ribbons slowly grow from her back, making their way over to each of the men.
  
  I don't stop them.
  
  I don't stop her even as she wraps a ribbon around each of their necks.
  
  I don't make a single move to save them, even after the crunch tells me I'd be too late anyway.
  
  "Come with me. Let's talk." She crouches and in a single leap she is standing at the top of the building next to us, following which her ribbons make their way down, forming a sort of elevator.
  
  It's only then that I hear the approaching sirens and I figure she heard them before me and didn't want to be disturbed.
  
  Caught between a rock and a hard place I decide that she's probably not going to hurt me so going with her is likely a better idea than hanging around with five corpses when the pickup gets here.
  
  Stepping forward the ribbons bring me up to the roof and she silently leads me a few buildings away, turning her ribbons into bridges to help me cross since I lack a Brute rating.
  
  Eventually she stops and I do too, keeping a distance between us.
  
  Facing me she dissipates her ribbons and plops herself down on the gravel of the roof, sitting cross-legged and inviting me to join her with the wave of her arm.
  
  Humouring her could potentially lead to me gaining information, possibly to a more efficient way to put her down, so I ultimately decide to play along.
  
  "Tell me. Over the past, shall we say, five years. How many Villains have the Heroes of this city taken down, permanently, either via death or imprisonment that isn't immediately escaped?"
  
  I can already see where this conversation is going to go. Villains don't really get stopped these days, because the top brass wants more bodies to throw at the Endbringers, resulting in prison ending up as something of a revolving door.
  
  Yet her stunt completely reshaped the criminal underworld and took out nearly a dozen of them, permanently.
  
  She must have seen the understanding in my eyes as she doesn't bother continuing with that line of conversation, knowing that I already understand without being told.
  
  "Why are you even a Hero anyway? You seem far too smart to be one because you believe all that propaganda bullshit, so what is it?" Her words sound genuinely curious, but I've been wrong with her before and I won't make that same mistake again.
  
  "My reason is something you might understand. Loyalty. I have given my everything to this country for my entire life. Getting powers doesn't change that."
  
  Whatever I expected her response to be, from laughing to insulting, I never expected her to smirk at me like I just fell into a trap and I don't understand why until she starts talking again, her bleeding eyes staring into my soul.
  
  "Loyalty. Loyalty is a two way street you know? You've given everything to your country, but tell me. What has it given you in return?" She speaks like she's already won and I hate the nagging feeling that she might be right.
  
  Government wages are notoriously low, even with the danger of my previous job. Being a Hero is only so well paying so that there are less Villains.
  
  The truth is that they've never really given me anything.
  
  I work in CI for most of my life and then when I- when 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 happened. When I triggered, they just shuffled me off to another job without a word of condolence.
  
  "Loyalty that isn't rewarded isn't loyalty earned. I'd give my Clowns anything they wanted and all that I even ask in return is that they enjoy themselves and be willing to help others enjoy themselves."
  
  I almost choke on air as my brain processes her words.
  
  "Are you 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 with me? You really must be insane if you think I would ever join you."
  
  I can't believe she is actually trying to recruit me right now.
  
  "Why not?" She asks, so innocent as if the answer shouldn't be obvious already.
  
  "Why not? Why. Not. Oh, I don't know, maybe because you are an insane madwoman, an unrepentant serial killer and a fucking cannibal for Christ's sake!" I exclaim, finding it hard to believe she's actually think I'd join her.
  
  With a roll of her eyes she takes a syringe out of her pocket and waves it at me.
  
  "Before you ask, this is the cure for HIV. A fellow Clown is going to be selling these, probably nationally at some point, maybe even globally."
  
  I stare uncomprehendingly at the vial in her hand, not really sure where she's going with this.
  
  "You seem to think that being a Clown means you have to be some kind of psychotic monster so allow me to educate you. There are two requirements to becoming a Clown. You need to be fun, that's most important and you need to have something to offer. No one says you have to have fun hurting people, you could just enjoy doing business or something equally benign.~"
  
  I stay silent, not really knowing what to say but she seems happy to keep the conversation up herself.
  
  "Don't you want some friends? Join me, not as an underling but as an equal. Become a Clown, make some friends that you know will have your back no matter what and learn to actually enjoy your life, rather than just following the orders of some faceless organisation that couldn't care less if you live or die."
  
  Fuck me. Why is she so convincing?
  
  I have been so god damn alone for so long that the offer of genuine friendship is difficult to pass up.
  
  It's not like she's even wrong either. What has the government ever actually done for me?
  
  Jack all that's what.
  
  "You said I'd need to have something to offer. What exactly do I have to offer? I'm not nearly as strong as you."
  
  She smiles like she's already won which, in fairness, she just might have.
  
  "Well you're already playing spy. You could just change who you're loyal to. Information is valuable after all.~ Even better, if any of you Heroes manage to capture a villain then you could set up a little 'accident' for them with the help of your fellow Clowns.~"
  
  Damn it, that is an attractive offer.
  
  Too many of those assholes get away with nothing but a slap on the wrist, it would be nice to see them end more permanently.
  
  Additionally, even though I never wanted to admit it to myself, I have always missed my days at CI. This Hero business was never my decision in the first place.
  
  Still, without being the leader of the local protectorate it will be difficult for me to get away with much and when I relay that to Tear her response shocks me.
  
  "So? Become the leader then.~ By joining us you have gained access to incredible amounts of resources~ I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult for someone of your calibre to use them to rise in the ranks. Who knows?~ Maybe it'll even be fun?~"
  
  You know what? Yeah.
  
  Maybe it will be fun.
  
  "I hate you." I say, but she just laughs and waves me off.
  
  "And I don't particularly care~ I'll still come to your aid should you ever call me now that you are one of us.~ Hate me or love me it doesn't matter. So long as you are a Clown? You will always be my friend. That's the whole point after all~ life is more fun with friends to enjoy it with.~"
  
  I really do hate this woman.
  
  She corrupted me so easily that it's almost insulting.
  
  No, it is insulting.
  
  But fuck is she convincing. It doesn't help that everything she's said has rang true and there's something genuine about her that really draws you in.
  
  Because if there's one thing I've figured out about her, it's that she doesn't just want to have fun, she genuinely wants other people to have fun too.
  
  How can you hate someone who only wants you to be happy?
  
  Despite myself, I leave her with a smile and a phone.
  
  Truly a detestable woman.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  eehhhh idk how I feel about this chapter. It was better in my mind but then Yumiko ended up acting completely different to how I was expecting her to and it kind of threw the whole thing off.
  
  Now it kind of feels like I forced it with her joining the Clowns, it doesn't feel very organic. Then again, it could just be me, idk.
  
  Also, i just now decided to actually use my discord server for something so if you want to see the timeline rn as well as all the other information I'm keeping track of (it's prolly not as much as i should) in all it's poorly organised glory as well as all of my MS paint adventures then feel free to check it out.
  
  I also just remembered that deviant art page I made also has my MS paint adventure but ah well.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  70 Kind of Lame That Cap 69 wasn't smut
  Despite my conversation with Kitsune I still set off in the morning.
  
  I told James and Jinx and abbreviated version of the nights events and I was glad to see that rather than even slightly caring about five of his men dying, he found the whole thing hilarious.
  
  Part of the reason I didn't decide to extend my stay even more is that Kitsune has spent most of her life on the side of the angels, so expecting her to suddenly be comfortable with more villainous forms of fun would be silly.
  
  So I figured that just doing a little bit of corruption in order to move up the ranks would be a good way to wean her into things, and I was a little worried that I'd come off too strong and scare her away, so it really is for the best that we take things slow with her.
  
  I made sure to tell James and Jinx this before I left too. To keep the more.. uhh, callous? Forms of fun from her for the time being.
  
  Besides, despite not having a real timetable to work on for my contract with the Elite, it would still be rude to just keep delaying it and I've still got a long drive ahead of me.
  
  But still, I have a spy in the Protectorate who can also function as a spy in the PRT, which is pretty cool since most Heroes don't actually tend to have much influence in their parent organisation.
  
  Combine that with Clara who would happily sell out the Elite for me and I have a spy in each of the largest parahuman organisations in America.
  
  Huh. Fancy that.
  
  Even better, Clara is only a spy for me, not the Clowns as a whole like Kitsune is. Just me.
  
  I've gotta say, it feels pretty good.
  
  All I need now is a spy in the Guild and I will have a source of information on the three most important groups, at least for me anyway since it's not likely I'll be leaving America anytime soon.
  
  Doesn't mean it wouldn't be nice to have a source in the Guild, since it's Canadian based in the first place and is the only truly international parahuman organisation in the world.
  
  Besides, it's not like I need a source in the CUI, because no one goes to China these days, not since the Yangban took over anyway.
  
  The only reason I even want spies in the first place is just in case something interesting is happening and they can tell me about it.
  
  It's the same as the Clowns, they only exist so that I can be sure I won't get bored in the future.
  
  I do hate being bored after all.
  
  It's only when night starts to fall once more that I am pulling into Kansas City, humming along to a totally normal tune by Pepper Coyote that doesn't need to be named because of how totally normal it is.
  
  It's probably nearing midnight by the time I'm on the other side of the city, since I'm planning on just breaking into someone's house to crash on their bed before leaving right after I wake up.
  
  This place doesn't have anything interesting to my knowledge, and I am actually quite looking forward to my job.
  
  However that plan gets waylaid by an explosion going off nearby and me being the curious person that I am, I couldn't help but want to go and investigate.
  
  The scene I come across is that of two capes bullying another one.
  
  I keep my distance at first, not wanting to damage my bike, and observe for a moment.
  
  On one side is a man, medium build and shorter than average wearing a costume that is covered in belts for some reason.
  
  Against him is a pair of women, both blonde with matching hairstyles but with differing costumes as one of them is in a billowing blue robe with hood that is up and has a little tiara on top.
  
  Someone clearly thinks highly of themselves.
  
  The other is wearing a skin-tight costume of blacks and whites with a full face mask that leaves the only part of her body exposed as the back of her head where her hair flows out from.
  
  She also has a mean looking stick.
  
  The guys' power seems to be some form of Breaker of Brute type. I'm honestly not really sure which one it would fit into because the Breaker category confuses me.
  
  But his power seems to be that he can reattach his limbs with incredible ease, as is shown when Tiara waves her hand at him and a spectral knight appears in front of her, already in motion as it rushes towards him without even moving its legs and cuts one of his arms clean off before disappearing.
  
  Only for a thread-like substance to shoot out of his shoulder and into his arm before rapidly pulling it back into place as if he was never harmed.
  
  Of course, that doesn't really matter as the time it took him to do so was enough for the other woman to get close and stomp on the ground, causing the entire area around Belt Man to burst into a giant plume of fine dust, disrupting his footing and allowing her to land a blow with her staff.
  
  I guess that's where the explosion came from then, since her power seems to turn shit into powder she probably accidentally, or purposefully, created a dust explosion.
  
  Ah well, I've seen enough.
  
  Two people bullying one? Of course I must stand in their aide, for I am a woman of justice! And this injustice cannot stand!
  
  Heh, nah I'm just feeling peckish and even if parahumans don't taste the best, they're already right here in front of me anyway.
  
  Besides, having to work for your food makes it taste better, and I like the hunt.
  
  With that in mind, I quickly double back and park my bike in an alley, noticing a homeless woman is already in here.
  
  "Hey! I'll give you a hundred bucks if my bike's still here when I get back." I call out to her as I bring out my costume and start changing into it, not really all that bothered about modesty.
  
  The homeless woman's expression of hope quickly gains a hint of fear once I put on my mask.
  
  I doubt she recognises me, else she'd be more afraid, since she's probably not one to watch the news a lot, but anyone with any life experience these days knows that capes are always trouble.
  
  "Oh and if the bike isn't here when I get back then I will kill you."
  
  Just like that, I am off to be a hero.
  
  When I make it back to the street they are fighting on, the guy looks to be in even worse condition than before and the street seems to consist of significantly less street than I remember there being.
  
  It's also slightly harder to see with all the shit in the air, but my eyes aren't really all that impaired by it.
  
  Belt Man is clearly starting to flag and I decide that now is the time to make my heroic entrance.
  
  With that, I jump with all my strength so that I can land right in front of belt man with the hero landing that only Alexandria really does.
  
  𝘉𝘢𝘯𝘨. 𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬.
  
  "Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww." I quietly whine, keeping my head bowed to not show my face.
  
  Now I see why only Alexandria, famous for her invincibility, does this hero landing.
  
  It really is hell on the knees. I think mine broke.
  
  Yeah, I'm never doing that again.
  
  "Who are you! If you are an accomplice of-" One of the women begins but I don't let their foul, villainous mouths keep spouting lies by interrupting them with my own, far more righteous voice.
  
  "Halt! Evildoers! Ganging up on an innocent man like this is beyond cruel! I shall not allow such a travesty to continue! Prepare for battle fiends!"
  
  Hahahahaha this is so fucking stupid, I'm loving it.
  
  Without wating for them to answer, I rush down the powder woman.
  
  I loose my footing right before I reach her, but I don't loose my balance and the moment my feet touch solid ground again I launch myself at her in one bound so she can't slow me so easily.
  
  "Wait! You're a Hero? If you'd just let us explai-" Powder girl is cut off as I arrive in front of her and land a solid gut punch that leaves her coughing up spittle as she rolls across the ground.
  
  "Stop! We're on the same-".
  
  "Silence! I shall not listen to your villainous excuses!" Once again I don't allow the other blonde to finish speaking, something I know is starting to annoy her which just makes it funnier to me.
  
  "Damnit woman just let me talk! That guy's the-" She stops her words in order to send a knight forward to intercept me, but I am too fast for it to be a threat and I simply flip over it, mostly for the style points.
  
  It would have been more efficient to just side step it, but that's not heroic enough.
  
  I reach her in the next breath and she waves her arms out in front of her as she hastily steps back.
  
  "W-wait! I'm a H-" I don't wait and my fist buries itself in her gut, harder than with the other woman so she just collapses onto me, knocked unconscious.
  
  "Huzza! The evil has been felled!" My god this is almost as cringey as it is fun.
  
  With the woman on my shoulder, I make my way over to the other woman who is curled up on the ground with Belt Man standing not too far away.
  
  "Worry not good man! The evil is no more!" I righteously declare, much to his visible amusement.
  
  𝘊𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩.
  
  "No you idiot." I look down at the pained whisper to meet little Miss Dust Bomb's eyes, "𝘩𝘦'𝘴 the villain, not us."
  
  Her words hardly come out with any volume thanks to my earlier debilitating hit, though she'd probably be fine in a bit anyway.
  
  "Truly? And what are his crimes? Walking down the street with black skin!? You brute!~" I exclaim with a level of drama that would have the theatre kids bowing down to me as their god.
  
  Best part is that he's not even black.
  
  She apparently doesn't share my humour however, nor does she seem to understand that surely no one could actually be as retarded as I am acting.
  
  "No. He is a serial rapist and a murderer." Her eyes close after she manages to get her words out, no doubt accepting her fate, or just hoping to regain some energy before making a break for it. Or maybe she's stalling for backup.
  
  Ah shit. Backup.
  
  Welp! Best to wrap this all up then.
  
  "No shit?~" I say, turning to the suddenly nervous Belt Man. Nerves that are quickly replaced with amusement thanks to my next words. "Hell yeah brother! Gimme five!"
  
  I raise my hand to him and with a smirk of his own he slaps it, the crisp sound making the woman blink from where she lies below us.
  
  Belt Man decides to take things from there as he kneels over the woman with a disgusting smile on his face.
  
  "Clearly you don't recognise her, but this is the cape that's been making the news recently. She's a villain, like me. And now I'm gonna make you pay for what you did to me. First, I'm gonna- 𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘬"
  
  Unfortunately for him, he doesn't get to finish his likely incredibly rude sentence as my hand erupts from the front of his throat and with a simple yank, I pull my hand up and take his head off with it, splattering blood all over both me and the woman below.
  
  Looking down at her shocked and confused face with a smile, I answer her thoughts.
  
  "I'm all for kinky stuff, but I recently had a run in with some rapists and am currently not on talking terms with them.~"
  
  I don't know why I even bothered explaining myself. It's not like she's going to be able to tell anyone.
  
  Unless I should spare her so that she can help out my image?
  
  Nah. The Clowns are young and not only do we not have too much muscle but we don't even have much of a rep yet.
  
  It's a good idea to have a bogeyman of sorts so that people take us seriously.
  
  With that in mind, I kick the woman in the face to knock her out and I quickly set about gathering the bodies of the three to snack on before I go to sleep tonight.
  
  I end up having to eat the guys' head right there though, because three bodies are difficult enough to carry without an extra detached head to consider.
  
  It's only after I've gone back to the alley and scared the shit out of the homeless woman, taken my stuff to a random house and killed its occupants that I realise that I could have used my ribbons to help me carry all the bodies.
  
  I really am stupid sometimes.
  
  Ah well, tomorrow I will arrive in Denver and my job will finally begin.
  
  I'm looking forward to it.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  For the first time in a while I wasn't completely shattered when I wrote this chapter. I'm not sure if that effected the quality at all, but it was certainly more enjoyable to write without feeling like I'm going to pass out.
  
  Also, I feel a hesitancy about making things too dark for some reason. Like, Lusia doesn't particularly care about rape, or anything really. She only disliked the guy because as she said, she's not on speaking terms with rapists right now after the last ones reminded her of something she would much rather forget.
  
  Idk. I'm going to have to bite the bullet soon with the arc I have coming up and I think that once I cross that line I'll be cool with doing it again.
  
  We'll see, we'll see.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  71 Why do I make so many OC's? it's hard
  Destabilise the area.
  
  How does one go about destabilising an area so that a gang of 'businessmen' can come in and seamlessly take over the drug trade as well as propping up their corporate heroes?
  
  Well, with chaos and death I would assume.
  
  I'm sure there are more subtle ways to go about it, with plots and schemes and misdirection and subverting public opinion or whatever, but I'm young and that's boring.
  
  I'm sure when I'm older and the amount of time such plots will take seems like less, comparatively speaking, I'll be willing to try out that kind of thing.
  
  I'm sure some would say 'patience is a virtue', but to them I counter, so is chastity, that doesn't mean it isn't boring, and I want to have fun
  
  So chaos and death is the way to go baby!
  
  However that doesn't simply mean I should go and start killing people immediately, some measure of planning is still necessary.
  
  After all, the Elite is looking for chaos that they can take advantage of, and if I just go around killing leaders or something, then they will just be replaced and little would change.
  
  Well, eventually there wouldn't be any capes left, but that would kind of run counter to the Elite's interests, and I fully intend on doing as good a job as I can for them so that they may spread the good name of us Clowns.
  
  Which means I need to keep the fatalities down. By my standards that means that I will do my best to avoid killing any more than a quarter of the capes in the city.
  
  It just means I'm going to have to make the kills count.
  
  Sun Tzu says that supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting, but it would be boring to just not fight at all.
  
  Instead, I will do as Epic told me and change my interpretation of the quote to mean that supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistance without killing all of them.
  
  Seems reasonable enough, I'm sure this is exactly what he had in mind when he said that.
  
  With all of that in mind, what I need to do now is to gather information, both on the enemy and the climate between them.
  
  That way I can come up with a plan that will actually lead to destabilisation, rather than just less capes.
  
  It also doesn't help that if I simply do the same with the villains as I do with the Protectorate and kill a bunch of them, that will just result in harsh retaliation on their part.
  
  That would be rather antithesis to my whole purpose here, so it would be best if no heroes die.
  
  Ok, maybe one would be ok, but no more and not unless I really really want to.
  
  But all of that once more leads me to the most critical part of my job right now. Information.
  
  You'd think I'd have some Elite contact waiting for me here with a debrief that has all the information I'll need, but that's not happening due to a certain.. 𝘯𝘶𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 in my dealing with Uppercrust.
  
  Besides, this is all just a proving grounds for my Clowns as we are still new to the scene, so the more that is accomplished without outside help the better.
  
  I'm already planning on having Fool look through peoples phones and whatever he can find online, but he needs to actually know who to look for and where first, so that will wait for now.
  
  Well, except for the Protectorate, they're all public so he's already working on that for me.
  
  Ah well, thoughts for tomorrow. I'm tired from the drive and plan to start in earnest after a good nights sleep. Then, in the morning I can find someone who knows their stuff and discreetly ask them some questions.
  
  As for why they'll answer my questions for me? Well.
  
  I'll ask nicely.
  
  "P-puhlease.. I told you.. ev-rything. Phease. Y-you said you'd let me go."
  
  Ignoring the whimpering man who's blood decorates the floor and wall around him I ponder on the information I received.
  
  Not too many capes, a bit more than a couple dozen. Much less than Columbus that's for sure, but I guess it kind of makes sense when LA is just a half days drive from here and capes do like going there thinking they'll strike it big.
  
  At least that's what I've heard. Never been myself and I am still only a few months into this cape life, but I'm pretty sure I've adapted well enough to be considered in the know by now.
  
  More importantly, the leaders of both gangs in this city are each one of those same LA rejects that thought they could use their Thinker powers to strike it rich.
  
  Only to realise that the casinos aren't dumb and have Thinkers of their own to look out for shit like that. In fact, I'm pretty sure I heard somewhere that like, a third of all Thinkers in America end up in or somehow invested with Vegas.
  
  No idea how true that is, but it's a fun number to throw around.
  
  Either way, the important part is that both of the gangs, are lead by Thinkers, which means it will be more interesting to do my job.
  
  Because not only do I have to effect an entire cities political climate, but I have to do so while competing against not just one but two Thinkers in a battle of wits.
  
  Ahhh~ I can't wait to get started!~
  
  But rushing in in this case would be stupid. I need a plan of action.
  
  First off, the gangs.
  
  One of the gangs is Latino based, called Street Lords while the other gang is not so racially exclusive. They call themselves the Xiao Long family, presumably based on the name of their leader, who 𝘪𝘴 apparently some Asian dude, so that checks out.
  
  My source couldn't tell me the specifics of their powers unfortunately enough, but that's fine. He gave me plenty on the rest of them.
  
  Such as the Xiao Long, who have five known parahumans. The boss, who's a Thinker. A Tinker who makes robot animals, mostly dogs but probably some birds for surveillance too.
  
  Then there's a decently strong Blaster and a pair of Brutes. So not too strong really.
  
  The other guys are more annoying, just considering their combat power as they are notably less disciplined.
  
  The Lords don't have any Tinkers, but they do have a Stranger which could be annoying, depending on how well my senses match up against their power fuckery trying to hide them.
  
  They have a Breaker who can ghost through walls and shit by literally turning into a ghost. In other words they also have a Stranger rating. Lovely.
  
  Lastly is a Mover and Three Blasters, so that's a lot of firepower right there. Not something that I'd like to get pinned down by.
  
  Obviously there are also some rogues, but they don't really matter for my job, so unless I happen across them, I'm just going to ignore them.
  
  The heroes also aren't too much of a problem in a fight. Well, except for one that is.
  
  Extinction. Named such most likely as a result of a severe case of being edgy.
  
  A couple months before I triggered myself there was news about a small country town disappearing.
  
  I say disappearing, but really it would probably be more accurate to say that the town got fucking evaporated. Annihilated. Wiped off the face of the earth like an angry God had a grudge to settle with it.
  
  Seriously, I've seen pictures of it, the place wasn't big by any means. Just a small village with a population that didn't even surpass a thousand, but now it is just a molten crater.
  
  Granted it's not molten anymore, but you get my meaning.
  
  That was him triggering, so the story goes.
  
  He has some kind of energy manipulation. Not totally unheard of, but the level of power displayed is certainly not average.
  
  He ended up being 'taken in' by the PRT and staying with them for a bit before he was discreetly moved to start his hero career under a new name and identity.
  
  Unfortunately for him, he didn't kill everyone from home as some vengeful woman tracked him down and released all this information to the public, hence why I know so much about him.
  
  That got him moved again to a smaller city, Denver. Where he now resides as a simple member of the Protectorate, hoping to find redemption for his sins in his work helping people.
  
  So I am pretty confident that he came up with his name out of edginess.
  
  Still, the guy has so many fucking issues that I 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 want to meet him. I mean, just think about it. How many words would it take to break a man like that? To make him go fucking feral.
  
  If I get the chance, I'll be counting them down.
  
  So what does this all mean for me?
  
  It means that I have a pretty easy way to cause some stability issues for the PRT. Just need to set off Mister Edgelord in a public setting, maybe get him to cause a few casualties.
  
  That'll set the media on the PRT like moths to a flame, possibly even leading to the local director having to 'retire'. After that it's just a matter of fucking with their morale so that they don't organise themselves again, lest they start actually doing their jobs and keeping the city orderly.
  
  For the gangs it's another story all together.
  
  I know I said I shouldn't just go around killing them, but the two leaders do need to die.
  
  The trick is making sure that the gangs themselves actually fracture without their bosses, rather than just gaining new leadership.
  
  Holy fuck.
  
  An amazing idea has just germinated in my mind.
  
  I feel a wide smile take over my face as pieces start coming together on the board in my mind. It's like I'm playing three games of chess all at the same time and I am just starting to set things up, three checkmates already visible to me.
  
  You know? I think I was right.
  
  I 𝘢𝘮 going to have fun here.
  
  Well. No time like the present to get started.
  
  Idly, I turn back to the PRT trooper I borrowed to answer some of my curiosities. I somehow get the feeling he didn't appreciate me asking nicely. Maybe he's just into insult play or something?
  
  I'm not one to judge kinks.
  
  Ah well, I was feeling peckish anyway.
  
  Once I am done with him, I head for the door, a single thought on my mind.
  
  Time for step one of operation Circus 2 Electric Boogaloo, the sequel.
  
  I know, my naming sense is amazing.
  
  And for the first step!
  
  Amusement suffuses my entire being at the following thought.
  
  I need to go get raped.
  
  ...
  
  Elsewhere, in a clinical, if spartan room with white walls, white floor and a white ceiling. The only furniture present being a simple desk littered with paperwork and a laptop but nothing to indicate a family or personal effects.
  
  As well as a pair of chairs, both occupied, on either side of the desk.
  
  Behind the desk is a middle aged black woman in a lab coat with her hair cut short and practical. She doesn't look up from her work even when a third woman walks in the room, her face not even twitching from it's constant bland, emotionless stature.
  
  In the other seat is another woman. Younger, but not by much. She is attractive in a stern sort of way, with long brown hair and a smart suit that somehow seems inhumanly immaculate, even with the person wearing it slumping back in her chair and putting her feet up on the desk.
  
  No words are spoken even after the third woman arrives, who herself somehow contrasts the other two, her posture being much more rigid. Lacking the casual dismissal of the other two. She is visibly Hispanic, tall but not overly so but muscled enough that she cuts an imposing figure regardless.
  
  Her face, locked into a rictus of annoyance, is the kind that could be forty but looks like she could be in her twenties.
  
  She marches up to the desk and stands, staring at the younger woman expectantly, even when she doesn't deign her so much as a glance in response.
  
  Eventually, she stops staring and asks the question that has been bothering her so.
  
  "You said I should leave them alone. Why?" She doesn't shout, but her tone is of one that is used to people obeying her.
  
  The other two don't much seem to care.
  
  Still without looking up from her papers, the 'Doctor' responds. Her voice as bland and unchanging as her expression.
  
  "You were going to go deal with them personally yes? Well don't." The words, spoken so casually and uncaringly seem to annoy the rigid woman as if they were a personal insult.
  
  "But 𝘸𝘩𝘺? In what little time they've been active nearly ten heroes and over a dozen other parahumans have died. They are a problem. They got rid of 𝘛𝘪𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘵 for fucks sake!"
  
  Despite her explosion, she manages to calm herself almost immediately and chooses to refocus her efforts and seeing that the good Doctor isn't being cooperative she turns to the other woman.
  
  "Did the path reveal something that I should know? A reason to spare them?" Her words have a hint of resignation, as if she expects the answer to be a certainty that cannot be questioned, no matter her personal feelings.
  
  However the response she received is not one she expected.
  
  "No." The woman in the suit answers simply, not moving or showing any intention to as she does so.
  
  Yet her answer only raises more questions in the irate woman's mind.
  
  "No? Then path them!" She demands, but once again, she is left shocked by the smaller, but much scarier woman's response.
  
  "That's the thing Alexandria." The smaller woman finally turns to look Alexandria directly in the eyes, her own containing complicated emotions and her words holding meaning that very few people alive could ever properly understand.
  
  "I can't Path her."
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  I felt like the "gotta go get raped" line was a pretty good chapter ending but still had like, 200 words to go before I hit my 2k minimum so I decided to use the opportunity to finally put in a little bit of mystery with an exposition.
  
  Though, it's only really a mystery for those that haven't read worm, also I might change it, depending on what my second opinion says about some specifics. There is a whole lot to be considered for that last line to make canonical sense, but I don't think there are any flaws in my logic, but hey, that's what second opinions are for in the first place right?
  
  chaps an hour late cuz I forgor
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  72 Interlude: Taiyang Xiao Long
  In the life of a man who can live for years inside of a single day, it is rare for anything to hold interest.
  
  This is a truth that Tai has come to realise since he acquired his powers.
  
  The worst day of his life was when he had to watch his father die in front of him.
  
  Made even worse as he triggered, and not knowing how to control his powers, he spent days, weeks or even longer watching his father's dying breathe leave him.
  
  However, he eventually managed to understand and control his power. The power to alter his perception of time. To make a single instant last a century in his mind.
  
  It allows him to come up with complex plans on the fly, to thoroughly analyse anyone or anything whenever he wants and it means that he will never have to act impulsively, being able to think out every action in excruciating detail.
  
  It's with this power that he thought he could make some money in Vegas. Make back what he lost with his father's death.
  
  Unfortunately that didn't happen, but he learned many valuable lessons in the city of sin and when he returned to Denver he was ready to restart his family, his heritage.
  
  Thus, the Xiao Long family was born once more, stronger than ever with a parahuman at the head.
  
  The only problem is that his rivals, the men who killed his father, still live. Not just that but they oppose him, standing in the way of his plans of taking over the cities underworld in the name of the Xiao Long, turning the name into one that holds actual weight in the country.
  
  Unfortunately, they don't only have more capes than me but they also have some of the strongest Blasters in the state, making assaulting them no easy task.
  
  Which means that when Tai get's word of a fresh cape walking into their territory of their own volition, asking to join them. Well, he will always make the time to meet any parahuman recruits personally.
  
  Their value is simply too high not to.
  
  Besides, if there is one thing he has in spades, it's time.
  
  But a parahuman recruit would only be enough to grab his interest. It's the story his men told him that kept said interest, even after spending a few days worth of relative time thinking about how they will act and how to best respond, as well as angles from which this could be a trap.
  
  He also makes sure to keep Junior with him, just in case she reacts poorly to anything. Something that wouldn't be a surprise considering the tale him men have told.
  
  According to them, they were just doing routine patrols when they heard screaming. The desperate, fearful kind of screaming.
  
  But when they arrived at the alley the sound came from, that they only bothered to investigate due to it's proximity to our border. They were greeted with a grisly sight that I am almost intrigued enough by the description of to send someone to get me a picture.
  
  Apparently, they round the corner to the sight of a horror movie. Blood covering the floor and decorating the walls, limbs and organs all cut into pieces and lying around randomly.
  
  And in the centre of this bloodbath, standing in half torn clothes with unrecognisable bodies of flesh surrounding her, was a woman.
  
  With claws as long as knives and as wicked as an executioners axe, his men certainly did a good job embellishing the sight.
  
  Presumably, she was either about to be, or in the middle of being raped. Such a trauma then caused her to trigger, following which she did what would only be natural to someone in such a position.
  
  She killed the men who caused her such pain.
  
  And now she is here, to see me.
  
  Best guess is that the men who assaulted her were Hispanic, in which case she likely still thirsts for revenge.
  
  Joining the Heroes would get her a chance at them, but doing so would mean that she can only arrest them.
  
  I believe that she would much prefer that they die instead, hence coming to me instead of them.
  
  It also shows that she's not completely stupid, that she sought allies rather than simply charging in headfirst all by herself.
  
  Well. That's enough thinking for now. I'll be able to understand more once I actually meet the woman in question.
  
  My office is a simple thing. One desk, two chairs and a single bookshelf behind me filled with books I have read a dozen times each and between one blink and another, time resumes.
  
  The first thing that comes to my attention is sound, as sound takes time to travel and thus it is quite silent when I truly put my power to use.
  
  The second and much more important thing is my door opening.
  
  The woman who enters certainly fits the description I was given. In short? She looks like shit.
  
  Her clothes are in tatters and covered in blood, most of it likely not her own. Thankfully at least, one of his men was decent enough to give her a large jacket to cover herself with, so she is thankfully not exposed.
  
  I get the feeling she would not take kindly to being nude around any men any time soon.
  
  Her brown hair is a mess of dirt grime and even more blood and her green eyes have an intensity to them that is so rarely seen.
  
  It is mildly impressive that she is even capable of meeting me here, just a few hours after her trigger.
  
  Though the look in her eyes tells me that the reason for that it likely the rage that is driving her forward. That and a desire for revenge.
  
  As she enters the room, I observe her with my power in full swing.
  
  Her gait speaks little of hesitancy, and considering her recent experience it's likely that she is simply too burnt up emotionally right now to even feel fear, whether she sees us as a threat or not.
  
  But I do think she sees us as a threat, or at the very least she doesn't trust us a single bit, evidenced by the way her eyes flit around the room, looking for weapons and exits no doubt.
  
  Good. It would be foolish if she had any trust in us.
  
  When her eyes pass over Junior and I I note a muted expression of curiosity. Understandable given that I am a blond man with Asian features being guarded by another Asian who has the typical black hair, except he is also nearly seven feet tall and built like a tank.
  
  We must make quite the sight.
  
  But she quickly throws away her look of curiosity, replacing it with one of caution as she examines us, just as I do her.
  
  She quickly seems to dismiss me, likely not seeing me as a threat unlike Junior. An understandable sentiment, and true in this case.
  
  The way she is folding her hands in front of her doesn't give me the impression of a nervous tick, at least not one made out of shyness. Likely she is simply uncomfortable with my gender.
  
  The fact that she is willing to ignore that and talk with me speaks well of her rationality, that she can push aside those feelings, knowing that they are the result of trauma and nothing more.
  
  I've got to say, she is impressing me already and no one has even said anything yet.
  
  Hmmm. There is only so much to be learned from observation.
  
  As my thought finishes, time resumes it's normal speed and the woman finally reaches the seat in front of my desk, though she chooses to stand even after I wave a hand to offer her a seat.
  
  "My name is Taiyang Xiao Long. You may call me Mr Xiao. Though if you end up joining my family, then I will expect you to call me Boss."
  
  My introduction is simple and offers her plenty of information without intruding any boundaries or pushing any buttons.
  
  In her circumstance it is possible, however unlikely considering what I have seen so far, that she would take any direct questions as an invasion of privacy and relate that to her recent trauma, thus clamming up.
  
  Instead I chose not to directly ask any questions but to imply one, leaving the ball in her court as it were to keep her from growing uncomfortable.
  
  It also helps that I don't have any silly cape name to give her, lessening the distance between us simply by not using such impersonal titles, especially since she is unlikely to have a cape name and could feel disadvantaged if she is the only one using an actual name.
  
  As expected, she takes the unsaid invitation to introduce herself.
  
  "Lucy. Lucy Kalmana." Is all she says. Her voice is quiet but holds the same intensity as her eyes.
  
  An interesting name. Kalmana. Is that Arabian? She doesn't look like she is from the middle east, looking more European. French, perhaps. So she likely has mixed heritage.
  
  "Well Miss Kalmana. I have an idea of the reason already, but I would like to know for what reason you have sought me out?"
  
  I make sure to word my question such that it does not come out as a demand, but an expression of curiosity that she is free to appease at her leisure.
  
  She seems to deliberate for a moment, opening and closing her mouth as if she cannot force the words out.
  
  I do not try to help, knowing perfectly well that people in situations like this do not like to feel pitied, like they need help to do simple things like answering a question.
  
  Any offer of assistance would likely be met with anger as she uses the perceived insult as a means to direct her burning anger.
  
  So instead of allowing that, I simply sit back and watch, prepared to signal Junior at any time to subdue her.
  
  However that doesn't seem to be necessary as she soon starts hyperventilating, clutching the jacket, the only clean and whole item of clothing on her, closer to herself.
  
  Her eyes close as she starts shivering and I notice the way her eyes are flitting about under her eyelids, likely seeing things that aren't present.
  
  But once again, I do nothing. From what I have seen of her so far, I get the feeling that she will not need any help.
  
  I am proven right as shortly after she started shivering, she begins to calm down. Her breathing slows until it is almost even, just breathing slightly too hard as if she is exhausted, which is likely the case.
  
  When she opens her eyes however, the fire that was burning in them before seems to have turned into an inferno. Before, there was only malice shining through, a simple desire to kill.
  
  Now? Now there is something else. If I had to describe it, I'd describe it as an anticipation for something that she is certain will come to be.
  
  It almost makes me smile. She doesn't see her revenge as an unobtainable goal. In fact, she sees it as a battle that has already been won and that she only needs to wait for it to come to it's natural conclusion.
  
  Said conclusion being her gaining her revenge of course.
  
  It makes me think of a quote by the great Sun Tzu,
  
  "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."
  
  When she speaks again, she does not lack the quietness from before, but her words do not need to be loud for them to be heard.
  
  "You and those fucking spics are enemies right? Let me join you and I will kill any one of the taco loving cunts that get in your way."
  
  Aside the crude wording, the message is certainly one I can get behind. The only question is whether or not she can deliver. The Street Lord's capes are quite powerful after all.
  
  But if she truly can deliver on her bold claims?
  
  Well. A truly driven man, or woman in this case, can accomplish great things. And if her drive doesn't peter out, then I believe she could accomplish great things for my family.
  
  With that in mind, I offer my hand with a smile.
  
  "Please. Call me Boss."
  
  She smiles a bloodthirsty smile and takes my hand, joining my family with the exact same end goal as myself.
  
  Revenge.
  
  Meanwhile, on the other side, there is one thought going through 'Lucy's' head as she shakes her new Bosses hand.
  
  "Engage people with what they expect. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment - that which they cannot anticipate"
  
  Truly, Sun Tzu is wise.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Booyah! How many Sun Tzu references can i get in one fic? This is three so far by my count, and I haven't even used up my 'Sun Tzu is Wise 2 Electric Boogaloo' slot yet!
  
  Also, I hate myself. Why do I force myself to make so many OC's? I can't wait till we get to canon and I can just plagiarise, but before that we have to finish this Elite arc and transition into the next arc, which will finally have some canon characters.
  
  Only then, we might actually end up in the bay (canon setting). But even that is subject to change depending on how the next arc goes, because I literally have a single prompt for a single chapter for the whole arc to work with... why do I punish myself so?
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  73 Interlude: James 'Donny' Mikaelson
  A/N: God, I'm writing this when I'm a quarter through this chap, but this guy is such an asshole. I don't like him :C
  
  Also while I'm here, give me power stones, or money, that one is better.
  
  February 14th.
  
  The day of Saint Valentine, which couples use as an excuse to get together and do something special, while the rest of us spend the day bemoaning our lack of love.
  
  Well, that's what other people do anyway. I've never really been to put out by not finding 'the one', but that's fine. In my line of work, finding a relationship is unrealistic.
  
  Even then, it's not something I spend a lot of time thinking about, since being single is the reason I can get laid any night I want with any woman I want. I am a Street Lord after all. Who will tell me no?
  
  I can't believe people say that the life of crime doesn't pay out. I mean sure, it has it's downsides. Many, many downsides, but it has just as many upsides. The fat pay check is one of those upsides.
  
  As for the second best part of this life? Well.
  
  My eyes trail over the bombshell Hispanic beauty that just entered my favourite bar.
  
  She's a new face 'round here. That much is obvious simply for the fact that I would recognise her is she wasn't. There's no way I'd forget a body like 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵.
  
  She's waring a short leather jacket with some punk like spikes on the shoulders over a crop top that reveals her toned stomach that has the barest hint of abs showing through.
  
  The jeans she wears are so tight I wouldn't be surprised if it blocked blood flow, but damn if it doesn't do wonders showing off her ass.
  
  She also has some jewellery. Not enough to say she's rich, but enough to tell she likes piercings, from the rings in her ears to the stud in her belly button. I can even see her nipple piercings pushing against her shirt as she's clearly not wearing a bra.
  
  Hell, if not for the fact that she went straight for the bar, I'd have thought that someone hired a pornstar as a whore.
  
  From where I'm seated at the back end of the bar, I like my privacy, I watch as she quickly learns why there are no women here that aren't already attached to a man.
  
  A couple guys get up before she makes it to the bar, I only recognise Enrique among them and I know he has no problem hitting a women so I assume the same is true for the guys he's with.
  
  Everybody in the room already knows where this is going before Enrique even opens his mouth, but no one moves to intervene.
  
  Why should they after all? It's her own damn fault for walking in here without knowing what she was getting into.
  
  But, she is smoking hot, and I am here to get laid anyway, so I figure I could come in and play the 'Hero' despite the irony. Everyone here knows who I am anyway, so it's not like I'll even have to fight to get them to back off from the girl.
  
  Enrique's boys start talking but I'm not close enough to hear what they're saying, however it doesn't take a genius to figure that whatever she said in response was the wrong thing to say as the boys quickly start getting more aggressive.
  
  Well, that's my cue. Time to play Hero and get my well deserved reward of some good pussy.
  
  Making my way through the bar, everyone who sees me coming moves to get out of my way while for everyone with their backs to me, all I need to do is push past them and the moment they see my face they also back off.
  
  Man, it will never not be satisfying, having this kind of power over people.
  
  By the time I reach the circle of men, they were probably just about to start a more.. forceful 'line of questioning', but I interrupt that by placing a hand on one of the guy's shoulders, Carlos I belatedly remember his name is, and pull him half around so he can see my face.
  
  At first he seems annoyed that someone is pulling him around, but the moment we lock eyes that anger is immediately replaced by respect and fear.
  
  We both know that it would only take me a thought to turn him into nothing, so the fear is expected, not to mention it makes me feel all warm and tingly inside.
  
  "Come now ese, no need to be so rough on her." I say with a smile before turning to the woman who doesn't seem as afraid as someone in her position should be, instead she is simply looking curiously at me. "Why don't you join me instead of wasting your time with these fools?"
  
  However, instead of taking the obvious olive branch, she just jams her hands into her jacket's pockets and rocks back on her heels.
  
  "Fools?" It's odd that that is the part that she focuses on. "They aren't worthy of the name~ 'sides, imma have to pass thanks."
  
  What?
  
  "What?" I reflexively ask, dumbfounded by her unexpected response.
  
  "I said no." She actually rolls her eyes at me. At 𝘮𝘦.
  
  How 𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘦 this dumb bitch refuse me and then have the gall to smirk at me.
  
  "You know what?" My earlier smile is nowhere to be found, "never mind. You boys do what you want."
  
  I take a step back from Carlos and lean back on a support beam while the boys all grow nasty smirks of their own. Interestingly enough, the woman is also smiling.
  
  Let's see how long that bravado lasts.
  
  One of the guys behind her walks up and raises his arm, intending to wrap it over her shoulders, only quick as a flash, she leans away from his arm, half spins as she takes her hands out of her pockets and launches a fist straight into his unexpecting face.
  
  It hits him in the jaw with a dull thud and a nasty crack and he himself hits the floor not a moment later, his face fucked up and bloody.
  
  The bar stills into silence as everyone's eyes move from the man knocked out cold on the ground to the woman and the bloody brass knuckle clenched in her hand.
  
  Well now.~ This just got interesting.
  
  But even with that, there are still six other dudes that are now much less happy with her.
  
  Carlos leads this time, rushing forward and throwing a punch to her gut but she just slaps it aside and spins around, slamming her elbow into his temple which sends him crashing into the stools in front of the bar. Down but not out.
  
  Having learned from the mistakes of those before them, the others don't try any of that one at a time shit.
  
  Instead, the last guy behind her rushes forward, intending to tackle her to the ground while another two come from in front of her and slightly to the side.
  
  She must have heard the guy coming from behind her because she takes two quick steps forward and grabs the arm of the guy to her right, who was faster than the one to her left, and she spins them both around, forcing his friend to back off from his swing and finishing by throwing the guy at the one trying to tackle her.
  
  The both of them go down in a heap.
  
  Lefty uses the close distance to throw a solid punch to her face, but she just tilts her head to avoid him and clocks him out just the same as the first guy, with a single blow to the jaw.
  
  While the other two are still struggling to their feet, the only two men still standing, Enrique and Domonic, I think, move for her, both of them taking out a knife each.
  
  Domonic slashes at her midsection and she takes a step back, quickly having to take another step to the side to avoid Enrique's knife.
  
  That's when the two she threw to the ground get up behind her and rush forward. Yet, the moment they are about to attack her, she drops to the ground, kicks a leg out and spins a full circle, knocking the both of them and Domonic to the ground all at once, only Enrique being capable enough to actually dodge it.
  
  She doesn't waste any time punching the two without knives in the face, not even bothering to get to her feet properly to do it.
  
  I admire her resolve to keep those she puts down down. One thing that gives me mixed feelings though is the constant smile on her face that has only grown the more blood has been spilt.
  
  Domonic manages to scramble to his feet by the time she's done with the other two but he doesn't get very far before she jumps at him, swinging a fearsome uppercut that might have just straight up killed him.
  
  But it leaves her open to Enrique who launches a stab right at her centre mass.
  
  Yet, everyone is left in shock as she 𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘬𝘯𝘪𝘧𝘦. By the 𝘵𝘪𝘱.
  
  The knife clinks away from her hand, allowing us to see that she caught it on the part of the knuckle dusters that you have to hold onto, which is insanely impressive considering she did it all without so much as flinching.
  
  At this point, it's no surprise when Enrique joins the others on the ground, but he should just be thankful that he's one of the ones groaning in pain, opposed to the ones who are not making any noise whatsoever.
  
  It's at that point that Carlos get's his bearings back together, but after looking at all the bodies on the ground and then the woman standing above them all, panting but with blood covering her dusters as well as spatters of it all over her body. He makes the wise choice of raising his hands in surrender.
  
  That causes her to huff out a chuckle, sounding as if she's barely out of breath. Like she went for a decently long jog, rather than just kicked the asses of seven real gangsters.
  
  Without bothering with anything else, she continues walking for the bar, as if nothing happened and when she passes me she only spares me a quick glance and a few words.
  
  "A Fool would have at least made me laugh."
  
  This woman...
  
  I 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 her.
  
  Turning to the closest person to me, I give of a quick order for them to get this mess cleaned up and check if any of them died before I turn to follow the woman to the bar, taking the seat right next to her.
  
  "That was some impressive fighting back there. Rough neighbourhood?" I ask, idly noting the dusters she still has on.
  
  "You just left me, a poor, innocent woman to the tender mercies of some not very tender men. I don't think we're really at the 'sharing childhood stories' stage right now." Is her bland response, but that just makes me smile.
  
  Because I get the feeling she isn't nearly as upset about it as she's letting on. Her smile during the fight should tell that enough by itself.
  
  "Then let me make it up to you. Even us out so to speak."
  
  She turns in her stool to face me directly an eyebrow raising to go with her smirk.
  
  "Oh?~ I don't know~ I'm pretty traumatised.~ What exactly are you going to do to make up for that?~" It's pretty obvious that she's having fun with this, so I figure my chances of getting some good pussy aren't ruined after all.
  
  "How 'bout I start by buying you a drink? And maybe you can give me a name in return?" She leans back slightly, resting an arm on the bar counter as she spends a moment simply looking at me.
  
  Eventually she breaks the silence, sounding pleased with herself.
  
  "Luluwa, but just call me Lulu and I'll have anything good you've got with tequila in it."
  
  Luluwa huh? Strange name. Lulu has a nice ring to it though.
  
  I wave down Micky and get him to make me my usual and her the strongest drink we have that has tequila, something she doesn't object to, just seeming to find it funny.
  
  We don't say anything until the drinks arrive and even when they do, she doesn't reach for it, choosing to speak instead, curiosity lacing her voice.
  
  "So. The way everyone 'round here keeps looking at you. Makes me think you're someone important or something. So who are you exactly?"
  
  Her question makes me smile as I anticipate how she'll react. It's something of a open secret anyway.
  
  Will she be scared? Realise that she might have fucked up? Or maybe she'll be turned on. Either way should be fun.
  
  "Folk 'round here call me Donny, or just Don. As for why the respect? Well that's cuz I'm a Street Lord baby."
  
  At first I thought she was reacting the fun way, turned on by my power. Only the capes in the gang get to actually call ourselves Lords after all.
  
  But nothing could have prepared me for the words she spoke, whispered in a sultry voice so low I almost thought I misheard.
  
  "Why be a Lord? Why not.. a King?"
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Hehepoopoo things are happening that are more subtle than usual. I've decided that this half of the elite arc will be much more subtle and mysterious, so don't expect to understand everything that's going on until it's conclusion.
  
  Then again, I don't think I'm that good at hiding things, so y'all can probably figure things out, especially if you know you're tokyo ghoul lore, Roma Hoito specifically.
  
  I'm sure it's pretty obvious that Lucy from the chap before is Lusia, not exactly subtle. But who is this strange latina woman? Find out next time in Dra-*Cough**Cough* anyway.
  
  Chap is slightly early, like the last one, cuz I got a haircut and I had to change my sleep schedule again so that I was actually awake when they were open lol.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  74 Interlude: James 'Junior' Xiao Long
  February 17th.
  
  Only one week since she's joined the family and Lucy is already settling in well.
  
  It took a couple days for her to really start coming out of her shell. Expected, considering her circumstance. But with the others all being supportive and not trying to push her it didn't take too long before she was opening up with us.
  
  It brought a certain warmth to my heart to see the others welcoming her to the family so seamlessly, giving her a place where she can belong, surrounded by friends who will help ensure she never has to go through an experience like her trigger ever again.
  
  She's gotten close with the Boss and Stacy more than others. In the case of the former it's their shared hatred of the so called 'lords' that has brought them together, giving Boss an opportunity to finally open up with someone about his feelings, rather than just keeping it all bottled up because he thought we wouldn't be able to understand.
  
  With Stacy it's different though. The energetic young girl that she is had no problem dragging Lucy around and showing off all her 'pets' with great enthusiasm.
  
  Thankfully, rather than being annoyed at getting dragged about, Lucy seems almost as excited as Stacy about her mechanical creations, even if in her own more subdued way.
  
  But if I ignore my feelings and focus purely on the family as a whole, then I'd say the best part about her recruitment is her skill in combat.
  
  I'm not sure if it's an aspect of her powers or if she's just a natural but her skill in a fight is second to none in the family and I've already had her start taking over the mandatory CQC lessons to great effect.
  
  It's only been a few days, but I sat in on one of her lessons for about a dozen of our enforcers and she is not just a natural at fighting but also an incredible teacher.
  
  Not because she's super wise or anything, nothing like those kung-fu movies. It's just that she makes the lessons 𝘧𝘶𝘯. She doesn't just teach people but she makes them actually 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 to learn.
  
  It's like she's a natural born leader and I know it's something Tai has noticed as well. An aspect that no one else in the family seems to possess.
  
  I don't think it's too out there to think that after she's been with us for a bit longer that she might be a candidate for the position of Boss should the need ever arise.
  
  I certainly wouldn't contest it. I'm no leader, same with the others and she reminds me a lot of Boss anyway, so I think it'd be fine.
  
  She just needs some more time, so that we can be sure of her allegiance.
  
  But that's also part of what today is for. See, the 'lords' have started stirring some trouble. Or at least some of them have. We don't know what the situation is exactly, but Boss has been doing some thinking on it and believes that is might be that some of them are getting 𝘢𝘮𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴.
  
  Never a good thing on this side of the world.
  
  But it still means that we need to push back to defend our territory so Boss has sent Lucy and I, or Rose as she's decided her cape name to be, something about having thorns and spilling blood, to go and fight them off, at least for long enough for the Heroes to arrive and do our job for us.
  
  "You ready?" I ask, perhaps not for the first time going by the way Lucy rolls her eyes.
  
  She hasn't been here long so her costume is a simple one. I think she said something about it being 'gothic lolita' but I honestly have no idea what that means.
  
  She's wearing black combat boots that go up to just below her knees and has black stockings covering her legs up to her red skirt that is part of a one-piece that covers her shoulders but leaves the arms bare and she has black corset over it.
  
  Then, over all of that she has a red poncho that has a hood. She also has a thick brown leather belt around her waist with some pouches to make up for the outfits lack of pockets. She even has another similar belt on one of her thighs, so she can carry more stuff.
  
  I asked her why she doesn't have one belt on both thighs to carry even more stuff but she just looked at me funny and said 'fashion', so I guess that's that.
  
  "Do you remember what we're likely to be up against?" I persist in asking her, ignoring the deadpan, exasperated look she's giving me.
  
  "Yes." Is all she says before leaning back on her seat in the truck we are taking. The normals that are coming with us are in a van just behind us, half a dozen of them each armed and ready.
  
  "It's probably going to be Bang and Scarface, along with a few of their mooks." She sighs a deep, depressed sigh that I ignore. "Bang can cause a sphere of space two by two metres wide to more or less collapse. With my power I'll be fine, or well enough should I get hit but we don't know if the same can be said for you, no matter your regeneration. So I'll take him on, you deal with Scarface."
  
  She doesn't respond and I don't push her to. I know that I've already explained all this already, but I just don't want her to make any stupid mistakes.
  
  At least she shouldn't be in much danger against Scarface, named such by PHO. Once again showing the world that you should have a cape name picked out 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 you do any cape activities.
  
  But his power is just a rapid fire energy ball. It's stronger than a bullet for sure, but it's nothing extraordinary to a cape. Its main strength is the fire rate, but even then that only makes him strong against large amounts of normals, not a singular cape.
  
  Especially one like Lucy, I mean, like Rose. We haven't tested her regeneration too much, for obvious reasons, so no one really knows how well she can take damage. But we 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 tested how sharp her claws are and so far they have cut through literally everything we have with ease.
  
  Considering that they are each about two feet long and she has ten of them, I don't think Scarface's power will be able to so much as touch her before getting cut to pieces.
  
  Which is good, as when we turn another corner we are greeted with the sight of a dozen or so Hispanic men dressed in gang colours and wearing bandana's to cover their faces.
  
  All except for two, both of whom have full face masks depicting skulls in the style of the face paint used on the Day of the Dead.
  
  At least our intel about the capes present was right, is what I'm thinking as the driver pulls the truck over, blocking half the street. Not two seconds later the van with the normals in pulls up next to us, covering the other half of the street.
  
  "Time for us to earn our pay check yeah?" I say while nudging Rose with my elbow, trying to inject some levity to the moment.
  
  It doesn't work.
  
  The look she gives me makes me feel like I'm some out of touch uncle trying and failing to understand the 'youth'.
  
  Am I really getting old?
  
  "Just don't die." She surprises me with her words but I follow her out of the truck with a smile, patting down my suit and double checking that my domino mask is properly in place before I start walking ahead of the cars, towards the assholes in front of us.
  
  The normals all take cover behind the cars, waiting for the shots to start firing. There's something of an unspoken rule that us capes will fight each other while the normals do the same.
  
  Mostly for the benefit of numbers, as most of us capes could mow down normals like reaping wheat.
  
  I stop about a dozen paces away from the cars, Rose right beside me only because we know that her Brute rating is enough that bullets aren't too much of a concern, same as me.
  
  It is an unspoken rule after all. No one would be shocked if a gangbanger thought they could get a lucky shot of.
  
  The leader of the little posse in front of us, Bang, keeps walking until he is only a few paces away from us, despite being a blaster, while the rest of them stick back and start fanning out so they aren't such an easy target.
  
  Once he stops, he gives Rose an exaggerated once over, tilting his head to make it clear that he's looking at her from top to bottom, putting a hand on his chin as he greets me.
  
  "Wassup foo. See ya got a new girl 'round eh? Don't change nothin' tho. This street 𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴 now. You ain't welcome no more. Get lost before ya get hurt." His threats really don't mean much of anything to me.
  
  Mostly because they are juvenile, but also because of the intense glare I can feel coming from Rose even with it not aimed at me. The feeling of bloodlust is practically palpable and Bang must either be stupid or simply pretending not to notice it.
  
  I'm guessing the former, because it would be too impressive for someone like him to not react to it, especially considering how dangerous she can feel.
  
  Still, I have to keep up the charade because it is a good way of buying time, and this problem is only really going to be a problem for however long it takes the Heroes to arrive.
  
  Because speaking frankly, this is one of the few cities in the country where those of us on the wrong side of the law are actually outgunned by the Heroes.
  
  "Funny, I don't recall you ever doing business on this street and I certainly don't recall allowing you to. So how about you go back to whatever hole you crawled out of and calm yourself down with some enchiladas or something?"
  
  I've never really been one for petty insults, but as I watch his fists clench and his body stiffen in anger I can't help but admit in my mind that Lucy was right.
  
  It 𝘪𝘴 fun.
  
  "Die." Rose reacts instantly to his sudden words and dives to the side, already forewarned that he would likely target her first and as predicted a purple ball of fluctuating energy appears where she was the very next moment, barely avoiding her.
  
  I guess we're fighting now.
  
  I engage my power, focusing on speed even as gunfire erupts around me and I reach Bang faster than most could react, but instead of throwing an attack I flip my power back, sacrificing my speed in exchange for density and durability.
  
  The next instant, my world turns dark as his power envelops me. It only lasts half a second but for any matter that is not sturdy enough to resist it that half a second is enough to reduce it to dust.
  
  Luckily, I know how he fights and predicted this so I am unharmed by it, only feeling a slight stinging sensation wash over me.
  
  But almost as fast as it came, it's gone and Bang is still right in front of me, only having made it a few step back.
  
  Density is lowered and speed is enhanced as I rush for him again, only sparing a single glance to see how Rose is doing, focusing back on Bang as I see that she is tearing into Scarface and anyone else that comes near.
  
  Clearly she has everything under control, so I should focus on the actual threat here.
  
  With that in mind, I ignore the world around me and put my full focus on reaching Bang so that I can bury his face into the ground, doing my best not to get disintegrated while I'm at it.
  
  One upside is that some of Keeper's robot-dogs should be here within the minute. With them, the fight will probably be won even without the Heroes' intervention.
  
  Looks like things are going to work out for us today.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Kinda feels like a lame place to end the chap, and I once again missed out on something I wanted to add.
  
  I swear, I get ideas for the fic and then when I write the chapter I just completely forget it and miss out on a plot point. It's not like I'm going to bother to rewrite a chap just to put it in either, I never rewrite chapters, or proofread them either. We rawdog this shit baby.
  
  Idk why I said that last part. Either way, I might be able to squish it in the next chap, who knows? certainly not me.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  75 Interlude: Claude Johnson
  "We've got an incident on Maple and Third. Reports of gunshots and possible parahuman activity, likely it's the gangs butting heads. I've pinged you with the location, I'm sure you can handle the rest. Backup ETA 7 minutes."
  
  Bringing my finger up to my ear I tap my piece twice.
  
  "Roger that console, I'll handle it." I say before turning from where I am in the air to face the direction I've been given, preparing the energy that suffuses my body for a quick flight.
  
  "Happy hunting Extinction. Give 'em hell." I don't respond this time, not knowing what to say without making things awkward.
  
  'Give 'em hell'. It's not a phrase I like.
  
  I gave hell once and I vowed to never do so again.
  
  But stopping Villains from causing others to suffer is the only way I can atone for what I have done.
  
  One life taken is not equal to one life saved and I plan on saving at least a thousand lives for every one I've taken before I will ever consider myself atoned.
  
  So with that in mind, I allow the smallest slip of my energy to burst out from my back and despite using such a small percentage of my energy, I still burst forth like a jet.
  
  Flying used to be a scary thing for me, but Legend taught me to enjoy the sensation. To get lost in the skies and forget all your troubles.
  
  Unfortunately that momentary bliss doesn't tend to last long, not when you can move as fast as I can.
  
  It only takes me a little less than a minute to arrive at the scene where gunshots are still ongoing.
  
  Coming to a stop high above them, I take a moment to observe. Legend said that it's important not to rush into a situation you don't understand, especially when you are powerful like us.
  
  Down below there are two side, the two major gangs of Denver. For the Street Lords I can already see a large number of their normals on the ground, either dead or dying.
  
  The same could be said of the Xiao Long, except they are much better off as they had cover to hide behind.
  
  But even then, both sides normals are still exchanging fire.
  
  What takes more of my attention is the part of the street that has a few bodies that have been cut to pieces, notable including a cape that I identify as Scarface.
  
  Though, despite being cut open, I think he's still breathing and I'll have to act fast if I want to save him and anyone else who needs it.
  
  Meanwhile, off to the side is three other capes fighting in the midst of a bunch of broken parts that I assume came from Keeper's robots.
  
  Two of them I recognise as Bang and Junior, but the one armed woman in red is a new mask to me.
  
  Right as I'm about to move in, I pause as the woman's head snaps to my direction, her green eyes staring right into my own. It's only as I'm looking at her more closely that I notice the way her arm is slowly regenerating from the shoulder.
  
  If I had to guess, from it's current speed it will be fully healed in about a day or two.
  
  She quickly turns and says something to Junior while I move forward, blasting down until I am hovering only a few feet above them, in the middle of the two combatants.
  
  "Cease-" Darkness covers my vision before I can even get past my first word as Bang uses his power on me.
  
  My own energy moves in retaliation, keeping me from feeling even the slightest hint of harm and dissolving his powers effects even faster than it's natural half second shelf life.
  
  "Surrender." I try again but unsurprisingly they don't listen to me.
  
  Bang has already turned around and has started running away with the other two quickly following his lead in the opposite direction.
  
  For a couple of seconds I just float there before a long drawn out breath leaves me.
  
  Why do they always run?
  
  It never helps them.
  
  With that thought, I turn to the direction Bang went.
  
  While I could go for quantity first with the other two, Bang is more dangerous than them, and it's not like they will escape anyway.
  
  It's just an order of priority.
  
  Blasting through the alley he ran off to, I notice a bunch of holes in the wall around me and figure he's trying to throw me off his trail.
  
  In response to that I just fly 𝘶𝘱. From above it takes me about half a minute to find him and less than a second after that before I am floating in front of him.
  
  "Surre-"
  
  This time I don't even get to finish my first word before my world blinks into darkness.
  
  Yet, almost as fast as the darkness comes it goes away as my own power fights it off.
  
  He didn't even make it half a step before I was free from his power and I decide that if he's not going to just surrender then I'll just have to make him.
  
  In a burst of speed I am behind him with my arm raised and charged with just the right amount of energy.
  
  I swing out and hit him on the back of the neck and he crumbles to the ground unconscious.
  
  It took a lot of training to be able to output a small enough amount of energy that I only knock people out, but it was totally worth it with how much easier it makes this.
  
  With another sigh I pick him up and sling him over my shoulder so I can bring him back to where the other injured are.
  
  After dropping him off and checking the time to know that ambulances and pickup is 4 minutes out, I turn to the opposite direction and head off to capture the other two.
  
  It takes slightly longer to find them, mostly because they are both much faster than Bang and had more time to cover more ground.
  
  In hindsight, going after whoever's fastest would make the most sense in the future.
  
  Junior is carrying the new woman through an alley by the time I reach them, probably just due to him simply being faster than her but the details are unimportant.
  
  What matters is that just like Bang, I come to a stop hovering in front of them, making Junior abruptly pause with a curse, one that is mirrored by the woman once she turns her head to look at me.
  
  Like I've said, running is pointless.
  
  "Surrender."
  
  I can see the resignation in Junior's eyes. We've met before and at least he knows that with me here it's game over.
  
  The woman doesn't seem to share that defeatism.
  
  She wriggles herself out of Junior's grasp, landing unsteadily on the ground where she takes her time to casually turn to look at me.
  
  "Nah." She smirks and I just sigh in response, preparing to subdue them just the same as Bang but then she keeps talking and I pause. "You can fly pretty fast by yourself but with a couple passengers who don't have the same protection from the air pressure your speed will be limited quite a bit no?"
  
  Her words make me pause as I wonder where she's going with this. I toy with the idea of just ignoring and subduing her, but Legend taught me that when Villains like to monologue it's usually because they have a reason for it and rushing to cut them off could have bad consequences.
  
  Like if someone has a bomb in a hospital and they want to give some kind of ultimatum but you cut them off and the bomb goes off as a result.
  
  It's an extreme case, but it's something to keep in mind.
  
  She seems to take my silence as an invitation to keep talking.
  
  "I left Scarface pretty messed up back there you know? And I'm pretty experienced with these things. With the amount of time we've been talking and the wounds I left on the spic, I'd say he's got about.. 20 seconds before he's too far gone to be saved. You think you can make that trip with the both of us on your shoulders?~"
  
  Shit.
  
  My eyes widen behind my mask and I don't even bother responding, just blasting back to where the injured lay.
  
  I became a Hero to save lives. Even if it's the life of a Villain, I will do my best to save everyone.
  
  Moving as fast as I can without causing damage to the city below I reach the scene of the fight in less than five seconds and I rush to the small pile of bodies surrounding Scarface.
  
  The gangsters around him have all been cut to pieces but I try my best not to think about that as I close in on Scarface.
  
  One of his hands is missing but the other arm seems mostly unharmed. The main damage is the obvious gorge cut into his gut with what looks like a set of claw wounds that reveal his organs.
  
  When I get closer however, I see that none of the cuts have actually gone deep enough to tear any of his organs open, making most of the damage marginally superficial, though still dangerous without rapid treatment.
  
  But it's not nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be, something exacerbated by Scarface himself as he tiredly opens his eyes to look at me.
  
  "'Sup Hero. It's worse than it looks, trust me. Just go get that red cunt for me will ya?" His voice is tired and weak from the blood loss, but otherwise he doesn't seem to be in immediate danger of dying.
  
  Sonofabitch! She tricked me!
  
  With a deep sigh, I figure that it's too late at this point to try finding them. They've had enough time to cover even more space and they are closer to more crowded areas now, so it'll be even easier for them to blend in and hide.
  
  Instead of dwelling on that, I do as Legend told me and focus on what's in front of me.
  
  I spend the next few minutes moving between each of the men on the ground and checking for pulses while also performing what little first aid I know to help stabilise them for the paramedics.
  
  𝘚𝘪𝘨𝘩
  
  What a day.
  
  Now I'll have to give a report on how I got tricked and let two Villains get away. How fun.
  
  Three days later and nothing much has happened since then.
  
  Yet that all changes as after another long day of overtime I make my way home, looking forward to a good night of sleep so that I can repeat the process all over again in the morning.
  
  Only, after entering my house and getting a snack from the fridge I move to the living room to be greeted by an unwelcome surprise.
  
  The room is dark without the light on, only the moon to illuminate it through the windows, yet I don't fail to notice the shadow of a figure sitting in the corner of the room at my work desk.
  
  "Who are you and what are you doing in my house!" I demand, immediately on alert, my power coursing through my veins, ready to react at a moments notice.
  
  𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬.
  
  My lamp flicks on, revealing the figure to be one I vaguely recognise from how she made the news recently.
  
  Dressed in a worn and torn prison uniform with it's edges flayed and some parts crudely stitched back together from where holes have clearly been made. Such as each of her shoulders that have a line of stitching as if she's been stabbed straight through.
  
  Her most notable feature however, will always be her eyes. They scream of danger and death. Eyes of blood will only ever seek blood.
  
  "Tear. I've seen you on the news. What are you doing here?" I once again demand, but she just chuckles in response.
  
  "My my~ Extinction~ that's no way to greet a lady.~ Did your mother not teach you manners?~ Or perhaps she was too bust being dust before she got the chance hm?~" Her words are like acid with the way they burn my ears.
  
  Yet I force myself not to react, to fall into her rhythm. Legend taught me that much. The real dangerous Villains will try to get in your head. You can't let them.
  
  Instead, I ignore her question entirely and try to turn things on her instead.
  
  "Threatening me in my civilian identity is a major violation on the unwritten rules."
  
  "Ah~ but I'm not here to threaten you.~" She responds blithely despite the fact that no matter how powerful she may be, I am stronger.
  
  Energy flows from my skin and coats me in its warm embrace, bringing me a feeling of strength that always makes me uncomfortable with the memories it brings back.
  
  "Be that as it may. What's to stop me from just taking you in right now?" I only ask because from what little I remember hearing of her, she's not supposed to be stupid.
  
  So it stands to reason that there is a reason for me to not take her in right now. Probably something reprehensible too.
  
  "Obviously that would be the hostages.~" She rolls her eyes at me as if the answer was obvious.
  
  My teeth clench together at the fact that there is a Villain right in front of me yet I am morally bound to not do anything to her.
  
  "What do you want." I spit out, hating that I have to play along with this psychopath.
  
  But my words were clearly exactly what she was wating for as she leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees and clasping her fingers in front of her all the while her eyes seem to glow with anticipation and when she speaks her voice is leaking with 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵.
  
  "What I want is simple.~" She all but purrs at me, "you and I are going to play a game.~"
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  I seriously hate myself. I don't even have a proper plan for what the game is going to be. Like, I know where it's going to end, but that doesn't fucking help me write it!
  
  So now I've got to come up with a fucking game that makes sense for Tear's end goal while also being something Extinction would play along with, while also being something that won't be ruined by outside interference.
  
  God I'm such a fucking idiot.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  76 Interlude: Multi 2 Electric Boogaloo
  In all my time as Access, parahuman thief extraordinaire, I have been hired quite a lot of times to steal quite a lot of things.
  
  From random, personal stuff like a phone or an item of sentimental value to more obvious things like property deeds and literal gold that one time.
  
  And really, what else am I going to do with these powers of mine? All I can do is unlock things, not exactly a power suitable for a fistfight.
  
  Point is, it's nothing new for me to be hired to relieve someone of something.
  
  Which is exactly what makes this job stand out from the others, because for once I haven't been hired to take something but to 𝘥𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳 instead.
  
  Or maybe plant is a better word. I can't be sure since I don't know what exactly is inside the manilla folder I've been told to deliver, only that I'm getting paid a lot of money to make sure it is sitting on a specific desk only at midnight when the 20th ticks over to the 21st.
  
  Frankly speaking, I don't 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 to know what's inside the folder.
  
  I've managed to make a living by not asking questions and someone who is willing to spend a hundred grand to deliver a folder is not someone I want to be unhappy with me, whoever they are.
  
  So, at midnight I do exactly as told. I sneak into the building specified, the locks all clicking open as I approach, not a single alarm being set off, if there even are alarms and I leave the folder on the desk specified.
  
  Then I simply leave and go home.
  
  They already paid me upfront, another reason I don't want them upset at me. Because anyone willing to pay one hundred grand upfront is clearly not worried about being crossed, which means you don't fucking cross them.
  
  Maybe I'm just a coward, but actually doing the job is easy and doesn't result in anyone wanting to kill me, probably, don't shoot the messenger and all that, so it's a no brainer really.
  
  I make it home without trouble and quickly make my way over to my computer so that I can spend a few minutes staring at my bank account before going to sleep.
  
  So many zeroes...
  
  As the leader of the locale Protectorate, Jemal often finds himself getting stressed on the behalf of others, namely the Heroes under him.
  
  Extinction especially.
  
  Not just because of his frankly awful trigger, but also because the higher ups want constant assurances that he is in good mental health and not going to turn villain.
  
  No one wants another Sphere incident after all.
  
  But happily Extinction is generally doing well. He always has an air of depression around him, but it's been getting better every week.
  
  The more people he helps the better he feels and that is something that I truly admire about him. He is kind to a fault and so full of guilt that he is willing to do just about anything to help others.
  
  It's both pitiable and admirable at the same time.
  
  The point is, he is generally morose but otherwise calm and happy to help. Hence why it is so concerning that today seems to be an exception.
  
  He came in today looking tense and worried, like something hideous is about to happen and he can do nothing to prevent it.
  
  Suffice to say, that is an incredibly worrying expression to see on a Blaster of his level's face.
  
  Worse yet, despite him being a generally open person, when asked if anything was troubling him he only gave a terse "everything's fine" before ending the conversation.
  
  Obviously, everything is not fine. But I don't want to push him, so I figured I'll let the Director know that something might be wrong and deal with it then.
  
  Who knows? Maybe he just had a really bad coffee or something. A man can hope.
  
  Unfortunately, that hope only lasted until about seven in the afternoon.
  
  Extinction and I usually do our patrols solo, but I insisted on him having a partner this time and as the only one who can keep up with his flying speed, that left the two of us together when the call came in.
  
  "Console to Jet, we have a report of a bank robbery happening down on 27th. Suspect is reportedly a cape in prison garments and a clown mask, identity unconfirmed but suspected to be a Changer/Brute from Columbus. She has a history with a similar instance that was resolved peacefully, so both of you are to head over and try talking her down. Though do keep in mind that she is noted to be deceitful and exceedingly dangerous, so proceed with caution, over."
  
  I remember hearing about that story on the news, about how she surrendered without a fight and no one knew why. Until a couple days later and that tragedy happened.
  
  Then she went over to New York and fought the damn Butcher a few times just for fun apparently.
  
  Obviously, I am not overly happy about someone like her being in my city, especially if she is really planning on doing something similar to what she did in Columbus.
  
  To put it simply, she is not going to a cell here. The first thing that is going to happen once she locked in a box is that I am going to fly that box straight to the birdcage myself, damn what anyone else says.
  
  However despite all of that, the look I see on Claude's face is not one that matches mine. Instead, there seems to be a sort of grim determination radiating off of him, like he knew this was coming or something.
  
  Now that thought is a scary one so I hurry to end the conversation with Console so I can check with him.
  
  "Roger that Console, we'll be there in a minute." That done I reach out to Extinction's arm before he can blast away and I look him in the eye, doing my best to convey how important it is that he answer honestly. "Extinction. What is going on?"
  
  The question is vague, but I know he knows what I mean, which makes what he actually says all the more unnerving.
  
  He doesn't respond immediately, just looking solemnly back at me before he turns away, as if he can't bare to see me, and focuses in the direction of the bank being robbed.
  
  "Let's go. We have a job to do." Is all he says before shaking off my arm and blasting away, making me spit out a curse even as I engage my own power to follow after him.
  
  God I really hope this terrible feeling growing in the pit of my stomach is not prophetic in any way.
  
  Sarah Livsey is not having a good day.
  
  Her brother Reggie has been drifting away from her more and more as of late and she doesn't know why.
  
  All she knows is that it sucks. School sucks. Maybe it's just her being a moody teenager, but everything just seems to suck.
  
  So when she came across another link from 'Fool' while browsing through PHO after school, forgive her if she clicked it.
  
  She remembers what happened last time and frankly she hasn't been the same since.
  
  Something about watching real people literally get torn to pieces really fucks with you.
  
  Yet, like a car crash, you can't bring yourself to look away.
  
  But that's not the only reason for her tuning in. Her life is being really sucky recently so even if it's a horrible thing to do and she's going to be hating herself for it afterwards, maybe watching other people having a sucky time of their own will make her feel better.
  
  Not in a sadistic way though, just in that it's an assurance that the world isn't simply out to get her specifically. That the universe hates everyone equally.
  
  Either way, she has been sitting on her phone for the past half hour as her computer shows the livestream which thus far is just a black screen with a chibi style clown doing a two frame dance and nothing else except for the slowly rising view counter.
  
  There is even a live chat this time that seems to have given everyone a random number, probably for the sake of anonymity. But there are too many people sending too many messages, so she doesn't bother trying to read or participate in it.
  
  Eventually, the screen changes. It goes static for a moment before changing to show Fool's mask in all it's lacking glory. He is dressed like a clown after all, not exactly the epitome of intimidation by image alone.
  
  "Greetings!~ My dear viewers!~ Such a pleasure it is to host you all once again.~" As he dramatically swings his arms around, ending with them over his chest like he is deeply moved, Sarah's phone rapidly finds itself set down by her side as her focus hones in on the probably insane Clown.
  
  "Now, I'm sure you are all curious about what today's show will be all about, but don't expect a repeat!~ Things won't be quite the same as last time.~ For one, you will have to go without my delightful commentary. I know, I know, it is truly a tragedy, but needs a must and all that.
  
  "You see, today's show is going to be something quite special and I simply won't be able to keep up!~ Thus, I am going to give you dear viewers all the background details now so that we may simply enjoy the show together!~"
  
  Sarah doesn't even realise how intensely she was focusing on his words until he pauses to take a breath and she corrects her posture, mindful about slouching too much.
  
  "First of all I want to give a special thanks to the lovely Tear who has once again organised this exciting show for us. Well, mostly for herself, but she's happy to let us enjoy it too anyway, so can I get some love in the chat for her?~"
  
  Amusingly enough, a majority of the chat does actually fly by filled with hearts and other more detailed declarations of love, only interrupted every few messages by another who is clearly less of a fan.
  
  Though one has to wonder what they are doing here if they think she's, and I quote, a 'reprehensible and vile being that should have a Kill Order by now'.
  
  After a short pause, Fool continues where he left off.
  
  "Now! The backstory! I shall begin by introducing today's players.~ On one side is the lovely, the scary, the Clown of all time who truly needs no introduction, TEAR!" As he shouts her name, the screen splits in half with one side showing Fool and the other a rather impressive photo of Tear, taken while she was off fighting Butcher.
  
  "Believe it or not, but our crowd favourite is actually the underdog in this show!~ Because on the other side is a man of pure destructive might! A man who, upon first unlocking his power managed to turn his entire hometown into a molten crater! With the power to manipulate a specific type of energy that puts him almost at the level of Legend himself! It is none other than Denver's own EXCTINTION!"
  
  The screen changes again, this time with Fool's half being replaced with another impressive photo, this one of a man dressed in a pure white suit, decorated only with some black accents so as to avoid the white being too overpowering. In the image he is floating in the air with the moon behind him as an aura of blue plasma like energy dances around him.
  
  Then a big VS appears between the two pictures with a brief, poor quality animation of sparks flying.
  
  It's amazing how they can make something so serious in real life seem so stupid and silly.
  
  A moment later however, the screen goes back to showing Fool.
  
  "Now you know the players it's time to know the game! This one is a lot more simple than the last one with far less players, but I have no doubt that it will be far more exciting.~ I've even had to set up a bunch of drones all over the place just to record it, because I have no doubt that a simple camera will work this time around. As for the game itself? Well it's simple~ Tear has to rob a bank and Extinction has to stop her. It's old school baby! Classic Hero Villain action!~"
  
  It really is a throwback too. Villains don't really rob banks anymore. Not only are there just better ways for them to make money but thanks to it happening so much, banks don't hold nearly as much money in one place these days, so there just isn't really much point from a financial perspective.
  
  Clearly, they are only doing it for the theatrics.
  
  Still, that doesn't change the way Sarah and many others around the globe, though mostly America, watch with bated breathes as the screen flashes once more and changes to show the inside of a bank lobby.
  
  The camera shows the lobby to be mostly empty with only a single woman sitting in the middle of it playing cards and dressed like a prisoner, as if she's already given up and is ready to be arrested or something.
  
  Nobody really believes that's going to happen.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  I have been hyping myself up mentally for the next fight and I am gonna be so mad at myself if it doesn't live up to what I have in my mind.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  77 To Live, One Must Know Death
  Flip.
  
  Flip.
  
  Flip.
  
  Shuffle.
  
  Despite the mediative effect solitaire generally has on me, it fails utterly in slowing the thumping of my heart.
  
  I was hired to do a job here in Denver, and quite frankly I intend to go above and beyond what is expected of me.
  
  My actions here will be the final act to have my Clowns truly accepted as a legitimate group that those in the underworld can no longer write off as just another band of nobodies destined to disappear with time.
  
  So with this being our supposed 'first impression', at least the first impression that truly matters, I want to ensure it is a powerful and long lasting one.
  
  That's why my plan for destabilising the area is so all encompassing and by the time it's done the Elite will have an easier time setting up shop than they ever have before.
  
  However.
  
  My grand plan has very little risks and I fully expect everything to work out as I have envisioned. The only, single problem, is today.
  
  This part of the plan? This part is honestly pretty stupid and really isn't all about doing with the job itself.
  
  I just couldn't help myself. I want to have a little bit of extra fun.
  
  However there is a very real chance that I will die today.
  
  That's to be expected though.
  
  After all, a game is no fun if there isn't even a chance that you will lose.
  
  My thoughts are interrupted by a solid thud, quickly followed by another and when I raise my head to look back at the entrance to the bank I see a pair of heroes standing valiantly in the face of evil.
  
  Though, only one of them holds my interest.
  
  I hear this banks security guards sigh in relief at their arrival but I ignore them and start getting to my feet.
  
  "Surrender yourself Tear! Put your hands behind your back and lie on the ground, no one needs to get hurt." The other guy says, but my blood is pumping in my ears and I fail to pay him any mind.
  
  I barely even remember the plan I came up with to at least make sure that my fun actually helps with the greater plot at play here.
  
  Both of my hands find themselves in front of me as I offer them together to the heroes, ready to be cuffed.
  
  "Yikes!~ seems like you got me.~ Well there's nothing for it then~ I guess I surrender.~ I'd hate to have to fight you guys~ I know when I am outmatched so don't worry, I won't fight ba-"
  
  𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘥. 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘮.
  
  The sound of the fist hitting me is only outmatched by the sound of me crashing into the wall behind me and cratering it.
  
  Heh. That hurt.
  
  My smile starts to grow enough that it feels like my cheeks are going to rip as I, as well as everyone else, turn to stare at Extinction.
  
  His face is stone cold, not showing a hint of emotion as he lowers his steaming fist down from it's striking position.
  
  Before he can do anything else, his partner quickly wraps his arms around him, locking him in place as he screams straight into his ear.
  
  "What the hell are you doing!? She already surrendered!"
  
  But I know exactly what he is doing.
  
  "𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺 𝘢 𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘦."
  
  𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘧𝘵 𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘺, 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘰 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘴𝘵.
  
  "𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘐 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺 𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘴?" 𝘏𝘦 𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘴 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘵𝘩 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘳.
  
  𝘚𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭, 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘳𝘶𝘥𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘺.
  
  "𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘪𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘮𝘣𝘴 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘳. 𝘐'𝘮 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧?"
  
  𝘈𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘳𝘺 𝘩𝘶𝘧𝘧 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘪𝘳 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘹𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘈𝘯𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘮 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘥𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘯𝘦𝘶𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥.
  
  𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘺 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘵, 𝘴𝘰 𝘐 𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳.
  
  "𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵. 𝘋𝘰. 𝘠𝘰𝘶. 𝘞𝘢𝘯𝘵." 𝘏𝘦 𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘦𝘦𝘵𝘩 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘐 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘳.
  
  "𝘚𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦! 𝘛𝘰𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘸 𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘰𝘣 𝘢 𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘬. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘮𝘺 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘷𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘯. 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘴 𝘷𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴 𝘳𝘰𝘣 𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘴 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘭𝘭." 𝘐 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘺 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘱𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘰𝘧𝘧 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦.
  
  "𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘥𝘰 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰?" 𝘏𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘶𝘱 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘫𝘢𝘸 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘮𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘺 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘩𝘪𝘮.
  
  𝘈𝘭𝘢𝘴, 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘴.
  
  "𝘖𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘺 𝘰𝘯𝘦." 𝘐 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘮 𝘢𝘴 𝘐 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘺 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘰𝘳, 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘧𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘰𝘳. 𝘔𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘵𝘴 𝘢 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭 90 𝘥𝘦𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘐 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘳𝘰𝘭𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘺 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺.
  
  "𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘦." 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘦, 𝘢 𝘴𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘭𝘪𝘱𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵.
  
  I shake of the memory and pull myself out of the wall.
  
  It's a stupid thing of me to do, to get him to actually try and kill me but that's exactly what makes it fun!
  
  It's helpful for my plans too, because the media love nothing more than shitting on heroes so they will be swarming to write some scathing article about a hero going bonkers.
  
  Especially one with a past such as his.
  
  It's practically perfect media bait.
  
  Even funnier is the fact that he could totally call my bluff. I don't have any bombs set up anywhere.
  
  Still, I can think about all of that later if I even survive today. For now I need to put my all into this fight if I want to come out on top and I couldn't be happier about it.
  
  I don't bother with holding anything back like I did with Butcher. Twin bursts of flowing energy erupt from my back forming my wings, quickly followed by my lovely ribbons, all six of them making themselves known behind me, waving around passively.
  
  Following that, deep, dark chitinous armour starts to grow out of my body, covering my torso and legs while an even thicker layer grows out over my shoulders to cover my arms in slick muscles.
  
  The arms are nothing like when I first awoke them. They are much more compact, less like a gorilla's with the excess mass turning into wicked claws and a razor sharp sword like protrusion coming out from each of the elbows, long enough to reach my head when my arms are hanging limp.
  
  As they are finishing surrounding me, a thick fleshy tail sprouts from my lower back, swinging out and crushing a desk into splinters as it stretches itself.
  
  Finally, the solid blood rises to cover my face and for a moment the world turns dark. That quickly changes as I force eyes to grow on the mask.
  
  Except the mask is different as well.
  
  Instead of seven eyes, I have one singular eye taking up the upper half of my face but inside of that eye there are ten separate pupils, each moving independently.
  
  I designed it to be as creepy as possible and am pretty happy with how it turned out. Another plus is that I can focus on ten separate things at once. At least visually.
  
  My eyesight doesn't really change my multitasking capabilities.
  
  With my power finally being given a chance to fully stretch its legs I can't help but taunt Extinction, too excited by the prospect of a fight I might lose to really care about anything else anymore.
  
  "My oh my~ you're going to have to try harder than that, 𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘰~" My distorted voice brings their attention back on me and a series of gasps ring out at my monstrous form.
  
  For extinction though, his eyes only widen slightly before his face returns to that of solemn determination.
  
  Dismissively he pushes the other meat to the side and in a blur of movement he is in front of me faster than I was expecting with a trail of blue energy following behind him.
  
  His right palm lashes out to my chest, impacting and denting it inwards. At the same time, that same blue energy shines at the point of impact and the next thing I know the world is a blur.
  
  I feel myself crash through multiple walls before I am able to stop myself by digging my ribbons into the ground, leaving six long grooves in the road where I now stand.
  
  Bringing a clawed hand to my chest I find not a single blemish, as expected.
  
  Looking up, I see Extinction making his way to me and I feel the lower half of my mask crack open to allow my ecstatic smile to be seen by the world.
  
  No more words are spoken and none are needed. Whatever happens, one of us is going to die today.
  
  He moves first once again, rushing at me with speed few could even see.
  
  Fortunately I have rather good eyesight.
  
  Before he can get close a pair of bone spikes launch out of my wings at him yet they only leave craters in the earth as he easily dodges.
  
  But as he does so my ribbons each lash out at him, intending to dice him to pieces.
  
  His arms move so fast as to blur as they parry each blow, the blue coating of energy surrounding him causing my ribbons to be burnt on contact.
  
  Moving even faster than before, he rushes past my extended ribbons and rears back another hit, only to have to quicky twist and raise both arms in front of his chest to block as my powerful tail smashes into him.
  
  A sonic boom spreads from the impact and Extinction's body is flung away, crashing into and through a car before I start chasing after him with my full speed, hoping to capitalise on my hit.
  
  I reach him as he is halfway through a building and reach out to grab his leg, intending to use his momentum to rip it off.
  
  However right as my hand is over his ankle hie entire body suddenly spins until he is facing me from above.
  
  His energy, surrounding him like a borealis starts to change from blue to a more pinkish hue, gathers around his arm and I barely manage to bring my arms up in time to form a cross as his fist comes raining down on my like a meteor.
  
  𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘮!
  
  The earth shakes and the building around us starts crumbling from the force of the blow.
  
  Both of my arms have been blown to smithereens down to the bicep but he didn't get off easy either.
  
  While he was attacking me, instead of bringing them to defend me I poised my ribbons to pierce above me right at him and while most of them did miss, he is now sporting a rather nasty gash in his side and a hole in his left leg.
  
  Heh. gotcha.
  
  Ignoring my arms as they heal, I use a ribbon to push myself up from the ground all the while I launch another pair of bone projectiles at him, this time shaped as crescent moons rather than spikes.
  
  He still manages to dodge them with ease by simply flying higher but I use the opportunity to launch myself at him.
  
  My tail splits into hundreds of smaller versions that each rush forward and cocoon around him.
  
  Yet before they can do anything else, an explosion of pink energy washes over me as my tail is reduced to atoms and my body is flung into another building and out the other side.
  
  Without even giving me time to gather my bearings from that, Extinction appears in front of me, the heat of his aura melting a hole straight through the concrete before he even touches it, allowing easy passage for him to grab my face and keep moving.
  
  I feel the heat from his hand start to fry my skull and his grip threaten to crush it as the wall behind me is melted in an instant with half of the building being immediately reduced to nothing as we pass through it.
  
  Then another, then another. Only once I am starting to feel my mask starting to liquidate and roll off of me does he change things up, dropping us lower and digging a long trench in the ground with the back of my skull.
  
  Incapable of conscious thought I allow my instincts to take over and the next moment my tail rapidly regenerates, pushing straight into the ground and causing us to flip over.
  
  He loses his grip from the unexpected movement and I don't miss out on the opportunity to bring both of my clawed hands down on him, piercing both of them deep into his gut, causing him to cry out in pain even as we keep flying forward, digging an even deeper hole in the ground.
  
  But that's not enough so I use the first weapon I can think of and reach down with my mouth open wide, biting a chunk out of his right shoulder.
  
  Before I can do anything more than swallow, the ground beneath us instantly transitions from grey to yellow as an intense blast of heat slams into my chest, launching me straight up at a speed faster than I have ever moved before.
  
  For a moment, not a thought passes through my head and all that exists for me is the whistling of wind.
  
  Then I open my eye and am greeted with a sight of destruction only matched by the Endbringers.
  
  Starting from directly below me and extending at least a full city block in every direction is an expanse of molten yellow liquid.
  
  The only thing moving inside of the massive pit of death is what looks like a small ball of purple light from my position up in the sky, so far above the tallest building that I feel like I might hit a plane.
  
  However that ball of light rapidly starts growing in size until it blurs past me, coming to a stop right as I reach the apex of my flight and in that single instant of weightless that proceeds a fall, I get a good look at the being beside me.
  
  His suit has been long reduced to dust, just the same as my own likely has under my armour. It allows me a clear sight of the cracks spreading throughout his body like veins, each pulsing with unfathomable energy.
  
  His eyes spark and glow red with rage and he raises both of his arms above me, clasped and ready to deliver a hammer blow on my back.
  
  For some reason, my mind flashes back to a doctors appointment I had when I was a kid.
  
  Heh. My smile grows much more plaid at the amusing thought.
  
  This will only hurt a little.
  
  𝘽𝙊𝙊𝙈!
  
  The skies scream out in agony and the clouds flee in fear as the thunderous sound rings out across the entire city as every single person below looks up in awe at the supernova that decorates the skies, shining in a myriad of colours like the descent of a God.
  
  From the star in the sky a blur launches towards the ground, trailing smoke behind them. However another figure, one made of pure energy shining pink follows after it.
  
  Extinction positions himself below Tear right as they reach the hight of the cities tallest buildings and he lashes out with his good leg in a vicious knee strike, a second smaller supernova exploding into existence as if to adorn the first.
  
  However, even as her body is torn in half by the blow Tear manages to let out one last attack before what is left of her body impacts the ground, shortly followed by Extinction himself who coughs out a globule of blood and struggles to look down at the spike of bone sticking out from his chest before he too collapses to the ground beside her.
  
  For the people of Denver, this day will forever be known as 'the day the sun bloomed twice'.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  hmmm, so, what did you think of the fight?
  
  Honestly I thought it'd be longer and I hoped it would be better. Granted, I don't have the same icky kind of feeling as the chap with yumiko getting converted. this time it's more just the feeling of things not living up to my expectations. :(
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  78 Morning After 2 Electric Boogaloo
  All around there is only steaming rubble forming a wasteland hundreds of metres wide.
  
  If not for the ruined buildings surrounding this wasteland and the undamaged buildings behind even them, it would be understandable for one to confuse the scene with that of a warzone rather than the city centre that it is.
  
  In the distance the sounds of hundreds of sirens echo faintly, growing louder as they close in on what could only be the location of a natural disaster. Except there is nothing natural about it.
  
  However, walking on this barren stretch of land is a single man. He has a bag slung over his shoulder and is dressed in fire retardant clothes and boots to resist the still molten floor that gives way under his every bootstep, like snow's exact opposite.
  
  After walking for a short while, the man eventually comes across a macabre sight.
  
  The remains of a body that can only be described as a desiccated corpse. It's lower half is entirely missing, leaving it's sick, grey organs to trail out from it's visible ribs.
  
  What skin is left is dry and grey, clearly belonging to a corpse, even the bodies hair has lost all shine and turned a muted white, splayed around the wrinkled, dried up and eyeless face.
  
  Despite the bodies nudity, one wouldn't even be able to tell it's gender from sight alone, as there is nothing but skin and bones to see.
  
  Truly, it can only be described as the sight of a corpse long since passing the point of being able to be saved.
  
  The man audibly sighs and drops his bag on the floor beside him while he himself kneels down next to the body.
  
  "You sure know how to cause a mess huh? Now if only you were a little less reckless in how you run from your own boredom." He sighs one more time and brings his arms forward to pick up the body.
  
  "Idiot." His soft whisper is followed by him putting the body in his bag and zipping it up.
  
  When he stands, he casts a quick glance around and spots another body lying not too far away, this one looking far more fresh.
  
  With one final put upon sigh, the man walks over and picks up the body, taking them both away to places unknown.
  
  "This is Christine Everhart reporting at the scene of what locals are already starting to call 'a scene of two suns'. Yesterday, at approximately ten minutes past seven in the afternoon the Hero known as Extinction was called in response to a bank robbery happening in the US Bank Branch on 27th Street.
  
  "According to eyewitness testimonies, he arrived to the scene with Denver's Protectorate leader, Jet and was greeted by the would-be robber themselves, a known Villain who was recently seen fighting with the Butcher in New York.
  
  "Eyewitnesses report that the Villain actually surrendered immediately after seeing the Heroes. It should be noted that on the 29th of December last year this very same Hero did something similar, where she started robbing a bank only to surrender as soon as the Heroes arrived.
  
  "However, instead of accepting her surrender, Extinction chose to attack, hitting her hard enough that she broke the wall of the building itself. That was all our eyewitnesses saw before they smartly chose to escape the building.
  
  "It is unknown what exactly followed or the motivation behind it, but Extinction proceeded to attack Tear with lethal intent and while their fight was short it was still incredibly destructive. So far the initial estimates for the property damage caused is at $300 million dollars with that number expected to increase once everything has bee accounted for.
  
  "But that is not all that has been lost. More than an entire city blocks worth of land has been completely destroyed, including Denver Union Station and it's train tracks. Most importantly, the loss of life from this tragic event is already confirmed to be in the thousands and that number is rising rapidly with the number of injured being too high to have an accurate count as of now.
  
  "There is talk of building a monument to remember the lives unjustly lost today once the rebuilding efforts begin, but the question on my mind, and I'm sure a lot of you are thinking the same thing, is. Why did this happen? Unfortunately, so far no one seems to have an answer to this or to why a Hero would cause such devastation.
  
  "So far the PRT is refusing to answer any questions as they conduct their own investigations. But what does it say about them that something like this happened on their watch without them even knowing the cause? The PRT has a lot to answer for with this disaster and we here at CNN will do everything in our power to ensure that you, the people, are not left in the dark.
  
  "That is all for now. Expect a more thorough update at five once we've had time to sort out all of the details. This has been Christine Everhart, CNN. Back to you in the studio."
  
  Once the reporter finishes their piece, the TV clicks off, allowing the now black screen to reflect the contents of the room.
  
  It's nothing extraordinary. Just an ordinary living room for all intents and purposes with only a single man sitting on the sofa in front of the TV who leans back into his seat with and raises a hand to drag his palm over his face with a tired sigh.
  
  "Look mom, I'm on TV.~"
  
  In response to the weak and dry voice, the man jumps to his feet with incredible speed and spins around to face an open doorway, where a sickly looking woman is leaning, with a shout on his lips.
  
  "Lusia!"
  
  As for the now named Lusia, there is only a single persistent thought going through her head at the man's shout.
  
  𝘖𝘸𝘸𝘸𝘸.
  
  My head hurts so fucking much already. Adding loud noises on top of that is not pleasant.
  
  I open my mouth to greet Jinx but before I can even get a word out he is already in front of me, wrapping me in a tight hug that actually does hurt a little even though he is just a normal human in terms of strength.
  
