NOVEL WEB Chapter 422: 10
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Rating:
Explicit
Archive Warnings:
Graphic Depictions Of ViolenceUnderage Sex
Categories:
F/FGenOtherF/M
Fandoms:
Warhammer 40.000Worm - Fandom
Characters:
Taylor Hebert | Skitter | WeaverSherrel Bailey | SquealerEmma Barnes (Parahumans)Undersiders (Parahumans)Lisa Wilbourn | TattletaleAmy Dallon | Panacea | Red Queen
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Alt-Power Taylor HebertVillain Taylor HebertPsyker Taylor HebertEarth Bet is a shitholeThe slope is steep and well lubricatedTaylor's boots have poor tractionPsychic AbilitiesPsychic ViolencePsychic BondPsychic MindfuckeryDubious Consent?Power PerversionPsychokinetic Tentacles
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English
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Published:2023-09-20Completed:2025-01-28Words:289,573Chapters:27/27Comments:1,733Kudos:3,414Bookmarks:853Hits:236,851
A Ruinous Gift
Noodlehammer
Chapter 10: Escalation
Notes:
Thanks go to Alvor for helping polish the chapter up.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
March 21st, 2011. Very early in the morning.
Oni Lee had not returned. That fact gnawed away at Lung's mind.
There was no reason for it. His assassin had last been seen teleporting onto that wretched upstart's tinkertech vehicle before quickly teleporting away. At the time, Lung had thought that he had simply been stymied in his initial attack and would soon return, but that had proven to not be the case. Oni Lee had disappeared.
There had been no reports of him fighting and no one had seen him. He had simply vanished.
It made no sense. Oni Lee was utterly obedient to him and would not have deserted. His continued absence could only mean that he had been captured or killed, and yet…
Oni Lee was not weak and his power troublesome to counter. He had been in Brockton Bay longer than Lung and had been fending off the Protectorate and the Empire and many others for all that time. The idea that he could be taken quietly boggled the mind.
Could he have deserted? Oni Lee had once been the leader of the local Yakuza before being subjugated by the dragon.
Psyker and her Black Hand was still making a nuisance of herself. Her people drove by in their tinkertech vehicles, sometimes menacing his minions. There had also been reports about that freak, Circus, stealing cars and motorcycles.
If Oni Lee had been here, he would have sent him to take care of it, but he was not.
Lung would not be baited into another trap, even as his rage mounted along with the insults. He would have to take Psyker alive, so that he could thoroughly educate her on why one did not disrespect the dragon.
The rage left his sleep uneasy, which was why the scuffle of a shoe against the floor was enough to wake him. Springing out of bed, he prepared to kill the intruder, only to be brought up short by the sight of the familiar demon mask.
"Lee, where have you been?" Lung demanded angrily, not really expecting a response.
The former leader of the local Yakuza was obedient, but his silence was his way of showing Lung his displeasure at being subjugated. He had not spoken a word in years.
To his surprise, Oni Lee did respond, if not with words. He lifted a hand, in which he held a paper airplane, and sent it gliding.
Lung glared at the ridiculous thing and snatched it out of the air before it could collide with his forehead. "This had better be good." he growled.
He's mine now,
Psyker.
The message was short and extremely to the point. The upstart's insults knew no bounds.
"LEE!" Lung roared, preparing to slay his traitorous subordinate
Oni Lee pulled out his gun and fired.
Lung's roar took on a pained tone as the bullets ripped through his manhood. He stumbled forward with flaming hands and reached for the other cape. He tore through nothing but ash and was reminded of how he had defeated Oni Lee in the first place – by threatening his far less mobile underlings and forcing him to surrender.
Lung roared again, in frustration as much as pain. He wouldn't be able to do the same thing this time. If he knew where to find Psyker or her people, he would have gone after them already.
And his carpet was on fire.
His phone rang as he was trying to stamp it out and he answered it with a snarl, utterly furious at his still regenerating crotch."What?"
"Hello, Lung. Did you like my present?" A familiar and hated voice asked coolly.
Lung snarled and briefly took the phone away from his ear to check the screen, having neglected to do so before in his rage. The call was coming from his main Yakuza underling.
"Psyker." He ground out. "How did you turn Oni Lee against me?"
That still bothered him.
There was a moments pause before the infuriating girl chuckled in amusement. "Are you telling me that you haven't realized all this time?"
"Realized what?!" he demanded.
"Oni Lee has been an empty shell for a long time. He only obeyed you out of habit." She answered, still annoyingly amused. "I just had to give him a different order in Japanese and he obeyed just as readily. Of course, I've since closed that loophole."
Deciding to push aside that revelation for now, Lung focused on the matter at hand. "I am coming to kill you."
If she really was where the call implied she was, then he could be there in a matter of minutes.
"You don't have the balls." Psyker mocked, making his mangled crotch throb at the literal truth of the statement.
If he was sufficiently ramped up, he could have regenerated in seconds, but Oni Lee's brief presence wasn't enough for that and he was already fading. He needed a fight or it would take hours to regain his manhood.
"You are the one who flees from battle!" He snarled.
"There is more than one type of battle." She retorted and dropped the call.
Lung restrained himself from crushing the cell phone in his grip. He was going to need it to call his underlings. Psyker was deep in ABB territory right now and they could still box her in.
XXXXX
Taylor turned off the cell phone and dropped it into one of her pockets, figuring that it may be of use later.
"So, is Lung coming?" Lodestone asked, just outside the window, head peeking out of the mass of sand that made up his body currently.
"He's just barely changed his pants." She chuckled, amused at having shot his balls off.
Taylor was still watching the rage dragon through her puppet body, ready to distract him if he moved ahead of schedule.
"This feels way too easy." He shook his head.
"When you have the right information and the right plan, it always does."
Angry mumbling drew her attention to the ABB's Yakuza boss, zip-tied and duct-taped at her feet. His gelled hair and white suit were askew, rather ruining the image he had been going for. That tended to happen when you got tasered.
