Son of the Preacher Man (Worm CYOAv3 PM / AU)

[Ardrianian]

Chapter 1 – Welcome to the Suck

Location: Classified

Time: Classified

In the entirety of life, one does not think they get a chance to have a do over with some crazy additions thrown in. Most people live their lives to the best of their ability, have a family, enjoy some free time at the end of their lives and then become meat that biodegrades in the forever box buried underground, unless you are in New Orleans, then it's a party!

But I digress.

Running from the observation post to shelter was great cardio, however, explosions were going off around me as some asshole decided it would be a good idea to post to social media about what was going on in bumfuck Africa to help the oppressed people here that were allowing our employers that backed the local government to mine for resources. The other regional powers took that as well as a flare going off on a moonless night and started shelling our position in hopes that the firebase we were at would get abandoned and could move into the area and get the resources that were in our area of operations.

Avoiding the mortar shelling and occasional large caliber rounds hitting the sandbags and concrete walls, I made it to the communication bunker to see if I can get some assistance to our position.

Firebase Striker calling any call signs on this net, please respond!

Waiting for a couple of seconds on the radio a response came over the speaker

Firebase Striker, Oversight. Status Report, over.

Oversight, we are being engaged by heavy mortar and suppression fire from heavy caliber emplacements. Showing a battalion size force of technicals and infantry with artillery support. Requesting counter battery response with Close Air support, over.

At this point the light mortar shelling stopped, but the suppression fire continued from the heavy machine gun emplacements from those damn Toyota Hillux's that "fall off the back of a tanker". The Speaker crackled back to life.

Striker, Oversight. We are calling Arclight. Repeat, we are calling Arclight. Out.

Well shit. Arclight was the GTFO order for area denial ordinance to be dropped on our position. Seeing how we were a bunch of mercenaries fighting a proxy war for western powers against people funded against eastern powers, that last transmission was a cut and run leaving us survivors out to make our way back to friendly lines or at least safe houses.

Not knowing how much time I had left to get the hell out of Dodge, I slapped the air raid siren that was on the wall. I was running out of the bunker to my go shack that had a desert buggy with enough water and fuel to get to a port town, looking for anyone else that was still alive. Heading to the barracks, I saw it on fire from heavy armor piercing rounds and white phosphorous shelling.

As I saw that most of the bunker was collapsed, I had an errant thought of all that great porn that was lost with the fire. I walked into the remaining area seeing a charnel house of bodies. Seeing the burnt bodies of JD, Bugfuck, Blind Joe, and the rest of the team depressed me, but this wasn't the time to mourn. I searched for my bug out bag and sprinted to the supply depot at the other end of the firebase.

Opening the shack and getting into the dune buggy, I started the engine and started pulling out of the space when I heard a droning sound indicating the aircraft holding the aircraft ordinance. Gunning it, I was looking to make tracks when I noticed that I did not see or hear the normal whistling of a carpet bombing. Having to drive around the mortar holes and blasted hunks of light vehicles, I was making it to the edge of the firebase berm when I looked in the side mirror. Seeing that telltale parachute with an empty sled, I redlined the engine to make sure I was out of the mile radius of the MOAB that was released.

There was a flash and then a violent shockwave throwing my vehicle like a ragdoll from the ground and tossing it onto the desert playa like a toddler being mad at a toy. I was on my side, arm pinned between the roll cage and the ground trying to get my bearings.

As I was looking to see where it came from, a giant fireball and plume of black smoke that was once Firebase Striker rose into the air, denying the base and probably those irregulars that attempted to sack it. Losing blood out of my left arm, I got a tourniquet out and tied up my arm, noting the time the tourniquet was applied. Slowly I faded out of consciousness hoping an extraction team would find me before the irregulars would and my new home would be somebody's or something's bowels.

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I came to in the dead of night, my crappy watch showing 4am local time. Thankful not to be in the gullet of a person or thing, the state of my arm was sorry in that most everything from the elbow down was blackened with necrosis. Rocking side to side, I eventually tipped the buggy onto its wheels.
Looking for some morphine to kill the pain I was feeling, I heard a small propeller off in the distance. Hoping it was a bush plane, I got my tactical light out of my chest pocket and started flashing it in the international SOS code.

The last thing going through my mind, other than shrapnel from a missile lobbed from a drone, was fuck.

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I came to looking at the face of a child in the reflection of a window. Dark shoulder length hair, hetero-chromatic eyes, and in the body of what looks like a sixteen year old male. Looking past the reflection I see the sign of "Freedom, CA" and what appears to be a cordon around the town.


This has to be a fever dream from that hellfire missing me...

Being in a ranch style house, I looked around the room that was sparsely decorated with memorabilia, a poster of the triumvirate labeled 2001. Other sundry items of the room was a desk and chair set, twin size bed with sheets that look like it came from an army surplus store, and a drawer. Rifling through the room, it was looking more and more that I was in some sort of retreat or with the cordon around the town, a locked down area with basic shelters here.

On the desk there was a note addressed to me in my own handwriting. Opening it, things started turning to the weird.

To: Sierra 1-9
From: Sierra 1-9

Congrats, we got blown up. Due to shenanigans of the eldritch type, we are not at our final resting place. Whether that was heaven or hell, who knows. Thing is, You got conscripted in a cosmic hatchet man scheme that we need to complete in order to shuffle off on this adventure of ours.

The situation is as follows:

We are in WORM. Yes that WORM. We got the deluxe package power up with power overwhelming aided with others that you will need to ferret out on your own. Our orders are to neutralize any parahuman with the ability to create portals. Its something to do with contaminating other branches of reality, so don't ask too many questions...

Second is that we need to find and get, for lack of a better explanation, root access to both entities. Currently, the shards are getting heartbeat pings from the entities, but as soon as they realize there is no administrator watching the network, the shards conflict engines will go critical and start forming another entity. Priority Target Eidolon is well on his way due to double dipping powering the endbringers and using his powers.

Finally, once we complete the primary objective, we can exfiltrate out of this reality back into the void and either continue on or jump into another world.

