Elan's finally ready to accept his new powers and go wherever the Spirit wants to take him.
Okay, I'm ready to go! Thank you so much for helping me. You were really nice and I'm glad I met you.
As soon as he finishes reading the notebook's response, his vision fills with sparkling motes of colorful light. A sense of fizzy excitement fills him as the light show clears away and he gets his first look at his new surroundings.
He is on a second-storey rooftop in a dark and rundown-looking city. Possibly grimdark, it's too early to tell, but it's definitely nighttime and the streets are unlit.
Some distance down the street there's a group of men (class: street tough). A particularly big (and shirtless) man is speaking. None of them are visibly armed or armored; the light of cigarette tips glints off small metal devices some of them are holding.
If he's perceptive, he will notice a dark silhouette on the roof of the opposite building before it moves into cover.
"...the children, just shoot. Doesn’t matter your aim, just shoot. You see one lying on the ground? Shoot the little bitch twice more to be sure."
Despite the light show and it being nighttime, his eyes seem to be pre-adjusted to the dark. Cool! There are so many buildings… Elan doesn't think he's ever been in a city this big.
He briefly registers the silhouette but is distracted when he notices the Tough Guys, especially when he realizes what they're saying. He doesn't think before leaping down, trusting that Lightfoot and Gloryseeker will protect him here.
"Hey, shooting kids is bad and wrong! You shouldn't do that."
An unfamiliar parahuman. Not masked - perhaps it's not his real face? No visible weapon, but he leapt down from a rooftop and challenged Lung. Either the sort who thinks they're funny, or a distraction from the real threat.
"There may be others. Stay alert, let me know if you see anyone," he orders his men.
"Tell me your name," he tells the stranger. "In case it will not shame me to say that I bothered to kill you, later." His power stirs, eager for a challenge, but this is his territory and he doesn't want to destroy part of it to swat a gnat.
Well, Elan sure hopes he's funny!
"I'm Elan! I don't think you're gonna kill me, though. I guess you could give me a cool scar if you were really good at fighting? But anyway, it would be hard to protect the kids if I was dead."
Where are the kids, anyway?
"You there, shoot him." He'll either miss or the shots will have no effect, but either way Lung will learn something about the other cape's powers.
He begins to grow, his skin rippling and giving off an aura of heat, the tips of metal scales beginning to poke out. He will put down this fool who challenged him, as soon as he sees the effect the bullet has.
(There are no visible kids.)
The man he selected nervously points his device at Elan, a bit like a wand, and then there is a very loud BANG.
Naturally, when the shirtless guy starts to power up, his Soundtrack motif grows darker, richer, more dramatic. Like boss battle music. A nervous oboe pipes up as the lackey draws his weapon.
Elan could probably just stand there and get missed by the bullet anyway, but where's the fun in that? Instead, he does a twirl at just the right moment, his cape billowing artfully in a way that suggests perhaps more material than he's actually wearing. When he faces Lung again, he's retrieved a gleaming silvery rapier, modeled subconsciously on cool swords Elan's seen in plays and comic books, from who knows where.
"What did I just say?" Elan says, not realizing this was a test.
A Mouse Protector type. Could be working for the Undersiders. Probably hopes to lead Lung on a rampage that destroys his own territory but fails to hit the cape.
None of that matters, because Lung doesn't intend to miss.
He strides forward, haloed by flame.
He snarls and burns them, sending out jets of flame from his hands where the swarm is thickets. The ones that land on him die quickly, and his healing can deal with any insect bites.
...Lung ignores the insects and tries to hit or grapple the cape in front of him who must be controlling or generating them.
Whoa, cool!
"Thanks, bugs!"
Later, Elan might connect the dots between the tune that played when the swarm first descended on Lung and the sting he heard when he spotted the shadow on the rooftop. He's busy right now, though, what with the guy who thinks the bugs are his fault.
Elan dances backwards, trusting that he won't back into a wall. He's never tried to parry a grappling attempt with a sword, but there's only one way to find out if it'll work!
Lung can move forward faster than he can move backward. Also, he's eight feet tall and on fire.
Elan can still manage to dodge, but his cape has less luck! As soon as Elan realizes this, he ceases to be wearing it. Which is good, because of that whole "on fire" thing.
Elan's going to have to go on the offense for this, apparently. He presses the first gap in Fire Guy's defenses he can detect.
The sword pierces a lung. No matter, he will regenerate shortly. More importantly, while the sword is in him it cannot dodge; he grabs at it.
"Uh-oh!"
Elan lets go of the sword and dashes away while Lung is occupied removing it. What does he do next? Try and fill this guy with swords like a reverse porcupine? That probably won't work for very long.
Maybe he can try diplomacy again? After he scampers up the nearest climbable-by-him thing.
"Why are you doing all this, anyway?"
Lung breaks the sword in two and tosses it aside.
"You challenged me, on my turf. You will not walk away." He crouches and leaps, two stories up to the roof where Elan is.
Behind his dragon-mask, one eye has flattened into a slit but the other is a fiery orb.
There is a huge swarm of insects on this rooftop! It envelops Lung. They can't survive on his skin for very long, but more keep coming from somewhere.
Lung hunches over, frantically swatting himself, but when more insects keep swarming him he explodes with flames like a miniature fireball. In the few seconds that affords him he spots Elan and lunges for him with a frustrated roar.
Elan wishes that he had ever handled, like, an ice wand of some sort. That would probably be really handy against Fire Guy.
Fortunately, he can keep dodging. It's still pretty scary, but he tries to reframe that in his head as exciting.
"I only challenged you because you were talking about killing kids! And that sounded like it was happening already when I showed up, you can't blame it on me!"
"CHALLENGERS DIE."
Lung is still growing bigger and faster. At this rate he'll be able to corner Elan, or fall through the roof.
The figure points a metallic tube at him; it hisses and produces a mist-like cone attack, which erupts into flames when it comes into contact with Lung.
Lung roars loudly enough to shatter windows in distant buildings. He leaps for the newcomer but misses - surprisingly badly.
The mysterious stranger rolls to the side and then tries to freeze in place. Lung seems to be blinded, swinging his head around wildly.
Oh right, Elan took that one teamwork power! The one where he shouldn't try to be the main hero hogging the spotlight.
"Thanks, dark mysterious stranger!"
The dragon guy seems to be having trouble seeing… Elan decides that as long as he's making noise he should keep his distance from her.
"Wanna team up? Uh, by which I mean I help you too, instead of you just helping me."
Lung hits it. Despite the comical difference in sizes, this drives them a few feet apart.
