A moment later Armsmaster and Miss Militia came striding in. Armsmaster of course began without any preamble. “All right, Wards. We have arranged the patrol schedules for this week, so we--” He glanced up from his datapad and halted.
Everyone, the unicorn included, was seated in a semicircle in the main room, patiently waiting for him to begin the briefing. Everyone, the unicorn included, was wearing groucho marx glasses over their masks. Even Clockblocker; he had them stuck in place on his blank faceplate with post-it putty. “We’re sorry, sir,” Gallant said blithely. His helmet visor was up and he was grinning like an idiot through his enormous fake mustache. “Would you be looking for the Brockton Bay Wards? I’m afraid they’re not here at the moment...”
“Nope, nope, just us ordinary civilians here today,” Vista said in the deepest, most manly voice a preteen girl could manage. Several of the others voiced their agreement.
“Oh, absolutely...”
“Just normal civilians...”
“No Wards here...”
“Lovely facility you have here, by the way...”
Armsmaster stared at them all, his face-- well his chin, anyway-- like stone. He gave them a look that one supposed was meant to be disappointed. Or pleading. It was hard to hold in the face of those giant fuzzy eyebrows and ridiculous proboscis. “You all are WARDS, you should be setting a more dignified--”
“Us? Wards?” Vista said, feigning surprise.
Ladybird put a hoof to her chest. “That’d the most ridiculous thing I EVER hoid--”
Armsmaster turned to Miss Militia with a pleading air… only to find the patriotic cape was now wearing Groucho glasses of her own, right over her bandana. Vista had apparently used her powers to sneak the gag spectacles to her behind Armsmaster’s back. Both of them were clearly fighting to hold back fits of giggles. “Why…?” Armsmaster sighed under his breath.
Ladybird was the first to crack. First she, then Clockblocker, then one by one the rest of the wards folded up laughing. Even Miss Militia was shaking with silent laughter, tears in the corners of her eyes.
“Okay okay okay, everyone,” Miss Militia finally said after everyone calmed down a bit. She made a silent “gimme” gesture; everyone handed over their spectacles to her, snickering all the while. “You have to admit it was funny, Armsmaster,” she said, piling the Groucho glasses in a nearby cardboard box.
Armsmaster’s expression could have been immortalized with the words ‘et tu brute’ on it. “The patrol schedules for this week,” he plowed onward with (what else?) heroic determination, “are up and posted on the board--”
“Oh, do you have that in digital format?” Taylor chirped. She whipped out her smartphones (one from the Protectorate, one she had— whee!-- bought with her own money). “I can put it straight on my scheduling app, if it is.”
Armsmaster actually twitched. “Yes, actually,” he said, sounding both surprised and pleased. “I was unaware they had finally added a scheduling app to the Ward phones per my request.”
“They didn’t,” Taylor said, her nose to the phones hovering in front of her. “I wrote one.” She tapped a screen with a hooftip.
“Really?” Armsmaster’s voice went up. “I’ll need to look it over to make sure it doesn’t compromise operational security.” Taylor nodded; with the Wards maintaining secret identities and very public lives, op-sec was no joke. A single poorly-considered text message could spell disaster (as the unlamented Shadow Stalker could have told everyone.)
She floated her phone over to him. “It’s on both my private phone and my Ward phone,” she said as Armsmaster carefully tapped his way through the app. “The Ward one automatically texts my private phone one with any changes or updates. Of course it’s hidden, passcoded, and has a ‘spell checker’ that converts common, er, heroing phrases, I guess? To specific code words...” Armsmaster made some mumbled noises indicating he was actually impressed.
Kid Win gave Ladybird a finger-poke in the ribs. “Suck up,” he teased, grinning.
“You know I keep forgetting that you’re a raging computer geek,” Gallant said.
“Not the sort of thing you associate with little magical unicorns,” Browbeat shrugged.
Ladybird shuffled her hooves a bit and looked abashed. “It’s not like I’m a computer genius or anything,” she said. “It’s just that my computer class was about the only one they didn’t harass me in… so I spent a LOT of time there.” She didn’t need to say who ‘they’ were.
Vista shook her head. “I swear, Taylor, that place isn’t a school, it’s a dumpster fire,” she said sympathetically.
After several seconds of bleeping and blooping“Hm. Useful, simple, very intuitive interface, works well with our own protocols and procedures… acceptable.” was Armsmaster’s final verdict. “Go ahead and use the app,” Armsmaster said, handing the phone back to her. “Give the other Wards copies as well. I’ll go over it more closely later but it looks like it’s acceptable, so I’ll say go ahead.” There was a brief flurry as Ladybird sent the app to the other Ward’s phones.
“Back to business,” Miss Militia said. She activated the wall screen in the Ward’s lounge. A map of Brockton Bay popped up. “The Merchants have expanded their territory a few blocks in the southeast...”
The next few minutes were devoted to updating the Wards on the activities of the local gangs: what territory was claimed by whom, what had shifted hands, what illicit items and contraband were likely being moved in which areas…
It was a good fifteen minutes into the briefing that Armsmaster dropped the bomb. “There is one issue that you all need to be aware of,”he said, were it possible becoming even more serious. “It appears a large quantity of contraband tinkertech has recently gotten out into the local criminal community.”
A chill draft seemed to blow around the room. Kid Win spoke for them all. “Aww crap.” Tinkers were among the most unpredictable and dangerous capes, for the simple fact that their inventions not only often seemingly violated the laws of physics, but that they could, with some limitation, be loaned out to others. Force fields, ray guns, killer robots were the LOW end of the toys that a moderately powerful Tinker could produce. One didn’t need a degree in criminology to figure out just how bad a scene it would be for such materiel to be dumped out on the streets, especially in Brockton Bay.
“How much? And whose?” Aegis said seriously.
“Uber and Leet,” Armsmaster said.
The atmosphere got a little less chilly, and perhaps a bit dry. “Those bozos?” Browbeat snorted.
His contempt was understandable. Uber and Leet were two cape rogues-slash-villains who lived in the Brockton Bay area. Uber had the power to become an instant expert in any field: martial arts, computer programming, nose flute playing, you name it, all he had to do was focus on the skill, practice it for a few minutes to a few hours and he would be a master at it, clear up to peak baseline human. Whether he retained those skills indefinitely or he had to re-learn them occasionally, or even swap them out, was a subject of much debate both in PRT and in the chatrooms of Parahumans Online. He kept physically fit and athletically trim so that even when he wasn’t “maxing out his skills” he was something of a handful to deal with. Still, even his most peak skills were only peak HUMAN-- which made him, in cape terms, something of a scrub.
His partner, Leet, was the Tinker of the duo. He had an incredible Tinker specialization, dubbed “Prototype” by the power wonks in the PRT. He could, quite literally, invent one of anything. And that meant anything. The downside was that he could only make ONE of anything. If he tried to make two identical devices, the second one simply would not work. And the more similar any of his new inventions were to anything he had made before, the more likely they were to malfunction, usually in a spectacular manner and at the worst possible time for him and his partner. And his performance only grew worse as time went by and he used up more and more ideas...
