AN: Apologies, this is very late. An awkward mix of some very large projects at work and a series of game releases that I was really interested in, all in a row. Nobody to blame other than myself really...
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"What does Mush look like? What's his name?" I ask politely.
After my somewhat-embarrassing oversight with Skidmark in plain clothes, I'd taken a more proactive approach to identifying potential Capes in the crowd. Every blonde woman was a potential Squealer, and after a dozen attempts on random partygoers - I was left only with a minor headache and my original assumption that she was in the warehouse in the next building over. As for Mush... I didn't have a clue what he looked like. The only mentions of him on the news or PHO were of the trash-giant squaring up against Squealer's tank and losing - and then the Merchant's crowing about their new recruit. He could be a Case-53, or he could be a Changer - or even a Master. I didn't know what I was looking for, and save for challenging every single person at this party - I was never going to find him off of blind luck.
Still. Ideally, I didn't have to wait for Skidmark to get off his ass and grouch at the two other Merchant Capes. I had my own ways of 'asking around' without drawing attention in real life.
"What's Squealer's real name? Does she leave her workshop during the Merchant parties?" Admittedly, my questioning hasn't yielded many answers so far. Most of my opponents are largely mindless save for their combat skills and tactical prowess, but even those with a proper personality or the REAL modifier weren't guaranteed to be willing to talk to me or answer my questions. Regardless of their state of mind, one thing took precedence - the fact that I was the enemy.
Or, maybe they didn't actually know? I was making a few assumptions about how influential and 'in-the-know' the average person in this room was. It was possible that their claimed inability to answer my questions was genuine, rather than a testament to the unbending desire of the simulation to spite me at every turn. It would make a certain amount of sense. The lady below me right now didn't exactly seem to be the picture of defiance. The broken, terrified sobbing was certainly making me look like the bad guy here, and while there was a certain validity to that - it also didn't change the fact that mistaking this for real life would get me killed. I'd made that mistake before. A few too many times, honestly. Took a while for the lesson to sink in - but getting stabbed by people you thought you were showing mercy to has a way of sharpening a guy's focus.
"Please let me go." She whimpers.
"Am I not being reasonable?" I scowl down at her broken body. "You're lucky, you get that - right? Because it might look weird if I beat all of your challenges and you start fawning over me in front of Skidmark. That would be weird no matter what my power does to smooth things over. And if I beat this challenge, I don't have any guarantee that I'll find another REAL modifier in the next one. You're privileged to be someone that is more useful alive than dead, because if - if - you can get me valuable information when asked, it's worth it for me to kill myself rather than you. Skidmark. Squealer. Mush. Weaknesses. Location. Appearances. Aspects of their power I might not know about. Give me a reason here. I'm doing my best to help you win, why can't you help me in return?" I shake my head. "Because if you can't..." My boot presses down on her neck. "...then I'll just have to take my chances with the next one."
"I really, really don't know-" I lash out with my foot again at the weak response.
"Not sure whether to blame you or my power. Whatever." I grouch, kneeling down to peer at her. "I mean, you could at least have lied. Sent me running around looking for, Katie or something who can usually be found shooting up drugs in the ladies room. I would have been fucking annoyed, but I would have respected you more for it." Like Tattletale at the bank challenge. Infuriating at the time... but I respected the level of petty spite that came from opposing me in any small way like that. And now I knew to watch out for her, as an added bonus. "You're not doing much to help the stereotype of how much of a waste of space the Merchant's are. Like, I literally just told you I was going to kill you if you didn't tell me something good - and you just, shrugged your shoulders like there was nothing you could do? I'm actually kind of pissed off. If you're a big shot in the gang, no wonder you've never achieved anything in the city."
I don't wait to hear her next words.
SUCCESS
I swipe away the reward screen without reading. Irrelevant.
No information. Or, not what I wanted, anyway. A lot of talk about the Merchants in general. A surprising number of complaints about Skidmark and new hotshots in general. And no small amount of division over what exactly the Merchants were or should be in the future. I'd mentally classified them as just a 'gang' forever because that's what PHO said - but it was probably more accurate to call them a group of allied drug dealers that were slowly being dragged into a coherent gang by the twin pressures of Skidmark pulling and the rest of the city's established ethnicity-based gangs pushing them into a corner. Not everyone was happy about it, but they fell in line by simple virtue of the fact that Skidmark was essentially running a Cape-based protection racket to seize every unaffiliated dealer in the city under his banner. The Merchants would probably explode in about five seconds if the ABB and Empire suddenly left town, that was the slapdash nature of their 'organisation'.
Which was interesting and something I would probably post about on PHO in the future to sound knowledgeable and cool - but it also wasn't a name or a location to go and find the Capes I wanted.
Not that I was really expecting much. Most challenges were set at a certain time and place, usually months or more in the past - finding something modern, combined with someone talkative and also in-the-know was a tough ask. If this party was in more of a fixed location I might have been able to abuse a WRLD modifier and try getting CCTV logs without being stonewalled by my power, but the pop-up nature of this party denied that possibility.
No need to beat myself up over it. It wasn't like I needed to get that information at all costs. I just needed to lurk around Skidmark and play the part of a Cape groupie living the dream as he unwittingly hands his life, power and organisation over to me on a silver platter. His barely-disguised contempt towards me and my attitude was a dream come true. He didn't suspect me of being anything but a delusional Cape groupie hoping to suck up to the boss, and as the public winner of his little fight club - being seen ordering me around like his personal bitch was good for his street cred. This was everything he wanted, looking like the undisputed leader of the Merchants to everyone who he needed to prove it to.
And, this was everything I wanted too. Skidmark's challenges available on cooldown, and simply following him around was likely to lead me to both Squealer and Mush at some point in the evening. And the fact that a significant chunk of the non-Cape leadership of the gang had a somewhat positive opinion of me already thanks to a smattering of early challenges being completed was a good thing too. I didn't have a use for that kind of foothold now, but maybe I could turn the gang into a force for good - or, perhaps, just as another way for me to consolidate the reins of power over the city.
Skidmark snatches the shot glass out of my hand, swigging it down in a single motion after brushing flecks of powder from his nose. "Fucking garbage." He announces to anyone that would listen.
The drugs or the drink? "I see." I nod airily. I was getting a good feel for Skidmark's personality by now. Crude. Abrasive. Permanently complaining about something. And almost certainly about to make his bad day somebody else's problem.
"You see? You see what exactly?" He gets up in my face. "You think that's what the Merchants are about up here? Think that's what's normal?"
I shrug. "I... wouldn't know." Diplomacy, Greg. It probably would have been better to say nothing, but Skidmark was on more of a hair-trigger than I thought. Lack of impulse control, probably a symptom of whatever the hell he was on right now.
"Of course you wouldn't. What would a stupid-looking twink like you know about anything? Stick to punching things. Leave the-" He makes a vague motion with his hands. "-leave the smart shit to me. I'll tell you what's what. And what I'm telling you now, is that the goods today-" He tosses the glass behind him. "-are fucking trash."
I nod silently this time.
"Which means?" He prompts insistently.
I have to answer now? "I should get something else?"
He leans in aggressively, seeming all-too-sober in the blink of an eye. "Which means that the supplier thinks I'm a fucking joke, too drunk or high to tell that he's watering down the shit that I paid for. Nobody skimps out on my service. It's about respect. Somebody cheats you and gets away with it, they think you're a joke. They tell their friends. They all start getting ideas. So you have to nip it in the bud. Every. Single. Time. Come with me."
"Sure." I fall in line behind him. Five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One. "Challenge." The whisper is easily drowned out by the noise of the party.
Situation check. Big bunker. Lots of super-strong fields around it, with one gap in the middle as an entrance. He's got a... well. The end result is basically a rapid-fire tank cannon - but it's probably just a normal gun of some description boosted to ridiculous levels of power by the booster fields that the PREP modifier gave him. In a way, the sheer power on display makes it simple. Attract his attention from the bunker, he looks in that direction and makes that entire direction disappear. Fine, treat it like a strange DOOM modifier and find another approach.
I settle down on the ground, well out of Skidmark's potential line of sight. What was the trick here? I wasn't a stranger to unreasonable-looking challenges early on, but often there was a certain trick to it. There were only two issues - recognising the trick, and having the tools to execute it.
...it was definitely the roof. It was so, obviously, a weak point in the defences that even a child could spot it. Now that I know the basics of how Skidmark is defending his bunker, it's easy to see how both his offence and defence are near-perfect in a 360-degree circle. But the fields are giant, flat walls. They don't curve up and over to cover his roof - nor would they need to. There's no access from that direction, there are no nearby buildings that someone could easily jump from. It didn't seem necessary.
And, critically, his power wouldn't let him do it.
The current set-up was easy to understand. He circled his bunker, layered his walls over and over in the PREP phase, investing hours, or even days, into the process. But when he isn't looking, those layers start to fade. I'd seen videos of his fields functioning even hours after he was in a fight, so the process must be slower in areas where he had invested heavily - but in the first challenge, I was able to abuse that aspect of his power as he turned around for just a little bit too long. Even now, his layers were probably slightly eroding wherever he wasn't looking - but they were already so comically dense that my power's anti-stalling measures would kick in before I could take advantage.
But the restrictions still applied when he was setting them up in the first place. He couldn't make a field above the bunker - he would have to leave the bunker to have that kind of visibility on and over the roof, and that would mean allowing another wall to weaken as it goes unattended.
I take a minute to reposition myself at the top of the nearest building.
Options? Flight was the obvious one. I didn't have it now, but in the worst-case scenario - the moment I managed to catch New Wave on a full-team outing, it was pretty much guaranteed. There were plenty of fliers in the Bay, the fact that I didn't already have it was as much bad luck as anything else - and that streak couldn't last much longer. Still. I wanted to win here. Today. Coming back in a few days or weeks, if I even had another opportunity like this - that was far from ideal.
Using all three of my shadow state charges to glide, shrinking space with Vista, Clockblocking some kind of platform to stand on to recover both Vista and Shadow Stalker's powersets and then gliding again - that was more than sufficient for the horizontal jump, but it didn't cover the vertical challenge. The nearby buildings just weren't tall enough relative to Skidmark's fields.
That left my Tinker powers, and my new kinetic fields from the last challenge. Alas, my version of Skidmark's power was predictably nerfed for the first reward. I couldn't build myself an elevator or some kind of trampoline, because I couldn't really layer the power in the same way. I activate the power, toying with it for a moment by flexing my fingers.
The best way to describe it was ten seconds of fingerpainting. Find a surface, and start applying either of two effects until time runs out. The first, which I was temporarily labelling 'Direct' would paint little arrows in a direction of my choosing and attempt to drag the surface and anything touching it in that direction - and 'Repel' would apply crosses and just... well. Repel things. It didn't apply to the object it was attached to, or allow for a set direction on its own - it was closer to a trampoline-like effect on the covered surface, Repel had notably more force behind it than Direct - but, equally, Direct could continually apply to the target while Repel would swiftly expel and therefore stop affecting whatever happened to touch it. Whichever one I chose, a second activation of the ability would kickstart the effect, at which point it would steadily wind down as it stayed out of my line of sight until the power was gone and therefore ready to be used again. The more shapes I applied at once, the stronger the effect - as many as I could apply in ten seconds was the limit I had found.