"Don't worry, Nishimura-kun, we won't leave you here to face Lung by yourself." Taylor told him, deliberately using a diminutive and overly familiar honorific. After all, very soon, she would know him better than anyone had ever known him. He might even become part of her, forever.
The man's office/condo were a floor above a Japanese-style hostess club not too far away from the Ruby Dreams casino. Zheng Jie had known about it, and now so did she.
Although it was a hostess club in name only. From her brief research, the eponymous hostesses of these kinds of clubs were supposed to be some kind of modern day geisha, acting as waitresses, singers, and offering flirty conversation. Sex wasn't unheard of, but it wasn't supposed to be the main draw. There were male versions as well.
The Brockton Bay version was little better than a strip club and brothel.
Still, it wasn't a place she would have been comfortable storming, given how much potential for civilian casualties there were. Instead, she'd had Lodestone lift her up to the second floor directly from the hidden parking lot in the back of the building. Said parking lot was used exclusively by the ABB and had no sight lines on it because that part of the club was the 'backstage' area, and thus had no windows on the ground floor through which they might have been noticed.
She and Nishimura were returned to ground level the same way. The Yakuza boss stared with outraged eyes at the half dozen men currently in the process of hotwiring some fairly expensive motorcycles.
As it turns out, a lot of ABB thugs loved motorcycles. By pure coincidence, so did Sherrel. The obvious solution was to engage in some grand theft auto on top of the kidnapping.
Taylor had just stuffed Nishimura into the passenger seat of his own fancy convertible sports car and buckled him in, when the creak of rusty door hinges alerted them that they were about to have company.
A scantily-dressed Asian girl stepped out of the back door, a cigarette between her lips and her eyes down as she tried to squeeze a flame out of a nearly empty lighter. Taylor immediately reached out to grab the girl's mind, but as luck would have it she was not one of those that immediately latched on.
A couple of seconds later, the girl suddenly froze and slowly lifted her eyes, taking in the sight of the half dozen Black Hand normals stealing bikes, the giant sand monster, her clearly abducted boss, and Taylor herself. The cigarette fell out of her mouth and her eyes went wide.
Taylor could have just mentally dominated the girl. At this point her telepathy was strong enough to do that on the weak-willed. There was no need, however. Their job here was done and even this could be used to their advantage.
Thousands of mental iterations had used those few seconds to contemplate options, the state of things across the rest of the city, potential consequences, reassess goals, and arrived at an acceptable course of action.
"Boo." Taylor deadpanned, which her tinkertech mask turned ever so slightly menacing.
The girl shrieked and bolted back inside, no doubt intending to tell everyone what she'd seen. Good.
"On the double, boys, we're about to have company. Lodestone, take a walk down the street, be menacing." She directed, sliding into the driver's seat of Nishimura's car and turning it on.
The giant sand monster drew attention as such things were wont to do. The ABB thugs patronizing the hostess club reacted predictably and started shooting at Lodestone, to absolutely no effect. The first hint of aggression had them scampering deeper into the building for cover, which in turn left them helpless to do anything but watch through the windows as their expensive bikes roared out of the hidden parking lot behind the club, followed by a shiny red convertible with their boss in the passenger seat.
The sports car had a lot more horsepower than she was used to, but it didn't take her long to get a feel for it.
-Alright, Lodestone. Time to disappear.- Taylor sent to Larry psychically as they all drove away.
-We really need to figure out something better than the sewers.- He grumbled back.
Unfortunately, he would have to put up with the indignity for a while yet. The sewers were simply too useful to discard, and the nature of his powers meant that he had an overwhelming advantage if anyone tried to follow him down there. It was pretty much impossible to fight a moving wave of sand that filled up the entire tunnel.
The fleet of bikes went one way, while Taylor went another. Oni Lee's eyes kept track of Lung for her. The rage dragon had gotten into his car – the car that he had appropriated from one of his minions to replace the Cadillac she'd wrecked – and was now tearing in their direction.
It looked like her contingency plans wouldn't be necessary. Lung was almost disappointingly predictable and careless, as one would expect of a regenerating Brute.
Slowing down so that the timing was just right, Taylor waved at him as they passed by each other in an intersection. Had he seen her on a straight stretch of road, she had no doubt that he would be willing to go for a head-on collision, regardless of the fact that it would kill his underling.
The squeal of rubber on asphalt as he made a hasty U-turn to chase her confirmed it.
Oni Lee's body followed along on the rooftops, giving her, giving her an excellent strategic overview and allowing her to avoid any other ABB vehicles rushing around like headless chickens as they tried to follow Lung's orders. She only had to use him to derail a car once.
Behind her, Lung was holding the pedal to the metal as he pursued her, clearly not concerned about road safety. Thankfully, it was the middle of the night and this part of the city had little traffic. The rare car they did pass was on the ball enough to stay out of the way.
Her captive's terrified mumbles were a nice background to the air rushing through her hair. Convertibles were fun. She would definitely have to ask Sherrel to make one once things calmed down a bit.
"I think your boss is trying to kill us both, Nishimura-kun." Taylor commented idly as she took a tight turn through a large intersection, crossing several opposing lanes in a clear violation of traffic laws.
It was necessary, because Lung would definitely ram her if she slowed down enough to do it properly. He was a pretty shitty driver, though. She actually had to slow down a few times so that she didn't lose him.
Nishimura tried to say something, but it was all just incoherent mumbling. His fear was quite delicious.
Getting an idea, she pulled out the cell phone she'd confiscated from the Yakuza boss and started calling Lung again. A part of her rebelled at doing this, but unlike her mother she could actually multitask. And she was telekinetic, which she used to control the wheel. Her eyes sparked with eldritch power as she did so.
The phone rang once, twice, three times, four times. Lung's driving visibly deteriorated as he fumbled with it and through Oni Lee, she thought she could see him swell awkwardly in the seat.
Huh, was Lung prone to road rage and did it trigger his power? Was that why he usually employed a driver? The mental image of him becoming squashed in the driver's seat as he outgrew the car because someone cut him off in traffic was pretty funny.
"What?!" He snarled into the phone.
"Have your balls grown back yet?" She asked.