Best bet is to start with saving PRT Special Trooper Piggot in Ellisburg. Hopefully you'll have some time to work up solutions to the shitshow that will be there, but I don't know when you will be dropped into.

Good Luck, Get Fucked, Remember to Duck.

Sierra 1-9

After reading the letter, I ate that bitch up to deny any thing a clue of what I needed to do, what I could do, and started cataloging where I was in relation to the rest of the country seeing a map of regional California south of San Francisco.

Not finding anything to denote who I was in the scheme of the town hierarchy, I closed my eyes and focused on myself, looking to see the powers that I had chosen. Seeing the representation of the power manipulation power as a ball of electricity with coronas of color coming off of it. Mentally grabbing onto it, I pinged no less than 30 individuals with parahuman powers. That explained the cordon if that many people had powers and were not in government hands, but why hadn't they left? Mostly were environmental powers, thermal kinetic, plant growth, water condensation, powers such as that.

Feeling another representation of power, I was able to discern what my senses were telling me were force adept powers with all the knowledge to build star wars level tech. Noting to see if Earth Bet got through the original trilogy, I heard a bell off in the distance, feeling the power sources converge on a building. Going outside the ranch house I made my way to the building I was feeling the power sources converge on what looked like a church or town hall for the area.

The whole of the town was giving me cult or children of the damned vibes, maybe even those SCP online stories that JD liked to reference whenever there was downtime to be had.

As I walked in, I saw a congregation of people on benches amicably talking to one another, my powers overlaying who had what power activated in the form of an aura. I saw nacent wind patterns on one girl, a fog around another boy, phantom animals around a guy that looked about 18, and so on and so forth. I was looking for a seat in the middle, like a good Baptist not wanting to be up front near where I would assume the leader of these people would be. Sitting down, I saw an older lady get up and approach me.

"Son, are you not feeling well?" she asked kindly. "You know your position is up near the front with all the other children."

Well there went being as unnoticeable as possible. If my host had a position in town, any deviation would cast suspicion on me like a spotlight in the dark, and I wanted to avoid that as it cost me my life last time.

"Not feeling well, ma'am. I did not want the kids to catch anything" feigning being under the weather.

"Get up there boy before your father calls for you and you embarrass him," she said with a no nonsense tone. "You know today is blessings day and he wants you there like all days to be in front with the children. As his son, you need to make sure that they are calm when he calls down the divine on today's chosen. Now get on up there."

She shooed me away from the bench and watched me as I made my way up to the front of the group. I sat where there was a bunch of middle school aged children were at, happily chattering away about the big moment today. I sat down near a freckled blonde girl in a ponytail and wearing what I supposed was her Sunday best.

"Are you excited for today?" She asked me, happiness and anxiousness bubbling through her. "I know I am! I can't wait to see what blessing I get!"

I had a sinking feeling that I was the son of the cult leader and today is a high day for the cult. I still wonder why the cordon, but with more immediate concerns of what was going to occur, I focused on the here and now. The other children were sitting but none of them were focused on me, but on the pulpit waiting for the preacher. Since there was a downtime where everyone is not paying attention to me, I focused on my power and burned all my charges to change my time from five charges a day to five charges a second. I could not go any lower, hoping I could get a recharge every Planck moment, but I guess even eldritch entities could not work their magic to give me that as well.

Feeling like there was nothing more to be concerned about my well of "infinite power", I used a couple of charges to change the nature of my power sight to more literal translation, much having it laid out to me in letters than in aura and feelings. Looking around for a test, I see the boy with wind gusts around him to have an overlay above his head. No name, but just power which labeled him as Aero kinetic. Seeing it work, I then dumped another couple of charges to essentially query the shard that was connected to its users. Mr. Aero kinetic, got a line under him with the translation of "Normal". That did not make sense to me but I did not have enough time to explore it as the congregation started quieting down.

Coming out of the back room, I saw a stocky man with short cut hair, in priestly garb walking to the pulpit. Motioning the congregation to sit down, he started in on his sermon which I tuned out to focus on him. His power that he had was "Activation" and it was listed as "Noble". So there was Normal and Noble shard qualities that I had seen. Focusing back onto the Preacher, he ended the sermon and started in on what I assumed was to be the ceremony.

The girl that I had spoken to rose to her feet, as well as another boy, both walking to the pulpit kneeling on either side of the preacher. Refocusing on the preacher, he touched their foreheads and spoke.
"On this auspicious day, as these two have been blessed! Go forth now and share this gift of God"

My power sight was overwhelmed with a vision of an eldritch abomination reaching out through his hands into the skulls of the children and absorbing whatever energy the preacher was channeling into their bodies. The preacher's notation started fading in and out, but then solidified again. After the light show was over, I saw new notations of powers for the girl and boy (Immutability and Geospatial Manipulation respectively, both Normal) appear above their heads.

I know knew why this place was cordoned off. The preacher could activate powers in potential parahumans just like I could. Every swinging dick and tit on the planet would be after him if it netted a potential windfall of a parahuman army, which he was building anyways.

Fuck me, I was going to have to neutralize everyone here.

Spoiler: Author's Note

Wanted to work on my writing chops whilst in the hospital and wanted to cut my teeth in grimderp worm. Androgynous OC is isekai'd into WORM with some protection, but early enough to start throwing pebbles in the proverbial pond to make some changes....

Spoiler: Build

WORM CYOA V3

Difficulty: God Mode +10

Powers - Lesser - Force Adept (-2), Star Wars Tinker (-1), Mental archive (-1)

Powers - World Breaking - Power Manipulation (-8)

Powers - Wildcard (-1) Space and Time Mastery 9

Advantages - Man of Mystery (-1)
For Want of a Nail (-1) Braindead entities

Disadvantages - Wanted (+4) Protectorate, Cauldron
Without a map (+1) Freedom, CA
Geas (+1) Can only use a certain amount of powers. Can only be counteracted with Queen Administrator

Bank: 1 point

 

[Ardrianian]

Chapter 2 – Embrace the Suck

Emptying out of the church, the newly minted parahumans ran through the throng of people wanting to get out in front of the crowd to show off, most likely. I hung back wanting to get more intel on the preacher.