Which would be great, if I could apply enough of either of those effects to move a human body forcefully through the air. As it is, it's closer to the kind of stiff wind that sends tables and chairs bouncing down the street - something that you can plant your feet, grit your teeth and hold in place if you put in the effort. Skidmark was several times stronger than that with less set-up if he focused his power correctly. I've got nothing. Nothing save for some hare-brained solution of steadily stripping off more of my clothes to use as a Clockblocked platform, float upwards by repelling my shadow-state from the platform after guessing the exact three seconds that the Clockblocked object would fail - and then reapply yet another platform to stand on and use as a secondary repel, assuming I even got it back in time. A clunky solution, even ignoring the insane luck I would need. And the entire time, I would be in plain sight of Skidmark the instant he even glanced in my direction - and he pretty much had to be circling his bunker by default, so it was only a matter of time.
And then there were my Tinker powers.
I haven't really had the chance to experiment with my newfound Tinker powers much. Mostly because they don't seem well-suited to me just... building something myself. Great for collaboration, great for outright stealing designs and recreating them in a flash once I had the materials - but then the design was gone and I needed to find another. Or recreate the plans again - which, in the case of the relatively simple mecha-blade I pinched from Leet, wouldn't be hard - but without the mech to attach it to, it didn't really have the same value.
The idea of me just sitting down with some scrap and scraping together a working piece of artillery to blow that bunker to smithereens just wasn't going to happen for the time being. Not until I got more specialisations under my belt. Leet's power could add an 'interesting' effect to whatever I built, but trying to Tinker solely with that power meant creating every single component piece with that power, rather than just putting the final product together. That was a dozen extra 'quirks' to account for in the design, a spiralling loop that demanded more and more time if I wanted something that wouldn't kill me when I hit the real-life equivalent of a natural one. Nothing that couldn't be fixed with a few hours or days of research and designing... but then, what should I make? What was the one design that would make the effort worthwhile, taking my combat prowess - or my progress elsewhere - to the next level? That was the struggle.
...I should take Leet up on her offer sooner rather than later. It wasn't just about the possibility of challenging Uber and potentially appeasing whatever power was restricting progress on Leet - but I needed to work out ways of getting value out of my Tinker powers. In theory, they were the most flexible powers that I had - but it was just hard to find a way to put them to use. Too many annoying restrictions, too much time needed to invest - if I could offload the design work to Leet, request the designs to be limited to a certain kind of easy-to-acquire base materials and load my Tinker power with a ready-to-print design that could help on a patrol... or, even a challenge? Did designs carry over into the simulations? Maybe. I should test it, if I managed to get my way into Squealer's workshop.
I pause at that. Right. Squealer was here. Well, not in this simulation specifically - but somewhere around where I am in real life. Maybe that was the trick that I was missing here. I needed to propel myself up and over the walls? What better way than by making use of a transport Tinker? Even if I couldn't exactly just steal a design outright without being noticed, if I gained a specialisation from it like I did with Leet... surely a simple contraption - some wheels, a ramp, a glider of some sort - wouldn't be too difficult? It didn't need to be amazing, even a non-Tinkertech tool to help my glide would 'almost' be enough if not for the extra height I needed to gain. A tool specialised for the task? Getting myself up and over would be a complete walk in the park.
Viable. Although, not helpful in clearing this challenge immediately.
Then, for this challenge - even if the odds of success were low - I needed to get a better understanding of what was inside the bunker. How Skidmark would want to fight. The kind of weapons he had access to. And that meant walking through the front door. Even if it was obviously a trap, simply knowing what the trap was could help. Was it something I could weaponise against him? Was it something he might use against me once I actually got inside? Did he secretly have reinforcements in there watching the door, that might come to help him once I drop in?
None of those questions would get answered if he just shot me before I got halfway down the path to the front door. So, time to make my distraction. I hop into my speed-state and race to the opposite side of the bunker, circling out wide to ensure he didn't accidentally spot me moving. Three minutes of searching later, I have my distraction. A discarded wheel from a truck of some kind. The plan is simple. I load up Skidmark's powerset, I slap a bunch of arrows on it that would point it towards the barrier then activate it once I'm back on the opposite side of the map - and either Skidmark sees the movement and attacks, or he hears the thunderous noise that the wheel makes as it hits the barrier and bounces off to slam into the glass windows of the buildings behind it. Either way, he'd definitely be looking if my first attempt meant anything. Meanwhile, I race through the front door and hopefully punch him in the face and win.
Hopefully.
Test run. I activate Skidmark's power, jabbing my finger all over the side and outer rim of the tire. Honestly, this should pick up speed pretty quickly - that was one of the upsides of my power compared to Skidmark's because my fields essentially were stuck to the object, they wouldn't lose their pushing force once they left the starting line. They would keep going faster until either the power started to fade, or until air resistance and friction matched the accelerating force of the object in question.
Activate. I issue the mental command. The tire springs to life, moving under its own power - and then, just as quickly, grinds to a halt.
In a second, it's obvious what the problem was. "It's a circle. It rotates, and all the arrows are pointing down now." I clasp my head with my hands. "Sounds really obvious when I say it out loud." In fairness, my testing had primarily involved pushing boxes along a street and throwing people off of buildings.
I look away, letting the power dwindle to nothing after a minute of increasingly weak wobbles. If anyone else had seen me do that, I would be mortified. That was the kind of flop that got memed about on PHO for years on end. That could have been the end for me and my reputation online. But now I knew. And, the more I thought about it - the more I could see the value in it. I could still get the shoving effect on a flatter surface that wouldn't spin around - but this would let me power gears and wheels in the future. My in-the-works glider could have a bunch of forward-facing arrows attached to it, and it wouldn't screw with the steering or controls in any way.
Hell, if I could find a ranged weapon with a large enough bolt - I could extend the range massively without ever sacrificing stability, so long as the arrows were straight. Or a melee weapon that could swing or thrust with unexpected force at the flick of a switch - the delayed-activation nature of the power meant that I could set it up far in advance on something of my choosing, then activate it mid-fight after cycling through my other powers as needed.
I reapply the arrows again, this time pointing each of them into the next, following the curve of the wheel to ensure that it would rotate, rather than complete a quarter-revolution and then fruitlessly hammer into the ground. This time, it shoots off like a rocket - slamming into a nearby wall and then spinning flat on the ground ceaselessly until I let it fade away once more. I might have a bit of trouble keeping it in a straight line for the real deal, but it didn't really matter if it was slightly off-target - any slight touch of the massive kinetic fields that acted as walls would be sufficient to send it flying and attract Skidmark's attention.
Distraction set-up and operational, I race back to the entrance. No sign that Skidmark had noticed anything abnormal yet. I mentally send the signal to activate Skidmark's power. I had a choice here. Speed-state, and be faster and more likely to dodge - at the expense of being frozen in place once I left, with potentially lethal consequences? Or, don't use the speed-state, be slower - but be able to use Glory Girl's forcefield, my shadow-state charges, my Clockblocking effect, Vista's space warping and spawning my ash clone right on top of my opposition inside the bunker.
Considering the weight of powers on one side, and my general dislike of Velocity, it feels like it should be a clear choice. But, that singular speed power meant a lot. Even if it made me fragile, it would turn the likely perilous series of traps into a simple blitz that might not even have time to trigger given my comparative lack of mass and sheer speed.
But then I'd be inside, locking eyes with Skidmark - and faced with the reality that I couldn't damage him, but the tiniest application of his power would absolutely hurtle me in any way he liked. And if I dropped the powerset, I'd be frozen long enough for him to just throw me aside with ease anyway. With his power, giving him those brief moments to work with was the worst thing that I could do. In the previous challenge, I'd seen how fast he could fling me around if he concentrated his power in a small area - I'd be hurled outside and turned into a relativistic missile before I could so much as twitch a finger.
No speed-state then. If it wasn't for the added vulnerability of the form, I would try just wrapping myself around his body to try and outlast the forced paralysis - but I needed to focus on my core objectives. I wasn't aiming for the single-percent chance of winning, I was fact-finding. And that meant triggering these traps, and yes, probably dying horribly - all for the sake of making sure that my next attempt would go off without a hitch. Assuming I beat Squealer, that is. If not... well. I guess I'd have to try and see how far my own somewhat lacking engineering talents and Leet's Tinker abilities could take me in an area as beaten-down as this. Not far, I suspected - maybe if it was something I had some amount of innate talent at, but my crafting abilities were sadly restricted to the computer screen so leaning on Tinker powers was all I really had.
A thundering, crashing sound erupts in the distance - a mere second later, Skidmark acts exactly as expected by firing in the general direction that the noise came from. He couldn't see me, but that wasn't a problem with the firepower he was packing. I could already hear the distant rumble of buildings collapsing in on themselves between bursts of fire, and if I had actually been anywhere around there - I would be dead. But I'm not. I was in completely the opposite direction, sprinting for my life down the suspiciously empty corridor that his fields had left as an entrance.
Glory Girl's forcefield tanks the first hit from a hidden landmine, and I invest a charge from my shadow state into gliding past suspiciously disturbed patches of earth before I land on the paved surface of the actual entrance. The firing had stopped already, even before I had triggered the mine - which meant that he'd spotted me, or maybe had some kind of motion sensor? No, if that was the case - why hadn't he spotted me immediately in the first attempt when I was testing his fields? He would have no reason to set up one but not the other.
I bound over the tripwire at the doorway, memories of Parian's tricks making me paranoid at the glimmer found at ankle level. This was dangerous, and it had taxed some of my defensive measures - but perhaps this wasn't as terrible an approach as I had expected.
Then Skidmark arrives. Even if the entrance doesn't have any of his zones covering it, he still has a firing position at the centre of the room. He levels a pistol at me, three shots ringing out as I turn to shadow - and then take a moment to cower behind my Clockblocked-shirt, held loosely in front of me as a shield. My ash clone surges into life a few metres ahead of me, instantly dispelled in a single shot - and just as instantly reforming again. Good. Let him waste ammo and effort on that. I needed my shadow state charges back to close the gap, and the more he focused on my clone - the less likely he would be to just wall me out with a more focused use of his power.
And then I'm on fire.
Or, everything around me is on fire. I'm mostly okay myself, save for the torrent of fire pouring around every crease and crumple of the time-locked fabric in front of me - spilling onto the ground at my feet and racing off into the distance behind me. The momentary shift into my shadow state to simply process what the hell just happened costs me a precious charge, but I do get enough of an intangible glance during a brief pause in the assault to see that - yes. Skidmark just has a flamethrower sitting there. And not just a little one, but a true belcher of a contraption that was pouring out burning liquid at a riotous pace. The range on that must be absurd, given how light the 'cargo' was - the effect of his power could probably extend the range all the way down the street with ease. A true road of fire for anyone wanting to take the front door while Skidmark was in position to spot them. It showed my distraction had value, at least.
A series of explosions rips out behind me, the sea of flames setting off every explosive I'd dodged on the way in and then more traps that I'd escaped by simple blind luck. I ignore the lances of pain across my body. Shrapnel. Fragmentation grenades. Not lethal. Or, not yet - at least. Not enough to stop one foot from moving in front of the other, not enough to knock me unconscious - and therefore, not something that would stop me. It didn't matter if I was only going to bleed out in sixty seconds, so long as the adrenaline kept me going for now. More traps trigger ahead of me, their effects not even visible thanks to the torrent of fire blocking any view past my impromptu shield. Irrelevant. I was too close for that to be a problem now, I had freedom of movement once my shadow state charges returned - straight up, left, right, even down into the ground to spring up at him from below. I had options... so long as he wasn't looking at me to apply his power and send me flying to my death. That was what my clone was for. To be a distraction.
A task that it was failing at.
