Piggot
April 7th
Afternoon
PRT HQ
"Explain."
That one word, spoken with such cold authority, seemed to chill the entire conference room.
Aegis and Kid Win - or, as they were both in civilian clothes now, Carlos and Chris - stood at the end of the large table, their hands placed stiffly behind the small of their backs. Behind them, on a large monitor that extended down from the ceiling, was the grayscale video evidence of their shame and ineptitude, paused at just the right frame to show the beginning of the chase.
Seated around the table were select members of the Protectorate and Ward teams that were available to make the debriefing; Armsmaster sat upright in his seat, his lips pulled down in a clearly disapproving frown, while Miss Militia rolled a ballpoint pen between her fingers in the chair beside him. Clockblocker, Vista, and a clearly annoyed Shadow Stalker sat further down the table, their confusion evident.
Piggot would have preferred a higher attendance, but the meeting had been called at such short notice. As much as she would've loved to control the heroes' schedules to best suit her needs, reality was a different story. She'd make do with what she had, because that was what she'd been doing for years.
"Uh…" Carlos hesitated, but only for a moment. When his dark eyes found Armsmaster's glare, it was like a gun to the back of his head. He straightened his back, gritted his teeth, and continued in a much louder voice, "Sorry, Director. Kid Win and I had been on our usual patrol route, moving from Belham Street up through Sixth, when we heard a lot of gunshots coming from the East. Eh- near Bakersfield."
"It wasn't just 'a lot'," Chris cut in, rolling his eyes. He peeked at Emily, but when her stoic face revealed nothing, he forged on, "We were in the Docks, right? There's usually gunshots, but this was… a lot. Like-"
"A lot. Right?" Clockblocker snickered, leaning his elbows on the table. "Like a lot a lot. You're just saying the same thing he did, Chris."
"Let them speak, Clockblocker." Armsmaster cut in, his voice serious.
"Yessir!"
Undeterred by his teammate's heckling, Chris resumed from where he had left off. "Anyways, we decided to check it out. We knew it wasn't on our patrol route, but seriously - it sounded like some sort of war was going on, and we just wanted to see what was going on so we could report it. Honest."
"We weren't going to engage initially, Director." Carlos supplemented, his tan face earnest.
Piggot fought the urge to rub her forehead, knowing it would only further exacerbate the migraine sneaking its way forward.
Wards were, unless given explicit permission and possessing of the correct equipment and/or Brute rating, forbidden from engaging in fights where live ammunition was being used. While there were exceptions for very unique circumstances, last night's deviation was not one such occurrence. The kids were tiptoeing around their blatant disregard for the Wards' SOP, and they damn well knew it.
"Under no circumstances are you two supposed to be the ones 'checking out' an active gang war. You know how dangerous those situations can be. Just because you can take a magazine full of lower caliber bullets, Aegis, doesn't mean you get cocky and put the men under your lead in danger." Miss Militia frowned, disappointment heavy in her narrow green gaze.
Carlos wilted.
"Continue your debriefing," Piggot demanded, leaning back in her cushioned leather office chair.
The two boys traded glances, and through some unspoken agreement, Carlos spoke first.
"Well, after that, we flew to the disturbance. It took us a few minutes, and Kid had to slow down a bit to stay in formation with me, but we made it to Bakersfield just in time to see these two guys come out of this super rundown house-"
"Can we just play the video now?" Chris interrupted, the slim remote already held up towards the monitor. He was clearly impatient, and more than a bit put-off by the embarrassment of recounting his failure, but Piggot felt no sympathy.
Still, she nodded. She'd prefer to see the action for herself.
Almost everyone leaned
When the video began playing, it was obviously from the aerial point of view of Chris' visor.
Bakersfield was a rundown, decaying mockery of what could've once been a semi-decent suburbia, but was now just another hive of criminals, homelessness, and despair. Half of the houses were already destroyed by time and disuse, while others were on their last legs, previously white painted wood yellowed and rotted while overgrown lawns were overfilled by trash and debris.
One house in particular, however, was different than the others. The front half of the front doorway was practically missing, destroyed by some brutal force, while the second story window on the left side had been given similar treatment. There was trash everywhere, even more so than anywhere else in the neighborhood.
It was clearly unnatural.
"That's a Merchant drug nest," Shadow Stalker, the resident troublemaker and pain in the ass, spoke up for the first time. She leaned closer toward the monitor, an annoyed furrow to her brow. "Tch, I was gonna hit that place next. The assholes who beat you must've already raided it."
"But I thought they were villains…" Vista wondered aloud, bemused. "Why would they be targeting drug dealers? Are they vigilantes?"
Clockblocker hummed. "Maybe Carlos just has a punchable face?"
"Watch, and you'll see." The boy in question merely shook his head, eyes trained on the monitor.
The footage was dark and grainy, but the audio was high quality - clean enough to pick up Kid Win humming 'The Final Countdown' to himself as he flew back and forth on his hoverboard. It was only after they'd gotten closer to the half-destroyed 'drug den' in question did something change-
A bird squawked. Loudly. And a dark figure darted from the destroyed front entrance.
"Pause it," Piggot commanded, and the screen paused. "Pass me the remote."
Carlos obediently slid the remote across the conference table, and Piggot immediately put it to use zooming in on a dark gray speck in the corner of the screen. Although it was hard to see due to the lighting, a quick press of a button upscaled the image blurry image, sharpening it just enough to see a black bird with beady red eyes.
It was staring directly into the camera.
"Yeeesh…" Clockblocker winced, for once not making an unnecessary quip, "That's creepy. Is that a crow?"
"It's a raven," Piggot corrected distractedly, steepling her fingers beneath her flagging chin. A put-upon sigh escaped her mouth. "An early warning system. Most likely a minion stationed there by one of our mysterious capes."
Another Master - just what Brockton Bay fucking needed.
"It could've just been a coincidence?" Vista hedged, her own high-pitched voice not sounding very confident in her question.
Piggot unpaused the video.
The dark shape was jogging now, and not even a second behind him was another figure. Due to their backs being to the camera, not much was able to be seen other than the fact that one of them was dressed in all black, and the other was garbed in more casual streetwear - though both covered their faces and heads.
