Overwhelm 1 (Patreon)

Overwhelm
Chapter 1

-VB-

It took me no more than an hour to go through ideas and plans before I settled upon a course of action.

I was on Earth Bet with a shit ton of powers. I intended to kill or neutralize both Scion and Cauldron. Next, I wanted to make a name for myself while enjoying it, and then move onto the next world. There was no end goal here, not really.

With [Unlimited Ability Works], getting at least five different copies of parahuman powers proved to be a little bit too easy. Using [Hive Mind], I gained my first clone (my second body, really) and stationed it in full view of the PRT ENE Headquarters while I walked over to where the Protectorate ENE Headquarter, the Rig, connected its hardlight bridge.

Over the course of the day, Assault, Battery, Velocity, Vista, and Shadow Stalker went out to patrol. I named all the powers based on who I copied them from, but with one more word or phrase attached. So Assault’s power would be Kinetic Assault, Battery would be Rush Charge Battery, Speedy Velocity, Warp Vista, and Phase Stalker.

This was the harvest I got on my first day here on Earth Bet, April 7, 2011, because I intended to rush down as many villains as I could today. I thought that this would be it. Those five would be what I started my war on Brockton Bay villains with.

I was happily proven wrong.

At 9 P.M. exactly, Thomas Calvert clocked out and left PRT ENE headquarters, and I got his power. I named it Double Coil.

My clone called upon the void and allowed it to give him his own Shadowform. With green glowing eyes and purplish-black writhing form, I was nearly unrecognizable.

And just as Thomas Calvert’s car passed underneath the building that my clone had been camping out at, it jumped down and smashed onto the roof of the car.

I knew that this was the “safe” timeline because he was here in his civilian identity.

I, on the other hand, made my way towards the Downtown, ready to infiltrate his base and prevent it from blowing sky high from self-destruct.

My clone tore the door open with strength indirectly derived from Kinetic Assault and dragged Calvert out of his car. He screamed and fought, but he was weak against a Brute/Striker like Kinetic Assault.

As people ran away while some stayed to film, I dragged him into the nearby alley and into a building.

That’s when I used Double Coil.

Coil’s eyes widened as a third timeline opened up.

“Hello, Coil,” the shadowy kidnapper cracked a grin in the safe timeline and the third.

Oh God no.

“W-Wait, I have money!” he quickly pleaded. “I can pay you!”

“I don’t want money. I want access to your base, Coil.”

And in the third timeline, his kidnapper grabbed him by his head and PAINPAINPAINPAINPAIN-!

He screamed in all three timelines, causing his mercenaries in the second timeline to become alert and lock down his base.

And just right then, someone began attacking the second timeline. Mercenaries at ground level began to report in about a shadowy cape with a “holy” halo killing anyone who got in the way without dying.

The third timeline ended as he died, and then it opened up again.

Thomas looked up at his kidnapper in horror even as police sirens started to get closer.

“Code. Now.”

“8-883 Piggot Sucks,” he stuttered out a “guest” code.

“Kill him!” he ordered in his second timeline.

“Wrong choice,” the third timeline kidnapper drawled before -.

All three of him screamed as pain exploded inside of him. It burned! It burned! It hurt!

“HELP HELP!” he begged as he cried, writhing underneath his torturer, in the third timeline. He clawed at the barren concrete floor, his fingertips bleeding from how much he was clawing. He spat out blood and gurgled as breathing became impossible.

He died, and the third timeline collapsed.

And it was back.

Thomas immediately tried to close his safe timeline, but … it didn’t?

“What?” he muttered out loud. “How?!”

“Because it’s not just your timeline anymore, Coil.”

He looked at the kidnapper.

He… He didn’t understand.

And the kidnapper in the third timeline brought a hand up, knife hand style, and then stabbed him. It shouldn’t have been able to, but he screamed as a hand impaled him.

He gasped in all three timelines from the pain.

“CODE TO YOUR SELF-DESTRUCT, COIL!” the kidnapper demanded in all three timelines as Thomas felt his life drain in the third, the second kidnapper phased through the outer blast door into his underground base, and the first grabbed him by his shirt and slammed him down onto the ground.

To his horror and pain, the third Thomas did not die. Life drained away and something else lived.

