Point of View : Victoria Dallon
"Victoria? Here is Amy, she will now live us. You will be sisters."
"Really Mom? You're not supposed to bake them nine months in your oven to have a little sister?"
"Not when you adopt them. Amy, this is Victoria. She will be your sister from now on."
"..."
"As long as I am the big one. If you didn't want to be the little sister, you should have come before me."
- Scene Break -
"You know, I thought a sibling would be nice and I could do loads of awesome stuff with them but you're a pain." I tried football, basketball, dolls, TV shows, card games, board games, even that Sudoku thing in the newspaper, she cared about nothing. Whatever I tried, she stayed in her corner.
"Leave me alone." Her catchphrase.
"Continue like this and I will call you Bartleby."
"I would prefer not to."
"The thing is you are not even shy or timid or silent, you're just gloomy." I said the word like it was a vile accusation, because it was. Then, I remembered something about carrot and stick, or give and steak. "Come on, I will steak you a carrot. Play with me and I will tell you a story tonight before we go to bed."
"You don't even make sense."
"Oh, Amy, come on." I was certainly not whining. "It will be the best bedtime story you ever heard."
"No, it won't."
"It will. Believe your big sister Vicky."
"No, it won't!"
"It will!"
"No, it ... you smacked me with that ball."
"Yup. And I bet you can't touch me."
"Vicky!" She ran after me. Finally.
- Scene Break -
"Mom? Why are you in the living room?" Weird, usually she sleeps with Dad in their room and she comes down to make breakfast, and she hates when there is such a mess in the house. "Mom, wake up. Please." She didn't move. "Mom, you're scaring me." I went upstairs.
"Dad! Mom doesn't want to wake up."
- Scene Break -
I had no idea what was going on. I was hearing my mother's name, 'assassination', 'tragedy', lots of people cursing the 'Empire' and I was hugged a lot, especially by Dad. He certainly didn't look well and I was still wondering when Mom came back. The way every adult looked at me was making me uneasy so I stayed with Amy. She turned gloomy again, but she didn't mind if I sticked to her this time, probably because I was a bit gloomy myself.
Everything became worse when I washearing my mother's name, 'assassination', 'tragedy', lots of people cursing the 'Empire' and I was hugged a lot, especially by Dad. He certainly didn't look well and I was still wondering when Mom came back. The way every adult looked at me was making me uneasy so I stayed with Amy. She turned gloomy again, but she didn't mind if I sticked to her this time, probably because I was a bit gloomy myself.
Everything became worse when I was taken to the funeral and I had to wear black clothes, and everyone did the same. Dad and some adults told Amy she could choose not to come, but I didn't want her to get away so I dragged her with me.
Plenty of people in black, some waiting for us with camera near the building we were going in, and besides that barely any sound. I was taken at the front row to see a wooden box and told Mom was inside.
Dad cried again when he told me this. And people behind us did too. That so many grown adults were crying together creeped me out further than the black clothes. Then Dad hugged me, whispering soothing words. The feelings behind these words were tighening my chest far more than his arms.
Amy, at my side, was uncomfortable and unhugged and I wanted to solve this. Anything to not think about why Dad spoke to me like this. So she was hugged.
"Amy."
"Yes?"
"Could you tell me a story tonight?"
"Sure, Vicky."
This time, it was my turn to cry.
- Scene Break -
After that, there was only Dad, Amy and I in the house. I knew Dad and my aunt and uncles were superheroes with superpowers, and it made them busy. What I knew is that Mom left taking the warmth of the house and the light in our family's eyes. I heard things about lawyers taking valuables from houses with them from the TV, Mom must have been the best lawyer there is to take so much from the house. Or the worst.
Dad tried to do something, to be there for us instead of Mom, but you could feel the difference in the pancakes. He must also had been wounded. I heard you're supposed to be as comfortable in your house as you would in your own body, but Dad couldn't bear entering the living room anymore. The living room was supposed to be the heart, right? He moved the TV in another room, and he asked Amy or me to take something from it if he needed it.
I also learned people were pretty much like power supply. Make it work too much and it shuts down. It often happened to my father these days. He would lay on a sofa or his bed and stay there for hours sometimes.
"Dad. Amy and I are hungry. Could you make dinner please?"