Most notably about the second figure, though, was the positively massive sword on his back. It was impossible to get a good look at it due to the distance and quality, but the unwieldy size made the man's possession of it somewhat suspect, and worrisome.
They'd only gotten about fifteen or so feet out of the house and across the yard before a floating mass of stacked-up, dirty lab equipment came out after them.
Armsmaster grunted, the noise half disgusted and half curious. "So they're stealing equipment to create drugs. Just a couple more street-scum criminals using their powers for greed, no surprise there. However, the floating- that's different."
"The one in the front," Chris frowned, pointing at the shape in question, "He had all the weirder powers. The other guy, he-…" A dark look passed over his face, along with a hint of embarrassment. Instead of saying anything else, he just looked back at the monitor.
"They're fast." Shadow Stalker said simply, appraisingly. She leaned back in her chair, her frustration bleeding away into what seemed like interest. "Really fast.
Miss Militia absently nodded, a worried scrunch to her brow. "This isn't looking good. As far as we know, there's only two suspects, but the variety of powers we've seen so far would imply at least three people unless they're grab-bags. A Master, if the raven did warn them-"
"They're following it," Vista pointed out, shaking her head. "I've been following it with my eyes since the Director showed us, and it's been leading them away from Kid and Aegis. Um, not to interrupt you ma'am."
Miss Militia smiled, though it was hard to see beneath her bandana. "No, you were right to confirm a theory, Vista. Good eye. But with a minion giving a Master rating, the floating equipment being up in the air, their speed being low Mover…"
The two figures scaled the tall white gate with dazzling agility, and moments later, the equipment did the same. It would've almost looked silly, how the mass of illegal goods were managing to keep pace with two inhumanly fast capes, if not for the fact that it was a mass of illegal goods. They were gaining ground on the Wards, and in the video, Kid Win looked back at Aegis.
"We'll lose them if we stick to formation!"
"… Push forward. I'll be right behind you."
Piggot paused the video. A tense silence filled the room.
"To be fair-"
Her lips pursed. "Clockblocker, one more wisecrack and you will be joining them in remedial SOP courses for the rest of the month. Do not test my patience. Am I understood?"
The teen shifted in his seat briefly, before nodding. "...Yes, ma'am."
"Now," she continued coolly, turning her glare to the two ashen-faced Wards in civvies, "Do I need to continue and humiliate you even more in front of your peers, or has hearing it from the monitor shown you two how goddamned stupid it was to break ranks to pursue two unknown, highly dangerous capes you weren't given permission to chase in the first place?"
"… No, ma'am."
It took a modicum of effort to stifle the cold smile threatening to form on her thin lips.
Instead, Piggot unpaused the video again.
The next minute of the chase was fairly uneventful. Kid Win zoomed ahead of Aegis, who could only push his flight speed up to a certain amount above that of a normal human, and raced to catch up to the two criminals who were undoubtedly low-ranking Movers judging by the speed they were tearing across lawns at - forty-five miles per hour, if she had to guess.
Maybe fifty.
Things took a turn when they abruptly dipped around the corner of a building, almost too fast for Kid Win's visor to keep track of, and the Ward bullishly flew forward on his hoverboard in order to catch up.
Armsmaster gave Chris an unimpressed glare. The boy's sullen gaze couldn't lower any further.
"Here it is," Carlos sighed quietly. Even though he was speaking to himself, everyone heard him in the otherwise stilted silence of the conference room.
All attention refocused on the monitor, where Kid Win was just passing by a dark shed-
Just in time to hear a grunt, and a metallic roar, as a massive blade tore through the shadows of the shed's entrance, ripping through the rusted scrap and rotten wood of its wall and roof and slicing halfway into his hoverboard. The camera picked up the sound of Kid Win's panicked yelp, and subsequent pained groans, as he was bodily thrown off his Tinkertech and sent flying into the overgrown grass at least ten feet ahead.
The impact of his body and head clacking across the ground made Clockblocker wince in empathy. Further down the table, Shadow Stalker snorted through her metal mask.
"Stupid move-" she began, but a red-eared Chris hushed her.
"Watch!"
Despite his groaning, the Kid Win in the footage still had the wherewithal to fight through the dazedness of his rough landing and turn back to the shed. Here, with the moonlight streaming down from the sky, it was easier for the heroes and Piggot to get a better look at the so-called criminals.
The one with the massive blade was slightly taller than the other one, and huskier too, but they were both clearly in good shape. The swordsman was wearing denim jeans, work boots, a red bandana, and a hoodie, looking much like your normal, everyday crook. In comparison, his partner in crime wore all black - a turtleneck, dark jeans, and black booties tied up to his calf. He had on a baseball cap, and his lower face was covered by a black surgical mask.
From what little skin was shown, they were both very tan, with brownish-colored eyes. Similar nose ridges, as well.
Brothers?
Whatever their relationship, the one in all black clearly had something in mind to deal with the bumrushing brick that was Aegis. He reached into a pouch on his waist, pulling out-
"A feather?" Clockblocker grinned, scratching at the weak stubble growing on his chin. "What's he gonna do, tickle Aegis to death? I don't even think he has a funny bone."
No one laughed. Piggot shot the boy an unimpressed sneer.
"See me in my office tomorrow at 6 PM."
He blanched. "W-wait, I'm sorr-"
"Rictus." The criminal's voice was deep and cold, with the bite of an accent that Piggot couldn't pick up on. Despite its low, smoky tone, however, there was an undeniable youthfulness. A boyish tinge.
Her brow furrowed even more, the migraine pounding behind her eyeballs growing. Teenagers?
The kid waved the feather at the speeding Aegis, as calm and composed as a cucumber, and the Ward immediately collapsed, falling out of the sky and skidding into the dirt as he began to laugh hard enough for tears to seep out the corner of his eyes. It was hard to see just what had happened due to Kid Win's prone body, but the outcome was damning.
"Ugh. I didn't know it looked that bad…" Carlos was the one flushed now, but his embarrassment seemed secondary to his anger. He was watching the monitor with his fists clenched, gritting his teeth hard enough to chip most people's. Obviously he was taking such a humiliating loss badly.