To top it off the two B-listers had a thematic fixation that would have done the Joker or the Riddler proud: all their crimes were themed on, of all things, video games. Gear, costume, even the target chosen had to “fit” some video-game based motif. They recorded all the action and broadcast the results as “shows” on the Internet. They actually made more money from online donations from their demented fans than they did from the actual heists-- which was a good thing for them as their success-to-failure ratio for their crimes was rather pitiful.
It was joked that their official PRT classification was “Pain In The Ass: 9.”
“Don’t laugh too hard,” Miss Militia said over the teenage groans and snickers. “Uber and Leet may be mostly harmless, but that’s more because they’re not particularly malicious. The gear that Leet makes for them could be very lethal indeed in the wrong hands.”
“If for no other reason than how it likes to go Wile E. Coyote,” Clockblocker muttered. “Remember the bubble-blowing dinosaurs from that ‘Bubble Bobble’ heist? The crater is still smoking from that one.”
“It was Uber and Leet themselves who alerted the PRT, via our public hotline,” Armsmaster said. “Apparently a few of the Merchants stumbled across one of Leet’s storage lockers and decided they could make some dope money fencing the tinkertech Leet had stashed there.” Their phones all chimed as Armsmaster forwarded them the file. “Leet gave us a partial list of what was in there--”
“Partial?” Ladybird said. She already had the file open and was scrolling through the list; there were a few images but not many.
“It was apparently an old stash, one they had half-forgotten,” Miss Militia said. “Mostly broken stuff Leet still hoped to repair or scavenge for parts.”
“Broken or not, the stuff is dangerous,” Armsmaster said. “The Protectorate wants everyone, including the Wards, to keep an eye out for any of it or anything that looks… er…”
“That looks Tinker-techy or video-game-ish?” Ladybird offered.
“Exactly.”
Something about what she’d just said tickled her memory… “Ooo crap,” She exclaimed. Everyone looked at her in surprise. “There aren’t any comic conventions going on right now are there?” Ladybird said anxiously. “I can just see some cosplayer buying some of Leet’s old junk to accessorize their costume--”
“Especially if it’s already video-gamed themed,” Clockblocker agreed. “Might wanna have someone give the convention scene a heads-up, before some space marine wannabe finds out his BFG 6000 really DOES go Boom.”
“Check the comic book shops too, and the game shops,” Kid Win said. “Someone might put Leet’s gear up on the wall as a decoration or trophy or something...” he looked at Ladybird. “Good thinking. Didn’t think you were into the geek scene, Ladybird.”
Ladybird’s cheeks pinked and she shuffled a forehoof. “My Dad is, or was back in the ‘golden age,’” she said. “He talked about the whole comics scene a lot.” Despite the advent of capes, the comics industry still limped along. It was the definition of a niche market though and had been largely folded into the larger sci fi, fantasy and gaming ‘communities.’
Gallant raised a hand. “What are the odds Skidmark might just keep Leet’s stuff and have Squealer fix it up for them to use?”
“Slim,” Armsmaster said. “Squealer may be a Tinker but her specialization is vehicles.”
“Besides which, it’s not her stuff,” Kid Win said knowingly. “Unless they’re working together on it, it’s almost impossible for one Tinker to fix another Tinker’s inventions. That’s why Dragon is such a high-rated Tinker… she can actually repair and reproduce other Tinker’s stuff.”
Armsmaster nodded. “All the same, don’t be surprised if you run into one of the Merchant’s dregs waving around a Buck Rogers ray gun trying to get it to go ‘zap’,” he said. “If you do come across anything that looks like Leet’s tinkertech-- or anyone else’s for that matter-- follow the standard procedure for material evidence or dangerous ordnance.”
“Do not touch, keep civilians away, call the PRT to send a cleanup crew,” Miss Militia clarified for the newest members. Ladybird and Browbeat nodded in understanding.
“How is Eightball doing? --If it’s okay to ask, I mean,” Vista said. She sounded slightly wistful. After her introductory week, little had been seen of the newest Ward, as she had been more or less permanently moved into the PRT “Think Tank.” It was necessary; her precognitive ability was simply too powerful, and her weakness-- her inability to NOT answer any question her power could answer-- left her too vulnerable to exploitation and the painful Thinker headaches that came from overusing her powers. Vista in particular was feeling down about it; she was rather hard up for girlfriends her own age she could talk to freely about Cape things.
“She’s getting better,” Miss Militia reassured Vista, her eyes crinkling in a smile over her bandanna. “The power experts say she’s finally learning to shut her power off so she doesn’t automatically answer any precog questions.
“She have any forecasts for us?” Clockblocker joked. “Weather, horoscopes, winning lotto numbers? Asking for a friend.”
Miss Militia cocked an eyebrow at him. “Actually yes… and no.” The Wards gave her puzzled looks. “We were permitted to ask her two or three generalized questions about the welfare of the Wards,” she continued. “Odds of injury this week, that sort of thing. The ‘weather forecast’ for this week could be called ‘cloudy with a 20 percent chance of minor injury.’” The wards looked at each other wryly. It didn’t sound too different from a typical week for a Ward in Brockton Bay.
Miss Militia’s voice grew thoughtful. “Anyway I let slip an extra informal question, asked her what the odds were we’d run into anything out of the ordinary this week. She asked ‘how strange?’ and I joked-- well I thought I was joking-- ‘little purple unicorn’ strange.” She gave Ladybird a look.
“Oh, ha ha ha.” Ladybird snorted. “Seriously though, why am I the new benchmark for weird?” she muttered.
“Well, the question tripped her power,” Miss Militia she said.
“And?”
“And she wouldn’t tell us,” Armsmaster said. His tone and expression could have meant anything.
Kid Win grimaced. “It was that bad?”
“No telling, she couldn’t stop laughing.” Miss Militia shook her head. She’d thought the girl was having a fit at first. You could see the moment the girl’s power tripped; she had stared off into space, and this expression of… of absolute flabbergasted shock had spread over her face. Then she had exploded into gales of laughter so violent that she’d toppled out of her chair. Further inquiries had proven useless; the girl would only pause long enough to gasp “can’t tell you, can’t--!” and then collapse into hysterical giggles again.
The Wards stared at the star spangled cape. “Well, that’s not alarming in the least,” Ladybird said slowly.
Cockblocker pretended to wipe away a tear. “Only a Thinker less than a month and already she’s becoming cryptic and inscrutable,” he said in mock wistfulness. “They grow up so fast--!”
Armsmaster harrumphed and scratched at his bearded chin. “Be that as it may… the best advice we can give is to keep your eyes and ears open and be prepared for… anything unusual.”
“Expect the unexpected, in other words,” Ladybird said with a sigh. “Well, nobody said being a hero was going to be dull.”
Greg Veder was a loser.
He was awkward, clumsy, immature. he had no social skills. He annoyed people effortlessly. His interests (computer games, fantasy books, sci fi shows, Earth Aleph comics and manga) grated on other people’s nerves; his manners offended people.
Even Greg knew it. He was depressingly aware of just how bad it was. He tried, he really did. He’d make a sincere effort to interact with others, to follow all the invisible rules that everyone else seemed to know--- but in no time at all he’d cross some invisible line and antagonize everyone. If there was a way to screw up he’d plant both feet in it like he’d stomped in elephant poop.
