with an underlying taste of sea salt. The fact that he could now identify what despair smelled like with unerring precision was almost cool, were it not for the fact that it smelled absolutely miserable, like a thousand moribund dreams lying within a shallow ditch, atop the corpses of thousands more.
Sparing a moment to drop $10 into a homeless man's hat, Marcus looked around the area until his gaze stopped on a slightly overweight, haggard-looking balding man in a rumpled green-and-brown plaid-patterned suit holding a paper sign with his name on it.
Walking up to the man, Marcus spoke up, a smile on his face.
"Hello, sir, would you happen to be Mr. Jackson?"
The 5'10 man paused, his head tilting upward and upward so that he could meet the young man's gaze, his head nodding absentmindedly before he spoke, a few nicotine stains visible on his teeth.
"I… Yes, yes I am. Ian Jackson, CPS agent." One of the man's hands left the paper and went into his shirt before he pulled out a badge with his name and professional information, "A-are you Marcus Phoenix?"
"Yes sir."
The man stared up at the teen in awkward silence for a moment before clearing his throat and speaking.
"I'm here to take you to your new home."
The man sweated nervously as the teen gave him an extended evaluatory look before ultimately shrugging and smiling.
"Alright."
Ian sighed in relief, wiping his forehead with the back of his shirt sleeve.
"Alright. My car's parked right around the corner," He then looked around Marcus, confusion on his face, "Where's your luggage?"
"Don't worry about it."
"...Alright, I guess," The man hedged before turning around and making off for his car.
Marcus followed after the man, only to end up with his legs tucked in with the knees almost to his chest just so he could fit into an old - but very obviously cared for - beige-colored 1980 Toyota Starlet.
The stink of cigarette smoke stuck strongly to the entirety of the car's insides, from the seat covers to the window cranks, as did the associated dark stains, and the car's ashtray was stuffed to the brim with ash and crushed butts.
The car ride was mostly silent, a consequence of both a busted radio and Marcus' focus being turned toward taking in the sights of the passing city as well as memorizing the paths they were taking.
A frown pulled on Marcus' lips as a consequence of many things he saw during the 45-minute car ride that took them through some utterly dilapidated areas that he could, despite being new to the city, accurately call out as the 'bad' parts of town.
Despite the fact that Ian had accelerated when going through those areas, Marcus' senses and abilities ensured that he could capture each and every detail of the journey.
Homeless individuals strewn around in different states of dress, some of them just lying on metal benches, newspapers, cardboard, or even the occasional moldy, half-rotten mattress or couch, but most of them just on the ground.
There were multiple circles of homeless doing drugs, some popping pills, some passing around glass pipes, and some even shooting up with shared syringes.
Peering into a few darkened alcoves or other out-of-the-way spots allowed Marcus to spot many a male or female on their knees, back, or bent over, offering others 'favors' in exchange for baggies of drugs.
He couldn't help but clench his fist at the fact that many of those people 'offering favors' were very noticeably not adults.
Another thing that stuck out to him was the fact that the people offering, selling, or trading the drugs for favors seemed to have a common theme to them.
They were rather dirty and unkempt, though their fashion sense was less the homeless 'wear whatever you find' and more a trashy, 'street' fare of frayed or distressed everything, all of which bore a fair share of stains, as did their skin and teeth. The ones that were not bald often had their hair greasy, matted, or showing some other form of dirt, and all of them, with no exception, had circular marks around their arms, some of them old and faded, others reddened and inflamed.
'Degenerate, drug-abusing drug peddlers… If I recall correctly, the gang that was like this was the merchants, and these people are likely members.'
The trip did not become particularly idyllic once that scene left Marcus' sight, though, as he saw multiple signs of the presence of the other two gangs in the form of roving bands either of swastika-wearing men and women, quite a few of them skinheads, or of different denominations of Asian guys in red-and-green.
Tags demarked different areas as different gang turfs, a stylized 88 in black arranged into some form of partial swastikas surrounded by white borders in a red background obviously for the empire, a capital M with two vertical bars in the vein of a cifrão for the merchants, and the letters ABB stylized to resemble Kanji in green and red for the azn bad boys. Some of the signs were sprayed atop another, or multiple layers of other signs, denoting past territory struggles.
Their journey ended with Ian parking at the lot of a cheap-looking motel that could be considered outside of the bad part of town, but just barely, with improperly painted walls, an empty in-ground pool, some yellow plants in dire need of watering, pink plastic flamingos spread across the front yard, and a flickering neon vacancy sign.
Marcus turned toward Ian and raised a brow at the man, all ready to smack him around if he said or did anything shady, and the man seemed to notice that preparedness for violence, prompting him to raise his hands in the air as he nervously spoke up.
"H-hey, calm down, it's not what you think! This is the place you'll be living at from now on!"
Marcus stared silently at the sweating man, turned toward the motel for a moment, then turned back to him and raised his other brow.
"I don't ever recall having a case worker take me to a cheap motel, and any stories of such things happening that I heard of never had a good ending."
Sighing, Ian lowered his hands, cranking down his window before pulling a pack of smokes out of his pocket. A flick of the finger to the bottom of the pack had a few of them pop up above the hole on the foil packaging, which he took between his lips, before holding the pack out to Marcus in an inviting fashion.
"I don't smoke."
That answer got a chuckle out of the man, who put the pack down before lighting up his cigarette and taking a deep puff, before leaning out the open window and breathing it out. His nervousness quelled by the cigarette, he turned back toward Marcus and explained.
"Normally kids within the foster system are either sent to foster families to be taken care of or, if they're considered special cases or are constantly being kicked out of or running away from foster families, remanded into facilities like your previous one where they live with other 'problem children'. Brockton, though, does things… Differently.
"Foster care kids already have a higher propensity to end up as criminals than the average child, something that is worsened by the pervasive presence of the criminal gangs in this city. This resulted in our branch of CPS making certain choices that would be considered questionable pretty much elsewhere in the country, but make an unfortunate amount of sense here.
"Rather than have our agents split their time, efforts, and attention between all the kids, we instead separate the 'salvageable' kids, putting all of our efforts into trying to find them a good home, and having them go through all sorts of education and rehabilitation programs if needed, while the 'rotten' kids are bundled together into groups and handed over to one or two 'overseers' who are tasked with spinning a polite fiction that their needs are being seen to.
