L.04
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
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That part where you said that you only see Rune twice a week? Strike that. Your Empire-sponsored evening classes in Cricket's power first aid are over, now you work Wednesdays too. Not that you're complaining - Cricket's power is a lot simpler than Rune's, you'll happily trade study-time with the former for the latter.
The crowd in the bar is a bit different from Monday. You catch Krieg and Stormtiger leaving just as you arrive, and there's Alex and his buddies, waving you over to their table. Haven't seen those guys around lately, your shifts haven't matched up.
"Been a while," Alex greets you. "How you holding up?"
That question is a lot less polite than he thinks. "...fine, all things considered," is what you settle on for an answer. You then fail to repress a shudder as you inadvertently consider all the things.
The nice skinheads react with concern. You wave it away. "Personal issue." Humanity is doomed.
"Change of subject?" Mike offers.
"Please."
"Then if you don't mind me asking," Sven says, "how did you discover the truth?"
He's asking 'how did you become a nazi?' Which is a problem, because you haven't figured out a plausible origin story. Because you have no idea how a reasonable person could become a nazi.
"It's just that you're pretty much the least likely demographic for it," he continues as you remain silent. Crap crap crap, you're going to be exposed as a fraud. Think, Taylor! Come up with something!
"Seriously?" Alex asks, interrupting your mounting panic.
"What? Female, no kids, exposed to the latest and most virulent strain of the education system and jewish media..."
"Hello? She's a cape."
"So you're saying... nigger-based trigger event?"
Heh, nigger trigger (you probably shouldn't find that funny). He's not even wrong, considering it was (probably) Sophia who shoved you into that locker. Before you can grasp this lifeline, Alex jumps down his throat again.
"You're seriously not familiar with whatsisname," he snaps his fingers as he thinks, "cape study with the unpronounceable names?"
"Sankaramanchi and Hyytiäinen?" Mike supplies.
"Yeah, that one."
"I'm not," Sven says. "Redpill me on this issue, goy."
"Alright. Basically Sankam- Sakan- Streetshitter and Finn did comprehensive personality tests on a ton of capes from all around the world. Turns out they're all fucked in the head."
You smile as you remember your own musing on that subject. Apparently another capefuckedologist published first. Wait, hang on, your buddy is dissing you isn't he?
"Gee, thanks," you say sarcastically. Not that it's untrue. Hell, it's apparently even scientifically proven. But you have to push back for form's sake.
"It's uncanny," he continues, ignoring you. "Male or female, white, black, brown or yellow, all capes score crazy high on aggression and impulsiveness, and low on empathy and agreeableness. Just all around maximum antisocial behavior."
"So they're basically niggers?" Sven asks.
"No, beyond nigger levels. Super-niggers."
"Fuck you too," you interject.
"They're not dumb like niggers, mind you," Alex says placatingly(?) "White capes still have white people IQ."
"Huh," Sven says. "No wonder she threw off the conditioning."
"Right? I'm not saying she's the least conformist person in the room - pretty sure that one guy unironically worships Hitler as an avatar of Vishnu - but she's up there."
Sven looks at you with a newfound respect, or respect-adjacent emotion.
"How the hell did I not know about this before?" he asks.
"It got memory holed right away," Mike says. "Equalists love quoting cape outcomes as proof that we're all the same when given a level playing field. Can't have anyone pointing out that capes are a special case."
"No shit we're special," you say. "We literally have brain structures that are not present in regular humans."
"Really?" Sven asks.
"Yeah. An MRI will catch a cape 100% of the time. Don't you know anything?" Please disregard that you yourself only learned this fact after you triggered, and only because your power in particular encouraged extensive research into the nature of parahumans.
"You don't even need the study, or an MRI." Mike says. "Just look at us here. The rank and file is a total sausage fest, while the brass has perfect gender parity. Clearly-"
"There's Catherine," Alex points out.
"Cathy is in prison. Right now it's-"
"There's Emily too, helping out in ops."
"Shut up, I'm trying to explain something. Clearly-"
Sven, meanwhile, has been counting on his fingers and muttering to himself. "The gender parity isn't perfect," he objects. "Though if Purity hadn't left-"
"Shut up! Shut the fuck up! Clearly a reasonable person can tell just by looking at the Empire that capes are not like normal people at all. That's all I'm trying to say, OK? OK?"
"Yeah, I definitely noticed that," Sven says. "I'm smart."
"You were right, by the way," you tell him.
"Of course I was right! Uh, what was I right about?"
