Chapter 2: MILF Hunting
The next day came quickly, having arrived at night, and charges apparently returning with the sunrise. No sleep, but that's not much of a surprise.
Another Thinker Power was created with the first charge. This one a combat thinker that just gave him practically perfect control over his body, increased reaction times, and better senses. The second charge went to a brute power to grant him something about half as strong and durable as Spiderman.
That just stacked with the combat thinker creating something better than the sum of its parts. I felt twice reborn and ascended above what I had been before.
Before I had been a Blaster-6, now I was a legitimate threat. A Brute-5, and through leveraging that brute rating at least a Mover-2 without considering the Tinker powers. A Thinker-5 thrice over, Math, Cause and Effect, Combat/Body Control, and through the magic of another charge I created a Trump power.
This Trump power specifically just acts as a secondary mind for Thinker powers collating all the data they get and cross-referencing to get the most accurate information before adding that to my background knowledge. Basically a super-translator and amplifier for the complex Data.
Thinking of Thinkers I pulled out the phone, and opened google even as I slowed to a stop for the red light.
Redmond Welding Location.
Navigating!
Navigating!
Turn Left in 200 Feet!
So I did. Three more charges, and god that was great. Just being able to make any superpower I want. It's pure freedom. Copying the undersiders powers would be a great power boost. They were honestly terrifying.
A large man in a skull mask that creates endless black smoke that stops all communication and most energy. Then Regent with the power to make puppets he could control like his body. Tattletale who knows all your fucking secrets. Bitch who has the power of giant dogs, honestly the least impressive power.
Still just thinking of Taylor sent pure terror down his spine.
Fuck insects!
Insect genocide!
Another charge collapsed to empower the temporal reversion meaning that any time he was injured it would quickly rewind the injury out of existence. I had an eclectic group of powers, blade projection and time based healing. Ramming the gas as the light turned green I rocketed forward.
A sonar pulse didn't see shit even as I swerved down the designated street and floored it. With all my powers driving the car was like breathing even as he was going 60 in a 35. I flowed through traffic like a fish in water before screaming to a halt in a mostly abandoned stretch of warehouse.
Stoping the power sense flared and two presences made themselves known.
"Score," I muttered as I got a puppeteer power and an inference engine I incorporated into the Thinker/Trump to use all the data more efficiently. It was honestly just fucking mad how much I knew at this point. Seeing a random passerby on the street let me understand practically their whole life depending on a single action.
Some things were disgusting, most just weird, but power is power. How it made Tattletale unwilling to have sex though, I just didn't get that. Sure it's weird that she masterbates with the bristle side of the brush, but does that really matter?
Sure she forgot to wash her hands last week, but she washed them a few minutes ago. You've just gotta realize that you can't control everything—yet—and I realized that. I'm not god, there are things I can't do, so I just don't care about them. Ignore things beyond your scope, and focus on what you can actually manage.
I can manage a full frontal assault on the E88, but that honestly wouldn't be the best method. As seen with the brewing gangwar. A brewing gang war I had all intentions of stopping, as such I drove deeper into the best part of the city. Away form the darkness, from the drugs and drug adicts, and forward into white heaven.
The asians had been pushed to the ABB, and almost all the other minorities had been forced to join the merchants, be lynched, or be the luckiest person ever. I had thought my school had a lot of racists, having been born in the whitest city in California, but it was nothing compared to a random brocktonite.
Half of these people pay protection money to Nazi's the other half are nazi's.
As such I had no moral qualms with say kidnapping one off the streets. My first instinct was a muffle power, or a stranger power that would let me kidnap one of them. Why would I kidnap one? Because I need puppets for Regent's power, with power manipulator I can remove all range issues making them irrelevant as long as I am on the same planet as the target.
Power Manipulator can also copy powers, as such I can give them copies of my Combat Thinker and Brute power. That'll just make me look like a powerful Master/Trump as long as I don't directly intervene in a fight with other powers. Still that's bitch shit, so instead of doing that I tried to think of powers that would let me instantly turn someone into a puppet.
Thought Acceleration was the first I made, letting me spend about forty minutes in the five seconds it takes to drive past someone. From there I either wanted mental partitioning allowing for multiple simultaneous thought strands, or a biology thinker power. The biology power would just give me a better understanding of the power and how to take control through their nerves.
As such I made a biology thinker power because [Thinker is love Thinker is Life]
Kludging that into my Thinker Power Network I smiled. Each power multiplied atop others, with the biology power I can understand how hormones and all the other bullshit manipulates someone. That data used with Inference Engine can do some terrifying things, but first I turned the wheel following my Thinker Power's guidance speeding down another nearly empty road.
—
The park was beautiful. Kaden's favorite place in this shithole of a city. Green grass and large oak trees that seem to hold the heavens aloft. The meandering vaguely circular path leading between a basketball court, a sand pit, and a baseball diamond. A single large play structure she should have made Theo play on more.
Very few people came, and those that did were the right people. No fucking niggers of those sex-trading chink bastards, so she felt safe bringing Aster. The beautiful light of her life. The daughter she had dreamed of and loves with all her being.