His family had moved often when he was young. For a few days things would be fine. Then one day he’d show up and everyone would shuffle their seats so there was no room for him. Or he’d see one of the girls, out of the corner of his eye, curling her lip like she’d smelled something rancid when he walked past. It had long ago reached a point that any time he joined some new social circle-- a new neighborhood, a new school, a new class-- he considered it a question not of IF, but HOW LONG before he was an outcast again, despised by everyone there.
When he was in seventh grade, he’d stood up and told the class he was moving away to Brockton Bay that summer.
The kids had all cheered and clapped.
He’d never quite been the same after that.
It was small wonder he’d retreated into his hobbies, and his games, and the internet. Especially the net. Sure, people online were pricks too-- but screw ‘em; he could ignore them or shut them out online a hell of a lot easier than the pricks he had to live with on his block or at his school. And yeah, maybe he was something of a prick and a troll online himself… but what goes around comes around, right? Anyway, what did they ever do for him? They were gonna hate him anyway, so he might as well troll their forums and chatrooms and give them a REAL reason to treat him like crap.
Greg wasn’t a mean kid. Not really. He had a conscience; he wanted to be kind and honorable and good just like anyone else would. But being stuck on the bottom of society’s shoe hadn’t exactly given him a lot of opportunities to be noble. So he took his comforts where he could… online.
Online, he was Void Cowboy.
Greg Veder was a loser. “Void Cowboy” gave as good as he got. Greg Veder was a wimp and a weakling who got knocked around by everyone; “Void Cowboy” could kick ass all day long on his online games--- he could camp and grief and spawnkill and drive entire squads of online players into an impotent apoplexy. Greg Veder couldn’t say anything without sticking his foot in his mouth-- was scared to say anything that might get him scorned or mocked or even get his ass kicked; “Void Cowboy” said whatever he damn well pleased, even if everyone else was too scared to say what they were really thinking out loud and it made everyone roar in outrage.
At least… on a good day, when he wasn’t being kickbanned.
Most of all, Greg Veder was a loser who’d probably spend his senior prom sitting at home, watching the TV with his mother. “Void Cowboy” could go on PHO and hang out with real live capes and other cool people. Like every kid of his generation, Greg dreamed wild dreams of being a cape himself, a superhero like Eidolon or Triumph or Armsmaster. In his daydreams he was a paragon; he could stand up to the world and fight for truth and justice, and everyone respected him. He could be a hero too, if he had the opportunity!
It had been especially cruel when that little daydream had been shattered for him.
The day that… thing… happened to Taylor Hebert. Confusion, alarm bells ringing as everyone evacuated Winslow and stood around outside gawking at nothing… then the PRT had arrived. And the heroes. It had gone through the mobbing crowd of students like wildfire: someone in Winslow had Triggered. The pieces had come together even before a mutated Taylor Hebert had been carted out of the school and whisked away; how the Bitches Three had locked Taylor in a locker full of-- it made Greg wanna barf when he heard what it had been full of-- and she had triggered and thrashed the utter crap out of all three of them with her new powers.
Then Armsmaster had been standing there. Greg had gotten such a rush from that; the leader of the Brockton Bay Protectorate, standing not ten feet from him!
Then Armsmaster had spoken and Greg’s little world of illusions had come crashing down.
“...I have found evidence that this incident was caused by a months-long campaign of sadistic and cowardly bullying against a student...this campaign of bullying was made astronomically worse by the cooperation, both passive and active, covert and overt, implicit and explicit, of the COWARDLY and GUTLESS student body and school staff--”
He was standing not ten feet away. He was looking in Greg’s direction; blank visor or no it was like he was looking Greg right in the eye.
“---who witnessed this CRIMINAL AND INHUMAN ABUSE and did NOTHING AT ALL to intervene…”
Greg felt like he’d been dashed in the face with a bucket of ice water.
“...it is my professional opinion that this entire school is full of nothing but WORTHLESS LITTLE SHITS.”
If his previous words had been like a bucket of ice water, his final sentence was like being hit with the bucket. As Greg stood there like a clueless idiot, watching the hero he admired most in all of Brockton Bay stomp off to climb aboard the PRT transport, he could feel the pieces of his self-image shattering at his feet. All the little lies he’d told himself about himself--- sure he was brave! Of course he’d stick up for the little guy if HE was in that position! No, he’d never just be a bystander!--- were revealed for the huge honking lies they really were.
He HAD been in that position. He HAD been a bystander. He’d watched Sophia Hess and her bitch-trio torment Taylor, and he’d cowered in the corner with his head down. Hell, Taylor had only been ONE. How many other kids had he seen harassed and picked on in Winslow? How many times had Greg detoured halfway around the school to avoid walking through a bunch of kids beating down on another one?
Stand up against the e88? He couldn’t even stand up against a schoolyard bully.
Suddenly feeling smaller than he ever had in his life, he’d grabbed his book bag and slunk off home. That night he’d hid in his bedroom and cried so hard he blacked out.
He’d not gone back to school since. Not even after they finally reopened after the cleanup. Not even when his Dad caught him in his room and read him the riot act. Not when his Mom alternated between fussing over what was wrong with him and screaming at him. They’d drop him off at the front door and he’d be out the back door in five minutes-- along with half the Winslow delinquents. It wasn’t like the school staff actually cared. He’d just take his laptop and hide out at some cafe’ or other with wi-fi. Or he’d crash at his friend Sparky’s place; Sparky’s parents were rarely in attendance, and Sparky himself barely seemed to notice he was there.
He was ashamed of himself. He was ashamed of himself for being ashamed.
Then, one day, it all turned around.
He was headed down the street, on his way to his regular wi-fi mooching spot, when someone got shoved out the front door of a pawn shop right into the sidewalk in front of him. It was some scraggly looking guy, probably a Merchant or one of their customers at least. He had ratty dreadlocked hair, ratty jeans and a moth-eaten plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up far enough to show the needle tracks, and was carrying something electronic stuffed under one arm. He was yelling and cursing at the guy who shoved him out on the street.
“Come on man-- just fifty bucks!” he said.
“Forget it,” the pawnshop guy said. “I’m not touching any of that tinkertech crap! Get lost!” He grabbed the front door by the iron bars welded across the glass and slammed it hard enough to rattle the glass.
Tinkertech?
The junkie spat a few curses at the closed door and threw a few obscene gestures for good measure. Greg nearly jumped out of his skin when the guy whipped around to face him. “Hey, what about you?” he said, his yellowed eyes boring into Greg’s. “Genuine Tinkertech… stuff. Fifty bucks. Whaddya say?” he held out the alleged Tinkertech.
Greg did have the occasional moment of common sense. “If it’s Tinkertech, why are you trying to pawn it?” he asked suspiciously.