Then the monstrosity shakes its head and charges Lung, carrying both of them off the roof.
"Hi puppy!"
Now that the altercation is off the roof, he decides that approaching Only Does Bugs won't needlessly endanger her.
"Huh, does everyone have animal powers around here?"
Oh god what did he just call her. Sheee is going to ignore that while running away from fighting for her life.
Really she's used to ignoring what people call her -- not the time, Taylor.
"N-no? I don't know who's controlling that thing. Um, why are you unmasked - sorry, not important right now - my bugs can't hurt Lung anymore. Can you fight him or should we run and call the PRT?"
"Oh, should I be masked? I just got here, uh… right before I started fighting Lung. I can avoid getting seriously hurt but to actually fight anyone I need a team. Is that what the PRT is?"
He didn't have his mask with him but he outed himself because Lung was going to kill some kids? Taylor really wants to be that heroic one day. (Preferably without outing herself.)
"The PRT fight villains, they work with the Protectorate who are the actual hero capes." She thought everyone knew that much, but then she took Parahuman Studies for a year and, yeah, some of the kids in her class are probably going to grow up into adults who won't know anything at all. But he's an actual hero so it's even more important that she gets him in contact with the PRT!
"There's an emergency number, do you have a phone or do we have to find a pay phone?"
Some of those concepts are unfamiliar, but he figures that "capes" is what people here call adventurers and the PRT is… well, if they're not "actual hero capes" maybe they're Neutral capes who team up with the Good ones to fight villains, or maybe they're more like law enforcement with NPC classes? Elan can wait to find out.
"Pay phone sounds good!" he says confidently, mostly because he's pretty sure he doesn't have a phone yet.
Before they can carry out their cunning plan of running away, two more monstrosities land on the roof. (They're jumping from another building.) These ones each have two humanoid riders, who get off.
"You really saved us a lot of trouble! When we heard Lung was going after us, we argued for half a day before deciding to fight him." Handshake?
Sure!
"You're welcome! He does seem pretty scary, with the getting really big and fast and lighting on fire and turning into a dragon thing. Now we're going to use a pay phone to call the PRT."
She whistles, and the two monstrosities jump down the join the fray. Lung is still fighting, but he seems to have stopped growing.
"Pepper spray, wasp and bee stings to the eyeballs, fire ants and spider bites to, ouch - it was all her, though." She points.
Um. "He helped? He drew Lung's attention - does one of you have a cellphone, we really should call the PRT."
Bystanders have called PRT already. First responder, cape. Minutes out.
"Oh, they're coming. But we have a minute for introductions! We do owe you a favor. I'm Tattletale, these are Grue, Regent and Bitch - her chosen name, the PRT call her Hellhound -"
"Shut up, Regent. We're the Undersiders. And we're leaving before the PRT gets here. Bitch, time to go."
She whistles, short-long-long, and the three huge creatures leave Lung lying in the street and climb swiftly to the rooftop.
… note to self, crown guy isn't actually in charge?
"I'm Elan, but it sounds like I should get a mask and maybe a codename?"
He's competent to keep pace with them, wherever they're heading off to.
If they're running from the PRT... and they're the ones Lung was planning to kill...
"Wait, are you guys villains?"
Both think they are heroes. Want to be heroes.
"Eh," she wiggles her hand. "Only if you ask the PRT? We don't kill or kidnap or torture people or sell drugs or anything bad like that, we're more of a - mutual support group."
Want validation as heroes. Lacking validation. Not acknowledged. Expecting to be acknowledged.
"The PRT really isn't as shiny as they pretend. You can turn in Lung but -"
Expect PRT to accept them as heroes.
"- you shouldn't believe everything they tell you, and I don't mean just about us."
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" She mounts behind Bitch.
"And yeah, definitely get a mask and a cape name. Don't tell the PRT who you are without serious thought, you can always do it later but you can't undo it. We won't tell anyone who you are, we owe you.
"What's your cape name?"
Elan listens seriously to all the complicated politics stuff. It sounds… complicated. Still, if there isn't any killing or kidnapping or torturing people involved, whatever stuff they're doing probably can't be that bad. Elan isn't sure that he's the best person to help clear up whatever misunderstanding is going on, but the Spirit chose here for a reason!
"We can probably think of stuff together, then! And I can figure out a mask style. I really like your outfit, it makes you look like a badass bug person!"
"Alive but down for a bit. We wouldn't want to make the PRT think you killed him!"
The monstrosities leap back down to street level and run away. Their footsteps are loud but they seem to be very fast. Their claws leave holes in the building walls and the road as they go.
The key to keeping up with the beasts using Lightfoot is: not thinking about it. Which means Elan can think about other things. He's glad that Lung didn't die, even if he is a pretty scary and probably mean dude. He wonders if these guys know what he was trying to accomplish, since they had been planning on fighting him earlier, or at least maybe fighting him before Elan gave them an opportunity.
He should probably workshop some sort of theme for how he presents here. That seems to be the way of things: Lung the dragon guy, Regent with the crown, Bitch with the dog mask and… are they really puppies? Maybe the name is ironic. And then there's the obvious bug theme for unnicknamed bug girl. He's not sure what themes Tattletale or Grue have (maybe the latter has darkness powers, since he's in all black?) but maybe it'll become obvious later. Or maybe they're odd ones out?
Still, themes are memorable and fun, even if they aren't mandatory…
This thinking is interrupted after about a minute when Elan realizes:
"Wait, did we leave the bug girl behind?"
A Mover - makes sense, it must be how he dodged Lung. They can lose the tail but it pays to be nice and like Tattletale said, they do owe him a bit.
"Let's go somewhere we can keep talking. Tattletale?"
"Bitch, take the next right towards the docks, then two more blocks."
They stop at the end of the residential area, next to a large metal-looking building. The place is dark and silent at this time of night.
"You wanted to talk to us?"
Weirdly, Elan feels kind of better knowing that they were trying to ditch him too.
"Well, I thought we were all going to wherever you wanted to go and we could talk there about cape names and stuff. Was she gonna… meet up later?"
Huh! Elan kind of assumed they were all friends or working together…
"Well… I probably shouldn't go back there, right? Because the PRT might be there already and I haven't decided on a fake name or anything yet."
He feels bad about leaving her behind, though. Especially because she hasn't decided on a fake name and he can change his face at will. And also make masks at will.
Grue cocks his head. "Why were you fighting Lung if you don't have a mask or a cape name yet?"
"'Cause the first thing I heard him say was telling his minion to kill kids!"