As for why? It wasn't because it was gone or dispelled. It wasn't even being suppressed by his power in the corner somewhere, which would have been perfectly understandable. It was jumping at him... and simple bouncing off. The sullen green glow of his Cape told the story. I didn't know he could do that, that was... horrible news, actually. If he could just deflect me at will, I'd need to land on him from above and snap his neck as the very first move of the fight in order to win. Now that was always my intention but... I'd been hoping that I would be heavily favoured in the melee if I could get that far.
I shift to Vista, shrinking space at an angle - shrinking the air at the entrance of the bunker to allow the solid walls to act as a shield instead. Not quite as effective as the original power would have been, Vista could have expanded the walls rather than shrinking the gap, an important distinction that would have blocked it off completely - but this version wasn't quite perfect. I couldn't shrink it so perfectly as to close the entrance entirely, or just raise the floor or widen the walls directly like the real Vista could - but it was at least enough that the splash of his weapon couldn't nearly splatter harmlessly around my shield - instead, it was settling on the ground of his own fortress. The smoke and rising flames would force him to stop, even if this place didn't seem flammable enough for him to actually need to escape.
"What a fucking pain." I grouse, a heavy tension in my voice that I know comes from raw, unadulterated agony. My feet are burning. No, worse than burning. Burnt. I'd already gone past the stage of being able to identify actual feedback from them anymore, which was a good thing - acknowledging the phantom screaming from that part of my body and actually looking at the damage was the worst thing that I could do. I could still stand, that was enough. Everything would be reset once I won or lost here. I just needed to do my best.
Fine then. Even if grappling was out, he'd made a kill-zone himself. Simply knocking him into his own fields would be utterly lethal, regardless of any defensive measures he took. The moment I judge that I have enough cover from the smoke, I dive sideways into the wall with my shadow state, then upwards - erupting from halfway up the wall with a flying punch from what I was hoping was his blind spot. I didn't need much. He was manton-limited, as long as I made contact with his skin, I could convert any hit or daze into a full-bodied throw.
Unfortunately, he must have predicted the move or had already utterly neutralised my ash clone. He's locked onto me from the second I emerge. Surprisingly, Skidmark doesn't backpedal. Or dodge. Or try to retarget either of his guns. Or even to just use his power to send me flying with ease. Instead, he seems to welcome the blow - one hand rising up to meet me in exchange.
Perhaps it's the rustling of air beating against my face in a room that should have been perfectly still, perhaps it's a honed battle instinct - but I realise that I'm dead a full second before it happens. I should have been more patient, recharged Glory Girl's power while Vista brought me time - because as I'm falling, I have just enough time to realise that the back of Skidmark's gloved hand should be black instead of green - and that if he could apply his power to his Cape in a pinch, then why couldn't he apply it to his lone glove for hours on end?
FAILURE
I don't even register the sensation of his glove touching my face. Instead, I skip straight to an out-of-body experience to watch my headless body slump to the ground - a bloody trail in the air indicating the direction that my head had been blasted in by a field the exact strength of the impenetrable walls that surrounded this place. If I squinted, I could just about make out the dot in the distance slowly falling out of its arc - and then the simulation starts to shut down.
"...he could do that the entire time?" I eventually mutter, still in half-disbelief at the fact. On one hand, it still felt a little embarrassing to lose to Skidmark again - but I was also feeling pretty vindicated right now. My years of battleboarding hadn't gone to waste. Once I beat up Skidmark and reformed him into a cute girl, I would have so much ammunition to go into old powerscaling threads with proof that I was right the entire time.
"-the fuck are you gawking at?" I barely refrain from wrinkling my nose. Still. 'Cute girl' was one thing that the current Skidmark was certainly not. Odious, repulsive and undeniably dangerous - not because of any threat that he might use his power like the bloodlusted simulation had, but because he was violent and unhinged even before the drugs in his system had anything to say about it. "Get moving."
"Yes, boss." I mime a salute and catch up with him where I'd fallen behind.
That application of his power... could I do that? Was I a Brute now? I'd already considered the possibility of enhanced weaponry, but I'd just assumed that the Manton limit would cover clothing in the same way that Clockblocker's did - and I hadn't really had the opportunity to test it to find out anything to the contrary. Assuming I could do that... well. I'd have to commit to either offence or defence. The nature of the power encouraged stacking effects as much as possible over the same area, there was no point slowing down a punch by 5% all over my body - but if a small bit of preparation could turn a gloved fist into a point-blank kinetic blast at will - or if I could turn a bracer into something capable of warding off retaliatory blows to defend one side of my body...
Lots of potential. I'd overlooked the potential in the first level of his power, assuming that I would need further challenges to get anything seriously useful. I wouldn't quite be able to match Skidmark's feat. My current power wouldn't let me stack effects to that extent, but if I concentrated everything into a small surface area - I already knew how lethal a normal punch could be in the right place. The ability to send someone flying into a wall, or off a roof, that could win fights all on its own.
"You." Skidmark finally makes his way to the 'bar', if that's what you could call the hastily set-up area. "You. What the fuck is this?" A glass is swept off the counter and hurled into the man's face. He reels back, his face a mask of confusion as the glass shatters on the ground.
"Who-, uh, Skidmark." The man's instinctual surge of anger dies out as recognition dawns in his eyes. "Can I, uh, help you?"
"Don't act any more stupid than you already are." He gestures at the shattered glass and the droplets of liquid pooling on the floor next to crates of plastic-wrapped boxes. "Who put you up to this?"
"I- I don't know what you mean." The bartender is quick to shake his head. "Is there a problem? I can pass on feedback to our suppliers-"
"Problem?" Skidmark laughs, and the sound grates at my ears. "The problem is that this shit's not even close to what we paid for. You think I'm stupid, huh? Think I can't tell if somebody's trying to screw me over? Someone starts serving basic shit as soon as Skidmark throws a party for all the big names in the Merchants, it obviously reflects badly on me. So. Who put you up to it? Give me names."
The man shakes his head. "I don't- I haven't a clue what you-"
Skidmark makes a gesture to me. A simple, to-the-point motion that leaves no room for argument about what he wants. Violence. Fortunately, it's something I have no problem with providing. After all, regardless of this guy's position - he was a gang member too. Profiteering off of drugs and crime... and I fully intended on breaking the gang as a whole today if I could. What did it matter if I took one of them out a little early for the boss?
The man doesn't seem to register my presence until I've already slid over the counter and my fist is already buried into his gut before he realises the danger. I kick him back into the wall behind him, just to get him away from any easily-reachable weapons - then put him into a textbook arm-lock and slam him down onto the counter to face Skidmark. Four seconds from start to end. And I made it look good in the process. Smooth.
"Nice. Real nice." It's the only thing Skidmark says to me before leaning down to the restrained man's level. "Now. Let's try again. Who? Don't think I don't know how much you get paid for these jobs. Trying to slide by with bargain-bin replacements. It's been a while since I found someone brave enough to try something so stupid." I shift in place as Skidmark presses the man's face into the table harshly. "We're the fucking Merchants. Watered down horsepiss, cutting my shit with your own garbage - you think I don't know my own product? I own the Merchants. I own you. And you thought you could get one over on me?" His hissed whisper turns into a roar. "Me?!"
The man tries to meet my eyes with a pleading gaze. I shrug at him. Sorry. I don't care about other dudes. Maybe if I had my costume on and a reputation to maintain, but even if Skidmark killed him right here and now - I don't think it would bother me even a little. I'd done worse to people less deserving of it. Inter-gang conflict didn't mean anything to me. There was a difference between real life and my simulations, true - but I couldn't go around policing the entire world. I needed to focus on myself. On not blurring the lines between easily-killing in simulations and becoming a crazed murderer in real life. If the gangs kept killing each other, that was normal. Natural, even.
And, fine. There was an element of hypocrisy in play. If he was a chick, or at least a good person in general - sure. I'd try and go to bat for them. But when I weighed this guy's safety and comfort against the possibility of new powers, or against suborning the Merchant's leadership entirely, or against simply the possibility that I would get a glimpse of the challenges I needed to overcome to beat the various Capes under the Merchant banner? He came up short. Far short. It just wasn't worth the possibility of getting kicked out of the party for siding with someone that was clearly out of favour with Skidmark.
And, besides. I was indirectly helping the guy anyway. Skidmark would probably be a whole lot more agreeable after a few more challenges.
Skidmark makes a gesture to me. Not sure what that one means, but I can guess. I slam the guy's head on the counter a few times. He struggles, making a sudden attempt to escape only for me to down him again. Not a fighter. Not even particularly fit. Thin, but not a drop of muscle. Like I used to be, not too long ago. The attempt to struggle was only making it harder for me to go easy on him, but I couldn't exactly tell him that...
Or, maybe I didn't need to? Really, what was going to happen here if I let this play out as expected? He scrounges around, begs and pleads - Skidmark flexes his authority and beats the guy within an inch of his life or has him killed, and then goes back to his recliner chair. I didn't want that. Not with the current state of his challenge. Disrupting the schedule wouldn't be a bad thing, so a bit of instigating wouldn't go amiss. Maybe I can help the guy out a little, he clearly didn't have any good answers for this interrogation - and maybe I could twist his words a little if he wasn't able to answer at all.
I wait for the guy to rise again before making a clean connection on his chin. He crumples like paper and falls to the ground in a limp heap.
"Not going to get any answers like that." Skidmark sneers at me. "You got ahead of yourself. Think a little bit."
"My bad." I affect an embarrassed look. "But I mean, you didn't really need answers from him, right? He was kind of upfront about it." Maybe this was risky. A bit too forward, but there wasn't a point in just following Skidmark around if he just enjoyed the party. I needed Squealer and Mush.
Skidmark stares at me humourlessly. "Yeah? Got it all figured out?" I shift slightly as a steady weight presses down on my shoulders. Was that his power pushing downwards on me? My version of his power didn't do that. I'd need another surface to play off of. This was... kind of cool actually. If the effect was stronger, you could have a pretty epic intimidation scene with people falling to their knees under the weight of your pressure... but in this case, it was somewhat ruined by the fact that I could step two steps to the left and undo all of his hard work. Not that I should do that. Skidmark's ego was my golden ticket around this place. Making him look like an idiot, no matter how easy it would be for his non-challenge self - would ruin everything at this point.
I glance around, noting the party guests suddenly keeping themselves busy. Probably used to violent outbursts, probably expecting me to be his new target. But that conspicuous silence suited me. Because I'd wager that I knew more about this organisation than most of the members. I might not have gotten the kind of information I wanted from my interrogations so far, but it seemed that the apparent information embargo on their Capes in the challenges didn't extend to petty inter-gang politics. Skidmark didn't exactly trust me, but he trusted everyone else even less.
"Yeah, I mean - he only had to get it past you, right? There's what, two hundred people in this building and none of them noticed or complained that you're getting worse fare than the free shit outside? That's bullshit and you know it. He knew they wouldn't say anything, because it reflects badly on you and how well you control the gang." The pressure doubles. The blank expression on his face is eerie. Unnatural. I know that he's as high as a kite, but somehow - he looks more sober than anyone in this room. "The Merchant's never used to be led by Capes, right? All these guys - they all know that they'll never get powers, which means that they know that they'll never be able to move up in the gang while you're around. If people start getting shit by you, if they can nudge their colleagues with a knowing wink at what you've missed this time - maybe enough people start thinking that they need another kind of leader."