“Cause it’s broken or some shit!” the junkie spat. “It don’t work no more… but it’s the real deal, I swear, it’s gotta be worth a mint to someone, right? You hold onto this, it’ll make you a bundle, come on, whaddya say--”
Greg looked at it. Holy crap, it was real. He realized he recognized it from one of Uber and Leet’s webcasts; a thick clunky belt and holsters, half space-ranger, half Lone Ranger, with two sleek chromed guns in the holsters--
An idea blossomed. The most awesome, incredible idea Greg Veder had ever had in his life… he had to have that gunbelt. “I’ll trade you this laptop for it,” he blurted out, holding up the carry case. His parents would kill him when they found out, that laptop had cost hundreds! But Greg didn’t care--
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Before he could blink the swap was made; the case was snatched out of his arms and the space-age gunbelt stuffed into them. The junkie scurried off down the street, presumably to find another pawnshop he wasn’t so well-known at, where he could trade the laptop in.
Greg never saw which way he went. He was too busy scurrying off the other way, headed home with his prize.
That night found him sneaking out to the garage where his father kept all his (almost unused) tools. Quickly he put painting tarps over the windows to black them out, and turned on one-- only one!-- light, the desk lamp at his father’s worktable. There were plenty of tools for electronics and such; his father wasn’t above trying to repair his wife’s kitchen appliances or the TV set. Greg himself got more use out of the stuff, installing upgrades in his computer--
Breathlessly, he picked out a jeweler’s screwdriver and began dismantling the guns and the belt.
….He stared at the innards of the belt and pistols. What was the big deal? This was so simple! Just a couple of burnt out connectors, a couple of scorched components you could find in any pocket calculator. A couple of corresponding ones in the belt. Why had Leet dumped this?
The soldering was tricky, but Greg managed it. As he worked, the smell of sizzling solder wafting up around his head, understanding of the electronic innards before him flowered in his mind. It really wasn’t different from the work he’d had to do on his own computer from time to time... He spotted a few other components that were defective: some resistors that were on their last legs, a couple of cracked diodes and-- whoa, if he didn’t replace that capacitor it would probably explode, and take the whole belt and whoever was wearing it with it! How had Leet missed that? Maybe that explained why Leet ditched it? The belt would have kept malfunctioning and overheating…
Finally all the parts snapped back together. A perfect fit. Holding his breath, he hit the power switch on the belt. Telltales on the grips and the buckle lit up green… all systems go.
His eyes gleamed green in the light from the indicators as he smiled. “I’m gonna be a superhero,” he whispered to noone.
He tested his weapons in a nearby abandoned lot. There was plenty of discarded junk there for him to use for target practice. The guns, it turned out, shot bolts of blue-green plasma that not only hit with a solid punch-- hard enough to knock a grown man flying, he estimated from the dent they left in an old refrigerator-- but also sent miniature lightning bolts dancing up and down the target. Knockdown punch and taser in one. Awesome.
He discovered the belt’s forcefield when he foolishly decided to plink a few shots at some empty paint cans. It turned out some of them weren’t empty; the traces of paint thinner exploded, sending shrapnel in every direction. He was nearly giddy with euphoria when the burning shards ricocheted off the invisible dome that seemed to be all around him. Blasters AND force-fields-- this was getting kewler by the minute! He’d be untouchable with that combo!
Greg had no way of knowing it, but the reason Leet’s guns and force-field belt worked so well was that they were, technically, all one device. The ray guns drew their power from the forcefield the belt generated; in fact they in essence absorbed a bit of the force-field, realigned its polarity from “stationary” to “motile” and expelled it as an energy projectile.
This had definitive drawbacks, ones that might have made Greg a little more hesitant about gallivanting about superheroing with them. Firstly, the gunbelt was powered by a series of capacitors, which were in turn ‘trickle charged’ by a single zero-point energy microchip. Despite Leet’s best efforts, the chip would only emit that tiny charge-- perpetually, but never more than a slow steady trickle. And even the most bleeding-edge capacitors Leet could make could not sustain the force field and fire the guns at the same time.
This meant the force-field dimmed to nothing every time the weapons fired an energy bolt. Leet had made a feature out of a bug, of course: the shield winking out allowed the gun to fire through it, rather than requiring the gun to be outside the shield’s protective range. Unfortunately it left the wielder vulnerable for a critical fraction of a second, much as Glory Girl’s shield did when it was overloaded with too strong a blow. Worse, too high a rate of fire made the capacitors start to burn out. First one would go, then the other five D-Cell sized power reservoirs would blacken and char in rapid sequence… Leet had taken a look at the results the first time he’d lab-tested the gunbelt, and realized that if he was lucky the capacitors would just overheat and burn out, leaving him powerless at the worst possible time. If he WASN’T lucky, one or more of them would release their current charge all at once, and detonate.
Leet wasn’t lucky. He was, however, not stupid either, and mothballed the gunbelt…
Till someone had stolen it.
Greg’s “look” had been incredibly easy to put together. An off-white Stetson out of his Dad’s closet (the old man had gotten it at some dude ranch, way back in his college days.) A bandanna to cover his face. One of his own pair of Levis. A pair of leather cowboy boots (Dang those things were expensive! He’d gone into the biker shop hoping to buy a leather duster--- the shoes were all he could hack. He’d have had to mortgage the house to afford the duster. And it had looked so cool, too, darn it…) an old belt with a platter-sized buckle (honestly, Dad, thin out the seventies stuff once in a while) A dark blue shirt of some silky material. And the final touch that he found by sheer luck at the Goodwill-- a fringed, buckskin jacket in pale off-white leather.
A covert trip to a local craft shoppe for materials, then he carefully painted retro style “circuit” patterns on everything in glow-in-the-dark blue fabric paint…. On the headband of the hat. On the shoulders and cuffs of the jacket. On his belt (the one that held his pants up, not the gunbelt.) On the bandanna. Down the sides of the boots.
But across the front of the midnight blue shirt, he painted an enormous spiral of stars, swirling down into a black void-- a black hole.
The moment the paint was dry he threw it all on. He stood in front of the full-length mirror in his mother’s laundry/sewing room, took a deep breath, snapped the gunbelt on, and looked at his reflection.
Down with Greg Veder, loser. A new Superhero was born.
Sure the costume was a little rough… heck, he could still catch a whiff of the fabric paint fumes, he’d better remember to air the suit out… and it was a little tight here and a little loose there-- but the look was so right. It was just how he’d pictured his alter ego in his mind.
He wasn’t a nobody. He wasn’t worthless. He was going to be a superhero.
“Yippee-ki-yay, Brockton Bay,” he said, grinning like an idiot behind his bandanna. “Here I come.”
“How about a sort of hovering boogie-board…?”
Taylor, aka the Fabulous Ladybird, and Kid Win were cruising over the rooftops. Or rather Kid Win was cruising over them on his flying skateboard, and Ladybird was alternating between galloping across them and teleporting from one to the next. It was a fairly warm spring night; Wards weren’t supposed to go on late patrols, but it was Friday night-- and it was Brockton Bay after all, so needs must. The city was particularly pretty all lit up at night, and she was quite enjoying the view and the (well, relatively) fresh air. She was doing quite well in keeping up with the teenage Tinker as well; surprisingly. Even with all the running and teleporting she wasn’t even winded.
“I dunno, that’s…” (POP) “ more your thing, Kid Win,” she said as she ‘ported from one rooftop to the next.