It occurs to him that it may be good to provide some more context.
"Also, I had just barely showed up here at random from a totally different world so I didn't know that masked capes were the thing people did here."
Yeah sure tonight went well and she has some power left so why not use it here?
Believes what he said. Believes it's the truth.
Didn't know about masked capes. Didn't know about capes. Didn't know about powers. Still doesn't know.
Power, that makes no sense.
Knows he has powers. Knows other people can have powers. Doesn't know about parahuman powers. Thinks his powers aren't parahuman. Thinks he has magical powers. Thinks he has nonmagical powers.
OK, her power isn't broken unless he's some sort of anti-Thinker trump, so he's just... a very weirdly deluded, probably-new cape? How new exactly?
Got new powers. Less than an hour ago. Less than an hour he remembers.
Tattletale does her best impression of walking nonchalantly over to Grue.
Grue he triggered just before the fight!!! she whispers urgently.
Oh no.
Grue wants to help the poor guy (and they owe him), but fresh capes can be very - volatile.
"Uh - I don't mean to pry, but we can help you if you need something, to get you on your feet? If you need to like make a call, or money for food or a motel or something."
Telling Regent "this is serious, just trust me" will have the opposite effect.
Telling him why - might work? It probably won't make things worse, anyway.
whisper whisper whisper
Aww, these guys are nice! Well, Grue is nice, and Tattletale also seems nice, and if the other people are being less nice it's probably because they're worried.
"I think I should be okay with my own money. I got sent here by the same person who gave me my new powers, and one of the powers is that I have enough money to make me and my friends comfortable. And when I asked about that one it said that it wouldn't steal from anyone to get the money, because that would be the kinda thing that made me sad. It's really nice to offer that, though!"
He's really curious what Tattletale and Regent are saying about him but probably he should be patient and let them have their privacy.
He what.
Power, did he get his powers from the mythical cape organization that can make more capes?
Didn't get powers from a cape.
He's just deluded then. Poor guy.
(That was a suspiciously easy answer from her power? She didn't really expect that to work!)
"I sympathize. Or, well, I don't, but you know what I mean. But indulging him won't do him any favors."
Regent might actually be right for once. Either way, Grue isn't going to dance around this, it sounds exhausting and the guy deserves to be told the truth.
"Tattletale says you triggered - got your powers - very recently. I think it messed with your memory. You weren't sent here from another world, that's not how it works."
"It's your business and I won't try to convince you if you don't want to hear it. But right after you get powers is the worst time to be getting into random fights - and Lung fights to kill."
"Forget about masks and cape names for, like, at least a week. Get your head on straight. Get your life in order, fix whatever problems you had. Figure out how the world works and what you can do. Don't do something you might regret."
"Do… a lot of people have their memory changed when they get their powers?"
Elan's pretty sure he didn't get his memory messed with, except for how he sure did choose a bunch of drawbacks that told them they would, or at least could, change his memories. So his memory did probably get messed with at least a little. His life still feels real to him: his mom, his time at Bard Camp, all of the other places and people and things he saw even before he got home to find a notebook on his bed.
Maybe he should have asked it to come along with him. He hadn't wanted to rely on asking it for advice, but it would be handy to show it to people.
But Grue says he doesn't wanna argue, so Elan should probably try to think of things that he can do if he's right or if he's wrong.
"Like, is there a place for people to go so they can get their head on straight? If I have a home and family here that I forgot about, I have no clue who or where they are. I guess I could try finding a police person and asking for help, but you just said it's dangerous to share my real name!"
Good, he's being calm and rational about it.
"It's definitely not usual for triggers to affect your memory but, well, anyone coming from another world is completely unheard of. There's contact with just one other world and I heard they can only send messages, not physical stuff."
"It's dangerous to share your name if you're a cape. You need to keep a secret identity so people don't link the cape persona to the regular one. You can ask the police for help without telling them you're a cape, if you're OK with telling them you have memory problems and so on."
"I assume you don't have, like, a wallet on you, or anything else with names or addresses or stuff? Or a key or something?"
"Maybe, but I didn't want to out you like that! It's bad enough that we know your face and name. But if you'd be OK with it, sure, I could try."
"I'm okay with it! Is figuring stuff out your power? Like the smart detective with the doctor roommate?"
He's maybe a tiny bit worried that all the evidence he's from someplace else will be hidden somehow, or that it is true he's actually from here and thus in a really big pickle, but he also took They'll Know so hopefully that makes it more likely that they'll be able to see he's telling the truth.
She grins. "Yessss I am the cape Sherlock Holmes! Fear me, miscreants!"
"Shush, you." Or I'll tell them where you came from - no stop that's a horrible idea!
Great, they're bantering and at ease and making a good impression on the stranger, that means she's on top of things.
Normally she charges for this kind of thing but knowing about a new cape in town is valuable to her (and to Coil). Not doing this was kind of the favor she owed him, but if he asks for it?
Come out and play, power. Does he have the metaphorical equivalent of mud from a particular Brockton Bay alley on his boots?
Not from Brockton Bay.
Which direction did he come from, then?
Not from the south. Not from the west. Not from the north. Not from the east. Not from direction. Not from -
She cuts it off. Her power does get things wrong sometimes. But it follows specific clues, so -
'How do I know he's not from any of those places?', she tries asking her power.
Voice, accent, mannerisms, word choice, clothes, skin, hair, fingernails, complex phenotype -
Huh, her power seems to think he looks wrong (or at least not local) in every possible way. He doesn't look weird to her - he's definitely pretty but not in a 'real people don't look like that' way. Her power is definitely picking up on something, but she hasn't met enough people like him or from the same place to pin it down.
Actually... why is he wearing a cloak? She wrote it off as part of a costume, the proverbial cape, but if he just triggered where did he get a cloak? And his trigger messed with his memories, so maybe -
Power, did his power change how he looks or behaves or his clothes?
Powers affected clothing. Affected looks. Still affects looks, ungoing, unconscious, uncontrolled. Affects cloak. Affects clothes. Affects height, eye color, mannerisms, face, features, attractiveness, voice, tone of voice -
She cuts it off at the first twinge of a headache.
...well, shit. How does she tell him that? 'Sorry, your power stole your memories and your face and any way your loved ones could identify you, and also everything about you is going to keep changing in unpredictable ways you can't stop or control, down to the clothes you wear?' That's a really fucked up Changer power!
...he's going to find out sooner or later.
(Unless his power keeps modifying his memories? Did he actually trigger a long time ago and keeps forgetting it and thinking he triggered just now? She can't afford to check right now, though, she already spent too much on this.)
