Interlude 4
Furor 3.10
Okay, being a hivemind was weird. It was like I was asleep… but not asleep at the same time, except when the Zerg I'd spawned were asleep, that is. Sarah had explained that it was probably because my Zerg-based psionics weren't fully developed yet and that it'd feel more natural once that part of me was more mature, but for now, I'd have to deal with the weird sensation. She'd also explained why larvae that metamorphosed into zerglings split into two. The reasons were a bit surprising but they made sense in context. Seeing what the zerg in my room were seeing at the same time I was in dreamland with Sarah was weirder than just being asleep and awake at the same time though.
I'm not quite sure how long I'd been in the Cocoon, but Rachel and Alec had slept a few times and Brian's emotions had changed a lot… I should probably get a clock down here. While my main body was out, I'd spawned three more drones. I kept one down here. Two were sort of patrolling the semi-abandoned bit of sewer, as extra security, while I'd set the fourth to digging. I wasn't fully sure that I needed more space, but having a backup hive made sense all of a sudden.
However long it had been since I climbed into the Cocoon, I was starting to wake up now. It started with an electric feeling down my back, a tingling in my feet. My fingers twitched and I clenched my fists. My eyes flew open and I was fully aware of my body again. The Cocoon began to drain, the top opened up, I climbed out, and…
...Fell to the floor and started coughing and retching in order to get the goo out of my lungs. That… I'm not sure why, but I'd expected something dramatic. After a few minutes, I was able to push myself back up and… everything felt right. No pain or numbness or anything. I looked down to my newly regrown hand and flexed each finger--everything seemed to be in working order.
I also noticed that my scales and carapace were shinier than they were before I went into the Cocoon, even accounting for residual goo. After double checking that I wasn't going to trip the second I took a step, I walked over to my mirror. I think I was a little bit taller, and my muscles just a little bigger, but not by much. My boobs hadn't gotten bigger this time, but I'd grown a sternum of carapace that grew up from my ribs to meet my collarbone. It was hard to tell because of the scales, but I think my belly was more toned than it was a week ago. A quick turn showed that my back carapace now resembled ribs in the same places that the front did. The spine plates were a bit more defined, but the spikes were unchanged. Weird. I think I had carapace pauldrons, or maybe shoulder pads? Regardless, something smooth and roughly spade-shaped was extending out from my carapace and an inch or two past each shoulder. I looked back to my regrown hand and started testing it, clenching it, flexing it, grabbing my fingers to see how far they'd bend back before it started hurting, and in general just testing to see if I'd grown a good replacement hand. I was double-jointed in all fingers now. I tested the other one just to see, and when I'd seen that the upgrade had spread, spent about ten minutes checking to see exactly how flexible my various joints were.
"Well," I said to myself, "that's going to make climbing in and out of... sewers" Wait, was that my voice? There was an echo or distortion to my voice now. That would take some getting used to.
Then I noticed that, excluding my zerg, I was completely alone in the building. Or, that I was still alone in the building. The others, even Rachel, left on their own from time to time, but… something felt wrong.
I closed my eyes and felt out for any of the others. No one, not even one of Rachel's dogs, was here… or even anywhere near here, and--wait.
One of my patrolling drones spotted someone in the storm sewers, and they weren't city maintenance workers… Five men. Each with a rifle, and dressed in the colors of the local band of S.S. rejects. And heading right for where the sewers lead into my room.
They were looking back among themselves at the moment so they didn't notice my drone yet. I capitalized on this and had it charge at them while loudly snapping it's sideways jaws and hissing and gurgling in an echoing fashion.
All five neo-nazis snapped to attention at the loud charge of a floating, six eyed crab monster screaming at them. One of them screamed like a little girl, said something about "face-rape" and "xeno-eggs" before he turned and ran. The other four, being braver or perhaps having not watched the same films as the runner, turned their guns on the drone and fired. I almost laughed at the effort, drones may not have been made for combat but zerg armor was far too durable to take anything but superficial damage from ordinary rifles. That, and they were all firing in a panic, so their accuracy was shit.
I set off down the sewer tunnel to meet with my drone and the attacking Empire soldiers as they wasted bullets trying to kill it, but left my zerglings behind just in case there were more coming from some other direction.
Seeing that their bullets were useless, the remaining grunts turned to run. Three got away, but my drone managed to catch and hold onto one of them. Up close, I saw that the man had a satchel of some kind, and I had my suspicions of what was in it.