Which wasn’t to say traveling this way wasn’t getting tiring. Hence, the topic of their discussion over the intercoms as they patrolled: alternative means of transportation for the fourlegged Ward. Most of the ideas were more or less feasible…
“Maybe use something related to your powers. I got it, how about a cloud of butterflies?”
“Contrary to what you might see on the cartoons, they don’t have very strong backs, Kid. I’d have to dangle below them, by threads or something….”
...The main point of contention was coming up with one that wouldn’t look-- well-- stupid.
“Well how about one BIG butterfly?” Kid suggested. “You can make those.”
“Yeah, but I already traumatized Glenn with that one, I’d rather not freak out anyone else,” Ladybird replied. “Besides have you seen how butterflies fly? They can’t do a straight line to save their lives. I’d be barfing my lungs out in five minutes.”
Under normal circumstances Comms would have been barking at them for cluttering up the channel with casual conversation… but Kid Win had surreptitiously added a second, ‘private chat’ channel to the Ward intercoms precisely so they COULD chatter while rooftop-hopping. Armsmaster was liable to throw a wobbly over it if he ever found out-- it wasn’t protocol-- but the dual channel system had proven too handy for the Wards to ever rat Kid Win out about it. Besides, it kept the “official” comms clear.
“No giant bugs, then,” Kid Win said. He sounded faintly disappointed. “Even though you sicced that giant caterpillar on Rune and Hookwolf last week?”
“Hey, it was combat, that was different!” She paused. “Man, I’ve never heard anyone scream that high before..”
“Yeah, who knew that Hookwolf was an insectophobe...”
It had been an... unusual super-battle. Rune and Hookwolf were two of the heavy hitters for the Empire 88, the Neo-Nazi cape gang that plagued Brockton Bay. Rune was a telekinetic who could bring multi-ton objects (trucks, buses, chunks of building and street) under her power with a single touch; Hookwolf was a Changer who could transform his entire body into a shifting mass of whirling steel blades and hooks. The Empire 88 had apparently decided that several black families had moved their homes too close to E88 turf, and had sent Hookwolf and Rune and a half dozen Empire thugs to encourage the “degenerates” to move to another neighborhod.
Ladybird and Kid Win had been patrolling in that area and had just arrived as the nazis had gotten ready to put the row of homes to the torch. In desperation, Taylor had enlarged a pair of caterpillars in the grass between the nazis and the fleeing people, trying to form a living barricade. Hookwolf had taken one look at the gigantic, droopy-eyed things and had shrieked like a cheerleader on helium. The poor things hadn’t lasted long against his flailing hooks, but Taylor had immediately used her magic to summon every cockroach in range, engorged and multiplied them, and swarmed the murderous nazi cape with them.
Hookwolf had flipped out. He’d begun spinning like a dervish and thrashing around like mad, trying to smash and slash the crawling carpet covering him, bug guts and bits spraying everywhere. He’d looked like the Tasmanian Devil having an epileptic seizure. When the PRT paddywagon arrived for him, he was lying on the ground in a foetal position, covered head to toe in cockroach paste, and whimpering like a puppy. Rune had escaped and the mooks had all run for their lives when their leader had started flipping out, and Taylor had been told to never ever ever use that attack method on anyone without express permission EVER AGAIN, but overall everyone was ready to call it a win.
“Okay, so you CAN do more than just bug stuff with your magic,” Kid Win pressed on. “What about a magic cloud like in Dragon Ball? Or… I dunno, flying around in a magic bubble?”
Taylor giggled at that one. “Like Glinda from the Wizard of Oz?” she said. “I can just see that---” She hopped atop a chimney and struck a pose, left forehoof and right back hoof raised. “’Are you a GOOD cape, or are you a BAD cape?’” she said in the plummiest accent she could manage and batted her lashes.
Kid Win snorted. “You know, I never noticed that Glinda was dissing Dorothy there till just now?”
“What?”
“Think about it. She flat out tells Dorothy that ‘only bad Witches are ugly...’ then she asks Dorothy ‘well, are you a good witch or a bad witch?’”
Ladybird let out a burst of laughter. “You’re right! I never--” she stopped suddenly, cantering to a halt on the edge of an office rooftop. Her ears pricked and she sniffed the air. “Uh oh, break’s over.” She clicked off ‘chat’ and went to ‘Comms.’
“What is it?” Kid Win said.
“I smell gun smoke,” she said. She sniffed again. The power wonks had figured out early on that Taylor’s senses were far keener than a human’s; Miss Militia and Armsmaster had quickly taken advantage of that by carefully exposing her to the scent of various substances-- drugs, explosives, common poisons-- but particularly gunpowder and its variants. Yes, it was definitely gunsmoke; the acrid bite at the back of her nostrils was unmistakeable. “And I hear gunfire too.” She pointed with a hoof toward the faint ‘pop pop pop’ sound. “Sounds like pistols, that way, about five blocks.”
Kid Win nodded and phoned it in. He and the others had learned to trust Ladybird’s keen nose and her keener directional hearing. “Comms, this is Kid Win, Ladybird reports hearing scent and sound of small arms fire five blocks Northwest from our current location, what are our orders?”
Triumph’s voice came over the airwaves. “Recon, but do not engage,” he said. “Stay a rooftop away and wait for backup.”
“Roger,” Kid Win said. He kicked off the roof and flew as fast as his board could go, Ladybird popping from roof to roof in his wake.
They got there in moments, dropping to a rooftop and taking cover in the shadows, just far back enough that the streetlights below didn’t illuminate them. What they saw was not heartening.
“Aww crap,” the little unicorn said aloud. Down below, crowding the street, were a couple of beaten up vehicles filled with armed men wearing ABB colors. They’d come to a halt in the middle of the street, parking sloppily in front of a late night shop. The unfortunate owners were out on the sidewalk, guns leveled at them. An elderly asian man Taylor took to be the owner of the store was lying on the ground, clutching a bleeding wound on his leg, a discarded shotgun lying on the ground well out of his reach. A woman, most likely his wife, was kneeling next to him sobbing hysterically. The gun wound-- and the bullet holes in the brick wall behind the man indicating the gangster’s lousy aim-- explained the gunfire she’d heard…
One of the ABB gangsters was speaking to the shopkeep; Taylor could hear him clearly. To his surprise he was speaking English. “...have insulted Lung and the ABB by refusing to pay your dues,” he was saying. “Be thankful if we only take what is ours and don’t burn your wretched little shop down!”
Kid Win was already muttering into his headset. “Comms, looks like Lung’s boys are out shaking the locals down,” he said. “Two civilians, one down and wounded, we need backup now--”
“Copy that,” Triumph’s voice came back. “Be advised Velocity and the BBPD are both on their way. Any sign of their Capes?”
“No, thank-- oh what the hell?” Kid Win cut himself off. Taylor looked up at him, then down at the street to see why he was staring.
A figure had just come striding out of a side alley. Someone dressed in what looked like a mish-mash of Buck Rogers and Roy Rogers. He strolled out into the middle of the street. He stood there, arms akimbo, facing the gawking crowd of ABB gangbangers.
“Now hold it right there, you sidewinders!” his cracked voice echoed down the street. Taylor recognized that nasal, pubescent voice instantly. Four hooves or no she nearly toppled over in shock.
Greg Veder???
