(AN: This is pretty late coming out, but its also 41K words. A bit too big, but the logical place to split the chapter felt too unsatisfying when taken on its own. Naturally, this size is a real pain to edit - I'm posting it in now as it is, I'll come back and properly check everything over tomorrow after I wake up - feel like I've put off posting a bit too long to keep holding onto it.)
I wave as Taylor steps away to go and prepare for her next class, a complicated expression on her face - but not a hostile one. That was a victory. That was a crisis averted. A crisis that probably hadn't needed to happen if I'd approached Winslow differently... but a crisis all the same.
Now I just needed to find more time to talk with her, build that bond back up - and then ease her into the reveal of my actual identity and I'd have completely navigated The Taylor Problem without any major issues.
Apart from the Emma thing. My smile flickers at that thought, but Taylor isn't looking anymore - so I allow it to fall from my face entirely. Nevermind that. It wasn't worth thinking about.
As it turns out, trying not to think about it doesn't help. Not purely because of my own thoughts, but because Emma had no intention of just letting things go either. I catch a glimpse of her as I take a late lunch in the cafeteria. She doesn't make a move to approach, just eyeing my presence with an expression made of some strange blend of tears and rage, spite and grief, heartbreak and contempt. When it becomes clear I have no intention of approaching her, her expression darkens and she turns back to the group of friends surrounding her. Not the Trio, but some familiar faces all the same. A dozen girls and half-as-many boys that take turns shooting me with glares or frowns before returning their attention to the redhead as she speaks in a hushed tone.
I could imagine the kind of story she was weaving right now. Some of it might even be true. But this wasn't really a matter of gossip, this was Emma readying her weapon of choice against me. I suppose she was thinking that I could be bullied into compliance, that without the 'benefits' that came from being around her, I might come crawling back. She was probably thinking I would be little different to Taylor. An easy target to bully. Social isolation. A war of words against the raw numbers that her widespread social network could provide. A hostile environment that would back her up at every turn and stifle any resistance I made.
That was absolutely terrible news for me. Not because of Emma specifically - but because of what that meant. It meant that I couldn't rely on my power to keep people loyal to me. That maxing out challenges just wasn't enough for someone to place my interests over their own. In the grand scheme of things, Emma being unable to let go of her grudge against Taylor didn't mean much - but knowing that any heroes that I completed would probably side against me if everything was revealed... that was more of a blow. Knowing that the 'alliances' and 'friendships' I'd made couldn't be fully relied on is painful to think about. Objectively, it makes me no worse off than anyone else... but pretty much nobody else has to worry about the world signing off on a kill order on them if they don't balance public support and personal power well enough.
And it posed problems to future harem management. Which was also a key concern. Not the only one... but I had that on my mind too. I won't deny it.
A sample size of one wasn't everything, of course. The upside was that, at least initially, Emma's 'betrayal' had been framed as her doing something for my sake. Saving me from Taylor, bettering me as a person, keeping me untainted by her 'weakness' - even if that damaged our relationship. And I wasn't unconvinced that, if I did want to fix things at any cost - I could reconcile with Emma pretty easily by renouncing the whole Taylor thing. I wouldn't be doing that, so I could probably expect the spurned girl to continue attempting to try and cause issues for me.
I wasn't worried. Nothing at school posed a credible threat to me. This was like I'd come back to the starter zone at level thirty, and accidentally triggered a level three sidequest. If anyone tried bullying me, or causing issues with my schoolwork or even - and the idea was a little laughable - resorting to physical violence? I'd just clear a few of their challenges and have them sheepishly apologising for being rude before they'd gotten through their first sentence.
Which meant I could ignore Emma. Which was good. Because I didn't care. Maybe I did a short while ago. But no more. Maybe I had been flip-flopping over whether or not she was someone I would naturally leave behind as I moved to a bigger stage, or if she was someone I might take with me. That decision had been made for me. It doesn't matter anymore. I can find another hot, jealous redhead without even leaving Winslow. I'm fine. I am. The only thing I'm upset about is the pragmatic implications of today - it certainly wasn't that I'd gotten attached.
Definitely not.
If anything, it was just the unfamiliar feeling of 'losing' something in the real world - coupled with the annoyance at how easily I could have navigated around it with the benefit of hindsight. If it was anything like my everyday challenges, this whole issue would have been completely irrelevant already.
Emma's laugh carries across the room and the group unsubtly turns to look at me again. I grimace at nothing, tossing the remains of my sandwich towards the nearest trash can. Not hungry anymore. If anything, today had proven that anything in my civilian life was a waste of time - evidently, no amount of Mastering on the student body could erase the permanent stain of simply being Greg Veder. Trying to fix that was an exercise in futility. 'Greg' had exactly one purpose: To get on with his school and home life without generating a missing person report that would eventually end up with the PRT once the police realised what was likely happening. Anything more than the minimum was just wasted effort.
With that in mind, I skip my next class to find a quiet corner of the school to laze around in - instead shifting my focus to the ash clone halfway across the city. It was holding Squealer's Tinker power right now - struggling to slim down every aspect of the teleporter, even as the efficacy of the work plummets as her speciality falls away in relevance. Soon, I'd kill it - allow the long cooldown to recover before setting it up again, this time with Leet's power to manage the final steps.
It wasn't entirely optimal, but I didn't have the time to iterate through designs endlessly with my paste-box and I didn't have the resources and manufacturing capabilities to try and design a fully Leet-based product that could do everything I wanted. Squealer's power might be off her speciality by this point in the design, but doing it this way limited the areas that the project had problems in - namely, that it was too heavy and used too much energy. Both issues would be manageable if attached to a monster truck with appropriate levels of size and power, but for now I could engineer my way out of them by using better materials, stripping out unnecessary parts and covering the rest with Leet's power. That gave Leet's power just one or two things to make 'interesting' rather than twenty different components all with unique quirks that needed careful analysis to make them synergise together properly - or at least non-lethally.
Iterating on Squealer's Tinkertech, using that as the core, was letting me skip up the tech tree to get a more potent product early. It was proof that letting a Tinker do the weeks, months-long process of iterating, testing and building before yoinking the final product was the optimal way for me to Tinker. The 'next level' here wasn't trying to build up a Tinker base of my own, it was waiting for Leet to finally exit her Tinker fugue and answer her phone - or wait for Squealer to come to terms with the reality of her situation and reach out to me again. Or maybe, somehow, I could find a way to get my hands on Armsmaster's actual tech and slingshot my way into the Tinkering scene like that.
"There you are." I turn at the sound of the voice, raising an eyebrow at Sophia as she approaches.
"Looking for me?" I cross my arms over my chest. "Didn't know you cared."
"We share a class, you didn't show up. I was starting to worry I hit you too hard and you landed in the nurse's office." Sophia waves me off. I snort. "When I didn't find you there, I figured you were just too embarrassed after losing to me in our little scrap and felt you couldn't show your face in public anymore - and sure enough, here you are, crying at the shame of your defeat in the darkest corner of the school."
I know she's baiting me. I know she's just looking to get a rise out of me after an... awkward lunch break. I fall for it anyway. "I'm glad to see your imagination is as creative as ever. I seem to distinctly remember you sucker-punching me and still getting effortlessly handled within the span of a few seconds. Perhaps you hit your head too hard when I threw you to the ground, and now you have memory loss? You should check on that."
Sophia adopts a feigned look of confusion. "Funny, I seem to remember leaving you on the floor and ending the second fight myself while you were trying to recover."
"By cheating, yes." At least this part of the school gave me confidence that there weren't any eavesdroppers around. "Needing to risk outing yourself just so that you didn't look bad in a little brawl - I'd be embarrassed."
"Oh, you mean you aren't good enough with your powers to cheat without outing yourself?" Sophia smirks. "Sounds like that's a 'you' problem." I roll my eyes at her as she grins unrepentantly. "Besides, things worked out - Hebert's been working out somewhere, I'm pretty sure if I'd let things play out between them things would have ended up in the principal's office somehow - and who wants that? You should be thanking me for my intervention - and for telling Emma that a real predator wouldn't go running to get help just because a cornered rat fought back for the first time."
Admittedly, I had wondered why I hadn't needed to blast through Blackwell's remaining challenges before the end of the lunch break - I totally had Emma pegged for the 'I'm telling the Teacher' type, but Sophia appealing to her ego seems to have undercut that approach. "I appreciate that." Wouldn't have been necessary if I'd entertained the idea that there was a third option for Emma that wasn't 'step aside' or 'fall in line'. "Almost makes me want to forgive you for the sucker punch."
"You enjoyed that." I send her a look. "No, really - you looked in dire need of someone to hit. You'd flatten Emma, so why not present myself as an option? It's basically foreplay to us anyway, you get to look good in front of Taylor, I get to look good in front of Emma - everything is great, apart from your broken heart - but, I can't really do much about that."
"I don't have a broken heart." I pull a face at her. "Things were never that serious between us, I'm pretty sure I made it clear what our relationship was multiple times. I didn't expect it to end like that, but I'm not bothered by it either."
"So you say." I glare at her insincere tone.
"I'm not." I insist mulishly.
"Sure." She holds her hands up in the air in mock-surrender. "Wouldn't think any less of you if you were though. You two seemed to be getting along, kind of a shame it ended like this. A bit predictable in hindsight." She waves me off before I can speak. "Not going to defend her. I just mean, part of me expected it - I even tried to warn you - but I didn't know for sure. The thing with Taylor is a bit of a hot-button trauma topic for her. Or rather, she's got a hot-button trauma topic and uses Taylor as her focus for dealing with that. I know last time I said it wasn't really my story to tell, but clearly she isn't volunteering the information even if it kills her - if you want, I can just tell you-"
"No." I shake my head. "It doesn't matter anymore."
For a moment, it looks like she wants to argue - then she sighs. "I guess. I think she'll come around sooner or later, but her natural response to something not going her way is to try and stomp the obstacle into the dirt. That's probably my fault. I mean, it's a good attitude most of the time - just, not the best at resolving arguments between friends."
"Well, we're not friends." I reply shortly. "It doesn't matter if she comes around. It's done. If I can't trust her with something this minor, how can I trust her with this?" My hand flickers into shadow.
A sigh. "I get that. I'm not going to try and convince you otherwise. She's my friend, but some things are a bit too personal for me to do for her." Sophia crosses her arms. "I'm not- urgh. I don't know, I guess I just feel bad. I know she made her own choices, but Emma feels like my responsibility somehow - I was fine letting things be as they were, but now my friends are fighting because I didn't do something to head it off before."
"No point lingering over it." At least she feels a little bad about it too. She's wrong though - only assuming that there is blame to be shared because she doesn't know about me. As the one with the Master power, pretty much everything here comes back to me and my choices in the end. I should have extracted the full story from Emma weeks ago and gone from there. I'd have known that it was apparently a super-big-deal to her rather than just a hobby, the whole thing with Taylor would probably have been pretty easy to fix... I just hadn't been that interested. It was too low-level. Too civilian for me. I'd just hoped that the petty issues would even themselves out as I progressed Taylor - and now I was paying for that lack of interest.
Well. I had even less reason to care now. Eventually, once I'd ingratiated myself into the Wards and the Protectorate - I'd likely be transferring to Arcadia. Dragging Taylor with me would probably be easy enough - and Emma could just sit and rot in the results of her own bad decision-making.
And mine too, except those were less clear-cut. Of course, I could point to certain highlights. Avoiding the initial argument with Taylor by talking with her earlier, actually digging into the depths of the issue that those two had with each other - but, ultimately, it all paled in the simple fact that after beating Emma's final challenge when sleeping over at her house, she should have been completely loyal. Every assumption that I'd made about my power and eventual conquest of the Bay - and beyond - hinged on that fact.
And she'd turned on me over what was little more than a hobby. A trauma-fuelled one, maybe - but it wasn't even anything serious. How would it even compare to getting outed as a power-stealing Master intent on becoming an S-Class threat and subverting the entire world to his whims? If four relationship boosts couldn't guarantee a schoolgirl taking my side, how would having even fewer for Capes keep them at my side for anything serious?
I pause.
My gaze slides to Sophia.
Wait. That was a good question.
Maybe... maybe I was looking at this wrong. Instead of looking at Emma and seeing where my power had failed, I should look at Sophia to see where it hadn't. Sophia still had challenges left. I'd gained fewer relationship boost rewards with her. And she was still here. Practically walking around behind her best friend's back like her new blood feud was nothing but a passing phase from a sulking toddler that was best ignored by the adults in the room.
Not just that. She hadn't sold me out to the PRT for knowing her identity. Went along with our patrols. Dedicated her time to working with us for nothing in return. Had enthusiastically joined in on a blatantly illegal raid on the Merchants that had ended with Skidmark getting mutilated. Had continued to hang around me despite knowing that I was essentially copying her powers wholesale the longer she spent around me.
If I was taking Emma as representative of everyone - Sophia should have flipped on me a long time ago. She hadn't. Not even when I had less challenges cleared than I do now.
Which meant that something was different.
"Hey, Sophia." I begin. "Why are you here?" She adopts an offended expression and I rush to continue. "No, I mean - Emma's your best friend, right? You've known me for way less time. Maybe you didn't know in advance that it would be this dramatic, but you were already making plans to say you'd stick around with me even before the fight. You never went to the PRT to tell them I knew your identity, when that would clearly benefit you. It would have been pretty understandable to drop me at some stage, or go to the PRT just to ensure your own protection - why didn't you?"
"Are you stupid?" She sends me a harsh look. "We've been through too much together for me to ditch you just because you and Emma disagree about one girl. You get me. I get you. We're-" She shifts uncomfortably for a moment. "-partners. Honestly, I trust you more than the PRT." She shakes her head. "You said it earlier, right? Why end a relationship over something so minor?
"And then Emma proceeded to do exactly that." I counter.
She waves a hand into the air. "Sure, but you and me? We're obviously closer than you and Emma were." There's a sheepish expression on her face. "You and Emma were just fucking. There were feelings there, sure - but, from what I saw, I'd say that it wasn't as developed as what you and I have. You just ticked Emma's boxes in the mindset that she wants in a guy, and she got to fuck over Taylor in the process. And, I mean, I can't say it was too different for me at first - but, we've moved past that. We're more than that. If you took that away now, I'd still-" She cuts herself off.
"Still-?" I prompt, failing to keep a wry grin off of my face at the expression she was making. "Go on, I get the feeling you were about to say something sweet just now."
Sophia flips me off, a darker complexion than usual visible on her cheeks. "Fuck off. This is getting sappy and embarrassing. I'm not doing this bullshit. I'm just saying, we're partners. We don't get to walk away from each other because of stupid crap. It's that simple."
That simple?
Maybe it was.
"Yeah." I send her a genuine smile. "I guess it is. Thanks, Sophia - it's good having you around." She opens her mouth to say something snarky, and I take the opportunity to pull her close and press my lips to hers. The sound of outrage she lets out isn't accompanied by any real struggle.
We break apart a moment later. Sophia looks ready to argue, or complain, or rage about something on pure principle - but in the end, simply huffs and steps out of my reach. "At least you're not moping anymore, I guess. But I'm not playing therapist for you, I've got better things to do. Go fish for compliments somewhere else, I'm not here to massage your bruised ego - or to massage anything else, for that matter." She mock-glares at me before I can even open my mouth. I click it shut. "I didn't come over here for fun. Just wanted to say that I'm on console duty today and tomorrow - so I won't see you after school or for any patrols until that's out of the way."
"Pretty sure you could have said that in a message." I tilt my head at her. "You may as well be honest about why you're really here."
She rolls her eyes. "Fine, I also wanted to check that you weren't going to throw yourself off the roof or something after getting rejected. You looked pretty upset about how things went down, figured I could remind you that between your pretty-cool powers and having me around - your life is pretty fucking amazing even without Emma." I pull a face and make a dismissive gesture at her words. It was appreciated, but her estimation of me was way off. She smirks. "Plus, it sounds like even without Emma - you're going to have Hebert choking on your dick soon instead. I'd still call it a bad trade, but somehow I can see her getting into it."
I shrug. "She says she has a boyfriend."
Sophia bursts out laughing.
And keeps laughing.
She doubles over, her laugh turning into a hysterical wheeze.
I wait it out.
I keep waiting.
Eventually, she recovers. "That was a good joke for once-" She pats me on the shoulder as she turns away, shoulders still shaking with mirth. "-keep that up, and people will actually think that you're funny. Remember what I said. Things are great. I'm still here. We're still an awesome team. All of that stuff." She saunters away, seeming pleased with herself.
I wasn't joking, but... admittedly, the reality of the situation would have been even more comedic to her. "I'll remember." I agree. And I would.
Because even if Emma was gone, Sophia was still here.
And as much as I appreciated that fact on its own, there was another layer to it.
Even if Emma, with every single challenge complete, was gone - Sophia, with two challenges still to go, was still here. And Sophia was arguably doing a lot more for me than I'd ever asked of Emma. Her earlier explanation for my 'dumb' question springs to mind - that she was still here because we had a better bond. In a way, it was too simplistic - she didn't know about the Master element that was involved.
And in another way? It just worked.
Because that explanation? It made sense. Fundamentally, my issue came down to two parts - one, that my power couldn't - or wouldn't - do everything for me. Two, this was real life. I could do things, achieve things, that weren't explicitly given to me as a reward. Just like I could theoretically have found a girlfriend without ever clearing a challenge in my life, just like I could make a move on Taylor and Emma before completing their challenges - despite the game-like interface my powers had chosen, this wasn't a game. These were real people.
I'd already known that. I just hadn't extrapolated what that meant up to this point, partly because I'd simply never had cause for a maxed-out 'victim' to have their loyalty and obedience tested.
It did change things though. I'd been counting on the fact that discreetly, quietly completing someone's challenges would simply make them just as loyal as anyone else whenever I showed myself. But under that logic of assuming that all challenge rewards were equal, it was impossible to explain Emma's actions in the same context as Sophia making a - by her standards - half-hearted attempt at keeping appearances for her friend while inarguably keeping her in the dark over the fact that she'd very much chosen me over her. And was already considering me over the Wards too. Sophia, still missing a few of her challenges, Emma, fully completed. If the reverse had happened, it would make sense - but this way around? Something was different. The first possibility was that it was just different for Capes, but that didn't click right - I could only conclude that there was an element involving the quality of the relationship at play.
I couldn't deny Sophia's words. My thing with Emma had always been fairly shallow. Something born mostly from her looking to spite Taylor, which had grown into a power-fuelled addiction to me that I had eagerly exploited and fanned into love - of sorts, anyway. A sexual relationship where I was more of a... living example of what she wanted out of the 'perfect guy' rather than a desire for Greg Veder in particular. I could say the same for Sophia, but there was a lot more depth there - we'd seen the truth of each other's natures, challenged it, worked together and explored our relationship to a far greater extent.
It wasn't that abusing that starting line to launch the relationship was bad - nor did I even think it was a problem to just use the challenge rewards as-given if all I wanted was a burst of approval, to get laid or even just to get my foot in the door for a wider relationship. But at the same time, in Emma's case? I hadn't really tried to make it into anything more - perhaps partly because I kept mentally flip-flopping on whether Emma was a soon-to-be-discarded fling or someone worth keeping by my side even after the Taylor hatesex threesome.
And, damn - if that idea wasn't a lot less attractive now that I was the one feeling hateful. I'd get over it, probably. Attractive women had a way of making me forgive them, but I was empathising with Taylor more than usual right now.
Getting back from that tangent - I'd already known that giving my power more to work with made it less likely to attempt wild, sweeping changes to justify anything it did. A previously-existing relationship was better than one sprung from nothing. I just hadn't extended that logic to the fact that my power would only do so much, only go so far. That I needed to put effort into cultivating what was given - at least, if I wanted to put it through the metaphorical trial by fire by doing something that was against their nature.
There was a reason Sophia was still around, with us mutually bonding over violence, our outlook on the Bay, thoughts on the gangs, Skidmark, illegal vigilantism and the unspoken fact that I was blatantly farming powers off the heroes despite her position in the Wards. She was still here despite the messy breakup with Emma. Even before I'd progressed Sophia that far, she'd never looked to seriously throw me to the Protectorate for knowing her identity. Because I'd taken it slow. Taken my time. Enjoyed the journey.
The gamer part of me hated that. The one that looked at Brockton Bay like a spreadsheet and a living mission-tree. The part of me that looked at my issues - like with not seeing the heroes on patrol - and reasoned that one distraction with Mush's power, one quick detonation with a grenade would have an entire response force rushing out into my line of sight in an instant. The part of me that said I knew the Protectorate base like the back of my hand through the WRLD modifier, and that repeating a challenge or two to get clues towards some exact names and addresses before looking to catch a stray glimpse of the heroes going home from work or school would be trivial.
That part of me resented the fact that repeating a few tricks like that in subtle silence had been 'nerfed', that the end-result was weaker - shakier - compared to a Greg that had established common ground first, or during, the process of challenging them - a Greg that had taken the effort to grow that bond himself. A Greg that took the time to present himself to the world as a Hero, rather than as a threat-report notice from a panicking pre-cog or Thinker that glanced my way during their coffee break.
And part of me liked it. The part of me that looked at my interactions with Sophia, with Taylor - and now knew that it wasn't a waste. That my efforts and interactions wouldn't be overwritten and ignored the moment I cleared the next challenge. If a relationship worked on a scale of 1-100 - and a boost was worth, say, twenty points - putting in the time and effort to grow it by thirty on my own would mean something. They'd probably still fuck me if I cleared all of their challenges and nothing else - but trying to improve upwards from a point of '60' was probably harder than from '25'. Not impossible. Not even worth it, for a lot of my targets - it was a big world after all. But for the people I did care about, that I did interact with heavily - that I was trusting and expecting trust in turn... under this logic - and I felt the certainty in my bones this time - they would follow me into hell if I did it right. If I dedicated my time. Treated it like- well. Like a relationship, rather than an achievement.
Looking at it through that lens? I was feeling okay about things. Still livid about Emma. But, there was a learning experience there. And, for all that I was annoyed... at least it was 'just' Emma. I could find another hot, jealous redhead without even leaving Winslow. There was a reason I'd prioritised fixing things with Taylor over her feelings, and that was because - bluntly - I cared about Taylor and Sophia more. If I'd ruined things with one of them beyond my ability to repair? That would have been devastating, with long-lasting consequences. And while Taylor would still probably be mad at me if everything about my identity came out today... I don't think it would have the same catastrophic consequences to our relationship that it would have yesterday. Maybe she'd need some time away to think about things, but I wouldn't expect her to just run off to become a crazed supervillain at the revelation anymore.
Which wasn't an entirely unfounded worry, given what some of her challenges involved.