"Oh, Victoria. Take my phone, would you? I can call the pizzeria. They deliver."
- Scene Break -
A few months went by and I learned that things weren't easy, either for Amy and I or for Dad. I knew Dad was wounded, he even had pills to take to be better. But sometimes, his heart must have bled out so much he forgot to take them. I tried to learn when I could let him rest and when I had to ask him.
"Dad. We have class tomorrow and all our clothes are crumpled and Mom told us not to play with the iron."
"Yes. That's true. You could easily burn yourself by accident with the iron." He stated, sedate.
"Dad. Only you can do it. Please, I have your pills there, take them and iron our clothes."
"Ah, yes. Carol would have had my head if I let you go to school with rumpled clothes." He did it in the end, and then returned to his bed.
- Scene Break -
With Mom gone and Dad absent even if present, the house got suddenly far bigger and lonelier. Amy and I would have tried to spend more time with friends, the thing is that most of them only to spend time with the New Wave kids and I didn't want to talk about that. So the two of us sticked together. Though, we had a big argument once.
It happened a day when shops were closed and we couldn't order takeouts. Dad was asleep.
"I can remember the time before I was here, the place I was calling home."
"What was it like?"
"The place was big, I had a father and I didn't have to worry about dinner."
"We have a father." I said.
"Are you sure? This is the parents's job to take care of the children, and it certainly feels we are taking care of him."
"It doesn't matter. He is our father."
"Maybe, and how long will this situation last? How long will it take before we can't afford takeouts anymore?"
"We will manage." I said without great conviction.
"That's the thing. I didn't have to think about it before. I could rely on my dad, I didn't have to go to his bedroom for him to pat me on the head and smile."
"Take that back, we have one dad and he is here."
"No, he isn't here, and he isn't my dad."
"Amy…." I growled, all but begging her to shut up.
"My dad had the best stories!" I wanted nothing more than to slap her, but she was already on the ground, crying. I could only stand here, powerless.
"I will make dinner." She snorted.
"You can't."
"What I can't do is staying here and listening to you."
I went to the kitchen and took out utensils. I had pondered enough on their probable purposes to put them at the right place. I had to use a chair to reach the stove. I tried stuff. Olive oil? I heard Amy coming behind me.
"You don't have to do that."
"And I don't have to hear your stomach grumbling in the middle of the night."
"Vicky, you will hurt yourself."
"No, I won't." However I wasn't sure what I was doing. Did I turn on the stove right? I put my hand on it without thinking about it.
Yes I did. I screamed.
"Vicky? Vicky!"
- Scene Break -
"Mark. I know it was a harsh period, after Carol's death we all had to pick up the slack. It was probably the toughest for you, but damn, Amy triggered in your own house!"
"Franklin. I know, it's been a hard time for me as you said, but it doesn't excuse anything."
"I think we are all to blame here. We should have stayed more in contact, it wouldn't have hurt anyone to plan a meal together once a week." Julie sighed. "But the situation stabilized now."
"Julie and I talked and we would like to propose something to you, Mark."
"I'm listening."
"Tanya is growing, and I was split between spending time taking care of her or earning a second income. Since we heard you had trouble being the only adult in the house, I thought it would be possible for us to live together. We take one big house together, I would take care of the girls and we would have two incomes."
"You would have to ask Victoria and Amy if they are okay with this, but I would be glad to do it." Dad looked at us, waiting our answer.
Amy and I nodded without any hesitation.
- Scene Break -
It took a month, but the adults found a good house. Having experience in real estate and having family that could fly helped, I heard. We knew things would change, but we didn't realize it until we moved in the new house.
Waking up early, we went inside the kitchen to grab something for breakfast. However, Julie was already there.
"Girls? I was about to make some pancakes. Would you like some?"
By the time we took a seat, we were both already crying.
- Scene Break -
Years flew by like this. We lived with Dad, aunt Julie and uncle Franklin, Amy and I didn't bother calling Tanya a cousin, we claimed her as our little sister. Damn was she a joy to watch grow despite her rigid behaviour.
I was fourteen then.
I was just leaving the theater with a number of friends from highschool. It was the end of the day. We were all talking about the play's ending and our opinions on the matter while merrily walking home. It was why I was shocked when someone grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me on a garbage can.