"This means ensuring that they have a halfway decent place to sleep in, food to eat, and school. Whether or not these kids ultimately end up making use of these things, or if they choose to run off and do whatever is not really a concern for the department as much as maintaining the illusion on paper, to keep the higher-ups at other branches and at central satisfied."
"So I'm considered one of these 'rotten' kids who've been given up on, and I'm being dumped at this cheap motel then?"
"Yes," The man answered in a straightforward manner before taking another puff from his cigarette and blowing the smoke out of the window, then continuing, "Which seems pretty unfortunate since you don't really strike me as one of the bad kids, previous record of getting into fights notwithstanding. If I could I would've gotten you a good guardian and enrolled you into Arcadia, but instead you'll have to make-do with a cheap, roach-infested room in this cheap motel with real problem children as your neighbors, and attending school at that god-forsaken shithole Winslow."
"I understand the thought process behind those choices, I guess," Marcus spoke up, getting Ian's attention, "But how can your organization get away with this stuff?"
"Because it's Brockton Bay," Ian shrugged, "We have a gang of neo-nazi white supremacists, a gang of Asian-supremacist sex slavers, and a gang of degenerate druggie drug-pushers all but running this place, with the authorities only managing to maintain the hold they have because the other three consider each other to be a bigger threat to their dominance than the PRT. With all the terrible shit occurring here on a daily basis, who will take the time to care about a few 'problematic teens' not being as well taken care of as they should?"
The two fell silent for a few minutes after that, time in which Ian finished his cigarette, before stepping out of the car, gesturing for Marcus to do the same, and then making his way to the motel entrance.
"Aren't you going to roll up the window or lock your car?"
"Nah," Ian shook his head, "If someone wants to steal from it, they're gonna do it. Much easier to leave the car unlocked and the window down than to spend the money buying a new pane. Radio's fucked, AC is incompatible with what today's Chop Shops are taking in and I don't have anything valuable in there anyways, so the most they'll take is the ash and cigarette buts in the ashtray."
The two made their way past a beat-up plywood door with a layer of white paint peeling off of it - Marcus having to crouch slightly to avoid hitting his head on the doorframe - and into a sleazy-looking lobby, the floor covered in a cheap checker-patterned vinyl mat, a few plastic plants strewn around the room, a cheap mail locker that looked about as secure as a bank vault made of sand in the middle of a hurricane, and an old, beat up desk, behind which an old, overweight middle-aged woman sat, gut exposed from under her stained sleeveless crop top, arms wobbling with cellulite, rotten teeth, and stringy hair pulled up into curler rollers.
The woman looked Marcus up and down before turning toward Ian and speaking up, her voice sounding akin to gravel being forced down a paper shredder, which, based on the absolutely stuffed ashtray right next to her, was likely a consequence of decades of smoking.
" 'Nother one, Ian?" Her gaze then turned toward Marcus, "What's your deal? Theft? Drug use? Arson? 'Cause I ain't putting up an arsonist again, I've learned my lesson on that one."
"No theft, no drugs, and no arson, Agnes," Ian said to the woman, "Just get him a room."
"Alright, but you know the rules," The woman rasped out, her gaze on Marcus as she spoke as much as a reminder to Ian as she did as a warning to Marcus, "You fuck something up in your room, you either replace it or learn to live without it. You fuck something up that affects the rest of the motel, you pay for it and get the boot. We understood?"
"Yes ma'am," Marcus said with a serious nod, prompting Agnes to raise a surprised brow at him.
"Alright then," Ian said before turning toward Marcus and handing him a card, "Try to settle in as best as possible. Unfortunately, I have to go now, but if you need anything just call the number on that card. If you don't got a phone of your own, just head here to the reception and Agnes will help you."
Having said that, the man rapidly walked out of the motel, phone going up to his ear as he climbed into his car, his lips moving as he peeled out of the parking space.
Marcus' gaze then turned towards Agnes, who silently stared back at him, before rasping out.
"You can take room 305. Third floor, on the left," She handed the young man the key to the room, then paused, "You don't got any luggage?"
"Don't worry about it," He waved off the woman's concern, "And thank you for having me, ma'am."
The woman's lips twitched slightly at that as she shook her head, before breathing out a muttered "Not a disrespectful shit like the other brats", and then rasping out again.
"There's no water heaters here so you'll have to get used to cold showers, there ain't no fancy-shmancy room service here so keeping your stuff clean is on you. We don't provide food, but there's a 7/11 down the street that has shit on the cheap, and it's right next to a laundromat. Don't be heading down that way after lights out though. It don't matter that people say this place is not in the 'bad' side of town, if you ain't up there in the rich people's homes, going out at night is always a risk.
"Especially considering your… Complexion."
"Thanks for the advice, ma'am. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be heading up to my room."
Having said that, Marcus left the lobby, walked around the building to a set of surprisingly well-kept stairs, and went up to the third floor, making his way to a worn-out door that looked like it could give someone a splinter if they stared at it wrong, a rusty metal plate with the number 305 carved into it marking it as his own.
Unlocking the door took all but a moment's effort, allowing Marcus to step into what would be his new home for the foreseeable future.
The room wasn't particularly spacious, most of the space being a combined living room/kitchen/bedroom, with a couple of single beds pushed up against a beige wall with visibly peeling paint. Across from the beds was a wooden stand atop which rested an old, black-and-white television with an antenna that was visibly damaged and patched up with some duct tape and aluminum foil.
There was a wooden table in a marginally better state than most of the furniture with four rickety wooden chairs arrayed around it closer to the 'kitchen' area, which was pretty much just a counter with a crusty metal sink and a hot plate on the opposite ends, and dusty overhead cabinets, which were empty other than for a single, cracked plate.
There was a door on the other side of the room, opposite the entrance, which led into the bathroom.
The good news? Unlike what the rest of the room indicated, the bathroom was spacious enough for Marcus to make use of comfortably. Barely.
The bad news? The space was the only acceptable thing about the bathroom's status.
A cabinet with a couple of cracked mirrors - with its insides completely empty, of course - rested atop a stained sink with a rusty, crusted-over tap. The toilet was set opposite to the door, meaning that it was the first thing someone in the room would see if the door were open, and there was a shower area that was just a drain on the floor with four short ledges raised slightly above the floor level to keep water inside, a rail with no shower curtain, and a height-adjustable rainfall-style showerhead that was just as filthy and grimy as pretty much every other surface.