I debate skipping the rest of my classes for the day as well, not wanting to skip too many times in a row, but not really burning with any desire to attend either. I doubted much would come of a few one-off skips like this. I'd already made it a habit to challenge every teacher, every staff member, every bus driver - I had never been bored enough to do it for the entire student body, but I figured that clearing two challenges from everyone in a position of authority - or anyone that might feel obliged to report anything suspicious - would give me some leeway for anything I did here. The benefit of the doubt, whether it was reluctance to get me in trouble as a civilian - or whether it was to look at me with suspicion that I was a Cape doing something suspicious at the school. As long as it wasn't long-term enough to flag on a system, missing out on class here and there was just a solid perk from covering my bases.
I smile at the gossiping students. Speaking of challenging the student body, here they come again. A stream of challenge boxes flows through the corridor. Four challenges, sometimes five, sometimes three - that seemed to be the general rule for a civilian. I tended to assume four, and that let me use the 'current challenge' as something to categorise them without bothering to remember names. Ones to Fours, the people who liked me the least, and the ones who were already mine.
Mine, but to no greater an extent than Emma had been.
I ignore that sour thought. Things are great. I settle in to watch people go past, occasionally nodding in greeting at those who glance my way.
Fours meet my eyes and wave, or blush and duck away with a giggle to their friends. Threes and twos send me smiles, or nod in passing if they catch sight of me leaning against the wall. Sometimes, I just get silence in response - not irritation, not friendliness. Just an impassive acknowledgement. Ones ignore me. Those I had never challenged, or perhaps had challenged - but it had been so early in my career that I hadn't beaten them. Maybe half of the students were still 'ones'. It wasn't a lack of ability on my part, but a lack of patience and concern over what it might look like to be the only guy in a newly-all-girls school - nevermind the occasional reminder from my power that too many different challenges in a day would cause it to hit the brakes on my body.
The ones and the twos were different today. The cause? Probably Emma. The gossip that was a little too loud to be normal, the co-ordinated movement of a group 'stumbling' across me - all with a comment about my looks, my history as a drug abuser or a violent thug, my gang allegiances, my relationship with Taylor, the fact that I'd been dumped by Emma-
My elegant rebuttal to that last one comes in the form of a whisper, followed by my bloodstained fists smashing into their skulls. There was no need to preserve my hands or hold back my strikes, just to see what would win in the battle between their bones, their desire to live and my broken, but functional hands. When that question is resolved, I turn to chairs. Tables. The wall. Then the long fall to the ground. Knives. Vehicles. Experimenting with how far my version of Skidmark's power could propel someone if they were 'willing' to sit still for me.
I run out of would-be bullies before I run out of ideas. Success, success, success. As expected, it would take a special challenge for me to lose to a single civilian at this point. Knowing that the only thing that can instantly cost me challenges at this level are guns really changes things. There's one thing to watch out for, and everything else can be handled on reaction. There's no reason to lose.
Success. Success. Success. I didn't usually aim to max out civilians in challenges like this, the fear of getting caught from changes that were too large or unintuitive had stifled that idea - and the lack of reason to bother had stopped me from doing it slowly over time. But nonchalantly wiping out what Emma might have called her inner circle of friends - outside of the rest of the Trio - brought the smile back to my face. I wasn't really feeling in the mood to exploit the girls now, no matter how attractive - they were just like her. And while the knowledge that they could turn on me if I pushed things too far didn't exactly kill my sex drive, it didn't help either. I wasn't in the mood right now.
But I could at least take solace in the fact that now they were as useless to Emma as they were to me. I can already imagine her mounting frustration as her friends express a lack of interest in bullying the 'cute' boy she was asking them to target. The friends that would usually egg her on, instead telling her that she was overreacting - and the rest of the Trio wouldn't be any improvement either. It wouldn't be the end of it. Emma had already been the Queen Bee of the school before I ever got involved. She had influence and a wider personal social network than I had even in digital form. She'd find others to work with. New friends to point in my direction. New favours to call in. New methods to get back at me and have me crawling back to her protection.
But there were only so many 'ones' in the school that would be willing to come after me for no reason. I'd just deal with them as I see them. Maybe a more concentrated effort could turn the tables on her entirely, inflict the same emotional and social isolation on her that Taylor had been subjected to, that she'd obviously ordered me to be subjected to. It would be deliciously ironic, but wasting my time on her would indicate that I cared more than I actually did. I'll just let reality sort itself out. Eventually, she'll run out of pawns - and the people around her would be indifferent at best, hostile at worst, to the idea of opposing me.
Still, it was a lot. Part of me wonders if the size of her influence over the school was always like this, or if it was an unintended consequence of what I'd done. The airbrushing and boosts that my power did were still reality, at the end of the day - Emma and Madison were already the Queen Bees of the school before I got involved. After hanging around me so much as I swayed the opinions of everyone who breathed in my direction wrong, plus boosting their already-good looks up to the point where they'd need to be stupid to not weaponise their looks in a future career... it wouldn't be surprising to me if the reason so much of the school was falling over themselves for a whisper of her favour was ultimately my fault.
Not that I was regretting it, it was just an interesting idle thought. There was no real consequence here to kick myself over. Not at the level I was at now. Not when I had something important to focus on. Namely, the fact that, in about twenty-six hours, I would be standing in the crowd at yet another PR event for the heroes. The first had been... productive, but I just hadn't had the toolset to exploit it like I really wanted. I'd walked away with a handful of useful powers, but if I'd had just one or two more gamechangers at the time - the haul would have been on a completely different level.
This time, things would be different. It was hard to know exactly how many heroes would be attending, I doubted I would see the full roster given the tension in the city right now - but at least a few figures from the Protectorate would be guaranteed, based on every previous Ward reveal. A few of the Wards themselves would likely be attending - not least of which was the cause of the whole thing: Browbeat.
Of course, Sophia had mentioned the name before a few times prior to the official announcement and PHO had heard the name being thrown around long before any official announcement - but that wasn't why I was interested. I recognised him from Taylor's bank-robbing challenge. He'd been... fairly unimpressive at the time, but a lot of that could just be down to the scenario being rigged to have the Wards die if I didn't intervene. I'd never tried to seriously inspect his actual powerset at the time, just treated him like a generic Brute - and that seemed to work. Which was good. That was what I needed! An actual Brute powerset was right up there near the top of my wishlist, right next to flight. Blaster powers would have been up there too, but they'd been knocked down a tier just because I at least had one ranged option now. Still something I wanted, obviously.
But I couldn't just... show up. Expecting to beat a presumed-Brute in an unknown challenge like it was natural. Was it possible to win that? Sure. In fact, I would guess that overall - the Wards first challenges were generally easier than the more experienced Capes. Just thinking of that first Gallant challenge... it was really just gift-wrapped to me, if only he wasn't wearing his power-armour at the time. He wasn't even looking in my direction when the challenge started, any anti-Brute power would have been an instantaneous win and an extra power in my arsenal.
Well, it does show how different things could have been - there's more than one path that I could have taken with my power, even if I'd never run into Sophia and Taylor as my first Capes.
Enough. Focus. The point of this train of thought was that I needed to run through plans for anyone who might show up.
Vista? Doable. Assuming she repeats the same move as before, I just need to cross the distance quickly - and splitting her focus and attention with my ash clone would be a good idea as well. I've got more mobility options than last time we met, and I know the exact move that she's going to try. It's already a fact that Vista is Manton-limited, so simply closing in on her will interfere with the very method she's using to keep me away. I just need to be fast, quick off the mark - she only needs the slightest moment to make the situation impossible, but the twin 'surprises' of hurling myself through the first wall she tries to contain me in with the shadow state and the ability for me to oh-so-briefly overwrite her stretched-space with my own pinched-space should be enough.
Clockblocker? The pseudo-race through the city? I need more repetitions to see if there's a trick further down the line, or if he's dangerous in-person at all - but I didn't have my speed-state back then. My speed-state is comfortably faster than a typical car if the latter is forced to weave through obstacles like that. I should be able to catch him easily enough, what I actually do at that point... well. That's something I'll have to think about. So long as he has the DOOM modifier - that win condition granting him victory if he reaches the end of the road - I literally cannot let him touch me while he's still able to move under his own power. My obvious supremacy in any possible confrontation would be irrelevant because he would just tag me and run before I even knew what happened.
Gallant? Already dead. His power armour was good, but he's literally never upgraded it since his debut. I'd seen too many videos of him getting his ass kicked - no special Tinker effects, no inertia dampeners, no forcefields - nothing to protect him from my balls. My doll-balls. Ball-dolls. I'm not calling them that. It's Parian's doll power, in a ball shape - there's got to be a cool name I can use for it when someone asks.
Magic Football. Cloth Missile. Fabric Rocket. Ball of Doom. I don't know. Strange, I don't usually struggle with amazing names - but for some reason, they all sound a little bit cringe for once.
Whatever. I'm going to turn Gallant's helmet into a soup container by slamming a telekinetically-accelerated, forcefield-coated mass into the back of his head at great speed. That's what's going to happen. As for the challenges after that... I'm not sure. It's easy to know that I'm likely to be in a more head-to-head conflict - but, honestly, I don't even know how to prepare. He's a shit Tinker. Sometimes shoots baby blasts at people that can make you sad. How do you prepare for that? I don't know. Distract, surround by comboing with my ash clone, lock him down with Clockblocked strings and then tear him to pieces. I don't need a new power for that, the losses are more likely to come from the nature of the scenario than anything he can do. He's essentially a worse version of Triumph.
Speaking of which. Triumph. I don't have a great plan here. His Brute rating wasn't widely discussed, but it existed - and any Brute rating sucked for me in a challenge like that - where the fight immediately happens with no prep time. But even if I had that, even if I could make the Mechablade - it was his ranged power that was the problem. Too strong. Too long-ranged. Too low-cooldown. Any win would have to be capitalising on a mistake, letting him get in close and then immediately claiming victory before he could kill me. One hit, one kill. If I could give my clone some cloth, Parian's power and enough time to work with... no. Too cumbersome. Too obvious. And the sheer impact of the shockwaves he released... it's more likely than not that my ash clone can't even survive being in the same room as that attack - even if it isn't the direct target. One of the downsides of being at 1hp all the time. In short, I wasn't beating him as I was now.
What power would help? Kaiser? Hookwolf? The Blaster powers of New Wave were a bit too weak for a Brute at the level I was likely to get them, and flight wouldn't protect me from his range. Miss Militia, but I'd already been burned once hoping for a weapon out of her power. Clockblocker's power, if it lost the Manton effect - or even just the restriction on worn items. Assault? I have no idea how the shockwaves would interact with his power, but being realistic - I would need the full-fledged power for this, not the simple version I'd likely get to start with. Brandish? I nod to myself. Brandish. Lightsaber to the face would do the trick. I'd have to get that aspect of the power, but at a guess - my power was way less likely to screw me over a melee weapon than a ranged one.
Armsmaster... well. I had an idea for that one. I doubted any conventional new power would help with the modifiers of the challenge giving him intel on whatever new power I earned and the prep-time to account for it. I had my one trick planned, and we'd see where that went - otherwise, back to the drawing board.
Miss Militia? Repetition. Scouting and a good route was arguably more important than any easy-to-find powers.
Velocity - annoyingly, I hadn't challenged his current challenge to see what I was up against apart from the modifiers. We'd only met briefly at Canberra - that had been around the time that I'd found that there was somewhat of a Thinker-headache-equivalent to spreading my power around different targets too much in a short time and attempting the second challenge hadn't been a priority with no promise of a power boost on the line.
And, critically, I didn't think I could win. A painful admission, because I really didn't like Velocity - as a Cape, not a person. The worst power in the Bay, save for maybe some of the Case-53s you hear rumours about. It was a sad, sad moment when I had become a better Cape than Velocity from the instant I'd gained the weak, half-hearted echo of his power - simply because I could actually do other things than flail ineffectually at villains, while also getting the ability to run away very fast.
Unfortunately, running away very fast was good in a challenge. I had no way of catching him unless he made a mistake, and eventually, the anti-stalling measures of my power would ensure that he could turn my body into a smoothie by just running at me if he survived long enough. Even if he didn't do that, he could just stay forever at the edge of my attack range and throw grenades at me hoping to get lucky - taze me from behind, pepper spray in the eyes, anything was possible when the requirement wasn't for him to win, but for him to not lose. He might not be able to beat me straight-up, but I couldn't kill him either - and my power wouldn't tolerate an extended draw for long if I wasn't making progress.
I wasn't even sure what it would take for me to claim the win. Completely blindsiding him with a lethal attack from my ash clone was about it, and even then, how perfect would the situation have to be for that to work out in just a few attempts? No, that one was probably too difficult right now - even the first level was a minor miracle from my power, giving a modifier that benefitted me more than him in the form of CAGE. But now, balance concerns had slipped in from the metaphorical referee that was my power. For good reason, if the next level of the power eliminated the 3-second paralysis on either side of the speed-state, I'd be unstoppable. Again, because I had other powers. And he didn't. Sucks to suck.
I hope Dauntless shows up. I want to see what that looks like through the lens of my power, useless or game-changing - each as likely as the other, but as one of the few powers that gets explicitly stronger over time, it would be nice to get it rolling before I was ruling the Bay. The actual 'how' on how to beat him? Beg on my knees for my power to give me a freebie where he didn't have any equipment to hand. That was it. He was too much of a complete package for me to handle in a real fight right now.
I'm just getting into wishful thinking territory here. The point of this train of thought wasn't about what would be nice to get. There was a practical side of it - things that I could get in preparation.
I needed to make the most out of tomorrow's event. A rare opportunity to meet with the heroes outside of a crisis, without my Cape identity being tracked and monitored - and without my civilian identity looking suspicious. There was nothing suspicious about Greg Veder going to sit in the crowd at an event centred around the reveal of a Ward - I've done it before, prior to gaining any powers, so I wasn't too concerned about attracting too much attention this time.
Still a little worried. In a healthily paranoid kind of way. Using my civilian identity as a point of 'attack' on the heroes - this was exactly the kind of thing that could cause problems for me with the PRT if it came out. But, I'd done something similar before at the Meet and Greet event - and nothing happening after that was proof that a sufficient smokescreen for my intentions was enough to keep me somewhat safe. Greg Veder stumbling across consecutive, supposedly-secret patrols? Appearing halfway across a city to hang around Arcadia, a school that has nothing to do with him? Suspicious. Attending two events around a topic he's always been interested in? Not so much. This was going to be the best moment to slingshot myself ahead of the curve without revealing my hand.
But it wouldn't be enough to just scout challenges out and follow up later. Even if I found a winning strategy that I couldn't execute during the event, I didn't have an easy way to just walk over to Arcadia nonchalantly and finish someone off. Even as a Cape, I didn't exactly have a Stranger power. I might have a mask on, but I wasn't subtle - PHO was already full of sightings of me zipping around in my speed-state, running across rooftops wasn't much better. I, of all people, wasn't going to underestimate what a bored PHO-poster could achieve with a map, time, effort and enough Cape sightings and police reports to work with.
No, I couldn't treat this like the passive exposure I had on Sophia and Taylor - a few persistent challenges to hone myself against without any great need to win immediately. This time, I needed to win outright. And that meant maximising the powers I had now, and the ones that I could easily go and grab. Of all of my possible destinations... the Dallon household was at the top of the list. The Pelhams might have been better for my needs, but it was too isolated - there was no hiding spot or neighbouring window to peer in on their house entrances without looking suspicious.
It wouldn't be my first time staking out the location, but after my initial success - I'd found it a relatively underwhelming 'trick' so far. An inconsistent schedule, the possibility of the family arriving via a separate entrance or even just flight, the fall of darkness highlighting the fact that I needed a certain level of visibility to 'highlight' my target with my power even if I knew they were there, the fact that they genuinely didn't leave or enter the house that much - and the comparatively minor issue that the neighbour's house I was spying on them from was... someone else's house. I didn't want to make it obvious that I was spying on the Dallons specifically instead of just staring dramatically out of the window while the civilian recovered from the puddle I'd fucked her into. And now I knew, even finishing that last challenge or two wouldn't assure her loyalty if my true intentions were revealed. Help, yes - guarantee, no.
Then there was the small issue of timing. Combining the usual time I left school with travel time, coupled with the necessity of 'Greg' heading in that direction rather than Void Cowboy - I tended to miss them arriving home after school or work. I had to return again before long just to keep up appearances at home too, Clara and Alice were pretty blase about my newfound 'enthusiasm' for the Brockton Bay nightlife but I couldn't stretch their wilful ignorance too far before breaking it.
At least all of that wouldn't be a problem if I left as early as this. Skipping classes constantly might be mildly problematic eventually, but a few one-off occurrences wouldn't be noteworthy at all. I scurry out of the school towards the bus bay. Couldn't exactly go running to the Dallon household in my speed state without raising a few eyebrows.
The day I get a Stranger or teleportation power that means I don't have to worry about 'Greg' and his ability to travel around the city, I'll be a happy guy indeed.
--
Fifty-two minutes. That's how long it takes to catch the bus, ride it across the city, walk the remaining distance to my destination and arrive at my destination.
Plus three minutes of waiting outside the door of Katarina's door, pressing the doorbell periodically.
Not home?
Somehow, I'm not annoyed about that despite the inconvenience. Maybe I'm just not in the mood for redhead civilians that I've realised I can't really trust right now. Maybe this was actually preferable. When she was around, yes - we got to fuck, but I also had to work around the fact that I was in her house - usually being watched by her, even if there wasn't a hint of suspicion there. I could only lurk around the window so much before she might start to think that I wasn't just trying to look cool and composed, but that I might actually be looking at something. Such as the driveway of her superhero neighbours.
If I reeled back on my indignation and fury about the whole Emma thing, I could at least acknowledge that for her, the entire Taylor situation was on the same level as vigilantism was for Sophia. I'd already known that I wasn't likely to completely flip morals like that in my challenges, I didn't expect people to be willing to murder for fun just because I said so. I'd just underestimated what Emma's priorities were. But that underestimation was easy to make. I wasn't a mindreader. What did Katarina think of her neighbours, of the law, of vigilantes, of schoolboys playing truant? Somewhere, there was an invisible line where - regardless of the number of challenges - she would ignore my personal wishes and talk to someone. Perhaps even with the best of intentions towards me.
And if I spent enough time, sure, I could probably fix that - build up that depth in our relationship to something I could count on. But I wasn't going to. I might have been conflicted about Emma and her place in my life, but I wasn't conflicted about Katarina. She was a tool. That didn't mean I needed to be cruel to her or anything, but one day - I would disappear from her life and never return, and not think anything of it. And, hopefully, she wouldn't think anything of me either other than some fond memories. And the purpose of that tool was just to give me line-of-sight into people walking through the front door of their next-door-neighbours house.
Which I could do perfectly fine without her. Entering via the shadow state in broad daylight might be a bit too brave, but the door was out-of-the-way enough that I wasn't too concerned about nosy neighbours wondering what I was up to. A shape forms on the opposite side of the door as my ash clone stirs to life, freshly back from its long cooldown after working for the first half of the school day. I puppet it directly for a moment. Keys on the coatrack. A few seconds later, I let myself in - letting my ash clone close and lock the door behind me. The house is dark, obviously - and I'd be wise to leave it that way. I dismiss the ash clone, vaulting the stairs with my movement powers and heading up to the master bedroom - checking each room as I go. Nothing and nobody home. Excellent.
Maybe it's overcautious for a civilian household, but assuming that the lights being off means that nobody is there is a lethal mistake. One that you only make a dozen or so times before the lesson sinks in.
With no audience watching me, I'm free to lurk at the window without worrying about what anyone else thinks. No distractions. No need to turn around and talk, or keep up appearances. A perfect stakeout.
A perfect stakeout that soon gets rewarded. I almost miss it, laser-focused as I am on the road. A faint shadow crossing the street, followed by Glory Girl descending to street-level right outside the front door of the house - carrying a relaxed Panacea tightly in her arms.
Good enough. I focus on Panacea first. "Challenge."
I've crossed paths a few times with Panacea on hospital visits before. It had been a good way to meet up and interact with her, simply visiting and poking people with healing powers until the PRT 'asked' her to verify that I wasn't doing anything crazy. But eventually, they'd stopped directing her towards me in response - or perhaps she'd grown tired of responding - and my hospital visits just became an occasional routine where unimpressed doctors would come and glare at me sans Cape support. But in that time? I'd established a rapport with the girl. As much as I could, anyway. To the extent that, even with my newly-reinforced caution towards going too fast through challenges - I was pretty confident that I'd developed my relationship with Amy enough that completing her next two challenges - for the power reward and relationship boost - would put me on the same kind of 'healthy' trajectory as Taylor and Sophia.
Two challenges in one night might sound ambitious, but I've had some time to kill on this third challenge of hers. A fair few attempts working out the limits of the challenge - and I've got a lot more information now than I had going in.
The challenge was deceptive. A GANG modifier, Panacea running through a hospital healing a bunch of Capes that then tried to kill me? It made sense that it was a race to kill her before I was overwhelmed, right? Yes, but also no. Maybe it could be a race if I had a ranged one-shot technique, but I wasn't landing my super-football on a moving target from this range. No, the challenge was actually about harassment. Not about stopping her from getting to the patients to 'activate' them, but about preventing her from healing them. Same thing, right? No.
The fact is, everyone in the hospital is already activated. If I simply rush at Amy right away, another one will leap up from the bed 'just in time' and kill me in short order. That happens if I take ten seconds or if I take twenty. Same thing. After a certain amount of time, Amy will move on - the target will start fighting as normal and that's that. But that isn't a quirk of my simulation, she's actually healing them. That's the trick - every single person in the hospital is injured, lethally so. If I rush Amy at the start, Glory Girl will jump out of bed to block me - yes. But without any attacks from me, she'll also just keel over and die about sixty seconds later, assuming Amy didn't get a chance to start work on her. The other people present in the building are little better. 'Preserved' while waiting on the beds to be healed, but doing the equivalent of ripping out the life support and spending their dying breaths to save the healer any time I got close.
In that sense, it was a puzzle. As the target of the challenge, Amy - and everyone else - would prioritise her own safety when threatened. She'd flee from any conflict I offered, essentially leaving her patient to eventually die unaided. I didn't need to stop her, I needed to harass her. Force her to move on from each and every near-death patient before she could patch them up completely, and every time I got close or forced her to move on - I'd have an increasingly-large number of pissed-off Capes following in my footsteps to protect her. Capes that would die quite quickly, but even a single minute was a long time when it came to trying to fend off Brandish in an enclosed space.
