Chaos in Brockton

The sky was raining chocolate and pink clouds filled the sky. The streets were lined with inflated rubber sidewalks that sent everything bouncing along their paths. The roads themselves were made of gelatin and the cars upon them carved from fruit. From your position sitting on a floating anvil, you smiled. Your power was incredible, even time itself bent to your will! You could let off steam like this and then reverse time to make it like you’d never let loose.

At first you’d gone mad after all, Emma and her cronies had taken your mother's flute. You couldn’t let that pass. So you lashed out and managed to surprise them. With their backs turned to you’d pushed yourself and your bullies down the stairs. When the flute fell off out of Sophia's bag you snatched it and ran.

You managed to lead them on a merry chase across the building before doubling back to the schools entrance. You were almost to the door when Sophia tackled you to the floor and Emma ran up to grab the flute only to be stop by her mother’s voice. Standing a few feet away near the lockers were Emma’s parents, her sister and principal Blackwell.

Emma tried to lie her way out, but aunt Zoe shut her down at every turn while also telling Alan to shut up when he tried to defuse the situation. Blackwell had no choice but to punish them and acknowledge that her constant complaints of bullying were true. Aunt Zoe even went so far as to forbid Emma from associating with both Madison and Sophia.

The end result Emma’s bullying ways were exposed to her family. Alan Barnes tried to press charges but his wife and oldest supported her! To know that those you considered your aunt and older sister still cared almost caused you to burst into tears.

They’d forced Emma into therapy despite her and Alan’s protests. Once misses Barnes took Alan aside his tune changed. You and bullies were all suspended for a week. You thought things would get better. Then Stalker happened, she snuck into your room and attempted to kill you.

That’s when it happened, your trigger.

Instead of laying there and allowing yourself to be hit you threw your alarm clock at her before jumping at her. You were done taking shit from people, even if you didn’t stand a chance you were gonna fight back! Then the world went plaid and smelt purple? Everything was stopped in time but you were aware.

A swirling energy was next to you. Slowly circling you before rushing into you when time came back. In that instant you felt like you needed to release something, so you did. In that single second Shadow Stalker ceased to exist. In your horror you continued to unleash unrestrained chaos into the world by the end of the day the world was a different place. Unrecognizable.

That when you discovered the other half of your power, you watched as time reversed and every bit of chaos was undone. But Stalker was still gone, you couldn’t reverse time beyond the point that Stalker ceased to exist. After that you spent close to a year living the same day over and over just practicing and mastering your power.

You’d found every villains hideout, every identity, and hung out with every Hero always reversing time afterward to do so again a new way every time. You’d met the dysfunctional family that is the Dallons and actually found someone as messed up as you, if only in a different way. Amy was a fun person to rile up, then you found her birth certificate. Her real dads name Giovanni Lavere. When she searched him she ended up finding Marquis.

After that you spent a day in the birdcage just to mess with the villains within. You even had a nice chat with the Marquis over how his daughter Panacea was doing as a member of New Wave. His disapproval of them having no masks, especially when his daughter never got a choice for one, was apocalyptic.

It was fun but all things came to an end…

“This is just perfect don’t you think Emma? So much chaos everywhere and I control it all!” You direct to a floating rat in a candy cane cage. “Don’t you find this just wonderful?” You say as you snap your fingers giving the little rat her voice back.

“Taylor! If you don’t stop this you’ll end up in the birdcage! But then again a freak like you deserves to be there!”

”Been there done that already, Emma. I need new ideas not stupid ones. Then again, it’s you I’m talking to, I must be going insane! Anyway, why don’t you visit the place? You’d fit right in! Have fun!” You send her off without a care.

It was always the same with her no matter how many times you changed it up. Even restoring her old personality caused her to try and spoil your fun. Seriously those ABB gangers who broke her must have taken something even your power couldn’t bring back. It was sad, you could see the event occur through a window of chaos but couldn’t interfere. Any point before your power manifested you couldn’t change.

No matter how much you wanted too.

You can do anything, though you already had a small list of things you’ve forbidden yourself from doing. Such as bringing back the dead, zombie apocalypses were not fun dammit! You still knew you’d mess up somehow but for the first time since you got your powers you were going to move forward. You’d spent enough time repeating the same day over and over. Learning why Emma had turned had hurt but at last you’d found closure. You could move on and live your life now. Well after you forced a transfer with your powers. Just because you knew why didn’t mean you had to endure anymore.

With a snap of your fingers time reversed and the world returned to it’s old and dying self. Tomorrow, tomorrow you would go out and for the first time not undo time. A promise to yourself to move forward as a cape and clean up your home in its storm of chaos.

And maybe make a friend again… maybe.

