The Earth Burned (Dropped due to lack of time)

The year is 2042. Metahumans have been appearing for no apparent reason since the early 1600's. Try to survive as powers clash across five planets.

Note that this is a hybrid quest/fic. It is less a roleplay game than a joint creative venture. I will ask for audience feedback, request votes, but you will only have limed control over the characters. I hope it works, and if it doesn't... well it should be a fun experiment.

Index
Jurric
Fel
Cal
The School

 

Character sheet: Will be filled in once you select a character.

 

Some general information on the state of humanity.

• Possible Affiliations
• Major Players
• Ranking System

• 
  Hero: Save the innocent and beat up villains
  
  Crosser: Kill the villains who cross the line and become Blacklisters
  
  Beastman: Train to fight the beasts and save cites
  
  Villain: Steal money, plot to take over the world
  
  Blacklister: Kill heroes, civilians and anyone else
  
  Independent: Try to use your powers legally for money
  
• 
  The Absolute: The only one who can reliably kill the beasts. His power allows him to selectively ignore anything he does not wish to be affected by. This includes the laws of physics. His power is also defensive in nature, acting automatically to protect him. Being converted to energy for teleportation activates this, so he spends most of his time in orbit on a space station, ready to be dropped wherever the next beast appears.
  
  The Beastmaster: An unknown, theoretical metahuman who sends the Beasts against humanity.
  
  The Five Families: Families of metahumans that have been breeding themselves together for powers for the last 50 years, almost all members of these families have numerous powers. Most members of these families are heroes, but there are a few black sheep.
  
  Galileo Galilei: The world first superhuman intelligence, and one of the few to survive to adulthood, Gallileo created the World Engine, and was found dead in his laboratory 5 days after it's launch. The words “The Embargo must stand” were written in his blood on the wall.
  
  The World Engine: Created by Galileo Galilei in 1624, shortly after the birth of metahuman powers this is a sentient, evolving creature capable of space travel and terraforming on a massive scale. While initial attempts, such as Mars, included nothing but a stable atmosphere and some small increase in water supply The World Engine's latest work on Titan included artificially increasing the gravity, creating a stable bio-sphere and ecosystem, and creating lakes, dams and other basic large scale constructs to support life, and somehow replicating Gate's ability, and making portals to already inhabited worlds on the surface of the moon.
  
• 
  An explanation of how the authorities treat the ranking system.
  
  F rank: A two man police patrol can handle it
  
  E rank: Send in back up
  
  D rank: Send in a SWAT team
  
  C rank: Send in multiple SWAT teams and hero backup
  
  B rank: Send in a full team of heroes
  
  A rank: Send every hero in the state
  
  S rank: Send the Beastmen
  
  The Crossers have their own ranking system
  
  Not Yet a Target
  
  Target
  
  Tricky Target
  

 

"Place the light in a dark place, and it will become a fire that consumes the world." The Prophet said, starting his chant.

The room was a concrete one, concrete walls and floor and a well-insulated plaster ceiling. It was wide enough that eleven people could, and did stand around the raised central plinth without being crowded. It was lit by a single bare bulb in the center of the ceiling, right over the altar. I stood there, knife grasped loosely in my right hand, trembling with fear, and trying to confront my demon.

My demon looked like a better dressed, better groomed version of me. A teenager with dark hair, gangly limbs, a lean figure and slightly over-average height. He wouldn't have been as imposing if it wasn't for his eyes, glowing red with ancient fires.

"Why are you making me do this?" I pleaded, gesturing to the girl on the altar. She was about my age, fourteen or fifteen. What was that fancy word for brown hair, brunette, she was a brunette, but the brown was only a few shades away from gold. She wore a simple white robe, and lay with her hands across her chest.

"When you look for answers. The answer is death, always." The Prophet said. He wasn't talking to me though, just continuing his chant.

I didn't know the girl. The Prophet had picked her out, kidnapped her, drugged her, placed her on the altar and then given me the knife. He said my demon needed sacrifices, or the world would end.
"I'm not making you do this. I didn't give you the knife." My demon's voice was a parody of mine. Exactly the same, but filled with so much of the confidence I lacked.

"But I have to or you will burn the world, The Prophet knows it." I held the knife out at him, like it would do any good.

"How long have I been with you Jurric?"

"For life. Blood must be paid." The Prophet said, talking over him.

"Three weeks." I said, ignoring the prophet. He had told me that now was the time to talk to my demon, to try and get it to go away, though he didn't think it would work.

"I know we haven't talked much. You keep saying I'm leading you to evil. But have I ever given you the impression I want to burn the world? This world is fun. There are movies and girls and sports and games, so much to do. One day, I might try to rule the world, but I would never destroy it."

"You can't. You can't question The Prophet like that." I said, casting my eyes on the scars on my hands, just to reassure myself. "And I won't let you control me. I won't let you rule the world."

"I can't control you." said my demon. "The rules are simple, I help you awaken the powers within you, and you decide if I exist."

"Then don't." I said, though I had tried this before. "Don't exist."

"Do you think I exist now?" My demon chuckled and waved his hand through the head of the girl on the altar, his wrist rippled slightly, less solid than mist.

"Even that phony prophet only pretends he can see me." My demon said. "You are the only one who can. Later, when you are stronger, you'll be able to push me out into reality. But for now I'm stuck in your head."

"If you don't want to destroy the world, then what do you want?" I asked. I trembled a little; The Prophet had warned me about this, told me never to bargain with the demon, never to let him trick me.

I couldn't kill the girl though. I don't have that in me. Maybe there was another way.
"I want fun." My demon said. "And at the moment I can only get that through you. Being tied to some poor kid brainwashed by a sick cult isn't fun. So... I think it's time we ended that."
"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I mean that you want to save that girl up there. Maybe get some revenge in the meantime. I'm going to help you."

"I can't, you can't make me turn on them. The Prophet guides me. The Guardian watches me. The..."
"Shut up. I know you, I know you deep down. You are stronger than them and they haven't broken you yet. Not completely. Now I'm going to give you the power, and what you do with it is up to you."

The Prophet led the other men in a long, slow chant, no words, just sounds.

I stepped up, towards the altar, the knife in a hand now covered by red scales, the leather grip smoking from the heat of my palm.

"You know, even if I could make you do things. I would never make you do this." I wasn't looking at my demon as he spoke, I was watching The Prophet. His eyes didn't even flicker. "It's a waste of a perfectly pretty girl. There are a lot of things I'd rather you be doing to her. Oh look, she woke up."

I turned back to the altar; the girl had opened her eyes. She was still groggy, lethargic, but her eyes found my knife and filled with fear.

"The Beast, the Rock, the Demon and the Daughter of Death. May The Powers that Will bless us, and spare this pitiful world." The Prophet finished, and gestured angrily at the girl, I was supposed to kill her as he mentioned the Daughter.

"No one is making you do anything Jurric. What you do now, you have to live with." My demon smiled, and I hefted my knife.

***​

Andrew Parker, the Sonic Stinger and Defender of Whitewall Bay, slumped at his desk his head in his hands.

He had been in the front lines of the fight against the Neaurotico and faced his undead horde without flinching. He had joined the army raised to stop Mechanaborg, four weeks of forced march through enemy territory, constantly fending of guerilla attacks by invisible assassin droids. He had even been hit with one of Dreadmaster Zim's despair rays and lived to talk about it. None of that was as frightening as what he was now facing.

His wife, Keri, was in hospital. She was currently undergoing emergency surgery to remove a bullet from her pelvis. Dr. Pearl, the only metahuman in Whitewall bay with healing abilities, was attending a conference half a planet away. Andrew had called in a favor to get him to come back, then another favor to get a long-distance teleporter to take the doctor directly from his conference to the emergency room. No word yet on if Dr. Pearl had arrived in time.

Andrew would have loved to be there, by his wife's side, but he knew she would never forgive him is he lost their daughter.

Ester Parker had been taken for their family home two hours ago, the men who had taken her had known of her powers and gassed her room before abducting her. When her non-powered mother had tried to chase them with a kitchen knife they had shot his dear Keri and left.

Andrew raised his head and shook it to re-focus himself. His own ability didn't lend itself to tracking, but two of his teammates had enhanced senses and both had volunteered to try and track the van Ester had been taken in. The Silver Cowl was already in the meaner parts of town, interrogating contacts about any old enemies of Andrew making moves in the area. He had managed to get in contact with the local supervillan group, the Green Band, they had hastily denied involvement and offered a couple of leads on Metahuman hate groups still young enough to try and brave the Blacklist.

Across the room Lanceebot was doing initial recon on both groups, while also checking all recent CCTV footage in the Whitewall Bay South area for suspicious activity. He sat; chrome head slightly slumped so the USB cable connecting the back of his neck to the Defenders computer system could reach. Lanceebot was a mercenary, later his help would cost Andrew, for now it didn't matter.
For now Andrew sat alone in Defender HQ anxiously waiting for a phone to ring. Worry tore at him and when the doorbell downstairs rang he almost had a heart attack. He stopped himself form leaping for the nearest phone.

He brought up the security camera for the downstairs door. The camera showed him a neatly dressed policewoman in her late fifties, sharp features, and green eyes. No one he knew.
"Badge please?" he asked.

The policewoman held up a badge, apparently her name was Alisa Wallburn. Protocol required he run the numbers on her badge then ask her a security question in case of shape shifting, but the badge looked real and Andrew did vaguely recall contacting the police, they had mentioned something about a liaison. Protocol be fucked.

"I'm on the eighth floor; the elevator will be down shortly."

He let her through the doors and sent down the elevator, and then he ran the numbers on her badge.
Andrew scanned her file quickly; she seemed ideal, some experience with metahuman affairs, some experience with hostage negotiations, commendations for excellent inter-departmental relations.

The lift gave a soft ding when it reached the eighth floor. Andrew was surprised to hear two distinct sets of footsteps from the lobby, had Alisa brought someone? Andrew was tense enough to draw two defensive Flows around himself. Peter walked in, saw the Flows and gave a small smile to ease the tension. Andrew relaxed; of course his brother didn't need to buzz in. He knew the tower codes.
Peter was an imposing man, the same average height and dull brown hair Andrew had only served to frame a hard face and harder eyes. Peter was in his official uniform. A large black leather jacket that stretched to the ground, with diagonal red lines emblazoned on the collar and cuffs.

Alisa followed a few steps behind Peter, if she was nervous about having to share a lift with a Crosser she didn't show it. She gave Peter a quick nod then offered her hand to Andrew.

"Mr. Stinger, a pleasure to meet you, even under such unfortunate circumstances. I would like to assure you that the Whitewall police department is doing everything in its power to get your daughter back. We have already issued an APB for the men who took your daughter, and we have several detectives on standby to investigate the scene of the kidnapping. Do they have permission to go through your home?"

"Of course, whatever they need to do. I might ask them to sign a confidentiality agreement later, if we can make it through this without my family's faces plastered on the front page."

Andrew realized he was still pumping Alisa's hand and stopped. Once he had pulled his shirt over his head and fought someone... the Grey Manitcore maybe? Anyway he had fought blind rather than risk exposing his civilian identity. Now he honestly couldn't care less right now.

"Thank you; I will inform my department immediately." Alisa moved away and pulled a phone from her hip.

Peter stepped forward, gave Andrew's had a quick shake, and then hugged him.

"Peter, it's good to see you." Andrew said, drawing back out of the hug. "But don't get me wrong when I say I hope you aren't needed."

"We'll get her back Andy. Don't worry." Peter said. "Whoever took her, they know the hell we can bring down on them if they harm a single hair on her head."

"Are there any Blacklister's in town?" Andrew asked. It would be bad if there were, the Blacklist was a list of supervillans classified as kill-on-sight. They had committed crimes terrible enough that there could be no other ruling than the death sentence, and had powers deadly enough that keeping them contained for execution was impossible. Crossers, like Peter, were the only ones licensed to deal with them.

"None that I know of. I have some contacts in the gangs around here, they're still looking."
"Attacking a Hero's family is almost enough to get you on the Blacklist by itself." Andrew mused. "Who would be stupid enough to do this Peter?"