A van pulled up, but she ignored it and just stared down at her little angel in the stroller. The light was drawn into her skin collected by her power and turned into her Light. The power she used to purity this dirty city. Being an independent super hero was a lot harder than being an E88 cape.
You have to be careful about everything.
Without being able to call up Othalla getting shot at was a little terrifying. A brown haired man stepped out of the van, and walked down the subtle incline towards a table. At that table sat a blonde teen she recognized from one of the meetings, his initiation had been particularly bloody.
Monkey deserved it. Probably a thief, or a rapist daring to walk on good people's sidewalk.
Then the blonde man shifted his weight, and the brown haired man turned. This time towards her, as he walked closer something twisted in her gut. Then her hands moved, and she leaned forward to pick up Aster. She wanted to scream but couldn't. Wanted to activate her powers but couldn't, all she could do was turn to the master.
She wanted to cry, but her body was not her own. It was his, and he stared, "Kaden, I have seen it. What you desire, you want to be a hero, yet you cling to an ideology of hate. You can't be trusted with your powers, as such I will claim you."
He stepped forward and pinched her chin, as he did power flooded her, "I'll make you the hero you could only dream of being~"
—
Purity was a lucky catch, her power and identity were just what I needed for a total decapitation strike on the empire 88.
Powers are like stars within my chest. They can be placed in constellations to create something greater than the sum of it's parts. Like the many limbed squid looking thing that was my thinker suite. Purity's power was very useful, and the more copies I made and modified the more I realized that.
Her power could be twisted to be a thinker power allowing me to see from every part of my body that absorbed light. That added to my Thinker ability. Another copy I made was twisted so that absorbed light became a hardlight explosion empowering any punch. Another copy was combined with my Cleave power, this gave the cleave basically an explosive hardlight forcefield to enhance it.
She was a godsend, and while my light was limited my puppets were less so. The blonde torture lover was given the "spiderman suite" basically the Combat Thinker that gave perfect body control, and the brute that made him half as strong as spider man. Added on top of that was a copy of the Hardlight Explosive Fist power.
I color shifted his hard light a brilliant crimson. Another iteration manipulated that body like it was my own. For instance, from now on he is Leonardo Knight ex-e88 member and now one of Samael's Angels.
The venom of god, a suitably badass name I supposed.
Hmm, Leonardo slapped himself, and I decided it would be Belial, The Worthless One. The self loathing terror and pain from the nazi scum was like ecstasy in his veins. This man had tortured seven people to death, one a black girl no older than 13. He was lucky to be alive, and would be until I have enough charges to waste on pain blasts.
Or I suppose meet the Butcher.
Hmm, that power seems so nice. Upgrading it so that instead of becoming a voice in their heads, I would steal my murder's body. Have their mind placed as a template over my own so I could steal all their skills and become greater. Immortal infinity improving unstoppable. A smile crossed my face as I glanced back towards Purity.
Though I suppose Azazel is a better name, my little scapegoat. Adding the brute and thinker powers to her was a great idea. Then I had an idea, and smiled, creating another copy of her power.
That copy was placed in the center of a new constellation, I then made eight more copies and placed them in a circle around the first. Changing those powers I cut their blaster power and instead made them simply absorb energy. All of them work in tandem to charge the blaster power.
No, I changed that and instead made it only a storage for HardLight Energy. Then another copy shifted to only be a nozzle directing that energy with a few settings. Helix Blast, Shotgun, and Eye Lasers.
Then I made another copy that only generates a pair of hard light wings on my back to let me fly, added to those wings was a modified copy of Skidmark's power to increase flight speed, and a copy of Squealer's power modified into a flight system based thinker power.
Just, meeting Purity had been the greatest stroke of fortune I could ever ask for. I had something at least equal to a Blaster-9 on its own. Empowered by everything I had, if I trained for a while I'd probably be Triumvirate tier. They'd probably win because I had never been in a real super fight.
So while I have the power of a god I have the skill of a new cape. Even combat thinker powers can only do so much, but those doubts were useless. I can just copy any triumverage members powers and nullify their own, or steal the powers.
I'd win.
I'd win.
I will win, crush the 88, crush the bad boyz, and turn chaos into the shadow of the PRT's order. The elite, but better. Manipulate all the causes and effects so that the least harm happens, but nah that sounds like too much work.
I'll get subordinates to do it for me. Kaden—my puppet—was manipulated into walking back to her car, strapping her baby in, and driving home. At a more reasonable pace because Thinker abilities aren't as effective through puppets.
Their senses just aren't as insanely enhanced as mine were at this point. Seriously though raising my hand I activated the energy absorption part of the power, and saw my skin turn black. Not black like african american, but black like a black hole. A gap in reality that absorbs all light to charge my death rays.
Light corona's around my skin, and danced in aesthetically pleasing patterns, manipulating a few copies I made a few. . . ok they were aesthetic powers. One to make sure I was always in perfect lighting, another that had a ring of hard light floating above my head like a halo.
Even as I calculated how long it would take to have enough energy to kill every criminal in Brockton bay simultaneously.
3 weeks, by then I'd be more than strong enough even without this power.