Warning: This chapter in particular may contain scenes of intense violence and gore, as well as forced cannibalism. If that's triggering for you, you have been warned.
Question: Nevermind, -__- the issue was the app. Enjoy!
11:10 am, 24 November 2010, Brockton Bay, New England, USA.
After gulping down some coffee to start off the day, I walked out and set myself up an identity.
And because I could, I made myself one of the most well built (not grotesquely so), handsome young men on the planet. I was definitely taking these looks back home to become a movie star or something. Maybe a Tony Stark/Bruce Wayne-esque CEO of a rising, innovative tech company. A few self made rumours and scandals would be a good setup for drama. I laughed at the silly thought.
I wrapped myself up in armour that gave off a smooth, shiny, elvish vibe- bit of shiny dark metal here and some silver metal there. A nice cool, full helm with no eye holes. A plain dark metal visor that sucked in the light. No sword or shield either, because I didn't need them.
Cape? No capes! Capes are for suckers.
I left for Empire territory. Nazis were bad civilization, so they had to go first.
And go they did. Brad Meadows was sitting smoking with his pit fighter pals when I warped up behind him. His friends yelped in shock. He had heard the sound and was about to get up- I gave him no such opportunity. Placing him in a headlock, I made a show of it.
His eyes popped and bled, an unmanly screech ripped out of his gullet. Deep shadowy smoke poured out from his now bleeding upper orifices. I released him and he slumped down, dead by all counts. The shadowy mist leapt up to me and I made it look like I absorbed it.
Some of his drinking buddies had pissed themselves and were now on the ground, blubbering messes asking for mercy. Then a guy behind me screamed like a banshee, turned tail and ran away.
Very few people were leaving this place, that guy was one of them. I needed the information to spread after all. Others I was going to make into mince meat.
My armour shifted into a blob of blades and hooks.
_______________________
It was to scenes of utter butchery that the BPD would arrive to that cold morning. Many of Hookwolf's safehouses and fighting rings had been hit. The PRT vans arrived soon after and with them came grim faced Protectorate heroes- Miss Militia and Triumph. Not much they could do here except question nearby witnesses.
Krieg might've responded to the alerts on his "work phone", if his body hadn't been turned into meat strips in front of his wife. I had made sure the kids slept through her initial round of hysteria. Then I approached the bitch... slowly and menacingly. She shook her head and backed away.
"No, no, please! No! Stop! No, I have children! Please!" She bawled.
For a moment I felt like an utter douchebag, but then remembered that these two were full blown Nazis and deserved no sympathy whatsoever.
My hand shifted into hooks and blades, just to impress upon this bitch what kind of a monster stood before her and she certainly understood with how her eyes widened.
If I hadn't removed the Shards, the sheer terror and trauma I had just inflicted upon her, would've triggered this bitch. Besides this was just the beginning of her worst day.
With a wave of my hand I forced her to stand. She was a wide eyed, shivering wreck, still blubbering about her brats.
"You love your children very much, don't you?" I asked her, lightly petting her dirty blonde hair. She was a curvy, pretty little thing. A proper trophy wife.
"Yes! I do! Please don't hurt them, they had nothing to do with this," she pled.
"You would do anything I asked of you, yes?" Her eyes widened and after a moment she nodded resolutely.
"Good. Good. Remember, I do not like oathbreakers." I dragged her to her husband's cooling corpse.
I pointed at it. "Eat then. Eat until you're full and keep it down while I'm here. Then and only then, would you and your children be safe from my wrath."
She hurled all over the floor and looked at me such hate and disgust as I had never before felt from a fellow human.
"Do you plan to break your oath?" My voice was soft and full of disappointment.
"No! No! I'll do it. I'll... eat." She closed her eyes and knelt before the shreds. It was from his leg that she started.
"Good girl."
She shuddered and did her best to not hurl some more. Gathering up all her will, she closed her eyes and reached for the first morsel.
_______________________
I left behind a broken home and a broken woman. I hoped the children ended up with CPS at least. It would be a far better fate than with a half insane mother.