"I don't know, but..."

The phone rang. It was the one that used to be his landline number, but had now been re-routed, tapped and attached to one of the fastest and most accurate triangulation devices Lanceebot could create. Andrew picked it up on the second ring.

"Hello, this is Andrew Parker speaking, how can I help you?" Peter moved over to the computer and put the phone on speaker while Andrew was talking.

"Dad this is Ester..."

Lanceebot unplugged himself from the main computer and stood up. A large screen flickered to life on his chrome chest, it read: Voice analysis confirmed. Ester Parker.

"Are you alright? Did they hurt you? Do you..." Andrew stopped, he knew better than this.

"I'm fine dad. You don't need to worry about me. The men who took me are all... we killed them all, ok dad. I'm still underground though, and I don't know where we are. Can you... can you track this phone and come get me?"

Andrew froze and then consciously made himself relax. Ester was fifteen, he should have protected his daughter from that, he thought. Later he would blame himself. For now it was still much better than most of the scenarios that had been running through his mind.

"Sure thing sweetie, I'll be right there."

"Don't worry dad, not an imitator, I still hate it when you call me sweetie."

Andrew sighed in relief; it really was his daughter then. Lanceebot gave Andrew a thumbs up and switched the display on his chest to show the location of the phone his daughter was calling from, a large mansion in the western suburbs. Andrew memorised the road names, he knew the rough area, and he could make it there in less than ten minutes.

"I'm coming to get you now Esty. I can't fly and talk but I'll have my phone on me, and I'll land if you try and give me a call. OK."

"Wait dad... just when you get here; remember I'm fine, OK? You don't have to worry, no matter what it looks like. And please hurry. I think Jurric needs help."

"I'll be there soon."

Who was Jurric? Never mind. Just needed to get there. Maybe less than five minutes if I don't bother with wings, Andrew thought.

Lanceebot had already opened the tower windows; the cyborg was nothing if not on his game. A new message was scrolling across his chest. Ambulance + Lawyer + Metahuman Psychologist called.

"Could be a trap still." Peter said. "Mind if I come to?"

"I have medical training." Alisa volunteered at the same time.

"Carry her." Andrew snapped, and then he jumped out the window. Behind him Peter was extracting lightweight aluminum pieces and strapping them together, to form a long, sculpted wing.

Both brothers had the same power, technically classified as telekinesis. They created a Flow, a patch of blue-ish air that they could make any shape or size they desired, and then within that shape they could generate or manipulate kinetic energy. By filling the Flow with kinetic energy it could be made to act like a solid object. Most of the Parker family started out using their Flows as enormous legs or arms, actual flight required years of practice and almost guaranteed broken bones in the learning stages.

The problem lay in the fact that Flows always anchored to the body of the one generating them, making them less like actual telekinesis and more like tendrils of solid power. They also had a range limit that differed from individual to individual, but was rarely more than twenty meters. Of course the Parkers could create solid wings and then move them to achieve flight, most of Andrews extended family used that method and it was the only method Andrew was keen to teach to his daughter. But, if you were desperate to go faster and had a high tolerance for G-forces, there was another way.

The toughened, bulletproof glass of Defender's Tower rattled as Andrew took off.

Now Andrew surrounded himself in four Flows, one was in front of him, generating a constant low stream of outward kinetic energy to act as a windbreak, and shaped to give him lift. Each arm was surrounded by a solidified, paddle shaped Flow, which he could use to steer. Finally one flow was merged with his own body, seated deep in every cell. That one Andrew used to give kinetic energy to himself.

It wasn't like flying, it was like being thrown. Andrew's aunt, Stacy had killed herself trying to perfect Flow based kinetic propulsion. She'd lost concentration, placed a little too much kinetic energy into one thrust, and snapped her own neck.

Andrew himself had perfected the technique during the Mechanaborg champagne. He had made the discovery that it was much safer with a glider, or a large wing held in place by additions Flows. With a wing you could give kinetic thrust to the wing, instead of your own body. The wing would take the stresses involved much more easily than the human body could, and even if you lost concentration on it for a split second, it could buy you time and stability to recover if you lost control over the four Flows flying required you to constantly maintain.

On the other hand, the extra mass meant you couldn't go quite as fast.

Andrew used his Flows to manifest wings when he spotted the mansion Lanceebot had shown him. They caught the air and he decelerated sharply, descending into a steep dive the left him on the front porch.

Andrew rolled his shoulders and winced in pain. Giving kinetic energy to your own body was like being hit with a hammer on every muscle, bone and fiber at once. He had come away from this better than most times, a couple of wrenched muscles in his shoulders and back, nothing serious. It was well worth it, the trip had taken less than four minutes. He took out his phone, the screen had a few cracks in it, but it still worked, he had chosen one that could take a beating. He redialed the last number.

"Esty?" He asked when the call went through.

"Dad. Are you here yet?"

"Yeah I'm here. Are you still underground?"

"Yep."

"You sure? They didn't just take you to a windowless room."

"Yes dad, Jurric says the only way out is to go up the stairs, but the door at the top is too thick for either of us to destroy."

"Don't worry, I'll come get you. Stay away from the door. I'll make a lot of noise and you just tell me when I'm getting closer ok?"

Andrew placed a Flow over the front door and gave the wood enough kinetic energy to blow it to splinters. The hallway beyond was empty. He walked down it demolishing every door he came across and some of the walls. No one tried to stop him; he didn't hear anyone trying to run. Was it a trap?

"You were getting closer dad, but now you're getting further away, it sounds like fighting, what are you doing up there?"

"Just guaranteeing a clear exit Esty."

Andrew re-orientated and kept walking. He was getting deeper in the mansion now, though it still looked like an average house for the obscenely wealthy. Finally he found a door very different from the others. It was made of stone, covered in a relief of crying angels. He hit it, and the stone broke off, revealing it hadn't been stone, just a carving placed over a metal surface. A very thick metal surface, if his first blow hadn't damaged it.

"I think I just hear you hit that door I told you about dad."

Good, so he had the right one. Perfect. Andrew thought. He made a flow and began filling it with kinetic energy, more than he normally ever bothered to try and hold.

"I'm going to have to hit the door really hard Esty. Get away from it ok. Maybe see if you can put a table between you and the door."

"There are a lot of rooms down here dad; I'll just go into the next one."

"You do that."

Andrew let lose. The energy hit the door, ripped the last remaining shards of rock into lethal projectiles, turned the wooden paneling on the walls on either side of the door too dust and shattered every window in the house. The energy traveled in waves through the door frame, ripping off more paneling, revealing that the roof and sides of the descending staircase behind the door were also metal.

The door itself bent, a little.

Andrew grinned. It was frustrating to be this close, but not able to reach his daughter. On the other hand it had been a frustrating day, and here was finally something he could vent his anger on.
When Peter landed he didn't need to go in through the front door. Andrew had released enough energy on the stairwell door to tear a hole in the roof. Peter set a shaken Alisa down gently, on the most stable section of rubble he could find, and then dismissed his Flows. He let the aluminum wing far over his head fall on one of the less damaged sections of the roof and went to stand beside his panting brother.

"This thing is steel, ten inches thick. You can't buy that at the local hardware store. Who do you recon builds these stupid secret lairs?" Peter asked.

Andrew grunted, took a deep breath and stepped through the mangled remains of the door. He took the stairs down two at a time, Peter and Alisa following.

The room below was a charnel house. Four robed men lay in bloody pools, variously burnt, dismembered or with vital organs torn from their bodies. Two still had guns clutched in dead hands.
Alisa moves to the nearest one, stepping over the dead man's intestines to put her fingers to his neck.

"Dead." She said. "Somewhere between five minutes and thirty."

"Fifteen, I'd guess, from the state of the blood." Peter added.

Andrew stood, shaking. He wanted to go into the next room, his daughter should be there, he could protect her, get her away from all this. He just had to make his legs move.

He threw a glance at Alisa, his brother killed people all the time, and he would sympathize with what Ester had doubtless been forced to do. Alisa was a cop, there would be an investigation. Alisa was also human. Fragile. Easily silenced.

Andrew snapped out of it when Ester ran out of the adjoining room and hugged him. He hugged her back, pushed her away and blinked tears from his eyes to check she was ok, and then hugged her again.

"It's going to be OK." He said. "I'll make sure it's all going to be ok."

Peter went into the room Ester had just left, took a second to look around and came back out. Alisa was still inspecting the bodies when he tapped her on the shoulder a gestured at the room he had just left.

"There's another kid in there, curled up in the corner and crying. Most folks are intimidated by the Crossers, do you mind..."

"Of course not." Alisa said.

"Wait!" Ester said, pulling herself away from her dad. "He's really scared, I'll introduce you."

"Alisa is trained to help people who are scared Ester, introducing them is fine, then we need to get you out of here, we'll wait on the porch until an ambulance arrives." Peter said.

"Ok." Ester said. Andrew followed Ester and Alisa into the second room. There were six bodies in this one, all as gruesomely destroyed as in the first. A boy sat in the corner, knees pulled to his chest. His shirt was torn to reveal intricate, asymmetrical tattoos chasing themselves over his arms and chest.

"Jurric. This is Alisa; she's going to help you." Ester said gently.

"No she can't. She can't come near me. I'll hurt her. It'll be my fault, the world is going to burn and it's all my fault." Jurric said, rocking back and forth a little.

"It would be best if you left." Alisa said. "He might be more comfortable with fewer people around."

"You do know he's probably got powers." Andrew said.

"I'll be fine." Alisa gave a tight smile and started moving towards the boy again, making soothing noises.

Well, that woman certainly has courage, Andrew thought as he put a protective arm around Ester's shoulders and lead her out of the ruined mansion. Peter was waiting for them, lounging against the remains of the doorframe.

"Ester, I know you've been through a lot, but I want you to tell me, right now, why you said that 'we' killed all those men."

Ester blinked. Only just realizing her uncle was there.

"Uncle Peter, you came to. Um... I'm glad you came but you aren't needed. Really."

Peter sighed.

"I'm not here on business, I assure you, but I do know what it looks like when someone is killed with Flows. I know none of those men were killed by you. Was it that boy, or someone else?"
Ester looked down at her shoes.

"Esty, you don't need to protect him. I swear we're going to do the right thing here, but we need to have enough information to figure out what the right thing is."

Ester looked back up her face decided. "It was some weird cult thing. I think the men were trying to initiate him... Jurric I mean. They wanted him to kill me, but he didn't. Wouldn't. And when they tried to make him... his power is scary, but he apologized to me after, for scaring me. He keeps muttering to himself, I don't think he's well. I was frightened of him, but when I got a good look at his tattoos I noticed that they are drawn over scars, burns or something, there are a lot of them, some are still red and..."

"And you think that they had to have pushed him very hard to make him snap like that." Peter finished for her.

Andrew shared a look with Peter.

"I'll get our lawyer to talk with him; we should be able to work something out." Andrew said
"Of course." Peter agreed. "He's a minor, they were armed, obvious signs he was abused, and positive testimony from Ester, any lawyer worth his salt can spin that as self-defense."

"I'd be willing to testify that he honestly doesn't seem to want to hurt anyone." Alisa said. Andrew whirled to stare at her. Peter didn't. It was hard to surprise Peter; he had probably been saying that for Alisa's benefit.

"I came out because he wouldn't talk to me. He said to send back in the first one he saw. I think that was you Peter."

"Unusual, do you think he knows what a Crosser is." Peter asked.

"No, but he seems to want to be around someone who can handle him if he looses it, maybe restrain him?"

"You don't have to do that." Ester said. "I was talking to him before, I managed to get him to calm down a bit, you just have to keep talking. He says he doesn't have to listen to his demon then."

Andrew frowned and gave the hand he had around Esters shoulders a short squeeze. She had been drugged, locked underground, her life threatened, then trapped with ten corpses and the insane child who had killed them. It was the stuff parents nightmares are made of. Jurric had saved his daughter, he would help him, but he also made a mental note never to let Ester near the boy again.