"Dad?" I asked hoping to sound like an eager sixteen year old after a momentous occasion had just occurred, "When will it be my turn to get God's blessing?"

"Michael," he spoke in a baritone voice looking down at me, "You know that God's blessing manifests in different ways. Your talent needs to be cultivated like most of the people here. The others that have their spiritual talents manifest outside of themselves just need guidance, and as their pastor, I unlock those talents for them."

He bent down and put a large hand on my shoulder, "You will find your talent, but it's your path to walk. I won't be able to guide you like you saw with Bethany and Tyler." He got up and started walking to the back to change out of his robes.

Most likely he tried to use the power on his "son" as there was nothing to grab onto. So he does not want to show the congregation that his son cannot be blessed with the "Gift from God". Typical cult behavior. I expect that I am going to be taken care of so as not to besmirch the power (that he currently has) in an accident so that he saves face within the congregation. Seeing that it was noontime, I walked away, planning for the sudden and inevitable betrayal. I cribbed my woefully inadequate knowledge of Dungeons & Dragons and gave myself some overcharged abilities that mimicked spells of Disintegration and Time Stop I was not looking forward to making people into dust, but I know when the shit hits the fan, people need to be dusted.


Entering into the communal cafeteria, my power manipulation targeting went crazy as connections to my power was noting how many people and powers were involved in this area. Looking around, I saw an additional thirty people with powers with half that potentially could be used in combative environments. Walking up to the buffet bar for some fried okra, sloppy Joe's, and milk, I used the time to get to a table to make assessments on who would be my erstwhile assailants. Seeing some teen boys eyeing me then turning to their food, failing to look like they were just seeing who walked into the cafeteria. I sat at the far end of the building with my back facing the wall, a habit I picked up when making sure I can see all attacks from my field of view. My paranoia is at an all time high as I am currently in what amounts to be a hostile environment that has fanatics ready to subdue me. I pumped in some thinker power to boost precognitive actions and then another couple of boosts to make it a mini map radar that gauged the hostility of the actions and prioritized any threats to my person. With that taken care of, I started eating lunch with what felt like the sword of Damocles over my head for choosing to come to this reality.

While everyone was enjoying the food, I'm attempting to connect to multiple shards in real time in what would be a mesh network. For all of them I have what amounts to administrator access but not root access, I can still shut them down now, but that would be tantamount to starting a bonfire with copious amounts of gasoline. I was implanting kill commands into the shards that would essentially send all the hosts into conflict overdrive with the catalyst being the connection lost from Preacher, my "dad" in this reality. I was risking polluting the timeline that I knew vaguely from the web novel, but needs must while the devil drives.

Essentially priming the detcord for my explosive escape, I finish up eating and take the tray to the cleaning bin, clear it, and stack it with the rest of the trays. Noting that more of the boys and some of the older men were watching me with furtive glances. Walking out of the cafeteria and walking briskly back to the bungalow I arrived in, I started packing a bug out bag, keeping an eye out on my threat scope. I pump some more charges in it pushing it from 10 meters to 50 meters, unwittingly upping my senses to catalog what was around me. Lysergic Acid, household chemicals, gun oil and cordite. Seems like dear old dad likes to trip the light fantastic to better "commune with God". Finishing out my bag with survival kits and water repellent clothing I was using charges to create a "Somebody Else's Problem" (SEP) field for the bungalow. Hopefully it works like Douglas Adams says it does. A couple of charges in tinker on how to make explosive mines, and some mover charges for speed, and I was building out as much smoke bombs and claymores as I could before a blinding headache akin to a migraine hit me like a shock out of the blue.

It seems I hit a limit with the amount of charges I can prime with power manipulation. Focusing through the blinding pain on the powers I created, I visualize the charges from expanding my senses back down to 10 meters. Correspondingly, the migraine goes from blinding to a dull ache in the back of my head. I then reduce the SEP field from the bungalow to my immediate area. Focusing back on my task, I was able to create a couple of claymores, some chemical mines with bleach and ammonia in a binary trigger powered by compressed air, and smoke bombs with the Lysergic acid in aerosol form. I pulled most of my mover charges back until I was just as fast as a college athlete and not a knockoff copy of the flash.

With my first foray into time dilation, I pushed my charges to be able to stop time in an area but have the ability to move and interact with objects to set up the traps to make my escape. I thought about making a wall breaching charge, but thought against it, not wanting what would most likely be federal agencies having more knowledge of what I could do. Walking out of the bungalow, I see people frozen like mannequins in mid what ever they are doing at this time and started setting my path.

From the wall, I set the claymores as a final deterrent, and I do mean final. Next comes the chemical mines throughout the copse of trees to ward off those that would follow me, and and then some of the LSD smoke bombs tied to fishing line that I could pull and skedaddle out of the compound.

I was walking back to the congregation mentally tagging where I had put the mines and dropped the SEP field so that to other observers, I didn't just appear behind them in an attempt to be sneaky. I was still in what amounted to a hostile enemy encampment, barely any orientation in where and when I was, and had a potentially broken set of powers that I did not know how to effectively control. I was like a five year old at the county fair with a SAW and and a full box of rounds ready to pull the trigger. However this would go, it is going to be messy.

Placing the go bag under a bush near the bungalow, I mentally willed the charges for time stop to dissipate for nothing to happen. Focusing again, I put a charge in, looked around, then removed the charge. Sluggishly, people started moving into normal time as I was walking back toward the community hall where the service earlier was, when my threat indicator went off at my 6 o'clock. I ducked out of the way of the large rock thrown at me and turned around just to see the four teens that were eyeing me back in the cafeteria with stones and large sticks looking like cudgels and I was the ersatz pinata at a birthday party.

Obviously, there was no use talking to these people.

I dropped a couple of charges into gravity manipulation and made a wide area of affect that dropped them and the clubs in their hand. On their knees, they started making a commotion that was getting the attention of all the inhabitants. People, including Pastor started shouting at all of us to stop what we were doing. Focusing on releasing the gravity trap, a shot rang out and hit me in a "good guy" spot in the shoulder, breaking my concentration and releasing the boys. Highlighting me as the threat, I panicked and threw out what I would call was a gravity wave not unlike an explosion, throwing everyone around like ragdolls and collapsing the closest buildings like legos being hit by a fast ball.
I gather my wits and make a beeline to the bush with my go bag, not seeing everyone start to get up and start with lynching me.