My next target was a cape who lived alone a few houses away. Gesellschaft wanted Krieg to keep an eye on him.
Thanks to the sound dampening, he did not hear a thing when I had attacked Krieg.
I didn't warp this time and sound dampening was unnecessary, I was not doing some Silent Assassin run on Hitman.
I walked out brazenly into the cold morning air. Those that saw me squeaked and froze before backing away slowly. One woman who had opened her curtains to peek closed them as quick as a speedster when I looked her way. I did not pay these vermin (because that is what most of the people in this gated community were) any mind. They may look as much as they want. I walked over to Crusader's house. It was Saturday and he was home.
I stood there staring at the front door for quite some time- 5 whole minutes- before he finally came out.
"What is the meaning of this?" He gritted out. He was angry. Probably because his SOS did not go through to Kaiser or anyone else. I had made sure that not even a tinkertech phone would work. I may not want to sneak around but that didn't mean that I wanted these assholes to skip town or flee to Europe.
"Does a man need a reason to seek a Nazi to slaughter, Justin?" I tilted my head.
His nostrils flared and he spat out, "We will hunt you down for this. You won't get away with it. The Empire has reach, even if we don't get you, we'll get your bitch, your mom, your dad, your kid." He took in deep breath. "Stop this. Leave. You're beyond human now, don't throw it away for some monkeys."
I could see his ghosts behind him, flickering in and out of the light.
"You're right." That brought him up short. "I am beyond a mere human."
Before the man could react, I moved. My fist struck out with Krieg's kinetic field stuck to it. Justin's innards squelched out and a piece of his spine thumped onto the floor behind him. His eyes twitched and his moan turned into a garbled scream. I turned my other hand into a storm of blades and cut off his head.
_______________________
The cousins from the Herren Clan were on alert. News of Hookwolf's death had reached them. Max had told them to stay at home and wait for his call, going out there blindly was a bad idea. He was planning to call a meeting soon.
Ben Lawrence and his wife were on edge and mentally prepared for anything that came. Or so they thought.
"What are we going to do now?" Tammi was anxious. She might be a kid, but she knew how important and powerful Brad was to the cause.
Ben pointedly ignored the blonde, teenage diva, and continued typing away. Anna chewed her lip, before giving her the only answer she had, "We don't know, Tam. Max told us to wait it out."
"Is it true then, that he took away Hookwolf's power?" Anna raised an eyebrow, the one that wasnt scarred. Tammi shrugged, "PHO has been running wild with theories. Some say they saw a blade blender rip apart Hookwolf's men that tried to fight back. They say it wasn't Hookwolf."
A heavy thump sounded outside.
Ben grabbed the gun he kept lightly taped to the underside of the table and leapt up to point it at the door. Anna and Tammi flinched, Ben whispered before they could ask. "Someone's out there."
Anna's heart sunk. She turned around to look at the CCTV footage being displayed on the TV.
Ben had seen it too, he took four precise shots, each of them in places he had calculated were vital points, armour be damned. Tammi yelped and crouched down, quickly tapping anything she could reach to throw at the assailant. Anna pulled on her power before the door was blown inwards.
Tammi felt a chill creep up her spine when the tall man stepped through and grey ghostly versions of him came with. She recognised that power.
"Anna to me, Tammi cover," Victor gritted out.
The coffee table and a few vases flew at him. Two more shots rang out. One at the gas stove, the other at the enemy cape's head.
Both bullets failed to achieve their objectives, the former hovered in the air before dropping to the floor, while the latter flattened uselessly against the helm. The monster did not even stumble. Suffice it to say, that the flying wooden table or vases didn't bother him either.
By now Victor was by Othala's side and unceremoniously threw her over his shoulder, did the same with Rune, and then proceeded to fly right out the french window.
He heard an amused chuckle behind him but did not dare stop. He had to put as much distance as he-
A heavy weight had latched onto his legs. He looked down- a ghost. He kicked it but the ghost held on with a death grip and kept squeezing.