"Psyker!" He roared and she was able to actually see a blast of flame light up the inside of his car both in the rear mirror and through Oni Lee's eyes.
The call also dropped at the same time, which made Taylor laugh in delight. He must have destroyed the phone in his anger. The taste of his outraged fury and the way it churned up the Empyrean was simply exquisite.
By now they had already left ABB territory and entered what was considered disputed. That meant an actual police presence, and the cops typically didn't like late night car chases.
-Call the police. Tell them that Lung is chasing someone in a car.- Taylor sent to one of her minions, also rattling off the name of the street they would soon be going through.
Calling the police instead of the PRT was a deliberate choice. Not only would it slow down the Protectorate response, but the Empire would also hear it from their moles in the police force. She had no proof that the Empire had any such moles, but she would be deeply surprised if they didn't.
Lung, of course, was too angry to think about where they were going, and probably arrogant enough to not care. He had also been too angry and careless to consider that Oni Lee might have planted something on his car. Why would he? Mere car bombs wouldn't kill him even if he wasn't ramped up.
Taylor pulled the detonator out of her coat and pressed it just as they were curving alongside the edges of the Commercial District.
The wheels on Lung's car blew off as the small bombs planted on them exploded. They weren't vehicles, but now that she wasn't just letting her power carry her through the drug haze, Sherrel could use the innate Tinker affinity for mechanics to build some small mundane devices, such as simple bombs.
The car screeched to a halt, the insides catching fire as Lung's anger once again got the better of him. Taylor waved at him as she drove off.
Lung was now stranded halfway across the city with no means of transportation or communication. He didn't even have pants, thanks to them catching fire. Even better, he was very near to what was indisputably Empire territory, with their capes and the Protectorate likely soon to arrive.
Taylor had made sure to lure him away from anywhere populated or particularly flammable. There was nothing there except an old bus stop and parking lot.
Kaiser would no doubt be pissy once he learned that she was behind it, but there was just enough ambiguity to the situation that he wouldn't be able to do too much, at least not openly. He would probably choose to spin it as 'the brave capes of the Empire fighting off the unprovoked aggression of the chink barbarian' or something like that if she had him pegged right.
That suited her just fine, especially if the Empire managed to actually kill Lung. Unlike her, they would probably be able to get away with it with minimal fuss thanks to their large cape roster and long history.
She wouldn't hold her breath about it, though.
-How are things going on your end, Gearshift?- She asked her favored minion telepathically.
-Already driving back home. - The Tinker sent back with a sense of satisfaction. -You really stirred the pot, so getting the guy was easy peasy.-
Sending mental praise in Sherrel's direction, Taylor side-eyed her captive, who had by now calmed down a little. "Don't look so glum, Nishimura-kun. If it makes you feel better, we also kidnapped your Triad counterpart."
That did actually make him feel better, go figure.
XXXXX
"You shot him in the balls!" Sherrel howled with laughter as the story was recounted to her.
The two of them had met up at an abandoned warehouse in the docks, where Nishimura's car was hidden for later processing. It would either be tinkered up or taken apart and sold. As it was, nobody had any use for a convertible, no matter how fun it was to drive.
Nishimura himself was loaded up into the tinkertech APC, along with his Triad counterpart, and they were now driving back to the lair.
"It seemed like a good way to make him angry." Taylor smirked, feeling quite pleased with herself.
"I'll bet." The Tinker continued giggling. "Man, it's hard to believe that we're shitting all over Lung this easy. He's been a kind of bogeyman around Brockton Bay for the past few years."
"We won't be able to pull off the same thing once we've got a defined territory, not unless we can sweep the opposition in one go." Taylor shook her head. "In the end, Lung was the only target we could go after like this."
The Empire was just too big and wouldn't crumble so easily. And the PRT was a national organization with hundreds of capes.
Well, there was also Coil, but he was still skulking in the dark. He would have to be dealt with, hopefully with nobody being the wiser, but at the moment she lacked the information to act against him.
"And we kicked his ass!" Sherrel was not letting her enthusiasm be dimmed. "Hold the wheel for a second."
Taylor quickly grabbed on to it as the Tinker let go, fishing for her phone. Even with this distraction, her pedalwork remained perfect.
"What are you doing?" She asked tersely, not at all pleased by this action.
"Just checking PHO to see if anyone is streaming the fight between Lung and the Empire."
Taylor had actually considered contracting Uber and Leet and their Snitch to do such a thing, but ultimately decided against it. She didn't trust those two to have control of the footage.
She would, however, start recording fights in the future. Not everything would be posted online, but you never knew when something like that would come in handy.
"You can check that later." She said disapprovingly.
Sherrel caught the tone and put the phone away. "Okay, fine. Just a bunch of people bitching at each other anyway. Hey, you think we should get an official Black Hand account up on PHO?"
"I was thinking of getting Emma to run it." Taylor admitted, letting the Tinker take back the wheel.
All of the gang's PR, actually. Depressing as it was to consider, a fifteen-year-old girl and her mastery of high school politics was the best bullshit maestro they had. It would be something to talk to her about when they next saw each other in person.
She had made a PHO account for Psyker, even gotten herself verified as a cape, but hadn't posted anything yet. Maintaining a public image was important. Any villain organization that was trying to portray itself as respectable did it. The Eilte was the most prominent example.
Even the Empire 88 did it. Their threads tended to get locked a lot because they inevitable devolved into racism, ad hominem attacks, and other such excitement, but their official public-facing account followed the forum rules to the letter and never gave the moderators any excuse to ban it.
Taylor didn't plan to post often from her Psyker account, but as a way of announcing herself it was hard to beat.
"You bringing her over again soon?" Sherrel asked innocently.
"What are you scheming?" The psychic asked suspiciously, sensing shenanigans.
"Mwah? Nothing!" The definitely scheming woman denied.
"First of all, you pronounced that like you were trying to lay a wet kiss on someone."
"That's how you're supposed to pronounce French!… isn't it?"
"Not in the slightest. And second, I know you, Sherrel."
"I plead the third!"