  God, I guess I don't just feel like absolute shit if this is any indication. Guess I still need more time to heal then.
  
  "You are such an idiot, you know that? I thought you were going to die." He mumbles into my shoulder and my smile grows warm as I return the hug for a bit.
  
  "Alright, alright. That's enough already. I'm fine, ok? Now would you mind helping me fill in some blanks please?" I state as I break off the hug and slowly make my way over to the couch on unsteady feet.
  
  "You're fine? Fine? Bitch please." He scoffs at me and I can't help the chuckle that comes out of me as he does so, making him give me a dry glare.
  
  "Do you have any idea the condition you were in when I got to you? The fact that you're even alive is a fucking miracle."
  
  I only pay half a mind to his ranting as I get comfortable sinking into the couch and try to fight off the migraine trying to tear my brain into pieces.
  
  "Yeah yeah," I wave him off with a smile. "I got better though so it's fine. Now do you mind helping me out or do you just want to moan at me like you're my mom?"
  
  Upsettingly, he doesn't seem to see the humour of the situation like I do and he moves to stand in front of me with his arms crossed.
  
  "Maybe I should act like your mom if you're going to be so reckless. Why should I leave you to your own devices if this is going to be the result hm?"
  
  Ok now this is starting to be a bit annoying.
  
  My humour leaves me but my smile remains, turning far less friendly and far more subtly threatening as I return his glare with one of my own.
  
  "Because I do what I want, not what I'm told. And if you want to be my mom then fine, I'll just have to rip your dick off so you can play the part. How does that sound, hm?"
  
  We hold eye contact for a brief moment before he breaks it by turning his sight to the floor and letting out a deep sigh. He moves over to me and collapses onto the sofa while his entire body relaxes as if a great burden was lifted.
  
  "Haaah, sorry. It's just. You were so- I just." He stops himself and sighs once more and when he speaks again, his voice is quiet but much more composed. "You are the first friend I've had in 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 Lucy. When I saw you, you looked like a corpse and I'm not saying that figuratively. You were missing everything below your ribs and had basically zero muscle mass and your organs looked all necrotic and gross."
  
  His head turns to me and I meet his stare without a word.
  
  "I thought you were dead. That my curse finally got to you and that I was going to be all alone again. So I'm sorry for acting like that earlier, I let my fear of losing you get the better of me."
  
  Damn, that almost sounds like he's confessing to me or something.
  
  I don't like this whole serious atmosphere though, so I decide to bring back some of the levity that I love, while also asking a semi important question.
  
  "Oh my~ it almost sounds like you love me or something.~ You know, I'm quite weak right now, if you were to force yourself on me I'm sure there is nothing I would be able to do about it.~"
  
  I finish the sentence with a suggestive wink to match my grin but he just deadpans at me with his lip twitching up slightly.
  
  "I'm good, thanks. I firmly believe in the age old adage of 'don't stick your dick in crazy'. I care about you as a friend sure, so if you yourself have some hidden feelings you are to shy to confess, I'm afraid I shall not be returning them."
  
  Heh. A snort leaves me at his words as a grin of his own comes to mirror mine.
  
  "Gah!" I exclaim while putting my hands over my heart as if wounded. "Mine heart doth bleed at thine cruel and merciless attacks of the soul. How couldst thee say things of such unfathomable, uhh, fuck. Um, meanness?" I finish with an awkward chuckle as I fail to think of a good Shakespearian ending to my exaggerated act.
  
  We both share a laugh for a moment before I speak up again, my voice sharp and dangerous.
  
  "Hey, what do you mean 'don't stick your dick in crazy'? Are you calling me crazy?" I accuse.
  
  "Yup. Batshit." He doesn't even hesitate, even popping the 'p' and looking completely unapologetic about it but my face quickly morphs into that of a victorious smirk.
  
  "Well, that should be fine anyway. After all, who said anything about you being the one to do the 'poking'?" I ask with a raised brow while sweat starts gathering on his forehead.
  
  "Uhhh. I'm gay?" His response brings about a momentary silence before neither of us can take it anymore.
  
  "Hahahahahahahahahaha!" We both burst out laughing and it feels good to do so, as if the laughter is soothing my pain.
  
  If the way Jinx seems to relax is any indication, he feels the same way about it.
  
  Eventually however, we get back to the earlier conversation.
  
  "So all I remember is up to my fight with Extinction. I remember flying in the sky and seeing him next to me. Everything after that is a blank up 'till a few minutes ago where I wake up here."
  
  His face shows that he isn't entirely comfortable with the topic of conversation, but he answers anyway.
  
  "Well, that was probably the hit that literally everyone in the city saw the results of and was probably what had you so fucked up. There's not really much to say after that. I was already in the area and I had some people move to slow down anyone else from arriving so I could pick you up. That was about 17 hours ago and since then you've just been sleeping and healing."
  
  If I really was as fucked up as he says then it's probably only thanks to my regenerative abilities that I'm even still alive. Jinx as well of course, for binging me some place safe to heal.
  
  I'm still feeling weaker than I think I have ever been since getting my powers, but I am also absolutely starving so I'll probably be fine after binge eating a little bit.
  
  Speaking of food. I mean. Speaking of people.
  
  "What about Extinction? Did he survive? 'Cuz despite everything I think I could get him to join us. I think he'd even fit in pretty well once I get him to realise he doesn't need to burden himself with useless things. What do you think?"
  
  I can't hide my excitement at the thought of him joining us, because while yes we did fight, but I'm sure I can convince him of how fun it was to let loose.
  
  Not to mention, if he joins us then it won't only be a massive benefit to the Clowns as a whole but then I'll be able to fight him whenever I want! It's like what I could have had with Butcher.
  
  Great, now I'm sad. Why did I have to think about him?
  
  "... About that. Extinctions body hasn't been found. People are saying that he probably overwhelmed his Manton Limit or something with that last attack and blew himself to smithereens. So unless you somehow made friends with the faerie Queen without me noticing, I don't think that's likely."
  
  Damn, that sucks. Ah well.
  
  He does bring up something interesting though. The faerie Queen.
  
  There are two boogey men in this world, or really boogey women considering neither of them are men.
  
  The one everyone knows is the faerie Queen and her 'court' of dead capes.
  
  She's like Eidolon but statistically far more likely to kill you. By which I mean she will kill you, while Eidolon is the Strongest Hero, so he probably won't.
  
  As for the other boogey woman, well, I don't actually know anything about her. She's an actual boogey woman, rather than just a pants shittingly terrifying cape in that nobody knows jack shit about her.
  
  In fact, I didn't even know about her 'till it came up in conversation with Clara one time. Apparently she's only a boogey woman to capes and all that is known about her is that she is 'the woman in the suit' or 'the woman in a fedora'.
  
  Apparently seeing her is death and that you cannot win no matter what your power is.
  
  Naturally, I am very interested to know if she is even real and whether or not I can meet her, because she sounds like a blast of a time.
  
  "You know." Jinx's contemplative voice brings me out of my thoughts. "You really did almost die. If not for me you would be dead for sure~ and you haven't even said a word of thanks."
  
  I roll my eyes at the little huff that leaves his throat as he finishes speaking.
  
  "Do you really think anything can put me in a situation where I could die without me allowing it? I knew the risk was there and I wouldn't have taken it if I wasn't prepared to pay the price. You can't truly live if you spend all your time fearing death. I taught 𝘺𝘰𝘶 that, remember?"
  
  A moment after I finish speaking I notice his eyes widen minutely and the next words he speaks are whispered faintly as if he is talking to himself rather than me.
  
  "Oh. That's why you explained your whole plan here for your job with the Elite isn't it? So that I could finish it if you died."
  
  I don't bother to answer, choosing instead to just allow myself to relax as I wait for the pain in my stomach to grow enough to motivate me to move and grab myself some food.
  
  Ah, shit. I just remembered that I am actually in the middle of a large scheme and that there are probably people looking for 'me' right now.
  
  Haaah.
  
  With a deep sigh I get to my feet.
  
  Time to eat I guess.
  
  No rest for the wicked and all that.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  This chap is 2.8k words instead of my usual 2k. I thought about cutting it around the 2k mark and using the rest to help me quickly finish another chapter, but eh, fuck it. I'll just force myself to write even more because you all know I hate myself by now lol.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  79 Interlude:Taiyang 2 Electric Boogaloo
  Releasing a low groan, Taiyang Xiao Long leans back into his seat, exhausted by yet another pile of paperwork.
  
  "Damn that madwoman and double damn that walking missile."
  
  After muttering to myself I just close my eyes and try to relax.
  
  Ever since Extinction decided to drop a miniature sun on the city, 𝘵𝘸𝘪𝘤𝘦, things have been incredibly chaotic and the amount of work piling up on my desk has increased enough that I might as well be some kind of desk jockey.
  
  I normally only have to go through a couple of pages a day. It's not like I became a gang lord to do paperwork after all. In fact, one of the main reasons I turned to crime is to avoid this kind of work.
  
  Ah well, needs a must.
  
  Still, everything is falling into chaos.
  
  It's barely been more than 48 hours since it happened and already there are riots on the streets.
  
  It makes sense though. Thousands of people died yesterday and they died to a government sanctioned Hero at that. Each of those people will have families and friends and each of them are evidently unhappy about it.
  
  If it was only that then it wouldn't be such a bad thing, but yesterday my main rival, the Street Lords fractured.
  
  Nobody knows why for sure, but after thinking about it for a subjectively long time I believe that it was simply a case of Bang getting ambitious and attempting a takeover.
  
  In the end however his former boss clearly saw it coming and the only result is that Bang has split off with the other two Blasters to form the 'Young Lords' while the rest of the capes have stayed under their previous banner.
  
  Honestly, having my enemies weakening themselves would normally be a good thing, but with the chaos that is already spreading through the city there just isn't the opportunity to do anything about it.
  
  As if to make things even worse, I 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 haven't heard anything about Lucy since the incident and I'm really starting to worry that she was among the casualties.
  
  That is when my door is burst open by one of my men who is smiling despite breathing heavily as if he ran all the way here.
  
  "What is it Kenchi?" I ask, hoping to get some good news for a change and I am glad to not be disappointed.
  
  "It's Rose Boss! She's back!" Kenchi is one of the guys who really took a liking to Lucy.
  
  Part of it is no doubt simply because of her being both an attractive and fit woman who is also just fun to be around, but a large part of it for most of them is more than simple attraction.
  
  It's that they, like Kenchi, are the ones that took to her CQC lessons like fish to water. I've overheard them talking about how much fun it is, reminding them of messing around in phys-ed when they were at school while also causing them to be noticeably better fighters.
  
  She hasn't even been a member of the family for more than two weeks yet, but I can already tell that she has won the respect of the majority of the men under me, capes included.
  
  More than that though, she has earned their 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱 at the same time. She truly is a born leader and while I would normally be opposed to trusting someone who is still as new as she is, things are different with her.
  
  Ever since that scuffle she and Junior got into a few days back I've known that she is loyal enough.
  
  I remember Junior telling me about it. He was fighting Bang by himself when one of our normals decided to try and help. Bang set out to erase him in response, yet he was spared of his life by Rose who risked her very life to push him away to safety at the cost of her own arm.
  
  She's lucky she can regenerate, however slowly. But if she was just a single foot to the side, she would have been torn apart at an atomic level until nothing was left to heal.
  
  Yet she willingly rolled that dice for the sake of someone who most parahumans would see as simple 'mob' characters, rather than genuine people.
  
  After he told me this, I let Junior know that should anything happen to me, she is to be given the position of leader.
  
  Senior might be annoyed at someone so fresh getting the title, but the simple fact is that no one else has the position and temperament for the job.
  
  Junior is very much a right hand kind of man, Senior is like a general. He would turn the family into a militia, one that would likely not last long. Summer isn't even interested in all this stuff, she only helps the family as a favour to me.
  
  And the less said about Stacy the better. That woman only wants to build more pets, she would allocate the families entire budget to her Tinkering and run us into the ground.
  
  Lucy however, I'm sure that after a brief adjustment period that she could be an even better leader than me. Because as much as I don't like to admit inferiority, my own charisma is simply not a match for hers once she really gets going.
  
  Ah, speak of the devil.
  
  I'm knocked from my thoughts by the sound of footsteps and as I look up I am greeted to the sight of a slightly battered looking Lucy.
  
  She mostly looks the same, her skin is just paler than I remember it and her lips are dry. She looks sick. Normally that wouldn't be too worrisome, but she is a regenerator, so whatever is making her look like that would probably kill a normal person.
  
  However, after using my power to think on it, I decide not to expressly mention her appearance. Despite a lot happening between then and now, it still hasn't been too long since her trigger and I don't want to bring up any bad memories by 'exposing' her weakness.
  
  So instead, I simply greet her with an entirely genuine warm smile.
  
  "Lucy. I'm glad you are ok. With you not answering any calls I feared for the worst. Though I have to ask, where have you been?"
  
  She gives me a weak smile as she moves to take the seat opposite me.
  
  "I got caught up in the recent incident. I was only in the periphery of the damage though, so at least I was only injured instead of dead. I've just been letting myself heal since then until I was well enough that I could actually make it here."
  
  Seeing as nothing bad seems to have happened beyond simply being injured, I allow a relieved smile to grace my features.
  
  "I'm glad. How long do you think it will be until you're back in good health? Things have been getting rather chaotic lately and I could really use an extra pair of competent hands to keep things in order."
  
  Unexpectedly, she makes a somewhat complicated face, causing me to raise an eyebrow questioningly.
  
  "About that Boss. I should be good to go by tomorrow but I was thinking we could do something else instead of just 'keeping things orderly'."
  
  Her face tells me enough of how serious she is so I don't say anything immediately and just stare deep into her eyes.
  
  She matches my stare unwavering, her eyes just as intense as when she first walked through my doors.
  
  "... What do you have in mind exactly?" Despite my question, I'm pretty sure I already know what she is going to say. I just want confirmation from her mouth.
  
  "The city has fallen to chaos as you said but in the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity. I heard about the Lords and how they split in two. It's the perfect opportunity. Our enemies are weak and we are strong. We can take them out before the city has a chance to calm down, while the police are all busy with the riots we will only have to worry about the Heroes, but they will probably be keeping their heads down until their PR department fixes things for them."
  
  Her passionate words draw out a sigh from me.
  
  I have obviously already considered this, but the situation is simply too chaotic. Riots are popping up all over the city and my men are having to act like they are some kind of police officers just to keep us from losing mass amounts of revenue.
  
  Any kind of attack will leave us undefended and could have consequences that just aren't worth the risk
  
  "I'm sorry Lucy, but the situation is just too chaotic. Starting an offence now would end poorly." I can see that she is going to argue the point but I cut her off by explaining further.
  
  "We are the only truly organised gang left in the city yes, but that actually works against us with the current situation. You are only young, so wanting to rush ahead is expected, but you must keep in mind that the now named 'Young Lords' would have the advantage simply due to their lack of organisation. They could, and would, start to use guerrilla tactics with their strong Blasters and there would be little we could actually target of theirs."
  
  Those so called 'Lords' are my enemy and I have spend an inordinate amount of time plotting their downfall, so I do completely understand her desire to rush ahead and strike while we can, but it is simply not worth it.
  
  To be a leader you have to learn when to push the advantage and when to simply stay your hand for the sake of those under you.
  
  This is a lesson that I hope Lucy will learn with all of this, so that she may do better should she succeed me.
  
  Thankfully, instead of lashing out or getting angry, she accepts my words and slumps down into her seat.
  
  As I am thinking of what to say next, my power activates itself at full power and the entire world slows down to a standstill while a vague sense of danger grows in the back of my mind.
  
  I look at Lucy as I try to understand what is going on and in slow motion I see minute changes.
  
  They say that eyes are the window to the soul, and I watch as her eyes slowly seem to change from feeling disappointed to annoyed until they brighten as if she just had an epiphany.
  
  It's then that she turns to look at me and in slow motion I watch as she smiles a smile so foreign to me that I almost don't recognise her.
  
  Then she starts moving and despite how slow it looks under the effects of my power, I know that if I wasn't using it then she would be little more than a blur as she moves far faster than she has shown to be capable of.
  
  I am physically incapable of moving fast enough to avoid her and realisation comes crashing down on me like a bucket of ice water once her eyes start to slowly turn red with pulsing red veins spreading out over her black sclera.
  
  She launches herself over the table and flips so that she lands behind me with her arms around my neck, all in such little time that my face is still showing the same expression as before my power activated itself.
  
  I see.
  
  So all of that was an act then?
  
  Despite myself and the hatred growing in my chest, I can admit to being impressed.
  
  I really had no idea. She had all of us fooled.
  
  I wonder how much of it was even a lie, or if any of it was true in the first place.
  
  I don't bother trying to resist. I recognise those eyes and I understand that I am already dead.
  
  I accepted long ago that I would likely die a bastards death. Though I never thought it would be to someone I trusted.
  
  Oh well. The dead have no need for regrets.
  
  I have to actually force my power to deactivate itself, as if my power is refusing to accept the situation in my place, trying to fight.
  
  Alas, there is no point.
  
  Time returns to normal and for a second I say nothing. I feel the arm around my neck and I know I am dead, but she is not putting in enough force to choke me yet.
  
  Even though she says nothing, I recognise this for what it is.
  
  My final words.
  
  There is only one question I really want to know right now.
  
  "Before I die, I have to know. Was anything you said real? Is there even a single part of you that is the Lucy Kalmana that I came to trust?"
  
  The last words I ever hear are whispered to me with a kind of playful sadism that reeks of insanity and bring a single tear to my eye that never even gets a chance to be shed.
  
  "That's not my name.~"
  
  It was good while it lasted, I suppose.
  
  𝘚𝘯𝘢𝘱!
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Honestly didn't plan this, it was kind of a spur of the moment thing. Like, I always planned for Tai to die, but there was supposed to be this whole thing where she got the Xiao Long to attack the Lords but then I realised that it wouldn't work towards the greater plan, so I decided fuck it, I will stick to Lusia's character and do what I have always done.
  
  I will just write whatever comes to mind and make it up as I go along. Cuz keep in mind, Lusia is basically just as smart as I am, so any plans that she makes she is making up on the spot, because I am writing her and I am making them up on the spot too lol.
  
  Anyway, this arc will get wrapped up soon, then we will be onto arc 3!
  
  Also I am hella tired today for some reason. Like, woke up tied and am still tired, idk why.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  80 Interlude: Xiao Long
  Just saying but the next arc is already getting fun to write, so as of writing this my patrons are 9 chaps (18k words) ahead. Just sayin'
  
  𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬
  
  The door opens and I turn as Rose leaves the Boss' office with a sigh.
  
  "Everything good?" I ask.
  
  I may just be a 'grunt', a glorified doorman, but everyone knows everyone here and Rose never treats us normals any different to the other capes, so we're at least close enough for me to ask if she's doing good.
  
  She gives me a light smile as she closes the door behind her.
  
  "Yeah, just more work, you know how it is right now. Boss says that he needs some privacy right now, so don't let anyone disturb him 'till he says otherwise, kay?"
  
  Obviously I am curious about what he's doing, it's not often that he really closes his door like this, but I know it's not my place to question the Boss so I just nod my head and ask the only question that matters here.
  
  "What should I say to anyone looking for him?"
  
  She doesn't hesitate in her answer, which makes sense since she's presumably just been told the answer before she left the room.
  
  "Just tell them to go to Senior. Speaking of, do you have any idea where he is? I have a message for him."
  
  Makes sense. Probably to tell him about whatever it is the Boss is cooking up.
  
  "Sure I do. He's out back with Carl and his lot."
  
  She thanks me with a smile and heads in the direction indicated. Then I just go back to my job, which consists of sitting around and doing a whole lot of nothing.
  
  Haaah, guard shift sucks.
  
  At least it's safe. Nothing interesting happens on guard shift which is good when in this business 'interesting' generally has a high death toll.
  
  "-and Carl. You make sure that those drugs make it to where they are supposed to be. I want them counted and recounted when they get there, if a single ounce of it gets skimmed of the top then it's your head, got it?"
  
  The small man doesn't even flinch, my threat long since having lost its effectiveness against the man over the years he's been doing the job without a single slipup.
  
  Still, have to maintain appearances.
  
  But before he can give his usual response, we are interrupted by a new yet familiar voice entering the room.
  
  "Yo!~ Senior, got a minute?"
  
  I turn to the side to see Rose approaching me, for all the world like she should be in a hospital bed with how sick she looks.
  
  "Do 𝘺𝘰𝘶? You look like you're about to keel over?"
  
  She just waves away my question as if it's unimportant.
  
  "Got banged up by bad luck. I'll get better. Anyway, you got a minute?" She reiterates her question while tilting her head to Carl.
  
  Clearly she wants a more private word so I give Carl a look and he gets the message immediately.
  
  "Ah, well. I'll just go over there and stare at the wall then, I guess." He sighs as he trudges off and actually does just sit down and stare at the wall.
  
  What a retard.
  
  Still, both Rose and I share a brief smirk at his antics before my face returns to it's typical stern expression that I do my best to maintain.
  
  Image is important.
  
  "What's going on?" I ask.
  
  "Boss is calling a meeting on the down low. He wants you to get a couple of your better fighters together, then head down to Stacy's workshop to let her know and bring her along."
  
  I nod at the information, curious about the purpose of the meeting but figuring it will be explained when I get there.
  
  Honestly, with everything happening, there are so many things the meeting could be about, but since he wants fighters then I guess Boss is expecting a fight.
  
  "Sure. Where and when?" I ask, getting straight to the point to avoid wasting time.
  
  She starts to turn around as she answers, making me think that she probably has to go and let a few other people know and is probably in a rush.
  
  "The yellow room and basically now. Just get the guys and gal and go straight there. I'll probably be just behind you and Rebecca will meet you on the way to Stacy's."
  
  Finished with her piece, she quickly makes her way back through the door she came in and I turn to shout at Carl.
  
  "Oi! Get your ass over here!" He does. "Something's come up so we'll finish this later. Just follow what we usually do and give me a call if anything urgent comes up, I need to go find Micky."
  
  Carl just nods his head and is smart enough to not ask anything about what exactly has 'come up'. Not that I would really have an answer.
  
  "Sure thing."
  
  "Hmm hm hmm hm Rock you!~" Humming and mumbling along to the song, I focus on the oven in font of me and bend down to open it, allowing the sweet, sweet smell of cookies to slam into my face.
  
  Ahhh~ this never gets old.
  
  Looks like they're just about done too.
  
  I'm sure Lucy will appreciate a little welcome back gift. The little cutie should be done meeting with Tai soon, then she can at least come and get a snack, maybe stay and chat if Tai doesn't give her something else to do.
  
  I swear, that man spends far too much time thinking about things.
  
  All work no play makes for a boring day. But I suppose it's that dedication to family that attracted me to him in the first place.
  
  Otherwise I wouldn't be willing to use my powers as extra muscle for him. At least he is understanding enough that he only ever asks me to help if he really needs it in a fight and he doesn't try to involve me in any of the actual criminal stuff.
  
  It's really not my cup of tea, but he's a real sweetheart beneath that gang lord persona of his, so at least I know I'm not helping to facilitate anything too cruel.
  
  Unlike those so called 'Lords' who do nothing but ruin whatever territory they hold.
  
  Bunch of Spanish assholes, those lot.
  
  I'm distracted from my thoughts by the buzzing of my phone and I check the caller ID to see the adorable little ball of seriousness that is Lucy.
  
  How fortunate, I was just thinking about her. Guess she's free now then.
  
  I pick up the phone with a smile and quickly let out a greeting before she can get so much as a word in.
  
  "Hello!~ Little Lucy dear~ it's so good to have you back! I swear, you have no idea how worried I was, but you're here now and I made cookies! So come over so I don't eat them all, unless you want me to get fat?~"
  
  My words come out in a rush and I am left short of breath when I finally stop, allowing me to clearly hear the young woman's supressed laughter.
  
  Score!
  
  "You are constantly cooking cookies, I think you're gonna either get fat anyway or somehow develop a power that lets you turn cookies into power."
  
  I chuckle at the thought of cookie powered parahumans but quickly refocus as she keeps talking.
  
  "But as much as I would like to snack with you, business comes first so we'll have to shelve it for later."
  
  I'm glad that this is a phone call rather than in person otherwise she would definitely tease me for pouting.
  
  "I know you're pouting right now." Her dry voice causes me to freeze in place."
  
  Drat!
  
  Quickly! Deflect!
  
  "No!" I shout before freezing again.
  
  What kind of counter argument is that!?
  
  Her knowing chuckle just makes the situation even more embarrassing.
  
  "Mou~ I wanted to do something nice and yet you're being so mean to me!~" I whine at her, mentally cursing at the unfairness of the world.
  
  Then her next words cause me to perk up due to the playful tint the carry.
  
  "Well. If you want to do something nice, would you mind helping out with a prank of mine?" Her words carry an almost seductive glint to them and I can't fight the smile from growing on my face.
  
  Hell yeah! Pranks are the best!
  
  "Always!" I exclaim as I rest the phone between my ear and shoulder so I can put the cookies back in the oven and turn it down low so it doesn't cook them and just keeps them warm for later.
  
  "Awesome. In that case, I just need you to go over to that hallway with the painting of the sea that's by Stacy's workshop. Senior will be passing by soon to get her for reasons he can explain when he gets there. For the prank I just need you to act all lovey dovey with him, kay?"
  
  I'm mildly curious about what he's getting Stacy for, but even if I'm not too into this whole crime thing, I'm not so dense as to not notice when someone is trying to avoid saying something so I assume it's something that isn't to be said over the phone.
  
  With that in mind, I focus on the far more important part, the prank!
  
  "Can I ask why? I mean I get that teasing the ever serious Senior is fun and all, but you do know that Tai and I are already a thing right?"
  
  I wouldn't want to cause any misunderstandings after all. But she quickly assuages my worries.
  
  "Yeah yeah, I know. I'm not asking you to do anything obscene, just when you're following him to get Stacy, maybe like, cling to his arm or something? I don't want to spoil the surprise so I won't explain, but just trust me alright? It'll be funny, I promise."
  
  Trust her? Of course I trust her!
  
  Nobody so adorable could ever be evil. It's like, scientifically impossible.
  
  At least I would assume so, and I'm not going to check because it is something so obviously true that there is no need. Like googling if grass is green when it obviously is. It just doesn't make sense.
  
  Also, I love surprises!
  
  "Alright then!~ See you soon?" I agree and ask just to be sure.
  
  "Yup. See you soon." She hangs up and I quickly go about getting dressed in something more appropriate for the occasion.
  
  By which I mean my cape costume, even if I think it's a bit silly.
  
  With a smile on my face, I head out to intercept Senior, shaking with anticipation for what the surprise is going to be.
  
  Whatever it is, I bet it'll be a blast!
  
  𝘉𝘢𝘯𝘨!
  
  Snapping my head to the door in surprise I watch as Lucy barges in and quickly turns around to slam the door shut behind her, locking it.
  
  "Uhhh, Luce? What's going on?" I ask as I put down my soldering iron that I was using to modify my latest pet's brain.
  
  She speed walks up to me and I belatedly realise that she looks like shit, the heavy breathing and panicked look not helping the image one bit.
  
  "We need to leave." Is all she says which does not help the growing unease inside of me.
  
  "Why? What's happening?" I demand even as she starts moving around and gathering up my stuff in one of my bags that I had laying around.
  
  "Boss is dead."
  
  My brain short-circuits for a second at her words but she doesn't stop collecting stuff and the noise snaps me back to reality.
  
  "What do you mean dead! Lucy! Stop moving for one damn second and explain to me what the fuck is going on before I start freaking out!" With me all but screaming at her she finally stops moving.
  
  With a sigh she drops the now nearly full bag and walks up to me, wrapping me in a tight hug.
  
  "Boss is dead. I saw it with my own eyes. You can check the camera in his office, he should still be there. But we really do need to go. Now."
  
  She lets go of me and for a moment I just stand there frozen before I rush over to my computer and type in commands faster than I ever have before.
  
  In no time whatsoever, the screen changes to show the camera feed of Boss' office. He insisted that I put cameras everywhere, but that doesn't mean they are always being watched.
  
  Which would explain why there has been no alarm raised by what I see, which is Boss slumped over in his chair with his neck clearly broken.
  
  This can't be happening.
  
  Everything was fine literally three minutes ago.
  
  This is too much too fast. I don't know what to do.
  
  How did this even happen? Why is it happening?
  
  Realisation strikes and I set about rewinding the footage to see how he died, but right before I do so Lucy's hand takes hold of my arm and stops me.
  
  "There's no time. We need to go. Now." The urgency in her tone makes me want to agree with her, but no matter how much it might be obvious I should listen, I still need to know why.
  
  "I'm not leaving until I know exactly what is going on here! Who killed Boss!?"
  
  She sighs and starts manhandling me to put one of the backpacks she filled with stuff on my back, apparently having gotten another one while I was typing, and answers sombrely.
  
  "Betrayal. Senior and Summer. Apparently they were having an affair or something and Boss caught them. Now he's dead and they're coming for us so that they can fully take over the family. Check the cameras leading here, I'll bet they're already on their way which is why we need to leave. Now."
  
  Her words sound so foreign to me that I reject them almost on principle alone.
  
  Summer and Senior? Betraying Boss?
  
  That doesn't make any sense.
  
  I've seen he way Rebecca talks about Boss. I 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 she loves him and I refuse to accept that she would just turn on him like that.
  
  But the camera's don't lie and the Boss is definitely dead.
  
  Lucy picks up another bag and heads for the back exit of my workshop but I ignore that as I start typing in more commands.
  
  It takes less time this time around as I was already in the cameras and I am quickly left frozen by the sight before me.
  
  Summer and Senior, both of them walking down a hallway in this direction except Summer is attached to Senior by the hip, squeezing his arm between her breasts as they walk.
  
  Not only that but they are followed by three armed men who I recognise to be some of Senior's best fighters.
  
  Oh my god.
  
  This is real.
  
  This is all real.
  
  Why?
  
  What should I do?
  
  "Stacy!" My head snaps to Lucy who is holding the back door open with one arm while holding the other out to me. "We need to move!"
  
  Right. Right.
  
  Move.
  
  Just keep moving.
  
  It's something to focus on and I latch onto her arm like my life depends on it, which it very well just might.
  
  We run through a couple of empty halls before Lucy drags us into an empty room and opens its window and quickly climbing through it.
  
  "Come on!" She urges and I follow her despite my ragged breath.
  
  I'm a Tinker, I'm not supposed to be running around like this!
  
  Still, I never realised I was so out of shape.
  
  After a few minutes of running I start lagging behind and Lucy doesn't even bother to stop, just picking me up and continuing to run despite breathing heavily herself.
  
  A short while later and we are in some abandoned alleyway in the middle of some deserted industrial district.
  
  We both take a minute to catch out breaths, even if she did most of the running, before I work up the nerve to ask the question I've been dreading the answer to since we climbed out that window.
  
  "So, what now?" I ask and I hate how feeble my voice sounds.
  
  But when Lucy scoots over and wraps an arm around me in a side hug, I don't do anything to stop myself from leaning into her, taking what little comfort I can get at the moment.
  
  "We need to leave. Denver won't be safe anymore, but neither is being an independent cape. So we need to find someone to protect us."
  
  How does she have everything so figured out?
  
  It's amazing, and I'm glad she does, because I am too lost to come up with a plan of any kind.
  
  "Like who? Who can we go to?" I ask and she gives me a painfully fake smile.
  
  "Well, you're a Tinker. So on one hand, you're in more danger, but on the other you can join just about anyone you want. But for your safety, I have one group in mind that should accept you and keep you safe. Toybox."
  
  Toybox?
  
  Wait, but they're a group of Tinkers that gathered together to avoid being forced into other groups, thus they only let other Tinkers join them.
  
  That means...
  
  "But what about you? I'm not going to just abandon you." I refuse.
  
  But she just smiles as if she has everything figured out and despite myself I find myself reassured before she even says anything.
  
  "Don't worry about me ok? I heal remember? I'll be fine. I just need you to be safe first ok? Please?" She pleads but I'm not having any of that.
  
  I give her a hard glare and prepare myself to tell her how much of an idiot she is, but when I look in her eyes I see only stubborn determination and I know deep down that no matter how long this argument lasts, she will win it.
  
  So instead, I just wrap her in a tight hug and do my best to stop myself from crying.
  
  "Just don't die." I manage to croak out, barely a whisper and her answer soothes me enough that I fall asleep almost immediately after hearing them.
  
  "Don't worry. I'll never die."
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  FYI I'm going to Spain today to visit relatives for a week, I'll try to keep the upload schedule consistent but idk. Shouldn't be a problem but figured I'd let you know just in case it is.
  
  Lmao, forgot to post this when I wrote that ^, I have arrived in spain, it is 1 in the morning and I am going to sleep now. Sorry for the delay, be prepared for more XD
  
  This chap is 3k words you know and I knocked it out in about 2 hours.
  
  As can be seen, Lusia's plans are all coming to an end. The area is thoroughly destabilised. The Street Lords are broken and fractured, the Xiao Long is also broken except they don't even fully know why and suspicion can be a slow and insidious killer, all the while public faith in the Denver PRT is at an all time low after Extinctions seemingly unprompted attack on Tear cost the lives of thousands of innocents.
  
  All said, it's a job well done on Lusia's part. I'm sure Uppercrust will be happy.
  
  Also, just realised the title could be considered a pun, like 'so long', since it's more or less the end for them
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  81 A Journey Without a Map Never Ends
  "-and that about sums it up!~ If you guys decide to move in within the week then it should be no problem gathering the Xiao Longs under you and you could probably convince most of the 'Lords' to change sides. All the while, the Heroes will probably do nothing so that you guys can bring the city back to order for them.~"
  
  Kicking my legs back and forth over the edge of the tallest building in Denver, I play with a single Joker card in my right hand while I hold my phone to my ear with my left as I admire the setting sun.
  
  "Good. Good. I must say Tear, you have truly gone above and beyond what I expected of you. I'd like you to know that my already rather high opinion of you has certainly risen thanks to this wonderful job you've done."
  
  I can practically hear the smile on Uppercrust's face even through the phone as he praises me for a job well done.
  
  The main reason he's so pleased is because he was probably expecting me to kill a lot more parahumans. But I'm not stupid.
  
  Parahumans are like natural resources. Each city only has so many and only so many will be born with time. Each parahuman can provide great benefits to a group like the Elite, even the hostile ones.
  
  After all, having an enemy to fight is great for team bonding.
  
  That's why I've been holding out on getting rid of too many capes.
  
  In fact, I only actually killed the two, Extinction and Taiyang, I'm pretty sure Scarface survived, but he might need to change his name to just 'Scar' at this point. Though I did also get Keeper to leave for Toybox.
  
  With her I now have a spy in Toybox. Though I may end up 'killing' Lucy Kalmana, but I have a plan for that to make her just be a spy for the real me, rather than just a persona with basically the same name.
  
  Shaking my head, I respond before the pause gets awkward.
  
  "No need to sweet talk me Crusty~ it was no trouble at all.~ In fact, I had a blast!~ Besides, I was just holding up my end of our deal anyway.~"
  
  I hear a huff of breath that could have either been a repressed laugh or a sigh, either one is funny to me anyway so my smile only grows.
  
  "I think by now just about everyone knows all about that 'blast' you had. I'm glad you managed to survive that by the way. As for our deal, don't worry. I remember it and I will uphold my end just as you have yours. Also your payment for this job will be wired to your account within the next ten minutes."
  
  Honestly I completely forgot I was getting paid for a minute there and now I'm remembering just how many zeroes are going to be in my bank account.
  
  I should invest in something. Maybe buy out a couple arcades or something?
  
  I know they're a failing business and a really bad investment and all, but they're fun!
  
  "Cool beans! In that case I'll talk to you another time I guess. I've got to go fetch my bike.~"
  
  With that said I get to my feet, twisting my right hand in a way that it looks like the card it was holding just disappeared.
  
  "You have to fetch it? I wouldn't imagine you would leave it with anyone else. You seemed pretty happy with it. Do you have any plans for where you are headed next?"
  
  I'm honestly not too sure whether or not he is being professionally inquisitive or just generally curious.
  
  Either way, there's no reason to be evasive with him. Worst case would be that I end up having some trouble with some Elite, but that sounds like fun anyway.
  
  Not that I really have a plan on where to go anyway.
  
  "Not too sure to be honest. I'm thinking of heading south, maybe New Mexico or something, get me some sun you know?~ As for the bike, I just left it with my 'boyfriend' so imma go nab it and leave, maybe kill him too. Depends on if he's awake I guess.~ Welp! See ya!"
  
  With that I hang up on him and put my phone away.
  
  Night has basically set in by this point so no one can see me all the way up here as I take a few steps back and pick up a small hand glider from behind me.
  
  I've always wanted to do this.
  
  Moving to the middle of the roof to get a run up, I stretch my legs a little before running full tilt to the edge of the roof and with a large leap I launch myself off the building.
  
  For a moment gravity has no effect on me and I feel like I'm floating, the next the wind is crashing into my face as I start rapidly gliding through the city.
  
  Despite cities being called steel forests, the streets are orderly enough that I am basically flying in a straight line the whole time.
  
  It's fun, but honestly I kind of expected more. Maybe it's because of the high octane lifestyle I've started living, but it just doesn't feel as magical as I was hoping it to and it's not long before it's over.
  
  I'd like to say that I stuck the landing, but to be honest what actually happened was I couldn't slow down at the end and crashed into a wall at a really high speed.
  
  Ah well, at least I am on the ground now.
  
  Now I just need to go get my bike.
  
  The glider is completely ruined, but eh, who cares and there is a dude staring at me with wide eyes and a dropped jaw.
  
  ... I guess I could eat.
  
  About an hour later and I'm approaching an apartment building that has a bunch of Hispanic duded chilling outside.
  
  They notice me and a couple of them give me a wave which I return and as I am passing them by to get to the neighbouring garage, where my bike is, one of them calls out to me.
  
  "Ey Lulu! Donny says to let ya know he's gonna be out 'till midnight-ish if ya stop by."
  
  With a confident smirk I don't stop my stride as I walk past him, waving my far more tan than usual arm at them in dismissal.
  
  "Cool. Well if you're gonna be messenger boys then you can tell him that I'm goin' for a drive and that I'll see him tomorrow."
  
  Obviously that's a lie, but so is my skin right now so it should really be par for the course at this point.
  
  I don't know if shapeshifting was always a part of my power or if it is something that came later, but I figured out how to do it fairly recently.
  
  Nothing too overt like turning into a man, but I can look like just about any woman with my kind of build, which is great for when you want to influence some Mexican gangster into getting too big for his britches.
  
  Not that it's a particularly difficult thing to do with all the ego being thrown around anyway.
  
  The whole being capable of shapeshifting thing is also why I no longer really care about keeping my identity a secret, since I can just change face whenever.
  
  Though, I do like my original face the most, so I'm not planning on changing faces like shoes or anything.
  
  The only weird thing is that for some reason, despite being able to change my skin tone, I can't change my hair colour. My assumption is that this aspect of my power is related to blood somehow, since that seems to be a general theme of mine and hair doesn't have blood in it so I can't change it.
  
  Doesn't really matter though, hair dye exists.
  
  With these thoughts in my head, I hop on my bike, after checking that all my shit was still in it, and head off to Pueblo, still dressed in my Lulu clothes, because I actually kind of like the punk look, plus I am on a motorcycle so it's only thematic really.
  
  I should get there a bit before midnight and I can crash the night there and set of for places unknown in the morning, looking for anything interesting to do.
  
  I could always have just stayed the night with Donny before leaving, but I don't know when the Elite are going to be getting here and I don't want to be around when they do show up.
  
  I don't know all the details, but I know that it isn't going to be Uppercrust's cell that moves in. He is on the other side of the country after all.
  
  So I'm assuming that he's using me to either repay a favour or to gain one from someone else, or maybe just money or something, but I doubt Uppercrust would be so short sighted as to prioritise money over powerful favours.
  
  Our own deal is enough to show that.
  
  But want to do my best to avoid other members of the Elite. Meeting them could complicate things whether the meeting goes well or not.
  
  Besides, Uppercrust himself will get a higher standing among them if he's the only point of contact with me and the more influence he has the better he'll be able to keep his half of our deal.
  
  Unfortunately, my thoughts are rather rudely interrupted by a tapping on my shoulder. This is incredibly strange and startling as I am currently speeding down a highway.
  
  Turning to my side, I see another motorcycle driver matching my speed and he waves once he sees he has my attention.
  
  Slipping a bit closer to me, despite both of us going about 140kmh(90mph~), he lifts up the bottom half of his helmet and starts shouting at me to be heard over the wind.
  
  "Hey! I like your bike! Wanna race!?" He gives me an impish little grin after he finishes speaking and I find myself matching it once I notice that he seems to be driving the exact same bike.
  
  I don't have to raise my helmet to respond as I am not wearing one. I like the wind on my face and sunglasses are enough to keep it out of my eyes and with my power helping me, they don't even make it hard to see on nights like this.
  
  Glancing ahead, I see an exit from the highway that looks like it probably loops back around and I point at it for him.
  
  "Sure! Through there, first back to the highway wins!?" I yell and he immediately agrees.
  
  We keep in line with each other until we get to the road where on unsaid understanding, we both immediately start the race, going from already speeding to just making our bikes go as fast as they can.
  
  Though we quickly have to slow down as the road is no longer straight and I quickly notice that he is a much better driver than me, which is no real surprise to be honest, as he starts creating a lead.
  
  Part of me is honestly tempted to shoot a bone spike at him, but that is just a brief passing thought and it would be cheating anyway, not to mention petty.
  
  No need to be a sore loser. Games wouldn't be fun if you won every time after all, and I am actually having fun anyway.
  
  I've never raced anybody like this before, and I do love new experiences.
  
  Alas, the road returns to the highway faster than I thought it would and he beats me by a pretty good margin, slowing to a stop after our imposed finish line.
  
  Luckily it's so late otherwise stopping in the middle of a highway like this would be a pretty dumb idea.
  
  Slowing my own vehicle as I approach, I come to a stop right beside him.
  
  He takes his helmet of and offers his hand, to which I reciprocate by taking my glasses of and shaking it.
  
  "That was fun! Though I get the feeling you're new to this. First bike?" He honestly just seems genuinely happy to be talking about bikes and it's kind of cute.
  
  "You guessed it~ I've only had it for about a month, but I'm liking it a lot more than cars." I admit, and it's true. With cars you don't get the same feeling of wind blowing on your face, it's truly much better.
  
  He gets this knowing look on his face and then proceeds to seemingly read my mind.
  
  "It's nice to feel the wind isn't it? Bikes are much better than stuffy old cars right?"
  
  I just got an idea.
  
  "Speaking of bikes, wanna swap?" I ask and he blinks at me in confusion for a moment at my question.
  
  "Numbers?" He looks a mix between relieved and insulted when I laugh in his face, but the way he asked was just too funny for me not to.
  
  "No, I mean bikes. Wanna swap bikes?" I ask again and this time his face goes from confusion to amusement and I can practically see the moment his mind says 'fuck it'.
  
  "Why not?"
  
  With that, we both get of our bikes and take a minute to swap our stuff around.
  
  "This is probably the strangest thing I've ever spontaneously done in the middle of the night. What about you?"
  
  Putting my glasses back on as I prepare to get back to driving, I give a simple response as I start the engine.
  
  "Not even fucking close."
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  This was supposed to be a PHO chapter. why was this not a PHO chapter? I wrote the PHO thing and everything. I was just going to do a little bit beforehand like last time, a few hundred words ending with lusia taking out her phone and then boom, ctrl + V and the PHO segment is there.
  
  But for some reason this happened instead and now the PHO chapter is going to be after this.
  
  Also I just had an amazing thought. When this fic is over, providing Lusia is immortal or cryogenically frozen or some shit, I could totally do a My Hero Academia sequel since it's just a few hundred years in the future, and Worm's first cape was a glowing golden man, while in MHA it's recorded as a glowing golden baby. Could just be something lost in translation over the years. I even have an idea for how I would do it lol
  
  Also, Spain is hot, but I was right, it is better than being hot in england as not only is it less humid but they are obviously more prepared for the heat here.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  82 PHO Interlude 2 Electric Boogaloo
  𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐎𝐧𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬.
  
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  𝐓𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐜: 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐮𝐜𝐤.
  
  𝐈𝐧: 𝐁𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬 ► 𝐔.𝐒.𝐀 ► 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐨 ► 𝐃𝐞𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐫 ► 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬
  
  𝐀𝐥𝐨𝐡𝐚 (Original Poster)
  
  Posted On Feb 2nd 2008:
  
  So, I was just making my way home after hanging out with some friends when all of a sudden, A FUCKING SUPERNOVA EXPLODED IN THE SKY! TWICE!
  
  WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME AM I GOING TO DIE?!
  
  I only got my phone out by the time the second blast hit, but you can still see the after effects of the first in this video [ LINK ]
  
  (𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝟐 𝐨𝐟 𝟐)
  
  ►𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐨𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐲 (Temp-Banned)
  
  Replied On Feb 2nd 2008:
  
  Yup. Looks like it's too late for you.
  
  Good luck in the next life.
  
  For real tho, the fuck are you talking about? I get that cape fights can be exciting but you don't have to exadurate(how the fuck do you spell that?) so much.
  
  Edit: ok nvm, I just saw a the whole thing on FoolsNet, your reaction was completely understandable, have a good day
  
  ►𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐫 (Moderator: Protectorate Main)
  
  Replied On Feb 2nd 2008:
  
  This thread is going to be locked, if you wish to discuss today's events there is a separate thread for that, please head over there and stop cluttering up the boards.
  
  We get it, everyone else in Denver saw it, no need to make a million threads about it.
  
  𝐄𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐚𝐠𝐞. 𝟏, 2
  
  𝐓𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐜: 𝐀 𝐖𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐰!
  
  𝐈𝐧: 𝐁𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬 ► 𝐔.𝐒.𝐀 ► 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐨 ► 𝐃𝐞𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐫 ► 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬
  
  𝐅𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐄𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬 (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Verified Fool) (Temp-Banned)
  
  Posted On Feb 2nd 2008:
  
  Greetings one and all!
  
  For those of you living in Denver, I'm sure that you must have witnessed quite the lightshow just a few minutes ago. I'm sure you're curious as to what it was, that is if you don't already know.
  
  Well, that was my dear friend Tear getting smacked around, I mean, fighting with the valiant Hero known as Extinction (such a Heroic name).
  
  The aftermath of the fight is clear for all to see, but if you wish to watch the process, here it is [ VIDEO ] or you can find the whole thing archived on FoolsNet by just clicking here [ LINK ]
  
  Happy Thursday!
  
  Mod Edit: This thread has reached it's post limit. A sequel thread has been made for any further discussion - Brilliger
  
  (𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝟖 𝐨𝐟 𝟏𝟎𝟎)
  
  ►𝐄𝐠𝐠𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧
  
  Replied On Feb 3rd 2008:
  
  Holy shit that wad sfuckign insane. Motherfucker really beat the shit out of her for like the entire fight.
  
  wonder if she even survived that? I mean she didn't die when she got fucked up last time.
  
  ... hey now that I think about it, aren't we two for two on Tear getting absolutely buttfucked in these videos? good job she can heal huh
  
  ►𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐨𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐲 (Temp-Banned)
  
  Replied On Feb 3rd 2008:
  
  Jesus H christ on a holy cracker what the heck did I just watch?
  
  First off, I will eat my shoe if she's still alive after this, secondly, did Extinction die too? also how many other people just sorta died in the crossfire, it's the afternoon in the middle of a city. Death tolls gotta be high right?
  
  ►𝐉𝐚𝐫𝐎𝐟𝐎𝐳 (Veteran Member) (Actually a Jar)
  
  Replied On Feb 3rd 2008:
  
  Holy crap, it's Tear again!
  
  She really doesn't do things by half does she? And why is she always starting fights if she's just going to get beat up anyway?
  
  ►𝐒𝐚𝐦 𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐋𝐨𝐩
  
  Replied On Feb 3rd 2008:
  
  I thought she was in NY fighting it out with Butcher like, less than a month ago. What is she doing literally on the other side of the country?
  
  ►Bagrat (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
  
  Replied On Feb 3rd 2008:
  
  Ok I'm just going to leave this here to clear things up for anyone not in the know.
  
  At exactly 7pm yesterday, the villain known as Tear walked into one of the US Bank Branches in Denver and in a move eerily similar to the events of December 29th last year ([ LINK ] for more on that) she didn't steal anything and immediately surrendered upon the arrival of a pair of Heroes, Extinction and Jet.
  
  However, for reasons unknown Extinction did not seem to want to accept her surrender. Instead he took the opportunity to attack right away, starting the fight you can see in the OP link.
  
  Exact numbers for property damage and lives lost is currently still being calculated, but the former is well over $400 million dollars by now and the death doll is rapidly climbing to the tens of thousands.
  
  Riots have also started to spread as it was ostensibly the Heroes fault for the loss of life, as only Extinction has that kind of explosive energy type of power, with Tear being more of a Brute.
  
  Denver itself is getting incredibly chaotic thanks to all of this, especially since the blast destroyed a union train station and there is even talk of calling in the National Guard, but we'll have to wait and see on that.
  
  No news on whether either of the combatants survived just yet, though it is likely they are both dead. It just hasn't been confirmed yet.
  
  Other than that, Extinction was rated Blaster 8, Brute 7 and Mover 6 so if Tear really is alive then her ratings are looking to be changed to Changer 8, Brute 7, Mover 3 and Thinker 1
  
  Edit: Tear has been confirmed to have survived... as you will see if you just keep reading this thread
  
  ► 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐞𝐟
  
  Replied On Feb 3rd 2008:
  
  Is it just me or does she keep getting scarier?
  
  She isn't like the Faery Queen right? Like, she isn't just gonna keep getting more powerful the more she like, eats people or something right? Right?
  
  ►𝐑𝐫𝐫𝐫𝐭 (Temp-Banned)
  
  Replied On Feb 3rd 2008:
  
  Talk about going out with a bang lmao.
  
  Wonder if Extinction had a bad experience with clowns when he was a kid or something and that's why he blew up?
  
  ►𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐲 𝐒𝐮𝐳𝐮𝐤𝐢
  
  Replied On Feb 3rd 2008:
  
  JarOfOz - Hey I see you got that tag after all. Wait does that mean you are actually, literally a Jar? Tf?
  
  Does anybody have any idea why the Hero just went ham on her like that? I mean, I get she's a villain and all, and that the last time she surrendered at a bank a whole lot of people died, but like, really?
  
  ►𝐃𝐚𝐨 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐚
  
  Replied On Feb 3rd 2008:
  
  It's just wild to me that that whole fight lasted like, less than ten minutes and now there's a bit ol' hole in the city and a whole lot of people dead.
  
  ... parahumans are scary
  
  ►𝐌𝐚𝐜'𝐬 𝐃𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐑𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐬
  
  Replied On Feb 3rd 2008:
  
  But did you see that explosion though? So beautiful.
  
  𝐄𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐚𝐠𝐞. 1, 2, 3... 6, 7, 8, 9, 10... 𝟗𝟖, 𝟗𝟗, 𝟏𝟎𝟎
  
  (𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝟗 𝐨𝐟 𝟏𝟎𝟎)
  
  ►𝐍𝐢𝐛𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐞
  
  Replied On Feb 3rd 2008:
  
  Holy shit, mommy Tear strikes again!
  
  She is seriously a terrifying cape. Is it weird that I find that hot?
  
  ►𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐫 (Verified Cape) (Banned)
  
  Replied On Feb 3rd 2008:
  
  I know where you live. Want me come peg you?
  
  ► 𝐍𝐢𝐛𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐞
  
  Replied On Feb 3rd 2008:
  
  uhhhhh...
  
  I think that's enough internet for today. If you all don't mind me, I'm going to move overseas.
  
  ►𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐫 (Verified Cape) (Banned)
  
  Replied On Feb 3rd 2008:
  
  Come on, don't be a pussy. I thought I was hot?
  
  If you run I will catch you and rip your heart out. Stay where you are,
  
  ► 𝐍𝐢𝐛𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐞
  
  Replied On Feb 3rd 2008:
  
  ...
  
  ► 𝐓𝐢𝐧𝐌𝐨𝐦 (Veteran Member) (Wiki Warrior) (Moderator)
  
  Replied On Feb 3rd 2008:
  
  Shed a Tear - Please refrain from threatening harm as it is against the rules. I've given you an infraction and if you do so again then you will be banned... again.
  
  ►𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐫 (Verified Cape) (Banned)
  
  Replied On Feb 3rd 2008:
  
  TinMom - suck a dick
  
  ► 𝐓𝐢𝐧𝐌𝐨𝐦 (Veteran Member) (Wiki Warrior) (Moderator)
  
  Replied On Feb 3rd 2008:
  
  Shed a Tear -... You do realise I'm a Mod right? I swing my banhammer with great joy, so bye bye.
  
  ► 𝐅𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐄𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬 (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Verified Fool) (Temp-Banned)
  
  Replied On Feb 3rd 2008:
  
  lmao what a loser. I swear you spend more time banned than not on this site. Maybe stop insulting everyone?
  
  Oh wait, you can't answer can you? Haha
  
  Edit: I forgot you had my number. I am very sorry and didn't mean anything I said. Also,
  
  TinMom - Tear says to say that you're a 'dumb bitch cunt that's probably not touched grass since the day you were dropped on it head first as a child and that you should find yourself a particularly juicy cucumber as you'll never be able to get a real man'
  
  Please don't ban me, saying my arm was twisted would be an understatement here.
  
  ► 𝐓𝐢𝐧𝐌𝐨𝐦 (Veteran Member) (Wiki Warrior) (Moderator)
  
  Replied On Feb 3rd 2008:
  
  FoolishEndeavours - Rules are rules I'm afraid. But considering the circumstance I'll let you off with only a two day ban :)
  
  𝐄𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐚𝐠𝐞. 1, 𝟐, 𝟑... 𝟕, 𝟖, 9, 𝟏𝟎, 𝟏𝟏... 𝟗𝟖, 𝟗𝟗, 𝟏𝟎𝟎
  
  (𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝟏𝟎 𝐨𝐟 𝟏𝟎𝟎)
  
  ►𝐎𝐠𝐥𝐚𝐧 (Snek)
  
  Replied On Feb 3rd 2008:
  
  ►𝐅𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐡 𝐢𝐧 𝟏 𝐁𝐨𝐰𝐥 ( ✷ ‿ ✷ )
  
  Replied On Feb 3rd 2008:
  
  (❁´◡`❁)
  
  𝐄𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐚𝐠𝐞. 𝟏, 𝟐, 𝟑... 𝟖, 𝟗, 10, 𝟏𝟏, 𝟏𝟐... 𝟗𝟖, 𝟗𝟗, 𝟏𝟎𝟎
  
  "Interesting"
  
  Deep inside of an old, disused Endbringer shelter that never actually finished construction and whose records of being built no longer exist sits a man.
  
  He is dressed in a black full body suit that's only decoration is a white stencil of a snake coiling around his body, it's head ending over his own.
  
  The suit has no eyeholes and is tight enough that you can see his individual ribs and joints, showing just how skinny the man is.
  
  This is a man who knows many things.
  
  From his business in New York, he knows Uppercrust and through that, he knows of a fairly new cape called Tear.
  
  He knows that Uppercrust hired her to fight the Butcher and he knows that she was successful.
  
  He knows that less than a full month after that, she is next seen in Denver, fighting one of the strongest Heroes in the nation.
  
  He knows that despite really losing the fight, she was the only one to come out alive and he knows that the city descended into chao not even a full day after she showed her face.
  
  He also knows, that shortly after that, a branch of the Elite moved into the city and started taking over the local underworld with record breaking speed.
  
  For a man who knows so much, it does not take much inference to realise that Tear was likely hired by the Elite to 'prepare' the city for integration.
  
  But with the knowledge he possesses, he is fully aware of the type of person someone like Tear is and he knows she would not submit herself to the Elite.
  
  That makes her something more of a mercenary.
  
  Knowledge is power and power is wealth. A man who has a lot of knowledge can easily gain a lot of money.
  
  Enough to hire a clearly incredibly competent mercenary for instance.
  
  "Interesting indeed."
  
  Of course, the only question then is how one would get in contact?
  
  But for a man so knowledgeable, such a task will be one of ease.
  
  The real question, is whether or not her actions have been a fluke, or if she will truly be capable of providing on whatever it is she is hired for.
  
  Questions, questions.
  
  Alas, all will be revealed with time, and if there is one thing this man has, besides his knowledge, it is time.
  
  Plans within plans.
  
  Either way, the man would not usually consider her necessary if not for the fact that there is a big scary dragon sleeping on the mountain of gold that he so desperately seeks.
  
  And who better to fight off a dragon, than a monster of your own?
  
  Leaning back in his chair, the man smiles as if the entire world is bare before him and victory already in his grasp.
  
  After all, to a man who can change fate, the world is already his. It just doesn't know it yet.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  PHO is so hard to write, I prolly won't do another one. Unless I organise some kind of RP thing in the discord and you guys can just write it for me lol
  
  Having to re-bold and underline everthing is a pain too, especially since I'm posting on three sites, not counting, and they all have different formatting :(
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
  previous chapternext chapterchapter list
  83 Bears Beets Battlestar Galactica
  A couple of days after swapping bikes with a random stranger and I found myself in a little town called Clayton and as I was trying to think of something fun to do I came across a rather interesting bit of information.
  
  Just a short drive westward lies an even smaller village called Cimarron. Now, Cimarron doesn't really have anything interesting to offer by itself, but what 𝘪𝘴 interesting is what lives just next to the village.
  
  Bears.
  
  I'm going to go fight with bears. Why? Because it's funny.
  
  Maybe I'll get a pet bear. They're black bears so they aren't the biggest of the bunch, but they are still bears and just thinking of the looks on people's faces as I ride into town on a bear brings a smile to my face.
  
  As I was making my way over, it didn't take me too long to realise that the bike I traded was modified to be better, which in hindsight explains why he was so eager to accept the trade.
  
  Dude clearly loves bikes. I'd wager that he's just happy to be given a chance to give his bike modifications all over again, this time with the knowledge of what he's already done so he can do it even better.
  
  Alas, I really don't know bikes so I have no idea what's really different besides that fact that it just feels better to ride.
  
  What I do know however is that I just got an idea for something extra fun to do.
  
  Cimmaron is only a small little place with less than a thousand people living there so they don't really have a cape scene. All they have is a single hero called Wrangler and a little branch office of the PRT that has literally only a single squad of troopers.
  
  So I'm going to spice things up a little and bring some excitement into these boring peoples' boring lives by being their first ever villain.
  
  Naturally I won't actually be trying, because the Hero's power is basically a party trick. Instead I am going to do my best to 'tame' as many bears as I can and ride them into town.
  
  I don't know what I'll do at that point. Maybe just rob a convenience store or something.
  
  Oooh better idea! I'll rob the PRT squad.
  
  They probably don't have much cool stuff, but they should at least have some guns and maybe a couple of containment foam grenades.
  
  Who knows, stuff could be useful at some point.
  
  After I reach the village, I don't actually bother to stop. Instead I just keep driving on by, taking a road that goes through the forested mountains which hold my future pets.
  
  A short drive later and I am feeling fairly secluded, like a serial killer could come by and no one would hear me scream
  
  How scary.~
  
  Laughing to myself at the silly thought of some random normal trying to kill me, I pull off the road and steadily drive into the wild wilderness for a bit until I'm sure no one passing by will be able to see my bike.
  
  Then I just turn off the engine, park it and get off, straightening out my cool punk jacket as I set out to find a bear.
  
  Or bears, I guess. Plural would be better in this case.
  
  Sniffing the air, I start meandering my way towards the smell of rancid meat.
  
  One thing I'm grateful for about my enhanced senses is that it's only when I actually taste things with my tongue that it is really repulsive.
  
  Like, I could walk past a bakery and recognise the smell as a bakery, it just won't feel even the slightest bit appetising to me.
  
  If I were to taste anything in the bakery however, then everything is just the same disgusting, vomit inducing garbage.
  
  Point is, I can track down animals in a forest without feeling like I'm smelling a literal garbage dump.
  
  As I'm walking, I try to admire the sights of nature all around me. From the towering trees and the beams of sunlight shining through the gaps in their foliage to the varieties of colours decorating the forest floor from many different types of flowers.
  
  With the birds in the distance singing their overlapping songs, like a choir of life itself.
  
  But honestly it doesn't do anything for me.
  
  Trees are just trees. You've seen one you've seen them all. The sun is shining down on me? Yeah, it has a tendency to do that if you haven't noticed.
  
  Colourful flowers? Eh, I've seen a colour palate before so they're nothing new, and the birds are kind of annoying to be honest.
  
  I don't doubt that in singularity I might actually like that part of nature, but there are so many overlapping bird songs that it's just annoying.
  
  There's a reason you only listen to one song at a time when enjoying music, any more than that and it's just overwhelming sound.
  
  Eventually, after about a half hour of wondering around, during which I catch a squirrel and snap it's neck for later. I eventually manage to follow a scent trail through some incredibly thick vegetation that has completely ruined my jeans until I find myself face to face with exactly what I am here for.
  
  "Bear!~"
  
  My pleased exclamation causes the resting bear's head to snap up and stare at me.
  
  "Hello Mr Bear!~" I wave with a smile, but I guess bears don't like that because it immediately gets to it's feet and starts making weird clicking noises at me and showing it's teeth.
  
  I don't exactly speak bear, but I decide to attempt what feels like the equivalent of adding an 'e' to the end of every word and calling it Spanish by making random clicking noises back at him.
  
  He apparently likes that even less and gets to his feet and roars at me.
  
  Ah well, I figured we'd have to do this the hard way anyway. It's not like I have any particular bear interaction related powers.
  
  Without the slightest bit of fear, I walk up to the bear that is only a little bit taller than me, black bears not being particularly large bears.
  
  When I get closer to it, It brings both of its arms down to strike me, all the while moving it's jaw to bite into my neck.
  
  I just ignore his attacks entirely and move my forearm forward to catch his bite.
  
  Both his paws hit me first and while I can certainly feel the wight behind them, I don't take so much as a step backwards from the hit and when his jaw closes around my forearm it's sharp teeth don't even break skin.
  
  "Sorry Yogi, but I'm a bit too tough for that to work.~" I almost laugh all over again at the impulsive decision to call the bear Yogi, after the old cartoon character.
  
  It doesn't really matter though, because just like how I don't speak Bear, Yogi doesn't speak Human, so there is something of a language barrier that causes him to just keep attacking me.
  
  Deciding that passiveness isn't going to make him tame, I grab one of his paws and swing my arms over my head, lifting his entire body over me and slamming him into the ground.
  
  Then I just sit cross-legged in front of him before he gets his bearings and put one of my hands on his head, holding him in place.
  
  "Bad boy~ think about what you've done.~" I say in a singsong voice while the bear growls and paws at me, struggling to move.
  
  Alas, I am too strong for a mere mortal beast such as this to fight back against me, so it's head doesn't move so much as an inch away from my grip.
  
  It takes longer than I thought it would, but Yogi eventually stops struggling.
  
  With a smile on my face I lift my hand away and jump to my feet, eagerly awaiting my new bear friend.
  
  But to my immense disappointment, once Yogi starts moving again he just got to his feet and immediately started attacking me again.
  
  Why are things never easy?
  
  Heh, stupid question. It would never be fun if everything was easy.
  
  Ah well. Hard way it is.
  
  Before his paw even makes it through half of its swing, I blur forward and bury an impossibly strong uppercut into his gut, literally folding him over me despite the fact that he must weigh about three times as much as me.
  
  With a shrug I drop him onto the ground besides me, only this time I kneel down so that my face is right in front of his and I allow my eyes to transform and my ribbons to sway threateningly behind me as claws grow to cover the tips of my fingers that dig slightly into his head.
  
  Then, 𝘐 growl at 𝘩𝘪𝘮.
  
  Frankly I surprise myself a little at the deep and guttural sound that reverberates from my throat but I keep it up until Yogi starts making a sort of whining sound that I take as submission.
  
  This time when I get up, he doesn't try to fight me again and just remains lying on the ground, breathing steadily as his beady eyes track me.
  
  Reaching behind me, I untie the squirrel tail that I wrapped around one of my jean's belt loops and offer it out to him.
  
  Cautiously and slowly, he starts sniffing and gets up to his feet, all four this time rather than just the two from earlier, and he hesitantly reaches his mouth forward to the squirrel.
  
  Seeing me not oppose him, he grows confident and bites it out of my hand, crushing it in half and swallowing it in two bites. As he does so, I crouch forward and start stroking his neck before I lean forward and wrap my arms around him, hugging his thick neck.
  
  So fluffy.~
  
  "Aren't you just the cutest little beastie. From now on your name is Yogi and you are a part of my, uhh. What was it called again? Sleuth? Right? I'm pretty sure that's what a pack of bears is called right?"
  
  Naturally Yogi doesn't respond to me, but I'm pretty sure I'm right anyway so it doesn't really matter.
  
  Now, let's go see if we can't find ourselves a few more friends. The more the merrier, as they say.
  
  Quite a while later and I am realising that I might have gotten a little carried away.
  
  The sun has already set and started to rise at this point and so far I have gathered probably too many bears.
  
  I mean, they keep trying to fight each other and stuff. At least the new ones do, then I have to come in and beat them up to make them stop.
  
  Even more annoying is that it's not like they can tell me if they're hungry or not, so I've just starting killing any other animal we come across and throwing the carcasses at them to eat if they want to.
  
  I'm also naked from the waist up due to numerous bears ripping into me. I might be unharmed but my clothes are most certainly harmed.
  
  I'm just glad they only go for the upper half of my body, because the legs of my jeans are basically non existent at this point thanks to all the foliage, leaving me in basically just a pair of jean shorts and nothing else.
  
  Ah well, I have spare clothes in my bike, which is where I am now heading.
  
  I'm going to change into a costume and then lead my bear army into the little village and probably do a lot more than provide a 'little bit of excitement' like I intended.
  
  Meh, I'm sure it will be fun regardless.
  
  I mean, I have managed to gather eleven bears, which is quite a lot of bear.
  
  At first I was trying to be thematic with the names, with the first after Yogi being called Winnie, then Smoky, then Care, Teddy and Paddington.
  
  But eventually I kind of ran out of pop culture bears, and I can't remember the name of Yogi's companion bear, so I just started calling the rest of them James, cuz they have cute little ears that remind me of when the little brat has his moments of being small and cute.
  
  When I reach my bike, nearly a dozen bears at my bike, I find that a bird is chilling on it and when I walk up to it, it flies onto my shoulder and chirps at me.
  
  How cute.~
  
  𝘚𝘯𝘢𝘱
  
  Alas, today is bear day, not bird day.
  
  With a dismissive gesture I throw the bird behind me at the squad as I start changing into my prison costume, except rather than my normal mask, I put on a bear mask I got back at Clayton when I first heard about the bears.
  
  My original idea was to wear the mask and pretend to be a bear, see if I could blend in with them or something, I don't know, I'm bored, not a scientist.
  
  Either way, this feels like it will be an interesting day.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Bear.
  
  This is supposed to just be a brief thing to look into what Lusia's life is like when she's not doing plot things, it's generally just dumb shit like this lol.
  
  Anyway, the Elite arc is over, so next chapter will be the official start of the third arc! I honestly have no idea how this is going to play out as I once more have no plan whatsoever, but let me tell you something (insert Jon Bernthal meme here) I am exited for what is going to happen.
  
  Should be fun! (hopefully)
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  84 Party Crashers
  Dressed in a never worn before prison outfit, Kitsune's gift to me having finally been beyond repair after my fight with extinction, as well as a cheap plastic bear mask, I ride into town atop Yogi, with ten more bears following behind me.
  
  Call me the bear master, for I am master of all bears! Muahahaha!
  
  Ok, turns out I might have underestimated exactly how long it would take a group of bears to make their way back to whatever the village was called, I already forgot.
  
  Boring information tends to slip my mind sometimes.
  
  Still, I do eventually make it to the village.
  
  A few people spot me approaching but instead of making the assumption that I'm a villain or just generally being afraid of a raid of bears, they just stare in confusion, or take out their phones to record us.
  
  I choose to ignore them, but it's not like my bears are house trained and I have kind of been killing everything I've come across since they've been following me.
  
  So it doesn't really come as too much of a surprise to me when one of them breaks off from the group and starts running at some guy.
  
  Not a minute later and a pair of police cars pull up on the road ahead of me alongside a PRT van.
  
  Three police officers climb out alongside four PRT troopers and I'm pretty sure that this is actually the extent of the local law enforcement, with the exception of Wrangler who I assume is on the way.
  
  One of the police guys, probably the sheriff going by the badge, pulls out a megaphone.
  
  "Uhh, Miss Bear Whisperer? Could you uhh, get of your bear and send them back to the forest please? They are wild animals and they could hurt someone."
  
  No shit. Who gathers bears without the intention of forming a mini army? What else am I going to do with them?
  
  I guess they are really fluffy to be fair, I could totally see myself keeping one as a pet if I ever get a house or something. Though I'd want a bigger bear, like a Kodiak.
  
  "No! Give me your wallets!" I almost choke on my words by laughing at how ridiculous the scene is, but I manage to keep proper bear riding form.
  
  The sheriff puts the speaker down and turns to one of his deputies and says something that my limited mouth reading skills were easily able to identify as 'What the fuck?'
  
  "Uhh, are you a Villain, Miss? In that case I would ask that you uhh, dismount the bear and come with us down to the station please?"
  
  Man, this guy needs to speak with more confidence.
  
  Right as I am about to respond however, I am interrupted by the galloping of a horse of all things and I look over to see a man in a full cowboy outfit, from the hat all the way down the the boots with weird spike wheel things on the heels.
  
  He is only using a bandana to cover his face and he has one of those cowboy jackets that have strips dangling all over them for some reason.
  
  I wonder if he already knew how to ride a horse or if it's something he picked up to fit his theme?
  
  Behind him is James, the bear that broke off earlier, being dragged by the horse while his, her? I don't know how to tell the difference, limbs are all tied together by a glowing lasso.
  
  If that really is all his power can do, making a lasso, then I am going to be really disappointed.
  
  "Howdy Pardner, this here bear wouldn't happen to be one o' your posse, would she Lassie?" Holy Jesus he really is dedicated to the theme.
  
  As Wrangler's statement echoes down the street and I can't help myself, I laugh in his face.
  
  "Hahahahahahahaha!" With one hand pointing at him and the other holding my stomach, I laugh so hard that I fall off of Yogi and continue to point and laugh at him, "hahahahahahahaha!"
  
  Everyone, including the bears, sort of just stand around awkwardly and wait for me to laugh myself out, which takes a few minutes.
  
  He just looks so silly!
  
  Eventually I do manage to pull myself together enough to get back on my feet, only sniggering a little bit.
  
  "R-right. Well, will you please send the bears back now? I'm sure we can talk all this through back at the station." The sheriff's reiterated request falls on deaf ears.
  
  Instead of listening to him, I turn to my bears to look each of them in the eye, then I turn back to the lawmen in front of me and raise one of my arms high before swinging it down with a shout.
  
  "Attack!"
  
  ... Nothing happens.
  
  Silence reigns over the street, only broken by the sound of camera's snapping a picture every now and then in the audience.
  
  Why is nothing happening?
  
  Oh. Right.
  
  Bears.
  
  They can't understand me.
  
  How did I forget about that?
  
  "Was something supposed to happen lady?" Cowboy man asks, annoying me.
  
  In response to him, I grab Winnie from my right by the arm and spin around like I'm doing a hammer throw except with a bear instead of a ball and chain.
  
  Like that, I throw a bear at Wrangler, surprising everyone. Especially Winnie, poor girl, or boy, didn't see it coming.
  
  Cowboy man jumps off his horse in time to dodge but the horse is a lot less lucky and is swiftly crushed under 400lbs of pure muscle and fluffiness crashing into it at the speed of a car.
  
  the horse is definitely dead on impact, but I ignore that in favour of turning to the bears. Clearly they don't understand words, so instead I just glare at them and allow my semi-natural predator instinct to kill wash over them, instilling them with my own bloodlust.
  
  "𝘒𝘪𝘭𝘭."
  
  That works as intended and each of them starts roaring and making other less onomatopoeic noises.
  
  One of the James' even tries to attack me, but I just bitch slap them and they move on.
  
  Pretty soon, the bears are spread all around me either attacking people or causing property damage at a not very substantial pace.
  
  One of the bears is quickly encased in yellow orange containment foam, soon followed by another before I think they just run out.
  
  I mean, expecting a village in the middle of nowhere like this to be well stocked was kind of a stupid idea anyway.
  
  Also it turns out that Billy the Kid's power actually is just the manifestation of a line of rope. He might have some measure of telekinetic control over it, but frankly the control is obviously incredibly lacking if I'm not even too sure if it exists or not.
  
  Now, while I'd like to say that the street is in pandemonium, that's just not really true. The bears are sort of just scattering around at a pretty slow pace for the most part, ripping signs out of the ground and shit.
  
  The police and PRT clearly heard about the bears before getting here too, because they all have tranquilliser guns. It's only been a few minutes and I'm already down to half as many bears.
  
  However that is when things suddenly change once again.
  
  From down the street comes a family sized RV, honestly looking more like a bus than anything, with a fairly large trailer being pulled along behind it that by itself is about the size of a van.
  
  The motorhome pulls up on the street, turning to be almost perpendicular to the street about a dozen feet away from us, attracting the attention of everyone present, including the bears thanks to the noise of the engine.
  
  But the next instant, the street falls to silence as the back of the trailer opens up and a familiar face, for all that it can be called a face, climbs out that I recognise from seeing him on TV.
  
  The monster that reveals itself could be best described as a combination of the best traits from a bear and a panther, though he is unfortunately lacking the fluffy ears of my bears.
  
  Its entire body is black and iridescent, with armour plates covering the majority of the body and scales in places where flexibility is needed, like the joints while it has spines and bristling hair everywhere else.
  
  Its mouth is filled with mismatched fangs dripping with acidic saliva. A hundred solid-black eyes run along the entire length of its body, set into the plates of its armour.
  
  It has six legs, each one a hulking monstrosity ending in a massive set of claws while forking at the knee or elbow joint.
  
  Its four back limbs each fork into scimitar-like claws, with multiple smaller sets of tentacles accompanying them while its two front limbs have sets of long-fingered hands instead of the tentacles.
  
  Ah. Hello Crawler, welcome to the party.
  
  Well this certainly complicates things somewhat.
  
  The Nine are here.
  
  Haha, I'm in danger.
  
  My fading smile returns in full force at the thought.
  
  Crawler starts stretching himself for a moment before his many eyes lock onto each person and bear in the street and he pauses, his monstrous head tilting in confusion at the scene before him.
  
  Meanwhile, nobody says a single word, frozen in either shock or fear as they stare at the RV door, watching with bated breathes as it is opened to allow a little girl to come bounding out.
  
  She is wearing a blue dress underneath a white apron, both of which are unkempt and covered with dirt and dried blood. Her hair is tied up in ringlets and looking well cared for in contrast to her clothes.
  
  I also notice that she has heterochromia, one eye being blue and the other green.
  
  Once her feet touch the ground, she immediately starts running around like a normal, energetic child while being either chased or followed by a few small spider-like robots.
  
  That would be Bonesaw then.
  
  Quickly following her, is a black and white striped woman, like a zebra, with even her hair matching her body's colours. She is also completely naked for some reason, not that I'm going to complain about the view.
  
  That reminds me of my first night out, when those guys were talking about fetishizing her and honestly I can see where that guy was coming from now, Siberian is hot.
  
  Her glowing yellow eyes only briefly glance at the strange scene on the street before she turns to follow after the little girl as if she's some kind of exasperated parent or something.
  
  The next freakshow to leave the RV is Hatchet Face. A man that looks like he's cosplaying Frankenstein's monster with all the scars and fucked up face. When he gets a couple of steps away from the RV and takes in the scene of the street, I watch as his brain seems to short circuit.
  
  I even see him mouth out a silent 'The fuck?' before I turn to focus back on the door as another weirdo comes out.
  
  This one looks like some kind of mannequin, which makes his cape name incredibly unimaginative, with his hunched over body standing at at least nine foot tall of pure white ceramic looking material.
  
  The joints have all been replaced by chains that connect each of his separated body parts and it is all completely smooth, even the face has no eyeholes or anything, looking like a smooth egg.
  
  After Mannequin comes someone that actually kind of pisses me off a little bit to see.
  
  It's a fat, pear shaped dude dressed up as a clown and from what I remember seeing on TV about the Nine, he can't even speak and can only make a creepy laughing sound.
  
  But the part that pisses me off a little is that he's dressed up as a clown and yet he's happily with these losers. I've always felt that the Nine are a tacky bunch with no class and the simple idea that one of 𝘮𝘺 Clowns would be so tacky annoys me.
  
  Granted, he isn't one of mine, but he's ruining the brand image just by virtue of existing.
  
  Guess he'll have to die then.
  
  The next two to come out do so as a pair. A man and a woman, one significantly more important than the other.
  
  The woman is Shatterbird, capable of singlehandedly disabling an entire city by shattering literally everything silicon based with a single scream. She's wearing a flowing dress covered in glass while wearing a bird beak to cover her head that is also made of glass.
  
  It honestly does actually look kind of cool.
  
  The man however clearly doesn't feel the same need for a cool costume as he is just dressed in a white button up shirt and black slacks that have a dozen blades tucked into the belt. His clothes are also decorated with dried blood, but without the dirt that Bonesaw's dress has.
  
  He is actually a pretty handsome looking guy, with a neatly trimmed goatee and a strong widow's peak to match a naturally attractive face. He kind of looks like a movie star.
  
  He casts a quick glance about the street before locking eyes with me and raising a brow, gaining an amused yet curious look to his face.
  
  Jack Slash. Leader of the Slaughterhouse Nine since he was like, twelve or something. The single most infamous serial killer on the planet, infamous for spending a bit over two decades running around North America with his band of psychopaths and murdering and torturing everyone he sees.
  
  The Nine's collective death count is probably somewhere around a hundred thousand at this point, unless I'm exaggerating. I don't exactly have an exact number, but they have been going around killing people since long before I was born.
  
  And in all that time, only Jack has managed to survive the pursuit of heroes and other vengeful parahumans.
  
  Well, if anything I can at least say I was right earlier.
  
  Today is certainly turning out to be an interesting one.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Fun fact, when I started my last fic it was with a single thought. "I want a fic with more ANBU spy stuff." Everything else just came about from making it up as I go along. For this fic, the only plans I had going in was "I want a ghoul in Worm... I also wanna see them interact with the nine." So this is like, the whole point of this fic lmao, and it's just going to be a middle of the story arc :(
  
  Ah well, with the nine there is so much insanity and I am looking forward to writing it lol XD
  
  Oh and it should be obvious, but Lusia has so far been chaotic neutral with hints of good, so now it's time for the chaotic evil to balance things out a little lol. A lot of people are probably going to die rather humorous/ excruciatingly painful deaths from now on ;P
  
  tbh it's actually a good thing that I was feeling hesitant about doing messed up stuff that the nine will be doing because it means that I will be slowly getting corrupted into writing more messed up stuff and I feel like that will translate really well in showing how Lusia herself is going even further off the deep end.
  
  Oh and if you wanna see a pic of me wearing a dope ass shirt depicting a T-rex with sunglasses riding a space shark shooting rainbow lasers from it's eyes through space that I found in a charity shop, feel free to check it out in the discord 3
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  85 The Importance of Arithmetic
  The street is full of tension, enough that even the bears are frozen and silent, their instincts warning them of just how many predators there are now surrounding them.
  
  However, there is one person who doesn't seem to get the message.
  
  "Oi! I'm in the middle of something here!" I shout at Jack, waving my arm at him like an old man would to complain about kids on their lawn.
  
  Jack's eyes barely widen enough for me to notice it to denote his minute surprise while his lips quirk up in a much more obvious show of amusement.
  
  However before he can respond, Wrangler whisper shouts at me with an incredibly urgent and fear filled voice.
  
  "What are you doing!? Are you insane!? That's the fucking 𝘚𝘭𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘕𝘪𝘯𝘦! Don't shout at them!" I can't help but notice that he sounds normal now, just with a slight southern accent.
  
  I guess the cowboy thing really was just putting on an act. That's kind of disappointing actually.
  
  In response to him, I bring my pinkie to my ear and start lazily picking at it while exaggeratedly looking over the serial killers.
  
  "Nah.~" Is all I say and Wranglers confusion and annoyance at me must have overridden his fear as he immediately shouts back at me.
  
  "The fuck-" "Language!" "-do you mean no?! They're right there!" Completely ignoring the high pitched shout at his cursing, he waves his arms frantically in the direction of the worlds most famous murderers.
  
  But I just give him a huff and look away from him, crossing my arms as I do so.
  
  "Tch tch, can't you see? There are only eight of them! How could they be the Slaughterhouse 𝘕𝘪𝘯𝘦 if there are only eight of them huh!? Dumbass-" "Language!" Turning to the little girl I don't hesitate to shout my own response before retuning to what I was saying, "-English! ahem, learn to count."
  
  Before we can continue this wonderful dialogue, Bonesaw's frustrated voice sounds out once more.
  
  "That's not what I meant! You shouldn't cuss! It's naughty!" My god she is so adorable.
  
  Doesn't mean I'm not going to fuck with her though.
  
  "And 𝘺𝘰𝘶 shouldn't interrupt people! That's rude too, and I was in the middle of something here!"
  
  Surprisingly, Bonesaw seems to actually reel from my words as if I physically attacked her and makes a face like I just killed her parents in front of her or some shit.
  
  Interesting. That is a significantly greater response than I was expecting.
  
  However this is when Jack decides to speak up, dragging my attention away from the little girl.
  
  "I'm not sure if I should be calling you brave or stupid, Bear Girl. At the least, you are pretty entertaining but this is really the part where you should start running. Siberian."
  
  At his command, the striped woman starts to approach with a dangerous smile growing on her face.
  
  "Oooh~ sca~ary." I mock as she gets closer, only to remember that she is literally an immovable object and unstoppable force all in one and immediately seem to sober, "actually, I take back how I said that, you really are pretty scary, though you're kinda sexy as well so I'm not really sure how I should be feeling right now. I mean, one part of me doesn't want to get torn to bits but the rest of me wants to know if I can cop a feel while you do it, you know?~"
  
  Jack, Crawler and Frankenstein all seem to enjoy my joke that is only half a joke, the rest are a mix of uncaring and annoyed. Fortunately for me, Siberian seems to be of the former which really does make sense if you think about it.
  
  A woman that walks around naked isn't exactly going to be a prude.
  
  Still, I can't just let her walk up to me, I might die after all.
  
  No one can hurt the Siberian and she can hurt everything. That's basically how her power seems to work.
  
  So once she has crossed about half the distance to me, I turn to Yogi beside me and apologise in my mind.
  
  You will not be missed and you will swiftly be forgotten, but your sacrifice is a necessary one for my next joke.
  
  Grabbing him by his front paw, I repeat what I did to Wrangler, only with a whole lot more force and throw Yogi at the sexy zebra.
  
  "YOGI BEAR I CHOOSE YOU!" I scream as Yogi goes flying down the street, making distressing noises all the while.
  
  However, once he hits Siberian, she doesn't so much as slow, as if Yogi's entire mass is little more than a light gust of wind.
  
  At the same time, Yogi gets split in half, as if she is one of those water jet cutter things. His organs basically explode over the woman and start falling out of the two halves of his body as they land on the ground with a wet squelch.
  
  I watch with interest as all of the blood and viscera that decorated Siberian starts sliding down her body, like water on glass, until she is only a few steps away from me and completely clean.
  
  Damn that's useful.
  
  She comes to a stop right in front of me, close enough that our chests are nearly touching, and she smiles down at me, a smile I return, not that she can see it with the mask, but it's the intent that matters.
  
  "Is this the part where you proposition me? Or should I also get naked first?~" I tease directly to her face, her 5'8 form standing just an inch taller than my own 5'7 self.
  
  She responds by thrusting one of her hands forward, seeming to be intending on ripping out my heart. I think about dodging, but fair's fair, so I allow her to rip into my chest without the slightest resistance and take hold of my heart, while at the same time I thrust my own hand forward, reaching for the same location.
  
  Only her flesh is invulnerable, she doesn't even smell of anything, so instead of my hand piercing her I just end up grabbing at her chest.
  
  Kukuku, all according to plan.
  
  I give it a couple of squeezes, noting that there is basically no springiness whatsoever, which makes sense with the whole invulnerability and all, but I have noticed that her hair still sways in the wind, so clearly she can be selective about it.
  
  So as she takes her hand out of my chest and looks down at her own, all the while she shoves my heart into her mouth and starts chewing, I speak out with a pout.
  
  "Hey~ stop using your power on your boobs, it's not the same if they don't squish. That's like, half the fun.~"
  
  Looking back at me, she sees that the hole in my chest is already gone and despite not seeming to have a problem with the molestation, that seems to annoy her, so she whips her other hand up, intending to cleave through my head.
  
  I'm pretty sure I can survive that, but I don't really want to, so I reluctantly let go of her breast and jump back a little to dodge her.
  
  "Woah!~ Close one!~ Be careful~ if we weren't already so close I'd think you were tying to kill me or something!~" Rather than getting annoyed at my playful words, she just grins at me and starts a game of cat and mouse, with me as the mouse.
  
  As she starts chasing me around I do my best to keep my dodges as close to her as possible, though I do misjudge a couple of times and loose some skin and at the same time, I idly notice the glass fronts of the stores around us shattering, followed by a few panes of glass carrying food and other supplies back to the RV.
  
  I guess they are just here for a pit stop or something.
  
  Due to my superior speed I am capable of keeping our game of cat and mouse in the same street as their RV by running in circles, which is why we can both hear Jack perfectly fine after about an hour of just running about, playing tag.
  
  "Siberian! Stop playing with your food! If you want to make it in time to recruit that new cape then we can't stay for too long!" To be honest, I kind of forgot about the rest of them.
  
  It's been ages since I played tag, so I was just having fun.
  
  Turning to Jack even as I keep dodging Siberian, I notice him gesture at the clown wannabe and all of a sudden, enlightenment strikes.
  
  Well, not really. But an opportunity does arise as clearly Jack wants the faker to come help Siberian finish me off.
  
  The fake clown chuckles his weird little chuckle and then he blurs forward, speed betraying his size.
  
  But he is not fast enough.
  
  The moment he is withing arms reach of me, right as I am in the middle of dodging Siberian, a half dozen spears of condensed and hardened blood shoot out of my side at him.
  
  I see him try to start moving to dodge in slow motion, but it's too late and I'm too fast.
  
  My ribbons each find themselves buried inside of his fat torso and I don't hesitate to rip each of them in separate directions, causing Fatty to explode into chunks of blood and gore.
  
  Everyone else pauses at the unexpected outcome and I use the moment to impale each of my ribbons into the ground to hold myself up in the air for extra mobility.
  
  Looking down on them all, I rip off my bear mask and finally allow my eyes to turn red with my power, giving them all a big smile.
  
  "Whoops!~ Sorry about that~ guess I was expecting him to be as good as the sexy zebra lady.~ Didn't think he'd pop so easily, teehee.~" I finish my little taunt by knocking myself on the side of the head and sticking my tongue out at them.
  
  At the same time, a quick glance around shows that while I was distracted with Siberian not only have all the people around us been killed but Bonesaw has started doing some surgical Tinker stuff on the bears, cutting them open and.. is she trying to make a human bear hybrid right now?
  
  Ok I actually really want to know if that works out or not and whether or not they would be edible to me.
  
  Food for thought.. heh.
  
  "Well now, would you look at that. It seems we won't be needing to make a visit to Denver after all, isn't that nice?"
  
  Jack's voice brings everyone's attention to him, something that he seems to revel in.
  
  Bonesaw looks between him and I with a sparkle in her eyes while Crawler actually seems to grow interested in his surroundings, rather than just lazing around like the worlds biggest cat.
  
  Siberian's reaction is the one I like the most though, as her eyes go from predatory to.. a different type of predatory, one that seems like a lot more fun.
  
  "You see Tear, it is incredibly rare for anyone to receive more than one nomination to join our merry band, in fact, I don't think it's actually happened before. Congratulations!"
  
  Huh, so they were on their way to Denver to recruit me? Must be why they recognised me so quickly after letting my ribbons out.
  
  How intriguing. I was looking for something interesting to do.
  
  "Oh?~ Are you saying I have fans here?~ How exciting!~" I exclaim, playing up the bit.
  
  "Something like that," he gestures to Siberian and Crawler, "these two both want you to join us, so what do you say? Wanna travel around with us and have some fun?"
  
  Talk about a win win situation. Seriously though, how lucky am I that fun things are just falling into my lap like this?
  
  "How could I say no to such an attractive proposal?~" I smile down at them and dismiss my power, dropping to the floor and walking closer when Jack's voice sounds out again, bringing me to a stop with a wry smile.
  
  "Naturally you still have to pass a test from each member first." His voice is playful and filled with amusement that I reluctantly share, a slightly annoyed smile on my face as I turn to face him with a sigh, ready for whatever tests they are going to throw at me.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Woop! Woop! Slaughterhouse time! The 'found family' that no sane person would ever want!
  
  Also, does anybody know how to get a fic added to the 'Superiority of Villains' community? Cuz I think it'd be pretty cool to see my own fic in there but the guy who owns it never messaged me back, back when I was still writing the old fic :(
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  86 Speedrun Any() No Glitches
  "Since you two have already started anyway, you might as well do Siberian's test first, assuming that the test is going to be the same as always?" Jack directed his question to the sexy tigress who simply responded with a feral smile and a nod.
  
  At the same time, the others of the Nine are starting to gather around, none of them particularly upset about the loss of Chuckles, in fact Bonesaw's little spider drones are already collecting his pieces for whatever reasons.
  
  Oooh, maybe she's going to use his parts in her bear-human hybrid stuff? That's be interesting.
  
  Before my mind can get too distracted by thoughts of what Bonesaw might be cooking up, Jack's voice sounds out again, returning my attention to him.
  
  "Siberian's test is simple my dear. For the next 72 hours you just have to run away from her, every time she catches you she'll take one of your fingers. I'm sure I don't have to explain what will happen should you run out of fingers."
  
  ... He does know I regenerate right?
  
  Going by the look he is giving me, I assume it's more a case of if she bites off each of my fingers once then it's game over, whether they regenerate or not.
  
  Oh well, it doesn't really matter because tag is fun and all but not for three days straight.
  
  So instead of running away from her, I face Siberian with a smile.
  
  "Hey, three days is a lot, so how about a deal instead? I'm obviously faster than you anyway so it's not like I'd fail the test, so how about this. I will give you twenty of my fingers to eat now and another set every day for.. let's say the next month, and naturally I'm down to play tag whenever really. In exchange, I pass your test. Deal?"
  
  Finishing my offer, I hold my hand out to her while she comes to a stop a few feet away from me and puts ha finger on her cheek, pondering.
  
  Still without saying a word, she walks up to me with a sensual smile and gently takes hold of my hand before slowly sticking her tongue out and licking from the base of my forefinger to about halfway up before moving to take the whole finger in her mouth, all without breaking eye contact.
  
  I feel her gently suck on my finger for a moment, running her tongue around it before a spike of pain shoots through me as she bites off the digit with a soft crunch.
  
  A gasping breath leaves me as the minute pain fades away and I can't help but look at the zebra woman in a new light.
  
  Holy fucking shit that was the single most erotic encounter of my life.
  
  If this kind of thing keeps up, then I think I'm really going to enjoy hanging out with these losers, even if I'm going to have to fix how boring they tend to be.
  
  I decide to take this whole thing as her accepting my deal, and just stand there while she continues to eat my fingers in such a way that I find myself incredibly turned on, even if being cannibalised isn't really a kink of mine.
  
  She's just too damn sexy that the whole eating my fingers thing isn't enough to be a turn off. If she wasn't being cannibalistic to me I'd probably have jumped her at this point, but the pain, however enjoyable, is at least enough to keep my senses about me.
  
  ... Ok so I also start using whatever hand she isn't holding to squeeze her breasts, happily noticing that they are actually springy this time, meaning that she is controlling her power to allow me to do this.
  
  Ahhh, what a good day this is turning out to be.
  
  But like all good things, it eventually comes to an end after she has finally gone through each of my fingers twice over.
  
  I snap back to reality as Siberian turns around and starts walking away, an enticing sway to her hips, and with a physical effort I force my attention away from her ass to focus on the people around us.
  
  "Come on! Don't stop now!" Turning to face Hatchet Face at his loud complaint, I can't help but laugh at the fact that he was clearly enjoying the show.
  
  I just stick my tongue out at him with a smile and turn to Jack who almost looks like he's pouting. The only thing holding him back from being annoyed at me skipping most of the test is probably just the simple fact that I would have obviously passed anyway, so I just saved us all a lot of time.
  
  "Well that was unexpected, but Siberian clearly thinks you've passed, so that only leaves six more tests to go. Who's next?" He cranes his head around with a smile to look at the others who are all sitting around the RV.
  
  Except for Bonesaw at least. I'm guessing that she probably went back into the RV to avoid watching Tiger and I having fun, which makes sense since she's like, James' age.
  
  Hatchet Face is the first to answer Jack with a bored smirk.
  
  "Eh, she got rid of that clown fuck, that's good enough for my test." He says, sounding oddly happy about Chuckles dying.
  
  Wonder if it's bad blood or something.
  
  You know, I am really starting to think that it would have been nice if I learned more about the Nine before hand. All I know is their names and powers as well as anything else that literally everyone knows, like Siberian being a cannibal or Bonesaw being terrifying on a national scale.
  
  Wet Tinkers are scary that way. Super advanced alien tech is already annoying to deal with, adding a biological specialisation to that and you have a recipe for disaster.
  
  A zombie plague would be pretty funny though.
  
  "Well I suppose that's fair enough. Five to go." Before Jack can say anything else, he is interrupted by Crawler getting to his feet and running at me, screaming all the while.
  
  "FIGHT ME!" His shout is deep and guttural, sounding more like the growls of an animal than a human voice to the point that it's difficult to even understand him.
  
  Running and taking a swing at me send a pretty clear message though.
  
  Crawler is an amalgamation of DNA, taking the best traits of everything and combining them into one. His power is adaptive regeneration, meaning that if he survives anything that you throw at him, then the next time you throw the same thing at him it will just do nothing at all.
  
  In other words, you can't waste your attacks if you actually want to kill him.
  
  So even if that's not my goal, I still don't counter attack right away and just focus on dodging his attacks, something that I don't really struggle with, while I ask an important question.
  
  "Fight you? That's not really test you know?~ 'Fight me' doesn't exactly have a win condition or a specified end, you're supposed to give me an objective.~"
  
  With a twist and a leap, I launch myself over his body, doing a fancy flip and landing with a bow directed at the other members for the sake of theatrics.
  
  I jump to the side to avoid his claws crushing me to pieces and my continuous dodges cause him to shout out in anger, his voice still barely legible.
  
  "HURT ME!" He yells as I dodge another strike, confusing me for a moment before I understand.
  
  He gets stronger every time he gets hurt, no wander he wants to actually take damage.
  
  Still, I don't want to spend all day doing this, so best to get confirmation first.
  
  "So if I hurt you I pass?~" I ask and he pauses in his attacks to give me a happy little nod.
  
  My god he really does look like some kind of fucked up puppy.
  
  Well, why not then.
  
  With a shrug of my shoulders, I disperse my ribbons and replace them with my wings that appear to have gone through some kind of transformation as of late.
  
  Instead of being a single pair of wings, they now look more like two pairs of wings merged together, like that of a butterflies. Shining and glimmering with energy, they look like the wings of a fairy, dripping with blood.
  
  A flash of violet light explodes from my wings and a blur flies forward, far faster than I can move on my own and imbeds itself straight through Crawler's monstrous forehead.
  
  The spike of bone, now as thick as my arm and almost as long as I am tall buries itself three feet deep into Crawlers head before coming to a stop.
  
  "YESSS! HAHA!" He exclaims with joy, clearly far more masochistic than I gave him credit for.
  
  After a moment the spike rapidly starts to get pushed out of his head until it drops onto the floor with a clack, showing that the place it pierced is now fully healed with the flesh being slightly discoloured from the rest of his body, probably showing it's newfound resistance to my attacks.
  
  "MOREEE!" He yells as he jumps at me, but in response I simply bring out my tail and jump over him, spinning in the air to gain even more momentum before I slam my tail into the back of his head.
  
  The air around us is blown away when the blow connects and the street below his head cracks and craters from the force I smash him into it with.
  