But where to begin? Someone small time with actual power. With a snap of your fingers a laptop appeared opened to a webpage full of Brockton’s villains. You avoid the Empire and ABB for now. The Merchants wouldn’t give you much satisfaction to take down. Uber and Leet weren’t worth a lifting a finger to remove. So that left Circus and Coil…. Coin flip time!

Tails, Circus.

Heads, Coil.

………...Heads it is.

Sorry Coil but your time has come! So says Eris the cape of Chaos!

Not like removing him will do much anyway. Oh there you go tempting Murphy again! Well bring it on Murphy for you are Chaos Incarnate! Besides it’s more fun that way.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Early 1980’s

Two balls of energy slowly rotated around a the core of their earth keeping balanced with each other and subtly change things on the surface to be either more orderly or more chaotic. Keeping the balance to allow life to grow and thrive on the mudball they’d claim millennia ago as there own.

They were Order and Chaos, the primordial shapers of their world their only job to ensure life grew and thrived as long as their planet existed. It was a simple existence for the two powerful energies but it was all they ever wanted and all they’d ever needed… till now.

They felt their earth and a few others get cut of from the Grand Font, the great energy that fueled all existence cut off. They stopped their journey for the first time and Order and Chaos shot off to deal with the problem, only to run into a into something that chilled them to their cores.

Two massive beings that stank of death and decay floated in parallel to their homes dimension and were latching onto it’s mirrors in the other plains. when one of the being lost control and crashed Order shot off towards the remaining one hoping to defeat the massive being only to be simply rebuffed then absorbed, before it disappear into the beast it dislodged on of its massive scales and Chaos mourned as it’s sibling disappeared into the beast. Grabbing the scale with its power it analyzed and usurp control of the scale and then set about searching, searching for one capable of wielding it;s power Chaos and Order were forbidden from acting against any life form directly, it’s what caused Order to be rebuffed. Though it could be forgiven the monstrosity certainly didn't seem like any living being hey seen or created before.

But now Chaos was alone and couldn’t do anything…. Without a host. It would bring the scale along, with Chaos having usurp and removed it’s limiters it would be a useful tool for it’s host once found.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was thirty cycles later that it found a suitable host, a young female who while more aligned with Destruction then Chaos but it had been too long already the planet it's sworn to protect was slowly dying the longer it wait the more death and destruction would happen and Chaos could no longer allow that.

So taking the scale with it appeared before it’s chosen host and plunged into her soul and quickly filled it with Chaos, and then the scale attached to the host violently removing a preatached scale and connected.

Then your new host unleashed her power for the first time, it was then you saw what had drawn you to this host. Her alignment shifted just slightly from Escalation to Chaotic Escalation.

And the world went plaid.

 

She hadn’t bothered to leave her house today, there were more important things to do such as securing her transfer. Using her powers on her computer to pull the names and numbers of the people she needed to contact in return for unleashing a few rather fun little viruses, she floated down her stairs on a green cloud to the phone. Blackwell would never let her go, she knew that for fact. She was sacrificial lamb for the trio, the three who brought a bit of order to Winslow, if only for the fact that they tore down anyone who got out of line so viciously and left them social outcasts. Any who managed not to buckle to their whims, found themselves in possession of illegal weapons or drugs on school property and were taken in. Well except for her, she was the special case. Her presence kept the trio occupied on her letting some minor gang activity run in the school. They pointed her out to them on the regular as tribute, just to continue on themselves in hopes of escaping the bay after school, none of them ever did though always dragged deeper into their respective hell of a gang.

But she would be free, she had a standing invitation to Arcadia and planned to use it. Blackwell had blocked her before and even got her secretary to shred a copy of her transfer papers in front of her. But they couldn't stop a transfer supported by their superiors and the transfer school both, not without being looked into for harming the education and well being of a student. Add that a few of the teachers at Arcadia were old friends of her mother and would help put pressure on Blackwell and it was practically checkmate.

“You’ve reached the office of Principal Whitney Weber of Arcadia, who am I speaking to?”

“Hello Ma’am, my names Taylor Hebert. I should be in your records as a student who can transfer in on a Work Scholarship, I’m calling in to activate the transfer. My current school is no longer an acceptable learning environment for me, and since it’s a standing offer I’d like to accept and transfer in at the earliest time possible.” you reply, keeping yourself professional, even as your inner nature rebelled and turned the loaf of bread on the counter into a pile of jawbreakers.

“I see please hold as I verify your information.” a snap and anything against your story changed to match it, and caused a rather late northern wind to blow through New York state with a small snowstorm.

“I see here that you originally declined, may I ask what’s changed recently?”

“Of course you may, and it’s rather simple really my belongings have been stolen from my locker on many occasions and my textbooks and homework have been ruined almost every three weeks, which has caused my grade point average to drop to below my true abilities. I wish to leave before it does permanent damage to my academic prospects.” you state simply.

