NOVEL WEB Chapter 431: 19
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A Ruinous Gift by Noodlehammer
Warhammer & Worm Xover Rated: M, English, Crime, Words: 298k+, Favs: 3k+, Follows: 4k+, Published: Sep 20, 2023 Updated: Jan 28
2,397Chapter 19: Interlude
Thanks to Alvor for looking this over.
This bit didn't really fit in anywhere, so have an interlude.
XXXXX
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Topic: A New Thread
In: Boards ► Brockton Bay
Black Hand Official (Original Poster) (Villain Organization)
Posted On Apr 15th 2011:
Today, at approximately 16:00 (four in the afternoon if you prefer the American way of doing things), Black Hand forces led by Psyker personally raided an Empire 88 weapon stash.
The Empire 88 responded to this by sending Krieg, backed up by Alabaster, Crusader, and Rune.
Psyker was spent some time toying with the four Empire capes, until they were reinfoced by Fenja and Menja. At which point she unveiled her own back up in the form of Sundancer of the Travelers, a group of itinerant mercenary villains that have recently joined the Black Hand in full.
The Empire 88 capes quickly retreated, allowing the Black Hand to get away with their loot with no difficulty. Protectorate hero Armsmaster arrived on the scene too late to do anything meaningful.
The entire altercation can be seen [HERE], captured in glorious HD by Oni Lee.
(Showing page 3 of 3)
►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
I've been feeling a bit redundant lately...
►ArchmageEin
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
Don't worry about it, Bagrat, you can still tell us what the PRT and Protectorate are up to, since the villains seems to be self-reporting their crimes these days.
►Chaosfaith
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
I still can't get over how Oni Lee has been turned from a serial suicide bomber into the ultimate cameraman.
►Char
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
I love it. When did we ever get to see the local Nazis get humiliated in such beautiful high definition before?
►Deimos
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
There is that, but just imagine what else Psyker is having him do that she's not telling us.
►Chaosfaith
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
Could it be worse than serial suicide bombing?
Besides, didn't she say that Oni Lee's power basically turned him into a vegetable?
►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
All I can tell you is that the PRT and Protectorate haven't made any conclusions on the topic, and probably won't unless they can examine Oni Lee themselves.
►Chilldrizzle
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
Maybe if they ask nicely, Psyker will agree to let them do it, lol.
►Psyker (Verified Cape) (Villain) (Leader of the Black Hand)
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
If I thought they'd let me have him back, I would.
►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
The woman of the hour!
Since you're here, I might as well ask some questions that I've had.
While you were bantering with Krieg, you claimed that your powers "only grow". It's clear that you've been showing more and more powers as time goes on, but are they actually growing or are you just holding back less?
►Psyker (Verified Cape) (Villain) (Leader of the Black Hand)
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
My powers are indeed growing. When I first triggered, I thought I was a pure Thinker.
►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
What are your powers? Are you really psychic?
►Psyker (Verified Cape) (Villain) (Leader of the Black Hand)
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
I'm not going to tell you what my powers are, but I will tell you that the Empire's days are numbered. Soon, Brockton Bay will be all mine.
►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
Void's hilarious optimism aside, that's quite the ominous statement.
►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
It's not the first time a villain talked big. The PRT and Protectorate won't allow Brockton Bay to fall into villain hands.
►Laotsunn (Kyushu Survivor)
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
That's funny, seeing as they already control most of it.
But that aside, living in Black Hand territory is actually... not that bad.
Streets and buildings are getting fixed up, the dozens of minor gangs that Lung tolerated seem to have disappeared, same for all the really vicious bastards from the ABB, there's no protection rackets, legitimate business is starting to really pick up, all the shady businesses have closed down, the homeless are getting off the streets,...
There was a lot of fear initially when Black Hand thugs were hauling people off. The worst of them got disappeared, but a lot of them only needed to have the new facts of life explained to them so that they got with the program.
Since then, things have been pretty peaceful and the Black Hand hasn't been demanding tribute the way Lung did. Honestly, if she can keep this kind of attitude going, Psyker would have my vote for mayor.
►Whyte
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
Cocky bitch is just going to get herself killed.
►Psyker (Verified Cape) (Villain) (Leader of the Black Hand)
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
Hey, do you ever think about Alabaster's power?
He resets every 4,3 seconds. That would mean that he can't eat, sleep, or maintain an erection. And with his looks he can't really go out either.