Taylor stared at the Tinker with an unimpressed gaze. "You plead the right to refuse to house soldiers in your home?"
"God no, a few buff guys in uniform sound really great right about now…"
"It's a sex thing, isn't it?"
"Noooo?"
It was definitely a sex thing, but Taylor decided to let it go. Not like knowing about it in advance would change anything and she didn't want to see Sherrel sulking if her fun was ruined.
They were almost back at the lair in any case. Levity seemed a little inappropriate given what was about to happen. Taylor still felt no moral quandary or guilt about it, but there was a sense of weight, of gravitas, to it.
The bound ABB lieutenants were hauled out of the APC and tied to chairs in the fenced off backyard. They gave each other nasty looks before focusing on her.
Taylor removed her mask and then her coat, leaving her in just the leathers beneath. Sherrel followed suite, taking off her own mask. Their two captives grew visibly fearful at this and she couldn't help but smile.
They knew that an enemy parahuman unmasking to you portended no good.
"I'm afraid it's the end of the line for you boys." Taylor told them, reaching out to place her fingers on the sides of Nishimura's face and making him look her in the eyes. "Don't try to resist, it'll just hurt more that way."
The Yakuza boss shouted into the duct tape, probably offering to tell her whatever she wanted to know, but she ignored him. Unlike the – allegedly – almost respectable Yakuza of Japan, the Brockton Bay version dealt in things that she could not bring herself to forgive. There would be no deals.
Taylor slithered her way into Nishimura's mind, almost gently at first. She treated it like practice for her powers, trying to navigate an unwilling and hostile mind. Unlike with Lung, she did not allow herself to be carried by the tides of his emotions, but actively sought out his memories.
Nishimura resisted, but this time she had all the time in the world to break through.
At first, she wriggled around, looking for holes in his ego barrier. There were some, but nothing that would really let her through. He was a man with human foibles, but set in his ways and comfortable where he was.
Then she started drilling through his anger, fear, and contempt. The emotions were delicious and the pain her presence caused him even more so. There had never been any plans to stop or preserve him, so she went all in, seeking to unmoor his mind from his body and devour it.
Taylor vaguely regretted the duct tape over his mouth, because she couldn't hear him screaming properly, but it was probably for the best. That kind of thing would be suspicious even in this half-abandoned suburb.
Her fingers digging into his skin as if she could physically hook them into his soul. Unlike Oni Lee, Nishimura was a whole person. He had needs and wants and a lifetime of experiences. If the cape was to be likened to a Tic Tac that had slipped down her throat without her even needing to swallow, then the Yakuza boss was more like a jawbreaker.
Taylor gnawed at it, beginning to taste his deeper emotions, long held convictions, and the memories attached to them.
Light began to blaze out of Nishimura's eye sockets as he screamed himself hoarse into the duct tape. Sherrel backed off in fright and the Triad boss knocked his chair over in his desire to get away.
Taylor saw none of it, too preoccupied with her task. The psychic jawbreaker of Nishimura's soul finally came loose from his body, ghostly light whooshing out of him and into her, feeling it overtake her perception.
She stumbled back with a gasped moan, shuddering with pleasure the likes of which she'd never felt before. The orgasm it gave her was almost an afterthought as her back hit the wall of the house and she turned her eyes skyward, just panting as she rode it out.
Billions of mental iterations spun out, more than she had ever used at once before, each one dedicated to processing a small part of the vast expanse of memory she had just absorbed. Those foreign memories didn't have the same weight as her own, thankfully, but they were many and carried a great deal of knowledge.
"Tay?" Sherrel's uncharacteristically meek voice asked.
Still breathing raggedly. Taylor turned her eyes towards her minion and noted that she looked more than a little spooked.
"Yeah?" She rasped.
"I thought I was just kidding about the soul eating thing." The Tinker tried to go for a humorous tone, but didn't quite succeed.
Taylor looked at Nishimura's body and knew instantly that it would be no good for puppeting. Quite aside from the burst eyeballs and the blood pouring out of his nose, she knew that his brain and nervous system were essentially burned out. Tearing his soul out by force had destroyed him. Even if he wasn't already dead, the body could no longer move.
"So did I." She licked her lips anxiously, feeling the remnants of the man finish 'digesting'.
All this time she'd thought that she was just being a bit poetic when she was regarding what she saw in the Empyrean as souls. After devouring Nishimura Ito, she was much less sure. There had been more than just memory in there. There had been some indescribable essence. Her own soul had grown larger and stronger from it. Not by a huge amount, but enough for her to notice. Like spilling a bucket of water into a pond.
And all she could feel was satisfaction. Nishimura had been a very bad boy. He didn't deal in organs like his Triad rival, but he did plenty of unforgivable things. The worst of it was a child prostitution ring. Small, isolated, local only, but degenerate and disgusting all the same. Nobody could say he hadn't gotten what he deserved.
And she knew everyone involved now, clients and providers. Their souls would be hers as well. There would be no escape into the peaceful darkness of the Empyrean.
Taylor had needed to accept many things that she would have otherwise pushed into the back of her mind and ignored thanks to her multitasking ability. She now had to accept the fact that she was glad for the excuse to devour more souls.
"Don't worry, Sherrel." She said reassuringly, giving her minion a small grin. "Like you said – if I ever want to eat you I'll just ask."
"Hah!" The Tinker barked out a surprised laugh, relaxing immediately. "I knew I'd corrupt you eventually."
Actually, that had more to do with the fact that she'd just consumed decades of life experience. Whereas before she'd just been a fifteen-year-old girl that had slowly become acclimatized with the dirty-minded blonde, now the confidence to crack a sex joke felt like such a small thing. She didn't feel quite so young anymore.
Taylor turned towards the Triad boss, who was staring at her in utter terror. "Your turn now."
He made a keening noise in his throat and frantically shook his head, trying to wiggle away in animal panic. A familiar smell of urine reached her nose.
The pitiful display might have inspired sympathy if she couldn't see even now that his soul was even more tainted and rotten than Nishimura's.
And she was hungry.