As I run, I start throwing the gas grenades with the LSD around to start my escape. Note to self, any parahumans should not be given any mind altering drugs, as it really destroys any control of their powers. Seeing gusts of wind, explosions, fireballs, all manner of plant growth and waterspouts go off was amusing. Making my way to the treeline, I checked my mini map to see if I have all the parahumans within range. Seeing that I did, I activated the erasure function of power manipulation.

Not seeing the effects, but hearing the screams of pain from people, I assumed that being overwhelmed with LSD while their powers were being erased would be a trauma inducing experience. Not caring how that turned out, I made my way through the mine field, firing poison green disintegration bolts behind me to disuade any followers. I enhanced a couple of charges into a stranger effect that masked my face from visual identification so people would not be able to put a face to my actions. More movement from farther behind were the mundane people coming to the beginning of the mine field. Compressed gas went off knocking some people out, but others were prepped with CBRN rated gas masks.

I was leaving a blood trail for the hunters to find me, but I was hoping they would get the point that they were walking into an ambush. I left the treeline and ran as fast as I could through no man's land in front of the wall. Spotlights and warnings were coming from the quarantine walls that I was ignored for my final act of escape.

I threw my arms out and concussive gravity waves hit the guard houses that blew out everyone and anything that were there. Subdued explosions went off as the dogged chasers were hitting my claymores giving my pursuers pause. I used the same concussive blast to launch me up to the wall. It would be a bad idea of there was a hole that others could escape from. Turning around and facing Freedom, I gave it the finger and proceeded to jump into the setting sun, making my fastest time away from the quarantine zone heading west. With luck, I can be like old man Henderson and really screw with the timeline. First is seeing if I can help a certain PRT trooper from being jaded against parahumans. Ellisberg, here I come.

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>>PRT Field Office, Freedom, CA, USA, 6 hours later

"This was a mess of epic proportions". The comment coming from the Senior Field Officer Matthew Trask. 90 parahumans catatonic or feral, some of the residents with chemical burns from homemade mustard gas or dehydrated due to LSD overdoes, and then some real unfortunates that got turned into stumps with some homemade claymores.

Seeing what amounted to slugs, buckshot, and birdshot across several bodies, the field troopers were throwing up in their masks. Trask, in his sealed hazard suit, wandered over to the forensics team also in hazard suits, taking readings, statements, and in some cases zipping up body bags.

"What is the preliminary thoughts on what happened to this clusterfuck, Montanez?"

Dr. Montanez looked up from her work in processing the evidence. "In short, a trigger event that went wrong." Montanez put her laptop away and started walking toward the Parahuman Containment section of the cleanup operation.

"From all the eyewitness accounts and the strange readings that we are getting on gravimeters, some of the boys were going to cause a trigger event in Pastor's son by threatening him or damn near killing him. It seems that earlier today that Pastor invested a couple of teens into parahumans while his son was not able to be invested as well".

Trask scoffed. "I bet that went over well with dear old dad."

Montanez smirked and continued. "Needless to say, if junior could not manifest powers it would weaken his value in this cult, which he would not tolerate. From the debriefing from the boys," she pointed to three of them laying on cots and one that was in a bodybag in separate cells, "they were going to 'beat him within an inch of his life' on Pastor's orders. That went awry when something of a concussive wave went off and sent them careening into a building. Those three had broken or pulverized bones and unlucky number 4 was launched into the air and landed on his neck, at perpendicular angles."

Walking further, the cells were separated into two rows, the left row had catatonic parahumans and the right row had ones that did not exhibit powers but were violently beating on the walls, scratching themselves until bleeding, or in a bout of manic movement.

"These unfortunates were also caught in the cross fire." Montanez pointed to the buildings. "Gravity waves strong enough to wreck buildings and cut swaths of dirt were shot from the middle of the commune. From what we were able to piece together, that was when junior let loose with some gas bombs. Spectral analysis shows that it was a combination of Lysergic acid and smoke bombs that the heating element aersolized the LSD and mixed it with the smoke causing people to have hallucinations and start attacking each other."

"With the groups fighting each other, since they were hallucinating, Junior ran through the treeline." Seeing more bodies and evidence markers scattered around the ground, Montanez continued. "I believe that there was a blaster in the group as I was seeing areas in trees that were gone. Perfect circles like they were cored out. Whether he was firing them or someone was firing at him, we can't make out."

"Here is where things get interesting, running through here, there are chemical mines scattered here. Even homemade, these run close to military grade as possible. We confirmed that these are not tinkertech, but were built out as if there was a bombmaker among this bunch."

Trask paused and looked at Montanez. "Is there?"

Montanez shook her head. "No, we scoured all the bungalows and common areas and did not find anything that would be considered a tinkertech shop or a bomb making lab. Interestingly enough, we found an intact one that was just a box that had compressed air that mixed two tubes of ammonia and bleach, making chlorine gas and had it tested. Basic household cleaners, compressed air, and a pressure trigger caused all of this." She continued walking to the end of the treeline where Trask saw trees blasted and scorch marks. Trask walking beside her, taking in the carnage.

"Here is where things get decisively lethal. Here is where we have video of Junior running from the treeline and sending concussive waves to the guard shacks to stop the tower guards from shooting at him." Trask looks at the large divots in the ground as Montanez continues.
"Junior shoots concussive waves acting as thrusters to get over the wall, while the rest of the pursuers hit his claymores and get cut to ribbons"

Trask laughed,"The term is chunky salsa." Montanez groans.

"I hope that wasn't a derogatory term, Agent"

"No that is the non-official military term for claymore injuries"

Both Trask and Montanez walked back to the decontamination booth, both separately doffing the hazard suits and getting back into regular clothing. PRT Field Agent uniform for Trask, Doctors Smock for Montanez.