His enhanced senses also allowed him to notice through hearing and, unfortunately enough, smell, the presence of many different critters in the apartment/room, from cockroaches, to moths, to rats, and pretty much anything else one could expect to find in an improperly cleaned place.
If the beds weren't veritable colonies of bedbugs, he'd eat his shoe.
'Yeah… No. I'm not living like this.'
Leaving the bathroom, Marcus closed the blinds on the windows into his room to ensure maximum privacy, before tapping into his Demonic Power and releasing it in a series of pulses of sheer, overwhelming malice limited to the area of his room.
It didn't take long for a veritably biblical swarm of pests to rush out of whichever hideout they were in and out of the room, ridding the place of one of its many nasty problems.
A short trip down to the 7/11 left him $200 poorer, the money spent on both cleaning supplies such as bleach, sponges, gloves, brushes, a couple of trashcans, a mop and some buckets, drain cleaner and all manner of cleaning chemicals, as well as a takeaway meal and a sleeping bag, since the sheer thought of lying on either of the beds back in his room made him cringe to the extreme.
Back to his room, Marcus set down the bags loading up his arms before covering both his hair and his mouth with two different pieces of cloth and making active use of one of his perks for the first time.
Five clones emerged from his skin, perfectly identical to him down to the clothes they were wearing.
There was no need for him to vocalize instructions, as not only were the clones spawned by him with the specific commands in mind, but they also had a form of mental link to both the original and among each other, allowing for commands to be sent down by the original, and for information to flow freely within the whole 'system'.
The clones each put on a pair of gloves, before picking up a cleaning implement and going to work.
It took a good few hours and many exclamations of disgust and frustration flowing within the 'Marcus Network', but the apartment eventually went from "could be a set for a saw film" to "not the worst thing in the world".
It was still not a room the floor of which one'd be willing to eat off, but it wouldn't give them the impression that they'd get tetanus, dysentery, appendicitis, and the bubonic plague from just existing within the same ZIP code.
His clones dismissed, Marcus finished his cleaning efforts by dragging both of the mattresses out of his room and dumping them next to the emptied pool, prime for the taking for anyone with a want or need for them.
His cleaning efforts over and done with, Marcus sat at the table and dug into his food, consuming the slightly too oily fried steak with coleslaw with gusto, with a side of bottled water.
He'd opened the taps on both the kitchen and bathroom sinks and regretted it immensely when the water came out the same color as his skin.
Finishing his meal, Marcus lobbed the empty styrofoam container into the trashcan he'd set up beneath the kitchen sink, hopping back up to his feet.
'Alright,' He thought, 'I have a feeling trying to shower with this place's water would leave me dirtier at the end than at the start, so that's out from the get-go. Mhm…'
Looking at the time on his phone, Marcus nodded to himself before jumping to his feet.
'It's still pretty early, so the stores and such should be open still. Guess I can go out and fix some more problems.'
His choice made, Marcus left his room, locking the door behind him, and headed into the city.
The first thing he had as a priority was a place to deal with his hygiene needs. He could still make do with a bottle of mineral water back in his room when the subject was brushing his teeth, and the toilet was perfectly usable as long as he prepared usable water to wash his hands afterward, but showering there was absolutely unacceptable.
That need for a shower ultimately resulted in Marcus choosing to kill two birds with one stone in the form of a gym membership.
With a gym membership, he'd have a place he could swing by whenever he needed a shower where the water didn't look like it was pumped directly from Flint, Michigan, and he'd be able to make full use of the lack of diminishing returns through their training equipment, pushing his body to higher and higher levels.
Hours of ambling through the city and scoping out multiple gyms led him to Fitness Global, a bodybuilding gym that ran from 5 AM through to 11 PM, Monday to Sunday. Between its relative proximity to the Boardwalk and the fact that its many patrons were mostly massive guys both height and muscle mass wise, it was a pretty safe place to be, making it worth the $75 membership fee.
After the gym, Marcus popped into a mattress store, dropping another $600 into buying a King-Size, leaving him at $2125 from the $3000 he'd started the day with.
Telling the shopkeeper that he'd swing by within a couple of days to pick up the mattress, Marcus left the store, not missing the fact that the Broadwalk was much less full and active than it had been when he'd first gotten there, a consequence of the sun's slow dip into the horizon, its luminosity gradually replaced with the incandescent glow of Brockton's street lamps.
Offering one of the armed enforcers a friendly nod, Marcus left the Broadwalk, his path back home suffering a small detour in the form of a dip into an Italian restaurant so he could secure himself some dinner.
The restaurant's staff had been perfectly polite toward him from the start of the interaction all the way through the time when the money and the takeaway changed hands, but as he left the eatery, he did not miss the three caucasian, bald-headed gentlemen who'd been shooting him dirty looks back inside get up from their own seats and follow him.
Dorian, Clyde, and Jonah, three skinheads and proud members of the E88, couldn't contain their anger.
They'd been having a nice dinner at a good and proper restaurant, served and waited by a proper staff, surrounded by other proper patrons, and eating proper food, only for a mongrel to interrupt the flow of things.
Not only did the filthy nigger spoil their appetite by his very presence, but the fact that it had the gall to stand there completely oblivious of the fact that he wasn't welcomed or wanted was also enough to make them very, very angry.
It was for that reason that they'd gotten up shortly after it left the restaurant, each of them picking up a useful tool from the bed of Clyde's truck before following it, intent on doing the city a favor by reducing their numbers by one.
Dorian couldn't help but snort in disgust as their target walked on at an unhurried pace, a hummed tune on its lips as it did, acting as if the city was all his to walk over.
The fact that these types felt safe enough to walk around like that just strengthened his belief in Kaiser's message. The filth was far too comfortable moving around in the open, rather than scurrying around the cracks and gutters of society as they were wont to do, and it was their duty, as good and proper Aryans, to change that status quo.
Jonah let out a nasty chuckle as their target made a turn into what the three knew to be a dead end.
Clide jingled his chain, Dorian shouldered his baseball bat, and Johan patted his pipe on the palm of his hand as they walked into the alley after their target, only for the three to blink in confusion at its absence.
Another figure was in the alleyway, the poor illumination giving the three the impression that it was the same person due to similar statures, but they discarded any thought of similarity when they got a better look at the person currently in front of them.