"I can tell you've really been thinking about this." Skidmark leans down towards me as the pressure pushes me down into the counter. I make a good show of looking like I'm struggling, but in truth - it hasn't progressed far past the point of being uncomfortable yet. I'd wager he doesn't have a great understanding of how strong his power should be over this kind of area after this length of time, so a bit of extra theatrics to make him feel like he was getting his point across was perfectly fine. "And I'm sure it makes all the sense in the world to you. Except you missed something. Capes are what keeps the Merchants relevant. Nobody's stupid enough to think that some shithead with a few guns is going to hold ground or defend their labs. You won't find a thug out there that will come and square up to Hookwolf or Stormtiger when they come knocking. You're right that they're all ambitious, slimy little cunts - but they're all realists as well. Without me and Squealer, and the new guy too - there's no more Merchants."
"Don't disagree with that." I allow. "I know that. You know that. And even the guys outside know that. But how does it look to the wannabe-big-shots in here? Squealer hasn't shown her face all night, only comes out when it's action time. The new guy is around somewhere, didn't even show his face when you called. Those two aren't leaders, and they aren't loyal to you- they don't appear loyal to you-" I hasten to correct. "-to the guys in here. They're not thinking that it's you and those two as a unit, they're thinking that if they can get enough support to oust you or knock you down a peg, or worst case, get rid of you entirely - those two will just fall in line to the next guy that calls the shots."
"You've got a real way of belching out bullshit in a way that sounds reasonable, you know that?" Skidmark rolls his shoulders. "But even if it's bullshit, that's how this looks to a guy like you? That's good to know. It's easy to lose touch with the little guys sometimes." I try my best not to look affronted at that. He looks out at the party, already back in full swing as if nothing had ever happened. "You're completely wrong, of course - but the fact that you think it sounds reasonable is something to consider. See, people in here hate me, but they're too smart to actually do anything about it - save for trying to line their own pockets at my expense." He casts a derisive look down at the man unsteadily returning to wakefulness next to me. "I can respect that. We're all crooks here. Only the shit ones get caught. The good ones get promoted. But the ones out there... well. You were with them not too long ago, you know that those fuckers don't have a lick of sense to them."
I nod eagerly. "A real show of force would be a good reminder to everyone."
"Shut it." He growls at me. "Didn't ask for your input." He looks around. "But maybe you're onto something. It's worth a talk with Squealer. We're a real force now. Can't have people thinking she's just a glorified taxi. Finding the right moment to show off wouldn't be a bad idea at all." He nods slowly. "Yeah. I'll do that right now." He starts to walk away, towards a guarded door at the far end of the building.
"Great!" I enthuse, sliding back over the counter to fall in behind him.
"And when the fuck did I say that you were coming with me?" Skidmark turns on me immediately. I curse silently. Too keen? No. He'd told me to follow him from the outset, he'd turned too quickly for it to be anything other than a planned move to flex his authority again. He probably hadn't liked my blabbering earlier, even if he took it onboard in the end. This was just a dick move to assuage his sensitive ego in front of his gang. "You think Squealer wants to talk to a nobody like you? Maybe you even have a bit of a crush on her and think you might get lucky after your hot streak today? No. And not just because I don't trust you enough, but even if I did, there'd be no benefit to bringing you. I can barely tolerate groupies like you because you can follow orders. Squealer won't even see that small amount of value in you. You've got nothing to offer her compared to me, so all you'll be is a starstruck leech and a reminder of why she rarely shows her face at these events. You don't get to come in. End of story, fuckhead."
Skidmark's grin intensifies as I try to keep the flash of rage from my face. Did I let my feelings slip there? Or was he reading something else into it? Probably both. This was a power play to him. Him stepping in and reminding the hotblooded newcomer that everything I liked, came with his approval. I'd been a bit too obvious about my desire to see Squealer in my haste to get the ball rolling, and while I'd possibly achieved my goal in disrupting Skidmark and getting him involved with his Capes more - not being there with him when he did that... really screwed over my plans.
God. Once this was all over, and I could just invade this entire camp with Taylor and punch him in the face for all the irritation and insults? That was going to be so satisfying. He seems to have made up his mind, even if only to spite me. But it didn't seem like he was actively trying to kick me out either, which left me... unsupervised. And our talk wasn't exactly a loud one in the din of the party hall. It's not like anyone knew that Skidmark was trying to flex his ego on me.
"I'll find a way to make myself useful then." I smile cheerily, ignoring the dismissive look before he takes his leave. I stand around absently until he disappears through the door.
Showtime. I cross the room. The partygoers tended to be useless, and the 'staff' had been in their positions for hours at this point. But the guards were on a rotation. Anyone in here must have gone around the majority of the site at one point or another.
"You." I march up to the closest one. "Where is Mush?"
"What's it to you?" The guard sneers back. "The fuck do I look like, a tour guide?" He tries to push me back, only for me to step into him. "Get out of my face, got better things to do than listen to some snot-nosed little shit trying to play tourist."
"Are you stupid?" I lean forward. Glory Girl's shield was up, so I had a safeguard in case his first instinct was to shoot for some reason. Escaping afterwards would be interesting, but it was better than dying mid-bluster because I tried intimidating the wrong guy. "I've been running errands for Skidmark all afternoon. Everyone saw that he wanted Mush out there earlier, you just saw him go in to chat to Squealer - what exactly do you think he asked me to do for me to still be out here with you morons? Do you want to be the one that tells Skidmark you didn't think his problems were important enough to pay attention to? I'll point him your way the second he gets back, I'm fine with that. It's your funeral." The man shifts at that, donning an uncomfortable expression. "It's not like I'm asking for money. Point me in his direction and I'll be gone."
"Listen." The guard raises his hands in mock surrender, losing some of the restrained aggression he had originally. "He never said anything to us about pointing anyone towards the Capes. He usually doesn't like that kind of thing."
I roll my eyes. "Obviously. The only other Cape for ages was Squealer - obviously they wouldn't want any nosy little shit in the Tinker's workshop, they'd probably blow us all up by touching the wrong button. But now we've all got a new Cape, and that Cape doesn't spend all their time Tinkering and doesn't come when he calls - it's obvious that the two need different rules and treatment."
"To be fair, Skidmark never told us not to say anything about the new guy. And he's kind of right. Someone catches Squealer alone, not much she can do about that unless she's got her ride - but Skidmark and Squealer needed the tank to square up to Mush when they were recruiting him. If some random guy tries anything funny they'll just get squashed flat." The guard next to him pipes up. The wild look in this one's eyes and the overly-cheerful, talkative attitude tells me that he is nowhere near as sober as he should be. "Who cares? Listen, kid. That Mush guy, he's a bit of a weirdo. I dunno exactly where he is, but I hear he practically lives in an actual dump. We've got some low-standards for the guys out there, but I doubt someone like that is going to spend much time hanging around these halls without someone complaining. Hygeine is a thing, right?"
The first guard frowns. "Yeah, I haven't seen him. I did overhear someone complaining that he scared the shit out of them when they were throwing away the trash out back. Maybe that's just his thing? Swapping out one pile of trash for another? I don't see the appeal myself, but if he is out there it would explain why we haven't seen him."
"And why he didn't answer Skidmark. Doubt he can hear the mic properly from all the way back there." The second guard nods. "Probably going to regret that choice. Skidmark's gotta be fuming about that."
A shrug. "He's new. He'll work it out."
"Well, Skidmark must have wanted him for a reason - so maybe he'll find out sooner rather than later." I lie. "Anyway. Trash man in the trash heap, makes sense." I nod. "Makes sense. Which way is that?"
The guard jerks a thumb over his shoulder. "Leave the building, circle around to the back - there's a gap in the fence. We're using a spot a little past that as a dumping ground for this party."
"And how do I get back in here?" I glance at the pair of guards at the entrance meaningfully. "Some kind of pass, or...?"
"Only reason you got in here last time was because Skidmark dragged you with him. The guards will never let you in on your own." The second guard shakes his head. "I'd say, just make sure you come in with Mush. He's recognisable enough that nobody will blink if you are with him - otherwise, you won't get past the door."
The pair grin at me with a bit too much amusement in their gaze. "Probably for the best too. Because if you don't come back with Mush in tow, then Skidmark will be mighty-pissed with you instead. I'd just forget about coming back at that point and hoping Skidmark is too high to remember what your face looks like. Go blend into the crowd and enjoy the free shit for the night. Maybe take a pass at one of the callgirls on the way out."
"I'll find them, but the advice is appreciated." I wave them off.
Nobody stops me from leaving, but the stern gaze of the door guards as I pass them is enough to prove the words of my 'colleagues' true. If I had to guess... not everyone appreciated that Skidmark had extended an invitation so easily. Or, perhaps I'd hurt or crippled some of their friends in the ring - or simply caused them to lose money betting on my opponents. Something about getting ideas above my station or something like that. If I came back, I'm sure they would bar my path - but I doubted it would have anything to do with their usual practices, more of a rare opportunity to knock an arrogant hotshot down a peg.
But that's fine. I'd just find Mush, and drag the man with me to see Skidmark. Maybe even get him to take me to Squealer directly if they were still talking. I could act like I was just being dragged along, and I'd have all three challenges to progress all at once. If I got a few challenges, it wasn't crazy to think that I could ingratiate myself with Skidmark enough to hang out with them all evening. I'd have to tell my two teammates that the attack wasn't going to happen, but the possibility of practically owning the Merchants via their Cape leaders was a worthy prize when weighed against the potential irritation of Sophia and Taylor.
Just... had to find them. The guidance had been pretty vague, and it takes me a solid minute of searching through the fading light at the back of the building to find a worn trail through a half-torn-down fence - presumably this was the path that I was supposed to be following. The instructions hadn't been clear past that point, but I could only assume that I couldn't miss my destination if I just followed the beaten trail in a vaguely straight line.
An incorrect assumption. This entire part of town was basically a dumping ground. No wonder the Merchants had felt safe setting-up shop here. I glance around at my surroundings as I pace past a half-dozen likely candidate locations.
Mush
Merchant Affiliate 1/5
(HUNT)
I stop dead, keeping my gaze firmly locked in place - as if the challenge box might fade away to nothing if I glanced to the side. Which, for all I knew, it might.
Because I didn't see anyone right now.
I was pretty sure I was just looking at a mound of rubbish.
Slowly, I look to the left. Some knocked-over bins. But more importantly...
Mush
Merchant Affiliate 1/5
(HUNT)
...also registering as 'Mush'.
As far as my interrogations had been able to gather, Mush was a Changer - but more in the, shaker kind of variety. Changer in terms of threat, but shaker in terms of mechanics. They form tendrils of power to pull trash and loose debris to themselves to bulk themselves up with the worst kind of power armour I've ever seen. Was my power identifying anything that Mush currently had control over, as his actual body? That was interesting. And, I suppose, not entirely unusual. It wasn't like I needed to lay eyes on skin specifically - full-body costumes and partial-glimpses of a person were enough to work with. Really, if all of this trash was something that would move with Mush the moment he flexed a muscle, what made it so different to seeing Armsmaster in power armour? A larger gap than normal between the 'main' body and what I was looking at? My power didn't seem to care.
And I wasn't going to complain. Not only did it tell me that I was actually in the right place, it meant that I didn't have to go searching for the kind of dangerous hobo that was the type to actually want to hang around here. In the heart of his power, no less. He was probably on drugs, and regardless of my escape options - I didn't want to test out how fast and hard he could weaponise the trash-laden streets around me.
"Challenge." I whisper.
HUNT was a simple modifier. Once he saw me, he got a free 'radar' on me for the rest of the round. I'd never be able to lose him or sneak up on him, no matter the distance.