It didn't help that Clockblocker was chuckling in the background. Even Vista cracked an amused grin that looked all too natural on her young face.
Seeing as the footage was nearly over, Piggot let the rest of it play out. Questions would be asked, and answered, soon.
The one with the feather watched Aegis for a few more seconds before shaking his head. When he spoke, it was with a bored, vaguely amused inflection. "Let's go. He'll be like that for a minute or so."
The swordsman let out a small laugh, sheathing his massive blade on a leather holster attached to his back.
"Lead the way, bro." He replied, his own deep voice girded with a slight accent - thinner than the other's, but of the same origin. Piggot couldn't place it, but the term 'bro' at least answered one of her many questions.
They were siblings. Grab-bags with a myriad of relatively weaker powers relating to physical prowess, minor telekinesis, and two variations of Mastering - one involving communication and control of a minion, and the other being some form of item-restricted nervous system manipulation? Then again, the larger one hadn't shown much other than brute strength and speed. It was possible they were overthinking it.
Piggot could practically hear the paperwork crashing into her desk, and with a scowl, she paused the monitor for the last time. No one wanted to see the criminals steal off into the night with drug equipment floating behind them. It didn't help that Aegis' agonized laughter was still so damned loud in the background of the video.
For the first few seconds, silence reigned supreme in the conference room as everyone took in the events of the video footage. Carlos and Chris understandably the ones least satisfied with the contents, given the light it showed them in.
"They're a part of a Cluster," Armsmaster theorized, jaw working back and forth. "It's the most likely scenario for two brothers with similar powersets."
"A Cluster Trigger? They're not exactly subtle events," Miss Militia pointed out. "Wouldn't we have heard about them before now, or had some inkling?"
Vista chimed in with her own interjection. "They could be from out of town? Or, fresh triggers. Besides what they did to Aegis, their powers don't seem all that flashy."
That much Piggot had to concede to the girl. Even if the two brothers had lost control of their powers upon their trigger, there was every opportunity that the damage done was just too quiet or out of sight for anyone to realize. It hadn't occurred publicly, or they would have gotten a report on it.
She rubbed her brow, feeling the greasy sting of sweat beginning to drip into her eyes. "Point. Provisional ratings?"
"Brute 1, Mover 2, for the sheer mobility displayed," Armsmaster responded. "Their Brute ratings are in question, but at the very least the larger brother was able to swing around that sword with ease, as well as cut through Kid Win's hoverboard."
Left unspoken was the fact that it could likely do the same to their armored costumes, if given the chance. However, neither of the brothers had turned to using lethal force on the Wards. It spoke to some level of restraint and planning.
Miss Militia hummed softly as she looked down at the report. "I'm inclined to suggest bumping up that Brute rating slightly. There were several deaths at the lab consistent with the wounds a giant sword might leave, and deep lacerations to many others when the police arrived at the scene of the lab."
That wasn't even including the absolutely decimated state of the front entrance, or the hole in the wall of the second floor bedroom. Assuming the destruction was made with brute strength, leveraged with the sword or not, then a rating higher than Brute 1 only made logical sense.
Piggot grunted her agreement. "For now, until we have more information on their abilities and MO, their aliases are 'Crow' and 'Blade'. We'll tentatively assume similar Mover ratings, considering their speed during the chase, but I doubt it's a coincidence that Blade wielded the sword while Crow favored his little magic tricks,"
She tapped her pudgy fingers against the desk, narrowing her eyes down at her tablet. "Mover 2/Brute 1 for Crow, Mover 2/Brute 3 for Blade."
Nods were had all around, papers silently scribbled on.
Armsmaster's eyes flashed beneath his visor, and as per in-character for the straightforward man, he shot directly at the ugly elephant lurking in the corner of the room. "And the Master Rating, Director?"
"I was getting to that."
Piggot didn't flinch when all eyes shot in her direction. Instead, she turned her own piercing gaze onto Carlos, who just seemed pleased that he was no longer under direct fire. The boy waffles for a moment under her stare before remembering himself, schooling his features into a calm determination.
Good.
"You gave a statement in your AAR, but describe to us what it felt like when Crow used his power on you," she demanded, unable to stifle the morbid curiosity that accompanied it. He'd already been through the protocol, and she was sure that there was no lingering side-effect of giggles, but it was difficult to grasp the bigger picture without an in-depth recounting.
Carlos, in his defense, only seemed slightly perturbed by the memory. "Honestly, it's hard to go into much detail, Director. One second I was flying to try and assist Kid, and the next… I don't know, I sorta felt like I was daydreaming? Like, I was watching everything going on around me, but it all felt fake. And it was funny. Scarily funny. I couldn't stop laughing no matter how much I wanted to, but I- I didn't want to."
He paused, visibly surprised by the shaking of his own voice. "It didn't seem so bad in the moment, other than the cramping I guess, but now- well, I got mastered. Probably not anything much scarier than that. I was out for about two minutes."
Piggot would have begged to differ, but she didn't want to rain on the kid's trauma pity parade.
For once, Clockblocker didn't have anything smart to say. That, or he was still reeling from the fact that he was stuck going to SOP courses for the next three weeks.
Miss Militia cleared her throat, sparing the boy an empathetic glance. "Considering Aegis' redundant biology, I doubt it's a central nervous thing. Sounds more like…"
"He was directly controlling his mind," Armsmaster effortlessly caught where she was going with it. He exhaled sharply, the twisted grimace on his face showing just how bothered he was by these new arrivals. "There's too much we do not know. If he's limited to forcing you into a harmless laughing fit for two minutes, that's debilitating but manageable. Moreso if it's possible for trained personnel to resist its effect. But if he can do more…"
The implications didn't even need to be said. Not right now.
"These are just 'provisional ratings', right?" Vista asked, a cautious curiosity to her voice. She leaned in closer, her back ramrod straight and her shoulders pulled back. "This is our first time running into these guys on the field. We'll just have to get more data the next time we see them."