But that was still progress. And despite how difficult it was for a third-level challenge... it actually felt pretty fair. There were a lot of ways to approach it, a lot of ways that any number of new powers could be used to break it open - and a lot of ways to optimise my route. I could leave her healing people that I didn't care as much about for longer if it meant being able to lead away, or even manually 'activate' more problematic Capes. I'd gotten pretty good at this. I'd even dare to call it fun.
First of all. The first room. A dead sprint towards the figure across the corridor, coupled with using Vista's power to shrink space, has to be the opening move. The speed-state paralysis takes too long here. Glory Girl lunges at me before I get too close to Amy, who's already stepping away to the next patient from the moment the former started moving. Glory Girl dies in thirty seconds. My ash clone stirs to life ahead of me, behind Glory Girl - close to Amy. A brilliant blade pierces through it before Amy can even start on her second patient. Immediately, the healer scurries to the third as Brandish turns to me. Brandish, dead in just over twenty seconds. Two of the more problematic ones.
I duck. I dodge. I dip. I phase down through the floor just to buy a few seconds away from the human blender, Glory Girl slams a hole through it a moment later - the Dallon matriarch following behind her in ball-form. I run backwards into the next room, slow enough that they feel confident in following rather than staying close to Amy. I bound off a nearby desk and shift through the ceiling to the next floor, ignoring the warning scream of my shadow-state as I brush the edge of an electricity cable. I dash back into the room I left Amy in, Glory Girl pursuing me once again - while the hum of Brandish and her blades cuts out with a distant choked gasp barely audible over the noise of Glory Girl tearing a larger hole in the floor.
As expected, Amy moves on as I approach. I create an ash clone, reach out and pass across the speed state power and send it to follow her out of the room, orders given in advance this time. I turn my attention to Gallant. One of the ones I was happy to let Amy heal up, because he was pretty easy for me to just kill again. Why? He wasn't in costume. I tackle him before he even clears the hospital bed, burning through the shadow state and my Echo power to just repeatedly pummel him in melee - ignoring Glory Girl as she falls to the floor behind me. A lot of iterating had gone into this route, striking the perfect balance between the 'timers' of both Brandish and Glory Girl - while also not allowing Panacea to entirely finish on Gallant and therefore 'wake him up' to start blasting before I had reached him. As long as the timing is right, the deaths and the fighting responses all happen the same way at the same time.
I know what Gallant is going to do before he does. He doesn't have most of his usual armour on, just the gauntlets and legs. Sophia is better at this anyway. I've got a more advantageous position. I have melee-focused powers acting as a cheat-code. His hand movements telegraph his blasts and aren't suited to close-quarters combat.
I don't even feel an ounce of satisfaction or any sense of thrill as his eyes roll up into the back of his head. This was the bare minimum result I should expect when looking at the facts.
I chase after Panacea. Or rather, my ash clone. Another lesson that had cost me some attempts: Actually landing a hit on Panacea is the 'enrage' equivalent. Every patient jumps up from their bed and starts trying to kill me. That was useful in its own way, survive for maybe twenty seconds after that point and everyone aside from the target is dead. Except, that twenty seconds is more than enough. The Blasters of New Wave are all elsewhere in the building, and critically - Clockblocker is in the next room. He needs to die first, or he'll freeze Panacea and give everyone the pass to ignore collateral damage and wipe out me along with the entire rest of the building - people with more destructive powers that would have been pretty useless if I was close to Panacea suddenly would rank among my biggest threats.
Which meant I needed to clear out this second room. This one would be less practiced than the first, but I knew the opening move: The Ash Clone zips past Panacea, careful to not actually attack her - reaches the next room... and starts making threatening gestures as she approaches. Sure enough, Panacea gives up on the second room of patients - scurrying to the third instead.
The occupants of the second room all jump up to attack my ash clone. Vista, Clockblocker, Shielder and Manpower - activated patients that haven't been touched at all will reliably die within twenty seconds. They spend five chasing my ash clone before I feel my ash clone vanish. I've sprinted after Panacea far enough that they won't catch me in the next fifteen, even with Vista trying to speed things up.
Now. Uncharted territory, except I know the plan. I know who is coming the moment I lay hands on Panacea, I just haven't reached that point cleanly before. Haven't found quite the right approach. I pull level with her, comfortably faster than her even without any assistance from my powers. She tries to weave away from me without truly changing course, but there isn't anywhere else for her to run to. Five rooms total, all three of the remaining ones are in a straight line ahead of us. The next room is full of dangerous Capes, but in some ways - too dangerous. Without Clockblocker and Shielder, there isn't much that they can even do in the limited time they have without killing Panacea as well.
I sway away as she attempts to catch my hand with her own. None of that. I still don't strike her. I just wait for more of my powers to become available. The last area of pinched space from Vista to unravel, the cooldown of my recently-killed ash clone to finish, the final charge of my shadow state - minor advantages that could be the difference between life and death when the lasers start flying. Finally, my ash clone surges to life in front of us - blocking off the door ahead. I brush my hand against it to assign it as an administrator and hand off a new powerset. Parian's power vanishes and I feel a faint tug on my shirt. I don't have time to watch the clone work - I tap into Panacea's own power and slam my foot into her midsection as she tries to sidestep around me. Not the best power selection for a straight-up fight, but without this or Glory Girl's shield as my active powerset, I can be knocked out with a single touch. And I'm pretty sure that if anyone knows the weakness to that forcefield, it's going to be Panacea.
But at the same time, I'm not exactly worried about my powers being restricted in a fight against Panacea. She's not a combatant. Not trained for this kind of situation. One hit in and she already looks ready to curl up in the corner in a defensive position. An easy, easy win - all I had to do was take a step forward, and finish the job.
I take a step back instead. Reaching out to the doorway and grazing my hand against the spiderweb of fabric my ash clone has woven across the closed doorway. I clockblock it. Not a moment too soon. The doorway slams into the fabric and stops cold. Everyone is up now. Not just the room beyond, but the rooms way beyond that. The only fortunate thing was that by sheer travel time, obstacles and the existence of elevators - none of the other rooms were likely to feature in this battle, they'd all largely die before they could make a difference.
Eighteen seconds. My ash clone and I turn on Panacea. She backs away, then resists. We break an overextended arm together. Fifteen seconds. I deliver a half-dozen consecutive punches as she tries to shield her face. Twelve seconds. The door practically disintegrates behind me as I cast a wary glance backwards - the clockblocked fabric was still holding firm as the furious Capes push for a way through. One hand snakes through an opening in the web to point at me, and I swiftly circle around behind Panacea in response to deter the attack. A halberd starts to carve through the side of the wall, creating a second doorway to reach through.
Five seconds. I back away from Panacea as the attackers rush through - smaller blasts of power easily dispersing my ash clone. I still have all three charges of my shadow state, so I can just stall for time until the majority of them drop dead.
Three. Two.
A heavy throom sound is all the warning I get before an armoured chestplate fills my vision - a half-dozen other Capes scattered to the side in the wake of the new arrival surging past them. I reach for the shadow state and then barely stop myself from locking it in, raising Glory Girl's shield instead as Dauntless thrusts his arclance towards me - a dull boom echoing in my ears as every other sound vanishes, replaced with every nerve in my body screaming in agony as I realise that while the initial blow might have been neutralised - the raw force of the attack had still knocked be back, the impact of hitting the wall behind me just separated enough for my version of Glory Girl's power to fade.
I spit blood. Zero. It's not a precise count. Indeed, many of the figures had started collapsing already - or simply hadn't been able to rise when Dauntless had burst past them and knocked them to the ground. Some take a few extra steps forward over the bodies of their comrades, only to fall themselves. Twenty two, twenty three seconds - if any of the blasters had been in that group of late-survivors, let alone Dauntless, I'd have lost again.
But that isn't the case. No further attack comes. I try to rise from the shattered wall I'm half-embedded in. No good. But I'm not dead.
Yet. That thought sharpens the mind. I wasn't a Brute, and even if my pain tolerance was pretty absurd these days - I couldn't rely on the shadow state saving me from the level of internal bleeding I probably had. Speaking of which, I activate it three times. Every little helps.
Still no attack. Amy has risen from her corner, clutching her arm and advancing towards me - doubtless looking to finish me off personally now that there were no patients left.
Before she's halfway to me, my ash clone returns from its cooldown. I'm not sure that it would even lose to Panacea in a straight fight, even as a glass cannon - but it doesn't have to. The shattered rubble I'm sitting in is exactly the kind of loose material that couldn't be found in the sterile, artificial rooms elsewhere in the hospital. The exact kind of material that Mush's power loves to work with. My knight forms next to me, the tentacle coating itself with shattered stone where the arclance had left its mark on the corridor. As it grows in size and mass, it could even have started incorporating the previously-unusable stray objects found in the previous rooms... but that isn't needed here. The current knight isn't much of a brute. But it still is one. And, critically, it isn't organic.
Panacea doesn't stand a chance.
SUCCESS
Reward: Biological Manipulation (2)
Nice. Already worthwhile coming this way. I try to shake my vision, looking to get eyes back on the pair before they finish unlocking the front door - the brief period of being unable to see while reality continues is a real annoyance here, it's something I've gotten used to for continuing conversations and maintaining a walking pace, but that was just keeping a movement going. I couldn't clear up the remnants of the simulation fogging up my eyes faster with any amount of practice, it just happened at its own pace.
I momentarily hesitate as my vision clears and they both start to step through the doorway. One more freebie. Glory Girl or Panacea? Neither of them was a power upgrade if the pattern of alternating rewards held true. I wanted flight and the Brute power more, but Glory Girl had a variety of aspects to her power that I could get a 'dud' upgrade from. If I could only win one... then I should ignore any considerations about power and look at the actual in-real-life effect I would get.
I'd never met, or interacted, with Glory Girl. I had no way of reliably doing it. Any boost that my power gave me would likely just improve her first impression of me whenever we did meet. I doubt I'll be able to leverage any advantage out of that anytime soon. On the other hand, I've met Amy a fair amount - I can catch her doing hospital visits if I time things well enough or catch the news of her doing the rounds on PHO quick enough. This would also be the second boost, and I felt pretty comfortable saying that I'd interacted enough with Amy that I wasn't rushing if I won here - this wasn't an Emma version 2.0. I'd probably be able to nudge the antisocial healer into some form of intimacy with four of her challenges down, and that would give me a potential reason to deliberately meet up with Amy in the future. Which, in turn, might let me interact with Glory Girl when she comes to taxi her around.
Of course, that was all assuming that I could actually win. Amy's last challenge had stalled me for a while. This next one was probably harder than Glory Girl's current challenge, even if I couldn't think of an exact counter to the Brute opting to stay at range throwing cars at me right now - there was just a general expectation that later challenges were harder when comparing between peers.
Amy Dallon
Candidate 4/7
(LUST) (REAL)
Not a common set of modifiers. In fact, I'd have called them completely contradictory given what they both do to the mindset of the target - one to simulate the target near-perfectly, the other to push aside their personality in favour of a mere vessel for their power.
And wasn't the challenge title 'heroine' before? I'd seen titles change before, but it hadn't been common so far - although perhaps that was just that I hadn't progressed many Capes far enough into their challenges to see every variation. "Challenge." Doesn't matter.
I touch down in the middle of a road. A familiar one. The Dallon household is directly in front of me. For a moment, I find myself wondering if this is one of the 'moving' challenges - those few that have no true fixed location, and just move the setting of the challenge to whatever was around me when I challenged my opponent. Then I take another look around. A few too many torn-up sections of the road. Shattered windows in the cars. A suspicious hole in the wall of the Dallon household and signs of battle. A bit too 'different' to be one of those challenges.
Which is enough to make me feel pretty cautious. It would be one thing if the location was just based on the area around me, but with that possibility eliminated - the scenario considered Amy, likely somewhere inside that building, to be a 'harder' challenge than the one I'd fought just before. Sometimes the 'harder' rule didn't always apply. Some challenges were easier to cheese than others. Taylor riding around on a giant bug immediately after I'd gotten a bug-controlling power was still a funny one to me - but at least I could understand the idea there. She objectively was stronger... if I hadn't had the tool ready.
But this one was harder to reconcile. No GANG modifier this time. No reinforcements coming her way via TIME or even WRLD at a stretch. Just a glorified mentality adjustment. On the surface, it looks like an easy win. That doesn't sit right with me. My powers given me freebies sometimes, but it usually feels somewhat obvious about it - usually a straight-fight that is within my capabilities to win in a single round, or a completely vulnerable target, or someone I can beat in the exact same way as the previous round with no adjustments.
If I took it at face value, I could walk in there right now with my ash clone and knight, start a 3v1 against a lone Panacea and win as long as I didn't let her touch me when I didn't have her own power active. Did I think that was exactly how it would go down? No.
LUST. What would that do to Panacea? I already knew, to a certain extent, that her power wasn't simply healing. I could excuse my own variant of the power being different, but fighting her challenges had given me enough of an understanding that she was, in reality, aware and capable of using her power as a weapon - not just a tool to knock someone out with. The only issue I had was that I didn't really know what that looked like, my own version of the power was fairly weak. Was I looking at a power that was usually used to re-set bones instead being used to break them? If she could fix eyesight, could she blind with a single touch as well? Did it even really matter? Just because her power might have the ability to be used in more destructive ways than she had so far, the reality was that I'd already seen the worst thing she could do by touching me - knocking me out with a touch. Whether she could command my heart to shut down or if she had to go and find a sharp object to finish me off didn't really matter once I was defenceless.
No, that was still too much wishful thinking. Just like how Clockblocker never used the extremely-lethal aspects of his power before the LUST modifier, Panacea must have a reason for the modifier to be here. I don't think I'd had a single Cape with that modifier yet that hadn't had at least one major new trick that they pulled out because of it. It wasn't one of the modifiers that was just thrown around as background noise, like ZONE or WRLD - it's presence meant that I was missing something fundamental. Something that she'd been hiding.
She was still a Striker. I'm sure of that much. There'd be no reason to hide that. And that meant that her tricks could be avoided by simply not being in close quarters with her. Nothing changed there.
Unless it was the Manton limit that was different? That could be it. If I assumed that her power actually was a more advanced version of mine, then she might have deliberately concealed the fact that she wasn't Manton-limited to maintain her non-combatant status. And if even I, with my power, was able to reshape bone and skin with a touch - then why would she be so limited? Perhaps this Panacea would be closer to Aegis. Three hearts. Four brains.
No. If her defensive utility could be that subtle, that limited to invisible, internal changes - she would have used it by now. It had to be something that was obvious and offensive by nature. A fighting style. Could she grow extra arms for herself, perhaps? Or did it even need to be human at all? This train of thought was making sense now. I doubted New Wave would have appreciated the PR from their cute healer sprouting scythes from her arms and covering herself with scales to become a pseudo-Brute. A powerful, regenerating Brute with a mover rating and the equivalent of an insta-kill on touch - that would be a challenge worthy of escalating from the previous hospital bet.
Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. LUST wasn't exclusive to Capes. Normies had it too, and it wasn't like I needed to reinvent the wheel looking for tricks there. Just needed to walk inside and see what I was looking at. I was only being reluctant because this might be the only shot I get of her tonight. I intended to linger long enough to try out Brandish too, but that was a bad matchup for the current me to try and handle in a single challenge. The father of the house was a stay-at-home bum and rarely showed himself during my stakeouts unless New Wave as a whole left on a patrol. In summary, this was probably my best shot for the day unless I got lucky.
Two ways to play this out. Scout, or prepare for battle. I could send my ash clone in and peer through its eyes, try and see if I was walking into a trap or if anything crazy was happening. Or, I could build my knight. That wasn't quiet or subtle, but with the street looking somewhat torn-up there was enough material around to build it to a respectable level, at which point it would be enough of a Brute to pulverise the street and nearby walls to build itself up even more. Panacea would obviously notice the commotion right away, but it was still one of the strongest tools I had given time.
Time that I didn't necessarily have to sit around waiting, I remind myself. REAL didn't start the fight in the same way as ALRT, but it did mean that whatever Amy was doing - she was moving. She was doing something. Usually that aspect of the modifier was a mild curiosity at most, but combined with LUST? It would probably be best to not leave her to her own devices. I had the advantage, no need to let anything she could potentially work on change that.
Knight it is. Overwhelming force with something that wasn't even biological in nature. Not even the tentacle underneath it, despite appearances. My ash clone rises next to me, wordlessly accepting my gift of Mush's power before lashing out at a nearby driveway full of pebbles, the first makings of the knight slowly taking shape as the tentacle doubles back on itself to form the start of a centralised body.
And me? I just wait. If my power dropped me in front of a house, it usually meant that the target was inside. The enemy had a death-touch power, there was no reason for me to walk in when in less than three minutes my knight would be able to, albeit very awkwardly, flop on top of the building and flatten it via pure bulk. The 'giant' version might be terrible at anything other than simply shambling forward and collapsing on command, but raw, uncontrolled mass had advantages that the flexible, powerful knight didn't have - and it wasn't like the giant had to hold onto all of that mass either. If I needed the knight, then my ash clone only had to manipulate the tentacle to drop its load, condense itself into a tighter form and be more selective with the materials before the smaller figure emerges. That wasn't possible to do so easily in reverse - it would have to find a giants-worth of material first, not such an easy task to do in a hurry.
The door opens. And there stands Panacea.
It's definitely her. Although the white robes have more red than usual - and the expression on her face is... off.
"Greg." She locks eyes with me across the street. I blink. Ah. REAL did have a tendency to have more coherent enemies, but they didn't usually speak unprompted. "There you are."
"Here I am." I agree. Talking was good. My knight was probably already strong enough to pulp her in one swing, but the extra time only made it stronger with each second of gathering material. "Uh, how's life treating you?"
"You have the nerve to ask that? Funny." The hatred in her voice is at odds with the beatific smile on her face. "But to answer the question, it's fine. Even after everything you did... I saved them all. It's a temporary solution, but everything is going to be okay. Once you're gone - I'll fix this. I'll fix everything. Everyone. Everything will be back how it should be again." She pats at her baggy robes for a moment, the smile disappearing as a murderous expression appears. "You just have to die first."
"O-kay..." I click my tongue against my teeth. Not the first time I've been inserted into a fictional scenario, but I was definitely missing context here. "Listen, I'm not sure what exactly I did - or rather, what the person who you think I am did before I replaced them - but I'm willing to talk this out." Only a partial lie. I was absolutely going to split her skull open with my knight before she got close, but I was willing to fish for information about the scenario first. It could help in the next one, or even give me some unrelated insights like Taylor's bank-challenge had on the Undersiders and Browbeat.
Panacea doesn't dignify that with a response. Instead, she just charges towards me. A full-on suicidal sprint. I'd expected that. Hoped for it, even. It meant that she intended to win by touching me. Unfortunately, while she was a good deal faster than the last time I'd seen her - she clearly wasn't sprouting wings or hooved legs or anything - so my theory on LUST indicating a lack of a Manton limit just looked stupid now. My knight steps forward to block her path - not enough material gathered to form a weapon in addition to the body, but instead it had simply bulked up one arm to a greater extent to turn it into an oversized club.
Amy doesn't slow her sprint, or even turn her head to acknowledge certain death stepping into her path.
I don't like that.
I pinch space behind me and retreat, mentally brushing over my defensive powers. Speed state... not at this distance. Dashing through an unknown wall in the shadow state could cost me the fight for no reason, but simply retreating to maintain my current distance as best I can would be smart. I can't truly give a reason but... there's a common argument about what 'bloodlust' means on powerscaling boards - it doesn't mean literal bloodthirst, it means an optimised user of their power willing to do whatever they need to do to win. Now, how that interacts with REAL remains a mystery - but it meant that I couldn't chalk her charge down as the move of a maddened, enraged animal with no thoughts other than violence in her head. She was thinking. Planning out a way to win. Part of this plan was a rabid charge towards me, despite the obvious Brute about to kill her before she made it halfway.
If she's confident in the face of that, I'm worried.
A worry that is soundly vindicated when my knight winds up for a hammer blow down on Amy's head as she tries to pass - at this mass, I've seen hits like that tear through cars like paper and shatter concrete. On a human skull? There should be nothing left to recognise.
But the attack bounces off.
Literally bounces. My knight nearly falls over from the recoil, that entire 'limb' shedding a full half of its mass before starting to salvage and reform even while the knight itself turns to chase after the healer. Too slow.
No, too fast. I realise that now. I'd chalked it up to better running form at first, but she wasn't just running faster than her previous challenge-self - she was running faster than me.
And I wasn't ready for that. I didn't have threads extracted ready for Clockblocking, and the downside of making the initial knight was that I couldn't destroy and resummon my ash clone without waiting out the cooldown. I'd blown Vista's power already, and I'd need to survive for the next thirty seconds before space untangled itself and I could use it again.
If all she can do is try to touch me... I should be able to win. I still have other powers. I still have the knight, as long as I can circle back around to it. Echo. Forcefield. Panacea's own power should save me from the one-shot while touching. If that was all Panacea had, I should still easily win.
But I may be stupid, but I'm not stupid - if that makes sense. I know what I just saw. That wasn't any enhanced durability of her body that deflected my knight's killing blow. That was Glory Girl's forcefield. And while I didn't know exactly what to make of that, or her little speech at the beginning... I could extrapolate just a little bit and reason that if the defensive aspect of the forcefield was in play, then the offensive part might be too. I didn't mind the idea of fisticuffs and grappling against weak little Panacea, but the maths changes if she is going to start bench-pressing trucks and punching hard enough to shatter stone.
No thanks. I bound upwards, blowing two charges of my shadow state to extend the glide. I scramble at the edge of the low rooftop, my glide taking me just short of a comfortable landing - but I'm not leaving myself defenceless.
Not when that last line of reasoning led to the possibility that she can fly right now.
Fortunately, she doesn't.
Unfortunately, my ash clone abruptly dies while I'm scrambling up onto the roof - taking my knight with it.
Unusual, it's usually good at keeping itself at a safe distance while the knight is out - but I suppose it isn't a mover in its own right, there's nothing that it can do to run away from something faster than I am. That means I can't just lead her on a loop to get back to the relative safety of my undying protector until I can respawn my ash clone. That's bad. I need to stall, but my best move to do that is to completely leave the area via the speed state. If I do that, I'd have all the time in the world to recreate my knight at its strongest, with the best materials... but Panacea would have no need to come and fight me. With the LUST modifier, she could just disappear into the city if it was apparent that my knight was too strong to face and I'd never find her again before the anti-stalling measures kicked in.
Too late to doubt myself. I launch a spinning fist through the air, storing it as an Echo. I know how Glory Girl's shield works. I also know that, for the real deal, her Brute powers largely stem from the forcefield being active. I'm very confident that I'm still a more skilled fighter than Panacea no matter what modifiers she has. Even if I can only engage her for a single exchange of blows before her forcefield returns, that's still a trade that should be in my favour.