But fortunately, it wasn't paired with ALRT. He didn't get the 'free' alert at the start to aggro him on me, which meant that - until I was spotted naturally - his modifier wouldn't do a thing. And even when it did, so long as I didn't intend on running away - it wouldn't help him there either.
Our new arena seems to be much like the street we were on in real life. Run-down buildings, trash sprawled across the street and the general lack of care that just summed up the 'bad' side of Brockton Bay. My first priority is to slither my way directly up onto a rooftop. My optimal start here would be to get the jump on him, and that meant staying out of his line of sight and certainly not touching any trash that he might have under his control - incorporated into his personal armour yet or not. I knew from personal experience that the rooftops of the Bay tended to be pretty clean in that respect, and it was rare to start a challenge on a street and have the target hiding out inside a random house unless they had obvious guards. Most likely, Mush was lurking in his natural habitat. Just needed to find him again, this time - without the benefit of my power lighting him up for me.
Easier said than done. But, if all else failed - simply making enough of a ruckus would have him shambling towards me with murder in his eyes. I'd lose the chance to ambush him, but that wasn't a guaranteed loss. I was actually kind of confident - but, not so confident that I'd throw away a potential edge. If Mush became hostile to my continued presence in real life, this might be one of the only easy chances I had to make him 'friendly' - to say nothing of the fact that I might never get back into the party to link up with Skidmark and Squealer.
Just needed to find the guy, preferably without leaving the rooftops and exposing myself. I was confident enough by now that people never really looked up unless you made too much noise, and this challenge had been fortunate enough to include the thrum of distant traffic and chirping of birds. I wasn't worried about a single footstep being detected from across the street, as some challenges loved to do to me.
Of course, I had a plan. An idea. I could probably assume that he was sitting in a trash mound somewhere. Maybe a dumpster. Whatever.
See, part of the fun of spending too much time on PHO was theorycrafting about the absolute limits of powers. The points where they manifested, the ways in which they arbitrarily hit their limits and stopped working. Usually, such discussions didn't go anywhere - but when I actually had the powers in hand to test, I had all sorts of ideas to actually test my powers on. Vista was a great example. The limts of this first level were clear on paper. I could only condense or stretch 'empty' space and air, one 'use' at a time, manton-limited, sight-based and the effect would slowly unravel on its own from the first second. Pretty simple.
But then you dig deeper. You look at examples of how it fails, why it fails - what it does when it fails for one reason versus another. And when answering the age-old question of 'Is it really Manton-limited or does it work if I don't actually know I'm affecting a human?' I had found an interesting discrepancy.
Attempt to pinch space with an object blocking the middle? The power takes effect only up until it hits the object. It pinches the half on this side, and then stops as if I had targeted the end point at the blocking object.
Try to pinch space with a human in the middle? Nothing. An instant failure. Something that I'd discovered pretty quickly when trying to weaponise Vista's power to help me sneak in punches with a bit of extra reach. Nothing stopped me from trying again, with a more specific target - but that split-second was crucial in a fight.
I digress. The point was that my power treated the 'errors' differently. Which meant that, so long as I could see and target a point beyond the trash cans and dumpsters my target was likely hiding in - I had a radar of sorts. If Vista's power attempted to pinch the air up to the target, my enemy wasn't inside. And if it failed completely? I had my man.
Finding the best angle to work with, I line my finger up to the first oversized pile of refuse waiting on the street, and give Vista's power a nudge. Just the slightest application. It would be terrible if I found the guy but blew my advantage by being too overt. I didn't need to shrink the distance in half, I just needed it to fail or not fail. The actual effect was as minimal as I could make it at this distance - and if I had to describe it, I would say that I was just applying italics to the air. Not too dissimilar to a simple summer haze, a slight distortion if you happened to look at the right angle - but you would sooner ascribe the fleeting, out-of-focus image to bleary eyes than an actual parahuman ability.
Of course, with the effect being so minimal - the effect was swiftly undone before I even lined the next target up. And for once, the simple fact that I couldn't affect a real substance directly was working to my benefit. He might notice if I started moving his trash around, but unless he started moving - he was never going to notice the tiny lines of slightly-off space hanging in the air, even if they were right next to him.
I rotate in a spiral, checking each waste pile, dumpster and discarded trash bin around me before moving on to ones further afield. It was slow going, but at the same time - fast enough to feel like I was making progress. And it wasn't like I needed to search the entire city. My challenges were pretty clear - I was supposed to fight and use my powers to do so, and it enabled and rewarded me when I did that. If the challenge wasn't based around finding someone that was actively hiding, then I could be assured that he would be somewhat close to me - in a way that I would stumble upon him in only a minute of actual travelling under normal circumstances. The situation had clearly been set up so that he didn't get immediate sight on me, as some challenges did, but I would wager that he hadn't started any more than a block away from me. A single loud noise from me would start the fight if I wanted.
But I didn't want that. I wanted the ambush. However long it took. I'd lost opportunities to impatience before, I wasn't going to let this be another of them.
It takes thirty-five minutes and relocating across the rooftops eight more times before Vista's power rejects me. Instantly, I snap back to attention and inspect the area properly. Two dumpsters stacked next to each other, one open, the other closed. A mound of discarded plastic bags stacked up on either side, spilling out into the street. It didn't look out of place for Brockton Bay, if I had to be honest, the bus drove past worse on the way into school every day - but knowing that Mush could weaponise those bags in some way? It looked suspicious even without Vista's power telling me that there was someone inside.
I target the left dumpster with Vista's power, aiming for a narrower area to work on than I had previously. This time it takes effect. Perfect. The power had never stopped me from delivering punches through distorted space that ended a mere inch away from an opponent's face, so I didn't need to be concerned about him blocking the power in an area around him. I could just keep targeting more specific areas until I had an exact position.
A flurry of further attempts narrows things down even more, although the fact that his power is clearly affecting the bags scattered around the edge complicates things. If I had to guess from my rather erratic readings, the tendrils he was connected by counted as his body as far as the Manton limit went - but the actual trash itself didn't unless each individual bit of trash was touching the tendril. So I could pepper each trash bag with laser-like uses of Vista's space warping to attempt to see if I could find a line where his tendrils didn't cover. If I found it, great - his main body wasn't there. If I didn't, if not a single space in the area from any angle would allow Vista's power to activate, then I've found my target.
It almost feels like cheating. In just a few minutes of trial and error, I could almost draw his outline at this point. He's not in either of the dumpsters, he's seated on the far side of the right-most dumpster, legs splayed out while covering himself in a few discarded cardboard boxes and a final layer of black waste bags. Completely hidden from the naked eye, but my power knew he was there. I'm not sure if people actually sleep in my challenges, but I'd guess that he was at least mimicking it. None of his tendrils extend into the dumpster, but three tendrils have made a trail across the ground and through his 'bedding' of choice.
Now. The question was... what should I do with that information? I was still yet to get much in the way of offensive powersets, but I had flexibility. If my version of the shadow state was the same as Sophia's, I would try to just phase something into his head after sneaking into the dumpster he was resting against - but my power was more aggressive at finding 'safe' spots to rearrange matter into than hers. I'd be more likely to break his neck as both my item and his head were forced to either side to make room, than the intended result of piercing his skull.
Still. There were other ways to take advantage of the fact that the target wasn't moving yet. I kneel down, setting Parian's power to work at unravelling my shirt. I needed string, and a bug to carry it. Just like I'd seen Taylor use in her challenges. My ash clone wouldn't work here, both because it would struggle to cross undetected and the simple fact that it couldn't root around in that pile of trash without starting the fight. But a bug? A bug could do it. Parian's power continues to unravel my shirt. One complete string, swiftly tied onto the next - an interaction that I'd discovered actually worked. One string tied onto another string was still just... string. The mass limit still applied, but so long as the string was suitably thin - that didn't seem to matter.
Which, did beg the question as to whether forming an actual Parian-style doll was actually possible, something I'd previously dismissed - but patience and string quality were the limiting factors there. Attempting to make something the size of my hand had taken the best part of an hour, and at some point in my weaving some small part of the string had snapped and rendered it all useless. Increasing the thickness only resulted in something even smaller as the end result. Suitable for a first-challenge reward, I suppose, but frustrating in its own way. But, also, completely fine. Because the most useful part of this power wasn't that I could make a relatively weak Parian doll, but that I could freely manipulate fine string like this. It had worked well for Taylor in her challenges, but I had an edge that she didn't.
I set the nearest bug as my administrator and set it loose, its wings beating frantically as the string flutters in the breeze behind it - attached as tightly as I dared without crushing or crippling it. The wind looks set to knock it off course, but slowly, surely, the efforts of my insect friend are rewarded. Landfall, right on top of my soon-to-be victim. It works its way through the trash pile, never daring to get too close to the actual body or the tendrils spreading out from it. The tiniest of cracks between one discarded item and the next serving as what may as well have been an open highway for the tiny creature - regardless of the ridiculously long trail it was leaving behind it. Over, around, even underneath the sleeping figure - the string slowly disappears from view as it settles around the man like a noose.
An apt description, really. Because I'd made that bug an administrator for a reason.
Timing was important here, because that bug could die to any slight shifting of the man inside. So even if it was better if I were to be a bit closer in case this didn't go as expected... this would have to do. I stand, loosing a wordless yell in his direction as I issue my last command to the bug. In an instant, the string freezes - frozen in time via Clockblocker's power. In the next, the mass of trash surges upwards to a standing position anyway - and for a horrified moment, I consider the possibility that Mush had some power negation aspect to his powers.
And then the blood starts to slip down the vaguely-humanoid figure, still coated completely in trash. A mess of organs and viscera drip down and out of the 'armour', before the entire thing slumps forward - crashing into the web of sharpened string that had acted as razor wire once again.
SUCCESS
Interesting. I hadn't fully expected him to die from that. I'd expected him to be completely immobilised, unable to even nudge a limb or see my eventual approach to execute the man - but it seems his Brute rating only went one way. He'd used his trash-body to propel himself upwards with all the force of a real Brute - only to slice himself to shreds with that very same movement.
Reward: Loose Material Attraction (1)
Nice. Two powers for as many hours of work. And I might well make it a hat-trick before all was said and done. Even if it all went downhill from here, this was a good result.
But it could be better. The powers were individually different, unique - but the Merchants weren't really a powerhouse or anything. Maybe I'd figure out a useful trick for them like I had for Parian, but I was kind of just targeting them because... they were there. Sure, they were armed and dangerous - but there just wasn't the same level of threat as there was from picking a fight with Lung or the Empire. Who was scared of the Merchants holding a grudge? Nobody.
Mush
Merchant Affiliate 2/5
(HUNT) (ALRT)
I eye the pile of trash again with a knowing look. Again, this was a trend I was starting to notice. My power let me find creative solutions sometimes, but often the next challenge would often take the cheap win next time and force me down a different route. I completely avoided fighting him last time, but my power wasn't going to let me do that again this time around. "Challenge."
Same starting location. Same time. Same everything. Second verse, same as the first.
Except, this verse had a distant clanging noise as the hulking, lumbering figure of my opponent careens around the corner and into view. Not quite the kaiju-esque size that the news reports had spoken of in his debut, but that could be for any number of reasons. This could be a version of him that hadn't learned that level of mastery yet, or he just didn't have enough materials around to weaponise - or perhaps even the quality of materials was important. Maybe a few random dumpsters and discarded furniture on the street just didn't have the materials that were most conducive to creating a large body compared to a more serious scrapyard or dumping ground.
I skitter away from a double-overhand blow that shatters the street beneath us with a webway of cracks.
