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Yesterday, this was an ordinary twenty-first century city. Today it's a war zone, tomorrow it'll be walled off and abandoned.
A few collapsed buildings, shattered streets, and assorted craters. The place is mostly empty, with scattered groups of mostly humanoid monsters roaming and trying to escape the guarded fence around the city. The most instantly noticeable change is an ongoing wordless singing in the back of the mind of anyone present. By itself it's just a sound. An unpleasant sound, and almost but not quite predictable as if someone were trying to attack the listener's sanity without saying anything, but possible to ignore. But along with it, any time a listener closes their eyes they get flashes of memories. Not their worst memories, but whatever negative ones can stick with them unforgettably. It builds up associations between the feelings in those images and almost anything else. Sometimes there's a recognizable common thread and other times there isn't.
An angel fights off teams of opponents. She's fifteen feet tall, extremely winged, with more wings than is strictly necessary for an angel. Even some of her wings have wings. All of them are asymmetric and varyingly sized. A spherical halo of weaponry surrounds her, firing at her more distant enemies from across the battlefield. Her opponents cycle in and out: a golden man, a man surrounded by a bubble, a woman in a dark costume, all flying. Others make certain to stay away after taking their turn, on rare occasions spending too long hearing the angel's music. Those ones voluntarily self-destruct.
A small group of ordinary humans takes refuge in a house as far from the battle as they can reach. The song is quieter here, and, they hope, less potent. Some of them run away from and back to the house, occasionally calling for help. They haven't found any.
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whole_new_can
whole_new_can
"It's because I matter." That's directed at least as much to the armored cape as it is to Kithabel.
"What I want is a copy of an interdimensional portal. You saw one when you got here, and decided not to repair it. Well, it's been over a year and a half now, and none of us was there so you know our decision making isn't compromised."
"What I want is a copy of an interdimensional portal. You saw one when you got here, and decided not to repair it. Well, it's been over a year and a half now, and none of us was there so you know our decision making isn't compromised."
whole_new_can
"Ouch. Well, I'm not about to say what it's for.
If that's too close to the Simurgh, the device she was copying works too if you can manage it."
If that's too close to the Simurgh, the device she was copying works too if you can manage it."
ertia
"I'm really not sure I want to make you things for an unspecified purpose, and I begin to suspect you can tell how much of a waste of time I think extensively negotiating for it might be."
whole_new_can
"Fine. The device Haywire used to open a hole to Earth Aleph, then, no Simurgh involvement at all and that one's been in use for years so we can swap books. Should still work.
In exchange, you've been working for not one but two sets of supervillains pretty much since you got here, and I imagine you want to know which."
In exchange, you've been working for not one but two sets of supervillains pretty much since you got here, and I imagine you want to know which."
ertia
Sigh. "Two? I suppose I wasn't filtering heavily enough to keep the PAs villain-free but you'd think if two groups were trying they'd trip over each other." She looks up the Haywire device; she finds the purple cape's description legit - "And I still want to know what this is supposed to be for. Not, I assume, swapping books."
whole_new_can
"You've been taking directions from Accord's people; it was pretty obvious he had you accidentally running into his enemies as much as he could get away with. That mouthful of Teeth yesterday wasn't him, though, thanks for that.
Other one's the Elite; Accord was hiring you out. Some of the cells of Elite are pretty businesslike as villains go, though if you've been following the news lately even the good ones are bad ones. Pretty much any time you've gone to New York at least one job was because they bribed Accord."
Other one's the Elite; Accord was hiring you out. Some of the cells of Elite are pretty businesslike as villains go, though if you've been following the news lately even the good ones are bad ones. Pretty much any time you've gone to New York at least one job was because they bribed Accord."
ertia
"Thank you," says Kithabel. "I will make your device if I do not hate what you're going to do with it and I will just fly away and deal with my villain problem if you don't tell me."
whole_new_can
"You want to go home? We might be able to find your world, might not, but pretty much no matter what we find it'll make us important. We're opening portals."
ertia
"Yeah, don't. And if I find that you've been doing anything nasty to any other worlds I will consider you my personal responsibility, and I will soon enough be able to travel between worlds on my own to find you in that eventuality. Got it?"
ertia
Kithabel hands her a doodad. And a bead. She can figure it out.
And then she looks up Accord and the Elite.
And then she looks up Accord and the Elite.
whole_new_can
Accord is the lead contender for taking over Boston. Since the Teeth left, it's been mostly just him and some lesser factions. He's known for complicated plans that inexplicably work and an extreme insistence that nothing ever be in any sense out of place. No one has a complete list of his crimes because of course they don't.