In theory. I watch as Panacea floats up to the rooftop in a short burst. A little unsteady, a little erratic. That was interesting. Just as interesting as seeing that she had flight, but hadn't used it so far. Glory Girl at full speed would have been able to catch me at her initial distance before I even had the chance to activate speed state. The fact that she hadn't - or couldn't - use it like that was a good data point. A data point that still left me incredibly confused as to what is happening.
She charges straight at me again as I mentally eye my recovering powers. Workable. I time the Echo to shatter her forcefield, my fist slamming towards her stomach a moment later - her lacking defensive guard easily opening up the opportunity for a clean hit. The hit doesn't register like it should. I hit something under her robes, but not in the way I was expecting. I didn't hit her, but something she was concealing underneath her baggy clothes.
And I'm pretty sure I just broke my hand. That too. Brute power? Very much still active. In a burst of paranoia, I switch away from Panacea's power to Glory Girl's just in time to halt her counterattack. I'm not sure if that would have been the weak hit that I was initially expecting, or if the toughness I'd felt in my attack would have translated to a powerful offensive strike too - but with my options limited, I'd prefer to show caution for the sake of getting more information.
Amy doesn't slow down. Her hand transitioning from a fist into a palm, curled as if grasping something - right as a sizzling spear of golden light materialises in her grip. I immediately drop into the shadow state, willing myself down through the ceiling to get away from the weapons formed from Brandish's power. Somehow, I'm not surprised about that. Nor am I surprised as her other hand comes up to point at the ceiling I'm vanishing into - already aglow with light. I'm still in the shadow state when the blast comes out and wipes out the area - I land uninjured, idly noting that interaction for the future. Whichever one that was, the blasts are kinetic and not 'energy' - the shadow state handles them fine.
Glory Girl. Brandish. One of the blaster-inclined Pelhams. And I'm pretty sure that I could attribute the other Brute effect and enhanced movement to Manpower. I see the theme. I don't understand how or why, but I see it. All of New Wave packaged into one awkward, angry healer.
Should have ran away with the speed state after all. I have nothing else left but another charge of the shadow state. The spear in her hand pierces through me as I shift around it, and I immediately reform - screaming as I find myself impaled on it.
It's over. She seizes my hand in hers, and I reflexively shift back into holding her own power as my active one to stop her from knocking me out. She pauses for a moment, then my entire arm starts to pulse in warning, a creeping, growing sensation of wrongness that quickly translates into raw pain - a burning sensation spreading through my body from the point of contact. I grimace, choking back the instinctive scream. I knew this one. Holding her power just stopped her from getting full insight into my body and doing whatever she wanted instantly, turning the surgeon's scalpel into a clumsy hacksaw. That kept me safe in short exchanges, but it wasn't the same as her not being able to do anything when given time to work and a plain canvas to experiment on.
Begrudgingly, I drop her power before she can do worse. I'm not a masochist, I'm out of winning options - I'll take the easy way out this time. The instant I drop her power, darkness consumes my vision.
FAILURE
I hear the distant noise of the two sisters closing the door behind them as I shake my vision clear.
"What the fuck was that." I whisper to myself. Maybe I was onto something with the fake Manton limit? Perhaps she was modifying her own brain to mimic the Corona Pollentia of other Capes? Was that even possible? No. If it was that simple, she'd be an active Cape - a budget Eidolon even with what little I'd seen just now. And her speech... I could draw all kinds of theories from that. In the scenario, something had happened to the rest of New Wave - Panacea had done... something. Borrowed their powers in some way. But that wasn't her power. A second trigger? That would be a first. Completing challenges had sometimes seemed to tweak the powers of those I beat, but I'd never fought someone with a completely different power expression yet.
Could I be looking at the effects of a second unknown Cape? A Tinker, perhaps? That would explain the unusual shape of what was under her robes, although it was hard to tell if I was hitting armour plating, solid metal from a Tinkertech device or just Manpower's power in action. Or even Shielder, if the defensive construct could be made that close to her body. It was hard to be sure, but I was confident that it didn't feel the same as Glory Girl's shield. Which meant that it wasn't impossible to overcome with raw power. I'd like to test one of my Parian-fuelled footballs against it, but timing that attack around Glory Girl's shield would be difficult to say the least. The mechablade or my knight could do it too, but a surprise attack with either of those was... unlikely.
I sit in place to wait some more. No point in speculating. I knew what to avoid now for next round. Rather than over-focusing on avoiding her Striker range, I should opt to stay somewhat close to her so that I couldn't be separated from my knight - that was my greatest tool against all of 'her' new powers. No amount of slashes, blasts or concussive force would destroy it unless she noticed the ash clone hiding nearby and realised the deception - with the knight around, I'd be in a permanent 2v1 situation and probably fare quite a bit better than I had in surviving alone. Nevermind how much easier it would be to reliably break through Glory Girl's shield with a second melee combatant fighting with me.
I tap my foot against the floor. Boring. And I'd already killed my ash clone back at my workshop to ensure the downtime wasn't too long, so I couldn't even distract myself with a bit of Tinkering. Sitting around doing nothing for the next hour or two might be optimal, but that didn't make it any easier to stay focused.
To my surprise, the next activity isn't the arrival of the Dallon matriarch. It's Panacea, an oversized hoodie raised over her head as she half-jogs down the path - then turns down the street past my current observation spot.
Interesting. And a potential opportunity. If I stayed in place, I'd likely catch Brandish when she eventually returned from work - and I may or may not catch Panacea getting back from wherever she was going before I had to leave, depending on how long she was out for.
Or, I could follow Panacea. Not literally stalking her, but wherever she was going - she hadn't taken Glory Girl with her as a taxi. And while I couldn't claim to have a complete understanding of her social life, I was pretty sure she was closer to Taylor than she was to Em- Madison. I couldn't completely ignore the possibility that she was just going on a quiet shopping trip somewhere, but the far more likely scenario was that I'd spotted her slipping out to go on a hospital visit. An affair that would take hours, probably end with a request for someone to pick her up and also provide me with plenty of exposure to actually talk and interact with her if I 'just happened' to visit the same hospital.
Plus, I'd get more chances to finish her current challenge and that would probably be enough to get laid with the ever-grumpy healer.
An easy decision, when I frame it like that.
It's the work of seconds to find a nearby bug, assign it as an administrator and ferry it through the window in my palm with my shadow state. I head back through the household, monitoring the movements of my new administrator as it doggedly chases down it's target. Vision wasn't exactly great through my bug of choice, but it wasn't exactly a busy street - and Panacea's 'discreet' outfit had plenty of places for an enterprising bug to nestle in and hide.
With the tracker bug in position, I quietly leave the house and exit the street in a completely different direction to the path she took. I need to find a good spot to change into my 'costume' - albeit it wasn't quite the real-deal that I'd be picking up at Parian's... tomorrow? Tomorrow. Void Cowboy shouldn't be seen coming directly at an angle from the Dallon household, people would make entirely correct assumptions as to why I'd been in the area once they knew the truth. I needed to get to a separate area of the city, change, enter the speed-state and get ahead of wherever Panacea was walking - so that rather than me 'following' her, she just coincidentally went somewhere that I happened to be at already.
But first, setting a brisk pace while checking maps of Brockton Bay on my phone. It would be pretty awkward to set up shop in the wrong hospital only to realise she'd walked right past to the clinic a few blocks down the road. Or that she was going to a friends house instead.
I pause at that. No. Impossible. Amy was cut from the same cloth as Taylor, I was pretty sure of that. Any friends she had were caused by pure osmosis from hanging around her hot sister.
That was a good thing. For me. I feel like the loner, anti-social types tended to latch onto me better.
...damn. Saying that makes me feel like I'm some kind of domestic abuser, talking about how it's better if my wife doesn't have any other friends she can go to for help. It's not like that! Actually, it's better if they have close friends because then I can get them in the same net!
No, that sounds worse. Maybe I should stop thinking about better ways to phrase my choice in target selection, and focus my inner monologue on heroic-sounding things. Like how I was going to become the pillar of love and support that arguably the most heroic, selfless figure in the Bay truly deserved.
And if I had to smash her skull open a few times to do that? That was life.
--
All that effort to monitor her location, predict her path, narrow down the possibilities far enough in advance that I could slip in long before she arrived... and she just goes straight to Brockton General. Makes me feel like the effort was completely wasted, picking the most boring answer possible.
But it did make things easier. This wasn't the first time I've been to Brockton General. This wasn't even the first time clambering over the back fences and phasing through a second-floor window of Brockton General. The lady at the front desk was bitchy the first time around, talking about licenses and liability - so I just skip that step every time. Who needs an expensive doctor scaring away the only-slightly-shifty guy offering free healthcare? The patients can make their own choices, that's what I say.
The doctors were begrudgingly aware of me and what I did, so when I let myself in through the window a nurse just blinks blandly at me before shrugging and leaving the room, doubtless to make my presence somebody else's problem.
That's right. Leave the healing to the heavy-hitters. Big Pharma has nothing on my ability to poke people.
Void Cowboy, modern-day saint. Isn't it crazy that I've never even been offered a medal for this?
"No. You're lucky they don't arrest you for trespassing." My patient whines.
I blink. "Did I say that out loud?"
"Yes." The teen nods. "You sounded like an idiot." He lies. "Ow!" The boy hisses at me as I shift my grip around his knee. "Ow! Ow! That hurts!"
"Stop whining." I tell him blandly. "Painkillers are for nerds. And people who know anything about dosages." I match his level gaze as he glares at me, momentarily forgetting his pain in favour of complaining about Saint Veder. "No, really. It's just a fracture, or something like that. It will be fixed before you know it." I'm pretty sure the medical term is something like that, but I'm not going to lose any sleep if the correct term is a 'fuluminous break of the lower tibial vertebrae' or some other nonsensical string of words put together. I was a real healer, not an overpaid nerd with a fetish for latin. Leg bad? Poke. Leg good.
It really is that simple. My version of Panacea's power doesn't need me to know. I'm just going off vibes, telling my power to vaguely push things back to how they should be and not thinking too hard about it - the power runs off to do everything it needs to do, one step at a time. At times, it feels like setting some kind of healing-puppy loose on the body, watching it chase from one area of interest to the next - the majority of its moves easy to understand, some few only becoming clear when I really specify what I want the power to do.
Interviews with Panacea had often gone into the in-depth biological sense that she gets when healing, the control she needs to exhibit - but I don't have anything that crazy. The upgraded version of Panacea's power gave me more of a... wireframe image in my head of what I was touching. A heatmap of 'wrongness', coupled with expanding my 'range' from just a few inches from the point I was touching to something that radiated out across most of the body - with my ability to enact change still at its best and most precise at the point of contact. The boy winces again as bones move on their own under my thumb. "Here, want to know a cool pain management trick from Void Cowboy himself?"
"Who?" I resist the urge to murder him a little bit for that in the name of attitude improvement.
I adopt a wise expression. "Pain is about perspective. Like, a little snot-nosed kid falls over onto the ground - it's one of the most painful things that's ever happened to him. Right at the top of his pain scale, so he starts crying. But as they get older, they get tougher, they learn that there's way more painful things in the world. They get kicked in the balls by some bitchy girls. He falls off a building and breaks his leg. He loses his hardcore survival run in CapeScape because the power went out. Then, they fall over again, they realise its not really that painful at all and they just get over it like a man." I nod firmly. "That's how pain works. So all you need is one really painful experience at the top of the scale, and you'll be basically invincible from that point on. You'll break your bones and keep soldiering on like nothing ever happened."
"That's not right. That's stupid." He tells me.
"You're stupid." I frown at him. "Here. First time I ever got stabbed - I was basically useless until-" I died. "-I got better. Had to run away like a bitch and totally lost the fight. But I get stabbed these days? I laugh, because now they think they've won - but I can trap the knife and beat the shit out of them. I've realised that a dinky little bit of pain like that isn't so high on the scale after all, and that a little blood loss doesn't really matter if you can still move. It's a willpower thing. So take it from me - you can man up and soldier through this. Here: I know this isn't that bad. How painful is this for you right now, a four? A five?"
"Ten." He hisses.
"Ten is high." I inform him helpfully.
"Ten." He insists.
"Wow." I blink. "You're kind of a little bitch, huh? You're acting like a little kid and you're barely younger than me."
"I'm a patient, you'll get in trouble talking to me like that." It's his turn to frown back at me.
"Yeah?" I lean forward. "What are you going to do about it, cry on me?"
That shut him up for a moment. Long enough for the bone to slip back into place as if nothing changed. "Done, why don't you-"
The door slams open. "You!" Panacea jabs her finger at me.
"Me?" I point at myself innocently.
"You!" She confirms. "You're, what do you even think you're doing-" She glances at my current patient then storms over, grabbing his hand and blankly staring into nothing for a moment. "You did it again!"
"What did he do?" He says, suddenly looking more nervous than he ever had since I entered the room.
"Using my power like that, you can't just do that!" She glares at me, looking closer to a particularly outraged gerbil than anything truly intimidating.
"You've lost me." I admit. "I fixed his leg. That's pretty normal, I've done that before. Actually, I'm pretty sure you've stood around to watch as I do it when the PRT was getting kind of nervous about whether or not what I was doing was safe. Why complain now?"
"It's not what you did, it's how you did it. You fixed his leg by borrowing material from elsewhere in his body. You're not just healing, not just pushing things back together - you're moving things around. Changing things." She stresses that last part as if it means something. "You said- you said your version of my power couldn't do anything that serious!"
"Oh, right. I've noticed my copied powers get stronger as I hang around the people I copied them from. Guess we've bumped into each other enough that we crossed a hurdle, because I got a pretty neat upgrade in functionality." I nod. "And about the leg, yeah, pretty sure I felt my power stealing from his other one to make it work, I guess the surgery meant not everything was still inside the body, and if my power just shunted everything together he'd be shorter on one side and walk funny for the rest of his life. Made him a little shorter in the process, but not by much-"
"I'm shorter now?"
"-so you decided to mess with his future growth to fix that. A tweak to grow a little bit taller to offset what you did now." She cuts in. Is that what I did? Neat. "Do you have any idea the long-term damage you could do if you were even slightly off with your calculations?"
"Calculation? Nothing like that. It's not really me doing the work at that level, I'm kind of the supervisor. The middle-manager. The power wanted to do it, and I trust that it knows the technical details better than me - so I just gave it directions and let it work out the minor details itself. Worked great, as you can see." I pause. "As you can hopefully see? I'd appreciate a second opinion, still testing a few things since this side of my power got upgraded. It's always worked pretty well on my intent so far, but I do respect your expertise on the matter."
"No, it's fine. It's right, but-" She lets out a snarl of frustration. "-but you can't just start doing that. If you start changing things on a whim, where does it stop?"
I give her a strange look. "Why does it need to stop? It worked, didn't it?"
She glowers at me, then at my patient - then back to me. "We'll talk about this outside. This conversation isn't over." She glances at the boy. "I'll let the staff know that you're fine. They'll handle things from here. I need to have a private talk with this idiot."
"Wait, wait, wait - you can make me grow more with your power?" The boy pipes up urgently. I nod. "You did that to my legs specifically? You can target it?"
I nod again, then pause. "No way dude. That's gay."
"No, no - this is a thing between men! I wouldn't tell a soul, and I'm not talking anything crazy here - just, you know, a little edge in the future." He makes a pinching gesture with his hand. "Like, an inch or two could go a long way and nobody would ever think anything of it."
Panacea looks confused.
"Super gay." I repeat.
"It's not! It would be article one of the bro code if people knew about it!" He adopts a pleading expression. "I'll take back every bad thing I ever said about you. I'll admit I was being a little bitch earlier just to be annoying. Just a tweak."
"Not in the habit of doing things like that." But... Panacea's reaction would probably be funny. "But, sure. Here." I poke his thigh, letting my power radiate out and directing it with a thought.
Panacea sends me a deeply suspicious look, then reaches out wordlessly to take the patient's hand again.
She kicks me in the shin. Hard. "Ow, what the fuck?" I gripe at the sudden assault.
"After everything I just said!" She growls at me. She attempts to kick me again. I dodge this time. "Stay still!"
"No!" I refuse. The next kick misses as I transfer into the shadow state.
"It's done?" The boy grins. "Brother, I will literally die for you. Don't worry, I'll never tell a soul - it's all natural! You won't regret this. I'm gonna buy all your merch. I'm gonna-"
"Don't encourage him!" She seizes hold of my ear and starts half-dragging me out of the room. Ow! What the fuck? "We're done here!"
As I allow myself to be hauled out of the room by the irate healer, my previous patient - now apparently transformed into my biggest fan - glances between the two of us, seems to come to an unspoken conclusion about what was happening, then sends me an exaggerated wink, a thumbs up and a whispered 'good luck'. The crude gesture with his hands afterwards is entirely unnecessary. I get the point.
But, thanks - brother. I'm actually kind of glad I didn't kill you a few times to get a more agreeable chick now.
Amy tries to drag me somewhere for a private chat. But I'd rather delay that chat for as long as possible. After all, this was clearly important - and now that she's calmed down, also something that she doesn't want to discuss in front of patients. Clearly, she wasn't going to part ways until she'd pinned me down for that chat. But she would be willing to leave if there were still patients in the building in need - couldn't heal everyone at once, not in a building this size.
So, to maximise my Amy time... I scurry into the next patient room despite her best efforts to pull me aside. And then the next. And then... "Challenge." Time for another round, now that the timer was down enough.
This time, I know the plan. The ash clone hides in a nearby building, stretching out the tentacle into the street before starting to form the knight. The final product would be a bit weaker, but that was nothing compared to the danger of losing the knight. From what I'd seen, the gain in speed and power wasn't worth the danger here - and the street wasn't torn-up enough to try anything tricky like hiding the ash clone in a ditch or a crater somewhere.
Amy emerges again. Faster than before, if only because I deployed the knight and started making noise earlier. The same opening speech, and the same lack of details coming my way. She's not interested in a real conversation. Kind of a shame, actually. The LUST modifier is probably screwing me a bit here, if talking is suboptimal then the modifier must be pushing her to avoid it - especially as my knight continually grows in size and strength.
More prepared this time, and more aware of what options she has - it's easier to think. Easier to notice. Easier to ask questions.
Question one: If she has, presumably multiple, Blaster powers - why does she run into melee range against my obviously-melee-focused knight and myself? Raw hatred? Not with the LUST modifier in play, even if REAL was playing a part somewhere - this had to be more than just a preference or a choice in fighting style. Somehow, blasting me continuously from afar was a suboptimal move for the girl in front of me. Why is that?
What follows her charge is a little more than fifty seconds of me briefly exchanging blows, burning a defensive power and then cowering behind my infinitely-recovering knight. She hadn't shown herself as able to notably tear away the mass that the knight had gathered - and simply applying concussive force or occasionally slicing it apart only served to make the material more and more suitable for Mush's power. She certainly had the strength to rip pieces off and throw them away, the tentacle itself wasn't that strong - immortal, yes, impossible to temporarily rip apart, no. But she either didn't recognise the power, or was content in just briefly neutralising it for a few seconds at a time while she focused on me - exactly what I'd been hoping for.
But the whole exchange highlighted the second question: Why wasn't I seeing Flashbang's power at all? It should be amazing in this exact scenario - exploding orbs scattered all around the knight, hitting me would be assured unless I burned through my limited stock of defensive powers. Why was she bothering to cycle through short-ranged-blasts and Brandish's power at all, when using Manpower for an extended period of time would catch me with comparative ease? I could excuse not knowing about the weakness of the shadow state, but she had enough pseudo-Mover powers that I shouldn't really be able to get away with ducking and running around my knight like this so easily.
The third question starts to form in my head a little over a minute after that. When she starts to dodge rather than take blows head-on, the almost-rabid pace of her attacks making way for a somewhat more measured approach - which ironically makes it easier for me, giving me more time to get my cooldown-based powers back between each engagement. The thought crystallises when I land in a clean hit on her face in exchange for a blade of surging light scoring a line of blood across the side of my torso. The question: Why did that hit? I hadn't taken down Glory Girl's shield yet.
Panacea bounds away, hands already rising to deliver a warning set of concussive blasts to create distance. I duck behind my knight again as it weathers the barrage largely unscathed - swaying like an oversized willow but ultimately reshaping itself again, the only loss being the material that had been blasted clear from the area at the point of impact.
Running out of juice for her powers? She wants to get away, which means I want to follow her. It means taking my ash clone and knight with me and potentially risking that trick being discovered as the clone leaves its hiding spot, but I don't have a choice. Even with her extra powers seeming to have some issues, I don't fancy my chances in a 1v1.
She's still faster than me outside of the speed state, almost seeming to glide across the ground at times - something that I can now recognise as the briefest bursts of the multiple flight powers she has access to right now. Another question, all of them leading me to the same answer - that she's rationing her power use. That it's a limited resource. And, presumably, she's backing off now in an attempt to replenish it.
It doesn't take long to verify that. Amy's hand snakes around the throat of a nearby NPC, who momentarily struggles before going limp - as I slow my approach and wait for my knight to catch up, letting it take a small detour to stockpile more resources for itself.
It's a testament to how completely used I am to the occasional NPC wandering the streets and not reacting to my fights that I'm more shocked about one actually being relevant than I am at whatever she's doing right now. The NPC practically erupts like a blood bag, coating the girl blood and viscera - the remains of the man still held loosely in one hand as she turns to me, spare hand raised to start firing blasts at me.
My knight quietly steps in front of me as I burn a shadow state charge and Glory Girl's shield to survive the barrage. The knight steps in front of me, a nearby car door wrenched in two to be used as a shield - I reach across and tap it to Clockblock it in place. The effects of the barrage immediately drop in potency, although Amy's enthusiasm for it doesn't diminish with it.
But I'm pretty sure I've solved this mystery now. Her power, the limitations of my version, the oddities I'd observed so far and now this... 'harvesting'? All I have to do is wait, and let my theory be proven.
I smile when the assault stops. Laserdream and Lady Photon would both have done a better job in a few seconds than Amy's imitation had done over the last few minutes. "Careful now, looks like you've drained your little battery there dry."
She spits on the ground as she slowly walks towards me, a manic look in her eyes. "I don't need them to kill you."
I grin wider. "But that's just it, isn't it? It's not about killing me. I'll admit, it took me a while to piece it together - I had a pretty set vision of what your power could and couldn't do, and just assumed that my power was the weird one. When I was thinking about what 'twist' on your powers the LUST modifier could do, I was thinking that your power wasn't healing - but just generally manipulating the human body into a desired shape. That the big secret was that you could just, turn everyone into Aegis if you wanted. Give them some extra features, make your own personal army. Then you showed off your, New Wave all-in-one trick and I thought - 'aha, it's the no-brains thing! She can tweak brains to copy other Capes powers!'. I really thought that I'd solved it."