At this size, I could take him - rather than needing to run into a tunnel to force him to shrink down, which would really be my only option if he he had started flinging entire dumpsters and buildings at me like PHO had suggested was possible. Nine, ten feet of rusted metal, padded with packed trash liners and enough wooden decorations that I was guaranteed to get a splinter or five if I even dared to touch him. Strength. Durability. But not speed. Not manoeuvrability. He was slow.
Or, no, that wasn't quite the word. The theoretical top speed was appropriately high for something lacking in true human limitations and being close to twice my size - the ground it could cover was significant in a straight line, given time, but that was all. Clunky. That was it. Every movement overexaggerated and telegraphed in advance by the sheer amount of movement the rest of his body had to make in advance. Every bag of trash, every discarded iron pole and plate in between his real body and his 'fist' had to move to allow the next part in line to move. Like getting a slow-mo picture of a boxer's chest muscles and footwork before the punch came out, I knew he was going to swing before he did.
But how did I fight that, exactly? Vista and Clockblocker were useful here, obviously. Vista already disoriented human-sized opponents, I could only imagine how effective it would be on someone trying to direct a limb to strike from even further away the action. I'd already been able to demonstrate how effective Clockblocker was, given that the faux-mech suit was perfectly capable of powering through time-locked razor-wire without realising the lethal effect until too late. But I'd only get one chance to show that skill off, he'd certainly be more cautious if I failed to kill him and he simply needed to re-attach a limb or two after his attempt. And given that I just didn't have any other offensive options, that would be the end of the challenge unless I could pull off a miracle.
Actually, my previous strategy might still be every bit as valid as it was. Yes, any bug trying to worm its way through the walls of wood, dirt, trash and steel that armoured his body would be squished instantly - but finding a moment to surround him in string and freezing it was just as viable as getting him to run or fall into it. It was just... hard. Moving target. It was harder for me to guess at the exact locations of the tendrils now, and I needed a certain distance from each of them to sidestep the Manton limit for Clockblocker's power.
What else? What were the limits of that body? If I could manoeuvre him into the bay itself, would his armour fall apart? Would he drown? Or would he retain his form and durability, then pursue me with all the swimming speed that something that size could muster? Without a way for me to escape the water, that last option would kill me - even if it might degrade his body over time, the cracks in the concrete and tarmac around us showed that the Brute rating wasn't for show. I had his power, but at this level - all it was doing was creating a ghostly tendril and yanking loose trash towards me, which either blocked my vision or outright threatened to hurt me at the speed it approached me with. Maybe there was a trick to it, but this wasn't much of a time for experimentation.
I duck away from a lazy fist that threatens to kill me outright with the slightest connection. A trio of cans leak out from the 'limb' as he overextends. A loose fence panel, half-pulverised from the previous attack, slips from the cluster of junk that made up his fist. A moment later, a flicker of movement comes from his lower legs, reincorporating what little of it remains as a stronger base to stand on.
He was destroying himself. Few enough of these materials that he was using were rated for Brutes to pick up and use to break concrete. Yes, every destroyed wall and every new stretch of street I ran into presented more possibilities for him to incorporate into his shell - but the environment had its limits.
Especially if I forced that onto him. He didn't seem to be playing this as tactically as someone like Sophia had in some of her challenges. There wouldn't be a way for him to lose if he just ran to a real scrapyard and came to face me with all the materials he could ever desire. But he didn't do that, he just ran straight for me - and more than likely, he would continue coming straight for me even if I ran.
So I needed to run somewhere where he didn't have the materials in the environment to draw from. A park, maybe. An empty parking lot. A school playground. Dirt, grass and a few torn-up bits of the road would be a poor substitute for the more valuable metal and wood that he was pounding into uselessness with every hit - his power seemed to value gathering larger chunks of material and welding them to the tendrils rather than enabling a golem-esque creation from simpler materials.
My eyes light up. The forcefield bridge. The one leading up to the rig. If it was up, he wouldn't even have the opportunity to do that. He could hardly weaponise the light or... whatever the bridge was actually made of. And as a bonus, if he fell off I'd get my answer as to how he handled water a lot faster than I had planned.
But the important part was the lack of material for him to draw from his surroundings to replace everything he lost.
All I had to do was get there, and hope that it was active. I dive backwards through a wall, Vista's power assisting in creating a gap for myself beyond it as I immediately shift into my speed-state. Three. Two. He smashes through the wall. One. Too late to catch me. I'm gone.
I don't even need to keep baiting him along. The HUNT modifier ensures that he will never lose track of me, even if I'm not in his line of sight. I can just make my way to the Boardwalk and sprint towards the coast safe in the knowledge that he was racing after me as fast as he could.
And race after me he does. Not as fast as me. Not even close. I could move faster than a speeding car, and he was moving perhaps around twice as fast as I could run without powers. I had time. Time enough to run across the rest of the bridge, test three different access codes on the door courtesy of Clockblocker's challenge - and quickly verify that, no, my power wasn't kind enough to stock the armoury this time. Or even have any officers around at all that I could rob. Complete ghost town, just like the rest of the Bay this time around.
But that suits me too. I step back out onto the bridge to await my enemy, idly toying with my new power as I do so. Loose Material Attraction, that was a bit of a mouthful. I glare at the ghostly looking tendril, translucent in the afternoon sun. It seems to pass through my body without even a hint of resistance, nor does it seem capable of exerting force on its own - yet it presses up against the light bridge as if it was physical. Too slippery and weak for me to use it as a platform or grappling hook, it couldn't support my weight if I tried to use it over the side of the bridge as a hook while I balance over the opposite edge.
Still fully capable of doing its intended purpose while doing that though. I peer through the bridge as the stretched-out limb waggles at me, one of my shoes firmly attached to its tip. A good test. Not sure what I could use that for, but... flexibility was good. I'd need to try it out in combat before I made any judgements. And think of a name. Tentacle? What if I got other tentacle-related powers? It was supposed to be a sort of magnet. Magnet-tentacle? Magnacle? No. That was stupid. Surely I could think of a real name, without just calling it Mush's power in my head. I was Greg Veder. A master of unasked-for naming and rebranding suggestions on PHO. Surely making a cool name for a new power wasn't beyond me? I frown to myself, absently spooling out my shirt into a longer string and tucking the result into my pocket for later. The special part was still the magnet-like behaviour and manipulation of materials close to the tentacle, so maybe I could just leave the tentacle part out entirely? The Magnet. The Trash-Manipulator. No, it was all terrible. No wonder Mush was called... well. Mush.
Mush doesn't give me the time to keep mulling over it. For what must have been a solid twenty-five minutes of non-stop running, he doesn't look all too tired. To be fair, I'd run the same distance and I wasn't tired either. I guess our powers both did the heavy lifting for us. He's gained some weight over the trip, standing perhaps a third taller again than he had last appeared - with the remains of what was possibly a burning car engine now held in his right fist as a crude weapon.
A crude weapon that was also burning away at his 'armour' on that side. Maybe it wasn't his real body, and it was unlikely to spread to more flammable areas so long as he kept it at a distance and maintained the core of metal around his real self - but it was still stupid. A reminder of the room-temperature IQ that the average Merchant possessed.
I flex my shoulders. Showtime. I move to dismiss my extra limb, then pause as I put my shoe back on. It couldn't hold my weight, sure...
But I wasn't the only option. My ash clone surges to life next to me. I hand the power off to it along with the Administrator status. I'd been planning to give it either Vista's power or use Administrator on a bug and immediately start attempting to get a kill via the Parian-Clockblocker combo again, but maybe the enhanced processing power and unique body could make something of the power that I couldn't. It remains still as I project my mental instructions to it, the wordless shift of its body to face our rapidly-approaching attacker the only sign that it understood it's orders. A long shot, maybe. And if the power had a heavy combat restriction on it, like a strict Manton Limit - I would need to reconsider. But... the idea felt right. In principle. I'd have to see.
As for myself... I pivot into a full-bodied kick at the air - locking the motion into my Echo and then stepping back a half-dozen paces. That left me with space warping, my shadow state, forcefield and Clockblocker's powers to keep myself alive. My ash clone would try to circle around from the back at the first opportunity and we'd press him on two fronts. Simple.
He steps into range of my prepared Echo, but even that full-powered blow into his 'ankle' only makes him stumble. Good enough as a distraction, it was probably a bit much to hope that he would tumble into the Bay in such an anti-climactic fashion. Got to do this the good-old-fashioned way. I willingly step forward into his range. I had a lot of defensive options, and if all else failed - a few steps and a jump to the side would send me into the waters below us to relative safety. I doubted he would follow, he was more likely to want to just catch me at the shoreline if he could. I could do this. No matter how suicidal it looked... this was the safest place to be. Just a bigger bruiser than normal, still the same old moves that come from every other musclebound-asshole in the Bay - just a bit heftier than normal. With all this experience and all of these powers, if I couldn't dodge moves as predictable as that after being killed so many times, I would deserve to get pasted across this bridge.
Step left. Dive right, roll. A better fighter might have been able to guess my movement and try to stomp on me, but the sheer bulk of his body was restricting his field of vision and his ability to look around. All he knew was that he'd failed to connect, not that I'd avoided the minor movements and shifting, stumbling footwork by the slimmest of margins. As soon as I get behind him, he has to turn completely - trying to find me again without exposing himself.
As I muse over that thought, he tries to rectify his weakness. He leans forward, half-protruding out of his shell at the torso of the trash-mecha in the hope of better following my movements. I immediately shrink the space between us, arms reaching up and towards his head, narrowly grazing against his face before he lurches back in surprise. Shame. I might have been able to end the fight there and then if I got a good grip on his head. But that hadn't been my only intention, I'd mostly just wanted to keep the status quo in place - his struggles with controlling the size of his body and actually piloting it to fight me were my biggest advantages, no sense in letting him get in a position to do that better.
Unless he moved his core body up towards the actual 'head' where I couldn't easily reach him even with Vista's power helping, why he hadn't done that - I didn't have a clue. Perhaps it was easier to spread his power out in all directions like that? A matter of control? Or just aesthetics? I suppose there was no real reason I knew of why he couldn't be chasing after me in a giant spider trash-mecha either - so I should probably just take the win and celebrate the fact that I only had to deal with four clunky limbs unsuited to combat rather than the tentacle monster that would probably be a far more efficient use of his powers.
He gives up on punching, instead wildly kicking his feet around - forcing me to blow a charge of my shadow state just to ensure that I didn't get blindsided by the erratic movements he was making - one of the disadvantages of getting up-close and personal. The man lets out a cry of triumph as he spots me, now that I'm no longer able to hide myself behind his own legs.
Too late. A knight plants itself between him and me. Clad head-to-toe in rusted copper and iron, a silent guardian threatening to intercept any move that he might make. That was my ash clone, taking advantage of my version of Mush's power to simply loot Mush himself for a working suit.
Mush promptly flattens it in a single blow, already turning his gaze back to me before the armour shunts itself back together in a crude, inelegant mockery of its former state.
Everything I had hoped for. Because perhaps, if I were to be truly accurate, I should say - the figure was very much 'not' my ash clone. I glance downwards. The ghostly tendril was barely even visible, even if you knew to look for it. A slight shimmer in the air at the knight's feet, that left a trail that simply dangled off the edge of the bridge. I'd imagined my ash clone as being capable of holding its far lighter body to the underside of the bridge, but evidently the tentacle wasn't quite that capable of exerting force on the user. Instead, it was freely swinging in the breeze - held in position by the seemingly unbreakable tentacle that was now thoroughly weighted down by its new metallic suit. And, critically, that tentacle that didn't share the fragility of its current owner.