"Nigger-based trigger event." You'll use it as cover, but according to the quoted study any racial traits would have been completely swamped by cape bullshit in Sophia's case. That's funny, learning about suppressed politically incorrect science made you a tiny bit less racist today.
"Oh. This conversation could have been a lot shorter." Sven says.
"At least you learned something today," Mike says.
"Implying," Alex says. 'That Sven is capable of learning', is the unstated rest of that sentence.
"Hey!"
---
It looked like it was going to be another boring patrol, but then...
"Incoming, ten o'clock," you tell Rune.
Rune looks in the indicated direction. "Oh fuckballs," she says. Intrigued by her reaction, you take a closer look while she fumbles for her phone. Underneath the parahuman glow that tipped you off in the first place, he's... oh. Yeah. You recognize those tattoos. Fuckballs sounds about right.
"LUNG!" Rune screams into her phone. "Lung incoming at, uh..."
"Bridgewater and Ninth," you supply. You don't judge her for losing her cool, Lung is pretty scary. Less scary than the Simurgh, though.
Frankly speaking you probably should be freaking out more than you are, but you're distracted by a most interesting discovery: Lung is just walking down the street. He's not fighting anyone yet, he's not turning into a dragon. But his power is pulsing with activity regardless.
If Lung has an always-on power that can be studied off the clock, well...
No, first things first. Focus, Taylor. Rune has finished relaying your location and is nodding at whatever instructions she's receiving. "What do we do?" you ask.
"We engage. Distract him, try to draw him off." Because trying to win would be pointless. Great.
Rune senses your hesitation. "This is our job, Loki," she snaps, not bothering to enunciate the space in your name. "Putting ourselves between the civilians and the enemy is what soldiers do."
So it is. "Let's go," you say.
Despite her words, Rune keeps her distance on the first pass. She fires a rock into the ground in front of Lung, then waits to see his reaction. Smart. Combat makes him more powerful. If she can get him to chase her without actually hitting him, that would be ideal.
Unfortunately he just looks in your direction and continues walking deeper into Empire territory. Rune curses under her breath and lets another rock fly, this one hitting him in the side. He stumbles a bit, but shakes his head and keeps walking.
He's noticeably larger when he regains his balance.
"He seems awfully determined," you say. "Did you guys start a gang war while I was away?"
"Not on purpose," Rune says. "You're up." Right. The next logical step is giving him a target he can hit. This is what they're paying you for.
Rune flies ahead of Lung and dips down to street level long enough for Fenrir to jump off. You face off against Lung.
This time he does stop. He braces himself to receive a charge. You're maybe ten yards apart, and for a moment you just stand there glaring at each other. Then you notice that he's still growing. The imminent threat of giant wolf alone is enough to set off his power.
You kick your heels, sending Fenrir into a run. If you're going to have a chance, you can't afford to delay.
You really ought to have a lance or something, it occurs to you as you bear down on your foe. As it is you can only hold on and hope for the best while Fenrir does all the work.
Fenrir catches Lung's arm and bites down, or Lung blocks his bite with his arm, or something. You're not sure who wins. First blood goes to Fenrir as his teeth sink into flesh, but he's kept away from more vital areas. The fact that Lung still has an arm afterwards indicates that his Brute rating is ramping up worryingly quickly.
But that doesn't mean Fenrir stops running. Lung's feet skid against the ground as the wolf barrels into him and keeps going. Between the arm clamped in the jaws and his other hand grabbing hold of an ear he manages to cling on and remain upright, though. Fenrir yelps in pain as Lung tries to rip his ear off, but does not release him.
Okay, you don't have a lance, but at this range you can still help out. You lean forward and apply pepper spray to the eyeholes of Lung's mask.
Lung screams in rage and pain, and the air around him bursts into flame. Fenrir lets go and scrambles away before his face can catch fire.
Lung still does not pursue, he just keeps marching forward past you, batting one of Rune's projectiles out of the air as he goes. You're reluctantly impressed by his composure. If you'd been bitten and pepper sprayed like that you're not sure you'd be able to resist getting even, and you don't even have rage dragon powers (yet).
To compound the bad news, that last exchange definitely sent Lung out of your league. He probably out-masses Fenrir now, and silver scales are beginning to form on his skin.
"Fight me, you pussy!" you scream at him, and urge Fenrir into another charge.
Just as you're about to hit him from behind Lung executes an elegant spinning kick that sends Fenrir flying, and you along with him. Displaying great presence of mind, your wolf elects to dematerialize in midair rather than land on top of you.
Your landing benefits more from your Brute powers than your martial arts training. Ow. When you get your bearings again you see that Lung has finally stopped. He takes one step towards you, then another. You finally got his attention. Now that revenge just involves squashing you like a bug, rather than a time-consuming fight, he's reconsi- Crap!