She paces closer, utterly silent.
I shake my head. "But seeing you turn that guy into a husk like that, it really gave me a new perspective on the things you've been doing. The fact that you were covered in gore last time I got a clean look at you, and now you're looking almost normal again - another interesting datapoint. You're not manipulating bodies. You're manipulating biomass and repurposing it however you please. I wonder, do your parents know that baby Nilbog has been living under their roof this entire time?" I taunt the approaching healer.
"I don't want to hear that from you of all people, you fucking monster." She spits.
"That's not very Panacea-like of you." I tilt my head at her. "And, 'me, of all people'? I suppose that's fair, I understand the scenario now. I wondered why your title had changed to 'Candidate', but it's pretty obvious now. This entire scenario is a what-if event, showcasing your application into the Slaughterhouse Nine. And I'm Jack. Or, Greg, I suppose. Not a very villainous name, but I suppose people called Jack used to feel the same once upon a time."
"Application?" She scoffs. "I'm not like you. I'm nothing like you or any of your pathetic little group members. I'm going to kill you, and all of your friends. I'm a heroine, a proud member of New Wave - and nothing is going to change that."
I send her a mocking grin. "Poor Mr Bloodbag back there would probably disagree with some of that." A blast attempts to interrupt me. I burn a shadow state without moving. My ash clone discretely finds a spot to cower in nearby while I continue to draw her attention. Don't die, buddy - or I'll die with you. "But I am impressed with the self-delusion, that you can say all of that with a straight face. I'm a newcomer to this scenario, but even I have to admit that you're fitting right in with a prospective member right now. Filling out the vibe perfectly."
"Because one person had to die to take you down? That's a worthwhile trade for someone with a kill-count in the thousands. Countless heroes would make the same trade in a heartbeat." She counters bluntly, not yet making an aggressive move as my knight matches her every attempt to circle around it to face me directly.
I snort. "Amy, Amy, Amy. It's just the two of us. Even the big guy here can't really think. You don't need to lie. You don't need to pretend you're in the same group as those great heroes you're talking about. You're in this position for a reason. You were always going to be in this position. You're one of us." Before she can spit a denial out, I continue. "And if you want to say that I'm wrong, then just look me in the eye and say it - but, please, before you do... why don't you show me what you've got hidden under those robes of yours?"
She instantly surges forward to attack, a furious expression of hate on her face as a glowing broadsword materialises in her hands. My knight steps in and gets cleaved in two, but that isn't truly such an obstacle - it's rampant flailing as it starts to reconstitute itself clips Amy, and her forcefield drops for a moment in time for me to land a quick jab with the aid of Vista's power confusing the distance between us.
"Or rather-" I continue, weaving away from her assault. "-should I say, who?"
"It's your fault!" She screams. A trio of blasts race towards me and shatter the ground harmlessly-
-and my knight collapses. I blink. Then turn my head towards the ground she'd just hit. Ah. She accidentally severed the tentacle trailing from my hidden ash clone to the knight. Not 'lethal', but also not something that my ash clone would be able to fix in time to save me. I could buy... eight seconds or so of an enraged Amy on my own, including time spent kiting backwards away from the knight. At that point, I'd be dead even if the knight was made active again.
I make my decision. My ash clone dissolves into nothing as I forcibly retrieve Mush's power, activate it and plunge it directly into the knight at my side. I'd practiced a bit since my first use of this power, and while I was pretty sure my administrator would always be a more skilled user than me... it didn't take much finesse to fill what was already there and swing it all wildly to the side. Amy's forcefield drops again, her attack momentarily cancelled as she moves to defend herself from the next blow. I reach out to her again, already noting the sudden flex of hexagonal blocks appearing directly through her robes with a barely-noticable light. That was fine, I wasn't trying to hit her. I brush one finger against her robes before she can think to counter.
Skidmark's power. I'd barely used it since getting it. Just hadn't been able to find the right trick to use it in a fight. I could make a single-use missile of sorts with the current version with prep time - but in reality, anything that gave me prep time meant that I could either use my mechasword or my knight, both of which were superior to throwing a big rock very fast. But, as arrows appear on her robes along the line my finger traces - maybe I've found a minor use for it after all. A half-second passes, I activate the power and step back. A full half of Amy's costume shoots directly upwards, almost concealing her vision before she claws it out of her face with her hands, trying futilely to force it back down to obey gravity.
Sorry, doesn't work like that.
And, sorry - the jig is up now. I can see everything. And I'm not talking about the surprisingly-racy fashion choices.
A shivering sac of some kind hangs around her waist, pulsing, sickly-looking tubes emerge out of it - each one leading to one of seven dessicated-looking brains attached to her torso like limpets.
"There's New Wave. Your new pets to help on your quest to be a real hero, I presume?" I taunt. "Bonesaw would be proud of the little puppet-show you're pulling on. The end-result might look messy, but you're really pushing the field of medical science forward with this - how does it work, do you just push on the bits of the brain you need for the power? Or are they all in there, screaming in horror about what you've done to them?"
"Shut. Up." She seethes. "You caused this. I did this to save them, and I'll fix them all once you're dead and gone."
"Better hurry." I smile wryly. Playing the villain was fun, actually. "That's the trick, isn't it? If this was stable, this wouldn't be a fourth-level challenge. Eight combined Capes, that's an Eidolon-level fight. But, it's closer to babysitting than anything else. All of those brains constantly drying out, constantly needing to be squeezed by your power in order to activate theirs - there must be attrition along the way, burning energy, causing brain damage that not even you can fix - you can stave it off with easy-access to biomass, but without that, you're forced to slowly murder your family just to keep your pathetic life going for just another few seconds. Which is exactly what you proceed to do. You really do belong with us, don't you?"
Her response is an incoherent scream of rage that accompanies a powerful blast that sends the remains of the knight to scatter halfway across the street. Without the tentacle rooting it from the ground, it just doesn't disperse force as well.
She surges forward.
Eight seconds. That was how long I had guessed I could last on my own from this range when she had the full range of 'her' powers.
Three minutes. That was around how long it would be before I could resummon my ash clone.
Surprisingly, I don't quite make it that long.
But I like to think that my mocking, congratulatory laughter as she tears me to pieces did a respectable amount of mental damage. I've got a role to play here, after all. Nobody truly liked Jack Slash... but you couldn't deny that he was committed to the bit. How could I let myself be outdone by him?
FAILURE
Surprisingly, I don't really care about the failure.
Because I understood the challenge now. And it was something I could strategise around. A battle of attrition, pressing the advantage at moments of weakness - no different to hitting weak points on a video game boss during the intermission phases. Hit a brain with a clean, suitably powerful hit - and she loses a power. Forever. Keep chipping away... and it's back to just Amy. A slightly more psychotic Amy than I was used to, but I could handle that.
And actually, my newfound knowledge could be put to good use against the real, non-crazy Amy too. Because now I knew that her previous concern about 'how' I was healing people was less about the actual mechanics of what I was doing, but about how I was using her power and stepping over the rules she'd imposed on herself to not be like Bonesaw and Nilbog. It's almost enough to make me feel bad... but at the same time, that's no way to live.
"You don't understand what you're doing-" Amy insists, a hint of frustrated tears in her eyes as we leave yet another patients room.
"Actually, I think I understand perfectly." I raise a finger in the air, then correct myself. "At least, the overall picture of what I'm doing. The technical details under the hood... I guess you know better on that front. But don't worry. I understand this power better than I did. Your power. Not healing, right?"
Some frozen noise emerges from Amy's throat. Not a denial. That would be pointless after how far we'd come.
I show her some mercy. "Come on, let's take a walk somewhere quieter - we can come back for the other patients later. I'm guessing you'd rather have this chat away from anywhere you might get overheard - and I'd like to cycle Othala's power back to regeneration anyway."
She nods quietly, a stricken expression on her face. A part of me wonders why she looks so devastated - but looking at how she reacted to the scenario in her current challenge, how she reacted to my taunts... I could safely assume that the things that hit home then, are also things stewing at the forefront of her mind right now. Nilbog. Bonesaw. Recognising the things that she was easily capable of, and recoiling so hard that she became nothing but a healing outlet instead.
She follows me out of the hospital without a word. I say nothing as she hides most of her robes underneath her hoodie again as we pass through a quiet, isolated pathway, changing her appearance to looking like a mere, unfashinable normie than a superpowered individual out for a walk.
She stumbles in shock when I shrug and remove my mask and the outer outfit as well. "You already knew exactly what I looked like from the moment you touched me the first time, it's not exactly anything new to you is it?"
"It's not about that. What if someone else sees you?" She hisses.
"You were aiming for discretion, right? Or you wouldn't have covered up like that. Well, you won't draw any fewer looks walking next to an obvious Cape like me - but now? We just look like two young lovers out on a date, perfectly normal." I tap my head knowingly. "Now we can talk as much as we like, without worrying about drawing attention."
"We're not- this isn't-" Amy starts to protest, then gives up. "Whatever." She stews in silence for a moment as I narrow my eyes at her cooldown timer.
Her, unexpectedly short, cooldown. Fourth-level challenges were usually several hours of waiting between failed attempts. This one started that high, but flicks down a few minutes at a time whenever I'm not looking at it. By the time we find a park to walk through, a full half of the original cooldown is gone. For a moment, I'm reminded of Leet's challenges. That feeling of something else wanting me to keep going, to win, to push the power into being used the right way. The way I'd clicked into the zone with Leet so quickly - I was getting that same, heady feeling now. That sharpened awareness of who I was talking to and the way I should frame my approach.
Powers exist to be used. Amy's one was just the second-most obvious one about it yet. The way it practically jumped at the chance to enact any random whim, executing changes that I didn't have any real understanding of - but getting the general results I desired all the same. There was a drive there, some form of intelligence interpreting my will - it was eager to be used. And, in turn, I was eager to use it.
And I would bet my entire fortune that Amy would feel the same with just a little push.
Eventually, she speaks first. "When you said 'weak variant' of my powers, I'd really hoped it wouldn't get to this point."
"Why, because you're worried about what I might do?" I stretch my arms out. "Or, because you're worried about what it means for you?"
"Both. I wouldn't wish this power on my worst enemy. If people realise what you could do - might do - people can go to the Birdcage or get kill orders even before committing a real crime if they're dangerous enough. If people start to talk, start to realise that you don't have the limits that I said that I have - or that I lied about limits I said I have..."
I angle my head towards her. "What will happen, exactly? Eidolon could lock in a few Master powers and take over the country if he wanted. Is he too dangerous to live?"
A frustrated look appears on her face as I avoid her point. "No, because he's a hero. He can be trusted with all that power-"
"And you aren't? The way I see it, if everyone got to run around and vote to redistribute powers to people who can be trusted with them, I think you'd end up with the exact same one you have now. Maybe you were worried about what you could do with brains. Maybe you could have made a new invasive species that eats humans. Maybe you could have done something crazy with your powers at any time. But you didn't. You're still here, years later - you've never abused your powers. You've always used them to heal freely, without charging. Even in your own time, you go out on visits like this without anyone asking you to." I thump my chest with a closed fist. "Hell, if I didn't have your example to live up to, I probably wouldn't have bothered doing this kind of trip now and then myself. What are you even doubting yourself for? Does the person I'm describing sound like a bad person to you? The kind of person that other people should be terrified about going off the rails at any moment?"
"Only because people don't know what I do. They don't know what's going on in my head - how easy it would be to do something unspeakable. A flick of the switch, that's all it would take - one moment of weakness. And it wouldn't even need to be intentional, you said your power is the intermediary for you? It isn't like that with me. I've got a full understanding of everything I do, and full control as well. Any misstep, any slip up, any lapse in judgement could be the one that causes me to accidentally make a monster. To change a person's personality beyond recognition, or give them a worse health condition further down the line. A virus or disease that dwarfs anything anyone has ever seen before." She's talkative. Far more than she's ever been with me before. "It's all possible. I wish the rules that I made up were real. It would be a relief, knowing that the survival of the human race isn't reliant on me not having a mental breakdown."
Guess she's been bottling this up for a while. I'm fine with that. I can play the supportive therapist here, and then balance it all out by using every insecurity, secret and fear against her challenge self - which gives me more insight into the real Amy. A perfect cycle.
"I look at what Nilbog did, I look at news reports on what Bonesaw threatened to do this time - and my first thought isn't 'oh how terrible'. My first thought is how I could do it better. The simple tweaks I'd have to make on my next patient with a stray thought. Who thinks like that?" She shakes her head. "Nobody would agree to let me heal them in the first place if they realised I could rewrite them with a stray thought. You think I'm a hero for coming out here to heal people? I don't even like healing. I don't feel anything for the patients anymore. I just do it to feel better about myself."
"Same." I admit, earning a withering look of disbelief. "I mean, really. I get you! The healing isn't really my thing either, just doing my good deeds every now and then so that people stop calling me a do-nothing loser on PHO and they're forced to admit that there are some positives to me having powers. And thought crimes don't exist anyway. It's perfectly natural to compare abilities or situations like that - I used to do that even before I got powers. And the only difference is that now, instead of imagining how I'd do things better if I had their powers, I imagine how I'd do things better with my powers instead. Even if it's something a little grim, like a terror attack or a lethal Cape fight or something - putting yourself in their shoes and nodding that you would have done better, you'd have double-tapped the guy on the ground, you'd have blocked the exit, they struggled with this thing but your powers could do it better... that's just human nature. Or, maybe it's just the two of us are equally fucked in the head. I'm fine with either honestly."
She stares at me. "Was that supposed to sound encouraging, or make me feel better in anyway?"
"Eh." I make a face. "I mean, I'm not a real therapist anymore than I'm a real doctor. I'm just saying you're overthinking it. Everyone has weird thoughts. You haven't acted on them yet, you're worried about becoming a bad person. Sounds like you're doing a pretty good job of being a generally good person to me - no matter what your powers are. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have done even a fraction as much good as you've done if I was in your position."
That's an understatement. If I had her full powers, I'd definitely be closer to Blasto than Panacea. I'd ride around on a fire-breathing T-Rex and it would take months or years before anyone learned I could heal humans too. Her sense of self-imposed duty at the cost of her happiness was something to admire, but not something that should be considered an objectively good thing. Which was why it was important that I took this moping, self-hating healer and injected some joy back into her life.
And, maybe it's just a hunch, but I think that change is going to have to come from changes in how she uses her powers just as much as any change caused by me clearing her challenges.
Speaking of which... that challenge box timer has been absolutely racing down since the conversation began - and now the multi-hour timer is back at zero. I can take a hint. "Challenge." I whisper.
I materialise outside of the Dallon household again.
But I've got better plans this time. I summon my ash clone. "You know what?" I murmur. "Let's go kill some people." I head left. My ash clone heads right, Mush's power held but not actively being used yet.
Got to be quiet - I'm not looking to start the festivities quite yet. With no ALRT modifier, I may as well take advantage.
The closest NPC's go down easily, not even suspecting any danger to themselves before I'm choking them out. That's not enough. I briefly experiment with Panacea's power, but for all of my newfound flexibility - it wasn't all-powerful yet. The biggest weakness was speed, but also that I couldn't direct every part of the power personally. I knew, objectively speaking, that the power could disconnect a single vein, sever a few nerves, move the spine in just a certain way or flick a switch in the brain - and any semblance of resistance would be over. The power didn't want to do that. Sometimes it refused entirely. Sometimes it was sluggish to execute the order, or took an over-engineered route to do something simple. Rather than exploding the heart in a second, it does... something in the blood closest to my finger that eventually cascades into a minor heart attack after a minute.
Unwilling to slice one important vein, but completely willing to practically flay the skin of an entire limb apart in a few seconds. Doesn't want to knock someone unconscious at a touch, happy to prod their brain until they're an incoherently raging maniac and a threat to everyone around them. Won't do a neat little slice on the spinal cord, happy to completely remove the ability to feel pain across the entire body.
More than usual, I was feeling the presence of artificial limits here. Combined with the obvious... partnership, that using this power involved - I'd have to describe it as a reluctance to kill. No, that wasn't quite right. Using it as a tool of execution on a downed target worked without issue. Killing was fine. A reluctance to end fights unceremoniously. That was it. Not too different to my primary powers apparent hatred for guns, now that I think about it.
I do an extra loop, taking my time to purge all the NPCs I can find and dispose of their bodies. If Amy needs these to keep those brains alive, then a concerted extermination effort in the vicinity might work well to my advantage. There's no ZONE modifier here, so I'll never be able to manage too large of an area without triggering the anti-stalling measures - but last time, she only ran looking for an NPC when some of her powers started playing up. The realisation that the occasional pedestrian in this area of the city had been quietly disposed of could simply come too late for her.
Plus, I get to experiment with Amy's power. It's good to know my limits - and lack of them. It was an opportunity to follow-up on some of the things that Amy is worried about. I quickly learn that my version of the power is not precise enough to do anything truly complicated with the brain other than pump chemicals and hormones around. I don't think I'm going to be making any super-plague or uber-predator either. I just didn't have the insight into genetics and biological functions like that, and my power remains inactive when I try and prod it into action - a sign that anything world-ending is probably reserved for future challenges. On the way back to the starting area, while waiting for my ash clone cooldown, I do manage to make a detached arm capable of moving itself around after a few minutes - but it's more a mess of randomly-firing nerves and muscles than any useful tool or combat-capable pet.
Vision. That was the hardest part. The wireframe-like look that my power gave me was a useful framework to express my desires on, but outside of simply 'fixing' things - I didn't truly know what I wanted, so my job as the 'director' of the power was lacking. It was fine when I was going in with the idea of 'fixing the leg to look like a normal leg', 'wake him up, 'make this guy's heart issues go away' or 'grow this eye back'. That was easy. A simple order to smooth out the wrongness that the power had already identified, or to restore to things to their default, natural shape. There were limitations on the power's side too, but I had to acknowledge the fact that I was the weaker link overall. But I can't dedicate myself to medicine and biology like Amy, until Victor's power can do enough work to make my own knowledge viable - I'll just have to wait for a Thinker power to better guide me on this one.
But that's fine. I'm used to waiting for later synergies by now. I never expected this to be an all-powerful world-destroying power at this level anyway. I'd gone into today hoping for an upgrade to my healing abilities and something that would help shred through flesh in the hopes that it would neutralise Browbeat's power when we meet tomorrow. The extra features? Unexpected, but interesting. I'll take them.
And, if Amy can hurry up and die already - I'll start working on the next one too.
Time for the next round to formally begin. I noisily form my knight again. Except, when Amy shows her face this time... I dismiss my ash clone. After all, as long as the material was gathered up - I'd just proven in the last round that a new application of Mush's power could re-occupy it relatively quickly if it was close enough. That potentially freed up my ash clone from permanent knight duty and lets me use it as a more dynamic fighter capable of being gifted other powers, as well as abusing its low respawn time when it gets killed early - as opposed to getting punished for the long respawn time when it survives for longer.
It wasn't a pure upgrade. Without the tentacle rooting it in place, any attacks on the abandoned 'knight' would send material far and wide - it wouldn't be as effective of a shield as before. But I was fine with that. Defence was important, but offence was the only way to claim the final victory.
After a brief exchange of words, she's charging at me again. I've got my Parian-fuelled football lined up this time. I raise my ash clone again as she gets close, ordering it forward and letting my foot fly at the same time. Unfortunately for me, even with Vista's power gifted to it - my ash clone fails to break Glory Girl's shield in advance, instead dying to a casual blast of light as one of my strongest attacks is wasted dropping the invincible forcefield as Amy completely closes the gap towards me as I'm forced to back away.
Unfortunately for Amy, as so many of my enemies have learned, killing the ash clone the moment it spawns is a mistake. It's already springing to life right at my feet, the briefest touch more than enough to gift it the shadow state - it rises up, limbs not even fully formed yet, and swipes directly upwards as Panacea unknowingly charges over it intent on killing me in a single swipe with Brandish's sword. A truly precarious position for me, I'll survive the first blow thanks to Glory Girl - but the next is guaranteed to kill unless I retrieve the shadow state from the clone.
But there's no need for that. Because all of Amy's attention is on me. She isn't watching her flanks. She hasn't had the time to mentally adjust to any of my powers yet, the lack of the CONT modifier working in my favour. My ash clone reaches through her robes and pulls, every charge of the shadow state burned to extract a brain before Amy can even realise the threat - her habit of preserving the longevity of her defensive powers by not using them when not under threat, used against her.
"No!" She breaks off the attack against me, lunging after my ash clone instead. The ash clone wards off the first assault by using the brain as a literal shield - and when Amy shifts her weapon of choice to a more precise spear, it hurls the bloody object towards me in an underhand throw before it is brutally dismissed in a burst of heat and light.
I catch it one-handed, and Panacea's own power gleefully dissolves it into a writhing mass of unrecognisable flesh in front of her horrified gaze.
"Who was that? Nobody important, I hope." I taunt, my ash clone already rising next to me - this time, taking Mush's power and activating the knight. That was a lie. I did hope it was someone important. Because not all powers were equally important here. Glory Girl, Manpower, Brandish and Shielder - those were the core. The Blaster powers were either too weak or too inaccurate to be truly threatening as long as I had all of my defensive options ready to cycle - she'd need to 'refuel' eventually. Melee was her only real shot at victory, but without her most-threatening weapon in Brandish, the enhanced physical stats or one of the active or passive shields I needed to penetrate to hit the brains again, I'd swiftly be able to dismantle the threat in front of me.
"You fucking monster-" She howls at me, blade already thrusting towards me - only to be interrupted by the first movement of my knight.
"I'm not the one using my family as shields. I only want you, Panacea. Your family can go free." She looks stricken, but doesn't let up her attack. "But you don't want that, do you? Plenty of nobodies around to use, I'm sure you could perform a real brain transplant... but you don't want to bring them back. For the same reason that you like them without any senses of what's going on in the world. Afraid that they'd judge you for what you've done? Recognise you for what you are? As long as you can pretend you're just protecting them, you'll never have to face judgement - especially now that your crusade of vengeance has truly gotten one of them killed. How will you ever break the news? Or, will you just change them - until you never have to break the news?"
"You killed them! Not me!" She's crying. I should probably feel bad... but this isn't real. When REAL and CONT is involved, words are a weapon. And weapons exist to hurt people. "If it wasn't for you, Crystal-"
"Laserdream?" I tut. "One of the useless ones. Shame. You were terrible at using her power anyway, so she really died for no reason at all. That's just a tragedy, isn't it? What a waste. You should have labelled them, I'd have let her live."
