What is Happiness 5.5 (Patreon)

Commissioned by Kejmur

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What Is Happiness

Arc 5 Chapter 5: The Nine's Show

-VB-

Before the Nine hit the Bay, I wanted to know a few more things about my power.

The power that I used to make the Butcher's power mine without the baggage was still relatively unexplored.

I wanted to know if I could "alter" the connection of the Shard so that it would recognize me as its power and not the original host. To find out how to do that safely with minimum damage, I needed a "volunteer."

And in a city like Brockton Bay, it wasn’t too hard to find volunteers.

See, the death of the Empire Eighty-Eight more or less freed up their previously controlled locations, and the Merchants and the ABB were too busy fighting each other to know that other capes had come onto the scene - some from outside the city and others triggering within - to try their hands at whatever side of the game they favored.

The first person I found was a dirty woman, who was making a group of her own out of homelesses. I specifically chose her because she decided to set up shop in one of the abandoned homes near my home.

She was intruding and that was not acceptable.

“Hello,” I grinned as they realized that there was someone unfamiliar at the doorway. It took them no more than two seconds to recognize me.

Now, how would they respond?

The newer members of this motley crew began to panic.  Some of them tried to run with the gathered narcotics that had been on the ground between all of them. Where the hell did they gather it all?

The older members and the crone herself didn’t.

In fact, she grinned and stood up along with them. They glowed softly and -.

I acted first, triggering everyone’s pain receptors and did it to the max.

All of them screamed and filled the dilapidated house the noise.

“Don’t worry. I’m only here for your power,” I said, though most probably couldn’t hear me, as I stalked forward.

I grabbed the struggling and convulsing crone by her neck and dragged her out of there. I didn’t care about the rest of the homelesses that had gathered around her. They would leave without her to keep them together. It was only when I’d fully left the house that I stopped torturing the poor sods.

-VB-

Okay, so, I found a limit for Behave. As a power that slowly altered a single aspect of a power over days, it was a reliable power, even if its use was limited. With a “volunteer” tied and sedated for the entire duration, I spent these precious four days.

First off, the crone’s power was, in the shorter phrase possible, [Storage and Redistribution of Weakness]. The weakness here was mostly physical; the Shard in question “donated” physical matter up to a certain limit and then used the Host to take back what it donated and then some more. When deposited within humans, this matter would be converted purely to biologically viable energy, ranging from mulched carbohydrate dropped into someone’s stomach and fat deposited to adipose tissue to ATP injected to all living cells and restocking vitamin. When taking mass away from people, it would first target fat and ATP deposits, then remove half of the contents of each individuals cells that wasn’t part of the nervous system, and then finally attack protein structures.

Yes, this was a scary non Manton-limited power… if it didn’t work so slow.

It required a full day for it to manipulate roughly 100.1 grams of stuff from a single person, but worked independently for everyone the Host was near (near being the power’s hard-capped limit of ten yards and three inches). So if the crone had a hundred people within that ten yard radius for a full day, then she could gain, theoretically, up to a ten kilograms of biomass to feed herself with.

Was it a useful power?

Not really.

Was it perfect for what I had needed?

Yes.

See, I realized by analyzing the crone’s power that what I had done with the Butcher was not a one-off but a nature of its base power. I mean, I knew it before, but I got practice and deeper insight unlike before.

“So what are you going to do with her now?”

I looked over my shoulder and saw Taylor.

I shrugged. “Let her go after I nerf her power even more.”

I grabbed the crone’s face and made the first and probably only alteration I would do on her. I doubled the time it took for her power to work its normal function.

“You’re not going to kill her?” she sounded surprised.

“Nah,” I denied. “I’m just leaving her out there for the Nine to get distracted by.”

“... That’s cruel.”

“Maybe if she didn’t attack me the moment I showed my face, I might have been more generous and left her for the PRT to deal with.”

“Hmm.”

“So what are you doing?” I asked her now.

“Me?”

“Yeah. You know that the Nine are coming, so what kind of preparation are you making? I know you are.”

She blinked and sighed. “How did you know?” she asked me.

“You talk often enough about preparation, Taylor. Of course, you would prepare for an obvious threat even when you don’t look like it. Yours is a Master power over bugs, hello, not a Brute like me?”

“You’re also a Master,” she frowned, obviously thinking that I was mocking her. What else was she trying to convey with that testy tone?

“Yes, and I have you and Lisa,” I rolled my eyes. The crone wasn’t going anywhere with another day’s worth of sedation in her, so I had more than enough time to get handsy with Taylor right now.

She blinked when I stood up and walked over to her without giving the crone any more attention. “Are you alr-?” she began asking but realized halfway through that my attention had turned onto her. She didn’t even get to say anything before I kissed, lifted her up, and carried her away to our bed.

-VB-

I let out a satisfied sigh as I remained sitting while Taylor slept naked on her stomach. Lisa had opted to use Taylor’s old room to sleep by herself after spending the entire day stealing money from criminals and villains and trolling even more regular internet users on PHO and other parahuman-centric forums. Sabah, on the other hand, spent her time in her shop and came home tired. She too opted to use Taylor’s old room to sleep after walking in on me deep throating Taylor.

They had, as a result, left me to fuck Taylor for the entire night, and I fucked my first girl until she was begging me to both for more and to stop.

I really relished in it today and -.

I paused and narrowed my eyes.

Well…

I just felt the Nine skim by my territory. They didn’t enter it fully, merely skimming around it (probably Jask Slash’s power at work), and then left towards … the Downtown.

The Slaughterhouse Nine was here, which meant that Shatterbird was soon to start singing.

Yeah, I wasn’t going to let her make more glass shards for her power’s use.

I quickly teleported out and headed towards where the Nine were.

I spotted the bitch.

They were moving in a scuffed school bus. Ironically, I made the connection between the Slaughterhouse Nine and a school field trip.

Unfortunately for them, I wasn’t going to wait for them to start this game with their announcement.

I allowed myself to free fall and slammed onto the roof of the schoolbus, and [Vector Manipulation] showed me everyone inside of it. To my surprise, the Siberian’s form in my mental 3D map of [Vector Manipulation] came up as [Error].

No matter.

I found Shatterbird and Bonesaw.

I collapsed the two shitters into a single point, their points of center mass, and watched their entire bodies crumple in one-go just as I heard metal screeching underneath me. Something really sharp struck me, but it was too late. With all vectors working against them and pushing them to a single point, each of the two capes died as they became a hardened charcoal marble no more than half inch in diameter and dropped to the floor.

You can’t make a plague if everything got crushed and mulched at molecular level.

I then flew off as another hole punched through the roof of the schoolbus, but this strike missed me.

Jack had noticed me thanks to his power, but had been too slow to stop me.

“Have fun fighting without two of your toys!” I cackled as I flew away.

Today was a good day! I researched powers, fucked Taylor silly, and killed two villains.

Tomorrow will be better, because I intended to take the fight to them.

-VB-

A/N: Earlier chapters can be found on QQ.