Moving to an unused conference room, Montanez logged into the computer located there and proceeded to use the display to show Trask other findings and video captured from the quarantine guard posts.

"Everything matches up physically, but I can't explain why there are either catatonic parahumans or feral parahumans. The only correlation that I see is that the Corona Pollentia and Gemma had collapsed and depending on where they were located, either removed cognitive thought in those that were listed as thinkers and most of the shakers or brutes have regressed to a more neolithic or cro-magnon state with the level of violence or mental disability proportinate to their power."

"Could it have been the LSD?" Trask ask, hoping that the DEA would not have to get involved in this.

"No, if that was the case, anything that Blasto, Geshellshaft, or any of the other major league drug traffickers would be causing the same issues we see here."

"Needless to say, we can cancel the quarantine here. Preacher is catatonic and scans of the Corona Pollentia and Gemma show that his brain mass essentially imploded. It may have been that whatever caused Preacher to have his brain implode, it may have also cascaded down to all the people that had been invested by him."

"What about Junior?" Trask asked not looking forward to writing the reports for the PRT directorate.

"Here is where we hit the snag," Montanez said, now looking haggard. "With the evidence, video, and testimony here, He is easily a Blaster 7 and Shaker 7. I would also have a Stranger 5 rating on him due to being able to move through his own minefield without triggering the mines as well as this…"

Montanez typed in some commands and pulled up the video of Junior making his escape. The figure turned toward the town and flipped it off. The most jarring thing about it is that the face is scrambled like the camera had a glitch that moved across the screen.

Trask sighed. "So we can't get a good ID for him, shows multiple powers and is the child of an S-Class threat. Are we sure that this is not a second generation trigger that is adaptable? I mean, Pastor was able to create parahumans, what if this kid is able to create powers?"

Montanez looked up at the ceiling. "If that is the case, then this would be considered a S-Class threat as well. The first Trump 12+ I would imagine. Hearing about what was going on though, he had a particular heavy trigger event. His Blaster came about being attacked at range, both with rocks and firearms, Shaker dovetailing with the collapsing buildings, and Stranger not wanting to be the center of attention and being the son of a cult leader. However, I do not want to have to be party to a kill order on a kid when all he did was get out of a cult."

Trask nodded. "Well, I got to start work on this shit sandwich for PRT West. Instead of Junior in the file, I am going to state that the official cape name is Pariah."

 

[Ardrianian]

Chapter 3 – Stranger in a strange land

Parahuman Response Team West Coast Headquarters, Los Angeles, CA -

Alexandria was reading reports about the critical situation that was unfolding out in Freedom. On one hand, the PRT would be taking down a quarantine zone, which always looks good for the normal people. On the other hand, there is a potential Nuker 7 running around that would cause alarm if the word ever got out on that.

Looking at the report, the only standout was the Preacher's son, codenamed "Pariah". A good reminder about what was going on within Preacher's cult that his son needed to have such an explosive exit and subsequent disappearance garnered a trigger event that potentially resurrected the Nuker class along with a stranger classification that made cameras hard to make out his form and no pictures taken from his father's bungalow gave an indication of what he could look like, it was gnawing that there was not enough information to even give out a description after what had happened to the parahumans and the rest of the residents of the town.

Sighing, she got up and called to her secretary as she was closing the door.

"My door is sealed for 2 hours. Unless there is an S-Class threat at the door, nobody goes in."

Hearing the acknowledgment from her secretary, Alexandria calls out to the air, "Door me to the white room".

Seeing the white pane of light come into existence three feet in front of her she walks through the portal and arrives within the meeting room where Doctor Mother, Contessa, Number man, Eidolon, and Legend are sitting at the conference table. Alexandria takes her seat and waits for Doctor Mother to start.

"Let's start. Scion has yet to be seen since his disappearance over a month ago. We have not had any type of confirmation that he is flying or doing anything else since he was last seen over South America"

Alexandria spoke next. "I am tracking Pariah out from Freedom. Due to his stranger powers, it is harder to track than most. The best lead that we have had is a break in at a DMV that a couple of local workers said they saw a person, but did not have any distinguishing marks on them, male or female."

"Any known family outside Freedom?" Doctor Mother asked, hoping for a direction.

"None, as far as we know." Alexandria shrugged. Pastor's file was surprisingly sparse outside of what federal agencies had acquired. Keeping the town under quarantine and locked out of communications with the outside world made it harder to put in anything else other than surveillance cameras and the occasional satellite coverage.

"Do we have anything to track him with?"

"Negative. Being born in the commune without any legal birth certificate, recent picture, bloodwork, or fingerprints give us very little to go on forensically. The thinkers that are involved in the case are reporting that he will at least head out of state. How fast he can do that depends on what his powers are. Being a Blaster/Shaker/Stranger means that we can track his movements if there is a disturbance with gravity or if he strikes out. However, any means of positive ID is out since his stranger effect cancels any recording of him, visually or otherwise."

Doctor Mother considered any next steps for response to Pariah and turned to Contessa. "Path to neutralize Pariah?"

"Function does not exist." Contessa said rubbing her temples. "Pathing him gives me headache, any path to him and the effect is getting bigger by the day. It seems that having him around causes previously mapped paths to go haywire."

Eidolon turned to Contessa. "What about Scion? Is that path still availaible?"

Contessa's eyes widened. "Scion path unknown. Need confirmation."

"Need confirmation?!" Eidolon exclaimed, as the other members looked on in shock.

Contessa closed her eyes, the rest of the group seeing them move back and forth. "Confirmation. It seems that my power needs confirmation that Scion is either dead or alive. The best I can tell is that its searching for a report of Scion for good or for ill but there is nothing to be done at the moment."

Doctor Mother sighed at this turn of events. Path to Victory has another blindspot and the main path to fight Scion needs confirmation for the first time ever. "Okay, As far as we are concerned, we continue on the path from the last good check in. Pariah is a priority to either convert or neutralize to our cause since its a possibility that his existence is a second form of Scion or an offshoot to throw us off the trail."

"What should the rules of engagement be if we run into him either as our civilian lives or our PRT selves?" Legend ask, hoping that it will not be more lethal than most.