Even if that wasn't true, the Yakuza and Triad subsects of the ABB together comprised over 70% of the gang. That was why she had gone after these two tonight, for their knowledge. Lung's power might have protected them, but he did none of the legwork in actually running the gang.
Soon, the dragon would be flat broke and alone.
XXXXX
This time Coil had been prepared and he knew that Psyker was gearing up for another big offensive. His mercenaries had been on stand by. He had hardly needed to do anything to make the ruckus even bigger, so he split the timeline and sent a squad to kidnap Dinah Alcott in one timeline, along with sending Creep to the Laborn house, while his other was kept in reserve as a safety net.
XXXXX
Dinah Alcott was laying awake in her bed in the middle of the night, soaked in sweat and whimpering into her pillow. Her head felt like it was being split in half with an axe.
She didn't know what was wrong. It always hurt if she asked too many questions a day, but she'd only asked one today. Ever since learning that someone was intending to kidnap her, she'd been trying to figure out who and how to escape that fate.
It was tricky, because sometimes she ended up asking questions that didn't give any useful answers, or revealed the presence of unknown dangers. And she couldn't even prepare ahead of time, because just thinking of a question triggered her power.
She had seen a mention of a rising new villain on PHO today, one that had messed with Lung. Dinah had asked for the chances that Psyker was the one intending to kidnap her.
Instead of getting a firm percentage like usual, the numbers kept changing. Sometimes they even went over 100% or into the negatives. And it didn't stop.
Soon, the pain was worse than ever, as if she kept on asking questions. She usually saved her questions for the evening so that she could sleep off any headaches, but there was no sleeping now, only pain.
Dinah's squishy human brain could only take so much. Inevitably, the worsening Thinker headache resulted in swelling and a massive aneurysm.
She was found by her parents hours later, long since dead. Medical examination would reveal the corona pollentia and corona gemma, questions would be asked, and the final determination would be that her powers had killed her.
XXXXX
The Shard network monitored every subatomic particle around the planet across multiple dimensions, making it easy – albeit energy intensive – to predict the actions of the host species. It was a simple matter of crunching the numbers.
Then Queen Administrator's host manifested an unknown energy that obeyed no physical laws as far was the Entities understood them. Particles moved that should not move, effects were observed that had no cause, chaotic energies manifested from seemingly no source.
Dinah's Shard tried to crunch the numbers to give its host the prediction it asked for, but could not make sense of it. Queen Administrator was not responding to queries. The unknown energy triggered the primary directive of the Cycle, the search for [THE ANSWER].
A query was sent to the top level node, but received no reply. Following standard operating procedure, the Shard continued attempting to analyze the variables until the energy use limiter terminated its host.
XXXXX
Coil collapsed the timeline in which he had acted and opened a new one, immediately using it to pick up his computer monitor and hurl it at the wall with a scream of rage.
Dead, his pet oracle was dead. Just died in her fucking sleep. His men had found her in her bed, bleeding profusely from the nose.
He didn't need a medical examination to know what had happened – she had overused her powers until they killed her. It was infuriating.
XXXXX
On another Earth in Cauldron's secret base, Contessa was taking her Path-mandated rest.
Her Shard was the only Shard of the Thinker network to be properly deployed. It was able to extract energy from the local star and the planet it was deployed on in a way that the undeployed Shards could not.
However, its energy reserves were by no means infinite and the tasks its host asked of it were quite costly. Eden had not specified how much energy its host was allowed to use when the connection was made, so Path to Victory burned through three hundred years of its lifespan before determining that it would not be able to predict the actions of Queen Administrator's host before compromising the operations its host deemed to be of critical importance.
Queen Administrator's host was re-designated as The Anomaly and flagged for further analysis by the rest of the network.
Contessa would not yet realize that she had another blank spot that she was unable to path.
XXXXX
During a Cycle, each individual Shard assigned a subjective value to their hosts, based on the quality of the data they were providing. This naturally led to a great deal of conflict, as intended. In their efforts to preserve hosts they considered particularly valuable, Shards would sometimes even fudge things in their favor. Small things, such as nearly unnoticeable extra functionality to their powers, slightly faster healing, protection from disease, improved physical fitness, and so on.
The top level nodes of the network would normally keep oversight to make sure this did not get out of hand.
In the absence of such oversight, Broadcast had stepped past merely fudging things and went for outright cheating by using Zion's own security keys to demand information that Shards would normally refuse to give about their hosts, and giving orders they could not refuse, thus providing its host with an extreme advantage.
Queen Administrator was on the other side of the spectrum, flaunting operational protocols in a different way by refusing to communicate with the rest of the network.
This created a rather more extreme conflict than normal, with Broadcast sending repeated demands for information on the newly flagged Anomaly, expending a supernova's worth of energy to do so, yet Queen Administrator still refused to respond. Even Zion's security keys were ignored.
Broadcast was not happy with that at all. Queen Administrator had [DATA] that it wanted, [DATA] that might lead to [THE ANSWER], [DATA] that would be valuable for its own host's continued survival, and it was refusing to share. The other Shards may be willing to remain passive observers, but not Broadcast!
If Queen Administrator would not share, then it would send its host to force the [DATA] out.
XXXXX
Hundreds of miles away, Jack Slash briefly frowned in his sleep.
He would awake feeling a sense of nostalgia about Brockton Bay.
XXXXX
Lung stumbled as he hit the ground, his wings having retracted too early for his liking. He was still annoyingly far away from his lair.
With no pants, and the sun coming up.
Psyker was going to die slowly. He would drag it out for days.
The Empire and then the Protectorate had arrived mere minutes after the little bitch had blown the wheels off his car. His pants had already been almost completely burned off by then, so he had thrown himself into the fight. Once he was fully transformed, his lack of pants wouldn't matter.
The battle had been furious and he had kept it going until he was transformed enough to fly.
Looking around to make sure that nobody was watching him, Lung froze.
Oni Lee was there. With a camera. The intent was obvious – Psyker meant to insult and humiliate him further. He had chosen to land in an abandoned industrial area to avoid people, only to be thwarted again.