What do you think he does when he's not out making a nuisance of himself as a D-list villain? The only thing a man like that could really do is talk shit on the internet.
►SpecificProtagonist
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
Alabaster as a sad internet shitposter that can't get it up is my new headcanon.
►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
Wow, Psyker seriously kicking a man while he's down. I'd call foul, but he's a Nazi, so fuck that guy.
►Psyker (Verified Cape) (Villain) (Leader of the Black Hand)
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
I wonder about that. A lot of the Empire 88 capes I've encountered so far don't seem to be taking this whole Nazi thing very seriously. Hookwolf, for example, is just an asshole that likes getting into fights and being known as a Nazi makes people want to fight him.
Krieg is definitely taking it seriously, though. Way too seriously.
►BadSamurai
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
You're not kidding. I physically cringed listening to him talk.
►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
Wait, are you saying that Whyte is Alabaster?
►Psyker (Verified Cape) (Villain) (Leader of the Black Hand)
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
I'm not saying he isn't.
►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
CONFIRMED!
And can I just say that it's pretty cool how you take the time to hang out with us on PHO instead of doing villain stuff.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3
XXXXX
Taylor looked up from her keyboard, meeting eyes with several other of her bodies, each of which was on its own computer, doing stuff either villainous or mundane, and snorted in amusement.
XXXXX
Alan Barnes closed the PHO website and wearily rubbed his face. To think that he was reduced to trawling cape forums just to get some idea what was going on.
But it wasn't like he could go talk to his old, former, friend about it. Danny had made it clear that he would be losing teeth if he darkened the Hebert doorstep again. And with who his daughter was these days, he might even be able to get away with it. Alan's typical threat of a lawsuit wouldn't sound very impressive in the face of Danny's supervillain daughter.
Geeky, adorable, chatterbox Taylor, who was now a ruthless and powerful supervillain able to stand toe to toe with the likes of Lung and Kaiser. Because of Sophia, who had turned Emma against her.
And Alan hadn't noticed anything. Emma had been a bit different after the alley, but he'd thought she had bounced back. He'd downplayed what had happened to his wife, both out of shame and because he hadn't wanted to remind Emma of it.
His gratitude to Shadow Stalker had blinded him to the girl's true nature. She was a monster who had been doing her level best to turn Emma into one as well.
Then Sophia had been killed, by Taylor and Danny he later learned, and Emma had started backsliding hard.
He had tried everything then, even scheduling therapy for his daughter. Alan had never believed that therapists did anything useful, but he had been desperate. Nothing had worked, and then Emma had just disappeared one day.
She came back the next day with a busted lip and confessed to everything that had been going on. Confessed that she had gone to find Taylor to beg for her forgiveness and apparently managed to grovel enough to get it.
Alan didn't trust it, didn't trust Taylor anymore. Emma had been different since then, lighter somehow, but she was obsessed with Taylor. She tried to hide it, but Alan was paying attention now. His daughter religiously sought out any news about Psyker and got angry whenever someone said something bad about her.
The worst part was that he could understand. Taylor had gotten rid of the ABB and Sophia. It was easy to imagine the mix of gratitude and guilt that would make Emma, who he was learning was far more fragile than he had wanted to believe, such a rabid supporter of the new villain in town.
Alan was ready to start tearing his hair out in helpless worry. His daughter might be doing better in school and seem more stable, but he had the sinking feeling that her life plans included becoming a supervillain's minion.
And there was nothing he could do about it. Emma didn't listen to any warnings about Taylor now. She might make all the right noises, but her eyes burned with resentment and she continued to hunt down any mention of her. Alan couldn't threaten Taylor with legal action, because why would a supervillain be impressed by a lawsuit?
So he was reduced to stalking PHO and hoping that something would occur to him.
A few minutes later, his wife found him rewatching the video of the latest fight between Psyker and the Empire 88 capes. She came up behind him and watched the screen over his shoulder for a while.
"It's still so hard to believe that Taylor could be… that." Zoe said, gesturing at the screen.
"It's not that farfetched." Alan sighed. "If Annette got powers, I could imagine her doing something like this."
He'd known the woman in college after Danny started dating her. She'd been quite a firebrand at the time.
"Yeah." Zoe said quietly, obviously missing her friend. "What are we going to do, Alan? We can't just pretend that everything is fine."