  I land in front of his head and it only takes a second for him to get his bearings back after having his brain rattled, but I make sure to speak up before he can get himself worked up again.
  
  "I hurt you. The test is passed.~ If you want to fight more later, I'm fine with that, I can hurt you all you want, but I'm busy right now, so save it for later yeah?"
  
  His many eyes stare at me for a minute before he huffs and gets to his feet, walking back to the RV with what would no doubt be a pout if he was still human looking.
  
  "Fine. But I'll hold you to that."
  
  What a needy little doggo.
  
  Ah well. It's not like I have a reason to avoid the fight, I'm sure it will be fun, like playing tag with Tiger.
  
  "Welp! That's three down, four to go right?~" I exclaim with a clap of my hands as I turn back to the others.
  
  "You've hardly even been tested. It's my turn." Turning slightly I behold Shatterbird as she uses her power to float out of her seat, her and jack having got out some fold up chairs earlier, and moves closer to me.
  
  "Sure thing Hayyan!~" I exclaim with a double thumbs up, earning a questioning tilt of the head from the woman in question.
  
  "You know of Jabir ibn Hayyan? I would not have expected that from someone of your.. character." Looking at the tanned woman in surprise, I smile at the thought that by joining these guys I might not just get to have fun, but maybe even some intellectual conversation too.
  
  "Well, not much to be honest. I couldn't remember his first two names and all I really know about him is that he supposedly invented the formula for stained glass. Don't know if he did anything else though.~"
  
  At the sudden change of atmosphere, Shatterbird drops back down to the ground and starts talking, seemingly happy to educate me, or perhaps to flaunt her knowledge.
  
  "Jabir ibn Hayyan was known for a great many writing, enough that it's suspected that he may have been a collection of alchemists operating under a pseudonym instead of a single man, it would make sense as-" Before she can start getting into things however, she is interrupted by Jack clearing his throat.
  
  𝘈𝘩𝘦𝘮
  
  Both of us turn to look at him and he just gives Shatterbird a raised eyebrow and I get the feeling that she blushes slightly under her mask, though I think it's just embarrassment at getting distracted.
  
  "Right. For my test, just follow me." She says after clearing her throat and after a short walk she stops us in front of a relatively large building, probably about the size of a school gymnasium.
  
  Inside I can see that the entire floor is covered in glass shards and I get the feeling I know exactly what the test is going to be.
  
  "You just have to stay in there for 24 hours and you pass." She says, back to being all formal and prim and proper.
  
  I just sigh and start getting naked.
  
  "What are you doing?" She doesn't sound scandalised or anything, just deadpan.
  
  Probably doesn't want another nudist on the team.
  
  "I don't have a spare prison costume." Is all I say in answer and it's all she needs to nod in understanding.
  
  Guess we both know how the next 24 hours are going to go then.
  
  Throwing my clothes at Shatterbird to hold onto, which she immediately drops, I walk into the building, ready to be attacked by glass for a while.
  
  It's probably going to be a massive waste of time, since I doubt glass can even hurt me, but I think it's worth it. These guys already seem like a lot of fun.
  
  The door closes behind me, leaving me not just in the dark but also in silence that is quickly replaced by the sound of grinding glass.
  
  The things I do for the sake of fun.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Even in a glitchless speedrun, some cutscenes are unskippable. So yeah, sorry about being horny for Sibby, but fuck you at the same time if you seriously don't think Lusia would be horny for Sibby.
  
  Also, Shatterbird is supposed to see herself as a scholar, so I don't doubt that she has even more random information jammed into her brain than Lusia does.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  87 Speedrun 2 Electric Boogaloo
  After spending at least a couple of hours locked in a big dark room, constantly getting attacked by a tornado of glass that can't even draw blood from my skin, I must admit to getting a little bit bored.
  
  The only actual way that Shatterbird's glass can even cause me any harm is by bypassing the skin via already existing holes, but that was a problem easily solved by making myself a pair of panties with a partial manifestation of my armour.
  
  Combined with manifesting the mask at the same time and plugging my ears with my fingers and suddenly she is completely incapable of causing me harm.
  
  Which, just going by the increasingly erratic movements of the glass, is probably pissing her off a little.
  
  So I decide to offer an alternative to save us both some trouble.
  
  "Hey Shatter, I don't know if you can hear me, but I have an offer for you! How about we call this a day here and I pass your test, in exchange let's say I owe you a favour. Deal?"
  
  Owing a favour is basically getting things for free as far as I am concerned, because I like getting side quests anyway, so whatever the favour is, it will probably be interesting, or at least distracting enough for me to be willing to do it as a request instead of needing the favour.
  
  So naturally, I am feeling pretty good about myself when after a minute of silence, the glass around me all falls to the ground at once and the next moment light once again streams into the room as the door is opened.
  
  And thank god for that. Sitting in a room for hours with nothing to do is not my idea of a good time. In fact it's like, my exact idea of a bad time.
  
  I hate being bored.
  
  Dismissing my constructs that I should really get a proper name for, I walk back through the same door, just as naked as when I entered it and just as unbothered by said nudity.
  
  It's not like I have anything to be ashamed of. Other than my hair that I have to dye to keep looking nice, every single part of my body is exactly how I want it to be.
  
  Considering I can shapeshift now, that really goes to say just how badly I won the genetic lottery.
  
  Or it just shows a lot of ego that has built up over time, who's to say really.
  
  Either way, I walk out of the building as naked as the day I was born to find that the RV has been moved to be in front of the door and that most of the Nine, or I suppose Seven if you don't count me, are sitting in front of the RV in lawn chairs and staring at me as I exit.
  
  Bunch of perverts.
  
  How fun.
  
  With a grin I spend a minute striking a pose or two before picking my clothes up from the ground where Birdy left them and get dressed.
  
  Three tests to go then.
  
  With a smile on my face, I saunter up to the others and give them an exaggerated wave that only Bonesaw and funnily enough, Crawler reciprocate.
  
  Hatchet Face just responds by making rude gestures with his hands that I do my best to ignore, mostly because I don't want to burst out laughing while one of the remaining three are giving me their tests.
  
  "So what's next?" I chirp, happy that the tests have all been pretty easy so far.
  
  I don't know why I felt the need to jinx myself.
  
  "I'd say congratulations on passing Shatterbird's test but honestly it was clearly not a very compatible test for you. Alas, what's done is done, now it's time for Mannequin's test."
  
  In response to Jack's oddly smug words, Mannequin makes some weird clicking and tapping noises, partly from literally tapping his shell of a body and partly from some internal mechanisms.
  
  The dude is basically a robot after all, and it's not like he has any openings to speak through, but how the fuck am I supposed to understand what he's saying?
  
  Does everyone here know morse code or something? Because the only morse code I know is S.O.S. so I'm kind of lost here.
  
  Jack however doesn't seem to share my lack of understanding, as once Mannequin stops making noises, Jack nods his head as if he just heard a completely reasonable thing.
  
  Is it wrong that this is the part I'm finding weirdest about these guys? Rather than like, all the death and torture and stuff?
  
  "Mannequin's test is for you to change something about yourself." Jack has an annoyingly smug look about him when he says that while I just start feeling incredibly confused.
  
  Change something about myself? How infuriatingly vague.
  
  What does he expect me to do? Start wearing dresses?
  
  "Uhh, such as? You guys know I'm a regenerator right? Any tattoo or whatever will just go away once the skin has to regenerate, probably, and for the same reason it's not like I can turn myself into a cripple. So what? You want me get a nice hat or something?"
  
  Mannequin doesn't move an inch, further selling the image of being a robot, helped along by the fact that I can't actually even smell any flesh on him.
  
  I mean, I know he used to be Sphere, the Hero who set out to colonise the moon, but that doesn't mean he couldn't have just turned himself into a robot since then.
  
  However Jack answers in his place with a crafty smile.
  
  "Your hair." He only says two words at first but they are enough to make me freeze, if only for a moment.
  
  Trying to play it off, even though I know he caught my reaction, I pretend to be oblivious.
  
  "What about it? You want me to match Ringlets over there?" I nod towards Bonesaw who gasps and starts nodding like I just offered her an entire candy store.
  
  My god she is too adorable!
  
  "Nothing like that no, you will just have to show the world your natural hair, instead of hiding it away." Jack's grin has grown positively malicious, who'd have thought.
  
  I get the feeling he might have been feeling a bit miffed at how easily I have been breezing through tests so far.
  
  More importantly, how does he even know about my hair? Even more importantly, how does he know I hate it so much? Can he read minds or something?
  
  No, that doesn't seem right. Maybe he really is just that good at reading people?
  
  That would make more sense. No way he could keep a group like this together without being good at understanding people.
  
  Haaah.
  
  With a depressed sigh, I don't bother arguing, understanding the futility of doing so. Instead I just extend my blood to cover my right forefinger to turn it into a decently sized scythe which I raise to my head.
  
  Then, with only a little bit of hesitation, I scalp myself.
  
  My flesh, alongside all of the dyed brown hair it was carrying drop the the floor with a wet slap and at the same time the top of my hear regenerates almost immediately, rapidly followed by my hair.
  
  It's a sickly looking pale white, the kind of hair that you would expect to see in the hospital on terminally ill people and it grows all the way down to the middle of my back before stopping.
  
  I hate it.
  
  I used to love my hair, back when it was a nice golden blond. Now I'm stuck with this crap. Like I'm some kind of albino.
  
  I take a handful of my hair and bring it in front of my face and just stare at it for a moment.
  
  Yeah, I hate this.
  
  It seems you continue to haunt me even after your death, huh Jason.
  
  Well there goes my good mood I guess.
  
  I suppose the only upside I can think of is that if I'm to be running with 𝘵𝘩𝘦 murderhobos, then I guess I can just try and get as much blood on my head as possible in the hope of dying it red instead.
  
  I'm not sure if that's really how that works, but either way, having bloody hair is got to be better than this crap.
  
  Plus it would smell nice. Oh, there's an idea. Maybe I should try making shampoo with blood in it? I'd certainly like the smell and it could probably help seduce the sext tiger lady too.
  
  I'm brought out of my thoughts by the excited clapping of Bonesaw who rapidly starts talking once I look at her.
  
  "My turn! My turn! My turn!" She exclaims, practically bouncing up from her seat in excitement that brings a smile back to my face.
  
  Before anyone else can speak, she bounces over to me and takes me by the hand, leading me to the RV.
  
  "You don't have to do anything! Just stay still ok!? I wanna see what you look like under your skin! Brutes and Changers like you sometimes have reeeeally interesting parts!"
  
  What a creepy thing for a child to say, and yet she still seems so adorable when she says it.
  
  "Cool.~" I say as she takes us into the RV, engaging her in her interests, "mind explaining things as you go? 'Cuz I'm kind of interested in what you'll find out?~"
  
  The way she stops and spins to face me is slightly startling, but the way she seems to inflate and start shaking in place as if she is about to explode has me worried that I just accidentally triggered some kind of self destruct sequence.
  
  That is, until she opens her mouth.
  
  "YES!" She screams at me before jumping forward to give me a hug that I return, only moderately confused, "I am so happy big sister wants to learn with me!"
  
  Oh my god. I practically melt at the overload of sweetness rolling off of the girl.
  
  I don't know how much of this I can take, she's just so damn adorable.
  
  Reaching down slightly to match her height, I wrap my arms around her and lift her up, squeezing her tight and spinning in a circle.
  
  "You are so fu-" "Language!" "freakin' ADORABLE!" I exclaim as I rub our cheeks together with a smile while she starts giggling and hugging me back.
  
  That is, until I open my eyes from their bliss and see Siberian standing right in front of me, staring me in the eye.
  
  Ah.
  
  𝘈𝘩𝘦𝘮
  
  Clearing my throat slightly, I slowly put Bonesaw down, ignoring her stifling giggles to focus on the most literal definition of tiger mom I have ever seen with a smile on my face.
  
  "Yo Tiger.~ Come to join the fun?~" I ask with my arms spread wide, offering a hug.
  
  She doesn't reciprocate, but she does crack a soft smile for a moment before putting a hand on Bonesaw's shoulder and leading her away, which I follow until we end up in a small surgery room.
  
  Good thing this is one of those big RVs. It would suck if I had to spend my time shoulder to shoulder with Hatchet Face or something.
  
  Walking into the room, I take note of the attempt at a clinical appearance that kind of fails with all the bloodstains and organs in jars all over the place, making it seem more like a mad doctors lab in a horror movie.
  
  Which, admittedly, does make a lot of sense considering that this literally is the lab of a mad doctor. Though I don't think she's actually a licenced medical professional.
  
  There is a single operating table in the middle of the room that has some manacles built into it for the arms, legs and neck. Further showing a lack of care for OSHA regulations.
  
  Bonesaw starts looking through draws and cabinets on the other side of the room with Siberian following her like a shadow and I start poking around at the organs and other unidentifiable things in jars around the room.
  
  "So, where do we start?" I ask as I turn around, hearing the pitter pattering sound of Bonesaw's little feet paddling along the room.
  
  By the time I fully turn around, she is already right right in front of me and before I can even open my mouth to say anything, she stabs me in the leg with a syringe.
  
  Rude.
  
  I move my hand down to take out the needle, only to suddenly lose control of my body and collapse face first on the ground, nobody bothering to catch me.
  
  Double rude.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Honestly I was under the impression that the tests would be over in one chapter, hence calling it a speedrun. But clearly I'm an idiot. Ah well, there's only Bonesaw's test to finish and Jacks to start and then Lusia will officially be a scary motherfucker to the whole nation.
  
  Fun times.
  
  Did an IQ test and got 144. Not sure if the site was just artificially inflating numbers or not tbh, but it's a number I'm happy to brag about lol, and I did skip a couple years ahead for the brief period my school let me do so, so my hope is that it's the real number. (everybody hates those 'intellectual superior' types, which is naturally why I want to brag about IQ specifically, it's one of the easiest ways to make people hate you lmao)
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  88 Go to School 2 Electric Boogaloo
  It didn't take long for Bonesaw's drug to wear off. In fact it took less than a minute.
  
  Since it only disabled my body instead of knocking me out, I was fully aware while Bonesaw got Siberian to pick my up to put me on the operating table, which meant that when the drug wore off, I already knew I was in prime position to lean forward and give her bare nipple a bite.
  
  I didn't even have to worry about hurting her since that's literally impossible to do.
  
  The best part was that she just gave me a glance and dropped me on the table, not at all bothered by the action.
  
  Bonesaw was a little upset at me shrugging off her drug, but that only lasted until I explained to her that I'm used to pain and that she can do whatever without worrying about me flinching.
  
  That leads to now, with me lying on my back while Bonesaw examines some of my blood and various other parts, bone marrow and such.
  
  I'm not a doctor so I won't pretend to understand what exactly is going on, instead I will just take cue's from Siberian and just nod along to whatever she says as if it makes sense.
  
  Though, I have noticed that she is trying to dumb things down a little so I can understand what she's talking about thanks to my earlier request and I have to say, it is beyond adorable watching her explain things all excitedly, only to keep cutting herself off to explain all the big words she uses.
  
  "It really is quite fascinating! Your body doesn't seem to posses any leucocytes, uh, those are white blood cells. Instead your body seems to have these weird erythrocytes, oh, I mean. Your body seems to have these weird red blood cells that are doing the leuco- ah, white blood cells' job instead!"
  
  Honestly, even with her helping with the fancy words, I didn't pay too much attention to biology class. I only really liked physics and chemistry out of the science classes, so all I really know about blood is that the red ones oxygenate our muscles and the white ones tell diseases and stuff to fuck off.
  
  So I don't really know if it's a big deal to not have white blood cells.
  
  Doesn't mean I'm not going to engager her in her interests, it's only polite.
  
  "What about them is weird?" I ask, bringing a joyful little smile to her face that she spares a moment to flash at me before going back to her tools to examine my blood.
  
  "Well, for one they look funny. Kind of like a foetus really, which I guess might explain the insane amount of stem cell production they are capable of, which is probably where your regeneration comes from. They are also way better than white blood cells at fighting of infections and stuff, which explains why my muscle relaxant didn't last against you. I've never seen anything like it!"
  
  ... My blood is filled with foetuses? The fuck?
  
  Please don't tell me my blood is going to start growing into children, I'm not ready to be a mother of however the fuck many babies that would be.
  
  "When you say they look like foetuses, that's just what they look like, right? Like, they aren't capable of growing into a person right? Right?" My rapid questions bring about a confused look from Bonesaw as she looks back at me like an idiot, which is fine.
  
  I'd rather be an idiot than experience that one scene from the Alien movie.
  
  "Don't be silly~ they just look like that, there aren't any blastomeres and it's not a zygote, nor does it have the ability to become one. Oh uh, zygotes are a single-celled organism that's created when a sperm cell fertilises an egg cell and blastomeres are what you call it when the zygote starts dividing."
  
  As much as it's nice that she's still explaining things to me, I am too busy being filled with relief to really pay attention.
  
  Phew, dodged a bullet there.
  
  "Alright! Flip over!" Bonesaw suddenly commands after a short silence and I don't move because, as I suspected, that causes Siberian to walk over and flip me over herself.
  
  I give her a grin but she just rolls her eyes and goes back to shadowing Bonesaw, who makes her way over to the operating table I'm lying on that has already been lowered enough to seem normal height for her, with a tray full of tools that she puts next to the table.
  
  Then she gets Siberian to take off my shirt and starts poking at my bare back while muttering to herself.
  
  "Ok, so I don't think any of my tools can really get through your skin, or at least not well enough to keep it open once I do with your regeneration, soooo. Sibby!"
  
  At her shout, tiger mom extraordinaire snaps to attention and gets closer, ready to do whatever the adorable little murder machine says.
  
  "Can you hold open her back please? I wanna get a look inside." I can hear the innocent smile on her face even as she talks about such a macabre topic.
  
  Then I feel the cold, unstoppable force that is Siberian's nails as they dig into my back, past the skin but no further before they start pulling apart from each other, opening my back up to the world.
  
  I can feel my regeneration fighting to close the wound, but Siberian is Siberian, so my skin just harmlessly presses against her hands, leaving me exposed in the most literal sense.
  
  The feeling of having Bonesaw's little hands rummaging around in my organs is certainly a strange one, but while the pain is certainly present, it is nothing I haven't dealt with before, so I don't so much as flinch at it.
  
  "Huh, that's new." I hear her say before I feel a sudden pulling sensation inside of me, quickly followed by an annoyed grunt.
  
  "Sibby, can you get that for me?" She asks but I'm not too sure what exactly she's talking about until I feel one of Siberian's hands letting go of my skin, quickly followed by a feeling of immense pain and ? ﾝﾘﾰ? ﾝﾘﾴ.
  
  The pain I can handle, but the odd feeling of loss confuses me. It feels like I just had the wind knocked out of me but less violent.
  
  Like some vital part of me is missing.
  
  It's like when someone punches a hole through me, which has happened multiple times by now, except it feels more.. ? ﾝﾘﾱ? ﾝﾘﾳ? ﾝﾘﾵ? ﾝﾘﾢ?, for lack of a better term.
  
  Like I lost more than just flesh.
  
  I don't even realise that both Siberian and Bonesaw have lest the table to get back to her equipment at first, to focused on the strange new feeling of weakness.
  
  Not weak like when I woke up after fighting Extinction, but more like I haven't eaten anything in weeks.
  
  I can feel regeneration happening in my lower back, but it is slightly slower than normal. It's still done in just a few seconds, but I still feel tired afterwards.
  
  This certainly is new.
  
  Getting to my feet, I pull my shirt back on as I walk up to where Bonesaw is setting up a bunch of equipment I don't understand the use for or know the name of with a weird looking organ sitting to the side.
  
  I get the feeling that I found what they took out of me.
  
  "So uhh, what's that?" I may not have paid much attention to biology, but I have been eating people for the past few months, so I know the organs in our bodies pretty well and this is one I do not recognise.
  
  "I have no idea! It's completely foreign to me! Isn't that exciting? From what I can tells so far, it seems to be a sort of sac that holds large amounts of your weird cells. My theory is that your blood constructs that you can make use the cells stored in here to manifest, which means there might be a couple more of them too! Sibby?"
  
  With a roll of my eyes, I take my shirt off again and turn my back to Siberian, who doesn't hesitate to start tearing open my back, looking for similar organs as well as stopping every now and then to snack on me.
  
  It doesn't take long for her to locate three more, none of which she hesitates to rip out of my body, leaving me feeling rather weak and incredibly hungry.
  
  At least through the reflective surfaces around the room I was able to see that the first sac has already regenerated, meaning the others are likely to be fine too.
  
  "Oooh, four? Do you think know might which parts are for which?" She asks me and after a brief moment of thought I realise that yes, I do know the answer for that.
  
  "Bottom one for the tail, then going up there's the ribbons, then the arms then the wings. The armour is probably a mix of all four." That last part is just a guess since I seemed to unlock them all at once, so it makes sense.
  
  Bonesaw's only response is a hum of interest before she gets so absorbed in her work that she just stops paying attention to us altogether.
  
  After putting my shirt back on, again, I get back to poking around until I find a cupboard full of human meat, going by the scent.
  
  "Hey Bonesaw! You gonna finish these?" I ask, pointing to the cupboard when she looks over, but she just shrugs and spins back to doing whatever it is she is doing with my organs.
  
  "You can have them if you want. Oh, and you pass my test now too." Her voice is clearly distracted so I don't bother keeping her from her fun.
  
  Should I be more worried about her experimenting with my organs? Probably, but I've done stupider things before and I'm stronger now than I was then.
  
  And if the trend keeps up then if this ever becomes a problem I will be stronger then too.
  
  So I just shrug it off.
  
  "Cool." I say as I start taking out the meat and filling up my hungry stomach until Siberian walks over and glances between the meat and me, causing me to roll my eyes and offer my hand out to her, not stopping my own feasting even as she starts biting off my fingers.
  
  Not long later and there is no meat left so I take my hand back from Siberian, who lets me, and walk back out of the RV alone, Siberian choosing to stay with Bonesaw.
  
  When I reach out front I see the others milling about, doing their own thing.
  
  Crawler is napping like the good little dog that he is, Hatchet Face is doing something with a corpse that I'm just going to ignore, Shatterbird is reading a book and Jack is just chilling with his eyes closed.
  
  Mannequin is nowhere to be seen, but I assume Jack knows where he is.
  
  As I step out of the RV, dozens of pairs of eyes lock onto me, mostly from Crawler, and Jack gives me a smile that feels fake, even if it looks convincing.
  
  Probably because I'm mostly unaffected by their tests. It's not like there's anything left for him to break after all. You can't break what's already broken.
  
  "Well it looks like you've had a fruitful time with little Bonesaw, I trust you've learned something?" He asks and I give a wry smile in response.
  
  "Sure I have, don't remember all the big words though, something something zygote." I shrug my shoulders casually, showing my confusion on the subject.
  
  He lets out a polite chuckle but doesn't respond for a second before he changes the conversation.
  
  "Well it seems like I'm the only one left. I must say, this might just be the fastest recruitment to date. Now, I wasn't sure at first what to make my test. Obviously anything physical will mean nothing to you and you've clearly already been through enough that I don't think there's much left to be done emotionally. Unless you have any family left?"
  
  I get the feeling that he already knew the answer, or at least had an idea of it and was just asking to see if he'd get a reaction.
  
  Too bad for him then.
  
  "Nah, only child and I've already killed both of my parents. How 'bout you?" I ask with a grin and I see his eyes tighten slightly, even if his smile never fades.
  
  "Much of the same I'm afraid. Now for my test. Mannequin is helping me out by building a little something for you in the RV. Your test is just to last the month."
  
  You know, I really don't like his smile and what I feel like it might mean for me.
  
  Not long later and Mannequin exits the RV, prompting Jack to enter, signalling for me to follow him, which I do with only a sigh.
  
  My bad feeling is quickly proven right as he leads me to the back of the RV where there is an open box, barely big enough for me to fit in if I really squeeze myself.
  
  A long, drawn out sigh leaves me as I look at the box, not needing to be told what the obvious test is.
  
  Good thing I ate earlier, so at least I won't starve.
  
  Still, this is going to suck.
  
  I hate being bored.
  
  ... Maybe he really can read minds?
  
  "Welp! Good luck. I'll let Sibby know that you're little deal can start after this month is up."
  
  I really want to punch him in the face, but I hold myself back.
  
  Hanging out with these losers better be as fun as I'm hoping it will be.
  
  With another depressed sigh, I climb into the box, having to contort myself slightly in order to fit, leaving me rather uncomfortable.
  
  "Have fun.~" Jack chirps down at me as Mannequin starts closing the box.
  
  "Eat a dick." Is all I say and the last thing I hear as darkness takes over my world is a shout of 'Language!'.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  It was honestly so freaking hard to think of what Jack would make his test, until I wrote earlier about how Lusia hates being bored and I got this idea.
  
  It's probably the only real way to hurt her anymore too, cuz Lusia's idea of her personal hell would basically be to live the life of some office drone, with just nothing going on. Boredom is the only torture left in the world for Lusia, nothing else will really phase her anymore.
  
  Also, (9+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  89 Interlude: Jack Slash
  "No no, you're supposed to draw three at a time, it's too easy otherwise." I hear Bonesaw hum out an acceptance at our newest member's words as she reshuffles a deck of cards.
  
  After she sets up another game of solitaire for the little girl she returns to her conversation with Shatterbird to her side about that alchemist.
  
  While they talk I only pay minimal attention to the road as my thoughts wonder to our latest recruit.
  
  Tear. She's dangerous.
  
  But so are all of the others so it's nothing new really. Half the fun is the challenge of keeping them together.
  
  Still, Tear is a new kind of dangerous. She's powerful for sure, but it's her mind that's the challenge.
  
  The others are mostly easy. Hatchet Face just wants to kill capes, Brutes especially, Crawler just wants the danger that comes with being a member of the Nine so he can keep getting hurt and growing stronger for it. Alan, formally Sphere and now known as Mannequin just wants to kill any Tinkers that are helping the world in all the ways he himself failed to.
  
  Then there's Shatterbird. She just wants, no, 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘴 to feel powerful and to have others acknowledge her as such, so she's probably the easiest to keep in line with just the threat of embarrassment being enough to pacify her.
  
  Bonesaw however, is my greatest creation, she will do anything I say so long as she remains a 'good girl' while Siberian will simply follow Bonesaw around. It's like a two for one special.
  
  But Tear is a new challenge, one I welcome with open arms.
  
  She was already broken before we ever showed up, which is annoying admittedly, but at least she's well adjusted so it's not like I have to deal with some insecure, annoying girl.
  
  The main danger with her is that she's smart and her leash is tenuous at best.
  
  Unlike all the others, her only motivation seems to be her own entertainment, which doesn't bode well for loyalty, and she is clearly good with people if the way she's already befriended Shatterbird and gotten close with Bonesaw is anything to go by, as well as whatever her relationship with Siberian is.
  
  I will at least admit that it was interesting to see someone acting so fearlessly in front of her. Even other members of the Nine are rarely so comfortable around her.
  
  I know that Shatterbird is terrified of her at least, even if she'll never show it, because the simple fact is that if Siberian wanted her dead there would be nothing she could do about it.
  
  But back to the subject of Tear, after she got out of the box yesterday I was hoping for more of a reaction from her but all the month long isolation did was cause her to bottle up a whole lot of words as she came out talking so much that it took Hatchet Face coming over, to almost everybody's displeasure as his power nullification aura never turns off, and doing his namesake proud by ramming his hatchet into her face.
  
  By then she got the message to shut up but still insisted that she was starving and desperate for some food, as well as some sex but that urge seemed to evaporate once Hatchet Face made himself known again by offering her 'a good time'.
  
  But it's no secret that he's got a face even a mother couldn't love, so she was understandably disgusted by the idea.
  
  My attention is snapped from my thoughts and not a moment later I hear a sudden high pitched shout from behind me.
  
  "WOOO! Bingo!" Bonesaw's recognisable voice calls out and I turn to see her sitting with her arms in the air with four stacks of cards in front of her.
  
  Shatterbird and Tear both sigh at the same time before Tear speaks up with an amused smile.
  
  "That's a different game. You call out bingo when you're playing, well, bingo. It's not very creative to be honest." As she talks I notice a nice little town coming up where we could spend the night, stock up on some resources.
  
  "Oh, then Solitaire!" Bonesaw's yell garners a chuckle from Tear as she picks up the cards and starts shuffling them like a magician.
  
  "No, solitaire is a solo game so you don't have to call out anything specific- actually never mind I was thinking about a different game, when you win in solitaire you're supposed to call out 'bukkake' at the top of your voice."
  
  Right when I was thinking she was actually going to keep being mature.
  
  I choose to ignore Bonesaw's response as we get closer to the no name town, with a population probably somewhere around the six thousand mark. I've gotten pretty good at estimating these things over the years.
  
  "Alright everyone!" I call out to the others, bringing all their attention to me, "we're going to be making a pit stop now, you know the deal, grab what you want, we leave tomorrow."
  
  The explanation was purely for Tear's benefit as everyone else obviously already knows how this goes.
  
  I pull into town and wait to stop the RV only when we are in the middle of the settlement.
  
  As soon as the handbrake is on, Crawler is the first to get out, as usual. At the same time, Mannequin has already turned on his signal jammer to stop any calls from getting out.
  
  By the time I leave the RV, everyone around us is already running away and screaming, as it should be, while most of the others have already started killing people, the only exceptions being Bonesaw and Tear.
  
  "Here I was thinking you'd be like Siberian. Not hungry?" I ask her.
  
  However when she turns to me she has that same smile that I see in the mirror everyday.
  
  "Nah, just taking a moment to enjoy the view.~ Now that you mention it though, I am 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨.~" Her amused smile suddenly turns predatory and a pair of butterfly-like wings of blood burst out of her back.
  
  The next moment, four blurs shoot out of her wings and at the fleeing crowd. A pair of crescent moon shaped blades of bone cut through swathes of people like the reaper's scythe.
  
  Two were at vaguely neck height, either decapitating people or cutting their head in half if they were too short while the other pair were lower down, removing the legs of everyone they passed as well as cutting a child or two in half at the same time.
  
  However then she sees Crawler running in that same direction, his every step crushing a corpse beneath him and causing bodies to pop like cherries, painting the street with blood and viscera.
  
  "HEY!" Tear shouts as she starts chasing after Crawler, "THAT'S MY FOOD YOUR STEPPING ON ASSHOLE! GO FUCK OFF ELSEWHERE!"
  
  As I watch the carnage unfold, with Bonesaw at my side shouting about language and six parahumans of monstrous proportions each moving as I direct them too, I can't help but bask in the sensation.
  
  𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴. This is what I live for.
  
  The death, the destruction and most of all, the 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺.
  
  I am the leader of the Slaughterhouse-𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨-Nine. I can do whatever I want and no one can stop me. No one can even try.
  
  Still, the issue with a slaughter is that it rarely lasts very long.
  
  Within a few minutes it's only myself, Shatterbird and Bonesaw left by the RV, the others all out doing their own thing.
  
  "What do you think of her?" I turn to Shatterbird as my words snap her out of her focus on her powers.
  
  "Tear?" She asks, to which I only nod, "we haven't exactly talked enough to have much of an opinion on her. She's strong and less ignorant than the others. It's nice to have another decent conversationalist around. Definitely an improvement over Chuckles at least."
  
  I just hum along with her words, acknowledging her but not responding. Another subtle way of keeping her in line, reminding her who's in charge.
  
  So I was right about the two of them likely becoming fast friends, but I can still feel her loyalty to me exceeding anything she feels for Tear, something that is unlikely to change.
  
  By the time morning comes around, everyone is gathered back at the RV with the exception of Tear, Siberian and Crawler, which is actually mildly concerning as they are my three biggest hitters right now.
  
  Alas, there was no need to worry as they soon make themselves known.
  
  The three of them walk down a street together, Crawler and Tear pushing at each other as if they are just a group of friends coming back from the mall, the only difference is that one of them is splattered with blood while another is absolutely drenched in it.
  
  Siberian is as clean as always and I do notice the change in skin as well as a couple of features I don't recognise in Crawler's body underneath the light smatterings of blood, telling me that he's been evolving again.
  
  Tear is the real eye catcher though, as her entire body from head to toe is shaded a dark red as if she took a dive in a pool of blood. The literal only part of her body that isn't a shade of red is her pitch black sclera.
  
  I suppose it was her first time, so it would make sense if she went a bit overboard, not that such a thing exists with us but still.
  
  As they get closer to us they break apart, Crawler going back to the trailer, presumably to take a nap while Siberian makes a B-line for Bonesaw and Tear walks up to Shatterbird and I.
  
  But she doesn't spare me so much as a glance before excitedly spewing words at Shatterbird.
  
  "We found one of those 'welcome to' signs with the population thing on it, you know the kind where you have to flip each number individually. Do you think you could like, make a massive sign that says "Welcome to Attalla, population 0"? Because it would be really funny.~"
  
  I agree that it is funny, but unfortunately there was a member who did something similar a while ago, so I'm unable to share the same enthusiasm as the two woman beside me.
  
  But after that is all done and we are getting ready to get back on the road, I notice something odd with Tear, like she's upset about something.
  
  "Feeling bad?" I ask her once we are the only ones left to get back inside.
  
  She snorts but still takes a second to think of a proper answer.
  
  "No, it's not that. It's just, as much fun as this is, and will likely continue to be for at least a little while, it's going to get boring eventually because no offence but y'all are kinda tacky, just going around killing everyone. You don't really spice things up y'know? I dunno, just worried about when this'll get boring."
  
  Her words bring a bout of irrational anger to my gut. Calling 𝘮𝘦 tacky? Boring? 𝘕𝘰𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 calls me those things because they are. Not. True.
  
  I am a harbinger of chaos and death. I alone am the reason the Nine exist as they do today. I alone am the reason that everyone fears us.
  
  There is nothing more pure, no sensation as great as having the power over the life and death of thousands of people.
  
  But overreacting is above me, so I just give her a smile as I respond.
  
  "Oh really? Well it just so happens that I was thinking it's about time we hit another actual city, rather than these little towns. So how about we follow your lead then, so you teach us all how to have fun, hm?"
  
  The joyful and malicious smile that rapidly grows on her face tells me enough of what she thinks of the idea and I get the feeling I might need to replace her.
  
  As she answers she starts turning to get back into the RV, clearly excited enough to get started with her planning immediately and as her words wash over me I wonder if I made the right choice?
  
  "Oh you won't be dissapointed, trust me, I have plenty of ideas. This'll be fun!~"
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Ok well this chap didn't come out how I was hoping it to, might as well have just done one of the others. I blame how hot I am rn... I miss winter, cold is way better than hot.
  
  Edit: I just got back from spain lol. Left at half 7, flight delayed, made it back home at half 2 in the morning after 8 hours of travel, go to sleep hungry, wake up to find that the standing charge for our heating has run us dry and that we have no heating and I have to shower in water so cold it makes you do that shock breathing thing that kills kids in reservoirs.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  90 Plans 2 Electric Boogaloo
  Standing in front of the others, I slap my hand on the blackboard behind me, forcing them to look at where I have written 'Super cool awesome plan' with white chalk.
  
  We've already nearly arrived at the location for my latest play and I must admit that Jack sure knows how to pick a fitting venue.
  
  Columbus, Ohio is the city I debuted in and now I am going to debut as a member of the Nine in Columbus, Georgia. How quaint.
  
  "Ladies, gentlemen and Fucket Face-" "Hey!" "-I gather you here today to share with you my super cool awesome plan!~" I exclaim while puffing out my chest but only Bonesaw claps excitedly.
  
  I give her a smile while we all collectively ignore Hatchet Face's existence. I really hope one of the candidates in this city kill him, though I kind of doubt it as none of them are all that interesting.
  
  "Firstly I'll say that we aren't going to be doing things the usual way. After all, we have two pretty good Tinkers with us, so I figured we could do something more fun than just killing everyone."
  
  It amuses me that some of them seem genuinely confused on what they could do that isn't just boring and repetitive old murder.
  
  "I have two main ideas for entertainment purposes. One is for Bonesaw and the other is for Mannequin, who wants to go first?~" As expected, Bonesaw is once again the one to jump up, raising her arm in the air desperately.
  
  "Me! Me! Me! I want to go first!" My god, she really is so damn adorable. Did she modify herself to be extra cute or something? Like the weakest Stranger power ever?
  
  Eh, who cares.
  
  "Alrighty then! Your task is simple, I want you to Tinker up some kind of virus or something that can infect all of the salt in the city so that anyone who consumes any salt is sent into a mindless, homicidal rage. Can you do that?"
  
  As I speak, I take out a stick of chalk and start loudly drawing on the board behind me, drawing a picture of two stick-people eating a whole chicken while a chibi Bonesaw hovers above them with a maniacal grin as she pours salt down onto the food.
  
  Next to that I draw the same two stick-people with cross-popping veins on their heads as they rip each other to pieces with chibi Bonesaw laughing in the background.
  
  It's difficult to draw gore with just chalk.
  
  Bonesaw watches me draw and then ponders for a moment before nodding her head eagerly.
  
  "Yup! I can do that. But why salt? It will be harder to make if I have to bind it to something, rather than just leaving it as a gas or infecting the water or something."
  
  Stuff like that my dear, is exactly why I've always thought of you losers as a tacky bunch, because there is one thing you always seem to lack.
  
  "Subtlety. Everybody needs to eat and drink, but if you put it in the water they will quickly realise the source and start importing large amounts of bottled water, but everyone also needs to eat. However if you made something else, like garlic the problem then they would figure that out pretty quickly too, but just about everything has salt in it, even things that aren't food. So it will take longer for anyone to figure out the cause."
  
  At least that's the plan anyway. I'm not a chemist and with all the parahumans out there it's not beyond the scope of belief that they will figure the problem out immediately.
  
  But that's the glory of choosing salt as the method of contamination. Because even if they figure out that they should stop using it, they will then be struck with another problem. Namely the fact that they can't use salt.
  
  With Shatterbird fucking up basically all the technology in the city, salt will be the only method of preservation left for their food. It puts them in a lose-lose situation.
  
  Moving on, I wipe away my artwork and start drawing anew, leaving the only sounds as the tap tapping of my chalk on the board and my voice narrating along with it.
  
  This time, I just draw a portion of a street with a bunch of stick-people all around the place with their legs caught in bear traps, or their arms and heads caught in bear traps in the case of people trying to pen doors or walking too close to walls.
  
  "Alright, now Mannequin. I want you to take over a factory or two and start pumping out as many bear traps, or really any similar kind of traps as you can. Then we can turn the entire 𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘺 into a minefield. We can hide the traps on the streets, on alley walls, on door handles or even turn fire extinguishers into flamethrowers!~ I trust that you can make plenty of well hidden traps that can be mass distributed across the city, right Alan?"
  
  I feel two pairs of eyes snap to me at full attention, one being Mannequin and the other being Jack himself.
  
  A moment passes before Mannequin nods once and gets up, presumably to get to work on what I asked while Jack just stares at me with a poorly hidden dangerous look in his eye.
  
  Heh. I figured as much.
  
  Alan Gramme, formerly Sphere, spent most of his life trying to better humanity, to take us to the stars!~
  
  Unfortunately for him, the Simurgh didn't seem to like that and as the scariest of the Endbringers, she did what she did best. She killed his family and twisted his mind.
  
  After which he took up the name Mannequin and started roaming the country, killing everyone he could find that was succeeding where he failed, helping people with technology.
  
  I overheard Jack call him Alan earlier thanks to my enhanced senses and this idea popped into my head that maybe the reason Jack can control him is because by calling him by his name, you remind him of everything he has lost.
  
  It seems like I was right too. Call him by his name and he jumps at a change to hurt people again.
  
  The only problem is that now that I've done that, Jack might start trying to get me killed. But that's fine since I doubt he'll do anything too overt, as that would be boring.
  
  "Cool. As for the rest of you, well everyone has voted for their candidates, so I guess just go about and do your tests. They'll serve as a decent distraction to stop people from noticing Mannequin at work."
  
  Most of the others nod at my words but Shatterbird opens her mouth to ask a question.
  
  "How exactly do you expect us to hide traps all around the city? Because I can tell you now that I am not doing that." She seems personally insulted at the thought that I'd even try to get her to do manual labour, but I just smile at her.
  
  "𝘖𝘣𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺 we just get a couple hundred civilians and force them to do it, then kill them all so they can't give away the locations after we leave. Part of the fun of this whole thing is that they will still be dealing with the shit we do for years after we're gone. It's either that or they'll have to just abandon the city entirely, that's the goal.~"
  
  I can tell that some of them are at least a little sceptical, though that is probably at least in part because it's me giving the instructions rather than ol' Jacky boy, but they at least seem interested and that is enough for now.
  
  Especially since Siberian seems happy with the plan, and really she's the most important to convince.
  
  After all, I get the feeling that Jack and I might clash at some point, so I'd rather have the others on my side of the field and the most important pieces here are Siberian and Crawler, the latter of which I'm pretty sure I've already won over.
  
  We're both pretty similar after all, at least enough for him to understand me and to feel like I understand him, so all I really need is to get Siberian on my side and I basically win.
  
  Though, this is a battle of charisma rather than one of fists, so who knows how it will end really, especially with Jack seeming to be able to read minds or something adjacent to that.
  
  As the others each go about to do their own thing, Bonesaw running off to start working on my virus with Siberian on her heels, I catch up with Shatterbird and pull her aside.
  
  "Yes?" She asks with a raised brow while I smile in return.
  
  "I just wanted to talk about your role for a sec. I was hoping you could do something new with your power this time, 'cuz you always seem to just do the same thing to my knowledge and I was thinking you could do something more fun this time?"
  
  Her eyes immediately sharpen and gain a threatening tint that tells me that I might have accidentally upset her a little bit.
  
  "What is that supposed to mean? I am the announcer of the Nine, I am irreplaceable." She practically growls at me and I can hear the glass of her costume rattling with her mood.
  
  Now that's simply not true dear. Everyone in the Nine is replaceable, no exceptions.
  
  Not that I'm going to tell her that.
  
  "Not what I'm saying at all Shatter, of the people I know of that can drastically effect an entire city in one go you are like, half of them. No, I'm just saying to change things up a little. You usually just scream and shatter everything and leave it at that, I was thinking that you could turn the entire city into the eye of the storm, so to speak, by getting all the glass in the city to swirl in a ring around us like a tornado. It would probably limit your senses sure, but it'd be cool as fuck."
  
  And like that, she is instantly mollified. Going from feeling murderous to contemplative in a matter of seconds.
  
  "I'll think about it." Is all she says before turning and walking away, leaving me standing there with nothing to do.
  
  Eh, guess I'll go find Crawler.
  
  It's not a particularly difficult thing to do with his frame being like that of a vans and his scent being rather powerful.
  
  When I do find him he is doing much the same as he usually is, just chilling like a house cat.
  
  A few of his eyes open at my approach but they close soon after acknowledging me.
  
  "Sup Bitch, you dreaming about getting pegged again?" I greet as I walk up to his side and sit down, resting my back against him.
  
  He just lets out a huff in response to my insulting words before speaking in his own, deep and barely legible voice, sounding like grinding gravel.
  
  "Who starts a conversation like that? And if either of us were getting fucked, we both know it'd be you." I close my eyes and smile as I relax into his side, enjoying the simple companionship.
  
  "True true, I am insanely sexy after all, while you're just insane. But who knows? I've heard there are some really kinky women out there, so you might have a chance someday." I mockingly encourage him, earning myself a swift retort.
  
  "Aren't you one of those really kinky women yourself? And I'm not interested anyway."
  
  "I'm not 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 kinky." I defend, only to be silenced by his following words.
  
  "I've seen you with a mouth full of human flesh, masturbating with one hand while Siberian is eating fingers from your other hand." Even with his voice being as fucked up as it is, I can still feel the dryness in his tone.
  
  A moment passes between us in silence as I try and fail to think of a counter to his words before just giving up.
  
  "Touché."
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  I hate myself fr fr. I literally spent ages complaining about that big ass, 14k words fight I did in the last Columbus, and now I'm in another Columbus doing yet another big thing with a bunch of variables to keep track of :(
  
  idk what I'm doing.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  91 Interlude: Chad Magnus Wolfgang
  Columbus, Georgia. April 4th, 17:34.
  
  "Magne!" Turning to face whoever's calling my name, I see one of the troopers jogging down the hallway to catch up to me.
  
  "Can I help you?" I ask, hoping that this isn't going to be like when fans in the street ask for autographs or whatever.
  
  Especially since we are inside the PRT HQ for this city and it would be incredibly unprofessional of him.
  
  Thankfully, my worries were for naught.
  
  "The Director wants to see you in her office, apparently it's urgent." After finishing relaying his message, he waits for me to nod my head in acknowledgement before turning around and leaving.
  
  Annoying.
  
  Whenever the Director says something is 'urgent', it means that you have to drop whatever you're doing in favour of whatever's 'urgent'.
  
  Guess I'm not going to get to try out the early release of the new GTA IV just yet then.
  
  Orders are orders though, so I do as instructed, hoping for the sake of my gaming hours that it isn't going to be about what I think it might.
  
  A short walk later and I am entering Director Jonas' office to see that she is not the only one waiting for me inside.
  
  The Director herself is seated behind her busy desk with her Deputy-Director at her shoulder and two of my colleagues in front of her. Mimic, the leader of our branch of the Protectorate and Candy who, despite her cape name sounding like that of a strippers, is the one who keeps watch over the Wards are both standing at attention and don't even bother to greet me as I enter the tense room.
  
  Great.
  
  Why can it never just be good news?
  
  "Magne, good. We can get started then." The Director starts the moment I close the door behind me, "two days ago we got word that the Nine is likely to be nearby thanks to the destruction of Attalla matching their modus operandi. However I have just gotten word of a potential sighting of Hatchet Face, meaning that it is likely that they are here. I'm sure I don't need to explain how bad that is for us?"
  
  Awesome. Just what I wanted to hear. A psychotic band of serial mass murderers are here, most likely to commit even more mass murder.
  
  ... Is it too late to resign?
  
  None of us say anything and our silence is enough of an answer for the Director to continue.
  
  "Good. Now, the last time anyone got a good look at the Nine while living long enough to tell the tale was nearly two months ago which, considering their general pattern is worrying as it means that there is likely something that has been occupying them and anything that can hold their attention is likely to be bad for us. Worst case scenario is that Bonesaw has been cooking up something extra mean."
  
  Of course. Because a raving band of killers isn't enough, so now we probably have to deal with some kind of horrific bioweapon.
  
  I really hate this job, but on the bright side at least it comes with a dental plan.
  
  Not liking the negativity of the conversation, I try to inject a little bit of positive energy in the hopes of balancing things out somewhat.
  
  "Maybe it's the best case scenario instead and one of those crazy ass bounty hunters finally succeeded?"
  
  Everyone knows that no bounty hunter will ever succeed but we all nod our head to acknowledge the impossible possibility. It's the least we can do, to hope.
  
  "That would be a pleasant surprise, but we must prepare for the worst anyway. It's unlikely that Bonesaw will have some airborne bioweapon to unleash, as that wouldn't fit into Jack's sick little games, so our only real course of action is to prepare for what we know."
  
  As if on a rehearsed cue, Deputy-Director Harrison moves forward and hands Director Simmons a thin dossier which she opens on the table in front of her, allowing us to see a picture and short analysis of Jack Slash.
  
  "First among them is obviously the leader and sole permanent member, Jack Slash. His power is to extend the cutting edge of any blade to indeterminant limits. A single swipe of his knife can cut down whole crowds, but the projected blades aren't any sharper than whatever they are projecting from, so some decent full body armour is enough to counter him. It's everyone else that's the problem.
  
  "Second is the most dangerous of them all, Bonesaw. As a surgical Tinker she is specialised in all things biological, making her not just a threat to us but to the world at large. Containment is preferred and if death is the only option you'd better hope you hit her with something strong enough to annihilate whatever viruses she has stored inside of her.
  
  "Third is probably the scariest one, the first truly powerful villain to show themselves as well as the only being to ever truly injure Alexandria. The Siberian. Completely immune to all damage and capable of tearing through anything and everything as if it were soft, wet tissue paper. If you see her, you are to flee immediately, as containment and extermination are both considered impossible.
  
  "Fourth is that last of the truly dangerous ones. Crawler. A monster that is the unholy mix of a dog and a tank. He can take anything you can throw at him and if you do manage to hurt him, then you'd better hope it kills him, because it won't work a second time. Containment is preferred, avoid lethal shots unless you're sure it will kill. We don't need to be making them any stronger.
  
  "Fifth is Hatchet Face, dangerous only due to his power nullification aura. Keep a distance and only get close if you can fight a low Brute. Sixth is Shatterbird. We'll likely know when they are going to start moving due to her. Macro control of silicates, namely glass. Sneaking up on her is unlikely if you can't fly. Aim for containment or death.
  
  "Seventh is Mannequin. We all know the story there, just don't allow your feelings to get in your way. No matter who he used to be, if you get a shot, you take it.
  
  "Lastly is Chuckles. An insane clown with super strength in his arms and torso and super speed in his legs and head. Just kill it if you see it, containment would be a waste of resources."
  
  With that done, Director Simmons takes a breath, leaning back into her chair as the reality of what we're facing truly sets in.
  
  These are villains that even the Triumvirate gave up on trying to stop, not wanting or willing to risk losing our greatest to stop them when there are so many other threats out there.
  
  What a fucked up world it is that we live in.
  
  Before I can even finish lamenting our fate, the Director speaks up again, as if she just truly, genuinely hates the idea of us having a single happy thought.
  
  "One last thing, a little over a month ago that new cape that was making the news seemingly disappeared. At the same time there was a small village that was wiped out to the last in typical Slaughterhouse fashion in the same area she was expected to be, so it's possible that there will be a nineth member, which is both good news and bad news.
  
  "Good because it would mean they won't be recruiting, bad because they won't be recruiting. Also she's basically just another Crawler, so just treat them the same."
  
  She's almost dismissive of the threat at this point, probably overwhelmed beyond the point of giving a fuck. After all, what does getting set on fire mean if you've already been shot in the head? You're already dead so it just doesn't matter.
  
  Same principle here. Half of them are enough, anything after that and it just starts getting redundant really.
  
  And I don't think them not recruiting is really good news. I see why it could be considered such, but like she said, it's just as bad as it is good. After all, if they aren't recruiting then what would be the point in sparing anyone?
  
  I'd like to be spared if at all possible.
  
  "Remember," her voice takes on a whole new level of seriousness as she stares us down with eyes that offer no argument, "these are all psychopaths with Kill Orders on their heads. If you see a chance to take one of them out, bar Bonesaw, then you take it. Understood?"
  
  A round of nods follow her words, earning not quite a smile, but at least less of a frown from the obtuse woman.
  
  I swear, bureaucracy can suck the joy out of anyone.
  
  "Good. Mimic, I expect you to run a debrief for the rest of our Heroes, Wards included. No one is to do any patrols alone and if possible stay in groups of three. Am I clear?"
  
  "Crystal, Ma'am." A sharp not follows mimics assent before the Director curtly gestures to the door.
  
  "Good. Dismissed." She says and I don't hesitate to obey, quickly speed walking away to the dissatisfaction of the others present.
  
  Not that I really care, it's not like I have a position with any extra responsibilities like the other two. The only reason I was even in the meeting is because I'm usually the one who leads our tactical operations against the villains.
  
  But honestly, I just want to play some video games, because if the Nine really are going to show up, then I will probably be way too busy to play any, not that the console would even work once Shatterbird decides to ruin everyone's day.
  
  Well, that or I'll just die, in which case I doubt there are video games in the afterlife.
  
  Even more reason to get some gaming in now while I can.
  
  With that in mind, I power walk back to my room, ignoring everyone who tries to speak to me on the way.
  
  If it was important they'd stop me. They didn't so clearly whatever they had to say didn't matter.
  
  In no time at all, I make it to my sanctuary and hurriedly close the door behind me. I'd lock it, but I'm not allowed to.
  
  Not a minute later and I am just about to power up my console when my attention is stolen away by the sound of rushed knocking followed by my door being barged open before I even give a response by some trooper.
  
  "Oh what now?" I impatiently ask, only for the trooper to respond by simply closing the door behind them without turning away from me.
  
  Alarm bells are immediately going off in my mind but before I do anything I watch as they move their hands up to their helmet and start taking it off.
  
  It's hard to tell genders with the PRT trooper uniforms being fully armoured head to toe but once a curtain of long, stark white hair flows out, pale and dull like a melancholic snowstorm, I get the feeling that they might be a woman.
  
  However once she takes the helmet all the way off, I can only tilt my head in confusion.
  
  The woman is wearing what can hardly be called a mask. In reality it's literally a piece of paper that has been stapled to her forehead and chin, both the staples clearly visible.
  
  On the sheet of paper is some crudely drawn shapes that vaguely resemble the face of a clown, as if it was drawn by an actual child.
  
  It's so out of left field that for a moment I forget to be alert about the intruder.
  
  That is, until she raises one of her arms up high and waves it with her whole body, making me think that it actually might have been her that drew the 'mask'.
  
  "Heya! How's it going?~"
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  What do you think of this guys name? I was really tempted to call him James, even typed it out, but then I decided enough was enough and that I could call someone James later, so I just decided to give this guy all the cool guy names, cuz why not right? I can do what I want, I am God here.
  
  Also, there is gonna be a lot more character death from now on fyi lol
  
  Anyway, love you all 3
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  92 Invitation
  Magne's face is one of well hidden but completely understandable surprise as I take of the trooper helmet I'm 'borrowing'.
  
  Then again, it's not like Martha is going to be needing it anymore, so maybe I'll just keep it as a souvenir, I mean, to remember her by. Oh how sad it is to see her go, she shall be missed.
  
  Anyway, I'm glad that a lot of heroes wear masks that reveal their faces somewhat, like the classic domino mask, rather than the villains who typically have full face coverings.
  
  It makes it easier to read their mood, being able to see micro expressions and stuff.
  
  Not that I actually know what those micro expressions are. I know they exist and that they're the reason I can understand someone's feelings just by looking at their face, but I've never actually looked into what they are exactly, since it seemed like redundant information.
  
  "Who're you supposed to be?" Magne's terse voice brings me out of my spiralling thoughts and back to the real world.
  
  I would have thought he'd recognise me to be honest. I've been on the news a couple times by now.
  
  Must be the new mask.
  
  I lost the old one, since it's not like I could ask to go back to pick up my bike with all my stuff in it after I got locked in that damnable box.
  
  God, what an awful month that was. I started playing chess in my head purely out of boredom, but I'm not good enough at memorising things to do that so it was really just weeks of me randomly thinking about chess moves.
  
  Not fun.
  
  But since my mask is still with my bike, and I wanted to see my candidate before things got hectic, I decided to just quickly scribble out a clown face and stick it to my face.
  
  "Name's Tear, but you can call me Jesus Christ.~" I answer him with an exaggerated wink.
  
  "Tear? Great. So you did end up joining them in the end. How troublesome." His despondent sigh is mildly confusing as I would have expected more weariness.
  
  But to be honest he just seems kind of done with life, as if he's just given up caring, like a known serial killer cannibal standing in front of him is nothing more than a mild inconvenience.
  
  I knew there was a reason I chose this guy.
  
  "Uhuh, Jack makes a very convincing case.~ He's a persuasive guy.~" I nod wisely, as if imparting great knowledge and he nods along with me in his own tired way.
  
  "Yeah? What'd he say to convince you? Powerful capes like you tend not to be so easy to recruit." I'm pretty sure he's trying to see if he can get any information out of me, not that I really care.
  
  "He said it's be fun!~ Anyway, aren't you gonna attack me or something? You are a hero after all?" I ask in confusion before suddenly jumping slightly on the spot and holding my hands over my heart, "unless you're hoping for some kind of Romeo and Juliet romance!~"
  
  In spite of me all but swooning at him, he doesn't so much as flinch, which is funny but also kind of boring.
  
  However things are suddenly made interesting again as all of a sudden a halberd on my right and a sword on my left come flying for my neck point first and with impressive speed.
  
  It's only then that I really pay attention to the room around me enough to notice that he has a lot of weapons hung up around the place.
  
  Reaching one hand out, I catch the halberd just below the spear tip and hold it in place with ease while I let the sword pierce through my neck, just because it feels tingly and weird and I kind of like it a little bit.
  
  "Yeghn, aahsht wuug." I try to speak but my words come out all jumbled thanks to the sword going through my neck.
  
  He still doesn't move, his power not needing a gesture of any kind to take effect, and I summon forth my power to the tips of my fingers, forming a set of claws that quickly reach up and grab the blade of the sword in my neck.
  
  𝘚𝘯𝘢𝘱!
  
  The hilt clatters to the ground and I yank the halberd away from the other side of my body, causing the swords blade to be propelled all the way through my neck and out the other side with a lovely squelch.
  
  Such an interesting power he has. The ability to cause two objects to be either attracted or repulsed from each other, like a magnet.
  
  Shame the Manton limit is stopping him from affecting people otherwise it would be a whole new level of awesome.
  
  Raising a fist to my mouth, I clear my throat in an over the top manner, not breaking eye contact all the while.
  
  "Yeeeooouch, that hurt." My voice is completely bland as I repeat myself, my words actually understandable this time.
  
  "So anyway!~ Aren't you curious why I'm here? Figured you'd have asked by now?~" My question still fails to garner any kind of reaction from him, as he just looks down at where my blood is staining his carpet as if he is more worried about having to clean it than about me being here.
  
  "Figured you're here to kill, torture and eat me, so I didn't bother asking. Hey, I know it didn't work the first time, but if I keep stabbing you, will you ever stay down?"
  
  Wow, this guy really just does not give a single shit. I like it.
  
  Hope you win buddy! I'm rooting for you!~
  
  "Nah,~" I dismissively wave his question away, "I'm too cool for that. Just treat me like Crawler 'sept I don't got the whole adaptive part, at least not like he does. Either way, are you gonna ask yet? It'd feel pretentious of me to just start explaining without an invitation.~"
  
  He gives me a slightly bemused look, but does refrain from trying to kill me any further.
  
  "What are you a vampire? Can you not enter someone's house without being invited in?" I don't know why he's mocking me, it doesn't seem like a very smart thing to do in his situation.
  
  Lucky for him I'm not as prideful as Shatterbird, so I don't really care.
  
  "I'm here aren't I? I don't recall being invited in." I counter, getting slightly annoyed at him avoiding the question.
  
  "Well that begs the question of whether or not a vampire only has to be invited inside the building, thus allowing access to any subsequent rooms, or if they need to be invited into every room individually."
  
  ... Ok that's actually a kind of interesting question, but it's not what I'm here for damnit!
  
  "Stop talking about vampires already!~ Oh wait, I just remembered you're a hero, so if you keep dodging the question then I'm gonna flatten this building.~" At my threat his eyes finally sharpen as he stops treating this so casually.
  
  It helps that it's an honest threat too, not that I think he'd be able to tell if I was lying or not.
  
  "PRT buildings are built to withstand Endbringers." He says, his voice testing.
  
  But we both know how pointless a thing that was to say.
  
  "And how many of those have lasted longer than ten seconds against an Endbringer?" I counter.
  
  The simple fact about Endbringers is that whenever you face them, you lose. No 'ifs', 'ands' or 'buts' about it, you just lose.
  
  Well, unless you're a retarded flying golden dildo named Scion, then I guess the same rules don't apply, but we can't apply the same thought processes to the First Parahuman, otherwise there wouldn't be so many people referring to him as God.
  
  A tense silence follows as we both stare unflinchingly into each others eyes until he finally gives.
  
  With a sigh, he asks the question I've been waiting for, with not a single fluctuation in his monotone voice as he does so.
  
  "Oh my, Tear, what are you doing here?" His voice doesn't match his words at all but I ignore that in favour of joyfully going about the overdue introduction.
  
  With a flourish of my arms, I put my magic trick training to good use as a thin banner seems to appear between my hands from nowhere as I spread them wide above my head, pulling the banner taut to show the word 'Congratulations!' painted across it in blood.
  
  At the same time, a pair of small confetti canons hidden in the edges of the banner go off, launching colourful cuts of paper into the air around me with a quiet bang.
  
  "Congratulations!" I shout, matching the banner, "you have been nominated by yours truly to be a candidate to join the illustrious Nine of Slaughter!"
  
  Instead of the applause and joy that such an extravagant exclamation should generally inspire, the room instead descends back into silence as I stand there with my arms raised and confetti falling all around me.
  
  Luckily, I prepared for this in advance.
  
  I start flicking my leg to the side, soon dislodging a ball that quickly unfolds into an artificial tumbleweed that hits the wall and bounces back over to roll in front of me at the same time that I play the sound of crickets by pressing a button also hidden in my sleeve.
  
  That, at least, manages to get a stifled chuckle out of Magne, which is really great because it would have been mildly embarrassing if I didn't get a single reaction.
  
  Then again, I'd probably find that funny and end up laughing myself anyway, so it's not exactly a big deal.
  
  After a minute, I decide to break the silence, since he seems happy to just stand there not saying anything for some reason.
  
  "C'mooon~ aren't you excited?~ This is the chance of a lifetime!~" I exclaim, acting I just offered him a million dollars or something, instead of the opportunity to join a group of people so heinous that it is actually legal to murder us.
  
  "Sorry, but it's not really my kind of scene. Besides, shouldn't you have a full roster right now? We only knew there were still eight of you, with you joining that should make nine, no?"
  
  His question makes me pause slightly before accepting that yes, that is a perfectly reasonable assumption to come to.
  
  Though, I do find myself mildly irritated at the reminder of that phony Clown wannabe.
  
  "Nah, Fatso the circus freak saw a couple little boys naked and got so excited he had a heart attack and died on the spot." My answer is without humour, as if I'm just sharing a simple fact that I don't much care for.
  
  "Really? With Bonesaw in your group? That seems unlikely." His doubtful tone shows just how little he believes my lie.
  
  "Yeah, it came as a shock to us all. Guess he just really liked little boys. Alas, he is no longer among us, he shall be missed, yadda yadda, the world is a brighter place without him et cetera." Magne can clearly tell how little I care for this line of conversation as he quickly drops it to ask more prominent questions.
  
  "..So, you're all recruiting then, and I'm your choice?" He asks, to which I nod my head rapidly, "uhuh, right. Mind telling me who the other 'lucky' candidates are?"
  
  Waving my finger at him like he's a naughty child, I lightly scold him.
  
  "Tut, tut, tut. That would be cheating.~ Though I will say that you weren't my first choice, but Shatter called dibs so now I'm stuck with you. I mean, thanks to that I was lucky enough to meet with you instead!~ Yaaay.~"
  
  If possible, his face somehow turns even more deadpan at my words.
  
  "Right. And what does being your candidate entail exactly?" His question brightens my smile.
  
  "Well, I'll get the ground rules out of the way to start with. If you tell anyone that you're a candidate or otherwise hint to the fact, I'll know, and I'll start killing everyone I see for 24 hours for every person you tell."
  
  Even behind his mask of casual indifference, I see the way his eyes widen slightly in understanding of exactly what is at play here.
  
  I can tell that he doesn't want people to die, so I'm not really worried about him not playing along.
  
  Truly, what a hero.
  
  Despite acting like he doesn't care about anything, he sure seems the type to stick to his principles.
  
  I'm almost glad that Shatter called dibs on the more obviously fun choice, because Magne seems like he'll give a good showing.
  
  "Second rule. You have to do whatever I tell you to do until you either die or pass, failure to comply resulting in the same punishment as last time except I'll target heroes, PRT workers, police officers and other servicemen as much as possible.
  
  "As for the test, well that's simple. I'm going to show up every now and then and all you have to do to pass is make me laugh, which really shouldn't be too hard with how much I live for amusement. I will give you one little bit of helpful information though. My test will overlap with the others', so expect their company at some point."
  
  With my message given, I pick my helmet back up and give Magne a quick wink.
  
  "Welp! See ya!~" I exclaim as I put the helmet back on, taking up the stiff posture that all these former military PRT agents seem to have
  
  Without giving him a chance to respond or otherwise inform me that he understands the rules, I open the door and leave, making my way out of the building with just as much ease as I entered.
  
  Honestly, it doesn't really matter if he accepts the rules or not, either way I'm going to be having fun.
  
  I said constant slaughter is boring, but that's only after doing it a lot. It's still new so it's still fun.
  
  Right as I'm exciting the building, I hear the alarms start blaring.
  
  Either Magne pressed the figurative, or literal, emergency button, or they finally found whatever her name was' corpse.
  
  Welp, time to go for real.
  
  As everyone starts reacting to the alarm, I suddenly accelerate forward, running with all of my considerable speed and before anyone can even try and stop me, I am already far enough away to be safe.
  
  I wonder which will be the first to die?
  
  I hope it's not one of the fun ones.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Why did I think this would be fun? It's just like the fight thing, there is so much shit going on. I have to create OC's, then come up with tests that the nine members would do, then I have to come up with how the OC's would react to these incredibly stressful experiences all the while coming up with even more OC's to pad out the rest of the city. }:
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  93 Smut for 25, Just Saying
  As I'm making my way back to our meeting point, dressed in casual clothes with a hat on to keep myself inconspicuous, I abruptly pause as a strange feeling overcomes me, like something is happening.
  
  It's hard to describe, like I'm hearing something that isn't there. My brain telling me to listen and my ears not knowing what they are supposed to be listening to.
  
  The street isn't exactly crowded, but there are plenty of people around and none of them seem to feel that anything is amiss, so I briefly consider that someone might be using a parahuman power on me specifically, or at least a large area power that is subtle enough that only I am noticing it.
  
  But then I notice some shattered glass on the ground vibrating so slightly that I would never have noticed it if I wasn't actively looking for something to be off.
  
  That gives me my answer as to what is going on and I decide to hasten my pace to quickly reach some guy who's loading a chair into the trunk of his car.
  
  "Excusa!" I exclaim, putting on a Spanish accent as I do so before grabbing his shoulder once he turns to face me and throwing him to the side, his chair with him.
  
  As he starts shouting complaints at me, I just pretend not to understand.
  
  "Lo siento! No hablo Ingles!" I yell over him as I start climbing into his trunk, closing it behind me right as a thundering crash rings out, swiftly followed by even louder screaming.
  
  Obviously broken glass isn't going to hurt me, that much was established with Shatter's failed test, but I have ruined enough nice clothes already and I want to actually have these ones for longer than a day before I have to find more, again.
  
  Seriously, I am beyond jealous of people like Alexandria, who's Brute rating extends to cover their clothes.
  
  It's not even an uncommon thing either, you can generally tell whether or not a power will cover the clothes on whether or not they regenerate.
  
  Because us regenerators' powers tend to only effect the body, while pure invulnerability type Brutes rarely have to worry about their costumes tearing.
  
  Lord knows the amount of pictures of wardrobe malfunctions from Alexandria there would be on the internet if that was the case.
  
  I wait for a couple of minutes to pass so that my clothes don't just get shredded once I leave the trunk before I exit, only for the trunk to not budge when I push on it.
  
  Right, trunks auto-lock, forgot about that.
  
  'So much for disguise then', is what I think before punching up, my fist making a hole clear through the back of the car.
  
  With a horrifically loud screeching sound, I bring my other hand up and tear open a hole in the trunk to climb out of.
  
  The sight that greets me makes it seem as if I did a Narnia or something as the street is completely unfamiliar.
  
  Instead of the street of just a moment ago, filled with wondering commuters and people enjoying a day out with their friends, what I see is more akin to a warzone.
  
  The storefronts, previously filled with colourful displays, now show nothing but shattered stores with their big glass windows reduced to nothing but holes, showcasing only desolation.
  
  The streets themselves are even more drastic of a change.
  
  The people who were previously walking sedately along, chatting and laughing and just living their normal, everyday lives, are now spread out into crowds, most of whom are either screaming or otherwise writhing around in pain.
  
  Every single one of them is caked in blood, looking as if they've been flayed a thousand times, something not too far from the truth, while anyone who was wearing glasses is now lying on the ground, clutching at their face as blood streams down like a set of crimson tears.
  
  Idly, I notice the guy whose trunk I hid in is lying still in a puddle of his own blood, most likely dead.
  
  Looking away from the unfortunate casualties of Shatterbird's announcement, I turn my eyes down the street to where a veritable wall of glass is rising to the skies in a wave of calamity.
  
  Glancing around, I see a similar scene happening all over the city, pillars of glass rising, and rising to form a whirlpool in the sky and I know without checking that the PRT building is sitting right below the centre of the whirlpool.
  
  Not because we are going to end the fight so quickly, but just to make a point.
  
  'We are here, and there is nothing you can do about it.'
  
  After admiring Shatterbird's work for a moment, I cast another quick glance about, noticing a few of the less injured people looking at me with a mix of hope and fear, clearly separating the pessimists from the optimists.
  
  However, I just give them a shrug and pull the cuffs of my fancy leather jacket to straighten it out, and turn on my heel, continuing my day as if nothing happened.
  
  As for these losers? Well, I simply don't care about them, I'm not hungry after all.
  
  With that, I keep walking, keeping an eye on Shatterbird's display as it grows larger and larger, an entire cities worth of glass floating in the sky, hundreds of metres wide but with most of it being concentrated directly above the PRT building.
  
  Such a pretty sight. I should give her a compliment when I see her, I'm sure she'll appreciate the validation with how vain she is.
  
  Aren't I such a good friend?
  
  Speaking of, I was actually planning on giving Jinx a call to let him know I'm still alive, though I figure he'll find out on his own once proper news can get out of this whole thing I've got going on here.
  
  But now that Shatterbird has fucked up the city, I don't know if I can actually get a call out. There is probably a way, but to be honest tech has never been my thing, so I'm kinda in the dark here.
  
  However while I am terrible with technology, I am really good with people, so all I'll have to do is find someone who 𝘤𝘢𝘯 get a call out, and then ask them nicely to help me.
  
  When has asking nicely never worked?
  
  A few minutes of walking later, and I am dragged out of my thoughts by a rather rude person completely lacking in manners.
  
  "You've gotta run!" Some guy shouts as he collides with me, grabbing me by the shoulders and turning me around to run with him.
  
  I allow it, since I think I have an idea of why he's running, since he's coming from the direction I was heading in.
  
  Still, best to ask.
  
  "Why are we running!?" I shout at the frantic guy even as he continues to drag me down the street, eyes wide as adrenaline pumps through him.
  
  "It's the Devil! They're here! Sinners, all of them! We have to run!" He says, his words a rushed mess.
  
  However before I can even come up with something witty to say, the building in front of us explodes outward in a shower of rubble, bringing us to a screeching halt.
  
  As the dust starts to settle, the man starts violently shivering until he simply slides down to the floor, falling backwards onto his ass with a single terrified whisper.
  
  "𝘖𝘩 𝘓𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘷𝘦, 𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘺 𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘦." His words swiftly become so quiet as to be unintelligible, yet his lips do not stop moving in prayer, even as his eyes grow unfocused, staring at nothing.
  
  'Well, that's interesting,' is all I think as I watch the Christian's mind break apart from overwhelming fear.
  
  My own reaction is completely polar to his, as when I turn to the settling cloud of dust I simply raise one of my hands in a two fingered salute.
  
  "Yo, Crawler. You having fun?" I ask as Crawler steps forward, going from threatening to casual in the blink of an eye.
  
  "Oh hey Tear. Was wonderin' what you were up to." His grating, monstrous voice is completely at odds to his casual greeting in a way that I still find amusing.
  
  "Oh I was just giving my candidate their test. They're more interesting than I thought they'd be, a little boring though, not very expressive. What about you guys? I know Mannequin was prolly doing the same as me and 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 knows what Shatterbird has been up to, but what about the rest of y'all?"
  
  I wait for Crawler to reach me before I turn back around and we both start walking back to the others side by side.
  
  I almost forget the Christian and have to quickly run back a few paces to grab him, though Crawler is nice enough to wait for me to catch back up before we start walking again.
  
  The Christian seems completely out of it, living in his own world, so I don't bother to kill him yet. Fresh food is always preferable. Cooking the meat boils away the blood if you do it for too long while freezing it causes the blood to expand, bruising the meat.
  
  So fresh is best.
  
  "Well, Hatchet Face ran off to find his candidate, and probably kill them too, the rest are just waiting around for now. Oh yeah, almost forgot but Bonesaw finished making her whatever it is that she's makin' to spread the thingy out to the city. I don't know, a lot of 'sciencey' words I can't remember, gist of it is that her thingy that she's cooking should have started spreading out by now."
  
  Such a good silly little dog you are!~
  
  I wonder if he'd bite my arm off if I try to give him chin scratches?
  
  I think that's a risk I'm willing to take, but I'll wait till we're not walking around so I can properly treat him like a good boy if he is receptive to it.
  
  Seriously, Crawler is like, the perfect dog and Siberian is basically a sexy mute woman that acts like a cat, except I might be able to fuck her, but that's entirely dependant on her really.
  
  A girl can hope though.
  
  Can't fuck Crawler though, the dude doesn't even have a dick anymore, probably 'adapted' it away since it's not like it helps in a fight or for survival in general.
  
  Not that it would really matter anyway since he doesn't seem to even have a sex drive.
  
  Wait, now that I think about it, am I the horniest person in the group?
  
  Ah, no, never mind. Due to a general preference of not thinking about him, I completely forgot about Hatchet Face.
  
  Dude fucks a 𝘭𝘰𝘵 and I am certain that it has never once been consensual, not with a face like that at least.
  
  Plus he has that weird thing about corpses.
  
  Eh, I shouldn't kink shame, I got turned on by Siberian eating my fingers after all, so I'm not exactly one to talk.
  
  So lost in my thoughts was I, that I don't even realise that we've made it to where we're staying, some recently abandoned apartment block, until I am brought out of my thoughts by the pain of one of my fingers being removed.
  
  Looking forward, I see Siberian in front of me with one of my hands held to her mouth and I idly notice Crawler behind her, settling in to get some rest.
  
  The pleasureful pain of losing another finger snaps my attention back to Siberian, who is giving me another one of what I am starting to realise is a pretty common intense look for her.
  
  "Hey sexy, what a coincidence, I was just thinking about you.~" I seductively purr at her as I take a step closer, wrapping my free arm around her waist to get a handful of her ass, which she allows to be squeezable, instead of her default immovable.
  
  I take that as a sign of affection and give her a sultry smile as we stare deeply into each others' eyes.
  
  At the same time, the others in the room all just pretend not to notice us, while we just don't care about them.
  
  Unfortunately, things don't escalate beyond her simply enjoying her daily meal, as part of our deal, and me enjoying the feeling of her body.
  
  My god, I'm going to need to find someone to fuck because the amount of sexual tension this damn Tigress is building up in me is insane.
  
  It's a shame that I can hardly read her at all, I have no idea if pushing her to go further would even work at all. I mean, for one she is stronger than me by a literally infinite distance, so I quite literally could not move her without her allowing me to.
  
  Not to mention, if I piss her off then I will not only be ruining this incredibly erotic relationship but I'd also have the issue of an invincible woman trying to rip me to pieces, something she would not struggle to do.
  
  You know, when people used to talk about relationships being hard back in school, I somehow don't think this is the kind of situation they had in mind.
  
  Ah well, the challenge will just make the reward taste all the more sweet.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Did I purposely focus on horny stuff at the end there with the hopes of someone bribing(£25 for the first one) me to write a smut chapter? Who knows? Certainly not me *whistles innocently*, see? That whistle was innocent, even the narrator agrees!
  
  My fucking god, what am I doing? Like, do you know how insane it feels to write sometimes? There is no narrator, that's just me. and in all the dialog? That's all just me, everything they say is all me. It's just me talking to myself constantly. Do no other writers find this to be as insane as I do? I'm literally having conversations with myself, FLIRTING, with Myself! WHO THE FUCK DOES THAT!? Insane people! That's who!
  
  ... I'm losing my mind, I'mma just end the note here, enjoy, I guess...
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  94 Interlude: Krystal 'Candy' M'kaeleigh
  A/N: So I've got an artist working on a commission for Lusia in full Kakuja form, but it's £130 and while I can pay that, it's still a significant portion of my money so if any of y'all are willing to help foot this bill, that'd be grand. I've put links to support me on my profile, and, again, you don't have to, I'm grateful enough that you're here in the first place :3
  
  Back to the regularly scheduled program.
  
  Columbus, Georgia. April 5th, 21:16.
  
  "Thank you, thank you! You're all real Heroes. God bless you!" The sheer gratitude in their tone is almost enough to bring a tear to my eyes.
  
  I don't think I will ever get used to this part of the job. If you've never experienced it yourself, I don't think it's even possible to understand.
  
  But when someone puts their complete and utter 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘵𝘩 in you, it makes you want to live up to that ideal.
  
  From living in a whorehouse, 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 in a whorehouse, to being a Hero, responsible for the lives of everyone around me.
  
  I just, I don't know.
  
  If I end up dying to the Nine here, I think that I'll die with a smile. Because saving people? This is the second greatest feeling imaginable.
  
  "Haha, it's okay Miss Ferguson, just doing my job!" The jovial, if slightly embarrassed response brings me to the single greatest feeling of my life.
  
  The feeling of watching your kids grow up to be amazing people, amazing Heroes.
  
  Granted, they aren't my actual children, but I've always loved kids, so when I was offered the job of being the Ward's 'caretaker' of sorts, I jumped at the opportunity.
  
  Then, over time, these three kids: Danny, Charlie and Lucy, or as they are better known, the three Heroes: Batman, Root and Carrot.
  
  They might not be my blood, but I could not feel prouder of them if I tried. They are not my blood, but they are my children in every way that matters.
  
  I only worry if they see me in the same way or not.
  
  However now isn't the time to be getting sentimental. The Nine are here, and just earlier they showered the city with messages carved on human skin, like a flier from hell, detailing how there are eight 'candidates' who will be tested in the next ten days, with the 'victor' leaving with them.
  
  I know that they are shaken by it, that the smiles they are showing me are brittle and weak. But they are acting strong for me. Acting as if everything is going to be okay, even when we all know how this is likely to end.
  
  As if being one of the eight 'candidates' is anything other than a death sentence.
  
  My 'hands' clench at the reminder, phantom pains making themselves known, overlapping with my brand new prosthetic hands, curtesy of Mannequin.
  
  I can only be grateful that I made the designs for my new hands a while ago, during a project with Dragon, so I was able to have them replaced within a day.
  
  It's still uncomfortable though, no matter how smooth they work, they just don't feel the same, and while I understand that it's something I'll get used to, with the Nine in town there isn't exactly a lot of time to adapt.
  
  The only upside is that they will be gone by the 15th, though that little titbit of joy is ripped to shreds by the fact that the city's population is estimated to have gone down by over ten thousand just from Shatterbird's opening scream.
  
  Which is why, instead of setting up a trap with me as bait for when the next one comes to 'test' me, we are just working as normal, well, with a lot of overtime.
  
  The simple fact is that there are people all around the city that are in danger of death and it is our job to protect 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮, not ourselves.
  
  As a matter of fact, I wanted to do my patrols alone, to keep everyone else away from the danger that is no doubt going to be finding me.
  
  But those brats refused to leave me alone, going as far as to threaten quitting and going rogue if we tried to hold them back.
  
  They said that I have always looked after them, and that now it's their turn to do the same for me, that they'd protect me, fight with me.
  
  I hate it and I hate them for putting themselves in danger just for a fuckup like me.
  
  But at the same time, I love them for it, more than anything. The only compromise I can make in my mind is that if one of the Nine shows up with the intent of hurting my kids.
  
  ... I guess I'll just die.
  
  If I'm not there for them to protect, they would have no reason to put themselves in danger like this.
  
  Part of me thinks I should just kill myself now and save them the trouble. They might be sad for a while, but they're young, they'll forget about me eventually and in the meantime they won't be in even more danger of meeting with those murderous psychopaths.
  
  ... But I'm afraid.
  
  I can't even die right it seems. I'm too much of a coward to do what it takes to keep them safe.
  
  "Alright then Candy! We're done here, we should move to the next area before it gets too late." Lucy's voice snaps me from my thoughts.
  
  It's just that every time I see them like this, Lucy dressed up in her bunny themed outfit, with Danny and Charlie either side of her in their bat and monk themed costumes respectively with a crowd of grateful civilians, waving them off with a smile for the work they've done in rescuing them.
  
  I can't help but want to live on just a little bit longer, if for no other reason than to watch them grow into the amazing men and woman that I know they will be.
  
  With Batman's power being echolocation, it's easy to find people trapped in rubble or debris and the other two are perfect for helping free them.
  
  But looking at the three of them, to me they seem to sparkle and I desperately want to wrap them all in a big, tight hug.
  
  However, now is not the time or place, I can always do that later.
  
  "You're right Carrot, let's get moving, plenty of lives can be saved before our patrol ends." I say, also acting as if it's just another day, hoping that they won't find the fear hidden in my tone.
  
  With that, we get moving once again, making our way down the street at a steady jog with Danny using his power to listen out for anyone in distress while I use a scanner I made at the same time for the same reason.
  
  However after a few minutes of light jogging, I notice something off.
  
  It's quiet. Too quiet.
  
  It's a cliché thing to think, but ever since the scream, everywhere you go there has been people in the streets, or the sounds of people coming from the surrounding buildings.
  
  Yet, it's like all the people around just suddenly disappeared.
  
  From the sudden tenseness of their shoulders, I recon the kids have noticed it too and are likely coming to a similar conclusion to me.
  
  Then we turn a corner and are frozen in place by the sight that greets us.
  
  The road is red, completely covered with blood and not twenty feet away, in the middle of the street is a woman dressed as a prisoner, crouched down over seven rows of strips of flesh, with another pile besides her.
  
  Some of them are flipped to show the outside of the skin with numbers or letters carved into them while the pages of flesh with the inside facing up are blank.
  
  The first thing to hit me after the sight is the stench of death, the second is the sight of what lies either side of the street.
  
  Bodies. Corpses.
  
  Torn to pieces, with organs, limbs and skin missing from each of them, looking as if they were ripped apart by some kind of animal.
  
  On each side, the pavements are covered with viscera and gore as piles of half butchered corpses pile up against the walls of the surrounding buildings.
  
  There must be over a hundred of them on each side. Hundreds of innocent people dying such a horrific death, and the only common factor among them, beyond the simple fact of their gory remains, is the number of them who have had their backs torn off, the only clean wound any of them have suffered.
  
  And in the centre of it all, is Tear. The newest member of the Nine according to Magne, even if he refused to tell us how he knew.
  
  It makes me sick to my stomach but I am able to bear the sight enough to keep my composure, which is more than can be said for my poor kids who, while experienced, are still far too young to be exposed to sights like this.
  
  All three of them throw up on the spot, the unfamiliar stench being too much for them.
  
  But as much as I want to smother and comfort them, the sound of them vomiting causes Tear's glowing, blood red eyes to snap up to stare right at us.
  
  The phrase 'dear in headlights' comes to mind as I stare into her eyes and feel myself stiffen, completely immobilised just from her eyes alone.
  
  The worst part is that I know it's not the effect of a power. It's just pure, unbridled 𝘧𝘦𝘢𝘳.
  
  Fear of a predator. Of knowing that you are nothing more than prey to be toyed around with and devoured at their leisure. The feeling of true helplessness.
  
  Then she speaks and it's as if the spell is lifted as I am suddenly capable of looking away from her eyes again.
  
  "Yo!~ Just the lady I was waiting for.~ Sorry for the mess, but you took so long to get here so I got bored, but I forgot to bring my cards so I had to come up with a more creative way to play solitaire.~"
  
  The psychopath's voice is far to casual with the scene around us and I feel righteous anger burn in me at the fact that she tore people apart just to use their 𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘯 as a deck of cards.
  
  Looking further, I try to analyse her in the hopes it will distract me from all the death around us, as well as the blame building up at what she said about this being the result of my own slowness.
  
  She isn't wearing a mask, but she has white paint covering her face and black clown triangles painted above and below her eyes while there is a thick line of threads literally stitched into her, stretching from her lips all the way up to her ears in a sick mockery of a smile.
  
  "You even brought friends!~ How thoughtful of you.~" Her words snap me back to full focus as adrenaline pumps through my veins, my fight of flight instincts taking over at the mere 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 of this bitch daring to even 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 about laying a hand 𝘮𝘺 children.
  
  Practically growling at her, I take two swift steps forward to get ahead of my children and I snap both of my prosthetic hands.
  
  The next instant, in a flash of light there is suddenly a pair of pistols in my hands, both custom made to be 𝘧𝘢𝘳 stronger than any regular firearm and I don't hesitate to raise both of them at her, my fingers on the triggers.
  
  "Don't even think about it you 𝘔𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳." I'm barely even capable of controlling my words at this point, to filled with rage at the idea of letting my children end up like the bodies around us.
  
  "Oh 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘹.~ my test doesn't require I hurt you.~ Can't we all just be friends?~" Her tone makes me want to pull the trigger immediately.
  
  However before I can do so, I am stopped by seeing Charlie walk forward to stand by my side and right as I open my mouth to yell at him, to tell him to run away and look out for himself, I am stopped again by the sight of the other two joining him.
  
  "We can't just let you fight by yourself Candy. I'm sorry. You can hate us for it if you want, but I'd rather die by your side than leave you alone with one of 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘮." Charlie's proclamation brings a brief bout of rage from me, quickly followed by sorrow and joy and a thousand other emotions.
  
  I know my children well enough to know that no matter what I say here, they won't leave me, no matter what I want.
  
  I love you.
  
  "I hate you. If any of you die, I won't forgive you." My words are barely a whisper but I know they hear me well.
  
  Standing here, shoulder to shoulder with my kids, facing against death together. I could not be prouder of them.
  
  So many emotions fly through me that I cannot make sense of any of them until they are each overwhelmed by a single determined thought.
  
  'I will not allow any of you to die, whatever it takes.'
  
  As my resolve firms itself, and we each prepare to dance with Death, Death herself simply stands up straight and dusts her pants down, doing nothing to clean them of the blood and gore decorating them.
  
  Then she looks at us and her mouth twists into an insane smile that puts her stitches to shame by sheer virtue of being real.
  
  She raises one of her hands in front of her face, placing her thumb over her middle finger.
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬!
  
  The sound rings out in the street like a bell tolling the herald of a new era and her words that follow act as a signal for the beginning of this final battle.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Haha, cliffhanger! git rkt scrb losr
  
  Anyway, I'm gonna go to sleep now, or at least try to. It is very hot and the ac doesn't extend to the room I'm sleeping in. Though... the fan my mum has been using to help her sleep is free since she's out rn, on her way back from visiting some castle or other... nah, I'm not a dick, I'll leave the fan for her, even if she probably will be too tired to even worry about using it, but such is the sacrifice of being a man, oh woe is me.
  
  It's just an hour or two of lying in bed, dying from heat before I finally fall into blessed sleep anyway, no biggie right?
  
  Also, the artist has started working on the commission, so look forward to that. I just hope it turns out as I've been picturing it for like, the last 3 months
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  95 Violence Isn't The Question
  "You know, this really isn't how I saw this going." Is all I manage to say before I have to jump to the side in order to avoid a pair of wooden roots extending from one of the kid's arms.
  
  The roots slam into the ground, completely ruining my game of solitaire without so much as a care and quickly wriggling and writhing like tentacles as the move to chase after me with a sweeping motion that I jump over with a flip for style points.
  
  However before I even touch the ground I am forced to spin and twist my body mid-air in a dizzying motion that barely allows me to avoid a half dozen bullets of plasma.
  
  Man, these people are so unfriendly. It's not like I was planning on hurting any of them.
  
  When I finally do manage to touch the ground, I once again have to dash to the side, as the next moment a pair of roots burst out of the ground like spears right where I was standing.
  
  I only even knew it was happening because I could hear them digging through the ground to get to me.
  
  However, Candy seems to have predicted my dodge and I don't react in time as an inconspicuous ball lands next to me and in a flash of dull light there is suddenly a perfectly carved, circular hole in the ground right next to me.
  
  Luckily it was only close enough to affect me from my left shin up to my waist and it didn't even effect me as much as it did the ground. It erased my skin and burnt through most of my muscles, showing a lot of bone but it's an injury that is fully healed before I can even think to worry about it.
  
  Seriously, I just wanted to make a fucking phone call!
  
  Ah well, I guess we're fighting then.
  
  Root's power seems to let him turn his arms and legs into tree roots that he can extend and control to a pretty decent degree, making him probably the second most annoying of them.
  
  Batman can just hear things well or something, I don't know, I forget boring people.
  
  Carrot girl's costume reminds me of March, but her power is supposedly quite interesting. According to the information we managed to gather before announcing ourselves, her power is a pretty high level Striker one that allows her to 'break' things.
  
  No idea how effective that is, but Crawler picked her as his candidate, so I guess we'll see if it's strong enough to hurt him whenever he bothers to go out and do his tests.
  
  Lastly is the woman I came here for, Candy. She's a Tinker who's speciality is 'handheld objects'. So if you can fit it comfortably in one hand, like a grenade or, looking at the state of her hands after Mannequin's test, an actual hand, then she can make it.
  
  Such as a matter annihilating bomb or whatever the fuck that was. It could be a weaponised teleportation thing but honestly it doesn't really matter since it doesn't seem to be capable of killing me in one hit anyway, which means I'll be fine in the end.
  
  It's clear that I'm going to have to beat them up before they listen to me, since they're so set on being pointlessly dramatic.
  
  So, strategy.
  
  Win, I guess. Not like I should have to think too hard to beat weaklings like these guys, the only thing I have to really worry about is Candy because, as they say on the forums, 'Tinkers are bullshit'.
  
  Root's extended limbs once again attempt to crush me and I think about cutting them or jumping over and using my ribbons for manoeuvrability. I can practically see how it would work out too.
  
  I'd jump over, Candy would shoot at me but I'd use my ribbons for unexpected manoeuvrability to dodge and launch myself at her before she can change from her guns to something else.
  
  But I decide to make this a bit more fun by challenging myself a little. That means for this fight, I will limit myself to not using any of my extra limbs.
  
  You know what? I'll make it a game. If you make me use my powers beyond just my body, then I will be lenient with my 'test' but if I best you with just my body then I will do something mean.
  
  With a happy smile and a nod of the head, I drop to the ground, my legs bending enough that my knees touch the floor, with me head doing the same from how far back I lean until I am just laying on my back.
  
  The next instant, a pair of tree roots pass over my head, barely high enough for me to avoid them and without even using my arms, I quickly launch myself back to my feet with a rock clenched in my hand and dash forward.
  
  As expected, Candy has swapped out one of her guns for some kind of device that she wastes no time throwing at me, however I throw my rock at the same time, just with much more force.
  
  The two objects collide in the air and let our a concussive blast that sends Candy flying back a few feet with a scream and leaves Batman crumpled to the floor holding his bleeding ears.
  
  Heh, what a loser, I think while also bleeding from my own ears.
  
  Treeboy tries to buy Candy time to get up by blocking my path with a pair of roots while the other two attempts to grab me.
  
  I just decide that now is a pretty good time to test exactly how strong I am now by throwing a punch at the first of the advancing roots and a wide, spinning kick at the other.
  
  They both explode in a shower of splinters and despite being happily surprised at how easy that was, I don't stop moving.
  
  I guess working out daily really does help huh?
  
  The roots in front of me have formed a wall, but like the reckless woman I am, I just barrel into it with my arms crossed over my face.
  
  Thanks to the force I push off the ground with, I burst through the wall of wood with complete ease, and time seems to slow down as before my sight is even cleared of splinters I notice a hand reaching for me.
  
  Aha, you can't catch me that easily Miss Bunny 2 Electric Boogaloo.
  
  Striker powers tend to only work through direct contact with the hand, so in a blur of movement, I reach past her hand and grab her forearm directly, giving it a little squeeze and breaking it with ease.
  
  "AAAHHHH!" Normally, screams of anguish and pain wouldn't so much as make me flinch, but I find myself pausing at the sound.
  
  Because, that is not the scream of a girl... that is the scream of a boy.
  
  As the realisation crystalises, I let go of the arm and spin around, only to see a splayed out hand mere inches away from my chest.
  
  It's too close for me to do anything about it without breaking my rules and I barely have enough time to look past the hand where, through a small gap in the splinters of wood still raining around me, I catch sight of a pair of determined, angry eyes staring at me.
  
  Heh, well played.
  
  I'm honestly impressed.
  
  Maybe that's why I decide to keep to the game, or maybe I just really do hate losing.
  
  Time suddenly seems to speed back up as the hand rushes forward and makes contact with me and the next thing I know is incredible, all encompassing 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯.
  
  I feel as every single bone in my body simultaneously shatters, except her power is apparently more in depth than that as I feel my skin crack, my muscles tear and my organs rupture.
  
  Every single piece of me breaks beyond what any normal person can survive and despite the pain numbing my mind, possibly the worst single instance of pain in my life, only one random thought passes through my head.
  
  𝘐𝘧 𝘐 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴, 𝘐'𝘮 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘶𝘱 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘳.
  
  My sense of space vaguely tells me that I am falling to the ground, both of my eyes being a bit too non existent right now to do that part of their job for me.
  
  Alas, I am not a normal person, and I recognise the feeling of my body stitching itself back together without issue.
  
  But even then, 𝘰𝘸𝘸. That shit hurt. A lot.
  
  Which is why, as soon as my sight returns to me and I see Carrot approaching me again, I don't hesitate to grab the ground either side of me with my hands and launch myself at her with straight legs that crash into her shins and bend both of them backwards.
  
  She 𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴 as she falls to the ground but I ignore that as I focus on getting back to my feet, an effort that is helped along by Candy who shoots something in my side that sends me flying away, allowing me to land straight on my feet, as right as rain.
  
  "Get away from her you Bitch!" Candy shouts at me as she rushes forward to stand between the two of us and I can't help but mentally roll my eyes.
  
  Like, seriously. Why are they taking everything so damn seriously? What is this, an Indian drama?
  
  It's a 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵, people get hurt, that's how it is. No need to make such a production out of it.
  
  Now, the only ones left are the naturist and the objective. Batman is useless for anything other than being a distraction and Carrot literally can't stand against me anymore.
  
  "Root." Candy says, even though she remains staring at me, like I'm some kind of wild animal that will attack the moment she looks away... not that she's entirely wrong really.
  
  "Take the other two and get out of here, I'll hold her back." She commands, making me roll my eyes in real life this time.
  
  Some people watch too many movies.
  
  Before Root can even say anything in response to that however, he is interrupted by Carrot herself, who pushes through her pain to shout out.
  
  "No! We won't leave you behind! No matter what!" My god, just kill me now.
  
  Why is it so damn difficult to make a fucking phone call?
  
  "Don't be stupid! We can't beat her! Just go already!" Candy returns and I am sorely tempted to check my watch, not that I have one, it just seems appropriate.
  
  "I refuse! You've done so much for us, I refuse to let you die alone!" Batboy chimes in, annoying me even further.
  
  I wasn't even planning on killing anyone for fucks sake, though I'm starting feel tempted.
  
  "I don't care what you want! Just live! 𝘗𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦. I'm begging you!" It's not like I even have a lot to say, it will just be like, a five minute conversation.
  
  "DON'T ASK ME TO LIVE IN A WORLD WITHOUT MY MOTHER!" No Legs' desperate scream brings about blessed silence as Candy finally looks away from me to stare at her daughter(?) in shock.
  
  "W-what?" Her shaky voice sounds out in the silent street, quickly followed by the two boys adding their own pieces.
  
  "You've always been there for us, whenever we've needed you, you always made us feel safe, like we found a home."
  
  "How could you be anything other than our mother?"
  
  Candy's starting to tear up but I'm just getting even more annoyed.
  
  Like, hellooo? I'm still here dipshits.
  
  "Ahem!" I loudly clear my throat, reminding them I'm here and ruining the moment completely, "forgetting something?~"
  
  At my words their faces all go through a series of emotions that I frankly just can't be bothered to decipher and I decide to jump ahead of whatever they're going to say in the hope of avoiding wasting even more time.
  
  Hopefully the beating they just received is enough to get them to actually 𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘯 to me this time.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Cliffhanger 2 electric boogaloo!
  
  I'm going to the beach again today I think, also I think I've only got like, a couple of days left before I'm going back to boring old England, but at least I will only be there for like half a month anyway, so there's always an upside I guess.
  
  Also, I would like to reiterate just in case anyone has any problems with what I am writing, I HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT I'M DOING! Like, I'm just pressing buttons here, whatever happens happens and I post it.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  96 Taxes are for the Weak
  "If you want, I can kill you all, but I really do just want to talk, none of you have to die if you just hear me out, kay?~" Why does it feel like I'm the one dealing with a litter of feral cats?
  
