Orion Schulz2
This isn't bad, you can talk your way out of this. You put one hand behind your back, start to shift it into tentacle form as quickly as possible, and begin to speak in a conversational tone.
”I consider myself really more like a communist in all reality, well a social democracy suppor-" Ski mask interrupts you with a pipe to the stomach and as the air's knocked from your lungs he shouts.
"Nazi mo'fucka, yo' gonna die today!" You didn't ask for this, but they're not giving you a choice!
19 VS 18, 4
Your stamina recovers in a flash, and energized by adrenaline, your right arm changes in the time it takes to swing from behind your back. Ski mask's pipe would've knocked your teeth out, but your tentacle rips it from his hand and retaliates faster than you can think. Luckily for him, and for your conscience, his power activates the instant before the pipe lands and you grunt as you're suddenly dizzy and bludgeoned in the chest.
Stumbling back, your left arm starts to change of its own accord and seeing ski mask's stance, you realize you both switched places, pipe included. After you displayed your power, he's getting much more cautious and adjusts to a defensive posture. Once you've registered him, three copies of vape man rush you with knives. You move to block in a blind panic but your tentacles have a mind of their own and they move to strike
behind you faster than the eye can see. When your tentacle connects the copies flicker and vanish in a burst of light and you can feel your hooks and blades piercing thin fabric and rending soft muscle but you manage to stop before the damage is lethal.
A voice cried out in pain and you turn to see a thin, tanned, and curly haired man on his knees clutching his stomach. Your tentacles reach to tear his throat apart and you can barely restrain them. He looks at you with terror in his eyes and hearing a shout, you turn to face ski mask.
3 VS 1
His pipe swings to crush your skull and you wince, but to both of your surprise, both of your tentacles grip it inches from your face and with a moment's exertion, force it from ski mask's hands, bend it to uselessness, and fling it into the alley wall with so much speed it crumples.
11 VS 6
Ski mask takes a pair of brass knuckles and sprints to strike you. He's a braver man than you are, but he's nowhere near as fast as your tendrils. His fist moves to shatter your jaw and like lightning, your tentacles wrap around his arm and squeeze, ripping skin and cracking bone. All of a sudden, you're dizzy and he's the one with both arms around yours. You try to talk but before you can, your trapped tentacle slides out, lacerating his hands and your free tentacle slams into ski mask, flinging him back to land beside his partner.
In less than a minute, they've both been disarmed, terrified, and rendered bloody messes, and there's hardly a scratch on you. All of this, and you haven't spent so much as a day training in a dojo. Damn, you're scary. Ski mask moans in agony and vape man stares at your tentacles in horror.
"W-what the fuck are you?!?"You're about to respond when one of the beaten thugs gets on his feet. The neo-nazi walks over to the vigilantes, kicks vape man in the stomach, and spits on him when he curls into a fetal position. Then he turns to see you, and, sure enough, he's wearing a skull-mask bandanna almost identical to yours. His voice is quieter than you were expecting, and his genuinely impressed conversational tone makes your tentacles jitter.
"Sieg Heil mein bruder! You dispatched these untermenschen with such ease that I am in awe to see you stand so still! I'm afraid I haven't seen you around here, do you mind introducing yourself? Are you local, or are you from another chapter?
Maybe somewhere European?"Uh... This isn't, uh... Huh...
What do you do?Status:
Lightly bruised chest
Tentacle arms
Traits:
Changer- Can shift arms and legs into obsidian-black, bladed, strong, and precise tentacles with half a minute's effort.
Residence:
Green Rose Tenements, Room 636- $300 rent every month, (3 weeks remaining)
Equipment:
$734 in cash
Edgy Costume, worn over Street Clothes
Black Backpack, containing:
- A slightly rusty sewing kit
You've had enough of this experimental fiddling, it's time see if you can't set-up a secure Wi-Fi connection.
17+2=19
You sink into a half-conscious trance, and three and a half hours later, you've more than exceeded your expectations. The
Third Eye now has a thick touchscreen that operates like a smart phone, capacity for app downloads and video calls included, with a fast and smooth Wi-Fi connection completely independent from the mega-corp networks, and almost as an afterthought, a basic firewall that seamlessly redirects almost any malware to nearby devices. It doubles as a dull flashlight with next-to-no battery life to boot. You might've gotten a bit carried away, but it's a massive improvement over the previous design so you won't complain.
Isolation isn't a desirable state for a Metahuman, you need contacts, materials, and most of all, allies. Like anything else, the best place to find like-minded people is on the Internet, and there's three places you're most likely to find what you're looking for. First off, there's
www.Meta_Listings.com, a semi-legal website where millions of people ask for Meta assistance to their problems, or alternatively, put themselves out for hire. Officially, Metas not affiliated with the MRI are illegal, but practically, it's more trouble to track, neutralize, and detain them than it's worth, so the government doesn't tend to care unless they're overtly villainous or conspirational, and the website's useful as a honeypot, so it's allowed to run and its users are more or less ignored.
Next, there's
www.Metachan.org, an anonymous imageboard akin to the early 21st century's 4chan, the chief difference being that it was originally dedicated to Meta discussion, rather than Japanese anime. Given that no registration's required to post no-one knows exactly how many people actually use the site, and the owner, an enigmatic Thinker by the epithet
Freebird isn't likely to divulge anytime soon. The website, ostensibly the last bastion of free speech on the clear-web, is much more controversial than
Meta Listings, containing an obscene amount of gore, porn, profanity, and fringe beliefs alongside the discussion of Metas, which runs the gamut from debauched fan-fiction to livestreamed super-street-fights, and if you can tolerate the website at large, you're almost certain to find someone, somewhere in the city that needs the services only you can provide.