There was sharp point of censure in that sentence that had him wincing. Zoe had not been happy when she'd found out how much he had downplayed the alley incident, or that he had kept the knowledge that Sophia was Shadow Stalker from her, NDA be damned.
Alan had made it worse with his knee-jerk reaction of trying to blame everyone else to protect Emma. Zoe threatening divorce and Emma herself refusing to go along with it like she always did in the past was what snapped him out of it, although not fast enough to spare him from sleeping on the couch for a while.
Now he was left with a daughter who had developed a disturbing fixation on the former friend she had betrayed. An off-hand mention of maybe moving to another city had been met with near hysteria. Alan and Zoe were both afraid that if they tried to move, Emma would run away so that she could stay close to Taylor.
Staying in the same city as a supervillain who had a grudge against you was not a good idea, even if Emma really had managed to grovel enough to get some kind of forgiveness out of her former friend.
He had already called the PRT to tell them that Psyker was Taylor Hebert, hoping that they would be able to catch her, but nothing had come of it. The feeling of the walls closing in might just be paranoia, but he couldn't bet his family's safety on the dubious mercy and forgiveness of a supervillain. Alan liked to think that he had a somewhat better understanding of crime than most, even as a mere divorce lawyer. There was no way that Taylor would have been able to run a gang so successfully while keeping her hands clean.
"I don't know." He finally said, hating this feeling of helplessness.
"Maybe we could talk to Taylor?" Zoe suggested hesitantly. "We used to be so close…"
"That just makes it worse." Alan shook his head. If Taylor had even half of Danny's temper, then that could only end badly.
"What do we have to lose?" Zoe demanded. "She hasn't sent thugs to break into our house in the middle of the night."
The reference to what had happened to Blackwell made him wince again. That incident was what had convinced him that Taylor was definitely nursing some grudges. He hadn't even been aware that she had been the one behind it until Emma revealed who Psyker was.
"We don't even know how to get into contact with her." He pointed out.
"Emma might."
Alan had to pause at that. "You think she's still in contact with Taylor?"
"She's completely given up on modeling, she doesn't hang out with her friends anymore, and she's even taken up exercising!" Zoe semi-ranted, then stopped with a look of grim resignation. "Just the other night, I got up to go to the bathroom and I heard her… moaning Taylor's name."
"Great, that's just… great." Alan groaned, dropping his face in his hands.
They'd made so many jokes about the two of them being so close that they would end up either sharing a boyfriend or hooking up with each other and now this happened.
XXXXX
"She's completely out of control!" Carol ranted.
Sarah Pelham sighed as her sister started repeating herself. "She's a teenager, Carol. They're supposed to get rebellious."
"This is different." Carol insisted. "She knows about Marquis and she called our fight against him an irrational grudge!"
That was new.
"Okay, so she knows about Marquis. So what? It's not like we were intending to keep that from her forever." Sarah replied. She wasn't going to touch the 'irrational grudge' part. Marquis had needed to be taken down, but Carol's hatred of the man had nearly led her to killing a six-year-old girl because she wanted to strike at something he was protecting.
"But how long has she known?" Carol pressed. Judging by the look on her face, she had probably never intended for Amy to know about her biological father. "Did you know she threatened to go villain?"
Sarah very much doubted that. "What were her exact words, Carol?"
"Something about putting on bone armor and challenging Kaiser for control of the city."
Training as a lawyer had made Carol even more adversarial and 'us versus them' than she had been to start with, but Sarah had known her little sister since she was born. She knew when she was spewing shit, and that vague answer was full of it.
"She figured out your buttons and used them to taunt you. Just let her vent for a while until she cools off."
"I can't let her think she can get away with doing whatever she wants!"
"Right now she's angry at you, so anything you do to punish her will just make it worse." Sarah repeated herself in slightly different words. "You said that it felt like she was baiting you?"
"You should have seen the look on her face." Carol scowled. "She was disappointed when I calmed down."
"Then she was probably looking for an excuse to just leave and go move in with this girlfriend of hers." Sarah sighed. "You know how teenagers are. She probably feels like it's some great romance and an escape from her oppressive mother. Don't play into her hands and things will go back to normal."
Despite her words, Sarah was feeling worried. What the hell was going on in the Dallon household that Amy would be so bitter and adversarial? And several of the things that Carol had said during this ranting session of hers were also rather concerning.
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