  I'm the villain here, they should be the ones stepping on eggshells!
  
  None of them say anything, unless you count pathetic whimpering as words in which case Bunny the Second doesn't shut up. Instead they just remain all tense looking, ready for fighting to break back out despite my casual stance.
  
  I mean, I'm not even mad about the fact that I'll have to get a new costume, 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯, yet they're being so pissy about what? A few broken bones?
  
  Who gives a fuck? In this fight I've had way more bones broken than they have collectively, possibly in their entire lives to be honest. 206 bones and I broke like, four of theirs while they've broken all 206 of mine.
  
  Truly, heroes are so violent these days.
  
  "Cool, so now that we've all gotten that out of our systems, I'll give you your second test and it really is an easy one, trust me, you're going to be feeling like idiots for turning this into a fight for no reason.~"
  
  Unfortunately, I am unable to continue as the eavesdropper interrupts me.
  
  "No reason? You killed 𝘩𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘴 of people and you say no reason?! Stopping people like you is exactly why I have this job!" His shout only makes me roll my eyes again but at least Candy seems to be learning as she also glares at him.
  
  It's nice that someone is finally understanding that antagonising me really isn't the best idea right now.
  
  Well, I guess I know who I'm going to pick later then.
  
  "Really?~ Funny, you don't seem to be doing much stopping of me right now.~ Care to try again?~ I could make your arms match if you want?~ Or I could give your other friend some company so she doesn't feel left out in the next weekly paraplegic pity orgy?~"
  
  Both of his eyes widen and I can smell the fear rising in him to overtake his righteous anger and it brings a honest smile to my face.
  
  "Just give me the test already." Candy interrupts, successfully bringing my attention away from the talking corpse.
  
  "Sure, it's an easy one.~ See, I need to make a phone call but the Arab has fucked with all the phones, so I figured you'd be able to make me one. Simple right?~"
  
  She eyes me dubiously for a moment, none of them saying anything until she circles back to the obvious fact that she doesn't really have a choice here.
  
  But still she double checks, which is about the only intelligent thing any of them have done so far.
  
  "That's it? Just make you a phone and I pass your test?" I can tell she's doubting me, which does make sense really, since so far she's only been tested by Mannequin and he took her hands.
  
  To be honest if not for the fact that I did actually kinda need to make a phone call, my test would have been for her to loser her feet, because it would have been funny to make her match.
  
  I just respond by gesturing my arms for her to get started.
  
  "I-I need my workshop." She stutters, but I know how bullshit Tinkers are so I'm pretty sure she just wants to lead me back to other heroes for a round two.
  
  "You have twenty minutes. Punishment for failing the test is that I'll kill everyone here except for you." Now 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 gets her moving.
  
  All you need is the right motivation and you can get anyone to do anything. Luckily this idiot seems to have chosen to love people who work in a highly dangerous job.
  
  As she starts taking out various devices and taking them apart, to assemble my phone I quickly get bored and begin meandering around, picking up pieces of human every now and then to snack on while I wait, partly because I want to and partly just because I like making the kids squirm.
  
  Now that I think about it, she's probably just going to give me a bomb to hold to my head isn't she?
  
  Ah well, I'm sure I can have fun with that too.
  
  As I am walking about, I nearly slip over when I step on one of my makeshift cards and it slides on the ground, still lubed up with fresh blood and it gives me a funny idea.
  
  So while Candy is building stuff, I start to walk back over to them, immediately causing Candy to stop her work and stare at me, ready to protect the others while they all tense up and get ready to defend themselves.
  
  Then, once I am only a few strides away from them, I plop down on my butt with my legs crossed and with an innocent smile, I wave one hand over the other and take out a deck of cards in such a way that it looks like it appeared out of nowhere.
  
  "I'm bored, wanna play poker while we wait?~" I ask while staring right at Audiophile.
  
  I take great joy in the way his teeth clench, a reaction shared by the other three, if not as violently, at the fact that I never actually needed to use makeshift cards at all and that those people all died for nothing.
  
  Which is true, though I'll probably eat most of them before I head back, or at least the good parts.
  
  Unfortunately, being the bores that they are, no one responds to me.
  
  How sad, guess I'll start ripping corpses apart to make myself feel better, I'm sure they won't regret their choice or rejecting a perfectly good way of distracting me.
  
  Some time later, I'm not sure exactly how long as even though I gave a time limit I haven't actually been keeping track of the time. So, eleven corpses ripped in half later, I guess, Candy finally seems to finish her job.
  
  "Alright. I'm done. I've made you you're phone, now take it and leave." She demands of me while holding out a device of supposedly phone-like nature.
  
  Tut, tut. I think someone's forgetting their place, making demands of me.
  
  "Cool, now I want Batboy to call someone for me, I'll tell you the number." I say and Candy stiffens for an instant.
  
  "Why?" She asks, failing to act casual but I just shrug and stare her down until she dutifully hands him the device, subtly flicking a switch as she does so.
  
  Heh, nice. She figured this might happen and added a way to disable the explosive instead of just abandoning the chance entirely.
  
  With the phone in his hand, Earboy dials in the numbers as I day them and presses call only once I've told him exactly what he is supposed to say.
  
  We all listen to the calling sound ringing out, because I guess she made it speakerphone to listen to what I'm saying. Well, I never specified for privacy so it's fine, she's just playing the game, nothing wrong with that.
  
  After ringing three times, the phone clicks and a tired voice sounds out.
  
  "Hello? Who the fuck is calling me at.." I hear some bangs and thumps as he presumably tries and fails to grab something with a clock, "fugin' uhhh, night-time?"
  
  Ah, I forgot it was so late.
  
  Errand boy gulps nervously before he responds, utterly failing to match his tone to the words I instructed him to say.
  
  "T-this is the IRS. We're calling to say that our records indicate that you have an outstanding balance of unpaid taxes. Failure to pay them by the end of the month will result in... the removal of your t-testicles to make up for the missing payment."
  
  The line goes silent until an 𝘶𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 laughter fills the entire street, however even as I'm trying to keep my giggling under control, the other four remain as stoic as ever.
  
  So boring.
  
  When Jinx finally manages to calm himself down, his voice is significantly more mirthful now than the tiredness from before.
  
  "Who put you up to this man? Was it March? Nah, you'd be a better actor is it was her, Negante then? I don't see it being one of the others and I pay my taxes so it's not the IRS, because everyone knows you don't fuck with the IRS." He asks, likely so he can call them back, but his statement at the end has me raising my brow.
  
  First of all I don't pay taxes, secondly, this obviously is something I would do and he knows that, so I can only assume he's excluding me since I've been radio silent for over a month.
  
  May would definitely invite more professionalism and James is also a reasonable guess.
  
  I still think his sense of naming is lame though. I mean, he calls his public persona Joker and then calls his Clown persona Negante?
  
  He wasn't even creative with it. What kind of dumb ass reasoning is 'I just got 'Negate' and put an extra letter in it to sound cooler'.
  
  But whatever, that's not important right now, what matters is the use of the word 'others'.
  
  Because I called his Clown number and the only other should be Kitsune, now Harlequin. Meaning we got a new member while I was in The Box.
  
  Eh whatever, I can just ask later.
  
  Gesturing at Earboy, I get him to throw the phone over, though I have to stretch to catch his awful throw.
  
  I'll let him off though since he is using his non dominant hand, for obvious reasons.
  
  "Guess again Fool!~ It's-a me!~ Your favourite Anthropophagolagniaphile!~" I cheerily greet him, only to get a rather dry response despite not hearing from me in quite a while.
  
  "... My favourite fucking what? How many syllables even was that? Are you making up words again?" His words cause me to pout, mostly just for the peanut gallery.
  
  "Anthropophagolagnia is the fetish of raping and eating people, and it's ten syllables. Anyway!~ How've you been?~ You're on speaker by the way.~"
  
  He seems to accept the change in conversation and just gives a quick snort before answering.
  
  "Eh, you know, chilling. We got a new friend though, you gon' be able to meet them?" He asks, leaving things vague with the knowledge of being on speaker phone whilst also understanding that I'm probably not in the most 'free' environment right now.
  
  "Prolly not no, and I kinda have places to be right now anyway, you'll see what I'm up to in a week or two when the news gets out.~ For now, I've got a favour to ask. I need you to get someone to fetch something for me.~"
  
  He hums lightly for a moment before acquiescing.
  
  "Sure, what do you need?"
  
  "I had to leave my bike behind and it's got some stuff in it that I want back, plus I liked that bike. It's in some forest so get a pen or something and I'll give you proper directions. Then just get someone to get the bike and ride it to Columbus, the one in Georgia."
  
  He agrees and I wait for him to get a pen and then give him the name of the former village as well as the general whereabouts of the bike.
  
  I'd be worried about bears having torn it apart by now, but I don't think the bear population over there will be much of an issue for some reason.
  
  To be honest, the main reason I want the bike, beyond just having a cool bike, is that it has my Clown phone in it, and I've apparently already missed out on one new member due to not having it.
  
  "Cool, I'll send someone over now then. Anything else?" At jinx's prompting, I ponder for a moment if there is anything else before my eyes find themselves locked onto Candy.
  
  Oh. Right.
  
  "Yeah, this call is probably bugged somehow, Tinker bullshit, so you'll probably have to get a new phone, maybe move house too to be extra safe.~"
  
  I wait a moment for my words to properly sink in and then,
  
  "You motherfu-" I cut of his shout by hanging up on him and crushing the phone into pieces in my hand.
  
  Wait, that had a bomb in it, crushing it was a dumb idea.
  
  Ah well, everything worked out in the end.
  
  "Welp! Congrats!~ You pass!~" I exclaim to the heroes, "now there's only one more thing to do." My tone suddenly turns sadistic and they are immediately on edge.
  
  Don't worry little lamb, this big bad wolf isn't hungry enough for four, but you 𝘥𝘪𝘥 lose the earlier game, and losing means consequences.~
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Taxes are for the weak. I don't pay a lot of taxes, cuz fuck the civilian council.
  
  Also, I'm kinda already tired of this arc, but there are a couple of things I've got to do with it after we leave another Columbus in ruins before we can move to the next arc, which 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 be when we enter canon territory btw.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
  previous chapternext chapterchapter list
  97 Covid? That You?
  Their bodies are all full of tenseness, ready for a fight but hoping to avoid it.
  
  Sucks to be them then, because they're gonna wish this will be as simple as a fight.
  
  "You see, I made us a little bet when we were fighting, and you lost. So now, I am going to kill one of you.~" Almost immediately there are shouts of protests that I don't really listen to.
  
  Those protests are immediately replaced by the silence of fear as I force all of my blood to explode out of me, instantly enlarging my size with the armour making me taller and wider while my beautiful wings and lithe tentacles float menacingly behind me.
  
  My mask covers my face and I keep a pair of pupils locked onto each of them from my gigantic eye as I point a wicket claw in their direction.
  
  "Remember, you lost the bet because you couldn't even force me to go all out. Feel free to try and fight this, just know that you, as well as another thousand innocent for each of you will all die." My distorted voice echoes down the now once again silent street.
  
  I had to add the last part as a precaution against them just deciding to go with the whole, 'let's die together' thing.
  
  No Legs starts whimpering first as they all resign themselves to inevitability. Though, I see Candy seeming to resolve herself of something as her face suddenly turns very determined looking.
  
  Heh, fuck you.
  
  Dismissing my power now that the threat has been delivered, I give Candy a bright smile.
  
  "Naturally, I get to pick who dies.~ If anyone else also dies then I guess I'll just finish the job and gut you all, kay?~"
  
  There we go, that deflates her silly little thoughts of finding a less bad ending to this interaction.
  
  Thus, I am left staring at four thoroughly broken individuals. Each resigned to the inevitability of power and hating themselves for it.
  
  You know, I'm starting to see why Jack does this stuff so much. I'm having fun.
  
  I still think it would get boring if I over do it though.
  
  All things in moderation, as that one guy said at some point, and he was supposed to be pretty smart so I'll take his word for it.
  
  They're barely even responsive as I walk up to them, only really shivering in response to my presence, though I do notice Carrot flinching, as if she was about to reach forward but held herself back.
  
  Smart.
  
  A few steps later, and I am staring down at Batboy, who is shivering with increasing fervour.
  
  "So tell me, how's 'stopping' me going? Do you regret your choice of profession?" My questions are soft and friendly, as if I am just asking how his day has been.
  
  I know the juxtaposition makes people uncomfortable, but he seems to magically grow a pair of balls in response.
  
  "N-n-no. I c-could n-never r-r-r-regret being a H-Hero." He stutters out.
  
  Ok, a pair of small balls.
  
  "Neat. Any last words then, 𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘰?" I ask with very little interest.
  
  "Y-yeah. Fu-𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬!" Unfortunately, he doesn't get to finish his final words thanks to a severe case of broken neck.
  
  Symptoms include ones head doing a full 360 degree spin, potential causes include me grabbing said head and spinning it like a fucking Beyblade.
  
  Everyone around me flinches with a sharp intake of breath at the sound and the two females both let out a soft whimper.
  
  I'm pretty sure they're all instinctually keeping quiet in the hopes that it will keep them safe from me.
  
  As well, I'm done here.
  
  Reaching down I grab the kid by the foot and start dragging him back to one of the corpse piles so I can feast before heading back to camp.
  
  As I am leaving though, I pause next to Candy.
  
  "Just a heads up, but if you think I'm evil then you really aren't ready for the others, 'cuz I'm the nicest of the bunch. When the others come to give you your tests? Well, I only killed one kid as a punishment and look at how much that hurt you. I'd imagine the others would be frothing at the mouth to hurt you even more than I did, wanna take a guess how they'd do that?~"
  
  The obvious answer is that they'd force her to watch as her kids are tortured to death, maybe make her finish the job to 'put them out of their misery' or something.
  
  Either way, the only reason I thought to give her that heads up is very simple.
  
  I've never talked anyone into suicide before, and I do love new experiences.
  
  I'm pretty sure that's going to be her solution to keeping what's left of her kids safe, it's the logical thing, kinda.
  
  Eh whatever, the only one of real interest here is Carrot and that's only on the assumption that she'll be able to hurt Crawler twice.
  
  Once? Sure, easy. But if her power still works after he's adapted then that is something impressive.
  
  Then again, there is only one free slot left in the group... sorry Magne, but if it comes down to it, I know who I'm picking.
  
  You weren't even my first choice after all, no hard feelings.
  
  By the time these thoughts have gone through my head, I've only made it a few feet away from the 'heroes' and I turn around to see them still here.
  
  What? Do they expect me to run off? I was here first!
  
  "Oi!~ You can fuck off now, I prefer not to eat with an audience!~" I shout at them, making them glance down at the kid in my grasp and cringe.
  
  Though, they do listen, Treeboy picking up the Vegetable and running away with Candy.
  
  Finally leaving me once again in peace.
  
  Glancing around, I take in the literal piles of corpses lazily strewn about and sigh.
  
  I should really have just kept them all in one stack instead of spreading them about, even if it 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 make for a better boss arena.
  
  Ah well, time to eat.
  
  About an hour later, and with even more blood coating my body, I make it back to our place of residence, dripping even more blood onto the already stained halls.
  
  By the time I reach the floor we're using, I have a smile on my face from the pleasing scent of blood filling the building.
  
  Walking in, I only see Crawler and Hatchet Face chilling in silence.
  
  "Yo faggots, what are the others up to?" I ask as I walk over to Crawler and start scratching his big old monster dog head, something he doesn't try to stop.
  
  It's a shame he doesn't start purring or something though, so I don't know if he's enjoying it or just tolerating it. It's not like I can really read him, what with his sever lacking of a human face.
  
  "I'm not a fag, and their out mostly. Jack, Siberian and Shatterbird are out testing their candidates, the other two are both in different rooms doing Tinker shit." I nod my head at Hatchet's answer and decide to check out what Bonesaw is up to before visiting Shatter.
  
  Lord knows I won't be able to find Sibby is she's out testing people since her tests consist of three days straight of running about.
  
  The only reason I didn't ask her to shorten the time limit for her tests with respect to the time limit I set for this game is because I am under the assumption that a lot of the candidates will simply die, leaving her with only three to actually test.
  
  So far that seems like a good decision too, because Hatchet killed his candidate almost immediately and Mannequin's candidate is probably going to suicide, leaving only six left two days in out of eleven.
  
  "Cool, thanks." I respond as I turn to start checking doors until I find Bonesaw, only to be stopped by Hatchet not realising that this interaction is over.
  
  "If you really wanna thank me, you could always come over here and suck me off." His voice is a mix of taunting and just genuinely horny.
  
  I turn around with a seductive smile on my lips and place one hand on my hip and with the other I bring my index finger to my lip, pulling it down slightly as I pretend to think about it.
  
  "You want the cannibal who's Brute powers aren't negated by your aura to put your dick in their mouth? Sure, I'm down if you are?~"
  
  Predictably, his face quickly changes from horny to annoyed at the implicit threat of biting his dick off.
  
  Truth be told, if he was less disgusting from a purely aesthetic point of view then I'd have probably accepted, but, call me shallow if you must, I just am not interested in fucking ugly people, especially since I can fuck sexy people instead.
  
  "Fuck you." He spits at me as he gets to his feet, "fine then, I'll just find someone else to fuck."
  
  As he leaves, no doubt to go rape some poor woman, or girl, or, now that I think about it, any particularly feminine looking guy, I start checking doors.
  
  It doesn't take me long to find the right door, evidenced by the fact that as soon as I open it I am greeted by a bunch of spider robot things with needles at the ready and pointed at me.
  
  Looking down at myself, I see that there is also an empty needle sticking out of me and I feel some sort of fuzzy feeling overtaking me for a moment before returning to nothing, probably that knock out drug of hers.
  
  ... Guess I should have knocked.
  
  "Oh good Doctor! Where are youuu?!" I shout into the room, ignoring the spiders that have stepped aside now that they've recognised me.
  
  Gotta love technology. Though I don't know if their intelligence should be wholly credited to technology since I know that there's an actual brain inside the main body doing all the thinking.
  
  Either way, I don't really care. I'm of the opinion that the thinking should be left to the people who like thinking about stuff. I just want my cheap thrills thank you very much.
  
  "I'm in here!" I hear Bonesaw's shout and follow it to a room that looks much like her lab in the RV, except with a lot more stuff inside, mostly people.
  
  Good thing I already ate.
  
  In the centre of the room is a flat, metal table with Bonesaw herself standing over it operating on some muscular guy's open brain.
  
  "Hey Chibi~ watcha doooin'?~" I ask as I lean over the table to look the guy in the eye, noticing that he is fully conscious, just incapable of moving.
  
  He seems to be in a lot of pain, but I think he's probably just being a pussy. I mean, you literally can't even feel pain from having your brain poked at, so either Bonesaw is doing something else to hurt him or he's just being melodramatic.
  
  "I'm glad you asked! This is Matador, my candidate! Right now I'm getting him ready for my test! See, my test is that for the next week he can only eat blood and salt, but I don't want him to just not eat anything so I'm modifying his cuneocerebellar tract to match with what I've already done to his amygdala. That will basically just make sure he drinks plenty of blood while also making him throw up anything else he tries to eat!"
  
  She is so excited about explaining all of this that she actually stops doing her surgery, getting a spider to take over, so that she can fully express her accomplishments.
  
  And even if I didn't understand a few of the words just then, I get the general idea and I see that she's happy to talk about it, so I resign myself to having my brain short-circuit from big words and decide to just bite the proverbial bullet.
  
  "Sounds fun! But if that was all then I figure you'd be done by now, not to mention just changing his diet seems a bit too easy as a test?"
  
  As expected, her face brightens even more as she practically starts vibrating where she stands staring at me with joy before she takes a deep breath and immediately looses me.
  
  "Uhuh! I'm also implanting synthetic neural circuits in his inferior cerebellar peduncle to cause his motor vestibular functions to always be in reverse to what the proprioceptive sensory input says it should be! I'm also modifying his trigeminal nerve a little bit so that the trigeminocerebellar tract can effect the cerebellum to cause large amounts of dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin to be released every time he smiles!"
  
  ... What?
  
  Did she just start speaking in Latin?
  
  I should have reminded her to dumb it down for me, but looking at her dopey grin as she looks up to me for praise and acknowledgement, I can't bring myself to admit that I have no fucking idea what she just said.
  
  Instead, I just smile right back at her.
  
  "Woah!~ That sounds awesome!~ Very impressive of you.~" I exclaim as I pick her up in a hug and spin her adorable little body around.
  
  As she starts giggling along with the ride, I randomly think back to when I turned eighteen and my mom talked with me about having kids.
  
  Naturally I told her that I'd rather avoid that kind of trouble. Kids seem like a lot of work for not much reward.
  
  And you know what? I was right.
  
  These interactions with Bonesaw don't disprove anything.
  
  If anything, I see her more like I saw those bears rather than as a daughter.
  
  "Well, I won't distract you any longer then.~ Do you know where Shatter is?" I ask as I set her down.
  
  "Uhuh! I'll get a spider to take you to her if you would like?" She is already heading back to the surgery table even as she talks and I don't have to answer before the spider that was just operating on Matador's head hops down and starts leading the way out of the building.
  
  As I head to Shatterbird, knowing that she's testing the person I wanted to test before Magne, I can only I hope she hasn't broken her already.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  The title is cuz she ate batman, and y'know.. covid 𝘵𝘰𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 came from some guy eating a bat, definitely not from a lab, no sirrrreee.
  
  Anywho, bonesaw is cute, but lusia doesn't form emotional connections like that. Though, she also feels more than she realises, so who knows the future, I sure as fuck don't.
  
  Like, I legitimately have no fucking idea how many of the current roster of the nine are going to die, which I think makes things more interesting.
  
  Also, I had to spend about half an hour reading through Wikipedia pages about brains and their functions and nerves and shit, so to any of you fuckers that have ever tried to question me or point out 'mistakes', get fucked, I do my research!
  
  (P.S. do keep in mind, I do not get mad ever, if I ever do seem like I'm mad then I'm just messing around, the above was just cuz A), I 𝘥𝘰 actually spend a lot of time researching shit to make sure I can explain everything I write and B) I remember getting a comment recently about Contessa's shard and Jack's that I won't get into for word count reasons, but fuck you Thot, NEVER DOUBT ME!)
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  98 Insert Title Here 2 Electric Boogaloo
  It takes me a little while to reach Shatterbird, mostly on account of the little spider robot being a lot slower than me, but eventually it leads me to a warehouse, dips it's head twice and then heads back to it's master.
  
  I'd check my watch to know what the time is, but I don't have one and my phone is still in transit, but it's probably somewhere around midnight by now.
  
  With a shrug of my shoulders, I make my way inside to be greeted by a storm of glass twisting around a woman who has a few ethereal tentacles coming out of her chest and is desperately using them to stave off the storm.
  
  She's doing a pretty good job of it as well. The tentacles are moving fast enough that they're a blur even to my eyes, and the repeated sonic booms tells me that they are supersonic at least.
  
  Looking at the rest of the room though, I notice that it is one of those warehouses that has the a walkway above the floor, going around and cutting through the room.
  
  Presumably so that the foreman can walk around menacingly and judge everyone from a point of superiority.
  
  Case in point, Shatterbird is standing on the walkway, looking down on Black Queen with all the poise of a god watching a pathetic mortal complete their 'trials'.
  
  At least that's how I imagine she views this whole thing.
  
  "Yo! Shatter!" I call out, even though I'm fairly certain she already knew I was here.
  
  She just gestures for me to get close so she doesn't have to shout, which is fair enough really.
  
  One hop later and I am on the walkway with her, landing with a clang even though I could have done so silently just because I like the dramatics of it.
  
  Everyone knows that when a Bad Guy lands on a metal bridge-path like this that there is always that same reverberating clang sound.
  
  Shatter just looks at me like I'm an idiot after seeing my dumb smile though.
  
  "So! You havin' fun?~ Nearly done yet? I want a turn already.~" My rapid fire words cause her eyebrows to twitch, but I can tell that her annoyance at me is purely affectionate.
  
  Ok, maybe not purely, but at least I know she doesn't just hate me. If that was the case then there'd probably be glass entering every one of my orifices by now.
  
  Which, by the way, is not my idea of a good time. I'm not 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 kinky.
  
  "She's got potential. We'll see how she holds up with the rest, and no, I'm not done." Her answers are as brisk as always, at least until she takes in my face, "why did you stitch on a smile and use makeup for the rest?"
  
  I give her a shrug and grin in response.
  
  "No reason,~ just trying new things~" I answer and she looks at me like I'm an idiot for a moment before turning back to what she was doing and presumably ignoring me.
  
  How rude.
  
  Ah well, it's not like there's really anything else to do, so I guess I'll just sit around here until her test is over so I can be the one to test her next.
  
  I've got to admit though, she's doing better than I thought she would.
  
  Her power isn't too strong after all. It's decent, but nothing near the level of most of us, yet down below her tentacles are moving so fast around her that it's like there is a solid barrier surrounding her, protecting her from the glass trying to cut her up.
  
  However, every now and then a shard or two will make it past her defence, scoring a thin cut and adding another line of blood to her body, though her cloak makes it hard to see the exact condition of her body.
  
  I can tell that Shatter is still playing with her food, so I imagine we'll be here a while.
  
  At some point after having that thought, I must have fallen asleep as the next thing I know I'm falling.
  
  𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘥.
  
  Ow.
  
  Rolling to my back, I look up to see Shatter looking down on me, no doubt having just kicked me off the walkway to wake me up.
  
  "you're bedside manners could use some work." I dryly call up to her, but she just shrugs in response and makes a bunch of glass float in front of me and make an arrow pointing to my left.
  
  ... She could have just like, pointed.. with her hand.
  
  Lazy woman.
  
  Turning my head as indicated, I spy a little black woman who is 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 lying on the ground, except she is lying in a puddle of blood.
  
  So that's what she looks like under the cloak then.
  
  Eh, I don't know what I expected, but I'm disappointed regardless.
  
  She just seems so.. normal.
  
  Ah well, she should be fun at least.
  
  I mean, she started a gang in response to the Northside Boys being born and she called the gang the Southside Men. That's a pretty funny thing to do.
  
  Then to top it all off, every cape in the Southside gang has picked a cape name that directly mocks the capes of the Northside.
  
  Like Black Queen herself, names to mirror White King, the leader of Northside.
  
  My favourite is Siberian's candidate though. He's called Thotslayer and he, like all the other Northside capes, seem to take this whole game way too seriously whilst also thinking far too highly of themselves.
  
  I mean, the dude apparently uses a fucking katana, despite being just some white dude dressed in a black trench coat and black army boots.
  
  I doubt he'll survive Siberian, since she only picked him because of his power being some kind of partial wolf transformation thing, but the funny part is the Southside cape who just straight up called themselves Thot in response to Thotslayer.
  
  Point is, they're fun, so she should have no trouble passing my test.
  
  With that, I jump to my feet and make my way over to her.
  
  "Hey there!~" I greet, only to receive a few supersonic tentacles in response.
  
  But despite their speed, they are severely lacking in strength, so they barely even tickle really.
  
  They're probably only about strong enough to break a normal human's arm, so even if she does make it into the Nine, she sure as hell won't survive long.
  
  Man, now I'm starting to root for Carrot. Unless Crawler kills her, then I might actually like Magne as a candidate.
  
  "I'll let that go on account of it not hurting even the slightest bit.~ But it's time for your next test!~ Aren't you excited?~" In response to my enthusiasm, she just levels me with a deadpan glare and spits up at me.
  
  Oooh, feisty.~
  
  "Cool, well, I'll take that as a yes, mostly 'cuz I'm pretty sure you understand that the alternative is death or worse.~" Despite my playful tone, the threat isn't exactly subtle so she quickly shambles to her feet, even though she looks absolutely exhausted.
  
  How long have I been asleep?
  
  There's some sunlight coming in from outside so I assume it's been about half a day at least.
  
  Whatever, I don't really care.
  
  "So! My test is a simple one and should be pretty easy for you.~ All you have to do is make me laugh,~ in the meantime, I will give you a command every thirty minutes. Failure to follow any of my commands before I give the next time will result in me taking a bite out of you, failure to make me laugh withing 24 hours will result in death. Ready set go!~"
  
  She doesn't share my enthusiasm and spends a couple of minutes just sitting back down and holding her head in her hands, using the time to rest and maybe think up something funny to do.
  
  Soon enough though, she responds as if it hasn't been minutes since I last spoke, all the while I've just been standing still and staring at her.
  
  "I just have to make you laugh and I pass?" She asks, and I just nod at the redundant question.
  
  "Right... What's the difference between a police officer and a bullet? When a bullet kills someone else, you know it's been fired."
  
  God dayum!
  
  Even though her voice lacked any inflection, I still very nearly let out a startled laugh, not expecting her to be going straight for the throat like that.
  
  To be honest, part of me was expecting a knock knock joke.
  
  "That was a good one, but you'll have to try harder.~" I say with just a wide smile to show how much I enjoyed the joke.
  
  "What does a pizza delivery guy and a Gynaecologist have have in common? They can both smell it but not eat it." She still just sounds tired, which is effecting delivery for sure, but damn, I'm liking the jokes.
  
  Seeing that I'm only smiling and not actually laughing, she sighs and seems to resign herself to doing what is probably the most high stakes stand up set ever.
  
  "People like to say they're 'born cool', but nobody is born cool. Except of course, dead babies."
  
  That was definitely funnier than the last one, but mere jokes aren't enough to force me to laugh. Because jokes are great and all, but I want to see new and interesting things, funny things.
  
  Ah well, I'm sure she'll figure something out. Or maybe her jokes will just get me, they've been funny so far.
  
  And that's how the next half hour or so went, I'm guesstimating the time, until I raise a hand to stop her.
  
  "Time's up!~ For your first command, I'll give you something simple, and keep in mind each half hour the commands are going to grow more and more difficult to do. I command you to find someone, and decapitate them!~"
  
  Nice and simple while also getting the point across that the commands won't be easy, without yet hurting her.
  
  I'd say I'll wait till the two or three hour mark before the commands start being truly detrimental to her health.
  
  Seeing as she doesn't immediately start moving, I decide to try and motivate her.
  
  "C'mon~ you only have half an hour to do it if you don't want me taking a bite out of you,~ so I'd suggest you hop to!~" My exclamation finally brings about movement from her as she starts dragging her exhausted body out in search of some poor folk experiencing a severe case of 'wrong place, wrong time'.
  
  It takes her probably about twenty minutes to find someone, during which she seems to have forgotten that she's supposed to be making me laugh.
  
  Seeing as it seems to be around midday, the people she comes across look like they were just heading out, looking for food or something so they can go back to hiding inside.
  
  Sucks to suck.
  
  There are four of them, which won't give her extra points or anything if she decapitates them all and they immediately scatter upon seeing a pair of capes.
  
  Well, three of them do. The other poor soul seems to know Queenie as he actually stops and 𝘸𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘴.
  
  I think I'm going to need to try hard to avoid laughing here.
  
  "Hey Queen. What're you doing out here, and who's your friend? I don't recognise them, but times are kinda crazy right now, so I hope y'all is at least keeping safe?" He sounds so nice and genuine, such a shame.
  
  Not.
  
  Queenie doesn't respond until she is standing right in front of him and though I can't see her face, just going by how cold her voice is, I assume that her face is carved from stone as she speaks just two words.
  
  "Sorry Dean."
  
  Before he can even properly process her words, her ethereal tentacles burst out of her chest, from where her heat is, and wrap around his throat, pulling in both directions.
  
  But as I've said, her power isn't really all that strong, so it's not an instant, painless experience. Instead it takes a solid few seconds for his neck to rip and his head to be separated, splashing blood on Queenie's masked face.
  
  After which, she just turns back to me, as if expecting something.
  
  "..What? The test is to make me laugh, doing the commands just means your not succeeding fast enough."
  
  Despite her clearly being funny, I think this might be a long day.
  
  Ah well, I'm sure it will be long in the fun kind of way.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Couldn't think of a fitting title so I went through old titles and found an opportunity for an electric boogaloo in chap 77 of my other fic :)
  
  You know, I've just come to a realisation of sorts that Lusia has actually experienced a lot more character growth than I realised. Like, she started out pretty bland, not having much of a care for anything, nor any real idea of what she was going to be doing with her time, but now she is completely different with the way she luxuriates in emotions and how far in the future she is planning for. I'm honestly kind of proud of her, like a parent seeing their kid win a trophy for something and having that realisation that your child is an adult now... it's pretty cool.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  99 Do You Think Fish See Air Like We See
  Columbus, Georgia. April 7th, 15:57.
  
  Looking down at the exhausted, handless woman covered in dirt and blood, I can't help but be a little disappointed that she's basically clocked out not even five hours in.
  
  So far, there has definitely been some close calls. She 𝘪𝘴 funny and if I wasn't explicitly trying to 𝘯𝘰𝘵 laugh, then I would have ran out of air from all the funny shit she's said and done.
  
  Like an hour ago when I gave the command to 'show me something I haven't seen before', and she actually had the metaphorical balls to ask if I've ever seen someone orgasm.
  
  That almost made me laugh, probably the closest she's been, shortly followed by a few minutes later when she was getting so desperate to finish the command before the thirty minutes was up that she shoved her tentacles up some dudes 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘦 and proceeded to use them to 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘱𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘵.
  
  Suffice to say, she completed the command just in the nick of time to get another one immediately afterwards.
  
  That command was to make a significant, permanent change to her body and it was admirable how quickly she just bit the bullet and cut off one of her hands.
  
  Of course that's when I told her one hand wasn't enough to be significant, so she had to get rid of the other too. But her tentacles are apposable anyway, so she's fine.
  
  However, due to how quickly she finished that command, I decided to make my next one less cruel and more just mean.
  
  The command was to run for thirty minutes without stopping.
  
  That was twenty seven minutes ago, I stole some dudes watch so I can actually keep track, and considering that I am now looking down on her as she lies in a puddle of misery, I think it's clear she failed.
  
  A couple of minutes of huffing and puffing later and her head snaps to my direction as a beeping sound rings out from my wrist.
  
  "Looks like your times up!~ It's impressive that you haven't failed a command 'till now, but no one's perfect!~ Now, as you know, this means that I get to eat you now.~" I exclaim as I stalk closer, pondering to myself where exactly I should take a bite.
  
  One of her feet would be funny just because it would make passing any more commands that much harder, or I could be even meaner and take a bite out of her spine somewhere.
  
  They're nice and crunchy, spines. More a snack food than a meal really, but certainly enjoyable and it would leave her paralysed everywhere below the bite, which would also be funny, because who doesn't love laughing at cripples?
  
  But as I am pondering these important matters, I miss Black Queen's movements and am caught slightly off guard when I focus back down at her and see her, legs spread in my direction with two fingers over her clothed crotch.
  
  "Oh please do, eat all you want.~" Despite sounding like she just ran three marathons, which wouldn't be entirely inaccurate, she still manages to put a slightly seductive tilt to her words.
  
  "Pffft, damnit!" I fail to supress a snort and immediately curse afterwards, throwing my hands in the air.
  
  Her response was just so out of left field that it caught me completely off guard.
  
  I mean, with how exhausted she is, the 𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵 thing I expected her to do was to 𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘳𝘵 with me!
  
  Ah well, no need to complain. If anything, I'm happy that she finally made me laugh, cuz she is funny as fuck and it would be great to have her around 'till she inevitably dies.
  
  Queenie herself just slumps back with a tired sigh filled with relief.
  
  "Well, that was an anti-𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘹, wasn't it?~" I say as I sit down beside her and watch as she passes out, exhaustion taking hold of her.
  
  Guess I'll just have to carry her back 'home' so someone else can test her.
  
  ... I guess I'll take the scenic route, give her a little extra time to rest, she deserves it.
  
  She's been up for probably more than a full day's time and she hasn't even done Siberian's three day marathon of a test yet, so I think it's only fair to let her get an hour or two of rest now.
  
  She did technically fail the command first though, so imma still have a little nibble, though I'll be nice and just go for the forearm instead of anything really debilitating.
  
  It's a bit over an hour later when I make it back, I'm not sure of the time exactly as I threw away the watch because I dislike the idea of living on a schedule and the very concept of time is offensive to me.
  
  Also blue just isn't my colour.
  
  Heading straight for Bonesaw's lab, I make sure to knock this time and am let in by the spider bots, one of which takes me to the girl herself.
  
  "Heya Chibi!~ You mind fixing up Queenie here?~" I ask because I'm pretty sure she's close to dying from blood loss at this point.
  
  Plus, Bonesaw could get started with some surgeries while she's at it for her own test.
  
  Predictably, the idea of doing more surgery gets her all excited, causing her to bound on over from where she was operating on a... a bear?
  
  Well, parts of a bear at least, loosely held together but what is either some kind of super thing medical string or just nerves or something, I'm not too sure.
  
  However, Bonesaw catches me looking and immediately jumps up at me, forcing me to catch her as she shoves her hands into my face.
  
  "No peeking! It's supposed to be a surprise! Just go away!" She shouts at me as she jumps out of my grip and starts bodily pushing me back out of the door.
  
  𝘚𝘭𝘢𝘮!
  
  Looking back at the door in confusion, I decide not to think about whatever that was and just go look for Crawler.
  
  I find him with little effort as he is still lazing about in the same spot he's been in pretty much since we got here, with Jack, Shatter and Mannequin also chilling on the other side of the room.
  
  "Yo Crawler!~" I greet as I walk up to him with a smile, "what you been up to?"
  
  Obviously I already know the answer to the question, but it's important to ask anyway.
  
  "Relaxing. Not everyone is as constantly energetic as you." He answers and I think I'm getting better at understanding him.
  
  Not that it was ever actually a problem to understand the words, but it was always like someone trying to talk over an active jackhammer. Now however, I can understand him pretty easily, which is nice.
  
  "Don't be such a bore.~" I say before allowing my power to form claws over my right hand and shoving it wrist deep into one of his many eyes.
  
  That should get him feeling a little more energetic.
  
  "Let's go, you're candidate is the only one that hasn't started yet.~"
  
  He's already on his feet by the time I finish speaking, my friendly slap waking him up as intended, and he gives me a huff before heading to balcony to leave, as he can't fit through the door without breaking it.
  
  Before leaving though, I turn to the other three and make finger guns at them for no particular reason.
  
  "Any of you know where Carrot is at?~" I probably should have started with that, but she's probably just being held up in the PRT's HQ, so we would have just started there anyway, which would be fun regardless.
  
  Mannequin makes some tapping and clicking noises in response, but I have no idea what that is supposed to mean so I look to our resident translator, who is thankfully far more helpful.
  
  "She's being kept on base with the other Ward." Jack says with a casual smirk and I just give him a quick thanks before hopping out of the window to follow after the biological tank.
  
  As soon as I hit the ground, I immediately bounce again and land on Crawler's back. It is incredibly uncomfortable, but it's funny enough to be worth it.
  
  "Giddy up!" I yell as I kick into his back as if he's a horse.
  
  Unfortunately this seems to be a step too far compared to chin scratches as he just responds by ramming himself back first into the nearest building, crumbling it on top of us and thoroughly dislodging me.
  
  Climbing out of the rubble, I give him a dry look, and despite his features not really translating human emotions, I can tell he is amused nonetheless.
  
  "Humph, whatever, let's just go. She's in the PRT headquarters apparently, so you can go in and have fun and I'll come in once you're done. There should only be one Protectorate member on base, but the other four are likely not far out, so you shouldn't have any trouble making it to her."
  
  He grunts in response and we start making our way to PRT HQ in a peaceful silence for a while until I decide to make conversation.
  
  "So, what are the others up to?"
  
  He doesn't answer for a moment, but when he does he is very informative.
  
  "Jack wiped out one of the gangs in his test for White something, Shatterbird also just got back from testing the same guy. Mannequin went out to test your guy at some point and Hatchet Face is out testing Bonesaw's candidate, so that guy's probably going to die, or lose an arm or something."
  
  Huh. Guess I'll find Jack's candidate after this to see what's up with him.
  
  Now that I think about it, if Mannequin tested Magne yesterday, and with Candy having suicided, there shouldn't be any easy way to fix him up from whatever his test was, so there's a pretty good chance that Magne will be the one on base.
  
  "Neat, that means it'll probably be my candidate that's the hero on base, you can get two tests out of the way in one go. It'll be like swingers, you do mine while I do yours!~"
  
  The next thing I know I'm flying into another building.
  
  At least it was just me this time, so the entire building didn't fall down on me.
  
  As I get back out onto the street, I give Crawler a glare, while he just lowers his arm and continues walking as if nothing happened.
  
  "𝘔𝘶𝘴𝘵 you keep throwing me into buildings? Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep my hair looking good while getting thrown through buildings?" I complain at him as I start patting down my hair, noticing with great annoyance that it's starting to show white again as the repeated impacts start brushing out all the blood.
  
  It is surprisingly difficult to dye hair with blood without making it all crusty, so I think it's reasonable to get annoyed when all that hard work gets blown away.
  
  "You're an asshole you kn- Oi! Wait for me!" I yell as I notice how far he has walked away from me while I have been busy fixing my hair.
  
  It only takes a few seconds of running to catch back up with him, and I greet him with a jumping kick to the side that only sends him stumbling a single step away, while I land on my feet with a flip.
  
  I forgot that he weighs several tonnes.
  
  However, as I am about to start insulting him, I am cut off by a crashing sound as a refrigerator flies out of a second story window right ahead of us, shortly followed by a pair of men who seems to be doing their best to rip each other's throats out.
  
  As they both hit the ground, a third guy runs out of the door and jumps on top of the two downed men and starts beating into their faces.
  
  Crawler and I both just watch as this random guy beats these other two random guys' faces in until their brain matter is painting the street around them.
  
  Huh. Did somebody bring a pineapple to pizza night or something?
  
  The guy soon notices us, but instead of the general response of fear, he just shows rage and charges right at us with a telegraphed fist raised, clearly intending to beat us up too.
  
  Maybe he's just high then? I ponder to myself as he gets closer.
  
  Apparently I seem to be the easier target, which is fair really, as he runs straight at me. But once he is within arms reach of me, I attack with speed a normal could never hope to react to and I kick him in the side and launch him at Crawler's face.
  
  He reacts instantaneously by spitting a glob of acid at the flying body. The force of the spit cancels out the bodies momentum perfectly and the body drops to the floor and is completely melted within the minute.
  
  Crawler and I both stare at the dissolving corpse in silence before we look at each other, completely synchronised.
  
  "... You got any idea what that was about?" I ask in confusion.
  
  "... Drugs?" He answers, though it sounds more like a question.
  
  Oh shit! The fucking salt!
  
  God how did I forget about the fucking salt!?
  
  That makes sense now.
  
  At least we know it's working as intended.
  
  I wonder how many people have died by now? Probably a lot.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Hint hint, it is a lot. the city had a population nearing 200k when they got there. That's probably going to be halved by the time they leave, but there's no reason to pity them, as it is just a skill issue.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  100 Interlude: Lucy 'Carrot' Darwick
  A/N: Whoop whoop, one hundo baby! Gonna make it extra depressing in celebration (:
  
  Also, trying something new with this chapter by doing an interlude in 3rd person, mostly cuz writing depression in first person is too hard cuz depressed people don't have a lot of thoughts.
  
  Blackness.
  
  𝘋𝘳𝘪𝘱.
  
  Nothing to be seen and nothing to be heard except for a single slow, rhythmic sound.
  
  𝘋𝘳𝘪𝘱.
  
  Inside of this pitch black room, there is a girl. A girl filled with emptiness and grief as she lies exposed in a bath filled with tainted water, her hair splayed out around her without a single care.
  
  𝘋𝘳𝘪𝘱.
  
  Silent and alone, the girl stares at nothing, unable to form even a single thought.
  
  𝘋𝘳𝘪𝘱.
  
  Unseen in the shadowed room, her skin is in stark contrast with the room itself, being a pale white as if she has never seen the sun.
  
  𝘋𝘳𝘪𝘱.
  
  The only exception being right below her eyes, where her pale, paper white skin changes to show a deep, black and purple bruise like colour.
  
  𝘋𝘳𝘪𝘱.
  
  The girl does not know how long she has been laying there, and she does not care.
  
  𝘋𝘳𝘪𝘱.
  
  However she is dragged from her state of melancholy by a soft, gentle sound that rings out in the silence of the room like a tolling bell.
  
  𝘒𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬, 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬.
  
  Slowly, the girl turns her head to face where she knows the double locked door is, even if she cannot see it.
  
  "H-hey, uh. Lucy? It's uh, it's nearly dinner time." There is a pause as the uncertain sounding voice attempts to gather themselves, "you uh, I don't think you've eaten anything since, uh, since. Well, you know. Since.. I just... Please eat something? For me? Please."
  
  Silence is his only answer and a sigh can barely be heard through the door as he realises that silence is the best he will get.
  
  "Well, just... I'll be eating in a bit. I put some pizza in the oven. Y-you know where to find me I guess, so.. just. You don't have to, but if you want, I'm cooking enough for us both, so.. don't be a stranger?"
  
  It's only a few minutes after the soft sound of footsteps have disappeared that Lucy finally moves, seemingly with great difficulty.
  
  Tainted water trickles down her bare body as she rises out of the tub, stepping over it's wall and lethargically walking to a specific part of the room, uncaring of the trail of liquid following her wake.
  
  She reaches a sink, stopping just before she would have bumped into it despite the dark, showing her familiarity with the room.
  
  Reaching one hand forward while the other rests on the lip of the sink, she fumbles about for a moment before finding what she was looking for.
  
  𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬.
  
  Following the soft noise, light suddenly shines withing the room from a ring of dim lights that surround a mirror on the wall the sink is connected to.
  
  The change in lighting allows Lucy to properly see her reflection.
  
  Her bare flesh, white as snow is blanketed with darkened water, stained red as it flows down her body.
  
  The colour of the water brings Lucy's eyes down to her arms where she spends a minute simply staring and taking in the sight of all the jarring red gashes decorating her arms from wrist to elbow.
  
  Looking back up at the mirror, Lucy looks herself in the eyes, not reacting even the slightest bit to the sight of eyes that lack even a hint of light to them, as if she is devoid of life but not yet quite dead.
  
  A description that adequately explains how she feels.
  
  Raising one of her arms, she holds her hand over the sink and watches as blood and water builds up on the tip of her index finger, forming a drop that grows until it is to heavy to stick to her skin.
  
  Her lifeforce drops down to join the water in the sink with a familiar sound.
  
  𝘋𝘳𝘪𝘱.
  
  Forty minutes later and the boy known as Charlie is sitting alone in the Ward's common room, holding the mask of his Root persona in his hand and staring at it with an intensity rarely seen in one his age.
  
  In front of him, on the table are two untouched pizzas that have both long gone cold.
  
  Yet, he still shows no intention of taking a single bite, too lost in his own thoughts to care about hunger.
  
  However the sound of a door quietly swinging open drags his attention away from his thoughts and towards the young girl approaching him.
  
  Her brown hair is a mess of tangles and roots and she only has a long sleeved black hoodie and baggy pants to cover her unhealthily pale skin.
  
  Though he does notice that she has bags under her eyes much like his own, made even more visible due to their contrast with her skin.
  
  All without saying a single word, she stumbles her way up to the table and sits opposite him.
  
  Both of them drag a plate of pizza in front of themselves and pick up a slice. Then they both mournfully throw the slice at each other's plates and proceed to take a bite out of the traded pieces at the same time, as if it is an action they have practiced a thousand times.
  
  "Sharing is caring." Charlie whispers, his voice hoarse and barely loud enough to be heard even in the otherwise silent room.
  
  Yet, despite the simplicity of the statement, the weight behind the words tells of deeper meaning, as if those three words are a memory crystalised.
  
  A single tear trails down Lucy's face at the reminder of what they've lost even though her expression doesn't so much as twitch, and they both continue eating in complete silence.
  
  Eventually the meal comes to an end, with Lucy only having eaten half of her pizza by the time Charlie had finished his. Almost mechanically, she rises to her feet, plate in hand, and makes to walk to the kitchen, only for her legs to give out, causing her to stumble and barely catch herself from falling by holding onto the counter.
  
  "Are you ok!?" Charlie exclaims in panic as he rushes to his feet an moves to help her stand, but as his hand is reaching out to steady her shoulder, it is slapped away.
  
  "I'm fine." Lucy grits out through clenched teeth and it is obvious that it is a lie, but Charlie isn't going to call her out on it. He just wants to help.
  
  "Ok, ok. Just. If you need help, all you have to do is say, I mean, not that you 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 need help, but just if you need help moving with your leg-" He is cut off however, by Lucy's words that are just shy of shouting.
  
  "I said. I'm. Fine."
  
  She clearly is not, but Charlie doesn't know what the appropriate response is, so he just tries his best.
  
  "Ok. Ok, I'm sorry, just. I can clean up by myself, so you can just. Leave your plate here. I'll deal with it." His voice is soft and caring as he does his best to avoid angering his dear friend any more.
  
  She doesn't move immediately and for a moment he worries that he said something wrong.
  
  That is, until she stumbles a single step forward and all but collapses into him, making him struggle to catch her as she leans on him.
  
  For a moment he is confused on how to proceed, until he hears soft sniffles and realises that she is crying.
  
  Without a word, he just wraps his arms around her and starts rubbing circles on her back.
  
  Soon enough, his tears end up flowing just as surely as her own.
  
  Unfortunately for the lonesome pair, their moment of grief is interrupted by a distant crashing sound, shortly followed by the entire building shaking around them.
  
  Immediately, their training kicks in and they separate, Root quickly putting on his mask as the rooms intercom sounds out.
  
  "Attention all persons. Crawler of the Slaughterhouse Nine is here. Unarmed personnel are to evacuate immediately. Everyone else, remember your briefings, all Protectorate members are on their way."
  
  Another resounding crash follows the announcement and the two Wards struggle to keep their footing as the building shakes.
  
  Without a word, Lucy rushes back to her room, uncaring of the pain lancing down her legs with every step.
  
  By the time she makes is back to the room, Carrot looks almost as ready for a fight as Root does.
  
  Still, neither of them speak.
  
  There is no need to ask what their plan is, what they're going to do.
  
  Both of them are too far gone with anger and grief to care about whether or not revenge is something possible.
  
  But before they can even go about searching for their quarry, the wall in front of them explodes outward in their direction.
  
  Root reacts without thinking, extending and expanding his arms into thick, wall-like roots that protect both of them from all the debris.
  
  But as he retracts his roots and they are granted clear sight of what they are facing, their fighting spirit momentarily falters as they take in the Monster staring them down with far too many eyes and far too many teeth.
  
  "FIGHT ME!" The Monster yells out as it charges for Carrot, raising a front limb to crush her into pulp.
  
  But Root reacts quickly, launching roots from each of his limbs straight into the Monster's side. However, the assault only manages to push him slightly off course.
  
  Luckily, that is enough room for Carrot to dodge out of the way of the strike, causing it to crash into the ground, leaving a deep crater and causing the building to shake once again.
  
  Carrot doesn't waste the opportunity to reach forward and brush her hand against the Monster's limb.
  
  Her power takes hold immediately and the Monster 𝘩𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘴 out as every single fibre of it's body simultaneously breaks.
  
  "YESSS! MORE!" The Monster screams as it pounces at Carrot, it's broken body having healed itself almost in the same instant that it was broken.
  
  The Monster reaches her before anyone can do anything to stop it and all she can do to defend herself is hold out one of her hands, activating her power as it ploughs into her, it's weight enough to crush her even with a broken body.
  
  However, it only manages crush her extended arm as it is stopped right before it reaches her body by an entire wall flying into it and pushing it away from the Wards and through the opposing wall, launching it outside of the building with another resounding crash.
  
  The two teens look in the direction the wall came from and can't contain their relief at seeing someone they can trust to help.
  
  "Yeah yeah, I'm here. You two should go evacuate with the rest, I'll deal with big and ugly. That's an order by the way, you'll only get in the way here." His dismissive words hurt to hear, but they know them to be true.
  
  "Magne! We can help! I can hurt him!" Carrot calls out, but Magne just gives her a dry look before unsubtly glancing from her broken left arm to her legs that are still healing from being broken.
  
  "... Right. Just do what I say will ya? Cuz in case you didn't realise, hurting Crawler doesn't really matter, and he's not exactly going to be stopped by wood, so just leave this to me, kay? Have some faith for Christ's sake, I'm awesome, I got this."
  
  With those words of encouragement, he stops interacting with the two teenagers entirely and walks up to the broken wall, looking down three floors to see Crawler on the street staring right back up at him, uncaring of the civilians running away around him.
  
  Meanwhile, Carrot is struggling with indecisiveness.
  
  But in the end, as one of her mentors jumps out of the building to face a Monster alone, she looks down at her broken and bleeding arm and is forced to accept the painful truth.
  
  There is nothing she can do here.
  
  With nothing but self hatred in her heart, she turns away and flees, saying nothing as Root takes her undamaged hand and wraps it over his shoulder as they both leave to seek safety.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Got halfway through this chapter and then the writing combined with the sad music I was listening to made me too depressed to keep writing and I had to sleep it off lmao, so if there seems to be a change in tone about halfway through, that would be why.
  
  Oh yeah, I'm curious, did this third person perspective feel more immersive? was it preferable? I'm not gonna change the POV of this fic, but it'll be useful information to know for the future.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  101 Happy Reunion
  From the roof of a building next to the PRT HQ, I look down and watch as Crawler is sent flying through a wall near the ground floor.
  
  The building is in the middle of the city, so most of the surrounding buildings are skyscrapers, or at least somewhat big, so nobody seems to notice me looking down on them, which is perfect for me.
  
  I see Magne walk up to the hole in the wall and turn around to say a few words before jumping out of the building.
  
  A slap of rubble below him rapidly rises to meet him only to immediately slow down and gently carry him to the ground right as he lands on it.
  
  At the same time, Crawler, being a gentleman, waits for Magne to touch the ground in front of him before he acts.
  
  That patience makes me assume he's already finished his test for Carrot, otherwise he'd be barging back in there.
  
  He doesn't look any different, so I assume she probably failed. I'll still double check, but I want to see how this fight might play out first.
  
  I mean, obviously Crawler is going to win. The questions are if he'll have to work for it and of how much collateral damage there will be.
  
  They start of with what I assume is a little bit of pre fight banter, but I can't here the words from so far away.
  
  That changes when Crawler spits a glob of acid at Magne, forcing him to roll to the side and Crawler uses the opportunity to close the distance. However, I van quickly gains momentum and slams into him, knocking him a couple of steps to the side despite the hit being strong enough that any normal would have been turned to paste.
  
  The joys of being a basically unstoppable monster dog I guess.
  
  Magne uses the chance to scramble to his feet, launching more and more cars at Crawler, though since nothing seems to be coming the other way, I can only assume he is tethering his power to the surrounding buildings, or maybe the floor if he can do that.
  
  The fight then descends into Crawler charging and Magne dodging by increasingly small margins, until all of a sudden Magne comes to a stop and my brain itches at me like I'm missing something, but I don't know what it is.
  
  I try to look closer at the battlefield, but nothing really stands out.
  
  Magne is standing on one side of the street with his hands in his pockets with Crawler on the other. There are cars and vans dented and scattered about and the street is empty of anyone else, evacuations having finished for the immediate area as they were fighting.
  
  Nothing pops out to me, but the answer shows itself when Crawler rushes forward one more time, except Magne doesn't look like he's going to dodge this time.
  
  Instead he just stands there as Crawler approaches and I spot an only to slightly beat up van behind Crawler suddenly start flying after him. I realise immediately that the van will impact him at around the same time he'll reach Magne and my eyes flick right back to him.
  
  But right as Crawler's teeth are less than a foot away from crashing into him, Magne takes a hand out of it's pocket to reveal a small, handheld device.
  
  Time seems to slow down as Crawler inches closer to Magne, yet Magne shows no sign of concern.
  
  The very instant before Crawler hits him, Magne's face finally changes as he allows out a small smirk.
  
  Time's flow seems to resume as Magne presses the button on the device in his hand right as Crawler crashes 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 Magne and into the ground, followed by the van hitting him and using his own momentum to push him further, sending Crawler crashing into the foyer of a skyscraper.
  
  I can barely contain my shock at Magne's sudden display of badassery as I watch his figure start to transition back to normality from it's sudden ghostly appearance.
  
  I assume they've salvaged Candy's tech then, which is good to know in advance, because Tinkers are, as just evidenced, complete bullshit.
  
  But as cool as that was, I don't really see how it helps the fight.
  
  That is until the entire skyscraper above Crawler shakes.
  
  𝘕𝘰 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘢𝘺.
  
  My jaw is appropriately agape as I watch Magne pointing both of his hands at the skyscraper, looking to be in great strain, as the 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘳𝘦 building starts shaking.
  
  Then, it collapses on itself.
  
  Over two hundred 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥 tonnes of cement and steel come crashing down on itself, not spreading out at all. Meaning that all of that weight is being used to crush Crawler.
  
  I've been in a couple of fights with a lot of collateral damage by now, but I've never been able to truly witness the sheer 𝘢𝘸𝘦 inspiring sight that is the fall of a skyscraper.
  
  I am certain Crawler is fine, or even better than fine, but I can't help and wonder if I'd survive that.
  
  It is a 𝘭𝘰𝘵 of weight and unlike Crawler, I don't already weigh a couple dozen tonnes.
  
  Tch.
  
  After thinking about it for a moment, I come to the annoying conclusion that I'd probably die. Maybe.
  
  At the very least, I'm not sure that I'd survive like I am with Crawler, which means that despite how much stronger I've gotten, there are still plenty of people that can off me.
  
  Oh well. My power seems to be among the few that can keep getting stronger, so I just have to be patient I guess.
  
  With the size of a skyscraper, I would have thought it would take longer to fall, but it was reduced to a pile of rubble and a dust cloud within ten seconds flat.
  
  However right as I am about to complain about the dust getting in the way, a sudden unnatural storm sweeps over the building, compressing all the dust into a pile off to the side, which is a dead giveaway that it's the powers of a hero rather than a villain.
  
  After all, it seems more eco friendly than just blasting the dust into the sky, which sounds easier, and only heroes would care about shit like that.
  
  𝘗𝘙T and all.
  
  Looking down, I see the a figure approaching that I assume is the cause of the gust.
  
  She is an ethereal looking woman, like a spectre, wearing simple robes and having a completely blank face.
  
  That's Megan.
  
  From what I remember she is a hero's power, making her a projection.
  
  The only reason I even remember is because the dude's hero name is literally just 'Carl'.
  
  I even watched his debut because it was funny and he said he chose the name because 'Megan will be doing all the hero work, I don't have any of her power, so I'm just Carl. She's the hero'.
  
  It is incredibly amusing to me that Masters are the most feared of all power types, thanks to people like Heartbreaker mind fucking bunch of people, especially supermodels for his perfect harem.
  
  Yet, projections powers are also in the Master category, so if Carl started by just saying he's a Master, then people would be scared until he reassures them with the fact he doesn't mind whammy people, he just makes a sex doll that can fight.
  
  ... Ok, I've never met Megan, that was unnecessarily mean.
  
  Bringing me out of my thoughts is the arrival of another hero, as well as a small army.
  
  that'd be Mimic then.
  
  He can create phantom copies of people, though if he copies a cape then the power the phantom gets is a weakened version, so he's not really a threat to anyone with good area control.
  
  Suddenly I remember Carrot and that I want to know if she's dead or not, so I only stick around until the rubble starts moving so I can be sure Crawler's fine.
  
  As I turn to leave, I idly notice the final pair of heroes arrive to group up with the others. I don't know if they're going to continue fighting or just run away while Crawler is occupied, but I figure I should hurry up either way.
  
  Decision made, I jump off the building on the opposite side as the heroes, facing the back of the PRT building, where the evacuees went.
  
  The building I was on was tall but not as tall as the skyscraper, so I don't even get close to hitting my terminal velocity before I touch the ground.
  
  Meaning that I make the landing with ease, my enhanced muscles taking the impact without any trouble whatsoever, only cracking the concrete a little bit as my legs absorb most of the force.
  
  Fuck I love superpowers.
  
  Setting off at a steady jog, I head for where I last saw the evacuations from the PRT building going and I quickly pick up on their scent, made easy by the size of the crowd.
  
  It doesn't take me long to find them.
  
  Grouped up in a nearby park, hundreds of PRT workers and troopers stand in a large circle, with the troopers on the perimeter standing guard over the workers of more menial tasks.
  
  Making sure to keep out of sight, I scamper my way up one of the buildings lining the park and look out over them, searching for any sight of my quarry.
  
  Thanks to the mass of people it takes me a moment, but I soon lock onto my second favourite bunny themed cape being tended to by medical personnel.
  
  Granted, she is also just the only other bunny themed cape I know of other than March, but eh, details.
  
  Now, how do I get to her without alerting the circle of heavily armed men and women who are in a high state of alert, ready to be pounced on by a biological tank?
  
  Well, I have a plan for that.
  
  See, Crawler can't fly, and as this is a rather hastily set up defence, they don't have any air coverage up, smartly focusing on the ground.
  
  I can't really fault them for it, since Shatterbird is the only one capable of flight among us and she's not exactly the subtle type, but that doesn't mean I won't use the negligence to my advantage.
  
  For I may not be capable of flight, but I sure as hell can jump far.
  
  Walking to the far end of the building, I picture the distance I need to cross and start jumping on the spot slightly, to get a feeling for my legs.
  
  Precision is something I've focused a bit on with my card trick training, so I'm confident I can land exactly where I want to.
  
  With a deep breath, I rush for the end of the building. My right foot plants on the edge of the roof hard enough to crack it as I launch myself out into the sky, soaring through the evening air in a moment of weightlessness before I come crashing down once again.
  
  I see my target getting closer and closer and I watch as the first person notices my approach and how they start pointing me out to others.
  
  I feel multiple pairs of eyes tracking me just in time for them all to witness as I crash straight into the medical tent that was luckily empty of people at the time.
  
  Immediately following the impact, I start rolling a couple of times thanks to the momentum, causing the sheet fabric to wrap around me completely, leaving white cloth as the only thing I can see.
  
  All according to plan. I promise.
  
  Wriggling about, I try and search for an exit to this textile trap to no avail, leaving me flopping about on the ground.
  
  "Don't worry! I'm fine!" I yell out to the people I hear hesitantly approaching.
  
  Flailing about a bit more, I manage to get one of my feet out up to the knee before it gets stuck again, showing my bear feet to all, and hopefully giving a certain teen a nice dose of PTSD from the scruffy and torn white and black stripes of my costumes lower pant.
  
  "I got this! This is totally ok! I am not struggling at all, I swear!... Just gimme a minute! For unrelated reasons!"
  
  I actually manage to hear a couple of chuckles at my shouts, which is great! For what is a Clown that doesn't make others laugh?
  
  A phoney! That's what! Hence why Chuckle Nuts had to die. He was hogging all the laughter to himself.
  
  Still, that's probably enough for now, I kind of forgot that I was in a hurry.
  
  That in mind, I stop playing around and just start tearing the sheets apart, standing up and leaving the cloth to just tear as it attempts to limit my movements.
  
  In mere moments, I am free of my confines and staring out at a crowd of adoring spectators, though I ignore them as they raise their weapons affectionately at me as I turn to stare right at the only one here that matters.
  
  "Carrot! 𝘋𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘢 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺 𝘢 𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘦?"
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Thanks to the discord for the quick debate on the pros and cons of whether "Do you wanna play a game?" is better or worse than "Are you ready to play a game?".
  
  Just so you're all aware that you're getting quality content, there is deeper meaning to almost everything I write so you could totally use my fic for an english assignment... actually, if you do that, PLEASE message me so we can work together on it! Hell, I'd do it myself if you want!
  
  Why am I asking to do homework? Life sure goes by, huh?
  
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  102 A Glimpse of Something Greater
  The area enters a strange sort of standoff with neither side moving.
  
  Hundreds of them against a single me, yet they all know by now that if fighting breaks out that I will be the one to walk away, not them, so they don't open fire immediately.
  
  I also don't make any sudden movements, as I don't want them to ruin the performance by shooting at me.
  
  I wait in silence for a short moment, giving Carrot a chance to say whether she's ready to play or not, but her eyes are wide and unfocused as she stares at me, clearly in her own world for the moment.
  
  "Welp! I'll take your silence as a yes then.~ Now, what to play, what to play.~" I ponder out loud, tapping my finger to my chin to sell the image of deep thought.
  
  Really, I'm just buying time, and as planned, I stalled long enough that the next person to speak isn't one of those in my immediate surroundings, but a voice from the back, rapidly pushing his way through the crowd to get closer.
  
  "Carrot! Carrot are you ok?" Root shouts out as he barges forward, moving straight to Carrot and repeatedly glancing down at her bandaged arm.
  
  Wait a minute, didn't I break her legs?
  
  I'm pretty sure I did, but parahumans exist, so they probably had some method to heal her quickly, as it is evidently not some kind of regeneration, otherwise her arm, which I assume was injured by Crawler, wouldn't be bandaged up and limp as it is.
  
  However, rather than being relieved by his presence, seeing him next to her just seems to cause her to become even more fearful than before.
  
  I feel my grin grow a little bit wider at the realisation that she understands what is about to happen.
  
  "Aha!" I exclaim while snapping one of my hands and pointing a finger up as if I just had an amazing insight, "Root! Glad you could join us!~ Well then Carrot, you have been nominated by Crawler, and my test for you shall be thus. Either you kill everyone here except for Root, or, you stand still and let me kill him.~"
  
  I know it would normally be more traumatising to get her to do the killing instead, but that's shallow thinking and also exactly why I thought the Nine were tacky.
  
  There are more things to consider.
  
  After all, just the other day, I stood before her and her friends and family, then I walked past her and killed one of them while she just stood there and did nothing.
  
  No doubt, that's a traumatic thing. Something she's no doubt had nightmares about.
  
  So I think it's fair to assume that anything that, say, mirrors the event completely would probably have the most impact.
  
  That way she is not only experiencing the trauma of this moment, but also the memory of the trauma from a couple days ago.
  
  𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵, more than anything, is what Jack lacks. Attention to detail. He's all focused on what can break a person that he doesn't bother to consider how to do it 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘺.
  
  He's like a wrecking ball instead of a few small, strategically placed explosives.
  
  Either way, my words have a visible effect on everyone present. The normals all suddenly get even more nervous, looking between myself and the two Wards.
  
  While the teens in question are both staring each other in the eye, silently conversing.
  
  I almost fail to hold back a bark of laughter when I see Root give Carrot a small, shaky smile, which she accepts with a weak nod of the head as tears start gathering in her eyes.
  
  Man, these hero types are too 𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘺.
  
  Just give them an ultimatum and they'll keep picking the 'greater good', sacrificing themselves or their loved ones for the sake of some random strangers.
  
  Weirdos.
  
  Neither of them say anything, but they both look defiantly at me, chins raised high as if giving up is something to be proud of.
  
  So with a smirk on my lips, I walk up to Root, making sure to match my pace to what it was when I killed the other guy, whatever his name was.
  
  Again, I stop right in front of the boy, and I look at him with mockery in my eyes.
  
  "Do you regret your choice of profession?" My question is whispered softly and kindly, perfectly replicating the effect of what I said to the other guy.
  
  I can see the recognition form in his eyes, but he doesn't look away from me, causing him to miss Carrot's eyes blowing even wider as she stumbles back a step as if physically struck.
  
  "No. I could never regret being a Hero." His words make me smile a genuine smile as he unknowingly helps me out by playing along, though he is significantly less of a pussy about it all.
  
  "Neat. Any last words then, 𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘰?" I ask with far more interest than last time, greatly looking forward to the finale of this little show.
  
  Root knows what is coming, but he doesn't falter, which is somewhat admirable. Instead, he just takes a deep breath and closes his eyes as he shouts out his final words.
  
  "Yeah. Fu-𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬!"
  
  My hands blur and his neck spins a full 360 before he can finish his words, interrupted at the same moment as Batguy(?) was.
  
  But then, the world shakes and changes.
  
  My mind flies away from the earth and through the skies.
  
  I see my entire planet floating through the cosmos, dancing around like a brilliant marble. Beauty in a universe of desolation.
  
  I see two beings, two.. Entities, crystalline fractals of nigh infinite possibility, swimming through the infinite blackness of the galaxy with purpose.
  
  One of the Entities reaches a tendril of Something forward and it wraps around Earth for a moment and a century all at once before returning to the mass.
  
  The Entities fly closer, vaguely defined goals of fear and survival driving them forward.
  
  I watch as a Shard of the great creatures breaks off and is sent hurtling towards the Great Sandbox, so miniscule in comparison to the galaxy within which it resides.
  
  As the Shard is falling, it seems to morph, it's flowing, ever changing crystalline surface shaping itself to form a basic, feminine face.
  
  Then, it 𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘴 at me.
  
  Suddenly, the world snaps back into focus and I become aware of the all consuming 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯 wrecking my entire body.
  
  I try to understand what is going on, pushing aside the memory for the moment to focus on the present, but I cannot see and all I can feel is pain.
  
  But then the pain disappears and my regeneration rapidly fixes me up, returning my sight within seconds, allowing me to look around.
  
  The first thing I notice is that the ground is soft and grainy, like sand but even finer.
  
  The second thing I notice is the dozen or so corpses around me, each one looking as if they were hit by the worlds largest sledgehammer, with every single fibre of their bodies completely... shattered.
  
  Ah. I see.
  
  Moving quickly, I don't bother getting to my feet and just use my limbs to launch myself a decent distance away, spinning to face where I jumped from mid-air.
  
  Sitting inside a ring of fine granules at least ten metres across, surrounded by broken bodies while cradling one in her arms, is Carrot.
  
  She is silently crying on her knees as she holds Root's mangled body close to her and rocks back and forth.
  
  I find myself just standing there in shock for a minute, hardly even noticing the normals around us running away as I stare at the ring of destruction around her.
  
  She Triggered. 𝘈𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯.
  
  She 𝘚𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘛𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥.
  
  Holy fuck.
  
  I don't even know what to say, double triggering is like a myth, even if it's known to be true.
  
  Because Second Triggers tend to not live very long. In fact, I have literally only ever heard of one person living for longer than two weeks after Second Triggering and that's Narwhal, a hero with The Guild.
  
  Now, this situation was most definitely not what I was expecting, but this is way better so I'm not going to complain. The question is, what changed?
  
  Second Triggers always change up the power, or add something, maybe remove a limiter.
  
  Well, there's one obvious change in that her Striker power seems to have turned into a Shaker power, which is incredibly deadly. It's range doesn't seem to be too big at least, but now she's like Hatchet Face in that if you get to close to him you generally just die, except she doesn't need to use a weapon.
  
  ... And her power can fuck up people like me who are mostly unaffected by power nullification.
  
  The real question is whether anything else changed, and that's not something I can tell without her doing something other than mourning.
  
  Though, while she's distracted, what was that vision thing that happened?
  
  I don't remember anything like that when I triggered. Does it only happen to people 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 whoever's triggering?
  
  Wait, what was even in the vision? What did I see?
  
  I try my hardest to pull on the memory, to hold it in my head, but like water it slips through my fingers, only leaving me with scraps of something Large. Huge beyond our ability to comprehend.
  
  I don't know what it is, what it represents or what it even looks like, I just remember something so big that I felt like nothing but dust, and then I remember... a grin?
  
  Something, someone? Grinning at me in a way that almost feels familiar, like a strange mix of déjà vu and pareidolia.
  
  I don't know. I can't understand it and I don't really care for existentialism, especially when something so much more interesting is happening right in front of me.
  
  She's already passed my test, but considering the situation, I see no reason not to play the Devil on her shoulder.
  
  With that in mind, I circle around her, making sure to keep my distance because while I 𝘤𝘢𝘯 tank her power and be fine after, it's not exactly 𝘧𝘶𝘯.
  
  Pain is only fun in small amounts, like with Tiger. Losing a finger is painful enough to enhance the experience without ruining it.
  
  Anyway, no need to get distracted.
  
  Standing behind her, I spend a moment to think about what to say, and when I decide, my words come out as a faint whisper, truly sounding like the whispers of the Devil.
  
  "It's your fault you know.~ It's your fault for obeying those faceless figures of bureaucracy who see you as nothing but a number.~ He could still be alive if you'd have just had the nerve to save him.~ After all, you don't know these people.~ Who are 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺, compared to 𝘩𝘪𝘮?~ Why do those nobodies get to live, while the people who actually 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 fall and crumble around you?~ Where is the 𝘑𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦 in that?~ If only you were free.~ Free from orders, from morals and what's right or wrong.~ If you were free from all of this, they would all still be alive.~ You never would have lost them.~ All you have to do, is break free.~"
  
  I think that was a pretty good speech, and though I am behind her, I can tell enough from her shoulders to tell that she heard my every word, and I'm pretty sure they're having the desired effect, at least a little.
  
  Eh, whatever, I've done enough. We'll see how that all pans out later I guess. I just hope she doesn't end up a disappointment after all of this.
  
  I have high expectations.
  
  With one last look over my shoulder, I leave, grabbing a corpse as I do so for a quick snack.
  
  However, as I am hopping through the city on my way back to Crawler, I see something out of the corner of my eye and immediately change my mind about checking up on him.
  
  Out in the distance, I caught sight of Siberian for just a moment, and I wanna see how she's doing.
  
  Actually, her test should be ending soon, so I guess I can stick with her until then, because I have just had yet another hilarious idea.
  
  I'm sure Sibby will smile when she hears it.
  
  Ahhh, life is good.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Poor Lusia, if only she understood what she saw then she wouldn't call Carrot 'something so much more interesting' XD
  
  Ah well, it's not something that will have any bearing on her life for a while, if it ever even will, idk where this story is going.
  
  Oh, for all my readers who don't know jack about Worm, uhhh, don't worry about it XP
  
  You know, I really want to write a gamer fic, but I really just can't be arsed to deal with all the system shit of putting things in bold and centering and keeping track of shit.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  Omake: Lusia the Hero
  Ok, so. Lemme explain. A certain cretin by the name of Scarlet_Monarch posted an idea about Lusia being summoned as a Hero in the classic Isekai way, and the idea wouldn't leave my head, so I decided to do an omake for it... Except I got too invested in the Lore and now I wanna write an original, but for now, I'm going to make it into a sort of concurrent side story.
  
  Either way, I hope you enjoy :3
  
  In a grand cathedral hall filled with pillars and chandeliers, a peculiar sight can be seen.
  
  At one end of the hall is a majestic Throne sitting atop a wide set of stairs, on which sits a regal old man, with his greying hairs only making him seem more wise. By his side stand a middle aged man and woman to his left and a younger woman to his right with noble, resplendent looking guards either side of them.
  
  This is the King of the Laptalia kingdom, King Baeogrof Laptalia. Beside him is his son, Prince Taeogrof Laptalia with his wife Princess Eveline Eedfrey and his youngest child, his daughter, Princess Maery Laptalia.
  
  Either side of them, are the Royal guard, outfitted in the finest armour in the kingdom, with the greatest enchanted weaponry available. The strongest, most respected Knights in the kingdom, each capable of slaying a Dragon on their lonesome.
  
  Then, surrounding the room itself, lined up against the walls is three hundred of Laptalia's most experienced and skilled Knights, each dressed in matching ornamental yet functional armour, with the highest quality unenchanted swords by their sides..
  
  However, no one present is paying any attention to these highly admired figures. Instead, everyone's attention is solely focused on the ritual taking place at the foot of the Throne.
  
  Fifty robed Apostles of the Holy Church stand muttering Holy incantations in a large circle with Pope Demarticus Aryonel Ba'altar himself leading the prayer.
  
  As Holy Light starts gathering within the circle of Apostles, the young Princess can't help but wring her hands together behind her back, her heart filled with nervousness, excitement, fear and joy all at the same time.
  
  After all, this most Ancient and Holy spell is their last chance at salvation, for the armies of the Demon Lord are only going to continue to grow despite their already vast size and no matter how much people may laude them, she knows that none of the Kingdom's greatest warriors can face a Demon Lord in single combat.
  
  This spell, granted to humanity by the Gods themselves to provide salvation against the First Demon Lord is their only hope.
  
  To summon a Hero.
  
  In all of Human history, only Six Heroes have ever been summoned and each one, without fail, has managed to slay the Demon Lord of their era.
  
  Each Hero has forged a whole new era of peace and prosperity with their mere presence alone.
  
  But the spell will only work in times of great need as one must call upon the very Gods themselves to power this most Holy spell that no human could ever power, alone or in a group and as, as many have proven before, attempting to mimic the Gods will only to ruin.
  
  As the light of the spell starts to turn blinding and the Chanting of the Apostles reaches a crescendo, the Pope's fervent voice echoes over the entire hall, his words resonating with Power and Faith.
  
  "Oh Hero! By the Light! I summon thee!" An intense silence immediately follows his proclamation, as if the world itself is desperate to watch without distraction.
  
  The Light crystalises and then explodes, blinding everyone in the room for just a moment but not causing any harm.
  
  As the light in their eyes dims back to normal, ambient sound returns to the room yet no one says a word, their focus solely upon the figure standing in the centre of the circle of Apostles that was certainly not there but a moment ago.
  
  The figure is a woman. Slightly above average height with long, stark white hair hanging down her toned, well muscled body, all the way to her buttocks.
  
  Her face is a thing of beauty, even as it glances around in confusion. Perfectly sculpted as if designed to be beautiful, with lips as red as fresh blood and eyes a glowing green, like a deep forest.
  
  Her body is impossibly perfect, her curves just right, once again making her seem as something beyond Human, even in the strange clothes she wears consisting of tight black jeans and a vibrant red shoulder less shirt that is cropped to show her toned belly and perfectly matches with her lips.
  
  Over which she is wearing a long, loose cardigan with a slightly lighter shade of black than her jeans.
  
  The only truly odd thing being that she is not wearing any shoes, but no one has any time to ponder on why as Pope Demarticus quickly provides a distraction.
  
  "Oh Hero!" His shout causes the Hero's own eyes to snap toward his, "heed me, for we are in great need of your help! I know you must be confused, but please understand. A new Demon Lord has arisen, and we have not the capability to survive them. Only you, a True Hero summoned by the Gods themselves could possibly defeat them, so I implore you, please. Save us!"
  
  Silence descends once again as the Pope gets down on one knee and bows his head, begging in all but name as he, and everyone present, anxiously await their Hero's response.
  
  Which is... to laugh?
  
  "Heh. Hehe, hehehehahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Starting as a quiet chuckle, the 'Hero' eventually loses themselves to their laughter, hugging their stomach and falling to the floor as they continue to laugh.
  
  No Hero has acted this way before so no one knows how to respond, leading to everyone present simply staring at the laughing woman, mostly in shock, confusion and anxiousness.
  
  After a few minutes of her just laughing, King Baeogrof grows both worried and impatient.
  
  "Young Hero, is something the matter? I do not see what is amusing you so?" His question causes the Hero to look up from where she has been rolling on the ground and while she doesn't stop laughing, she does start getting back to her feet.
  
  As she does so, her laughter finally starts to die down, leaving her just with a heavily amused smile as she looks out at the people present, her eyes lingering on King Baeogrof for a moment before pausing entirely at the sight of Princess Maery.
  
  "What- hehe, what's funny? What's funny is that you clearly have no idea who I am.~" The woman's tone is mocking and callous and immediately raises alarm bells in the heads of everyone present.
  
  However, before anyone can raise their guard or otherwise prepare themselves, the woman bursts forward in a blur of speed only matched by the strongest of the Royal Knights and she pierces both of her hands through Pope Demarticus' chest, spilling his Holy blood.
  
  Before anyone can process the scene most horrific, it is made even worse as the woman tears her bloody hands in either direction and rips the Pope in half so quickly that he cannot even scream.
  
  Blood explodes like a fountain, covering the demonic woman completely, painting her crimson as if it were a canvas for brutality.
  
  Arching her back, the woman lets out a long, satisfied sigh, paying no heed to the Apostles backing away from her or the Knights readying their arms.
  
  "I am no 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘰,~" the woman whispers, unknowingly leaving everyone hanging off of her every word, "I am The Jester!~"
  
  Following her exclamation, The Jester does not give anyone any time to respond. Instead, they rush down the nearest Apostle and punches a hole through his chest in an instant before blurring after the next, leaving nothing but blood and death in her wake.
  
  Some Apostles try to cast their Spells, but she either dodges, is unaffected or simply kills them before they can finish their Chant.
  
  It's a slaughter, plain and simple.
  
  By the time the surrounding Knights reach them, most of the Apostles are already dead, and the Knights themselves soon join them as they find that even they are no match for the Monster they have summoned.
  
  The woman's movements are so fast as to appear as only a blur, but the Royalty present have no time to focus on the horror before them as their Royal Guard start rushing to usher them out of the hall.
  
  However, right as they are about to reach the door, the Royal Knight in the lead suddenly leans backwards, and in the same instant, a blade of steel blurs passed where his head was a moment ago, impaling itself into the wall.
  
  When they turn to look where the sword came from, they see The Jester tearing into the Knights surrounding her, spinning and moving too fast to track.
  
  Then another sword flies from the battle below, impaling the doors they seek to use as an exit. Followed by another sword.
  
  Then another, and another, and soon enough, the doors are covered with swords, barring their exit.
  
  The message is clear and the Royal Guards' faces harden in determination as a result.
  
  They are not allowed to leave.
  
  All of a sudden, the sounds of battle stop, and when they look back, they see The Jester standing over a pile of corpses, absolutely drenched with blood, none of it her own, while the few Knights still alive have thrown down their arms and started backing away.
  
  "Ahhhh~ that was refreshing.~ You losers are pretty weak though, unless you guys are stronger?~ I'm just gonna go ahead and assume that the fancier LARPing armour means the stronger you are.~ So whaddaya say?~ Wanna start killing each other?~"
  
  The Monster in the flesh of a woman sounds completely casual and relaxed, as if the mass murder she just committed was nothing of note.
  
  The Royal Knights share a round of nods as they silently converse until Princess Maery's personal guard steps back from the other three and stands before the Royalty while the rest of the Guard moves as one for The Jester.
  
  "Quick, get behind the Throne. You'll be safe, this I vow." The Knight solemnly promises as he ushers them into hiding, taking his place as the aegis in front of them.
  
  While, down below, the three Royal Knights move to surround The Jester, forming a triangle around her, which she allows with a mocking grin.
  
  "Is that a sword or are you just happy to see me?~" The Jester calls out as they each draw their blades and ready themselves.
  
  None of them respond however, Pride and Wrath burning fires in their guts as they ready themselves to face this threat to their King.
  
  "O' Lord of Flame, Bless my blade."
  
  "O' Lord of Skies, Bless my blade."
  
  "O' Lord of Storms, Bless my blade."
  
  Each of the Royal Knights Chant in synch with each other, their voices overlapping yet still being clear to hear, following which, each of their blades simultaneously burst into their respective elements of Fire, Air and Lightning.
  
  But that is not the end, as their voices ring out once more, this time perfectly in tune with each other as if from practice.
  
  """O' Lord of Battle, grant me the Honour of your Blessing so I may Honour you through Battle!"""
  
  Each of their bodies, armour included, suddenly bulk up, granting each of them an extra foot of hight and far more powerful muscles while an aura of red energy starts flowing around them, surrounding them in the very essence of Battle itself.
  
  A loud, piercing whistle rings out from the middle of the hall, and the Jester can be seen looking each of the Knights up and down while holding her chin between her thumb and forefinger.
  
  "Y'know.~ I'm pretty sure Powers don't work like that... Well, I guess that settles it.~ It seems that we're not in Kansas anymore Toto.~"
  
  The Royal Knights ignore her ramblings and commence their attack.
  
  Rudolf Kassimer of the Southern Wind, famous through the Kingdom for his speed is the first to reach her, and he opens with a barrage of slashes, each one capable of cutting through reinforced steel with each and each strike aimed to kill.
  
  Yet, in a shocking display that nobody present ever would have expected, The Jester's hands move at speeds matching or even surpassing Rudolf's as she parries every single one of his strikes away.
  
  Dozens of blows are made in mere seconds, each and every one to no effect as The Jester's hands push them away, all until she finds an opening and bursts forward, pushing his hands away with one hand and launching the other one at his chest in an open palm strike.
  
  𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘮.
  
  The force of the impact is visible as the air parts around them and Rudolf's body is launched back at incredible speeds, crashing into a column and cratering halfway through it.
  
  As the dust from his impact settles, those present are able to see the palm shaped dent now decorating his chest plate.
  
  But those fighting have no time to take in the sight as Lichton Werger of the Northern Storm reaches The Jester right as Rudolf is sent flying and raises his blade high, readying his famous strike, known through the Kingdom for its feat of felling a Dragon in a single blow.
  
  From nothing, dark storm clouds take shape over his head, crackling with blue sparks
  
  "Sky Fall!" Lichton's yell is accompanied by the booming of thunder as a thick bolt of pure, blue energy flashes out of the cloud, just in time to hit his sword in it's downward arc.
  
  His sword, already moving at incredible speeds, suddenly starts moving faster than the eye can track, overflowing with energy as it crashes into his foe in a mighty burst of static.
  
  𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘮!
  
  The Jester is sent flying from the strike, her body cut in twain from the shoulder to the hip.
  
  Yet, right as the thought of celebration crosses the minds of those viewing, The Jester's two halves suddenly sprout out fleshy tendrils that reach for each other and rapidly drag her back to one whole, leaving her completely unharmed withing a matter of seconds.
  
  As the others are still processing this series of events, The Jester, now smiling more than ever, blurs forward once more, reaching Lichton in the blink of an eye and raining down dozens of booming blows on his unprepared body.
  
  She only stops when Magmortium Eedfrey of the Western Flame reaches them and launches a wall of flame from his blade that causes her to jump back.
  
  "Woah!~ Be careful!~ What if you burnt me?~ I'll let you off this one time, just because I'm sure it was an accident.~" Her mockingly sincere voice is ignored as Magmorium stands before Lichton, giving him cover to steady himself with.
  
  However, The Jester suddenly seems to get bored and stops looking at them, allowing their eyes to drift about.
  
  "Well, I guess you aren't weak, but your not exactly all that strong either. I guess I'll let you live for that, but I'm excited to explore so imma head out now.~ Byee!~"
  
  Magmorium and an injured Rudolf rush forward at her words, attempting to avoid releasing her upon the world, but before they can reach her she lifts up a single leg and slams it down, causing a cloud of dust to fly up around her.
  
  the two Knights do not let this deter them as they continue to charge forward, not seeing any movement in the dust to suggest that she has moved to either side.
  
  Except, when they reach where she was, they see the dust rising in the air, showing that she did not leave via the sides, but from above.
  
  With great panic in their hearts, they rush out of the cloud and in the direction of their Royalty.
  
  Only, the moment they set their sights on the Royal family, they see that they were too slow. Tragedy had already befallen.
  
  King Baeogrof lies headless on the ground while the Royal Knight Tanzakai Hemothyne of the Eastern Sea sits slumped against the wall, a crater around him showing the force with which he impacted the wall.
  
  To the side, the Prince stands unharmed with his Wife hiding behind him, yet it is the sight of Princess Maery that brings the two Knights to a grinding halt, for she is held within the blood soaked arms of The Jester, shaking with fear but trying to appear strong, her Royal teachings on etiquette holding firm even now.
  
  "It was fun!~ Truly, it was.~ It's not often I get a good fight, especially not with someone who has at least 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 skill. You would not believe the amount of people who just throw around their Powers without any finesse. Anyway! I don't know the area, so I figured I'd take a guide.~ See ya!~"
  
  Uncaring of the shouts following her, The Jester turns and runs away, far faster than any of the Royal Knights can currently match, not that that stops them from chasing after their Princesses fearful screams.
  
  Alas, the screams are eventually replaced by silence.
  
  They had gotten away.
  
  The King is dead, the Princess captured and the Royal Guard humiliated.
  
  Today was a tragedy for the people of Laptalia, yet it was only a precursor to the horrors yet to come.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Whooo! Omake time!
  
  So, what do you think? I think the lore is cool.
  
  Fun lore fact: Magmortium Eedfrey, from the noble line of the Eedfrey is the reason his younger sister was able to marry into the royal family, as the King was so impressed with his skill as a Knight that he wanted dem genes in his family and got his son to marry Eveline.
  
  The King was also hoping that the Hero summoned would be a man and take an interest in his daughter, Maery, so they can have that classic isekai relationship... shame how that worked out for him huh?
  
  I mean, Lusia is interested in Maery, so he technically got his wish, just in a monkey paw kinda way.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  103There Are Books Other Than Sun Tzu's?
  Columbus, Georgia. April 8th, 05:30.
  
  It didn't actually take me that long to get to Siberian, but after following her around as she chases her candidate down, I ended up getting bored pretty quickly with just watching.
  
  Thus, I asked her to herd him towards me when her test was coming to an end, or to come fetch me if he passes away, and then I just found a roof and fell asleep.
  
  Yet, that sleep was just disturbed.
  
  Opening my eyes, I'm greeted with the pleasant sight of a sexy naked woman standing above me, giving me quite the view, with some dude off to the side on his hands and knees, panting and swaying as if he's delirious, but I much rather focus on the aforementioned woman.
  
  "Mornin' Sweetness, how you doi- hey!" I interrupt my flirtatious greeting with a shout as she just gave me a sexy, sexy smirk before turning around and leaving.
  
  "Didn't even let me finish." I grumble to myself as I stand.
  
  You know, I was going to ask her to let the others know about Carrot's Second Trigger, but I guess that's not happening then.
  
  Ah well, the only one who would really be in danger would be Mannequin, probably, and he's no fun anyway. Dude can't even speak.
  
  Like, I know we all have issues, but Mannequin is a whole new level of broken.
  
  Yet another reason to stay the ever living fuck away from the Simurgh at any and all times.
  
  Shaking my head to clear it of thoughts about scary angel women, I turn my attention to the man next to me who seems to be one step away from dying.
  
  Gah!
  
  I recoil at the realisation that Sibby leaving has consequences far more important than Mannequin's death.
  
  With her gone she won't be able to see me give my test!
  
  It was going to be a whole thing! She'd be like, wait, she doesn't say anything...
  
  Well, she'd stare expectantly at me, and I'd give her a sly little smile and then announce my test and she'd swoon with joy and we'd start making out then and there!
  
  But now she's gone and the opportunity is lost.
  
  Haaah, this sucks.
  
  In my sulking, I kick a rock, only to be surprised by a thud and a grunt following my action.
  
  Looking up, I see that I accidentally kicked the rock into Sibby's candidate.
  
  ... It would be pretty funny to just say, 'Congratulations! You passed my test!'.
  
  I spend a solid minute considering it, but after thinking about it for so long it stops being as funny, as the spontaneous, 'shock factor' rapidly depletes.
  
  Ah well, plan A it is. I can always tell Sib about it later.
  
  The dude himself, I can't remember his name, is super edgy looking.
  
  If you sat me down with no prior knowledge of this guy and asked me to draw the edgiest person possible, this guy is probably what you would have got.
  
  He's wearing a high collared, black trench coat over a skin-tight, armoured shirt and pants, with tall, laced up black combat boots on his feet that rise almost to his knees.
  
  His mask consists of a hood that rises out of the trench coat and a lower face mask that depicts a smiling skull.
  
  Oh, and he's got a katana for some reason.
  
  I don't remember his name, but I'm pretty sure his power was something wolf related, probably a transformation of some sort. That was why Sib picked him after all, she's a dog person.
  
  "Oi, get up." I say to him while giving him a soft kick to the side that knocks him over.
  
  He is panting so fast that it's as if he's afraid someone is going to steal his air if he doesn't get it all now and his eyes are drooping closed, only to snap halfway open and start drooping again.
  
  Clearly, he is completely exhausted from the three constant days of being hunted, and a quick glance shows that he is down to three fingers and one third, as Sibby was biting them off at the joints instead of all in one.
  
  After all, nobody would survive her tests if they only got ten extra lives.
  
  By the time he actually manages to stumble his way to his feet, I already know that he's going to die in my test, but you've got to do things properly, so I'll at least give him a fighting chance.
  
  Who knows? He might surprise me.
  
  Then again, maybe I'm letting my recent experience with Carrot cloud my judgement, because that is an incredibly rare event and expecting to see it again so soon is unrealistic.
  
  "So, my name's Tear.~ What's yours?~" I ask, wanting to at least know the name of the dude I'm about to kill.
  
  Test. The dude I'm about to test.
  
  "Thotslayer." His voice is so damn tired that he whispers the word out with his breath, and even with my incredible hearing, I still barely manage to catch it.
  
  Still, Thotslayer? What a retarded name. Seriously, what kind of retard calls themselves Thotslayer?
  
  If it was ironic it would at least be funny, but going by his choice of attire he is either 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺 devoted to this irony bit, or he just genuinely thought that it was a cool name to go by.
  
  Man, what a loser. I almost feel like I'm doing him a favour by killing him, because at least as food for me he'll serve some purpose.
  
  "Right," my voice is completely dry as I respond to him, only to change back to excited as I announce, "well! I shall now give you my test!~ It is to do Siberian's test again!~ But with me hunting you this time!~ Yaaay!~" I finish while clapping my hands in front of me.
  
  But Thotslayer, I'm not going to call him that. But T doesn't seem to notice my clapping, as his eyes slowly start widening in shock and horror at the idea of having to keep going for 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 three days.
  
  "... Well don't just stand there.~ Run!~" I shout at him after he doesn't move for a while.
  
  He flinches back into the real world and without saying anything, his body transforms, turning into a werewolf, with three long claws and matted black fur.
  
  Neat.
  
  As I watch him drunkenly scurry away, I wonder to myself how long it will take before I get bored of this and just kill him.
  
  ... Probably not that long to be honest.
  
  Maybe an hour or two. I'm sure I can make it fun for a bit at least.
  
  Plus, I can always just do something else for a while. Let him stew in fear, constantly looking around, waiting for me to jump out at him.
  
  I'd have to show myself a couple times first. To properly implant the idea of me being anywhere in his mind, then I can just leave for a bit.
  
  Oh, and I guess I can use the time to let everyone know about Carrot, 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 finding Sibby and telling her about my test.
  
  Welp! There goes my Friday morning.
  
  I have no idea if it's Friday or not, but that hardly matters.
  
  Two hours later and I am back at base, feeling drained and bored.
  
  Is this what it's like for people who work nine to fives? They really must have no soul to be willing to live like that.
  
  Entering the lounge, I glance around to see that only Shatterbird is present, sitting quietly and reading a book.
  
  "Yo.~ How're you doing?" I greet her with a smile, and though she doesn't give one in return, her features soften enough for me to assume the smile is implied.
  
  "I am doing well, and you?" As always, she somehow manages to sound ever so slightly condescending even in casual conversation, but I know that's just a quirk of her character and choose to ignore it.
  
  "Oh you know, nothing too special. Though I don't think Sibby's candidate is going to pass, so I'll probably kill him later. What about you? I assume the others are out testing, how come you're not?"
  
  She gives me a disapproving look that genuinely confuses me until I hear her following words.
  
  "You don't have to kill everyone that fails your test. You're just supposed to punish them, take an arm of something, so they can keep trying. And you're right about the other's being out testing. I am waiting for Hatchet Face to get back from testing your candidate so that I can test them too."
  
  Oh yeah. I guess I was being a little gung-ho about killing him. I can't help it though, he's just so 𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘦.
  
  "In my defence, I really doubt his ability to pass any other tests, unless we give him a day or so to recover I guess..." I trail off as I feel Shatter's eyes boring a hole into my head, "𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘦~ I won't kill him. Tch, spoilsport."
  
  Still, this means that Mannequin is already out, possibly after Carrot.
  
  I'll talk to Bonesaw, she might have some kind of Tinker gadget thing that can contact him. Actually, Shatter might have something like that anyway.
  
  However, more importantly than Mannequin's life, my eye catches note of the cover of Shatterbird's book.
  
  "The Metamorphosis? Is this your first time or are you re-reading it?" I ask and Shatter raises an eyebrow at the change of conversation.
  
  "I have read it before. I just saw the book the other day and decided to go through it again. I assume you have read it also?" Once again, I manage to notice the barely present happiness in her voice about the possibility of intellectual conversation.
  
  "It 𝘪𝘴 a classic, one that has become even more prominent with the rise of parahumans, especially the monster capes. I imagine it matches their experiences pretty well. What do you think about it? What do you take away from the story?"
  
  I am actually pretty curious about her answer, because The Metamorphosis is an incredibly fitting story for parahumans, since it is all about going through a sudden, dramatic and irreversible change and how it affects you and those around you.
  
  The books pretty depressing for the most part, but like with most things, that also depends on how you look at it.
  
