-----Rebecca Costa-Brown/Alexandria-----
-----Cauldron Base, Earth Eden-----
I really hope we're wrong about this. Otherwise I just might find a way to strangle myself to death. Wouldn't that be some shit? We do all kinds of fucked up shit to try and save humanity, only to be responsible for unleashing some of the biggest hurdles that humanity is currently facing. Sounds like a sick fucking joke.
But I'm not hearing the punchline.
-----Morgan Yu/Typhon Prime-----
-----Brockton Bay, Earth Bet-----
-----04/24/2011-----
The first sign that something was wrong was the fact that I'm pretty sure, reasonably certain in fact if my various collection of memories are to be believed, that no one sets off fireworks to celebrate Easter Sunday.
The second sign that something was wrong was the distinct sound of not-firecrackers accompanying the not-fireworks.
The third, and rather most obvious sign in hindsight, was the fact that the PRT ENE was on fire and surrounded by Asian's wearing the red and green of the ABB.
If my Core Memories are to be believed, this marks the beginning of Bakuda's bombing spree. It starts off innocuous enough, a rather flashy prison break to bust Lung out of the big house before he can be sent to the Birdcage.
Of course, Bakuda being the unhinged egomaniac, second only to Eidolon himself in terms of sheer ego volume, but definitely pulling the lead for unhinged, that she is, she decides that Lung's defeat only proves that he's weak and unfit to lead the ABB, so she decides to take charge.
I respect the power-play for what it is, but going as far as shoving Tinkertech bombs with all manner of exotic and esoteric effects ranging from "pain amplification", "glassification", "temporal distortion (time stop bubbles or rapid aging)", "black hole generation", etc. into people's heads and turning them into unwitting suicide bombers? Well, that's just tasteless. Waste of perfectly good Mimic fodder and Phantom production.
...I should probably be more bothered by the act of lives being lost from a moral and ethical standpoint, but then again my Core Memories show indications of at least mild sociopathy, and Typhon's are inherently lacking in the capacity for empathy as it is.
I just... don't really care about a bunch of nameless rando's. I mean sure, I do feel a tiny flicker of guilt about it, but not enough to be a bleeding heart about it.
Taylor though... Yeah, there's no shot she doesn't get wrapped up in this mess. First things first, a bit of bookkeeping.
"Uber? Leet?" I call their base with a Technopath.
"Typhon Prime? What can we do for you?" Uber responds.
"If some crazy Asian bitch named Bakuda comes to the two of you for cooperation or something, either tell her to shove it where the sun don't shine, or join her with the sole intention of fucking her over at the best possible time. She's an unhinged psychopath and being associated with her's likely going to result in literally every Cape in the city trying to murder you."
"Stay away from crazy bomb bitch? Easy enough." He replies.
"I never said she was a 'bomb bitch'. How'd you know?" I ask with a growing sense of suspicion.
"With my Investigation Skills, it wasn't too hard to pin down the Cornell Bomber as being of Asian descent and word on the street's that Lung recently recruited a Tinker. 2+2=4 and all that." He replies.
"I see. In any event, stay the fuck away from her. She's unhinged enough that she thinks that enforcing compliance by sewing Tinkertech explosives into civilians heads won't lead to the fucking Triumvirate coming to town and making life shit for the rest of us."
"Oh fuck that noise. She's actually doing that?"
"Not yet, but I can tell she's the type. Call it 'woman's intuition'." I say, despite not exactly being a woman, but I do present as one so...
"Thinker bullshit. Got it. I'll let Leet know to steer clear of her. We don't need the kind of heat that'd come with being associated with someone like that."
"Excellent. Take care you two." I then end the call. With that out of the way, I suppose I should go and check on the Undersider's to make sure that none of Bitch's dogs get killed by Bakuda.
-----Taylor Hebert/Skitter-----
-----PRT ENE Headquarters, Wards Common Room-----
This is NOT how I thought my debut was going to go. Having met the other Wards yesterday, I was rather pleasantly surprised to see that they're actually pretty nice.
Vista's got a bit of snarkiness to her that's rather charming, and she really does deserve more respect than she gets. I wonder if Morgan would have any advice for that?
Is it a good idea to consider asking an admitted Villainous Rogue for advice on how to be a better Hero? Probably not, but damn if Morgan doesn't get results.
Deciding to unpack that shit much, much later, I think about the rest of my new teammates. Carlos is pretty chill, he didn't get squicked out by being swarmed by bugs nearly as much as I thought he would. I guess that's Aegis for you?