Piggot snorted, massaging her temple. "You're missing a few pages, but you're not wholly wrong. For now, Crow will be treated as a Master 3, Mover 2, Brute 1, with addendums to note a minor Shaker power that was only seen being used to steal some lab equipment. Until shown he can actively use it in a combat setting, it will just stay an addendum. Anything else?"
She was not looking forward to the three more meetings after this. Fucking capes.
Chris nodded his head, tapping the cap of his pen impatiently against his spiral notebook. "And Blade? Jerk totaled my hoverboard… gonna have to make a new one. Eh, or rocket boots. Something that'll make him think twice abou-"
"Christopher," Piggot said sharply, and the teenager stiffened and pursed his lips. "Blade will retain his earlier provisional rating; Mover 2, Brute 3. He seems like the muscle of the duo… and clearly, they aren't afraid to get their hands dirty. Fortunately, they seemed to hold back against idiotic Wards."
She ignored the way their hands clenched in frustration. Juvenile, emotional brats.
"For now, capture and detainment is our modus operandi for Crow and Blade. We know they're most likely based in the Docks, so we will reinforce patrol routes in tucked away areas that seem more likely to host drug dens and cooking labs." Piggot eyed each hero in turn, a serious, dark gleam in her sharp eyes. "Over the next couple weeks, mandatory Master resistance training classes will be hosted in the auditorium. Failure to show will result in docked pay, and even more classroom training."
A series of groans shot out from the Wards side of the table, while the only other two adult heroes in the room merely nodded their acknowledgement. Shadow Stalker in particular seemed particularly aggrieved.
"What the fuck? I've got a track meet to practice for, and I'm not a freaking dumbass like our fearless 'leader'. Crow wouldn't have even gotten a chance to point that feather at me." Even through the unfeeling steel of her mask, the glare she shot Aegis was felt in the air.
The long-haired boy scowled, but said nothing.
Piggot eyed the vulgar girl with a cool expression. "It's either that or you spend the next few months on console duty as the obedient and intelligent heroes go out there and focus putting these boys behind bars. At least then, you'll get your crime-fighting fix on the track field."
She knew she won the moment 'console duty' left her mouth. As Shadow Stalker huffed, wrenching her head away in a different direction, Piggot returned his attention to the other, more reasonable capes.
Those, at least, she could bear the presence of without wanting to quit her job entirely.
"Disseminate info down the line, and be sure to check your emails for a more official written debriefing later this evening. Miss Militia, stay behind for a few minutes. Everyone else, get out of my face. Meeting adjourned."
Two new capes were headaches enough. The looming chance that they were a part of a larger cluster nearly gave her a damn conniption, and possessing of more powers, nearly gave her a conniption. So far they were easy enough to rout - they weren't unfathomably dangerous, what with their highest rating being 3s.
No, what they were was goddamned unpredictable.
But these things happened in the Bay, and although Piggot wasn't into buttstuff, she'd gotten well used to getting fucked in the ass when it came to this damned city. All she could really do now was weather the storm, and try her best to come out the other side with more wins than losses.
Salvatore
Afternoon
The Docks
April 7th
Let's have a history lesson, ladies and gentlemen.
Contrary to popular belief, Cape Cities didn't just come out of nowhere. Even with the parahuman population being somewhere in the range of one per twenty-six thousand, that was still a fairly diffuse density level when spread across the entirety of the planet.
Cities like Brockton Bay, with such an abnormally high amount of parahuman attention to the city, were not the norm. So you had to understand what came before to know why things were so FUBAR now.
At the beginning of American colonization, Brockton Bay was an attractive option as a port city. Its natural geography made it ideal for building a trading port, and the local aquifer provided a reliable water source from the expansive underground lake. This state of affairs continued well into the twentieth century, unchanging even past the dawning of the parahuman age. What changed, though?
The introduction of the Endbringers onto the world stage. Specifically, Leviathan.
The middle child of the current Endbringers was a massive paradigm shift for international shipping, the lifeblood of global trade. His attacks on port cities decreased the confidence businesses and corporations had in that entire form of transportation, lowering the attractiveness of locales like Brockton Bay for business. This had a trickle-down effect, starting some of the region's more overt economic woes.
Now, what put the nail in the coffin were the union protests. To clear the air right away, I'm pro-union, especially regarding the stance of collective bargaining for the little guy. The fact that the past unions of my world had such a powerful connection with the mafia had nothing to do with that stance, and I hated the slander otherwise.
What I didn't care for was how stupidly the Dockworker's Association went about their protest. Beaching a massive tanker might seem like an intelligent idea to anyone with room temperature IQ, but the consequences were disastrous. It effectively put the final nail in the coffin for the city's transportation industries, a shell of their former selves.
The supervillain boom entered the scene at this point in the city's history.
While the richest and most resourceful of the city's inhabitants turned toward other industries like tech or finance, everyone else was left in the lurch. Suddenly, tons of individuals were struggling to make a living, disenfranchised, disgruntled, and disenchanted with the American dream. It wasn't just the industries tied to shipping or the myriad warehouses, but everything tangentially tied to those businesses.
I'm talking about the janitors, the office workers, the supply chain managers, and the truck drivers who bring the goods to where they need to go. Global shipping was one of the most stable, profitable industries in the world, and while the work had been waning, it hadn't died an ignoble death yet. Not until the beaching.
We could go on for ages about how this affected the city. Your average, every-day Americans were faced with an impossible choice seemingly out of nowhere: try to scrape a living by in the city they grew up in, the city their forefathers grew up in, or leave for greener pastures.
Anybody with hindsight could see how it ended up here. There were tons of personnel well-suited for using their talents in importing and exporting, yet suddenly, they were using them in far more illicit ways. The potential for big money in these underground industries and a recruitment pool made for an appealing city for supervillains in the late nineties.
Villains like Marquis were not from Brockton Bay, but drawn there, before they'd hooked into the local community and carved out their niches. The heroic presence followed after the supervillains, as they were wont to do. With the Protectorate ENE being established, movements like the Brockton Bay Brigade evolving into New Wave, things were gearing up for more frenetic conflict in those days.
Up until the BBB defeated Marquis, sent him to the Birdcage, and made the entire scene equalize for a bit. I'd be struggling to say it got better, from what I read, so much as there was a status quo that settled into the city's fabric.