I was a little faster now than I was before, I think. I'd been trying to walk slowly, to keep calm, to where the last little nazi was pinned, but I still ended up getting there faster than I thought I would. The way my drone had the man held, he was able to see me coming and… yeah, I'm pretty sure he pissed himself. I ignored it as I approached and took the bag from him, cutting the straps with my claws to take it from him, and looked inside.
"Let's see, we've got some bricks of something..." I poked one-- 'claylike. We've got some thin wires, and are those blasting caps?" It was a rhetorical question. "You bastards were gonna try and blow me up with C-4, weren't you?" I don't know how much C-4 is a lot, but the contents of the bag were mostly bricks of plastique explosives, so…
"Please don't kill me!" the man begged, "It wasn't anything personal. I'm… I'm not even racist, I only joined because they were paying good money to guard stuff and my grandma's insurance won't cover her heart medicine!" I tried to get into his head and read his mind… I mean, it should be easier now that I've done it on purpose once, and… and he was telling the truth.
"Okay, here's what I'm gonna do." I rotated my left hand at the wrist, just a few revolutions, then pointed at the man. "I'm going to ask you a few questions. If you answer truthfully, and I'll know if you're lying," I gave a pointy toothed smile, "I'll let you go… this time. I see you in Empire colors again..." the man quickly nodded in agreement. "Why are you down here? How did Kaiser know where to send people?"
"I don't know," the man said. I glared at him, and he backtracked. "I don't know for sure," he corrected, "but there are some rumors… About somebody from outside the gang trading information to Kaiser for favors."
"And what do the rumors say this person is?"
"There's a couple," the captive young man answered, "uh… I think the general idea is that it's a thinker--one of those ones who can see the future, I mean. But nobody agrees on who it actually is, except that whoever it was started talking to Kaiser just after, well… You and your friends took out Hookwolf." My prisoner squinted, as though wracking his brain, and I wracked his brain as well, seeing his mental image of each rumor as he said it aloud. "Um… one rumor says that it's somebody from Europe, Gesellschaft or whatever they're called. Another says it was a woman with a nice hat, another says it was a guy from the PRT, and one says that it's some guy that your dad pissed off, and he's trying to get you killed in revenge." He breathed deeply and I started seeing things that were highly unlikely. "Then there was one guy insisting that it was Allfather's ghost, but we're all pretty sure that he's on drugs, so..."
"You're rambling," I said with a touch of annoyance.
"Sorry… Um… However Kaiser knows," the man said, "he knows more than that… He knew that you were sleeping, he knew your friends would be out… And where they'd be. He went after them, personally… And once he's done the whole Empire's gonna be at your house to finish you off."
I took a deep breath of my own. "I believe you." I sounded calm, but on the inside I was raging.
The young man let out a sigh of relief. My drone dropped the man, who quickly scrambled away, and I turned and swiftly walked back to my lair, my drone following behind me. As I walked, I set my hatchery to start producing more larva. I'd need them. I also had a call to make.
Long Live Empress Taylor
I was chewing on a block of C-4 as I stood on the stoop that led into the apartment building that we'd repurposed as a lair. At first, I'd wanted to go after Kaiser myself, but as I thought about… I had no idea where the others were or where they'd gone. The man believed what he told me, but was he told the truth? It didn't matter, this was a pretty secluded neighborhood and most of the buildings were abandoned, so me standing on the stoop wouldn't alert anyone in particular to where we lived even if it wasn't getting dark, though that didn't matter much anymore, and as for Kaiser… He was coming here to either pull my corpse from the wreckage or finish me off… I got the feeling that he'd come around to the front for the drama of it when he saw that the building wasn't blow up… assuming my friends hadn't kicked his ass and sent him running, which… Well, he wouldn't be stupid enough to hurt them until he knew for sure I was dead.
So I'd wait for him to come to me. C-4 tasted weird. I'd heard that soldiers in Vietnam would sometimes eat a little bit of it to get high, they'd get a buzz like they were slightly drunk, and then they'd get really sick. I wasn't feeling it. Still, I'd started eating the brick, so I finished it.
My eyes in the sewers caught movement--Brutus and Angelica were running through a tunnel back to the lair. Alone, at normal size, with no sign of Judas or Rachel or the other Undersiders following behind. That's not a good sign…. I swore. If Kaiser had… I had a drone open some doors so that the two dogs could get up to Rachel's basement kennel.
The sun was setting when I started to hear a commotion in the distance. I stood straight, affixed what I hoped was a calm but stern expression to upon my face, and waited just a bit longer.