"Gang fight! Run!" My own voice screamed in the distance.
Somehow, someone looking like me took my place amongst my friends and started a panic. Everyone ran as a number of vehicles rushed by, hunted by a big wolf-like creature. Hookwolf, Empire. I heard a car crash on a wall, and then gunfire. Dazzled, scared, I took cover in an alley. I activated the distress signal on my phone. Aunt Sarah had insisted we all had one on us. I didn't really think it would get to be useful. All I had to do was to wait.
Wait for the gunfire to stop, for screams to end. For someone to save me. A bullet whistled nearby, nesting itself into the wall I was watching. I blinked.
When my eyes reopened, I was standing in the middle of the street. The garbage can I was hiding behind had landed on Hookwolf's head before falling on the ground, and my body reflected light. Hookwolf turned around and slowly walked in my direction.
"You, girl. You just triggered, didn't you?"
"I triggered?" Though I can from of family of capes, no one liked to mention their trigger, even if they explained what it meant. I was there when Amy had her, but I didn't think about how it could happen to me despite all the time I dreamt about having my own superpower.
"You felt trapped, cornered, abandoned to your fate and with nothing to rely on. This powerless rage became the source of your power. Show me the shape of your fury." I would have laughed at this overblown, dramatic speech if it didn't come from a wolf-like metallic monster whose mouth came to my head, if the voice delivering it didn't sound so solemn.
Hookwolf stood in front of me, his breath making my hair fly in the air.
"Show me the light of your soul!" He barked. The sheer energy of the shout enough to push me away.
But I didn't. I stood my ground, clasped my shining hands around his jaw and threw his entire body on the concrete behind me. I roared at Hookwolf as his body impacted the ground, some primal instinct urging me to claim this small victory.
"Not bad, now we can fight." Hookwolf growled as he charged me.
What followed was the biggest rush of my life. My body was thrown away and hit a car, but I wasn't injured. I made my body adapt, changed into a better shape to fight my opponent. I became taller, bigger, sharper, faster at each exchange until I became as strong and as big as he was. The street was smashed into rubble, walls cracked and turned into ruins as we tore each other apart.
Until Hookwolf trapped my throat between his fangs. I tried to flee his grasp, in vain, I only hurt myself, and my adrenaline dropped down. I switched back into myself and surrendered, and so did he afterwards.
"You keep your injuries when you switch back? Damn, that's annoying. Come on, I will take you to the hospital." That wasn't what I was expecting from what was the most dreaded cape within the Empire. I was too cautious and overwhelmed to answer. He threw me in the back of one of his gang's car that one of his men drove.
"That was one nice brawl for the first time, little girl. You will grow into one fine woman. Want to join my gang?" He offered, as he also exposed his chiseled chest to me.
Seriously?
"No way. I'm not joining the Empire. You should better leave me here if you don't want to get killed. I'm New Wave." Since the day Mom died, I have a better understanding of what happened that day. I wasn't about to forgive them.
"Oh. You are one of New Wave's kids, is that it? It would be pretty hilarious if I ended up recruiting you indeed. Still, I didn't lie. I'm bringing you to the hospital. Karl, lend me your shirt."
"You do realize Panacea is my sister and she would heal me better than even the world's best doctor if I asked nicely?"
"Ah yes, that's true. Doesn't change a thing." It was how Hookwolf brought me to the hospital.
He took off his mask, revealing a face marked by some old scars and surrounded by shaggy blonde hair. "Cape life is a funny thing. I can either be Hookwolf, Kaiser's attack dog, an unapologetic killer who you want to throw in jail, and if I take off that thing, I am merely Brad, a plain guy bringing a wounded girl to the hospital and who can surely not be linked to the first in any possible case."
I gritted my teeth. Unwritten rules. I would do New Wave far more damage revealing him than I would do him by doing so.
Hookwolf, or Brad, got off the car with me. Behaving like a perfectly concerned bystander who just happened to save a teenage girl from a crossfire, he had a doctor, one with a Japanese name, examine me for wounds, which amounted to a total of several grazes. He left after a nurse applied some cream and bandages. The experience was made extremely stressful by Brad's presence nearby.