"Immediate interdiction and containment. The fact that he was able to escape quarantine, evade PRT forces, and is out in the open suggests that his Stranger rating is more potent than a Stranger 5 that was provisionally given. With his evasion of satellite imagery, thermal scanning, night vision tracking, or cctv tracking, If he does not want to be found, he will not be found."


Unknown rail line, unknown time:

(Pariah POV)

Let me tell you, riding by train may seem great through music, the reality of it is much worse. However, learning hobo signage and seeing the random bumfight™ was a bit of a change but other than that, it was a bore and annoyance keeping opportunistic survivors from tactically acquiring my things kept me from wholesale disintegrating them and putting a big ping up on everyone's radar.

I knew I needed some serious therapy after going through so much, so I dropped a charge in psychological assistance and my anguished screams came unbidden. Unresolved trauma from my past life, coming to terms with my death and possible eternal enslavement to an eldritch entity. Waking up to a cult compound and essentially killing, maiming, and God knows what to people I don't know. It came at me like the biblical flood and man did it hurt.

I believed this was more than the amount of trauma that would require a trigger. If that is the case, there are a bunch of super powered nutcases that need to just stop and take a year off. I bawled like a baby, cursed my existence, and was irrationally angry on top of calming down, starting to look at where my crisis points in life were, are, and may yet to come.

Being in a teen body, hormones were not helping and I did not want to be the edge lord of all edge lords, but man did I feel I could kickstart the whole emo craze with the amount of shit I just processed in the span of 12 hours. I wasn't afraid of dying, as it was either a release of my contract or I immediately go back to the void between with nothing to show for it. I reoriented my thought process to this world, not thinking that it was a game for me to break, but actual people with actual lives. I did not feel bad for Preacher's people or the Crowley group, because fuck them.

Experimenting with the time stop, I wanted to stop time around me, and I had my eyes closed, listening to the rhythm of the train going across the plains slowly fade away until nothing was registering to my ears. I noticed that there were no charges taken in exchange. Opening my eyes, I saw that everything had stopped. Seeing a fly a couple of inches away from my head get moved by me knocking into it confirms that I can affect anything I directly touch, but that may not extend to projectiles. Going to need to brush up on my CQB then.

This downtime allowed me to meditate and get a grasp now that I am able to reliably stop time without having surveillance on me. Focusing on my powers, I was able to burn charges making it more visual based when needed. I modified my thinker power to highlight objects of interest, extended the threat map to 60 meters, and kept my Stranger powers up. That part made me wonder why the hobo's could see me? Or maybe it was something in their addled minds that bypassed Stranger powers? Who knows, but at least its something to keep abreast that altered states of mind can be a bulwark against powers.

With my immediate defenses in place, I started in with my second group of power "Force Adept". I purchased this, the ability to build star wars tech, and have the mental archive of that discipline at my fingertips. As broken as it is, it gets better as I realize that I now have access to Rakata Tech, Yuuzahn Vong Tech, and all the other technologies as well as both Sith and Jedi techniques. Man if I thought this was broken first, applying my main power manipulation is OP, plz nerf.

Thinking about it, I modified the power so that Dark Side corruption is zero, along with Light Side enlightenment. I'm going to do evil things, but I am not going to Paragon or Renegade myself and look bad while doing it. I then started going through the different light saber forms through my head. Rote memorization is a thing, but I need muscle memory to make it stick. Things to think about modifying with my powers. Going through Sith techniques, Sith Alchemy is going to be the money maker as I will be able to create force imbued armor and weapons that would hopefully stand up to people that would destroy Endbringers until I got close and siphoned the shard from them. I'll have to go to New York to get March and Flechette's power. Omnidimentional destruction for the win!

One thing I learned about time stop is that anything coming out of a body will match the outside time stream. I was able to bring food and water in, which made stealing the food out of the cargo cars really easy. However, taking a dump was a bit of a challenge because after so long, I would need to go farther and farther away from the train. Days turned into weeks while I was doing my version of a training montage. Finally, after what seemed like months, I sat myself back into my space on the boxcar and reverted back to normal time. If there were anybody out there, I'd expect they just saw piles of crap appear out of thin air as the train passed by.

I meditated further on the different aspects of the star wars tech that I was going to create. Unfortunately it was "creating the tools to create the tools" time for me.

During my mediation, I did not realize that the train had pulled into Kansas City, where my first targets should be. With the Simurgh making its appearance in a couple of years, the Crowley Clan of The Fallen should be causing a ruckus in the local area. Well fuck them and their followers. I walked around the train yard to find an unused ford sedan that looked like it had been there for some time. Seeing how it had a Pin lock, I used my gravity power to move the locking pin up and open the car door. Once opened, I cracked open the wiring under the steering column to hot wire the car. Thankfully, it was an early nineties model ford so it started up without tripping a car alarm. Extending the SEP field around the car, I left the train yard to make a loop around Kansas City to see if I can get any pings from PM and follow the trail.

Thankfully, there was enough gas in the tank to have me driving the city for an hour when I got my first ping from PM. Maneuvering the car to the destination, I pulled up to a BBQ joint with a bunch of fatboy Harley Davidson's out front. Turning the car off, I made myself comfortable in the car, continuing to catalog what I was able to shit out from the Star Wars tech tree. Repulsorcraft, Ion Engines, and of course the ever ubiquitous light saber as few of the goodies that would be available to me. I wonder if I should stunt on Uber and Leet, if they even exist in this branch of reality I currently find myself in.

I did not wait long to see the group of grizzled bikers leave the restaurant and begin to mount up. I paid attention to what they were flagging as and it looked like Devils on their backs with the Crowley name underneath it. Not looking the gift horse in the mouth, I started up the car with the lights out and waited for the bikers to start off on their journey. As they pulled out, I followed them with the help of the minimap and the SEP field. Stranger nonsense aside, the group traveled about an hour west to Wichita and then pulled off onto a state road that had no lighting on it, save for what the motorcycles had for driving with.