It was a darkie, like the one they'd been after, but the two were just… Completely different. It was as if their faces, shape, and even their posture were so far away from the one they'd seen back at the restaurant that the thought of those two being in any way akin to one-another couldn't even go through their minds.
A prime example of the difference between the two was in the hairstyle. Like a sissy, the first one kept its hair in a ponytail. This one, though?
This one's hair was was mostly slicked back, with a few loose bangs hanging over its face.
That was irrelevant at the moment, though. The three men were frustrated at the loss of appetite and of their target, and this new one was going to be the one cashing that check.
"Hello gentlemen," Marcus called out to the skinhead trio, "What can I help you with on this fine evening?"
Their response to his question was to spread out so that their bodies were completely blocking the alley's entrance before one of them spoke.
"We don't much like your kind around here, boy."
"Well, that's unfortunate," Marcus responded blithely, "But I don't see how that's my problem."
"Hehehe," One of the three, the one with the chain in hand, chuckled maliciously, "You're gonna figure it out soon, boy. Last thing you'll ever figure out, too."
Letting out a put-upon sigh, Marcus met the gaze of the one who seemed to be the leader of the group, the man with a pipe in hand, before speaking again, his tone one of advice.
"You don't have to do this, you know."
"Oh, but we do," That same man answered with a disgusted sneer, "It seems your kind forgot the fact that they shouldn't be out here polluting the city. You're gonna become a reminder."
"You can still make a good choice," Marcus spoke once more, "Turn around and go home, reflect upon yourselves, and choose to become better people-"
He took a small step to the side, avoiding the chain swung by the most impatient one of the trio, and stepped on it just as he was about to pull it back, before speaking up once more.
"You know, even disregarding the morally contemptible nature of your actions, you should still know better than to just randomly attack anyone you see out on the streets. You live in Brockton Bay, the cape capital of the country. As far as you know, any random person you walk across in the street could have the ability to breathe fire, shoot lasers out of their hands, or just make you go up, forever.
"And this thought doesn't even cross your mind when the person you're cornering at 3-to-1 odds is completely calm even with their back against a literal wall."
Marcus' words seemed to spook the three, who took half a step back as he raised his hand in front of him before a flash of blue light engulfed the alley.
By the time the blue light faded and the three recovered their vision, they were met with the sight of their previous target clad in a black coat with silver accents, a button-up vest of overlaying dark blue layers underneath that, black leather pants and boots. Black fingerless gloves covered his hands, one of which held a sword almost as long as the man was tall.
"SHIT, CAPE!" One of the three cried out, "RUN!"
The three didn't hesitate to drop their weapons, turning around with the intent to run, only to freeze in place without taking a single step forward as the sword-wielding cape was somehow already blocking the exit to the alley.
"I gave you a chance to walk away and you chose to attack me instead," Marcus said mildly, "Now? Now it's too late."
Their leader, the previous pipe-wielder, raised a hand, finger pointing at Marcus and mouth opening as he was about to say something, likely bluster about the E88, only for a CLICK, seemingly simultaneously as loud as an explosion and as soft as a whisper, to reverberate within the alley.
An instant after the click, the three men couldn't help but look down at their right hands, which for some reason felt burning hot and ice cold at the same time, only to gape in shock as their hands slid out of alignment from the middle of their forearms, before everything below that point simply vanished into a red mist.
Shock kept them silent for a few seconds before beads of sweat dotted their foreheads as the pain started rapidly setting in.
"AAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKK!"
This culminated in a trio of pained shouts as the men's still-present hands reflexively flew toward their bleeding stumps. Uncaring about the men's pained cries and tears, Marcus spoke, his tone just as mild as it'd been from the beginning.
"The three of you have belts on. Use them as tourniquets and you may avoid bleeding to death."
Spurred on by the word death, the three started singlehandedly - literally - fumbling with their belt buckles, trying to somehow get them loose.
"If any of you make it out of this alive, remember to tell your empire friends that this is your first, and last, warning," Marcus addressed the three, his deceptively mild tone backed by a concentrated pulse of Demonic Energy in the form of raw malice, "Next time I come across one of you endangering someone else's life, I'll aim for the neck."
After saying that, a light corona of blue light engulfed Marcus before he was suddenly back in his motel room. First ensuring that he was still alone, Marcus finally let out a deep sigh while running a hand through his hair, causing it to go from the slicked-back spiked do with front bangs to a loose side part, feeling as both Yamato and his Vergil outfit vanished back into whatever metaphysical space Devil Arms went to, and his identity obscuring perk shut off.
It was still hard to believe that something as simple as running his hand through his hair was enough to not only cause it to adopt the exact style that he'd been picturing without needing anything as mundane as hair gel or a brush, but to make it so that the breakage of sight of a simple turn into an alley rendered him completely unrecognizable to the people that'd been following him, regardless of the fact that his height, build, face, and even his clothes - before he'd drawn on the power of Vergil - were the same as when they'd first spotted him back at the restaurant.
Pulling his dinner back from his pocket space and setting it down on his table, Marcus took some time to play with his hair, his chosen aesthetic trait to trigger the perk, in order to figure out specifics of how it functioned.
What he figured out is that while the perk description said that it worked in a binary between two different states, he could somewhat fudge the definition by setting one of the states as his 'Vergil hairstyle', and the other state as 'anything other than the Vergil hairstyle'. With those set as the parameters for the perk, Marcus experimented a bit more, putting his hair up in a bun, a ponytail, letting it hang loose all the way down to his neck, and many other styles - for all of which his hair all but shapeshifted into the desired shape, making hair products pretty much unnecessary - and the only time he felt the perk trigger was when he ran his hand over hair with the deliberate desire to once again sport the Vergil 'do.
That series of experiments over with, for the time being, Marcus set his hair back to the side part, before unpacking his dinner.
As he did so, he couldn't help but think about the level of rot in the city, and the fact that the people tasked with resolving the issue were either incapable or unwilling to take care of the problems.
'They can't, or won't, clean up the Bay,' He thought while opening the container of his pesto pasta, 'But I can, and I will.'
Having made that resolution, Marcus allowed himself to turn his focus toward his meal, polishing it off with ease, before slipping into his sleeping bag, allowing himself to rest after what was an eventful first day at the Bay.
