Warlord

Chapter 2

Two more days of trying to hunt nazis, and I managed to find like two stash houses and take all the cash while destroying the guns and drugs.

PHO managed to decipher my No Pasarán and anarchist symbols and linked them to me. Apparently my crusade against the Empire was public knowledge, and the Empire seemed to be eerily quiet. Or at least the capes were. The regular members heard Lung's gone and decided to get bolder.

Unlike with Hooky I didn't leave bodies.

Still I kept turning up nothing until one fateful evening I found bug girl prowling around an alleyway. Maybe I teared up. No one could prove it. She seemed to be out on patrol between the ABB and Empire same as me, and that meant she was probably a hero despite looking like a villain. I looked like one too, and was labeled such by the government.

The same government that still said I was legally a guy. Turns out the government shouldn't be telling people who they are, because they're really bad at it.

Either way I removed my stealth and gently landed beside her. None of the bugs were allowed within one inch of me. Sure I was invincible, but she used spiders and thank fuck I could regulate my own fear responses. "Hey!"

Bug girl froze.

A long silence stretched out and I wondered if she was as shy and anxious as I used to be. Wait, no I peeked at her biology and she was disturbingly devoid of normal subtle human reactions. Even the inside ones no one could see. Must be her powers.

That left me to be the conversationalist and that was a terrible horrible idea, but I let Lung kill seven people for reputation so bad ideas were kind of a me thing. "Hey, I'm uh glad you managed to survive fighting lung… you're a hero right?"

"Yea." A word! Success.

"Cool, I'd call myself one to but the government doesn't like my policy on nazis very much. So I'm gonna go with rogue to spilt the difference." Then I trailed off for a moment.

More silence, but she seemed to relax a smidge. Very hard to tell even with perfect awareness of her body. Actually the bugs seemed to respond more than her, skittering in various patterns in response to conversation… wait, she was tossing her reactions into her bug control.

That was so fucking cool! "That thing you're doing with your emotions and bugs is really cool."

The bugs froze for a moment. "Thank you? How'd you know?"

"I can see every bug around me and your micro reactions and put two and two together?"

"… that makes sense. So what did you want?"

My finger found the round filter bit of my mask. "Mostly to assuage my guilt that I accidently got you killed by letting lung ramp up, because that'd been stabbing me in the heart for a while."

"Okay." She went still and quiet as her bugs chose a more disorganized but organized movement pattern. "Can I go?"

"I'm not the boss of you. You're free to do what you want, but if you start being a nazi I'm free to do what I want." With that she started walking away before I called out. "You need anything? Like gear, money, or whatever? I can kinda create whatever I want from thin air. Also if you want back up I can patrol with you. No one will even know I'm here if you're worried about your rep."

"Counterfitting's illegal." She said and kept walking.

I levitated after her. "And torture camps for gay and trans kids are legal. The law can suck my tits. Besides I also have some legal, stolen from nazis money. Turns out stealing from criminals is sorta legal. Cops do it too."

That got her to pause. "I'll take some cash." And her out stretched hand filled with hundred dollar bills, which she slipped into her pouch. Are you going to leave?"

"Are you going to tell me to leave? Because Dauntless gave me a big speech and while most of it was crap the whole, needing a team-slash-back-up was actually solid advice. And you can't tank nukes like I can."

She fell quiet and I put up my stealth shield. I noticed her bugs wandering through it and head butting my anti bug barrier to double check I was still there. Cute. Taller than me but clearly still a kid, her being kinda tusndere was cute.

Wonder what made a teen like her trigger. Hope her parents weren't shit like mine.

We found a few ABB and Empire folks up to stuff and I let her take the lead on taking them out while covering for her mistakes. Turns out controlling bugs was really powerful. Like her range dwarfed mine and she had perfect multitasking from the way she took everyone down. Of course those takedowns included burying them in spiders but at least with the nazis it was justified.

I maybe subtly made them brain dead. Didn't want her to feel guilty about murder, but also my nazi policy was pretty clear.

Then finally came the end of her patrol. Turned around headed back where she came from, and then paused a step as I was following. "I'm going home."

I decloaked. "Yea I should probably get some sleep… how are you not tired? Did your power make you immune to sleep?"

"… I only need a few hours." And she walked off.

Calling out to her, "Let me know if you wanna do this again sometime. Or if you ever just need someone to talk to about cape stuff."

Only pausing for a moment she continued to walk off.

With a yawn I drifted back home, in stealth, and collapsed in bed.

—

Next day I dropped off payment to my landlord who didn't ask questions like what's your name? and why are you only paying in cash? Though I kinda did need a new place to stay. Lots of abandoned buildings I could easily modify with my power to keep folks from breaking in. Maybe sneak around one of the mansions up on the hills around town and mimic some fancy décor.