What if he reacts very badly to being told (honestly very awful) news? A Mover and freeform Changer, with no visible weapon - no, no excuses, every cape is dangerous. He could move quickly enough to hurt them before Grue can spread his darkness. He could change into a dragon for all she knows. He could even have third power.
Responsible Tattletale should tell him she couldn't figure it out where he's from, and then the rest over phone or email or something when they're not next to him where he might react badly.
"I think the doctor isn't stupid," he assures Regent. "I think he's supposed to be a regular guy? Maybe I should be the doctor sidekick, except I'm not a doctor and I never fought in wars and my name isn't anything like Winston and now I have powers…"
At this point he's mostly talking to himself. He trails off, glancing over at Tattletale to see if her using her power looks like anything.
It doesn't look like anything besides that she's deep in thought for half a minute.
"The doctor's name was Watson," she automatically tells him. Unless... Power, was the Doctor's name different on Earth Aleph?
No. (Also, ouch.)
OK, fine, she was being responsible and checked but there's really no way this Elan came from another world. It was maybe reasonable of him to assume because his memories are scrambled (?) but there's really no way.
"I'm afraid I have some bad news for you though," she goes on. See how honest and transparent and friendly she's being! Do not punch the messenger!
"First, I couldn't find who you are or were or where you're from."
"Second, and the reason I couldn't, is that I think your face and voice changed when you got powers, just like your memories did." She'll hold back the even worse news for now. "Your memories might even have changed to prevent you from freaking out because you look and sound different... but that means I have nothing to go on, and neither will the police."
"I'm sorry."
"Or it could be good! Getting powers is supposed to solve the problem you're having right then." (He says, sarcastically.) "Maybe you really wanted to start a new life, fresh face and everything."
There's lots of things the doctor can be named! Like James Wilson or Joan Watson or David Dawson. Elan sits on this factoid, because:
"Oh, that makes perfect sense! See, what happened—in my memory, anyway—was after I graduated from school to be a bard, I got a diary. I think it was supposed to be a regular diary, but it wrote back and said that it was sent by a spirit that wanted to share its power with me. I thought it was a framing device at first… y'know, like when the narrator says that something really happened even if it didn't? I realized it was for real eventually. But anyway, a lot of the powers were about how I look! Like… at all times I'm supposed to look exactly how I would if this was a self-insert fanfic about my life."
Pause.
"That's… not a direct quote. But anyway, I guess that could just be something that my powers put in my head so I would have the right expectations? I don't even know for sure what I look like right now, but I was blond and blue-eyed and Northern and had 18 Charisma… anyway, um, so I guess that either way I need to find someplace to stay and can't count on any family I have here being able to find me."
He puts his hand up.
"If one of you guys has a place that's okay for me to stay at, that would be really nice? But if it would be too hard… well, so far I haven't expected to have a specific power that I didn't. So I think if I needed to find a hotel I would be able to pay for it okay, even without help."
Oh good, his false memories are blatantly fake and unrealistic. Hopefully with time he'll be able to realize this. This is much better than remembering an entirely fake but realistic life in the real world.
"Here, you can use my compact to see what you look like. Blond and blue-eyed is right!" For now, anyway.
None of them is going to trust him in their private apartment (while they're sleeping) and none of them want to unmask to him anyway.
They could maaaaybe take him to the shared loft? But someone would still need to stay and watch him, and also if he ends up going to the Protectorate or something they won't want him to know where their secret base is.
Coil would definitely have a free flat for him to use but she doesn't want to give this poor new cape to Coil, she found him he's hers that's like the opposite of being friendly.
She glances at Grue. The team leader should be the one to tell people no.
Grue's been having similar thoughts.
"We don't want to unmask to you, sorry, that's not something to decide on the spot. But we can help you find a motel that's still open and pay for a few nights and order pizza or something. And we can keep in touch, maybe meet again tomorrow or the day after."
"I'm guessing you don't have a phone?" Her power would have said if he did, because it'd be a way to track down where he came from. "Take this, it's cheap but you can call and message. No internet, obviously, you can get online in a library or something." Cheap burner phones are very useful in her line of work.
Yay, presents! Well, Tattletale probably wants the mirror back after he examines himself. Nothing about his face seems particularly different, although he thinks maybe his coloration is just a little more harmonious. He hands it back.
"That's really nice of you guys! Do you wanna have a pizza party? Um, I guess some of you would have trouble eating without taking your masks off, and I don't wanna make you do that if you're uncomfortable. We could get soda?"
He's pretty sure he can get plates, cups, and straws from his Pocket Dimension. He might even be able to get food there, but that feels kinda… boring? And maybe like everyone would expect it to not be filling or nutritious if he ate it. He can maybe try that if he ever really intensely misses some specific food that his mom made.
"We shouldn't be seen together until you have a mask - I guess we can improvise something for now, but it'll be better if we give you the money but didn't let the motel receptionist see us."
"No, I want all of you to unmask, and then if he tries anything you'll have to take care of it."
Ha. But actually it might not be a bad idea to tie this new cape to the Undersiders, she just doesn't know if it's a good idea yet.
"Grue, I can vet him once I've slept and recharged. If we still want to invite him tomorrow. Let's go with the motel for now, I need my beauty sleep. If anything happens he'll have my number." (She scribbles a number on a piece of paper and passes it to Elan.)
Into the pocket dimension the paper goes! Which makes it about infinity times less likely to get lost than it would be before.
"Numbers are… a phone thing, right?"
He retrieves the burner phone and sees it does indeed have numbered buttons that make satisfying beeping sounds.
"How do I know what my number is?"
It doesn't seem to be written on the outside of the phone, and the numbers the screen displays when he turns it on seem to be the time and date.
He has a pocket dimension??? And has never used a cellphone? Whatever, her power is officially broke, this is a problem for Tomorrow Tattletale.
"You can see your own number like this -" she shows him where it is in the phone menu. "Or you can write it down." She'll walk him through calling and sending text messages. Behold, how she answers her (other, much fancier) phone! Which she can also use to find and call a nearby motel that Grue can show him to without either going in in costume or unmasking to Elan.
Whoa, cool! Elan's a huge fan of this whole "voice calls" concept. Texting seems kind of like it takes a weirdly excessive amount of time, but Elan can see the practicality in being able to send notes to basically anyone whose phone number he knows.
On the way to the motel, he asks Grue, "This isn't the kind of place where there are like a hundred adven—uh, capes—hanging around to find quests or form parties, right? Since I'm trying to be normal right now?"