"Give me your phone." He said.
"No. And then what? You're not my father." I just wanted to turn back into a giant creature of light and explode him into chunks of meat, but it would be insanely reckless to try that inside a hospital when for all appearance, he was just trying to be helpful. No matter how twisted it might be.
"No, but you are a wounded girl and you should call your parents to take you home after such a traumatic accident." The amount of bullshit leaving his mouth was so impressive I didn't notice when my phone received a call. Brad used the opportunity to grab it.
"Hello, you are the girl's father? Wonderful. No, Victoria is fine. She got caught in a crossfire but we escaped and I brought her to the hospital. No need to thank me, I was merely doing my duty." It was hard to restrain myself. "You want to talk to her? Of course."
He kept the phone in his hand, but put it to my ear, grinning like a madman elaborating the biggest prank of his life.
"Hi Dad. I'm fine, nothing serious, don't worry." I stared into Brad's eyes, trying to discern his intent. I thought it was some kind of bet, or maybe a test. He wanted to see what I would do. I wouldn't let myself be intidimated by him here. "Dad. I triggered." I chose to say it. To Dad's panic.
Brad took back the phone. "Victoria is a tough girl, she can handle herself. You see, one second she was hiding behind an alley, and then, bam she charges the nearest cape she sees. That was one good battle we had together, she is a true fighter that girl." Was he praising me now?
What the hell was he trying to do?
"Who are you?" I heard my father's voice through the phone. Even with the distance, I never heard such fury coming out from him.
"I'm Hookwolf." The man said, just as he ended the call. He threw me my phone even as a tremor shook his body.
Hookwolf laughed.
I would never hear again such a triumphant sound in all my life. It was loud, booming, gigantic in volume. The sound was so powerful it felt like the world shook around me, the very walls assaulted by vibrations of hilarity. All eyes converged towards the source of this insane, all-consuming laughter, caught off guard by such powerful emotion.
"That was fun. Take care girl, and grow into a good woman."
He left like this.
What. The. Fuck.
That was the Radiant's background interlude. I might do some more later on. Yes, it was a bit dark compared to what I've written until now, but do I have to remind you this is Worm and that background stories are made to be sucky?
I will also remind people that I would appreciate it if they voted for a plan. Several had been proposed pages 10 and 11. If possible, I would like to not pick the plans myself.
Chapter 7
Spoiler: Winning Plan
I was sitting in the back of a PRT truck along with Velocity and Radiant. We were watching over Alabaster, who was tied to the vehicle. Velocity had used containment foam to trap his legs while Ouroboros was restraining the rest of his body. I tried to talk with him a bit but all Alabaster said was insults and racial slurs so I made him shut up again like the good ever regenerating neo-nazi lollipop he was.
At least, I felt even less guilty seeing his face being dissolved by Ouroboros every four point three seconds.
Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that having three capes watching over him was a waste. Velocity was the only PRT cape here and it was probably his orders to bring Alabaster to jail, Radiant seemed torn on the issue but stayed here when Shielder said he would join with Panacea. As for me, I thought my bruise would hamper me, but Velocity dressed my wound with a medikit and the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was merely painful and not crippling and I could do more elsewhere.
The radio Velocity kept in hand didn't help. Numerous voices signalling in military jargon that some house on some street was set on fire, that gunshots were heard at a Empire stronghold, that someone somewhere needed an ambulance, that violence was erupting across Brockton Bay. I heard the names of Wards being assigned to some of these scenes. I cringed at every casualty report.
"A problem Conflux?" Radiant asked.
"Nothing, I was just reminded that you don't need parahumans to have a gang war." Parahumans were indeed more noticeable, but certainly not the root of the problem. It was how I spent the trip in the truck, questioning why I was even here as I heard the exact details of the crisis.
The truck arrived to its destination. The PRT base within Brockton Bay, near the sea. We entered the building with Ouroboros, feeding on Alabaster, it was now big enough to move on the ground while swallowing a man's whole torso without problem. The Empire cape was tied to a wall, body checked and sprayed with containment foam again before being thrown in a cell.
"Thanks for your assistance capturing Alabaster." Velocity said. "Conflux, know that if you are interested, that the Wards are always glad to have new members. Had the situation been less urgent, I would have offered you to meet them at a later date."