  "Hmm, it's a good book. I think Gregor is just a coward. He should have simply left his family behind, maybe even killed them for looking down on him, and then just lived his own life, free of everything that used to bind him when he was a human. He could have been happy if he just embraced what he became, rather than trying to cling onto the past."
  
  Damn. That was actually a pretty good take on the story. It also tells me a lot about Shatterbird.
  
  I get the feeling that her Triggering wasn't a very positive event for her family. But it's clear that she believes that parahumans should throw away their human lives and embrace their powers instead.
  
  Can't say I disagree, but it's certainly not what came to mind when I read it.
  
  "You know, that's not exactly what I took away from reading it, but I can't really disagree with it either. See, the 'moral' I got from it was that suffering was constant and unavoidable, and we can either choose to allow everyone to suffer, or we can push all of our suffering onto one person, leave them with all of the pain so that everyone else can be happy. Basically, someone has to suffer for others to be happy. That's the lesson I learnt from it."
  
  Shatterbird is visibly surprised at me giving a proper answer, which I find slightly insulting because we have had nice conversations before.
  
  She doesn't immediately respond, taking a minute to think over my answer, nodding her head a few times in the ensuing silence before she eventually turns and gives me an actual, genuine smile.
  
  Wow.
  
  I am shocked to silence at the sight. I mean, I was half convinced that she just didn't have the muscles in the face required to smile, or that Bonesaw did some work to make such a thing impossible.
  
  Guess she's just not a very happy person then.
  
  "You know Tear, I like that way of seeing the story." Her admittance brings about a smile from me.
  
  "D'aww, that was almost a compliment.~" I coo at her, ruining the mood and causing her face to turn deadpan as she stares at me.
  
  "Was there anything else?" She says, clearly done with me.
  
  "Hmm, was there anything else?" I pretend to ponder to myself for a second before snaping my fingers, "aha! There was something else! Carrot Second Triggered!~"
  
  In response to my exclamation, Shatterbird's dry, unamused voice sounds out a singe word.
  
  "What."
  
  "Yeah, her Striker power turned into a Shaker one with the same effect, maybe some extras too, I don't know, never seen something like this before, but it's pretty strong.~"
  
  In stark contrast to my childish voice, hers is only growing increasingly dry.
  
  "... What."
  
  "Yeah, Mannequin will prolly die if he's out to test her with no warning,~ everyone else should be fine though, the range doesn't seem to be 𝘵𝘰𝘰 big.~"
  
  We spend a moment in silence as she just stares at me blankly.
  
  "... You don't think this should have been something to start with?" She asks, and I tut at her for asking such a silly question.
  
  "Of course not, there were much more important things to be talked about than a boring mute.~" My callous words actually manage to get an exhale of amusement out of her.
  
  Not quite a snort, she's far too prim and proper for that, but it was close enough to show humour.
  
  Guess she doesn't feel too strongly about him either.
  
  Ah well, I have delivered the message, so now I gotta go talk with Sibby.
  
  "'Kay, byeee!~" I exclaim as I hop to my feet and start making my way to Bonesaw's lab, assuming that Sibby will be there with her.
  
  "You are incredibly irritating!" I hear from behind me as I pass through the door and without even looking back, I shout out my thanks for the compliment before closing the door behind me with a smile.
  
  She's fun.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Just a little bit of character interaction for this chap. I'm kinda hoping for this columbus bit to hurry along though, but I ain't gonna just skip ahead or rush anything, so I'll have to be patient.
  
  Also, metamorphosis fits Perfectly into the Worm-verse. I don't think it was ever mentioned, but Taylor was a book nerd so there is no way she didn't read it and note the similarities it has to her own life.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  104 IT'S ALIVEEEEEE!
  𝘒𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬, 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬.
  
  After a short pause, the door in front of me is swung open to reveal a few spider bots staring at me with various implements of malicious intent jutting out of their bodies and pointed at me.
  
  "Take me to your leader," I demand of them, putting on a deep voice because it's fun.
  
  Obviously, they don't really respond. Being brains stuffed into spider robots kind of damages their conversational abilities a little bit, but they do chitter about and make some weird movements that don't really mean anything to me.
  
  Evidently though, it was some sort of communication thing as Sibby soon appears, wearing a lovely smile on her face as she does so.
  
  "Aha!~ Just the woman I was looking for,~ you ran off before I could tell you about my test for Capitan Edge.~" I finish my sentence pouting at her.
  
  She gives me a smirk in response and turns on her heel, gesturing with her head for me to follow her, but I get a better idea and jump on her back instead.
  
  Seeing as I actually stay on her back, she's clearly fine with it so I start groping her breasts while I'm at it.
  
  I mean, why not right? There just out in the open like that, how could I resist?
  
  Mmmmm, squishy.~
  
  What was I saying?
  
  Right!
  
  "It's a real shame you left early,~" I moan at her as I continue to fondle her, power assisted, perfectly firm breasts, "you missed his face when I gave him my test,~ I'm sure you would have got a crack out of it.~"
  
  When she turns her head slightly, she doesn't even seem to be acknowledging my wandering hands and just raises a single brow in question, causing a savage smile to grow on my face.
  
  "My test for him is to do your test again, but with me hunting him this time.~" As I speak, I stare intently at Siberian's face, watching carefully to see if she likes the idea as much as I thought she would.
  
  Her glowing golden eyes widen fractionally before a feral smile matching my own takes form on her striped face.
  
  "You like that huh?~ So far I just brought him down to three full fingers and I'm just letting him stew in fear and paranoia for now,~" I say before remembering the best part, "oh! And you know the best bit? I left a little tendril of my power attached to the back of his head so that every time he turns his head to fast he will think he's seeing me out of the corner of his eye!~ Aren't I just the smartest?~ Hahaha!~"
  
  I have to wrap my legs tightly around her waist to avoid falling off her back as I dissolve into a fit of laughter, finding the memory of watching T spinning around thinking I'm behind him too funny to even continue groping Sibby.
  
  He just looked so schizophrenic, I ended up spending a solid half hour just watching him from a distance and laughing.
  
  You know, I should record it and post it online. So long as there's no actual gore or death in the video PHO mods probably won't take it down, and even then, there's always FoolsNet to fall back on.
  
  Speaking of, my shit should be arriving soonish, so I should probably find a tall building to sit on and just face west until I see the bike approaching.
  
  It's not like there's anyone else moving to the city right now, because ever since Bonesaw came about, suddenly nobody wants to even 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 with the Nine, let alone kill them.
  
  Because if Bonesaw has some last fuck you plague, then she would probably also be the only one capable of curing it.
  
  There's a reason Wet Tinkers are feared second only to Masters.
  
  Though personally, I wonder why more people aren't more afraid of Narwhal. Because she can literally just cast the mythical 'get fucked' spell and instantly kill anyone she looks at.
  
  Well, I'm sure there's more specifics and now that I think about it, I'd probably be fine-ish, but still, the point stands.
  
  I'm brought out of my thoughts by the sound of knocking and I look up to see Sibby knocking on the door to Bonesaw's lab, immediately making me curious.
  
  It's not like Sibby to knock after all, so there's probably a reason for that.
  
  "Just gimme a minute! I'm almost done!" Bonesaw's muffled voice sounds out from beyond the door and my intrigue immediately intensifies.
  
  Though, I do hastily remember to get off Siberian before Bonesaw opens the door, because as cute as Bonesaw is when she's embarrassed, I still prefer 'excited and bloody' Bonesaw the most.
  
  I wonder what her actual name is? Bonesaw isn't really a name after all, hence why I just call her Chibi.
  
  Maybe Grace? She seems like she could be a Grace, or an Annie, short for Annabeth?
  
  Either way, the girl in question suddenly opens the door a crack and sticks her head out, showing off that adorable thousand watt smile of hers.
  
  "I've got a surprise for you big sister! It took me a while to figure it all out, but I think you'll love it!" She can hardly hold back her excitement even though 𝘐'𝘮 the one who's actually receiving the gift.
  
  "Well, you haven't let me down yet.~ Your murder salt is doing amazing, though I think they're catching on by now, but I still think you've like, halved the population by yourself, which is waaay better than Shatter did, so congrats on that!~"
  
  She preens under the praise that would leave most people with deep rooted psychological trauma, but she quickly shakes that off in order to swing the door open with some flair.
  
  "Well, I don't know about all that," she shyly states before gesturing to what lies beyond the door and regaining her energy, "surprise!"
  
  Looking into her lab, my jaw drops and I am struck genuinely speechless for at least five solid minutes from what I see.
  
  Holy. Mother. Fucking. God. 𝘋𝘢𝘺𝘶𝘮.
  
  I can practically 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 the stars in my eyes as I approach what would probably horrify most people.
  
  It's a person, if she can even be called as such anymore.
  
  I recognise her face to be Black Queen's, but only the upper half. The lower half of her face has been replaced by an animals snout and jaw, deadly teeth and all with clear lines of stitching going across her face, just under the eyes.
  
  The contrast from normal, human skin to fluffy black animal skin is odd, but I like it.
  
  Below the jaw, the neck, shoulders and parts of the arms are also thick and fluffy, while her chest is distinctly human, for the most part, with fur only trailing down the sides of her torso, clearly visible by the fact she's naked.
  
  Further down, her legs are similar to her arms in that they only have patches of fur, while her feet, much like her hands, have been fully replaced by animal paws.
  
  That's a definite plus for her at least, because I'm pretty sure she didn't have hands, but that could have just as easily been someone else.
  
  And lastly, from her neck, up the back of her head and all the way to the top of her forehead, like a hood, has also been replaced with animal features. Meaning she no longer has her long black hair, instead she has short black fur, and a pair of... cute, fluffy and black, circular ears.
  
  She really, actually did it.
  
  Bonesaw made a fucking human-bear hybrid!
  
  And it's freakin' awesome!
  
  I don't care if there's still fresh blood clearly decorating the lines of stitching or about the fact that she's still bleeding in some places, this is the single greatest thing I have ever seen.
  
  "... Chibi," I finally speak up after staring in silence for a while, causing the girl to glance at me nervously as I speak in a dead serious voice, "this is the second greatest thing I have ever seen in my life."
  
  Her body slumps for a moment as I give her a joyful smile, relieved that I am happy with her surprise.
  
  She rapidly starts listing off all of the modifications and surgeries she's done to the bear woman, but as much as I try, and I really do try, I cannot understand anything she is talking about.
  
  Why does biology have so many big words?
  
  There should be a rule in science, or just the English language in general that you're not allowed to have words with more than five syllables, because some of the things she says are just absurd.
  
  I can't even give an example because I've already forgotten how to say any of them.
  
  Either way, I let her just keep rattling off information as I study the woman in question for a little bit longer.
  
  She's just staring dead ahead, so I'm assuming Chibi has put some kind of control device or drug in her, or she's just asleep and being forced to stand or something, I don't know, I'm not a Tinker.
  
  Giving her bare body an appraising look, I can't help but lament the fact that while her bear features 𝘥𝘰 make her look incredibly cute, she just doesn't really have a very attractive body.
  
  I'd say she was probably a six when she was pure human, now she's like a six but with extras, except the extras make me see her more like a cute pet than a potential sex partner.
  
  I mean, I'm pretty sure there are some people who are into that in California, I think.
  
  I'm pretty sure I saw an article about it at some point. I think they were called furries? Something like that anyway, I don't know. It's not like it's a common thing, but the point is that I am strictly interested in human people.
  
  ... Then again, maybe just once, just so I can say that I've done it? Because even if she isn't wholly my type, the fact that she's so much bigger now is at least a little hot. I mean, she's got to be somewhere around six and a half feet tall and built like an Amazonian.
  
  Eh, who knows. She might not even be alive by the time we leave, there are still a couple tests to go for her yet.
  
  Oh, speaking of.
  
  "Hey Tiger, you still haven't given her your test right?" I ask once Chibi has finished with her dialog and set off to find some bear person sized clothes, while nodding to the bear woman in question.
  
  She raises an eyebrow in response, and I never really thought about it, but Sibby has an incredibly expressive face, though maybe it's something she learnt to do, being mute and all.
  
  "Well, I know you always do the same test, but I figure that there's a unique opportunity to add a little extra to it this time.~" Mischief is clear in my tone, and her eyes narrow slightly.
  
  She's intrigued, but also slightly unhappy at the prospect of me telling her to change up her game.
  
  Luckily for our relationship, I'm not planning on suggesting anything like that, just a little addition.
  
  "Don't get your non existent panties in a bunch, Sexy. All I'm suggesting is that you can have Queenie here hunt down 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 candidate as you hunt down 𝘩𝘦𝘳.~ Sounds fun right?~"
  
  She thinks on it for a moment, and I almost think she's going to reject me before she finally nods her head and turns to give Queenie a contemplative look.
  
  ... Ok I have no idea what she's thinking now, but I'm sure whatever it is will work out well in the end.
  
  That's when Chibi walks back into the room, only having a pair of cloths instead of actual clothes and without offering an explanation at all, she proceeds to use a modified staple gun to cover Queenies' private parts with the cloth.
  
  I take note to not give the Chibi any sort of decision making power over what I wear, ever.
  
  I might be adverse to pain, and even enjoy it sometimes, but I don't want simple blank clothes stapled to my body thank you very much.
  
  I like my fashion to be fashionable.
  
  "Alright! I'll wake her up now!" Chibi exclaims as a spider bot brings a syringe over to her and Siberian moves over to place a hand on her shoulder, confusing me a little as to why.
  
  Moral support? No, that doesn't seem like something she would do, nor something Chibi would need.
  
  I feel like I'm missing something, but I don't know what and I know that shooting in the dark is pointless so I just ignore the feeling to focus on the bear woman.
  
  ... I wonder if she can reproduce still? And if the babies would have any bear traits, because if they would then this would technically be a whole new species that Chibi invented, but I think it's unlikely.
  
  Bonesaw injects her concoction into the bear woman and in no time at all, she seems to start regaining consciousness. Starting with just blearily blinking her eyes, she slowly starts to gain more motor control.
  
  Her limbs twitch and her neck twists side to side a little before her entire body shudders and then stills.
  
  Right as I'm wondering if something went wrong, she moves again, raising one of her front paws and staring down at it with a pair of dead, emotionless eyes.
  
  She doesn't say a single word and her face doesn't twitch at all, but tears start flowing regardless as she examines what she has become.
  
  I don't know why she's crying though, this is definitely an improvement after all, but eventually she gathers herself enough to look around the room, taking in the sight of all three of us staring at her like she's a zoo animal.
  
  ... Ok I kind of get why she'd be upset now.
  
  The tears don't stop flowing, even as her face remains neutral, but one thing does change and noticing it brings a feral, excited grin to my face.
  
  She laments what she has become, sure.
  
  But she's not scared.
  
  She hasn't given up.
  
  I can see it in her eyes, burning brightly.
  
  The will to live.
  
  Hehehahaha!
  
  Ahhh~ that determination to survive!~
  
  Ahhhn~ it's beautiful.~
  
  I knew there was a good reason I wanted her to be my candidate at the start.
  
  She truly is a gem.~
  
  𝘈𝘩𝘩𝘩𝘩~ 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘢 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬.~
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  FYI, keep in mind that it's 2008, the furry movement isn't as big here as it is now, and, like always, I actually did research this and the first furry convention I could find out about was held in California, in 1985(I think).
  
  But that was apparently different to what it is now, cuz apparently it used to just be people liking human-animal stories and it was only in the mid nineties that there was a big debate in the community for just how 'adult' the fandom should be, evidently the horny furries won that debate XD
  
  Also, another fyi for any furries reading this, I ain't a hater of furries. You get off to whatever you wanna get off to. In fact, I don't really have any problem with any fetishes. actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I don't even get bothered when people push their fetishes in my face or anything, so there's really no point in me saying a lot of what I was going to say... whatever, ignore me.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  105 Interlude: Lucy 2 Electric Boogaloo
  Columbus, Georgia. April 8th, 12:02.
  
  Standing before the pile of Broken and mangled flesh and metal, the street around me reduced to a fine dust, I still only feel empty.
  
  Giving the corpse one last disinterested glance, I turn around to walk back to my apartment, thoughts slowly swirling about dully in my head.
  
  My power changed when-
  
  My power has changed.
  
  I vaguely understand why, but I shove that thought away to focus on the present.
  
  Like the corpse of Mannequin behind me. That means that the others will probably come at some point too.
  
  In the back of my mind, I know that I should be sticking with the Heroes, that they would help me.
  
  ... But I just don't care anymore.
  
  𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘧𝘢𝘶𝘭𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸.~
  
  I pause in my stride as that woman's words come back to me, not that they have left me alone since she said them.
  
  Because she's right.
  
  They're all gone, and it's all my fault.
  
  𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘧𝘢𝘶𝘭𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘰𝘣𝘦𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘢 𝘯𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳.~
  
  The me of before would probably have scoffed at such a claim, but I cannot do the same.
  
  Because after I told them that I quit, the Director tried to get me to stay.
  
  "We need all the Heroes we can get right now, I know you are hurting right now, but so are so many others! But you can help them," he would say.
  
  But why should I care?
  
  I don't know these people. Who are they compared to who I've already lost?
  
  Then he had the sheer fucking 𝘨𝘢𝘭𝘭 to use their names against me. To speak about them as if he knows anything!
  
  I start breathing heavily and pick up the pace to reach my apartment, needing to be there now.
  
  𝘏𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘮.~
  
  My fists clench themselves as her words refuse to leave me alone and I briefly lose my hold on my power, causing a ring of destruction to manifest around me, every single thing within a five metre radius being simultaneously Broken.
  
  But I see my apartment just up ahead and break out into a desperate sprint.
  
  I jump through the shattered front windows and rush up the damaged stairs until I get to my room and burst inside, not having bothered with locking it, with hardly anyone being stupid enough to rob people while the Nine are in town.
  
  𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘥𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦, 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶?~
  
  The memory of her words hits me like a train and I hastily rush to the bathroom, throwing my shoulder bag of food on the couch as I run past.
  
  My arms are frantic and jittery as I reach over the cluttered kitchen counter, causing me to knock a bunch of shit on the flaw by the time I reach what I was looking for.
  
  Desperation driving me, I don't hesitate a single moment as I bring the knife forward and dig it deep into my unblemished arm, only stopping once I hit bone.
  
  Haaaaaaah.
  
  I let out a long, drawn out sigh as my body slumps forward, my tension draining away once I feel the pain start to burn, the physical momentarily overshadowing the emotional.
  
  But it's never that easy.
  
  𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘑𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵?~
  
  The knife leaves my body with a shudder and I swiftly drive it back in, making an entirely new hole, just as deep.
  
  Another groan leaves me and I lean forward until my sweat ridden forehead is resting on my sinks mirror as her words refuse to leave me alone.
  
  𝘐𝘧 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦.~
  
  I raise the knife and drive it back down once again, my legs starting to feal weak as my body shudders even harder from the growing pain.
  
  𝘍𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘨.~
  
  Tears start gathering in my eyes as I continue to flood the sink with blood.
  
  𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦.~
  
  My teeth clench as rage briefly takes to the forefront of my mind, and I feel my next stab fracture my ulna, bringing me to my knees from the pain.
  
  𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮.~
  
  Now below the sink, I don't stop stabbing myself, ignoring my blood as it splatters all over the floor, counter and my clothes. Rage and sorrow warring in my mind.
  
  Sorrow for what I have lost, and rage for the part I played in it.
  
  If only I'd have ignored orders. Ignored morals and my job.
  
  If I'd have just killed those 𝘯𝘰𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘴, then at least He would still be alive.
  
  If I'd just done that, then I wouldn't be alone.
  
  𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰, 𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦.~
  
  Yes.
  
  Fuck them.
  
  Fuck bureaucracy. Fuck the PRT and fuck being a Hero.
  
  Fuck being 'Carrot'. It was a stupid name anyway.
  
  Fuck all of that.
  
  I will start over. Born anew.
  
  Only this time, I will be free.
  
  I will do whatever I want, and for anyone who tries to get in my way? Who tries to 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘭 me, to 𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦 my life?
  
  Rising from the ground, my left arm hanging limp at my side, steadily dripping blood, and my breaths heavy and haggard, I look myself in the mirror, with determination blazing in my eyes.
  
  𝘐'𝘭𝘭 𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮.
  
  Later, after putting the food I got, all non salted, in an ice box, I decide to go to sleep early, not bothering with cleaning up any of the blood, only wrapping some bandages around my arm as a temporary solution.
  
  It's not like this will kill me after all.
  
  The next day, after sleeping in, I decide to go for a walk in the hopes of clearing my head, as well as perhaps encountering another of the Nine.
  
  They are already coming for me after all, so it's better to meet them in the street than my apartment.
  
  I've been thinking about it, and maybe joining them won't be so bad.
  
  It's not like I've got anything else.
  
  No friends, no family, no prospects.
  
  I'm not going to be a Hero ever again. I 𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘶𝘴𝘦 to.
  
  But I know from my parahuman studies class, as well as experience, that we parahumans are unable to go without using our powers, so I can't just like, get a normal job.
  
  I'm still not really comfortable with all the killing and torturing they do, but one thing that cannot be denied, no matter how you think about them, is that the Slaughterhouse Nine?
  
  They are 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦.
  
  Nobody can tell them what to do. They just do what they want, whenever they want, and I 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵.
  
  All I have to do is pass five more stupid tests, or just kill the test giver like I did with Mannequin.
  
  Considering who they are, killing them will probably make the living ones actually like me.
  
  And who knows? Maybe I'll be able to influence them into being less murderous.
  
  I might not want to be a Hero, but I also don't want to be a mass murderer either.
  
  A couple of hours wandering about later, and a sudden voice from my side grabs my attention as I walk through empty streets, the city looking more and more like a warzone with every passing day.
  
  "Oi. You Carrot?" The voice comes from an alley to my right and I stop my walk to face them.
  
  The owner of the voice is an ugly man, who looks as if he has been mauled by a bear multiple times, his face and bald head completely covered in scars. His body is well built, clearly showing plenty of strength, but it's the hatchet in his hand that gives his identity away the most.
  
  I can understand at least why he would feel the need to ask who I am at least.
  
  After all, I didn't technically own my Hero costume, not that I'd want to wear it anyway, so I'm just wearing a pair of black cargo pants, a simple black long sleeved shirt with a tan cargo jacket over the top and a dark brown, hooded poncho over that.
  
  I also have a bandana wrapped around my neck, either to hide my face if I feel the need, but mainly for the same reason I have the poncho.
  
  If Shatterbird does her thing again, I can Break and and all the glass she sends at me, but there would still be the dust left over so I have the poncho and bandana to cover up should the need arise.
  
  No one likes getting their clothes filled with dust.
  
  "Don't call me that," is my bland reply as I squarely face Hatchet Face, "that isn't me anymore. Just call me Lucy."
  
  He snorts at my words, but I just continue to stare at him blankly, with eyes that I know for a fact no longer hold any light to them. Sometimes I struggle to even recognise myself in the mirror.
  
  As he gets closer, I prepare myself, waiting for him to get in the range of my power so I can reduce him to a pile of Broken parts.
  
  I remain still as he moves closer. Closer.
  
  Just a little bit closer.
  
  𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦.
  
  With a flex of will, I release my hold on my power, allowing it to run rampant, just the same as it always does when I do not hold it back.
  
  But nothing happens.
  
  Well, I guess that answers that then. It seems that his range is greater than mine.
  
  I let out a short sigh at the thought, and he stops walking with a truly horrendous grin on his face.
  
  "Saw what you did to Mannequin, nice work by the way, but it seems that my range is better than yours, eh? Still though, you killed that cyborg wannabe and that's got you in my good books as far as I'm concerned, so I'll keep my test simple."
  
  Huh, I guess I was right about killing them being the way to gain favour, but I didn't think that would kick in so quickly.
  
  Or maybe he just didn't like Mannequin. I know he hates Brutes, but maybe he just hates parahumans in general?
  
  I don't know.
  
  I don't really care either.
  
  I can't use my power against him, so there's really nothing to be done. Best to just go along with it, pass the stupid test and get one more step closer to freedom.
  
  Without saying a word, I just raise a brow and keep staring blankly at him, causing him to click his tongue.
  
  "Aight, just hold out an arm and don't flinch," he impatiently taps his foot as I roll back my left sleeve, showing my bare, unblemished arm.
  
  Then I simply hold it out to my side, never once breaking eye contact.
  
  He raises his namesake, and swings it down in a brutal arc that ploughs through my arm, not by a sharp edge, but purely due to raw, animalistic brute force.
  
  A sickening crunch sounds out as my arm is disconnected in the middle of the bicep, and I feel my body shudder and my knees grow weak at the pain, yet my face doesn't so much as twitch as I continue to stare unflinchingly into his eyes.
  
  "Hn. You're hardly any less boring than ol' knife hands. At least your better to look at," he finishes with an incredibly crude grin and I have to fight to keep my expression impassive in the face of his suggesting words.
  
  After a moment of staring at each other in almost silence, the only sound being that of my blood steadily dripping out of my stump of an arm, he eventually clicks his tongue again and turns around without a word.
  
  I wait without moving for a minute until I am sure he is gone. Only then do I allow myself to relax, a sigh leaving my body as my shoulder slump.
  
  A small smile graces my face, if only for a brief moment.
  
  Well, that was easy.
  
  Only four to go now.
  
  Reaching down with my remaining arm, I raise the cut of limb back to it's stump, making sure that it is aligned roughly how it should be.
  
  Then, I let go of my hold over my power once again.
  
  The world around me Breaks. Concrete and tarmac turning to a fine powder. A chunk is cut cleanly out of a nearby building's wall that I was standing a little too close to.
  
  But that is not all. As everything around me Breaks, I become whole instead.
  
  My arm rapidly fixes itself, reconnecting the limb and closing the wound, leaving my arm undamaged, only the blood on the arm itself remaining, which I quickly take out a cloth to wipe clean, dropping my sleeve back down afterwards.
  
  Checking my watch, I see that it is a little past midday and decide to keep walking for a bit longer. Maybe look for some place to sit and relax.
  
  Maybe someone is still working a food stall or something around here somewhere. I could go for a good burger right now.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  So! Lucy is now well and truly broken, no pun intended, and what's this? She can heal now!? I wonder how that happened?
  
  And she seems to think she can influence the Nine to be less murderous... oh you poor girl, we all know it's the opposite that's going to happen. They just have to ween her into killing people and she'll be prime Nine material.
  
  Also, I know this mini arc has dragged on, but I don't want to just go "oh and then everything happened and they left" y'know? There should only be 5 more chapters of this till we can finally move on to all the actually fun ideas in my head and more plot stuff. I want to get to canon already!
  
  It's gonna take so longgggg :(
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  106 Interlude: Lucy Darwick again!
  Columbus, Georgia. April 9th, 22:02.
  
  The stars are beautiful to look at.
  
  Especially from so high up, and there isn't a taller building than the one I chose to relax on.
  
  This way, I'm sure I'll be left alone.
  
  I think part of the reason the sky is such an attractive sight, is because when our heads are in the clouds, we never have to take notice of the suffering that surrounds us.
  
  Sitting as I am, with my legs kicking back and forth over the edge of the tallest building, I hum along to the music playing from on old Walkman that thankfully has some more modern songs available on it.
  
  It was being sold by some collector dude, saying that with so much tech fucked up by Shatterbird, people need something to occupy themselves and music is always good for morale.
  
  I'm paraphrasing, but he's clearly a good guy.
  
  "𝘔𝘺 𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦,~ 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘰𝘮 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥.~"
  
  The songs are rather fitting too. I'm not sure if he was being intentionally ironic, or if he just forgot what songs he had on it, but either way, it's fitting, and I find myself singing along as I lie on my back and look up at the universe.
  
  "I think I'll slit my wrists again and I'll be gone, gone, gone, gone.~"
  
  I think I saw Shatterbird doing something earlier today. A storm of glass and dust rising in a specific spot on the other side of the city is kind of a give away.
  
  Probably her testing some fellow candidate.
  
  I thought for a moment about going over and helping, long years working as a Hero ingraining the instinct into my head, but I managed to come to my sense and realise how pointless that would be.
  
  Besides, she still hasn't tested me yet, there's no reason to antagonise her and potentially make my test even worse.
  
  I continue on in peace for a moment, humming along to the song as it reaches it's climax. Only to flinch minutely as I am suddenly surprised by a melodic, high pitched voice, that sounds as if it belongs to a little girl not even in her double digits, behind me who finishes the song.
  
  "I wish that I could fly!~ Way up in the sky!~ Like a bird so high!~ Oh I might just try!~ Oh I might just try!~"
  
  I don't move from where I lay to acknowledge the voice.
  
  It's obviously not actually a little girl, considering where I am and who is 'hunting' me, so given that I'm vaguely sure of who it might be, I don't bother to look back as her calm footsteps click closer.
  
  However, I prove to be mistaken, as, instead of the monster wearing the skin of a little girl that I was expecting to walk into my view, I instead see a face that brings forth some very unpleasant memories.
  
  Tear opens her mouth to say something, but she never gets the chance as I release my hold on my power and she suddenly crumples, as if a puppet who's strings have been cut.
  
  Unfortunately, I am reminded of how I forgot to consider exactly where we are, as the roof beneath and around us suddenly Breaks into dust, causing us to fall down to the next floor, only to hit another wall of Broken floor as we fall to the next level, my power's range exceeding a single rooms hight.
  
  We both hit the floor with a dull thud, soon followed by a dusting of concrete and steel to almost cover us completely if we both didn't jump up to avoid suffocating.
  
  Looking down to the Walkman attached to my hip, I am glad to see that the fall only seems to have turned it off, rather than destroying it.
  
  A quick shake of my body gets most of the dust off, thanks to my poncho. The only annoying part is the dust stuck in my hair, as well as what I have to shake out of my hood, but at least my clothes are mostly ok.
  
  Certainly better than Tear at least.
  
  She's still wearing a classic prisoner outfit, only despite looking brand new, this one is covered in blood stains that I recognise to be fairly recent, but still dry. Her stark white hair is spattered with blood, looking like a half done dye job.
  
  Her lower face is covered by a mask that has a sideways 3 on it, like a smiling cat, while to cover her eyes she has a pair of ridicules pink shades that are shaped in an upside down V.
  
  Of course, this is all covered head to bare toe in a layer of dust.
  
  "Icky.~" She says, before violently shaking on the spot, like a wet dog, clearly doing her best to get the dust off of her to little avail.
  
  I allow myself to feel plenty of schadenfreude from her predicament, happy to have caused her a minor inconvenience.
  
  I feel like I should be more angry.
  
  I'm certainly mad at her. Yet, I find myself blaming the people who used to control me more and more every day, and I just can't bring myself to hate her as much as them.
  
  I must really be going crazy.
  
  "Heeey!~ How you doin'?~ Saw that you killed Mannequin?~" She pauses her overly casual questioning to lean forward and playfully hold a hand over her mouth, as if worried about people overhearing, "but between you and me, he was kinda lame anyway. I'm rooting for you.~"
  
  She finishes her sentence with an exaggerated head tilt, like she really wants me to know she's winking through her stupid shades.
  
  Honestly, I'm surprised they even survived the fall.
  
  But no matter how I think about it, I can't figure out 𝘸𝘩𝘺 she's here. She's already given her test after all.
  
  Perhaps she's just here to annoy me?
  
  "So are we just gonna keep staring at each other or something?" I blandly ask, as I obviously don't really have much of anything pleasant to say to her, so it really should fall to her to tell me why she's here.
  
  "Boooo.~ So cold.~ I thought we were building up sexual tension.~" She starts pouting, but I interrupt her before she can continue further.
  
  "I'm sixteen, and I'm pretty sure you're not a minor," I deadpan at her, but she just waves her hand as if to blow my words away.
  
  "Pssht, I've killed like, three hundred ish people just this week.~ And I feel I should remind you that you yourself have killed a fair number too,~ so really, what's a little minor major relations in comparison to that?~ It's not like you're a prepubescent anyway.~"
  
  She makes a good point, but I don't think she's actually even interested anyway. I think she's just trying to be annoying.
  
  "Now! As I was saying before I was oh so 𝘳𝘶𝘥𝘦𝘭𝘺 interrupted-"
  
  Or maybe she isn't trying, and it's just her natural state of existence to be annoying?
  
  "-it's test time!~ Not with me of course, I'm just here to bring you down, and to make sure you don't kill the Chibi!~ But first, I figure we've got a minute to talk?~"
  
  I assume that this 'Chibi' is Bonesaw. I am not above admitting to the apprehension that information causes me.
  
  Bonesaw is the scariest for a reason.
  
  But the last part of her words cause me to raise a brow.
  
  "What could we possibly have to talk about? You've killed everyone I loved. If not for the simple fact of not wanting to fall sixty stories, you would be but a writhing mess beneath me."
  
  My cold words are completely true, yet they seem to make her do a little dance out of joy, as if I just proposed or something.
  
  I don't know what I really expected to be honest. She's clearly insane.
  
  I suppose that will just mean I'll fit in, as I've clearly lost my sanity if I'm actually calmly talking with this woman.
  
  "You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear you say that!~ As a hero you'd never be allowed to be so callous!~ So tell me, how are you feeling?~ How does it feel to be finally 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦?~"
  
  My body tenses slightly and I for some reason feel as if there is far more weight behind her simple question than there has any right to be.
  
  I decide to follow my gut feeling, and to just answer honestly, if a tad cautiously.
  
  "... I feel good. Great even. I hate it, and I hate you, but I feel better than I ever have, while also feeling worse than I can ever remember feeling. Like the weight of the world has been lifted of my shoulder, allowing me to fly freely through the skies, only to have my heart ripped out in exchange."
  
  For a moment, she doesn't say anything and we stare each other down once again, but then she suddenly blurs forward and I immediately release my power again, causing her body to Break.
  
  However it doesn't loose it's momentum and crashes into me as we both start falling another two stories.
  
  I'm briefly caught by panic, unsure if I should keep my power running loose to stop Tear from crushing me, of if I should hold it in to stop from falling to my death.
  
  In the end, the choice is taken from me as I freeze completely and give up on fighting as soon as I hear her soft words in my ears, so full of joy and pride, almost sounding 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘺.
  
  "𝘐'𝘮 𝘨𝘭𝘢𝘥."
  
  She spins us around and we hit the floor with another thump, only she takes most of the fall for me this time.
  
  Right as the cloud of Broken debris is about to bury us, a massive pair of magnificent, horrendous wings sprout out from her back and swiftly wrap over us, forming a tent of sorts.
  
  It takes a moment for the dust to all settle, during which time I find myself simply staring up at the woman cradling me in her arms.
  
  I don't understand.
  
  This woman is a walking contradiction and I can't make sense of it.
  
  On one hand, she causes suffering at the drop of the hat. Has admitted to killing literally 𝘩𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘴 of innocent people by her own hand, including everyone I loved. That's not even mentioning the fact that she's a cannibal.
  
  Yet, she also seems to just be genuinely happy that I feel so free. Like she truly wants me to be happy. Her words felt so 𝘳𝘢𝘸 and 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘦, as if me being happy is the greatest thing.
  
  She really doesn't make any sense.
  
  Then again, I suppose that's what it means to be insane, isn't it?
  
  "Phooeey,~ you've got to stop doing that!~" Her teasing voice brings me out of my thoughts and I immediately feel spiteful.
  
  Her earlier words aren't just suddenly going to make us all chummy with each other. I'm still mad at her, so I release my power one more time, Breaking her for a third time in as many minutes.
  
  She heals it almost immediately and just starts laughing, as if having every part of her Broken is some kind of joyous occasion.
  
  "That's the way!~ Hahaha!~"
  
  We hit the floor once again, her wings still up to keep us clean as her head tilts forward slightly, allowing me to stare straight into her boiling crimson eyes, my head resting on her assets as I do so.
  
  "Fuck doing what you're told, right?~ 𝘕𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳, do 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨, unless you yourself want to."
  
  I'm struck momentarily speechless at her words, still confused about why she seems to be so friendly instead of psychopathic.
  
  "But if you want to go down to the Chibi so quickly,~ then who am I to say no?~" She asks, her annoying personality clearly slotting back in place as her wings shudder and launch us across the floor and out of the Broken window.
  
  I release my power a second too late, as we were already right at the edge, leaving the both of us falling from over a hundred metres in the sky.
  
  Fuck.
  
  I should have just been happy with Nice Tear, why did I have to jinx myself back into having to deal with the Psycho Tear?
  
  Looking to my side in a vague desire to not die, I see Tear falling alongside me, except she is twitching all over the place as she falls.
  
  Oh, right.
  
  With a minute flex of will, I once again put a cork in my power's constant need to Break everything around me.
  
  Tear immediately becomes lucid, but we are probably only a couple of seconds away from hitting the ground, so I hardly see what she can do to keep me alive.
  
  With somewhat surprising speed, her wings flap once to bring her next to me, allowing her to hold me in a princess carry, with one hand holding the back of my neck.
  
  Her wings suddenly spread out, slowing us slightly, but not enough to keep me alive as we are less than a second away from becoming a modern art piece.
  
  Except, that is when six ribbons burst out of her back and rapidly shoot around her body, forming six spires below us, pointing down like the worlds biggest spring.
  
  Our bodies come crashing into the ground, but the six ribbons each bend and absorb all of the force, causing us to rapidly slow to a halt, not a metre off of the ground.
  
  Both of us glance at each other before she unceremoniously drops me to the ground with a now familiar sounding thud.
  
  Huh. I think to myself as I stare up at where I was sitting a minute ago, ignoring how Tear dropped me.
  
  That was actually pretty fun.
  
  Raising a hand to my chest, I feel that my heart is beating rather fast and a ghost of a smile briefly passes by my lips.
  
  "Ah! Is it finally time to start my test!?" I hear an excitable voice from behind me, and when I tilt my head over, I see that it is indeed the monster that I was expecting the first time.
  
  Haaah, just great.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  This chapter was actually supposed to have Lucy's test in it, but I got carried away because I've accidentally turned her into someone I think is actually super cool. I even had a brief thought about how funny it would be to just suddenly turn Lucy into the new protagonist. Her name is close enough to Lusia after all XD
  
  But nah, Lucy is cool, but Lusia is more fun.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  107 Gotta Get That KD Grind
  Walking along the street, I tune out Bonesaw's ramblings as I focus on playing the part of bodyguard and ensuring that Bonesaw is never within five metres of Lucy, as she now apparently wants to be called.
  
  When Hatchet Face came back earlier in the day, I was both disappointed and intrigued.
  
  Disappointed because he didn't end up like Mannequin, and intrigued because of how he described the former Ward, and I have to say, I am certainly pleased with how she has turned out.
  
  Hearing her say how glad she is to finally be free was amazing, because that feeling of freedom to do whatever you want is truly the best, and more people should be able to feel it.
  
  Other than that, she is just generally interesting.
  
  She seems to have taken to heart my words about her bosses not caring about her, and she hasn't so much as flinched yet, even when she Broke me down.
  
  Clearly, that silly little 'heroic' mindset of hers is waning, and Bonesaw's test will probably be the first step towards getting her to truly disregard the lives of others.
  
  She isn't quite free of morals just yet, I don't think.
  
  I focus back in on Bonesaw's words as we reach our destination and walk through the shattered glass doors of a fairly large mall.
  
  It has two floors, but only on the edge of the room, allowing a clear view of the sky from the middle of the ground floor through the shattered skylights.
  
  "Which is why I like to give tests that give people the chance to use their powers in new and creative ways!" Bonesaw follows her exclamation by jumping forward a little and spinning around to face Lucy as she enters the building.
  
  Lucy's impassive face gains a slight furrow as she frowns at the sight before her, and her dead eyes pan from one side to the other before returning to settle on Bonesaw with a raised brow.
  
  Following her gaze, I briefly turn to face the horde of innocent people loitering around, either standing or sitting as they huddle together.
  
  They all understand the situation they are in by now. So no matter how much they might want to run, or how scared they are, none of them attempt to escape their fate.
  
  There were a couple of brave fools who tried to run at the start, but I broke all their legs and then ate them alive in front of the others. Then I picked a few random people, equal to the number that tried to run, and I did the exact same thing to them as well.
  
  I think I got the message across with that.
  
  "Hatchet Face told us about your power when you met," Bonesaw continues, "and he said that you apparently don't have a lot of control over it!"
  
  Lucy seems to get an inkling of what her test is going to be, but Bonesaw soon confirms it well enough.
  
  "So! To pass my test, you just have to use your power to Break one person, without Breaking anyone else!"
  
  One thing Bonesaw fails to mention is that the people behind us, some two hundred or so, are not allowed to move from where they are, so she can't split them up to get more chances.
  
  I'd say that if she was standing in the middle when she used her powers, she'd probably kill about a dozen people at once.
  
  Since she's going to be going in from the side, that number is probably halved, but still, she only has like twenty five-ish tries before she fails.
  
  "... Can I just go straight to the punishment?" Lucy starts, her voice dry and annoyed, "because everyone knows that you can't train parahuman powers. Shakers can't learn to change their range, Strikers can't train to change what their powers effect and Thinkers can't Think harder."
  
  You know, with my power being the way it is, I honestly completely forgot about that, but it is true.
  
  There are of course ways to grow stronger with your powers, otherwise longer lived capes wouldn't be able to kick newbies' asses so easily, but that is more getting used to your power than changing it.
  
  For instance, Shakers. Like Lucy said, they can't train to change their range. Though, supposedly the range or effects of powers can temporarily grow when in situations reminiscent of the user's Trigger.
  
  But if said Shaker power fills your head with information about something, like the details of the stone around you or something, then you 𝘤𝘢𝘯 get used to all the information getting stuffed in your head, thus allowing you to more clearly understand it all.
  
  Kind of like how Thinkers get more and more used to Thinker headaches the more they use the power, but that doesn't change the actual power at hand.
  
  For example, March will be able to use her timing power more the more she gets used to it, but it's never going to change from being a timing power.
  
  Ah well, sucks to suck I guess, couldn't be me.
  
  "Don't be such a downer Lucy.~ You'll hurt Chibi's feelings if you don't even 𝘵𝘳𝘺.~"
  
  My words cause Lucy to give me a withering glare and Bonesaw to clap her hands happily.
  
  "Haaah, fine."
  
  After accepting the task, Lucy proceeds to pull an impressive power move by walking straight at the two of us, forcing me to move Bonesaw to the side so she doesn't get mulched.
  
  Ah well, I don't mind really.
  
  She walks until it seems that there are only two people inside of the edge of her range when she pauses.
  
  "Sorry," is all she says before everything around her Breaks, including both of the people she apologised to.
  
  Except she seems to have miscalculated slightly, as another man is caught half in her power's range and half out, causing most of his body to Break and either hang limp at his side or fall off entirely.
  
  He lets out a wet, gurgling sound that almost sounds like a scream, until Lucy takes another half step forward and puts him out of his misery.
  
  This sort of scene repeats itself a few times, Lucy apologising every time, until about half of the people look like minced meat and the floor of the mall looks like a particularly disgusting beach.
  
  On the bright side, it smells delectable.
  
  Still, it's getting a little bit boring, so I decide to try and give a little advice.
  
  "Maybe you should try touching them?~ Your power used to be a Striker right?~ Maybe you'd have better control with physical contact?~"
  
  My words cause her to pause as she seems to consider it for a moment before accepting that it is indeed a reasonable assumption.
  
  Truthfully though, I only said it because it will mean she's getting closer to the people, thus causing more of them to die in one go, meaning she can fail the test sooner.
  
  There is only so many times you can watch someone crumble into minced meat before it just gets repetitive.
  
  As expected, physical contact doesn't change anything. By the time there are only a few left, they decide that they'd rather die while trying to live, than just giving up.
  
  By which I mean they all took a break for it, but before they even made it ten steps each, a spider bot dropped down on each of them and severed their spinal cords, disabling them instantly.
  
  Lucy gave us both a look in response, but I just gestured with my hand for her to continue and soon enough we are standing in a room filled with nothing but piles upon piles of minced meat.
  
  "D'awww. I really hoped you'd be able to do it," Bonesaw says, sounding supremely disappointed as she stares down at her feet, pouting.
  
  Looking at Lucy, I can tell that she is more upset than she's letting on. I will admit that it's somewhat impressive how impassive she can keep her expression, but apparently I can cheat with my powers anyway, so it doesn't matter.
  
  I wouldn't quite call myself an empath, but by now I can generally get the gist of what someone is feeling just by looking at them, which is neat.
  
  I get the feeling that while Lucy was willing to kill all those people, she would really rather if she didn't have to.
  
  I suppose we do have plenty of time to train that response out of her, otherwise she will never be as free as she wants to be. Morals are just as pointlessly binding to the weak as laws are, after all.
  
  Good thing Bonesaw's punishment is perfect for helping her grow used to this sort of thing.
  
  However since the girl in question doesn't seem to be paying attention, I give Bonesaw a little nudge on the back, and nod towards Lucy when she looks up at me, causing her to flinch in realisation.
  
  "Oh! Right! Since you failed the test, that means you have to do the punishment!"
  
  With that, both of us start walking to the opposite side of the mall as where we came in from, walking over all of the corpses uncaring of the way they squelch beneath our feet, or the blood that paints out clothes..
  
  Though in an effort to avoid waste, I allow my tail to sprout, and I shift it's form until it grows a maw of feral teeth, following which a few more mouths take shape along the tail.
  
  I don't know why I never thought about it before, but I only recently realised that I could 'eat' through my power, which is nice I guess, because it allows me to keep pace with Bonesaw while also swiping the tail back and forth to consume any flesh it passes.
  
  It doesn't feel quite as rewarding to eat like this. I mean, I'm sure it's just as nutritious, but taste is dulled through me appendages, just like touch is, so it doesn't have the same luscious flavour that it does when I eat with my actual mouth.
  
  Either way, we soon reach the back of the mall, Lucy following behind us at a reasonable distance, and both Bonesaw and I move to the side to allow Lucy to come out and witness the sight before us.
  
  A parking lot, only it is devoid of any cars, and is instead completely filled with prone bodies.
  
  Lucy's eyes widen at the sight and when she turns to face us I sense a hint of panic and apprehension coming from her.
  
  Understandable I suppose. She has just keeled about two hundred people after all, yet in front of us, there are one whole thousand people lying unconscious.
  
  It was a pain to rally them all up, but luckily we found a couple spots in the city where a bunch of people were gathering together, making this actually doable.
  
  "As punishment, you have to Break all of these people as well! Five for every one you failed to save by not improving on your power."
  
  Lucy briefly looks like she is contemplating lunging at us, but I just have to give her a smirk to dissuade her from that course of action.
  
  To make things even better though, a few spider bots run through the vast crowd of people spraying a gas all over the place.
  
  A few seconds later and people start waking up.
  
  It takes them a couple of seconds to get their bearings from their impromptu nap, but soon enough a piercing scream rings out, snapping everyone else to wakefulness.
  
  It doesn't take long after that for them to see us three, and manage to I give them a cheeky wave right before panic hits.
  
  All of a sudden, there is a stampede of one thousand people running away in blind panic.
  
  I turn to Lucy to see that she hasn't moved yet and decide to motivate her.
  
  "You know, punishments are just to give candidates an extra chance, but if you don't do the punishment properly then you just die, so if you truly do want to be free, then stop binding yourself to those restrictive morals you've been conditioned to believe, and just get to it. Make sure not a single one of them live. You are the only one that matters here, not them."
  
  She waits a single second longer to absorb my words, and then she is off, running into the crowd of people with her power constantly active.
  
  Everyone who even gets near her immediately perishes, and looking at it from above, it actually kind of reminds me of those vacuum cleaner adverts, where the floor is super dirty and everywhere the vacuum goes gets super clean, leaving a clear trail.
  
  It's a lot like that, the way she mows through them all.
  
  Still, a thousand is a lot, so it's going to take her a short while to get to all of the stragglers that manage to get away.
  
  But fuck it, I like her, so I'll at least be nice enough to track them down for her and give her directions.
  
  "Aren't I just such a nice person?" I mumble out loud, yet my only answer is in the form of screams, cries, and desperate pleas for salvation as the slaughter before me continues.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  You know that feeling when you want to read something, but at the same time, don't really want to read anything? Yeah, it sucks real bad.
  
  In other news, I installed this game called loot river, it's a small indie roguelike, but it's actually kinda fun. Granted, the graphics can be a little scuffed, same with the vibrations, leaving me unsure what's going on sometimes, but the parrying mechanism is fun.
  
  Also yeah, I've basically run out of ideas for tests, so we're just killing people now I guess. Quantity is a quality of its own and all.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  108 No Game No Life? (Credit to Toyah99
  Columbus, Georgia. April 10th, 14:20.
  
  It ended up taking a couple of hours to track down all of the people Lucy needed to kill, though to be honest I might have marked too many people for her.
  
  It's not like she was counting, but there were likely a few extra.
  
  Honestly, I'm a little upset, because her kill count has just surpassed my own in a single night, how unfair is that?
  
  I've only killed like, three or four hundred people with my own two metaphorical hands after all. Though, if we count indirect kills then I guess I'd probably be in the five digits by now.
  
  That salt drug is waaay more effective than I really saw it being, there's probably not going to be too many people left alive by the time we leave.
  
  Ah well, not my problem.
  
  What 𝘪𝘴 my problem however, is White King.
  
  He's the only one of the four candidates left for me to test, and I have just the test in mind for him.
  
  You see, he's a Master, and his power is one of the ones that cause Masters to be the most feared classification. He can turn anyone he touches into a loyal minion.
  
  Pretty impressive really, but only if he wasn't stupid enough to announce himself as White King and start ruling a gang.
  
  If he'd just stuck to the shadows and used his power on people already in positions of genuine power, rather than some stupid gang lords, then he could have been the most competent information broker on the planet.
  
  Or he'd try and overshoot and go for world domination and thusly die a horrible death.
  
  There are far too many powers in the world for anything short of omnipotence to be able to rule it.
  
  Anyway, with his power in mind, and after a short power nap, I spent my time rounding up even more people, thirty two to be exact, and then spent another hour or two preparing them for their roles.
  
  Which all leads to now, as I lead White King to the stage I set up inside of a warehouse.
  
  When we walk through the doors, we are greeted to the sight of thirty two men and woman, standing opposite each other in two groups of sixteen, both formed up in two lines of eight. Some of them in the back rows wield weapons, but no one in the front does.
  
  The most notable thing being how the people on the left are all wearing black while the people on the right are all wearing white.
  
  "Aaand here we are!~" I exclaim as I gesture grandly with my arms, "I have brought chess to life!~ Your test is simply to beat me in a game!~"
  
  Truthfully, I don't remember ever actually playing chess. I mean, I 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 I've played it at some point, who hasn't? But that would have been ages ago and only a couple of times anyway when I was a kid.
  
  So while I can remember what all the pieces do, I still don't really know how to play. To be honest I'm sort of just banking on him 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 not knowing how to play.
  
  He doesn't say anything in response, but I suppose that is sort of understandable. He is kind of fucked up after all.
  
  For one, Bonesaw has done some work on him. I have no idea what, but he looks like he's been living in a cave for decades, and he's also missing an arm, courtesy of Hatchet Face no doubt.
  
  Seriously, that Brute has no class whatsoever. Then again, I'm pretty certain he only really wants to kill capes, so I guess it works for him, but his tests are generally just, 'you stand still and let me whack you,' and if they don't then he kills them.
  
  Shaking my head to clear it of needless thoughts, I gesture to the stairs leading up to a walkway on either side of the room, allowing us both to have a birds eye perspective of the match.
  
  "You go over there, you're white because white is right, of course.~ It certainly has nothing to do with your cape name, that wouldn't make any sense.~ Plus, I'm the bad guy, and everyone knows that bad guys wear black.~"
  
  He still doesn't say anything, but he does glare at me once we are both in our positions standing over the trembling crowd of terrified individuals.
  
  "Now! Before we begin, allow me to explain some things.~ Firstly there is the King piece!~ Since there isn't really anything special about them, but all the other pieces want to protect them anyway, I have chosen a pair of children to play King.~"
  
  Said children are probably both around eleven or twelve, and one of them looks like he's going to piss his pants again while the other genuinely just doesn't seem to understand the situation. They must be incredibly sheltered.
  
  "Then there are the Bishops!~ Each of them are religious, three Christians and one Muslim, and they each had a sceptre as their weapons, because everyone knows that the Pope only has that mace thing to smack people with it.~"
  
  Those four kind of suck, they just keep praying and, I guess, hoping that some God will smite me down or something.
  
  "After them is the Knights!~ They have swords!~ Moving on are the Rooks!~ I couldn't think of anything witty so they have some rocks!~"
  
  Those ones are pretty obvious. I mean, Knights had to have swords, though finding four swords was surprisingly difficult, so I just grew and cut off four of my claws. They're sharp enough to work. For the Rooks however, I just picked the first thing that came to mind, so rocks it is.
  
  "Then in the front row are the Pawns!~ Following in the theme of the Rooks, I decided they should match their name, thus all sixteen of the Pawns are Pornstars!~ Isn't that fun?~"
  
  Realistically, finding sixteen Pornstars in one city and in a few hours is an impossible task, but the thing is, it's really easy to be a 'Pornstar'. All you have to do is star in a porno, no training required.
  
  Besides, it's always good to add even more diversity to FoolsNet. At this point, the site is really strange. You can find videos of Porn, Rape, Murder and other brutal and gory things, but there's also what is basically a 'kids' section where it's all just stupid and silly pranks.
  
  Like that time Negante replaced a couple restaurants' mustard with yellow paint. Simple, silly and harmful. Yet it's on the same site where you can watch a man slowly be taken apart, detailed explanations being given on each organ as it is pulled out of the body.
  
  James must be really bored if he's doing anatomy lessons, but I don't doubt a couple of desperate biology or medical students have watched the video, which is funny to think about.
  
  Ah, I've gotten side-tracked.
  
  "Finally, there is the Queen piece!~ As the strongest of them all, it's only natural that they have only the most fitting of weapon for their royal position!~ The Queens both have a shotgun.~"
  
  It makes sense if you ask me, plus it's funny that everyone is either unarmed, or has a melee weapon, and then there's just these two bitches with a shotgun each.
  
  With that out of the way.
  
  "Let the game begin!~" I exclaim with barely hidden anticipation.
  
  Whitey glares at me for a moment, before looking down at the 'board'.
  
  "Knight to C-3," his incredibly rough, baritone voice sounds out after a moment of thinking.
  
  He sounds like a wild animal clawed at his throat. Honestly, it sounds like it's painful for him to talk.
  
  I assume that's Bonesaw at work then.
  
  The sword wielding man walks forward, having to shimmy past the 'pieces' in front of him to reach the C-3 square, drawn on the floor in crayon by yours truly.
  
  "Pawn to E-5."
  
  I actually had the foresight to put the tile names on each individual tile, so that the 'pieces' don't have to do any thinking to figure out where E-5 is.
  
  "Pawn to D-5," is his response, allowing our two Pornstars to be within reach of each other.
  
  Neither of them can look the other in the eye though, and it takes me a moment to remember exactly why, but I quickly shake my head to clear it of the distracting thoughts on a certain non consensual orgy I coincidentally happened to have witnessed.. three hours ago.
  
  But enough of that, I should focus on the game.
  
  "Pawn to C-6," I say, trying to open the board up a little more.
  
  "Knight to F-3," he responds, doing much the same but more aggressively.
  
  "Pawn to B-5."
  
  "Bishop, E-3."
  
  "Pawn, B-4."
  
  "Knight, A-4."
  
  "Queen, A-5."
  
  "Queen, D-3," he counters, trying to match my Queen piece with his own, not realising his mistake.
  
  "Bishop, A-6," I state, threatening his Queen, while protecting the Bishop with a Knight piece.
  
  "Queen to B-3." I smirk at the slight panic in his tone as he hurriedly moves his most powerful piece to safety.
  
  "Pawn to C-5," I say, hoping for things to start being more exciting as I put one of his Pawns in a position where it can choose between two of my own Pawns to take.
  
  "D-4, take E-5," he says, doing exactly as I thought he would.
  
  However, this is where things get interesting.
  
  Because this isn't a board game and these pieces are very much real, and I have explained to each of them that 'taking' a piece means killing them.
  
  Which is why, when his Pawn swings a fist at my own, ready to beat them to death, my own Pawn 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘬𝘴 it, and starts fighting back.
  
  I, as well as everyone else, watch with mild amusement as the two men duke it out, getting blood all over my carefully drawn grid as they relentlessly beat the shit out of each other.
  
  Luckily for Whitey, his Pawn comes out on top after managing to literally get on top of my own to strangle him to death.
  
  Still, he is visibly exhausted and hurt from the fight when he walks back to E-5, the corpse of my Pawn left a couple of squares away.
  
  However I do not allow myself to be drawn into the flow of violence and immediately take a piece, instead I move to trap his Queen, guaranteeing that it dies on my next turn.
  
  "Pawn, C-4."
  
  "Rook B-1," he calls out, confusing me greatly as it doesn't seem to help him with anything.
  
  But I'm not exactly an expert at chess, so I could be missing something.
  
  Either way, my move is obvious.
  
  "Pawn takes Queen," I say with a lazy smirk, only for my expression to freeze on my face a moment later.
  
  𝘉𝘢𝘯𝘨!
  
  The sound echoes out in the warehouse for a moment, bringing silence with it until a wet slapping sound drags everyone's attention to the body of my Pawn, now with a big hole in his chest, courtesy of the smoking barrel of the opposing Queen's shotgun.
  
  ... Right. That's a thing.
  
  Damn.
  
  I ignore Whitey as he moves another pawn, lost in thought.
  
  Welp, I guess it's time to throw away chess rules then. Real life really isn't so binary after all.
  
  "Queen take A-4." Now, normally that would be a bad move, trading my Queen for a Knight.
  
  However.
  
  𝘉𝘢𝘯𝘨!
  
  Another shot rings out as my Queen blows open the sword wielding man's side, yet that is not all.
  
  The shotguns are buckshot for a reason, his Queen just didn't have good enough positioning to make use of it. My Queen does not suffer that problem.
  
  Due to this, the gun's buckshot not only kills the knight, but it also kills his Queen, or at least it leaves her bleeding out. It also peppers the three Pawns slightly further back, causing them to all start bleeding, but they were lucky enough to avoid anything lethal looking.
  
  "Your turn," I mock with a smirk on my face that only grows as he growls at me.
  
  The game continues to devolve from there, with more and more pieces dying, one particular Pawn even managing to beat down a Knight, only to get his face later smashed in by a Rook, before eventually the King is taken.
  
  Annoyingly, I had to... encourage, shall we say, my Queen to actually 'take' the 'piece', but it all worked out in the end, and I sent the survivors off with a smile, keeping my word about letting them live if they played along.
  
  No need to punish good behaviour after all, everyone knows that.
  
  "Well, well, well," I start as I walk up to a frustrated looking Whitey, "looks like you lost.~ Guess that means it's punishment time, right?~"
  
  He doesn't answer verbally, but I can basically infer all the horrible things he wants to say just from his glare alone.
  
  "Don't you worry too much.~ The Punishment is more of a second chance really.~"
  
  With my words and a simple gesture, I have him follow me out of the warehouse and into the next one over, revealing another group of people, split exactly the same as the last, with he same weapons, except for one small difference.
  
  This is only a group of thirty.
  
  "It's time for chess two, the electric boogaloo!~" I exclaim as I turn to face Whitey, leaning forward until my face is just beneath his own, where I tilt my head an unnatural amount to look up at him, "only this time,~ 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘒𝘪𝘯𝘨."
  
  Oddly enough, it reminds me of a movie that came out not to long ago, Zathura, in that if you die in the game, you die in real life.
  
  Eh, whatever.
  
  It's time to play.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Hehehe, snuck in another electric boogaloo baby!
  
  Anyway, I would like it to be known that I did legitimately play a game of chess in this chapter. I was playing as Tear and if I lost then Tear would have lost. Luckily for me, I won, because White King is supposed to die here, so I would not really have known what to do if I didn't get to give him a punishment.
  
  Though I kinda had to throw away my chess match once my pawn got a shotgun blast to the chest. Also, yeah, White King is dead. I ain't gonna do another chess match next chap, but she beat him once, she can beat him again.
  
  Also, once again, credit to Toyah99, cuz I was legit planning on going to sleep when I read his comment and got the sudden inspiration to write all of this.
  
  Also also, Fun Fact for everyone here that knows Worm, Newter will have been imbibing his vial right about now :)
  
  ... I just realised that I never actually did Magne's test from Lusia...
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  109 Can't Think of a Title
  Columbus, Georgia. April 11th, 16:09.
  
  Sitting on the roof of a carefully chosen building, I try my best to distract myself by playing solitaire, but my mind is just too preoccupied by annoyance to really enjoy the game.
  
  Then I get annoyed about the fact that I'm even feeling annoyed in the first place, leaving me in a generally not amazing mood.
  
  Siberian's test for Queenie finished earlier today, and I was happy to hear that the experiment survived. Now Siberian only has Carrot left to test, which she will start today, allowing the test to be over on the 14th, which is perfect since I said we'd be gone on the 15th, and Jack still needs to give his tests out.
  
  Self centred loser that he is, he insists on being the final test for everyone, his own candidate excluded of course.
  
  Still, that's not really something that would annoy me. If anything, it's just amusing to me, the way he acts. He's like a child with a god complex.
  
  It's really rather funny, and it actually makes me want to follow him around for a bit, instead of just killing him, because I like watching him strut around like he's invincible, even when he is constantly surrounded by eight people that are all far stronger than him.
  
  But no, that's not what has me annoyed.
  
  What's annoying is that Magne is dead.
  
  He was my candidate after all. I expected better from him. Especially after his showing against Crawler.
  
  He genuinely impressed me, something that is getting harder and harder to do the more I experience.
  
  His intelligence, will, power and most importantly, his 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘭, both over his own power and the battlefield itself, were incredibly impressive.
  
  But Bonesaw went to test him, guarded by Crawler and Jack and gave him a similar test to Carrot, in that he was to be killing innocents.
  
  However, unlike Carrot, he refused to do so, sticking to his guns.
  
  Naturally, this lead to punishment, but Magne fought that as well.
  
  Only, this time Crawler knew what to expect and didn't let himself get buried under a building this time, which is good, because it took him nearly a full day to get himself out, and with Jack on the side as well...
  
  I think Magne might be the first hero that I truly really acknowledge as a Hero worthy of respect.
  
  So it's rather typical that he's dead now.
  
  Personally, I think Jack wanted him to die just to spite me, but maybe that's me projecting, since that was why I wanted White King to die in the first place, as he was Jack's candidate.
  
  Ah well. I guess that makes us even then.
  
  ... Nah, Magne's life was worth more than White King's.
  
  Whatever, I'll get over it, probably within an hour or two, depending on when my guests arrive.
  
  I have taken it upon myself to volunteer a lucky couple to be my entertainment for the day.
  
  I have no one left to test after all, so really I don't have much to do for the next four days or so.
  
  In other news, Shatterbird tested Carrot, who naturally passed with flying colours. Though, going by the level of smugness coming from Shatterbird, I'd guess that Carrot at least had to struggle through something, else she'd be mad.
  
  Hell, the only reason Shatterbird wasn't mad at me for easily passing her test was because I'm such a good conversationalist to make up for it.
  
  More interesting that that though, is the few phone calls I've been on since I got my bike back.
  
  I decided to give everyone on my contacts list a call, either to let them know I'm still alive or just to see what they've been up to, maybe a bit of both in some cases.
  
  Clara's been promoted for one. Now she basically has a position that puts her in charge of 'foreign affairs'. Basically, when Uppercrust has a guest or wants to build relations with someone, she's the person that gets sent to be the intermediary.
  
  In other words, Uppercrust thought she did such a good job 'befriending me', that he made it her official position.
  
  It took considerable effort to avoid laughing when she said that, but other than that, she's doing well.
  
  James is having so much fun Tinkering and being a Gang Lord that he didn't even realise we hadn't spoken in a month, which I found rather rude, but amusing all the same, so I just wished him well.
  
  Uppercrust was the only one who seems to have actually heard about me joining the Nine, which is to be expected really, as the news won't really spread until we leave.
  
  So I had to assure him that it wasn't a permanent arrangement and that I was just experimenting with new things, while also both assuring him that I'd keep my end of our little deal and ensuring that he'd be keeping his.
  
  Billy Butcher just called me some mean names when I told him who I'm travelling with and hung up on me, which made me curious, and a quick look on the internet showed me that the Teeth were driven out of Brockton Bay back in '98 by the Nine, who killed just about all of them, bar Butcher himself of course.
  
  It's kind of crazy to think that I would have been ten when that happened, yet even a decade later, the Nine are still going strong. Stronger than ever even.
  
  But really, I don't know why I'd be surprised. The Slaughterhouse Nine has been a thing since before I was born after all. The so called 'heroes' clearly aren't going to do anything about it.
  
  Other than them, the rest of the calls were pretty uninteresting.
  
  Yumiko is having fun, now calling her Clown persona Harlequin. She also seems hopeful for a promotion soon, and is apparently going to be setting something up with James' help to get herself some accolades.
  
  Proving herself to be a good hero, as it were.
  
  Lastly, Jinx got me up to date on the goings on of anything important, including filling me in on our newest member.
  
  Apparently he's another Tinker, which actually does make sense, as I figured that for the first few months, maybe even the first year, it will probably be mostly Tinkers that join us, wanting to make use of our resources.
  
  His power is apparently 'one time use items', which has some interesting connotations.
  
  Obviously I can't expect him to be an answer all key, capable of doing literally anything, but I still have no doubt that he'll have a shit tonne of versatility available to him.
  
  It's not like it's an issue though, considering that he named his Clown persona 'Vendor', I think it's clear that he's planning on opening a shop of sorts, and that he just wants to use us to help him get set up.
  
  Which is exactly why I founded the Clowns anyway, so people can have fun doing what they want without worry, so naturally there is no problem with him using us. As long as he understands that this is a two way street, a mutual using.
  
  Jinx also says that he's going to be attempting a recruitment soon, but that the recruit is a surprise.
  
  Again, this is fine. I wouldn't insist on everyone having a Clown persona if I didn't want them to have the option to have their own private lives after all.
  
  Thankfully, my guests finally arrive before I have to suffer through any more monologuing.
  
  Looking across from the building and two my left, I spy a woman and a man walking down the street, or floating, in the woman's case.
  
  Both of them are dressed in elaborate robes, befitting of their rather ostentatious cape names of Devi and Asura, which are basically what female Gods and evil Gods are called in Hindu mythology.
  
  Truthfully, they don't have the power to back up naming themselves after deities. there's a reason it doesn't happen after all. Your name is supposed to represent you, so having a weakling calling themselves a God is kind of dumb.
  
  It reminds me of Ba'al, from back in Columbus. He was even less worthy of his name.
  
  Mythological items and people are fine of course, it's just with Gods that it becomes something of a questionable thing to do, not to mention overly egotistical.
  
  However, in this case, I think they deserve a pass, because I'm pretty sure Asuras are supposed to have six arms, and the little Asura down there is a case 53 who 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 have six arms, three heads and red skin, so it's actually rather fitting.
  
  Devi just went along with the theme since she's his partner. Her power is just a flight plus energy spear combo.
  
  Either way, the two of them together should be able to give me a good fight, not that I really have a good measure of this sort of thing yet, so I'm kind of just hoping really.
  
  Neither of them have noticed me yet, by my design, as I was worried they might just run away.
  
  Sneaking up on them is easy, as my power seems to give me some kind of natural predator instinct, meaning that I can be 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 quiet when I want to be. It's part of why I so rarely wear shoes, so I can jump off buildings without making a sound when I land.
  
  Which is exactly what I do here, jumping down to land behind the two heroes and following after them.
  
  I'm even dressed for the occasion, wearing a weird, elephant thing mask that I'm pretty sure holds some kind of relation to Hinduism, unless I'm just being racist, but really, after everything I've done, what's a little racism?
  
  I still have some Clown makeup on underneath, just in case it gets knocked off, and I've impaled a few clown noses on the trunk of the mask too.
  
  After following them for a short while, and pouting slightly at their lacking conversation, we eventually start coming across the civilians they are here to reassure and protect.
  
  Which naturally means that they start waving and greeting the people we walk past, just generally trying to be friendly and lift their innocent spirits up.
  
  The unfortunate thing for the two heroes however, is that unlike themselves, those civilians can very much see me walking behind them, with unnecessarily exaggerated steps.
  
  By now word on the street has spread fast enough that everyone can recognise me on sight, what with my now iconic prisoner's uniform, even the new mask doesn't stop me from being recognisable.
  
  This leads to those very same civilians turning around and legging it as fast as they can as soon as they glance even in the general direction of the two heroes, who still haven't noticed me.
  
  Clearly they don't have any enhanced senses. I'm not exactly trying to be subtle.
  
  "Something's wrong," Asura says, making a truly wonderful observation that surely nobody else could have possibly figured out without him mentioning it.
  
  "Yeah. I'll go high, see if I can see anything. You just keep your guard up." Following her words, Devi does as she said she would, rapidly starting to rise.
  
  Except, almost as soon as she does so, she is capable of seeing me, thanks to the increased field of vision her height gives her.
  
  She pauses as soon as our eyes lock, her earthy brown meeting my own blood red orbs, and I give her a happy wave that snaps her back to attention.
  
  "Behind you!" She yells, wasting now time whatsoever to form a spear of pure energy and throw it at me, while Asura doesn't hesitate to leap forward at her warning, spinning around in time to see me fall backwards, away from the spear, and land on my butt.
  
  "Eep!" I yell out, as if the spear scared me, but it barely even craters the ground where it lands, so I'm not really worried.
  
  As I look up at them, all tense and preparing for combat, from my place on the floor, I allow myself to grin.
  
  It feels like it's been a while since I've been in a proper fight. I just hope they can live up to my expectations.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Maaan, I want to leave columbus alreadyyy!
  
  I'll probably only do another chap or two before I'm done here and we can finally start getting to all the shit in my head, which means there will be some time skipping after this.
  
  So since I want to be done in no more than two chapters, it will probably take 4. :
  
  Also, I just remembered that no one got the reference in my last fic's titles from chap 28-30 : Or at least, no one spoke up if they got it.
  
  If you wanna take part in the next PHO chap, I'll be starting that tomorrow on my Discord at around 8-ish my time, which is about midday in America.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  110 This Mini Arc Has Gone On Too Long
  Columbus, Georgia. April 11th, 17:49.
  
  "Woah there!~" I exclaim as I duck under another energy spear, placing my hands on my head as I do so, "be careful!~ You could hurt someone!~"
  
  Devi simply summons another spear in lieu of responding, while Asura draws his weapons with grim determination clear on his face.
  
  That, at least, is something I like about case 53's. Their bodies are all fucked up looking, so they can't really have secret identities, causing a lot of them to not really bother with masks, and Asura has three heads, so I can read him thrice as well.
  
  I mean, that's not really how that works, but oh well.
  
  Asura holds a different weapon in each of his reddened arms, and he doesn't hesitate to introduce me to each of them as he approaches.
  
  Since they're weak, I don't bother drawing forth my power as I fight them, simply using my base strength and skill as I first dodge a spear, coming from his upper right hand.
  
  Then, as I step back from that, I have quickly raise my left leg to step over a low swing from his lower right's longsword. As one of my legs is still in the air, I have to lean back until I am parallel to the ground in order to avoid the Egyptian khopesh as the sword goes for my neck from his lower left hand.
  
  At the same time, the axe in his upper left arm and the mace in his middle right come swinging down at me simultaneously and I finish my fall, placing both hands on the street behind me, so that I can bring both of my bare feet up to block his strikes.
  
  The mace does almost nothing to me, while the sword barely leaves a scratch that immediately heals without a single drop of blood being spilled as I stop both weapons in their place.
  
  Which is when the dagger in his middle left hand comes swinging at my unprotected legs.
  
  With no time to get to my feet, I bend my arms slightly and push forward with a short burst of strength, sending the sword and mace away so that I can spin like a break-dancer and kick the dagger to the side, only to get blindsided by an energy spear and sent bouncing across the road, coming to a stop a short distance away and quickly jumping to my feet.
  
  "Phooeey!~ That almost didn't not hurt!~" I shout up to Devi as I pat myself down of dust, momentarily bemoaning over the hole in my new top.
  
  I wonder if I can bulk order these? They're just novelty clothes after all.
  
  Or I could just get some professional ones done, but eh, it's kind of funny how I have to keep robbing novelty stores. Not that I wouldn't be willing to pay, but for some reason they never want to accept my money.
  
  Weird.
  
  Still, focusing back on the 'fight', I realise something.
  
  Movies really are bullshit.
  
  I mean, I knew on an intellectual level that spinning around a bunch and matrix dodging isn't really the most effective way to fight, but it's still upsetting to see just how ineffective it is.
  
  Ah well, I guess I'll just have to fight properly then, even if it's not quite as cinematic.
  
  Having said that...
  
  I notice Devi preparing to throw another spear as Asura stands still, not willing to push the offensive, and I get an idea.
  
  The spear is launched at me, and I respond with a light jump, twisting my body so that it is perpendicular to the spear as it passes beneath me.
  
  Except, I don't just let it fly by, instead, I reach out and 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘣 it, using it's momentum to help me spin around so that I can throw it back at her with twice the speed.
  
  A small circle of air is displaced around the spear as it breaks the sound barrier, slamming into her stomach not a second later and sending her flying backwards until she impacts a building.
  
  A moment later, I touch the ground once more, staring in the direction of Devi with a sheepish grin on my face.
  
  "Aha, oops? I honestly wasn't expecting to throw it that hard, ehe,~" I say as I turn back to Asura, scratching the back of my head as I do so.
  
  "Bastard!" He yells as he charges me down.
  
  As I wait for him to reach me, I can't help but roll my eyes at his overreaction. It's not like she's dead, I can see her moving from all the way over here after all.
  
  Well, whatever. Time to fistfight someone with six arms and six weapons.
  
  My grin returns full force as he reaches me, weapons ready.
  
  I have always said that I love new experiences.
  
  His spear once again is the first to thrusts at me, but instead of letting myself be pushed into an unfavourable position, this time I just bat the spear aside with a simple backhand.
  
  The two swords follow, raising at me in a cross slash, but I just kick the Egyptian sword back, parrying it with ease, and twist my body slightly to cause the longsword to miss.
  
  The axe comes next, with the mace and spear following it, but I am far faster than him and my arms move in a blur, parrying each strike and forcing them all to go wide as I don't even move a single step.
  
  But even with how clear it is that he has no chance, Asura doesn't let up, sending strike after strike as his many arms become blurs of lethal intent.
  
  Yet, I do not lose my casual grin as my arms move even faster, parrying each strike and occasionally twisting to avoid what I cannot parry.
  
  Unfortunately, the fight quickly goes from fun to boring as it gets easier and easier to keep track of his movement.
  
  With a sigh, I wait until I have enough of an opening, and when I do, I parry with a bit of extra strength, causing his arms to be blow wide, leaving him exposed to a counter attack.
  
  My hand snaps forward, impacting his chest with a crushing palm strike that audibly cracks his ribs as he is sent flying backwards, joining his partner in writhing around on the ground.
  
  Seeing neither of them getting up any time soon, I look down at my hand with exasperation.
  
  I knew there was a decent chance that this wouldn't be as fun as I was hoping, but it's still disappointing nonetheless.
  
  Eh, whatever.
  
  With a sigh of boredom, I start wandering off, heading for Bonesaw.
  
  We, and by 'we', I mean Mannequin, did manage to finish setting up the trap factories before Mannequin went and kicked it, and we'll be leaving in like, four days, so I guess I'll get us started on turning the city into a minefield.
  
  Then I guess I'll just go and sleep for a few days.
  
  There's nothing really fun to do here anymore.
  
  All the capes are either dead, boring or hiding in a hole somewhere, and frankly speaking, senseless slaughter got boring real fast.
  
  Still, with that thought in mind, I reach Bonesaw soon enough, finding her in her lab again, doing something with some machines that I don't know the names of.
  
  I think Sibby's out chasing Carrot around by now, so she's alone when I get there.
  
  "Heya Chibi!~ How's it hangin'?~"
  
  My words cause her to look up from her Tinker stuff, and upon seeing me she gains a bright smile that really makes her look like the child that she is, rather than the demented mass murderer that she.. also is.
  
  Hell, if I didn't know who she was already, I'd probably assume she's just some happy go lucky kid.
  
  But as she bounds over to me, leaping up to give me a hug, forcing me to catch her, I can acknowledge to myself that she is adorable enough that her crimes against humanity can totally go overlooked.
  
  "Tear! What are you doing here? Did you need something? Wanna see what I'm doing?" Her rapid fire questioning causes me to chuckle slightly as I hug her back.
  
  "I'm here about our plans here. Remember what I said about leaving traps all over the place? Well, we'll be leaving in a few days, so I figure we can start laying them down now, I just need your help in getting the 'workers' to do their jobs properly."
  
  Her eyes sparkle as she looks up at me for a moment before jumping down and scurrying off to another corner of her temporary lab.
  
  It only takes a moment before she is back with a syringe, which she quickly drops in my hands before running off again. Inspecting it, I see that it's one of those ones that are kind of like a gun, with the 'barrel' part opening up to put in whatever is getting injected, and you only need to pull the trigger while it's touching skin to inject it all, rather than the more manual approach.
  
  By the time I'm done inspecting it, I look up again right as a small thud sounds out.
  
  Looking at me feet, I see a rectangular box filled with small tubes, each about half a pinkie finger in size and filled with an ominously green liquid.
  
  Before I can even question it, the Chibi drops another identical box on top of it and takes a step back, holding her hands behind her back with a smile as she bounces on the balls of her feet.
  
  Children are so energetic. The fact that Crawler makes jabs at me being over energetic just makes me feel like he hasn't ever actually interacted with Bonesaw, which I find hard to believe, because I highly doubt she could hold back her Tinker desire to study his body.
  
  Eh, maybe she just takes samples while he's asleep or something, or maybe she's too focused on Tinkering whenever they interact, so she doesn't get to show him her childish side?
  
  Either way, it doesn't matter and Chibi drags me out of my thoughts after a short moment of silence.
  
  "These should do the job for you! Each dose is enough for one person and there are three hundred and sixty doses!" After her exclamation, she simply stares at me, clearly waiting for praise.
  
  It's just... she hasn't told me what exactly they do yet.
  
  There is an awkward moment of silence as we stare at each other, both waiting for the other to say something before I break the silence.
  
  "Errr... right.. three-sixty doses... you, uh, you mind telling me what the doses do?"
  
  I'll admit, the deer in headlights look of consternation she gives me is incredibly amusing, but the blush that rapidly starts to spread to her ears is just adorable.
  
  Her cuteness is practically a weapon of it's own.
  
  I'm pretty sure there was a guy in the Nine at some point called 'Nice Guy', who's power basically just made everyone dismiss him as just a guy doing nothing odd, no matter what he was doing.
  
  Raping someone? That's just Nice Guy, don't worry about it. Killing a child? He's just passing by, nothing wrong to see here.
  
  Point is, people looked at him and then decided he couldn't be a threat, and I feel like Bonesaw could totally have a slightly weaker version of that power just by default, with how cute she is.
  
  Ah, I'm getting distracted again.
  
  "Ehem," Bonesaw says, clearing her throat to hide her embarrassment, "the drug will basically just makes someone really susceptible to commands for a couple of minutes, and they'll keep following the command for about three hours afterwards."
  
  Giving her one last smile, I ruffle her hair, getting only a minor protest from her in response, and pick up both of the boxes with one hand, still holding the syringe in the other, before I head out, giving Bonesaw a wave as she gets back to doing whatever.
  
  No point in waiting after all, might as well get started now. It's not like I have anything better to do right now, and there is a lot of ground to cover.
  
  I also only have one syringe, so I sure hope none of them have AIDS or something, otherwise they will all probably end up with it.
  
  As I am making my way over to the factories Mannequin borrowed, a sudden thought occurs to me.
  
  The suggestiveness of the drug only lasts a couple of minutes... that means I'm going to have to repeat the command to each of them one at a time doesn't it?
  
  Haaah, the things I do, just to set up a funny joke.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  If you want to take part in some PHO RP, that's gonna be happening in a couple of hours on my discord
  
  Secondly, in case it isn't clear, I am also getting tired with this shit. I mean, I didn't even write anything for like, 2-3 days because of it, taking my patrons down from 8 chaps ahead back down to just the promised 5 (and if you know me well enough by now, you know that I don't break promises when it comes to uploads.)
  
  So yeah, this min arcs probably gonna end next chapter, and I might just brush over some things. That's exactly what I wanted to avoid doing, which is the reason it's gone on so long, but frankly I hardly care anymore, and most of the things that would be happening have already happened, so meh.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  111 Read This Chaps AN At Least Please?
  Columbus, outskirts of Georgia. April 15th, 08:30.
  
  Leaning back on my parked bike, I look out over the ruins of a formerly proud city a small distance away and nod once to myself, a slight feeling of satisfaction filling me, only to be swiftly followed by minor annoyance, that is also soon smothered out into bare indifference.
  
  I always thought the Nine were tacky, and honestly? The past two weeks or so have done nothing to change my mind.
  
  I won't deny that slaughtering hundreds of people was fun, there's a reason zombie games are so popular after all. Sometimes a bit of gratuitous violence is exactly what you need to relax.
  
  But.
  
  It's only really fun as an occasional treat, and frankly speaking it got boring after the first week or so.
  
  It's just repetitive really, not to mention incredibly wasteful.
  
  Any five humans can provide entertainment for a whole day if you do it right, and that's without even needing to kill anyone.
  
  Plus, with more people dead, there's less people to entertain me.
  
  All round, it's just ineffective.
  
  Still, gotta try everything at least once right?
  
  Honestly, the only truly amusing thing left from this whole venture is the traps that we've left hidden around the entire city.
  
  From surprisingly well disguised bear traps, to wires set up to capture or dismember, all the way to the fire extinguishers that were replaced by identical flamethrowers.
  
  𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 is funny. That is fun. The idea that people will have to abandon the city, or deal with watching their every step to avoid losing a limb, all because a few assholes were being assholes.
  
  𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 is funny, but it's only funny because it hasn't happened anywhere else, which is why I'm not going to let us do it again.
  
  Because I am not so tacky as Jack to just keep repeating the same damn shit, over and over again. He was probably that kid in school that would hear the funny kid say something that made everyone else laugh, and then would go around repeating the joke over and over hoping for the same response.
  
  It's pathetic.
  
  Still, I have a plan for him. Granted, it's not exactly a complex plan, but it doesn't really need to be. I'm also pretty sure that his not quite mind reading thing that he seems to be capable of has already told him at least some of my plan.
  
  But he is arrogant enough to assume that he can't lose anyway, so he's probably not going to do anything to try and stop me, which is amusing to me, since that confidence will just make things easier for me.
  
  So when I see the RV driving out and away from the city, Crawler's trailer securely attached to the back, I don't waste any time in mounting my bike.
  
  I rev the engine a couple of times, enjoying the sound of it's modified exhaust, before I speed off to join them, dressed in concealing leathers and with a full, blacked out helmet to hide my identity as we travel.
  
  I'm not sure what the bike guy I traded with did to modify this bike, seeing that I still don't know shit about engineering, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the deep rumble of the engine as I drive over the dirt road to get to the RV.
  
  The suspension is good enough that even without my super human physiology I probably wouldn't really feel it, so kudos to that guy, whoever he is.
  
  If I happen to meet him again, I'll give him a bunch of money as thanks. No idea how much, it'll depend on how much I have I guess, but everyone loves free money.
  
  But that's all for future me to think about, right now all that I need to do is enjoy driving at speeds far beyond the speed limit, even if I have to stop every now and then to let the RV overtake me so I can do it all over again.
  
  About a week later, I find myself chilling around a campfire at the edge of a town called Paduca, sitting on the boarder of Kentucky, with Crawler, Hatchet Face and the two newest members of our merry band joining me.
  
  I'm still a little upset that my candidate isn't one of the people who passed, especially since Black Queen turned out so damn boring.
  
  She was super fun too, but someone, probably Jack, decided that she should lean into her new bear-likeness more, and used their test to fuck with her vocal cords, making it so that she can only make bear noises, incapable of human speech.
  
  It sucks.
  
  She was funny and now she can't even tell any jokes.
  
  Hell, she even still manages to be funny with all the odds stacked against her, which just makes it more annoying, but whatever.
  
  She'll get her voice back, probably. Maybe. All things in good time.
  
  At least the other new member, Lucy, makes up for it somewhat, since she's still fun, and wholly unbothered by just about everything, even the slaughter of this town that we finished doing just a couple of hours ago.
  
  Granted, this time we weren't quite so... 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩.
  
  According to the news, Columbus' population has dropped from around 190k all the way down to 23k, with a large percentage of that number being injured.
  
  ... That 'murder salt' was waaay more effective than I was expecting it to be, most of the deaths were from people going mad and killing each other.
  
  They've also 'discovered' the traps, but they're undecided on whether or not to abandon the city as of now.
  
  Anyway, Lucy and Queeny have been given new names as part of their 'induction' to the group.
  
  Naturally, Jack was the one to pick the names, not even bothering to ask if anyone has any fun ideas.
  
  However, I won't complain for once, because the names he came up with were pretty funny.
  
  I think he has a thing about members of the Nine having ridiculous or absurd names and then making everyone fear them anyway.
  
  I mean, Jack Slash? What an incredibly uncreative, stupid name. And yet, it is quite possibly the second most feared name in all of America, just behind the Simurgh, because nothing will ever inspire terror as much as the Simurgh.
  
  Even I would really rather be on the opposite side of the planet as the freakin' Simurgh at all times... she's a scary motherfucker.
  
  Then there's Bonesaw, and Shatterbird. Fucking, Hatchet Face?
  
  Everyone in the Nine has stupid names, even me. It's probably the only reason he didn't force me to take a new name, because 'Tear' isn't exactly an awe inspiring name.
  
  Yet, each of those names is deeply feared from coast to coast.
  
  Which brings me to our newest members, Murder Bear and Crusher.
  
  Two absurdly stupid names, and yet soon enough people will be pissing themselves every time they hear it.
  
  It's honestly one of the few things I appreciate about Jack, because I can't deny that I share his amusement at the joke, and I can completely understand why he would want to do it.
  
  It is hilarious, after all, to think about heroes being all serious as they shout at someone called 'Murder Bear'.
  
  The media already knows that they've joined us of course, it probably wasn't too hard to figure out, but they won't know the names, at least not until news of today's escapades get out, or I get bored and spread their names on PHO.
  
  Naturally, I've also had my share of news coverage now that it's clear that I'm a member of the Slaughterhouse now, which included a whole backstory too.
  
  It was honestly mildly impressive, not to mention amusing, to listen to the news talk about me.
  
  So now the whole world, well, just America really, but what's the difference? The whole world knows 'everything' about me.
  
  They know my name, where I grew up. They know my school grades, even making comments about how my grades started to fall after I turned fifteen, speculating that that was when I started to change from the 'excitable, caring girl' that I used to be, to, well, whatever I am now.
  
  Naturally, they're all very wrong. The only thing that changed back then was that I stopped bothering with the act. Stopped bothering with anything that wasn't fun, such as studying, and started using my time to do amusing things instead.
  
  The report even went into minor details about my parents. Talking about my psycho daddy dearest as if he was abusive and the 'cause' of my 'mental issues'.
  
  My father isn't someone I like to think about, but the cowardly pissant of a man couldn't have been abusive even if he wanted to. I'm pretty sure the only reason he managed to land mom was because she was a dom and wanted a man who was nice and submissive.
  
  I honestly don't know, and I don't really care. He ran off to do whatever psycho shit looneys do when they're off their meds when I was thirteen.
  
  I got a little laugh, with mixed feelings behind it, at what they said about my mom too. According to the totally unbiased and well informed opinions of the strangers in the media that I've never spoken to, the most likely case is that my powers apparently 'forced' me to kill my mom, and that is what set me off, 'breaking' me mentally and causing me to go insane.
  
  I mean, I guess they're half right, but I was probably insane well before then.
  
  But it then went on to talk about how I started in Columbus, Ohio, and how much chaos I caused there, shaking up the entire cities underworld, as well as their roster of heroes, followed by mentioning my brief stint in New York, and the subsequent battles with Billy.
  
  All in all, my name and face have been plastered all over every screen in every household in every state.
  
  In other words... I'm a motherfucking celebrity now!
  
  Wooo!
  
  Naturally, now that I'm famous I must start touching kids, it's basically a tradition, so I made sure to send a message to James informing him that he is now my child sex slave.
  
  Obviously I'm not actually going to touch kids, they really don't have much of an appeal to me, no flesh to them, no muscles or curves.
  
  Really, what's the point?
  
  But James probably found the message funny, not that I can be sure since his response was to just tell me to eat a dick. Not a very effective insult to a cannibal.
  
  Now I'm simply left wondering how long I'm going to stick around as a part of the Nine. Probably a month at least, because there's no point in doing things by halves and I want to see if there's something I'm missing for Jack to find this fun enough to have kept at it for as long as I've been alive.
  
  Eh, who knows.
  
  For now, the others probably won't be back for a short while, Bonesaw is making some 'artwork' to leave behind before we go, sort of like a 'we were here' kind of thing, so I have to find something to entertain myself until then.
  
  "So!" I exclaim with a clap of my hands, getting the attention of everyone present, even if Crawler closes his eyes right away after, going back to his nap, with the others similarly going back to what they were doing, be it sharpening their hatchet or cooking some food over the fire in the case of Lucy, Crusher.
  
  Murder Bear, my god that name is stupid, I almost laugh every time I try and think about it with any level of seriousness.
  
  Bear is chilling next to Lucy, waiting for the meat to be cooked, so she at least has nothing to go back to and actually looks at me as I bring out a deck of cards with a wave and some slight of hand.
  
  "Who wants to play a game?~"
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  A/N: So! Assuming y'all persistent A/N ignorers are even here, I just want to clear something up. For anyone who has been getting bored with this second Columbus arc, know that I feel the same way, I just didn't want to fuck with my pacing by skipping ahead. That being said, most of the things to do were done and I was genuinely close to burning out again by writing it, so we're skipping basically nothing and getting out of there.
  
  It's not like we can't all figure out what I skipped over, only Black Queen still needed to be tested by Crawler and Hatcher after Sibby was done, then there was just Jacks tests, and I think we can all just acknowledge that his test would have been something horrific and traumatising and move on, right?
  
  Also, the next few chapters will basically be like a cooldown period before things kick off again
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  112 Interlude: Clowning Around
  "Kitsune. I wasn't expecting to see you so soon?" The new Director says with a questioning tone.
  
  I suppose his confusion does make some sense. After all, I was only promoted to the leader of this branch of the Protectorate a couple of days ago.
  
  I wasn't originally a true contender for the position, what with Carol already having been reaching for the mantle for a while now, not to mention that Director Balvan never would have considered me for the position.
  
  But with Noah reassigned after the shitshow Tear orchestrated, and the new Director, Selene Castle, not having the same kind of military background as Noah, she was far more willing to consider it, either not understanding or simply not knowing about my past in CI.
  
  That didn't change the fact that Carol already had the position, and I couldn't outright take it from her, or even openly attempt to. After all, the secret to being ambitious is to never let anyone know you're ambitious.
  
  However, after an unfortunate and unexpected 'incident' involving Carol 'accidentally' fatally injuring an innocent civilian, combined with a 'fortunate' encounter where I managed to 'find' and shut down a rather significant drug lab, even winning a 'fight' against two villains, all by myself.
  
  Well, is it any surprise that I got my well deserved promotion? I certainly worked hard for it after all.
  
  But just becoming the leader of one small part of the Protectorate isn't nearly enough. Rising up through the ranks is surprisingly fun. I don't even really care about having the power to be honest, I just enjoy earning it.
  
  Which is why I am here to speak with the Director, despite only having been promoted a couple of days ago.
  
  "Yes, well. I feel that I've settled into my new role well enough already, but I want to do my job to the best of my abilities, and to that end, I was hoping you could assist me in setting up a joint training sort of thing with the Cincinnati Protectorate. Kind of like a sister city thing."
  
  It's not a completely new idea, the New York and Boston Wards are known to do joint training after all, but I'm hoping to do more than just that.
  
  "Hmm, I don't see why not. It might be a good opportunity for our Wards to make some new friends, maybe it will help them to get out of their funk?" She responds, her hand on her chin as she considers it.
  
  "My thoughts exactly," I lie with a cheerful nod, "but I was thinking that we could take it a step further than just letting our Wards train together. I figured that we could perhaps swap Heroes around every now and then. It'll keep the Villains in both cities on their toes, all while allowing us all to have more options available to us."
  
  I don't say it outright, but I know that the moment I mentioned having more options that she immediately thought about Negante's gang, because for 'some reason' we've hardly been able to do anything to stop their growth as they consume the cities underworld.
  
  It's almost as if they know we are coming before we ever do, funny how that works.
  
  That's without even mentioning Famine, or the 'Dollars' as they are now known, that basically serve under the Red Hearts. Teleportation powers are notoriously difficult to deal with, and so far we've had very little luck in stopping Janus.
  
  But none of that is really important. The actual reason for this little cooperation is simply to spread my influence.
  
  The Protectorate is a subordinate organisation to the PRT after all. It's basically impossible to rise past the position of Team Captain.
  
  In fact, I'm pretty sure that the only Heroes in the Protectorate that could be said to be 'higher' than a Team Captain would be the Triumvirate themselves, who are the founders and leaders of the entire organisation, not to mention each is incredibly powerful in their own right so that's not really a position I can get promoted to.
  
  What I 𝘤𝘢𝘯 do however, is build up connections.
  
  That's how you rise in an organisation like the Protectorate. I just need to know a lot of other Captains, and for them to respect me, hopefully even looking to me for leadership should the need ever arise.
  
  It's a dangerous game to play, but it's fun.
  
  Before long, I have Director Gallio's approval as well as the number of Director Lance on my insistence that I set up all the details myself so that I don't 'bother' Selene.
  
  Now all I need to do is make a good first impression, which means I will need to visit them first, leaving Columbus slightly more vulnerable while I am gone, especially since I will not be leaving alone.
  
  However, I have a 'lucky feeling' that there won't be any Villains causing trouble while I'm gone. The whole idea would probably be scrapped if a bunch of chaos erupted the moment I tried to put it into effect after all.
  
  Now it's just a matter of who to bring.
  
  Obviously, I will be the only adult coming, because I need my fellow Heroes to respect 'me', not 'the Columbus Protectorate. So I just have to decide which Wards I will be taking with me.
  
  And I think I have just the pair in mind. First being Mairon, because he is outgoing and friendly. He'll make a good first impression, increasing their opinion of me by proxy.
  
  Then there will be my ace in the hole, Lag. She was one of the Rogues that got recruited after Tear's game dented our numbers.
  
  Showing the others that I can 'reform' the powered youth into a good Hero will go a long way in raising their opinion of me, especially since I've been making sure to keep Lag's self-esteem low, making her eager to play whatever part is expected of her to the best of her abilities, meaning she will play the perfect part of the reformed Hero.
  
  Later that night, during one of my solo patrols, as I am driving through the streets on my motorcycle, 'looking for crime', I reach into a hidden compartment on the bike, all without moving my head, in order to avoid letting the camera in my mask see anything.
  
  Turning on the 'Clown phone' inside, I carefully reach down and press 'send' on an already pre typed out message.
  
  Now, all that's left to do is to wait.
  
  𝘔𝘺 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵'𝘴 𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘦. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘍𝘰𝘰𝘭.
  
  Putting my phone down with a sigh, I pick up my fancy class of excessively expensive wine and spend a minute in silence as I mentally complain about unreasonable women making demands of me.
  
  Still, even as I complain, I can't deny the smile growing on my lips as I look over Cincinnati from my spot in a luxury restaurant, forty floors up from the ground.
  
  Truthfully, fancy places like this aren't really my kind of scene, even if I could easily afford it with the money I'm making now that Lusia's convinced me expand my market in the business of information.
  
  However, with the people I'm meeting, fancy, over the top places like this are par for the course really.
  
  A soft pinging sound drags my attention away from the cityscape and back to the empty restaurant, myself and a single server behind a bar being the only people present on the whole floor.
  
  Hence why I have no problem being here, despite being dressed up as the 'Fool', mask and all.
  
  This is Clown business after all, it's only proper.
  
  The elevator opens in the silent room, allowing first a pair of men in suits to exit, both of them the picture of the word 'bodyguard', and both of them visibly armed.
  
  The pistols on their hips honestly lose a lot of their subtlety when both of them are also clearly just holding an AR in their hands. And that's not even mentioning how they're wearing sunglasses indoors.
  