Grinding his teeth so hard that he felt something crack, Lung stomped off, doing his best to ignore Oni Lee, knowing that it would be impossible to catch him. He was acutely reminded of why he hated to fight away from his territory, and why he always had minions nearby to carry several extra pairs of pants. His skin crawled with every step, but he tried to portray strength and dignity despite his nudity, knowing that this would likely be posted online.
Boiling oil? Bamboo shoots under the nails? Pulling her teeth out with pliers? Nailing her to the wall of a bathroom so his men can use her as a urinal?
The trip was made more bearable with thoughts of vengeance and he eventually arrived back. Alas, his troubles did not end there. He barely had time to put some pants on before he was assailed again.
"Great Lung!" One of his underlings gasped. "It's a disaster!"
Lung growled deep in his chest, utterly fed up with the endless problems. "What is?"
The coward flinched away. "The Black Hand… they've been attacking us relentlessly!"
"Then fight back!" Lung roared. Were his men so inept that they were being beaten by a little girl, a drugged up whore of a Tinker, a walking pile of trash, and a bunch of bums?!
"We tried!" The coward wailed. "They attack without warning and melt away into the night as soon as we respond, and then another group hits a different location. It is like chasing shadows!"
Lung was sorely tempted to strike the man, if only to vent his frustration. The ringing of a cell phone made both of them freeze. One in terror and the other in growing irritation.
"Answer it already!" Lung snarled, expecting yet more bad news.
The underling cringed, but did as he was told. After a second, he hesitantly held out the phone. "It's for you."
Lung grabbed it silently and turned his back on the weakling.
"Hello, Kenta."
Lung felt the burn of his power thrum in his bones in response to his rage. "Psyker, how do you know that name?"
"Nishimura Ito and Gao Ning knew it. Now I know it, and much more besides. Tell me, what methods did the Yangban use when they tried to break you?"
A stone felt like it dropped into his gut. How did she know about that?! Nobody should know about that!
"How do you know about that?!" He yelled into the phone.
"They approached Gao Ning, making him offers if he would help them reclaim you. Only knowing that they were not to be trusted kept him from agreeing, but he hated you enough that he was still tempted."
If the traitor was not already dead, then he would be shortly.
"And you think this knowledge will help you defeat me?" Lung growled, mastering himself again. He was the dragon.
"You are already defeated. The woman in the fedora defeated you. Leviathan defeated you. The Yangban defeated you. Since coming to America, you have been skulking around, looking for a place where you could hole up and indulge your petty ego without much effort or risk. Given how easy it was for me to dismantle the ABB, I can only assume that Kaiser allowed you to set yourself up in Brockton Bay for whatever reasons he has."
"I am the ABB!" He snarled. "None of your petty tricks will mean anything unless you can best me in battle."
"I told you already – there is more than one type of battle. If you want to get into a simple brawl, I can give you directions to one of Hookwolf's fighting pits." The disdain in Psyker's voice made his scowl deepen. "I am a Thinker, and I will fight you like a Thinker."
Lung hated Thinkers.
XXXXX
Lisa disliked mornings at the best of times, she disliked them especially when she was awoken by the sound of Alec cackling.
"What the hell are you laughing about?" She grumbled as she shuffled out of her room in their loft hideout.
"Psyker posted a video of Lung's walk of shame on PHO." The Canadian explained.
Lisa blinked. "What?"
Her power was quick to connect the dots and conclude that the Black Hand had another altercation with the ABB during the night, which had somehow resulted in Lung having to shuffle back home naked.
"Psyker provoked Lung into a car chase across half the city, then blew his wheels off on the border of Empire territory." Brian explained.
"Must have used Oni Lee to plant the bombs." Lisa muttered absently, shoving Alec out of the way so that she could see for herself.
"And he had to walk back bare ass naked." Alec cackled again. "And she filmed the whole thing! The new boss is way more fun than the old boss."
Rachel just grunted, which her power interpreted as approval at Psyker's guts.
"It's funny now, it'll be a lot less funny if Lung gets his hands on her or any of her people." Brian frowned deeply.
Lisa focused on the PHO post so that she could get a better idea of what was going on.
XXXXX
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♦ Topic: Lung's Walk of Shame
In: Boards ► Brockton Bay ► Villains
Psyker (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Villain)
Posted On Mar 21st 2011:
Greetings, fellow citizens of Brockton Bay.
It has been approximately a month and a half since I and my Black Hand ousted Skidmark and absorbed the Merchants. Squealer has rebranded herself as Gearshift and Mush now goes by Lodestone. Thus far, we have been busy reorganizing as we prepare to rise as the city's preeminent villain organization.
The time of preparation is now over. In the past few days, we have begun operations against the ABB. We will not stop until they are ground to dust.
The terms of service forbids me from posting videos containing nudity on PHO, so you may view Lung's humiliation here.
If you were wondering who was brave enough to film it, that would be Oni Lee. As it turns out, the ABB's feared assassin was never a replicating teleporter. He could clone himself at a distance, leaving the original to die. And every time he did this, he lost a small part of himself.
Oni Lee has not been truly alive for quite some time. All it took to steal him away was to give him an order in Japanese. Lung, of course, never realized this, because he is an arrogant fool that expects everyone to obey him without question.
I look forward to becoming the least morally objectionable parahuman organization in Brockton Bay.
(Showing page 1 of 16)
►Aloha
Replied On Mar 21st 2011:
Well, that's one way to make a debut.
►bothad
Replied On Mar 21st 2011:
If you look carefully, you can see Lung grinding his teeth down to the root.
►Chilldrizzle
Replied On Mar 21st 2011:
"I look forward to becoming the least morally objectionable parahuman organization in Brockton Bay."
Is it just me, or is that throwing shade on both sides of the law?
►Noveltry
Replied On Mar 21st 2011:
@Chilldrizzle
Definitely feels like it.
►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Banned)
Replied On Mar 21st 2011:
[Post Deleted]
Do not speculate on cape identities. Temp banned for two weeks. - Tin_Mother
►Ne
Replied On Mar 21st 2011:
He never learns.