-CHAPTER, END!-Last edited: 12 Nov 2022KittyMadness said:Shrödinger's pregnancy?ArezEoz said:Steph Curry with the Glock
Find my Patreon here if you wish to give support to my work, and PM me if you wish to make a commission. I also have a Ko-Fi , if you feel like leaving a tip and Patreon is not to your taste. Like ReplyReport Reactions:ShadowConsuming, SpaceWhale, dudson93 and 901 othersFrancoGamerxz12 Nov 2022NewAdd bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Chapter 3: Imperial mishaps NewView content16 Nov 2022Add bookmark#193FrancoGamerxzThe time has come. Execute order 69.Joined24 May 2020Messages1,236There were many, many perks to being a half-devil. Increased strength, senses, speed, agility, reflexes, regeneration, overall survivability, each and every one of those things were supremely useful in any scenario, much more that of a grimdark death-world where heavy - and most often than not unresolved - trauma is the leading cause of superpowers.
Of them all, however, the one Marcus had to currently consider the most convenient was the energy. With sufficient amounts of Demonic Energy, a half-devil could operate for basically an indefinite amount of time, with short breaks allowing them to all but recover to full.
With the perk granting him a constantly full mana bar, however? Marcus literally never felt tired. That meant that when his eyes snapped open at 4:45 AM from a sleep that he did not need - yet very much appreciated - he felt just as fully rested as if he'd just had a full 8 hours.
The fact that he'd gone from slumbering to full awareness in a snap, however, was not as much a consequence of his powers, but more a result of two lifetimes - if short ones - of living in the same building as many delinquent youths on that path to full-on criminality while refusing to join any of their delinquent groups.
That meant that rather than belonging to a group that exerted deterrence upon anyone else trying to prey on him, he became a target for all sides to strike at. His alertness and light sleep were often the reason why he could avert what would've been horrible situations or events.
Sliding out of his sleeping bag before rolling it up and sending it into his pocket space, Marcus did a few stretches, before going into the bathroom. A bottle of mineral water was used in the process of brushing his teeth and washing his face, before Marcus stepped out of his room and back into Brockton proper.
'Two different lives and I still have no idea whether 4 in the morning counts as late or as early.'
Putting that thought aside, he locked the door to his room, despite knowing that anyone trying to break in would find nothing as everything he owned was within his pocket space, and started on his journey to the Gym.
He paused for a moment when he reached the stairs and found a pale, red-haired girl seated at the bottom of the stairs, cigarette in hand.
The girl, having heard feet going down metal stairs, turned around, revealing a pair of upturned hazel-colored eyes, small nose, and thin lips.
The two stared at one another for a silent moment before Marcus gave her a slight nod of greeting - which she reciprocated - before walking past her and going out on his way, ignoring the fact that he could feel her eyes on his back.
His walk to the gym was a surprisingly smooth one, as the various people he walked past were either baggy-eyed early-rising or late-sleeping workers as intent on keeping their focus on their business, or gang members with too much sense or too few numbers to choose to try and get the smoke from a muscular 6'6 guy willing to look them in the eye and nod a greeting despite what could be considered a 'dangerous' situation.
It was with an idle form of curiosity that he mentally took note of the fact that the areas close to the Boardwalk had enforcers working there even late at night.
Giving one of them a nod in salute, Marcus walked the rest of the way to the Gym, his pace such that he got there at around 5:20, giving the staff the time to get everything up and running without having a customer's eye pressuring them.
It didn't surprise him much to find out that there were already others working out at the gym by the time he got there.
Marcus went to the main desk, nodding his greetings to the people along the way, and bought a bottle of water and rented a towel before making his way directly to an empty bench press machine.
At 6'6" and 217 lbs, Marcus had a certain degree of leeway on what was considered weight he could realistically lift without breaking into full-on parahuman territory, so he didn't hesitate to load up 350 lbs worth of plates onto the bar, an amount that fell between the advanced and elite levels of lifting for his weight group.
Taking the bar between his hands with what could be considered a light grip if one were to take his full strength into account, Marcus, under the curious eyes of more than one other of the gym goers, raised the bar off of its supports before benching the weight at what would be considered a reasonable pace.
It was at this moment that he felt another of his perks, "May the Grind be with you", taking effect.
To understand the full consequences of such a perk, one must first know what "diminishing returns" means.
"Diminishing returns" is a concept spawned from the realm of economics that postulates that there reaches a certain point in an investment's life cycle where, if all factors other than the invested capital remain the same, results in diminished efficiency and productivity, even if the results are still positive.
To help illustrate, let's say that an absolute beginner chooses to start lifting. They choose to pick up a 5-pound weight, which they do 10 curls with every day. At first, doing such a thing could result in an increase in strength of let's say 1 pound every three days, and that's what keeps happening for two weeks.
Eventually, though, there reaches a point where the muscle adapts, its strength such that three days of 10 curls with the same weight no longer yield that 1 pound of strength, and it takes instead a week of that for an extra pound. After a month, perhaps it takes two weeks per pound. As long as the circumstances remain the same, the amount of time it takes for that effort to bear fruit will keep increasing. That would be diminishing returns in effect.
What Marcus' perk, by eliminating diminishing returns, could do, was ensure that it didn't matter how long he was working for, or how well-developed his muscles are, in that same situation, without a change in factors, his growth would remain at 1 pound per three days. It could be weeks, months, years, or even centuries, but doing those 10 curls with 5 pounds would always yield tangible results.
What made the perk itself so disgustingly busted, though, was the fact that it removed diminishing returns for everything. That meant that every breath he took, every step he made, every single heartbeat, all of it was continuously strengthening every single part of his being. He was quite literally getting stronger just by existing.
Lung capacity, cardiovascular strength, muscle strength, stamina, motor coordination…
Even without the rest of the 'Build', with this perk alone, even an extremely out-of-shape person dropped off in this world could become pretty much superhuman in a couple of months by simply living an average life.
Of course, the amount of strength to be gained from working out at the gym is very small in relation to the maximum strength Marcus already possessed, but with diminishing returns eliminated, and half-devil levels of energy replenishment, those - relatively - tiny increments would stack up terrifyingly fast.
After an hour and a half of going through different machines, Marcus finally chose to cut his first session short, taking a few minutes to hop under the shower and appreciate the fact that the water at the gym didn't look like it could peel the paint off of a wall just by lightly splashing on it, before leaving for the shops.