All sorts of piecemeal memories started coming together in rapid succession. She recalled a missing persons report, about a Winslow sophomore who had disappeared-- about the same time she had Triggered. She hadn’t paid attention at the time; students at Winslow were always going truant or running away from home or the like… the brief hubbub on Parahumans Online when one of the chatroom’s most notorious trolls had posted one last line-- “I’m sorry for everything. Goodbye”-- cancelled his online account and deleted all his forum entries, blogs and fansites, everything--- and vanished, never to return.
She took a look at the rather shiny and obviously tinkertech gunbelt and pistols Greg was wearing. She added up the numbers and got a horrible sinking feeling as she worked out the sum.
Greg Veder, what are you doing, you idiot?
Greg was having the best night of his life.
He’d been hesitant, heck, he’d been shaking in his boots when he first sneaked out that night and went looking for some heroing to do. But it had gone so well! It was so easy! He’d stopped a purse snatcher, saved some guy from being mugged, busted up a couple of drug deals, dropped a couple of guys trying a Break-and-Entry… just stepping out of the shadows in this get-up sent most bad guys running. For those that didn’t-- well, the force field soaked up any punches or stabs (and even a single gunshot-- he’d nearly wet himself when that happened. He hoped noone noticed), and a single shot from one of his blasters dropped the rest like sacks of dirt.
He’d even nailed the running purse snatcher in the butt from half a block away. Heh. That had been awesome.
After each bust he’d carefully zip-tied the perp’s hands and feet together, given the victim back their stolen stuff, called the cops and the PRT, and then hauled butt before the authorities showed. Easy peasy, the superhero ABCs.
And people had thanked him. A couple shook his hand. The little old lady who’d been purse-snatched actually gave him a kiss on the cheek.
Him, Greg Veder.
Being a superhero was great.
He made sure every time he made a bust, every time he called in to the PRT, he told them his Cape name. Everyone on PHO would have laughed their asses off at him for picking the name he did, would’ve verbally flayed him as an idiot for using it. Well, screw them. They all hated him anyway. They all laughed at him. They’d celebrated when he’d deleted his PHO account, the bastards.
Well, he was going to own this name. He was going to cram his name down their throats till they couldn’t stand it. He was going to be a HERO, and he was going to make that name a household name till they couldn’t talk about Capes without saying it.
His name was Void Cowboy, dammit. And they were gonna REMEMBER it.
The only downside to superheroing thus far had been getting the heck around. He didn’t exactly have a motorcycle like Armsmaster, after all. Like heck he was going to ride a bicycle on patrol (He could just see THAT. “Stop in the name of justice!” ching ching, ching ching). And riding the bus as a cape would just be… weird. What’d that leave? A moped maybe? Or a skateboard?
He wondered if Kid Win ever threw his old hoverboards away…
He was starting to get tired out from hoofing it everywhere. Just as he was thinking of wrapping it up and heading home (note to self, next time bring a change of clothes so you can put on some civvies and ride the bus home) and wishing he could end things on a high note, he stumbled across this little tableau in front of the little chinese takeout place. A half-dozen gangbangers in red and green… ABB colors… had the shop owner and his wife on the ground at gunpoint.
Greg felt his heart sing. He always liked this place (the owner’s daughter always smiled at him when she waited his booth) and had wished he could do something nice for them. Wish granted. And taking down a bunch of guys shaking down a storefront would make his name for sure.
Six bozos with pistols against a Cape with a force-field and dual-wielding blasters? Piece of cake.
“Now hold it right there, you sidewinders!” he yelled. His voice cracked (dammit), but he got it out. “You wanna pick a fight with someone, you make it with Void--”
They didn’t wait for him to finish. “Cape!” one of them shouted. They immediately opened fire. Greg’s force field sparked as lead ricocheted off it. He yipped and almost (ALMOST, darn it) ran for cover, but stopped himself. Cursing himself for flinching like a wuss (he had a force field, darn it!), he returned fire. By sheer luck his first shot hit one gang member in the chest, making him do a backflip off the back of his truck. Thanks to Greg shooting akimbo, the second and third shot went wide, but the fourth and fifth grazed their marks, sending them twitching to the ground as the energy bolt tazed them.
Greg grinned to himself eagerly behind his bandanna as the ABB gangmembers went down one by one. This was his day for sure--!
“What in the eighteen Hells is going on out here?”
Greg felt his heart drop straight down to his overpriced cowboy boots. An enormous, muscled asian man covered in tattoos had come out of the shop, wiping his mouth with a napkin. He was so big he practically had to duck sideways to get out through the door.
Greg didn’t even need to see the dragon mask covering the upper half of the man’s face to know who this was.
Lung.
Lung was the leader of the Azn Bad Boys. He was also the only cape to have battled an Endbringer singlehanded, and lived. At baseline, he was tough, strong, and possessed a moderate level of pyrokinesis-- if any level of the ability to generate heat and flame could be called “moderate.” But his real power is that the longer he battled, the more powerful he became. He grew in size. Sprouted claws and metallic scales. Generated unfathomable amounts of heat and flame. If he battled long enough he eventually became a dragon-- a full-blown, firebreathing, bat-winged, Tokyo-stomping dragon. His battle with Leviathan had sunk the island of Kyuushu.
Aaaaand apparently he’d decided to come along for the ride when his men went on this little shakedown tour.
Lung made it a practice to come along when people under his protection started getting… hesitant... about paying tribute. He didn’t smash things up or burn things down. He didn’t break kneecaps. No, what he would do is that he would come to the store, or restaurant, or other place of business, and simply make himself at home for a few hours. Sitting silently in a chair. Watching the owners who had failed to make their payments to him work. If it was a restaurant, he would perhaps order a meal and have the owners serve him. If it was a store, he would do a little idle browsing, maybe even buy one or two items for show. After an hour or two of this, once the tension was wound so high that the owners were in danger of collapsing from heart attacks… he would simply get up, and calmly leave.
The message always got delivered. He was yet to have to visit in person twice.
When he and his men had driven up to the front door of this particular establishment, the shopkeep was obviously feeling his oats. He’d tried to scare his men off by brandishing a shotgun at them; it had only gotten the fool shot in the leg. Then Lung had gotten out of the back seat of the car. He’d almost laughed out loud at the expression on the old man’s face when the old man had seen that LUNG was paying him a visit. Lung had pointedly ignored the bleeding man and his wife quaking in the street, and walked inside the establishment as if nothing were out of the ordinary. His men would watch the idiot and his blubbering wife. He would keep. And if not… well, if the fool bled out in the street, what did Lung care?
The place was tiny, more of a takeout place than a restaurant, but it did have two or three booths. Lung took one and calmly ordered the largest meal on the menu. He’d taken great enjoyment in having the owner’s terrified daughter wait on him and serve his meal. To her credit she had nerves of iron; neither her hand nor her voice shook as she took his order. But the message was delivered. The man outside would pay Lung’s rightful tribute. If not him, then his widow or his heir.
He had barely bitten into his appetizer, however, when the street outside exploded into gunfire and panic. He could see flashes of energy weapon fire striking all round them, sending some fleeing and others tumbling into the street. Cursing, he got to his feet and stormed outside, his muscles swelling and his powers ramping up already at the prospect of battle. “WHO DARES?” he roared as he cast about, looking for the source of the havoc.