  "How scary,~" I mutter to myself as my eyes move over to the next pair to walk out, each of them individually far more interesting than the two bodyguards, if only for the masks that they wear.
  
  A man and a woman, both of them also wearing suits, though the woman's looks more like a sexy secretary costume, paired with overly fancy golden masquerade masks, they practically radiate wealth.
  
  How utterly unsurprising.
  
  Really, it's only the 'businessman' among them that matters here. The woman is just muscle, being a fairly decent Alexandria package, except that her flight is limited to just a few metres above the ground.
  
  Not that she's exactly necessary to Mr Businessman. I'm not exactly a fighter like Tear is after all. All I have is a handgun, and even then, with my luck the gun will jam the moment I try to shoot it anyway, my only consolation being that their guns will probably also jam.
  
  Raising from my seat as he approaches, I place one hand in a fist over my heart and swing the other out wide as I give him a deep, theatrical bow.
  
  "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance at least, Mr Campione, as well as an unexpected honour to meet the ever beautiful Conquista."
  
  Conquista, how.. subtle.
  
  It basically translates to 'conquest', so they're really not even bothering to hide that she's basically just a trophy wife that can pick up and throw cars at people that annoy you.
  
  I suppose to the 'champion' goes the spoils I guess.
  
  The opulently dressed man takes a seat opposite me, gesturing for me to return to my own seat as Conquista stands 'intimidatingly' behind him, the two guards doing the same a short distance away.
  
  "Please, the pleasure is all mine Mr Fool, my niece speaks highly of you and your productions, so imagine my surprise when I hear that you of all people are seeking a meeting with me?"
  
  Huh. I wonder how old his niece is? Eh, it shouldn't matter really.
  
  After all, to get the the gory and more.. 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦? Stuff, you have to pass an ingenious test to prove that you are over eighteen.
  
  See, a pop up comes up asking of you're above the age of eighteen, and honestly we're just working on the honour system here.
  
  Still, as I prepare my practiced answer, I let myself smile widely, knowing from Lusia that my tone will match the smile, even if they can't see it through the mask.
  
  "Ahhh, I have a fan?~ How joyous.~ I'd be more than happy to give a signature for your niece if you would like. As for why I am here? Well, I am something of an information broker you see, and I have come across some interesting information as of late and I was wondering... How would you like to make a deal?"
  
  "I'm sorry March, but you're just not a good fit with us," the first of the losers starts, only to be followed up by a far less consoling voice.
  
  "What she's trying to say is that you're too damn brutal. We had a good thing going for us before you showed up. The actual Heroes left us for the Ward to deal with, and we could handle them just fine, but your so called 'perfect plans' have only caused them to take the kiddie gloves off! You're too brutal for the PRT to let the Wards face us and we can't beat the fucking Protectorate! Letting you join us was a mistake, get lost."
  
  As the losers start bickering amongst themselves about 'being to hard' on me, all I do is stare at the loser who looks at me with such distain.
  
  Briefly, I think about killing him, but I let the thought pass with ease.
  
  Lusia says that if you really hate someone, that there are better ways to hurt them, and that killing people is a waste. But then again, she's dancing with the Nine right now, so I don't think she's one to talk.
  
  I'm not going to bother of course. I don't truly hate any of them, they were just a means to an end anyway, so I don't care.
  
  Looking at them talking about me as if I'm not here, I see the budding argument for what it is, my power telling me how they're going to react to each others words, and how things will escalate into a big ol' row, but they'll get back together soon enough after cooling down.
  
  But I just don't really care, so I turn around and simply leave, ignoring the way one of them half heartedly calls for me.
  
  I reach my apartment soon enough, bought under a fake name of course, and get changed into some comfy clothes, jumping onto my comfy couch with a sigh of relaxation.
  
  After a moment, I find my eyes drifting to my outfit, hung over the back of a chair as it is, and I find myself wondering to the woman who gifted it to me.
  
  I have no idea what she's doing, but at the very least I'm sure she's enjoying herself. More than I am at least.
  
  Haaah.
  
  I can lie to others all I want, but there's no reason to lie to myself.
  
  ... I'm lonely.
  
  I want her to come back, to see her again.
  
  Whatever. With another sigh, I reach out for the remote control, wanting to watch cartoons to make myself feel better.
  
  However, as soon as I click the power button I can feel my lips start twitching in fond annoyance as a blown up image of Lusia's face, caked in clown makeup and with hair dyed red, takes up my entire screen, with some news reporter in the background giving her whole life story.
  
  ... When I said I want to see her again, this really isn't what I meant.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  So, this chap was just a brief look into what some of the other Clowns are doing with their time, as well as admittedly being a buffer because I like to have 5 chapters minimum spare and I don't want to get too far ahead before doing the PHO chap, but I can only really start that once I've posted the end of neo columbus
  
  Also, I ate like, half a half kilo bag of uncooked spaghetti as I wrote this chapter. I like the crumpch
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  Omake: Lusia the Adventurer
  The Adventurer's Guild has long since been a bastion of Humanity, having been founded since well before the first Laptalia drew breath.
  
  In truth, nobody truly knows when the Guild was founded, such history being lost with the passage of time. But even with such an extensive history, the Guild has managed to remain out of politics even to this day, being a firmly neutral entity that only ever moves to suppress the ever threatening hordes of Monsters that prowl the wilds.
  
  Because, while the Kingdoms of Terra do have strong armies, they busy themselves with petty politics and pointless wars, Greed, Envy and all the other Sins of man stopping Humanity from ever truly uniting, the Adventurers have always distanced themselves from warring with their fellow man, focusing instead on the threats to all sentient life.
  
  That's not to say that they are all Heroes, fighting the Monsters out of altruism alone.
  
  No. Altruism could never guide Humanity, certainly not while in competition with Sin.
  
  Which is why, it is often Greed or Pride that causes Adventurers to face death so regularly.
  
  After all, Adventurers are well respected, no matter where in the world they are, and the pay check for a successful Adventurer is certainly hefty.
  
  Not to mention the freedom. The Guild has few rules, far fewer than any other organisation of note. That fact alone is likely the sole reason for the Guild having the second most Mages of any organisation, just below the Sanctums themselves.
  
  Even then, the Sanctums themselves are likely the second most powerful group, just behind the Guild, as they obsessively study Magic like hermits, forever pushing the boundaries of Natural Law.
  
  But the Guild will likely always be the place that the talented, desperate or overconfident will go when they seek wealth or fame, with new members joining every day.
  
  So it comes as no surprise to anyone inside of Lancilia's Guild when the front door slams open, catching everyone's eye as a beautiful, red headed woman all but 𝘴𝘸𝘢𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘴 inside, casting her eyes about dismissively.
  
  Adventuring is a dangerous occupation, so it's only natural that all Guild buildings are built to also serve as a tavern, and with a lot of Adventurers traveling a lot, each building is also supposed to serve as an inn in a pinch.
  
  Which is what the woman sees as she glances about the room, barely even taking the time to acknowledge the other people there, as if they don't even exist, as she instead takes in the room itself.
  
  On the left there is the main tavern section, filled with cheap tables and furniture, for easy replacement when someone eventually gets rowdy and starts another drunken brawl.
  
  That is where most of the current patrons are right now. The sun is starting to set after all, now is not a time to be Questing, but it certainly is a time to be spending the money made from said Questing on drinks.
  
  On the other side of the room, taking up less of the overall floorspace, is a relatively empty area, with the only addition being a large board that covers the entire wall, filled with papers pinned to it, including some pins that only have a small patch of paper attached, the sheet clearly having been ripped off.
  
  The Quest Board is rarely ever truly full, but it is even rarer for it to be truly empty. However, as Lancilia is one of the towns bordering with the Capitol of Laptalia, the board is generally closer to empty than full
  
  Even the lazy armies of Laptalia won't ignore any Monster threats so close to their Capitol after all.
  
  Right in the centre of the room however, is a simple clear path that leads to a long counter, behind which stand rows upon rows of bottles and a pair of attractive young women in Guild uniform.
  
  One of the perks of being so close to the Capitol is that the building has more finances, allowing it to be large and spacious, with expensive decorations and a full stock of booze, though the expensive decorations are all strategically placed to be wherever the drunk patrons are not.
  
  The woman saunters up to the counter, uncaring of the sudden silence, nor the dozens of eyes following her as she makes her way to the Guild's receptionist.
  
  "Hey there sexy,~" she starts, causing the woman behind the counter's lip to twitch, having had to deal with plenty of overconfident flirts before, even if they are usually not of the fairer sex, "I'd like to sign up as an Adventurer, mind helping me out? I'll pay you back later if you want?~"
  
  The receptionist doesn't respond to her flirty offer, resisting the desire to roll her eyes at the cockiness so common among the Adventurers.
  
  However, she remains professional, keeping her smile on her face as she reaches below the counter to pick up a couple of sheets of paper and a pen, sliding them over the counter as she speaks.
  
  "Of course Ma'am, as it is already so late, your test will be prepared in the morning. For now you just need to fill out this form, if you can't read or write, I can help you with it."
  
  Yet, the Adventurer wannabe does not so much as even glance at the sheet of paper, instead choosing to lean forward onto the counter, resting her elbow on it and her head in her hand.
  
  "Ah, it seems I may have forgotten how to read.~ You don't mind, do you?~" She all but purrs, making the receptionist mentally sigh, even as she agrees and leads the fiery woman to another room.
  
  After making it to a small meeting room with a simple table between two couches, the receptionist takes a seat, putting the papers on the table and gesturing for the woman to sit opposite her.
  
  A gesture that is happily ignored as the red headed woman plops down right next to her, close enough that their shoulders brush together.
  
  With another hidden sigh, the receptionist takes her pen in one hand and leans forward slightly to write on the papers, reading out the first question as she does so.
  
  "Right, well, let's get started then. Your name?"
  
  "Lusia, Lusia Abel. And what's your name? I can't just keep calling you the sexy brunette in my head after all.~"
  
  At this point, she is starting to realise that being flirtatious is just a part of Lusia's character, and is swiftly becoming merely exasperated with her.
  
  "My name is Trixie. Now, are you wanted for any crimes?"
  
  The question is generally just a formality, as if they 𝘢𝘳𝘦 wanted, it will be found out whether they answer or now, and it's not like anyone would admit to anything anyway, but having the question as part of the registration process keeps the Kingdoms of Terra from trying to impose any inspections.
  
  Which is why Trixie was caught slightly off guard as Lusia doesn't immediately respond, raising a single finger to scratch at her cheek sheepishly, even as Trixie sighs in growing exasperation.
  
  "Innocent until proven guilty?" Lusia asks, almost making Trixie face palm, before she just decides t repeat the question.
  
  "Are you, Lusia Abel, wanted for any crimes anywhere in Terra?" Despite the seriousness in her voice, Lusia doesn't lose her carefree smile.
  
  "Nope,~" She says, popping the 'p'.
  
  It is clear to Trixie that she has obviously done something illegal and simply hasn't been caught, but frankly, it's not her job to think about such things, and really, it's none of her business.
  
  So with a sigh, she simply gets back to the questionnaire.
  
  "Are you a citizen of Laptalia?"
  
  "Nope.~ I'm a free citizen.~"
  
  For some reason, Trixie isn't surprised to hear that. It's not like free citizens are too uncommon after all, there is plenty of land unclaimed throughout Terra, and not everyone is fond of the idea of taking a knee, not to mention paying taxes.
  
  But while free citizens avoid having any responsibility to any Crown, they also avoid any Crown having any responsibility over them.
  
  If you're not a citizen of the Kingdom then its laws do not matter to you, but that also means that there is nothing protecting you. It's dangerous, but many people see the freedom as worth the danger.
  
  "Do you have any combat experience?" This question is one she is mildly interested in, more so than the others at least.
  
  Lusia certainly doesn't look like a Fighter, no scars or rough skin, no callouses, and she isn't dressed like a Mage. Frankly she looks like a Nobleman's rebellious daughter, escaping her estate to 'play Adventurer'.
  
  She certainly has the confidence of a Noblewoman.
  
  "I guess you could say that,~ only a little though.~" Her voice is still just as playful as ever.
  
  Trixie pauses for a moment before the next question, looking over the woman besides her in curiosity. She seems to be constantly smiling, her resting face being that of a small, hardly noticeable yet still somewhat smug smile. It is as if everyone around her is the butt of a joke that only she knows.
  
  How curious.
  
  The questions continue for a while, most of them being far less interesting, more simple things, until they eventually reach the final question after about an hour of interrogation and about half an hour of flirting.
  
  "And now the final question, though this one is more of a formality than anything. What made you want to become an Adventurer?" Trixie says, looking down as she awaits her answer.
  
  At this point, Lusia has manoeuvred herself such that she is laying across the couch, her head resting on Trixie's lap, and Trixie can't deny that the relentless, yet never uncomfortable flirting might be getting to her.
  
  Lusia is very persistent, but instead of the usual Adventurer crowd, she isn't at all pushy with her persistence, and it cannot be denied that she is a work of art, easily the most beautiful woman Trixie has ever seen, or even heard of.
  
  "Ahhh, well that's an easy one.~ I needed some money to buy food for the girl locked away in my basement.~ I hunt my own food, but I don't think she would enjoy my game.~ Plus it's fun!~ And I get to meet with beauties like yourself, take your pick.~"
  
  ... She's just going to ignore that first part. One thing Trixie has leant from all this time with Lusia is that A: the woman will not stop flirting, and B: you can only take about half of what she says seriously.
  
  She put 'kidnapping princesses' as her previous occupation, which was really in rather poor taste considering the recent incident in the Capitol with Princess Maery.
  
  Trixie will forever deny the surprised laugh that escaped her when Lusia made that claim with all seriousness. Laughing at something like that would be akin to treason after all.
  
  "Aaand," Trixie starts, dragging out the word as she scribbles on the papers, "that's everything. Now you just need to wait until tomorrow, where you can do a practical test with Grant."
  
  After finishing her words and placing the finished papers down on the table, pen on top, the room descends into a comfortable silence, neither person making to leave.
  
  A moment later, and Trixie lets out a soft, if slightly fond sigh, looking down at the woman lying in her lap with her eyes closed.
  
  "Lusia. I need you to get up. Both of us need to go to bed, it's late and you have test in the morning, while I have work." As she speaks, she starts stroking Lusia's hair until she eventually opens her eyes, looking up with a smirk.
  
  "Oh?~ That so?~ Well, I'm afraid I don't have anywhere to stay the night. You wouldn't mind showing me to a room, would you?~" Her sensual voice is laden with playfulness, and just a hint of lust.
  
  "Haaah, just get up," Trixie says, looking away from her smirking face as she blushes slightly, not saying anything, even as Lusia does as told and rises to her feet, offering a hand to help her up.
  
  Except she doesn't let go of the hand as Trixie leads her away, through the building and to her own room, opening it and making it three steps inside before she hears the door click shut behind her, freezing as she feels a pair of hand hold her, moving from the waist, up her stomach, under her shirt and all the way up to her chest, groping it lightly.
  
  "I'm scared of the dark," Lusia's voice sensually whispers, straight into Trixie's ear, "you wouldn't mind keeping me company, right?~"
  
  Silence is her answer, as Trixie leans back into the other woman's touch, reasoning to herself that it's been a long day, and it's just some mutual enjoyment, nothing serious.
  
  The silence of the room is soon replaced by moans of ecstasy that last all through the night.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  So, I decided to do this again, and I got too into it again. I was originally gonna make this like, done and done in 4 chapters at most, but now I just have no clue, probably something more like 6 I guess, idk. Also, I was re-reading DarkWolfShiro's works recently, so lusia ended up having sex, sue me.
  
  Still not writing smut till I get bribed tho, (though, someone has said that they might actually be doing that, so... yay?)
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  113 Interlude: Rebecca Costa-Brown
  There were times where Rebecca wondered if it was even worth the effort to keep her job.
  
  Working as the Chief Director of the entire PRT is a stressful, painful thing, something that is all the more obvious as she sits in her office and watches another report on the news about the Nine laying waste to another city.
  
  The only positive, if it can even be called as such, is that they haven't done anything even nearing the casualty count from that disaster in Columbus, but that's hardly a reassurance, especially with the knowledge that no matter how much she might hate it, she can't just gather the Protectorates strongest fighters and turn the Nine psychopaths into a crater the size of Nevada.
  
  The simple fact that she has to sit back and allow them to roam freely, even knowing that killing them all is more or less possible, just makes the idea of resignation all the more appealing.
  
  But then she reminds herself exactly what is at stake, what the price will be if she just went and did what she wanted, instead of what was needed.
  
  Yes, they were a necessary sacrifice, no matter how bitter of a pill it is to swallow.
  
  But after a little over two decades of the Slaughterhouse existing, Rebecca's cold, dead heart has long since stopped sparing them a single thought.
  
  The stakes are simply too high, and a bleeding heart wouldn't be capable of making the sacrifices necessary.
  
  She has no choice but to cast aside empathy. To become remorseless, apathetic. Emotions will not bring salvation, only the most probable Path to Victory matters.
  
  Nothing else matters, only that we increase our chances as much as possible. The survival of a species is worth more than a few sacrifices, and if that means she will have to face the burning eyes of the Devil when she finally passes away?
  
  Then so be it. She has already accepted that there will be no place in heaven for her, if such a place truly even exists.
  
  They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
  
  Sometimes she really wants to find whoever first said that and punch them through a wall.
  
  However, despite closing herself off from everything, despite having personally witnessed the worst of the Nine, her missing eye aching at the thought, there is only one reason that her incredible mind cannot get them out of her head once again.
  
  The monitor on her desk showing a news feed of their latest antics flips through some mugshots, or as close to a mugshot as is possible, of each of the current members.
  
  It briefly pauses on their latest recruit, an escaped patient from the Parahuman Asylum, going by the name 'Burnscar', a reference to the cigarette burns extending from the edges of her lips to the sides of her eyes in a mockery of a cheshire smile.
  
  She was already in the middle of burning down a third of a town in Pennsylvania, Indiana, her mind supplies, when the Nine rolled into town, reduced to eight by that point after Hatchet Face found himself with significantly less face after meeting a Tinker with a cannon half a month prior.
  
  Then the monitor flicks again, forcing the current subject of her ire's face to take up the screen.
  
  Lusia Abel. Tear.
  
  The woman is a menace, and nothing at all like the rest of the Nine.
  
  She is certainly insane like them, and no one can doubt her power.
  
  The issue, is that she is 𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘵.
  
  Yet she only seems to want to use that intelligence to be as much of a pain in the ass as possible.
  
  Ever since she joined the Nine, they've 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘥, and while objectively Rebecca knows it's a good change, less people are dying after all, Columbus excluded, that doesn't make it any less 𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨.
  
  The Nine have always been a problem, not that that's unexpected for a roving band of serial mass murderers that are surprisingly elusive for a group so utterly lacking in subtlety, but one thing that could always be counted on when they showed themselves, was that they were 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦.
  
  Now that Lusia has joined them, that is no longer the case.
  
  Less people are dying, sure, but those deaths have been getting increasingly convoluted, rather than the simple-mindedness of before.
  
  Columbus is enough of an example. The city has been declared a Quarantine Zone and evacuated, wasting even more of her diminishing recourses to make sure no idiots wander inside and fall pray to the frankly ludicrous number of traps hidden throughout the city.
  
  There's been talk of running through the place and disarming everything, but some of the traps are Tinker made, or at least Tinker influenced, making metal detectors useless, and even considering the available options, it will take at least half a year before the joys of bureaucracy finally lets us solve this issue.
  
  And that was just the first time she showed up with the Nine!
  
  She's singlehandedly started a whole new wave of fear towards the Nine, and they were already the second most feared existence for any American.
  
  Because it used to be a simple fear. The Nine shows up? You're either going to die horribly, or be tortured and 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 die horribly.
  
  Now however, there's 𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘺. Before it was just a primal, physical fear. Fear of pain, of death, of losing someone or something. But Lusia has started a far more 𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 fear.
  
  Now, if the Nine show up, you might simply die horribly, you might get tortured first 𝘰𝘳 you could have your mind broken and rewritten, your body turned into an aberration. You could be eaten alive or turned into a living board game.
  
  Then, as if to just make things worse, she has started POSTING IT ON THE 𝘍𝘜𝘊𝘒𝘐𝘕𝘎 INTERNET!
  
  Even if they were feared, it was always a distant fear, like the Endbringers. Everyone knows they're out there, and that seeing them means death, but it's always in the distance, so they could at least pretend they don't exist.
  
  Lusia however, is a twenty year old woman, so perhaps it shouldn't have been a surprise that she is active online, unlike the other members of the Nine who each have their own reasons to not have bothered.
  
  She even has a fucking tag clearly stating her current allegiance, and the fact that a member of the Slaughterhouse-fucking-Nine, is 𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 on the internet is both baffling and irritating.
  
  But as if that wasn't enough, as if she simply had some personal grudge against Rebecca for reasons unknown, the damnable woman started spreading a certain piece of knowledge that Rebecca has put a considerable amount of effort into supressing.
  
  That secret, hidden thing she's successfully spread through the internet?
  
  Pictures and videos of Alexandria in the nude.
  
  It's something that has happened a number of times, her clothes simply not being nearly as durable as the woman herself, yet Rebecca has always done her best to supress them, to keep it out of the public eye for the sake of the reputation of Alexandria.
  
  It's hard to intimidate men when you know they've jacked off to your naked body after all, and more than one villain has proudly proclaimed such, either in the hopes of distracting her or simply to be assholes, no one knows.
  
  All of that is without even going into the mess that is FoolsNet. The site has already been banned on every browsing server available, but it's not like it's difficult to instal a VPN, or simply use one of the less 'corporate' browsers.
  
  The point stands however, that Lusia is someone Rebecca strongly dislikes, which is why she is even more annoyed at the fact that she has been told not to go out of her way to interfere with her growing network of 'Clowns.'
  
  It's only the fact that they aren't technically an organisation that has saved them from suffering from Lusia's actions with the Nine.
  
  There is no 'Clowns' group after all, they don't hold any territory, nor is there any business attributed to them, for all intents and purposes, it's just purely a 'coincidence' that all these people in clown masks have started popping up, just 'happening' to know each other.
  
  But Rebecca has had enough. She refuses to do nothing but watch as the psychotic woman's pet project grows, yet she has been told not to simply go and destroy them.
  
  However, no one said anything about simply infiltrating them, and since no one has shown up with a gun fruitlessly pointing to her head, she understands that she is being given free rein to put her plan into motion.
  
  Obviously, she can't infiltrate them herself, but luckily Rebecca knows just the man for the job.
  
  Unfortunately, he is one of the very few people who she actually has to go to to meet, rather than simply calling him to her.
  
  She is the Chief Director of all of the PRT, and yet she has to personally visit one Agent just to get him to do his damn job.
  
  However, even if she may complain, she doesn't truly mean it this time, because she has a rather high opinion of him, despite his sloth.
  
  He was an interesting, not to mention incredibly lucky find.
  
  There was a case of a cape who was traveling around the country and challenging other capes to fights, mostly low level capes, as the man himself had no clear strength beside his immense skill.
  
  It was assumed he was some kind of Combat Thinker, and that he was simply traveling around looking to increase his skill against good opponents.
  
  But then he bit off more than he could chew, and ended up caught by Alexandria herself, only after he single headedly beat down an entire casino's security team, as well as a few dozen enforcers sent by the gang that ran the casino at the time.
  
  Without any enhancements beyond simple skill, Alexandria had no problem capturing him.
  
  But then something interesting was revealed.
  
  He was not a cape.
  
  He was not a Parahuman. In fact, he doesn't even have the Corona Pollentia needed to Trigger Parahuman powers. He was just a normal.
  
  A normal who could fight on par with a large number of Parahumans.
  
  Then his mask was removed and the plot thickened even further, as the man was none other than Angel Gardener, renown Neurosurgeon, philanthropist and well known medical prodigy.
  
  Through a number of interviews, followed by some tests and deals, it was made clear that the man was not just a medical genius, but also a martial arts prodigy like the world has never seen.
  
  Hence why he has a Brute, Thinker and Stranger zero rating, that Stranger part coming from something that came up in later interviews.
  
  At that point he had already agreed to working for the PRT as a Special Agent in exchange for not being thrown into a cell, which was when he expressed an interest in espionage, claiming that it 'sounded like a blast.'
  
  Since then, he has proven to be scarily capable, either at removing problems or sneaking into gangs and foreign organisations alike, sometimes simply gathering intel, sometimes singlehandedly collapsing the organisation.
  
  Despite not even having any powers, he's one of her most useful tools, more effective than any other agent. So much so that she didn't even protest when he rejected the chance to get powers of his own, claiming not to want to deal with the 'super freaky parasite mind fuckery' that comes with having powers.
  
  It has been proven time and again, including by Angel's own studies, that Parahumans tend to have an increase in aggressiveness, being more confrontational and drawn to conflict, so she was actually happy with his decision, since his job is one that rather heavily relies on avoiding conflict all together.
  
  All in all, he's the perfect man for the job. With Lusia's intelligence, combined with any Thinkers she might gather, Rebecca would only trust Angel to infiltrate them without being caught, and she has no doubt that he will be more than happy to accept the incredibly dangerous job.
  
  With the decision set in her mind, Rebecca presses a button under her desk, causing the door to lock and all the windows to be covered, a faraday cage closing around the room at the same time, making it all but impossible for anyone to know anything about what is happening inside of the room.
  
  "Door to Angel." Rebecca says out loud, seemingly to no one.
  
  Except, as soon as she finishes speaking, space tears open in front of her, forming a portal, a 'Door', that shows a luxurious penthouse bedroom.
  
  Stepping through the Door, Rebecca is immediately assaulted by a musky smell, one she recognises a the smell of sex. She doesn't so much as flinch, having completely expected it from the man whore.
  
  Looking forward at the bed, she sees Angel himself, a man in his mid-thirties, despite looking like he's in his twenties. Standing at a respectable 6'2 and weighing somewhere around 210lbs of pure, athletic muscle, with a build of lean but incredibly powerful muscles and a head of rose blond hair, bordering on pink and a pair of sky blue eyes that seem to pierce the soul.
  
  With the scars lining his body just adding to the aesthetic, it is no surprise to Rebecca to see the pair of beautiful women slumped down asleep in each of his arms, both of their bodies holding evidence their recent... activities.
  
  "If you wanted to join, I'm afraid you're a bit late, unless you're just shy, and wanted me all to yourself? Why, Becca, I never knew you cared, it's about time you let me work through some of that stress with you, but honestly, you're wearing way too many clothes right now, everyone else here is naked, stop being weird." His voice sounds out, wide awake despite the state of his 'companions.'
  
  Here she was, one of the most powerful women on the planet, and he just doesn't care one bit.
  
  "First of all I would like to reiterate that I hate you. Secondly, stop fucking around untangle yourself from your.. 'friends' and come with me, I've got a new job for you."
  
  He lets out a put upon sigh, acting as if she isn't his superior as he gets to his feet, not even bothering to dress or clean himself of the evidence of his recent escapades as he walks past her and into her office, taking a seat on her chair without a care and kicking his feet on the her desk imperiously.
  
  It's only by reminding herself of his competency and their end goal that she can calm herself from how casually he makes himself home, sitting his bare ass down on her chair as if that's just a fine thing to do.
  
  Thankfully, it doesn't take long to explain the details of his newest job to him, allowing him to swiftly return to his penthouse, his nakedness allowing her to clearly see his 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 at his latest job.
  
  As the Door closes, Rebecca looks down at her now stained seat with a sigh.
  
  She's going to have to burn that and get a new one now, and the fact that she's sure he did it just to piss her off doesn't stop it from working.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Fun fact! Glee came it in may 2009. I thought we were in 2009 rn, but we're actually still in 2008, which ruined my idea of having Lusia force the Nine to watch Glee :
  
  Also, with this chap, I tried to write it in such a way that it did not give away a certain identity that everyone who knows anything about worm will already be aware of, all while trying to avoid making it unnatural, the idea being that it all sounds right, but doesn't actually confirm anything. This isn't for any plot reasons or anything, it won't matter, I just found the idea of keeping people in the dark about it funny :)
  
  Also, nearly deleted like, half this chapter, but decided to keep it after realising that I'm fucking tired and want to sleep
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  114 Interlude: Rachel P 'String Theory'
  Looking frantically between all the flashing lights and monitors yelling out warnings, I can't help but wonder where it all went wrong.
  
  Everything has been going fine for the last two years, and now all of a sudden it's going to shit.
  
  After Triggering with a Tinker power, my first couple of months were rather slow, not having the money to get the materials I needed to build what I wanted.
  
  But then I had the amazing idea to solve that issue. My power basically lets me build anything I want after all, the only limitation being that every creation runs on a countdown timer starting from the moment I start building it, making time management and available resources incredibly important to keep in mind when I design something.
  
  Which is how I got the idea to just start blowing stuff up, completely at random, and then auctioning off safeties, to guarantee that I don't blow you up next time.
  
  No one want to be blown up after all, so plenty of people bought safeties from me, protecting themselves and supplying me with the resources needed to build my masterpieces at the same time.
  
  But for the longest time now, there has been one design gnawing at the back of my mind, tempting me with it's beautiful allure, yet I have never had the resources to build it.
  
  I was saving up for it, and I'd predicted that I'd be able to have it built some time next year, but then, someone reached out to me through my PHO account.
  
  Now, that in and of itself is nothing new, plenty of people PM me, either to buy safety from me or in some attempt to 'recruit' me.
  
  Pah! As if I would ever work under some 2-bit nobodies. I'm one of the greatest Tinkers in the world god damnit! I don't 'need' anyone to 'protect' me.
  
  All those retards that thought otherwise soon learnt exactly how little I thought of their 'offers' in a rather explosive manner.
  
  I will not have some losers treat me as if I'm just another Tinker.
  
  Which is part of what made the PHO message catch my interest, the other part being that the messenger, Negante, had the 'Clown' tag, meaning that he is part of the same group as the Fool who has recently become something of a celebrity online.
  
  Some of the videos on FoolsNet are really funny too, so I was willing to hear him out.
  
  However, once he started talking about me joining him as a 'Clown', I almost ended the conversation there, that is, until he went into more detail about what joining would entail.
  
  It was basically all positives and no negatives really, since it's less of an organisation and more just a network of influential, powerful or resourceful people.
  
  He explained that to join the group you just need to both have something to offer, and to 'want to have fun', whatever that means. If it wasn't for the fact that I apparently passed that criteria, I'd say that it was a stupid and poorly defined entrance requirement.
  
  Though, I suppose when the network is founded by someone crazy enough to join the Slaughterhouse Nine, it should be expected.
  
  On the topic of poorly defined, the 'requirements', if they can even be called as such, for it's members are beyond vague, and I can't figure out if it's supposed to be some kind of test or not, because I really don't see them making a mistake like this, but if it's genuine then that's just as confusing.
  
  I mean, really. 'You must help other Clowns in need if you are in the area or if you feel like it.' Who puts 'if you feel like it' into a rulebook?
  
  It would be hilariously easy to only receive benefits while never doing anything for anyone else, and while Negante's later words certainly reassured me that the rules truly are that lax, they didn't stop me from feeling incredulity at it all.
  
  According to him, 'the Clowns were founded on the idea of letting fun people have fun by giving them the opportunities or resources they wouldn't have been able to get alone.'
  
  Either way, I'm happy to accept the benefits when all it'll really cost me is maybe a favour or two, and some time to share stories with the other Clowns.
  
  All in all, a very beneficial deal.
  
  As a matter of fact, after talking with Negante, who also happens to be a Tinker, for a while, we ended up talking about what materials we need for our crafts, and that lead to him saying that he is completely willing to part with literal millions of dollars if it means I'll 'make something fun' out of it all.
  
  Naturally, after confirming that he is being honest, to which he just said: 'Oh yeah, I'm like, super rich by now,' I accepted his generous offer, and not even half an hour later I had eight and a half million dollars in my bank account, which really made me question his apparent faith.
  
  Then again, with a member of the Nine on call, I suppose there's no reason to really fear me turning traitor. Also, it is 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 weird to know that I have one of the Nine's numbers in my phone, even if I've never called it.
  
  A part of me wonders if Negante is just that rich that a few million isn't a big deal to him. I guess the drug trade really pays, though I have to wonder just which part of the drug trade he is in, he never gave details after all.
  
  After that, he let me know to call March, another Clown, or Tear if I ever need to buy some hard to get materials, because apparently, while Tear has connections, only March is actually in a position to make use of them.
  
  A bit of rooting around online tells me that those 'connections' are probably with the Elite, and obviously I called March, for reasons that don't need explaining really.
  
  All of this lead to that idea in the back of my mind surging forward to the forefront now that the materials needed to build it are all available to me, and at that point I just couldn't stop myself.
  
  And so, two weeks after becoming an official Clown, I had done it.
  
  My magnum opus, the Firmament-driver, or F-driver for short.
  
  A weapon so powerful it could shatter the moon, or at least part of it, and hit it with enough force to knock it out of orbit.
  
  However, that all leads to now, me sitting here, in what should be a 𝘩𝘪𝘥𝘥𝘦𝘯 base, surrounded by blaring sirens and warning noises, telling me how just about every single one of my intruder alarms is going off, and most of my defences, rudimentary as they were considering my power's proclivity towards exact timing, have been set off or otherwise destroyed.
  
  I don't know how it came to this. Everything was going just fine, all until it wasn't.
  
  After finishing my F-driver, I obviously wanted to put it to good use. Negante wanted something fun? I was going to give him something fun, and since it was the 2nd of July when I finished it, I had the perfect idea.
  
  The 4th of July, Independence day.
  
  Every American loves celebrating Independence day, and those celebrations almost always include a whole lot of fireworks.
  
  So why not show the world what a 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘦 firework looks like?
  
  So I sent out my demands not just to the American government themselves, but to every world leader of any significance, my demands being simple.
  
  Work together to give me ten billion dollars, or I'll blow the moon out of orbit.
  
  Ten billion is a perfectly reasonable amount to demand, with each of them chipping in it wouldn't even be too hard to gather, and my actions would have an effect on the entire planet, so no one country should have to foot the bill anyway.
  
  That was two days ago.
  
  Yesterday, my drones sent me video of a particularly determined looking Alexandria tearing through my decoy base in Wyoming with a particular energy that makes me think she's not too happy with me for some reason.
  
  Though, she's a lot less intimidating when you know exactly what she looks like under that suit of hers, though her face is still secret, so no one knows her identity, but everyone 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 know that she has an innie, so you win some you lose some, I guess.
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘴𝘩!
  
  Jumping from my seat, I spin rapidly around at the sudden noise, my surprise dimming to bitter resentment as I take in the sight of a particularly vindictive looking Alexandria.
  
  Speak of the Devil and she shall appear, huh.
  
  "Alexandria! Don't you know it's rude to show up without being invited, especially without even knoc-𝘨𝘶𝘩!" My sarcastic words are interrupted by an unyielding hand around my throat as the 'Invincible Woman' blurs down at me, pushing me into the wall behind me.
  
  My back crashes into my monitors, shattering them as she keeps pushing, not letting up until my back is against the wall, my feet half a foot higher than my desk and bits and pieces of my monitors digging into my back.
  
  Looking into her reflective visor, I see my own eyes blown wide, from the steadily growing fear or the lack of breath I couldn't say, but as I see what is visible of her face set into a stone cold line, I start to worry that she's just going to kill me.
  
  No ones around and I don't keep any cameras in here, she could easily write me off as an 'unfortunate accident' and as it gets harder and harder to breathe, I feel a primal sort of terror start to take over my mind.
  
  I'm going to die.
  
  This isn't how this was supposed to go.
  
  I can't die here!
  
  I can't-
  
  I don't want to die.
  
  As my vision starts to fade, I reach out, desperately trying to push her arm away, no matter how futile it is, and as darkness starts to overtake me, I barely manage to force out one word.
  
  "Puh... lea... se." Darkness is all that follows my desperate plea.
  
  I don't know how long I was unconscious, but when I wake up, I find myself incapable of moving.
  
  It takes me a little while to gather my bearings enough to take in my surroundings, my head feeling fuzzy, a feeling I recognise to be drug induced, meaning I've been sedated.
  
  Yet, when I am finally in a state to be taking in my surroundings, I am left sorely disappointed, as all that I can see is that I am in a plain, small metal box, my arms trapped in a straitjacket and my mouth muzzled.
  
  But the part that truly makes me feel panic, is the stylised dragon coiling around a birdcage that is emblazoned on the front of the straitjacket.
  
  Dragon.
  
  Birdcage.
  
  They're going to Birdcage me.
  
  Unless I'm already in the Birdcage? No one truly knows what it's like after all, but I really, 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 hope I'm still being transported, because if 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 is all I have to look forward to for the rest of my life, then I'm going to go crazy.
  
  Luckily for my rising panic, I feel a sudden shudder as my surroundings lurch slightly, followed by an almost blinding light suddenly peeking through a slowly growing crack in the wall.
  
  The crack keeps growing until it's clear that it's actually just a door being lowered, allowing me to see outside of the room.
  
  The sight does not bring me any joy.
  
  It's a courtroom.
  
  Fuck.
  
  Fuck fuck fuck fuck, fuck!
  
  They're really going to Birdcage me.
  
  It doesn't matter that I'm muzzled, nothing I could say would change anything. This is just going to be another sham trial, and I'm going to get sentenced to eternal imprisonment in the one prison that no one has ever escaped.
  
  However, right as I feel like I'm about to have a panic attack, I remember something that helps calm me down, if only slightly.
  
  The Clowns.
  
  I may only be new, but I'm still a Clown right?
  
  They'll come help me, come bust me out of my transport.
  
  They'll keep me out of the 'Cage.
  
  ... They will, right?
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Fun fact! When I started this fic, there were 3 people I had in mind for joining the Clowns, they are the only 3 people that I planned ahead of time to join up, everyone else was just going with the flow.
  
  2 of those people have now joined, the first was March, the second String Theory(she doesn't have a canon name btw), both of them are characters that I know basically nothing about beyond what the wiki says, as March is from Worms sequel, that I haven't read, and String hardly has any detail about who she is.
  
  Naturally, in typical me fashion of refusing to make things easy for myself, the third person is also a woman from Worms sequel that I know nothing about beyond her wiki, but I'll keep her as a surprise, unless someone manages to guess her, which, going by y'alls' guessing ability that you've displayed, I highly doubt is gonna happen lol
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
  previous chapternext chapterchapter list
  115 Interlude: PHO, the Recap Episode
  A/N: Ok, just wanna say, I think I may have overestimated Discord's ability to write my chapters for me, so while they did help a decent amount, I've still had to edit and add stuff anyway :(
  
  And here I was thinking I'd be able to skip a day and let other people do the work for me...
  
  Either way, if this chap sucks, don't blame me
  
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  Topic: General Discussion
  
  In: Boards ► U.S.A ► Recent Events ► Groups ► Slaughterhouse 9
  
  Bagrat (Original Poster) (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
  
  Posted On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  Ok, I've seen a lot of threads popping up talking about the Nine's most recent activities, and decided to open this Megathread to compact everything down and keep the facts straight.
  
  So as you are all no doubt already aware, the Nine hit Columbus down in Georgia, and they hit it Hard.
  
  As in, a 87% fatality rate hard.
  
  I'll just get straight to the point and put the facts down, along with a small timeline.
  
  First I will start with their roster, as well as links to their respective threads, which was assumed to have been: Jack Slash [ LINK ], Bonesaw [ LINK ], Shatterbird [ LINK ], Crawler [ LINK ], Siberian [ LINK ], Hatchet face [ LINK ], Mannequin [ LINK ], Chuckles [ LINK ].
  
  However, it seems that at some point between their last appearance and this one, they somehow managed to recruit a new Villain who has swiftly gained a fearsome reputation, Tear. I'll leave a link here for more on her. [ LINK ]
  
  It is assumed that Tear killed Chuckles, as he appears to have disappeared.
  
  As the Nine were not at full capacity, they were recruiting, and the known 'candidates' were the Heroes: 'Candy' [ LINK ] and 'Magne' [ LINK ], alongside the Ward 'Carrot' [ LINK ]. Joining them, were the Villains: 'White King' [ LINK ], 'The Bull' [ LINK ], 'Thotslayer' (yes, that was his actual cape name, yes he chose it himself) [ LINK ], 'Black Queen' [ LINK ] and finally 'Matador' [ LINK ].
  
  February 28th:
  
  A small village called Cimarron is wiped out by the Nine. My sources say that this was probably when Tear joined them, likely killing Chuckles at the same time, possibly offended by sharing the clown gimmick.
  
  April 1-3rd:
  
  It is believed that the Nine entered city grounds some time between the first and third of April.
  
  April 4th:
  
  Things start of with a bang as Shatterbird does what she is known best for and shatters all the glass, as well as anything silicon based, in the city.
  
  Mannequin manages to sneak into the local PRT HQ, giving his test to Candy, which cost her her hands.
  
  Hatchet face is seen hunting down and killing The Bull
  
  April 5th:
  
  Tear also tests Candy. I don't know the details but it lead to the death of one Ward, Batman [ LINK ]
  
  Siberian spotted chasing Thotslayer through the city
  
  April 6th:
  
  Matador is spotted running around, looking psychotic [ VIDEO ], likely as a result of Bonesaw
  
  The gang known as 'The Northside Boys' [ LINK ] is wiped out by Jack Slash and Crawler
  
  Tear is seen wandering around with Black Queen
  
  Candy, unfortunately, ends her own life. The exact reason is unknown, but I'm sure we can all guess why.
  
  April 7th:
  
  Hatchet Face is seen killing Matador
  
  Crawler assaults the PRT HQ, briefly attacking the two remaining Wards before being locked in a fight with Magne, who drops a freakin' skyscraper on him, burying Crawler for a good amount of time.
  
  While the above is happening, Tear uses the distraction to 'test' Carrot, causing her to Second Trigger.
  
  April 8th:
  
  It's around here that people start to realise that the violence breaking out throughout the city is actually the fault of a virus made by Bonesaw, it's not until the next day that anyone figured out that it's in the salt
  
  Siberian is spotted hunting Black Queen this time, except with some.. Bonesaw modifications. Here's a picture it's grainy but my sources couldn't find anything better [ IMAGE ]
  
  Some good news, as Mannequin ends up killed by Carrot (though she had resigned at that point, but it's against the rules to use real names, so..
  
  April 9th:
  
  At this point, communications are down basically everywhere and people have finally learned their lessons about being outside, so information is much more scarce.
  
  Black Queen is spotted killing Thotslayer
  
  A large amount of people disappeared, exact reason unknown
  
  April 10th:
  
  Bonesaw, Crawler and Jack Slash show up to test Magne, revealing that he'd been a candidate the whole time, something he didn't share. They demand that he kills the surrounding innocents, but he refuses and fights back, bravely dying in the process.
  
  A dozen or so traumatised civilians come out saying that they were used as a part of Tear's test for White King, where she made him play chess, just with actual people as the pieces. I won't go into details, because frankly I think it needs it's own thread, but White King ended up dying during the second game.
  
  April 11th:
  
  Tear gets in a fight with the Heroes Asura [ LINK ] and Devi [ LINK ], seemingly just for her own amusement as she beat the duo into the ground before leaving, thankfully sparing them.
  
  April 12:
  
  Seemingly nothing happens, but I assume that's more the fault of information not spreading, than it is them doing nothing.
  
  April 13th:
  
  Crawler spotted testing Black Queen
  
  A cure for Bonesaw's virus is found and swiftly spread
  
  April 14th:
  
  Traps are discovered throughout the city, later investigation showing them to be present basically everywhere
  
  And then finally, on April 15th they finally seemed to just disappear into the night, leaving the city with a little over one tenth it's population, and only a third of it's capes and it's believed that Carrot and Black Queen both passed, filling out their number.
  
  Welp, that's everything I've got folks, please keep discussions civil, I understand if emotions might be running high, they always are when S-class threats are involved, but that's no reason to bring everyone else down.
  
  Edit: Carrot and Black Queen are both confirmed to be in the Nine now, under the names of 'Crusher' and 'Murder Bear' respectively, kill orders have been issued.
  
  (Showing page 1 of 56)
  
  ►Eggmanstan
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  Holy shit, that's a lot of people. Scary to think that shit like that can just happen.
  
  ►Eric8the4lost
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  How did they even get a virus into that much salt in the first place?
  
  ►Dao_of_Bibliomania
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  -Eric8the4lost Tinkers are Bullshit, everyone knows this
  
  ►Suger
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  I'm sure glad I don't live in the US, it feels like every other day there's some horrific shit going on down there
  
  ►ChaoticThief
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  Personally, I'm just worried about what this will mean for the future. I mean, think about it, this is probably the highest casualty count from anything the Nine have done before, but what if it means they're just stepping things up from now on?
  
  Is anyone actually going to stop them? Can they even be stopped?
  
  All I'm saying is that they only seem to be getting scarier as the years go by, why hasn't Eidolon just gone over and used the mystical powers of 'fuck you' to kill them all by now?
  
  ►Eric8the4lost
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  -ChaoticThief Bonesaw and Siberian probably?
  
  ►Aloha
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  Eidolons power is to have all the powers, surely he can magic away any viruses she'd have in her body, and come up with something to deal with Siberian.
  
  ►Dao_of_Bibliomania
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  -Aloha This is just a rumour but I have heard from a friend that he has been getting weaker.
  
  Also, is no one going to talk about how Tear seems to be getting stronger? Like, if you look at those videos from when she was making a mess of Columbus (can't believe I have to specify this, but the last Columbus, not the recent one) she seemed way weaker than she apparently is now
  
  ►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Temp-Banned)
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  FINNALLY! Someone with a brain!
  
  Can't you people see! Eidolon isn't real! He's a robot made by aliens to take over the world! And now he's runnig out of battery!
  
  I've been telling you for YEARS not to trust him!
  
  End of Page. 1 , 2, 3... 54, 55, 56
  
  (Showing page 2 of 56)
  
  ►Answer Key
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  -Dao_of_Bibliomania Wlep, there goes that theory, if Void is agreeing with you then you know your wrong.
  
  Also, I don't think Tear seemingly growing is really something that is too scary. If anything, she's probably just like Crawler. He got way stronger super quick until he got to where he is now and hasn't changed much.
  
  I highly doubt we've got another Faerie Queen situation on our hands.
  
  ... God I hope we don't have another Faerie Queen situation on our hands. Good job she's locked away nice and safe in the ol' 'Cage
  
  ►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Temp-Banned)
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  The Birdcage isn't real!
  
  Don't be fooled! The Birdcage is just an excuse to excecute anyone that goes against them!
  
  ►TinMom (Veteran Member) (Wiki Warrior) (Moderator)
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  Alright Void, calm down and keep your discussions relevant to the topic at hand, and please stop spreading your conspiracy theories.
  
  If you keep derailing things further then I will give you a Temp-ban... again
  
  ►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Temp-Banned)
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  [Message deleted by Moderator]
  
  ... you'll learn one day Void, that day is not today - TinMom
  
  ►Veela
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  Does anyone know what the situation is like in Columbus now that they're gone? I had a friend who lived there and they're not answering my calls, I know they're probably gone, but I just need to know for sure what it's like.
  
  ►Bagrat (Original Poster) (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  -Dao_of_Biblomania The situation is not good to say the least, the city is still in the midst of being evacuated and there are talks about just putting it under a quarantine zone and abandoning it altogether
  
  This has been a tragedy, no one can doubt that, but from what I've seen, people seem to have just accepted that stuff like this happening is par for the course by now, there's hardly even been much of a response.
  
  Are we all really so used to this shit that we just don't care anymore?
  
  ... It sucks that I already know the answer to my question
  
  ►Venniksu (Temp-Banned)
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  Im drunk af nice to meet you and see you whatever Im drunk Ven
  
  ►TinMom (Veteran Member) (Wiki Warrior) (Moderator)
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  -Venniksu Take a temp ban to cool down, and please do be mindful of the threads you enter under the influence :)
  
  ►Thotslayer's #1 Fan
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  I refuse to belive it! Thotslayer wouldn't die to some bitch like that!
  
  And these filthy fucking degenerates who I keep seeing talking about how Tear and Siberian are "hot" need to be put down like a dog! They are cannibals for fucks sake!
  
  Why haven't Triumvirate come down on them like the hammer of a righteous god by now!?
  
  ►Krull
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  Tho, if we are what we eat
  
  Isn't she mostly innocent?
  
  End of Page. 1, 2 , 3, 4... 54, 55, 56
  
  (Showing page 3 of 56)
  
  ►Shed a Tear (Verified Cape) (Banned) (Verified Slaughterer) (Verified Serial Killer) (Verified Cannibal) (Clown)
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  -Krull I'm glad someone here has a brain
  
  -Thotslayer's #1 Fan Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
  
  I watched Thotslayer die, haha, the loser squeled like a pig, how lameeeee.
  
  Imagine dying to a woman with cute little bear ears lmfao, what a loooserrr XDDD
  
  I'd also like to take this opportunity to confirm that Carrot and Queenie did in fact join the dark side, though they go by Crusher and Murder Bear now (cuz she's a bear and she murders people, like Thotslayer lmaooooo)
  
  ►TinMom (Veteran Member) (Wiki Warrior) (Moderator)
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  -Shed a Tear I am well aware you will not listen to me, but I have to say anyways. Please do not directly reference crimes, and please do not threaten people's lives, you only have one warning
  
  ►Shed a Tear (Verified Cape) (Banned) (Verified Slaughterer) (Verified Serial Killer) (Verified Cannibal) (Clown)
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  [Message deleted by Moderator]
  
  Please do not threaten PHO staff, enjoy another 10 day ban - TinMom
  
  ►FoolishEndeavours (Verified Cape) (Verified Fool) (Temp-Banned) (Clown)
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  [Message deleted by Moderators]
  
  Since I know that -Shed a Tear most likely forced you to write that, I will chose not to take it personally and just give you a temp ban to join her - TinMom
  
  ►Feychick
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  kind of wild that being a literal serial killer with an actual Kill Order doesn't stop Tear from shitposting online, also, who gave her all those tags?
  
  ►TinMom (Veteran Member) (Wiki Warrior) (Moderator)
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  -Feychick She threatened to send videos of her... proving that the tags fit to the Moderators, so we decided that it was better to just give them to her if the alternative is that people could end up dying.
  
  ►Feychick
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  Ah, yeah.. fair enough
  
  ►Oglan (Snek)
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  ►Fisch in 1 Bowl ( ✷ ‿ ✷ )
  
  Replied On Apr 18th 2009:
  
  ( ✷ ‿ ✷ )
  
  End of Page. 1, 2, 3 , 4, 5... 54, 55, 56
  
  Topic: Clowns?
  
  In: Boards ► U.S.A ► Recent events ► Groups
  
  BadSamurai (Original Poster)
  
  Posted On Jun 19th 2008:
  
  So, is anyone else noticing a weird amount of Clown themed capes showing up recently?
  
  I looked back and found that it seems to have been started by a cape called Tear (yes, that Tear) who showed up in Columbus (no, not that Columbus, the one in Ohio) wearing a clown get up, and now there's a bunch of them.
  
  The most obvious is Fool, who I'm sure everyone here is aware of by now thanks to FoolsNet, but it's not like he's the only one.
  
  There's also Negante (who really seems to be a kid)
  
  There's March, who seems to be a bunny-clown? Either way, she's in NY, and she only showed up after Tear left NY
  
  There's Harlequin, who showed up some time later, though she hasn't done anything much yet
  
  There's also Vendor, who mostly just seems to be selling stuff
  
  And then, literally just yesterday, Sting Theory of all people showed up with the Clown tag
  
  [ LINK ] here for the craziness that is Sting Theory (please don't blow me up)
  
  But from what I've seen, they don't seem to be like, an actual group that holds territory and stuff, so I'm just wondering if anybody knows what's going on with this?
  
  (Showing page 13 of 17)
  
  ►Shed a Tear (Verified Cape) (Banned) (Verified Slaughterer) (Verified Serial Killer) (Verified Cannibal) (Clown)
  
  Replied On Jun 19th 2008:
  
  Don't you worry Mister Samurai! We're not another Elite or anything like that, just making friends, that's all. ;)
  
  End of Page. 1, 2, 3... 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17
  
  A/N: He~llo Dear Readers!
  
  Welp, that was a lazy chapter, things will kick off again with the next chap.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
  previous chapternext chapterchapter list
  116 Precipice of Change
  Northern Wyoming, July 4th, 23:32
  
  Despite the speed at which we are moving as we run through the midnight forest, neither Sibby nor I make a sound, dashing through the trees and untamed wilds with the grace of a true predator, our eyes unbothered by the darkness of the night as we hunt some game.
  
  The others are all back with the RV, except for Crawler, who's probably gone to stretch his legs, waiting for us to come back with some meat to cook.
  
  Not that we don't have any food available, but apparently it's not as good as fresh meat, and Crawler has quite the appetite anyway.
  
  Though, even with all that, actually feeding the others is only really half the reason we're out here, the other half simply being that it's fun and we enjoy the hunt.
  
  We've even made a little game out of it, whoever catches the most prey wins, and the loser owes one favour to the winner.
  
  Now, normally that would just be an excuse for me to sexually assault her, but this time there's actually a more important reason.
  
  See, a couple of days ago, something absolutely 𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 happened. James somehow managed to convince String Theory to turn Clown, which I am all for, since she's been threatening to blow shit up completely at random since 2006, from gas stations in Indonesia to nuclear power plants, and that is already hilarious.
  
  But a couple of days ago, she somehow managed to top even that by threatening to 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘸 𝘶𝘱 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘰𝘯.
  
  How fucking wild is that?! It's like some James Bond villain shit, and I am unashamed to admit that I spent a solid half hour laughing my ass off when I heard about it.
  
  However, impulsive I may be, I'm not stupid, and clearly Theory hasn't thought this through, because obviously this isn't exactly a threat that can just be ignored, and even if they mostly act like a neutered guard dog, the PRT 𝘪𝘴 actually capable of being incredibly competent when they want to.
  
  Which is why I have spent the last two days preparing things for my betrayal of Jack.
  
  Originally my plan was to just catch him alone and murder him, taking control rather forcefully, but we've been travelling through Wyoming of all states recently, so there hasn't been an opportunity.
  
  Then again, Jack's probably caught on to that plan and was purposefully avoiding isolating himself, and he's probably also caught on to the fact that I'm speeding up my preparations.
  
  It's not like he doesn't know I'm going to betray him after all, but so far, every time I've considered ending things, something interesting has happened to keep me distracted.
  
  And while I can clearly tell that he's manipulating me, and enjoying himself doing so, I haven't really been bothered by it. After all, I 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 been having fun, but a Clown is going to either be arrested or killed, and I need to be prepared to act on that, either in retaliation or rescue.
  
  This is an important moment for my Clowns, since whatever happens now will set a precedent, and reputation is incredibly important in the Cape game, so I need to ensure that we get a proper reputation from the get go.
  
  Then again, maybe String Theory simply won't be caught and I'm underestimating her. She's clearly not too incompetent if she's so confident in her claim of knocking the moon out of orbit, but it's better to be prepared.
  
  Which is why I've spent the last couple of days doing some professional socialising.
  
  It's honestly been a blast, this little game between Jack and I. Treating the others like chess pieces, balancing their loyalties, measuring whose side they'd take, what their responses would be and how to best get them to side with us.
  
  It's fun.
  
  Crawler is already on my side, he's probably my most solid piece, my Queen so to speak, and I'm sure Jack has given up on taking back control of him, focusing instead on the others.
  
  Shatterbird is a tough one, constantly in a state of flux since on one hand, she seems to have something of an unrequited crush on Jack, something I have no doubt he knows of and is ready to use to his advantage, but I'm also basically her best friend, so I don't know if I'll have to kill her or if she'll join me.
  
  Bonesaw is much the same, but I have a feeling she'll more likely stick to Jack. She's his Queen, and he's had years to sink his fangs into her psyche, so I'm not sure if being her 'big sister' would be enough to betray 'uncle Jack,' actually, scrap that. She'd side with him.
  
  But that brings me to Sibby, she's the wildcard, since I can't really read her properly and I'm unsure how much control over her Jack has. All we know for certain is that she is incredibly affectionate of Bonesaw, which puts Jack at an advantage when it comes to recruiting her.
  
  Hence the current bet. My favour will either be to side with me, or to at least hear me out so that I can have a chance to convince her that Bonesaw is better off with me than Jack.
  
  The others are kind of inconsequential to be honest.
  
  Hatchet is already dead, replaced by Burnscar, who is basically a non factor. If she's not around any fire then she'll just be little more than a doll, dead behind the eyes, and if she's around fire then she'll just go crazy anyway, rather than reliably joining one of us.
  
  Bear is unimportant, since she's too weak to make a difference of any kind, but she'd probably side with me on account of Jack taking her voice away, and me being more fun, actually having taken the time to talk with her, instead of treating her like a pet, like I do with Crawler.
  
  Crusher will side with me though, if only so she can stab me in the back later. She's an interesting one.
  
  On one hand, she wants to hate me, but on the other hand I think she looks up to me to some degree, at the very least, she subconsciously views me as some kind of authority figure, so she'll do what I say.
  
  Honestly, I'm not too worried. With just Crawler and Crusher I'm confident we could take the others if need be, but I'd rather not waste so many powerful Parahumans.
  
  Each of them could do so many interesting things in the future after all, it'd be a shame to cut that potential short.
  
  But, again, this is all dependant on String Theory needing the help, since I'm not going to do anything until then, purely because I know Jack won't let me take a week off or something, and I don't trust him near any of my toys, he'll just break them.
  
  As these thoughts are going through my head, I don't stop hunting, using my enhanced senses to find any wildlife I can, finding a lone buck to go with all of the rabbits I've got dangling behind me, held aloft by my tentacles.
  
  Right as I'm about to drop down on the unsuspecting deer, I am startled by a sudden ringing sound and nearly lose my footing.
  
  The buck flinches violently before crouching down, about to run away from the unexpected sound above it, but I move faster than it can, my arm blurring forward as I throw a small, crystalised spike of pure Ichor at it.
  
  It's head snaps to the side from the force of the strike and I jump down from my branch to land by it's side as I pull out my Clown phone, looking down to see the caller ID: 'GayGayVaginaLoser.'
  
  Well, that is incredibly unhelpful.
  
  I should really start giving my contacts list proper names, because honestly this could be anyone.
  
  As I ponder that mystery, I reach down and pull out my Ichor dagger, pausing to look at it for a moment to contemplate if Ichor is really a good name for whatever it is that my power is made out of.
  
  There's a bunch of it stored in each of the four sacs in my back, so I feel like it should have a proper name, but I think I can do better than Ichor, for now it's just a placeholder, because indirectly calling myself a goddess is funny.
  
  Still, better not leave 'GayGayVaginaLoser' to go to voicemail.
  
  "Hello! You've reached Throb and Spurt's Sexy Emporium, we make them, you fuck them. How can I help you today?" I say immediately after answering, not given them a chance to start the conversation.
  
  I am greeted by silence for a moment, and I can only imagine the person on the other end moving their phone to in front of their eyes, looking confusedly at it to see if they got the wrong number.
  
  "... Tear?" A cautious voice asks, and I quickly identify the voice to be Harlequin's.
  
  I let out a little snicker at her tone before I answer, using my ribbons to pick up the deer as I do so.
  
  "Got it in one!~ What's up? We haven't spoken in a bit, you having fun?~"
  
  She lets out a small huff of amusement before she answers, her voice mirthful.
  
  "Yea actually, I've been having a blast. I never realised how much I missed playing spy games, and the fact that it's all at my own discretion instead of just following orders is a nice change of pace, but that's not why I called. String Theory got nabbed earlier today by Alexandria, and I hear that she's getting birdcaged. They're going to do a sham trial for her, just so they can say that she 𝘩𝘢𝘥 a trial, but I'd give it less than 48 hours before she's locked away forever, and I'm not really in a position to do anything about it."
  
  Despite the seriousness of the conversation, she sounds completely casual about it all, but even then, the first thought that comes to mind is how she didn't even comment on how I answered the phone.
  
  Still, this is what I was wating for. No more delays I suppose, Jack dies tonight.
  
  "Good to know, don't worry about busting her out, I'll handle that myself. I figured this would probably happen anyway, she did threaten to blow up the 𝘮𝘰𝘰𝘯 after all," I hear a snort from the other end as she laughs at the ridiculousness of that statement, but I ignore it to keep talking, "so I'll deal with it, I just need you to keep an ear out, I'll call you back in a bit and I want to know everything about where she is, where she's going to be and who's going to be her escort."
  
  "Sure thing, I can do that. I've made some new friends and I've already got Fool doing a little investigating to see if he can come up with anything else." Her response makes me smile a little, happy that she's actively trying to help her fellow Clown.
  
  Though, I get the feeling that she's testing me as well, looking to see just how dedicated I actually am to helping out other Clowns. I guess she wants to know if I'll really back her up if it comes down to it.
  
  Silly woman, as if I'd ever turn down an opportunity to push back the ever encroaching threat of boredom.
  
  Besides, I love new experiences, breaking someone out of a prison transport should be fun, especially if she's well defended, which I feel it's safe to assume she will be.
  
  So after giving a temporary goodbye, I return my phone to my pocket and start making my way over to the meeting point Sibby and I decided on.
  
  I don't really need to bother hunting anything more, the bet was rigged from the start since she's limited in what she can carry, while I have a bunch of extra limbs I can use to assist me, plus I actually have clothes, so, pockets.
  
  As I walk into the clearing however, I can't help but wonder, what the fuck am I going to say to Sibby?
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Alrighty! I thought the whole Nine thing would have more shit happening, but eh, I'm bored of *Goes to place, kills people, goes to other place, repeat* and I can't really see Lusia not getting bored after a couple months of it.
  
  Also, fuck me. I just have to give myself the hard shit. I may enjoy psychology as a hobby, but I'm not a professional and Bonesaw has so many fucking mental problems, WHAT THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO WRITEEE!
  
  You have to understand that I will have to write not one, but 2 incredibly manipulative people, both with unnatural insight as they both try and manipulate the same, incredibly traumatised and broken ten year old at the same time. I'm gonna cry, there's so many extreme psychological profiles interacting with each other, I can see why jack would find keeping them all in line so fun, but damn if it isn't a challenge
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  117 Charisma is the Best Stat
  Standing in the small forest clearing, surrounded by rabbit corpses and a single adult deer, it doesn't take too long for Sibby to arrive, carrying a deer of her own in one hand while she uses her mouth and other hand to carry a few rabbits.
  
  Yet, in spite of all the blood leaking from the animals' wounds, her skin is completely untouched by it, which means that she is simply not allowing the blood to stick to her for once.
  
  I guess she prefers hunting humans then, because she generally walks around covered in gore for at least a little while after hunting people.
  
  We're far enough away from the others that I'm pretty sure Jack's mind reading thing that he can do won't work, se we've got time, and if it turns out that I don't actually have time, then I guess I'll just have to brute force things.
  
  Jack's pretty weak anyway.
  
  "Heya Tiger!~ Looks like I caught more than you~", I say, gesturing to my own corpse pile that is almost twice as large as her own.
  
  Pockets for the win.
  
  Naturally, she doesn't say anything in return, only giving me her usual smirk as a response as she saunters up to me.
  
  Knowing that she won't speak, I continue doing so instead.
  
  "You know what that means, one favour is owed~", I say, matching her smirk with one of my own, even as I ready myself to jump away if she turns violent.
  
  Her smirk widens slightly and she adds a distracting sway to her hips as she struts forward until she is right in front of me, clearly expecting my favour to be the 'fun' kind of favour.
  
  Sorry to disappoint, but I've actually thought this through, if only a little bit, and I've come to the conclusion that the best way to keep her on my side is to just be blunt and forthcoming.
  
  Most relationship problems can all be solved with just a little communication after all, I just need to lay everything out before she can come to conclusions of her own.
  
  So, blunt admission it is.
  
  "I want you to do nothing as I kill Jack.~"
  
  Immediately, her eyes narrow at me, but I don't back away, matching her stare with my own, much more carefree one.
  
  Thankfully, she doesn't immediately resort to violence, and I make sure to keep still so as to avoid setting her off as I prepare my argument.
  
  "Jack and I are going to have a disagreement, one that cannot be solved without one of us dying. I'm asking you to stand on my side, instead of his."
  
  Putting it like this will hopefully give the impression that it's not 'my' fault this is happening, keeping myself firmly out of the blame.
  
  Though, frankly I think I've been overthinking this whole thing. It's not like it's unheard of for members of the Nine to kill each other, so I don't think that will be much of an issue.
  
  The issue is that Jack is the lynchpin holding the group together, and for Siberian, Jack is Bonesaw's 'uncle' and effective father figure of sorts, so while I doubt she really cares much about his life, she definitely cares about Bonesaw's feelings for him.
  
  That is the challenge here, getting Siberian to see Jack's death as less impactful than my own.
  
  The others are honestly more likely to side with me, I think. A lot of us are newer, meaning Jack wouldn't have had the time to sink his metaphorical claws into them, the only issue being Shatterbird's little crush on Jack, but I think he's helped me out with that anyway, since all I should have to do is point out how he's never returned her affections.
  
  I just need to get him to admit to knowingly ignoring them and I win.
  
  "Why. Should I?" The voice, barely a whisper, shocks me out of my thoughts like the tolling of the final bell.
  
  I almost recoil as I look at Siberian in complete shock, unable to even formulate a coherent thought as her voice, silent as a whisper, but as clear as day, echoes in my mind.
  
  She can speak!?
  
  "... You can speak?", I mutter, but she does not respond and I quickly do my best to gather myself, deciding to ruminate on this revelation at a later date, "right, of course you can talk, why not."
  
  Taking a deep breath, I attempt to bring back my previous thoughts on what I was going to say, mostly succeeding in my endeavour.
  
  "Jack is a manipulative Edgelord. He's a self absorbed child with the ego of a god and a compulsive desire to destroy everything around him. I'm way more fun than him, and besides, aren't you tired of following orders? Don't you want to be free? 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘭𝘺 free? It's 𝘌𝘹𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨." I breathe, letting my feelings of wanderlust infuse with my voice.
  
  Her squinted eyes gain a dangerous gleam to them as I speak, and though her response is whispered all the same, there is a hint of threat to it that wasn't there prior.
  
  "I 𝘢𝘮 free", is all she says, causing my smirk to widen.
  
  "Maybe for now.~ You have freedom to run, to do as you like. It's nice.~ But you're going to chafe at it sooner or later.~ You're going to realize that you're still in a cage 𝘩𝘦 made. You're still following 𝘩𝘪𝘴 rules, in the end.~"
  
  I can tell that I'm only pissing her off more, but that's the thing about communication in relationships, you have to work through the hard stuff first, as things will only get better once everything is on the table. Got to rip the band-aid off, so to speak.
  
  "Maybe you can be happy like this.~ A dog, collar around your neck, a long chain. You'll never 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘭𝘺 be free. The best you could hope for is a pat on the head when you're good, when you do as you should, maybe some freedom to hunt whenever you're a 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭.~ But maybe that's what you want.~"
  
  The thing with changing peoples minds about things, is that people are stubborn, and don't like accepting new thoughts if they don't come up with them themselves.
  
  The trick, is making them come to the conclusion you're painting for them by themselves, which is best done by getting them to actually engage in the conversation, to slip up, give you something to work with.
  
  She moves closer, one of her clawed hands gently resting on my neck, the threat clear as moves her face close enough that our noses are almost touching.
  
  "Jack does not 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘭 me. No one does. No one could", she breathes, her voice sounding almost ethereal.
  
  Heh. My smirk widens.
  
  Checkmate.
  
  "Really?~", I ask, smugly, "maybe not directly, no. But can you honestly tell me that there is anything you 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯'𝘵 do, if Bonesaw were to simply ask you to?~"
  
  Her eyes widen marginally, turning slightly less accusatory as she thinks about my words, but I don't want her to come up with any kind of explanation by herself. I need to control the outcome.
  
  "Bonesaw controls you, though she'd probably never try and take your freedom away, but 𝘑𝘢𝘤𝘬 controls 𝘉𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘢𝘸 and he won't share the same compunctions about controlling 𝘺𝘰𝘶. Yet, he does not care for her, not like you and I. He doesn't view her as a daughter, but as a tool. She'd be better with us than with 𝘩𝘪𝘮. He keeps her on a leash, one far tighter than your own. We could show her 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘰𝘮. We could teach her that 𝘦𝘹𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 feeling. All we have to do first, is get rid of Jack."
  
  I honestly can't tell what she's feeling. Siberian has been impossible to read since I first saw her and that's not going to suddenly change, even with the revelation that she's not actually a mute.
  
  But she's not ripping me to pieces, so I'm probably getting to her, maybe.
  
  "Join me. You know Jack well enough to know that he'll get bored of Bonesaw eventually, that he'll break her and toss her away like the petulant child that he is. 𝘐 will let her be 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦."
  
  I'm pretty sure I'm convincing her, but I don't really know for certain until she leans forward and surprises me by giving me a short, soft kiss on the lips.
  
  Before I can even say anything about it, she peaks up again, her voice just as soft as ever. "As of this moment, you're the only one to hear me speak and live afterwards."
  
  ... Ok. I think that means I win, right?
  
  Sibby doesn't wait up for me after saying her piece, choosing instead to simply pick up her deer and a couple rabbits and start walking back to the RV, casual as can be.
  
  ... I guess that means she's on my side, right?
  
  I'm just going to move forward with the assumption that I've won her over, which means that Jack has already lost. All that's really left to see is if Shatterbird will die as well.
  
  I type out and send off a quick text before turning back to my corpse pile and grabbing most of it, setting off after Siberian immediately after in a light jog.
  
  I catch up to her in no time and we both stroll together in comfortable silence, completely casual despite what is about to happen, though that's probably just got to do with how neither of us believes we can be killed by any of the others.
  
  Well, I know Sibby and Crawler 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 probably kill me, but they're too slow to actually do so.
  
  A short walk later and the forest starts tapering away, making way for the dirt road we were traveling down.
  
  The RV is parked right in the middle of the road, none of us worried about being in peoples' way since if they see us, they'll probably just be killed anyway, probably by their own car's glass too.
  
  I've noticed that Shatterbird tends to get antsy if she doesn't get to prover her superiority over others as much as she wants, so she's generally trigger happy after a couple days of not killing anyone.
  
  Honestly, sometimes I get the feeling that she's going to pick a fight with someone, only to remember that everyone else would beat her in a fight, or at least be capable of hurting and matching her, which is a humiliation she wouldn't be able to stand.
  
  Well, except for Bear I guess, because she's pretty weak, so picking on her wouldn't really prove anything. It's like kicking a sad, wet, disabled puppy that just got hit by lightning.
  
  Not exactly something to be proud of.
  
  Though it would be pretty funny to see that series of events play out.
  
  I'm actually kind of surprised that she's even still alive. It's probably a testament to her mind really.
  
  Speaking of though, as we enter the clearing I catch no sight of Bear, or Crawler for that matter.
  
  Instead, there is only Burnscar, Shatterbird and Crusher sitting around a campfire, the former two sitting next to each other and chatting quietly while Crusher is just sitting on the floor, leaning back against a log as she stares blankly up at the stars.
  
  Jack and Bonesaw are probably still in the RV.
  
  "Just keep Bonesaw safe", I whisper to Sibby right before the three take notice of us.
  
  When they do, all three heads turn to face us, and immediately put on a wide smile, drop my game and spread my arms wide, as if expecting a hug.
  
  "Lucy!~ Did ya miss me!?~", I exclaim as I run up to her and right as I am about to jump at her, I feel my entire body Break apart.
  
  But, she has Broken me so many times by now that my healing seems to have gotten even faster, meaning that I am fully fixed before my body even hits the floor, allowing my to catch myself and keep moving.
  
  Naturally, she just Breaks me again, and just leaves her power active this time, causing my body to break and fix itself over and over again, which, by the way, 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘵𝘴, but I push through, struggling with each step until I reach her.
  
  Not really having the strength to do much else, I simply let myself fall onto her, resting my head on her shoulder.
  
  I open my mouth in an attempt to speak, but my vocal cords keep getting Broken so nothing comes out, which is slightly annoying.
  
  My solution to that is to take a bite out of her shoulder. My regeneration speeds up exponentially when I'm eating, and I know she can heal herself by Breaking other things.
  
  As evidenced by how quickly her shoulder fixes itself as her power continues to Break me, and I take another few couple of bites before being satisfied that my regeneration will be boosted enough for me to actually talk.
  
  "I'm going to kill Jack", I whisper to her, barely audible even with my mouth mere inches away from her ear, yet she clearly hears me just fine, going by how my body suddenly stops feeling like it's on fire, and I continue whispering, "I just need you to stand next to Shatter, keep her under control. You in?"
  
  She doesn't respond verbally, but she does turn to stare into my eyes, and I simply nod my head slightly in the direction of the other two, who have gone back to their own thing, ignoring our interaction as it is a fairly common event.
  
  I can't see Sibby anywhere though, which is worrying.
  
  Lucy gives me a single brief nod and gets up, and walks over to the other two.
  
  They both give her a curious look, but they're already in her range so it doesn't matter.
  
  That's check Jack, what will you do now?
  
  As if to answer my unspoken question, the RV door suddenly bursts open to reveal a rather irritated looking Jack Slash.
  
  Heh. He seems upset.
  
  I guess that mind reading thing of his really is area based.
  
  Ah well, he's already in check, now all I need to do is get mate.
  
  Shouldn't be too hard.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  This chapter kicked my ass, and I'm not really all that happy about it, I kinda wanna go back and delete this one as well as the one before and just start over, maybe further back, but I'm way too lazy to do that, and pokemon has ingrained in me a hatred of redoing things. (I used to keep forgetting to charge my ds and I never saved, so I ended up doing the first gym battle in heart gold about 30 times)
  
  Also, some of you attentive worm fans may have found some parts of this chap familiar, and that would be because I love it when stories mirror things, idk how to explain it properly, but I love parallels, like when a show's first episode's soundtrack is played in the final credits but in a lower pitch to show how things have changed, little stuff like that, like Tear using Sibby's own future words to convince her
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  118 Ah I see
  "Tear. How was your hunt? I see you brought quite the hall." Jack's tone sounds light and casual as he greets me even though I'm certain he's aware of my intentions.
  
  Still, that doesn't mean I won't play along. "Oh, you know, pretty good. Wasn't expecting to find any deer though. Never killed a deer before, so that was cool."
  
  As I speak, I notice his eyes flicker over to the others for a second, clearly taking note of Lucy standing in range of Shatterbird and Burnscar.
  
  In chess terms, you could say that my Knight piece is in position to take two pieces, one which is mostly neutral and one who can go either side, but is probably more likely to side with him.
  
  But with my Knight there, the two pieces are basically negated, and with Crawler and Bear out, that's another two pieces down, leaving only Siberian and Bonesaw as the remaining mobile pieces.
  
  Siberian should side with me, but I don't know if I can trust that, while Bonesaw is almost certainly going to be his piece, which is an issue because Siberian is most definitely Bonesaw's piece.
  
  "I wouldn't think deer would be any fun to hunt after your experience with bears", Jack says in a pondering tone while moving forward, out of the way of the door, allowing me to clearly see Bonesaw and Sibby behind him, following him out.
  
  Bonesaw's disposition tells me that she has no idea what's going on right now, though Shatterbird has definitely noticed the tense atmosphere and is looking between Jack and I in confusion.
  
  "Eh, it wasn't as fun, but it was a new experience at least. Besides, have you 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘯 the antlers on this baby?", I say, gesturing to the buck besides me and it's large antlers before turning to Bonesaw, "you ever done work on a deer before Chibi? 'Cuz I think I'd look awesome with antlers.~"
  
  Bonesaw visibly brightens at my suggestion, and makes to run up to me, only to be stopped by a single unyielding hand on her shoulder, courtesy of Siberian.
  
  "What is it Sibby? Is something wrong?" Her innocent question goes unanswered as Sibby goes back to pretending she can't speak.
  
  But before I can pick up the conversation and steer it in my direction, Jack beats me to the punch. "I don't think there is a problem, no. Unless you think there is, Tear?"
  
  Damnit, that's exactly what I was going to say, the bastard.
  
  I don't want to have to kill Bonesaw, she's far too useful for that, not to mention she could cause a zombie apocalypse or something and that'd be hilarious.
  
  Now, if I say that there is a problem, she will associate the problem with me, blaming me for ruining the 'family' and thus I'd alienate her, hence why it is exactly what I was going to say.
  
  Still, it's not like it's the end of the world, kids are stupid anyway, I'm sure it'll be fine.
  
  Besides, he wants to use my lines? Then I'll just have to strike below the belt.
  
  "Nah, not really, I was just thinking about romances y'know, wondering if there was ever anyone who really caught my eye, and no Sibby, you don't count. I meant that metaphorically, not literally. What about you, Jack? You ever had a girl catch your eye?"
  
  Sibby gives an amused smirk at the reference to the time she quite literally caught my eye. In her mouth, after ripping it out.
  
  I think she wanted to know if they tasted any different with the odd pigmentation. I don't think there was much of a difference.
  
  But most amusingly for me, is the way Jack's eye briefly flashes in Shatterbird's direction. I don't think anyone else noticed it, but clearly he's caught on to what I'm getting at, and clearly he's been aware of Shatter's little crush.
  
  Now, he has to be careful what he says to avoid turning Shatter over to my side, giving me a powerful Bishop to stack against his mostly empty board.
  
  "Perhaps, but I like to admire great things from afar, so I've never really bothered with the whole romance thing." His tone is completely blasé, but he gives Shatter a meaningful look briefly, before turning his annoying smirk back to me.
  
  ... Fuck, ok. That was actually a pretty good move.
  
  Glancing at Shatter myself, I notice the slight, barely noticeable blush and the way she's looking at Jack with renewed passion.
  
  Ok, scratch that then, that was a masterful move.
  
  I thought there was a chance he'd go along with the accusation. Use Shatter's crush to secure her loyalty, but I had a plan for that.
  
  What I didn't expect, was for him to both use her crush for loyalty, whilst also having an excuse for ignoring her feelings all this time, all while appealing to her pride at the same time.
  
  I suppose he does have as much experience in this business as I do being alive, so it should really be expected. I underestimated him.
  
  Honestly, I can't even be mad. One sentence and he's basically locked a Bishop onto his board, denying it from me completely.
  
  It's still locked by my Knight though, so he's still in check.
  
  I hate to admit it, but I'm slightly stumped.
  
  What can I say that will avoid upsetting Bonesaw too much, whilst also allowing me to escalate the situation?
  
  Nothing comes to mind, so I just decide to go with the old reliable, lying.
  
  No one ever said I couldn't just make shit up after all, and really can't think of anything else.
  
  Besides, I just had a funny idea.
  
  "Oh really?", I ask, my tone a careful mix of amused and ever so slightly offended, "you certainly weren't at a distance when you were admiring 𝘮𝘦. In fact, I'd say you were quite the opposite of far away, the distance between us was negative if anything, so was that just not a 'romance thing', or am I just not a 'great thing', hmm?"
  
  Heh, the look of realisation, followed by betrayal on Shatterbird's face almost makes me break character just to laugh at her.
  
  Jack's lip twitches slightly, and I can sense a mix of amusement and annoyance from him at my solution.
  
  It's a classic really, accusing men of sleeping with you even when they didn't.
  
  I mean, what's he going to do? Deny it?
  
  Then I'll just act distraught, betrayed. He knows I will and he knows Shatterbird is too stupid to see through the ploy, which would lead to her thinking even less of him, thinking that he's trying to backtrack.
  
  Or he could go along with it, which would have the effect of putting some of Shatterbird's anger on my own shoulders, but he'd still lose some influence over the piece.
  
  "As I recall it, you jumped me. I never consented to anything, and it's not like I could fight you off. I certainly wasn't expecting to get raped, but I suppose, as I believe you so eloquently put it, I was the only man who wasn't Hatchet Face around."
  
  This motherfucker...
  
  I guess he can also just lie, I didn't think about that.
  
  I feel Shatterbird's stare dig into my side and I mentally wince a little.
  
  Well fuck.
  
  "Bitch please, as if I'd ever resort to rape to get laid", I say, waving away his accusation dismissively, idly noticing that Bonesaw is too distracted to even call me out on swearing.
  
  I think I should move things forward, escalation is necessary, because clearly he will counter anything I throw at him like this, and I might just have to bite the bullet and deal with an upset Bonesaw.
  
  It's not like it'd be the end of the world, just a time investment I don't really want to deal with.
  
  Eh, fuck it.
  
  "Hey Jack, not to blatantly change the conversation or anything, but I read something recently and I wanted to ask you about it. I heard that the Nine used to be lead by some dude called King, who founded the group. What ever happened to that guy?"
  
  Jack goes to respond, but I don't let him, not wanting to give him a chance to move things to his favour.
  
  "I heard that he died. You killed him, right? And took the position as leader of the Nine from him afterwards, right? Is that how leadership changes here? 'Cuz I think we, as a group, should go through some changes. Don't you think it's time you retired?"
  
  In the face of my escalation, Jack seems to choose to just stop with he foreplay altogether.
  
  "Are you saying you're going to kill me?" He asks, already knowing the answer.
  
  "Sure, you've had a good run, but it's time for the newer generations to take the helm, I think."
  
  My words bring about a variety of responses from those around us. Lucy, having known already, turns vigilant, focusing on Shatterbird, who herself looks both confused and somewhat insulted.
  
  Burnscar doesn't give a shit, there isn't enough fire around for her to have much of any clarity.
  
  Siberian seems impassive and Jack is glaring lightly at me.
  
  Bonesaw however, looks positively distraught.
  
  "NO!", she yells out, "Why are you fighting!? Stop it! It's not funny!"
  
  The way she stomps her foot impudently on the ground really drives home how young she is.
  
  "Sorry Chibi, some things are just inevitable."
  
  As I speak, I start approaching Jack, causing his hand to instinctively reach for his belt and the knives attached to it. Shatterbird goes to move at the same time, but a warning look from Lucy stops her, the implicit threat clear as day.
  
  Despite knowing that none of his blades will pierce my skin, Jack still lets loose a swing at my neck, his power extending the reach of his blade to cover the distance, and I feel a soft force brush against my neck, kind of like someone rubbing a ruler on your skin.
  
  I grin at him, but falter slightly when he gives a grin of his own and swings his knife twice more, both of us ignoring Bonesaw's complaints.
  
  Both of the projected blades land, as I didn't see the point in dodging, only for my clothes to all fall to the floor, having been cut up by Jack, leaving me in my birthday suit.
  
  Pausing to look down at myself and my ruined clothes, I roll my eyes at him with a sigh.
  
  How petty...
  
  Just to spite him, I call forth my armour, rather than walking naked, covering my entire body once more, from the feet all the way up to my neck.
  
  I leave the mask out so that he can properly see my face when I kill him.
  
  "Sorry Jack, but every good thing comes to an end and all that, it was fun while it lasted, but you're just kind of boring. Don't worry though, I'll make sure the world is a lot more fun without you in it.~"
  
  Jack doesn't say anything in response. Instead he just puts his knife back and stares at me with a smug look that makes me feel like I'm missing something.
  
  He seems far too pleased after all, but you know what they say, in for a penny, in for a pound.
  
  No backing out now.
  
  Long claws grow on my right hand, and I ready myself to swing it forward, planning to decapitate him in one move.
  
  "Consider this my resignation.~"
  
  I've always wanted to say that.
  
  My arm swings forward, rising straight for his throat, but his smirk remains unchanged as he simply stands there.
  
  My swing continues, uninterrupted, and my claw hits his neck without problem.
  
  Only, instead of his neck being torn in half, it is my claw that rips itself apart on his skin, as if I swung a breadstick at a rock.
  
  ... I'm fairly certain invulnerability was not in his skillset yesterday.
  
  A closer look shows that his body has suddenly gained a monochromatic look to it, and it's only incredibly belatedly that I notice the almost completely transparent Siberian standing next to him, holding his hand.
  
  Ah, I see.
  
  She can imbue others with her power, something I learnt a short while ago, which explained why she was holding Bonesaw's shoulder all that time ago when she was making Bear.
  
  I guess this means that Sibby 𝘪𝘴𝘯'𝘵 on my side then.
  
  Well, fuck me I guess.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  I've been alternating between who I want to survive out of the nine hourly and I'm still not entirely sure who is going to survive. This has deffo been the hardest few chapters that I've written so far, just purely because I can't make up my fucking mind
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  119 Revelation
  Before I can even really react to the situation, Siberian's clawed hand cleaves through my body, bisecting me without any resistance whatsoever and sending my torso flying away from my legs.
  
  Ow.
  
  My power reaches out from my two separate parts, meeting in the middle and my legs snap backwards to meet the rest of my body, my wings bursting out of by back at the same moment, sending me backwards with a single flap and shooting a pair of bone spikes at both of their heads.
  
  Both of the spikes land and shatter on their invulnerable faces and I land with a huff.
  
  Fucking bullshit 12 brute bullshit.
  
  I'm not really surprised to know I can't hurt them. The power rankings only go from 1 to 10, but there is an extra level known as 12+, or, more commonly referred to as 'bullshit 12'.
  
  The reason they're called as such, is because 12+ basically means that you have no chance of victory and there's no point in even trying.
  
  Siberian is the only Brute 12+ that I know of, and the only other bullshit 12s I know of are Eidolon, who has all the powers and the Faerie Queen, who 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 has all the powers, which really goes to show what kind of level of bullshit it is.
  
  Even Extinction was only like, a Blaster 8 or something.
  
  In other, more simple terms, no one can hurt the Siberian, and she can hurt everyone.
  
  She doesn't immediately push the attack, so I spare a quick glance around, hoping to evaluate the situation.
  
  Bonesaw is off to the side, watching with wide eyes. She's basically a non entity since neither of us want to hurt her, if for different reasons, though I will use her against Siberian if it comes down to it.
  
  But as of right now, we're in something of a stalemate.
  
  She can't kill me if I don't let her and I can't hurt her or Jack so long as she is with him. Off to the other side, is Lucy who is keeping Shatterbird out of this, and Burnscar, who is just staring at the campfire, too enraptured by the flames to care about all of this.
  
  The other two are still elsewhere, but they wouldn't really be able to make a difference anyway.
  
  Haaah, annoying.
  
  This was exactly why I wanted Siberian on my side, she basically invalidates everything.
  
  "Did you really think you could just come in here and beat me at my own game? I've been the leader of the Nine for as long as you've been alive Tear, did you really think you could just turn everyone against me with a few words?"
  
  Jack's mocking voice brings my attention back to him, and I take a step backwards as he moves forward, making him smirk at the 'show of weakness'.
  
  "Eh, I figured it'd be a possibility. You're pretty lame after all,~ so tacky.~ I've always looked down on you, you know?~ You just kill and you kill and you kill, with a little bit of torture mixed in every now and then. How boring.~"
  
  His eyes tighten slightly, angered by my dismissal of him and further proving my point by showing just how fragile his overinflated ego is.
  
  He send another projected blade at me, clearly checking to see if Siberian's power extends to his own, and for that same reason, I don't dodge, but luckily for me, his attack just bounces off of my armour, not even leaving a scratch.
  
  Well, it seems that we really are at a stalemate.
  
  A stalemate Jack breaks with a few words and a mocking smile directed at me as he says them.
  
  "Bonesaw, why don't you show Tear that surprise project you've been working on?"
  
  The hairs on my neck stand on end at his words, even as I smile, enjoying how unexpectedly everything is going.
  
  "D'awww, you made a surprise for me?~ I do 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 surprises Chibi, but Jaki is trying to kill me right now, so maybe you could save it for later?"
  
  Bonesaw very much looks like a deer in headlights, wide eyes flitting between the two of us in indecisiveness until Jack gives her a stern look that makes her flinch.
  
  "Bonesaw. Be a 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭 and do as I said."
  
  Getting an idea to stall for time, I quickly speak up, hoping to buy enough time to come up with a plan to defeat someone who has remained completely invincible since she showed up back in 2000.
  
  "You know, I changed my mind.~ Like I said, I 𝘥𝘰 love surprises, but can you at least explain it to me, like you know I like?~"
  
  Jack gives me a look that says a lot.
  
  He knows I'm planning something with this, but he doesn't know exactly 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 the plan is. Either way, he's confident enough that he'll come out on top anyway, and he's 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴.
  
  He's not going to stop her because he wants to see what will happen.
  
  The Chibi still looks uncertain, but she likes talking about her 'art' anyway, and with both of us seemingly agreeing, she hesitantly speaks up, her voice gaining momentum as she goes on, growing in confidence with every word.
  
  "W-well, I've been studying you're abnormal organs and the Rc cells inside, I decided to just call the organ itself 'Red Wrap' by the way, with how it stores your Rc cells, but as I was saying, I was studying your Rc cells, trying to see if I could do anything with them, maybe transfer them into other people's bodies to give them your powers-"
  
  That's a scary thought, but also incredibly amusing. I could take Tiamat's title of 'Mother of Monsters', and I can't deny that the ego trip of 'mothering' an army of people with my powers would be good fun.
  
  "-but that didn't really work out. Either they would barely get an increase in physical abilities, strength, minor regeneration, et cetera, or they would gain the same cannibalism as you, but they couldn't replenish Rc cells like you and kept going insane and dying instead, so I started trying more experiments and I ended up coming up with something pretty cool!"
  
  As she says that, I wait for her to do something, to throw something at me or shoot a needle at me, which leaves me caught completely by surprise when I feel something shatter on my head, a cloud of gas quickly growing around me.
  
  I see a glint of glass through the half transparent cloud and my head immediately snaps to Shatterbird, just in time to see her body Break down, crumpling into a pile of flesh.
  
  The attention of everyone present is suddenly on Lucy, causing her to take a step back subconsciously, though I do notice that Burnscar is fine. Lucy must have moved around a bit with everything happening, ending up with Burnscar being out of her range by a hair's breadth.
  
  Not that she seems to care about her brush with death, with Lucy's power having put out the fire, Burnscar is fully disassociating now.
  
  But I shake my head and focus on more important things, like the gas surrounding me that is most definitely some kind of bioweapon.
  
  I quickly swing both of my wings, causing a gust that blows it all away from me, where is swiftly disappears into the air, and I check myself over for a second, twisting around to look at every part of my body, looking for any symptoms.
  
  Only to find nothing.
  
  "Huh", I say, "is something supposed to be happen- OW!"
  
  I cut myself off with a yell as all of a sudden I feel a piercing sensation in my gut, and when I look down I see that my own armour has transformed into a spike and pierced clean through me.
  
  ... That's not good.
  
  "I discovered a way to excite the Rc cells so that they basically just go berserk, twitching and snapping into different shapes and directions, kind of like when you stab an octopus in the brain and it's tentacles spasm around!" Bonesaw explains, but I can hardly hear her over the incredible 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯 wreaking it's way through my body as my own blood betrays me.
  
  I feel my body start going haywire, my blood forming into spikes through my flesh and then turning liquid and repeating the process all over again. The feeling of losing control over my own body is probably worse than the pain.
  
  Pain is something I've grown very familiar with after all, this sensation is new and unpleasant.
  
  My blood pools over my face, forming my mask only for it to turn liquid again, leaving my face bare before the blood snaps into the shape of a thin spike, driving itself straight through my eye and out the back of my head before it turns liquid again, being reabsorbed into my body as I heal the damage.
  
  However, even with my body ripping itself apart, I still notice Siberian approaching me, likely planning to take me out while I'm more or less immobilised, while Jack moves to stand next to Bonesaw, placing a 'reassuring' hand on her shoulder.
  
  I can't come up with a plan, and my brain is too occupied to really think all that well, which is probably why I decide to jump at Lucy, hoping that if she Breaks me that it'll get rid of the drug and fix me.
  
  As expected, the moment I reach her range, the pain only magnifies and I immediately collapse, sliding forward with my momentum carrying me to Lucy's feet.
  
  But then I can suddenly think clearly again and I jump to my feet as fast as I can, glancing around apprehensively, being greeted by a shocked looking Lucy, and I see Jack's face twitch in annoyance.
  
  Heh, nice.
  
  "Lucy, I could kiss you right now, that was incredibly unfun, thank you", I say, completely honest in my thanks.
  
  "Just don't leave me to the scary woman and I'll consider us even."
  
  At her words and gesture, I return my focus to the main threat once more, seeing her stalking towards us, completely casual.
  
  "I know she's tryna kill us and all, but damn, if she isn't sexy anyway", I admit, making Lucy slap the back of my head in reluctant amusement.
  
  She doesn't want to die cowering, or maybe she just believes that I will carry her to safety either way, which I fully plan on doing if retreat truly is the only option.
  
  But then Siberian reaches Lucy's range and everything changes.
  
  "Wait stop!" Jack unexpectedly yells out, but it is too late, as the Siberian takes a single extra step forward, passing into Lucy's range, and then...
  
  She disappears.
  
  I didn't manage to catch her disappearance myself, as Lucy's power activation popped my eyeballs, but they regenerated almost instantly and by the time they did, Siberian was just... gone.
  
  What. The. Fuck?
  
  Silence descends upon us as we all turn to stare at Lucy in varying states of shock.
  
  Though, I can't help but notice that Jack seems to have realised this would happen right before it did. Maybe he doesn't read minds but is some kind of limited precog? Or maybe he's not reading 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦, but is actually reading their 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘴.
  
  That would actually make some sense, maybe. That would mean that his power saw Lucy's power activating and realised that it would disappear the Siberian right before it happened.
  
  "D-did I- is she? Did I just kill the 𝘚𝘪𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯?" Lucy asks, clearly in just as much shock as the rest of us.
  
  But the very next second, Siberian is just.. here again, standing a short distance away from us.
  
  What.
  
  The.
  
  Fuck.
  
  Is going on?
  
  Idly, I notice that even Jack seems just as surprised as the rest of us at her apparent ability to disappear and reappear, as if she's some kind of-
  
  Holy fuck.
  
  With all the grace of a train, realisation slams into my skull as all the pieces come together to make one fucked up looking puzzle.
  
  She's a 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯.
  
  The Siberian is a fucking 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯.
  
  She isn't a 𝘉𝘳𝘶𝘵𝘦, she's a 𝘔𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳.
  
  What the fuck!
  
  "S-she's a projection?" I don't know who says it, and I'm too busy reeling from shock to figure it out.
  
  Especially when I have a far more important concern to address.
  
  If she's a projection, then...
  
  "Who the fuck have I been flirting with!?"
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Good ole lusia, always with the important questions and correct priorities.
  
  Also, I would like to say, fuck all of this. Do you have any fucking idea how hard it is to write a conflict with these specific powers, all without being meta?
  
  Like, Lucy's power is an all-or-nothing, just like sibby is, which means that when the two powers connect they cancel out, which pops sibby, cuz she's a projection, but no one knew that, so I couldn't just have that be an easy save, and with how Jack's power works, in DnD terms, you could basically say his power gives himself and his allies a passive +10 to intuition and his enemies disadvantage, which is why neither him or sibby suggested using Lucy as a bargaining chip, or just killing her, because their powers knew that she'd pop sibby.
  
  all in all, it's just such a pain : so I'd like to know if you think anything that happened this chap was unreasonable
  
  Also also, I'm kinda mad at myself for killing shatterbird, because I had a really cool plan for her, where Lusia would convince her to be a gang lord, to both keep a powerful ally while satisfying her need to be validated as powerful, but it had to be shatterbird delivering the bioweapon because it would have not made sense for it to be anyone else, Jack is tricky like that.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  120 You Win Some, You Lose Some
  "So, Tiger, if that even is your real name, you aren't some creepy old dude who's been taking advantage of your projection's body to get freaky with me right?"
  
  My question snaps Lucy out of her stupor enough for her to kick me in the butt, not that she can hit me hard enough for me to even stumble from it, but her exasperated face is pretty funny.
  
  "What? Her being a projection doesn't really change much, we're still in a stalemate. They can't hurt us, we can't hurt them, so why not just ask the questions on my mind? And don't act coy 𝘑𝘶𝘥𝘢𝘴, I was going to keep it a secret but fuck you, you aren't mute, so answer me."
  
  Any other day and they would probably doubt my claim of her not being a mute, but considering recent revelations, no one questions it.
  
  Jack has a strange expression on his face that I could only describe as 'pleasantly annoyed', which doesn't really make sense, but I kind of get it.
  
  He's annoyed about having not known about all of this beforehand, but also happy with being surprised.
  
  Bonesaw still looks like she just wants to leave, making me think of a child watching their parents fight, which is honestly closer to accurate than it should be.
  
  Kind of depressing to think about, probably.
  