You throw yourself to the side as Lung launches a stream of fire towards you. The slow, threatening walk was just a feint.
Fortunately for you, that's when Hookwolf comes around the corner, already fully transformed. Never again will you be so happy to see a giant monster made of chainsaws bearing down on you.
Chainsaw-wolf rams into dragon, and they both go tumbling down the street. Invisible wolf comes padding up to you.
"Did you get his scent?" you ask softly. Fenrir shakes his head. "Do that. Follow him home, find out where he lives." He nods his understanding and runs off after the combatants. You sit down on the curb. Your part in the fight is over.
Hm, what's that over there? Oh, Hookwolf sliced several scales off of Lung when he tackled him. You walk over and pick one up. Never turn down free alchemy ingredients, right? Actually, they both lost some parts. One of Hookwolf's eponymous hooks joins the scale in your pocket. You wonder what metal it's made of.
A boulder comes sailing down and hovers enticingly in front of you. You clamber aboard and hold on as Rune lifts you up.
"What happened back there?" she asks.
"Power overloaded," you say.
"You weren't lying about your performance issues, huh?" she muses, and you shrug in response. "I'm on overwatch for the rest of the battle, wanna ride along?"
"Sure."
You watch the conclusion from a safe distance. Lung has finally devolved into full berserker mode, and reinforcements keep arriving for your side. Hookwolf, joined by giant valkyries Fenja and Menja, alternately lure and wrestle him out of Empire territory and back towards ABB stomping grounds. Kaiser himself shows up and starts raising giant metal barriers to channel and corral the fight.
Once he judges that they've pushed the dragon back far enough, he gives the order to withdraw. Rune and Stormtiger swoop in to distract Lung with ranged attacks, and the melee fighters disengage and retreat in good order. The valkyries are a bit singed and Hookwolf left pieces of himself strewn all over the city, but all in all it went very smoothly. It's clearly not the first time this has happened.
You keep a sorcerous eye peeled for Oni Lee throughout, but for whatever reason he never shows up to help his boss. The heroes also decide against sticking their noses in.
On the one hand, it could be said that they handled that flawlessly. Lung came to wreck your shit, and was prevented from doing so. On the other hand, it took all the big hitters from the biggest parahuman group in the city just to secure what is effectively a draw against a single opponent.
God, you want that power.
The crowd in the bar is a bit different from Monday. You catch Krieg and Stormtiger leaving just as you arrive, and there's Alex and his buddies, waving you over to their table. Haven't seen those guys around lately, your shifts haven't matched up.
"Been a while," Alex greets you. "How you holding up?"
That question is a lot less polite than he thinks. "...fine, all things considered," is what you settle on for an answer. You then fail to repress a shudder as you inadvertently consider all the things.
The nice skinheads react with concern. You wave it away. "Personal issue." Humanity is doomed.
"Change of subject?" Mike offers.
"Please."
"Then if you don't mind me asking," Sven says, "how did you discover the truth?"
He's asking 'how did you become a nazi?' Which is a problem, because you haven't figured out a plausible origin story. Because you have no idea how a reasonable person could become a nazi.
"It's just that you're pretty much the least likely demographic for it," he continues as you remain silent. Crap crap crap, you're going to be exposed as a fraud. Think, Taylor! Come up with something!
"Seriously?" Alex asks, interrupting your mounting panic.
"What? Female, no kids, exposed to the latest and most virulent strain of the education system and jewish media..."
"Hello? She's a cape."
"So you're saying... nigger-based trigger event?"
Heh, nigger trigger (you probably shouldn't find that funny). He's not even wrong, considering it was (probably) Sophia who shoved you into that locker. Before you can grasp this lifeline, Alex jumps down his throat again.
"You're seriously not familiar with whatsisname," he snaps his fingers as he thinks, "cape study with the unpronounceable names?"
"Sankaramanchi and Hyytiäinen?" Mike supplies.
"Yeah, that one."
"I'm not," Sven says. "Redpill me on this issue, goy."
"Alright. Basically Sankam- Sakan- Streetshitter and Finn did comprehensive personality tests on a ton of capes from all around the world. Turns out they're all fucked in the head."
You smile as you remember your own musing on that subject. Apparently another capefuckedologist published first. Wait, hang on, your buddy is dissing you isn't he?
"Gee, thanks," you say sarcastically. Not that it's untrue. Hell, it's apparently even scientifically proven. But you have to push back for form's sake.