“Hmm, the earliest I could transfer you in is in two weeks with some students coming in from outta state, is that acceptable?”

“Of course, I can wait a few days, though I have attempted this before however Principal Blackwell didn’t let it go through. Is it possible for me to not need to inform her personally about the transfer. Or will that cause a problem?”

“What do you mean by blocking your transfer?”

“Please note I have no official proof of this only my word, I’ve attempted twice to transfer officially using my work scholarship, the first time I was denied due to the papers going missing, the second time was when I knew I had to call you or the school board to facilitate the transfer” keeping yourself from acting out was getting harder. You needed to move things along and make a bit of true chaos soon.you let off a bit of pressure by making a sinkhole appear under a warehouse that belonged to he E88. They wouldn’t miss the heavy armory they stored there surely. ” I’d stopped to pick up my book which had slipped from a hole in my bag only to witness the secretary putting the transfer papers I’d just hand over into a paper shredder.”

“That… how is that… sigh. I’ll see about making your transfer stick, and don’t do anything reckless. If you give them any ammunition they can use to stop this it’ll be on you so no skipping school, attend your classes and behave, and by the time they realize what’s happening they won’t be able to stop it. Understood miss Hebert.”

“Perfectly ma’am.”

“If all goes well I’ll see you in my office in two weeks. Now I must be going.” and the phone cut off. A few uses of your power ensured everything would go well on that end in exchange for the ice cream machine being filled with tootie fruity and coconut instead of vanilla and chocolate.

But now you had a problem, one week of Winslow. That you had to be a model student for, could you go to the birdcage instead. It was much more civilized there with Marquis, Teacher and Glastine in basic ‘control’.

At least you were suspended currently which meant you could relax for a bit….. Naw!

Time to go out as Eris.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vicky was not having a good day. Why?

Because thrown through a wall by a double helix of light, and it was just plain annoying. She was invincible so it didn’t hurt, the problem was Ames was nearby healing some people who couldn’t get away after Purity and Oni Lee started fighting it out near the downtown mall. Sigh, all you wanted to do was a little sisterly bonding where you basically play dress up on Amy. Well at least that’s what would end up happening after you’d pulled her out of the hospital out of worry about her social life.

Now she was stuck playing tag with an artillery laser cannon and a suicide bomber, with her venerable sister nearby. Life sucked sometimes.

Then a fluffy pink cloud surrounded the blaster, wait… WHAT!

Pink clouds were forming in the sky everytime Purity tried to move in any direction more clouds stuck to her. Taking to the air you find the source of the clouds, lying down on one of the larger clouds was a girl in a black dress and simple black domino mask, long black hair and piercing green eyes look at Purity in amusement as she struggled to escape the fluffiness.

“Really now blasting away like that in a populated area such a shameful display. Somebody needs a timeout.” and with a snap of her finger the clouds on Purity changed shape into cage with a timer of five minutes on the lock. As well a glowing pink diaper now on her costume.

You bring your phone out and take a picture of Purity. You were definitely gonna post that on PHO later.

But first where had the Oni gone? This new cape seemed to be able to handle Purity well enough so you should fight him. But you didn’t see him anywhere. A screech from the civilians drew your attention to them only to see collapsing Oni clones dropping grenades among the group your sister was helping.

Then you saw what looked like a golden apple appear in the crowd that draw the grenades toward it before changing into a jelly like substance that shook every time one of them exploded form within. You fell to your knee in relief and noticed Oni had done a runner after that stunt but that Purity was still in her cage.

You saw the new cape disappear in a shower of chocolate sprinkles as you got to your sister you’d have to thank that girl next time.

 

Taylor floated through the sky in deep thought, she’d hadn’t wanted to get involved in that fight. At the same time though she couldn’t let Amy die, she had let the fight play out without interfering and not only had Panacea died. Glory girl went nuts, she stopped caring about her surroundings completely and threw Purity through the malls floor. Suffice to say Purity didn’t survive that either, though what happened next surprised her greatly. Oni lee ported back into the fight with gas grenades, mustard gas grenades…

She had no idea why things had gone that crazy, it was as if her being there just caused it all to escalate. Luckily she’d interfered enough that Oni lee ran and Purity was caught, though if she wasn’t mistaken she looked just a little plumper than her pictures online showed. Wasn’t the camera supposed to add weight not remove it?

Anyway now people knew she existed, which meant Coil knew she existed…

Things just got harder, Coil was one of the few in the bay she couldn’t afford to play around with unless she held all the aces, and he was caught off guard. She still remembered the time she went up against him in her loop days. His power was a soft counter to both aspects of hers, he could predict and move through her chaos, a well as somehow always knowing when she reversed time, when she did it within thirty feet of him.