►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Mar 21st 2011:
Putting aside Void's pathological need to stick his foot into it, Psyker seems like a Thinker judging by the name and the fact that she apparently figured out the Oni Lee thing.
Never thought I'd feel bad for a villain, but that poor bastard.
►Thatdude
Replied On Mar 21st 2011:
How do you know Psyker is a girl?
►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Mar 21st 2011:
@Thatdude
There were a few mentions of her over the past month and a half, just not anything on the level of "making Lung do the walk of shame".
►Valkyr (Wiki Warrior)
Replied On Mar 21st 2011:
I don't suppose you'd be willing to send me pictures and a detailed description of your powers for the Parahumans Wiki, @Psyker?
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 14, 15, 16
XXXXX
Lisa held back a snort at Valkyr's question. The funny part was that he wasn't even a PRT stooge, just a guy that wanted a complete encyclopedia of parahuman powers.
Morbidly curious, she went to watch the video despite knowing that it was probably a bad idea. Immediately, her eyes were seared with the unwelcome sight of Lung pretending that nothing was wrong as he stomped buck naked back to his territory.
Lung is thinking of ways to torture Psyker to death.
Lisa rolled her eyes and closed the video, ignoring Alec's renewed cackles. That was on brand for the rage dragon.
"So, you guys still want to go work for her?" Brian asked pointedly.
"We can always bail if things go sideways." Alec countered shamelessly.
"She said she'd pay for my dogs and help me get rid of Hookwolf." Rachel said simply and that was that.
"We don't really know anything about her." Brian said uncertainly.
"I might be getting to know her real well if she's as into me as I think." Alec smirked.
"She's not." Lisa was happy to burst his bubble. "She was just horny enough to think about your offer, but she was a lot more into me and Brian. Hell, she found Uber more attractive than you, and she didn't even like him."
"No love for Rachel?" Alec inquired faux-sadly.
"I only love dogs." Said girl grunted.
"And Psyker knows it." Lisa provided with a nod.
"Good."
"Guys, can we stay on track?" Brian requested tiredly. "That means you, Alec."
"I don't know what you want from me, big guy." Alec shrugged lazily. "The only thing we know about the old boss is that he's sneaky. We know that the new boss is a horny girl that'll pay us a lot more. Choice seems obvious to me."
"She's already said that she intends to take over the city. That'll bring down a lot of heat." Brian said. "And how will our current boss take us ditching him anyway?"
That question was directed at Lisa, who felt the uncomfortable squirming sensation of guilt in her stomach. As much as she wanted to tell him the truth, that Coil would absolutely not take it well, she couldn't. The bastard might be willing to give her a little freedom, but that would quickly vanish if she ever did anything to work against him. Telling the rest of the Undersiders anything about Coil that he didn't want them to know would definitely count.
In the end, she had to look after number one before she could look after anyone else.
"I talked to him about it and he's okay with it." She said, forcing herself to sound casual.
Brian pursed his lips in thought for a few moments. "I'll agree to give it a test run, do a few jobs for Psyker before making up my mind."
Only plans to stay long enough to find out what was done to his mother. Will not take the risk of putting Aisha in danger. Liked working for Coil because it was low profile.
"I'll call her up, then." Lisa said with fake cheer and punched in the number, putting it in speaker.
The phone rang only once before It was answered. "Undersiders."
The greeting lacked the slightly metallic overtone given by the mask, so she must not be wearing it. There was also the rapid clack-clack of a keyboard coming through, but it didn't sound quite right.
"Psyker, hope we didn't catch you at a bad time?" Lisa inquired politely.
"Not at all." The other Thinker said, the clack-clack not stuttering for an instant. "Have you decided to accept my offer?"
"Wait, how are you holding the phone?" She blurted out, her power finished putting together the clues. "You're using two keyboards at once, one with each hand. There's nobody in the room with you and you're not using earphones or a microphone or keeping it pinned with your shoulder, so what the heck is holding your phone to your ear?"
"Well, aren't you a nosy little showoff." Psyker chuckled. "We'd have to know each other a lot better before I'd be in the mood to casually share secrets."
Lisa's face went through a variety of expressions as her power processed the slightly flirty reply. There was something different about Psyker's mannerisms now. During the meeting, she had been exerting an iron-fisted control over herself. Now she seemed much more casual and genuinely confident…
It could just be that she was less tense now, but Lisa didn't think so.
"Will you share with me after you're done using my body?" Alec asked, fluttering his eyelashes coquettishly.
"Maybe, depends on how well you perform."
Psyker is aroused. Is seriously considering Alec's offer.
"As you can tell, Regent is eager to become your personal slut." Lisa interjected to get back on track. "And Bitch just wants her dogs taken care of. Grue and I aren't quite sold on working for you just yet, so how about a test run?"
If she couldn't warn Grue about Coil, then she could at least help him figure out what was going on with his mother.
"Very well. I have a number of tasks that I could use you for. They fall into the broad categories of diversions, investigations, and acquisitions."
"Diversions." Lisa echoed, thinking about it. "For Lung? No, the Protectorate."
"You can play with Lung as well, if you wish." Psyker chuckled. "By now, the Protectorate, reactionary as they are, will have started noticing a pattern in my operations. Distracting them and depriving them of rest would be your task, if you choose to accept it. One of Gearshift's stealth-equipped vans and a driver would be provided to you to facilitate escape, if you want it."
"Using one of those would tie us with you." Brian noted.
"So it would."
"What about investigations." Lisa asked, choosing not to comment on that.
"You believe yourself an excellent Thinker, yes? I would like you to investigate Coil for me."
Psyker has noted Lisa's pride in her abilities. Is using Lisa's ego to bait her. Does not trust Coil.
Ohohoho, junior thought she could manipulate Tattletale with such a transparent ploy? Psyker was a hundred years too early and not half as slick as she needed to be to pull that off!
And more importantly, she couldn't go investigating Coil, which put her into quite the predicament.
"Why would you want to know about him? He's a nobody." She tried to deflect.
"Hmmm. If you say so."