"I think he wants to be restrained, he's frightened of himself and what he did. He talked about the world ending and someone called the Prophet lying to him as well. I think that was babbling though, he was contradicting himself a bit at the end there." Alisa continued.

"The world isn't ending; we have real precogs that would pick up on something like that. I'll talk to him; tell him I'm powerful enough to stop him or this demon of his, so we don't need restraints. I'll take him back to the tower as well. I take it that the police are on their way?" Peter asked.

Alisa nodded.

"Are you prepared to concede he is a metahuman responsibility?"

"Obviously, although there will still have to be an investigation, and a trial."

"Fine, but you don't talk officially to him till I have a chance to get him some time with a psychologist and a lawyer. We have a few rooms at the tower designed to hold people with trouble controlling their powers, I'll take him back there. Andrew, you should take Ester home, maybe get some rest. You look beat."

"Yeah." Andrew said, suddenly becoming aware of the aches and pains that his rapid flight had cost him. He looked at Ester again, to reassure himself she was there. The pain was well worth it. Andrew started to form wings, but Peter stopped him.

"The police will be here soon, just ask for a lift, you're too tired for the flight home."

"Good idea." Andrew said numbly.

Andrews's phone rang and for a second he was back in the tower, head in his hands, helplessly waiting for a phone call he dreaded. Then he had the phone up to his ear.

"Mr. Stinger, this is Dr. Pearl. You will be please to know that your wife is stable, we were able to save her."

***​

I paced, relentlessly. The world hadn't ended. The prophet had been lying. The world hadn't ended. The prophet had been lying. Those two thoughts chased themselves around my head, sending delirious shivers down my spine.

"You're acting like you hate being cooped up in here, but you're still wearing that dopy grin." My demon was leaning against the wall, a smaller smile on his face than on mine.

He had liked what I did yesterday, reassured me it was the right thing. Like a demon knew what the right thing even was. Still, the Prophet had lied about the world ending, maybe he had lied about my demon to.

"Calm down. Sit on the bed and read or something; they have a few nice books here. We can talk." He said.

It sounded like good advice; I couldn't see how it would hurt, so I sat down. Then I had another episode, I was overtaken by the smell I remembered coming from the Guardian as I disemboweled him, and only just made it into the bathroom in time not to throw up on the nice carpet.

"Tell me, which would be worse? To relive that day for the rest of your life in your dreams, or to have killed the girl, reassured yourself it was for the greater good and then gone back to following every order the Prophet gave you."

My demon was leaning against the shower now. He didn't bother to walk from one lounging point to another, he just appeared there.

I finished heaving, filled a glass with water at the sink, swilled my mouth out and spat vigorously. Then I nodded slowly. My demon smiled wider.

"You're not talking to me because you don't want them to think you're crazy?" He asked. I nodded, gestured vaguely in the direction of the camera, it was obscured by the toilet door at the moment, and they didn't have the bathroom monitored.

I had thought my demon could read my mind, but I guess he just knew me well.

"That's wonderful. I didn't realise you were coherent enough to realise that yet. Thought that I still had to coax you away from that blathering wreck you turned into earlier."

I shook my head a little, tried my best to give him an angry look. The expression felt odd on my face, the Prophet had said emotions were tools of the devil, so I had been hiding them ever since I figured out how. It felt good to be angry. It felt good to be happy. The Prophet had been lying. The world hadn't ended.

My demon gave another small chuckle. "Not talking to me is good and all, but you babbled too much yesterday for them to think that there isn't something going on in that head of yours. So, here's what I want you to do. They have a metahuman psychologist coming in today, when she comes and she asks you about me I want you to tell her that I'm the mental manifestation of your power, you get that? Mental manifestation. Then ask her to go outside and say or do something, I'll follow, watch her, and then tell you what she does. That should prove I'm not just a hallucination, or split personality or something."

"I don't want to lie." I said, trying to give him a serious look.

"Who says you're lying. For all you or I know we might be telling the truth, I didn't come with a fucking manual."

I ignored him and left the bathroom, picked a book with an interesting cover and started to page through it. I sort of zoned out a bit, and then my demon brought my attention back to reality.
"They're coming. The nice killer and the psychologist. I heard them talking, her name is Dr. Ashley Whit. You should total freak them out when they knock, just say 'come in Ashley', or something like that. Make them think you're a psychic."

I put down the book, but otherwise I didn't respond to my demon. He was still grinning that half grin, and I found myself copying it. He knew I didn't want to freak anyone out, why was the thought of it even funny?

The knock came, polite and businesslike.

"Jurric, this is Peter, I have someone here to meet you. Can we come in?"

"Come in." I said, biting back the smile.

Peter entered first; he looked different today, without the black jacket. He was still a hard man, but less serious. My demon kept insisting he was a killer, but he had been nice to me, if a bit awkward, and the policewoman didn't seem to mind him.

The woman who entered after him must have been Dr. Whit; she was a redhead, in her mid-thirties, dressed conservatively in a grey and green skirt and blouse. She smiled at me reassuringly, which was nice. My demon looked her over carefully, head to toe, but stayed mercifully silent.

Peter introduced us and we started chatting about small things. Did I like the room? I did. Did I want anything? I didn't. Did I like the book I was holding? I didn't know. I tried to stay calm; it was easier than I thought it would be, she kept the questions simple.

"She'll send Peter away before she asks any serious questions." My demon said, looking bored. "He's only here now to make sure you're calm enough not to kill her." I tried to ignore him while I answered Dr. Whit's question about how I spelt my name. I don't think I succeeded.

"Peter, would you mind leaving?" She asked.

"Not at all, I'll have my pager on if you need me." He replied.

"Do you mind if I sit?" She asked, as Peter left the room.

"No." I told her.

She pulled up a chair, and my demon walked through the wall for a few seconds.

"You should know that everything you say to me now is completely confidential. I'm on your side Jurric; you can tell me whatever you're thinking."

My demon came back in while she was speaking.

"I guess she's telling the truth, Peter's just down the hall, he's turning off the monitors. I didn't think they would trust you this far just yet." My demon reported.

I realized I was looking at him and snapped my attention back to Dr. Whit. She was busy shuffling a few pieces of paperwork she had brought. My demon stepped closer to her, leaning in near her face.

"Oh, she caught you there Jurric, realized you were listening to someone... guess she's too polite to say it though. You're going to have to learn a better poker face, boy." My demon moved back and found a wall to lean against, watching us both with interest.

"What's a poker face?" I asked, and then I realized just how stupid I had been. My demon laughed it off. Dr. Whit put her paperwork down and answered.

"Normally, in poker, you have to hide your emotions from the other players. A poker face means one that doesn't display emotions, do you want to hide what you are feeling Jurric?" She asked.
I thought about it for a few seconds. "No." I said. "I don't want to hide my feelings."

I waited for her to ask why I wanted to know, she didn't. She waited to see if I had more to add, then changed tracks.

"What do you think your powers are Jurric?"

"I turn into a demon." I told her. Peter and I had discussed that a bit yesterday, although I hadn't been coherent through most of it.

The Prophet had told me the demon was a curse only I could contain, because he had prepared me with the scars and the tattoos. Peter said that sometime people were just born with powers, and mine were no different from the ones he had or the ones the Prophet and Guardian had. I had decided, at midnight last night when the world didn't end, to trust Peter. It was taking time for that to sink in, after years of believing the Prophet.

"Do you think it's safe for me to see?" She asked.

I shook my head, remembering the smell of released bowels and the coppery tang of blood.

"No." I told her, so there could be no doubt.

"That's fine. This demon you can turn into, is it the one you were talking about yesterday?"

"No." I said again. "I think they're different. There's a demon I talk to, and he lets me turn into one when... sometimes... well one time. I'm not sure I could do it again even if I wanted to."

"You could." My demon said. "I gave you the power, you can use it whenever you like."

"This other demon, can you tell me about him?" Dr. Whit asked.

"He looks like me, and he says he's the mental manifestation of my power. I don't think I can always believe him though." I said, settling on a compromise with what my demon had said earlier.

"Does he have a name?" she asked.

"He doesn't..."

"It's Lucifer." My demon said.

"Seriously? Ok. He says his name is Lucifer." I informed Dr. Whit.

***​

I sat at the computer, quickly scrolling down through the pages and pages of legal information Lucifer had asked me to search for, he peered over my shoulder at it, taking it in. I reached the bottom and turned to look at him.

"Well?" I prompted.

"One minute." He said. "That was a lot to take in."

I let him concentrate and instead examined the server room. The prophet hadn't let me use any of the computers in his mansion, perhaps worried I would be able to contact someone. I knew very little about how they worked, but Lucifer claimed he had a photographic memory of every event that had taken place within two hundred feet of me since I was three, and he had picked up how to do a lot of things, like how to use a search engine.

The Whitewall Guardians had been nice, I had the run of the towers thirteenth and fourteenth floors, which included the dangerous powers containment facility, the server room and the Silver Cowl's workout room, which I was allowed to use provided I never touched the button marked 'level 10'.

Ms. Whit had talked with me for a few hours, which was nice. She recommended a few books to read that might fill me in on information the prophet hadn't wanted me to learn and gave me some mental exercises to help with the panic attacks. She had assured Peter I wasn't a danger, and asked him to give me access to the whole tower. Peter had explained that most of the tower held dangerous equipment or was open to civilian tours, and the thirteenth and fourteenth floors were what they settled on.

"Ok, that wasn't exactly the information we needed, but it pointed me in the right direction. Search for the Superhuman Holding Act of 1975 and the Powers and Abilities Amendment to the Human Rights Constitution." Lucifer said.

I obeyed, eventually finding both documents and scrolling through them. Lucifer watched intensely, and then leant against the library wall again to ruminate.

Ms. Whit had also asked us both to try and experiment with what Lucifer could and couldn't do. I'm still not sure if she thinks he's real; apparently there are clairvoyants who can see things through walls, so that muddies the issue. Ms. Whit always acted like Lucifer was real though, and she did mention there are powers that can create life, so...

Sometimes I wonder if I am some sort of clairvoyant, and Lucifer is just me being really screwed up in the head.

"Are you ready for the cliff notes?" He asked.

"Ok."

"Don't be all submissive like that, be assertive. Try saying, 'hit me' or 'go.'"

"But I don't want you to hit me?" I said.

Lucifer hit his head against the wall; it went a little way into the plaster and came out without leaving a mark.

"Ok, we'll work on making you assertive later. We have legal issues to discuss." He said. "Long story short you should be ok, the laws for Metahumans are a little bit tighter in some areas and a little loser in others. What happened to you falls loosely under the 'unreasonable provocation' precedent. Basically people who knew you were dangerous pushed you to the point where you couldn't reasonably be expected to control yourself or respond with non-lethal force. Suicide by Meta almost. This is all even before you bring in the self-defense aspect."

"You said should." I pointed out. I don't like the word 'should'; you don't know where you stand with it.

"Getting worried?" Lucifer said, smiling that annoying half-smirk. "We can still escape. I know the code for the elevator, and if anyone tries to stop us... we can take everyone in this building except Peter in a fair fight, and I'll steer you clear of him."

"No." I shook my head. "Peter asked us not to try and escape."

"And you're just going to do that?"

"Yes. Now, tell me why you said 'should.'"

"Metahuman trials are very different from ordinary ones; judges are important people, and they don't like being immolated or crushed or electrocuted by angry defendants, so you'll have to be guarded at all times by a minimum of two A-rank Metas. The A-ranks have better things to do than sit around a courtroom for months on end, so the entire trial has a maximum duration of one day, and they're often shorter. You're not allowed a jury, so you're at the mercy of the judge. The good news is that he doesn't have the authority to execute you, and you're under eighteen and quite powerful. As a minor he can only send you to prison if he is convinced you are a clear and present threat to public safety, as a Metahuman of C-rank or higher you cannot be sentenced to youth correctional facilities."

"So what do I need to do?" I asked.