Only problem would be utilities. Water? I could just make that. Electricity? Sure I could power things but it was tricky, and only worked for things within fifteen feet. Internet? Yea, couldn't replicate that.

So the apartment I stayed but I did modify it to being clean and nice. No one else in the building had zero cracks for bugs to crawl through, soundproof walls, and zero asbestos. Not that I didn't try sneakily helping some of my neighbors out, but fifteen feet did not cover an entire apartment.

Oh I also healed them. Well the obvious stuff. I was no Panacea, but that was mostly biology being not entirely intuitive. Big stuff like organs? Definitely could make them healthy and functioning again. The little stuff? Infections, and micro tears, and brains. Not even a little. Maybe if I studied medicine for a few years I could do it. My power did help me with the minutia of creating things on an atomic level, so it was possible, just not intuitive.

Welp, apartment paid for, what next? Hmm, I could sneak into the PRT building and try to find out what they know about the nazis. Apparently they knew where Hookwolf lived so clearly they knew things and didn't act on them.

Flying out, I headed to the PRT building because I doubted they wouldn't notice me opening a hole in their forcefield on the Rig. My stealth was perfect but tinker tech might notice the disruption and flag it.

So I uh, waited for someone to walk in and floated in behind them all invisible and soundless. Now in the lobby I then waited for someone to open the keypadded doors and tired sneaking through there but they closed behind them really fast and I had to wait and manually slow its closing a touch to fit through.

And now I was in the restricted parts. Hallways were narrow enough I kept having to hide against the ceiling as people walked past. Luckily my aura let me see through walls a little so I didn't have to poke my head into every room.

Though that room with the second set of doors into it, seemed too big, and two sets of doors definitely meant secret stuff. So I waited and found a short blonde middle schooler in a domino mask that took me entirely too long to register as Vista walking up, and in. That must be where the wards stay…

They wouldn't know the important stuff. Probably. Thus I turned and headed down the corridors, into a stair well and up because the director's office would be on the top floor and she'd definitely talk about classified stuff I could use to save the city.

Sure enough I found her door but no one was going inside despite her being in there at the moment. I mimicked the sounds inside right next to my ear, within my stealth to try and listen in but she didn't seem to be talking. Ugh. I broke into the PRT building and nothing was happening.

Maybe I should lurk in on the wards.

Or leave. Leaving was probably the smart idea.

So obviously I went to spy on the wards. Took a bit for someone to walk through into the wards area but I got inside. Something that immediately went wrong when one of the wards looked directly at me and oh fuck thinker detection, my one weakness.

At least they were all wearing domino masks.

"Someone's there. Stranger." Yup, fuck I was stupid.

That got the other two kids. One vista and one… I wasn't sure who he was. Maybe Kid Win? Clockblocker?

Either way they hit an alarm and it got loud, which I automatically quieted for myself as they all took defensive stances.

"Show yourself!"

Instead of doing that, I simply forcibly opened the door and flew out. Which met more secruity which I flew over, and I forced more doors open and the moment I entered the front lobby they started spraying containment foam at the door I came through, which of course I had to vanish away as I flew over their heads and to the front doors. Which I opened and flew through.

Immediately I shot into the sky silently and flew across town a few times before sneaking out into civvies near the boardwalk.

A quick glance and the lack of boat graveyard looked nice. No one had done anything with that yet, but governments and businesses didn't work on the time table of a few days.

Still I walked down the street just minding my own business, not quite sure what to do at that point. The nazis were too quiet. The ABB lost Lung, and were quiet minus defending their territory. The Merchants weren't worth my time, and bug girl was probably in high school and didn't seem to go caping until night time.

Hmm.

So instead of all of that I decided to go audit college classes. Without a valid legal ID thanks to my change in appearance I couldn't do normal stuff like go to college, or buy a house. It kinda sucked, but I lost my legal stuff when I fled home, and now that I looked different I couldn't exactly pull off getting it changed.

I really needed people for that kind of thing.

I needed people in general…

Fuck Dauntless was right, but only because the government sucks. Well screw him I'd find non-government contacts to help. Faultline seemed to run an entire nightclub, so maybe I could try seeing if she had contacts for pseudo legal stuff.

After this medical lecture I'd head over.

—

Ever since I cured my anxiety by carefully controlling my own biology so it never reared its ugly head, I uh, my impulse control plummeted. I probably needed ADHD meds. Why was this relevant? Well I had an idea to go see Faultline at the club everyone knows she is associated with, but I forgot that night clubs… opened at night.

Yea not my brightest moment in a sea of not bright moments.

Still I sort of stood outside of it, in civvies. It was a weird building in that apparently nightclubs don't have many windows. There were like two on the third floor and that was it. Interestingly I noted that there was a secret tunnel under ground. My aura penetrating enough to see part of it.