"I will keep that in mind." I expected the offer, though I appreciated that he didn't try too hard. I soon left. I saw Radiant at the entrance of the building.
"I didn't thank you for saving Shielder's ass yet, did I?"
"I did my job."
"Then let me at least admire your work ethic."
"It's not that fabulous since we are here, talking, when there is dozens of battlefields we could intervene on right now." I answered, angry, but against what I couldn't say.
"Oh. You can't stand being in the sidelines?"
"Don't you? Your whole family is fighting Kaiser and Lung as we speak. Don't you hate the feeling of having power not being able to use it when it matters?"
"Of course, I do." She answered with such serenity I wondered if she was mocking me. "Am I doing enough? How much pain and suffering could I end if I dedicated myself more to that goal? I already had that conversation with Amy once. How could I argue against my little sister staying one more hour at the hospital when she can cure cancer in less than five minutes? How dare I ask her to see a movie with me when she can save more lives than there are actors in the movie by the time we see the credits? The thing is that you can always go further with this line of reasoning."
"I see what you mean with that, but not where you are going."
"It's simple. Sometimes you have to be satisfied with what you did and take a break. I made Hookwolf back off for tonight, my family can handle themselves and Amy is nearby if needed. I did my job, now I have to let others do their."
"It's not that the problem." I knew now what it was, but not how to express it.
"Then what is the problem?"
"I just wish that…" There was something then, I spent my mana to find a solution. "My wish… Radiant, do you trust me?"
"You sound just like a tinker after he got an idea. Was it a good one at least?"
"It won't stop the hostilities, but damn would it reduce the damage."
"You will do it anyway even I refuse, don't you?"
"I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't at least try."
"Then, let me keep you safe at least." She sighed.
"Thank you." I took her hand in mine and cast my spell, envelopping the both of us into a mystical fog.
- Scene Break -
"Wait a sec. The reason why we are walking backwards in a fog is because we are time travelling?!" Radiant sounded almost hysterical.
"Something like that, I think it's more some kind of glitch where time is taken as space and vice versa, since a movement is a set of coordinates happening within a time frame, we're now using space as a tool to calculate the amount of time we're walking through." At least, I thought it was something like this. I was orienting myself with the location my wish was providing me, both temporally and spatially, a star in front of my eyes I was reaching by walking backwards. "Be careful to not trip on the past, or maybe it will be your future should we go further."
"That's bullshit and overly complicated! It doesn't even explain why the orientation of our bodies matter when we take a step." Radiant resumed my feelings on the matter, but I wasn't to complain about my own powers.
"Yup, and be sure to have strong supports, if you trip I might let go your hand and I wouldn't know when to pick you up." Yes, I meant when.
We walked like that for a subjective period of time, or space, one was used to calculate the other so it was hard to know. The fog didn't help. It lasted until our backs hit a door. Finally.
"Could you destroy that door please Radiant?"
"With pleasure, Conflux." Barely moving from her spot, she punched through the handle and the wood with ease. By habit, we walked backwards to enter but the door appeared unscathed. "Oh, come on, really?"
"We took a step to the past, to see the past of the door is natural." Radiant made sure to punch the door again, before it was actually hit first, or was it after. Damn, time travel was confusing.
I remembered that Maria had walked around here a few weeks before. It was a clandestine dog fights ring for the Empire. Thankfully, no one was around. Fighting now would have definitely been tough. It was probably a bar or a private club. We broke through a few other doors and reached the basement.
Time travelling or not, we couldn't escape the smell of dogs and sweat. There was a mix of colors in the air, it tasted like a word, Jund, it was wild, violent and vicious. A small arena in the middle of the room with a fence separating what would be the ring and the audience. A man could easily move over it, but it would be almost impossible for a dog to leave.
I stood within the arena, touched the thirsty sand and Walked through with Radiant.
Spoiler: Grand Coliseum.
"And now a pocket dimension. I'm not even surprised anymore." She said, looking around this gigantic coliseum, an infinitely more prestigious monument than the dog fight club it stood upon, if no less brutal.