It was a Cape of course.
...A particularly stupid looking cape.
Greg was dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.
It was LUNG. Lung would have a harder time picking his toenails than killing Greg.
Distantly Greg thought he could hear someone screaming for him to run, to get out of there you idiot--
Lung was already getting bigger. He was covered in scales; flames were dancing up and down his arms. His men had scattered the instant he’d come out-- it didn’t matter whether you were friend or foe, it was incredibly unhealthy to be in Lung’s proximity when he began transforming. Already the asphalt under Lung’s clawed feet was beginning to smoke.
Greg could see the restaurant owner and his wife, lying almost at Lung’s feet. They were screaming and crying, pressing up against the front of the shop, trying to get away from Lung’s deadly heat.
They would be charcoal in seconds if they didn’t get away, if Lung didn’t move…
Greg-- poor, dumb, worthless, loser Greg-- did the bravest and possibly LAST thing ever in his life.
Greg-- no, VOID COWBOY-- raised his guns and aimed at Lung’s enormous chest. “Lung, you yellow-belly!” he shouted. “I’m callin’ you out!”
And he opened fire.
ZOT ZOT ZOT ZOT ZOT…. Void Cowboy squeezed the triggers as fast as he could, left-right-left-right-left-right, sending a stream of energy bolts zipping into the rage-dragon’s chest. He felt the gunbelt growing painfully hot at the small of his back as the capacitors began to overload. He might as well have been throwing fourth of July sparklers at the hull of a main battle tank.
Lung shoved aside the smoldering vehicles blocking his path and began stomping down the street towards the wannabe space cowboy. “Who are you, idiot boy?” he snarled, his words already blurred by the malforming of his mouth as it turned into an ugly, alien muzzle.
Greg was all but pissing himself in terror. But he didn’t run. He never let up firing, even as the skin on the small of his back began to burn. Behind Lung he could see the restaurant owner and his wife limpin away to safety. Good, he thought. “The name’s VOID COWBOY,” he yelled, his voice cracking. “REMEMBER IT!”
Lung strode up to him, reared back, and backhanded him. For a wonder, the wannabe cape didn’t go flying in a dozen pieces at the blow. Greg’s force field flared bright white and blinked out. All the capacitors in his gunbelt blew at once in a shower of sparks; Greg bent backwards nearly double in agony as the explosion charred his back and shattered his spine.
Lung’s back swing caught him full on. The shattered body of Greg Veder, wannabe Cape, went rocketing across the street. It smashed through the crumbling brick facade of an abandoned store and disappeared inside.
Lung was no fool. Capes, especially Tinkers, could pull all sorts of surprises on the unwary. He started after the body to make sure of his kill, when energy fire began raining down on him from above. Bolts of electrical energy and rays of purple pummeled him, cracking his scales and making him roar in surprise.
“Man down,” Kid Win yelled into his headset as he cranked up the power on his ray guns. “Man down, we got a cape down-- Send an ambulance, I think Lung may have just killed some Rogue cape!”
Something vast moved.
THUNK.
“Methinks not!”
“Bestill thyself. thou’rt in no place to make demands, wretched thing.” The voice was feminine, beautiful, but terribly strident in tone. Iy was a nice voice, more or less. Greg supposed he liked it, but he wasn’t sure…
“Are you sure you want this one, Sister?” The second voice was more mature, more gentle.
“Of course. Why not? Should I leave the poor thing to perish?”
“No, of course not. But there are other ways-- they have that miraculous healer, after all and...” It’s just that…” The second voice sighed. “well, we’ve both seen what he’s like. He’s… just so...”
“Gormless? Feckless? Offensive? Unlikeable?” the first voice demanded. “...Unlovely?”
“I wouldn’t go so far...” the second voice dithered. Greg felt his opinion of the second voice sour. Thanks a lot, sister.
“Sister, what is the point of second chances,” the first voice said, suddenly gentle as it was chiding, “if they are only extended to the lovely and fair?”
“And I find myself chastened, sister,” the second voice replied humbly. “Very well.”
“Besides,” the first voice continued, some of its bombast returning. “This one doth have potential. He hath shown a smattering of compassion, and a measure of bravery-- albeit a foolish sort… And such aptitude! To take a jinxed devise, and re-cobble it together to work--! It doth show promise.”
“Very well, very well, sister! I am already sold,” the second voice chuckled. “So what shall it be?”
“Firstly…. Hmmm…” there was a sense of scrutiny. The voice spoke slowly. “an idea, sister….”
“Yes?”
“If the malevolence that plagues this planet doth insist on showering these ‘gifts...’ then why not make better use of them ourselves?”
“Ohh, intriguing. What do you have in mind?”
“Here. Behold what sort of shard this is...”
“Oh yes indeed. He’s already got aptitudes, as you said-- this would serve him quite well. With a little… adjustment...”
“Oh yes-- let’s see what we have here then-- Ugh… look at this WASTE! Odds Bodkins, such a sprawling bloat of code, ‘twould cover a continent or more!”
“That’s fairly easy to fix. See...you just...”
“Forsooth. But tis not enough to merely compress. Mayhap if we fold it THIS way… and THIS...”
“You always were better at making folding tessaracts, sister.”
“Strewth. And see? It hardly needs this massive power reservoir-- we’ll just rip that out and replace it with a zero-point energy algorithm---”
“There. Such extravagant energy waste… tis really only a massive archive, for the larger share of things.”
“Yes, it-- oh look at this! This is appalling. All this redacted information! Are they ALL like this? No wonder the poor hosts have so much trouble with their wonder-works… they’re practically working blind! Here, strip out this censoring subroutine...”
“There! And now we separate it from this Malware-- oh, bollocks, what a MESS. Aggression boosters, cognitive suppressors, entire routines dedicated to a suicide urge-- oh, and all of it embedded in a malevolent uncontrolled artificial-intelligence emulation, it all HAS to go...”
“Just tear off everything past this point--”
<...MOTHER...>
There was an enormous, tearing sound. Somewhere out in the quantum void, a Shard-- mutilated, violated, disemboweled and plundered of its most useful arcane components and its eons of hoarded data, drifted off, a tattered shadow of itself. A certain alien entity would spend a great deal of subjective time wondering what the hell happened to it.
Something drifted down towards him. Once vast, it was now impossibly small-- yet somehow contained multitudes. Gemlike, tiny, perfect, no longer a wilful and capricious piece of alien wetware but an obedient and fully functional component, all it needed was a mind to master it and be complete…
“There, my new Champion,” the boisterous sister said as the infinitely huge, infinitely small thing settled inside him. “A gift, a tool, a weapon. Use it wisely.
“And now,” she said, her voice full of an unseen smile. “It is time for thee to awake to a new body-- and a new beginning...”
An indigo horn, long and spiraled and full of stars, touched his forehead…
Lung was reallypissed. Two of the damnable Wards were up on a nearby rooftop, peppering him with their pitiful powers. He seized a nearby car, ripped it in half, and chucked both halves at the rooftop where the brats were cowering. They squealed and ran for cover as the chunks of Detroit steel smashed through brick and concrete.