I dismounted and began my stealth floating on behind them. Keeping the pings in front of me, eventually they came to a compound with a couple of buildings and more pings on my PM minimap. Hearing music in the background and some cheering, I was assured that there was nothing that would interrupt me from my work. Focusing on the powers that were coming up, most if not all the powers had a duplication effect. That would work nicely if some were more acclimated to duplicating bodies like a poor man's shadow clone. I started pulling in the powers without activating the kill command in the shards.

Coming up on my HUD were:

matter duplication
clone
technical duplication
speed duplication

and a whole host of other 'duplicating' powers either against non living or living material, due to the manton effect.



I stopped time again and saw some unlocked CONEX boxes open and looked inside. Seeing one full of electronics, I made note of that one. Another had some weapons in it, and some were full of drugs. Using gravity manipulation, I took the electronics and ammo CONEX boxes and floated them off out of the compound, my clones securing them for later. I looked around and found some gas cans that still had some fuel left in them. I brought a couple with me and started pouring the contents on the drug parcels and was looking for something to light it with.

I debated using a charge when I had an idea. I created a localized gravity beam to pull the main power wire from the generator that was powering the compound out of the socket, putting the compound in darkness. With the wire still sparking, I through the damaged end into the drug pile and waited to see the electrical sparks ignite the gas and start a bonfire with the drugs as the fuel.

I dropped timestop and watched as the bikers as well as more people poured out of the first building to see the flames engulf their most likely payday. One of the bikers started barking out orders, to put the fire out, repair the generator and find out how it happened. As people started their tasks, I kicked over the line of bikes just to be a petty shit since Sons of Anarchy showed me that disrespecting a bike was tantamount to war.

With the ruckus that caused, some individuals with brains started popping their powers to cover ground and find out what caused the damage. I wasn't having any of it.

I stopped time again and I started with the carnage of firing disintigrating beams of green death as well as yeeting people with gravity beams. I even crushed one into a pulp for shits and giggles.
I dropped back into normal time to see the carnage unfold and all the bikers halt to a stop as the first wave either turned into dust, got sent out of state via air mail, or in the one case, get crushed with all the blood coming out through their orifices.

This got the attention of the survivors, which they started shooting at where the green flashes were last seen. I scrambled around the corner of the second compound, hearing the ricochets of small arms fire bouncing off the downed motorcycles and some off of scrap metal that were around. Looking to where I had last seen my clones, it looks like they were one shot clones, after discharging a power, they dematerialized.

Turkey-peaking around the corner of the building I saw a group of 5 to 6 people break off looking to flank where I am. Pointing my left hand at the current group, I let loose a gravity blast that knocked some of the gang on the floor. Engaging the shard off button, I turned off the powers of the Crowley gang and started rapid firing disintegrating bolts at their cover. Entire sections of wall disappeared as atomized dust, people started scrambling, and any return fire withered away as cover was rapidly disappearing. Trusting on the application of my Stranger power, I started targeting the rifles that some were toting to get a more level combat ground.

I felt myself start to slip into combat tunnel vision when I heard the keening of sirens far off in the distance. The bonfire in the middle of the Kansas field worked to summon the fire and police response with a smattering of ambulances. Cursing my luck, I applied a wide gravity area of affect to all organic life from my point out 100 meters to be under 6 G's of gravity. Enough to incapacitate people, but not enough to kill them. I gave the field a time limit of 10 minutes. There was enough scrap metal that I scraped a note for the authorities about what was going on and when the gang will be safe to take into custody.

Placing the scrap metal firmly at the entrance of the compound, I flew off just as the first of the firetrucks were coming to put out the fire. Heading to where my now disrupted clones put the CONEX boxes, I had a window of time to collect the best pieces and head to my car that was most likely overlooked by all the activity at the compound. Opening up the boxes, I found pallets of ballistic armor, Night vision goggles, radios, and other military equipment. The other has ammunition and lots of military grade weaponry, along with some pallets of money. Grabbing one of the tarps covering the pallets, I took most of the money, Some of the ballistic armor, Night vision goggles, some of the rifles, pistols, and ammunition, and wrapped it up in the tarp. I used gravity manipulation to have the pile lighter so I can move it easily.

As for the storage containers, I tapped some of the geokinesis powers I took from Preacher's group and was able to lower them down about 20 ft into the ground. So unless someone wanted to haul out ground penetrating radar, this was the safest it was going to get. Covering the boxes, I marked the location with an overgrowth of wheat slightly taller than most stalks.

Grabbing the ill gotten gains, I lifted off and flew around the perimeter of what was going on. Seeing that the field had dissipated according to my whims, the police and firefighters were either arresting or going through the rubble of the first building and clearing the second one from any other persons from within. Getting to the car, I loaded the trunk with all the weapons and put the electronics and money in the back seat under the tarp. Starting the car, I drove back to the main road and turned on the headlights and made my way back to Kansas City.

Thankfully, the SEP field was going strong as nobody really paid attention to the 12 year old driving a rusted out shitbox other than to look over and shrug. Looking for a Radio Shack or Circuit City, I was wishing for a smartphone with a online map. Just went to show how reliant I was on technologies that have yet to be made. The best I could get was probably a GPS receiver and maybe a toughbook at this day and age.

I drove up to a RadioShack, pocketing a wad of cash as well as adding a low SEP field to the car so people would not want to look inside. Walking in, I made sure my field for electronic scrambling was active. Walking through the sea of electronics, my Star Wars tinker senses were going off with what could be built. Putting out of my mind some of the more esoteric tech available, I grabbed a cart and began to get a plethora of electronic material. PCB boards, solder, all the tools I would need to build out my first creation. Wishing that they had some thermal imaging equipment or at least some LED's for building, I was almost prepared to check out, except some people were looking at me strangely. Hoping that they were not informants for new Tinkers, I had my purchases bagged up and went directly to the car.

I drove to the train yards near the north part of the city. Betting on the winter snows to have the train yards closed, but the power on so that snow does not stay on the roofing and collapse the buildings, I was looking for a warehouse or machine shop to start working on the first iteration of armor and weaponry. I understand that my power manipulation gives me a fuckton of choices, but I did not want to be outed so early in my mission to shut portals and generally go through this tutorial.