"It's uncanny," he continues, ignoring you. "Male or female, white, black, brown or yellow, all capes score crazy high on aggression and impulsiveness, and low on empathy and agreeableness. Just all around maximum antisocial behavior."
"So they're basically niggers?" Sven asks.
"No, beyond nigger levels. Super-niggers."
"Fuck you too," you interject.
"They're not dumb like niggers, mind you," Alex says placatingly(?) "White capes still have white people IQ."
"Huh," Sven says. "No wonder she threw off the conditioning."
"Right? I'm not saying she's the least conformist person in the room - pretty sure that one guy unironically worships Hitler as an avatar of Vishnu - but she's up there."
Sven looks at you with a newfound respect, or respect-adjacent emotion.
"How the hell did I not know about this before?" he asks.
"It got memory holed right away," Mike says. "Equalists love quoting cape outcomes as proof that we're all the same when given a level playing field. Can't have anyone pointing out that capes are a special case."
"No shit we're special," you say. "We literally have brain structures that are not present in regular humans."
"Really?" Sven asks.
"Yeah. An MRI will catch a cape 100% of the time. Don't you know anything?" Please disregard that you yourself only learned this fact after you triggered, and only because your power in particular encouraged extensive research into the nature of parahumans.
"You don't even need the study, or an MRI." Mike says. "Just look at us here. The rank and file is a total sausage fest, while the brass has perfect gender parity. Clearly-"
"There's Catherine," Alex points out.
"Cathy is in prison. Right now it's-"
"There's Emily too, helping out in ops."
"Shut up, I'm trying to explain something. Clearly-"
Sven, meanwhile, has been counting on his fingers and muttering to himself. "The gender parity isn't perfect," he objects. "Though if Purity hadn't left-"
"Shut up! Shut the fuck up! Clearly a reasonable person can tell just by looking at the Empire that capes are not like normal people at all. That's all I'm trying to say, OK? OK?"
"Yeah, I definitely noticed that," Sven says. "I'm smart."
"You were right, by the way," you tell him.
"Of course I was right! Uh, what was I right about?"
"Nigger-based trigger event." You'll use it as cover, but according to the quoted study any racial traits would have been completely swamped by cape bullshit in Sophia's case. That's funny, learning about suppressed politically incorrect science made you a tiny bit less racist today.
"Oh. This conversation could have been a lot shorter." Sven says.
"At least you learned something today," Mike says.
"Implying," Alex says. 'That Sven is capable of learning', is the unstated rest of that sentence.
"Hey!"
---
It looked like it was going to be another boring patrol, but then...
"Incoming, ten o'clock," you tell Rune.
Rune looks in the indicated direction. "Oh fuckballs," she says. Intrigued by her reaction, you take a closer look while she fumbles for her phone. Underneath the parahuman glow that tipped you off in the first place, he's... oh. Yeah. You recognize those tattoos. Fuckballs sounds about right.
"LUNG!" Rune screams into her phone. "Lung incoming at, uh..."
"Bridgewater and Ninth," you supply. You don't judge her for losing her cool, Lung is pretty scary. Less scary than the Simurgh, though.
Frankly speaking you probably should be freaking out more than you are, but you're distracted by a most interesting discovery: Lung is just walking down the street. He's not fighting anyone yet, he's not turning into a dragon. But his power is pulsing with activity regardless.
If Lung has an always-on power that can be studied off the clock, well...
No, first things first. Focus, Taylor. Rune has finished relaying your location and is nodding at whatever instructions she's receiving. "What do we do?" you ask.
"We engage. Distract him, try to draw him off." Because trying to win would be pointless. Great.
Rune senses your hesitation. "This is our job, Loki," she snaps, not bothering to enunciate the space in your name. "Putting ourselves between the civilians and the enemy is what soldiers do."
So it is. "Let's go," you say.
Despite her words, Rune keeps her distance on the first pass. She fires a rock into the ground in front of Lung, then waits to see his reaction. Smart. Combat makes him more powerful. If she can get him to chase her without actually hitting him, that would be ideal.
Unfortunately he just looks in your direction and continues walking deeper into Empire territory. Rune curses under her breath and lets another rock fly, this one hitting him in the side. He stumbles a bit, but shakes his head and keeps walking.
He's noticeably larger when he regains his balance.
"He seems awfully determined," you say. "Did you guys start a gang war while I was away?"
"Not on purpose," Rune says. "You're up." Right. The next logical step is giving him a target he can hit. This is what they're paying you for.
Rune flies ahead of Lung and dips down to street level long enough for Fenrir to jump off. You face off against Lung.