He purchased some crockery and pots and pans so that he didn't have to run up his expenses by buying food out every day, and as he shopped, he thought.
His goal of using his power to clean the Bay of bad actors was still firmly in place, however, there was a factor he had not considered while first sketching out his plans.
Desperation.
There are many people who, like the three he'd dealt with yesterday, did evil out of malice, ignorance, and selfish gains, but there were also people not in these situations.
There were likely many who went into crime and gangs just to survive in a city in an economic slump like Brockton, there were others who got into one of the gangs just to be safe from the others, there were those pushed too far and driven to despair by the unjust acts of others toward them who end up following a bad path, and there are those who never had the chance to see something different because the gang life is all they've ever known.
For cases like these, simply cutting them down as if they were acting out of a pure desire to hurt others or cause suffering would be unjust and leave a bad taste in his mouth. Despite that, however, his warning under the Vergil identity had been sent, setting the tone for his continued presence in the Bay, and he couldn't just backtrack on that.
He needed Vergil to become a sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of every criminal, to keep them aware of the fact that if they acted up they could end up getting cut down at any time, rather than face the limp-wristed 'justice' of the PRT that allowed Hookwolf to avoid getting Birdcaged twice. The criminals needed to understand that they were no longer the ones to be feared, but the ones to live in fear.
And yet, there also had to be someone else. Someone softer and lighter, willing to use more 'effective' methods to fight crime than the PRT if needed, but who could allow for possible future improvement, rehabilitation, and character development. Someone to ensure that Vergil's somber presence didn't send the Bay on a violent death spiral. Someone with the ability to lighten the mood, spread some positivity, and maybe even some humor.
A Yang to Vergil's Yin.
And he already had ideas.
Ideas, however, meant nothing if you did not have the means to fulfill them. Means, for the idea brewing within Marcus' mind, meant money.
He already had money on his list of priorities, as money was a gateway to better and more comfortable living standards, but with it now factoring into his intended heroic activities in a way he hadn't thought of before, it certainly suffered a rapid climb in rank.
'Now, how can I make some good money at a fast pace?'
Marcus' thoughtful walk had unknowingly led him to the wealthier side of town.
He couldn't help but notice the fact that the neighborhood seemed to be structured in an uphill climb, with the homes closer to the bottom looking akin to middle-class homes, with maybe a story, front lawn, parkway with two middle-range cars, generally hatchback Toyotas, Nissans, Fords and such, and all that stuff.
As the climb got higher and higher, however, more signs of wealth became visible. The houses were bigger in all senses of the word, being both wider and having more stories. The yards were more spacious, more of them bearing privacy fences, and the sounds of water reaching Marcus' ears alluded to either pools or fountains. The cars were a big indicator as well, with the homes up higher having generally notchbacks of famous 'premium' brands such as Audi, BMW, and Lexus, as well as generally having a higher number of them.
And even higher in the neighborhood, at an area where Marcus didn't even bother trying to get into by virtue of the private security firm "holding it down" as it were, the privacy fences alone were wide enough to occupy the space of two or more homes from lower in the hill, and the homes were just… Big.
Incapable of going further up the hill without stepping onto private property and noticing the less-than-welcoming stances of the private security, Marcus, hands in his pockets and a whistled tune on his lips, made a slow trek back down the hill.
While he was in front of one of the homes, however, his focus moved toward the landscaping company working on a garden.
He watched as an attractive 40-something blonde woman left the house, a tray with a pitcher of ice water in her hands.
One of the landscapers, a burly, barrel-chested bearded man whose biceps were barely contained by the sleeves of his shirt, walked up to the smiling woman with a small smile of his own, nodding as she spoke.
The woman poured and offered him a glass of water, which the man gladly took, and Marcus couldn't help but notice the fact that the woman's hand, after having handed him the glass, went to one of the man's biceps instead and squeezed, something that the man responded to by flexing his muscle.
A closer look let him notice the fact that the lady's hand was bare of adornments, but her ring finger had a pale patch consistent with a wedding band, which seemed to have just recently begun gaining color.
'Bored, rich, divorced, 40-something year old… That gives me even more ideas.'
The two flirted for a few more minutes before the landscapers finished their trim and mow job, at which point the entire team loaded their materials up on their van and left, much to the woman's visible disappointment.
Taking note of everything that'd happened, Marcus made his way down the hill and back to the Boardwalk, where he made a few more purchases than he'd previously intended.
He swung by a grocer after that, stocking up on cooking ingredients, before swinging by the mattress store and picking up his King-size, carrying it out of the store over his shoulder.
After having left the Boardwalk, Marcus made sure to slip out of the public eye and into an alley before sending the mattress into his pocket space and slicking his hair back into 'Vergil' mode, then walked out of the alley, knowing that the perk would've instantly confounded anyone that might've been fixing to rob him.
Not ever having intended to give his 'Vergil' persona a non-cape life, Marcus didn't hesitate to teleport right there in plain sight, showing up within his locked room.
Taking a moment to ensure that nobody was observing him, he allowed his hair to go back to normal, switching back to his regular identity.
He then put out the materials and ingredients necessary to fix himself a meal, all the while mentally plotting out a plan of action for what would become his nightly activities from then on.
Handsome, intelligent, charismatic, cunning, and powerful twice over, both due to the wealth he'd accrued as the CEO of Medhall, as well as due to his identity as Kaiser, the powerful parahuman leader of the premier 'gang' in Brockton Bay, Max Anders could be said to have a lot going on for him.
"Isn't it simple? We just find this new cape and we kill him."
As he sat at the head of the table at one of Medhall's meeting rooms, chin resting on his fist as he watched Brad Meadows - the bloodthirsty, shirtless savage he called his right-hand man - go on and on about killing this new cape, he couldn't help but reflect upon the negatives that his position brought him.
The nature of his 'small outfit of like-minded individuals' meant that he had a large recruitment pool to draw from, but it often meant that the individuals he had to deal with were… Simple.
Despite making use of it as a platform for recruitment and to maintain unity, Nazistic white supremacy wasn't something Max genuinely believed in. As an intelligent person, it was pretty much impossible for him to as he was incapable of looking at the fact that intelligence and power, in the many forms it came in, could be in any person regardless of race, ethnicity, or creed, and then still choose to blindly cling to a delusion of uniform race superiority.