Luckily he was only a soft counter she could still beat him if she went hard, trouble was she was trying to be a hero and heroes played with the kiddy gloves on. So how to win without escalating too much and being branded a villain for her methods, without abusing time travel?

This was gonna take a while.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amy was both annoyed and happy, why?

Her sister hadn’t left her side since the fight, hovering protectively behind or next to her. Really if it hadn’t been for the fact that she’d almost died earlier today it would have been a pretty perfect day, and she would fully enjoy this. But she had almost died and thus she couldn’t enjoy this because her sister’s face was still showing her worry.

“Vicky, just calm down already. I’m fine, that new cape saved the crowd and I, you don’t need to beat yourself up about this.”

“But that fight only got that bad when I joined in, if it wasn’t for the new cape I’d have lost you… it was my fault you were even there. I dragged you along when you’d said no and almost lost you for it.”

That was the problem, she didn’t mind Vicky dragging her along to the mall or some other place, it was only the heavy weight on your shoulders from not healing others constantly that stopped you from dropping everything to join her whenever she asked. Sadly you couldn’t tell her this it’d only make the problem worse.

“Look everything turned out fine, so there no point in what ifs. Let’s just- I don’t know, go out for milkshakes or something.”

“I can’t understand how you’re so calm about this Ames, you almost died!”

“But I didn’t and that’s what matters, so let’s drop this topic and do something to get your mind off i-”

“Ames it’s the new cape!” she was pointing at a sole pink cloud currently floating in the sky black strands of hair dangling off the edge of it.

Before you could even respond you were lifted up in your sister arms and ferried upward. Great, just great. Now you’re gonna have to deal with an unknown along with your sister, just great.

“Vicky! We don’t know anything about her besides that she seems to be a new hero, so don’t just get to close and be prepared to run. You know Carol would not be happy if you are involved another incident today.”

“Come on Ames there no way something else will happen toda-” and you were falling. Why were you falling!

Finding your sister while falling wasn’t easy but you saw her and new girl getting harassed by Crusader’s ghosts and Fog in is breaker state. Looks like Purity’s faction was out for revenge and you were probably the message. God dammit.

A glitter of gold catches your eye and you see a golden apple falling alongside you, remembering the last one activating when it hit the ground you are fast to grab it then bite down as hard as you could. Feeling something at your back tear open and getting a glance at your back you see a pair of brown spotted wings.

Seriously! Well no choice now, the grounds getting close and you had no time to freak out at the wings. Spreading your new wings you felt yourself decelerating but the ground was still getting closer way to fast, so you gave a fear filled flap and suddenly found yourself going back into the air. A few gentler flaps and your now hovering at about five miles above the ground.

You suddenly found yourself hit by the blonde missile that is Vicky and see that Fog was trapped in some clear ball and Crusader was retreating flanked by his ghosts. The new cape’s cloud had turned into a floating throne, and was facepalming while looking at you.
“You weren’t supposed to eat the apple just hit it, just so you know those wings are permanent now. I don’t use my powers on people directly so you’re stuck with them.” she said.

“Why not?” and there goes Vicky. You were starting to get use to the wings, so you didn’t mind keeping them. Beside you’d already guessed the answer, it was the same reason you didn’t touch brains, to many things could go wrong and after seeing her powers in action a second time you were sure that her power was to cast random but useful effects for the situation and the apples were probably a stronger or weaker but somewhat controllable item she could create.

“My power is chaos, literal chaos. You don’t want that kind of energy running through your body. Besides Panacea isn’t complaining. Oh! By the way, the name’s Eris. Anyway I’m gonna get back to my nap at home this time no need to tempt fate again today.”

A green swirling portal appeared behind her followed by her flipping off her throne into it, a few seconds later it closed and the throne exploded into butterflies.

Sigh, “let go home Vicky, I gonna have to explain the wings to Carol.” that would be fun…. Not.

A/N: and cross posting done, also found on Spacebattles

 

You collected some of your chaos into another apple before placing it in the rift next to you with the others, you’d started making more of your apples as soon as you got home. It was a boring task but kept you from losing too much control, that first day had shown what happened when you let loose and you wanted to prevent that unless necessary. After all even if the world was bad and getting worse introducing that much chaos at once would just make things worse. Besides, it was relaxing shaping chaos into an orderly form that could do anything based on outside stimulus. You’d already checked in on Panacea through a pinhole sized warp hole to make sure the apple hadn’t done anything else but add wings, it had but nothing bad really. Hollowed out bones and stronger but thinner muscles along her back and shoulders was the extent really besides the wings, the leftovers of the apple had apparently chosen her new additions based on a very buried but pure desire to fly alongside her sister so it had granted said desire.