The man I'd interrogated had been right, it seemed. I didn't quite know how many people were starting to crowd around, but if I'd been told that it was every unpowered member of E88 that wasn't in prison, I'd believe them. In the back, I could see one of the armored playboy models--not sure with one, growing to her full three story self. As she grew, the crowd parted a bit and the capes stepped out--A man in armor with a spear, a woman in a plain black costume with a cowl, hood, and cape, and a man in a matching plain gray outfit. Crusader, Night, and Fog. The couple's emotions were just as wrong and scary as Alec's.
A few moments later, Hookwolf--looking fresh from a prison escape and with bits of metal poking out from where I'd claimed my pound of flesh--emerged, followed by some grunts who were dragging my friends and--was that the leader of the Travelers? What was he doing, bundled up with my friends? He was conscious but… yeah, I don't know what's up with him but I'm not trying to read his mind anytime soon.
Tattletale and Grue were out cold, they'd all been roughed up a bit, Regent's mask had been removed at some point--lost in the fight, maybe? Regardless, he had an uncharacteristic look of concentration on his face. I reached out to him with my psychic sense and… Okay, that fits quite well into my plan. As for Rachel… She was awake felt sad, angry, and scared… No sign of Judas. Hookwolf seemed smug about something.
Finally, a man in an intricate full suit of armor stepped forward, the fading light of the setting sun glimmering off of the crown of blades that adorned his helmeted head. "We meet at last, Empress," Kaiser said with feigned politeness, "or perhaps, since we all know who you really are, I could just call you by your real name?"
He didn't want to call me by my chosen alias, not after going to war over it. The man's emotions reminded me of Shadow Stalker for some reason. "You can call me Taylor," I answered, "if I can call you Max."
Apparently, Purity never told him I read her mind. He was surprised but quickly got his emotions under control. "You know why we're here and what this is about." It wasn't a question.
"You're going to offer me the chance to trade my life for theirs'," I answered. It was obvious really, "but considering you lied to Purity about giving her full custody your kid, I can't really trust that you'll hold up your end of the deal, can I? I don't see her here by the way."
"I'm shocked and offended by your accusations," the man replied calmly but with a tone that told me that I'd hit the nail on the head. I rolled my eyes.
"Anyway," I continued, "trying to attack me in my home--thanks for the C-4 by the way--and threatening my friends..." I made a point of articulating my right hand as I spoke. "That's the stupidest and most self-destructive thing I can think of, Kaiser, and that's coming from a girl that huffs roach spray."
"You can't take anything seriously, can you?"
"I've really only got two responses to idiots pissing me off," I said, "I can snark or I can rage." Well, that wasn't strictly speaking the truth, but those were the only two I could do that wouldn't…
"I can't decide," Kaiser began, "if you're simply a naughty child in need of discipline or more a mad dog in need of putting down." He laughed. "Perhaps both?" He waved his hand and more of his soldiers moved to where my friends and the suited guy in the red mask were being held aimed their guns at the back of their heads. "You have five minutes to decide whether you die alone or if you're taking your friends with you."
I looked up to the sky. Where was it? Was it here yet? There! "You know, Mr. Anders, I'm going to bet that a lot of people saw you all coming this way--I mean, even if you all split up on the way here, I have to imagine that an army of armed Neo-Nazis all heading to a single location… Yeah, there's really no reason to keep this place a secret anymore, is there?"
His emotions shifted. "What are you--"
I pointed towards one of Leet's flying cameras floating just above the street as I cut the man off. "I called my Dad before you got here--wave to the camera asshole." Kaiser looked up in surprise. "By the way," I continued, "I asked for them to send the one with the best mic they've got, so by now all of Uber and Leet's subscribers have heard that Medhall CEO Maxwell Anders is Kaiser the Neo-Nazi asshole."
"That's against the rules!" Kaiser said in a rage as he turned back to me, the hypocrite.
"So was attacking me in my home," I replied, "and before you give the order to kill my friends in a retaliation, I'm gonna explain two reasons for why it was so stupid of you to do this." I gave the widest, most shit-eating fanged grin I could muster. "Number one, I'm a power enhancing Trump. Number two, Regent is a human controlling Master."
And just like that, lightning shot from Regent's fingertips, held at his side as they were, out towards the firing squad. Each of them convulsed for a moment, and then twisted and put bullets in the heads of the thugs holding my friends still. Five exploded heads, five thugs fell to the floor… I'd feel bad about that later.
I'd explained about Sarah and how my power affected other people's powers and stuff, once we'd all gotten back at the lair after the fight with Hookwolf… Well, after I'd gotten my stump bandaged, fully calmed down from everything that'd happened, and convinced the others that I was alright. They'd been a bit… uncomfortable, when I'd explained about dreaming about Sarah, but the boosts to everyone's powers had been hard to argue with. Regent had practiced a little bit, and it turns out that his shocks had been the early stages of psychic lightning development. It reacted in interesting ways with his body control power.