"Basically, just do what you're doing now, sit there and look scared. Your lawyer will handle most of it and they might call Ashley to report on how mentally stable you are. She'll probably ask you if she can talk about your sessions with her then she comes around this afternoon. I think you've managed to convince her you aren't all that crazy. So... Say yes and freedom is in the bag."

"Is Ms. Whit still in the building?" I asked. Lucifer had told me when she arrived about half an hour ago; he said she was talking with Silver Cowl about creation powers.

"She asked you to call her Ashley." Lucifer observed.

"It seems kind of rude." I said.

"She asked you, it's ruder to ignore her, not that I care if you're rude. It's the same deal as earlier, you need to get some personality, you've got this whole 'yes sir, no sir' thing going on, it gives you all the personality of a tablecloth."

"Sorry."

"Don't say sorry, get angry at me. I'm telling you what to do here, and no-one should do that. Try and hit me or something, it can't possibly hurt." Lucifer ran his hands through his hair in frustration, and then did the odd flicker that meant he was looking elsewhere. "Ashley is still around; she's on the computer now looking up a hero named Claydoll. It says she could make golems, each with a distinct personality."

She was still here, that was good. She told me we had an appointment this afternoon, but I had been afraid she would decide I wasn't worth the time. I re-focused on what Lucifer was saying.
"I don't always do what you tell me. I didn't sneak down to the trophy room like you wanted me to last night." I said. That had been hard, Lucifer had described the place to me, and it sounded awesome.

"Yeah," said Lucifer, "because that would be fun. Look, I really don't care what you do from here, hell if you end up going to jail it may be just the thing you need, toughen you up a bit or something. Call me if you need me."

He vanished, although that didn't mean he wasn't still around. I don't think he had ever not been around. Not since the day the prophet had finished burning the final spiralling scar on my right calf.
I spent a few hours reading the books Ms. Wh... Ashley had asked me read. It was nice to just sit quietly, able to feel calm for the first time in years. This was close enough to freedom, I decided. No one was making demands on me, no one needed me, I wasn't in pain or danger.

The book confirmed the prophet had been insane; all the strongest precogs were at risk of losing their minds if they looked too far in the future, the most any of them had ever managed was a month. The prophet had brought me from my mother when I was three and kept me for the best part of twelve years before my powers triggered, seeing that far had to have sent him over the edge.
I was already near the end of the book, so I finished it before taking the lift up one floor to my room. The bathroom mirror was screwed in place, so I used a nail file to un-screw it and took the mirror across the hall to the dangerous powers containment room.

The door was thick, a layer of steel over a layer of lead. Instead of a doorknob it had a wheel, you had to turn the wheel left, right and then left again to get in or out. I went in, locking the door behind me. The interior of the room was lined with fire-resistant foam. I set the mirror down in the corner. Lucifer had been bugging me to try this for some time now and I had kept putting it off. It felt better, safer, doing it without him here, even if I knew he was probably watching.

I took a deep breath and reached deep inside of me for that feeling of power. I had to stop and do one of Ashley exercises when I almost had another panic attack, but slowly I felt scales form at my fingertips and creep up my arm. There was no fire this time, no smoke. I thought about it and turned my hand over, slowly pushing power into the air above my hand until a small flame danced on my palm. My stomach rolled at the stench of burn flesh, but it wasn't real. I stopped, calmed myself again and snuffed the flame. I pulled more deeply on the power, drawing the scales up my arm. The arm grew a little longer and claws, nearly as long as a ruler and viciously sharp along the front edge, started to take the place of the last joint on my fingers. I did the same for the other arm, and then started again from the toes. My feet grew, my ankle becoming a second joint in my legs. Only my toes stayed in contact with the ground, and they shifted together, becoming two large, clawed talons. I stood taller, like this, gaining at least a foot in height.

When the change reached the tops of my thighs I felt a shifting in my trousers, I patted them, a bit embarrassed, and noticed my genitals were gone. Made sense I guess, no way I would need to breed while I looked like this. A tail began to grow, just high enough up my back to come out over the top of my trousers, it was long, sinuous, no spikes or spines, just thick muscle covered in the same silvery scales.

I stopped there. I vaguely remembered ripping my shirt to pieces the first time I had changed, and I didn't want to rip this shirt, it was a gift from Mr. Parker. I took the shirt off, folded it carefully so my claws didn't rip it, and placed it on the floor next to me. I turned back to the mirror and watched as the scales climbed my chest, they flowed over the scars, grew in a concealing canopy over the burns and sprouted over the tattoos, leaving my chest looking solid, protected. I turned so I could see my back and observed where the scales were knitting, forming a long, flexible armored section along my spine.

More armor was growing from the scales; it was smooth and looked a bit ceramic. It grew in swirls over my vital organs, and then flowed down over and along my arms and legs, leaving my joints free to move. Two new joints began to grow on my back, both beneath and closer to my spine than my shoulder sockets. The wings that slowly emerged from my back were each at least as long as I was tall, they looked bat-like, but sleeker, leaner somehow, more predatory. I stopped peering over my shoulder at the wings and turned my attention back to the mirror. The scales had swept up my face now; changing the line of my jaw into something reptilian, my ears were gone and my eyes... they were exactly the same as Lucifer's, glowing with an inner fire.

"You can't fly you know, your wingspan is far too small relative to your total weight." Lucifer said as he stepped out of the door behind me and picked a wall to lean against. I didn't bother to look at him, instead watching the final claws grow on the joints of my wings. When the growth stopped and it was obvious that the transformation was finished I turned away from the mirror and flexed my claws experimentally.

"Is this what you really look like?" I asked, gesturing at my body.

"Nah, that's what you really look like. I'm just a... facilitator. I don't think I could do that even if I wanted to. Which I don't, why mess with perfection?" Lucifer smiled, struck a body-building pose and kissed his right bicep.

"A facilitator for who?" I asked.

"Dunno, like I said, no manual. One day I woke up with your memories, a few nice instincts and the intelligence to realise you needed help, that was the day I was born and the day we met."

"So you weren't lying earlier, about the... what did you call yourself?"

"The mental manifestation of your power. We went over this, might be the truth, do not know. I'm smart, not omnipotent." Lucifer stopped lounging and went to stand by the door. "You should go to the gym like that; I'll bet you're a ton stronger. You should get all of Silver Cowls heaviest weights and put them on top of the climbing wall, he'll go in there and be all, 'how did those get up there, it couldn't be Jurric because he's to scrawny and weak.''

"We have exactly the same body." I pointed out.

"But I wear it better." Lucifer said, smiling again, like he had won something.

I found myself smiling to, but that faded as I looked at the mirror again.

"It is demonic, isn't it." I said it as a statement, but Lucifer treated it as a question.

"Hmm, maybe, with the right lighting, I was thinking draconic."

"What's draconic mean?" I looked back at Lucifer, but he was gone, vanished.

"Lucifer?" I called.

He appeared in front of me, right in my face. I took a few quick steps back, getting away from those fiery eyes. He put his finger to his lips.

"Quiet, I'm trying to pull off a dramatic exit here." He hissed at me, and then vanished again. I let him go, shrugged away the scales, shifting back to human form and put my shirt back on. I left the containment room, put the mirror back and went back down to the server room. Lucifer had taught me to search for things after all.

Half an hour later I decided I liked dragons, sometimes they were dumb animals, sometimes they were very intelligent, sometimes they were vicious, sometimes they were noble, they varied hugely in size and shape. They didn't exist, but people seemed to like them anyway. A few things seemed kind of universal though, scales, fire, wings. I had those things. It would be far cooler to turn into a dragon than a demon, I thought. Of course most dragons weren't bipedal, but I could say I turned into a cross between a human and a dragon, that worked. It was better than turning into a demon anyway.

"You know what the best thing about dragons is?" Lucifer said, appearing behind me as I tried to find a picture close to what I looked like so I could show it to Ashley.

"No."

"Nobody messes with dragons, they can be good, they can be evil, and it doesn't matter. You don't tie one of them down and burn marks into their flesh for kicks. You don't try to hunt one down and kill it unless you have some sort of pressing reason. You don't toss them in a cage and expect not to get roasted for your trouble. If you're stupid or crazy enough to try... you deserve what you get." Lucifer grinned again, leaned in close to me and whispered. "Do you want to be a dragon?"

I thought about that. It sounded like everything I wanted.

"Yes." I said.

***​

"You've never spent much time with a psychologist, have you Peter." Ashley said. She had been in the Guardians tower doing some research, trying to determine just how she should treat this 'Lucifer.' Metahuman powers broke the rules in every field, even psychology.

"No. Never really seen the need for it." Peter said.

"Of course not, if you had then you would know this is a breach of confidence. Observing a client's privacy helps to build trust, and I want Jurric to trust me."

"You were asking for his medical records just this morning."

"Yes, but I asked Jurric about that during our last session. He was fine with it."

"Alright then, your call." Peter said, switching off the monitor. "I don't really need to watch him anyway. I wouldn't even have known what he was doing if the containment room cameras didn't turn on automatically when there's movement inside."

Ashley considered the images she remembered for a moment; she would discuss them with Jurric later. His other form did seem a bit demonic; she could see how he drew the comparison. His willingness to take the form, and to do it in a safe and controlled way, was a huge step forwards. It was almost too good of a reaction, considering all he had been through.

"Tell me Peter, have you ever run across any powers that allowed for the creation of sentient life?" Ashley asked. She had browsed the archives, but they were incomplete at best and completely restricted to her at worst.

"Hmm. No, never personally, creation powers as a whole are rare. In fact I've only heard of three, Genisborgue, Mannequin and Streamer. Hmm, there might be a ton more if you let me count Intelligence powers used for cloning or making AI's."

"Those aren't the cases I'm interested in. Genisborgue's file is locked, but I read up on the others, and another, Claydoll. I'm not surprised you never heard of her, she was active for only two weeks before one of her own creations killed her."

"So you're wondering if this Lucifer is real, and if he's on Jurric's side? Lucifer told Jurric not to kill my niece, I got that much out of the poor kid's babbling a few days ago, and as far as I'm concerned this invisible friend of his is alright. Picked a silly name, but alright. I wouldn't care if he was imaginary or just some weird trick of my power so long as he gives good advice."

"It's more so I know how to continue his treatment..." Ashley stopped when the Silver Cowl came in.

"Peter, sorry to interrupt but you have a call in the conference room, it's someone calling themselves Pilot-fish." He said.

"I better take that, he's only supposed to contact me if it's urgent." Peter said. He grabbed his cloak and left the room at a brisk jog.

Silver Cowl sat down; he was a tall man, bulky, but with muscle, not fat. His skin was a dark gold that went well with the silvery cape and hood he wore. He was probably and bastard offshoot of the Golden Family, he had the enhanced strength, speed and endurance that most of the family possessed, though none of the more rare powers that might signify which branch of the family he was from.

"Dr. Whit, I didn't think you were coming in until this afternoon?" He said, reaching out to turn the blank monitor back on. The monitor stood out, on a wall covered in live camera footage from various parts of the tower and possible hotspots around town.

"I asked to come in early and do some research. Powers often present me with a unique challenge, but this is a bit of a curveball for me." Ashley said, noticing that Jurric had left the containment room. As she watched the monitor changed to show a stream from one of the external cameras, the containment room only needed to be watched when there was movement inside.

"Have you been able to judge the extent of the boys more physical powers?" Silver Cowl asked.

"No, just a few vague descriptions."

"A shame, I don't like living with an unknown over my head like this. Oh, the time of his trial was set this morning; do you think you can get him ready in nine days?"

"I'd like a more time." Ashley said, running through her schedule for the next week and a half, that would mean only three more sessions, hopefully it would be enough to prepare Jurric for the stress involved in a rushed court case.

"You know how restrictive metahuman containment laws are. We can't hold him any longer, and we can't release him into the public without a trial." Silver Cowl said.

"I'll talk to him this afternoon, try and get him ready."

"His lawyer will be by tomorrow as well. You may want to warn him, prepare him for another visitor."

"I will. Do you mind if I continue my research?"