The fact your apples could tell that kind of thing honestly scared you a bit, it was like your energy was sentient. But this meant you had to be more careful than you were gonna be initially, you’d originally planned to throw the apples around like grenades at the villains but now… now you weren’t sure about that. What if they granted some dark desire the villains had? What if the villain caught and ate one like Amy had? What if they decided to spawn some dangerous creature once making contact with the ground? To many variables to take into account so you’d have to use them sparingly.

“Okay so to go out again or stay inside for the rest of the day?”

There was no choice really. Redonning your cape costume you summon your cloud and open a void into the sky, you notice a few color changes to your rooms walls as you leave.

“I really need to find a way to fix this excess issue.”

That had been one of you originally reason for the apples, to get the extra energy stored away in a dormant state to keep you at a controllable level. It only helped a little, whenever anything caused any sort of chaos your energy spiked and you had to make more apples. Maybe make a tree instead to constantly send the energy to?

Something for another day maybe, for now time to search till just before dinner. Didn’t want Dad to find out, yet. Not till you could guarantee he wouldn’t stick you in the wards on pure panic and parental incentive. You knew you could convince him, you’d done so in your loops. You also knew that you could fix your relationship with your Dad but that needed to be done slowly.

*Bang*

Ah Brockton Bay’s constant gunfights, you could set your clock to them at time. Veering closer you could make out a group of Merchants trying to fight a group of E88 mooks, the mooks were obviously winning because of their automatics vs the druggies hand guns. You start reaching for an apple before stopping yourself and snapping instead turning their guns into bread-rolls and their shoes to cement connected to the sidewalk and street.

“That should do it.”

*crash*

“Shitstains, don’t motherfucking stop fighting! Throw fucking shit at ‘em!”

Skidmark? What was he doing here and how the heck did you miss him and his stink! Seriously you could smell him from up here now that you seen him.

“And you bitch! Get down here so I can kick your ugly, skinny ass!”

A portal above his feet sent a single apple down and caused him to be swallowed up in rock candy up to his head.

“Hmm no. Why don’t you take a candy break instead, I second thought maybe not with teeth that bad you might lose them and make yourself look uglier than now druggie.”

That was fun and easy. At least till your cloud pops and you have to summon another to dodge the incoming fire from nowhere! Where were these bullets coming from!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Assault and Dauntless ran quickly to the gunfight after having been alerted to it by console. To be honest Assault wasn’t looking forward to this he’d just been sofa’d by his wife yesterday and then gotten told off for a joke he’d made on his PHO account by the PR department the day before.

He was certain he was also gonna get flak for his newest post of giving Panacea the nickname of the Angel of Brockton after seeing her new wings in action on the cell recording someone posted online. He’d already gotten somewhere around 78 likes for it last he checked, but would it matter to PR or Piggot… Nope!

They were just past the last corner when the shots abruptly stop for a second before what sounds like a machine gun starts. You rush forward to see the new cape dodge on her cloud trying to find the source of the bullets, the regular gang member and Skidmark having already been caught. Girl did good work really, you could admire it later though for now you had to help her out. You see Dauntless fire a bolt of lightning in the general direction of the source and see the outline of a truck for a second before charging.

The driver had tried to start driving away only to run into you as you turned its momentum against it hold it steady you see two apples drop one hit the vehicle and turned it to paper the second you snatch and place in an evidence pouch you had attached to your waist Piggy wouldn’t be so mad if you brought one in for the techs to study.

Dauntless wadded into the paper to handcuff Squealer as the new girl floated away on her cloud.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Assault had brought in one of the new capes apples for the tech teams it was your job as Coils mole to get a hold of it and bring it to him for study. It wasn’t like you liked being in this position, but he had your family being watched by his soldiers and really he paid you more than your job as a tech assistant. You’d somehow managed to get ahold of it and were in the process of extraction when you got word.

“W-what d-did y-you say?”

“Sorry Fillmore the bullets from Squealers tank had lost enough momentum above your house and fell through, they were the 12.7’s the weight of them at terminal velocity managed to pierce the roof and rain down on your family. By the time people noticed the holes it was too late. Sor-”

You ignore the rest and rush out of the building towards your truck, it took it’s time to start up but you were on your way to the home hoping that they’d survived or that it was a different house, and they’d been mistaken. But when you got there you saw the truth, the holes in the thin roof, and the bloodstains in different parts of the house.

As you fell to your knees the suitcase holding the apple fell to ground and opened, it’s glistening golden glow shining in a mocking state to your emotions. But then you remember, the capes that had been fighting Squealer were Assault and the new girl Eris. They hadn’t stopped her in time and Coil, his men were always watching his house but they didn’t lift a finger to save his family, this was their fault… The Parahumans were the cause of this!

The apple had given Panacea wings, could it give you something too…

You lifted the apple to your lips and bit down, the next moment Fillmore was gone and a superhuman was born.

He would have revenge.

