Chapter 1: Setting the Stage
Part 1
To call Winslow a hellhole was an insult to hellholes everywhere. I'd known it was bad before getting powers, but now I actually had some basis for comparison.
The building itself wasn't in great shape, it wasn't exactly 'half a step from condemned', but it was understating things to say all it's hallways could use a coat of paint, the class rooms could use some work, and that it's library held the firm and rustic smell of mildew to it like water in a sponge. The gym and lab equipment wasn't exactly great either, the chairs were uncomfortable, the PA crackled, the textbooks were a decade old in the better cases, and the computers were old enough that they didn't need to worry about the gangs stealing them.
Actually now in hindsight, that last one might actually have been deliberate.
But those weren't the real problem.
No the real problem was the gangs.
Brockton Bay, among its many other notable titles, was the neo Nazi capital of the US. It wasn't bad enough that I could expect to see someone walking down the hallway with a 'purely decretive' red arm band on, but honestly if I did see someone with one I wouldn't really be surprised by it.
Not that they would. No, they had a little more subtly then that. Shaved heads, and 'coincidental' display of the number eighty eight was one thing. Flying colors that blatant on the other hand was just asking someone to bust a cap in your ass. Probably by someone wearing a dragon.
It's funny, you'd think an organization the Empire Eighty Eight (said neo Nazis) would all but own this town. They had like a dozen supervillians, they had money, numbers, and borderline, or even occasionally outright military level munitions and resources to outfit them. Once you added it all together, it all added up to a small private army that most military contractors couldn't match up to. The local Protectorate were just plain out numbered and out muscled, even if you factored in independent heroes like New Wave helping them.
And the indiy heroes would help. Of course they would. The empire was a freaking terrifying concept, much less reality to live with. Particularly for someone who could remember listening to horror stories about the original flavor of Nazis. They would fight, if it came down to a straight fight, but they would lose. By all rights Kaiser, leader of the Empire Eighty Eight should have taken over the city in all but name at this point.
But he didn't.
Because there was a scarier monster in town.
Lung was everything the Empire was and worse. He was one man. One cape. And he basically walked into town, picked out a spot he liked and said that it was his now.
And whenever someone objected he crushed them like a bug. Whenever a group of people objected they got crushed too. Normal person, cop, soldier, superhuman, team of superhumans, it didn't matter. He just... walked in one day, picked a fight with the entire local Protectorate and sent them running. He did the same to the Empire, and to everyone else stupid enough to face him.
And then he claimed his spot, and ruled it like a tyrant.
The Azn Bad Boyz better known as the ABB. A paradoxical pan-Asian supremacist gang, that gave no care about the wildly diverging and often traditionally conflicting cultures scooped up under the term 'Asian' ruled by a freaking dragon.
Drugs, protection rackets, kidnapping and exportation, outright human trafficking... they did it all, and not a single person alive could do a damned thing about it. The most the government and its affiliate heroes could do was try stake out hunks of turf that they wouldn't budge on. Certain rules that they abided by. Things they couldn't really stop Lung from moving on, but could make it not worth the effort to do so. Make it cost more then Lung could risk with the Empire watching and waiting.
And of course the Empire itself did the same with the heroes waiting in the wings. Unspoken rules on where one could and could not act, had to and need not to act. Rules that if violated would lead to a war no one would win, only at best endure or survive.
It was probably those exact rules that were the only reason a place like Winslow could still stand with members of both gangs openly operating inside with anything resembling peace and order.
Scary shit huh?
Even two days ago the best I could do was hunker down, keep quiet and hope to whatever gods might be listening that no one drew their attention towards me.
But now... now I had power. Not a lot of it, but...
Was this what it felt like to own a gun maybe? The heady feeling of being able to fight back, to know that if someone went after you that you didn't just have to stand there and take it.
Not that fighting would get me far. My powers sucked. If I fought back openly that'd just get attention that would crush me like a bug. At least with what powers I currently had available. All that aside if I just busted out the arcane asskicking bullshit on a hares breath then how was I different from the gangs in the first place?
But... maybe with some practice that could change? I was already one link higher on the food chain. If I just kept climbing higher then eventually I might be able to make a real difference. With great power comes great responsibility and all that right?
I had to figure out how to strike a good balance. Find some point between where I could live with myself and just plain live.
The bell rang.
I blinked.
Of course that could wait until after class!