"Not at the motel. There are places you can meet capes if you know someone who'd invite you but definitely not a hundred, I don't think there's a hundred capes in the whole city."
"Huh! The buildings and roads look like how I expect a big city to look… are capes really rare? I think that, um… about one in fifty people has PC class levels, but a lot of those guys are like first level and if that dragon guy is a regular cape then those are definitely not first level. Anyway, it's probably a good thing that I'm not running into more capes than I need to, right?"
"I don't know how common capes are but Brockton Bay has - a few hundred thousand people I think? There's no way it's secretly one in fifty capes. There are some who never fight, some powers are just - healing or building stuff, and probably there are some who never even use their powers in public, keep it all secret, but there can't be that many."
"Lung is - or was - maybe the strongest single cape in the city. The Empire capes and the Protectorate both fought him many-on-one and couldn't take him down. We're four, plus the dogs, and we'd never fight him if we didn't have to."
Elan nods, absorbing the information. Then he smiles earnestly at Grue.
"Well, thanks a whole bunch for stepping in when you guys did! I don't know what I would have done if you didn't show up."
"It sounds like we were all lucky tonight! You and us and the bug cape. And the PRT, who probably got Lung."
~yaaaaaaay~
"Yeah, it sounds like it's a really good thing if he's going to jail or whatever. How many villain capes are there? And what kind of villainy do they usually get up to?"
Oh boy. Welcome to Brockton Bay, new cape, you'll be wishing to forget all this again soon.
"The Empire has - at least six, seven..." He pauses to count. "Fuck, maybe eight or nine capes? They're the biggest villain gang in the city, anyway. They're nazi racists who want to kill or drive away everyone who's not white enough for them. They'll beat up or murder anyone they don't like on their turf, and sometimes off of it. And I guess they take protection money and probably do other stuff? I don't know, I don't live close to them. ...and they organize dog fights, which Bitch really hates."
"Next is the ABB. They only have two capes but that's because one of them was Lung. So they only have one now, Oni Lee, and he won't be able to run it all himself. Maybe the Empire will take over a lot of ABB territory now. But the ABB is Asian - they don't drive out people who do what they say and pay them protection, but most people who live there are Asian too. So I don't know if the Empire will actually want to take their territory. Maybe they'll just kick them while they're down and rob them and kill some random people for fun, because they're Nazi fucks. But maybe they'll think this is their chance and decide to start a real war."
"Now the ABB aren't any nicer than the Empire, just less racist. They deal drugs and kill people for looking at them funny and don't have any code or laws, except what Lung says is law. There's rumours that when a family can't pay them, they'll take their children hostage, work them like slaves. Force girls into brothels, maybe send them out of the country. I haven't seen any of it for myself but it's easy enough to believe."
"Those are the two big organized villain groups. Then there's a bunch of small-timers." Like us, but he's not going to mention the Undersiders in the same breath as all that. "A couple called Über and Leet who dress up as characters from video games and - pretend to be them in public or something, which is usually horrible because they choose characters that assault and rob people. They don't kill, though, as far as I know. There's some villain capes who deal drugs, some mercenaries..."
Wow, those villain gangs sound pretty bad. Some of the exact terminology is unfamiliar, but Elan understands the general gist.
"So basically, even though Lung being in jail means the ABB will do less bad stuff, it'll probably get balanced out by the Empire being able to do more bad stuff? That really sucks!"
Not to mention all the other bad guys! It sounds like the gangs are where the Lawful Evil guys go and then the Neutral-and-Chaotic Evil guys all do their own thing? At least, that's what dressing up as video game characters¹ just to beat people up and steal their stuff sounds like to Elan.
"How… how many good guys are there? And what kind of powers do all these guys have?"
"Heh. Well, they're the self-proclaimed good guys. They get to call themselves that because they work for the government and passed a law saying they're officially 'the heroes'. They don't do anything bad usually, but they don't do nearly as much good stuff as you'd hope."
"Anyway. The government hero capes are called the Protectorate. They have a team in every big city. The local team leader is Armsmaster, a Tinker who builds his own armor and a halberd and motorcycle and has lots of gadgets. Miss Militia, who can create and use every kind of military weapon in an instant, we just hope she'll never do an a-bomb. Who else. Velocity, he can run super fast... Assault and Battery, the stupid name duo who throw each other around to punch things... Dauntless has a shield and spear, I guess he's just a Brute... Triumph can shout loud enough to deafen... I dunno, I'm probably missing someone? They can also call in help from teams in other cities if there's something big going down."
"Then there's the kids division, called the Wards. They've got Kid Win, another tinker who flies and uses guns. Vista manipulates space, she can make you suddenly be really close or really far to something else, she's really scary. Gallant fires blasts that mess with your head, make you feel the wrong emotion at the worst moment. And Shadow Stalker, a literally murderous bitch who can turn to smoke and phase through stuff and shoots a crossbow. She has it out for me because my power can mess with hers."
"Besides the actual capes there's the PRT. They're - halfway between police and the army. They're supposed to be the government's response to capes, which means they don't stop crime unless there's a cape involved, and they have heavy weapons but not, like, tanks or bombers. They work with the Protectorate and are supposed to give them orders but I don't know how it works in practice."
"Feeling reassured yet?"
That's a lot of names! Elan wonders if he'll end up meeting all of them. Grue's joke gets him to laugh and cheer up a little.
"Well, it's good to not be totally confused about everything. Do all the good guys work for the government? Oh, and what kind of stuff does your power do? The name sounds like it has to do with shadows."
Eh, it's not really a secret. "I make darkness. Like this -"
A black substance wells up around him. It's hard to tell if it's gas or liquid or shadow, because it's completely opaque and textureless and swallows all light and sound.
"And if you're in it you can't see or hear and phones and radios don't work, but it doesn't affect me." Behold, a demonstration: this is what it feels like to be completely enveloped in Grue's power.
...and a few seconds later in the sensory deprivation sphere Elan feels a hand land on his shoulder from behind, and the shadow recedes below their heads.
"You've been caught by a Grue," Grue says.
Even the background music goes completely silent! Elan really hopes that's just for effect.
"Eep!" he says to the hand on his shoulder, before the darkness pulls away. He can't even hear his own voice.
He giggles nervously, and then for real.
"Wow, that's a really cool power! Does it always do the same thing? Like, can you make it quiet without it being dark, or the other way around?"
"No, it's always everything. But I can control where it goes, open bubbles inside it. And I can cover a whole street with it, so it's really useful in a fight."