Purple lighting jumped from his new pale skin setting everything ablaze, where once a middle-aged black man stood, a pale skinned Titan wreathed in purple lightning now floated.

 

Piggot

You rushed to your office in the middle of the night barking orders to the rushing staff members, not only had the Golden Apple disappeared earlier that day but now someone had slaughtered a Merchant crack-house and left a barely living Mush the lone survivor. Even that was only because he’d managed to drag himself into their drug stash half dead and drugged himself into a coma to survive.

You barge into the meeting room all the heroes but Velocity and Triumph being the two still on site at the disaster were here to deliver their reports.

“What Happened.”

Armsmaster started off.

“At around midnight we received reports of what sounded like lightning strikes on a storm less night. This lasted for only five minutes before Velocity got there a minute later and called in the scene the culprit already gone. Onsite examiners confirmed that sudden large bursts of electricity was the cause of death. They also confirmed that it wasn’t a weapon that did this.”

“How.”

“Electricity fired from a weapon leaves large blackened areas on impact but the contact points on the victims are more consistent with natural lightning strikes. In fact if this had happened during a storm we’d have to call it an act of nature, it’s only because of the fact that there was no storm and that no scorch marks elsewhere that this was confirmed to be a parahuman attack.”

“Anything else.”

Assault spoke up this time.

“Yeah, confirmed just before we started the meeting. Whoever this is they’re a mover, the building was still locked up. We had to bust down the doors to get in, but the culprit didn’t and the techs found out how. This guy can travel through the electrical wires, there was evidence of this in two fried electrical sockets in the room. An entry point and an exit. Whoever they are got in, killed them, than escaped before any of them could draw their weapons or alert the others.”

That was troubling, if they could move through any wire them the only safe places in the city were the Rig, Brocken General, and PRT headquarters. Because they could be cut of the power grid and had tinkertech generators they were defendable against this cape. But everywhere else…

This wasn’t gonna be an easy capture especially if they joined one of the gangs, they couldn’t afford to have one of the gangs gain this one. Not when they could strike form anywhere at any time.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coil
This was troubling…

That new cape wasn’t capable of being predicted by his power, the electric mover could strike at any time and he couldn’t get a read on him. He knew who it was, it was obvious, his old ‘employee’ hadn’t brought in the Apple. The Power granting Apple. Alongside the very recent accident, which was truly an accident he wouldn’t have risked losing the Apple to a mistake, was a trigger event in the making. If he’d triggered than ate the Apple....

You had the information but your usual methods wouldn’t work and your was power seemingly useless. Any teams you sent out to negotiate or capture didn’t come back, your power being what it was, was the only reason you still had any. He always saw them coming somehow, and when out of sight of your merc’s body cameras, you power couldn’t predict him.

You learned this when one of your teams was retreating, every time you gave order to turn down some street or hold position he always did something different in your dropped timeline then the kept. But not in the way you’d think, he did the same move yes but every-time he got out of view the results changed. It was like he could spoof your power for lack of a better term.

“Hello Coil.”

Your eyes widen as you turn form the wall of monitors you’d been staring at that showed the parahuman that was now in your lair fighting your mercs, their voices coming through the radio in panicked screams as he danced around them. But he was in your office, how?

“Welcome back, Fillmore. I take it that this isn’t a social or business visit.” you cancel your timeline and open a new one, in one you stay sitting in the other you draw you hidden pistol and shot. The bullet doesn’t reach as your timeline breaks. You crash against your monitors a red mark like spiderwebs on your now exposed side, where your hidden holster use to be.

“None of that now Coil. I can see your every action and thought before your conscious of them. The very nerves within you give everything away. Though that power of yours is quite a gem, a split consciousness that allows two actions with your body going along with the one you’d chose. I was right to come for you early, you're too dangerous to live with an ability like that.”

You try to split the timelines again while attempting to run away in one only for the body still sitting to be blasted again breaking your timeline. Not good.

“Now now Fillmore can’t we come to some type of deal?”

You needed time to thin-ZAPPPZ

“Arghh!”

“No.”

You feel every nerve in excruciating pain as you try to regain control of your body. When it suddenly stops, you see a mini lightning rod in front of you .

“Hey now haven’t you ever heard its not nice to kill people. I'm gonna have to bring you in now, and save a person I was planning to arrest today."

Floating casually above the new addition to your office is a girl in a green dress and mask, glowing emerald eyes stare down at Fillmore with obvious mirth. Another two bolts fly one hits the rod the other hits a snake pinata that’s replaced the girl.

“That wasn’t very nice mister…”

“Electron and thank you for saving me the time having to look for you. Two of five targets here, must be my lucky day.”

And then the room exploded in lights.

 

Taylor

‘This guy is fast’ was the main thought going through your mind right now.