Impulsiveness being my middle name, but not actually, I decided to pass the time by following the secret tunnel. My brain repeating the words secret tunnel over and over while I swayed excitedly. So much work lately I forgot to have myself an adventure that wasn't sneaking into a government building and causing a security incident. That adventure sucked, my anxiety tried slipping my grasp the whole time from how bad it was.

Still, I found it lead to a storm drain and sneakily entered. Turns out the tunnel was comfortably big and the whole thing felt like a secret villain lair, which was weird considering Faultline was like the least villainous villain in the city. Maybe she was that rumored Coil person on the side.

Either way I found the end where there was a secret door, at least it was secret on the other side, and invisibly snuck into the club.

From the outside it looked dead, and clearly not open, on the inside I could see a few people. A few bar hands downstairs prepping for later, and a few folks upstairs, including the two case 53s that she was rumored to have. Also a girl who was probably Labyrinth just sort of staring off into space.

Hmm, this was breaking and entering, again. But also the most private meeting time ever. Besides she didn't exactly have a website with contact information. And if she did I'd be sending it from an email that'd be traceable and ruin the whole point of coming here to get a better civilian identity.

So I snuck upstairs and when I found the woman who had to be Faultline in her office I summoned up a letter and set it on her desk before unveiling it. Also I summoned my costume.

Her eyes snapped to the letter then to her surroundings before picking it up and reading it. Then with a sigh she set it down. "I assume you're listening?"

I dropped my stealth and just appeared levitating before her desk. "Yup. Sorry about the whole breaking and entering but I found the secret tunnel and I have poor impulse control." Glancing anywhere but at her disapproving frown, I added, "I won't tell anyone, promise!"

"You wanted to talk?" The letter still under her hand. Somehow I could tell she was very unhappy with me.

Taking a seat to be polite I began wiggling in my chair because wow I needed ADHD meds. "Yes, so I'm new to the cape scene, and I have like zero contacts, and that makes it hard to do things because I don't have a civilian ID and I was wondering if you had criminal contacts that I could use to get one so I can do things like live in a not shitty apartment, and go to college, and go to a psychiatrist to get ADHD meds because its really really hard sometimes controlling myself and I have too much power to be making poor life decisions constantly."

"New identities aren't cheap." Wow she seemed, less angry. Still like she had a stick up her ass, but not subtly hostile anymore.

"I have liberated money from nazis, and I'm probably gonna collect the endbringer bounties… soon?" Wait didn't the Simurgh hang out in the upper atmosphere? I could probably fly up there and murder her. "Huh, I could probably fly up and murder Ziz after I leave here."

Faultline's lips puckered like she was sucking on a lemon. Then after a moment of her pondering those words that just came to mind she agreed. "Very poor life decisions indeed. I can give you a referral to my contact, but I do expect compensation."

"Cash, gold, or parahuman healing?" She did seem to have a lot of wear and tear I could help with.

"Five thousand dollars and the healing depending on what it entails."

"You've got a lot of wear and tear, and also your ovaries seem to be damaged which is probably causing menopause like symptoms. I can heal all the old injuries up and fix the hormonal issue." Then I summoned five thousand dollars, an exact copy of the last cash pile I liberated from nazis.

"Deal." And she began counting the money while I fixed her up. Took a bit of her sitting there, and she definitely clenched her muscles from pain. Unfortunately I was a discount Panacea so I couldn't just disable the nerves temporarily or whatever her power did.

Then after a long bit of concentration and double checking my work looked healthy and normal I chirped, "Done!"

Pulling out a file she handed over a document she wrote up with a name, number, and address. "I'll call ahead and let him know a friend is looking for a new ID. I won't mention your cape persona so you'll want to go in civvies. He'll need a picture of your face either way. I promise he's discrete."

Then as I stood up she added, "Please don't fight Ziz after this."

I grinned under my mask. "You're really good at reverse psychology. Should I take the tunnel or…"

With a groan, she stood up. "I'll walk you to the front door."

Turning invisible I followed her down and she opened the door and I told her thanks in a way she could hear before flying off. I stored the paper at my apartment and then… Ziz time.

Flying straight up I entered the upper atmosphere. My inviolable body ignoring the radiation and lack of air pressure, while I summoned air to my lungs. Now she hung out up here in orbit… With a lensing of light, I made a telescope and started looking for the big bird lady. She was bright white and over two stories tall and thrice that wide so she should be obvious…

Maybe she's on the other side of the planet? I started flying around, ignoring the whole being in space thing in my hyperfocused search for the endbringer. Unfortunately, after several hours it occurred to me that she was a precog and she could probably hide… Fuck. Would she run away when we fought once she notices how easily I could unmake her?

Probably.

Sighing heavily, I flew back down, visibly descending back to Brockton Bay which was now just after dark. Wondering what to do with the rest of my night. Obviously my body didn't tire outside of sleepiness and it was too early for that.

So I simply decided to go join bug girl for another patrol.