You had the Empire Eighty-Eight, which was practically an institution in its own right. The economic crisis of the city and the flood of immigrants chummed the waters for their recruitment like never before. And even when people weren't outright part of their gang, they were in their sphere of influence.
A lot of smaller Asian ethnic gangs had been thrown together in a polygamous shotgun marriage by Lung's dominance. They formed a kind of bloc all by themselves, really, and the harder the E88 pushed, the better the ABB seemed as a counterpart to them.
I'd had a good time researching this much in our off time, or just chatting strangers up and asking them questions about the city. You'd be amazed what lonely old people would talk about when you got them going on a subject they were passionate about. Also, nice about old people?
They were happy to talk about abandoned places that sweet young men shouldn't wander into. You could never know what kind of hooligans were hanging around in one abandoned factory or warehouse.
I couldn't tell you what they did in this factory before it was gutted and shuttered—if I had to guess, it had something to do with food processing. What was important was that it was primarily untouched by homeless vagrants and conspicuously absent gang signs, which made it perfect for our purposes.
In the dark of the early morning, I and Angelo surreptitiously carried in all of his equipment and set it up in an abandoned office within the building.
It was dingy, dark, and dirty, but as far as the beginnings went for enterprising young Tinkers, it'd do for my brother's purposes. More importantly, though, was the delightful surprise we got for creating our first 'lair'.
[QUEST COMPLETED: MY FIRST LAIR!]
[WE ALL START FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS!]
[REWARD: 1x Minor Dominion Perk]
Spoiler: Violent Posse
The System felt like it was about time to reward us for doing so, too. This wasn't so much a traditional fount of knowledge that I was used to, as it was unnatural connections. I'm not even sure if the people described within the perk existed until I got it, or if it retroactively altered reality to make them a thing. Did I even want to know, provided it worked?
"Good news!" I beamed, turning to my brother. "Remember the family's cleanup crews? We've got one now!"
Angelo looked over from where he was stacking small crates of reagents near the cooking table. Much like me, he was bereft of his usual dark work attire, clad in a stained white tank top, boots, and pants. The abandoned factory was hot, and until we installed ventilation, it would only get hotter. "The System created an entire group of cleaners? … Fuck yeah. Wish you would've gotten it earlier."
He stood, letting out a groan as his knees cracked.
"I'm not sure if it created them, or is just giving me a retroactive connection to existing ones," I shrugged. "Either way, it'll simplify cleaning up after ourselves."
Angelo leaned back against the table, wiping sweaty locks of hair out of his face. "There a number we need to call?" he asked, visibly amused and curious about my new perk.
"Yep," I nodded back. "They'd roll up real quick too. Kind of tempted to call them here to make it so this place is an even better cover."
He arched an eyebrow. "Huh. Could work. Check this out first, though."
Pushing himself off of the cooking table, Angelo glanced down at an unoccupied space on the grimy concrete floor and narrowed his eyes. There was a moment of stillness, an awkward silence filling the air, before something happened. The concrete bubbled like a frothy beer, slowly growing upwards in size and cooling down into a smooth, marble finish as it did so. The stone formed long, muscular legs and thighs, up into a-
"Ugh, Angelo, what the fuck?"
His grin was wide. "Wait for it."
Within moments the marble statue was finished, displaying a… life-sized carbon copy of my brother, dick out and face emotionless. It was almost uncanny how accurate it was.
And it fucking moved. In a creepy, slow motion, it turned to regard us with blank metal eyes.
"What the hell is this?" My eyes were definitely trying to keep to the eyes of this statue mostly because I didn't want to end up staring at my brother's dick. "Is this a new spell, or a clone…?" It was a fair question.
I reached out to poke it in the chest, trying to see whether or not it was solid. Much to my surprise, it was a solid enough replication of him. "Are you controlling it? Or does it just go off your orders?"
Either way, even if it couldn't do anything fancy, another body to help out for things was never going to be a bad thing. Provided we got it some gym shorts to grant it some modesty.
"Good question."
Angelo stepped forward, directly in front of the statue, and looked it in the eye. Now that they were so close, it was easy to see that there was, quite literally, no difference in their appearance besides the obvious. He stared for about ten seconds, neither shifting in the slightest, until Angelo let out a low whistle and stepped back.
"So that's how it is. Aye, sosia- get to work, yeah? Finish up putting away all this shit, and prep the equipment for brewing."
The statue shuddered, moving of its own volition for the first time since it was created. Butt ass naked and stone-faced(literally), it… he nodded his head at Angelo before walking around him, resuming the organizing that my brother had just been doing.
Angelo watched him for a second before turning to me, a smirk on his face. "I can give him directives mentally, but I did it aloud here to key you in. Sosia here is… a sort of animated simulacrum of mine. He doesn't have a sense of self, but he can adhere to any directives he's given. He possesses whatever ability I decide to channel through him, but only the weaker ones, I feel. I don't think he can cast any leveled spell above cantrips."
He paused, tilting his head as he watched his statue work. "We share a mind, sort of like Corvo and I. He should be able to brew potions and drugs the same as I can."
"You're making yourself into a bit of a Master, huh?" I speculated aloud. "Still, helpful if you can get this manufactured while we're out and about doing other things."
That raised the question of what we would be up to next. "We've got the lair and the powers, so what's next? Hitting the Merchants harder? Trying to get better costumes, or making our reputation elsewise?"
I knew who I was, and I was the hitter. More often than not I'd follow my brother's direction to the best of my ability.
Angelo glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. A small, fond grin formed on his face, and he turned fully to look directly at me. "What we have next, brother, is you finally getting that break you've wanted. We've shaken the ant's nest tonight, and the PRT will be on the lookout for two new, unknown capes harboring highly illegal narcotics. Keeping our heads down before the 11th is paramount."
He rolled his shoulders, walking over to the cooking table and fiddling with one of the beakers. "Take the van, head back to the apartment, hire a hooker, do whatever - I'll handle securing this place and setting up the equipment before turning in. We've done good work tonight, Sal. And this? This is gonna shake shit up nicely."