A half-choked sob and an attempt to decapitate me is the only response I get. Maybe I'm enjoying this too much.
My ash clone is cut down and my knight stops moving once more. Frustrating. I'd really lost out on the lottery this time. Glory Girl would have been the jackpot, allowing me to win just by sniping her with high-powered moves like Parian's footballs or even Skidmark's missiles. Manpower and Brandish would have been great. Shielder would just be 'okay'. But Laserdream and Lady Photon were largely just clones of each other. Missing one limited how much she could lean on the power, but it didn't really change much. At least it wasn't Flashbang. That was the only real dud, going purely off of the fact that she'd never used that one. I could only guess that it was a lack of ability to aim or project the power without higher brain functions and real senses.
Eight seconds to survive. I try and repeat the trick with my ash clone spawning at my feet as I retreat under her assault, but she's looking for it now. She floats directly over it as it forms, leaning on her flight for the first time this challenge. Another wide-angle blast can't be dodged so easily. My last shadow state is spent, the next charge just a moment too far away to recover - and her Mover rating is still higher than mine. I can't back away fast enough, and a glowing dagger soon carves out a section of my chest.
We stare at each other for a moment, as she jerks her blade to the side and reaches out to touch me. Pointlessly, because I have Panacea's power active. Her eyes widen in realisation, but it's too late now. Her dagger winks out of existence as my hand slumps out of her robes, a foul stench wafting from whatever remains of the brain I just got a brief touch of.
Laserdream on the back. Brandish front-left. Good information. Good information. I try a last minute taunt at Panacea as my ash clone respawns - if I can get her to try and torture me instead of killing me, I might live long enough to be rescued by my knight as my shadow state returns. But I can't get the taunt out. Words are hard when your lungs are practically bisected. Who knew?
Even as Panacea's Brute-enhanced strength pulls my head clear from my spine - I'm happy with this session. I got a bit unlucky, but I was making some great progress on a tough challenge. This is the kind of challenge I would have had to run from in the past, but I feel like I've crested that hill now. I've got enough tools that a mere tough Cape or an unfair scenario isn't impossible anymore - there's a way for me to win, I just have to find it. Or to be more accurate, I've found it already - I just have to keep walking on that path until the success screen.
FAILURE
I don't let my relative blindness stop me. I'm getting used to getting back on track with my conversations between challenges. "And besides, things are looking up for you now - right? You've got someone to talk to about all of this stuff. Someone who gets it. I've got nearly the same powers, same concerns, better looks - we've got a lot in common."
"I don't think I could be quite as humble as you." She adds sardonically.
"Probably not." I agree. "But you could copy me in other ways. I'm clearly doing something right compared to you because I'm not a nervous wreck at all, yet I'll bet anything that when people look at the two of us and realise we can both make biological monstrosities with enough time and effort - they'll be less worried about you, and a lot more worried about the uncontrolled vigilante with a penchant for breaking bones, avoiding the PRT and getting in over his head when fighting the gangs." I ward her off with a hand before she can protest. "I hear you, your power is slightly different for now - you're worried about making a mistake and it's all in your hands, etcetera etcetera. And I get that. It's the same for me! I'm a little concerned that my version of your power will do something strange too - I don't even have the exact command over it that you do, so I'm acting even more on faith and feelings. But what to do in response to that fear? That's where we disagree."
I clasp my fingers together behind the back of my head as we walk. "You intend to simply lock away that part of your powers and hope that you never, ever get put into a position where you need to use them. But I'm going to practice with them. If I'm not sure, I'm going to start with smaller things - areas that are already adjacent to something I could do already. I'll experiment on things where there's no consequence if I mess up. I'll learn. I'll master the pitfalls. And then, when I need to use that side of my powers - I'll know my limits. I'll know what is too much and what isn't. What safety precautions I need. I'm not going to shackle myself with fear of what I might do. Could you ever imagine telling your sister to never use her strength, because she might hurt someone? Then, one day - she is forced to punch a supervillain with all her might and kills someone. She'd be a moron for never testing herself, never working out how hard she needs to hit - how much she needs to regulate her power. Why would you be any different?"
"You can't rewrite someone's mind by lifting a weight too hard. You can't make a zombie plague by hitting a punching bag." Amy argues. "It's completely different."
I shake my head. "No, it isn't. You're just being difficult. You don't want help, and you don't want me to be nice to you or prove that you're objectively a good person. You want to wallow in self-pity. You want me to agree with you, to tell you that you're a monster and a terrible person - and I'm just not going to do that."
"Being realistic and responsible is called being difficult now?" She bites back.
"I think sitting in the dark and bottling everything up like you have is the opposite of responsibility, actually." I reach out to a low-hanging tree, snapping off a few small branches. "You haven't given me a single good reason for your 'approach' other than fear and feelings of inadequacy." I hold the branches up, a flex of mental will oh-so-slowly sprouting a variety of multi-coloured flowers out from the wood. I hand her the flowers with an elaborate gesture. "There. I broke your rules. Brought new life into the world. Has the world ended yet?"
She takes the flowers. "These aren't real flowers, they just look like that. They can't reproduce, they can't even feed themselves - pretending that this is even close to what I could do is a joke."
"Oh, you can see if they're viable or not? You can check - and ensure - that something isn't going to become an exponentially-expanding threat? You could make creations that, by definition, can't breed or even exist outside of your control? That sounds like a perfect test to me." I chuckle as she scowls at me. "You're still avoiding the point - in the end, where should the heart surgeon practice his trade for the first time? In the emergency room with the president's life on the line, or in a controlled environment with a test dummy?"
"The worst parts of my power aren't something I can test so easily. No convenient cities to wipe out, and not many people lining up to ask me to potentially wipe out their personality fumbling around in their brain." She drawls.
"The excuses are getting weaker and weaker as we go." I adopt a smug expression. If you went to the PRT tomorrow and said 'Actually, I can do other things with my power too. I can work on brains. Plants. Animals. Microbes. But I've been too scared of making a mistake' - you think they'll scream and run? Send you on the next Birdcage transport like you seem to want?"
"I don't-" She protests.
"I'll tell you what they would really do. They'll tell you that you've done well to come to them before doing anything crazy on your own. That they'd love to do some power-testing to find safe limits - and countermeasures - for you. There's always safe ways to test things. Testing on brains? People donate their brains to science all the time, finding one to experiment on to start with would be trivial. There are people at the edge of their lifespan, waiting to die - you think they couldn't find one volunteer happy for you to see if you can fix something they've struggled with all their lives? One person willing to run a few tests, see if something you did caused issues with their memory or personality before they head out anyway?"
"Great, then I can get carted around healing every brain disease to ever exist - forever. I'm looking forward to it already." She crosses her arms. "You're saying a lot, but what's the benefit in the end? I heal a few different things compared to before? That doesn't exactly change my ability to rewire their brain at will - if anything, it makes it easier. If I'm already tweaking things, what's one more change that benefits me? That's a slippery slope. The rules work, the fact that I'm here and not in the Birdcage is proof of that." She flips a hand in the air as we follow the curve of the path. "Somehow, I'm pretty sure your 'necessary sacrifices' outlook on testing my power would rightfully have me inside of a cell right now - and I'd be the exact kind of deranged criminal that I've been worried about this entire time."
"You're deliberately missing my point. The power testing and experimentation I mentioned is no different from any drug trial to ever hit the common market. It's common practice, don't pretend I'm a crazy revolutionary for suggesting it. Besides, if you really are bored of being the healer - you've got countless other options where you can objectively be a force for good in the world. More than I could even list - and you could completely change the way you use your power in the process. Can you even imagine the effect you could have on the pharmaceutical industry? How much you could help scientists test and iterate on their experimental drugs, perfectly list side-effects, enforce a perfect control group, highlight areas that they need to target - and when you get tired of it all, you can just step away and let capitalism continue to carry on without you - making a positive impact forever, even if you never took any free time out of your day to heal someone again."
She takes a while to respond to that, eyes looking a little distant as I speak - only to snap back with a jump as she hurries to respond to the silence. Thinking about it? I hope so. "I don't get to be bored of being the healer. It's not- I'm actively choosing to let someone die if I decline. There's not a choice there. Not really."
"You're just using that as an excuse to keep yourself miserable and tell yourself that you deserve to feel bad for daring to think for yourself. Let's go back to my favourite example. Eidolon. He could pull out a healing power. And a speedster power. And a Thinker power. I bet he could do ten times the work you do in a hospital in the same time period. I've seen plenty of sightings of him in his thread on PHO. Attending sporting events, concerts, rubbing shoulders with celebrities at parties - is he an evil person for letting those people die? Objectively speaking, there's people he could have saved during that time - is he allowed downtime, or is he as evil as you're trying to say that you are?"
"Can you stop comparing me to Eidolon?" She sounds irritated.
"Only if you can come up with a credible argument why it's different." There's no immediate response to that. "And I'm not done, you know. There's so many more ways you could express your power if you wanted to, and you could even help mitigate the risk of you going out of control if that's what you really wanted. Let's look at your idea of making diseases. Super-plagues. You think the PRT is going to have any issue with coming up with a single decontamination chamber and a clean room with some rats to test your work in? This is the group looking to counter Bonesaw and Nilbog, containing infectious biohazards and living under the threat of doomsday mechanisms that might kill us all if Bonesaw really isn't bluffing."
I continue. "Working out countermeasures with a willing supplier of plagues, viruses and ecological disasters in every configuration they could dream of, someone who could touch some of Bonesaw's most mysterious works and decipher it instantly - know the cure at a glance... they would jump at the chance to collaborate. The only reason you're avoiding that kind of pressure from them already is a combination of ignorance about your full powers and your position in New Wave shielding you from attention. I'd wager that sounds more interesting to you than fixing little Timmy's leg. And you'll make millions and millions of dollars. You could send ninety-percent of it to charity to soothe your self-sacrificing complex and still be insanely rich. I mean, you could do that last part right now anyway - gotta be a few billionaires with terminal illnesses around, right? If you aren't interested, I might just sweep them up for myself!"
She pointedly ignores that suggestion. "What's interesting to me doesn't come into it. Again. It's not about the good that I could do. I know! I know if someone actually good had this power, they'd be one of the greatest parahumans to ever live - an absolute paragon of humanity. Well, that didn't happen. I got them instead. And your- your delusional dreams that I could be trusted to deliberately make something deadly and dangerous, that I could be trusted to make only the most beneficial changes to somebody's brain, that I could be trusted to instantly make the perfect cure for something some psycho spent months or years cooking up in a lab - that's all they are. Delusional." Her breath comes out slightly ragged as she takes in a deep, choked breath. "I know, I know - that there's something wrong with me. I'm messed up in the head. If I was normal, you'd be completely right. I could do anything, everything. I could save millions and millions of people. But I'm not. I know I'd fuck it up, and if I can't do that - then the least I can do to make up for it is a few hospital visits, even if it's just to make me feel better about myself in the end."
I snort. "Sure, you're the main character. Is that how it is? Everything bad is because of you, everything good is something that a better person would have done? Nothing you could ever do will make up for the crime of existing and not being perfect? For someone so intent on being a small-time healer, your ego is something truly impressive."
She stops in place, turning to challenge me. "Now who's dodging the point? If you recognise that I could do more good using my powers in better ways, then you must also realise that the gap between me and a 'Panacea' that isn't so fucked in the head is almost comical. You love comparing me to Eidolon so much? How about comparing me to Sphere? We could both have saved the world with our powers. We didn't. Except he had a good reason, namely - Simurgh got to him first. Well. Simurgh never needed to bother with me. Never even glanced my way, and the reason is obvious enough: I was already too messed up to achieve anything. Isn't that something? My head is fucked up enough to do the same damage to the world that an entire Endbringer attack was dedicated towards."
I keep walking. After a moment, she follows. "You're being overly dramatic again. Comparing yourself to the active serial killer? And you're acting like everything you might have achieved in your life is fixed in place. Maybe wait until you graduate before declaring that you've completely failed the world because you didn't fix it all as a teenager in the time you could squeeze around homework and classes. It's not all your responsibility, you don't owe the world anything." I make an expressive gesture with my hands. "The reason I'm saying all of these ideas for your power isn't to say 'look at all the people you could save if you were better!' - it's to show you that there are other ways. That, if you're miserable, there's a way out - multiple ways out - that doesn't involve turning into an empty shell or having a psychotic breakdown in a few years. These rules don't need to exist if you don't want them to."
"I do want them to exist. They keep people safe. Keep me under control." She insists.
My turn to scowl. "No. You keep people safe by keeping yourself under control. The rules are just a framework you used. And you know what? I don't even think it's a problem on its own. Identifying high-risk uses of your power like that? More people should do that. That was good of you. But it's a mistake to just cut yourself off from the majority of your power." I click my fingers together. "You know something? Powers aren't supposed to be repressed like yours, people have done studies into Capes - paid them to do nothing but sit tight and live their lives, flipping burgers in McDonalds or whatever. For the most part, they just can't do it. Something happens. They get erratic. They start making mistakes. They look for excuses they never looked for before. What happens if that happens to you? What if it's already happening to you, after literal years of repression? What if the twitchiness you feel, these errant thoughts you're so afraid of - what if that's your power saying 'please use me'? You push it down and ignore it, but it just gets louder each time - and the whole time, you're thinking that you're mentally unstable for having these ideas when the only 'right' thing to do is just keep healing."
"So now I can't even be blamed for my own thoughts. A real cheerleader, aren't you?" The sarcasm is thick in her tone. "I like that. Every time I touch someone and start picturing how I could turn them into a vegetable with a thought, I'll blame your made-up voices whispering in my ear rather than doing any introspection about the fact that I'm a freak." She snorts. "Or, maybe I can just accept the more likely version of events - that I've got mental issues that I can't fix, and do my best to act sensibly despite them. To me, that seems like a better plan than giving in to my darkest thoughts and hoping that shuts them up for a while. Do you even realise what you sound like?"
"I'm not making it up, it's a real study - I'll send you the link on PHO later." I rub my chin with one hand. "And, you know? I think the idea is less crazy than you think. I'm not saying all of your dark thoughts are someone else's fault, I'm sure you've got your fair share of weirdness-" I get a sharp bark of laughter in response. I'll take that as a 'yes'. "-but the idea of intelligence? Of interacting with your power, and something - in some kind of way, not even real communication, responding somehow? I've seen that. Felt it."
Artificial limits that were too clean to be anything but deliberately crafted. Challenges that responded to my thoughts. Rewards that aligned with my will. The interactions with Leet. The feeling I sometimes got when I got deeply involved in my challenges, that feeling of standing in the shadow of a mountain that I can never see. Nothing that registers in the senses, but the sense of something vast towering over me remains.
And, of course... "Your own power is an example of that. I said it earlier, didn't I? I'm the director of the power. So, where's the brain - the intermediary - doing the part that you would have done in person? The intelligence that decides what to do, even if I didn't know that it needed doing?" I make a gesture at the flowers in her hand. "You know, my partner-in-crime - we had a similar oddity at first. I'd get a slightly different power expression than what she had. I could delegate part of the power to something I controlled, but she controlled everything in an area around her. But, eventually - she found a way to copy what I'd done. Found a new aspect of her powers that she'd never been aware of before - or perhaps, didn't have before I'd come along. So, I wonder if it might be the same for you. What happens if you just let your power run? Take a step back from the micromanaging and let your power loose - see where it runs?"
She shakes the flowers in my direction. "I'm not doing that. This entire conversation, I've been telling you that I have these rules for good reason - were you even listening or was it all a waste of time?"
"I was hearing the words, but not listening. You see, I'm not giving you the choice of hiding back in your shell and hiding from yourself. Things are going to change. Not just because I'm not going to restrain myself from using what is blatantly, obviously your power - which is going to direct some amount of attention your way. But also because your situation isn't right. It isn't sustainable. So I'm just going to be the bad guy. I'm going to make a scene - and if you want to keep things quiet, and keep my identity safe too, then you'll have to cover my tracks." I grin impishly. "Let's start with another batch of clearly-unnatural flowers." I shape another twig in my hands. "You were calling my other ones fraudulent, so I'll try harder." I offer her a rose. "How's this?"
"Realistic colours doesn't make it any more functional under the hood." She shakes her head. "Why- what are you even doing this for?" She blursts out. "What do you want from me? And- what do you mean, keep your identity safe - that's your problem, not mine! Just because this area is quiet doesn't mean you can take risks like this without a mask on-" Another flower. "-stop giving me flowers!"
I start weaving another after plucking a nearby flower. Some kind of rainbow theme for this one? Making them stand out as obviously-supernatural on close inspection was the point. If Amy wanted to keep a low profile on this little walk... she'd have to turn them back to a less flamboyant shade at the very least. "I want you to use your power. Whatever you like. Try destroying them completely. Try turning them back into sticks. Try blending them into a perfect copy of the real flowers around us now, to the extent that you could plant it back in the ground here and nobody would ever realise it was originally something else." I stretch my arms upwards. "And the whole time, just watch for your power doing something you didn't want it to do. Test it. It should be an easy argument to win, right? You break the rules, your flower grows teeth and starts trying to eat me - I look like an idiot and you can go back to the self-pity party."
"It's not a self-pity party." She grouches. But the annoyed look on her face soon turns to begrudging concentration. The flowers in her hand bend and twist into each other to form a circlet. The stems morph, first into a single weave - then the outer layer literally blossoms, turning entirely white as an array of flowers erupts all around the outside. Then, as quickly as the change happened - it scatters. The entire product drifting apart in the wind like dandelion seeds.
"That was a nice display." I comment softly. I tilt my head at her. "How did it feel?"
She stays silent for a time. "Easy." She says, finally. "It was easy."
"And those seeds, I'm assuming the entire city will still be here tomorrow?" It's not a serious question.
"They weren't seeds. Just a convenient, familiar way to disperse it without making a mess or needing to hide anything. It will all break down into base sugars no matter where it drifts to, whether an animal eats it or it just drifts on the wind until it disintegrates." She sounds distant. "It was... really, really easy." She repeats herself again, almost sounding a little defeated. "Maybe you were right about some things. I feel like... my power jumped at the chance to show off, once I stopped focusing so much. I was still looking for mistakes, obviously-" She hastens to add, as if worried I was about to berate her. "-a product that might be too viable if a piece broke off between changes, a stray seed, the wrong genetic traits. I was careful. But-" She trails off.
"But it wasn't as bad as you thought?" I suggest. "You didn't have to wrangle it into not becoming a super vine monster intent on destroying the city?"
She shoots me a dark look. "No, but I still could have done that." She insists.
"And I could go and shoot the mayor. I could move to Africa and start living out my warlord fantasies. I could go back to the hospital right now and start breaking legs and handing out cancer to undo everything I did while I was there." I shrug. "What does that mean? Nothing."
"It's not that simple." Panacea denies sourly.
"It's exactly that simple." I affirm. "This isn't the profound ethical conundrum that you want it to be. This is as black and white as it gets. If you don't trust my word for it, we can go ask anyone else. Members of the public? A hero of your choice? Your own family? I guarantee that everyone is going to agree with me on this one." I cross my arms. "Name one person who would disagree. Literally anyone, and I'll admit that I was wrong."
She doesn't answer. Can't answer. She knows I'm right. "They don't have a clear picture of the situation. Their opinion doesn't count. Even you're only sitting there telling me that I'm great because you still, still don't get exactly how fucked up I am."
"I think I've got a better idea than anyone else in the world right now." I tell her.
She raises an eyebrow. "You think so?"
"I know so." I nod. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you give off similar vibes to- a friend of mine. The loner type, I figure you don't have a best-friend you can trust with secrets like this. I'm the best you've got on that front. Awesome taste on your part, by the way." I send her a thumbs-up as she rolls her eyes, but doesn't deny my words. "And you obviously didn't tell your family because they'd have told you everything that I've been telling you right now. Apart from the bits about stopping healing and becoming a billionaire. Or about the bits where you should practice making pet abominations and mini plagues. Or the bit about how all your problems are self-inflicted. They'd have been nicer about it, I think."
"Maybe some of them." Her mouth twitches. "And when you lay it all out like that, you're really just acting as the devil on my shoulder in this scenario, aren't you?"
"Too good-looking to be the devil."
She considers me for a moment. "Sure, hard to argue with that."
I blink. Wasn't expecting that response. Not without clearing her next challenge, at least. Where did that come from? Why?
I struggle to find words to fill the silence for a moment, an issue she apparently shares. We've stopped walking, hanging around next to a tree near the fenceline sealing off the park from the rest of the city. Amy seems to start to say something, only to stop herself at the last minute - shrinking back on herself and turning her focus to the remaining flowers in her hand. I idly watch her work, watching small vines grow and wrap around her wrist - then loop back and around her hand, slowly forming a latticed structure that flexes alongside her as she clasps her hand.
Seems like she's taking some of what I said on board. Fine. Silence it is. I'll take it as a win, and I'm not exactly opposed to just... hanging around. It's a nice area of town to laze around in anyway. There were definitely parts of town where I wouldn't want to walk around in the afternoon like this, areas where foot traffic or CCTV coverage was a bit too high to try and 'lay low' like I was now - but Brockton General was nestled in the comfy area of town where the Protectorate pretended they were in charge, and the closest gang territory belonged to the Empire anyway. And there's a lot you can criticise the Nazis for, but they keep a tighter grip on their members in the 'better off' areas of town. Not out of the goodness of their hearts, but the simple fact that their rich donors and half their membership tended to live there. Don't shit where you eat, something like that.
And if she was going to silently work on her own powers, then it seems appropriate for me to do the same. There's her challenge box. Already at zero again. Definitely like Leet, except it hadn't wanted to just hand me the win this time.
That's fine. I'm happy to take it. "Challenge."
I repeat the 'cleanup' of the closest NPCs. Although, I was really just looking for an exact repeat of last time - which never got to that point in the fight, except this time I'd have my ash clone grab a different brain when it gets the first ambush out.
I start the dance with Amy again. This was good practice for fighting a high-tier all-rounder Cape. A tutorial mode, almost. So many of my opponents had been made strong because of the scenario, or the modifiers, or the preparation that they'd gotten before I arrived or just the way the challenge perfectly suited their powerset. I had very little real experience against people that were just... naturally elite. Lung. Armsmaster. Dauntless. All-rounders who would expect to defeat me at all ranges, out-stat me across the board, have better tricks than me and that was before the challenge modifiers and scenarios got involved. Amy wasn't quite that level of Cape. Too flawed. The obvious weaknesses left in her... situation, kept the difficulty from getting absurd. But how much of that was just sentiment holding her back? If she didn't feel the need to preserve the brains, felt comfortable just salvaging the powers into some flesh abomination like Bonesaw would have done... that would be different.