Silver Cowl shook his head, so Ashley stood and left the monitor room.

Four cases, she had to find more, four was too small a sample size to know.

Jurric was progressing very well, Ashley's instincts told her it was some trick of his power, some deep link to this Lucifer that allowed the boy to suppress the damage done by over a decade of abuse. Perhaps it was a simple as receiving regular advice from a friendly face, perhaps the confidence Jurric had described Lucifer as possessing was bleeding across from one mind to another. Real or not Lucifer was having a positive effect on Jurric, despite the boy's initial misgivings about his invisible friend. It wouldn't be a problem, but in all four cases where powers were used to create life, that life was born without conscience, sometimes self-serving, sometimes with a desire to aid their creator, but never willing to help others or refrain from harming others to achieve their own ends. Charming, intelligent, confident and perhaps manipulative, almost the textbook definition of a sociopath.

No four was really far too small a sample size to know, Ashley thought. She would have to try and get Jurric to relay a conversation with Lucifer this afternoon, try to get a better feel for him.

***​

"So you're saying I should go to the trial, and then run if it goes bad?" I said. I was sitting on my bed, talking to Lucifer across the room. He flickered occasionally as he checked that we weren't being watched.

"Yeah basically, you'll be watched very closely by a couple of A-ranks, but I think we could take them." Lucifer stretched and yawned, I don't think he got tired, but he liked to act like it when he was bored.

"Do we know which of the hero's here will be guarding me, you said before we couldn't fight Peter." I said.

"The ones who watch you will be from another city, probably the capital, there aren't any A-rank hero's in Whitewall."

"So what rank is Peter?" I asked.

"C-rank, says it on his security badge, you've probably seen it yourself."

"Oh, so the ranking is like security clearance, not how powerful they are." I said.

"Nope, it just determines how strong and versatile your power-set is. A-rank means at least three powers, all very strong and useful in a variety of circumstances. Andrew is the only B-rank I've seen in this tower."

"Then how do you expect me to escape from two people like that." I said, frustrated. One cage to another would be too cruel.

"Listen, relax. You'll probably be fine; if you do have to escape there is a way to become strong enough to do so." Lucifer stood a little straighter, a slight furrow in his brow. He wasn't bored now. "Weird, didn't know this till just a second ago, popped into my head."

"What is it?" I asked.

"You need to embrace your Aspect. Each power you have has one Aspect, related to what that power is, at its core, getting closer to the Aspect increases the strength of that power. The Aspect of your fire, your pyrokinesis, is wrath. Get angry enough and you'll be able to create hotter and stronger flames. The aspect of your dragon form, your shape-shifting, is territorialism. If you fight to protect something you view as yours then that form will get stronger, faster and more durable." Lucifer seemed to change as he spoke, becoming, not brighter, but more defined, more real somehow, and for a second I could have sworn he was casting a shadow.

"And you, if you're a part of my power, does that mean you have an Aspect?"

"Dunno. Remember this though, you are not a creature to be held, or directed, or chained. You are a creature of blood and bone and fire. You can go where you want, do what you want, take what you want, and no one has the right to stop you." Lucifer uncrossed his arms and kicked off from the wall. "I'm gunna leave you to mull that over. Think about it carefully, I just heard the trail is only nine days away."

 

Sometimes I wonder if I am an evil person.

It was a cold day in New Dallas, it always is. The World Engine used three large comets to replenish the water supplies on Mars, but even that left the planet dry. The largest concentration of water is at the poles, so Martian cites are close enough to pipe in a supply. Colonization of the rest of the planet is about finding and digging for underground water reservoirs, or paying to have water gated in from another planet. Neither option is cheap.

I was on my way back from Venus, and I was still getting used to the lighter gravity. You can always tell a native Venusian, they have a sort of permanent spring in their step. I was born on Mars though, and I adjusted to the low gravity as I walked, turning short leaps into long angry strides.
I was in the more affluent side of town, some of the houses had ornamental ponds, and all of them had large iron fences.

I have been killing people for five years now. My mother had taken me on my first job when my powers triggered at eleven. Most of the jobs didn't bother me; mob bosses who picked on someone with money, dirty politicians who needed to be silenced, good people don't make the sort of enemies who can afford to hire my family, so no matter how the deal went, the world had a little less scum in it afterwards.

My family did have a code about who we accepted a contract on. It used to be no women, no children, but Mum decided that wasn't very equal opportunist of us. Now it was just no children, and no family of the target in question.

That didn't change the fact I killed, or that I enjoyed it. On a good day the rush of a job was enough to drive that from my mind, keep me focused. This was different. Very different.

A week ago my family had accepted a contract on Victor Pierce, aka, Slate. He was a superhero, one high in their complicated bureaucratic hierarchy. Normally we don't take hits on heroes, we already walked a thin line staying off the Crosser's List, and we needed to keep it that way. For this job though, the pay was simply too good, and we got greedy.

There is a way to kill a hero and stay of the Crosser's List; they can't completely stop villains trying to kill heroes, and they don't try. There is a points system, various crimes award a certain number of points, and you lose ten points from your total at the start of every year. Get more than thirty points, and the Crossers will find you, and kill you, no hesitation, no mercy. Murdering a civilian is worth one point. Attacking a hero's family is worth twenty. Unmasking a hero is worth ten. Killing a hero is normally worth fifteen, but every successful villain has at least one hero they are desperate to kill, and the Crosser's don't have the time or manpower to kill every villain who's successful twice, so they made a concession. Any villain can publicly declare a hero his Nemesis, and then kill that hero without it affecting his point total.

It wasn't as generous a deal as it sounded, killing someone who knew you were coming for them, someone with the assistance and backing of the superhero community, it was almost impossible.
My parents had decided it was too dangerous to take me, they went together, and they failed. Slate had caught them. He had got in touch with me and promised on an oathstone to give them back, if my family did something for him first. Normally my grandfather would have covered it, killed Slate himself or gone along with demands for a while, then killed him.

Grandpa died of a heart attack three days ago.

So it was up to me, and no matter what option I considered, what possibility's I tried to create, it all felt wrong.

Shivering and self-questioning were forgotten when I reached the Shaz, an upper-market hotel with my targets on the penthouse floor. The shivering stopped because the hotel was well heated. The questioning stopped because basic survival instincts stop all introspection while the adrenaline thrums through your veins.

No one stopped me; hotel staff aren't trained to tell the difference between assassins and normal girls. When I entered the lift the key necessary to reach the penthouse floor was already in the slot. My main target was attending a bachelor party, and whoever was hosting evidently couldn't be bothered to manually let everyone up.

Sloppy security. I took my jacket off, checked my gun, and holstered it.

The lift had a mirror; with the jacket on I had looked like any other teenage girl, without it I looked like a dumb cheerleader cosplaying as Rambo.

Maybe their security wasn't so sloppy after all. There were two guards waiting when the lift opened. They were humans; all the superhumans would be in the party proper, which I could already hear down the hall and to the left. The men were armed, and probably ex-military from the way they stood. The left one put his hand on my shoulder.

"I'm sorry but this floor is off limits without an invitation." He said.

The one on the right stepped closer, so he had a chance of getting to my gun before I could draw and raise it. He had his hand on his own gun, and he probably would have it out already if I wasn't pulling the whole innocent lost girl trick with all the charm I could muster. The gun, and the knife on my other hip, the grenades around my chest, they spoiled the image a bit though.

"I need you to come with me, we'll escort you to the..."

I smiled and cut his throat. The guard on my right leapt at me, gun half drawn, but I stepped forwards and gave him a little push behind the head as his attempted tackle carried him to the floor. He hit the ground badly, and there was a crack as he broke his nose in a way that sent splinters of bone into his brain. The left guard stared at me as he held his bloody throat, trying to gasp the air for a yell, or perhaps to beg mercy. Neither would have worked, my power simply doesn't work that way.

The powers database lists me as limited precog, limited teleporter. This is both accurate and incredibly wrong. My parent's powers merged when they had me, I only have one power, an intimate association with Death, capital D.

When I look at someone the first thing I see is the easiest way to kill them, if I take a few seconds to stare I can normally get a specific sort of kill, quiet kill, painful kill, quick death, slow death and etc. When something is going to kill me I get enough warning to... well, not die, and I can sometimes tell if someone else is going to die in the near future.

I can also draw on nearby deaths slide into the Cold Realm, and from there I can chose where I exit.
I didn't draw on the deaths of either guard, an unexpected entrance though the door would be just as surprising as teleporting in, and the less time I spent in the Cold Realm the better.

I went down the hall and to the left to find a party in full swing. The party was being held on behalf of Major Triumph, a member of the famous Major Powers family. It was his third marriage, another vapid celebrity. Why he was having a bachelor party was beyond me, but if you had to die, why not do it at a party? I spotted Triumph near a small stage set in the north corner, his attention was fully focused a blonde girl writhing on his lap, she was wearing cake, and not much else.

The rest of partygoers, all men, were divided between chatting cheerfully, watching the blond, and watching three other dancers on tables in the four other corners of the room. The girl in the east corner was the first to notice me; she stopped dancing and put her hand to her mouth in shock.
"Joshua Travers." I yelled, and the room went still.

Joshua disengaged himself from the group watching the stage and faced me.

"What do you want girl, you shouldn't be here?" he asked irritable.

Then I shot him.

My power lets me know the easiest way to kill everyone I meet, normally, if I have a gun, this is drawing the gun and shooting them. I don't need to aim, I just sort of mentally align myself with the death my power shows me and let it do the rest. I killed Joshua, and then I killed two more while waiting for a reaction.

No need to aim meant I could kill people as fast as I could kill the trigger. I had time to pull the trigger three times before I felt my own death looming. I pulled the pin on a grenade still strapped to my chest, and then I pulled on the death of the third man.

Time froze, the world took on a bluish tint, and the air around me went frigid as the Cold Realm embraced me. The third man I had shot was still standing; a look of surprise on his face, the hole in his forehead hadn't had time to start bleeding yet. There was a door in front of him, somehow more stark and real than the walls or floor of this place. It was made of stone, and had no doorknob. I knew from experience that it was the only thing here that was solid, everything else I could drift through.

Death opened the door and stepped out. She was a pale girl, eyes like blue stars but older, wiser. Her lips were purple today; there were the only thing that changed in all the time I had known her, some days blue some days red, and some days something truly outlandish. Death liked to switch up her lipstick.

She saw me a crocked a little half smile before moving to stand next to the man's body. That was all she did, she had never talked, never done anything I could recognise while I was still in the Cold Realm. The only time I had been able to provoke a reaction for her had been once, long ago, when I tried to go through the door. Even then she only put her hand out to stop me, it had been enough, I had a good idea what going through that door meant.

I pushed forwards, not walking but drifting through the air with conscious effort. The grenade belt stayed behind, I could only bring murder weapons into the Cold Realm, and I hadn't yet killed anyone with the grenades. My knife and gun had both killed, today and before this, so I kept both. My shirt had been used to strangle a very unlucky mugger over a year ago, and my other clothes had been tied around a metal bar and used to bash in the brains of a gangster on my third job. By that point I had been mightily sick of having to fight in the nude every time I needed to use the Cold Realm.

I pulled myself out of the Cold Realm behind Major Triumph. If I remembered correctly the Major could make force-fields to protect himself, but he was still busy pushing the stunned dancer from off his lap, and nothing stopped me from ramming my knife through his ribs with my left hand as I took four more shots with my right.

Two speedsters raced towards where I had been standing before entering the Cold Realm, one was hit in the back by a fireball another of the partygoers had thrown, the other tripped over a fallen grenade, sending himself headfirst against the wall with a sickening crunch and the live grenade skittering across the floor towards a group of frantic and confused capes, who wouldn't notice it until it exploded in two seconds. I rode the death of the fourth person I had shot and chuckled quietly to myself. I was growing stronger, full of energy from all the death in the room. Why had my family never gone after heroes before, they were soft, slow. Easy pickings. Grandpa would have already finished clearing the room.