Growling, Lung turned his back on them and headed for the half-demolished building where he’d flung the cowboy idiot. He leaned in through the crumbling storefront, fully intent on torching the inside with a blast of his fire breath… he stopped when he saw the bloody pile of broken brick inside, a lone mangled hand and bloody boot sticking out from underneath. The idiot cowboy’s stetson rolled into a corner, blown there by an errant breeze.
Lung snorted. It would be a waste of flame. He stood up and turned back to the burning street, his booming chuckle echoing over the crackle of flames.
“No,” Taylor said. “Oh no. Poor Greg...” she was too distraught to realize she’d inadvertently given away Greg’s identity. Not that anyone there seemed to care. She looked over at Kid Win. His face under his visor was pale and drawn. He’d probably never seen anyone killed before. Taylor’s enormous eyes shimmered with tears. Greg was a weirdo and a jerk, but nobody deserved to die like that--!
A bass rumble rose from below. Taylor looked over the edge of the roof. Lung was standing there, head thrown back, his shoulders shaking. It took a moment for Taylor to realize what it was. Lung was laughing. His chuckles turned to full-blown belly laughs….
He was laughing about having killed someone--! Eyes wild, she scrambled up on to the roof ledge, her horn lighting up almost white. Kid Win had to grab her to keep her from going right over the side. “That scumbag,” she said. “I’ll-- I’ll turn him into a newt!! I don’t care if I can or not I’ll try until I figure it out--!”
“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!”
Before Ladybird could deliver on her threat, something small, brown, and screaming in rage leapt out of the ruined building and struck Lung in the small of the back. Lung went sailing down the road, his arms and legs flung back, an expression of absolute astonishment on his face, and slammed face down in the street, the asphalt shattering under him.
Kid Win and Ladybird gawked. Clearly visible in the middle of Lung’s scaly back were two tiny hoofprints.
Up the road came the sound of hoofbeats. A tiny little brown pony, wearing a tattered bandanna around its neck and a battered stetson on its head, was racing up the road straight for where Lung lay-- and screaming profanities with every hoofbeat. It reached the prone rage-dragon just as Lung managed to lever himself up on his elbows. The pony leapt up in the air, spun around in midair and delivered a double kick straight to the back of Lung’s head. Lung crashed back down, and STAYED down.
The pony landed and began jumping up and down on Lung’s back. Not merely hopping up and down, but leaping six, seven, eight feet straight up, catching air, and then slamming back down with all fours, so hard that the pavement cracked. Lung was literally being driven, inch by inch, down into the asphalt.
All the while the colt was screaming in seemingly inarticulate rage.
Kid Win and Ladybird watched, jaws slack in disbelief. Their heads bobbed up and down in time with the berserker colt. “Isn’t this… violating some sort of law of physics?” Taylor asked feebly.
“Probably,” Kid Win answered. “Actually, yes. Two or three, I think...”
It wasn’t clear at first, but as Kid Win and Ladybird listened to the colt’s screams of rage they realized they could make out words.
“I’m sick of everybody LAUGHING at me!” Whump
“I’m sick of everybody making FUN of me!” Whump
“I’m sick of everybody looking DOWN on me! Whump
“I’m NOT A LOSER!” Whump
“I’ll kick your ASS if you call me a loser!” Whump
“I’M VOID--” Whump
“FREAKING--” Whump
“COWBOY!!” Whump
They weren’t the only ones watching the spectacle. Two or three of Lung’s men… the ones who hadn’t bolted for parts unknown when the flames started flying… as well as the family that owned the little restaurant had crept out from cover and were now watching, flabbergasted, as the most powerful and dangerous cape in Brockton Bay was literally stomped into the ground by a tiny pony in a cowboy hat. “We’d better get him out of there,” Kid Win said suddenly. “Before one of Lung’s men decides to use him for target practice!”
Even as he spoke, some of the ABB gangbangers seemed to remember they had weapons in their hands. One raised his pistol and hesitantly drew a bead. Before he could fire, though, sirens wailed and strobe lights lit up the night. The PRT crews had arrived.
Right beside the PRT armored trucks on their motorcycles, or riding atop them, were Miss Militia and Armsmaster, Dauntless, Assault and Battery, Triumph… it looked like the entire Protectorate had decided to show up for a Lung battle.
The moment the ABB goons turned their attention to the oncoming vehicles, Taylor threw a bubble of lavender light around the bouncing colt and yoinked him to safety. She teleported down to the street. Kid Win mounted his board and flew down as well.
The ABB thugs took one look at the cavalry that was riding in and gave up. They threw down their weapons and dropped to their knees, hands on their heads. Lung stirred briefly. For a heart-freezing moment it looked as if he were about to pry himself out of the Lung-shaped dent in the pavement, but then Taylor realized that the movement was just the gravel and broken asphalt settling as Lung diminished in size. “Pony guy musta knocked him out with that two hoofed kick to the head,” Kid Win said. “And thank heaven for THAT.” Taylor nodded fervently in agreement. She saw Armsmaster approach the prone asian warlord and jab him with the end of his halberd, heard the hiss of a hypodermic. Lung wouldn’t be getting up with one of Armsmaster’s tinker tranquilizers in him, Taylor thought confidently.
They carefully approached the lavender bubble that Taylor had nabbed the other pony with. The colt inside was fighting to get free, but not making much headway as there was no surface friction on the inside of the bubble he found himself in. “I thought you couldn’t do bubbles,” Kid Win said to Ladybird.
“I didn’t say I couldn’t do bubbles, I said I didn’t think they were a great idea for traveling in,” she said. She pointed at the colt inside who was now tumbling end over end as he tried to find footing inside the frictionless bubble. “Case in point.” Kid Win shrugged but didn’t debate the point.
The colt finally quit thrashing about. He lay on the bottom of the bubble, panting and gasping. Taylor rapped on the bubble with her hoof. “Void Cowboy?” She asked. “Are you okay now?”
Greg raised his head and looked around. “The hell is going on?” he said, almost plaintively.
Taylor decided to take that as a ‘yes.’ She poked the bubble with the tip of her horn; it vanished with a pop. He dropped to the pavement with a thump. He looked up at her. “T-Taylor?” he said. “Taylor, it’s me-- Greg! Greg Veder!”
“Greg!” Ladybird groaned and facehoofed.
Greg cringed. “Oh crap, right---unwritten rules stuff-- Uh, Hi Ladybird! I’m Void Cowboy--!”
“Just give it up, Greg,” Taylor said flatly.
Greg cringed some more, then shook his head. “Uh, what’s going on? What happened?”
Kid Win propped his hoverboard up on one end and leaned on it. “Well, old boy, it looks like you had a traumatic metamorphic empowerment experience,” he said with a grin. “In other words-- you Triggered.”
“We’ll have… some things to go over with you,” Taylor said with a pained smile.
“Triggered?” the confused colt said. “What do you mean Triggered? I was--” he held up a hoof and stared at it. “Ebbeh.. wah.. WHA...” with a groan he rolled his eyes up and flopped over in a dead faint.
Taylor looked down at him and sighed. “Okay, then, maybe after your nap...”