Like I said. Tutorial for those elite Capes. Having to work around the instant win-condition of her touching me when I wasn't using her power, dealing with her being faster than me, having an advantage at range, having more reach in melee, having better defensive options - and my advantages are simple raw combat experience, the fact that I know her powers while she doesn't know mine, her own mental instability and anger - and also the fact that the critical design flaw that would depower her was left in the final 'product'.
The bait goes smoothly. Almost beyond expectations, actually. My ash clone pulls one brain cleanly away - and almost gets another with a trailing, still-forming limb - but has to abort at risk of impalement.
Another underhand throw, just the same as the last. I dissolve the brain instantly as it touches me - earning a cry of horrified shock and disbelief from my target. I consider her for a moment, then grin. "You don't seem that mad, relatively speaking. Must have been another Pelham? That's cold." I duck under a spear hurled in my direction, and phase through a half-dozen blasts of light as my ash clone respawns and occupies the knight to force her to halt the attack. Notably, she doesn't try to disperse the knight this time - or even try to match it blow for blow. "Manpower, then? Lucky me. Tell me, did he know that you were going to waste his life like that? Did he volunteer to leave his family behind, or did you decide that for him?"
"Fuck you!" She screams. Ah. That's better. I was worried when she was being quiet earlier, but maybe that was just me not saying the same things when she entered the scene. Not as articulate as I'd hoped... but I guess there wasn't much to banter about after killing someone. A bit of a moodkiller.
I bat an extended hand aside, watching her expression shift from triumph to despair at the brief moment of skin contact - my hand stings briefly as if burned, but keeping Panacea's power active in these close exchanges is a simple habit to maintain, her power is too slow and too weak when 'blocked' by my own version.
It's a tactical move on my part to show that off early, if she keeps trying - particularly in combination with other attacks, I might be forced to burn more defensive abilities. If she's in contact with me and I need to drop her power to enter the shadow state or resummon my ash clone or activate literally any other power, I'll be knocked unconscious the second I switch. I need to discourage her from thinking that her own power is a viable option to hit me with - and leaning on her imperfect knowledge is the best way for me to do that. She doesn't know that, technically, I can only have one active slot at any one time - she's learning all of this for the first time, if every time we touch, I'm 'immune' then she might just assume that this particular defence is always active regardless of what I'm doing.
That didn't work as well before, when Manpower's ability was active. Having an all-rounder Brute effect active meant that she always had a reason to engage in fisticuffs. But without that, only Glory Girl's shield gave her any advantage in using her fists over her ranged blasts and Brandish's weaponry - and while those were still dangerous, it wasn't the type of attacks that made things hard for me, but the speed with which they came. Without Manpower, I was confident that I could cycle my defensive powers well enough throughout her assault to outlast her.
Especially because the revival of my knight goes ignored by her.
Not looking behind you? Lazy, Amy. For a fourth level challenge, it's a glaring weakness. Being the only member of your family to avoid combat is costing you here - you might be fast, but there's more to a fight than physical stats. I just need to find the right moment to exploit it, without giving away the fact that the knight is active again just behind her. The knight isn't quiet, so any real movement will be obvious - but that just means that I need to give her something else to think about.
And that's a lot easier to do now that she had one less defensive power to lean on.
A glowing hand points in my direction. Laserdream. I disappear into the shadow state again to let the flurry pass me by, eliciting a frustrated noise from Amy in response - the girl not realising that simply sustaining that attack for a few more seconds would have taken me down. Imperfect information works both ways in these challenges.
As I recover, I take a moment to quietly scoop up some pebbles from the road nearby as she creates another of Brandish's weapons. It said something about how confident I was getting against her, that this kind of multi-power approach was something I was starting to consider one-note and repetitive. Perhaps because she wasn't using the powers as well as their original owners, or perhaps because no matter the advantages given to her - she was still an amateur. An overpowered one, but an amateur all the same.
She surges forward, opting for a double-bladed axe as her weapon of choice - speed boosted by a flight power in the absence of Manpower as an option. I hurl the handful of pebbles at her as she approaches, freezing one in place by my fist and immediately making a straight punch into the air to set up an Echo. She doesn't dodge the hurled pebbles, she didn't need to - Glory Girl's forcefield might be exploitable, but there was a reason her weakness had gone unknown for so long - it came back fast. Even the half-second it took for her to reach me would be enough to have it active again, so there's no reason for her to be concerned even if one of the pebbles had exceeded the minimum level of strength to shatter it - which was not even guaranteed.
What was guaranteed, was that the shield would be shattered if she crashed into a tiny, time-locked object when travelling faster than a speeding car. If I'd timed my Echo hit perfectly, I might even have scored a lethal blow with that, but the timing is just slightly off - I have to settle for my Echo slamming into her face as she attempts to block my own fist with Shielder's power. A hit stronger enough to stun, but that wasn't enough to win.
No. The winning move comes from behind, as a quick application of Vista's power shrinks the empty air between our current position and the knight as much as I can. I kick Amy in the shin to drop Glory Girl's shield again as it returns-
-and a slab of metal, asphalt and fury as tall as I am slams into the back of Amy's spine like the hammer of an angry god. I actually burn a shadow state charge to not get hit by her flying body as she sails up and past me - landing across the road like a broken wreck.
The challenge doesn't end, and I don't wait for it to do so. I sprint towards her fallen body. The knight follows behind me.
"I-" Sickly yellow arms emerge from under her robes, the same colour as the 'sac' that had seemed connected to the brains the last time I'd gotten a clear view of it. Amy floats upwards, then around to face me - a complicated expression on her face. "-I'm too weak-"
I click my tongue in annoyance as she floats directly upwards. I strip down further, forming another football to use. I could only hope that the blow from my knight had smashed the brains of Glory Girl and Shielder - I only had one ranged option, so I needed both of those powers to be gone to kill her with the football. But, even if I wasn't that lucky... I was pretty confident that I could just wait for her to run and chase her across the city in the speed state until she burned out the powers of whoever she was using to fly. As long as I didn't let her slip away completely and hide, I should win here. Just had to stay close.
Amy half-spins to face me. Was she paralysed with that hit? I wasn't seeing a lot of movement below the neck, just what those spindly pseudo-limbs were doing and her use of flight powers to move around. Would have been better if she'd died, but it was nice to firmly hold the advantage for once.
Although, I wasn't entirely happy to see that she was leaning back on her original power more - I'm pretty sure that she hasn't used it to its full potential this fight, perhaps limited by the constant need to use it to maintain the system keeping the rest of New Wave alive. But I suppose, as I've killed more - she needs that less. I don't really want to let her get creative for an extended time period, keeping her clumsily playing around with powers that weren't her own was probably safer.
"S-so-" She gasps out. "I'm sorry-" One sickly arm pulls a brain clear from her robes. After a second, it starts to glow - and she hurls it towards me. "-I need to win, no matter what-"
I raise Glory Girl's shield, then mentally reconsider as glowing orbs seem to drip out from the brain as it flies - five, ten, twenty. Flashbang's explosive orbs. Perhaps she hadn't found a way to propel the power outwards, merely activate it - so she sets it to overdrive and uses it as a grenade. A cluster grenade, more specifically.
I activate the shadow state, and then, after a moment of indecision - hurl myself down into the ground. It wasn't my preferred use of the power due to how painful getting shunted out of a solid object was when the state ran out, but the powers of New Wave had been fairly mixed so far on how they interacted with the shadow state - and if the incoming explosions were a type of energy that affected the shadow state, rather than just kinetic force and light, the best way to avoid that was to be five feet deep into the ground where electricity struggles to travel when everything explodes.
And everything does explode. I'd been expecting three consecutive seconds of darkness and confusion, before a surge of pain as my shadow state forcefully kills my momentum and relocates me back to the surface - inflicting it's own brand of punishment on my body as the cost of the 'teleportation' to the nearest safe area. Instead, as I cast the third charge of the shadow state - I find myself in the open-air again. At the centre of a rapidly-expanding crater, the shockwaves from explosions further away from me still hammering me despite my current existence as a cloud of smog. My ash clone winks out of existence despite it's best attempt at finding shelter. Fairly sizable cooldown on that now.
My feet touch solid ground after a moment of falling. I couldn't even see buildings around the edge of the crater I'd found myself in - only the hints of smaller dents and sub-craters where smaller explosions had occurred. Flashbang's power was not that strong - not in real life.
But perhaps this was just the natural result of someone taking a system, and removing all of the safeties. No thoughts, no rationality. Reducing a Cape down to nothing but a held-down trigger and a firing chamber. It still feels baffling, coming from Panacea - but it starts to make more sense when you stop considering her as a Striker, and more as a Tinker that happens to manipulate with her hands rather than with machines. That's the only way to explain Flashbang.
"Still alive." Amy's voice drifts down to me, voice raw with grief - but an expression filled by a soft, mad smile. "Of course. After taking everything else from me, you wouldn't want to leave the job unfinished."
"Not for lack of you trying. I didn't know you could modify power's quite like that." I call out. "Shame you killed him in the process though."
She doesn't take the bait. Doesn't come charging in with whatever powers she has left. She just smiles again. "Yes, well. Maybe it was always going to end like this. I held onto them out of hope... but, there wasn't really a plan. I was an extra to the rest of them, I saved them for Vicky's sake more than anything else. It's a tragedy, but... I'll have to help her get over it."
Why does she sound enthused by that prospect?
I glance around, my football was... gone. And the shreds making up the rest of my clothes weren't exactly conducive to creating a good enough doll to work with. No ranged options, I just had to sit on the ground and wait her out. It was hard to know how long that would be, especially given the fact that she obviously had less brains to maintain upkeep for now. Still. There was a limit.
As if in response to my thoughts, something shifts under her robes. More arms moving in tandem, cradling one brain close to her chest, evidently no longer seeing a need to keep it concealed anymore - another brain is half-merged into it, seeming to melt into it with every passing second. After a moment, her flight cuts out - only for her to come to rest in the air, as if she was sitting on something instead.
"It's just the two of us now. I think it will be easier this way, in the long run." She whispers, voice barely carrying down to me. "I have you, you have me. They wouldn't have understood our love. Not ever."
"I don't know, I'm pretty persuasive-" I start, only to be silenced with a hostile, hate-filled glare.
"Silence. I wasn't talking to you, you disgusting animal." She hisses. Her gaze turns downwards, to the final brain resting against her chest. "I can't beat him alone. I tried my best. I can't do any more than this-"
I frown as a small dust cloud kicks up far below Amy. As if something had settled there that I couldn't see.
"-so, I'm sorry for everything. But, please - Vicky." Something carves through the ground, as I faintly note the trace outlines of something refracting the air around her - the outline deepening as it approaches closer, into the dust cloud filling the crater. "Save me."
Ten arms. Twenty. Thirty. Three hands bound together to protectively cradle Amy and keep her held in the air - the rest of the... thing, heaves forward, a misshapen mockery of the human form. "What the fuck is that?" I eloquently query the maddened healer.
"This?" Amy smiles down at me serenely. "This is the power of love."
I can put two and two together. So, somehow, I'm completely unsurprised when she plants a delicate, unsisterly kiss on top of the sac encasing the brain.
A little freaky.
I'm kind of into it though. The idea of it. Not the brain stuff. Just the forbidden love angle, girls kissing - the totally normal side of it.
I nod wisely. I observe the as-yet-unseen back of the creature pass itself the top-half of a building - a vast number of limbs carrying it forward until it could be wieled by one of the many, many 'front' limbs. From the shifting of the ground around me, it seems Amy is intent on trapping me in here and eventually crushing me to death.
Interesting.
But she hasn't seen my speed-state yet. She doesn't know that me standing is a requirement for it, not a sign that I've given up.
I surge in the only direction that hasn't been covered in limbs from the giant construct yet. A screech of rage from both Amy and from something distinctly and disturbingly inhuman chases me as I reveal my best Mover power. Time to run.
They give chase. But I already know the maths on this one. A normal Glory Girl, in a straight line, is just barely slower than my top speed. Glory Girl - if I can still call that thing Glory Girl - may be larger, but she's not even flying anymore and has to scramble over every car, building and corner just to follow me. The difference is massive.
But can I win by running? My original plan when first seeing her trick with the brains had been to let her exhaust them and fight her then, but that was for someone attempting to sustain seven others. Did the same limits apply for just one extra brain? One, where she'd clearly decided to sacrifice the brain matter and fluids sustaining the others to better fuel Glory Girl as well?
And what was I even looking at it? It didn't even resemble Glory Girl's power in any way. It didn't look human, and Glory Girl's forcefield isn't even supposed to be visible - even I need to work off my own understanding of when the shield should and shouldn't be up to 'know' when it was broken. It wasn't supposed to be something you could see in the distance, growing clearer with every second that passes.
The question was simple. Was that still her power? If I hit that thing hard enough, would it disappear for a moment? Would Amy tumble twenty feet through the air and break her neck if it walked into a signpost too hard? So far, the answer seemed to be 'no'.
Or, maybe, it just hadn't been hit hard enough yet.
Amy goes charging past me after I slip into a sidestreet. That works. Now then. Ranged attacks. I was missing clothes to make a football, but I could be creative. Clockblocking a large enough rock, absolutely coating it in Skidmark's arrows - that would make an incredibly powerful rocket, albeit one on a timer that I couldn't control and with some difficult aim to say the least.
Amy's still rampaging nearby. Looking for me. That's good. I might be able to time an ambush around a corner if I time it right, and I didn't need to stay too close to the firing area either. I check my ash clone. Almost done with the cooldown.
...the air is spicy.
And my legs are weak. I stare at the gravel in front of my face for a moment, wondering how I got to this position. I can't think-
I slam Panacea's power into my active slot. Something burns on my tongue, on my nostrils, as the power does something that I can't even grasp - not even waiting for instructions before it surges to take action.
I lay there for a while. I don't feel better, not right away. But I stop feeling worse. What was that? Chemical warfare? Poison? It was good to know that Panacea's power could protect me from ingestion on that front, but the sickly feeling and double-vision proved that I couldn't use it to recover once it was already inside, just to stop anything else from entering my body. Still useful to know. It just meant that I couldn't release this power until I got to safety.
The consistent cycle of something burning on my tongue and Panacea's power repeatedly sallying-forth without my input proved that there wasn't much safety to be found. I can slowly heal by using the shadow state, but this was... suboptimal. I'd need to find a gas mask or something. Or rely entirely on my ash clone when I was able to resummon it.
I spend a minute cycling through my shadow state and immediately reselecting Panacea's power. Not having much effect. Maybe because Sophia's power was better at physical wounds, or maybe because I was phasing right back into the chemicals - or whatever this was - and re-incorporating more of it back into my body.
Fuck. Did I really lose at the very last hurdle? The thought is frustrating. Just a small change in angle when my knight hit Panacea and she'd have lost her head, or been knocked closer to me so I could have finished her off. If my original ash clone had grabbed Glory Girl's power instead. If I'd ever given the original idea of fighting her to exhaustion first a fair shot, rather than jumping at the realisation that I could immediately cripple her out of the gate - which pushed her in a corner before her powers were depleted. I had plenty of chances to win here, even if I wasn't actually upset about my performance.
It was fine. I hadn't lost anything. I'd still have another challenge even if Amy started walking home right now, and that didn't seem likely.
But it still felt like I'd let myself down. Losing to new tricks wasn't new, it was a core part of the experience with my power - but at a certain point, I should see a new trick and then just win anyway. It wasn't like Amy was actually a strong fighter. I knew the optimal plan, I just didn't follow through with it because I got cocky - thought I would win through better execution and combat experience because I thought I'd seen every trick she had. It might be fine here, now - but in real life, I would be dead.
Footsteps. Not the thundering footfalls - or handfalls? - of Amy's pet monster. An NPC? I push myself up to a sitting position, cursing quietly as my head spins from the motion. An NPC stares at me. Looks directly at me. Which was odd, all on its own. The blank, drooling expression was also strange.
Then he tilts his head back and screams, unearthly and unnatural. I lunge at him, swapping my power away just long enough to summon my ash clone and gift it Mush's powerset - then right back to Panacea before I became a victim to whatever was in the air. I bludgeon the NPC, which stops screaming only long enough to try to bite me instead. More disconcertingly, I still hear screaming - another voice nearby, then another. Like a hunting call. Or a signal. I grimace as I take in the rabid expression on the man's face, the unseeing eyes, the lack of regard for his own life.
Guess she wasn't kidding about the zombie apocalypse example. Just needs a few weeks to rot the flesh a bit, and it would be right on theme - although using the air as a distribution vector was definitely cheating. I snap the NPC's neck after a brief moment of struggle, it doesn't have the intelligence to try and defend itself anymore - almost seeming confused as it drops to the ground.
Too late though. I was listening for the heavy crashing noises in the distance to see if Panacea would return to find the cause of the commotion, and thought that I was safe from their absence.
"Flying is cheating." I grouse as I look upwards. Amy seemed pleased, smiling once again. 'Glory Girl' was back to her translucent state, only visible enough to highlight that this time, every exit was blocked. My knight idly attempts to destroy a limb that approaches it, only resulting in the limb vanishing - another surging out from some kind of central mass just behind Amy. Couldn't destroy the whole thing at once like that. Great. "Fine. You win this round." I raise my hands in surrender. "Go ahead, victory is yours - at the low, low cost of almost your entire family. I only wanted you, but I suppose Victoria will understand - you have nothing but time to make her into someone who will, after all."
"Yes." No denial. No reaction. No movement. Not even from the fist I could barely see directly above me, waiting like the axe of an executioner. "Oh, don't look so jumpy. I'm not going to kill you. Not after all you've done." Amy beams. "I've got so much work to do, to make sure everyone can accept the new Vicky and I - and I think it's only right that your power is used for its proper purpose, don't you think? A bit of redemption for you after a lifetime of murder and violence. I'll use your abilities for good, undoing everything you've built - and then, when I've done enough, I'll give you to Vicky as a wedding present. I'm sure by then she'll have some beautiful ideas for what to do with the person who took her family from her."
Oh. Hell no. I consider the limbs surrounding me, ready to restrain at a moments notice. My knight, still free - but lacking in material. Enough to kill me? Maybe not in a single hit. Not with Panacea right there, ready to save me from anything that didn't immediately take me to the success screen. If I could make the knight big enough discretely-
-or, make myself take more damage. I smile to myself. Finally, an upside to Velocity's power making me as durable as wet paper. I shift into the speed state. My knight adopts a ready stance as if prepared to attack. Amy adopts an amused expression - only for that expression to turn to rage as the knight swings in my direction instead of towards the giant construct again.
The funny thing about the speed-state's reduced durability is that it also, simultaneously, has better durability baked into it. Just because a punch might rip through me way worse than it would at normal speed, I can also just lean away from it as it hits me - distribute the force better. It was telling that I'd noted how bad getting hit was in this state despite being able to mitigate attacks like that.
And with me, in this one case, deciding not to do that? Deciding to tank the slab of wood, metal and waste head-on as it converges around me without doing anything to reduce it at all? I may as well have been made of air. I practically disintegrate on contact as the knight slams down on me, just in time - as my ash clone is effortlessly murdered and the knight follows just the briefest instant later.
FAILURE
Nice try, crazy bitch.
I'm mildly curious about what would have happened. There was no DNGR modifier, so either I would have been okay in the end... or that just indicated that there would, eventually, have been an end to the suffering. That it wasn't a truly eternal loop or something that would follow me outside of the simulation. I didn't have enough examples of that modifier to check, and it was the worst one to investigate anyway - for obvious reasons.
But I'm not going to find out. Not in that challenge. I'll never let it hit that stage again. I know the exact locations of three of the brains now. I know that Glory Girl wasn't on the back, because she'd have been destroyed when my knight hit that area. With that, and the knowledge that there was a special place in Amy's heart for Vicky - it stood to reason that Glory Girl was the centre-front brain. I'd grab that next time, and victory would be mine - either through a longer, drawn out fight - or through simple blackmail.
"Hey, Void. Come here a second." Amy calls out to me.
"Why do people keep dropping off the Cowboy part." I grumble. "I'm not some random edgelord calling myself Void like half the rest of the internet. Cowboy. It's quirky. Iconic. The mix of imagery makes you think."
"If you say so, Void." She smirks at my scowl, then smooths her expression out - hands coming up to touch my cheeks.
"Hm?" Not objecting, but I'm not used to being inspected like this either.
"You know, I actually really appreciate having you around. As a power copier. At first I thought - 'great, someone to share the suffering with'. But, you really do see the best in me for some reason. You might actually do something with my power. Indirectly, I might actually end up doing good through you."
"Do we have to have this argument again?" I half-complain.
"No. I was just- just appreciating this while it lasts. Having someone hear me out like that, still believe in me anyway - without flinching away. It was nice." She draws a breath in. "But it can't really last."
And then her lips slam into mine.
My first thought isn't on how it feels, or even how to respond. It's just abject confusion. For all that I was just about to clear the fourth challenge and gain that relationship boost, I hadn't cleared it yet. I was still operating just off of a single boost. And yes, I could somewhat understand this happening with some people that I'd really bonded well with - I'd really just spent most of the last hour in real life alternating between praising her, bullying her and calling her life traumas the result of a skill issue on her part. I don't see how any semblance of a relationship forms out of that.
But that doesn't last long. I can go with the flow sometimes. Pretty girl kisses you for no clear reason? Kiss her back, worry about the problems later. And Amy was pretty. Not, like, supermodel pretty - although that would probably change as I kept winning challenges - but pretty enough to still be called attractive when standing in the same room as her sister. Who was, certainly, supermodel-pretty.
Amy pulls away after a few seconds, considering me with a straight face for a moment. "That was nice."
"Thanks?" I'm a little lost. "Came out of nowhere, but you're welcome to do it again if you like?"
"Hm." She sighs. "It was nice." She repeats. "And, if I had to pick a guy, it would definitely be you. Even if you're taken. But, honestly - I just wanted to see what it would feel like."
"Pretty good, I'd hope? I've had a lot of practice." I volunteer the answer.
"I can tell." She responds drily, but there's a dead look in her eyes. "But, I was hoping it would be something more. Something that would help me feel like I could be normal." She leans forward, any sense of humour gone from her face. "But the truth is, I spent the entire time wishing that you were my sister instead."
I blink. Oh. I guess I got to her earlier, with how I've been acting. Now she's trying everything to convince me that she's crazy and unsaveable. Trying to scare me off.
Jokes on her. Maybe having feelings for her sister is a deep, traumatising problem for her. But it just sounds hot to me. "You know what's crazy?" I respond with a bemused lilt in my voice. "I was just thinking the exact same thing."