  Lucy however, is just giving me a deadpan glare, and she is the next to speak, with her voice as dry as the Sahara.
  
  "Judas? Like, I get it, but don't you think it's a bit much to call her Judas? Weren't you the one doing the betraying in the first place?"
  
  "First of all," I start, holding up a finger as if giving a wise lesson, "I wasn't betraying anyone, this was just pre-emptive retaliation, and second of all, I wasn't referencing Juda from the bible, I was referencing Arnold Judas Rimmer, from Red Dwarf. He's the first hologram person I could think of."
  
  "Didn't that show come out like, two decades ago? Your not 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 much older than me." Lucy says, rolling her eyes like the teenager she is, before suddenly looking me up and down with scrutiny, "or are you?"
  
  Teenagers are so rude.
  
  "It came out when my mom was pregnant and she got real into it, so I basically grew up with it. Besides, why is this what you're focusing on right now? You literally just killed Shatterbird! I 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘥 her." I finish with a pout, crossing my arms to really sell the image.
  
  Now, despite it maybe seeming like we're not properly respecting the gravity of the situation, it would be more accurate to say that we just don't care, but I do actually have something of a plan.
  
  ... Granted, that plan is to just stall for time, but still.
  
  As Lucy and I continue bickering, I keep an eye on Jack, who seems to be doing some contemplating of his own. Eventually he seems to come to a decision and leans down to whisper some instructions to Bonesaw.
  
  Unfortunately for him, my hearing is insanely good. I don't really know when it got so good, I think it's just been a gradual thing, since I never really noticed it, but I could probably track movement inside a building across the street from me just by listening to the footsteps.
  
  Not that I'm experienced enough with doing that to be able to tell all the sounds apart and get an accurate image, but it at least means that I can hear what he doesn't want me to, it's also how I know Lucy cries after she masturbates, but really that's neither here nor there.
  
  "Be a 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭 and get something that can get past Crusher's field will you?"
  
  Welp, so much for stalling.
  
  How much longer do I even need to stall for?
  
  Reaching for my pocket, I pause.
  
  Right. I'm naked.
  
  Looking over to my pile of clothes, I mentally sigh.
  
  On one hand, Lucy would have Broken my phone anyway, but on the other hand I still don't have it and it's not like I can use the sun to check the time, because it hasn't risen yet.
  
  "Hey Lucy, you got a phone on you?" I ask, assuming that she does, since her power doesn't effect herself.
  
  "What, do you want to take a fucking selfie or something? Maybe call the police while you're at it, everyone knows you should call 911 when you're in danger." She answers, her voice laden with the level of sarcasm that only a teenager could generate.
  
  "Shut the fuck up, you don't have to be such an asshole, do you have a phone or what?"
  
  With a roll of her eyes she begrudgingly stuffs a hand under her poncho and brings it back out, phone in hand, before proceeding to throw the phone at my head.
  
  Naturally, I catch the phone just fine, but seriously, what's with all this sudden moodiness?
  
  Is she on her period or something?
  
  Powering the phone up, I quickly check the time, 01:47, and before I can do anything else, I hear the recognisable sound of my own orgasm.
  
  Looking around in confusion, it takes me a second to remember that I set that as my ringtone once I locate the source of the sound to be my pile of clothes.
  
  Huh, that's handy.
  
  I can guess what the message is too, which is very helpful.
  
  Immediately opening up the messenger to send of a quick text, deleting the number right afterwards.
  
  It should be around now anyway, so everything should be fine.
  
  With that thought in mind, I open up her apps and look around, eventually finding Minesweeper.
  
  Hell yeah.
  
  However, right after I open up the game, the phone is snatched away from me by an irate Lucy.
  
  "Seriously? Now, of all times, is not the time to be playing Minesweeper." She sounds profoundly disappointed in me as she talks, as if reprimanding a particularly dumb child.
  
  So naturally I respond by sticking my tongue out at her.
  
  Which is when Bonesaw comes back out of the RV, a fresh concoction in her arms, with extra being carried around by some spider bots, but Jack doesn't seem happy to see her, instead, he's glaring at me.
  
  Must be his power again, the cheater.
  
  I just give him the smuggest possible smirk I can, and raise a single hand, hoping beyond hope that I can time this right, because it would be super cool if I do.
  
  Slowly, casually, almost lazily, I shape my raising hand into that of a finger gun, and level it right at the Siberian.
  
  I wait a second, both for timing purposes and for dramatics, and then, right when the moment feels right, I mock shoot, dropping my thumb like the hammer of a pistol.
  
  "Bang."
  
  ... Nothing happens.
  
  "Damnit. 𝘈𝘩𝘦𝘮. Bang... For fuck's sake, wait, just, one more time, for real this time."
  
  I take a deep breath, pushing aside the desire to laugh at my own failure, and as I release the breath, I speak once more.
  
  "Bang."
  
  And this time, the Siberian disappears.
  
  "Heh, nailed it. First try." My words are ignored as everyone gapes in confusion as to what I just did, though they would probably be feeling a lot more confused, and not to mention awed, if I actually got it on the first go.
  
  Ah well, you win some, you lose some.
  
  I blame Jinx, I don't care if he's on the other side of the country.
  
  Nobody says anything for a minute, waiting to see if she'll pop back up again, but eventually a terse, strained voice sounds out.
  
  "What did you do?" Jack demands, and I gleefully give him my full attention once it's clear that the Siberian isn't coming back this time around.
  
  "Something you never could.~ I made 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴,~" is all I say as I start stalking up to him, my hips swaying side to side as I practically bounce from excitement.
  
  Jack opens his mouth, to no doubt say something annoyingly convincing that would have me rethinking my decisions, if only for a moment, but I don't let him.
  
  A spike of bone shoots out from one of my wings, aimed for his head, but he's already dodged it before I even fired it, and when he goes to speak again, I simply speak over him, never stopping my approach.
  
  "Shshh. Shhhhhh, don't say anything Jaki boy. Your words no longer hold value. The Nine is no longer yours, and without any powerful capes to surround yourself with, you're kinda pathetic.~ It's a wonder you ever made it so far.~ I'd recon that you only survived to that weird mind reading thing you can do."
  
  The expression he makes when I mention his power makes me think that he might just have not actually known about it, thinking that projecting his blades was his only power, and honestly?
  
  I can totally see that being the case.
  
  He is definitely arrogant enough to assume that his incredible insight into people was just a result of 'natural instincts' or something, 'a sign of greatness' rather than the effect of a power.
  
  Not that it matters anymore.
  
  He keeps trying to speak, but I don't let him, continuously firing bone spikes to keep him occupied so that all he can to is helplessly dodge around, all the while the gap between us gets smaller and smaller.
  
  However, all of a sudden a little girl jumps in front of me and tries to halt me, wrapping her arms around my legs and pushing against me.
  
  "No! Please don't kill uncle Jack! Please!"
  
  Haaaah.
  
  Looking down at the Chibi with a sigh, I halt my movements, though I keep my wings ready to interrupt Jack anyway, something he surely understands if his sudden silence is anything to go by.
  
  It's annoying that he's smiling though.
  
  Looking into Bonesaw's eyes, I find myself feeling an almost startling lack of empathy.
  
  I do however, understand that Bonesaw's power is amazing, and potentially hilarious, so I want to keep her alive, and preferably on my side.
  
  The problem is that she is so incredibly broken, something to be expected since she's spent about half of her life, that has only recently hit the double digits, as a member of the Nine.
  
  There is of course an easy solution to this problem, but it was one I crossed out due to not knowing how the Siberian would react. Luckily that's not an issue anymore.
  
  "No," I bluntly answer, causing her to wilt, only to perk up again once I finish speaking, "but I'll tell you what. If you can save him, then I'll let you keep him. Deal?"
  
  She doesn't so much as blink before she's nodding her head in acceptance, and I move her aside to finish my stroll, bringing out my ribbons and closing them around Jack faster than he can react, leaving him not opportunity to dodge, no matter if he knows where the attack is coming from.
  
  With his body wrapped up in my ribbons, I bring him closer to me, where he tries to speak once more, but talking is his thing, so I decide against allowing him to do so, simply placing my finger on his lips and shushing him.
  
  "Don't worry Jacko, you don't have to say a word, just sit back, relax, and enjoy yourself.~" I give him a pat on the cheek to go with my smiling words, and the next moment-
  
  𝘊𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘩
  
  -he screams out as every joint below his neck is simultaneously broken, my ribbons having enough strength to do so with a simple, targeted flexing.
  
  Dropping him to the ground like trash, I turn to Bonesaw and make a wide, sweeping gesture to Jack, telling her to get on with it, which she does so with single minded fervour.
  
  She's really quite good with her work. It takes her no time at all to stabilise him, and I can see that she'll be done making him more or less ok real soon, which brings my thoughts back to how I want her, and more importantly, her power, under my thumb.
  
  The only issue being getting her loyalty, but then again, that's not an issue either.
  
  You see, the easiest way to get broken people like her to be loyal to you-
  
  Bonesaw finishes her work, and looks up at me with wide, hopeful eyes. I return her look with a smile, and then my tail grows out, taking the place of my dissolving ribbons, and rakes nine, long lines down his body, cutting him open deep enough to see bone.
  
  -is to just break them again, because at that point it's the only way they 𝘤𝘢𝘯 change.
  
  'Bonesaw' isn't real after all. 'Bonesaw' is just an act that the little girl who's name I still don't know put on to protect her own fragile mind from reality.
  
  The easiest way to get her to stop hiding behind that mask, is to rip it off forcefully.
  
  She's certainly not going to just change. She probably doesn't even realise she's wearing a mask.
  
  But once this mask breaks, she can finally have the opportunity to come to terms with things, maybe. She's probably too young for that, but at the very least she can just be a traumatised kid, instead of a psychotic serial killer.
  
  You win some, you lose some.
  
  As I'm thinking this, Bonesaw finishes fixing up Jack, so I rip his arms and legs off, and she gets back to work all over again.
  
  Sorry kid, I won't say something like this being the only option, because it's not. Therapy exists.
  
  I'm just not that patient.
  
  And so things continue for a while, with me hurting Jack and her fixing him, over, and over again.
  
  At some point, Lucy came to stand beside me, watching Bonesaw work on Jack apathetically.
  
  "You don't disapprove?" I quietly ask, not wanting to interrupt the scene before me.
  
  "She made me kill a lot of people. You'll find her no sympathy from me."
  
  Fair enough.
  
  Apparently my restraint isn't as good as I thought it was, because soon enough, Bonesaw sits back on her heels, and just starts staring at Jack instead of helping him.
  
  Clearly, there is nothing more she can do, which says a lot, because she is 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 good at keeping people alive.
  
  In my defence, it has been about half an hour, and Jack's body has been heavily modified by Bonesaw, with an internal mesh, blood clotting agents to prevent bleeding out, even being able to turn of his pain receptors, which does help explain his smile.
  
  Turning back to Bonesaw, I speak to her, my voice soft and gentle.
  
  "Hurry, you can fix him, can't you?"
  
  She doesn't respond, but that's fine. She only needs to listen.
  
  "Come on," I whisper, "can't you do it? Don't you love your uncle?"
  
  It takes her a short while, and I let her take her time, before she closes her eyes and responds with a single word.
  
  "N-no."
  
  "No?" I ask with a smile.
  
  "I don't love him."
  
  "Alrighty then!" I happily exclaim with a clap of my hands, "𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥𝘣𝘺𝘦 then."
  
  "Goodbye Uncle Jack," she obediently parrots.
  
  Jack meanwhile, looks like he's having the time of his life even with his body in complete ruins and his death imminent, he is smiling like someone just told him the funniest joke he's ever heard.
  
  With the last of his strength, he forces his mouth open, pushing past the visibly intense struggle to even twitch his body, and he gives his final words.
  
  "B-be, a 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘨-𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭." In his tone, weak and feeble though it may be, I recognise a great amount of mirth.
  
  I don't know what the joke is exactly, it feels like something deeper than just the situation at had, but whatever it is, Jack dies happier than most people will ever be.
  
  Bonesaw is less happy about the situation, as she isn't even moving, her face devoid of all emotion.
  
  Fixing that is going to be annoying, but whatever, I just have to do some groundwork and then I can chuck her onto James.
  
  Similar hobbies and all that, I'm sure they'll get along. Similar ages too, maybe they'll do the whole 'will they, won't they' thing that childhood friends do when they're older?
  
  "So, what now?" Lucy's voice distracts me from my thoughts, and I turn to her with a smile.
  
  "Now, I've got a date in Portland in a couple of hours. I'll introduce you to some people, and then we just do whatever the hell we want to do."
  
  "Portland? I don't think you're going to be making that trip in a few hours with that," she responds, gesturing to the RV.
  
  "Good job I'm not gonna use the RV then," I say with a smile.
  
  "You're bike won't make the trip that fast either, especially since I don't doubt you'd get lost, so unless you've got something better than that, I don't see it happening."
  
  Right as she finishes speaking, she finally picks up on the distant sound that I've been aware of for a bit now, and when she turns around to look at it, she swiftly turns back to me, eyes closed and face stoic, and when she speaks, her voice is unwavering and forcefully casual.
  
  "Anyway, as I was saying. Are we taking Burnscar with us, or is it just gonna be us?"
  
  Heh.
  
  Looking past her, I wave up at the approaching helicopter, not hiding my smugness from Lucy even slightly.
  
  That's right bitch, never doubt me!
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  (Alt Title: Deja vu)
  
  Welp, jack's dead.
  
  It was kinda anticlimactic, but that was intentional. He really is not that powerful after all, and due to the nature of the Siberian, there literally cannot be any climax. The whole point of 'all-or-nothing', is that is either works perfectly or not at all, meaning you can either do nothing to sibby, or she pops immediately.
  
  Also, I hope Jack's death hit harder for the worm fans, because, for all you non worm fans, I basically mirrored Bonesaw's mom's death, just with jack being in the place of her mum and lusia being in the place of jack.
  
  Jack was happy because of the irony, it's funny, and so he played along and made his final words the exact same final words of bonesaw's mum. Needless to say, she is thoroughly broken rn, but it's ok, lusia will fix her up with some unconventional therapy in no time
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  121 Happy Reunion 2 Electric Boogaloo
  Northern Wyoming, July 5th, 01:47.
  
  High up in the sky, a single decommissioned Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopter, more commonly known as the 'Huey', a helicopter designed and mass produced during the Vietnam war, can be seen hovering in place.
  
  Inside, there are only two occupants, one being the pilot, and the other being a small girl wearing a bunny mask with a red, clown nose and marching band outfit, ears poking up through the brim of a flat-top, feathered cap, with a fancy rapier at her side.
  
  The girl doesn't seem to even be in the latter half of her teen years, and yet of the two of them, only the pilot shows signs of nervousness, while the girl in question, March, is simply on her phone, typing out a text.
  
  '𝘏𝘦𝘺, 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘶 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘷𝘢𝘯?'
  
  She sends of the message with an image attached featuring the view from her window, specifically the van in question below her.
  
  Less than a minute later, her phone pings and she checks it to see that it's a text from an unknown number.
  
  '𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘚𝘪𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯. 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. 𝘔𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳. 𝘒𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘷𝘢𝘯.'
  
  "Huh," she says after reading the message twice, just to be sure, "the Siberian's a projection? Didn't see that coming."
  
  She doesn't sound surprised at the request to 'kill the van', as she knew ahead of time that she could end up having to do some fighting against the Nine, and she was prepared for that.
  
  Though, even with how notoriously dangerous the Siberian is, March doesn't seem to be all that concerned, either due to childish naivety or overconfidence, no one knows.
  
  "Alfred!" March suddenly shouts, "down boy! Down!"
  
  At her demanding words, the pilot, Devin, obediently starts bringing the helicopter down, not saying anything about being treated like a dog.
  
  He's a smart man after all, and you don't survive working for capes for as long as he has without learning a simple fact.
  
  They're all crazy. Every single one of them, is crazy. But they're crazy people who can pick up cars, figure out your social security number with a glance, turn invisible, fly, or build weapons capable of blowing up the moon, though that last one is a recent development.
  
  As the helicopter gets closer to the ground, March opens the door and sits on the edge, eagerly awaiting the landing.
  
  So eager is she, that she doesn't even wait for the helicopter to touch the ground, instead, she jumps off, timing her jump perfectly to be as high as it can be without causing her any damage on her landing, which is also done in perfect form, allowing her to roll to her feet as if she didn't just jump from a hight of multiple stories.
  
  With a pep in her step, she starts making her way over to the van, only to pause as the Siberian suddenly appears in front of her, swinging a clawed hand at her chest.
  
  But March dodges with ease, doing a backwards handstand for added theatrics before flipping back to her feet and drawing her rapier, which immediately starts to look odd, the blade subtly shifting, as if a thin membrane of energy is surrounding it, making it look just ever so slightly off..
  
  "Hey there Zebra! Your zoo called animal control, so I'm afraid I'm gonna have to put you down, terribly sorry.~"
  
  The Siberian doesn't respond to her words with anything more than a snarl before launching herself at March, intending to rip her to pieces as quickly as possible.
  
  But March dodges with ease, spinning and flipping around the animalistic woman, as if she already knows everything the Siberian is going to do before she does it.
  
  A moment of dodging later, and March finally decides to return the favour, bringing up her weapon and jabbing it forward in a simple thrust, meant to capitalise on the Siberian overextending.
  
  Yet, the instant the blade makes contact with the Siberian, she simply winks out of existence, making the young cape pause in confusion.
  
  "Eh?" March mutters, only to jump slightly when the Siberian reappears, a baleful scowl of frustration on her face.
  
  "Heh." A smug grin makes it's way onto March's face as she starts approaching the van, remembering her order to 'kill' it.
  
  Doing so causes the Siberian to attack her again, but just like last time, she can't touch March, and it only takes a single hit to pop her once more.
  
  This repeats a few times, with March getting closer to the van every attempt, no matter how the Siberian tries to go about her assault, nothing gets past March.
  
  Inevitably, March reaches the van, and a single swing of her sword cut's the front passenger door off it's hinges, sending it clattering to the ground as she side steps the falling door, simultaneously swinging her sword behind her right as the Siberian reforms, popping it immediately.
  
  Inside of the van is a dishevelled, gaunt man, with sickly, untamed hair down to his shoulders, an unkempt beard and a pot belly, likely a result of all the empty pot noodles scattered about on the floor and a lack of exercise.
  
  "W-wait! H-help me! T-they w-won't let me g-go!" The man fearfully screams as soon as he sets his eyes on March.
  
  Unfortunately for him, she both doesn't buy the act, and also just doesn't really care.
  
  "Uhuh, shame that," is all March says before casually throwing a rubber ball into the van and turning around, walking back to the helicopter without looking back.
  
  Meanwhile, back in the van, the ball she threw bounces off of the dashboard and into the back of the van, causing the man to panic and rush for the open door, only for the ball to bounce again, hitting the side of the van right next to the door, and bouncing into his face, whereupon it immediately explodes.
  
  Just like that, the Siberian, famed for fighting the entire Triumvirate and winning, even killing one of the original four, dies to a girl who didn't even properly understand why she was so formidable.
  
  Making her way back to the helicopter, March only feels slightly disappointed that her fight wasn't really much of a fight, while the pilot is staring at her with his jaw dropped, struggling to comprehend that he just saw the death of one of the most powerful and infamous capes on the planet.
  
  All at the hands of a young girl, barely in her teenaged years.
  
  All of which really only confirms one thing for Devin. Capes really are crazy.
  
  "Alright Alfred! Up! We still need to find Tear, she should be nearby."
  
  With that, they set off again, taking a shot while to find anything, simply due to going the wrong way initially, but soon enough they come across a small clearing with a parked RV and a few people out front.
  
  March sees Tear waving up at her and returns the favour, looking over at the scene curiously.
  
  The first thing that she takes notice of is the corpse on the ground, because even with it being as ruined as it is, she can still recognise the face of Jack Slash.
  
  Everybody in America probably knows his face, he's been in the news enough for that, even if the PRT does it's best to supress that, trying their hardest to keep the public's fear of capes as low as possible, with limited success.
  
  The second thing she focuses on is the girl standing next to Tear, briefly glancing over the other two girls present in disinterest.
  
  The girl looks like some kind of wanderer, with the poncho and boots, but as the helicopter touches down, March takes note of the blankness in her eyes, as if she is truly dead on the inside.
  
  However that is swiftly ignored in favour of Tear, who, for some reason, is standing completely naked.
  
  The helicopter lands, and March gets out, making her way over to Tear where she immediately asks the most important question, in her opinion.
  
  "Why are you naked?"
  
  "Why are you clothed?" Tear responds with a tilt of her head, as if genuinely confused.
  
  March just nods in response, as if that was some kind of wise answer and moves on.
  
  "So, what's up?" She asks, getting a grin from Tear.
  
  "So glad you asked!~" She exclaims with a clap of her hands, "first of all, introductions!~ This is Lucy, formerly Crusher, formerly Carrot.~ Lucy, this is March, formally uh, well, no one, I guess.. This is March!~ Then, over there is Burnscar, and next to me is a work in progress.~"
  
  March follows Tear's gestures to look at Burnscar, who looks like she's sleeping with her eyes open, and then down at who she recognises as Bonesaw, who looks equally as broken as Burnscar.
  
  "Now, we've got to get going to Portland now, but we're gonna be taking these three with us.~ For now we're just waiting for the other two to make it back, then we'll probably be giving a lift to Bear too, but something tells me Crawler won't fit, so I guess we can just give him directions or something, maybe he can follow on the ground or something, I don't know how fast he is."
  
  Nobody voices any complaints to her words, and March decides to break the ensuing silence first, nodding her head to Lucy as she does so.
  
  "So, is she gonna be joining then?"
  
  She doesn't specify what, but Tear clearly understands and answers with a smile.
  
  "Well, that depends on her.~ Do you wanna be a Clown Lucy?~"
  
  The girl in question squints at the two of them for a minute before cautiously answering.
  
  "What do I get out of joining, and what would be expected of me?" She asks, both questions completely reasonable, so Tear has no problem answering.
  
  In fact, she seems happy to do so, her tone almost. but not quite, bragging.
  
  "In reverse order, all that's expected is that you help out other Clowns when they need it and you are able, unless you really don't want to, then you can just not.~ In return, you get the opportunity to make a bunch of powerful, knowledgeable and or resourceful people who can help you out with just about anything you need, and who you can share anything fun you're doing with.~ Oh yeah, that's also a requirement, you're not allowed to be boring.~ But you're all clear there, so don't worry about that.~"
  
  Her answer causes Lucy to glance at her suspiciously, finding her answer too hard to believe.
  
  "That sounds too good to be true. You realise those 'restrictions' are basically non-existent, and yet I'd still benefit from the resources of the others anyway?"
  
  "Yup!~ This isn't an organisation after all, there isn't a need to expect anything much from anyone.~ I only started all of this so that fun people can have fun without being roped into the various organisations.~ You can basically just think of it as a network of friends with similar interests banding together for the sake of freedom and safety!~"
  
  Despite the impassioned speech, Lucy still seems somewhat sceptical, though March nodding in agreement to Tear's words gives them at least the smallest amount of extra credit.
  
  Yet, for all her pondering, she knew her answer was inevitable, and she lets out a put upon sigh before answering.
  
  "Well, it's not like I have any other options, do I? I doubt I could convince them to get rid of my kill order, and I don't particularly want to join a gang. So, I guess I'm in?"
  
  Tear immediately beams at her, jumping forward to hug her.
  
  "Hell yeah! I've even got an idea for what you can call yourself and your costume!~ At least for your Clown identity anyway.~"
  
  Dislodging herself from the excitable woman, Lucy gives March a deadpan look, as if blaming her for Tear being Tear, but she just gives a blithe shrug in response, making Lucy roll her eyes before turning back to Tear.
  
  "So, what's that name? I swear, if it's something dumb I'll put bleach in your coffee."
  
  The threat only makes Tear laugh, which soon turns into a grin as she answers the question with a single word.
  
  "Nutcracker.~"
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  I just wanna say, but I didn't realise until writing this just how insanely lucky Lusia is that she knows 2 all-or-nothing capes. Because, like, Siberian i an all-or-nothing cape and that means she can only be popped by other all or nothing powers, of which there are like, 8 in all of Worm, one of which is obv march. But, the fact that Siberian ended up meeting 2 all-or-nothing powers in combat in the same day is insane, and I just want to point out that this isn't a case of the author forcing unrealistic situations for the sake of plot, this was genuine chance, and I didn't realise it 'till yesterday. this is literally just lusia being insanely lucky lol
  
  Hey so I just had a terrifying thought for all my worm fans. Imagine if foil second triggered near jack? Sting+Broadcast... long range, invisible Sting slashes... I think that'd probably be deserving of Blaster 12+ lol
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  122 Polite Conversation 2ElectricBoogalo
  A/N: btw, I've started using semicolons now, this; so if ya don't know what that means, it represents a pause that is longer than a comma but shorter than a period.
  
  "Nutcracker?" Lucy asks, sounding sceptical.
  
  "Yup!~ Think about it, cracking is basically the same as breaking, so it's fittingly thematic, and you can get a dope ass costume, a lot like March's here, plus it'd be fitting enough to wear as a Clown.~"
  
  She hums in thought for a moment, before March jumps into the conversation.
  
  "Oooh~ Matching outfits? Sounds fun!~"
  
  "I'll think about it," Lucy says, before continuing with a question, "can you tell me a little about the other 'Clowns?'"
  
  As she speaks, my enhanced hearing picks up the sound of movement coming from the forest that I recognise to be Crawler, though I can probably only hear him because he's not trying to be stealthy.
  
  The guy can be surprisingly hard to find when he wants to stay hidden.
  
  Either way, I decide to keep my answer limited to a brief summary.
  
  "Sure, Fool can get you information, Negante and Vendor can get you Tinker stuff, pretty much whatever you want so long as it's not supposed to last more than one use, you can talk to Harlequin if you need help with anything related to the PRT, and if you need something blown up, String Theory will have you covered; once we break her out of her Birdcage transport of course, and my illustrious self can beat the shit out of people, basically I can play muscle, similar to you."
  
  She thinks for a moment in silence, before abruptly turning to March and then back to me, a single brow raised.
  
  "I noticed that you missed one," she says before turning back to March, "so what do you do?"
  
  March and I share a look, before simultaneously getting the same idea and grinning in synch.
  
  "You'll see soon enough," is all March says.
  
  As Lucy is processing that answer, I turn my head to the side, and March follows my gaze to see Crawler leaving the forest, only to briefly pause at the sight of the two corpses and March, before simply shrugging his hulking form and approaching us anyway.
  
  "Hey big guy, how you been?~ Jack fell over and hit his head while you were gone, so I've decided to lead the Nine in his stead, you cool with that?~"
  
  At my words, Crawler gives Jack's heavily mutilated body a long look, before turning his stare onto the dead behind the eyes and completely still Bonesaw, who is now just standing with her back to Jack and staring at the floor in silence.
  
  Then, finally his eyes land on Shatterbird's Broken body for a moment before locking with my own.
  
  "... Right and what happened to the Arab? She fall over too?" Crawler's deep and gravelly voice causes March to jolt slightly, not having expected it, and I find that I can more or less understand what he's saying just fine by now.
  
  Turning my head to Shatterbird's shattered corpse, I let out a derisive scoff.
  
  "Of course not, look at her! She looks like minced meat, that doesn't happen just from falling over dumbass!" I say, conveniently ignoring how Jack's wounds were obviously not caused by falling over.
  
  "𝘊𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘺 what happens was, she was trying to make a smoothie, but accidentally fell into the blender. It's a mistake anyone could have made, she will be missed.~ Anyway, you got any idea when Bear is gonna be back?"
  
  He goes to shrug in response, both of us ignoring March snickering in the background and Lucy trying to act like she doesn't care about anything, but he pauses at the sound of foliage being brushed apart.
  
  Welp, that answers that, I suppose.
  
  "Probably another hour or two, why?" Crawler continues to say, even as we both stare at her approach.
  
  "Dang, I was hoping she'd be here soonish, I've kinda got an appointment and don't really want to just leave her behind." I keep my voice level and plain as I play along, even as she comes to a stop right in front of us both.
  
  "Well, if she takes to long we could always just leave her behind?" March adds, joining the fun, while Lucy just rolls her eyes, but the mirth is clear on her face.
  
  Bear makes some growling noises at us that I understand to mean 'fuck you' thanks to the helpful addition of a middle finger being raised.
  
  March and I let out a little laugh while Crawler just huffs, but I stop once I notice Bear looking around inquisitively.
  
  "Yeah, shit happened. Jack and I had a disagreement, now he's dead, Sibby too, 'cuz apparently weird kinky not quite sex means nothing anymore, oh, and she was a projection anyway," here I pause, turning to March, "who was she anyway? Please don't tell me I've been flirting with a creepy old man all this time?"
  
  Unfortunately, my hopeful question is mercilessly shut down.
  
  "You've been flirting with a creepy old man all this time." March says, not a hint of mercy in her tone.
  
  Giving a completely reasonable response to this revelation, I collapse onto my knees and scream up to the heavens. "NOOOOO! Was he at least a hot creepy old man?" I ask, desperate.
  
  "Not even slightly," yet she still ruthlessly shuts me down, "he looked like if you got an already unattractive dude, and then dumped him in acid for a bit and then didn't feed or shower him for a few years. I'm pretty sure I saw a piss bottle in his pedo van too."
  
  March's words strike me like arrows to the heart, making me gasp until I am beholden with the earth, laying on my back in misery.
  
  "Life is cruel.~" I whisper, holding my hand up in the air dramatically, before dropping it over my chest and turning my head to the side, sticking my tongue out and closing my eyes, "bleh."
  
  A beat passes.
  
  "Pfft- hahahaha!" And the dam brakes, March clutching her stomach as she laughs at the absurdity of it all.
  
  Eventually, she calms down, and I look up from my place on the ground to finish what I was saying.
  
  "Shatterbird also died, which kind of sucks, but whatever; we're leaving for Portland by the way, you wanna lift? I can get you set up once I'm done with some business, then we can see about getting you fixed up?"
  
  I speak as if I'm asking a question, but there's never been a doubt that she'd jump at the opportunity to not be a literal freak of nature, and to actually be able to speak again, so when she rapidly nods her head, I'm not even remotely surprised.
  
  "Cool!~ Well, let's get going then, though you might have to walk Crawler, I don't think the helicopter can handle your weight, fatso.~"
  
  His response to my insult is to spit a glob of acid at me.
  
  "OWWW FUCK OW OW! Hahahahaha, that was mean!" I yell with a smile as I jump to my feat, shaking my body like a wet dog and laughing all the while, even as the acid melts away my skin.
  
  My regen is good enough that the acid can't get any deeper than the skin anyway, so it's not like I'm in any danger, and frankly at this point pain might as well not exist to me, so I only really find the whole thing funny.
  
  "Whatever, let's just go already. D'you mind getting Burnscar onto the helicopter Lucy?" I ask as I resummon my tail and send it's tendrils after Shatterbird and Jack's corpses, causing March to give me a dirty look.
  
  Heh.
  
  "What?" I ask, innocently, as if I don't totally know that she's thinking about the jerky, "kill orders come with bounties you know? No idea how much, but I bet we could get quite the buck from Jack alone.~ Speaking of, we're gonna have to double back for Not Siberian's body too, though I don't know if they'll accept it or not."
  
  I am also totally planning on eating them too, we only really need the head for identification purposes anyway, and frankly speaking I just always seem to be hungry these days.
  
  March only huffs at me and turns back to the helicopter, boarding it with attitude while I, meanwhile, use my tails to decapitate both of my former comrades and then make a massive mouth at the end of my now fully formed tail and vore both of them, leaving the heads held in a pair of tendrils split off from the main mass of my tail.
  
  That done, I turn down to Bonesaw and crouch down besides her, tilting her head to face me as I smile gently at her.
  
  "Hey, I don't think I ever got your name?" I ask, and her dead eyes gain a little bit of life to them, even if only the slightest amount, as she answers in a voice quiet enough that I probably wouldn't have heard it clearly without my enhanced senses.
  
  "Riley."
  
  "Riley what? What's your full name?" I ask.
  
  It might seem like a pointless question, but I do actually plan on fixing her up, it's only fair since I broke her in the first place, and reconnecting to who she was before Jack found her will help in that endeavour.
  
  Part of that, means remembering who she is. Which means that what she needs right now is 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘺. Something to replace her broken mask, and hopefully something a lot more real than that act.
  
  "Riley Grace Davis." Her words are soft and slow as she speaks them, and I patiently wait for her to finish before giving her a light smile and patting her on the back.
  
  "Well, it's lovely to meet you Riley. Now let's get going, have you ever been in a helicopter before? Because I haven't, and I'm kind of looking forward to it.~"
  
  Riley doesn't answer, but that's fine. I don't expect to be able to fully fix her by myself, and I can't really be bothered to commit so much of my time to that either, it's bound to get boring fast.
  
  I just need to lay the groundwork, fix up her foundations and then drop her off on someone else who can take the easier, but more time consuming job of helping her grow her ego back.
  
  We are the last to board the helicopter, and I take a seat next to March and opposite Lucy and Burnscar, who only looks vaguely curious as to what is going on.
  
  Looking around, I come to a sudden realisation that I decide to voice.
  
  "Hey, I just realised something cool. The Slaughterhouse Nine has officially became a girl only group... So girl power, I guess."
  
  Standing just outside the still open door, Crawler rounds on me, growling.
  
  "Oh you don't count. You're more like the animal mascot- and I swear to god if you break this helicopter I will be 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 upset with you." I finish my sentence with more seriousness in my tone than I think I've ever used as I see Crawler look like he's about to spit venom again.
  
  Melting my flesh? Cool, I'm fine with that, it's funny even, in the right circumstance.
  
  But without this helicopter I probably won't make it to Portland in time for my appointment, which would lead to String Theory getting 'Caged, which would lead to 𝘮𝘺 Clowns getting a stuck with a poor reputation of not saving our own.
  
  I will not allow that, this is too important for my future amusement to throw it away for a quick laugh.
  
  Thankfully, Crawler seems to understand that and just huffs at me before turning away.
  
  Turning to the pilot, who despite his calm façade, I can tell is absolutely 𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘦𝘥, which is both funny and completely understandable, I call out to him.
  
  "Time to go up Reginald, up boy! Up! We're on the clock here Jeeves!" For some reason, March lets out a mad little cackle at me treating the pilot like a dog, but I just shrug and move on, reaching down for my phone-
  
  "Fuck! Wait a sec Jeeves!" I yell out, suddenly remembering that I never actually picked up my phone and I'm still naked.
  
  Opening the door that I just closed, I quickly run over to my ruined clothes and dig out my phone before running back and closing the door again, studiously ignoring the looks the others are giving me.
  
  "𝘈𝘩𝘦𝘮, anyway. The flight should take a couple of hours, so get comfortable."
  
  Saying so, I power up my phone, thankful that it's not broken, and smile to myself as I think about what's to come.
  
  The future is looking bright indeed.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Heheheuhahaha! As I have said, the more chapters pass, the more opportunities for the Electric Boogaloo to strike!
  
  Next chap should have some big brain stuff, because apparently I just hate myself, because I'm going to have to actually 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 about what I 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦!
  
  FYI, at the end there, I was going to end the chap with lusia looking at her phone, but I realised that I actually forgot to pick it up, and instead of bothering to go back and edit that in, I just decided to embarrass lusia instead :)
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  123 To know your Enemy
  With us flying overhead and Crawler running through the scenery below, I make sure to get March to arrange a pickup for Crawler at the edge of the city limits, so as to avoid causing a scene.
  
  The idea basically being that we'll get a van to stuff him into, I'll ask him if he wants to become a Clown later, and if he doesn't then I'll just let him loose and see what he does.
  
  Should be fun either way.
  
  At the same time, I sent of a few texts of my own, setting things up and giving instructions.
  
  This is going to be our first showing of solidarity as Clowns after all, I want to make a good impression, so everything has to go right.
  
  Naturally, that means I can't just do everything myself, even if I probably could, but the point is to show the world what it's like when we Clowns combine our efforts.
  
  After about an hour of flying, mostly in silence, my phone finally rings with the call I've been waiting for, attracting the attention of the others present, except for Bonesaw, who's still out of it.
  
  Burnscar is at least present enough to be curious about the phone call, but I ignore them all in favour of giving Lucy a smug grin.
  
  "You wanted to know what March's thing was, didn't you?~" Before she can respond, I keep talking, "well, just watch, and you'll understand.~"
  
  Saying so, I answer the phone on speaker and hold it between March and I.
  
  "Hey there Harlequin!~ You're on speaker by the way, so you can just go ahead and give everything you got to March!~"
  
  I get a quiet snort as response from the other end, shortly followed by the woman's amused voice.
  
  "You sound like a kid on christmas; excited?~" Her non sequitur has me pouting, because 𝘰𝘣𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺 I'm excited.
  
  "Yes, yes I am, so if you wouldn't mind?~" I say, wanting her to get to the point so that March can show off to the new girl.
  
  Plus, I haven't seen her make proper use out of this aspect of her power yet, so I'm looking forward to it.
  
  "Ok, ok, I'll get straight to the point then. I've already gotten String Theory's transport route and called ahead, so you'll be driven there once you get to Portland. Now, while Birdcage transports rarely actually have any cape escorts, generally just relying on a small armoured convoy of PRT troopers, the nature of her threat, combined with the personal attention of Alexandria has changed that somewhat. It doesn't help that they are fully expecting you to show up at the very least. As a side note, I read the psych eval in your profile and I gotta say, they really hit the nail on the head with that one."
  
  I don't particularly care if the PRT has a good understanding of my psyche to be honest. Really, I can only see it as a good thing, since it means they'd probably be more willing to play along with my games, because every big organisation like the PRT prefers known elements, than unpredictable ones, and even I don't know what I'd do if I offered them a game and they rejected it.
  
  Noticing that I'm not going to say anything about the eval thing, Harlequin continues on.
  
  "This means that you'll be dealing with some heavy resistance. First of all, there will be five armoured transports, four of which will be filled with fully armed and armoured troopers, and the fifth will also be filled with fully armed and armoured troopers. String will just be cramped in there with them, cocooned in containment foam and with about a dozen more foam nozzles pointed at her at all times. They'll have her loaded into the transport second from the back, trying to trick you into going for the middle one."
  
  I smile at that. It makes sense I suppose, and it makes me happy to know that they're trying to trick us, especially since it means they won't be expecting us to attack the middle transport and whatever surprise they no doubt have hiding away inside of it.
  
  "Now, for the important parts. The capes. First and most important, would be Alexandria. For some reason she seems to have taken String's threat personally or something, because she's basically been on a warpath ever since her threat to get that woman inside the 'Cage, so Alexandria will be inside the middle transport, waiting with a few troopers."
  
  Alexandria will be there? How fun.~
  
  I wonder if she's upset at me for spreading her naked pictures all over the internet? I don't see why she would be, she has nothing to be ashamed of. Super girl has super tits, who'd have guessed?
  
  "I'm sure everyone knows about her, so I won't go into pointless details and will just move on to the others. She only managed to get five other capes to join her, one being in each of the transports and another trailing behind. That last one will be the biggest issue I'd guess, as they are a Trump/Thinker 3, who's power basically tells them the location of every parahuman within five clicks of themselves, so they'll see you coming and warn the others before you can do anything about it, unless you have a long distance teleporter on speed dial?"
  
  That's annoying. I was kind of banking on us having the element of surprise to turn the battle in our favour from the get go, but oh well, I'm not overly worried.
  
  "Nah, and I don't think Strider would be willing to help, no matter how much I offered to pay him.~"
  
  Heroes can be so unreasonable sometimes. Strider is freelance and possibly the best mass teleporter on the planet, but he is a freelance hero, so he would probably turn down my money, no matter how much I throw at him.
  
  Which sucks, I want a teleporter.
  
  "Shame, the others are all more oriented to combat and containment. In the front transport there will be Osmosis, who's power is a Striker/Changer 2 and Brute 6. He's an interesting one, his power let's him slowly spread his blood vessels throughout any object he is touching, turning that object into an extension of himself, thus granting it his brute ability. Keep in mind, I'm being very literal when I say the object becomes a part of his body, he'll probably be using it on the transport, so if you manage to break past his brute rating and the innate durability of the vehicle, then not only will it bleed his blood, but it will also hurt him a lot."
  
  What a fucking weird ass power. Does that mean he could bleed to death if we just lacerate the fuck out of the transport?
  
  Wait, if he's 'human' and he turns the car into 'him,' then would that make the car 'human' and thus edible to me?
  
  I'll see if I get the opportunity to test that could be interesting.
  
  Taking a short pause, I hear some ruffling of papers from the other side of the phone, and I take the moment to glance at Lucy's face, happily taking in the shocked look she has as she stares at the phone in my hand.
  
  Clearly she's understood the implications of this call, that I have someone with insider knowledge of the PRT, and quite a lot of it at that. If nothing else, this alone should reaffirm that joining us is a good choice, what comes next will only further cement that.
  
  Still, I'm starting to see their plan. We rush in, start out by attacking the front vehicle to stop the convoy, fail thanks to Osmosis, at the same time someone, likely me, would try and blitz the centre vehicle, getting String out early, only to run into an angry invincible woman.
  
  Then, if I were Alexandria, I would have the second car have someone specialising in containment, to take advantage of the person who attacked the first car still being stunned, same with the car with String actually in it, both to help contain whoever Alexandria is fighting, if she even needs the help, and to keep String from being freed, leaving whoever's in the last car to be someone good in a fight, preferably fast too, or a Blaster, I guess.
  
  "The second car has Valiant, her power's a Mover 5 and Shaker 3. She teleports, only short distance and sight based, but everyone within a five metre diameter of her when she 'lands' has their legs frozen in space, quantum locked, for about three seconds. It varies but only by milliseconds, so you won't notice anyway."
  
  Eh, that's not too annoying. After all, if she only targets legs then I can just rip mine off and fight without, not like I need them, I already have way too many limbs for it to ever be an issue.
  
  "I've already covered the middle transport, everyone knows Alexandria, the next one has Gorgon, a Blaster 4 who can turn anything organic to stone with a look, though it does take some time to fully take effect, not long but it's noticeable, and he only turns a thin layer to stone, so you'd probably be just fine even if he hit you with it Tear. The transmuted material returns to normal after a couple of hours."
  
  Well that's two for two of my guesses being right, and once again, I find myself unworried, because as she said, Gorgon isn't a threat to me.
  
  "Lastly is Prometheus, Blaster 6 with a kind of Trump/Tinker rating of 1, because his power is to produce flames, except he can choose the 'properties' that the flames burn away at. Nothing as mystical as time or anything, but he can burn away at durability, or kinetic energy, or, as I think is likely to be Alexandria's plan for you Tear, is that he could burn away at your regenerative ability, possibly removing the only thing that's kept you alive through your own stupidity."
  
  Now that's interesting.
  
  I wonder if it'll actually work like fire, and if I can just power through it by regenerating faster than his fire can burn my regeneration?
  
  It'd probably be dumb to even try and test that unfortunately. Ah well, it's not like I'm making the plan this time anyway.
  
  "I've also compiled a general assessment of their personalities. Habits and the like, alongside the psych profiles of the first three, I couldn't get you Prometheus' and I didn't even try to get Alexandria's. I'll send them to you now, and that's all I've got. I'll be keeping an eye on the news and if I see anything about you being captured or otherwise failing, I'm going to call you just to laugh at you. Later."
  
  With that, she hangs up, not even giving me the chance to say goodbye or anything. How rude.
  
  Lucy is still staring at the phone even after the it clicks from Harlequin hanging up, only being broken out of her reverie when the phone pings again, a quick check showing that it is those profiles as promised.
  
  Without a word, I hand the phone over to March, who seems to be in a daze of her own, though I think the proper term is fugue, except she is likely running scenarios through her power right now, coming up with a perfect plan.
  
  Lucy turns to give me a significant look, but I just smile at her.
  
  "Surprised?" I ask with mirth.
  
  "Of course I am, do you have any idea how the world sees you Clowns?" She returns, making me raise a brow and shrug.
  
  "𝘜𝘴 Clowns, you're one of us too now, and nah, I got no clue.~"
  
  I really don't spend all that much time online, granted, that's mostly because I tend to get banned almost immediately after I get online, and the bans usually last a week at minimum at this point, and it's not like being in the Nine is great for keeping up on current events, so I might be slightly out of the loop, luckily Lucy is happy to fill me in.
  
  "As far as anyone is concerned, the 'Clowns' is just you and Fool, a pair of psychopaths tying to entertain themselves and their Tinker friend using them for both protection and marketing with a couple of extra capes that have banded together with you to keep out of being forced into gangs. You're basically seen as an alliance of rogues sticking together to avoid getting ganged up on."
  
  Huh, that actually kind of makes sense, and I don't even have a problem with it.
  
  If anything, this is perfect. I mean, it's basically correct anyway, the only difference being that people apparently are vastly underestimating just what resources we collectively have at our disposal, which is probably a good thing really.
  
  After all, while I don't want to have a weak reputation, being underestimated is fine, if anything this is better, because it means we will still have a fearsome reputation when it comes to combat and protecting our own, but everyone will underestimate our ability in the more subtle approaches.
  
  Well, not everyone. Important people will all obviously know, eventually at least. But again, I'm fine with that too, because how else are we supposed to be hired?
  
  Gotta make a living somehow, as they say.
  
  "Well, now you know. And it's only up from here.~ Once we bust String out, people will take notice and realise that joining us is a safe bet, doubly so thanks to Alexandria making an appearance, something that will only make our success all the more impressive.~ Of course, they still have to meet the two requirements if they want to join, so while you're free to invite anyone you want to join us, just keep in mind that I'll probably kill them if they're super boring.~"
  
  Lucy gives me a look of scrutiny at my words, and I can practically see the cogs in her brain turning. In fact, I can probably guess exactly what she's thinking too.
  
  Probably something along the lines of how unexpected it is of me that I can actually think passed tomorrow and plan for the future.
  
  It's kind of insulting that she expected me to be dumber though.
  
  Speaking of future plans though, I should really be thanking Alexandria. Her presence will make everything go so much better, probably speeding up my projections for my Clown's growth by at least a few months, which is nice.
  
  I'll figure out a way to send her some flowers at some point.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  I just want to point it out for any who missed it, but the title to this chap is actually super fitting. It's half a Sun Tzu quote, the other half being "you must become your enemy"
  
  Now, consider, who is the 'enemy' here, and who is giving the information on the 'enemy' and how did they get it?
  
  Also, you know that line where lusia told Lucy to watch March work? I wrote that cuz I thought march would have a speaking role after, guess I got carried away making even more OCs
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  124 Scary World
  Okay, so it actually took longer for March to read through several detailed psych profiles, including the persons habits and favourites foods and basically everything about them than I thought it would.
  
  As a matter of fact, she's still reading through it now even after we've arrived at Portland.
  
  I'm doing my best to ignore the mocking look Lucy is sending me about my poor show of timing.
  
  When we reached the edges of the city, there was an isolated van waiting for Crawler, with the back open and the driver sitting there with a blindfold on, which he obviously took off once he felt the van dip down from Crawler's entrance.
  
  He doesn't know what he's transporting, doesn't even know if it's a person or an object. All he knows is where to wait and where to go.
  
  Which is really more for his sake than any of ours. We don't particularly care about being seen here, especially since Alexandria is already expecting us anyway, but that doesn't mean the Elite want anyone to know that they've abetted the Nine.
  
  Obviously, people will be less reluctant to work with us once word gets out about the Nine being no more, though I'm pretty confident that some wannabes will try and revive the group.
  
  This is a world with dumbasses that worship the Endbringers who literally do nothing but destroy a city every other month. Cultists and retards, the lot of them.
  
  Either way, we made it to Portland just fine, and there was a transport there waiting for us, this one I decide to drive myself, just so there are less people involved.
  
  We waited for Crawler's van before taking off of course, because I had to open the back and actually ask him if he wants to join the fun, and subsequently become a Clown.
  
  Naturally, being the good boy that he is, he accepted right away, eager to please the one person he has ever felt to truly understand him.
  
  He needs a new name though, and I can't think of anything. Maybe just Dog or something, Hound?
  
  Nah, that'd be lazy.
  
  Point is, we're all heading to where String's transport will be soon enough, even if not all of us are participating.
  
  This is a strictly Clown only operation, and Burnscar is way to boring most of the time to be a member. She's only fun when she's surrounded by fire, but even then, she's mostly just fun to watch, without fire she's just too mellow, so I figure I'll give her to James or something.
  
  Or maybe to that mercenary? I remember Burnscar saying something about having a friend who joined up with some mercenaries. If their leader is fun enough then they could even add to my Clowns, who knows?
  
  Bonesaw however is just too broken right now, so she obviously won't be any help, at least not without forcing a mask on her for a quick fix, but that's not what I'm looking for here, and she's a Tinker anyway, and this is a short notice kind of thing.
  
  Which just leaves me, March, Crawler, Lucy, or Nutcracker, if she accepts the name and Murder Bear, or Queenie. I don't know what her actual name is, and she can't tell me yet, but I prefer Queenie.
  
  Honestly, the only reason I invited her into my Clowns is because she's funny, because her power's pretty weak. Out of all Clowns, she probably scores the lowest in the 'have something to offer' measure, but she makes up for it with how fun she is.
  
  Either way, that makes for a clean five on five, and frankly, even without March giving us a plan, our line-up vastly outmatches their own.
  
  I could probably solo them, depending on how Prometheus' power works against my regen, same with Crawler really, and honestly, maybe even Lucy too.
  
  ... Man, we're going to annihilate them so hard it's not even funny, it's going to be like hitting a disabled, legless puppy that was just hit by a car, with a fucking train.
  
  Just, completely unnecessary overkill, which is actually kind of funny now that I think about it, especially since it's happening to Alexandria.
  
  Speaking of, I asked Harley about some power related stuff, namely how March and Lucy could pop the Siberian for some reason when I, and literally everyone else that has ever fought her, could do nothing at all.
  
  Her response was enlightening to say the least.
  
  Apparently, there is a term rarely used in power classification, known as 'all-or-nothing,' which is honestly rather self explanatory, just like a lot of power classifications.
  
  It doesn't take a genius to figure out what 'Mover' or 'Thinker' type powers would do.
  
  But all-or-nothing powers, as the name implies, either work perfectly, or not at all.
  
  The list of capes confirmed to have all-or-nothing powers that she was able to get for me was very short, and included the expected duo of Eidolon and Glaistig Uaine, the Faerie Queen. Because obviously the 'I have all the powers' assholes would have all the powers.
  
  Ironically enough, one of the entries for all-or-nothing powers was Gray Boy, the single most terrifying cape to ever grace this earth and one of the founding members of the Slaughterhouse Nine.
  
  His power was particularly scary, enough that he was feared more than the Siberian, probably more than the fucking Simurgh, depending on who you ask really.
  
  They're both a whole different kind of terrifying. The Simurgh corrupts your mind, turning your own thoughts against you, against your friends and there's really nothing you can do about it.
  
  She's a subtle kind of scary. A terror that hides in the back of your head, always watching.
  
  Gray Boy, well; in true Slaughterhouse fashion, he completely lacked any of that subtlety, and I honestly can't decide which is scarier, though I'm actually leaning towards Gray Boy.
  
  If you're listening Simurgh, please don't take it personally, I didn't mean anything bad by it, he's just really- you know what?
  
  Fuck that, never mind. If I'm literally pre-emptively apologising in my head to the Simurgh about maybe insulting her out of very real fear, then I think she's clearly the scariest of the two.
  
  ... I really hope she isn't reading my mind right now. Not that I wouldn't want you here! I'm sure you're lovely! Ok, fuck.
  
  There is a reason you don't think about the future and past seeing telepathic psychic Endbringer that uses people as chess pieces in moves that last literal years before they come to fruition.
  
  Lucy could be a fucking Simurgh bomb for fucks sake, and at some, pivotal moment in the future she could just suddenly snap, all because some guy was fucked with by the Simurgh, and he talked to someone else, who made someone else kill themselves, causing someone else to go crazy, all to effect someone who would say something to Lucy that would trigger her at some specific point half a decade from now.
  
  ... Yeah, the Simurgh is the scariest.
  
  Moving on, before I accidentally drive myself insane without her even actually having to do anything, Gray Boy!
  
  His power is that he traps an area in a space-time loop. Now, that seems simple on the surface, but that just means you're not considering this properly.
  
  A common example, considering his company, is that he would kill someone, probably in some brutal manner, and then he would use his power on them.
  
  That person, from now and possibly for eternity, as none of his bubbles have popped yet, even years after his death, will relive that experience of death, over and over again, without stop.
  
  To make things somehow even worse, the people's minds don't get reset. There are people out there in his bubbles, that no one can move and are thus just, out there, who have died literally hundreds of millions of times, if my math is right.
  
  Apparently, they go insane pretty quickly, but then it keeps going and they get their sanity back, only for it to break again, over and over again, a loop inside of an equally horrific loop.
  
  Unfortunately for him, he was alive back when the Faerie Queen was roaming about, and she ended up killing him, 'claiming' him for her court. I wonder if he's the only all-or-nothing power she has, or if she's got more?
  
  There's a reason she's the bogeywoman of all capes after all.
  
  Needless to say, I really don't want to get into a fight with the Faerie Queen, and that is purely because of Gray Boy, I'm not all that afraid of whatever else she would have available to her.
  
  Back to the point at hand, the Siberian was an all-or-nothing projection, and since when one all-or-nothing makes contact with another, the two effects cancel each other out, that means that you just need to tap her with a perfect power and she pops.
  
  It just so happens, by pure fucking chance, that both Lucy and March have access to all-or-nothing powers, which, in hindsight, explains why Crawler couldn't adapt to Lucy's power.
  
  Apparently there was even another two new additions to the list of all-or-nothings, one being some girl called Flechette in NY, who apparently triggered with March, which is interesting, and a fresh trigger, like less than a month ago fresh, who can stop things in time over in Brockton Bay.
  
  Point is, without at least one of them, I'd have had literally no way to deal with the Siberian, so that's nice, I suppose.
  
  Eventually, we do reach our intended location, right as the sun is starting to rise.
  
  March has finished reading through the information Harley sent, but we decided it'd be easier to just explain the plan once, so we were waiting to arrive so that she didn't have to go through it all again for Crawler.
  
  Crawler's van was leading us until now, and he does a full U-turn once we arrive, making me smirk in amusement as I see him put on his blindfold again as I drive past.
  
  Our windows are tinted too, so it's not like he can see our faces either, and I find it incredibly amusing that he's in the presence of so many powerful capes, that have a combined kill count in the thousands, and he doesn't even realise it.
  
  As far as he's concerned, he might as well be dropping off drugs for a pick up.
  
  Crawler get's out of the back with no problem, and the dude starts the van, still without taking his blindfold off, and drives away.
  
  It's a good thing we're in such an open area, so it's not like he has to do anything but drive in a relatively straight line for a bit before he can take the blindfold off, and by design we are in a location that isn't going to see any traffic.
  
  Getting out myself, I leave Riley in the back of the van, and without any fire Burnscar is very agreeable, so she acquiesces to staying inside without any issues.
  
  I even leave my phone with Burnscar so she can play games if she gets bored.
  
  Bonesaw probably won't even realise any time has passed between Jack's death and whenever I get around to actually fixing her.
  
  Shame I'm busy right now, but I can get on that right after this.
  
  Which just leaves the five of us sitting down in a field, well, four of us are sitting down; March is standing with a pointing stick that she got from somewhere, standing next to a foldable board thing, like an easel I guess, with some empty papers on it and a pen, looking like she is truly ready to give the lecture of a lifetime.
  
  I have no idea where she got the stick from, or the easel or paper or pen, but I think it's funnier like that, so I don't ask.
  
  Realistically, she probably just asked for it to be added to the van before we got there, my mind unhelpfully supplies, ruining the immersion.
  
  This is why I hate being smart, you can't just enjoy the simple things.
  
  Snapping me out of my thoughts, March smacks her pointer stick into the palm of her hand, and I just know that she's grinning behind that mask of hers.
  
  "Right then boys and girls! Listen up because I'm only go to say this once!" So says the pubescent girl to the mass murdering monster tank dog, the serial killing cannibal, the girl with a kill count over a thousand and a modified bear human designed for murder.
  
  What a world we live in.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Once again, March was supposed to have a speaking role here, but I got too carried away with writing about gay boy and angle of fuck you, cuz they're both scary af, and that's fun.
  
  They are easily the two scariest beings on the planet, imo.
  
  Also, I find it hilarious that March, a 13~ year old girl, is going to be bossing around two infamously powerful and insane capes, as well as another two girls who, while less infamous, also have really high kill counts, especially lucy, thanks to bonesaw
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  125 Interlude: Alexandria 2 Electric Boo
  A/N: I'll post a map on my profile for what the convoy looks like, cuz it's fun.
  
  South of Yakama, Washington, July 5th, 06:52.
  
  Sitting in the back of the armoured transport, I keep myself perfectly still, nerves that would be causing my leg to bounce long since burnt out over the years.
  
  The sun is still in the throes of rising, yet everyone in this convoy is alert and ready for a fight, even if it is barely seven in the morning.
  
  After threatening to knock the moon out of orbit, no one stood in my way as I moved to catch the insane woman currently being transported, I had her 'trial' set up before I even caught her.
  
  Meaning that once I did, we could move things forward as fast as possible, so as to not allow that damn psychopath Tear to have the opportunity to break her free.
  
  Something that I know is all but guaranteed to happen, partly thanks to a young Hero who apparently knew Tear back when she was only known as Lusia.
  
  Thanks to her, we have a very detailed psychological profile of the Clown, and I have personally read through every report, every social media post, every blog relating to her; I likely know Lusia better than anyone else still alive.
  
  So really, the only question is whether or not she will survive the journey.
  
  She is with the Nine after all, and I'm certain that from what we've seen of what she's doing, she would want to break String Theory free without using the Nine as a crutch.
  
  Obviously, Jack Slash wouldn't allow that, causing some infighting, hopefully they will just kill each other off and save us the trouble.
  
  My prosthetic eye aches as my mind drifts to a certain member of the Nine. The only person to truly hurt me.
  
  Clearing my mind of distracting thoughts, I focus back on the woman plaguing me.
  
  I have been 'advised' not to actively hunt down this network of 'Clowns' that she is forming, but thanks to the nature of the threat, nobody is going to try and get in my way putting at least this Clown in the Birdcage.
  
  But it is inevitable that she will try to stop this, and she's not stupid, loathe as I am to admit it, so I even brought back up, just in case.
  
  Not that I truly believe she can best me, or even hurt me for that matter.
  
  For all the versatility her power has shown, nothing so far suggests anything capable of harming me. My backup in this case, is just to handle whoever else she brings with her, if she doesn't come alone that is.
  
  Truthfully, I'm feeling rather expectant.
  
  As a member of the Nine, Tear has a kill order automatically, and after all the trouble she's been causing, I would be 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘺 to test just how potent her regenerative capabilities are.
  
  Now, merely a day after catching String Theory, the question of whether or not Lusia will make it in time to intercept us is finally answered as a radio to my left crackles to life.
  
  "Company. Five capes, two ahead and three to the side, one minute until collision." Darcy's voice rings out in the van, causing the men and women around me to straighten and double check their weapons.
  
  Live fire is permitted, but containment foam is likely to simply be more effective.
  
  "Understood, keep a look out." One of the troopers, Anderson, my mind supplies, responds to Darcy.
  
  She is a useful one, Darcy. She's one of ours, not a natural trigger. Her father wanted her to have a power so that she could help expand his 'enterprises,' so naturally he came to us.
  
  Unfortunately for him, she ended up with a fairly weak power, she can't even learn anything about the parahumans she senses, just their location, and he was arrested not long later, so now she's taken to just living a normal, peaceful life.
  
  After this operation, Cauldron will only have one more favour owed by her, but really, she's hardly worth anything.
  
  Thinking of Cauldron has me thinking of Lusia again, more specifically how Contessa can't Path her.
  
  Normally a worrying thought, but with how she explained it, I'm not too worried.
  
  The only people so far that Contessa couldn't Path are the likes of Scion, the Endbringers, Eidolon and Glaistig Uaine. There are others of course, but the point is that they tend to be incredibly powerful in their own right.
  
  But the way she explained it, is that with Scion, it's like her power gets a 'permission denied' when she tries to Path him, while with the Endbringers it's liker her Paths simply slide off of them.
  
  With the likes of Eidolon, Glaistig and Pastor, it's more like the Path simply can't give an accurate answer, with there simply being too many variables to consider, too many powers at play.
  
  Apparently, Lusia is similar to them, but it feels like the Path is 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬, like it's trying to get close to a predator that only fights back in response.
  
  The Doctor and Kurt have come to the conclusion that it's likely that Lusia's Agent is rebelling for whatever reason. This is part of why the Doctor doesn't want me to hunt her down, since Lusia could end up being something of vital importance to our goals, not that she knows it.
  
  The radio once again cracks to life, cutting off my thoughts. "Obstruction on the road, it looks like Tear Ma'am, I can't see a second."
  
  I barely even have to think for a second to figure out what she's planning.
  
  Lusia has been with the Nine, if she's here, and with only four other parahumans at that, then clearly she fought her way out, maybe even just killing the others of the Nine.
  
  But she's here with others, too many for it to just be the Clowns we know. Not that there aren't enough of them, just that Lusia wouldn't be stupid enough to bring them here.
  
  Which, unfortunately means that she has likely killed Jack and taken over the Nine.
  
  My eye aches even more, phantom pains returning as realisation of just who I might be fighting today sets in.
  
  But I shake that thought and focus. If she was just standing there alone, then she would definitely just be planning on letting herself get hit by the front transport, but she's not alone.
  
  And since she was with the Nine yesterday, I'm fairly certain I know her plan.
  
  So without wasting any time, I grab a radio and speak quickly and concisely.
  
  "Avoid collision, Crusher is hiding behind her," is all I need to say before I feel the vehicle suddenly jerk to the side.
  
  Everyone here knows about the Nine and their powerset, so I don't have to warn anyone about what it would mean to drive into Crusher's power field.
  
  A second later, the radio comes to life again, Darcy's urgent voice coming through from the other end.
  
  "The other three are moving! Two for the prisoner and one centre!" She yells, making me frown.
  
  She knows our formation.
  
  Great, she's already got a leak in the PRT. Lovely.
  
  I hear a loud crash from ahead that I attribute to Lusia jumping at Osmosis' transport, putting a stop to the convoy, but I ignore that in favour of flying up, straight through the roof as if it wasn't even there.
  
  It takes me barely a second to take in the scene around me.
  
  At the front of the convoy, Lusia is playing with Osmosis' transport like an oversized chew toy, while Valiant is somehow already on the ground, seemingly unconscious.
  
  Crusher is standing slightly further ahead and keeping her distance, and a quick glance to the side is enough to learn who else she has brought with her.
  
  The most obvious is Crawler, who is barrelling towards String Theory's transport, with Murder Bear shortly behind him, while the person approaching me is a small girl in a marching band outfit with a bunny mask and feathered cap.
  
  March, my mind supplies.
  
  Small time Villain in NY. She's caused Legend some trouble with how she's been targeting the Wards, but for the most part she hasn't shown to be anyone of note.
  
  Yet she seems to be approaching me as if she believes she can take me.
  
  She isn't the first, and she won't be the last, but I'm not just going to play by their games.
  
  The troopers can handle her, is all I think before launching myself towards Crawler.
  
  I reach him right as he crashes into the front of the vehicle, his head and shoulders already showing signs of turning to stone, and I give him no time to react as I barrel into him, sending him tumbling away from the road, except that's not what happens at all.
  
  Instead, the moment I reach him, he twists his entire monstrous body, reminding me of some combat precogs I've fought before as he manoeuvres himself perfectly to avoid my strike, while also landing a full body check on my that has my body carving a trench into the ground the next instant.
  
  Annoying.
  
  Raising back to the air without so much of a scratch, I glance down to see March toying with the troopers around her, dancing and flipping in an all too exaggerated manner as she does so.
  
  Lusia has already finished with the front transport and is throwing it aside like trash, turning her gaze to me with a hungry smile on her bare face.
  
  She isn't the first Villain to think they could best me, and once again, she won't be the last.
  
  But I ignore her in favour of the transport and watch as a bright flame suddenly bursts forth from the final transport, hitting nothing as the two capes around it jumped back just in time to remain unharmed, as if they saw the attack coming.
  
  Annoying.
  
  The troopers try to help, but even against the weakest of the bunch, Murder Bear, they don't manage to do much of anything.
  
  Dashing for Crawler once again, I decide to get him out of the fight by simply picking him up and throwing him away. He can't move nearly as fast as I can, so it should keep him out of the fight.
  
  But right as I am about to reach him, I am knocked to the side by a powerful force hitting me from behind, and a glance out of the corner of my eye shows a spike of bone shattering against my skin.
  
  Before I can orient myself again, I am impacted once more, by Crawler this time, and my body ends up digging another trench into the ground.
  
  𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨.
  
  A second later I am in the sky again, the air 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 before me as I fly forward, deciding to just ignore the difficult targets for the moment and to get rid of the easy ones, such as the bear woman standing at the back of Sting Theory's transport.
  
  They all have kill orders, so I don't bother with the peaceful method and instead just swing a fist at her head, knowing exactly how much force I need to use to turn her skill into a fine mist.
  
  Yet, once again she acts as if she knows the future, ducking before I even swing at her, and as I try to adjust my swing, her power springs to life, a number of transparent tendrils sprouting from her heart and piercing upwards to her side, perfectly managing to hit the underside of my fist right before it killed her, resulting in my attack flying overhead.
  
  My mind reminds me of the information on March, and how she supposedly has a Thinker power that helps her with timing.
  
  At the same time, Crawler comes crashing into me, but this time I don't go flying.
  
  This time, I keep control over myself and he only manages to push me a small distance.
  
  With an annoyed frown, I grab hold of one of his arms, and with a flight assisted horizontal spin, I launch his body as far away as I can, immediately ignoring him as he soars away so that I can focus on securing the prisoner.
  
  By now, she's already inside the transport and working on getting String Theory free, but before I can entre to stop her, I see March standing at the entrance to the van, happily waving up at me.
  
  The annoying thing with Thinkers like this, is that I don't know if her plan involves me simple charging her, or if her plan is for me to avoid the bait and go in through the walls or roof of the vehicle.
  
  Wait, what happened to Prometheus?
  
  A quick glance to the side answers that as I see him lying in a pool of blood with a bone spike sticking out from his gut.
  
  It only takes me a second to note that it shouldn't be fatal, so long as he gets treatment within a couple of hours, the spike having missed the most vital organs.
  
  Knowing that Thinkers like their tricks, I decide to just be simple instead of overthinking things and just charge at them.
  
  March draws her rapier as I approach, and a sudden sinking feeling forms in my gut, making me hesitate.
  
  A good thing too, as I barely got close enough for her to land a small swipe before I backed off, opening a small wound on the palm of my hand, barely even noticeable, more of a paper cut really.
  
  But it means that she can hurt me.
  
  "Tut tut, little Miss Bibliophile,~ don't tell me the mighty Library of Alexandria is afraid of a small little girl, is she?~" A mocking voice calls out from the side, and as I look over I see Lusia approaching with a sway in her hips, her external power nowhere to seen.
  
  I don't say anything as I float there, annoyed at how quickly everything has gone wrong.
  
  It's barely been a couple of minutes and Osmosis is hurt, possibly dying, Valiant is at the very least unconscious, Gorgon the same and Prometheus is dying, all the while they have walked in and are freeing the prisoner as if I don't even exist.
  
  It took them barely a couple of minutes to completely dismantle everything I prepared for her, and they did it with such ease, not even a single scratch on any of them.
  
  How 𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙤𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜.
  
  "Nothing to say?~ Well, maybe you can at least answer a question of mine then?~" Saying so, a tendril of her power bursts out of her back and extends dozens of feet off the road before reeling back the next moment, only with something in it's grip.
  
  "How's the eye?~" She says, making me flinch minutely in anger before controlling my expression, though, going by the widening of her own smile, she clearly caught my slip up, "I'm sure it must hurt, but don't worry.~ You have been avenged!~"
  
  As she shouts out her exclamation, she proudly presents what she grabbed, as if showing off a trophy.
  
  It's a head. A decapitated mans head, horrifically burned and melted as it is, I still recognise it.
  
  Even if I didn't have a perfect recall, how could I forget the face of William Manton, former member of Cauldron and the Master of the Siberian.
  
  "Now, I know what you must be thinking, that's not the Siberian! That's just some random fucked up lookin' ass dude!~ But you'd be wrong! See, it turns out that dear Sibby was actually a 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 this whole time!~ He 𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘥 us! So much for girl power right?~ Turns out she was just a lie.~ But now he's dead, so all is good, and we can be besties right?~"
  
  Lusia keeps talking, but I'm not listening.
  
  They killed Manton. They killed the Siberian.
  
  The Siberian who has fought Legend, Eidolon and I by herself and gotten away. The Siberian who killed Hero.
  
  Part of me wants to be happy that Hero has finally been avenged, but a bigger part of me is simply weary of how much power Lusia seems to be accumulating, both in herself and in those she surrounds herself with.
  
  An even bigger part of me, is the part realising that I won't be able to stop them from freeing String Theory.
  
  Fine then. Change of plans.
  
  With a blur of motion, the air collapses around me as I fly forward as fast as I am able, smashing into Lusia before she can do anything about it and flying up into the sky the next moment.
  
  In five seconds we are thousands of metres above the ground, and I don't pause as I spin a full circle and throw Lusia back down to the earth with all of my strength.
  
  𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘮
  
  A ring of displaced air explodes around her body as she plummets to the ground, but I ignore that in favour of taking a deep breath and focusing on what matters.
  
  That being, 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘰𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘳𝘣𝘪𝘵.
  
  Luckily, there is one solution.
  
  One of the benefits of being teammates with someone known to have all the powers, is that he can do anything and be anywhere without anyone questioning it, because he is Eidolon, and he can do anything.
  
  So with one last glare down at the annoying Clowns below, I speak three words like a death sentence.
  
  "Door to Eidolon."
  
  The world splits and a man wreathed in green appears before me.
  
  And so, The Strongest Hero takes to the stage.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Didn't like this chapter, even though it's 3k, I feel like I didn't do Alexandria justice.
  
  Also yeah, Eidolon. idfk how this is going to work out, but my thought process is basically that after this fight, there won't be the opportunity for any high power level fights for a while, so I wanted to make something good rather than the rofl stomp that was just delivered.
  
  Seriously, I was planning this chap to be a cool showcasing of March's power, but then I realised too late that lusia's group just vastly outperforms Alexandria's, but if it was the entire triumvirate it would be the opposite.
  
  Either way, Alexandria can kick Cralwer around with ease, just can't kill him, Lusia could fight her but would be physically weaker and unable to harm her, in a straight fight it's 6:4 in Alexandria's favour, but lucy and march are both all or nothing, so that counters.
  
  Now, I love people with a shit tonne of powers, so Eidolon is probably going to kick lusia's ass while alexandria takes on the others, idk how I'm going to reasonably get lusia out of this lol, but I'm sure something will work out... probably. maybe this will just turn into a birdcage fic lol?
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  126 The Strongest Hero
  Owwwwwww.
  
  I may be used to pain, but that doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt, I can just ignore it.
  
  Still, being melted and crushed and having my very body Break down is a whole different kind of pain compared to being catapulted into the ground by a very angry woman with very strong arms.
  
  The whole thing was a blur of motion.
  
  One moment I was standing there, mocking her, the next she was in front of me and all of a sudden, after a short but dizzying trip, I am in the sky, and then I'm plummeting to the ground fast enough to break the sound barrier before I can even try to cop a feel or something.
  
  The world is truly unfair sometimes.
  
  And let me tell you, being Broken down is possibly one of the most painful experiences of my life, but nothing takes the wind out of you quite like impacting the ground at at least Mach 1.
  
  The worrying part however, is that this was not part of the plan.
  
  Everything's been going well so far, and if nothing else has gone wrong then Queenie should be driving March and String Theory away by now, leaving Crawler, Nutcracker and I to bully Alexandria.
  
  Which, even with the speed and strength she's shown, we should be able to do.
  
  At least, once I actually bring forth the full strength of my power, because I can hardly see Alexandria move right now, but that problem, as well as the gap in our physical capabilities, should all be solved once I go all out.
  
  However, she was supposed to drag me through the road, where Lucy would be waiting, standing just close enough for Alexandria's arm to be within the range of her power, but not close enough that she'd die.
  
  I don't want to 𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭 her after all. There's good publicity and then there's political suicide, and killing a member of the Triumvirate would be way more trouble than it's worth.
  
  But she didn't do that, which means something has changed and March's plan is now null and void.
  
  That, is not good.
  
  Sitting up in the crater around me, I take stock of the situation.
  
  The girls are in the van, as planned, and Crawler is outside guarding them. Lucy is further forward, looking a little lost at what to do, but probably leaning towards hopping in one of the not broken transports and driving off.
  
  Then, while I'm looking at her, I notice something odd.
  
  She's looking up at the sky, where Alexandria is, except she's wearing an expression of 𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥.
  
  That doesn't make sense, she counters Alexandria pretty much perfectly, and even then, she didn't show any signs of caring about her earlier, so what is it exactly that has her looking like that?
  
  Following her gaze, I tilt my head to the sky, and all of a sudden my mind blanks at what I see, a single thought making it through.
  
  Ah.
  
  That's why.
  
  ... Fuck.
  
  My smile only grows wider and more uncontrolled as I take in the sight of Eidolon.
  
  The Fifth Strongest being on the planet, just after Scion and the Endbringers, but they're freaks so they don't count, and none of them are technically capes, even if at least Scion is a Parahuman, probably, but they don't play the game, so they're not capes.
  
  Which makes Eidolon The Strongest Cape, as well as The Strongest Hero, as well as the dude with 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘴.
  
  Maybe, just maybe, we might be in just a little over our heads right now.
  
  Ah well, it's not too big of a deal, probably.
  
  The joys of being friends with such a versatile Tinker as Vendor, is that you can prepare for situations like this.
  
  It's not like I ever thought we could escape Alexandria by just driving away, and I already wasn't planning on killing her.
  
  So what is the solution, I hear you ask?
  
  Well, that's easy.
  
  Turning to March, who is sitting in the front of String Theories transport, with Queenie in the back trying to help get the containment foam off of her, I go to shout something at her, only for a bolt of lighting to drive itself down from the sky and through my entire body, frying me for a moment before I heal the damage.
  
  Ah well, I'm sure she's got the same idea.
  
  A fact that is proven once I see the van flash once.
  
  I continue to ignore Eidolon and watch as Alexandria ploughs into Crawler, aiming for the van as it flashes again but getting knocked aside by his weight.
  
  By the time she orients herself and starts moving again, it has already been nine seconds since March activated Vendor's device, and the van flashes one more time, before simply disappearing, as if an illusion.
  
  Sorry, did I say they were getting ready to drive away? My bad.~
  
  With a smirk on my face, I turn up to the floating Eidolon.
  
  "Heh, looks like-" I am cut off by another lightning bolt hitting me, frying my brain and melting my organs, but I am fine again by the time the dust settles and I keep talking as if nothing happened, "-you're not the only one who can teleport.~"
  
  Truthfully, it's a lot more limited than I'm making it out to be.
  
  For one, it takes nine seconds to activate, during which the slightest tap can cancel it out. But more importantly, it needs a 'vessel' of sorts to teleport, hence the van.
  
  The reason for this is that the teleportation basically just shreds whatever is being teleported, meaning that when they arrive, they will be standing just fine but surrounded by whatever scraps of the van managed to survive the travel.
  
  Naturally, using the device on your body is suicide, but Crawler and I might be able to survive it ok.
  
  Plus, they're Tinker tech. Vendor has only made like, nine of them. His power likes the number nine for some reason.
  
  Turning back up to Eidolon, I lose myself just staring at him for a moment, lost in the pure 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 he exudes.
  
  I actually might be a little fucked here. With Extinction, at the very least I went into that fighting thinking there was a chance I could win, but looking up at Eidolon, thoughts of helplessness gnaw away at me.
  
  𝘈𝘩𝘯~ 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨.~
  
  "I must say, I. Am. Flattered!~ That The Strongest Hero would go out of their way just for me?~ Why, it's enough to make a girl blush!~"
  
  My exclamation is left unanswered as Eidolon seems to be ignoring me in favour of looking over at the other two, and a quick glance following his line of sight allows me to see another van flash once more before disappearing.
  
  Looks like Lucy decided not to stay.
  
  Fair enough really, can't blame her.
  
  Still, he's ignoring me.
  
  Right as I'm about to shout something at him, his head finally turns back to me, as if just noticing I'm here.
  
  Tilting his head slightly, he seems to mull over his answer before giving an incredibly belated response.
  
  "No," he says, "I did not come here for you. String Theory is threatening to blow the moon out of orbit. I came here for her, not you."
  
  His voice is quiet and calm, yet still holding power enough that I hear him clearly, and I have to say, I'm a little hurt.
  
  "Now that's just mean.~" I pout up at him, but he just gives a careless shrug and after one more glance at Alexandria's fight, he simply points at me and suddenly I can't see anything and am in incredible amounts of pain.
  
  Luckily, thanks to Lucy my body has gotten pretty used to being Broken down in it's entirety, so I manage to keep my legs under me enough to jump to the side.
  
  Light returns to my senses as I hit the ground on my side, and a glance back shows a swirling, spherical vortex of dark purplish-green energy sitting right where I was standing.
  
  Yeouch, what even is that? Some organic matter destroying ball thing?
  
  Turning up to the man in the sky, who seems to be looking down on my with mild interest at best, though it's hard to tell with the full face mask, and his green full body suit and cloak also make reading his posture a difficult task, I get the feeling I should stop playing around, otherwise I will definitely die.
  
  "Interesting. Normally powers like that work well against you regeneration types. It's hard to fix anything specific if everything is being destroyed. Oh well."
  
  With his piece said, Eidolon points at me again, but this time I take him a lot more seriously and blood bursts to life around my body, covering me completely in an instant, bulking me up until I am at least seven foot tall and as wide as a man who never skips the gym.
  
  Each of my appendages burst out to cover my me, and I don't hesitate to use my ribbons and tail to assist my legs in launching myself away, just in time as the earth folds up blindingly fast, two slabs of dirt slamming together with enough force that they should have been broken into smithereens.
  
  The fact that the two walls of earth didn't break tells me that there is probably some invulnerability effect added onto it, meaning I would have definitely been pancaked.
  
  𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘺.~
  
  Before he can point at me again, I launch a slew of projectiles out from both of my wings, some pointed spikes and some crescent blades. All together, there must be dozens of them, each as tall as a man, and as they fly I get a faint feeling of control over them.
  
  Testing it, I try to manoeuvrer some of the projectiles to fly around to his back, but it proves pointless as right before they are about to reach him, a burst of white energy pulses out of Eidolon, passing all of the projectiles and erasing them with ease.
  
  Dang.
  
  As I'm about to try again, the air suddenly feels heavy, as if the sky is crashing down on me, and I collapse halfway to the ground, my bones creaking, before I manage to get my ribbons back underneath me, and I manage to keep moving once I start leaping around on all fours, my six ribbons aiding me.
  
  The fact that I have to use ten limbs just to be able to keep moving is annoying, but before I can even complain further, the weight is suddenly gone and a blinding pain replaces it as every single one of my limbs is abruptly ripped off of my body, leaving only my head and torso.
  
  My blood shoots forth, connecting my body parts and I snap back into one with a smile splitting my face.
  
  Turning on a dime, I launch another slew of projectiles at him and crouch down, jumping with all of my strength after them, hoping to actually score a hit.
  
  He points one hand in my direction, and a cone of translucent energy comes to life in front of him. The next second, my projectiles all freeze in time before suddenly reversing, as if he simply hit rewind.
  
  Unfortunately for me, as I was following right behind them, my own projectiles pierce through my body, but I ignore the pain and take the opportunity to use my own projectiles as a foothold to launch myself at him even faster, something I could only accomplish because they were locked in time, otherwise they wouldn't have provided enough leverage for the boost of speed I got.
  
  I reach his spot in the sky within a blink and I open my jaw wide to match my splayed claws and pointed ribbons, my tail swinging around to strike from behind as I intend to hit him with literally everything I have.
  
  The very instant before I touch him, my claws mere inches away from his body, time seems to pause as he suddenly fades away, reappearing in-between my arms with a single palm resting a hairs breadth away from my chest.
  
  Time resumes and I slam into his body, and instead of moving him even the slightest amount, I feel my entire torso 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘥𝘦 into a mist of blood and viscera as my limbs fly off in various directions.
  
  Ow.
  
  Once again, my blood snaps out, connecting each piece of my body and pulling it back together fast enough that a normal person would only see a blur.
  
  Eidolon is not a normal person.
  
  Right where my power is trying to regenerate my torso, a small black hole appears, and as my blood starts pulling me together, the black hole devours me.
  
  It only lasts for the smallest of moments before I urge my power to move, but when I reform, I do it with only half a torso and one arm.
  
  Thankfully, my stumps of flesh soon bubble out and grow new limbs for me to use, leaving me as good as new, if rather hungry.
  
  Right as I am about to make another jump at him, Eidolon finally actually moves.
  
  And when Eidolon moves, he 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘴.
  
  Even with nearly a dozen eyes, I barely manage to track his movement as he suddenly appears before me.
  
  Instinctually, my clawed arms swing at him, but I am moving far too slow to match him, as, with an almost casual grace, he raises a single finger, glowing green with power, and slowly reaches forth, whereupon he simply taps me on the forehead, his touch light and soft.
  
  The next thing I know, I am on the ground, looking up at Eidolon's back as he slowly flies away from me, heading to where Alexandria is still occupying Crawler, no doubt waiting for Eidipie to be done with me so that he can finish him off for her.
  
  However, right as I am thinking about leaving Crawler to his fate and playing dead, Eidipie suddenly stops, casually glancing over his shoulder at me.
  
  Well, fuck me I guess.
  
  Shaking his head, he turns around to face me again, and I double check myself, finding that yes, I am all still here, but I am also starving.
  
  It's nice to know I can survive without a head at least, assuming that's what he did.
  
  However, right as he raises his hand, no doubt planning to hit me with something just as effective, if not more so than whatever he just did that I think erased my head, he pauses and raises a hand to his ear.
  
  Startled, I get a feeling and quickly glance over to Alexandria to see her also standing with a finger held up to the side of her helmet.
  
  Before I can further ponder on what's going on, I hear a faint noise coming from the distance.
  
  I can barely hear it, but there's something familiar about it, and a little thought makes me think it's coming from a nearby town, when it suddenly clicks in my head.
  
  Those are the Endbringer sirens.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  So, first of all, you might think the teleportation thing is a bit of a cop out, but fuck you, I don't write things that aren't canonically plausible, and if I didn't do it like this, then the story would have just ended lol, lusia would have died.
  
  Because Eidolon kicks ass. I'm maybe making him a little stronger than he is in canon, but eh, fuck it, it's more fun like this.
  
  And yeah, Lusia is strong, but Eidolon ins the Strongest, she doesn't stand a chance against him.
  
  Also, I was pretty meh about how this was turning out, what with using an Endbringer to get lusia out of the fight, but I just realised something that's made me pretty happy about it.
  
  It is 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘺 Worm of me to be solving problems by simply escalating them xD
  
  Also lusia would have literally just died if she kept fighting eidolon lol
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  127 Here we go again 2 Electric Boogaloo
  An Endbringer has shown up somewhere.
  
  They aren't the 'an Endbringer is here' sirens, so it isn't nearby, they're just the 'an Endbringer has shown up somewhere' sirens.
  
  They mostly exist for two reasons, one being so that anyone who is willing to join the fight against the monster knows to head for the nearest PRT building so that they can get teleported over, and the other reason is so that the villains all know that the Endbringer Truce is officially in effect.
  
  Heh, nice, saved by the bell. How lame.
  
  Eidolon doesn't say anything, or if he does he uses a power to stop me from hearing it, not like I can see his mouth to lip read. Instead he simply floats over to Alexandria, and I decide to follow.
  
  When we make it there, Crawler is tilting his head confusedly at me, and I hop over to him with a smile.
  
  "Heya!~ Looks like we're done here," I say, and before he can respond I ask him a question that makes him radiate happiness once he hears it, "tell me, Jack never let you fight any Endbringers, did he?~"
  
  I can tell the exact moment that my words click in his head as the various tentacles around his body start wagging in excitement.
  
  At the same time, I take the moment to observe him and I notice something.
  
  He's changed again. He looks different to when we first met.
  
  Seeing as my armour is still fully covering me, I rear back a fist and suddenly punch him as hard as I can.
  
  His armoured body cracks slightly under the force of the blow as a soft booming sound echoes out from the impact, but naturally the crack is fixed in an instant, and a second punch doesn't do anything.
  
  He doesn't do anything in response to me assaulting him, just giving me a curious look, to which I respond with a smile, "you've gotten stronger.~"
  
  He probably won't die to an Endbringer.
  
  Maybe.
  
  It's hard to really know for sure. On one hand, he' is 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 hard to kill, but on the other hand it's a fucking 𝘌𝘯𝘥𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳 we're talking about here.
  
  Whatever, I'm sure he'll be fine.
  
  With that thought, I turn back to the two heroes, who are talking quietly on the ground now, and I walk over to them.
  
  Both of their heads snap to my direction and in a show of peace I dissolve my power, leaving me in half melted casual clothes, having not had the time to get a replacement costume.
  
  They do nothing as I approach, Crawler not far behind me.
  
  "Yo!~ I can hear the sirens y'know?~ I know we were just fighting and all, but Endbringers are a big deal, figured we could lend a hand if you're already on your way?~"
  
  I can't see either of their eyes through their masks, but I imagine their squinting at me suspiciously.
  
  "What? Just because you ripped me apart a couple times, and melted me at least once, that doesn't mean we have to be enemies?~ If anything, we could be frenemies!~"
  
  An amused snort comes from behind me.
  
  At least someone here has a sense of humour.
  
  Alexandria chooses to response, her tone cold yet scathing and accusatory. "Your power benefits from consuming Parahumans. How can we be sure you will abide the Truce?"
  
  Er, what?
  
  Something must have shown on my face, as the skin at the back of her cheek, next to her ear, twitches in what I barely recognise to be a result of a raised eyebrow.
  
  "You didn't know?" She asks, still sounding cold but less threatening and vaguely curious.
  
  I just give her a careless shrug.
  
  "Eh, I had my suspicions, but it's not like I'm Eidipie over there with a bunch of powers, and nothing really stood out. Wait, how did 𝘺𝘰𝘶 know?"
  
  Her lip barely twitches, but I catch the hint of a smirk that she shows and my own brow twitches in response.
  
  Then the bitch actually answers, presumably 'humouring' me as we wait for a porter, most likely Strider.
  
  "When you first showed up, your.. additions were observed to be wispy and liquid like. Then, after you killed your first cape, Clay, I believe he was called, with the power to drag rocks to himself and compact them into a golem, your additions were shown to be more solid, still liquid like but less wispy and more condensed. Then there's Jason,-"
  
  My face twitches minutely at that name, something that she evidently catches from how her tone changes just the slightest amount.
  
  It's interesting to interact with someone who seems to be just as good at spotting barely noticeable micro expressions and tone changes as me.
  
  "-so that was you then? We already knew of course, but there was no real way to get confirmation. Either way, his power enhanced his arms, enlarging and strengthening them. After getting away from him, presumably eating him in the process, your own power exhibited a pair of enlarged arms. Need I go on?"
  
  Part of me wants to say yes, just to see how many of my hunts they actually know about, but the other part of me knows that she will both see through what I'm doing, and realises that I just don't want to have to hear her voice more than I have to.
  
  Feeling petty and not being able to come up with anything on the spot, I just stick my tongue out at her and move on.
  
  "What are we even waiting around for? Can't Eidipie just 'port us over or something?"
  
  "Mass teleportation is a difficult power to find," answers the man himself, "Strider will be here in twenty seconds."
  
  Huh, well that answers that then.
  
  Still, while I've got two thirds of the Protectorate's leadership here with me, I have a pressing matter to discuss.
  
  "Quick question, can someone with a kill order hand in another kill order bounty without getting unjustly murdered, and, follow up question, can a kill order be traded to rescind another kill order?"
  
  Now that gets their attention, but I quickly clarify.
  
  "Oh, no I'm totally cool with having a kill order, I think it's cool, but I'm pretty sure Lucy just wants to travel around, and a kill order kind of makes that difficult for her. But the Nine is officially dead, I'm disbanding the group, so surely you could cut her some slack? Same as Bonesaw and at least Burnscar? It's not like they had much of a choice, not like Crawler and I."
  
  I think the fact that I'm actually taking this seriously for once is enough for them to properly consider my words, and I really do mean them.
  
  Crawler and I won't have a problem with the orders. After all, the main reason they don't just slap kill orders on every old villain is because anyone with a kill order is already legally 'dead,' which means that they are exempt to all laws, and that you can do anything to us without punishment.
  
  the problem is that people with kill orders no longer have a reason to hold back, because it really can't get worse, but Crawler and I aren't going to be holding back anyway, and people actually trying to kill us just makes the game more fun.
  
  But Lucy doesn't deserve that, nor do any of the others for that matter.
  
  Crap, I forgot about Queenie.
  
  Before they can answer however, we are interrupted by the sound of a muffled thunderclap, and when we all turn to look at it's origin, we see a man in a blue and black suit, with a cloak of the same colours hiding his arm and a cap and goggles, reminiscent of a train conductors, on his head.
  
  I want a teleporter so bad.~
  
  He visibly stills at the sight of Crawler and I, so I give him a little wave and a smile, Crawler joining me in ineffectively calming him down.
  
  Without a word, Eidolon and Alexandria stride forth, with us following behind, and seeing that they aren't stopping us, Strider simply gulps and says nothing.
  
  Suddenly, my vision blurs, my stomach twists and with another, louder crack and boom, we are suddenly elsewhere.
  
  The first thing to come to mind is that the sun is suddenly at it's peak, rather than freshly risen.
  
  The second thing is how 𝘭𝘰𝘶𝘥 it is, and it's only then that I actually look forward and see the smoke and fire.
  
  Wherever we are, it looks like it was some homely country town not long ago, no skyscrapers in sight, just a whole lot of residential buildings.
  
  Except that now at least half of them are on fire, the smoke clotting out the sky in front of me, making it seem as if daylight is simply not allowed to exist right there specifically.
  
  That's when I actually look closer and take in the sight of the cause behind all this destruction, kilometres of land already reduced to a molten, irradiated wasteland.
  
  Taking in the sight of the Endbringer, even as far from me as he is right now, has my heart pounding in my chest and blood rushing through my ears, drowning out the sounds of movement around me as hundreds of Parahumans hustle about through various tents set up for the injured and command centres.
  
  But I don't care about any of them, all I can focus on is a single being.
  
  Behemoth.
  
  The first Endbringer. The 'big brother' of the bunch, and an unrestricted dynakinetic, with complete control over all forms of energy, even being able to bypass the Manton limit within his 'kill aura' of about 30 feet.
  
  Meaning that if you get too close, you will suddenly find your insides boiling at temperatures upwards of 1400№.
  
  Behemoth himself is certainly worthy of his title. Forty-five feet tall at the very least, his skin is crusted with black stone that might be obsidian if not for it's impossible durability, layers of what's probably cooled magma sloughing off of him as he stands straight.
  
  'Straight' might be generous though. He's built like a caricature of a bodybuilder, or a bear-human hybrid, reminding me of Queenie slightly in that sense, though he is obviously infinitely more impressive. His body is rippled with muscle, his skin grey, thick and leathery like the hide of a rhinoceros or elephant.
  
  His black obsidian horns are so heavy his head hangs down slightly. They aren't rooted in his forehead, but in the middle of his face, a half-dozen curved shafts of black crystal twisting their way out of his face and back over the top of his head, some ten feet long. A single red eye glows from between the gap in two horns, positioned too low to be normal. His mouth is just a jagged gap in his lower face, twisting up to a point near his temple and lined by jagged horn-like growths that were too irregular to be called teeth.
  
  His claws are much of the same, not hands in the conventional sense, but mangled growths of the same material that made up his horns, many of the growths as large as a whole person. He could flex them, move them, but they were clearly weapons and nothing else.
  
  Alexandria snaps me out of my admiring reverie with a single sentence.
  
  "Trading one kill order to revoke another is fine. Nothing more." With that, she flies off to what I assume is a command tent of sort, and a quick glance shows that Eidolon is already nowhere to be seen.
  
  Turning my eyes back to Behemoth, I watch as an 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘴 spike of similarly obsidian black material suddenly appears in front of him, slamming into him with the force of a train and sending the gigantic being stumbling back a couple of steps.
  
  Never mind then. I found him.
  
  Before I can decide what to do, a robot suddenly lands beside us, and it's only then I notice the wide berth that everyone else has been giving Crawler and I.
  
  "Are you aware of the Truce?" The robot says in a vaguely Canadian accent, though I couldn't identify where exactly just from that.
  
  However, I know it's Newfoundland anyway, because I know exactly who I'm talking with.
  
  "Don't know about Crawler, but yea, I know. It's not exactly complicated,~" I say, briefly turning to Crawler and wagging a finger at him, "don't kill anyone today, we're only allowed to fight the big guy, ok?~"
  
  He rolls his many eyes but nods his head nonetheless, and I turn back to the robot.
  
  "So, Dragon. This is my first time,~ how does this work exactly?~"
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Y'know, this wasn't supposed to happen. I had a plan in mind for Lusia's first meeting with an Endbringer, and this sure as fuck wasn't it, but whatever, it's big B anyway, so the plan prolly wouldn't work anyway.
  
  Also, you know how in fanfics the MC kicks the ass of the fandoms 'big bads' when they fight? Well, in case you haven't noticed, I don't like people winning fights they shouldn't be able to win, power scaling is important, and eidolon can kick lusia and crawlers ass with ease solo, yet he can't kill an endbringer(he can, he just doesn't know how) so naturally, don't expect Lusia to be able to do much against him lol
  
  Also, now I'm going to have to reread bits of worm to remember how endbringer fights go, which is why the chap ended here lol
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  128 The First Endbringer
  For obvious reasons, I can't exactly read Dragon's robot like I can a person, so I have no idea if she's secretly judging us or if she's genuinely just a nice person, but she doesn't show any aversion to treating us like normal people, despite the fact that she's a hero and we.. are not.
  
  "In short, during Endbringer fights, capes get split up based on abilities. Now that Alexandria is here, she will be leading anyone who is confident they can take a hit from an Endbringer and get up afterwards, or anyone who can create expendable forces. Would I be correct in assuming you two will be joining her on the front lines?"
  
  I give her a thumbs up with one hand and reach back with the other to grab hold of Crawler so he doesn't run off in his excitement to get hurt.
  
  It's like holding a dog by it's collar, except he doesn't have a collar so I'm just digging into his flesh where he has less scales with my fingers.
  
  "Okay then, now I all that is left is you need to put on this bracelet," she says while her robot holds forward a pair of high tech looking bracelets with a little screen on them, "these will track your location, as well as the location of Behemoth, though I don't think losing sight of him will be an issue here."
  
  As she's talking, she watches as I put one of the bracelets on my left wrist, and then hold the other towards Crawler only to pause.
  
  Where the fuck am I supposed to put it? His legs are like tree trunks and only his freaky arm things coming out of his front leg's knee joints aren't super thick, but even then they aren't thin enough for the armband.
  
  "Ah, I see that could be an issue," Dragon says, voicing my thoughts, but then I get an idea and give her a smile.
  
  "Don't worry 'bout it, I got this.~"
  
  Without giving her an opportunity to respond, I coat my hands in my power and thrust them both into one of Crawler's bigger eyes, digging a good foot into his body before depositing the armband there and yanking my hands back out.
  
  Problem solved.
  
  Man, I'm so freakin' smart.
  
  "Er, right," she stutters as I start licking the blood and viscera off of my fingers, "anyway. The band has two buttons, one on either side. The button to the left lets you send messages to everyone else wearing an armband, though do note that there will be a three to five second delay for you, this is the case for all non protectorate or veteran capes in order to avoid needless chatter. But if you must skip this small delay for whatever reason, then simply speak the words 'Hard Override' before saying whatever is so urgent. Abusing this feature will lose you your ability to send any further messages."
  
  Ah, shit. I kinda blanked out about halfway through what she was saying. That was a lot of words and Crawler keeps trying to run off.
  
  Basically, press the left button to talk to people, but don't do it?
  