I reached out with my psychic muscles and pulled my friends… and the leader of the Travelers--up to the stoop with me. It was then that I realized that my control had gotten a little better while I'd slept and I made a note to experiment with that when I had the time.
"Are you okay?"
"Not really," Regent replied, "does that healing pod work on normal people? Because my ass is kind of sore from the kicking it got." I think he was being a smart ass.
"Kaiser killed Judas" was the only thing that Rachel said.
I clenched my fist. "Get the others inside before Kaiser recovers from his shock. Mr. Mask and Suit--
"Trickster," he interrupted
"Trickster, stay out of the basements and please don't run out on us before it's time to recap what happened when I was asleep. Bitch," I said, "Brutus and Angelica made it home safe, they're down stairs." Well, that cleared up some of her fear. "And um… If Grue or Tattletale wake up before we're done, tell them I'm sorry."
As my friends and our guest fled inside, the three waking one's carrying the other two, Kaiser snapped out of whatever Regent's sudden display of nerve controlling psychic lightning and made a spike of steel erupt from the street with great speed, heading straight for Rachel's back. I placed myself between her and it and took the sharp tip right into my recently armored sternum. The metal shaft was stopped dead and everyone else escaped inside. I got an impression of smugness from the man as he pushed the lance forward, making more spikes and blades emerge from it in fractals, twisting around me until I was trapped in a solid shell of steel with spikes and blades trying as hard as they could to push through my scales and carapace to pierce my flesh.
Then I built up a small charge and unleashed my telekinetic pulse hard enough to shatter all of the steel into large chunks of shiny, sharp, silvery confetti, which I quickly grasped with my more fine-controlled telekinetic powers and shoved straight down to the ground.
"If it's any consolation, Kaiser," I said calmly, "you've provided me with some much-needed minerals."
The Leader of the Empire seemed to be considering his next move. So I gave him something more to think about.
"Did you honestly think I'd call myself an Empress, Kaiser, if I didn't have an empire?"
And then I gave the mental command--there were several manholes and sewer grates on this street and near by and with my command the Zerg I'd spawned pushed or tore them away to climb up into the streets. The men before me panicked as I got an all around view of the assembled neo-nazis, and soon the street was flooded with a four dozen zerglings and two dozen drones, growling and hissing and clicking and in general appearing menacing.
"They're called The Zerg," I explained, "they're really interesting, you see. Armor and bones that are harder than diamonds and stronger than the finest steel. Claws and fangs sharpened to a point finer than anything man made..." I laughed. "I'd only ever intended to make a couple of them--things to guard the place while I sleep and a few helping hands, you know, peace of mind since I was technically homeless until a few weeks ago, what with being chased away from my home within hours of triggering." It was petty of me to bring that up, I know, but it just kind of came out. "But then I found out that all of E88 was coming to kill me, so I figured 'why not?' "
Thugs were starting to panic. Crusader summoned several ghostly replicas of himself and a similar aura about himself, and Hookwolf turned into a mass of whirling blades and leaped straight at me. I held out my hand and tried to push him away with my telekinesis, but instead, I ended up grabbing onto him and holding him in place… I made a note to not repeat my rescue of the others from earlier until I was more practiced with my telekinetic powers.
I lifted my hand, with Hookwolf forced to follow, and aimed over the horizon in the direction of the Bay. Then, with an effort of will, I sent Hookwolf flying like a rocket off into the distance. "I hope you don't mind me uninviting him from the party, but I really don't want to lose a hand right after I got a new one. I mean, I don't think he could cut me a second time, but still."
"I hope you know that you've signed your own death warrant," Kaiser said with satisfaction. "The Protectorate doesn't think highly of Tinkers or Masters that create creatures like that, not after Ellisburg. Even if we fail here, they'll kill you for this."
"The zerg don't breed," I answered factually, "I have to create more of them manually, and kill orders only apply to people whose creations can reproduce the way Nilbog's do in this situation." Like I was going to give those fuckers another excuse. "Anyway, Kaiser's the only one of you I'm interested in right now." I had my zerg open a path. "Anyone who wants to run can… but fair warning, My Dad and his men will probably be all over your asses soon, so..."
Just about all of the unpowered thugs, save for those that Regent mastered, immediately took off running. Night and Fog looked at each other and then walked off after them. Not very Loyal to Kaiser, I guess, but I had been told that they'd retired when Purity did last time, so… I counted to sixty a few times, but the giant porn star didn't seem inclined to flee. Crusader, on the other hand, took his ghosts back into himself and took off flying on one of them at near literally the last second.