"It has its drawbacks." I winced in pain as I felt the start of a headache. Now that I arrived on the magical dimension, I gutted the fog of its influence and power so it wouldn't bother us until we came back to reality. The less nuisances I had to deal with, the better. "You can let go of my hand now, just follow me for now."
I headed straight to the catacombs, the foundations of this surnatural building, and started the next step of my plan, laying occult symbols upon the very stone.
"Do these scribbles have a point, or it's just to set up the mood?" While I felt thankful to Radiant for coming here with me, her endless questions and comments were starting to get on my nerves.
"It would end up stabilizing the end result, better do it now." I laid another symbol, a triskelion this time. Radiant analysed my fingers, and how their very touch altered the stone as if it was jelly.
"You think you could write my name somewhere?" I didn't bother answering. I took her hand, used her index as pen and wrote 'Victoria Dallon Radiant' on the wall, and then left the mark of her hand next to it, as signature.
"Done." I drew something else as she admired my work.
"Cool, thanks." Pause. "You also did something to me earlier in the fight, right?" Technically, it was happening now. "I couldn't have torn Hookwolf a new hide that easily without outside help, and you're the one with a trump power." I nodded. "Next time I'm facing him, please don't intervene. I want to beat him on my own." Radiant stated with conviction.
"Why does it matter? If we crush him soundly, he won't have the opportunity to start trouble again."
"It's important for me. I could tolerate winning against him with the rest of my family or in a giant melee, but there wouldn't be any meaning if some trump voodoo made me able to wipe the floor with him. I want to defeat Hookwolf on my own terms."
"I don't care if he's your rival or something." I said honestly, not that I wanted to sound rude, but I started to feel strained. "Though I suppose you will like what I'm doing here."
"What are you doing right now anyway? It feels more like you are doing some shamanistic stuff than using your power." I wondered why she didn't ask that much earlier. I wrote down the last symbol and climbed back to the arena.
"I think it was more druidic than shamanistic." She didn't look convinced. "Alright. If I want my enchantment to have a lasting impact, I need to empower it. The symbols I carved below are for the additional source of power. See for yourself, the hard part for me happens now."
My headache grew worse as I summoned the rite. The arena became a reflect of my head, numerous lines popping from all sides of the arena and converging towards the center, erupting into an incredible, brain shattering column of green energy. I felt the air becoming richer, more charged, the wind rising and howling as the tornado surged from the ground, as if it was a tree growing and whose roots fed on my suffering.
I screamed as I fell on the ground, my hands clasped around my head.
"Conflux!" Radiant rushed to my side, trying to find the source of my agony. "Whatever you are doing, put it on pause or something. You're killing yourself!"
"I'm not done."
"Then stop here. You have no reason to do that besides whatever messiah complex you have right now."
"I'm not doing this because I want to save people or something. I'm just pissed. Pissed about gangs who don't give a shit to their surroundings, about bystanders, about fighting fire with fire until all you are ruling is a pile of ashes." Only the build-up of my self-righeousness rage and Radiant's support allowed me to stand up. "They are a fucking blight. Society is already crumbling because of the Endbringers, and they have nothing better to do than to cheat, steal and destroy even as we, as a civilisation is on the verge of extinction. They are locusts. And the heroes let that shit perpetuate itself, hiding all the deaths, the disappearances, the corruption and the despair behind a veneer of heroism and moral high ground. A status quo of rotting decadence and powerlessness. I refuse to be part of it, to ignore the bystanders who have no choice but to weather the storm." I took a breath, before screaming to the viridescent maelstrom I summoned.
"May the gangs feed on themselves, may their blood flow into this ground, may their skeleton crumble into sand, may their hubris bring their downfall. I wish this coliseum to be the heart of their conflict, a festival to satiate their bloodlust, a circus for their danse macabre!"
"May they all perish in these Dueling Grounds." I cursed one final time as a mental grenade exploded within my head, and I lost consciousness.
- Scene Break -
"You don't do things by half, do you?" That was Lucy, didn't even need to open my eyes to check.
"If I was reality, I would have done a better job killing me indeed. I expected to feel shittier. How long was I out?" For someone who felt like he slept a lot, I felt quite aware.
"You were in a coma for two days. Consider this a gift from Panacea, if she didn't undo the damage you did to your brain, you could have expected a whole week. You greatly reduced the amount of work she would have had to do. Whatever you did to enforce relative peace on Brockton Bay, it shook a lot of people and changed the rules of the game."