Last, but not least, there's the one and only
Dark Web. Completely separate from the publicly-used Internet, there the law is at best a suggestion and all manner of despicable deeds are done and every vice imaginable is exchanged. Unlike the previous websites, the
Dark Web has a significant criminal presence, and if you were an amoral man interested in putting your talents to the test, you could earn twenty year's minimum wage in a night, or end up dead in a gutter. Another concern is the amount of attention the government devotes to surveying the place, but if you're sufficiently subtle and don't trigger any cyber-criminal's trap, you shouldn't have an issue.
It should've been a more difficult decision, but you aren't surprised at all when you type in the address to...
Which website?Status:
Healthy
Traits:
Tinker- Can build futuristic technology, specializing in Information Acquisition and Adaption.
Residence:
Green Rose Tenements, Room 485- $300 rent every month, (3 weeks remaining)
Supplies:
Half-charged car battery
8 units of electronic scrap
19 units of metal scrap
Equipment:
$360 in cash
The Third Eye
Intact antique tool-box
Street Clothes
16
The burly firefighter nods.
"That's spooky, real fucking spooky. If it was anyone but you telling me this, they'd be out on their ass but you're one of the best men I know, and I know I can trust you to stay in under my roof. I've got two conditions, alright? You swear you'll keep your mouth shut around my wife and kids, or god help me I will do terrible things to you, and you get your own place to as soon as you're on your feet. Understand, Summers?" You nod and he continues.
"Is it a deal or am I going to have to put a word in at the homeless shelter for you?'Yay or Nay?Status:
Healthy
Traits:
Master- Can command others with their voice, but only so long as they don't realize they're being influenced.
Residence:
Duke's Deluxe Rental Apartments, Room 216- No rent
Equipment:
$460 in cash
Street Clothes
This kid's a man after your own heart, and you think you'd like to have a one-to-one with him. You sit and chatter with his grandmother for another half hour as you wait for him to get home from a grocery run. Sure enough, eventually a pimply-faced teenager in khakis with bulging grocery bags in either arm shows up, and as you expected, he's more than a bit alarmed to see a stranger in his house.
14
About two minutes into your conversation he goes off into a rant about how Metas are a "cancer in the womb" of society and should be publically executed, "Fed-backed MRI's" or otherwise. It becomes clear that for one reason or another, he has a negative view of Metas, blames all of the world's problems on their "shit-tier comic-tier bank-shit robber-shit vigilante horse-shit bull-shit," and is fond of the word shit.
Almost two hours later, you get the impression his hatred of supers goes far deeper than a disdain for Villains, from an opinion to an obsession. It's clear that something Meta-related happened to him in the past, but you don't know what and this kid isn't being forthcoming with the information. You still have a few hours until the
Local Patrol meeting, plenty of time to continue the conversation.
What do you say?Status:
Healthy
Traits:
Trump- Can cancel the powers of other supers within a radius of themselves, and temporarily strip a super of their powers with a touch at the cost of their radius.
Residence:
Green Rose Tenements, Room 512- $300 rent, (3 weeks remaining)
Equipment:
$90 in cash
Street Clothes
16
"You're strong, super-strong? Like breakin' concrete with a punch, bendin' steel in your hands strong, or lift a sledgehammer like it's full of hot air, wrestle a four hundred pound thug on equal footin' strong?"How do you reply?Status:
Healthy
Traits:
Brute- Their strength and durability scales with the pain they're suffering.
Residence:
N/A
Equipment:
$600 in cash
9mm Pistol, (13 rounds)
Street Clothes
Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no. You've killed people,
six people, over a box of antique knives. You're a monster, a murdering, savage monster. You've hurt so many people but if it wasn't for them trashing Amie's birthday gift and then
laughing about it, you wouldn't have done it, you wouldn't have even Triggered! Wait, Amie! He'll know what to do, he has to, he always does!
18
The guilt's so heavy you break down in tears and you're running so quick through the alleyways and fire escapes you hardly even notice the city blocks go by. Not even an hour after you started running you're right back where you started, and the relief is palpable. A ratty abandoned four-story apartment,
Amie's Gang of half-grown street urchins and desperate runaways have laid claim to, they're more like a family than they are a gang, and Amie's like everyone's dad more than he is head honcho. Thank god, him and the rest are outside, going through a pile of charity clothes.
Oh man, they're gonna freak once you tell them what happened, but they've gotta know and you still haven't gotten rid of the dumpster armor or the X-Acto wrist-blade because you're so stressed and you're just panicking and, and you just need help, and oh, you just know this is gonna be terrible but you've gotta go through with it.
How do you break the news?Status:
Black eye
Bloody Nose
Lightly bruised left shoulder
Heavily bruised stomach
Traits:
Striker- Can form nearby inanimate objects into weapons and armor.
Changer- Can harmlessly incorporate inanimate objects into their body.
Brute- Can unleash an energy blast that devastates inorganic matter but only concusses organic matter.
Brute- Can release an energy aura that rapidly corrodes inorganic matter they're not currently using.
Residence:
Amie's Place- No rent
Equipment:
X-Acto Arm Blade
Scrap Armor, worn over Street Clothes
Author
Topic: Near-Future Street Level Super (6/6) IC Thread (Read 2290 times)