I ignored Death and the door, moved across the room to a group of three men and lunged out of the Cold Realm. The man to my right was invulnerable, I would have to arrange some sort of friendly fire to kill him later, the man in front of me had a sheaf of ice half formed around his hand, but nothing to stop a knife to the eye. His head was facing to the right towards Major Triumphs dead body. My power showed me how much pressure I needed and where to aim, even though his head was whipping around, searching for where I had teleported to.

My knife missed his eye, instead scraping the side of his head.

That shouldn't have happened, I took a second to adjust and the man on the right hit me in the mouth, hard. He used his left hand; his right was still outstretched, pushing the middle man away from my knife. The pain hit me, along with a wave of disorientation, I was slightly built, and he wouldn't have looked out of place at the Olympics. I had lost a couple of teeth, my cheek was swelling. He must have been a precog, to counter my power like that. Precog powers normally short each other out, his was probably a little stronger than mine though, strong enough to give him a half-second or so of warning for everything I did.

I embraced my Aspect, filling myself with all the death I had dealt. It numbed the pain, chilled my skin, rolled of me in waves. I could kill with a touch now. I tried to punch the precog, but he stepped back, dodged, and then kicked me in the chest. Even through his shoe, my aura must have made his leg to numb to stand on, he fell over, but I was in no position to capitalize on it.

His kick spun me, drove the wind from my lungs and stopped me dodging while the ice manipulator froze me from the neck down.

The man with invulnerability stepped in front of me; he broke the ice around my left hand, took the gun from me, dropped it and kicked it across the room. He opened his mouth to talk to me, probably going to ask me what I was doing here, or who sent me. Instead I spat a tooth down his throat. He started choking and his friend with the ice powers tried to help him.

Meanwhile the precog managed to drag himself to his feet; he was surveying the room, taking in the people I had killed. Twelve were dead, three more were wounded. Two of those would die before they reached the hospital; neither of them would die quickly enough for me to ride their deaths out of here though. One more lay on the ground, spasming; he had some sort of regenerative ability but the shards of bullet still trapped in his skull would kill him, eventually.

"I've heard of you, Fel." The precog said. "I know that you're the daughter of the Vanishing Man and Wither, I know that you're in the family business, but I didn't expect you here. Smart of Slate, I honestly thought your mother was serous when she declared him to be her nemesis, even held out hope she could kill him. Where are your parents, they going to come in here and finish the job?"

I stayed silent, I just needed to wait till the man on the floor finished dying, and then I could use the Cold Realm to escape. All the priority targets had been hit, hopefully Slate would be happy with this, if not maybe I'd come back with a shotgun or a flamethrower, a wide area weapon that would be harder for a precog to dodge. Slate should have warned me about this, should have given me a rundown on every power-set here, I would have come prepared.

"No, I guess they aren't." The precog said. "If they were here they would be helping you by now." I tried to school my expression, keep calm, and give nothing away.

"That begs the question, why aren't they helping you? I've never heard of you doing a hit alone before, and this is far too dangerous a hit for you to start a solo career on. A family rivalry maybe?" He examined me closely and shook his head. "No. It doesn't seem to fit. This is too much, even for a teenager lashing out."

Besides me the ice thrower had enlisted the help of another super, someone with enhanced strength, so he could pick the invulnerable man up and squeeze him, trying to push the tooth out of his throat. I saw it happening, had seen it happening, his death was well on track.

"If Slate has promised you protection from the Blacklist, he's lying. I don't know how deep his control goes, but I do know he has no sway among the Crossers."

The invulnerable man gave a last cough then lost control of the forcefield just beneath his skin. The superhuman behind him didn't realise this, and gave one more squeeze; one that broke ribs, crushed lungs... it was a real mess, but it let me enter the Cold Realm. I floated out the window and down, reached the limits of my range one story above ground level and materialised to drop the rest of the way.

There would be supers still inside who could fly, so I ran down the side of the Shaz, towards the kitchens. I changed my wig, shirt and jeans with ones my contact had left in a plastic bag next to the kitchen bins, walked casually to the train station and took the outbound train to Venus.
Later my face would be on every TV and noticeboard in the solar system, later I would be hunted down and killed by the Crossers. Didn't matter. I would have my parents back from Slate by then.

***​

Wither limped into the Crossers headquarters, knelt down and put her hands behind her head. She was in full costume, the old skintight one she rarely wore on real jobs, wearing a white mask, three ruby tears coming from the left eyehole. If she had walked into a police station or a hero's tower like this there would be a commotion. She would be restrained, cuffed, her every movement covered with guns or powers. Instead she had walked into the Crossers, no one made a move to try and arrest her, the Crossers didn't arrest people, they killed them, and they would kill her if she made a wrong move.

Wither stayed kneeling, still as a stone for almost a minute. There were at least five Crossers in the room, and she didn't dare even look at them, possessed by the rational fear that they would sense the use of her ability, and mistake it as a threat. Eventually the receptionist cleared his throat. A couple of them shifted a little, getting weapons closer to their hands.

"Miss Wither, twenty one points, not listed. Are you sure you have come to the right place?"

The Crossers in the room relaxed as much as any Crosser ever did, which wasn't much.

"Yes. I would like to speak to the chief." Wither replied.

"You are an assassin." It was a statement, but Wither shook her head.

"Not today." She said.

"A shame," said the receptionist, "Steve likes the occasional assassin. Take the lift to the third floor, his office is at the end of the hall."

Wither stood and walked slowly to the lift. No one moved to accompany her, she was in Crosser territory now, if she tried to start anything, she would die. The lift and the third floor hallway were empty. She walked to the end and knocked on the door.

"Come in."

She entered. Steve was sitting behind his desk, tapping at his computer. His desk was piled high with paperwork and stained with old coffee.

"Sit down." He said, nodding towards the seat opposite him.

Wither sat down. Then she risked looking straight at Steve. Her power kicked in, it showed her she could kill him by asking for a pen, then throwing it into his carotid artery. Of course he would kill her before he bled out; there was no way to avoid that. Wither didn't look further, even if she mananged to kill this man, it would do her no good.

"Mrs. Wither. A pleasure to meet you. My consolations on the loss of your husband and father."

"You know about that?"

"Now I do, yes. I assume you are here about your daughter?" Steve asked.

"In a way. I can prove she wasn't responsible for the Shaz massacre."

"Oh, you have proof. Good. I thought this meeting would involve you begging me not to kill her until I was forced to try and arrest you. I hate the ones that beg."

Wither took a deep breath, swallowed to ease a dry throat, and winced when the movement shifted her broken rib. Steve noticed, but said nothing.

"A few weeks ago I found a new Meta, one with the power to control the ages of others. I asked him to make me young again. This had the unfortunate effect of making me look like Fel; she does resemble me quite strongly. I didn't realize how strong the resemblance was and undertook a job in the meantime. The effect has faded since then."

Wither stopped talking, swallowed again. Steve regarded her for a few seconds, then stood and walked over to the small kitchenette in the corner of his office.

"Can I get you, coffee, tea maybe?" He asked.

Wither considered, was he the sort to drug her? It would be an easy way to arrest her, without resorting to lethal force. No, everything she knew suggested drugs just weren't Steve's style.

"Tea, black, with honey if you have it." She replied.

He busied himself with making the tea, back to her, utterly confident. She still couldn't kill him fast enough not to die herself.

"I don't suppose you can produce this new Meta?"

"No, he's gone to ground."

"The DNA left on the scene, will it match yours?"

"No, it's fake. I left it to provide a false trail."

"The attacker at the Shaz was a teleporter; you aren't."

"My powers have never been fully catalogued. I can only teleport when I'm desperate and if I have just killed someone. I've never needed to use it before."

"And if you and I were to arrange to have your daughter's DNA tested?"

"I won't let you."

"How old was Fel when you took her on her first job? Nine, ten?"

"Eleven"

Steve sat down, placed a cup of tea in front of Wither and sipped at his own cup.

"It irks me." He said slowly, considering each word. "It irks me badly to have to kill a sixteen-year-old girl when the one truly responsible for her crimes is sitting, right in front of me."

Wither resisted the urge to kill him, maybe she hadn't raised her little girl as well as some others might have, but this man had dared, dared to question her parenting. Wither took a sip of the tea, it was good, and it calmed her enough to let Steve have his jab.

"Of the record?" She asked.

"I've always hated paperwork." Steve said. Wither took it as agreement.

"I'm a far better catch than my daughter. I'm a professional with over a hundred kills under my belt. The hero's avoid the reputation hit of having a teenager wipe the floor with them. The Crossers gain nothing by killing Fel, but if Wither turns herself in rather than try to fight them, well, that's going to make a lot of villains think before they cross that line."

"Your daughter is more powerful than you are." Steve pointed out.

"She's less experienced, less well known, and not as dangerous."

"She won't always be that way."

Wither decided to change tracts. "I'll give you the family contracts list. Over seventy years of information on who wanted who dead, and what they were willing to pay. I promise you, some of the names would be very interesting to you. I know the Shaz wasn't an isolated incident, and I think that client list might just tell you who was behind the whole deal."

"I'll bet those names would be interesting, and I cannot comment on an ongoing investigation." Steve said. Interest flashed in his eyes, but didn't make it to his face.

"Tell me, do you think your power would work on the Beasts?" Steve said. Wither noticed the change in subject, but didn't comment on it.

"No I watched once, to test it. Everything I see is self-centric, maximum of three layers of separation between my own actions and the deaths I see. There is literally nothing I could do to harm those creatures."

"Too much to hope for I guess." Steve said with a sigh. He considered for a while then nodded to himself. "It seems workable, if you can convince a lawyer you aren't being coerced, and a psychologist that you are of sound mind. Get them both as witnesses and all I need to convict you is a signed confession. We can't just let Fel go free, but we can drop the death penalty, her power is easy to downplay and re-classify, maybe stick her in juvie or something..."

"No. That won't work." Wither interrupted him. "I know what those places are like, sooner or later she'll have to use her power to defend herself, and then she'll go to jail, because that's the only place that can reasonably hold her. She's sixteen, she can't go to jail."

"Then we are at an impasse. I can't just let your daughter get away with gunning down those men. Where there is crime, there must be punishment. Anything else is a perversion of justice."
"Does losing her entire family count? You know no one is going to hire her after this, giving you the contracts list is a breach of faith the family business will never recover from."

"She's still a loose cannon, one I cannot in good conscience leave running around."

Wither took her mask of slowly and set it down on the table, next to her cup of tea. She looked Steve in the eye.

"I could kill you now." She said. "There are a dozen ways."

"I don't doubt it." Steve said. "Question is, are you suicidal enough to try?"

"Yes." Wither said quietly.

Steve looked at her, waiting.

"My family has been acting as assassins for supervillains for the last seventy two years. We had money, we had contacts, and we had powerful people who owed us favors. I cashed all that in yesterday. My husband and father are dead, my daughter is on your kill list, I'm desperate and I'd rather go out with a bang than a whimper. Do you honestly doubt my ability to raise absolute hell if I don't get my way?"

Steve sipped his coffee, not looking concerned. "Not many people are willing to take on the Crossers." He observed, with all the care you normally gave to an observation about the weather.
"Not many of them know that's what they might be doing." Wither said.

Steve met Wither's eyes, she looked away first.

"Why did she do it?" He asked. "She had to have known she couldn't get away with that many metahuman deaths."

"My husband and I accepted a job to kill Slate. You probably heard I declared him my nemesis. Normally wouldn't have targeted him, but we were being paid in powers, potent ones, we knew father was dying and thought we could use the boost. Anyway we tried to take him in his home, but the fight went bad. He killed my husband, caught me. He traded me to my daughter for the Shaz job."

"Interesting, I always knew Slate wasn't in this business to help people, but why would he want so many other heroes dead?"

"Politics maybe?" Wither said with a shrug.

"It seems kind of pointless, your daughter killing all those people to save you, only so you can sacrifice yourself to save her from the consequences."

"She thought she was getting both of her parents back." Wither said. She wished she hadn't taken the mask off now; it would be easier to hide what she was feeling. "Besides, this is my decision, my daughter opposes it."