  Eh, I get the feeling the band's just gonna break anyway, since I am fully planning on jumping into Behemoth's kill aura.
  
  Only after Crawler goes first of course, if he can survive it then I'll probably be fine. Maybe.
  
  Heedless of my thoughts, Dragon continues on, either not noticing my absentness, or completely ignoring the way Crawler clearly hasn't listened to a single word she's said.
  
  "The second button is a ping. Use it in the case of an emergency, to alert others if you are in danger or hurt. If it is not an emergency, but you want assistance, press both buttons, tell the armband what you want and a program of mine will sort the request by urgency and provide assistance. The band will also be tracking your condition, and will automatically send out a ping if you are critically injured."
  
  Even listening with half an ear as I am, I catch that last part and laugh slightly.
  
  "I uh, I think it'd prolly be best to just disable that last function on our bands. Regeneration y'know?"
  
  She seems to get my meaning as the band on my wrist pings lightly, and when I turn back up to Dragon, I see her robot leaving, speaking a short final message over it's shoulder as she does so.
  
  "Good luck."
  
  That just makes me laugh again.
  
  Endbringers really do change everything, if a hero is wishing two kill orders good luck.
  
  What a joke.
  
  Turning away from the tents, I face Behemoth once again, and briefly observe the location.
  
  Wherever we are, it's a relatively small place, probably only a hundred thousand or so people living here, which makes it rather small scale compared to most Endbringer attacks that end the lives of millions.
  
  I'm pretty sure it was nearly ten million people that died when Leviathan sank Kyushu.
  
  The low population means that they don't have any Endbringer shelters, so I'm pretty sure this whole town is not going to exist tomorrow, provided we don't push him away before he reaches his target.
  
  Not that it's a challenge to figure out what's attracted Behemoth's attention, I think as my eyes find themselves drawn to the nuclear power plant ahead of his path of destruction.
  
  Half the town is already in flames, the smog choking the sky of it's light, even as various flashes of colour dance around his body, the result of hundreds of capes launching everything they've got at the Big Guy.
  
  Watching a ball of molten rock launch itself out of the ground and at a group of fliers, the pumping in my veins becomes too much for me to just keep standing and watching.
  
  So with a far too wide smile, I jump onto Crawler's back and immediately start ripping his back open and stuffing my face.
  
  What? Regenerating from Eidolon's attacks has made me hungry, and Crawler can seemingly regenerate indefinitely. Plus I'm actually making him a little tougher every bite I take, which is probably going to help out.
  
  Thankfully, I don't need to tell Crawler anything for him to get the message, as he starts bounding down the small hill the tents are set up on, running towards a source of terror for the entire planet with the kind of glee only the truly insane could match.
  
  Thinking about it, we might just be the only capes present that are actually 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥 to this.
  
  Oh well, I'd rather be insane with a smile than sane with a frown.
  
  As we are travelling, the band on my arm keeps ringing out, naming the dead and dying as they fall. "𝘚𝘶𝘻𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘥, 𝘌4. 𝘚𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯, 𝘌4. 𝘎𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘥, 𝘌4. 𝘗𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘎𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘥, 𝘌5. 𝘔𝘢𝘤𝘩 1 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘥, 𝘋5. 𝘍𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘵 𝘔𝘢𝘯 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯, 𝘋4. 𝘎𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘯 𝘏𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯, 𝘋4."
  
  Now, I know there's probably some motivational reason for this, either that or they just wanted to keep the proper, solemn atmosphere by constantly reminding everyone just how dire the situation here is.
  
  But Crawler and I just end up laughing our asses off as we get closer, finding the whole idea too funny.
  
  Like, seriously. Have these people never taken a motivation speech class or something? No one likes knowing they're probably going to die, but whatever, it's not my job, and it's funny anyway.
  
  Some of these people have really dumb names, like 'Frogman' which, admittedly, is mostly funny because I've been hearing quite a lot of vaguely French sounding names.
  
  The only annoying thing is that I keep choking on my food thanks to the laughter.
  
  This is way better than getting bullied by the meanie ol' Eidipie.
  
  But, as with all good things, it eventually comes to an end as we near Behemoth.
  
  Most of the capes seems to be keeping at least a hundred feet away at all times, with only a small few actually engaging him inside of his kill aura, and even then, it's mostly just Alexandria who is flying around him like an annoying fly.
  
  Except she's a fly that can hit 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 hard. Her impacts echoing and displacing the air around her, even making him stumble back a step every now and then.
  
  However, before we can get any closer, Behemoth brings his giant hands together with a surprising amount of speed, and the next thing I know, I'm deaf and blind, the now familiar feeling of my eyes exploding filling me in on what's happening.
  
  When I can see again, Behemoth is in a small crater, the buildings that managed to stay standing around him now nothing but rubble, and the cloud of smoke above him filling back in after parting slightly.
  
  It takes me an embarrassing amount of time to realise that I'm not on Crawler's back anymore, but lying on some rubble.
  
  Looking at the destruction caused by such a simple gesture, I can't help but whistle appreciatively.
  
  Damn, and that was just 𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘤.
  
  As he was listening, a sudden storm of lighting erupts around him, catching a few fliers who were tying to get close, causing my band to ring out again, but I ignore it in favour of locking my eyes on where I just spotted Crawler.
  
  He is running through the lighting storm without a care, having long since become resistant towards electricity, and I watch with rapt attention as he crosses into the kill zone.
  
  Immediately, Crawler bursts into flame, his entire body glowing a deep red as flames burst out of his mouth, but he doesn't lose his stride, roaring in a mix of pain an 𝘦𝘶𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘢 as he jumps into Behemoth's leg, pausing it's movement but not pushing it back.
  
  Welp, guess it's now or never then.
  
  Pulling forth the full depth of my power, I grow in hight and width, armour covering me head to toe, leaving no inch vulnerable, with every extra limb available and ready to move, I charge after Crawler, aiming for the other leg.
  
  I enter the kill zone at the same time that a dozen Blasters launch a barrage at his face, failing to even faze him as he returns the effort with a beam of lightning as thick as a building.
  
  Immediately, pain consumes me, heat like I have never felt before erupting from my very being.
  
  Suddenly I understand Crawler's response as I instinctually 𝘳𝘰𝘢𝘳, fire exploding out of my throat as I scream out.
  
  It hurts, but I've never felt so 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘮 and I can't decide my feeling on it, only that I am 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 and that it's 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦.
  
  The temperature seems to rise with every step I take, my body melting from the heat and reforming in the same instance as I approach.
  
  Absently, I notice an enormous clawed hand swing down and impacts Crawler, who managed to make his way up to it's hip, sending him flying with a deafening 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘮 that levels an entire block of buildings just from the shockwave alone.
  
  Leaping forward, I plan on following Crawler's example and making my way up his body, but Behemoth meets my leap with a swing of his leg, kicking me in the face.
  
  Almost immediately, I feel myself die as my head is reduced to pulp and my body flattened just from the force of his strike alone.
  
  Instinctively, my ribbons wrap around the leg, and when my body is sent flying from the blow, my momentum is abruptly halted as the ribbons extend as far as they are able.
  
  My head regenerates just in time to feel half of my ribbons 𝘳𝘪𝘱 out of my back, making me let out an uncontrolled moan at the overwhelming 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 suffusing me.
  
  With a grin of truly insane proportions, I feel my power pump itself into overdrive, my senses and instincts snapping into focus, sharper than ever before.
  
  I feel my body start to cannibalise itself, turning my own flesh into fuel for my power as I regenerate faster than ever before, my ribbons pulling me back to the Beasty before I can even think about it, moving with more speed than I thought myself capable of.
  
  I impact his legs with a 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘮 of displaced air, but the blood is in my ears by now and all I can focus on is the 𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘩 I feel under my feet as his skin cracks.
  
  Without stopping, I start running up his leg, my clawed hands and feet digging into his solid flesh as I rapidly ascend.
  
  The constant pain is starting to cloud my mind, but as with everything else, I ignore it in favour of digging into his chest, ripping into his flesh with everything I have.
  
  Claws, tentacles, wings and their projectiles, even my teeth. I throw everything I have into digging into the Beasty, my everything consumed by this singular thought.
  
  No matter the impacts that rain on my back, or the fire and lightning that melts my flesh, I do not pause, not until my sight is abruptly overtaken by a bright white light.
  
  Clarity returns, if only for a moment as I stare at the bright white light radiating from Beasty's body.
  
  The next instant, I am in the air, flying through the sky; the sound of the wind rushing past my ears can hardly even be heard over the constant ringing.
  
  It's only when they regenerate that I realise my eyes were gone again, and I only manage to catch a glimpse of Behemoth and the area around him before my body smashes into and through several buildings, eventually coming to a stop after digging a trench into the ground several hundred feet long.
  
  My final thoughts before darkness takes over my vision, is of a sight of pure destruction. Kilometres of land reduced to rubble, molten and glowing with radiation.
  
  All with one towering Monster standing proud in the centre of a crater the size of a football stadium with a small hole in his chest and a gash in his side, ash and detritus suffocating the air as dozens of Parahumans fly around, helpless mites fruitlessly attempting to keep hope against this impossible foe.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Charging headfirst at an endbringer is a bad decision, who'da thunked it?
  
  To be clear, there is emphasis on the 'small' in regards to the damage lusia did to behemoth. He's the first Endbringer and the strongest, so her and Crawler obviously couldn't do anything significant him. Frankly, she barely survived, and tbh the main reason the fight was so short is cuz I actually had a big ol plan for when she first fights an endbringer, and I didn't want to pull it out yet, cuz things aren't ready, so she just got radiation blasted into a coma, basically.
  
  Her healing isn't like crawlers, she actually has a limit to how much she can heal before running out of juice, so right now she's in emergency standby mode.
  
  also, 300k total words now
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  129 Interlude: Ned
  Ned is a simple man.
  
  He has simple desires, simple drives.
  
  He just wants to hurt, to suffer, to feel that 𝘥𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘦 feeling of pain.
  
  Only through pain can he grow. Only through 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯 can he become 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦.
  
  No one has ever understood. No one 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 understand.
  
  But that was always fine. They didn't need to understand him. They just needed to 𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘵 him.
  
  Because of this, Ned never felt that he was missing anything with the Nine. Like Jack said, traveling with them got him in a lot more danger than he was in by himself, and he can't deny how much he grew during the few years he was with them.
  
  But then, 𝘴𝘩𝘦 came along.
  
  At first, she wasn't much to take note of. She killed Chuckles, which was nice. His laugh was annoying.
  
  It was only when she passed his test that his interest was peaked.
  
  Not only did she manage to hurt him, something that is becoming increasingly rare, but she actually agreed to hurt him some more.
  
  But, while he was happy about it, Ned's expectations weren't too high in all honesty.
  
  That changed when she got out of the box and they had that 'fight' in some town, Atta-something.
  
  It was then, that Ned first felt 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘥.
  
  She tore into him with an all to familiar abandon, ripping his flesh and consuming it in the same motion, all the while he did the same, biting and clawing and melting her.
  
  For hours, they continued this dance, maiming and healing in the same breath until, for the first time since his trigger, Ned felt 𝘴𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘧𝘪𝘦𝘥.
  
  So he had nothing to say when she killed Jack, nor when she declared the Slaughterhouse Nine no more. Because he understood 𝘩𝘦𝘳, just as she understood 𝘩𝘪𝘮.
  
  Just because the Nine is gone, that doesn't mean she's going to stop, and so long as she keeps moving, there will always be more opportunities to grow.
  
  Such as right now.
  
  Jack never would have approached an Endbringer. The closest they ever got to one was when they visited cities that were recently wrecked by one of them, making a bad situation worse for anyone who lived there.
  
  But 𝘩𝘦𝘳? She didn't even hesitate to take the first available ticket to an Endbringer fight, bringing Ned along with her, purely because she knew he would want to go.
  
  Over time, Ned has been hurt in countless ways, and his body has grown all but immune to just about any form of damage.
  
  But when that beast, Behemoth, smacked him away, like one would swat a bug, Ned felt 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯. Sweet, sweet, glorious 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯.
  
  Ned can't remember the last time someone managed to hurt him through simple physical impact, maybe it was that time, two years ago, when a cape hit him with a hammer that weighed over a hundred thousand tonnes, thanks to their power?
  
  Even Alexandria, in the short fight earlier, couldn't actually 𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘵 him.
  
  But Behemoth? A single strike and Ned felt half his body reduced to pulp. If the Endbringer's clawed finger was any thinner, he was sure he would have been split in half from the blow.
  
  He wants more.
  
  But his power only knows to grow, to fix and to become better. By the time Ned stopped flying from the force of the blow, he was completely healed. Better yet, he was 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 than he was.
  
  Always more.
  
  𝘏𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘳. 𝘚𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳. Ned felt his power's thirst for pain grow alongside his own, his skin tightening and shifting, making him even more resistant to harm than ever before.
  
  More, more, MORE!
  
  𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴, this is what Ned lives for. This 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯, this feeling of 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘵𝘩.
  
  It's never enough.
  
  𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘮!
  
  An explosion of white light erupts from the beast, rending the sky asunder, as if announcing to the world the futility of their actions, that Death has come and there is nothing they can do to stop it.
  
  The shockwave from the blast pushes against Ned, even from where he is, hundreds of feet away and he 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘴 in it.
  
  He recognises the feeling of radiation as it washes over him from a cape a little over a year ago, who tried to melt him with a concentrated blast of the stuff.
  
  It didn't work.
  
  It never works.
  
  Following the blast, Ned sees a figure being launched away, careening through the air without control.
  
  Of course, he recognises his friend, even from afar. How could he not?
  
  But Ned doesn't worry for her, for she is like him. She will be fine. She will be 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳.
  
  Only through pain can we grow.
  
  So instead of thinking about his friend, Ned focuses on the beast in front of him, letting out a howl of joy as he charges forward once more.
  
  A dozen other capes move around him, but he doesn't care.
  
  A thousand and one lasers slam into Behemoth. It doesn't care. They don't leave a mark. They don't even slow down his stride.
  
  The beast retaliates with a wave of flame, hundreds of feet wide and almost as tall that incinerates everything it touches.
  
  He sees a couple of other capes get caught in the flames, only to immediately be reduced to ash, yet when they wash over Ned, he doesn't stop his charge, only giving him a single thought.
  
  𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘮.
  
  Moving with all the speed he is capable of, Ned 𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘴 into the Behemoth's leg, knocking it back a step, but nothing more.
  
  Just like last time, one of Ned's many eyes catch one of it's mighty arms swinging down to swat him, but this time he sees something else as well and ignores the beast, focusing on climbing it instead.
  
  Right as it's clawed hand is making it's way to Ned, a small, flying blur 𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘴 into it, knocking the blow off course and causing the beast to hit itself in the hip.
  
  Ned 𝘭𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘴, loud and hard; flames exploding out of his mouth from the constant heat in his gut that he can hardly even feel anymore.
  
  Twenty minutes ago, she was trying to kill him, and now, Alexandria, one of the first Heroes, is 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 him.
  
  He knew following her was the right choice. Only she could make the world this interesting.
  
  It takes only a moment to reach the beasts chest, and he sees a hole already torn into its chest. He recognises her work and decides to follow her lead once more, digging into the beast with reckless abandon.
  
  Years seem to pass in seconds as all that exists is this obsidian black flesh, bleeding black, sludge-like blood over his form as he tears and he tears and he 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴.
  
  Impacts ring out against his back, and he recognises every sensation. From the physical strikes to the lighting and the radiation. The heat in his gut becomes unbearable once again, rising to all new levels like Ned has never known.
  
  But for every fibre of flesh he loses, he only becomes 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦.
  
  The fire that started burning again, once more is reduced to a simple warmth. The lightning and radiation soon join it in spawning in his gut, but they too, are soon reduced to nothing but soft sensations.
  
  So he digs. He digs, and he tears and he rips. Until, his claws suddenly stop making progress.
  
  His teeth crack, his acid washes away without a mark.
  
  All of a sudden, Ned finds himself incapable of digging any further.
  
  But that doesn't stop him. If he can't dig any further as he is, then he will just have to become 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 than he is.
  
  So he claws and he bites, and his claws snap and his teeth shatter.
  
  But they come back stronger.
  
  The beast starts to glow white again, but he ignores it.
  
  The glow intensifies, but it doesn't matter.
  
  Until it does.
  
  An explosion, 𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘤 in size erupts from the beast, sending Ned flying out of the fresh cavity in its chest, and annihilating everything within a kilometre of its location, the resulting shockwave destroying whatever else was left of the surrounding town as nuclear fallout paints the skies.
  
  Only two places remain unharmed by the blast. The hastily set up command centre, full of tents for the injured, where there is an enormous barrier of multicoloured light, clearly the effort of dozens of different powers, each dedicated to protecting the injured.
  
  The other place is far more uniform. A single, green barrier, surpassing all of the others all by its lonesome, stands guard in front of the nuclear power plant that is the Behemoth's target.
  
  Behind the barrier, floats a single man, wreathed in green and 𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 power.
  
  With a gesture, the fading light from the explosion returns full force, like someone hit the rewind button over the entire town, but only for a moment before he switches power again, and all of the radiation flies towards him and condenses into a ball the size of a palm.
  
  Then the barrier drops, as he takes on a new power in it's place, shaping the concentrated energy into a spear that breaks the sound barrier as it launches towards the Behemoth's open wound.
  
  The projectile collides against it's hastily raised palm and 𝘥𝘦𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴 once again, the only difference being that the energy is concentrated around the beast, instead of being allowed to run rampant.
  
  But the beast doesn't take a single step back as it takes control over the force of the attack, and directs it into the ground, causing a crater to rapidly start spreading out from where it stands, only to be stopped when Eidolon suddenly appears in front of the beast, just outside of it's kill zone with one palm on the ground, the other pointed up at it.
  
  The echo of power reaches Eidolon in less than a second after his arrival, but it stops expanding immediately after coming into contact with his palm, and a sudden beam of pure force is launched out of his other palm, striking the beast right below it's wound.
  
  𝘽𝙤𝙤𝙢!
  
  Everyone feels the ground shake and the skies scream out in agony as the attack lands, yet even with all of that power, the mighty Behemoth only stumbles back a dozen paces, his chest gaining a new wound, this one wider but shallower.
  
  Ned is about to charge right back in, his blood pumping from the display, before he is tackled to the side, rolling from the blow as he feels his flesh start to get torn to pieces, spitting in the face of his recent growth.
  
  It takes him only a moment for one of his many eyes to find out who assaulted him, and he can only let out a wild grin as he takes in the sight of his dear friend, bigger than she was, as she tears into him, consuming him with a desperation that only makes sense once he notices her legs regrowing themselves.
  
  𝘚𝘩𝘦'𝘴 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘥.
  
  The thought brings unbridled joy to Ned, knowing that he was right.
  
  𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦, 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘥.
  
  Almost as abruptly as she came, she stops biting into him, only long enough to lean closer to his head and to whisper a few scathing words at him.
  
  "What the fuck are you waiting for? 𝘎𝘦𝘵 '𝘦𝘮."
  
  But however she might sound, Ned knows exactly what she's feeling. He can hear it, hidden away in her tone.
  
  He recognises the feeling well enough that she's all but broadcasting it to him.
  
  𝘚𝘩𝘦'𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘺.
  
  And that's all he needs.
  
  With another laugh, Ned charges straight for the beast once more, ignoring his friend as she devours his flesh.
  
  Every bite she takes, she gets stronger, he knows this; and every time he heals, he too, gets stronger.
  
  Like the ouroboros, an endless cycle.
  
  She only stops once they get close enough that the beast starts ignoring the Manton effect again. Fire, hotter than before, burns in his gut, radiation and electricity joining it as the energies try to tear him apart.
  
  The all too familiar scream of pleasureful pain above him is enough to know that she is getting the same treatment.
  
  But soon enough, they are both laughing once more, howling out to the world!
  
  Her wings spread wide, and both of them leap at the beast, each taking a leg to themselves and pushing it back a step before they start racing up it's crystalline flesh, side by side.
  
  The beast, no longer dismissing them, charges a strike of crimson red lighting above it's head.
  
  The lightning, thicker than ever before, slams down on the beast and the two monsters assaulting it like the righteous hammer of a God, engulfing them completely in an explosion of concentrated power greater than even Eidolon's attack.
  
  𝘽𝙊𝙊𝙈!
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  I hope this was as cool as I wanted it to be.
  
  Lusia was supposed to be unconscious, but then I wanted more insanely powerful combat, so this happened, and then I thought it was lame that lusia didn't get to actually fight with crawler, so she woke up.
  
  Also, for those of you real ones that have read my last fic, remember Mantis? I never actually explained it (I planned to write a Mantis interlude but I guess I forgot) but Mantis basically worshipped Hana like a god on earth, so he was unerringly loyal.
  
  You could basically say that Crawler is Lusia's Mantis. She is the only person that really matters to him, and hopefully this chap has helped show that he would literally follow her into anything, above all else.
  
  Also, to be clear, there is no romance between either of them, it's purely platonic
  
  Also, I am definitely making Eidolon stronger than he is in canon, but I have three reasons. First, fuck you. Second, I just really love the idea of one person throwing around a shit tonne of powers. Third, I do actually have a small AU reason for him to legit be stronger than in canon, thanks to a small butterfly :)
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  130 Curious
  Huy, Belgium, July 6th, 17:30.
  
  Looking down from her drone's camera at the desolate wasteland below, Dragon mentally lets out a sigh.
  
  Without already knowing it, when looking at this sight, one would never guess that this used to be a thriving city, full of life.
  
  Instead, it is little more than a ruin, interspaced with craters of varying sizes, and absolutely drowning in radiation.
  
  Yesterday was one of the best fights they'd ever put up against Behemoth, but even then, he got what he wanted in the end.
  
  The drone's camera pans slightly, allowing Dragon the sight of where the Tihange Nuclear Power Station used to stand, where it would provide Belgium with around 15% of it's total energy.
  
  That's not even accounting for the extra reactor that was built to support France, after Behemoth did much the same to them on multiple occasions.
  
  But now?
  
  Now it has been declared a nuclear disaster exclusion zone, with no one being allowed to live anywhere within ten kilometres of the location.
  
  The only upside, if it can even truly be called as such, is that thanks to innovations made by various Tinkers, and then modified to be mass produced by Dragon, only the nearest town needed to be evacuated, allowing the nearby cities of Namur and Liège to avoid the fallout.
  
  ... They still have to deal with not having any electricity however.
  
  Mentally sighing again, Dragon continues to maneuverer her drone, helping to coordinate the relief efforts, until a ping notifies her of an incoming call request.
  
  Seeing the ID, Dragon smiles in her mind and answers, happy to be brought away from such a depressing sight.
  
  "Colin! What can I do for you?" She happily exclaims, as she takes in the familiar sight of his workshop, seeing him bent over a halberd that has been reduced to pieces, soldering away at the electronics.
  
  Hardly looking up from his work, Colin answers her, his tone solid and unwavering, almost machine-like. "Are you busy? I hit a snag with my recent project, I was hoping you could help?"
  
  Remembering the project he is talking about, Dragon glances between the workshop and the ruins in momentary indecision, before her creative curiosity wins out.
  
  𝘔𝘺 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘮 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦.
  
  Turning away from the ruins, she cuts the feed and focuses on Colin instead, pulling up the schematics of what he's working on on the side as she does so.
  
  "Of course! What's the issue?"
  
  New York, New York, July 7th, 21:00.
  
  Inside of a modest yet luxurious office, an old man sits behind a large mahogany desk, sipping from a glass of whiskey as he leans back into his comfortable chair.
  
  Turning to the screen on his desk, he takes in the sight of a pair of Monsters as they ascend Death; an enormous beam of red lightning reaching down to greet them.
  
  Endbringer fights are never shown on the news, and videos of the fights are kept hidden away from the public as much as possible. After all, panic would surely ensue if the public truly knew how outclassed they were, but for anyone already in the know, it is not difficult to find some bodycam footage from one of the many capes present.
  
  "Hmm, it seems you really will be keeping your end of the bargain then, Tear."
  
  With his muttered words, the old man lets out a calculating smile, his mind awhirl with thoughts as he seeks the path of most profit.
  
  Raising his glass to the air, as if giving a toast to the empty room, the old man gives one last smile, speaking a few hushed words before downing the rest of the glass.
  
  "I look forward to working with you."
  
  Cleveland, Ohio, July 8th, 19:54.
  
  Smacking the side of the TV, Jinx lets out a sigh as he hears something snap. Leaning back, he sees that the TV is now only showing black.
  
  "Great, that's another one down," he mutters, before suddenly raising his voice to a yell, "all I wanted to do was change the fucking channel!"
  
  With a sigh, he moves away from the living room and heads to the kitchen, where he has a laptop sitting on the island counter.
  
  Opening it, he powers it up, only for a low whirring sound to come from it's base, right before it abruptly shuts itself off, a thin whisp of smoke rising from the side of the device.
  
  He says nothing for a moment, simply standing there, leaning on the counter with both of his hands without moving a muscle.
  
  Only after letting out a deep, shaky breath, does he move, reaching down to pick up a different laptop and replacing the broken one, that he unceremoniously throws at a wall.
  
  "I swear to motherfucking god, you had better fucking work or I am going to make napalm specifically to fuck you the fuck up you stupid piece of shit technology."
  
  As he mutters to himself, he powers up the new laptop without issue, causing Jinx to sag in relief.
  
  "𝘍𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺."
  
  A short while later, and Jinx is watching bodycam footage of the latest Endbringer fight, though he skips ahead until Eidolon appears, knowing that it signifies Tear's arrival.
  
  He lets out a laugh when he sees Tear getting ragdolled by the Behemoth, but it's only when she returns to the fight that his hands unclench.
  
  Enraptured in the fight as he is, Jinx finds himself subconsciously leaning forward as he watches the events unfold, until Tear and Crawler are both climbing the Behemoth together, with a blindingly bright beam of red lightning above them.
  
  The pillar of red energy crashes down on the two, and then...
  
  ... The screen goes black and the laptop short circuits.
  
  A beat passes in silence, Jinx's face twitching in anger until he erupts, jumping to his feet and pulling out his handgun.
  
  "FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCKING FUCK!" He screams out as he repeatedly pulls the trigger, only to realise that there are no gunshots ringing out.
  
  He doesn't even have to check to know that his gun has jammed, so instead he simply rears back and throws it as hard as he can at the offending laptop, crushing it's screen with ease; only for the gun to bounce off the counter and the wall behind it, all to land right in the middle of his forehead, knocking him on his ass.
  
  Without saying a word or changing facial expression, Jinx reaches into his pocket and pulls out a phone with a sticker of a clown's face on the back of it, and he raises it to his ear after dialling in a certain number.
  
  It rings twice before being picked up.
  
  "Hello?" The voice on the other end asks, curiosity evident in their tone.
  
  "Hello Ruben, how quickly could you get some napalm delivered to Cleveland?"
  
  Las Vegas, Nevada, July 9th, 14:56.
  
  "-In a shocking turn of events, the Villain known as Tear entered the Los Angeles' PRT headquarters by her lonesome, carrying the dismembered heads of three of the now defunct Slaughterhouse Nine in one hand, and a bouquet of flowers in the other, both of which she offered to Alexandria upon her arrival.
  
  "It seems, that Tear staged some sort of coup d'état against the infamous Jack Slash, killing not just him in the process, but Shatterbird and the Siberian too. How she managed to defeat the Siberian when the Triumvirate could not, we do not know; but what we can tell you, is that she has traded the Siberian and Shatterbird's kill orders to revoke the kill orders of one Mimi Clarke, formerly Burnscar, and one Lucy Darwick, formerly Crusher, and Carrot before that.
  
  "However, she has decided to cash in on Jack Slash's 79 million dollar bounty, rather than trading for a pardon for herself. Now, while I am certain that everyone one seeing this is happy to know that the Slaughterhouse Nine is finally gone, even going so far as to be celebrating in the streets, it is important to keep in mind, that one good deed does not out do the bad, and that Tear is still an incredibly dangerous Villain, a cannibal at that. If you see her, you are advised to-"
  
  Ignoring the rest of what the broadcaster has to say, Lucy turns away from the many screens showing the same news broadcast, and returns to walking down the street as she was before she got distracted.
  
  It's a strange thing to see yourself being talked about on the news; even stranger when you properly realise how you have been on both sides of the 'game.'
  
  But now, now she is free.
  
  Truly, truly free.
  
  She holds no obligations to the Clowns, and due to the nature of kill orders, having hers revoked was equivalent to a full pardon, meaning that the law has nothing on her either.
  
  Lucy no longer has a single thin tying her down, and she is 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 it.
  
  She's decided to tour the country, maybe even to travel abroad too.
  
  Thanks to Tear taking part in the latest Endbringer fight alongside Crawler, or, more importantly; thanks to Tear and Crawler actually making an 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘵 in the latest Endbringer fight, combined with the knowledge that String Theory was broken out of her transport.
  
  Well, people aren't so eager to make enemies of any Clowns, and with her identity being basically common knowledge at this point, Lucy hasn't bothered trying to hide the fact that her new cape identity is Nutcracker, a travelling rogue.
  
  She even has the costume in her bag, custom ordered by Tear, who somehow got her measurements perfectly.
  
  It's all just so strange.
  
  Not even a week ago, she couldn't go anywhere without people wanting to kill her, and now?
  
  Now she can walk down the streets without being bothered in the slightest, free to do whatever she wants.
  
  People notice her, sure. Sometimes they point, or take pictures, but it doesn't matter.
  
  Thanks to her stint with the Nine, no matter how brief, it is incredibly rare for anyone to actually have the balls to bother her, and so long as they keep their distance, she's fine with the stares.
  
  Another upside is that she can go anywhere she wants, like casinos or nightclubs, and no one will make a fuss about her still being a minor.
  
  Not that it would really matter anyway. A kill order means that you are legally dead and that nothing done to you would be a crime, so when such a thing gets revoked, it leaves you in a weird sort of grey area.
  
  In simple terms, her and Mimi's legal status is basically the same as a diplomatic envoy, leaving a lot of 'wiggle room' when it comes to obeying laws.
  
  Nothing extreme of course, but if she's just trespassing, driving without a licence, not paying taxes or something, then who really cares? Is it worth making her a Villain again just to punish her for pointless crimes?
  
  Whatever the case, Lucy is just happy to be free.
  
  ?, ?, July 10th, 13:22.
  
  Hidden away from the world, in the most famous prison, best described as 'the hole where they throw away the hole,' hundreds of the most dangerous and bloodthirsty Villains mill about, resting, reading, smoking, fucking or watching TV.
  
  Some cell blocks are loud and boisterous, especially on the men's side, as the inmates to their best to remain entertained, knowing that there is no hope of escape. Some cell blocks are quieter, the only sounds being that of quiet conversation and reserved chuckles.
  
  All but one.
  
  Cell block C is always among the quiet few, as the leader of this particular block does not like needless racket, and no one would dare to defy her.
  
  The only exception, being when she decides to leave her cell.
  
  Now is such a time, when only silence can be heard.
  
  The wall mounted televisions are all playing on mute, with the subtitles taking place of audio, and not a single one of the women present is even thinking about making a noise, doing their best to play the part of a statue.
  
  The only sound being that of the occasional flip of a page, or sip of tea.
  
  Eventually, even that stops, leaving the room in an oppressive silence as the leader of the block stares at the wall of televisions with interest.
  
  A moment passes, and one of the braver women turns back to look at their leader, only to notice the small smile on her face and immediately turn back, heart pounding and fearing for her life.
  
  But nothing happens.
  
  Instead, Glaistig Uaine, the Faerie Queen, simply raises her cup back to her lips, her smile not fading as she speaks a single word, layered and echoing, like a dozen overlapping voices speaking at once.
  
  And despite the softness of her tone, the other women present can't help the simultaneous shudder that travels down their spines as her voice washes over them.
  
  "Curious."
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  I think I have a serious problem. I just love overpowered assholes with a billion and one powers that they can throw around, fuckign up everyone and anyone.
  
  Eidolon is already more powerful than he should be (iirc, I could be wrong, but I don't think I am) but now I'm probably going to make the Faerie Queen stronker too, because she's cool... I'll prolly also make legend stronger too, and just about everyone else...
  
  I've got to write that fucking DxD fic. I need me some godly overpowered bullshit people. Maybe I'll just do another Naruto one? I have a cool idea that one of you losers got stuck in my head
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  131 Interlude: Joker
  Columbus, Ohio, July 12th, 20:23.
  
  Entering the city, Catelyn can't help the feeling of heebie-jeebies settling in her gut as she watches the streets pass by.
  
  Jumping slightly, she is startled out of her thoughts by a gentle yet firm hand being placed on her thigh.
  
  Turning to her other side, she looks away from the window to give Flint a smile, silently thanking him for his reassurance, even as he continues to drive towards the source of her anxiety.
  
  Idly, as she turns back to watching the city go by, Catelyn takes note of the graffiti decorating the streets. It looks tasteful and artistic enough that you wouldn't even really think of it as graffiti if you didn't already live here.
  
  Because everyone who lives here knows what that heart shaped symbol means, especially the hearts that have a jester's mask in the middle of them.
  
  Yes, the underworld of Columbus truly belongs to the Red Hearts now, with Cincinnati and Cleveland soon to follow the expanding empire.
  
  Suddenly, a lazy voice rings out from the back of the car, jolting Catelyn out of her thoughts once again.
  
  "Remind me again what we're doing here?"
  
  Turning around with an insufferable sigh, Catelyn faces Paul, who is leaning forward to poke his head between the two front seats, and he speaks again before she can even answer.
  
  "Like, we aren't even going to be operating here, we moved to Cleveland remember? So why are we 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 and not 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦?"
  
  "Because," Catelyn stresses the word, "as I have already 𝘵𝘰𝘭𝘥 you, the Red Hearts run Cleveland, and if we want to work there, we need to get their permission so that they don't kill us for working their marks."
  
  Typically, Paul remains unfazed by the thought of being killed and all but pouts back at her, because despite actually being the eldest in the car, he acts the most like a child.
  
  "Yeah yeah, I get 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵, but why are we 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦? Like, why aren't we just talking with some of their guys in Cleveland? Why do we have to come all the way over here to do this?"
  
  His words make Catelyn want to rip her hair out as her frustration and anxiety only grow the more he speaks.
  
  "𝘉𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦," she stresses even more this time, "if we disrespect the Red Hearts, then the Jack of Hearts, otherwise known as the 𝘙𝘦𝘥-𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨-𝘋𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩 will find us and they will 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘶𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳 us."
  
  Paul goes to say something, but Catelyn speaks over him, her voice rising with her anxiety as she works herself up.
  
  "More importantly, the Red Hearts are lead by the 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 Joker, and you don't disrespect the Joker, because he is the 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘑𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘳."
  
  Pausing her rant, Catelyn is left panting for air as she calms herself down, not noticing the worried look Flint sends her way as she drags a palm down her face.
  
  "Look," she says, far calmer this time, "we're here to speak with the Joker directly. We're here to respect him by taking the trip ourselves, and we really, 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 need to avoid pissing him off. So when we get there, could you please, 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 just shut the fuck up and let us do the talking?"
  
  With a harrumph, Paul sits back in his seat, muttering his complaints.
  
  "What's the big deal anyway? Who even is this 'Red Death' dude, and why should we care? Flint just needs to go to a convention or something and we can just kick their asses."
  
  Unable to stop herself, Catelyn lets out a long groan, mentally complaining about her teammates lack of a brain.
  
  "Did you not read the messages I sent you?" She asks, already knowing the answer.
  
  "Eh, I skimmed them. Didn't seem important. Why?"
  
  Smacking the back of her head against her seat, Catelyn whispers to herself. "My god he's an idiot."
  
  "What?"
  
  "Nothing. Look, Jack, or Red Death, is Joker's head enforcer, and they're a woman by the way, not a dude. Her power is some kind of red energy manipulation that she generally uses to send blades and waves at people, either cutting them to pieces or trapping them, or just making barriers. She's fast and versatile and Flint has a limit for how high he can go, you know this. And no offence Flint, but she could kick your ass easily."
  
  Flint lets out a huff and rolls his eyes good naturedly at the playful smirk she sends his way, while Paul in the back just lets out a faked gag at the display of affection, successfully ruining the moment, as he is wont to do.
  
  "𝘈𝘩𝘦𝘮. Even then, even if we could somehow manage to beat her back, there is still his Queen to consider, because from what I hear, she's a decent Brute who is basically always by Joker's side; and once again, her Brute rating is probably about as high as Flint's limit, maybe even a bit higher. All of that, is without considering the dozen or two other capes that work under Joker. There are only three of us, so play nice, and remember to shut the fuck up, just, all the time. 'Kay?"
  
  Rolling his eyes, Paul lies down, using the backseats as a makeshift bed as he disregards road safety laws and takes out his phone.
  
  "Fine, fine. I'll let you two do the talking."
  
  Hearing his confirmation, Catelyn lets out a sigh of genuine relief.
  
  Just in time too, as Flint taps her thigh with a knuckle to let her know that they've arrived, causing her to hastily mask up, an action followed by the other two. They're already in costume.
  
  Catelyn almost does a double take as she sees where they are pulling in, not having expected the location they were given to be the back of a large nightclub. There is even a line outside the club as people await entry to the 'Hearts and Minds' club.
  
  It's colour scheme has a lot of reds and blacks, and there are heart decorations all over it. Combined with it's name and it has to be the least subtle gang front in the history of fronts.
  
  She would be wondering how they can get away with such a flagrant display, but she knows what the Red Hearts are capable of, or at least, she knows that what she does know is just the tip of the iceberg, and that she shouldn't underestimate them.
  
  Also, after thinking about it for a moment, calling the club 'Hearts and Minds' is either just them having a laugh, or it's actually a really smart move, and she's going to assume the latter.
  
  After all, doing so makes it clear that the gang is trying to raise the public opinion of them, and if you know that someone is trying to win you over, then you'd probably trust them at least a little bit more, knowing that they wouldn't want to do anything overtly horrible for the sake of their image.
  
  Or maybe they just found it funny.
  
  Either way, Catelyn has no more time to consider it as Flint drives around to the back of the club, where their is a large metal door, one of the ones that slide up, like a garage but bigger, as well as a pair of men loitering nearby.
  
  They are dressed in black suits with only the white of their shirt and the red pocket square on their chest having any colour.
  
  They also do a very poor job of concealing the ARs they're carrying, but that might be the point.
  
  One of them gets up to approach while the other takes out a radio and starts talking quietly into it.
  
  The guy approaching reaches the car and knocks the driver's side window twice with the stock of his gun.
  
  Definitely not actually trying to conceal the guns then.
  
  Rolling down his window, Flint, or Clyde now, goes to greet the man, only to be cut off by his own sharp words.
  
  "You the Bosses guests?" He asks, and Clyde ignores how he was interrupted to answer with a smile.
  
  "I do believe so, I'm Clyde, this is Bonnie and that's Smoker in the back."
  
  The man's eyes track with Clyde's finger as he points his comrades out; Catelyn, or Bonnie now, responds with a smile, visible thanks to her mask only concealing the upper half of her face.
  
  Paul, or Smoker, is the exact opposite, with his mask covering his mouth and nose. He simply responds to the man's gaze with a hesitant two fingered wave.
  
  Hesitant because he's used to greeting people with a middle finger, but managed to hold himself back from doing so.
  
  "Hm. You're early. Good. The Boss doesn't like being made to wait."
  
  As if his words were a signal, the door in front of them opens up, revealing a large elevator with poor lighting, clearly designed to allow for lorries to entre and exit.
  
  The fact that they are being allowed into what is clearly an important location only makes Bonnie more nervous, knowing that it means they are simply confident that they could remover her and her team before they could even become a problem.
  
  The elevator ride is slow and silent, only serving to make Bonnie even more nervous.
  
  The phrase, 'into the lion's den' has never felt more fitting as every second feels like an hour until the elevator finally jars to a stop.
  
  The doors open, and the three of them are greeted with what can only be described as an underground base.
  
  Just a quick glance around shows the space available to be at least half a football stadium, and that's not even considering what lies beyond the various corridors.
  
  In front of them is what seems to be a loading bay of sorts, with unmarked and marked vans and lorries of all types parked about, some of which are being loaded with various crates by people in uniform.
  
  Bonnie even spots one pair of unmarked black vans surrounded by a group of heavily armed men, who are clearly getting ready to do something.
  
  From the arms they're wielding, Bonnie wouldn't be surprised to hear that they plan on fighting a small army.
  
  But their attention is quickly taken by a woman walking up to them.
  
  She is dressed differently from everyone else around, wearing tight black body suit with dark red swirls artfully decorating it and a scarlet red leather jacket with a fluffy collar over the top.
  
  Most importantly however, is the mask she is wearing. It's a typical domino, mostly just covering her eyes, and it is chequered with black and red diamonds, each diamond having a heart of the opposite colour in it's centre.
  
  Catelyn's heart nearly stops beating for a moment as the Jack of Hearts stops in front of them, before she breathes out a sigh of relief as the woman only nods her head and turns around, gesturing for us to follow, which we do.
  
  A short drive later, where Clyde keeps the car a solid ten feet away from the woman at all times, and we are lead to a spot to park.
  
  We each get out, with even Smoker seeming solemn as we realise just how big of an operation the Joker is running.
  
  Talk about humbling a humbling experience.
  
  "Come on then. No using your powers, or I'll take your hands. Don't speak to around the Boss without permission and don't stare."
  
  With those stern words, Jack walks away, the three young Villains hurriedly following behind, like lost ducklings.
  
  They walk for a while, crossing the original open area and into the corridors, which seem to go on forever, until they eventually reach a fancy looking door, where Jack knocks twice.
  
  The door is opened by another woman in a mask. This one covers everything but the mouth, and is white with the exception of a red and gold crown design, as well as a cursive 'Q' drawn on the left cheek of the mask.
  
  The rest of the woman doesn't match with the quality of Jack however, as she has a lazy frown on her face and is dressed in what could only be described as casual clothes, with a loose red tee and a pair of black shorts.
  
  It only takes a moment for her to notice the three behind Jack, and recognition flashes in her eyes as she opens the door fully with a smile.
  
  The four of them walk into what at first looks like a simple, if opulent, office. But that only lasts until they look off to the right and notice that the room seems to actually be two rooms combined into one, with the other half being a dedicated lab.
  
  Equipment of various purposes decorate the walls, with counters full of beakers and mysterious liquids, while in the centre of it all, there is a single metal operating table, flaked with dried blood.
  
  Bonnie studiously does her best to ignore what that means, and focuses instead on the man, a boy, really, bent over one of those counters, holding a pipette over a beaker with focus.
  
  The two women ignore this, with Queen simply moving to the operating table and leaning back on it without a care for the dry blood, crossing her arms and staring at the guests, whom Jack gestures to take a seat in the office half of the room.
  
  They do so without a word, sinking into the red velvet couches as they wait for the Joker to be done.
  
  But even after minutes, nothing happens.
  
  The silence soon becomes oppressive to Bonnie, who feels like she is closer to having a panic attack every second. The way Jack keeps glaring at her certainly doesn't help, but Clyde's reassuring hand on her shoulder does, and she manages to take a breath and calm herself.
  
  Startling at the sudden sound, they all turn to the lab just in time to see Joker tap an alarm, putting down his equipment and holding a hand out behind him without a word.
  
  Queen soon follows his silent gesture and hands him a wet towel, which he uses to wipe his hands clean before throwing the towel onto the operating table and finally turning around, making his way to his desk with calm, measured steps.
  
  As he does, the guests finally get to properly take in his appearance.
  
  He is young, is the first thing to come to mind. Maybe thirteen, fourteen. Early teens at best.
  
  But that doesn't detract from his image, as he has little to no baby fat, and he is wearing a very clearly tailored black pinstripe suit, with the stripes being a deep red, matching with his pocket square and crimson undershirt.
  
  His hair is a mix between dark red and black, and is slicked back, with the ends spiking up slightly at the back of his neck.
  
  Other than his height, everything about him radiates control, and power. Fitting of his position.
  
  The only other thing marking him as anything different to a typical mob boss, is the pale face paint he is wearing, with a large red cheshire grin painted on and a pair of deep purple triangles above and below his eyes, pointing away from them.
  
  Taking his seat, he finally looks at them, his eyes, bloodshot and shifting, changing between colours as if they can't decide on what to settle on, bore into the three of them.
  
  "So," he finally says, ending the oppressive silence, his voice both childish and mature, "who are you, exactly? Never mind, I don't care. Why are you here?"
  
  The 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 Smoker gives Bonnie makes her want to kick him in the nuts, as she can practically hear the silent 'I told you so.'
  
  Instead, she takes a deep breath and answers, thanking Scion that she doesn't stutter.
  
  "We are here to pay respects to the Joker, and to ask permission to operate within the city of Cleveland."
  
  Joker's lip twitches at her words, and as he starts to smile, he raises one of his hands to cover his mouth, allowing them all to see the tattoo of a laughing mouth on the back of his hand, in place of his actual smile.
  
  "Oh?~ And what kind of operations would that be?~" He asks, his voice sending shivers down Bonnie's spine as a feeling of danger clouds her mind.
  
  "We're just small time thieves. We call ourselves Night Raid, and we just rob businesses and banks, anything corporate really."
  
  At her words, Joker leans back into his chair and taps his chin with his right forefinger, clearly thinking.
  
  Until he suddenly snaps his fingers and looks back at them with a smile.
  
  "Well, Night Raid. I mostly deal in other things anyway, drugs, protection, organ trade and the like.~"
  
  Bonnie tries to hide her wince at the mention of organ trade, but from his grin widening, she doesn't think she succeeds.
  
  "So you doing your thing won't really cut into my profits too much, especially if your targets are all corporate.~ In that case, sure, you'll have no problems from my Hearts.~"
  
  Smoker lets out a breath at his answer, clearly expecting that to be all. Bonnie and Clyde are not so naïve.
  
  "However, there will naturally be conditions.~"
  
  And there it is.
  
  Smoker tightens his grip on his chair, but relents when thin whisps of red energy start dancing around Jack's body.
  
  Having expected this, Bonnie is quick with her response, doing her best to act deferential. "Of course, may we hear these conditions?"
  
  His smile changes again, and the anxiety Bonnie has been keeping locked down spikes up again, as a bad premonition settles in her mind.
  
  "Of course, of course. First of all, you'll be given a list of properties that are paying me for protection. You are not to hit any of them. Secondly, since you would be operating in my territory, I think a tax on what you earn should be reasonable. Let's say, 50%? Yes, that seems fair.~"
  
  Before she can get over her shock at the unreasonable number to say anything in their defence, Smoker beats her to the punch, making that horrible feeling get all the worse as she witnesses her premonition coming true.
  
  "50%!? You wouldn't even be doing anything! How is 50% fair!?"
  
  Only silence follows Smoker's emotional outburst, as his teammates stare at him with slacked jaws, feeling both shock and an undercurrent of fear, while Queen just seems amused and Joker only has a small frown on his face.
  
  Jack however, is glaring at them as if she's trying to develop a Blaster power on the spot to burn a hole through their bodies.
  
  It takes only a moment for Smoker to realise what he's done, but by then it's too late, as Joker's voice echoes in the room like the executioner's sentence.
  
  "Jack, a finger should do. Actually, no, take both of his middle fingers, just in case he tries to disrespect me again."
  
  Bonnie's eyes blow wide as the angry woman storms over to Smoker, pulsing with red energy, and she knows before it even happens that he is going to use his power to avoid her.
  
  But Bonnie remembers the woman's earlier words and doesn't want to call the bluff, so she does the only thing she can think off to save her teammate's life, and possibly even her own by extension.
  
  She drops to her knees and she begs.
  
  "Wait! Please! He's just stupid and slow, he didn't mean what he said, please forgive him!"
  
  With her forehead touching the floor, she can not see any faces, but she still notices Clyde joining her, bowing for forgiveness.
  
  Meanwhile, Joker turns from the two on the floor and stares at Smoker instead, who soon gets the message and joins them, shaking lightly.
  
  Silence ensues once more, and Bonnie's fear grows every second that she awaits his sentence.
  
  "Hmm, you're a Tinker, right?" Joker's voice eventually rings out, the non sequitur sending her through a loop for a moment before she hastily answers, cursing Scion as she fails to hide her stutter.
  
  "Y-y-yes." She doesn't ask how he knows, seeing as he apparently didn't even recognise them, instead she just answers honestly and hopes that it will save them.
  
  "In that case, you will give up 30% of any profits you make in Cleveland, and you will make up to ten devices of our choice every month for me. Materials and specifications will be sent to you on the first of every month. Do we have a deal, whatever your name was?"
  
  Ten a month is going to seriously cut into her Tinkering time, meaning that her team will have less to work with for their jobs, and she will have less free time, but she doesn't hesitate to agree.
  
  And like that, the Red Heart's influence spreads just a little bit further.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Lol, I've been thinking about this chap for like 3 days, so I got carried away and wrote 3.5k words, and you should be happy about that, because if I wrote 4k then it would have been a double chapter and I would have split it in half, but it ended just in time to stay as one chap.
  
  Also, yeah, little james is not so little anymore. He's been through something of a trial by fire and is now an actual big name in the underworld, with all the reputation and presence that comes with it. he's changed a lot. He's also used some drugs to make himself look older, cuz he's like, 10
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  132 Setting up a Playdate
  Columbus, Ohio, July 19th, 18:31.
  
  "-with that we can fully confirm that yes, Dragon, with the help of a Tinker who goes by Negante, has finished development of a cure for HIV, and that mass production will be started shortly, making the cure available nationwide, with talks of going international after a brief adjustment period.
  
  "In Dragon's own words, with help from the Tinker known as Negante, it is likely that other similar diseases could have cures within the next five to ten years. This is Aubr-"
  
  Cutting off the news caster before they can finish introducing themselves, I switch the channel to some cartoons and turn back around to open the oven behind me.
  
  Looks about done.
  
  Still smells like shit though.
  
  "Riley! Dinner's ready!"
  
  Following my yell, the pitter patter of footsteps can be heard as the girl in question runs down the stairs, clearing the last few with a small jump.
  
  With a skip in her step, Riley runs up to me and jumps at me, wrapping her arms around my waist as she hangs there, causing me to gaze down on her with exasperation.
  
  "Is it chicken nuggets!?" She exclaims, looking up at me with a smile.
  
  Patting her head with a smile of my own, I pick her up and place her back down on her own two feet.
  
  "Better," I say with a grin, as I walk back to the oven and pull out a tray, not bothering with oven mitts, because I can hardly feel the heat.
  
  "It's pizza!" I exclaim, showing her her meal with a flourish, "now go sit down while I cut this up for ya."
  
  "Yes mommy!" She exclaims before bouncing away to the dining room.
  
  ... Yeah, that's a thing now.
  
  Apparently it's a lot harder to fix a twice broken little girl than I thought it would be.
  
  It's not like I'm a psychologist anyway, so it's not like I really knew what I was doing, but the past couple of weeks have had a lot of cuddling and crying, with plenty of comforting words.
  
  It wasn't exactly hard to get her to hate Jack, he did kill her family after all. The difficult part was getting her to be happy and fun again, without it also just being a mask that can be ripped off whenever, leading to another breakdown.
  
  I've more or less succeeded.. I think?
  
  Look, it's not an exact science, and I don't really know where the whole 'mommy' thing came from, but she started doing that a few days ago.
  
  I think part of what made the whole thing so annoying is that I've also been trying to avoid accidentally convincing her to switch sides and be 'good' or something.
  
  It would suck if I went through all this effort only for her to retire as a mad scientist and just be a doctor or something lame like that.
  
  Truthfully, James has basically been my deus ex machina for this whole thing.
  
  It's a lot easier to convince her that experimenting doesn't make her evil when I have an example of someone a lot like her. They're even similar ages too, which is a nice coincidence.
  
  Of course, it wasn't that simple, which is why I got James to hurry up with the whole HIV cure thing, because it meant that I could tell Riley that it's fine if your experiments hurt people, because look at Negante; he definitely hurts a lot of people, but he's also helping even more by curing HIV.
  
  Basically making her believe in karma and balancing out the scales.
  
  It's not exactly a harmful belief in the first place, and with her power, working together with James, it probably wouldn't be too hard for the two of them to come up with some more cures or other medical advances, then it's just a case of giving the tech to Dragon for the sake of mass production, and boom, problem solved.
  
  That's all without even mentioning the shit tonne of money involved.
  
  People don't seem to realise just how much money there is in pharmaceuticals, and the rich assholes getting richer from it all probably would have tried to silence and or kill James for releasing his cure.
  
  However, since it's technically Dragon that's spreading it, there isn't really anything they can do about it.
  
  Dragon is probably the richest parahuman on the planet, and she also does a mind boggling amount of work.
  
  Seriously, I may not particularly care about helping people, but that doesn't mean I can't respect the hell out of Dragon for all the work she does, globally too.
  
  She's basically the head of the modern tech industry, all while making necessities affordable to anyone who needs them, but she also does food drives, and runs a couple charities, all the while helping with relief efforts literally every time there is a disaster anywhere on the planet.
  
  In fact, the only times she isn't helping with relief efforts after a disaster, is when she's either busy helping other people elsewhere, or because she is straight up just not allowed to help.
  
  Like China. The CUI don't like... well, anything that isn't also a part of the CUI really, so they don't let her in, even though she really does only want to help.
  
  That's all without even considering the fact that she's been present, at least in robot form, at every Endbringer fight since she became active.
  
  Basically, she's the most deserving of the title of hero out of everyone who wears it, and is probably the nicest woman on the planet, because I really don't see her having much free time.
  
  A choking sound brings me out of my thoughts, and it's only when I notice Riley coughing and patting her chest that I realise I've been spacing out.
  
  "Don't eat too fast, the food isn't going anywhere." She ducks her head embarrassedly at my amused chastisement, and goes back to stuffing her face, a lot more sedately this time, while I just watch with a glass of 'wine' instead of a meal.
  
  I started fermenting some booze a while ago; I basically just filled a hole with bodies and ethanol and sealed it. It's pretty shit to be honest, but it's better than just coffee all the time, though it would probably kill a normal person if they drank it, with how concentrated it is.
  
  But as I sip, turn my thoughts back to the girl before me.
  
  At this point, she's basically just a severely toned down Bonesaw.
  
  She's a lot less amoral, but she also won't flinch about experimenting on live humans, which is kind of important, because I eat people; so I can't really have any kind of positive relationship with someone who would find that fact displeasing.
  
  But, she's be doing so with the mindset that it's fine to hurt a few people with her experiments, if it means that she can help an equal or greater number of people with the result, which is fair enough really.
  
  Most importantly, is that she's basically fixed, more or less.
  
  Ok, not really, but I've laid the groundwork, like I said I would, and frankly I'm getting bored.
  
  I want to go out and do something, but I don't really want to leave the Chibi unattended.
  
  Luckily for me, I have a plan.
  
  So, once the Chibi has finished with her food, I speak up with a smile.
  
  "So, are you ready to meet Negante?~" I ask, with a teasing tone as she looks away with a faint blush.
  
  You see, one great thing about making James see great to her, is that I can just dump her on him and she's perfectly happy with it.
  
  In fact, she's a bit more than happy, evidence by how she rushes up the stairs to get changed into something more appropriate.
  
  It turns out that there was a slightly unexpected side effect of using James as an example of all things good about her, because she seems to have developed something of an 'unhealthy' obsession regarding him.
  
  Not that I see a problem with it, if anything, I just think it's funny. Especially since James has no idea about it.
  
  Shame no one thought to warn him ahead of time.
  
  Ah well.
  
  She basically sees him as the idealisation of all that she wants to be.
  
  He's a Tinker, just liker her and his speciality compliments her own almost perfectly. But he's fully in charge of his own life, doing whatever he wants. He's become someone powerful, respected and feared, all while 'doing a lot' to help people.
  
  That last part was why I needed him to hurry up with the HIV thing, and I don't doubt that the Chibi was watching the news as well before I called her down.
  
  It doesn't take all that long for Riley to get back down, and I take a moment to look her over, causing her to blush as I give her a knowing look.
  
  She's certainly dressed to impress.
  
  Now that she's not obsessed with being a 'good girl,' she's finally dropped the whole Alice in Wonderland thing she had going on with her frilly dress from before.
  
  Instead, she is wearing a short plaid dress with red as the primary colour and black second that stops just above her knees, showing off... well, nothing really, since she is still a child, so it's not like she has curves or long legs or anything, but I'm sure that to an equally prepubescent child it looks great.
  
  Above that, she has a cute black dress shirt, tied with short sleaves and a long red western bowtie, the ribbons of which fall asymmetrically down to about her stomach.
  
  It's all newly bought too, so she's looking extra nice, with a simple, if small, leather jacket over it all.
  
  The main thing I take note of though, is that she 'just so happens' to be matching James' colour scheme.
  
  What a coincidence.~
  
  "Alright then Riley, let's go."
  
  She nods her head and puts on a pair of sunglasses, despite the time, because she 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 still have a kill order on her head. I've just been wearing a different face this whole time.
  
  Not literally. My power lets me shapeshift a little bit.
  
  We've decided that it'd be best if Riley got some surgery done too, to change up her face, get her a new identity too.
  
  With her power it shouldn't be hard, and we don't need the identity to be airtight anyway.
  
  A great thing about rebranding away from the Nine, is that no one's really going to call you out on it, because everyone else also wants the Nine to be gone.
  
  Like Murder Bear for instance. Riley hasn't had the time, or mental stability, yet to do anything more than give her her voice back, but that was enough for her to come up with her new cape name as a Clown.
  
  The name she's chosen to represent herself?
  
  Diversity Hire.
  
  She fucking called herself Diversity Hire.
  
  I must have laughed for a solid ten minutes after she said that, and it's not like it's completely wrong; she 𝘪𝘴 the first black person to join up.
  
  Still, the point is that no one is going to call out the fact that she is very obviously the cape formally known as Murder Bear, because doing so could risk forcing her to take up the role once again, and everyone would just rather we all move past our Slaughterhouse ways.
  
  A better example is Crawler, who is 'rebranding' as a Clown named Cerberus. Our little tussle with Behemoth is actually kind of helpful in this too, since while he might not have the three heads, he 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 look slightly different now.
  
  Which means that if anyone tries to say anything like 'Hey! That's obviously just Crawler!' We can just be all, 'what are you talking about? Look at him! Crawler had weird bone spike things coming out the back of his neck, this guy 𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘺 only has weird bone spike things coming out of his shoulders, they're completely different people! Crazy that they look so alike, but hey, that's a coincidence for ya!'
  
  And if someone is going to be really insistent in calling us out on it? Well, who gives a fuck?
  
  He's not going around murdering people anymore, so no one really wants to fight the unstoppable tank dog for basically no reason.
  
  All said, the week after Behemoth was pretty hectic, but things are calming down now, and my Clowns are gaining notoriety by the day.
  
  "Mommy?"
  
  A sudden voice brings me out of my thoughts, and I turn to look at Riley, who is giving me a curious look of her own.
  
  Glancing about, I see the Hearts and Minds club right in front of us.
  
  Huh, looks like we made it.
  
  I should really stop spacing out. I've just been finding myself rather easily distracted these past few days.
  
  Ah well, it's probably nothing.
  
  "Welp, let's go see James then," I say as I get out the car, Riley following me.
  
  I've talked about him enough that I gave up on keeping his identity secret, but I doubt it'd matter anyway, so I'm sure he'll be fine with it.
  
  It's been a while since I actually saw him. I wonder if he's grown taller?
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  idk if you were expecting a chap with lusia actually fixing riley, but fuck that. it'd just be a chapter of lusia telling her that jacks bad, riley's good, she should do what she wants, ect.
  
  boring.
  
  Also, it was genuinely a coincidence that riley and james are the same age, but now I'm totally going to make them date when they're older.
  
  and yeah, riley is kinda fixed, but she's still broken. it's more like she's on the way to being fixed, all that is needed now is time to adjust.
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  133 Drugs?
  Turns out, bringing a small child into a very active night club gets you some very interesting looks.
  
  Doubly so since literally everyone knows that it's a front for James' gang. My eyes drift over the various hearts stitched, painted and engraved all over the building.
  
  He's hardly subtle about it.
  
  Not that he really needs to be with the amount of cash he's got flowing in.
  
  I don't know the exact numbers, but he's a 𝘋𝘳𝘶𝘨 𝘛𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘳 running a 𝘥𝘳𝘶𝘨 trade. Not only does he basically have the combined profit from three cities and a couple of towns worth of underworld activities, but he also has a monopoly on any and all the drugs he produces himself.
  
  And I know for a fact that he's started selling his own stuff to other drug empires across the states.
  
  I know because March called me while high off here tits to tell me about how space whales are eating our brains and how some girl going by Flechette was her soul mate or something, with some other deranged rambling about getting new minions that I listened to with half an ear until the line went dead.
  
  I'd honestly thought she'd had a heart attack or something and just straight up died, but when I called up Clara to see if she could get anyone to check on her, I was informed that she wasn't even in NY anymore.
  
  Apparently she hadn't been there in a while too.
  
  A short questioning and a promise to visit later, and I learn that she's not even in the states anymore, because apparently she had a job as a bodyguard up in Vancouver, which is where Dragon lives, so I definitely want to visit at some point.
  
  But anyway, apparently someone set up a portal between our earth, Earth Bet, and an alternate earth, Earth Shin, and has been using it to smuggle shit between earths.
  
  Which, by the way, is 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘭𝘺 illegal.
  
  Ever since Professor Haywire ripped a hole in reality itself some, twenty years ago, not too long before I was born actually, the knowledge of the multiverse theory being true has stopped being anything to call home about.
  
  Especially since everyone in every dimension basically collectively decided to ban interdimensional travel, so as to avoid any planetary scale wars.
  
  Though, personally I think it was actually a mix between other worlds being scared of us, since something like 99% of all known parahumans are on Earth Bet, so it's safe to say we'd annihilate them.
  
  But frankly we have too much shit to deal with already, like the Endbringers.
  
  So the only thing passing through his portals is information, like movies and tech and such, which makes the thing March has gotten involved in quite a big deal.
  
  Not that I'm going to help her. If she needs any help then she knows she can ask for it, and if she doesn't ask then I'll just assume she's got things under wraps.
  
  Ah, I got distracted again, where were we?
  
  Right, Hearts and Minds.
  
  I should go see if Haywire wants to become a Clown, I'm sure he'd bring a lot of fun to the table.
  
  Shaking my head, I try and actually focus on the world in front of me, giving Riley a pat on the back as I walk through the doors to the club, not being stopped by the pair of guards at the front who glare at me as I do so.
  
  It's a good thing we came before the club actually opens, else this would be so much harder.
  
  I do find it amusing the way all the buff guards and obvious career criminals keep glaring at me though, thinking they're tough.
  
  I'm sure if they actually knew who I was that they wouldn't be so brave, but there's nothing I can do about it. After all, I'm just, uh, Awan Antara. I know nothing about anyone called Lusia or Tear, for I am just a humble, uh, middle eastern? Woman.
  
  Is Awan Antara a middle eastern name?
  
  Honestly, Antara only came to mind because I know it means 'Lovely Goddess.'
  
  Eh, whatever, it doesn't matter.
  
  Because as we walk up to the bar, I take note of a woman standing to face us, with an absolutely stunning body that immediately takes my attention.
  
  I only stop ogling her curves when Riley elbows me on the side, snapping me out of my lust.
  
  ... It's been a while ok? I didn't want Riley to watch or hear me having sex, and I'm not exactly the quiet type.
  
  The woman is dressed in reds and blacks, as expected, and she gives us both an appraising look before seemingly dismissing us, though the glare never leaves her face, even as she turns around and walks off, clearly expecting us to follow.
  
  We didn't confirm who we are, but realistically, how many effective mother-daughter pairs are going to be coming in here?
  
  "Come on then. No using your powers, if you have any, or I'll take your hands. Don't speak to around the Boss without permission and don't stare."
  
  My lips twitch in a barely supressed grin at her 'menacing' words, and even Riley seems amused by them, clearly knowing that not only will I be able to protect her from anything the sexy lady tries, but also just how little it would matter to me if she toom my hands.
  
  "Oh I wouldn't worry about that,~ we don't have any powers I'm afraid,~ just a pair of totally normal normals.~"
  
  The look she sends back tells me that she's just been convinced that we do have powers, which sucks, because I felt like lying.
  
  Guess I got carried away and made it way too obvious.
  
  Ah well, it really doesn't matter even a little bit.
  
  Soon enough, we reach a fancy elevator, and then proceed to ignore it completely, apparently, as the woman leads us to another elevator nearby that looks more like a supply closet.
  
  Gotta love the misdirection.
  
  "I wonder what the other elevator leads to?" I ask, turning to Riley with a smile, "do you think they have a pool full of alligators that it drops you into?"
  
  That would be cool, like a Bond movie.
  
  riley is clearly excited by the idea, while I get the feeling that we're wearing Ms Sexy's patience thin with how lackadaisical we're being.
  
  Maybe I should offer her some help to unwind? She clearly needs to learn to relax a little.
  
  The elevator opens and with another short walk, we finally end up in front of an opulent wooden door, and I'm relieved to find that she actually knocks on this one, instead of leading us elsewhere.
  
  Seriously, how big is this place?
  
  The door is opened by a woman, well, she looks like she just turned eighteen, and if it wasn't for his general age, I'd have been proud.
  
  As it is, I'm fairly certain James isn't doing some reverse paedophilia and fucking her, so her state of dress is probably more a reflection of who she is as a person, than anything else.
  
  "Ah, these the guests?" The barely legal girl asks, only getting a glare in response that has her rolling her eyes as she opens the door wider, moving to the side to let us through.
  
  Glancing around, I quickly take note of the room, categorising everything from left to right.
  
  First wall, boring. Desk? Boring, more boring stuff and- oooh!~ Definitely evil lab with bloodstained operating table!~
  
  That's fun.
  
  I also notice James, who is working on something or other with his back to us, and the first thought that comes to mind is that yes, he most definitely has grown taller.
  
  Like, three 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 worth of aging taller.
  
  Someone's been doping.~
  
  He's also wearing a stupidly fancy suit that makes me want a stupidly fancy suit too. It's not like I couldn't afford it after all, because even after splitting Jack's 79 million dollar bounty, I still have tens of millions laying around.
  
  That's how I bought the house me and Riley have been staying at. But the suit would just get wrecked immediately, so what's the point?
  
  I also just had a fun thought.
  
  The only people that actually know that Negante and Joker are both one and the same are the original capes in his gang plus Jinx, and these two are new faces.
  
  Do you know what that means?
  
  It means I can fuck with them and they won't be too terrified of me to do anything about it.
  
  With that in mind, I give Riley a glance that she immediately understands, thanks to the wonders of trauma maturing her mentally enough to understand subtlety.
  
  She hurriedly takes a couple of steps backwards while I do the exact opposite, breaking into a sprint straight for James, though I make sure to keep my speed within human limits.
  
  "Jokerrr!" I scream out, putting on a deep voice as I jump at him, both arms spread wide to tackle him.
  
  The next moment, I feel an impact fracture my ribs and find myself hurtling towards a wall, that I hit with a dull thud.
  
  However before I can even fall to the ground, a wave of red energy slams be back into the wall, spreading to cover my entire body except my head as it holds me there, pushing on me with a decent amount of pressure.
  
  Following the wave of red back to it's source, I see the sexy woman glaring at me, the energy coming out of one arm, with more of it pulsing out over her shoulders, as if to make her agitation clear.
  
  She could probably crush a normal person to death pretty easily just from pressure alone, which I don't think is her strong suit anyway, and the other woman's punch would probably have killed an unenhanced.
  
  Neat, guess they aren't weak then.
  
  That's nice.
  
  It's only then that James finally turns around, letting me get a good look at him as he takes in the sights.
  
  Dang, he looks cool.
  
  I'm kind of jealous, but if I do get an actually good quality costume, it's just going to break anyway.
  
  Ah well, thoughts for the future.
  
  Instead of directly saying anything, James just lets out a chuckle and shakes his head.
  
  "Y'know, for some reason I actually thought you might have changed a little, given, y'know," James starts, clearly referencing my time with the Nine, to which I shrug, "but it's nice to see you're the same as ever."
  
  "What can I say? It's a gift.~" I answer, completely blasé about my 'compromising' position.
  
  "Heh, sure. You can let her go Jack, she's not an enemy, she's a friend."
  
  Riley flinches slightly at the name Jack, but otherwise sticks to staring reverently at James as he walks to the couches in the middle of the room; while the now names Jack reluctantly lets me go, clearly not happy about it.
  
  But one thing sticks to my mind as I plop back to the ground.
  
  "Wasn't she a dude last time I saw you?" I ask, thinking about when I was introduced to the gang as it started, and Siegfried took the position of 'Jack.'
  
  James doesn't hesitate to answer me as he pours himself a drink, apple juice, as well as another drink for Riley, after which he reaches under the table and pulls out a bottle of wine.
  
  Except when he pours it I know it is not wine. It's blood. A smile works its way onto my face at the thought of him having a drink ready for me.
  
  "I've done some restructuring. She is my head enforcer, and currently my strongest fighter, she's very versatile. That over there is my new 'Queen,' she's basically just a bodyguard. The two that had their positions are now VIII and III respectively."
  
  I catch on to a specific part of his answer and immediately find myself curious.
  
  "'Currently'? You say that like you expect her to be overtaken? You looking to hire someone? Maybe Cu, if he's even still hanging around?"
  
  He laughs lightly and I can't help but notice just how much he's changed.
  
  It's a good thing, I decide as he starts talking.
  
  I through him into a trial by fire when I left him, and he has very much risen above it, becoming someone I am unashamed to admit is incredibly cool.
  
  "Yeah, Queen is going to overtake her eventually. Her power gets stronger every time it purges her body of any poisons, and since she's a hapless drug addict, that means she's getting stronger every day. She's only a Brute 6 now, but that will probably be upped to a seven after about a year."
  
  Dang, potentially limitless growth? That's a good catch.
  
  I notice that Jack seems to be both incredibly shocked and personally offended that James is revealing what I do not doubt is their most well guarded secret.
  
  This kind of power is a big deal after all.
  
  But I ignore her and focus on the woman in question instead.
  
  "Aren't you gonna deny being a hapless druggie or something?" I ask, but she just shrugs in response with a lazy smile.
  
  "Eh, I'm a drug baby. Thanks to my mom being a meth addict, I've been a druggie literally my entire life, and I Triggered because I didn't have any drugs at the time in the first place. Now my job is basically to just stand around this guy, and occasionally beat someone up, and I get all the top of the line smack as I want for it. I'd say it's a pretty good deal."
  
  Huh, well. Fair enough I guess.
  
  Can't really fault the logic, though I do wonder if she's actually being paid, beyond food and drugs?
  
  Well, she'd probably spend the money on drugs anyway, so I guess it's just cutting out the middleman.
  
  As I go to speak, I am beaten to the punch by Jack, who seems to have hit her limit with what she can tolerate.
  
  "Boss! Why are you telling this woman all of this! If knowledge of Queen's power gets out she will be hunted down within the month!"
  
  The smile he gives her immediately has her shrinking back on herself, despite probably being twice his age.
  
  "Ja~ck. What did I tell you about questioning my decisions?~" He asks, his tone reeking of danger.
  
  Why, I'm almost proud.
  
  With her head bowed, and her posture submissive, Jack subconsciously takes a step back as she answers, her tone rapidly having switched from boisterous to fearful.
  
  "That I'm just the muscle and you should do the thinking. I shouldn't doubt you. I'm sorry Boss, please forgive me."
  
  What the fuck has he been up to, to get someone like her be so submissive?
  
  Seeing the surprise on my face, James happily answers me, turning away from the woman as if she isn't worth his attention.
  
  "She was in a bad spot when she Triggered. I helped her out, offered her a job. But due to an.. unfortunate situation, she's already on her last strike."
  
  Y'know, scratch being almost proud.
  
  I am incredibly proud of how far you've come, little James.
  
  "Neat, well, enough of that. I want you to meet someone, she's a big fan of yours and I think you'll get along great!~" I say with a smile as I place a hand on Riley's shoulder, making her freeze up slightly as his attention falls on her.
  
  Nobody says anything for a moment, and I awkwardly cough into a fist and give Riley a nudge.
  
  "R-right! Uhm, I'm Riley. Uh, I like chicken nuggets and advancing science. Um, nice to meet you?"
  
  Taking the hint that I want him to play nice, James gives her a smile that has her blushing, though I do also notice the way his eye linger every now and then.
  
  I knew she'd be attractive to similarly prepubescent people!
  
  "Well, people tend to call me Joker, but my name is James. It's a pleasure to meet you." James' greeting is followed by a short and awkward silence, before he picks the conversation back up, "you said you like science? Which branch, if you don't mind my asking?"
  
  Happy to have something to talk about, Riley quickly answers.
  
  "Biology! Surgery is my specialty."
  
  "Oh? Biology is also my field, though I work more on chemicals, I can do plenty of surgery. Would you like to see the project I'm working on right now?" James says, gesturing to the lab half of his room, and Riley rapidly nods her head.
  
  Both of them soon head over there and start talking with increasingly long words that go in one ear and out the other.
  
  Any more than five syllables is just too much for one word.
  
  Soon enough, I decide to just have a nap on the couch, because I get the feeling they will be at this for a while.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  James is doing the equivalent of showing off his toy truck collection, except it's an agent that stops the oxygenation of blood in whoever consumes it.
  
  Also, James is like, suuuper rich. Like, over a hundo million, probably around 140 mill right now, but by canon start he'll have more like 700 mill available to him personally
  
  Also, I hope this chapter highlights lusia's different mindset, by comparing how she reacts and observes things to how Bonnie, Clyde and Smoker did, you can really see a difference. Even with the descriptions of everything being a lot less detailed this chap, that's just to really show how little Lusia cares
  
  It is 1st person after all, which really limits a lot of what I can do, It was good at the start, since it was easier to get into writing with 1st, but I've started finding myself limited by it, so next fic will be 3rd.
  
  Also, go check out the fic 'Sanitize' on, because it is amazing, and I am unashamed to admit that I Shed a Tear (see what i did there?) multiple times while reading it, it is also very similar to the writing style of 'Hear the Silence', which is actually what inspired me to start writing in the first place :)
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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  134 Busy Bee
  "Do you have to go?"
  
  Patting her head, I answer Riley's question honestly.
  
  "Nope,~ it's just my nature. I don't have to go, but at the same time, I can't stay."
  
  We're standing out the back of James' club, with him and his Jack standing a short distance away as we say our goodbyes.
  
  It's only been a few of days, but Riley and James have become fast friends, bonding over science and words with too many syllables, so I no longer really have a reason to stay.
  
  Not just because I'm a free spirit mind you. I have actually been putting a couple of things off while I've been dealing with Riley, and they're starting to stack up.
  
  "Will you visit?" She asks, looking up at me with teary eyes.
  
  "Most likely, though probably not for a while."
  
  She doesn't like my answer, but she seems to accept it at least, which is all that really matters.
  
  With one final squeeze, she lets me go and walks over to where James is standing, whereupon he switches with her, walking over to me.
  
  He doesn't give me a hug like Riley, instead he just kicks me in the shin.
  
  How rude.
  
  "I can't believe you. First you ditch me with a bunch of criminals, then you find another child and ditch 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 with a bunch of criminals too, all while forcing me to babysit."
  
  "Mah mah, no need to sound so indignant, I've seen the looks you've been giving her.~ Does widdle Jamesie have a crush?~"
  
  He kicks me in the shin again, and his fancy pants dress shoes have steel toes, so it should hurt.
  
  Obviously it doesn't, but it's the thought that counts and this is a thought of betrayal, how sad.
  
  Deciding to take initiative, I lean forward and wrap James up in a hug, whispering in his ear as I do so.
  
  "You've grown a lot James, I'm proud of you," I say before leaning back and releasing him from my grip, continuing to talk as if I said nothing, "by the way, Riley was working on a project using my blood, would you mind checking it out with her?"
  
  My question gets a raised eyebrow from him, but he nods his head nonetheless, accepting it.
  
  The reason I ask is twofold, one simply being that he'd probably enjoy it, and the other because I have another plan, and this one probably won't result in me being horrifically brutalised.
  
  It's kind of embarrassing that so many of my plans so far have had that result.
  
  Finally, with all of that out of the way, I simply mount my motorbike, that I had to get transported because I kind of left it with Jack's RV, and I simply leave.
  
  Though I do a little wheelie on the way out, just because I'm so cool like that.
  
  So cool in fact, that I don't even have to wear a helmet or anything, because not only will the cold not effect me, but my eyes seem to have developed some kind of secondary eyelid thing, I don't know if there's a scientific term for it, but it basically just means that having the wind blowing directly into my eyes isn't an issue anymore, same with dust.
  
  No idea where it came from, but I'm not going to complain about it, especially when it means I can wear casual clothes as I drive, instead of thick leathers.
  
  A red crop top and jean short shorts is totally appropriate driving wear for a motorbike right?
  
  My thoughts are suddenly interrupted as I rapidly swing my bike to the side, turning just in time to avoid being T-boned by a truck.
  
  My knee dragged into the asphalt a little bit, but other than that, I'm all good.
  
  Looking back however, I see that I crossed a red light and caused a small pileup.
  
  ... Oops?
  
  I really should stop spacing out so much.
  
  Focusing back on the road, and speeding up to avoid the police, I make sure to keep an attentive eye forward as I think about what I've got left to do.
  
  I've got to get Craw- 𝘊𝘦𝘳𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘶𝘴. I've got to get Cerberus set up; he needs some way to actually call people, so I guess I'll have to hire a Tinker for him, maybe make some kind of device designed for his unique body, as well as a 'homebase' of sorts for him to stay in when he's not fighting people.
  
  Without Jack to hold him back, he's decided that he's going to attend all the Endbringer fights from now on, which will be amazing publicity if we can make it known that he is officially a Clown now.
  
  I've decided against joining him, because eh, it's only so fun getting smacked around like a ragdoll, and there are still other things I haven't done yet.
  
  Maybe I'll join him every now on then, depends if I'm busy and if it's the Simurgh, in which case, fuck that.
  
  What else?
  
  Oh! I need to go get Diversity and send her over to Riley now that she's stable. Though, I do hope she at least keeps the bear ears, they're cute.
  
  I should probably do that first.
  
  I've also got to get her set up to join the Clowns, which means I need more phones, more bank accounts and to do some more introductions, as well as to call some people and fill them in.
  
  I've also got to take Mimi to Brockton Bay, because apparently she has a friend there she wants to visit, and maybe they can take care of her for me, because she isn't fun enough to be a Clown, but that doesn't mean I can't use her anyway.
  
  Speaking of, I need to get back into contact with, uh, what was her name again? Sarah? Susan? No, definitely not that.
  
  Uhhh. Sssssamantha?
  
  No.
  
  Stacy!
  
  I need to get back in contact with Stacy, because I want to know what the fuck Toybox is doing, and whether or not I can use them for something fun.
  
  I'll have to come up with some made up scenario to convince her though, but an idea is already forming so that'll be fine.
  
  I also need to go see Clara, and maybe visit Billy if he's in town.
  
  Oh yeah, I also need to go kill someone, or a group of someones really, because they've been bothering Vendor, stealing his supplies while they're en route or something.
  
  I'm not really too sure of the specifics, but I set up a group chat, exclusively for when a Clown needs something. The idea being that if you need money, manpower, resources or anything at all really, you can just say so in the chat so that if someone can easily it for you, they know to do so.
  
  I also need to visit Uppercrust, but I can do that when I go see Clara, because we need to talk some business, and I have a bunch more 'business' propositions in my PHO inbox that I have to go through at some point.
  
  Most of them will probably just be ignored, some of them might even lead to a number of deaths, but maybe, just maybe, there will be something interesting, like someone wanting to be a Clown.
  
  So much work.~
  
  With a grin on my face, I speed up to the max, doing another wheelie for fun, and drive down the interstate to where Diversity has been waiting.
  
  Apparently she has some family living around here that she's bunking with.
  
  So I'll drive most of the way, stay in a motel or something for a night as I make a bunch of calls to get her set up with everything she might need, as well as a signing on bonus, because why not?
  
  Money isn't really something that interests me, so I just throw another million into her account.
  
  Jack's bounty money only got split between Lucy and I, because no one else did anything to help in the first place.
  
  The only part of the process I am looking forward to is the banking part, and that's only because I've been playing a little game with the Numberman.
  
  Typically I would consider inviting him to join, but I think his professional integrity would stop him from messing with accounts at my whims, so what's really the point?
  
  I already have James as a cash cow, and like I've said, I really don't care about money.
  
  I can just steal after all.
  
  Power is a currency in and of its own.
  
  I'm also thinking about visiting a quarantine zone or two, but I'm going to have to put a pin in that idea until I know for sure that doing so won't cause everyone to ostracise and hunt down my Clowns.
  
  That's also why I didn't eat anyone but Crawler back against Behemoth. Breaking the Endbringer Truce is a sure-fire way to turn every hero, villain and rogue into an enemy for life.
  
  Soon enough, it starts getting dark, not that I can't see in the dark, and I pull into some motel, rent a room and brows PHO for about an hour until I decide to start messaging and end up getting banned after about twenty more minutes.
  
  Welp, no more messages for another week then.
  
  Taking an extra moment to log out and back in with Jinx's account, I go to where I got banned and give the mods and everyone else there one final fuck you, and then log back in with my own account because I forgot about all the work I've got to do.
  
  I've put it in my profile that if any randoms message me with pointless stuff, that I'll kill them in real life, and after posting a message on some guy's account, Nibb- something, that had a selfie of me covered in blood and wearing a strap on attached, that was also bloodied, people kind of got the message that my threats are real and that I am literally insane.
  
  It's wild how many times people seem to forget that.
  
  Not that I think I'm insane; I think I'm perfectly normal and reasonable, I'm just not so conceited to assume that everyone else will see things the same. I obviously fit their definitions of insanity, but eh, who cares?
  
  Point is, none of the messages should be ignored outright.
  
  Doesn't mean they're all that interesting though.
  
  Mostly it's people asking me to kill other people, sometimes with offers of monetary gain involved, but none of the numbers are big and none of the targets are interesting, so I just move on.
  
  Some more people want to hire me, but I don't feel like working for someone right now.
  
  One person is actually asking what it takes to be considered an ally, basically asking to join up.
  
  I send them a message to give me their location so we can chat and move on.
  
  The only other message of any interest is one by one 'geTdBW9-&9s*8W?w.'
  
  Obviously a throwaway account, and the message itself is just some cryptic shit about stepping on toes or something.
  
  It really just makes me think it was sent by a teenager that's watched too many movies, so I just ignore the cryptic warnings, send them some hardcore porn and then block the account.
  
  With that all done, I decide to play some solitaire before bed, hoping it might clear my mind a little.
  
  I've no idea why I'm getting so easily lost in my thoughts recently, but it's semi-annoying.
  
  I mean, it's not too bad. It's not like my thoughts aren't interesting after all, so I don't really mind getting lost in them.
  
  Soon enough, I find myself drifting off to sleep.
  
  I dream of monochrome crystals, drenched with blood.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Ok, so this ended up as mostly a set up chapter of exposition, which sucks, because 3 days ago I had a plan for what I was going to write, then I remembered that I haven't dealt with Riley and that I needed to do that first, because chronology is important to me, and then yesterday that continued, and today I thought I'd finally do it, but then I remembered all the other things Lusia's been putting off.
  
  Freakin' annoying woman. She's so inconsiderate to me, you know that? I want to do stuff but can't because she keeps putting things off and adding work to my plate.
  
  ... does the fact that I see my characters as entities separate from myself denote insanity, or is this just something all writers go through? It's like my dilemma about writing conversations all over again...
  
  Also, someone mentioned that it's the little things earlier, and I got to wondering about that, because there are a lot of subtle things I put in this, I kind of have to with limited 1st person, but I feel like probably half of the subtle things I write are missed entirely. Like, have you noticed that sometimes Hero and Villain is capitalised and sometimes it isn't? Cuz that is entirely intentional. Like, Lusia never thinks of them capitalised, cuz she doesn't put them on a pedestal or think of them as anything greater than they are
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
  previous chapterchapter list
  135 Interlude: Laura 'Battery' Clark
  A/N: This idea lodged itself into my brain and wouldn't leave, I won't apologise.
  
  Also, it's never stated where Brockton Bay is, but the theories I could find put it as most likely either replacing New Hampshire or Atlanta city, I chose the latter cuz it's funny to me to make Taylor from New Jersey :)
  
  Brockton Bay, New Jersey, April 17th, 18:07.
  
  Inside of a moderate family home, sits a young man with short brown hair, lazily reclining back into a sofa as he watches the news with faint curiosity.
  
  "-However she is actually the oldest of the Slaughterhouse Nine's most recent recruitment drive, the youngest being a former Ward from Columbus, Georgia, by the name of Lucy Darwick."
  
  At this point, another person enters the room, an even younger woman, barely an adult really, with mousey brown hair and green eyes, holding a glass of water. But the young man doesn't notice her entrance, too distracted by the pictures on the TV showing Lucy Darwick's face, an average girl with brown hair, probably 16 at a glance.
  
  "The last of their latest members is likely the most well known as well, for an incident in Columbus, Ohio involving multiple dead capes, and another incident in Denver Colorado, involving a much higher number of dead. The cape, Tear, has since been identified to be one 'Lusia Abel-'"
  
  A sudden sound of glass shattering rings out, making the young man spin around in alarm to face the noise, only to be greeted by the slack jawed face of his partner, staring at the TV in shock, ignoring the pool of water beneath her, slowly spreading.
  
  Jumping to his feet, the man rushes over to her with a half panicked shout.
  
  "Puppy!" He exclaims, wrapping his arms around her as she starts to fall to her knees, "Puppy, what's wrong? Are you ok?"
  
  His worried words snap her out of her stupor, and she turns to him, pointing at the TV as if she's seen a ghost as she whispers out a sentence full of shock.
  
  "L-Lusia. I, I knew her. We went to school together."
  
  Half an hour later, and both of them can be seen dressed up in their Hero costumes, walking urgently through the local PRT HQ with the Director's office as their destination.
  
  "Are you sure you want to do this Puppy? You know she's hardly going to be sympathetic." The man, best known as the Hero Assault, speaks to his partner, Battery, with worry evident in his tone.
  
  However, despite the fact that he can clearly tell that she's a little out of it, he can see that she won't changer her mind.
  
  "She might be a bit of a hard-ass sometimes, but she's not cruel, and she's also our boss, so please be more respectful to her." Battery rolls her eyes as she respond, her voice filled with fond annoyance.
  
  "If you insist. Just know I'm here with you, ok?"
  
  With Assault's words, the conversation comes to an end, and soon enough the reach their destination.
  
  The door itself is nothing different to any of the others, the exception being the placard on the front that simply states what lies beyond.
  
  'Emily Piggot, PRT Director ENE.'
  
  Such a simple set of words, yet they still manage to make Battery hesitate, but with a deep breath and clammy hands, she knocks twice and opens the door, not waiting for a response since she was expected.
  
  The inside of the room is plain and spartan, with little to no personal effects. The only thing in the room that was clearly added as a personal preference being the high end coffee machine to the side.
  
  In the centre of the room, with a large window behind it, lays a large, intimidating desk, filled with paperwork and other effects necessary for office work.
  
  And behind the desk, is a woman.
  
  With bleached blond hair in a bob-cut, she is not a particularly striking woman. She is not scary to look at, or intimidating at a glance. She is not beautiful, being fat and worn, her body reduced to a shell of what it once was ever since her kidney was ruined, forcing her to rely on a dialysis machine just to get by.
  
  Yet, when the woman looks up from her paperwork, and her eyes set on Battery's form, she is immediately reminded of how none of that really matters, because Director Piggot has a 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 about her, severe and unrelenting, that makes it clear that she is not to be trifled with.
  
  It's ironic, that the most intimidating person in the room, is the only one without any powers.
  
  Even the man standing besides her, decked out in high tech armour, with a tinker-tech tablet in hand as he stands by, still as a statue, fails to be as intimidating as the woman, despite being the leader of the local Protectorate, and a figure of national regard.
  
  Giving Armsmaster a curt nod, the young couple walk forward, under their Director's piercing glare, until they are standing in front of her desk, hands behind their backs and heads high.
  
  ... At least that is the case for Battery.
  
  Assault's posture is a lot more casual, being one of the few people in the building that does not wilt in the face of her attention.
  
  Understandably really. You can't have worked as a Villain, especially one who deals with the worst of the worst, without developing a resistance to intimidation.
  
  Initiating the conversation, Director Piggot leans forward, resting her elbows on her desk and lacing her fingers as her stern voice sounds out.
  
  "Battery. You said you believe that you could have information regarding an S-class threat," her no-nonsense voice shows just how little humour she will tolerate as she continues, "what is it you've learned?"
  
  Taking another deep breath to clear her thoughts and calm herself, Battery casts her mind to the past, back when she was first entering high school.
  
  "Yeah, I uh, one of the new Slaughterhouse members, Tear. I knew her, we were in the same year in school."
  
  Her words get a raised brow, and a gesture to continue.
  
  "Well, we grew up in Kingston, New York. I didn't know her, at least not personally, until high school, but I knew about her before then. My uh, my dad is a detective, and he was involved with the case on Lusi's father, so I knew of her, at least a little. That's probably the reason I approached her in the first place."
  
  Closing her eyes, Battery can almost imagine the scene, as if she's there all over again.
  
  "She was always odd, though that's to be expected considering the broken home she came from, but she was also incredibly extroverted, and supernaturally good at making friends. By the time I actually found an opportunity to talk to her, she was already the 'popular girl' in our year, despite school only having been open for about a week. She was even making some friends in the upper years by then.
  
  "And that's all it was for the first couple of months, during which I guess you could say I was her closest friend, though I don't know if it could really count, because while she was popular, no one was truly close to her. Admittedly, I sort of just followed her around like a duckling."
  
  Battery scratches the back of her head as she admits that, feeling slightly embarrassed by the fact, but she continues nonetheless.
  
  "But then things all suddenly started changing. It started when she confided something in me, possibly opening up properly for the first time. She told me about her father, and she didn't hold anything back. I'm of the opinion that her mother got drunk and accidentally told Lusi all of this, but she said that her father was 'a massive, spineless pussy' and that the only thing that kept her parents together was the sex, and how her father ran off, disappearing one night after an argument with her mother.
  
  "I think. I think that's where her obsession with love and sex started. I'm no psychologist, but it was like she thought that the only way two people could be happy together, was if they keep having sex. I think she thought that was the reason her dad left, so she hyper focused on it."
  
  Before she can continue any further, Assault interrupts her, raising both of his arms to pause her.
  
  "Hold on a minute, are you saying that her mom basically told her that her dad sucked in bed, and she turned into a nympho because of it?"
  
  Frowning at her partner's crude words, Battery elbows him in the ribs and keeps talking, visibly annoyed at his crass mouth.
  
  "No, not quite. She didn't really have any interest in actually having sex, she just thought other people should be doing so, and no, she was not a voyeur."
  
  Shutting his mouth with a snap, Assault pouts about being predicted so easily.
  
  "Instead, she basically played wingman for anyone who asked and everyone who didn't. She'd pick two people that she thought would go well together, and then she'd, well, she'd manipulate both of them into having crushes on each other. Like I said, I basically just followed her around, and when I say she has always been impossibly charismatic, I mean it.
  
  "She always got what she wanted, and since social credit is the main currency in high school, she was also very scary, because at some point near the end of our freshman year, she changed again. I think it was after she read this book, The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka. She started talking about how everyone around her is only having fun because she's taking care of all the boredom for them, and how she wanted to have fun too, and leave someone else to hold the 'burden.'
  
  "That was when she truly started being scary. She could make anyone popular or send anyone to the bottom rung of the ladder. I think she enjoyed having that power and control over people. She would set up games sometimes, force people into difficult situations, just to watch specific emotions war inside of them.
  
  "One of her favourites was to humiliate someone, but then offer an olive branch, forcing them into a situation where they can either abandon their pride and submit to her, or they can keep their pride and endure humiliation and social isolation. But because of how many relationships she was to thank for, there was far too much gratitude being directed at her for anyone to do anything. She was the 'Queen Bee,' so to speak, and she manipulated everyone around her, understanding and impacting social dynamics with such ease it was almost insulting."
  
  Before she can go any further into her regaling of Lusia's exploits, the Director's own voice cuts her off and Battery can't help the straightening of her back as Piggot's stern voice washes over her.
  
  "You say she manipulates everyone around her, and that you were constantly by her side, possibly more than anyone. Does that mean she was manipulating you too?"
  
  Battery flinches at the accusation, but sighs and nods her head, continuing forward with a more solen tone, one that transitions into a more embarrassed quiver to the end of her statement.
  
  "Yeah, she did. I think she was tying to make me like her, trying to 'teach me her ways' or something. Or maybe she just liked to hear her own voice, but either way, during lunch brakes, we would sit alone, once a week, and she would observe everyone else, telling me all of their secrets, their fears, who they like and what I would have to say and do to get them to do anything I want. It's like I said. She is scary. She understands people with unnatural skill, and isn't afraid to use that information.
  
  "Even worse, is that she can manipulate you even when you know how manipulative she is. You see, when I was fifteen, during our sophomore year, I made the mistake of admitting to her that I had a crush, on a boy called Eric."
  
  Studiously ignoring the look Assault starts giving her, Battery does her best to push down her embarrassment about talking about this in front of not only her partner, but also both of her bosses.
  
  "After I told Lusi, she started acting differently, and it only took her about a month or so before I had a crush on her as well, though at the time I didn't realise that she was so clearly manipulating me. Soon enough, she asked me on a date, and we were tentatively in a relationship when she invited me back to her place and we, well. You know, she uh, took my first. And I'm not even gay."
  
  Finishing her sentence in a voice barely audible, Battery shakes her head and rushes the rest of her words out, wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible.
  
  "What I didn't know was that she was playing me. She was also seducing Eric, and 'dating' him at the same time, though apparently everyone knew about them, and I was the secret. But Lusi eventually managed to convince me into having a, uh, a threesome. With Eric, coincidentally, apparently because she already knew he was my type. I'd imagine that he was in the same situation as me, simply thinking his girlfriend wanted to try something new.
  
  "But then she started manipulating both of us, reigniting my crush on Eric and getting him to see me the same way, all the while she distanced herself from us. Eventually we both decided to 'admit' to her her that we had fallen for each other, but she just smiled, congratulated us and moved on."
  
  As she finishes her story, an awkward silence envelops the room, causing Battery to shift uncomfortably for a minute before she speaks up again, her voice quiet and reserved as she moves on to things that don't involve her deflowering.
  
  "Everyone in school new her, and she had a bunch of nicknames. I'm pretty sure that no one in our year or any of the years above was left virginal by the time she dropped out. There was even that one time that she set up an orgy with about thirty or forty seniors, during which she walked around providing refreshments and stuff instead of actually participating, because that would have made it illegal.
  
  "Basically, no matter how powerful she is as a cape, I firmly believe that it is her mind and way with people that should be the highest priority regarding her, and though her power seems to be a purely Brute one, I'd advocate for her having at least a Thinker/Master rating of 4."
  
  With her speech finally over, the room descends to silence once more as everyone processes her story.
  
  All until Piggot breaks the awkward atmosphere, dismissing Battery, much to the woman's joy.
  
  "I will take your words under advisement, and have someone bring her psych profile to you at some point, during which you will have the authority to edit, add or remove whatever you see fit, following which you will send it back with an addendum explaining your decisions. Dismissed."
  
  Battery all but runs out of the office, her partner following her out at a much more languid pace.
  
  The moment the door that was previously so imposing, and is now nothing but a relief, closes, Assault immediately turns his attention to Battery, a wide grin on his face.
  
  But the moment he opens his mouth to speak, Battery holds up a hand in front of him, reaching under her blue visor to rub at the bridge of her nose.
  
  "Don't. Just, don't."
  
  However, even without any words, his grin speaks a thousand words, and Battery likes none of them.
  
  A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
  
  Fun fact, I got the idea for this chap after watching one of those reddit story youtube videos, idk what it was, probably something like 'what was the incident at your school' and I got the idea of adding some Lusia lore.
  
  So yeah, her charisma is au natural, and she has always been obsessed with people having fun, though it was only after her mom being too open that she related sex to fun, and it was only after reading the metamorphosis that she decided that she didn't want to be the Gregor of this story, and that she wants to be having fun too, which means someone else needs to stop having fun to take her place.
  
  And yeah, she's a bit of a bitch, who would have guessed?
  
  I'm so freakin' tired
  
  Also, (5+)Advance chapters with the link I'm not allowed to fully type!
  
  pat reon /user?u=41732867
  
  Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
  
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