This time he does stop. He braces himself to receive a charge. You're maybe ten yards apart, and for a moment you just stand there glaring at each other. Then you notice that he's still growing. The imminent threat of giant wolf alone is enough to set off his power.
You kick your heels, sending Fenrir into a run. If you're going to have a chance, you can't afford to delay.
You really ought to have a lance or something, it occurs to you as you bear down on your foe. As it is you can only hold on and hope for the best while Fenrir does all the work.
Fenrir catches Lung's arm and bites down, or Lung blocks his bite with his arm, or something. You're not sure who wins. First blood goes to Fenrir as his teeth sink into flesh, but he's kept away from more vital areas. The fact that Lung still has an arm afterwards indicates that his Brute rating is ramping up worryingly quickly.
But that doesn't mean Fenrir stops running. Lung's feet skid against the ground as the wolf barrels into him and keeps going. Between the arm clamped in the jaws and his other hand grabbing hold of an ear he manages to cling on and remain upright, though. Fenrir yelps in pain as Lung tries to rip his ear off, but does not release him.
Okay, you don't have a lance, but at this range you can still help out. You lean forward and apply pepper spray to the eyeholes of Lung's mask.
Lung screams in rage and pain, and the air around him bursts into flame. Fenrir lets go and scrambles away before his face can catch fire.
Lung still does not pursue, he just keeps marching forward past you, batting one of Rune's projectiles out of the air as he goes. You're reluctantly impressed by his composure. If you'd been bitten and pepper sprayed like that you're not sure you'd be able to resist getting even, and you don't even have rage dragon powers (yet).
To compound the bad news, that last exchange definitely sent Lung out of your league. He probably out-masses Fenrir now, and silver scales are beginning to form on his skin.
"Fight me, you pussy!" you scream at him, and urge Fenrir into another charge.
Just as you're about to hit him from behind Lung executes an elegant spinning kick that sends Fenrir flying, and you along with him. Displaying great presence of mind, your wolf elects to dematerialize in midair rather than land on top of you.
Your landing benefits more from your Brute powers than your martial arts training. Ow. When you get your bearings again you see that Lung has finally stopped. He takes one step towards you, then another. You finally got his attention. Now that revenge just involves squashing you like a bug, rather than a time-consuming fight, he's reconsi- Crap!
You throw yourself to the side as Lung launches a stream of fire towards you. The slow, threatening walk was just a feint.
Fortunately for you, that's when Hookwolf comes around the corner, already fully transformed. Never again will you be so happy to see a giant monster made of chainsaws bearing down on you.
Chainsaw-wolf rams into dragon, and they both go tumbling down the street. Invisible wolf comes padding up to you.
"Did you get his scent?" you ask softly. Fenrir shakes his head. "Do that. Follow him home, find out where he lives." He nods his understanding and runs off after the combatants. You sit down on the curb. Your part in the fight is over.
Hm, what's that over there? Oh, Hookwolf sliced several scales off of Lung when he tackled him. You walk over and pick one up. Never turn down free alchemy ingredients, right? Actually, they both lost some parts. One of Hookwolf's eponymous hooks joins the scale in your pocket. You wonder what metal it's made of.
A boulder comes sailing down and hovers enticingly in front of you. You clamber aboard and hold on as Rune lifts you up.
"What happened back there?" she asks.
"Power overloaded," you say.
"You weren't lying about your performance issues, huh?" she muses, and you shrug in response. "I'm on overwatch for the rest of the battle, wanna ride along?"
"Sure."
You watch the conclusion from a safe distance. Lung has finally devolved into full berserker mode, and reinforcements keep arriving for your side. Hookwolf, joined by giant valkyries Fenja and Menja, alternately lure and wrestle him out of Empire territory and back towards ABB stomping grounds. Kaiser himself shows up and starts raising giant metal barriers to channel and corral the fight.
Once he judges that they've pushed the dragon back far enough, he gives the order to withdraw. Rune and Stormtiger swoop in to distract Lung with ranged attacks, and the melee fighters disengage and retreat in good order. The valkyries are a bit singed and Hookwolf left pieces of himself strewn all over the city, but all in all it went very smoothly. It's clearly not the first time this has happened.
You keep a sorcerous eye peeled for Oni Lee throughout, but for whatever reason he never shows up to help his boss. The heroes also decide against sticking their noses in.
On the one hand, it could be said that they handled that flawlessly. Lung came to wreck your shit, and was prevented from doing so. On the other hand, it took all the big hitters from the biggest parahuman group in the city just to secure what is effectively a draw against a single opponent.
God, you want that power.
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