Fief - Alan 3 (Patreon)

Welcome back to Fief, my readers. Taking some recommendations into account, I’ve decided to change the perspective from third to first. 

And again, thank you to all of my Patreons for supporting me and I hope all of you enjoy the early release!

-VB-

Fief

Alan 3

-VB-

I moved in the nights. It was the best time to do so. I avoided the crowded places, and waited for large supermarkets to close for the day. When the last of the employees went home, I snuck in.

Through the wall.

“No Clip,” as I called this power, was one of my four base powers. It allowed me to phase through solid matter. 

I slipped into the grocery section, took a portable outdoor gas burner, a bunch of canned beans and meat, and fled the scene with no one the wiser by using the final power of my four baseline powers: “Offscreen Travel.” One moment, I was standing in the grocery store, and the next moment, I was back in the abandoned house I’ve been squatting in.

How I came up with these names, I wasn’t sure. They just … were.

-VB-

It’s been a month since I’ve been dropped into this planet. I had no identification, no government agencies willing or capable of processing me as a refugee, and I’ve killed people.

Yes, people.

The first one was a local Brockton Bay hero by the name of Wasp, a blaster dressed up in black and yellow. He died when he tried to “subdue” me lethally, and I returned the favor by copying his power and using it to blast him away. According to the newspapers, Wasp died from blood loss due to an assault by an “unknown villain” and the panicked bystanders forgot to call the ambulance. 

Unfortunately, the anonymity didn’t last after I began to steal food from supermarkets. 

I was now, according to urban legends, the “Red Bigfoot of Brockton Bay.”

I didn’t know why, but I found the title humiliating. I knew what a bigfoot was, and being compared to what amounted to an ape?

It was an insult to what I could do.

What I could do was both simple and yet complex. It was simple because my collecting power could permanently copy a copy. I wasn’t sure about the limits of it or how many I could use at the same time, but I could copy them nonetheless and, more importantly, allow me to instinctively understand and use the power.

Wasp’s “Detonation”? I used a much advanced version compared to Wasp in the instance that I copied it. 

And that made me a parahuman worth something. 

I wasn’t an urban legend to be sought after like some … some … tourist attraction!

I needed to do something to make people respect me. I wasn’t going to be a sightseer’s checkpoint.

Unfolding today’s newspaper edition, I began to read. 

Give me something to work with.

-VB-

A week later, I stared down at a procession of the newly founded “Empire Eighty-Eight.” They were a brutal and violent white supremacist organization led by its founder and current leader, Allfather.

They’ve been in the newspaper lately, demonstrating out in the open with guns held high and their banner of stylized 88 on top of a red background. Openly shouting racial slurs, they flexed their muscles and goaded the authorities to do something.

But the police would not engage Allfather and his two capes, Dodsmarj and Weisstark, a Changer and Brute respectively (these classifications wouldn’t be invented for some time, but I knew of them because of my precog/memory, so I was going to use them for simplicity’s sake). 

Put together, those three were a menace that prevented anything less than twice their number to take on effectively. While I haven’t seen them in action personally, most sources agreed on the following: Allfather provided range-support/cover fire, Dodsmarj fought as a shock trooper, and Weisstark tanked hits meant for others. This teamwork made for a very strong combination that - as stated before - required twice their numbers to effectively break and chase away. 

But I wasn’t here to chase them away.

I was here to copy their powers.

Despite possessing no parahuman of their own, the officers of Brockton Bay Police Department stood their ground as the current demonstration of the Empire gangsters and their cape leaders marched towards them and the city hall behind them.

It was here that I saw my first change. Dodsmarj’s body crackled and popped as his form altered into a bigger beastly and canine version of himself. Four limbed and four clawed hands, each of which was bigger than most people’s heads when curled up into a fist, sprayed out as if to show the police that they had no power.

My “Unlimited Shard Works” made a copy of that power, and I named the new “shardling” as “Canine Morphology.” 

From the get-go, I could tell that it would have an interesting synergy with Site Detonation. 

Then fur coated and deer skull helmet-wearing Allfather began to make his iron blades all around him, letting them float along with him.

That too was copied.

Weisstark, armored like an early medieval knight with his chainmail, visored sallet, and kite shield with the E88 logo did nothing. He just walked along the two more outlandish capes. 

I tried to steel myself for the coming confrontation. Jitters ran up and down my spine, my legs shook a little, and my fists kept on clenching and unclenching reflexively. 

‘Take a deep breath. Feel the chest expand. Let it out slowly. Feel the chest deflate.’

‘Okay.’

‘Okay.’

‘… Okay. I got this.’

‘Remember, these are white supremacists. Prejudiced assholes who use outdated concepts like race to justify their violence. They are scum. They cause nothing but harm. They don’t deserve mercy because they give none. Remember what happens to the city if I let them grow and establish themselves.’

‘Okay.’

I stepped off the ledge.

-VB-

I transformed using Canine Morphology just before I landed four stories down. 

To my surprise, the cement sidewalk cratered underneath my feet. Maybe it had to do with the fact that I was now over four yards tall, a much bigger version of Dodsmerj, who was not a small guy himself with his roughly two and a half yard height. 