My brother…had a pretty good point. We had a couple of days until Taylor was set to head out, unless we changed things from canon significantly enough. That meant a couple of days with no particular expectations, just free time. Honestly, I didn't have the faintest clue as to what to get up to with my free time.
Probably not hiring a hooker. I'd never paid for sex before, and I didn't intend on making that a habit anytime soon. "You're right," I nodded. "I'll text you the cleaner's number on the burner if needed. Otherwise…I'll try to scare up something to get into."
Besides Angelo, I didn't know another soul in this city. We met a few people, but no one I could randomly hang out with at the drop of a hat. But if nothing else, I could find something to occupy my time.
Angelo
April 8th
Morning
Northern Docks - Lab
One Day Later…
There was something very soothing about the process of alchemy, I found. Repetition was found in the combination of different ingredients,separated and stored for different concoctions, as well as in the grinding and crushing done to work them down into base components. Prestidigitation was used to cleaned the cookware of any contaminants from whatever drugs might have been on the odds and ends we'd stolen, leaving me with purified tools for my work, and even more Prestidigitation from my 'assistant' saw the entire lab scrubbed spotless by the time the sun rose in the early morning.
For several hours since we'd gotten every piece of equipment properly set up in the darkly lit laboratory, all manner of reagents were refined and carefully strained with every iota of my newfound alchemical knowledge. It was unsettling in a way, how my body and mind seemed to slip into a monotonous routine of crushing, grinding, stirring, and distilling, despite there being no memory of me ever having done this process.
It wasn't a 1:1 deal, considering my Alchemic Prodigy perk was pulling from the experience and natural talent of an alchemist from a different universe, but this modern array wasn't so dissimilar that it created a problem. Once I had the correct amount of petals of the bugloss and hyacinth properly ground up in my mortar, it was as simple as moving my beaker of purified water from the hot plate and combining the beaten mixture with said solvent. That mixture was then added to distillation flasks and set to a high heat on one of the Bunsen burners, as my statue set out more petals to measure, crush, and combine.
The entire process seemed simple in theory, but the most complicated parts involved the measuring, heating, and cooling processes. I didn't make such stupid mistakes on something as easy and basic as a normal Healing Potion, but if we'd been even a milligram off on the hyacinth-to-bugloss ratio, or God forbid we added too much water, the entire creation would've been wasted.
That wasn't even going into the explosive ramifications of making the solvent - the purified water - too hot or too cold.
Alchemy was fucking finicky.
It had taken several hours of prep work, organizing, cleaning, more organizing because I was a bit of a neat freak, and then the actual brewing…
But after the gasses had cooled, the combination had settled, and the color was a nice, cherry red… our first health potion was bottled in a round glass container, capped with a wooden stopper, and placed in the propane-powered mini-fridge to cool. Eventually we'd hook up power here, but seeing as a good portion of the North Docks were straight up off the power grid, we were stuck with what we had.
Of course, I still had plans of modifying what meth we had and even concocting my own drugs that would blow this city's grimy little pants off. There was a market for everything I could do now, and I'd been trained viciously in sharpening my business acumen purely for situations like this, where opportunities were rich and my greed was plentiful. Ideas filtered through my head, terms like 'Moon Sugar' and 'Smash Pops' nearly sending me into a self-made fugue-
However, time was not, in fact, plentiful for us.
Things were going to start moving forward in this city very fast over the next few days, and as much as I wanted to sit down and really start making hard fucking cash, I needed to focus on the shit that would keep us alive in the coming storm.
Ergo my initial explorations into the design of a health potion. A few large-sized mason jars sat on a nearby shelf I'd rigged with planks of wood, sealed up and ready to be imbibed with the basic Potion of Healing variant that I'd engineered. It'd more or less restore a good chunk of health to the imbiber nigh instantly, as the inherent magicka within the constituent elements carried out the given effect. I had no clue how that worked, considering these were reagents plucked from a magic-less world, but sometimes the System had a way of altering reality to suit its narrative.
Like with our new cleaners, for example.
One potion would be enough to heal any measure of physical wound short of decapitation or loss of limb, if my magically-instilled knowledge could be trusted. Useful, since my brother was often in the business of getting himself injured. He might have tried to pretend otherwise, but I'd spotted his bruised arm back in the apartment from our raid on the drug den. Knowing Sal, we'd need that healing sooner rather than later.
Between me and the machine-like efficiency of my Divine Statue, five more Potions of Healing were fully brewed and set to cooling by the time I was ready to try out my next recipe. We worked side-by-side, the equipment pilfered from the Merchant drug den varied enough for multiple alchemists to work at the same time.
I kept him focused on exhausting our healing reagents while I turned my attention elsewhere.
Next up on my list were the Potions of Fire Resistance, a slightly less basic recipe that required bone meal and dragon's tongue as the two primary reagents. We'd most likely be going up against Lung fairly soon, and one of his biggest weapons was his ability to burn us to a fucking crisp. Nobody would say I wasn't doing my due diligence in preparing for the fight.
I could feel through Wizard that there was an existing synergy with the potioncraft of the Forgotten Realms and that of Nirn, but it was hard to say what exactly. There was plenty of overlap between the two settings in terms of what alchemy could accomplish when given an opportunity. The real difference was the fact that most Forgotten Realms recipes usually involved some degree of innately magical materials, while the plants from The Elder Scrolls often overlaid with what was already thriving on Earth.
Overall, I'd have to chuck it in the list of things to experiment on whenever the Celestial System ended up giving us some renewable resources.
It was only when I was working on cooling down the first batch of Fire Resistant potion that a flashing in the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I took a step away from the fumes and heat to see what the hell was going on. It looked like some sort of… alert notification; a small silver exclamation point surrounded by a box.
When I tried to turn my head to look directly at it, a familiar screen appeared before me.
[QUEST COMPLETED: THE PRODUCT]
[CREATE YOUR FIRST ILLEGAL PRODUCT!]
[REWARD: 1x Minor Artifice Perk]
I couldn't help but smirk.
"How considerate of you, System. Waiting patiently for me to finish volatile work," I murmured, wiping my chemical-stained hands on the dirty white cotton of my tank-top.