"You asked about the other heroes. There's one big independent hero team, New Wave. They're actually a family who all have different powers, I have no idea how that works, you can't just get powers on demand like that. Anyway, all their powers do lasers or light shields or superstrength, or some mix of those. And one of them can fly, she's called Glory Girl and is pretty strong and supposedly invulnerable. Or at least she's confident enough to say that and invite the people she's fighting to use their full strength."
"The other thing about them is that they don't wear masks and their civilian identities are public. They think that's what real heroes should do, so the public can hold them accountable. ...I guess they haven't done anything bad enough that I can complain that the public didn't hold them accountable. But the real reason they're strong, strong enough to drive off the Empire, is that one of them is Panacea."
"Panacea's power is healing, people say she's the best in the world and I believe it. If you're alive when she gets you you'll be fine. Wounds, disease, cancer, she can do it all. She clears out the hospital sometimes. A lot of powerful people must owe her and her family a huge favor."
"That sounds really amazing!" he says of Panacea. "Why do most people wear masks? Or, wait…"
He just got reminded of the Safe at Home and Opting In powers.
"If most capes aren't from a whole family of capes, then their enemies could kidnap their parents or siblings or kids or partners. Or kill them."
"I mean, they probably have some relatives somewhere who aren't capes? And like, girlfriends and stuff. I think it's just that if anyone did anything to Panacea's family a metric ton of capes would come down on their heads."
"That makes sense. Still, it sounds like… I dunno, if someone who isn't an amazing healer doesn't want people coming to their house in revenge for foiling their plans that doesn't have to mean that they aren't brave or they're doing bad things."
Elan's used to adventurers adventuring under their regular names, but it kind of seems like it's easier to find people here.
"I'm not saying masked capes are that," he's one of them! "The idea of public heroes sounds great, I just don't know if they could've pulled it off with a different team."
Here's the motel, as advertised, with a round-the-clock convenience store and gas station opposite. "This should be enough for a couple days," Grue says, passing him two hundred-dollar bills.
Elan nods.
"I was mostly thinking out loud."
He accepts the money, forming the intention to pay Grue back once it's been long enough that it won't be suspicious that Elan has $200 on hand.
"Thanks! See you tomorrow, probably."
He lets Grue skedaddle before he goes into the motel.
The motel receptionist will let him have a room for the night for $69.99. Checkout at 11am tomorrow, unless he pays for two nights in advance. Here's your room key and change. (Yawn.)
The room is pretty barebones but decently clean, with an en-suite toilet and a communal shower at the end of the corridor, and the street outside is currently quiet.
Elan chooses just the one night for now.
It takes him a minute to figure out the lighting in his room, but the plumbing is familiar enough. There's probably a timekeeping device in here, right?
No wonder the desk guy was tired! Elan promptly covers the clock display up with a piece of sturdy paper, because even though he doesn't have any specific memories of taking Work-Life Balance he bets that if he just pretends he's in a little time bubble he'll have all the time he needs to process the events of the past little while and get a good night's sleep.
From his pocket dimension he retrieves two pens…
…and a notebook that looks like, but is not, The Notebook.
I know, I know. Can you pretend at least?
…well, that's kind of a silly question to ask himself.
Sorry, that was silly.
Maybe a little. This world is a lot scarier than I was expecting. Like, I appeared on this rooftop, and there was this mean guy telling his followers to shoot kids. And I forgot that I had the drawback where I can't do big things by myself, so I tried to get him to stop, and he was REALLY strong and fast and I couldn't even get him talking. Luckily some other people showed up though, and they said that the police for people with superpowers were coming to get him.
It was! But then… okay so one of the people who helped me was this girl with the power to control bugs, and there were a bunch of others. And I didn't realize that they weren't actually friends with each other already, so when they split up I went with the rest of them, so I feel a little bad about leaving the bugs girl behind. I can probably find her and say sorry later though.
I hope so. Anyway, the other guys were really helpful and told me a bunch of stuff, but they think that all my memories are fake! Apparently that's something that sometimes happens here?? And even though I think I took They'll Know, this girl Tattletale who has figuring-things-out powers wasn't able to tell much about me for some reason. She said she'll try again tomorrow so maybe powers need sleep like spells do.
Elan… wants to say no.
Maybe a little bit. I don't know how I could tell! I really really don't want them to be right, because that's scary. I mean, I don't want my mom to be fake! And I think I've mostly been remembering real things about what my powers are, but what if I'm wrong about something important?
Well, you could try using the Baby Monitor power on your mom.
Apparently! Elan can't tell exactly what she's doing, but she seems calm and focused and definitely doesn't need help right now.
Okay, the power says she's doing fine in a way that definitely felt more like a cutaway panel than an imagine spot. I guess if my memories are fake then she could be a different person or something?
Maybe, but she'd still be someone you cared about probably. What kind of important things are you worried you could be wrong about?
If I even have a power at all, I guess? Like what if I try to use Disney Princess and it doesn't work because my memories are fake and so I get hurt by a wild animal?
I see what you mean. I think that you shouldn't worry about it.
Well, you took Informed Consent, right? If one of your powers doesn't work the way you expect, it COULD mean that your whole life is a lie. Or it could mean that it's not the right time, or that something better will happen because the power didn't work, or something else.
You're right! Hey, do you think that I'll get a superpower like the kinds people have here?
Maybe! If you do, it will probably happen when you're having a pretty big problem, like how Regent said.
Oops, you didn't. Maybe that means you should go to sleep.
Yeah, maybe. One last thing… do you think my powers might work better if I turn into a girl? Since the Spirit likes girly things?
I don't know! Probably the better question is, do you want to?
…yeah. Elan thinks he does want to. To see what it's like, at the very least.
Thanks. Talk to you later?
Elan shuts the notebook and sets the pens on top of it. Then he goes into the bathroom, stands in front of the mirror, and shuts his eyes.
When she opens them again, she looks… a lot like her mom. Her hair is still short, though, and she's the same height as before.
Her clothes have changed, too. They look a lot more like local clothing, even though Elan hasn't seen much casual clothing that isn't part of a costume yet. Her sky-blue shirt has a white music notes pattern on it and her pants are made of denim now. She's wearing a cute leather purse over her shoulder that goes with her shoes, which are pretty similar to the boots Elan was wearing earlier.
She realizes that she's kind of hungry. The store across the street was open when… he?… checked into the motel, so maybe it's still open now? She goes outside to check.
The guy at the reception isn't very surprised that someone snuck a girl in but they're upset at themselves for apparently missing it!