“EMPIRE!” I roared, and to my surprise, my voice had changed too. It rumbled deeply in ways that could only be described as bone-rattling. 

The gangsters and their leaders turned to me, and my appearance took them all by surprise.

“This is MY territory! Get out before I make you! I will grant no mercy!”

I ignored the cops to my far right who were staring between me and Dodsmerj, who looked rather infuriated.

“IMPOSTER!” the thick-accented Changer roared right back at me. Then he charged me.

That was all the justification I needed to ruin their day.

I counter-charged, only to slash mere seconds from clashing - when both of us had put everything into our attacks - and unleash four swathes of yellow Detonation blasts.

Dodsmerj’s eyes widened and he tried to stop.

Too late.

All four swathes detonated two seconds before we would have clashed, and I braced through the concussive explosion, even as my eyes caught Allfather’s steel blades forming and firing towards me. 

Too late for the Empire.

Through the smoke of the explosion, I stabbed forward with my new claws, and felt something break, shatter, squelch, and then burst outward. 

Allfather’s blades struck my skin and lodged themselves in my skin, but they barely hurt. In less than a second, I felt them being pushed out by my flesh as I regenerated the damage instantly. 

As the smoke cleared, I found myself at the center of a gruesome scene. The much smaller werewolf slumped into my embrace, already dead and changing back to his smaller human form. My two werewolf left arms had penetrated straight through his chest and abdomen respectively. When I pulled my arms out of his cavities, I left two giant holes.

I turned to a shocked Allfather and his remaining cape, Weisstark, who bristled in fury.

“BROTHER!” the racist knight cried out. 

Oh. 

Damn.

Now, I kind of felt bad.

Allfather roared, “Get him!” and the gangsters around me opened fire.

The bullets hit me, but I only felt irritated by them. Allfather’s blades cut me but no more than that, and they healed nearly instantly.

“Last chance,” I growled out. “Leave or I will hang all of you racist fucks by your innards!”

Allfather barked out something in a foreign language I didn’t understand. Probably German or something. All of the gangsters stopped firing, and they stared at me in horrified awe.

“You will pay for this in the future, beast,” he hissed out.

“You are still in my territory. OUT!” 

Weisstark looked like he was going to jump me with his kite shield - he was also reaching for something behind it - but Allfather stuck his arm out. Weisstark looked at his leader in shock and then furious betrayal. Allfather didn’t look at Weisstark, merely glaring at me for a few more moments as if to say that he wasn’t afraid of me, and then turned and walked away. 

His gangsters followed like lost puppies, glancing back at me and the dead cape warily even as they followed their outwardly calm leader; there was no way that the man was calm with the death of one of his cape lieutenants, nevermind the humiliation and loss of prestie this retreat would cause. 

Once they were far down the street and starting to disperse, a brave police officer walked up to me with both of her hands on her service pistol, which she aimed down at the ground.

I turned to him, and she flinched.

“A-Are you a hero…?” 

I stared at her for a moment. She was a young thing. Probably barely out of the police academy before being drafted into the shoddy police cruiser and van defensive line they set up right in front of the city hall.

I growled, and she flinched again, hesitating to pull her gun up with her shaking hands.

I undid the transformation, causing steam to erupt from me for a few moments before I stepped out of the steam I’ve generated in my base Case-53 form.

“I am not a hero,” I spoke in my baritone voice. “I meant what I said. Downtown is my territory,” I growled out. 

“Y-you-” she stuttered. “Are you a-admitting to b-being a c-crimina-”

“Bitch,” I hissed out, causing her to shut up. “I just killed a man in front of all of you. Scram before I do the same to you.”

She ran away, but I had the chance to see her toned ass bounce away. 

I turned to the rest of the police force before scoffing and teleporting away. 

-VB-

I made the news, and I have happy that I was no longer the “Red Bigfoot” but…

“Wait, what the fuck?” I reread the name this Brockton Gazette had slapped on me. “Red Thief?”

I mean, I am a thief, but that’s all they got from the clone duel, bloodshed, ricocheting bullets, death of a brother, the retreat of the Empire, and the declaration of Downtown Brockton Bay as mine?

Seriously?

“... I think I need to go and have a talk with the editor in chief of this … Brockton Gazette.”

-VB-

Worm CYOA v.5 Gimel 

Revealed choices so far...

Golden Morning (Alan 1)
Case 53 (Alan 1: tall, brick red skin, ?)
Abaddon (Alan 1)

Gift: Metaknowledge (Alan 1)
Memory Death (Alan 1)
Drop-In (Alan 1)
Humble Beginnings (Alan 1)
Regeneration, Second Trigger (Alan 2)
Noctis Cape (Alan 2)
Unlimited Shard Works, Second Trigger (Alan 2)

No Clip (Alan 3)
Offscreen Travel, Second Trigger (Alan 3)

-VB-

Unlimited Shard Works
Collected Shard Imitations

Blaster - Site Detonation - launches energy constructs at Mach 0.76 that explode on contact.

Changer - Canine Morpology - change into four-armed werewolf, 1.3x base height; toughened skin

Blaster/Shaker - Metal Projectile - forms and fires iron projectiles at desired velocities (max: mach 1)