Personally, I wasn't quite sure what was so illegal about my potions, but it did occur to me that I'd cooked them up with stolen equipment from a drug lab. That, and the fact that they were untested Tinkertech solutions would likely have seen them banned by any governing body worth their salt. I knew they worked with a bone-deep certainty, yet not many certifying institutions were willing to work off the trust system.
Losers, all of them. I'd get my patent some way or another.
Spoiler: Minor Artifice Perk
Somewhere outside, I heard a crash.
"Shit!"
My fucking supercar.
I didn't even bother issuing a command to my Statue - and damn did he really need a nickname. I left him brewing at the cooking table, seemingly unaware of my internal panic as I sprinted out of the laboratory and practically flew up the short staircase into the main floor of the factory. It was dark, spooky, and we hadn't gotten around to magically cleaning its several grimy, glass-covered rooms and corridors, but I paid none of that any mind as I made a bee-line straight towards the back exit.
"If you dropped my brand new Audi R8 out of the fucking sky, you overdramatic System, I swear…" I grumbled to myself as I pulled open the massive scrap metal garage door that blocked our 'base' from the outside world. It only took a few seconds of yanking down the heavy-duty chain hoist, the hard, corded muscles in my arms flexing and swelling, before the door was open and I could step out onto the cracked, overgrown pavement.
And, y'know, maybe I should have given the System more credit, because that 'strengthened bodywork' was no joke. I could see no scratch on the shiny ebony supercar waiting for me right outside of the factory.
And what a beautiful fucking supercar it was.
Sleek, metallic black, and practically glinting beneath the orange morning sunlight, my new vehicle looked like the very epitome of luxury. I didn't actually know all that much about cars, having been much more attracted to motorcycles back in my old world, but even I could tell that this thing was a work of fucking divine craftsmanship. Black, silver, and crimson was an excellent color palette for a supercar, and this Audi R8, my… Lucis, it made it pop.
When I pulled open the driver's door, it was to an all crimson interior, accented with black. The steering wheel had a fucking silver crown on it.
I was in love. Now this was a fucking perk.
"Keys are already in the ignition, too…" I whispered, a wide, wolfish grin nearly slicing my cheeks into ribbons. I slid into my rightful throne, twisting the dark key, and trying my damndest not to moan when the engine roared to life. It sounded like a goddamned panther in hunt.
I had to get this bad boy stowed away before some distant hobo ended up fucking around and finding out. I didn't want to have to kill some innocent homeless guy, but I'd done worse for less.
I backed my Lucis up into the factory, cinched the garage door back down, and as my Statue continued exhausting our limited reagents with constant potion making…
I texted pictures of my new, sexy whip to Sal.
"Heh… He's gonna be so fucking jealous."
Salvatore
April 8th
Afternoon
Some people get all the luck.
That was my first thought when my brother texted over pictures of his new prize, courtesy of the Celestial System. When we'd passed the latest quest, I won't lie, I was perhaps expecting something flashier. As it was now though, my reward was still useful…
But I couldn't quite brag about it the same way my brother could brag about his new car.
Spoiler: Demon ID
The usage of the badge was more situational, yet it was also the first actual Stranger-adjacent drop that either of us had earned. I could already think of uses, places we could get into with the badge. It just didn't take away the sting of missing out on a souped-up car from Final Fantasy.
It should have been me, not him!
With some downtime to kill, though? Well, now I had to find a way to while away the hours. It should have surprised absolutely no one that I was going to the local library for that purpose.
Not for the primary reason of any real research, mind you. I was hoping that with such a large local Asian community in the city, they'd have some manga in stock. Eagerness and dread warred within me, as I sought to see what content output a post-Leviathan Japan could create. Anything close to the quality of what had been made before?
Who knew?! I was going to be finding out shortly enough, as I entered into the building. I even took the time to sign up for a card, since you really just needed a name and an address. With those items in tow I was off to properly explore the literature of Earth-Bet.
Do you know what I discovered?
The dawning of the parahuman age had not been particularly kind to Earth-Bet's culture, especially regarding content unrelated to superheroes. They'd captured the public imagination so thoroughly that you couldn't find a single facet that hadn't been influenced in some regard.
Hell, even the manga I found wasn't immune. The bog-standard default setting was superhuman societies like MHA, rather than anything more fantastical. The power systems differed, but everything was more or less boiling down to uninspired shonen-trash. Nobody was out here taking risks with the plots, like Chainsaw Man.
Leviathan might have become my least favorite Endbringer, just because of this. I could get over a mind-bending angel and a fiery murder golem. Attacking the source of my degenerate weeb vices was a different atrocity altogether.
At the end of the day I settled on picking up one of the Maggie Holt books. While I was familiar with the setting of Pact, thank god we hadn't been sent there. Instead I could just read about the setting vicariously, rather than dealing with the vast array of soul-eating abominations that existed there.
These books were enduringly popular, and I had a void inside myself for YA slop that needed to be filled. Still…I should probably ask a native whether or not they were any good.
It was the middle of the afternoon, but the public library wasn't all that occupied. The only person nearby was a brunette with glasses, long wavy hair, and a leggy, runner's physique. I'm not sure if I'd call her conventionally attractive, in the baggy clothes she wore. Not my brother's type, to be sure.
Then again, my brother's tastes were…questionable, on a good day.
"Hey," I spoke, walking up to the girl and holding up the book. "You familiar at all with the Maggie Holt series?"
It was hard to miss the slight flinch from her, as she turned away from whatever she was doing at her computer. "Excuse me?"
"The Maggie Holt series, have you read it?" Lifting up my left hand, I gently rapped my knuckles against the front cover. "I'm looking for another series to dive into, but I've never touched it."
I could see her eyebrows raise too, but there was something else in the girl's expression. A more guarded tension that I had no idea where the origin was. "...Have you never seen the movies?"
To that I could only shake my head. "Nah, I was always more into Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings." The least of all because they were franchises that actually existed in my world, and this one too. Partially from some Earth-Aleph osmosis, but mostly because both authors who wrote those series existed in all of our worlds.