That meant that when he heard about a new Cape that was seemingly capable of teleportation, high-speed movement, or both, and that had an ability that allowed him to seemingly sever organic matter cleanly, his first desire was to pull him into his orbit and strengthen his faction.
That was an unfortunate impossibility, however, as this new cape happened to be black. Such utility, utterly squandered because the seat of power he took over from his father was built upon such… Reductionist ideas.
He watched agreements ring out from the other parahumans around the table, those that he would have liked to regard as being more intelligent than the bloodthirsty brute Brad, yet who so quickly agreed to the idea of engaging a new cape with an unknown powerset, not ever considering the idea of trying to suborn him to their will to make use of his powers.
He couldn't suppress a grunt of dissatisfaction at the thought that, as usual, he'd have to take the appeasement of these bloodthirsty idealogues into consideration for whichever path of action he put his Empire on.
Everybody went quiet and turned toward him the very moment the sound left his throat, proof of the respect and authority he'd instilled into his people over years and years of leadership. None of them made a single peep despite the fact that he sat silent for minutes, a minor power play based upon people's natural sense of discomfort in the presence of silent attention, especially thoughtful silence from someone considered a superior, before he finally spoke.
"You are all, obviously, correct. The honor of our great Empire has been impugned, and such an infraction must be immediately redressed, lest other people start getting… Ideas."
And that was the truth of the matter. The Empire could not be seen losing, as that would not only demoralize his troops, but would also galvanize the ABB, the only real threat to the Empire's sovereignty over the Bay, despite what the PRT and a certain drug-addled group of morons would have liked to believe.
"Cricket, Crusader, Rune." The three he'd called upon sat up straighter in their seats, their focus entirely on his words, "The three of you are tasked with finding and dealing with this… Person… As soon as possible."
That feigned reluctance and disgust in his intonation of the word person seemed to hit the spot for the fanatics under his command based upon the pleased looks on their faces, as well as for Brad, who always brightened up at the prospect of violence.
"This meeting is over. The lot of you, leave," Max said in an imperious tone, before pointing at someone who was visibly uncomfortable in their seat, "You, stay."
All of the well-established parahumans actively in service of his Empire followed his order, vacating the meeting room, and leaving Max alone with someone who would never have, until very recently, sat down at one of these meetings.
The man's eyes went down to his lap when Max met his gaze - something the leader of the empire was rather satisfied by - before he spoke.
"Dorian Barker."
The man jumped in shock when the Kaiser's hand fell on his shoulder, before Max, summoning up every shred of charisma within his bones, spoke.
"Take heart and be Brave! You may have previously served the Empire loyally as a soldier, only ever looking up at the capes as unquestionably superior to you, but now it is time for you to be more! To do more! You now have the power to participate in our mission in ways that you never had before. I am trusting you to use that power the right way."
Dorian once again showed the clear lack of intelligence of those fanatically beholden to 'the mission' by allowing such an ambiguous, generalized statement to instantly buoy his spirit. A hand that was mismatched with the rest of his arm clenched as the man responded.
"Yes, my Kaiser!"
"...Very well," Max gave the man a single, slight downward nod of the head, "Now go, familiarize yourself with your new position in life."
The Empire's latest parahuman exited the meeting room as well, leaving Kaiser alone with his thoughts.
'Even without being a member of the Empire, this mystery cape has contributed to our group by handing us a newcape on a silver platter, something especially good at this point in time considering Purity, Night, and Fog's recent departures. It truly is a pity…'
Max shook his head, pushing aside those thoughts before focusing on more important ones.
'Menja today, or Fenja?' He steepled his hands over his mouth for a thoughtful moment, before coming to a conclusion, 'Both. Both is the correct option.'
CRACK
Marcus, in his Vergil persona, tilted the sheathed form of Yamato, deflecting the bullet into the concrete floor before, not allowing the Merchant pusher to shoot again and possibly hit an innocent, appearing behind the man, the last half inch of the blade sliding home within the sheath as an arc of blood gushed in front of him, a consequence of the deep slash to his chest.
The man fell over, just another corpse among his fellow drug pushers. Perhaps Marcus would have left them alone, uncertain of whether they could or not be rehabilitated, were it not for the fact that he'd caught them right as they were about to forcefully jab a needle full of something into some random man in the street.
The very man that Marcus had rescued from the Merchants stared at him in shock and fear, an understandable reaction to what could possibly be his first time seeing a dead body face to face.
"Leave."
That one word seemed to have lit a fire under the man's ass as he bolted out of the area like a bat out of hell.
He stared at the chopped-up corpses for a while, before speaking up, seemingly to empty air.
"You've been watching me for a while now."
There was no response to Marcus' words until he shifted his gaze to a certain low rooftop. He stared silently at it for a while, until a wispy, shadowy figure slowly floated down to the ground a few feet away from him, before visibly 'solidifying' into a slender, yet noticeably feminine figure in a black, skintight bodysuit, with black knee pads, gauntlets, belts and pockets, and a voluminous hooded cloak in dark gray urban camouflage patterns. A black metal mask depicting a stern woman's visage covered her face, and each of her hands held a crossbow with a sharp-tipped bolt loaded on it.
'This is… Shadow Stalker, if I recall correctly? She's apparently one of the main character's bullies, Sophie? Something like that.'
"That was hardcore!" The excited voice coming from the girl struck a stark contrast against the stern-looking mask and general edginess of her outfit. "You're actually out here making a difference, doing some real damage to these weak, criminal pre- scum!"
The eagerness of her tone, her Freudian slip, and the unhealthy-looking gleam of excitement in her brown eyes, the only part of her noticeable throughout the entirety of her costume, and to him, in this situation, only due to his night vision, were collectively enough to have his other brow arching.
"The authorities here are way too soft on these criminal scum! If they really took care of them, then these gang color-wearing pricks wouldn't even have the balls to-"
Her eyes widened in surprise when a tap from Yamato's pommel to her chest sent her rolling backward a good few feet. She looked back up at him, shock turning into anger as she raised her crossbows his way-
GLCHKT
Only for her anger to change once again, this time to shock, as half a dozen different spears, at least ten feet long each, wielded by figures in medieval armor as spectral as them, punched right through his torso.
"I thought there'd be more to the cape that dared to openly defy our Empire, you know."