Othala's power was running out, Victor could feel it. He had flown over six houses before it ran out, just in time for him to land on the roof of a sedan. He dropped Rune, who was about to reach down to touch the roof of the car until she felt that she couldn't breath, her hands flew up to her throat in a wild panic.
Othala and Victor felt it too. In her choking fit, she reached out for her husband to grant him a weak form of telekinesis. Better than nothing.
He used it to counter choke the power stealer who landed nearby, only to have his knees impaled and shattered by translucent spikes that protruded from the ghost's arms.
A loud scream ripped from his throat. The clone was now on top of him, Othala had fainted, and Rune was nearly there.
'How had it come to this?' Victor asked himself, as the apparition hauled him off the roof and onto the hard asphalt.
He groaned, the pain was there but not as bad as it had been, or maybe it hadn't kicked in yet? Yeah, probably.
He looked up when a shadow covered him. 'Fucking knightly motherfucker', he cursed. 'I'll show you, you ambushing son of a bitch.' He cast his unseen tendrils out, fully intending to rip away every skill this bastard had- the ones he needed to walk, talk, breath. Any and all.
Victor blinked in confusion when his tendrils found no purchase, not slipping but as if grasping for something that wasn't really there.
Dread pooled in his stomach. 'Fuck,' he thought. The monster tilted his head, as if looking at an interesting creature.
Victor tried to desperately resist being dragged up by the ghosts, to no success.
Now face to face with the devil who had upended his perfect life, he felt helpless. Cold armoured hands gripped his head, he felt a sharp pain and thought no more.
_______________________
I let the skill stealer drop, his neck twisted at a strange angle and orifices bleeding like most of them. Honestly, I never knew I had a penchant for murder until I went to town on these assholes.
Maybe I was always like this and never had the power to really put it to the test? Hm. It worried me on some level that I was having too much fun murdering people. Was I a bit loco?
Oh, well. At least I showed the adolescent racists some level of mercy. They get to keep their power and use it in service of the Protectorate. A level of mercy many in my world would say they did not deserve. I disagree, however. I didn't want to execute children who had been groomed to be racists from the moment they had gained any form of consciousness. The adults set in their ways? Those were fair game.
I could hear sirens in the distance. Did the neighbours call them when they saw me arrive or when they heard gunfire? Several PRT vans and personnel were on their way, but no heroes for miles. What gives Protectorate? Chicken?
On second thought, very smart. Only a fool would send their precious, loyal supers against a power stealer. These squads were containment focused, meant to delay me, test me. Sacrifices, in case I was outright violent. As if that was ever in doubt.
It was a waste of time to indulge them, I yawned and warped away.
_______________________
My next target was Kayden Russell, aka Purity. The best flying artillery and hypocrite this side of New England. Did I care that she had a toddler, or that Theo would lose his mother figure?
No. Next, please.
Thinker powers told me she wasn't at her apartment, she had left in a hurry fifteen minutes ago, taking the kids with her. She was skipping town, the weasel. So why was I at her place anyways? Purity had left two of her toadies for me to feast on- Night and Fog.
Their objective was to hopefully kill me, if not, then delay me.
I did not like being underestimated.
One of my ghosts passed through the door, pining Night under its gaze, denying her the eldritch monster tranformation. The other passed through the floor, appeared behind Fog and slammed its elbow into the back of his skull, rattling whatever braincells remained and knocking him out for the count. Night, the little fool, didn't know what else to do when their pre-rehearsed strategy failed, so she didn't move at all.
I felt bad for these two, I really did. The things Gesellschaft had done to force a trigger were downright abominable but reprogramming them into stable individuals when there was nothing in there, felt just as nasty to me. I could see their tattered souls (and wasn't that a discovery), the scars over them, and that wasn't something I had the confidence to fix.
It was time these two poor souls rested.
_______________________
Kayden did not like driving a car by herself ever since that night, she avoided it whenever she could. Right now, it was the only way she could escape with Aster and Theo and that frustrated her to no end. Brockton's traffic wasn't as bad as New York or Chicago but it was certainly not the most cooperative. She honked, furiously flashed her headlights, and cursed under her breath as the fool ahead took his sweet time turning.