"Oh. Well, it's…" The girl trailed off, lips pursing as as hand nervously drummed along the desk nearby. "So, it kind of takes place in the same shared universe as a couple of other works by the author, Wildboar."
That got a little snort out of me. "Wildboar?"
"They've got a goofy pseudonym," she conceded, with something that could almost be called the ghost of a smile on her face. "Basically, it takes place in this setting where supernatural events are kept out of human affairs by something called the Seal of Solomon. Maggie kind of stumbles onto the world by accident, because goblins attack her family, and it's this whole thing-"
"Woah, woah, woah," I held up a hand, idly sitting in the cubicle next to her. "Spoilers. I still wanted to read this."
Understandably, that was enough to make her lips shut, the slightest hint of red coming over her features. "...Ah. Sorry. I got a little carried away."
"No need for the apologies. You made it sound mighty appealing," I admitted. "And it was cute to see too."
If nothing else, that was enough to make her face go even redder, eyes immediately averted to anywhere else but my own. "I'm not cute."
Those words were said with a lot of confidence in them. Either something that she'd internalized or her sense of attraction had been attacked so many times that she'd been forced to believe for her own sanity. Naturally, I disagreed.
"Eh. I've seen a lot of girls; you're not even remotely ugly." That wasn't to say she didn't have things she could improve, yet that was true of anyone, myself in included.
"I'll have to take your word for it," Glasses-girl responded, sounding dubious. This was more uncomfortable waters for her, though.
"I, uh, probably should have introduced myself before we got wrapped up in this conversation, huh?" I offered out a hand to her. "I'm Salvatore, Salvatore Bucciarati, but you can call me Sal."
She paused, scrutinizing my hand like it might be some kind of weapon, before slowly reaching out to shake it in turn. "Taylor. Taylor Hebert."
Ah.
Fuck.
It took real effort for me to keep my face clear of any immediate recognition, but Taylor took my pause to press on further. "Do you go to Winslow? I don't think I've ever seen you around…?"
"Oh, no," I denied. "My brother and I both moved to Brockton pretty recently. Our parents are…well, not with us anymore, so we both got our GED and take care of ourselves."
These were lies on multiple levels, least of all the fact that my brother and I were technically illegal aliens. Total ghosts to the system, no birth certificates, no licenses, no documentation. If it weren't for the fact that the Docks was pretty geared toward not asking those kinds of questions and being willing to accept cash as payment, we would have been screwed.
As it was now, it just meant that we got to skate by without much in the way of the questions we ought to be getting. At the very least, we were smart enough not to be out and about in the middle of the day, lest we have to explain ourselves to truant officers. Small blessings, I guess.
I think the mention of losing a parent softened Taylor's expression a bit from her suspicion. "Oh. I'm sorry for your loss."
And…it was a loss. We didn't know when, if ever, we'd get a power that'd let us go back to our world. There was no guarantee we ever would. That was the truth of the matter, and I was reasonably sure I and Angelo were throwing ourselves into our work to avoid thinking about whoever we'd left behind.
My dad would have had this entire supervillain thing sorted from the start. He was cool and collected and never lost his temper, except for a few rare moments from our childhood. I could see Angelo ape his style, even if he would have said otherwise, but it wasn't the same.
As stereotypically Italian as it might have sounded, though? I missed my mom more.
There was no way she would have walked into this situation with a solution ready. She wouldn't have brought any fundamental combat skills to the table or known the ins and outs of the family business.
Yet even so, I felt like just seeing her would have given me some strength. Getting welcomed into the kitchen with a homemade snack and a hug, and having her dig into the nitty-gritty of my day as we chatted away the time.
You couldn't just get that sort of warmth anywhere, that kind of unthinking, steadfast love and attention. A father was necessary for the big moral lessons you had to teach a kid. But moms were crucial for coming in and making the world feel like it would be okay.
"I won't say it's fine, but I'll get better," I sighed, giving her a wan smile. "If I didn't have my baby brother with me still, I don't know what I'd do." Get up to something stupid, probably.
She opened and closed her mouth a few times, looking for the right words if I had to guess. "...I'm not sure if I'd say it gets better. You just get better at living with the loss."
That got a nod back from me as the conversation bled into silence. It was an awkward, uncomfortable pause, as the two of us weren't quite sure how to keep the conversation going. Dead and absentee parents were already kind of a chat-killer in most respects.
"So, uh…" I swallowed, clearing my throat nervously. "I might have questions about Maggie Holt, or just be looking to chat about it."
"Yeah?"
"If you had a number I could text, an email, a PHO handle, we could keep in touch through that. If you wanted."
I could see her blink a few times, not quite understanding my words. "...What?"
"Well, I don't know a lot of people in this city, and it's hard to find people who are willing rant about their niche opinions on YA books." It wasn't hard to find those people on my world, but this was 2011. It might as well have been a different century for how different things were to 2024.
I'm not sure if Taylor had the qualia even to understand me. How long had it been since she'd had someone genuinely try to be friends with her? Almost certainly too long.
"Uh…" She paused, shifting in her seat. "I don't really have a phone, but I'd be fine with swapping email addresses, or PHO handles…"
"Great!" I beamed, grinning toothily, as we traded information. "I'll be sure to hit ya' up when I finish this first book."
In my experience, when it came to people who were going through something like Taylor, you had to be mindful of experiences. You also had to purposefully drag them out of their comfort zone. I might not have been a literal cold reader like Lisa, but I was pretty good about reading people the old-school way.
For Taylor, it wasn't a lack of a desire for friends, or companionship. It was just the lack of capability to have meaningful relationships with her peers, given what the dreadful Trio were doing to her social life. I was presented as, all things considered, a rather safe option.
I didn't go to her school, I was new to the city, and I offered a pretty safe avenue when you took that into account.
"Catch ya' later, Taylor! Nice meeting you."
"Nice meeting you, too." She responded, even giving me a small smile back. "Be sure to let me know what you thought about the book!"
Well, now I was legally mandated to actually get involved with the text. How else was I going to protect that smile?
With some pep in my step and a book in hand, I left the library.
Time to kill time, and see what my brother had been up to besides gloating about his new car.