Chris is pretty decent too. Dyscalculia's gotta suck for Tinkering, or math in general, but he's overall pretty nice. He does tend to get a bit too distracted with his Tinkering, but that's apparently par for the course when it comes to Tinker's, or so I'm told.
Never mind how he's been especially distracted ever since I seemingly helped him figure out his specialization. He was nice enough to show off a number of his creations and I couldn't help but notice some of the connections across various devices seemed like they'd interlink with one another for modularity.
So, naturally this led him to go nuts as the revelation of being a Tinker who specializes in Modular Systems sent him into a near-perpetual Tinker Fugue. At least he's happy?
Dennis is... I have mixed feeling about him. On the one hand, I know he means no harm with his idea of "stopping someone in time" as a prank for the newbie, on the other hand, it feels a lot like hazing. At least he seemed genuinely remorseful about it when I got upset with him, though I also ended up feeling bad for blowing up on him the way I did.
Browbeat... exists? I guess? He didn't really say much, keeps to himself mostly. I get the sense that he's not comfortable around other people, new people especially. I can respect that.
Dean. Dean. I really don't know how to feel about him. I'm kinda pissed at him actually. He's able to sense other people's emotions and could quite clearly tell that Sophia was a raging bitch with a mountain of issues, but chose to keep that shit to himself.
I know his Power's not exactly the most precise implement with which to measure a person's nature, and he can't actually pick up on intent all that well unless it's "in the moment", but the fact that he never thought to address the problem in the first place?!
I mean, I understand boundaries and respecting people's privacy and stuff, but his explanations for why he chose to keep what he knew to himself feels more like depraved indifference, or a serious case of bystander syndrome.
So yeah, Gallant's not exactly making it near the top of my friend's list anytime soon. And it's safe to say that the opinion of the other Wards is similar to my own. He knew full well that Sophia's presence was hurting cohesion and morale and, rather than do the responsible thing and try to get her some much needed help to address her issues, he let her go unnoticed and I had to pay the price for it.
Maybe calling him out on being indirectly responsible for my Trigger Event was a step too far, but I can't say I entirely regret it. After all, "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". And clearly I'm not the only one who thinks so.
Although the most fucked up part of the whole thing is that Sophia heard about me calling Gallant out on that and the quote I rebuked him with, and she fucking acknowledged it!
She apparently started on some insane shpiel about how locking her up and throwing away the key was the same as letting the bad guys win since she was out cleaning up the streets and doing more for the good of the city than the rest of the Wards and Protectorate combined.
Apparently she had some rather pointed feelings about the "revolving door" of Villains in this great game of Cops and Robbers we play thanks to The Unwritten Rules. And the worst part? There's some part of me that actually gets where she's coming from.
Never have I ever felt as disgusted with myself as I did in that moment.
In any event, I'm out here with the others, attempting to fend off the ABB, who are clearly trying to free Lung from prison. Turns out that immediate threat of being swarmed with bees, wasps, spiders, cockroaches, etc. trumps potential threat of sedated rage dragon. Who knew?
In any event, we've managed to nail down a pretty effective strategy for dealing with the ABB. I swarm them to keep them distracted. Vista warps space between us and them. Then Clockblocker runs in and tags them, freezing them in place for however long his Power feels like working.
It's working pretty well so far. So it comes as no surprise when everything goes to shit.
Seemingly out of nowhere, a fucking homemade APC rolls up with someone wearing some weird cross between a gas mask and welder's mask poking out of the top. Oh, and they're holding a grenade launcher. And they're firing said grenade launcher at us, with no regard for friendly fire.
Suffice to say, we're ordered to pull back so as to avoid being caught in the exotic ordinance. Considering what I've seen some of those bombs do, I'm pretty sure that not even Aegis is feeling brave enough to tank some of those.
Then one of the bombs goes off near the guy that I'm currently swarming. The next thing I know, my world is nothing but PAIN!!!!!!!!
As I collapse to the ground from overwhelming pain and find myself on the verge of blacking out, the last thing in my consciousness is a roar of rage and fire and steel erupt from the area that I'm pretty sure houses the holding cells.
Well shit, I guess Lung's free. Then the merciful blackness of unconsciousness takes me.
Oddly, my dreams are mostly occupied by what looks like some sort of oil-painted night sky. Predominantly black but with streaks of orange, blue, and purple interwoven here and there. Along with a rather soothing yellow. The sky sings to me to sleep as I lay down upon the island of dark red crystal.