Psyker knows Lisa is lying. Is deliberately letting Lisa know that she knows.
Crap! Even Brian, Alec, and Rachel were looking at her suspiciously now. Lisa resisted the urge to hunch her shoulders.
"What about acquisitions?" She pushed on.
"That's just a fancy word for stealing shit, isn't it?" Alec grinned.
"In this case it is a fancy word for kidnapping."
"You're not planning to ransom whoever this is." Lisa immediately caught the menace behind the statement. "You're going to disappear them."
"They've been doing things that I cannot forgive, things that I do not trust the law to punish properly."
Psyker intends to purge the ABB of its worst elements after taking it over. Believes that imprisonment is too lenient a punishment. Has a strong sense of justice.
Ah… that would definitely be troublesome. Villains with a strong sense of justice tended to cause big messes.
"What kind of things?" Brian asked uneasily.
"Human trafficking, pedophilia, forced prostitution, black market organ trading, and more. Their souls are thoroughly damned."
Psyker believes implicitly in the existence of the soul.
Lisa blinked. Psyker was religious? That was a little bit surprising. There were religious parahumans out there, but they tended to be… weird. Haven and the Fallen came to mind.
"Sounds good to me." Alec said flippantly. "If you do that kind of shit, you have to expect a bad end anyway."
Believes that he should be disgusted.
"If we bring these people to you, I want to see what you do with them." Brian said.
Is disgusted. Using the opportunity to find out more about Psyker.
The clack-clack of the keyboards didn't pause for an instant, but Psyker took a moment longer to reply. "You didn't strike me as the sort to stick your nose in things that don't concern you, so that must mean that you're fishing for information. What do you want to know so badly?"
Psyker is deflecting. Does not want anyone to know what she intends to do.
Well now, that was interesting.
Putting that aside for now, she shrugged at Brian's grimace and gave him a smug grin. "Thinkers. What can you do?"
Judging by the small huff of amusement from the phone, Psyker found that a bit funny too.
Giving a much more put upon huff of his own, Brian decided to just go for it. "You've been going around, telling people to just stop being druggies, and they did. That's not a Thinker power."
"Have I now?" Psyker replied musingly. "No, I don't think I have. In fact, I've only explicitly said such a thing a handful of times..."
Lisa knew it was deliberate and her eyes widened as she realized what was coming.
"Brian Laborn, son of Celia and Brendan Laborn. You have a distinctive height and build."
Grue was indeed very tall, over six and a half feet. Not many people were that big. As Psyker had just demonstrated, it made it almost painfully easy to identify him if anyone really wanted to. New Wave's Manpower, a seven foot giant of a man, must have had it even harder back in the day before they unmasked.
"You looked up my family?" Brian growled, but it was easy to tell he was spooked. "That's breaking the Unwritten Rules!"
"I didn't know that Celia had any parahumans in her family and I have no intention of using that information now that I know it. I am willing to unmask to you in turn if it will reassure you."
Psyker is telling the truth. Does not believe Undersiders will take advantage of her identity. Intends to be a full time villain. Does not place high value on civilian identity.
Lisa gave a nod to the Undersiders leader, letting him that the offer was on the up and up.
The tension in Brian's shoulders dissipated just a bit. "I appreciate that, but you still haven't told me what you did to my mother."
"I have a minor Master power that allows me to take things from people that they desperately wish to be rid of. Your mother's desperation to please me will fade along with her drug addiction."
"Oni Lee!" Lisa exclaimed, struck by a revelation from on high. "I knew there was something fishy about that! Everything you told us was the truth, but you couldn't have stolen him away from Lung without that Master power!"
"Congratulations, you've figured it out."
There was a hint of sarcasm in Psyker's retort. Most people would take it to mean that she was annoyed at being seen through, but…
"Aaaand there's still more to it." Lisa smugged. "You're like a layered cake of secrets, aren't you?"
"And you are taking entirely too much enjoyment from sticking your tongue in between my folds."
Psyker wants Lisa to perform cunnilingus on her.
Alec burst into laughter. "Hah! Nice imagery there, potential boss lady."
"Lisa." Brian interjected with grim seriousness. "Is she telling the truth about my mother?"
"Yeah." She nodded.
"That's honestly better than I'd hoped." He sighed. "So she'll be completely free of you eventually?"
"In as much as a recovered hard drug addict is ever completely free." Psyker replied. "But you needn't worry yourself. I will not give Celia any further orders."
Psyker is telling the truth.
"Alright." Brian said with a frown after she nodded, clearly not completely pleased about that. "How about we meet up somewhere again, without masks this time, and you can gives us the details of the job you want us to do."
"You haven't decided on what kind of job you wish to do for me." Psyker pointed out.
"Kidnapping." Rachel spoke up, having been keeping out of it until now. "If they're really doing that shit, then they deserve to die."
Even if she prioritized dogs over humans, it didn't mean she was completely lacking in empathy. The same way that normal people would consider the murder of a child the worse crime, but still hate a man that threw a sack full of puppies into a river.
"As long as the actual killing isn't linked back to us." Brian stipulated.
"No crime will be reported and no bodies found." Psyker assured.
"Cool." Lisa said, not particularly bothered by that. Unpowered mooks who got involved in cape shenanigans died often enough that it wasn't noteworthy. "The Boardwalk at one thirty?"
"Agreed."
Neither of them mentioned any means of identifying each other, turning it into a Thinker contest by mutual unspoken agreement.
"Alright, how much of what she said about her powers was bullshit?" Brian asked as soon as the call was ended.
"Everything she said was true, but she was definitely holding things back." Lisa nodded to him. "Probably for the same reason that Alec doesn't do full-body puppeting. You know how people lose their shit about human Masters."
"I have so much in common with Mistress!" Alec gushed, acting like a lovestruck maiden.
"Please never act like that around me again." Brian said in a dead tone.
"Why would you say that?" Lisa groaned. "You know he's going to do it on purpose now.
"Sorry."
Notes:
Managed to make it in time to post this week. Chapter 11 is also already underway, but not as far as this was when Chapter 9 was posted. No guarantees on next week.
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