Too late now, she's leaving. (She's really hot, though...)
The store is open 24/7! It's small and doesn't have a big selection of anything, but he can get ten different kinds of cheap unhealthy food including potato chips and ice cream, various sodas, batteries, basic toiletries, car wiper fluid, payphone cards, some magazines...
Holy cow! She's gonna get one of the wrapped-up sandwiches and a bag of chips and a pint of vanilla ice cream and a bottle of orange soda and some bubble gum and some Skittles and some M&Ms.
"Thank you pleasecomeagain!" (Yawn.)
(...wow, she really looks like she's going somewhere fun to have fun with all... that... The cashier is a bit jealous of anyone who can be so happy and pretty and junk-food-buying-y at the same time.)
Everyone should get to be happy and pretty and junk-food-buying-y! Or health-food-buying-y if they're, like, an elf.
"Have a good night!"
When Elan gets back to the motel room, she makes herself an orange soda float and has a little bit of everything until she feels full enough to go to bed. Hooray for infinite candy! And also infinite ham and cheese sandwiches.
She is nnnnot a paying customer but the receptionist can't bring himself to ruin the night of whoever actually paid for whichever room she's visiting.
Convenient for everyone, really!
When it's bedtime, Elan's clothes become footie pajamas. In the morning he's a boy again, but Dressing Room apparently has seen fit to put him in basically the same outfit as Girl Elan.
Does he have any messages from Tattletale waiting for him?
"We don't need her, we want her. With a bigger team we can do more and bigger jobs. We'll have more money to go around, and more people to count on if something goes wrong. We might have lost to Lung without her!"
(And Bitch could really use help fighting the dog rings, Bug would be great at putting noncape crowds to flight, but she can't convince Bitch that people Bitch doesn't know yet are going to help her later.)
Lisa has two reasons to recruit Bug. One is that they could use the help. The other is that Bug really really needs some help friends, but she can't tell them that because it'll get back to Bug and then she won't trust Lisa.
"Her power is actually really great, she's just inexperienced. With the right bugs she could put down or drive away anyone who's not a Brute, and she can do it without them seeing her or knowing she was ever there. She can do crowd control, multiple targets, you name it. She was really hurting Lung and I think if she'd gone all out from the start, attacked him by surprise before he started ramping up, she might have killed him. We could really use that kind of firepower, and we don't want any other team to have her."
"What about Elan? He has nowhere else to go and he trusts us already, it should be an easy sell. We don't know anything about Bug except her power and Elan's already unmasked to us. He seems like the obvious pick, even with a weaker Mover/Stranger power. I don't want a reluctant team member."
Ugh. Brian isn't wrong, it's just that using her power on 'Bug' hit Lisa where it hurt. "We can try both and see who's amenable?" she temporizes.
"We'll vote on it. As the team leader I have a veto, but I'm voting yes. Bitch voted no, Lisa yes. Alec?"
"Yeah, whatever, let's go get the amnesiac shapeshifter, what could go wrong, don't look at me when he goes all tentacle monster on you."
Could become tentacle monster. Won't. Doesn't know he could. Wouldn't if he knew. Could be convinced to.
Lisa shivers.
Hooray, messages!
that sounds good
what place do you want to meet up at
and what time becuz chekout is 11 but if later works better i will be alright
He probably won't know what place she means, since it seems like secrecy matters a lot and so meeting up in the same place they were last night would be a bad idea. But he's pretty much positive that he'll end up in the right place at the right time anyway.
from motel turn left walk till street ends theres a little park
11 is good
Oh, cool, simple directions.
yay see you then
With magic wardrobe, personal inventory, and never needing to use a bathroom for either of its purposes powers, getting ready to check out is extremely simple. Elan makes sure he isn't leaving anything behind (like his notebook and pens or the paper he covered the clock with) and goes to drop off his key.
There's a different receptionist on shift. She doesn't know who checked in, as long as he leaves the room empty and gives her the key it's all good.
Elan waves as he leaves. He wonders if he should get breakfast or if Tattletale and her friends will bring some to the meeting…
He keeps an eye out for any not-the-convenience-store-he-went-to-last-night places that look like they serve breakfast on the way to the park.
This street has quite a few stores. There's a pizzeria that mostly does takeaways and a burger place and a tiny Thai restaurant and a Chinese restaurant on a second floor he might miss if he doesn't read Chinese.
They have an extra unreadable menu! ...and an English one for foreigners locals non-Thai Asian people.
There's smoke in the air from all the cooking, a thousand intermingled scents, and a cheerful atmosphere. People don't come here because they're hungry, they come for food they are going to enjoy. (It's very spicy.)
Elan wiggles happily as he reads the menu. It smells really yummy in here!
The soups seem good, but maybe a little unwieldy to take out of… actually, what is he even saying? It would be inconvenient if it was unwieldy to take a bowl of soup out of his pocket, so it won't be. Elan loves these powers.
The curries are also tempting. There's one with mango, one with pineapple, one with pumpkin…
Maybe he can get a soup and a curry. The tom yum soup, because obviously if it has "yum" in its name it's going to be yummy, and the curry with mango, because that sounds fun.
They are happy to take his order! In a few minutes he can have as large a stack of take-away containers as he can pay for.
Oh cool, takeout is super easy to handle! He puts a few of the smaller bills in the tip jar with maximum sneakiness, then leaves with his goodies.
He arrives at the park at the same time as three people who match the body types of the ones he met yesterday, minus Bitch. There's a teenage girl with freckles and a grin, a young man with black skin and striking Str and Con, and a teenaged-looking man who clearly went in for Dex over Str.
The park itself is very small, three or four empty lots with trees and grass and swings for children and a fenced area for dogs.
Oh boy swings! Elan makes his way towards…
He spots the three people-his-age. He thinks maybe these are the same as the people last night? To be sure, he texts Tattletale.
hi is that you guys over there
Lisa gives him a wave and leads the others over.
"So! Introductions. I'm Lisa, these are Brian and Alec. Rachel stayed behind to care for her dogs."
Elan dutifully notes all the names, mentally at least.
"No, everything was fine! I checked into the motel and then I went and got candy at the store across the street. Speaking of which, does anyone want…"
He takes out a bag of each to remind himself of their names.
"M&Ms or Skittles?"
"Such a culinary barbarian we are bringing into our house," Alec laments with an exaggerated French accent. He'll take the Skittles.
"Don't mind him, he eats pizza half the time. And! We've talked about it and we want to invite you to join our team, the Undersiders."