With just two Nazis instead of an army of them, it was much easier to tell their individual emotions apart… Both of them were fucking pissed. Kaiser gave some signal and the giantess flew into my swarm…
The giant was more difficult to fight head on, she'd even managed to kill a couple of the zerglings with her giant spear, but I had plenty. I managed to swarm around her feet and with a few from behind jumping to push into her calves, the fell forward, shaking the ground as she landed. My zerg, easily moving out of the way prior, quickly engulfed the downed giant and were more than able to keep her down by clawing at her in the right places.
Leaving me with just Kaiser to deal with. To his credit, he was smart enough to summon a barrier of metal between himself and I--a curved dome that also shielded him from the zerg pinning… Menja? Anyway, he threw up the barrier and ran.
I jumped up and over the barrier, and when I started to fall I pushed off of the dome with a burst of telekinesis, shooting me past the fleeing neo-nazi leader. I flipped in the air and landed on my feet, facing him and greeting him with a wide, toothy grin.
"You're not going anywhere, Kaiser."
The man backtracked, but before he could turn I got a good psychic grip on him and held him up. Then I drove my knee into his groin. He wheezed.
"That," I said, "was for Judas." I held out my hand like I was going to karate chop him and quickly split the shell of his armor with a swift strike. I dug my fingers into the slit I'd slashed open and pulled, filling the street with the shriek of splitting metal and levitated a helmeted Maxwell Anders out of Kaiser's armor, which I let fall to the ground.
"You know, Max," I said, "you should probably take a page from a certain other Kaiser's book and abdicate." He didn't reply.
I could hear engines in the distance. This was the part that I was dreading the most and--The firing squad was doing the Thriller dance. Regent, wearing a replacement mask, and the guy from the Travelers were back out and sitting on the stoop. I walked over to them, taking care to walk around the corpses from earlier.
"How are--"
"Bitch is down stairs with the other dogs," Regent said without waiting for me to finish. "Grue and Tats are still out cold, but that's because Hooky somehow got them into sleeper holds… Grue's head hasn't been in the game for a few days, it's not like him to leave himself open like that."
"Wait, why would Hookwolf put them in sleeper holds?"
"Because Kaiser wanted us alive, I guess," Regent said with a shrug. "I mean, why kill the hostages before you've made the demand?" That made sense, but something seemed fishy. I got the impression that asking Kaiser wouldn't get me the answer though, from the way his emotions felt… and he was kind of still wheezing from a moment ago. I guess it didn't matter much anymore.
"Okay, and you?" I asked while gesturing to Trickster.
"I was in the neighborhood and couldn't just let a big group of capes and thugs beat up on kids," he said. "My team and I have been on the wrong end of that situation a few times. Now, my team doesn't know where I am, so if I can..."
"Yeah, the Protectorate is going to be here any minute so you might as well." The sudden shift in Trickster's emotions, as hard as they were to read, was almost comical as he swiftly made his exit.
"You don't buy that, do you?" Regent ask.
"Nope, you?" He shook his head in response. "Do you want to get back inside, I mean, the Heroes are gonna be here any minute now."
"I'm good."
So, I waited. Menja? The giant had shrunk down to normal and curled up into the fetal position, so I stopped the attack. Instead, I had a drone drag her to the middle of the street. I floated Kaiser over and dropped him on top of her. A few zerglings surrounded them to make sure none of them got up and tried to run. A few more drones started retrieving the bodies of the zerglings that the giant managed to kill. I'm not leaving those around where people could get a hold of them. Following my lead, Regent made the people he'd mastered assume the "surrender" position. On their knees, hands on their heads.
The PRT arrived en-mass just as all of that finished. Several vans armed with sprayers for that damned foam were accompanied by Velocity in his red, racing striped costume, Assault and Battery in their own red and black with blue circuit patterned costumes on the ground and Dauntless in his gold and white armor with his white, lighting looking boots and spear with matching shield up in the air. Mouse Protector with her helmet, sword, and shield teleported in just and Armsmaster and Miss Militia appeared on their motorcycles, and Triumph in his lion armor came in as PRT Agents piled out of their vans… also, I think there were ambulances in the back. They'd sent the whole team, just about, for me and for Kaiser and… I tried to swallow my fear.
I made all the present zerg turn to face the heroes. Miss Militia responded by transforming her weapon into a large, advanced, and complicated looking rifle and aiming it dead at me--the dot from the laser sight appearing on my sternum.
"Are you going to kill me," I asked of the heroine I used to look up to.