He found himself mute with horror as the third kidnapper pulled his hand out of third Thomas … and third Thomas stood up.

No longer bleeding. No longer breathing. No longer alive.

But alive in death.

“Code,” the kidnapper demanded.

“9123762 Alpha Thirteen.”

And then the third timeline closed.

“What are you…?” he asked hoarsely with phantom pain.

The first kidnapper gutted him.

Thomas choked in blinding pain before he lifelessly collapsed onto the barren concrete floor while the murderer phased into the ground and out of sight.

The timeline … finally collapsed.

Thomas shook with fear and horror.

“No,” he mumbled but his voice grew louder soon. “No no no NO NO N-!”

A scream rang out from the other side of his last vault door.

He froze along with the rest of the mercenaries in the room with him.

And then the light went out.

… The backup light wasn’t turning on.

“Fuck!” one of the mercenaries hissed as he quickly turned on his flashlight attachments and the others followed suit.

Coil sat in his office armchair.

And then one of the mercenaries - the one right next to him and thus one out of sight every other mercenaries’ lines of sight - lurched.

Thomas felt fear shoot up as he fumbled with his pistol.

The briefly lurched mercenaries raised his gun up and shot three of his comrades in front of him. The other mercenaries quickly rounded on him and tore holes through his brain.

But by turning, they let left the mercenary closest to the vault door out of their lines of sight but within Coil’s. He also lurched before, with blank eyes, raised his gun up and gunned down the rest of the mercenaries.

Coil refused to scream and cry as the mind-controlled mercenary turned to him and walked up to him.

And then shot himself in the head.

As the last mercenary collapsed dead, the devil appeared, stepping out of the wall to the side. Thomas saw, and realized that the writhing shadow that made up the Changer had always been there, but between the infighting and darkness, he hadn’t seen it until now.

“Mind control works well, but it is crude,” the devil hummed as the light in the bunker turned back on. “Can’t tell them to speak. Only very basic orders.”

He turned Thomas’s computer around, keyboard as well, and typed the codes in.

The lockdown ended, and the vault door opened automatically.

And another him stood on the other side of the now open vault door.

Coil looked back and forth between the two of them, and trembled.

“W-Why…?!” he hissed. “I never did anything to you!”

The two snorted in unison.

“It was only-”

“- a matter of time.”

Thomas slumped and wept.

His base, conquered. His mercenaries, dead.

His life, probably gone soon.

The second, a clone, walked up to him as well, and the two raised their hands up together. A light appeared out of nowhere and began to grow in strength within each of their cupped hands.

Snarling, he gave both of them a middle finger.

And then some kind of warm light struck him, one in the neck and the other in his stomach.

As he fell lifelessly onto the armchair with holes all over his body, Thomas lamented not screwing with Piggot even more than he had.

-VB-

We - my clone and I - left Coil’s underground hideout. I didn’t care for the loot or the bodies. Why should I when Kinetic Assault made bullets useless against us?

I probably couldn’t even sell some of the tinkertech lasers with them being turned against me, never mind the regular guns.

We needed to get in position quickly at the Docks, so we made our way out of Downtown, which was swarming with cops and heroes looking for the people who abducted Thomas Calvert, the PRT consultant.

I didn’t remember quite a lot of Worm’s exact timeline. I just used … probably what was a tenth of what I knew about Brockton Bay to copy powers and kill Coil. Another tenth was about to be used up to get us to Lung, Taylor, Oni Lee, and the Undersiders.

Using Warp Vista, we crossed over half a mile with each step until we reached the Docks. In total, we took five steps each.

Then we looked around.

No fire. Or explosions. Yet.

I directed my clone to warp over to the other side of the town, and he disappeared while taking a step forward as I, the Hive Mind and original, directed the warping of space.

With both bodies settled in the bay, we waited.

We waited for hours.

And then movement.

The clone spotted the Underaiders turning a corner and rushing down the street. Merely looking at them got me copies of their powers: Cold Reading Tattletale, Glitching Nerve Regent, Monster Bitch, and Dark Grue.

Teleporting rapidly while leaving behind ashes was Oni Lee, who involuntarily and unknowingly gifted me Copy-Paste Oni Lee.