And as long as Mush didn't realise that my 'new' ally was essentially an invincible puppet - a simple extension of that tentacle welding any metal it could find to itself - then this would remain a 2v1 forever. It wasn't like Mush had any reason to glance over the edge of the bridge and see the dangling wraith-like figure swinging over the waters below us. He didn't have that kind of luxury or time, because his own power was under threat right now.
The clash of powers was always an interesting one. Taylor had range, multi-tasking and massive swarms over my version of Bug-Control - but, if I wanted a bug, her power ceded it to me. Mine trumped hers. But, equally, Vista and I could overwrite each other's warped space - and as she could keep spamming her power, she tended to win out. With this bit of experimentation, now I knew that my version of Mush's power was closer to the former than the latter. My ash clone had stolen material from Mush's 'leg', and Mush hadn't been able to steal it back. He'd redistributed it from elsewhere, losing about a foot in height for the sake of restoring his equilibrium - but the important part was that it had worked at all.
That wasn't an instant win, the tentacle could only carry so much at once - once the surface area was filled up, there wasn't anything more to do. Unless I wanted to potentially give the game away by having the clone continually discard it's armour into the sea before restocking - I'd have to make do with the damage that had been done already. I'd rather keep the 2v1 going for now, rather than risk Mush realising that he wasn't just up against something similar to his power, but literally an expression of his own power. He'd go looking for the source, and my ash clone wouldn't survive his attention if it was found - and resummoning it after being active for this long would require me to stall for a long time alone.
But it was a massive advantage. And when Mush's fist pulls away once again, leaving behind a chunk of plastic and broken glass bottles that are oh-so-swiftly turned into a rough approximation of a bladed-arm for my clone's puppet - he realises that too.
He turns to run, angling to sprint past me back across to the shoreline - but I'm in the way, hand already splayed out as Parian's power lifts the string and sets up a series of razor-wire like obstacles for him to crash into with the momentary application of Clockblocker's power. This time, the armour of his constructed body crumples against the obstacle rather than parting and slicing into his vulnerable flesh below - an abrupt stop more in line with crashing into a tree than being bisected like the first challenge. A trip, a fall - but not onto solid ground, instead, he'd only gotten more entangled in the web of manipulated string. Good enough. Even if it didn't kill him, the pattern of time-locked string was difficult enough to see, and chaotic enough in its pattern, that even just extracting himself from his awkward position was a difficult task at the best of times - let alone when me and my newfound knight partner were already in a position to target the man himself.
The man himself, I was truly seeing him for the first time now. Weak and frail. An emaciated figure, face half-concealed by blood from my knight's efforts - it only got in position a second or two before me, but already the results of the heavier body that it was manipulating were showing compared to the blows that the ashen form of the original could dish out. The man flails underneath us, an incoherent scream escaping his throat as he tries to extract his tendrils from the web of death now pinning his body in place. Too late, and even if he had managed it - where would he go. There was nowhere to run, and I'd never lose to someone like him without his armour.
My knight lodges a bladed arm into his face, piercing through to the other side only to tear up and away. Mush's jaw comes away entirely leaving a bloody trail in the air for me to gawk at. That was Brute-level stuff. An actual Brute power, not just a puppet that continually reforms - but somehting that could actually apply more strength than a base human could. Than I could, even. I'd wanted that for so long, and my power had given it to me in a twisted kind of way. I still didn't have that level of strength personally, but if I could protect my ash clone - it could form this figure that could do it for me, so long as it had enough material to work with.
It was worth coming here. I gaze silentlyat the metal-bound figure pulverising the ribcage of the corpse below us. I'm starting to feel... strong.
SUCCESS
Reward: Mush+
I let my vision clear, turning my gaze back to the trash heap where-
-where Mush's challenge icon was appearing before. And now wasn't. Either he'd moved, or my just wasn't registering the trash as 'Mush' anymore. Presumably because his tendrils weren't controlling the heap anymore. Had he just retracted them? Or decided to move? Or had some small aspect of the changes that my power had done hit a momentary reset button on his powers, or perhaps made him less willing to hang around in an environment like this?
"Mush?" I stride into the approximate area where he should be. "Are you here?"
"...maybe. Who's asking?" A distant, heavily muffled voice responds.
"Skidmark was looking for you." Better to avoid saying that Skidmark actually wanted to see him, because I hadn't actually been asked to retrieve Mush - this was just... extra-curricular work on my part.
"Oh." They don't sound happy to hear that. "Did he sound angry?" The disembodied voice takes on an inquisitive and hopeful tone. "Or, angrier than usual?"
"He tried to introduce you in front of a cheering crowd, and then you weren't there." I supply helpfully. "I think he was expecting your presence."
"...tell him I'm dead." The response comes after a moment. "I died alone and unwanted, in a distant, forgotten trash heap." I try to pinpoint the source of the voice. The left side, perhaps? Or, if the challenge-version of the man had been anything to judge by - perhaps he was hidden somewhere underneath all of this junk.
"You sound alive to me." The voice was clearer over here. I step over a batch of cardboard boxes, careful that I wasn't accidentally about to step on my target.
"That's just rigor mortis." I zero in on the voice again, each word becoming a little clearer with every step I take. "I must have just sustained injuries from our fight the other day, and that's why I tragically won't be able to see him ever-" I lift the lid of a nearby trashcan, the voice stumbling to a halt as a bleary figure blinks up at me from inside. "-again." The voice finishes lamely. 'She' finishes lamely. Because that definitely wasn't the face of the person I'd just killed a few moments ago. "I don't suppose you can pretend you never found me?"
"Probably not." I deny.
She shuffles around in her container for a moment, rifling through discarded magazines and cardboard, before a wad of cash is offered in tribute.
"These are all ones." I tell her drily.
"And? Legal tender!" Mush insists. "You could buy... all sorts with that!"
"I didn't say it was fake, it's just - a stack of cash like that gets a lot less impressive when you realise it can barely buy a large pizza." I respond flatly.
"What kind of pizzas are you getting? Never mind. I can get fives. Maybe tens. Just give me an hour and-" She waves her hands around animatedly, a note of panic in her voice that almost manages to make me feel sorry for her.
"Unless you have enough money to pay off whatever Skidmark does to me when I come back without you, it's probably not going to happen." When in doubt, blame Skidmark.
"It's not that I don't want to come-" She lies shamelessly, only to falter at my flat, disbelieving expression. "-okay, I don't want to come at all. Fine. But I tried! But the guards at the gate thought I was just a normal person when I showed up with no entry ticket, and they started laughing at me trying to get in and I thought it would just be really awkward for everyone if I just started waving my lame powers around after that-" She waves a hand that lengthens and contracts mid-motion. "-so I took one for the team and decided to go home."
"Home?" I send a pointed look at the literal trashcan she seemed to be referring to. "That thing?"
She has the grace to look embarrassed. "H-hey, it's the perfect size for sleeping in. It has all of my stuff. Don't have to pay rent. I can pick it up and move it around wherever I want. It's not all that bad, really!"
"It's pretty bad." I can't stop the honest remark before it escapes my mouth.
She slumps deeper into her abode. "Well, it's the best I've got. I tend to get kicked out of places that I rent pretty quickly since I got my powers, and I tried rough sleeping for all of about three nights before some ABB gangbangers realised I was a Cape and chased me off - right into the arms of the Merchants."
She's stalling for time, but I was curious. "How did they manage to work that out? You used your powers in front of them?"
"Don't think so, but it's because of a bad habit of mine." She pokes her head up and out of the trashcan, looking at her surroundings. "I've got a habit of piling things up in my sleep, or when I'm just lazing around. Landlords don't like it, and I guess those guys managed to work it out when their nice, pretty car park turned into something like this overnight." She makes an annoyed sound. "You'd think that I'd get some premium 5-star accommodation as a signing bonus with the Merchants, but all I get are warnings from Squealer that she'll fire me out of her tank if I ever try to sleep in her workshop. That's crazy, right? They should be treating me better, don't you think?"
I attempt a sympathetic smile. "Maybe they don't trust you that much yet? You've only been a Merchant for, what, two days? I'm sure once you prove yourself-"
"Five weeks!" She complains.
I blink. What. "Weren't you fighting Skidmark and Squealer just this weekend?"
"That was just-" She waves a hand in the air. "Disagreements over my working conditions. Skidmark had been calling me a freeloader and a waste of space ever since they pulled me out of that one bind with the ABB I mentioned, and once every other gang in the city started fighting each other - he figured now was a good time to tell Squealer to point a tank at me and make a big show of recruiting me to the cause in front of everyone."
I tilt my head. That was... a very different story to what PHO had guessed at. "And were you? A freeloader, I mean?"
"No!" She protests. "I just hadn't done anything yet, and he seemed to resent that I was eating and living around them without needing to lift a finger."
This time, I don't even need to say anything.
"Okay, okay. Maybe that sounds a little like freeloading." She allows. "But that's the nature of the job! I agreed to show up for Cape fights, but nobody is interested in fighting the Merchants - it's a sweet deal for me! I'm living up to my end of the bargain, he's the one in the wrong here!"
I scratch my chin. "Would Skidmark say the same thing if I asked him for his version of events?"
"Ehhh." She pulls a face. "He's not the type to admit when he's in the wrong- wait, that was a hypothetical, right? You're not actually going to snitch on me?" She affixes me with a pleading gaze. "Please? I'll admit it. I was wrong. I'll change my ways. I'll put my life back together. Starting from tomorrow. Thank you for your insight, kind sir-" She tries to tug the lid of the trash can out of my hand - a weak, but insisting motion as if the conversation was now over and she was trying to ineffectually slam the door on me.
"I think tomorrow might be a bit too late." For me. Even if Skidmark didn't think much of my decision to find Mush - even if he threw me out over some perceived slight - any momentary contact with Squealer, on top of the second-chance at a challenge once Skidmark inevitably showed the pair off to the wider crowd - that would be more than worth it as a parting gift.
"No~" She groans softly. "I don't wanna. He's just going to shout at me and complain, and I'll actually have to talk to people and it will just be a complete disaster all around. Let's just leave it here, you pretend that you never saw me - we both leave happy."
"I think you'll be the only happy one in that scenario." I cross my arms. "Look at it this way, show up once now and look good as a card-carrying member of the Merchants - and he'll never be able to have a good reason to come and beat you up for slacking again without looking like he's lost control."
Mush considers that for a moment. "That's a good point. That's really smart actually. I could do that. There can't be that many people at the party anyway, right? A few dozen people at most, I can just walk past and nobody will pay any attention to me."
"A few hundred, maybe." I cough quietly. "But it's not like they'll make it their mission to get in your way or anything. Nothing to worry about."
"...nope. It's over." She tries to close the lid on herself again. "Tell Skidmark I'm dead. I leave all that I own to the first person to claim my stuff. Throw my body into the sea, at least the fish might appreciate me-"
This girl might be hopeless. "I'm going to roll you to Skidmark in that thing at this rate."
"That could work." Somehow, she's seriously considering that idea. "I just stay in here, and you just sneak me inside and you can tell Skidmark that I was always around and that there's no need to go looking for me. And I won't need to show my face to anyone. Everyone wins." She nods at me. "You're really smart." She tries to close the lid again. I keep my hand firm.
"Are you scared of people seeing you in there? I'd have thought you would be something of a celebrity to them." I cough. "Us, I mean." Supposed to be a Merchant right now.