"Are you going to make me?" She asked in reply.
"I'm willing to be reasonable if you'll be, for once." I took a breath to calm myself. "Also, I feel the need to point out that you were just caught on camera aiming a deadly weapon at a teenage girl who had yet to take hostile action against you. If you want this to end in anything other than a fight, I'd drop the weapon."
"What happened to being reasonable?"
"I feel that defending myself from an unprovoked attack is a reasonable course of action," I explained, "as is asking to not be threatened while talking."
The next few moments were tense. I could feel all eyes on me--Triumph especially seemed to be contemplating me carefully.
Finally, the woman in fatigues lowered her weapon, it changing from a gun to a relatively harmless pocket knife.
"Okay." I said when she had, "I'm going to propose something." I moved the zerglings so that they could get Kaiser and the woman that I think was Menja… And to the bodies. "What I want most of all is for you all to stop hunting me like an animal for a non-existent rampage I supposedly went on," I said in the calmest tone I could manage. "I think that we all know that your psych profile on me is a load of horse-shit, and we all know that none of what's happened in the last few months wouldn't have happened if those agents hadn't chased me away from my home. Right?"
Nobody answered me.
"Look. Just take the Nazis… and the bodies… sorry about that, life or death, them or us, I'm sure all of you have ever been there or know someone who has, right?" Oh God, I couldn't keep my voice straight. Armsmaster was one of the most versatile tinkers in the world and was working on stuff specifically to take me out. Dauntless… He was constantly getting stronger and everyone suspected that he had the potential to rival the Triumvirate. Miss Militia could probably pull a gun that could hurt me out of her shape shifting weapon, and Velocity, Assault, and Battery were all faster than I was--Velocity especially. If I screwed this up, I was dead. Or worse.
"Dork, don't apologize for what you didn't do… Or at all. Villains who apologize make the rest of us look bad." Wow, thanks Regent for lightening the mood. "I killed the assholes, not her… Well, I made other assholes kill the assholes. The Dork's a Trump, I've got body-jacking lightning now, in case you weren't watching the stream. She was right about the 'us or them' part though."
"...You're just pulling new powers out of your butt, aren't you?" asked Mouse Protector. "Your power isn't that you keep getting stronger, you're just that kid on the playground who's playing capes and his power is all the powers." She turned to Armsmaster. "Do we have to fight her? I mean, I was watching that stream before I teleported in, I'm pretty sure that she's thinking 'meh, I can take them' right now, and she probably can. And honestly," she continued while looking back and forth between herself, her fellows, and me, "can we just offer her a job? If she can take making people trip and spasm and give that body-jacking lightning, I kind of want to see what she can do with some of the powers we've got on tap. I mean, she's obviously controlling the things she made. What are the chances that she's a Teacher-type Master too?"
"No," Armsmaster said, "as much as I'm sure we would all like to avoid a needless fight here, the situation is far too complicated to just 'offer her a job' right now, and regardless there are… problems with offering any villain, especially an underage one, a job just because we don't want to fight her and she has a useful power."
That… Was that a good thing or a bad thing? I couldn't read him, he was still giving off interference somehow, I couldn't tell what he was thinking or feeling.
"For the record," I said, feeling braver than I had a moment ago, "unless you've got a pocket full of presidential pardons-- for me and my friends--to go with those job offers," plural, "there's not much chance that I'll work for you."
"Fat chance of that happening," Regent added, "Even if they actually did it, I can't see Bitch in the Wards and just sitting around looking pretty would bore me to tears."
"That too," I said. Honestly, the chances of me working for the PRT… Barring something very, very big, that ship had sailed when the Director went on the TV and called me a monster.
I could feel some of the heroes starting to get annoyed.
"Look," I began, "like I said, I'm willing to be reasonable if you are. All I want is to be left alone… Just take Kaiser… The Zerg can't breed, I have no interest in founding New Ellisburg, so if any of you are worried about that… Just… Leave me alone--no unprovoked attacks on my friends and I, in fact, if the PRT could just avoid this street and the ones around it that'd be great, I can handle any crime here and turn the guys over, and…" I had to remind myself to breathe. "And if you leave me alone, I'll leave you alone. That's reasonable, right?"
"That's not any of our calls to make," Armsmaster replied, "and--" he was cut off by a PRT agent--a squad leader, I think--tapping him on the shoulder.
"There's a situation back at HQ," the agent explained as the blue-armored hero turned to him. The agent was gesturing to a radio he was carrying.