She blinks slowly. "No. I don't mean that I wanted you in the family. I mean, I wish that you were my sister, Victoria Dallon - and that I was kissing her instead of you-"
I nod. "Yeah, I got it. Makes perfect sense. I'm not saying this to be rude to you, but your sister is a total bombshell and I'd trade up to her in a heartbeat."
Amy nods firmly in agreement before catching herself and scowling. "You're missing the point. I love her. Not in a sisterly way, I mean I literally want to plant my head between her thighs and have her screaming my name until she's hoarse-"
"I get it. I really do. The image is firmly in my mind, trust me." I assure her. "I know you're thinking, 'that's disgusting I'm so terrible' but honestly, that's just playing into my personal fantasies so you won't get any judgement from me."
"How- how are you just moving past this?" She seems momentarily stunned. "You don't have to pretend, I know it's wrong. I know it's sick. She's my sister, it's living proof that there is something completely and utterly wrong with me."
"It isn't that serious, is it? It just means you're a le- uh, bisexual?" I pause over that. I think that's right. I don't think her actions with me were purely experimental, and she seemed to be checking me out earlier. "And you have great taste. I mean, she's easily one of the hottest people around and her costume really shows her body off as well - like, it pretends to be pure and angelic but really it's just thighs, ass and upskirts everywhere everytime she moves."
Amy nods again in complete understanding. Then stops herself again. "You're just saying all of that because you don't want to back down from everything you said before. All of that stuff I was saying about being able to change minds, wanting to change people - that was about her. Everytime she holds me, thinking I'm her beloved, innocent little sister - I'm one stray thought away from making myself the only person she cares about in her life. That's not a normal way to act around your family. I grow up with her, that's fucked up to even think about."
"Well." I make a dismissive gesture. "It is what it is." I can't really talk on that front.
"What does that even mean?" She deadpans. "It's incest!" She throws her hands up in the air as she turns away. "Whatever. I thought you'd take this seriously, that you'd finally appreciate that I'm just not normal - and it's just a joke to you."
"It's not a joke to me." I stop her. "I just don't really think it's a problem. You're attracted to the most attractive girl near you. That's pretty normal. Who cares if you're blood-related in the end? It's not like you're having inbred kids if you're both girls. I mean, maybe you could - but, that isn't what you were thinking, right?"
"No!" She gives me a look. "And we're not blood-related."
"Huh?" I look at her blankly.
"I'm adopted. I can see DNA and I don't match with anyone in the family, I don't know who my real parents are and Carol won't talk about it." She explains.
"PHO was right? I argued with that guy for nine pages, he'll never let me live this down-" I talk to myself for a moment. "Wait. Hang on, this isn't even really incest then - you just want to fuck your roommate. That barely even counts as a fetish anymore."
"What? No. She's my sister!" Amy insists. "DNA has nothing to do with it. I was raised with her-"
"Fraud." I accuse.
She stares at me blankly. "What."
"Fine, fine. We'll call her your 'sister'." I drop the air quotes deliberately. "But, still. This is barely even a real problem anymore. You can't even have inbred babies no matter how much you mess around with your power, your attraction is totally normal, you have great taste and-" I pause. "-I've just realised. With you kissing me - and being interested in fucking your sister - we're 50% of the way towards a threesome that would make everyone happy."
"Huh?" Amy looks completely lost.
That was always going to be the longer-term goal for me, I just never even fantasised about the idea that it might be a team goal. A team effort, even. "Well. All I have to do now is cuck your sister away from that Dean guy, get her interested in a threesome with you - you act surprisingly interested - and then all of us will be happy. Makes sense, right? Glory Girl probably won't even notice how oddly enthusiastic you are about cleaning her up afterwards."
"That- that isn't what I-" She shakes her head. "I'm not signifying that with a response. And, Dean- no. My sister is dating Gallant. I don't know who Dean is-"
"No, Gallant is the cover story after your sister got snapped snogging the guy out the back of Arcadia. They just didn't want a normal guy to get that kind of attention so they made a big public 'relationship' to keep the heat off of the real one-" I note how Amy seems oddly stiff. "Oh." I click my tongue against the roof of my mouth. "I see. Audacious. You know, I did think I got banned off of that thread faster than usual before I'd even said anything too bad - but they really just kind of outed the guy and assumed that nobody would catch on, huh? I guess it worked, but - wow."
"I didn't say that." Amy lies. Cute. She really tried. "I'm just saying, it's public knowledge and well-documented-"
"Yeah, I get it - I get it. Gallant, huh." I nod to myself. "But that relationship of theirs - the arguments everyone talks about. Those are still real? They break up for a bit, they get back together a few days later? That's a regular thing?"
"I- yes. With Gallant, that is a thing. Not with anyone else." Amy shuffles. "How is this relevant?"
I grin at her. "Well. It means that for a good chunk of the year, your sister is open for the right guy to swoop in as a rebound. And, well - I'm available."
"No you aren't." She half-glares at me. "You don't realise the level of detail I can see in your body. Your sexual history may as well be an open book to me. She can do better than you, and she's happy with Gallant - I won't help you break them up."
"Most of my partners are aware that there are other people somewhere in the picture, and the rest don't care." I wave that part off and tick points off on my fingers. "If she was happy with Gallant, they'd never break up. She can't do better than me, I'm the best guy around. I don't need to break them up, I just need to... be around when they do. And, most importantly - I don't need your help. I'd try to hook up with Glory Girl no matter what happened today, that was always going to happen. It's just, now I know that when I do - I'll have an audience member off to the side, eagerly waiting for the moment that she's invited to join in."
Amy looks poleaxed. Stunlocked. Gobsmacked. "I-" She swallows drily, tongue wetting her lips before she speaks. "I didn't talk about this to recruit you, I don't want pity, or help - it was just to illustrate how fucked I am-"
"And you failed. Wanting to fuck Glory Girl is the most normal thing in the world, I think it makes you seem a little more human actually - rather than this weird saint spending all of her time poking ungrateful bastards in hospitals for fun." I place one hand on her chin. "Trust me. I really can't judge. You're sitting there worrying about how you have the ability to fundamentally change someone to like you more on a whim, and having a crisis despite never using it. But I think if you put that kind of power in the hands of an average guy, they wouldn't really worry about the moral side of it that much. They'd just do it. Human nature."
She tilts her head. "Even you?"
"If Glory Girl was my roommate for literal years, was as touchy-feely with me as she obviously is with you and I could rewire her love me with a touch?" I shake my head. "Mandatory breeding session every night. No question about it."
"Don't talk about my sister like that." She attempts to mock-glower at me, as if this whole conversation wasn't her idea.
"Why, getting wet?" She attempts to stomp on my foot in response to that. I dodge, and surge forward - pressing her back against the tree. "Don't be like that, you should be cheering me on the entire way. After all, I'm the only path you'll ever have to getting close to her. Gallant, even if you suggested it to him - even if your sister somehow agreed... he seems like the type to politely turn you down. Maybe some spiel about finding the right person yourself. I wouldn't do that to you. I won't rest until both of you are swapping my cum with your tongues, until both of you have mastered the art of pleasuring each other just as well as me. You'll get to see what your sister looks like when a real man is fucking her into a mess, not just as a distant observer or a witness to the aftermath - but as an active participant. And you'll thank me for it every step of the way."
Her face is red, failing to meet my eyes as she breathes heavier than usual. "You sure have a lot of ideas for someone who has never even said a word to my sister before. I'm sure a lot of guys think they could do the same."
"A lot of guys aren't me. I've got better credentials. You said something about seeing my sex life? It should be self-explanatory if it's as comprehensive as you claim." I lean in. "And besides, I've got my girl on the inside - eager to help me succeed." She startles for a moment, and I continue in a soothing voice. "Not asking for much, and nothing from your power. Just a reason for an introduction, a bit of exposure now and then - it isn't like I'll be able to do anything immediately. Certainly not when the whole Gallant thing is stable. But if you happen to introduce your fellow healer Cape in passing as you get picked up from the hospital, or talk about me enough that she gets curious about the man who has managed to attract her sister's attention... then that wouldn't be suspicious at all, would it? And Vicky would never expect that your goal in such a casual introduction would be for her to end up as such a slut for my cock that she thinks nothing of sharing it with you."
"Vicky, Gallant - they're both heroes. It wouldn't be right." The reluctant voice says it all. It isn't a convincing argument. She wants me to tear it apart.
"What does that matter? We're not doing anything villainous. Not even anything morally wrong. They won't be together when I make a move-" Maybe. I wouldn't wait personally, if I had to make Gallant a cuck I would. But saying that wouldn't help the argument. "-is there any rule or law against making a move on a newly single lady? No. Regardless of our motives, it's strictly consensual dating, into a consensual sex life into a consensual threesome. There isn't even anything remotely dubious about it, save for the fact that Gallant would have tried to get her back eventually - so maybe you would feel bad for your friend. But, not bad enough I would bet. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like in this case, you would rather be happy, than be right. Am I wrong?"
Slowly, silently, as if it's a betrayal of everything she stands for - she shakes her head.
"Good. Then we're partners towards a common goal." I affirm. "But I should make something clear."
"What is it?" She looks up at me.
I grin. "When I said I'd prefer your sister to be in your place, that's not to say I'm not interested in you. I wouldn't offer a threesome just out of pity, you're in my crosshairs too - you get that, right?"
She turns slightly pinker than before. "Obviously."
"Obviously?" I echo. "I almost can't believe I'm hearing that from little miss 'I'm so terrible and nobody should love me'. Am I just a great therapist or did you just need a bit of hope for your dreams for your ego to come back?"
"Neither of those." She looks bemused at my mock crestfallen expression. "You just aren't subtle. I see everything your body does whenever we touch, unless you're using my power. You've hornier than sin every time you look at me, which honestly doesn't mean much considering your low standards but - still. I could hardly fail to notice if I actively tried."
"A few healthy fantasies about nurses keeps the blood flowing." I concede. "Nothing wrong with that."
"I didn't say anything was wrong with it." She murmurs sheepishly. "It's... fine." Her face reddens. "If- if you want, we could- we could do something about that?"
I tilt my head. "Here? I don't mind, but even if not many people walk this way in the evening - it's a bit exposed. People could spot us from one of the main footpaths. I can find us a room-"
"I can fix that." She interrupts. As I watch, the tree swells - the branches lower, slightly multiplying. The leaves thicken, the trunk splits. In the span of just a few seconds, a healthy wall of foliage has linked up with the nearby bushes to completely cut off line of sight to the rest of the park. "Satisfied?"
"Didn't realise that you were that eager." I confess. "I'm sorry to keep you waiting."
Amy squirms a little. "I mean, the way you were talking - it was a given we'd be doing this eventually anyway, if you ever got a fraction of the way towards achieving what you intended to. So, no reason to wait - right? It's not like I dislike you or anything. I know I'm not always the most personable, but - I do appreciate you and what you've tried to do for me already. Even if V- even if that thing never goes anywhere, I'm still grateful. And, I want to show you how grateful I am."
Her lips meet mine again, her hands fumbling at my belt even as I slip a hand under her robes - primed to finger and tease at the relative amateur to all things sexual.
An amateur - I'm reminded - that has access to freeform biokinesis. Her hand ghosting over my length for the first time is unremarkable at first, but whether it's an internal decision in her head, a desire to match and respond to the growing wetness I was feeling with my teasing hand, determination to actually make me cum or simply an attempt to distract from the occasional embarrassing noise she makes as a slip an extra finger into her dripping slit - whatever the cause, she makes her move. Every sensation on my cock starts to overlap, the feeling of a half-dozen hands ghosting across it lovingly in a chaotic rhythm - every pleasure centre lighting up as her attention passes and refusing to truly disengage again. I stand swollen, painfully erect as she appears to maintain her slow, delicate rhythm - the physical movements completely at odds with the absolute turmoil she was causing with her power.
She knows. She knows exactly what she's doing here. Exactly the reaction she's causing. And she's enjoying it. The feeling of control. Of doing something interesting, something fun, with her power. I never quite hit the limit. Never quite cross the threshold into release. That was deliberate. Not the same as the blue balls of a denied release, but simply maintaining the peak before reaching that point in an impossible equilibrium. She doesn't stop. She doesn't let up.
And, just when I start to feel like I need to shift Panacea's power into the active power slot and let her know just what I thought of her games - she gently tilts me over the edge. Her other hand comes up to hover over my tip, catching the majority of my load before it can erupt all over her robes - both her hands are utterly coated in my seed instead, my own ministrations to her temporarily put on hold as she contains me.
I breathe in deeply, a sigh of relief. "That cannot be your first time doing that."
"You think I would ever have reason to try that on anyone else?" She laughs, seeming pleased with herself as she admires her cum-laden hands. "Just came naturally to me."
I narrow my eyes at her as she licks her hands clean, the mixture on her fingers transforming into something that looked closer to cake icing than anything else. And, was that a joke she just said at the end? A pun? No. Surely not. An accident.
"But-" She wriggles lightly, one newly-cleaned hand moving to her waist. "-you're not done yet, are you?" As if she doesn't know. Clothes are brushed aside as her panties slip to hang loosely around her ankles - two fingers, spreading her lower lips wide, making her intentions more than clear.
"Of course not." I respond anyway, inching forward - mindful of the shifting nature of the tree as she manipulates it again - making a more comfortable hollow for her to settle on. "Are you sure about this?"
"If you're hesitating when a half-naked girl is posing like this for you, how do you ever expect to land my sister?" The retort comes sharply.
"Touche." I concede the point. And that was that. I line myself up with her slit, pressing gently into her - before thrusting sharply to take her virginity in a single clean motion. I pause there for a moment, firstly - to mentally congratulate myself for adding to my collection. Plus one member to the harem, well done Greg. Secondly, to allow Amy to adjust to the sudden intrusion - she hadn't voiced a complaint, but her breathy gasp indicated that she wasn't entirely as ready as she had pretended to be. I hold there, filling her insides with my length - until her legs lightly wrap around my waist. Unspoken permission obtained, I pull back - extracting another miniature gasp in the process, and thrust forward again in the start of a motion that wouldn't stop until I was ready to blow.
The noises she made were adorable. Breathy moans and gasps, occasionally cut off by the need to remember how to breathe - but as the pace continues, those gasps make way for more passionate noises. She's not a screamer, but not exactly quiet either - very obviously enjoying the sensations as her hips rock against me, encouraging me to keep up the pace. I settle my hands on her hips for leverage, briefly regretting the fact that the rest of her clothes were still on the upper half of her body - and even her robes were mostly just bunched up to give me room to work. I'd love to explore her fully, tease her chest and watch her nude body squirm as I fuck her - but that would have to be an experience for another day. No matter how adventurous she was feeling, there were always going to be some limits when fucking outside.
For now, at least. Maybe when I'm the king of Brockton Bay and anyone watching is more likely to join in than complain. There's a certain appeal to the idea of taking one of my girls and making sure the world knows about it - but common sense indicates that, for now, it needs to remain an idle fantasy. It would attract the wrong kind of attention, that would get too many people looking and too many people asking questions - and perhaps not liking the answers.
For the next several minutes, the only thing audible is the sound of our hips meeting and the soft cries of the girl beneath me - a symphony that would be unmistakable to any adult passing nearby. Not that I was worried about that. If anyone came, I'd be more likely to get a pat on the back for my efforts than they were to get more than a word of objection out once they realised what we were doing. Amy might be a little embarrassed, but if I had to guess - she was probably a little more okay with the thrill of the idea of getting caught than she initially let on. She'd been keen to do this outside, even when I'd offered to find a room. Maybe it was a fetish, maybe it was her own way of countering her usual MO of hiding her real self from the world. Maybe she was just overwhelmingly horny and didn't want to wait - you do hear rumours about nurses, after all.
But whatever the reason, I was a generous guy. When Sophia wanted to be beaten to a pulp and forced to submit, I obliged. When Taylor decided that draining my balls in some dark alleyway was the best way to start off a patrol, I obliged. And now, when Amy is clearly trying a few experimental things and finding herself? I can be flexible here too.
Saint Greg, at it again.
I increase my pace as she shifts and squirms under me, feeling my own climax approach - fuelled by the writhing and twisting of the inner walls I was slamming into. Here and now, Panacea looked transformed. Gone was the look of borderline depression and bitter sarcasm, replaced by a flush of earnest excitement and growing lust. A small smile graces her features, the corners of her mouth curling upwards even as her eyes drift closed. I spare a breath to speak for a moment. "Hey. Where-"
"Inside, it's fine. I've sorted it." She interrupts breathily, chest heaving. "Just- just keep going."
I obey. I'd been pretty confident that Amy would ensure that nothing dramatic and lifechanging happened when we were fucking, but there was no reason not to check. I was taking a lot on faith here, especially after hearing about her ability to manipulate minds, melt people into puddles or zombies - depending on her mood. I could have done this entire thing with Panacea's power active, just to keep myself perfectly safe.
But this was about trust. Not only me trusting her and standing by the words I said, but also about her seeing the expression of trust from me. Knowing that I could make myself near-immune to her power, but chose not to - that would have a weight all on its own. That had meaning, a founding block of trust to build our relationship on in the future.
I'd never let another Emma happen again with someone I care about. I was keeping Amy. That meant doing things right. And if that meant accepting that her newfound willingness to use her powers more loosely than before might be tested on me, then so be it. I was perfectly fine shooting blanks. It wasn't like I wanted to get anyone at all pregnant right now, let alone Amy. And I was pretty confident that wasn't the only change - I thought I'd noticed Amy getting tighter, but I was pretty sure it was the opposite. I was pretty sure that actually, I was getting thicker - filling up Amy just a little more than I should be, standing a little taller than I feel like I usually do, a little firmer.
I didn't see the need to comment on it. As long as it didn't get silly, if she wanted to temporarily tweak things to fuck herself harder - more power to her. I was enjoying it too, a fact that she undoubtedly knows.
Her back arches and she lets out a single, sharp, girlish cry. Her legs tense, squeezing tight as her walls clench around me. I match her voice with my own, her orgasm pushing me over the edge as I empty myself into her. Again. Maybe a little more than I would expect, but if she wanted to make her first time a bit more special by ensuring that she was literally overflowing by the time I finally pull away - I wasn't going to complain. That was my girl now. And I had no intention of sharing.
One Dallon sister down, one to go.
Sorry Dean. Gallant. Whatever you prefer. I don't know when it will be, but high school romances were never meant to last anyway. I'll be making my presence known soon enough. And even if you hate me at first... you'll love me in the end too.
In other circumstances, we might have lingered there for a while - enjoying each other's presence. But, it was cooling off pretty quickly. We make ourselves presentable again, Amy returns the tree to normal after checking that nobody was nearby - and we head back the way we came, faces flushed but mood suitably upbeat.
"I'll head straight back home, I think. I'll be missed if I'm gone too long." She murmurs.
"Not calling for the taxi?" I tease.
She stiffens. "Maybe- maybe next time. I'll need to think about what to say without sounding guilty and making a fool of myself."
Damn. No Glory Girl meeting. But I could hardly complain about today's haul. "That's fair. I'll see you around, we should definitely make some efforts to deliberately meet up - even if its just being at specific hospitals around the same time."
"Of course. I'll- I'll keep in touch." She agrees.
We wave farewell to each other and part ways.
But not before I follow behind her for an extra minute. No sense wasting the opportunity. "Challenge."
This time, the exchange is quick and brutal. She charges forward, I dart left, my ash clone appears from the right - one limb barely scraping my ankle to make it an administrator with the shadow state. This time, one brain in the centre of her chest is the target - I propel myself high off of a Clockblocked rock to draw her attention, and by the time she realises the true thrust of the assault - it's too late. Victoria's brain pulses loosely in my ash clone's hand.
It isn't long before it's in mine instead. I hold it up. "Stop, or I'll kill her."
Amy stops.
"I have a proposal." I tell her. "You die, but Glory Girl lives. I use your power to put her in some stranger's body, you get rid of all of those other brains and all of that... stuff, that you're carrying around. I ask you a few questions, then you accept death - knowing that at least Victoria survived."
She screams. She rages. She pleads. She begs.
In the end, the REAL modifier defeats the LUST. Six brains are discarded, and quickly destroyed in front of a broken-looking Amy. I have her strip down, removing anything obvious she could use her own powers on. I don't offer any comment on the burning sensation on my tongue. I'd almost be disappointed if she didn't try, but having Panacea's power open to keep Glory Girl alive was already a necessity - so fending off a little biological warfare wasn't any extra trouble.
"You promised-" Amy is muted, her voice comes out in a rasp - already spent in tearful arguments to no avail. Vicky is the only one that really matters to her. The others are a bonus objective, a side quest.
"I did." I leverage the NPC closer to me. I wasn't an actual brain surgeon, nor was I convinced that the current level of my power was enough to manage an operation like this on its own - even ignoring the specific circumstances this particular brain had gone through. How long had it been missing any form of input other than what Amy had issued to it? Was there even a personality left, was it sane? Did it matter?
No. Because this was just my leverage. The idea of hope, to keep Amy talking. She was already dead.
"But you haven't answered my questions yet." I continue. "New Wave. Tell me about them. Everything. Powers. Weaknesses. Personality. Hobbies. Schedules. Fighting styles. Trivia. If you stop talking, I stop working. So. Talk."
She talks. The sun hangs low in the sky. She talks some more.
I decide I've heard enough. My knight swings it's club down on Amy. She survives. Anti-stalling measures. But that isn't enough. Not now that she's lost the rest of her acquired powers, just being strong and fast is insufficient in the face of a surprise attack and better abilities. The strike making up the 'execution' had been a condition of keeping Glory Girl alive. It had been long enough that she had forgotten the knight was even standing over her.
Amy collapses to the ground after a second hit. Dead.
"How underwhelming." I comment to myself. "Too think, all of that struggle - just because I got unlucky the first few brains that I hit."
I consider the fading world for a moment.
SUCCESS
Reward: Amy Dallon+
"Or maybe, any of the brains I had hit would have been wrong in those earlier attempts." I consider the success screen for a moment. "I hope you got what you were looking for." I don't direct the statement to anyone. I don't get any reply.
Amelia Lavere
Villain 5/7
(PREP) (LUST) (TIME)
I shake my head. "Fuck that." I'm done for today. I don't even want to try and work through another mess like the last few. Give me something that just punched me in the face.
Tomorrow. That would be a busy one. I'd skip school, or most of it at least. I needed my full costume from Parian, I needed to work on my Tinkertech project, I needed to put my affairs in order for Browbeat's announcement event.
And, hopefully, by this time tomorrow - I'd have so many new powers that my position in the Bay would never be the same again. No more skulking around hiding from mid-tier villains. I'd be a mover and shaker in my own right - and I wasn't talking about power classifications.