Every time he attacked at first you were able to change the bolt into something harmless and funny, but he kept getting faster. Coil had long since ran when the two of you started ripping through the building in your attempts to hit each other, he was just to fast and you too chaotic in your movements for either of you to land a blow. At least against each other, the building on the other hand…

You barely dodged another bolt and unleash a wave of pure chaos towards your opponent only for him to disappear into a socket and come outta one behind you, the chaos hitting the wall and turning it into pieces of rice. You call a throne into existence behind you to take another bolt while you drifted into the air.

‘Okay he’s too fast for me to hit and eventually the damage to the area is gon-’ your thoughts are cut off as a lighting bolt hit you from behind. ’What!’ teleporting yourself to a nearby roof you look on in increasing horror as more of the guy start appearing form every socket and power-line around you. ‘You gotta be kidding me!’

A quick count and you find yourself facing over 50 of the guys with more still appearing from everywhere, shit.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coil

You ran.

You ran like hell, your power helping you survive as you split and ended timelines like a madman. Even still you barely keep ahead of the clones pursuing you shooting out any electrical sockets as you went. Fillmore apparently needed them intact to use them for travel, that was a weakness you could exploit.

Well so long as you didn’t run out of ammo…

Ducking into the building motor-pool your timeline splits as one of you heads for a car while the other jumps on a motorbike, as the car one explodes in an electric powered fireball the bike slips just ahead of the bolt. You were now safe…

Is that one of your armored military jeeps? Yes it is, and it had no driver yet was still following you. BULLSHIT! Why the hell did a power tester get such a versatile power, it was fucking bullshit! Another split one with you continuing down the road and another using a leaning board as a ramp to jump into an alley. Alley you exploded into sparks and flame as you dodge the mounted turret on your van by inches.

Why the hell did you buy one with a turret again?!

You turn a corner only to curse and jump off the bike as a second vehicle without a driver crashed into it, rolling to a stop and running with all the speed you could muster. You needed a plan!!!!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amy

You had been right.

Carol was displeased with the wings, luckily Mark had apparently been having a good day and convinced her to leave it be unless it became a problem. He had also made you plan training sessions to get used to them, which meant you were gonna get pulled out of your hospital run early today to practice.

You, for once, couldn’t wait.

Flying in the sky with Vicky had always been enjoyable, but now you’d be able to fly besides her. The thought brought a smile to your face, but it also brought up the fact that your feelings for her as anything more than a sister were gone. You’d had that rather shocking revelation late last night when you’d been thinking about the day you had. You think it was the Apple, Eris had said it was pure chaos in solid form and you could believe it, why?

Because of the pun…

She’d been a caged bird, locked up in her feelings for her sister and her never-ending duty to heal the injured and sick. But now she was free, free from the feelings, free from the need to heal everyone, even the feeling of wanting to upgrade people was gone. The chaos had wiped it away, Eris had said it best ‘ there was nothing wrong with her all she did was grow wings’ she only missed the tiny detail she couldn’t of known.

You were finally feeling like your own person.

Your thoughts were cut off as you heard a loud zap a few rooms ahead of you, in the secure rooms for gang members…

Not even thinking about it you walk forward grabbing a loose feathers from your that you harden and sharpen, opening the door you see a yellow man now standing over the corpses of the merchants that were brought in yesterday. His locked into you and you had to change your to a thin sheet of rubber to block a bolt aimed at your heart.

You should have thought this through more…

The next moment using your new sheet of rubber to block as fast as you could while pulling more feathers and adding them to the growing rubber shield. You really shoulda thought this through!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Piggot

You were in your office when the calls came in, dozens upon dozens of an electric yellow cape in multiple places attacking gang members and parahumans with impunity. Another update and apparently even PANACEA was in an ongoing fight in the halls of the hospital with this cape, you didn’t even know she could fight!

This was a disaster and you were trying to find a way to fix it.

It was only your old instincts that allowed you to drop to the floor as an electric bolt passed by where your head had been.

“Good instincts Director Piggot.” that voice…

“Fillmore, just so you know this level of attack will get you a kill order.” you stare into the capes eyes unflinching as the glowing yellow orbs bore into your own.

“Let them come I’ll be done when they arrive.”

As a bolt headed to you ducked behind your desk and rip out your drawer, taking hold of the pistol and a little surprise.
Loading as you stood you fired at the yellow cape who just stood there, too bad for him.

“GAAHHH!” his hand go to his chest as blue lighting leaked from his body. “What is thi-”

You cut him off as you shoot his head and cause the clone to dissipate.

“Never underestimate the PRT.” you say as you lower your rubber bullet filled magnum.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/n: next time part two

 

Taylor


‘Well it’s official this cape is hella annoying.’