Armsmaster did… something and… "What's the situation? ...hmm ...um hmm ...Right." He stepped forward and turned to face the other heroes and the agents. "Arrest Kaiser and the rest of Empire Eighty-eight and claim the cadavers, and as for you," he said as he turned back to me, "believe it or not, something more important than you has come up, so I guess for now you'll be getting your wish."
I let out a sigh and immediately hoped that he didn't catch it.
"However," he continued, "this isn't over. This is just a respite. The second you, or one of your friends, or those… things step out of line," he clenched his armored fist. "If you really only want to be left alone, there are only so many ways you can get a life like that. We'll be watching you."
Kaiser and Meja were picked up and handcuffed, Paramedics or whoever it was that was in the ambulances loaded the five corpses into body bags and dragged them off, and Regent, from the looks of it, released his control of the firing squad just in time for them to be taken as well. Soon people started leaving, though the Protectorate were the last to go--Triumph had been staring at me the entire time, contemplating something. It was unnerving. Armsmaster returned to his motorcycle and drove off last, taking the time to turn back and look at me one final time. I counted out five minutes and started doing breathing exercises. Another minute and I looked up and checked the flying-camera. It was still there. I waved goodbye and a light that had been on it blinked out and it began flying back towards the dockyard.
"You okay?" Regent asked me.
"I think I will be," I said, "after I go throw up. Now, let's go get Rachel and see if we can figure out how to explain what just happened to Grue and Tattletale."Furor Interlude 4
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♦ Topic: Empress
In: Boards ► Brockton Bay discussions
Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Posted On Apr 15th 2011:
There's a lot of news about "Lilith" today, enough that she needs her own thread. I don't have much time, so I'm just going to lay out what my contacts have been able to give me. I'll fill in more details later.
First, she's with the Undersiders now. [Link]
Lilith calls herself Empress. For whatever reason, the PRT has decided to retire the Lilith code name and call her by her chosen pseudonym. [Link]
Empress claims to have been forced into villainy by unjust persecution from the PRT and has acted in ways that make them believe that their psych profile on her is less than accurate. ENE is weighing their options and considering their next move, but central is kind of mad at them. [Link]
The tentative A-classification she was given after that video of her fighting Lung popped up is for real now. Apparently, Empress is a less-murderous mini-Crawler. [Link]
(Showing page 20 of 20)
►Tinker_Girl_2000
Replied On May 6th 2011:
@Void_Cowboy: I'm only eleven, so… Yeah. We wouldn't want to give people the wrong idea.
Anyway, I've been without a computer for a bit so I skimmed the last few pages. Have I got this straight?
1: Regent has lightning powers and is a stronger master than before, and Empress claims to be a Trump who makes powers stronger.
2: Her regeneration let her grow a new hand.
3: She has full-scale TK, can use it to kinda fly, and might be for-real psychic.
4: She can spawn or grow biological monstrosities now.
Do I have that right? Because… I know she's a "bad guy," but that's really neat!
►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On May 6th 2011:
@Tinker_Girl: Yeah, we should probably forget about hanging out then, but I still think you should visit the Bay sometime... As long as it's not swarming with monsters.
And yeah, that sounds about right.
PS. You missed an argument about whether or not New Wave were secretly allied with E88. Seriously, even I think that theory was crazy.
►Tinker_Girl_2000
Replied On May 6th 2011:
@Void_Cowboy: I'll ask Daddy about it, but I think I'd have to whip a few things up first.
The city does seem like it would be so much fun.
►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On May 6th 2011:
@Tinker_Girl Whip a few things up? Are you a real Tinker?
Why don't you have a verified Cape badge?
►Tinker_Girl_2000
Replied On May 6th 2011:
@Void_Cowboy Yes, I am.
You have to send in a picture of yourself using your powers, and Daddy doesn't want me sending pictures over the internet.
Besides, it's not like I'm a hero or anything. I just Tinker for fun... Or sometimes for safety. You would not believe how many times I accidentally cut myself before I cooked something up to stop that.
I'm gonna talk to Daddy about visiting Brockton Bay sometime soon, but I heard that something happened to ENE's PRT Director and it had something to do with Empress. What happened?
►Agent Plissken (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On May 6th 2011:
@Tinker_Girl_2000: Director Piggot suffered a mild heart attack on the day that Empress and Kaiser had their final confrontation. She's expected to make a full recovery, but Deputy-Director Reineck says that a specialist is being assigned to fill in for her, due to the... sensitivity of the situation here in ENE.
That's all the PRT is at liberty to disclose at the moment.
►Mouse Protector (Verified Cape)
Replied On May 6th 2011:
@Tinker_Girl Check your Private Messages, I sent you some things you might be… interested in.