She could feel Theo's worried glances, so she gave him a quick tremulous smile. That didn't reassure him, for obvious reasons. For a moment, her eyes flicked to the rearview mirror to check on Aster- all clear.
She took the turn towards the commercial district, skirting along the edges of ABB and Empire territory, hoping to avoid notice of her old associates or the chinks.
Her hopes rose upon seeing the sparse traffic and the highway only a mile or so away.
Those hopes were quickly dashed.
Her heart felt like it had fallen down a bottomless abyss. A man clad in sleek, regal armour stood in her path, staring right at her.
In any other case she would've put the pedal to the metal and ran him over if necessary, but she had a gut feeling that this was not at all the right choice. Going by Max's hurried description, she had an idea who this was.
If this was him, then defiance was the wrong call. He had killed Hookwolf, took away his power and butchered his men. Night and Fog didn't last long against him either, it seemed. Who knew what powers he had other than those or how he might react to being defied so openly. Most capes didn't like that. Besides, she couldn't live with herself if her foolishness put Aster and Theo's life at risk.
So she stopped and kept her eyes on him. Hoping for some minute indication of his motives.
Her heart thumped loudly against her chest, drowning out any other sound.
Then he took a step forward and she nearly lost her nerve. The man kept walking until he was a few metres away from the bumper.
'He was waiting,' Kayden realised. She had subconsciously chewed out her lip and caused it to bleed, the iron taste brought her out of the panicked haze. She looked at Theo who was shaking in his seat.
"Theo," he ripped his eyes away from the cape. "Keep your head down," she could see people on the sidewalk taking out their cameras, snapping pictures and recording this clusterfuck. 'Assholes,' she cursed. She hoped his face hadn't been caught.
Theo was quick to obey. "Theo," her voice shook and Theo glanced up. "Look after your sister, please. Take the wheel and drive if it gets bad, just like I taught you." He tried to speak but no words came out, his eyes grew wide with fear when she unbuckled her seatbelt, stepped out and closed the door behind her.
Kayden shuddered under the creepy, silent gaze of her killer-to-be. What felt like forever, but was likely only a scant few seconds, she stood before the man.
"You've made the right choice, Miss Russell," spoke the fiend. His smooth, deep voice sending shivers down her spine.
She scowled. "You left me no choice."
The villain did not react.
"May I know the name of my killer?"
'Please monologue, please monologue', Kayden prayed.
"Nemesis." He replied shortly and said nothing else.
'Well, crap.' She cursed in her heart.
"Will you hurt my children after this?" She needed to know.
"Your daughter will remain unharmed, as will your son." Her tense shoulders slumped in relief.
That was good. "Thank you," and she meant it.
He held out his hand. "Come closer."
This was it. She was going to die today. She only hoped that Aster and Theo lived well and made it out of this cursed hellhole.
For a moment she wondered how well she could've fought back if she hadn't brought Aster into this world or taken Theo under her wings.
'No.' She shook away those frightening musings. She didn't regret anything.
She stepped closer and her hand slipped into his. His other came up and gripped her chin firmly, locking her in place.
'I'm sorry, Aster.'
There was a sudden pain in her head and the world went dark.
_______________________
There were a few screams and gasps when Kayden's eyes and ears began bleeding, yet no one- not even the two cops that had shown up- dared approach me.
Understandable.
I turned around. "You two," I addressed the cops, one of which was whispering furiously into his radio. My voice cut through the air and a dead silence fell. I pointed at the car. "Get the kids to the station." They froze. "Now." They sprang into motion. One of them moving to the car, while the other kept his eyes trained on me, a hand on the gun in its holster.
With a wave of my hand, any devices recording the scene shut down. I drew the line at recording minors. I also made sure that they would permanently forget what the children looked like.
The dawning horror on their faces when they saw me burst into a being of white, blinding light and fly away, was delectable.