"Share your wisdom thinker-sama if you want, but don't start being all vague and ominous on me please." I wanted a summary, not a social commentary. She sighed.
"Okay, okay. E88, ABB, New Wave and Protectorate were starting their battle royale when your master effect took hold. Within the periphery of Brockton Bay, any interpersonal action more violent than a slap is instinctively suppressed and instead you get the urge to go to a coliseum located in a pocket dimension, located in an Empire fight club and be violent there instead. I suppose you know which. It doesn't seem to affect malicious intent such as lies and corruption, and it doesn't cover harm against the environment, so arson is becoming more popular. That's the basis."
"I didn't screw up that part at least. And the bad news?"
"Well, you became popular. PHO has a broken base on your topic, you are anything between the next coming of either Buddha or Sleeper, and that's it. As for the Brockton Bay factions, New Wave doesn't know how to answer but Radiant is supporting you and the PRT is freaking out. As for the gangs, E88 and ABB are ambivalent, Kaiser didn't want to spit on the guy who gutted crime violence while he is on his nazi white horse, the fact you picked his territory to put the Coliseum helped a bit. Probably thinking about putting a tax or something. Lung is a bit pissed that he can't fight wherever he wants, but since you can only fight in one location right now, as long as he is around he is the king of the ring, so he doesn't mind. You hurt Merchant recruitment and they hate you, but who cares."
"Thanks for the information. Anything else?"
"Your family tried to call you, one Kotone sounded particularly worried. But the reason I was waiting for you is because of an emergency on my side. Your help would be greatly appreciated, call it a favor if you wish." Lucy, sounded reluctant but resolute. It didn't reassure me one bit.
"You have a problem that can't be resolved even with a thinker power, New Wave support and my Pax Conflux?"
"You see Shadow Stalker? The independant with the crossbow?" I nodded. "She was there at the big brawl, she left early when you stopped it. She went to a friend's place only to realize she had disappeared without reason during the beginning of the hostilities. We suspect kidnapping. The girl is beyond furious and your Pax Conflux is preventing her from 'hunting down clues' as she said. She is more than a bit desperate and I want to help her, or at least the girl she knew that was kidnapped." The way she looked at me, I got the feeling Shadow Stalker might kill me if only to try to have a shot at saving her friend. Joy.
"Can I know how that friend is named at least? I don't think it would infringe on the rules."
"That's probably too late to care about that. Shadow Stalker's friend's name is Dinah Alcott."
Loads of things happened, and you have plenty you can do this week.
What do you do?
Actions : You have three actions. You have one ressource.
Due to flavorful circumstances, Heizo has to pick a new color affinity, overwriting the previous one, which will provides an extra two mana of that color per vote. This one included. Choices : White, Black, Red, Green.
Stats :
- Depth : One black mana, one red mana, fourteen of any color.
- Upwelling : One white mana, one blue mana, one red mana, two mana of any color.
- Imagination : Six (Three with Kagemusha the Clone, Ouroboros the Predator Ooze [5/5] and Ludevic's Egg+2) + Three non permanent spells (due to the plan being extended to several days)
- Understanding : Five (level up! thanks time travel and enchantment combo)
- Focus : Champions of Kamigawa, Betrayers of Kamigawa, Saviors of Kamigawa
[] Spend time with Lucy. Your mission is to find the young girl Dinah Alcott.
[] Spend time with Kotone. You probably made her worried.
[] Spend time with ?
[] Check on Maria.
[] Try to create a new artifact.
[] Experiment with your powers.
[] Go speak with New Wave, they maybe have questions for you.
[] Go speak with the PRT. Damn they will have questions and you better have some answers.
[] Hybrid?
[] ?
[]
You have created an area in an Empire fight club using Grand Coliseum as foundation. It will make an extra red mana available each vote. Due to the roleplay, the flavor of the scene and the accumulation of enchantments laid upon it, the Grand Coliseum had spread the Dueling Grounds enchantment on Brockton Bay, preventing any fight outside the Coliseum. Duels can be started within the Coliseum and will be magically enforced, the slighted party being empowered by the land for the rest of the duel.