Oni Lee teleported between rooftops where he rained down grenades in-between suicide ganking at ground level. The Undersiders weaved through the attacks with their monstrous canine mounts doing the leg work.

The clone followed after them while I covered half of the distance towards the clone and the other capes.

That's when I ran into Taylor.

From across the street and at ground level, she stopped and looked at me when I came out of the warped space tunnel and stepped onto the rooftop edge of a three story building.

I noticed her looking at me because she stood underneath one of the streetlights, and her nearly, completely black costume stood out. The moment I looked at her, I gained Swarming Administrator. I named it Administrator because Taylor probably hasn’t chosen her cape name yet.

She froze as I also gained control over the same insects she had amassed.

She … certainly had a figure about her. Those long legs definitely called out to me, even if she lacked the upper asset department.

Well, I was a little busy right now, so I just upped her dopamine and estrogen levels using [Cherish], one of the powers I arrived with that was a copy of the cape Cherish.

With that done, I warped down to her to talk to her.

I heard her breath hitch, and knew that I was doing well with the Manipulation.

"Good evening," I greeted her, still in my Shadowform.

"Hi," she curtly replied, and I saw embarrassment - light pink in my Cherish emotion vision - rise up out of her before it quickly disappeared. "Who are you?"

… huh. I forgot to think of a cape name for myself. Actually, did it even matter when I didn't even have a civilian identity?

Better safe than sorry, though. What do I call myself… I intended to kill Scion as quickly and quietly as possible. I … also intended to get a harem. Oh, I was very much a villain.

I didn't care for respect but I was also not irreverent. I could be antagonistic but it was neither my natural first option nor my second. It would have to change, however, because villainy was all about antagonism.

Where did that lead me?

Plenty of edgy names.

… well, I loved history. I intended to do some conquering. There was a few titles there I could use as a cape name.

"Khan."

"Khan…?"

"Title of nomadic chiefs that used to roam and dominate the Eurasian Steppes. It is the title of a conqueror."

She tensed up.

"You… you're a villain."

"And from the day you are tensing up, you're a hero. What's your name?"

She paused, uncertainty rising in her and adding to her fear as her bugs refused to listen. I also couldn't move them because I was constantly sending them orders to remain still unlike Taylor's intermittent pings.

"I… don't have one."

I hummed, and towards the end of that hum, my clone spotted Lung and gained Escalation Lung for me.

The clone immediately engaged with intent to kill. Combined with Kinetic Assault and Warp Vista, I beheaded Lung in one-go while he was still human. And then I killed Oni Lee with the same technique while he was still confused. The gangsters screaming around Lung also died similarly.

While the clone menacingly glared at the Undersiders, who ran, I took a step towards her.

She backpedaled and pulled out her pepper spray. As she brought it up, I lashed out and struck her wrist. She yelped and the spray went flying away.

I kept moving and she kept retreating.

And then she struck a wall with her back.

She panicked and tried to run, but I closed the distance in a moment and pinned her to the wall with my body.

Taylor froze up with her masked face directly looking forward at my collars.

"When a villain like me finds a long legged beauty with a menacing costume, I can't help but feel… excited."

It was corny, but even without my Cherish input, she grew flustered. So I just nudged it a little more and gave her a pump of that lust.

She squirmed in place.

Raising a hand, I gripped the bottom edge of her mask and tilted it up, revealing only her lips.

Then I kissed her.

I saw shock, denial, hesitation, and then… tacit acceptance.

In that dark alley, I stole her first kiss.

I broke the kiss.

She stood there dazed for a moment longer before she scrambled to cover her face. She brought her mask back down and almost seemed to shrink into herself. Embarrassment, fear, self-pity, lust, and more struggled inside of her.

Rolling my eyes, I grabbed her shoulder, pinning her back to the wall, and used my other hand to pull her mask up again.

I kissed her.

Kept kissing her.

Taylor eventually responded, gasping and panting. Her arms came up and her hands gripped my arms. I began French kissing her, and she whimpered as she tried to awkwardly return it.

When I broke the kiss again, she gasped and panted while gripping the front of my shirt.

"I think this villain likes this hero," I whispered as I kept injecting her with more doses of lust. Then I pulled away. "We'll meet again, bug girl." And then warped away.

Today was a very productive day.