You dodge another grouping of bolts only to find another waiting for you, which allowed another five to hit before you escaped higher into the air. This was not going well anytime you managed to take out down another five took its place, what had once been fifty had turn into somewhere near two hundred. Not that you keep count anymore.


From your new height you saw battles all over the city, gang members and villains fighting back as hard as they could against literal waves of yellow. It looked like guns had been abandoned a while ago, as most had wrapped their hands and body in whatever rubber they could find and were fighting alongside their capes in melee.


You had to dodge another attack this time of fire as the only other cape you saw with a group bigger than yours, continued to rampage against thousands of clones. Lung was already half the size of Medhall and you could still see him struggling as the clones started to merge their attacks to match his power. Heck the only cape you’d seen not struggling in this fight was Oni Lee who just keep teleporting and causing explosions everywhere in support of anyone against the clones. Looks like everyone must’ve come to a city-wide consensus to take care of this problem as you saw PRT giving cover fire for some gangsters charging in with makeshift rubber weapons.


Sending a few bolts of chaos into the swarm of clones, you started leading them towards Lung.You had a plan! Or at least a possible plan! Maybe…


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fillmore


32...


33…


Only 34 more confirmed members left that weren’t teenagers…


But get them all..


Your family was gone…


Your job was no longer something you could do with pride, not since Coil got his grips into you. He’d come for you when your firstborn was in the hospital, he’d been deemed to far along. Then Coil offered you a chance.


36...


Transfer to Brockten and he’d put them on Panacea’s path on her next sweep of Brockton General, he’d even cover the transfer fees. All only if you’d work as his spy…


Data on all the Wards and Protectorates hero powers, all there equipment specs, their training, their console frequency…


So much you had given that snake in return…


He’d even had begun putting some guards on them when you feared they’d be attacked by the Empire because of you…


38...


Only for the merchants to take them away…


After you’d lied to them…


You said you’d been called in for some extra work, that you had to miss the outing you and your wife had planned. That your wonderful wife had rearranged plans so the three of you could do it the next day.


You completed your mission, but Karma had apparently decided it was time to pay up.


40...


Your family was gone and had been killed by collateral fire…


On a day and time they shouldn’t have been there, where you all were suppose to spend the day together as a family…


Taken away by Coil demand and Merchant stupidity…


44…


You’d wipe them out…


The Merchants would disappear today…


And Coil would fry…


45-


What The Hell!


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Taylor


Dodging through Lungs flames reduce your groups numbers by at least a third, and you were getting closer to your goal.


Now you just had to avoid getting zapped long enough to get there! Or get enough time to portal there.


Flying toward the street you started weaving around the buildings and getting ever closer to your target, close enough to begin your plan. You poured chaos into your hands compressing it as much as you could, that’s when you saw it, the bay.


Bringing the two highly compressed orbs in front of you set them in opposite directions and bring them together as you reach the water.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Aegis


You were rushing around trying to get civilians out of the line of fire, dodging bolts of light from three clones as you searched. You’d been hit a few times but your powers aloud you to continue for now, you’d managed to lose your pursuers and were restarting your search when a bright light went off in the bay.


As your recovered enough to see, you saw huge clouds of steam rising to the sky, and gathering into dark clouds. Before they let lose a deluge across the bay. You saw your pursuers spot you but just as they charged the first droplets of rain hit them.


‘BzzzttBBBBzzZZZTTT!’


And all at once the popped like balloons.


Accepting your good fortune you got back into your job of finding civilians.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fillmore


YOUR CLONES!!!


How!


But there was still so many merchants to remove!


Coil!


Turning your attention to the clone closet to Coil only got you a headache as he shot your clone head with a rubber bullet. The disorientation caused you to connect to the next still functioning clone only to see Panacea fly into it with a hard rubber spear and into the window behind your clone and into the rain.


More and more of your clones were being slaughtered now that it was raining, rubber covered gang members literally dragging them into the rain and around the city more and more people were finding heavy and sharp rubber objects to fight back with.


This was a disaster!


You needed to retake control of the fight!


Standing up from the cities central power generator you began to draw as much power as you could into yourself, your porcelain flesh sparked with purple lighting and you began to float. The cities entire grid drained into your body and you got ready for a fight.


But first this rain had to go.


It took you only a second to get above the clouds, and another to gather the electricity into a tiny orb that you let gently fall into the ongoing storm. A bright flash and thunderous boom rang out, as a dome of electrical energy poured across the city and sky.


The storm was gone now to resummon you clones and finis-


Pain!


You sail across the sky trying to look back at your assilent only for her to appear below you and strike you again with a cartoonishly large mallet.


“You’ve caused quite a mess, but now it’s over come quietly and I won’t have to beat you up”


That voice…


It belonged to that new cape…


The cape that battled the Merchant’s and dodged the bullets that killed your family…


Reason left you and you charged the hero.