Finding a machine shop that looks like it has been run down for a couple of months, I drove around and parked the car next to some of the trash bins and got out. The freezing temperatures shocking my system, I disintegrated the door lock and started bringing in all the electronics. That being done, I tested the lighting to find that the power was still on.

Starting on breaking down electronics and armor, I slipped into tinker fugue with a plan for low grade ballistic armor that would barely pass muster as a mandolorian. The guts of radios, night vison goggles, infrared lasers and green lasers, and all other forms of electronic sundries were splayed out. My conscious mind focused on how I wanted Mandoarmor mk.1 to look,but also have some integration with as much tech as I could building a light exoskeleton suit using the batteries of the radios as a power source while also building some kinetic chargers in the legs and hands to keep the batteries topped off.

I added some inductive current materials and dropped a charge in electromagnetic generation, allowing a slow to medium charge to the batteries. Using the spare metal and materials in the machine shop, I whipped up a harness for a shoulder mounted kinetic launcher that would be both independently targeting as well as slaved to the primary targeting system of my suit. I cribbed off of Aliens and built out a recoil absorbing rig for the large caliber weaponry I was going to need some welding material. I found some on the other side of the machine shop and dropped charges into industrial manufacturing as well as physics for the recoil absorbing rig.

I pulled out a toughbook that I purchased and was able to get started on the programming. Thankfully it had windows XP instead of 2000 on it. I banked on bullshit space magic and dropped a couple of charges on computer programming as well as command and control suites, building out the targeting system and radio systems.

After 48 hours of a directed tinker fugue, I had my weapon systems ready to go. Not the best I could do, but I had a timeframe to get to Ellisberg if I was going to create the first major shift in canon, that being saving Emily Piggeot and her crew. Seeing that the armor portion of the system looked like a bastardization of Army of Two and a Mandalorian battle suit.

I drove to the local golden arches and got myself a burger and fries with some soda and came back to the shop to get some food and fluid in my body. I would rather call Tinker fugue more like Tinker benders because you just go and go until your body is down to emergency fuel. Having food in my belly and most of my work done, it was time to have some chicken soup for the soul.

I stood up and made my way to the Mandoarmor and put it on, adjusting the fit so that I could manuver under fire and still be combat effective. The armor itself was servicable, allowing me to roll, jump, and climb without any issue. Next came the integrated systems. I put the Molle vest with the Targeting, Electronic Warfare and Communication (TEC) suite on and adjusted it over the armor. Getting used to the weight, I did the same maneuvers, but found that rolling with batteries, toughbook, and a tactical radio mast on your back did not work as well as one would expect. Taking the TEC suite off, I tried the gyroscopic compensating arm.

I was able to figure out how the setup for the smart gunner would work and was able to have a working prototype that had roughly the same degree of movement that the movie setup had. Thinking about what protectorate capes were active at this time, I had an epiphany about Miss Militia and her power giving ammo to weapons. If they can be given by fiat, then I have a infinite ammo cheat from matter duplication!

I got up and went to the trunk of the car to get a M16 and a MP5 with the requisite ammunition. I loaded up a magazine with ammo and activated matter duplication modified with PM to exactly duplicate the object I selected with my thinker power. Within an instant, a duplicate magazine materialized and I grabbed it, loaded the magazine into the M16 and racked a round into the chamber. Praying that my SEP field will include gunshot reports, I went out side and set the selector to fire and pulled the trigger.

To my amazement, the round did go off. Now to see if the integrations worked. Donning my helmet and armor, the HUD came to life in Hi fidelity color. As the suit's seals came online, diagnostics came back as a 100% seal on the body, 50% on the head as the venting was open. I connected the targeting reticle on top of the rifle and started calibrations. Zoom, Night vision, range finding, and ultrasound were working, ultrasound taking a bit getting used to as all the returns were confusing the processing algorithms.

Looking for targets, I saw some loose bricks about 320 meters away that I aimed at. I took aim using the iron sights of the target, kicked the rear sight to 300 meters, and fired. From the impact, it looked like it was about a couple of inches low and to the left. I adjusted and fired again and was dead on target. The rangefinder / smart targeting module finished its calibrations and I shot from the hip, from where the targeting reticle was over. Seeing the rangefinder note it was 450 meters with an indicator for last impact, I made the long walk over to see that there was an impact in some aluminum sheet metal.

With fire and targeting calibrations out of the way, I dismissed the duplicate rounds. Walking back to where I was shooting from, I was policing the area for my brass to not leave any more evidence of me being here. Looking through the snow for about 20 minutes, it was starting to get dark, so either it disappeared like with Miss Militia fires her rounds, or it will be lost within the refuse of the train yard.

Next came the independent targeting system for the MP5. Having wired up a gimbal on the left side of my TEC harness. I attached a jury rigged MP5 with another targeting system on the weapon. Seeing the secondary reticle come online as a cross hair was tracking where my eyes were looking. Setting the car as a friendly I threw a can at it to verify the programming would not hit a friendly target behind a hostile. I picked up another can and tossed it high and away from me. The autotargeting moved the MP5, tracking the can, and put three rounds into it. I set a deadzone for 10 meters and threw another can with the MP5 tracking, but not firing.

Happy about my success with the suit and weapons testing, I tested the quick release systems on the Mandoarmor. Having everything go offline, falling off and able to step out was a need with the potential shitstorm that I will be heading into. Carrying the rig into the passenger seat of the car, I started cleaning up the work spaces and left a couple thousand in bills on the manager's desk to pay for the materials that I had used in building my combat rig.

Packing up all the excess electronics, armor, and weaponry. I got into the car and started making plans to head to Ellisberg, which would take a couple of days by car seeing how it is in upstate New York. Not seeing any other reason to stick around, I made my way back up to the highway and said my goodbyes to Kansas City, the remnants of the local Crowley chapter, and my spoils of war hidden in the back 40 of Wichita.

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Author's Note: Apologies, had a massive change in life, but I have not abandoned the fic. I will work on getting the next chapter out over the holidays.

Happy Holidays to you and your family!