"Maybe, but I'm just- I'm not much of a party animal. I'd probably just bring the mood down, and I was kind of happier on my own anyway." It's not like I can't sympathise, being an introvert was second-nature to me until my power gave me the chance to win at a real life harem eroge. "I'm... a bit of a mess, I can admit that much. People can kind of tell at a glance, and I just... don't really like that kind of attention? People expect a lot from Capes, and I don't really... have that kind of presence." She makes a pitiful expression. Or, a more pitiful expression than her default one, at least.
"Kind of sounds like you're scared to me." She winces at that. "But, I don't really get it. You're a Cape. You don't need to wander around trying to look intimidating while looking like a regular girl."
And a thoroughly unintimidating one at that. When you looked at Sophia, or even Taylor - you could see the relative fitness and combat capabilities that they had. Not quite a much for me in pure physical matchups, but I wouldn't bet against them in a random encounter on the street. Mush was... me. The old me. Except also female. The sedentary, lazy lifestyle obviously didn't involve any trips to the gym or combat training. Thin and reedy - borderline anorexic, to the point where it looked like she might lose to a stiff breeze if it wasn't for the protection of her personal trashcan on all sides. I doubted her appearance was down to any attempt at a diet or personal discipline, I was rather suspicious that she was just skipping meals to avoid having to interact with people or leave her post.
I continue. "Why don't you just show up as, well, Mush? Nobody's going to argue or look down on you if you're a giant suit of metal and plastic twice their height."
"Skidmark will yell at me for making a scene." She leans her head back against the edge of her trashcan, eyes closing as if she was about to fall asleep. I let my gaze slide downwards at the opportunity, noting with some approval that her shirt was certainly a few sizes too big for her - despite her evident curves, the material just hangs too loosely for me not to notice. Nice.
"I think you making a scene is exactly what Skidmark is hoping for. He wants to show off the power of the Merchant's Capes right now, so showing up and showing off to the regulars is exactly the kind of thing he wants to see." Probably. Maybe.
"You think so?" She considers that for a moment. "Then... I wouldn't even have to show my face. I could just-" The bin rises up into the air as tendrils race out from the sides of the trashcan, two rudimentary legs being used to push upwards before the materials have even finished gathering. "-go like this-" A makeshift claw firmly takes the trashcan lid from my hand, returning it to its usual place - only for the girl inside to pop it slightly ajar, leaving only her eyes visible as her construct grows, selectively gathering and splitting off sturdier materials to weld into the larger body with casual ease. A metal sheet is shorn in two with contemptuous ease, both halves then rising up to conceal the 'torso' where her trashcan and real body resided. "-and nobody will be able to see me."
I angle my head upwards to peer at her. "I think people will still be interested in where the voice is coming from, but, yeah - that looks good to me."
"I'm not going to be talking to them." Her voice booms. No wonder I didn't twig she was female when she was still inside. The way that echoed throughout the structure really hid the nervous, higher pitch if you weren't looking for it. "Because you're going to be doing all the talking for me."
"I don't remember saying that." Not that I was opposed to it, I was a genuine social butterfly these days - and it wouldn't even be strange for the Merchants to see me trailing around yet another Cape at this stage.
"It was when you said you didn't want to go back to Skidmark empty-handed." She tells me, an unmistakable smug hint in her voice that tells me that this is her best attempt at being spiteful. Subjecting someone else to what was apparently her idea of hell.
I raise my hands in mock-surrender. "Fine, fine. If that's what you really want - I can do the talking in your name. You'll have to make appropriately threatening gestures though, the guards were pretty happy to see me leave and they seemed to be looking forward to not letting me back in." I shake my head as she doesn't respond to that, doubtless considering leaving me out to dry out of spite for dragging her out of here. "-which would leave you to face Skidmark all alone-"
"I won't let that happen." She assures me hastily. "We're in this together, you know?"
"Never doubted it." I drawl. "Now, time to go."
Somehow managing to convey body language even through her constructed body, she makes a forlorn shrug of her 'shoulders' and begrudgingly pilots the legs of her new body around the broken piles of materials that she'd been staying in - not seeming fazed when one pile collapses under the weight. However strange it looked, it was the same principle as my version of the power - it wasn't a knight. Or a mech. It was a tendril dressed up to look and act like a mecha - but it didn't entirely act like something that weighed that much did. It wasn't a Tinker's toy, this was a Changer - and future challenges would probably highlight that distinction if I got too comfortable exploiting the weakpoints of her chosen armoured body.
She half-turns, just to make sure I'm following - then sets down the path. I trail behind, eyes locked on the challenge box floating next to the hulking giant.
Mush
Merchant Affiliate 3/5
(CAGE) (PREP)
The third challenge tended to have pretty sizable cooldown timers between each failure, and not knowing how long Skidmark would continue to allow my presence - there was a good chance that I might not get a second attempt while undercover. Better to make it count, but the strategy I used last time won't be nearly as effective in a CAGE environment. My ash clone won't be able to hide itself or its actions as effectively, it wasn't great at defending or dodging most of the time - it's longevity in fights usually came from the counter-intuitive cooldown, where the quicker it gets taken out, the shorter the downtime is for me to resummon it. But any resummoning, complete with handing off the administrator status again on top of Mush's powerset - would start from scratch every time as Mush reincorporates any scrap that gets stolen.
I could do it myself, but it wasn't the most human-friendly power in the first place - and my need to swap away my active power to survive would eventually cause the same issue.
I'd still try. Of course I would. But I'd do so when I'd tried everything else first. Anything that would give me an edge in a fight I expected to be heavily weighted against me. Skidmark. If I could level up his power, just to some modicum of the power that he used against me - that could send a grown man flying with a look - it was a power practically built for CAGE modifiers. Nowhere to run, no tricks to pull - just constant, unrelenting force. Invincible, once the set-up was complete. And, of course, I was hoping that Squealer was the key to solving Skidmark's current challenge. It all tied together.
And Mush was leading me straight to them.
Or, would be leading me - if she hadn't frozen up at a challenge from a patrolling guard at the outer barrier of the compound.
"Get out of the way, idiot!" I swagger up to the guards as they look undecided as to whether they should challenge the approaching giant or not. "You think Mush wants anything to do with you?"
"Is that really Mush?" One guard peers upwards. "I know there was a new Cape around, but I haven't been told much about them-"
"What does that matter? Are you going to get in the way, or is she going to have to step on you?" Behind me, metal shifts and creaks ominously.
"Easy, man. I'm just- just doing my job." He backs down, seeming aggrieved by my attitude. Good. It wasn't the same guards from earlier, but I could hardly resist the opportunity to ham things up and watch them squirm. "Supposed to check on everyone coming in, and why. It's not all that serious."
"And your job is waylaying one of the only Capes the Merchants have? Does it look like Mush wants to talk to someone like you? Why do you think that they're so quiet, even now?" I lean in. This is fun. "It's because they're struggling. Struggling to contain the bloodlust they feel towards this upstart with a peashooter, that thinks he's capable of stopping even this small fraction of their true strength! I'm trying to save your life here man. Mush, I know them well. And they're not the conversational type. They're the kind to kill you on a whim, they're crazy - you don't want to spend any more time than you have to around them. Why else do you think Skidmark usually keeps them away from everyone else? Even he's nervous about it."
The man looks nervous, perhaps weighing up the mood swings and violent tendencies of Skidmark, and considering the possibility that this one might just be just as bad or worse. "You can go through." He steps aside quickly.
I march onwards. I make it around the next corner, then about five metres before a clawed hand picks me up gently - dangling me in the air, turning me to face Mush eye-to-eye. A very teary, pouty set of eyes.
"You-" She looks like she wants to strangle me. "What are you even saying-" She chokes out. "What does that guy even think of me now, what's he going to tell all of his friends!?"
"That he and all of his buddies should avoid dragging you into small talk for no reason." I respond innocently. "You're welcome. I'm full of good ideas, I know."
"That last bit was fine, the rest of it-" She shakes me in the air from side-to-side. "What was that?"
"Well, you could explain the misunderstanding to them if you want." I grin. "Or, you could just take it as a win that the next time Skidmark sends someone to get you - everyone's going to be real invested in getting lost along the way."
"I'll get you back for this." She promises me ominously. The effect is slightly lost thanks to the embarrassed flush in her expression and the hint of furious tears in her eyes.
I shrug. Maybe I got a bit carried away. I saw an opportunity to fuck with her, I had to take it. "Whatever. Skidmark should be- well. He was in that building, but he went to talk to Squealer, so I suppose he's in there now?" I point out the connected buildings. "But, I don't think you'll fit through the entrance without getting out of that thing."
Her entire body stiffens at that. "I don't know if we need to do all of that. I'll just squeeze in to the garage like one of Squealer's vehicles."
"I think those doors are pretty firmly closed-" I start. And... she's already gone. I hurry after her to catchup, issuing threats and warnings to every curious partygoer that scatters at the approaching Cape's approach.
She arrives at the garage doors blocking the way to Squealer's temporary workshop, and with a flex of her arms - forces them open, the screeching protest of metal causing the onlookers to wince and cover their ears, even as she ducks into the entrance she's forced into the garage - with me lurking just outside, trying to get a peek inside without being spotted in turn. Just a single glance at Squealer, and I wouldn't even have to deal with an irate Skidmark annoyed at me making decisions for myself - I could go back to the club and plead ignorance. It wasn't like Mush knew my name or anything.
I draw close just in time to hear the occupants of the room greet Mush.
"You fucking moron! I told you that if you ever set foot into my workshop again, I'd fire you out of the cannon to get you to leave - and what do you do, you charge in and start breaking things! Look at what you're standing on. I spent ages on that! How are you going to fix it?" A mumbled response isn't quite audible to me. "No, you know what? You'll just make it worse by trying. Just get out. You have five seconds, then I get the tank ready."
"Don't you dare move a fucking muscle Mush!" Skidmark roars. "Where the fuck have you been? I explicitly ordered you to show up today, and what do I discover but you sneaking back out the moment I turn my back. I barely expected anything out of you anyway, but surely even a shitstain like you can appreciate showing up when you're supposed to - and not turning one of my parties into a freakshow by showing up and acting like this? What's the point of the stupid fucking suit? Get out of that shit and explain yourself-"
"I- I- I-" Mush half-turns, and suddenly I'm grabbed from my hidden position next to the entrance - abruptly put on display right in front of Squealer and Skidmark. "It's all his fault! He told me to do it!"
I give her a wounded look over my shoulder. She's ducked completely into her trashcan to avoid meeting my gaze. I turn back to the angry-looking Skidmark, and the somehow-even-angrier woman at his side - who now seems content to transfer all of her irritation at Mush towards me instead. I glance down at Mush's foot, the flattened remains of a motorbike of some description has already been sheepishly pushed away by Mush - but it's easy to see that the damage won't be easily fixed.
I let out a quick laugh. There went the plan of being discrete, but this wasn't so bad either. Skidmark. Squealer. Mush. All in one place. An opportunity for me, this exact situation was what I'd been hoping for this entire time.
And so long as my real-life body could survive the three accusing stares full of blame, I'd be making it out of here like a bandit.
"H-hey boss." I give Skidmark a nervous-looking grin. "Thought I'd show some initiative, go find the missing member. Not a bad job, right? The gang is all together again." I spread my arms wide as much as I can, which wasn't far with Mush still firmly holding me in place. "No need to thank me."
Skidmark takes a long look at me. Then at the shattered remains of Squealer's work. Then at the gaping hole in the workshop that a few dozen Merchants were curiously peering through. Then at the towering figure behind me that was trying to use me as a meatshield. Then back to me again.
"You're fired."
Alas. The job market sure is tough these days. No appreciation for the real go-getters.