"It always amazes me; I've never met anyone who was a complete monster. Do you remember that Reaper fellow, made the papers a few years ago, liked to eat his victim's eyes? He spent the last seconds of his life begging me to find good homes for his cats." Steve drained the dregs of his coffee and put the cup down. "Guess I should stop being surprised by this sort of thing."

"She's my daughter." Wither said. It was all that needed to be said.

"Fine, let me print something out." Steve tapped away at his computer until the printer in the corner whirled to life.

"These guys have been spamming me every year for a while now. Don't know how I got on their mailing lists." Steve went over to the printer and picked up a few sheets, he handed them to Wither.
"They're supposed to be the best. They take anyone Meta, no prejudice about who the parents are. Very good incident prevention, and they're counselors are top rate."

"You want me to send my daughter to college?"

"Can you get her to cooperate?"

"I've left her cuffed to the stove. Once she knows it's too late to save me she'll follow any reasonable instructions you give her in my name. She used to bug me to let her go to school, she may even enjoy this."

"She won't, you're still her legal guardian in your civilian identity right?"

"Yes."

"I want her signed up for counseling, banned from leaving the college until she turns twenty one, her power listed as to dangerous to use, and a special note made that she is never to be allowed to take part in any of the combat training classes."

Wither thought for a while, finished reading the pamphlet Steve had printed. The faculty looked nice enough, and her daughter didn't need combat training.

"Ok. We have a deal."

***​

Three hours later, in a small apartment on the other side of the city, Fel dropped to her knees. She tugged desperately on the oven door, slamming it open again and again with enough force to tear her skin where the handcuffs met her flesh. Across the room, on the counter, the television was tuned in to the news. The anchorman was covering the trial, conviction and execution of the supervillain Wither. Fel was sobbing too loudly to hear.

 

I've been looking for a villain to fight for seven years, eight months and eleven days.

My power activated when I was twelve, about as early as you can get one if you're a boy. I knew I was fairly likely to get the power, my dad never kept his real job from his family, so I started training early. Gymnastics, martial arts courses that focused on a more acrobatic style of fighting and a regular workout regime.

Lots of the bigger families with powers develop their own martial art, something that incorporates the family ability in some way. Dad was working on making a martial art for our family to, he called it Calcitrant, but he died before he could finish. That was ok. Later, when I had a few real fights under my belt and a decent knowledge of what worked in combat and what didn't, then I would finish it for him.

I had wanted to go out and fight that one villain since the day my power triggered. There were reports in the papers about groups of teenage heroes, and I was nearly a teenager then. Mom wouldn't hear of, then, or over the next seven years.

In all honesty she was right; the teen heroes in the papers were the sons and daughters of A-rank heroes, they had anywhere from four to a couple of dozen different powers and their own parents backing, when kids like those showed up to stop a bank robbery, the robbers ran.

I had one power, although it was a fairly cool one. The ability to emit bursts of kinetic energy from my feet. There was no known upper limit to the amount of force I could unleash, but unfortunately my power was more of a slave to physics than most. For all the force released from my feet, equal force pushed me in the opposite direction. This did mean I could do some cool air hopping, but my feet and legs were only slightly tougher than a normal humans, and I just couldn't bring that much force to bear without shattering my ankles.

Mum was determined I ignore it; just let my heritage and my potential go to waste. I was determined to do the exact opposite. Mum didn't know I'd gone out tonight, if all went well I would tell her in the morning.

I watched the warehouse carefully, it was an old decrepit building a short walk along the railway track from our house. It used to be a favourite haunt for a gang that liked to hang around our street. I had considered taking on the gang before, mainly because they were the only gang in walking distance, but I had decided against it. The worst that they had ever done was spray graffiti all over a few people's bins and break Mrs. Thompson's garage window, if I beat them up for that it would be assault, even if the super-hero laws did get... weird.

That had changed; the gang had gone from graffiti to theft recently. Lots of people reported TV's, laptops, jewellery and even carpets missing. They even got into my garage somehow and took my bike, I liked that bike.

I hoped they had become more daring because they had a metahuman member. There was some evidence to support my hope, items taken from a locked safe, doors that should have been locked mysteriously found open, camera footage stolen or destroyed.

Tonight was supposed to be reconnaissance. I was perched on the roof of the old railway maintenance house, across the tracks from the warehouse the gang liked to use. I'd been watching since this afternoon, and something was very wrong. I didn't know any of the gang members personally, but I knew all their faces, they looked different, haggard, scared, when they approached the warehouse they dragged their feet, and when they left they ran. Good, an intimidating Meta would produce exactly that sort of reaction, and intimidating a gang into working for them was classic villain behaviour.

It had been dark for almost an hour when I decided to check things out. I could have used my power to hop of the roof, but that would have made a fair bit of noise, so I went down the drainpipe. It was old and rusted, but still solid enough to make for a safe trip to the ground.

I circled the warehouse once, all the windows were boarded up, but I could make out slivers of soft light coming through the cracks, someone was still in there. I took my phone out and set it to record; even if I found everything that had been stolen I still needed to prove that this new Meta was the one that took it all. Going in through the boarded up windows was bound to be noisy, so I went back and entered through the front door. It was old, not locked, but the hinges creaked alarmingly.

The front door lead to a long corridor, made when someone had decided to divide the warehouse in half with cheap plaster walls. The place was eerily quiet, and when I took my first step past the threshold the light seeping under the doors from the two halves of the warehouse flickered off.

Good. Someone wanted to play. My plans for the evening had been ruined in the most wonderful of fashions.

I closed my eyes and used the second aspect of my power. Kinetic energy sensing. Not the fanciest of powers by far, useless for seeing stationary objects in the dark, but to quote my dad. “It isn't the still stuff that tries to kill you.” I felt a human only a few feet away, then felt them vanish from my senses. I moved out of the way as a short girl in a frilly dress lunged through the wall, trying to tag me with a taser.

She was short, wearing a doll-mask and dark haired. She seemed to be going with a doll theme all-together, from the shoes, to the dress to the mask.

So, some sort of phasing ability, and she probably didn't have the customary weakness to electricity that most phasers had, or she wouldn't be holding an electrical weapon.

A power ideal for slipping out of restraint and closing with me unmolested made the chain wrapped around my left arm useless. She was a thief, using a taser. I wasn't going to be the first to escalate to lethal force, and that made my gun also useless. I was only carrying it because it was my fathers.

The aluminium baseball bat strapped to my back might be handy, but really? Beating up a girl with a baseball bat, not a good way to get into the hero business. I kept up a running retreat, using my power only to augment my leaps as I back-pedalled into the street, keeping away from the taser. The girl stopped as one of my leaps carried me across the asphalt, took a breath and then came after me again.

I grinned, so, no vulnerability to electricity, but needed air every now and again. I could work with that.

I stepped in close, deflected the hand that held the taser as it became solid, and rabbit punched her in the throat.

She went insubstantial the second my knuckles hit her skin, and the punch did no damage, but she hadn't had a chance to draw a breath. I kicked though her, which had no effect, dodged another strike and sent my fist towards her as soon as she started telegraphing the swipe. She stayed intangible, but holding you're breath while fighting is very hard, and I didn't give her a chance to take a breath.

She tried to run, going through the walls of the warehouse. I picked a nearby window, flipped up so my feet were against it and released a conical blast of kinetic force. Enough to splinter the wood and hopefully force her to stay insubstantial to avoid being hit by the debris, but not enough to kill her if she got hit by a splinter.

The force I unleashed flipped my back, onto my feet, and I unleashed another burst to propel myself through the window.

The girl was on the floor, apparently haven tripped over the couch on the far side of the wall... somehow. Powers got weird sometimes.

I grabbed her head, which was now solid, and slammed it into the floor to disorient her. Forehead first, no need to give her a broken nose if a bruise would do. Then I took out my little kit of needles and jabbed her with the one marked. 'Female 17 – 21 lightweight' You could get more general purpose aesthetics, that could safely be used on a variety of body-weights, and that you could deliver multiple does with if you felt you needed to, but they were more expensive than the ones that needed a very precise dosage.

The girl went insubstantial, got up and ran. I let her go, calling the police as I left the building and sat on the rooftop. The aesthetic would knock her out less than five minutes, I just had to make sure I know where she was when she fell asleep.

I was in contact with the officers as I followed the girl from the skies, relaying my position as I watched her run though alleys, fences and houses, trying to get away. When she collapsed the police cars could already be heard in the distance.

***​

There was paperwork to fill out, but while vigilantism is rare, the police are familiar with it an know how to deal. There wasn't enough data to make an arrest of course, it's not like I caught the girl in the act or anything. The only change I had made was turning a warehouse full of stolen goods into a bit pile of police paperwork as they tried to get everything catalogued and then back to the proper owners. The girl would be back on the streets tomorrow

No, the only thing this did was get me on the radar of one of the local hero teams.

Nightroman was kind enough to pick me up from the police headquarters in their flying car, which was, admittedly, awesome. A car custom built by someone with an intelligence power kinda had to be. It was rather inevitable that I was picked up by the Justicators. Corny and second rate as they were, it was still an excellent start for a young hero beginning his career.

I had of course read about them, they were in the papers fairly often. Aged between 18 and 30 they acted as a sort of... superhero training ground. If you wanted to make it big, you started out with the Justicators, the moved onto a serious team when you proved yourself capable. I could have found out their favourite foods, catch phrases, which brands sponsored them and more easily enough, but really only the powers interested me.

I was introduced to the team, which was kinda unnecessary, although it did help me pin down which one in a pick costume was Protectionate, and which one was Nickty. Protectionate was the one with the red star on her chest, while Nickty had a green heart.

Nightroman I chatted with in the car, he had a strengh invulnerability package, booring, but useful. He was the team leader, and seemed quite genial and good natured. His powerset was in odd contrast to a skinny physique.

Protectionate was a girl with the ability to create pink force-fields, force-fields seemed malleable, but for some reason she never uses them offensively. She looked to be in her mid twenties, and was probably a runner, judging by the predominant muscle groups.

Looper was a girl with the power to send herself one second back in time, essentially having a clone with a tiny bit of foreknowledge about the future. She couldn't send herself back again for 3 seconds, but could maintain up to five bodies before being forced back into one by paradox. She looked like she was just out of her teenage years, and was short and stubby,

Tandy was a girl who with enhanced intelligence, unlike the others she wasn't wearing a costume just overalls. She looked like she'd been dragged out from under a car to meet me, she stammered a little while introducing herself, and ran away as soon as she could. Probably not trying to be rude, just cripplingly shy.

Nickty was a boy with telekinesis, he claimed to be capable of lifting anything, but needed to keep his gaze directly on whatever he was moving. He was also in his mid to late twenties, and seemed very keen for me to join.

Viketar was... actually I'm not sure of Viketar's gender, they wore a suit of full body armour that wasn't obviously shaped to be anything other than ovaloid, and they're voice as to echo-y and tinny to be sure. They could turn any surface into the consistency of their choice, thought it did not work on organic surfaces.

Loner was a male teleporter with city-wide range, a three second charge, didn't need to be touching his what he wanted to teleport. He was the youngest, a teenager like me. He cracked a joke that with him around the flying cars were redundant, because he was the best taxi service in existence.

I refrained from telling him about the Shunters, a group of teleporters for hire with some members with interplanetary range.

Then I was taken on a tour of the base. I acted awed, because I was. The turret defence system, the gym built to accommodate all sorts of powers, the hanger bay, and finally the training grounds.

It was impressive. I had needed to see this.

“And this is how we can practice using our powers in a safe manner. Tandy's made up these helmets, which can act as a VR interface. We enter a virtual world, and can use even our more destructive abilietes without risk.”

“A VR interface is awesome, how does it work?” I directed the question to Tandy, who was trying to hide behind a laptop at the far end of the room.

“It um... isn't that awesome. Really. It just watches the brainwaves, and feeds false data into the spinal column and optic nerves.” She said.