The Elite are the country's largest villain group, and second-largest parahuman organization after the Protectorate. They're mostly West Coast, but expand quickly and are speculated to have reached New York. Their reputation took a hit recently when it came out that it's normal practice to assist local organized crime and eventually take over those functions themselves while also gathering influence at higher levels.
Both factions do have interests that would be served by making things better in the sorts of ways Kithabel tends to do, so it's not as if they've been tricking her into committing crimes. But everything this cape said fits well enough to be plausible, if not enough to immediately snap into place.
"Thanks for this," Tattletale says. "Now they're going to have to invent new maps to put the Undersiders on."
The Elite are the country's largest villain group, and second-largest parahuman organization after the Protectorate. They're mostly West Coast, but expand quickly and are speculated to have reached New York. Their reputation took a hit recently when it came out that it's normal practice to assist local organized crime and eventually take over those functions themselves while also gathering influence at higher levels.
Both factions do have interests that would be served by making things better in the sorts of ways Kithabel tends to do, so it's not as if they've been tricking her into committing crimes. But everything this cape said fits well enough to be plausible, if not enough to immediately snap into place.
"Thanks for this," Tattletale says. "Now they're going to have to invent new maps to put the Undersiders on."
ertia
...Kithabel does not go back and put them all to sleep. She just sighs at Tattletale.
Kithabel instead notifies the Protectorate that her PAs seem to be in unsavory employ and she would like to go back to taking tasks from official sources until she can replace them. The PAs weren't tricking her into doing anything too unpleasant and they were perfectly nice to work with, so instead of actually chasing them down she just notifies them that they're fired as soon as she has a task list from the Protectorate to switch to.
Kithabel instead notifies the Protectorate that her PAs seem to be in unsavory employ and she would like to go back to taking tasks from official sources until she can replace them. The PAs weren't tricking her into doing anything too unpleasant and they were perfectly nice to work with, so instead of actually chasing them down she just notifies them that they're fired as soon as she has a task list from the Protectorate to switch to.
wormcan
The lead one's a bit disappointed—Accord gave her superpowers for this—but Kithabel finding out eventually was a given.
The PRT has a list ready to go very quickly; they don't exactly disapprove of not having to wait in line.
The PRT has a list ready to go very quickly; they don't exactly disapprove of not having to wait in line.
ertia
Yeah, this works fine. Also it means Kithabel's handling her own money now, and she has a lot stored up. She doesn't really need it... for... anything... so she finds some charities and gives most of it away.
wormcan
The headlines the next day announce that Kithabel is a better person than Scion. Apparently flying around heroing is just expected when one has superpowers but only moral people give away money.
While flying around heroing, she can tell that the current list is designed to advantage the PRT, in terms of what gets built and what gets duplicated, but that's probably to be expected. At least this time her list is compiled by an organization that almost definitely isn't corrupt and secretly working for supervillains.
While flying around heroing, she can tell that the current list is designed to advantage the PRT, in terms of what gets built and what gets duplicated, but that's probably to be expected. At least this time her list is compiled by an organization that almost definitely isn't corrupt and secretly working for supervillains.
ertia
She will continue to take occasional independent suggestions from the Internet, but figuring out all her own stuff to do just isn't viable.
wormcan
Suggestions from the Internet come in over time, some good and some bad. One of the more common ones is to find and remove otherwise-unstoppable threats. They're not all at the level of the Endbringers.
ertia
With the available intel on the Blasphemies, for instance, Kithabel is pretty sure she can take 'em. She loads up on standard precautions and travels to Europe.
wormcan
The officially labeled good guys do keep surveillance of most of these kinds of enemies. The Blasphemies are in England at the moment, it's hard to tell if they're just moving around Europe or are planning something. Probably the former; they don't assassinate heads of state all that often.
The Suits rarely fight the Blasphemies directly. It tends not to go well, and bystander casualties tend to be high. They're willing to send in some people if she wants the help, and will definitely be on the sidelines minimizing damage in either case.
The Suits rarely fight the Blasphemies directly. It tends not to go well, and bystander casualties tend to be high. They're willing to send in some people if she wants the help, and will definitely be on the sidelines minimizing damage in either case.
ertia
She could use some support if they have anything in the way of high-level sensory powers that can keep an eye on the whole fight and give her direction as things proceed.
wormcan
They do. The highest-level one of these can designate a target and know a wide variety of information about it, in the case of a person including everything they're seeing at the time. Kithabel can have a relayed copy of everything her opponents observe, plus extra surveillance from other powers.