►Sumgai
Replied On May 6th 2011:
Um...Okay, I don't live that far from the docks. I just saw one of those crabby looking ones carry a guy in Empire Colors right up to one of Bastion's Raiders and hand him over.
►Specific_Protagonist
Replied On May 6th 2011:
Somebody got a hold of Leet's video of that sexy, sexy mutant and her monsters kicking Nazi ass and cleaned up a few clips of it--God that's hot. [Link]
User was banned for this post
►Tinker_Girl_2000
Replied On May 6th 2011:
Ooh! Those "zurg" things sound so cool!
►Tin-Mother (Moderator)
Replied On May 7th 2011:
@Specific_Protagonist: Empress is 15, this is your tenth inappropriate comment about her and twentieth total in just the last week, so enjoy your two-week ban and try not to be a creep when you get back.
►Psycho-For-Senior
Replied On May 7th 2011:
Good fucking riddance to bad garbage, and good on her Imperial Highness for deposing that other, lesser empire.
►Leet (Verified Cape) (Gone Legit) (Bastion's Raiders)
Replied On May 7th 2011:
@Sumgai: Guy was an Empire True Believer, one who wasn't very bright, who Empress had met a couple times… He got caught trying something, and she gave him to us as a middleman to turn him over to the authorities on her behalf.
By the way, the recording of the other evening has been… edited, to deal with some of the… complications of the incident involving the guys who were holding the Undersiders down and the people who were meant to execute them… You know, for legal reasons. The relevant edits have been made and the video is now archived on our website. The ad revenue from that specific video will for the foreseeable future go towards the "Get the boss's kid a lawyer" fund, so if you Want Empress to be able to come home to her Daddy please watch, like, and share because the guy we're looking at does not come cheap.
►Mouser101
Replied On May 7th 2011:
The fuck is wrong with you people? She's the bastard spawn of Crawler and Nilbog being raised by Ziz and the Siberian! They need to kill the bitch before the city is overrun!
@wagthedog I know this is late but I don't care that Hellhound didn't look like a serial killer for the little bit of video she was on, she still killed like, five people. Also, learn to English.
►Tinker_Girl_2000
Replied On May 7th 2011:
@Void_Cowboy It'll be a while, but Daddy says that if things go well we'll be able to visit the Bay. It's gonna be so much fun, and maybe we'll even see Empress. The whole family is excited to come!
@Psycho&Mouser Don't swear. It's rude.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 18, 19, 20
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Long Live Empress Taylor
Things had started going downhill a few weeks ago when some pervert hacked her PHO account. She should have known, when she found out, that it was a sign.
Around that time, she'd noticed that some of the victims running around the school didn't seem as afraid of them anymore, some of the hangers on were not so cozy with them as they used to be, and she thought that she'd seen Veder talking with one of those guys who'd been snooping around just the other day.
All of it had coincided with a certain little bitch going from the city's latest boogie man, spotted maybe once a week, to some big shot who made the news every other day--and a lot of it wasn't exactly bad news. Well, not bad news for her. It was kind of bad for them, the but the bitch was just walking around the city like she owned the place.
Then the bitch pulled a bunch of monsters out of her ass.
The other two were in denial. They believed that nobody would find out what they'd done, that the bitch wasn't stupid enough to come after them, they just had to stick to the plan. Bullshit, she'd been there when Emma ran, she knew how terrified she was. She wasn't going down because of them. She thought about it, and she decided to do what she had to do to save her own skin.
She'd laid the tears on thick when talking to her Daddy, and now she had a lawyer just in case--not that she wouldn't take jail over the inside of a monster's belly--and all that was left to do was make the call. The people from the Mayor's office had provided a number and a set of instructions--people who were scared to come forward could give information anonymously, but that wouldn't help her now, would it?
The phone rang three times before it was picked up. "Hello, mayor's office, what is your business?" asked a woman on the other end.
"I have a tip about the situation with Taylor Hebert.."
"Hold please."
She took a deep breath and prepared herself, as she counted the seconds, for what she had to say and how she had to say it. Nearly half a minute later a man's voice called out. "Hello, you've been forwarded to the THI line, what is your tip?"
"I'm sorry," she said in a voice filled with a well-practiced fear, "I know this is for anonymous calls, but I don't feel safe saying everything over the phone." She breathed, hard, and continued, "I need to meet with someone in person."
"Why is that? Are you in danger at this moment?" The man sounded both confused and concerned.
"No," she answered, "Bu-but they'll know if I tell you..." She took a sharp, audible deep breath and finished. "Look, my name is Madison Clements and I know who put Taylor in that locker."