"We know what it's like to be in a strange city with no friends," Brian takes over smoothly. In fact he's the only one on the team who doesn't. "We can help you find your feet, have your back while you adjust. There's a lot about the local cape community that you'll only learn on the ground. And there's regular pay, $2000 a month just for being on the team, but we pull in a lot more from some of the jobs we do."
He cheerfully passes Alec a bag of Skittles and puts the M&Ms back.
He's excited to be included by the offer! Although he should probably ask questions…
"What kind of jobs do you guys do?"
If he were more economically-minded, he might think to ask where the $2000/month/person comes from. However, Elan.
"Oh, you know. Stealing from the rich. Fighting other gangs, not directly profitable but our boss sometimes wants to us to stop someone doing something bad. The Empire runs dog-fighting rings and Bitch goes to a lot of effort to break them up. The ABB held someone for ransom once and we rescued him." And got most of the ransom payment, but Tattletale thinks she's got a pretty good handle on what Elan might find off-putting.
Stealing from the rich is a pretty standard rogue thing… Elan should probably ask some followup questions about the gang fighting thing… dog fighting sounds really mean so putting that down is a good thing… rescuing people who have been kidnapped is definitely good.
"That makes sense," he says thoughtfully. "Who's your boss and what kind of stuff does he want? And why does he not wanna work with the PRT?"
Elan's guess is that it's most likely a Law/Chaos thing, but that's a pretty broad category of reasons and Lisa will probably have a better answer.
"We have a mysterious backer! He doesn't want his identity revealed and he's worried someone might find out through us if we're ever arrested."
"We vote as a team whether to take on each mission he gives us. The PRT, well, a lot of people don't like the government. Sometimes they hurt people, more often they just don't help when you need them most. If they can't or won't stop the gangs, what are they even for? They take my taxes but I don't feel secure walking down the street in half the city, and if I ask them for something there's endless laws, regulations, red tape everywhere."
Oooh, a mysterious backer. How mysterious! There's a chance that the mystery is because he's playing both sides in some way, but there's a lot of other explanations, too, like maybe he had to fake his own death after someone he thought was his best friend betrayed him.
… Elan should probably actually think about working for a mysterious employer in a world where there's so much messed-up stuff when he knows it's at least a possibility that he would be helping someone do actual bad things. He's not sure where to actually start, though.
"I understand about the government," he says instead. This definitely sounds like there's at least a little Law/Chaos conflict going on. "Will they actually get you in trouble for helping people if you didn't ask permission first, or do they just not do enough to help people who need it?"
That's a question that really needs context. "They don't go after you just for helping people, they're not cartoon villains. But sometimes a person really needs help but the law says you can't do the obvious thing, or you have to get government permission. And the government workers who are meant to help people in trouble care more about following the rules than actually helping, and if they don't follow the rules maybe they get fired..."
They need an example... Can't tell Brian's story since he just didn't, can't tell Alec's story because he shouldn't know she knows, can't tell her own story to any of them... Could tell him Rachel's story, it's public anyway. Would it bother Elan that Rachel's considered a murderer?
No. Cute puppies, evil stepmother.
Huh. She can definitely work with this!
"So for example, Rachel - don't call her that, she prefers Bitch even in private, she's only Rachel to blend in with civvies - her parents died when she was a child. She went to several foster homes, never found a place she belonged. By the time she was a teen she was stuck with a really strict foster mother, they hated each other... Rachel loved dogs but the foster mother forbade dogs in the house. She brought home a puppy and tried to keep it secret but eventually the mother found out and tried to drown it. Rachel triggered and her power made the dog grow and it killed the mother. Her power doesn't control dogs, you see, only makes them big and scary, she has to train them first to obey her."
"This is all public info, it's on the internet, obviously I'd never tell you about anyone's trigger that wasn't public. Don't talk to her about it though, she hates it. The reason it's public is that she ran away, and she was convicted in juvenile court of murder - without her there - because everyone assumes the worst of parahumans. While she was homeless. So she's a fugitive from justice and we're criminals for not turning her in."
"A random cop might not be a bad guy but he'd still arrest her if he knew there's a warrant. ...we're not all outlaws. In case that gave you the wrong impression."
(It's a little hard to think of her as Bitch, but if it's really what she prefers, then it would be more rude to ignore it than it is to use the b-word in general.)
The story with her foster mom sounds terrible! The part where she got orphaned, and the part where she was in a bunch of houses that weren't home, and the part where her pet almost got killed. And it was probably really scary to kill her foster mom by accident, even if they hated each other.
"Does she still have that one? Sorry, not important. I can definitely see why you don't want to work with people who want to send," (very small pause) "Bitch to jail, even if the cops were doing all the things they should be doing, like finding good homes for kids who lose their parents."
He thinks a moment. Right, he wanted to ask about the gang fights…
"What does fighting other gangs usually look like? Brian mentioned the big ones earlier, but it sounds like you're not usually going up against those ones because they're, well, the big ones."
"We don't fight them for the sake of fighting, and we don't claim territory like some of them do. If we're fighting someone it's because they're in the way, and we'll try to go around them. Or they attacked us and we're trying to get away - we're good at that - or they attacked us but we decide to fight back so everyone else doesn't think we're pushovers and goes after us next. So only if we think we're going to win, and Lisa's good at the thinking."
Yesterday wasn't like any of those and Brian really hopes it won't happen again.
Elan nods. He still feels a little uneasy about the thought of getting mixed up in gang fights, but "we don't fight for the sake of fighting" and "we try to go around other gangs" are good to hear. It sounds like this world is one where it's hard to always do the right thing because of a bunch of complicated reasons, which doesn't mean you shouldn't try but does mean that trying might look… different.
"Have you had to fight back so people didn't think you were pushovers recently? How did that go down?"
"A couple months ago we robbed a drug dealer's stash, burned the drugs and took the money. They called in a cape called Trainwreck and we could have gotten away before he got there, but we knew we could take him so we stayed. I blinded him, Alec made him crash, and the dogs took apart the robot he built for himself. That told them not to come after us later."
"Yesterday we miiight have made gone the other way! Made an impression we can't live up to. But Lung was coming for us, nothing we could do to avoid that, and we got lucky meeting you and Bug."
"Besides, if it's a rematch then he's more likely to come out on top," reasons Elan.
The Trainwreck story is reassuring, though, especially since it sounds like they didn't seriously hurt anyone and weren't trying to. Also, fighting robots sound badass. But he's got one other question.
"You said you vote on whether to do stuff when your boss asks… does that mean that everyone goes along with the vote, even if they personally voted the other way?"