“It still has huge implications, is this sort of tech going to be on the market any-time soon?”

“What! No! Some of the components aren't replicable and and it needs maintenance and I have to calibrate it...”

I decided to leave the poor girl alone. She was obviously lying, but her eyes were wide with fear, and I think I knew why. There were good reasons for someone with an inteligence power to be afraid.

“So. I have a few questions if you don't mind.” I said cheerily to Nightroman.

“Ask away.”

“How do you get the money for all this?”

“Sponsorship deals mostly. It's isn't that glamorous but it pays the bills. A few words on TV or in a magazine are normally enough to set you up with the basics, and from there you can start getting money to invest in the hero business.”

“So what exactly would you be doing as a part of this group?”

“Fighting villains of course, saving people, helping them. Sometimes banding together with other hero teams when some idiot gets a ridiculous power and goes all conquering warlord on us.”

“So was it mostly fighting villains, mostly volunteer work or what?”

“Well yeah, it's mostly fighting villains, some disaster relief as well.”

“So, say there was a house fire, did the hero's respond?”

“We help out if we're in the area of course, but mostly by the time we hear of that sort of thing the fire department is already there.”

“How did the group feel about the bigger problems the solar system was facing. The tens of thousands still dying daily of radiation sickness on Earth, the way that Titan was ruled by a group of Metahumans who treated the humans as cattle, the fact that Ganymede was covered by the Swarms of the Beasts, who killed anyone they saw. The new colonies on Mars that were rumoured to run on slave labour. The fact that 40% of humans in the solar system were suffering from either malnutrition, bone degredation, radiation poisoning or a combination of the three.”

Nightroman stood still for a moment, and sighed, rubbing his hair.

“Look. There just isn't a lot we can do about any of that right now. Those problems are far away, on other planets, mostly. We work with what we can, and we do what we can. Maybe if someone ever gets a power that lets them handle that sort of thing...” He shruggs, then smiles. “Want to try out the training room?”

“Sure that sounds like fun.” I said, taking the helmet he handed me and slipping it on.

“Just say 'activate' to turn it on, and 'deactivate' to turn it off. When it turns on there'll be a brief period of disorientation before you end up in a simulated street. Play around for a few minutes, get a hang of moving in there, and I'll round up the others to join us.”

“Sounds good. Activate.” I said, and relaxed a bit.

It was a little disorienting, I imagine it was how most teleporters would feel, suddenly appearing somewhere else with no movement through the space in-between. That passed quickly, and I scouted the street. It was very good, empty of people, but no matter how close I looked there were no pixels, no sign that this wasn't the real thing. I could even go into the shops, and I did, taking the opportunity to set a few things up. I still had all my equipment, but while my kinetic generation power worked perfectly, my kinetic sense did not, maybe Tandy didn't know about it to program it in, or maybe it just didn't have anything to sense in a virtual landscape.

When the Justicators arrived they did so without Tandy, she was probably monitoring things. They appeared in a glowing circle, and Nightroman stepped forwards, slamming his fist into his palm with a big smile on his face.

“You know, we kinda have an initiation ceremony. We all cut lose, show you what we can do, you can cut lose to. Tandy has the pain settings turned down, so we don't have to worry about hurting each other in here. Course it's kinda unfair to gang up on you, but...”

I smiled as they rushed me. It's nice when life arranges itself so perfectly.

***​

Took one last look around the street. Nightroman was the only one still standing. I'd tried to go for his eyes, but for some reason they were also invunerable, I'd shattered his eardrums instead, and he was having trouble staying upright as he ran after me.

I was sick of playing keep away, everyone else was dead, I'd won.

The street was a mess, broken glass and cracked pavement everywhere, cars embedded in shop fronts, signposts impaling the heroes bodies into the ground.

Looper, Loner, and Nickty had been poweful, but not skilled or bullet-proof, and I had a gun. Viketar's armour posed a problem, until I electrocuted him/her with the taser I took from the intangibility girl. Protectionate had to think to activate her force-fields, and she often kept then only facing her opponent to reduce the strain. I simply jumped over her and shot her in the back.

Nickty was still alive after all, I could see him trying to get to his feet. Seems of the three times I shot him I only hit his shoulder and leg. Oh well. I triple tapped again, and watched him fall, then leapt over Nightroman as he charged me.

“Heroes.” He panted, fists clenched. “Do not use guns.”

“Yes. Yet another way in which heroes are... inefficient.” I replied. “Deactivate”

I pulled the helmet off my head. Loner was out already. Protectionate was stirring, the others seemed to have stayed in the simulation. Tandy shrank back when I looked at her, actually trying to hide behind Loner. I gave her a sad smile.

“I'm sorry, but it seems this group is not for me. Thank you for showing me around your base. I'll see myself out.”

It wasn't far to the hanger from here, and I knew the way. The hanger opened into the sky, and I could leave from there.

When I was 12 my mother had made me promise I wouldn't go the same way my father did, made me promise I would at least try to become a hero before I looked elsewhere. Well. Now I'd tried.

My name is Cal. I've been looking for a villain to fight for seven years, eight months and eleven days, because once I'd found one, I could move on to trying to do something that would actually matter.

 

Right. I've written up an introduction to Fel and Jurric, just one more to go and you will then be able to vote on who you want to play as. The other two might become rivals or friends, but are more likely to become enemies.

Yes this does mean I will be taking time for Overlord Ascendant to write this. I plan on updating Overlord Ascendant every second day now.

This is mostly an exercise for me. To ensure I am not stuck in a particular writing style.

I hope you enjoy.

 

Enjoyed what I've read so far. Keep it up.

 

Dragon boy was interesting and I would have been fine with playing him. Fel? Fel has me hooked. Oh how I want to play Fel. Maybe the third will tempt me, but groomed since birth assassin who power includes visiting Death? Oh yes.

Sorry for the double post but I had to comment on the latest chapter.

 

And all I could think of was this.

 

looks good. tough choice between Fel and Jurric. And that is before i even saw the unknown 3rd

 

What I've seen so far makes me want to see you write this as a fic more than a Quest, Interitio.

 

...I have to agree with Macjord. Although I will say that so far I would like playing as Jurric, but I really, really want to read poor Fel's story.

 

I think we will, either way.


Also... College, Intertitio?
Heh.

 

Yea, he did say that all 3 characters are in the game. we pick one of them to play as, the other 2 are around and will be encountered. maybe as enemies, maybe as allies, depending on how we play things...
so you can go ahead and start shipping jurric/fel

 

OTT! Wait, there is Luci, and there is Death... OTFivesome!

Wait, this is in the SFW section.

My bad.

 

Super impressed with the start.
I'm personally more invested in Jurric's story. You've gotten such a great start that I have to agree, I'd almost rather you do this as a fic.
That'll certainly make sure you're not stuck in one writing style. Also, you've done such a great job with the set up, I'd really like to see where you take the whole thing.
If you like the community involvement and ideas inherent in a quest, I think given your quality of writing and proven success and popularity here, you'll certainly have a good amount of that regardless of whether you make this a quest or a fic.

Just my thoughts. Really excited to see where this goes. Awesome.

 

You can have romance in SFW as long as it isn't explicit and lewd

 

Spoiler: Spelling/Punctuation

campaign | heard | reckon | parent's | Ashley's | too | too

pull

So, my impression is that if Jurric's 'demon' is a self contained 'mental manifestation' and not an external creature attached to him, then everything it knows comes from what has happened within two hundred feet of Jurric.

Those things being the cult, television, and any computers that were within his range. Meaning the relatively good part of how it was raised came entirely from the internet and TV.

Are we sure it isn't actually a demon? Because that might be the less horrifying option.

Either way, this whole thing looks very interesting Interitio.

 

The really interesting thing about jurric's mental manifestation is that it appeared the moment the prophet finished tattooing him.
induced multiple personality disorder via magic tattoos?

 

Hm... I think I prefer the dragon boy, so far.

 

Fel's backstory looks a hell of a lot more interesting, but it's extremely similar to Alexis', though Slate is certainly a much more potent Nemesis than Donneric.

 

Interesting. Jurric’s likely plot arc (what would you even call that, man against self against world?) interests me more, but QQ retreads the demon thing a little too often.

There’s a slightly amusing typo by the way, ‘Mechanaborg champagne’ instead of ‘campaign’. Mechanborg champagne probably tastes terrible.

 

I'm not seeing where you're getting this. 'Parent(s) tragically killed; has someone to blame' is about as much commonality as I can see.

 

I'm loving this so far. Jurric's personality is really interesting and I'd like to see where it goes, whilst fel's powers have some very interesting implications about the worlds metaphysics.

 

Dean Franklin sat in his office, sipping coffee and trying to make some progress in the mountain of paperwork in front of him. A knock disturbed him.

"Come in." He said, grateful for the distraction.

Professor Noel entered, carrying a small sheaf of papers. Franklin groaned and took another sip of his coffee; it would be a long night. Noel was a tall man, the spectacle he wore might have made him look distinguished, but the effect was undercut by the fact Noel was wearing a bathrobe. At least the man was wearing something this time. The price one paid for being a powerful precog was always lucidity, Noel did well to remember how to talk, let alone wear clothes.

"Are those the Precog reports for the next month?" Franklin asked.

"Yes. You'll be pleased to note nothing to out of the ordinary, three possible attempted kidnappings, one case of accidental arson and five fights that might result in injury or property damage on school grounds." Noel said, placing the stack on the dean's desk.

"We'll make sure none of that happens." Franklin said. "If there's nothing out of the ordinary here why did you bring the paperwork yourself? You normally ask Alisa to drop it off for you."

Noel scratched his cheek, looking a little abashed.

"It's Sophie; she made me promise to deliver a message."

Franklin pushed his chair back and relaxed a bit. Normally when Noel came in person it meant he had foreseen something truly bad, if Sophie had seen it though...

"Was she lucid when she told you this?"

"Not really." Noel said. Franklin nodded sadly. It was too much to hope that Sophie would ever be able to become lucid again, she had looked too far into the future, and her mind had permanently broken. She spent most of her time in bed, chatting quietly to herself in a language that probably didn't exist yet.

"What did she say?" Franklin asked, because Noel always took his promises seriously, and listening to a bit of cryptic babble was still better than paperwork.

"The Powers That Were are dead. The Powers That Are will destroy us. The Daughter of Death and the Dragon have begun to walk their dark path. The third of the Powers That Will is our only hope, because he is going to give fate a bloody great kick to the nuts."

"I like that last part." Franklin observed. "Normally these sorts of cryptic prophesy are very pretentious. The last one I got actually used 'thou,' I mean, who talks like that any-more?"

Noel nodded non-committal, he personally liked a bit of pretentiousness in his prophecies of doom.

"Just keep an eye out for these Powers That Are, if they are going to be a threat you'll be able to pick them up, then we'll figure out how to handle things. Your own precog power should trump Sophie's as soon as the event falls in your range." Franklin said.

"I know that, it's just that she made me promise." Noel said.

''Of course, nothing wrong with keeping a promise. Have nice night Noel.''

 

I did indeed consider writing this as a fic, it was originally going to go in creative writing, But I do like my audience feedback. I may still end up moving it, but for now it's going to be a hybrid-quest. Some updates will not end in a vote, votes that I decide are out of character will be summarily nixed.

It's actually less and roleplay game a more a joint creative venture. I'll put this information in the index so people aren't confused coming in.

For now please vote on who you want to be the view point character.

[ ] Jurric

[ ] Fel

[ ] Cal

I was originally planning a story written from the perspectives of all three, but I decided that was to complex for me.

Cal's introduction was a lot shorter, and I may go back and edit it to include more information when I have more time, but I think I got across a good idea of his powers and personality.

 

[X] Jurric

 

[X] Fel

 

[X] Fel

Interitio: Cal's part really needs another editing pass. In particular, there are a number of places where you seem to have gotten confused between Alex's style of non-dialogue speech and normal dialogue, so you have Cal speaking with quotation marks, but the text inside is written in the 3rd-person past tense:

That should be “So, say there's a house fire, do you respond?”