Both Shadow Stalker and Marcus turned toward the speaker, the girl's head snapping toward him all at once, while Marcus' neck turned deliberately slowly, allowing the figure the spectral 'knights' seemed to be mirroring, fully corporeal as opposed to them, to fall into sight.
"I should have known better, however," His disdain was easily audible from underneath his helmet, "Than to hold any sort of positive expectations toward a Nig-"
"Is this it?"
The knight-armored man paused at the cool, unalarmed tone coming from the injured cape.
"What do you mean?"
"Is this the full extent of your pitiful attempt at an ambush," Marcus spoke once more, before his gaze turned somewhat up and to the side of the knight, "Or should I wait for your friends to have a try as well?"
The spectral knights started moving as soon as Marcus had finished his sentence, only for a horizontal whitish-gray light to flash into being around him, causing all of them to disintegrate altogether.
Then, in open sight of the knight-armored man, the ever-more-shocked-looking shadow stalker, and the two people on an approaching flying dumpster, the holes in Marcus' body - and clothes - closed shut at a visible speed.
One of the two people on the floating dumpster dove right for Marcus, Twin Kamas crossed for a decapitating strike, which he ducked under, before retaliating with a punch to the chest which was blocked by one of the knightly specters suddenly interspersing itself between the two, allowing the attacker, an athletic blonde with a buzz cut and a Mad Max-style cage mask, to create some space between the two by leaping away.
Marcus, after crushing the specter before it had the time to thrust its spear through his throat as it intended, spoke.
"That's two. Should I wait for whoever is in the sky to make their attempt as well?"
Seeing the two grounded fighters moving slowly and deliberately until they were both at about 45 degrees from him on opposite sides, Marcus shrugged before his fingers ran softly across the hilt of Yamato.
"Very well, then. Let us begin."
The two attackers moved, their sheer explosive speed putting them far above the average person in terms of athleticism, but the woman moreso than the man, something proven by the fact that she got within melee range first, one of her blades swinging for Marcus' throat from one side while the other one went for the liver from the opposite one.
A tilt of Yamato allowed him to block both attacks at the same time with the sheathed blade before he swayed back to avoid a rising knee strike from the cage-wearing woman.
His sway turned into a backflip so as to allow him to avoid the spear strike from the knight-armored figure, before his feet shuffled as he danced in between multiple other spear strikes from incorporeal knights.
He stopped mid-shuffle and turned around, facing an empty car streaking his way for barely a moment before dozens of white lines crisscrossed the vehicle, causing it to fall apart in such a way that every piece missed him.
Multiple spectral spears emerged from around Marcus, their wielders having used the bigger parts of the slashed car to cover their approach until the last second, only for Marcus to react to those attacks as if he'd already been expecting them, once again dancing out of their way, and this time through the falling remains of the car, ultimately ending up at a patch clear of trashed pieces. All of this within the span of a couple of breaths.
Shadow Stalker couldn't help but gape at the high-speed conflict, whereas Cricket, excitement written on her face, spun one of her Kama while slowly drawing a semi-circle around Marcus.
Her mouth opened, a high-pitched noise far outside of regular human hearing range reaching Marcus' ears right before he once again put his sheathed blade between his body and her blades, his brow rising at the surprise, then vexation on her face.
"Using sound to mess with the semi-circular canals and destroy the sense of balance? More intelligent than I expected of someone of your ilk."
There was a shift in the noise she was emitting before she released a veritable flurry of strikes, each of them making full use of her flexibility and her twin weapons in tandem to craft tricky attack angles and patterns to defend, which Marcus responded to by 'dancing' backward, before jumping 10 feet in the air to avoid being struck by over 20 spectral spears from all sides at the same time from the ghostly knights.
His move to the air allowed him to avoid the grounded strikes, but his brow once again rose as the pieces of the dilacerated car, as well as many other pieces of metal, concrete, wood, and all manner of hard and/or heavy objects rapidly flew toward him from all directions, all but promising to crush him into a pulp.
Just as the objects were about to make contact with him, though, his hand fell on the hilt of Yamato-
SCHWING~
Before all of the objects around him crumbled to dust.
He'd barely landed among the newly-created dust before one of his hands snapped up and wrapped around the shaft of a spear - a physical one - right before the blade could've punctured his throat… From the back.
His neck turned, allowing him to catch the armor-clad man from the corner of the eye, before, once again blindly, his other hand moved, a blindingly fast swing of his sheathed blade forcing his female attacker back, one of her Kama sent flying out of sight, before her now free hand went to clutch at her collarbone.
"I gave the two of you plenty of chance to show me the 'might of the Empire'," He paused for a moment, before finishing the thought, "All I got was mightily disappointed. Well, I'm sure we all lead quite busy lives, so it's about time I finish things here."
The knight-clad figure had been in the middle of conjuring more of its spectral doubles right before its eyes widened in shock and incredulity as a wide gash split his neck guard. Both of his gauntleted hands left his spear and flew straight for his throat, only for him to find himself incapable of applying pressure to his newest wound due to the very armor pieces meant to protect him from harm.
A bloodied gauntlet pleadingly reached out for Marcus, right before a wet gurgle left the knight's throat, and he fell over forward, dead.
Turning around, Marcus spotted the cage-masked woman running away, both of her weapons tossed aside.
"No, I don't think so."
Marcus' hand once again wrapped around Yamato's hilt, before the running villainess suddenly toppled over, both of her legs separated at the knee.
He was about to move toward her when the sound of a heavy object cutting through the air had him look at the flying dumpster, which was streaking away as fast as a locomotive.
He took another look at the buzz-cut blonde, who seemed to not have given up on her efforts at survival, slowly trying to crawl away despite her broken collarbone, missing legs, likely immense pain, and blood loss, before shaking his head and turning back toward the dumpster.
"This can't be happening!"
Tammi, known mostly by her identity as the Empire cape "Rune", could barely breathe. She'd seen a good deal of violence in the short few years of her life, and she'd even been 'around' during conflicts between the Empire and the other gangs as well as the PRT, but with her function being primarily that of a supportive nature - transport - and her secondary function being long-range damage dealer, she'd never really seen the nitty-gritty up close with her own eyes.
Not only was she usually paired with Victor, acting as a mobile sniping platform for him, but she was also usually only deployed against Lung, Oni Lee, the latest mechanized monstrosity of Merchant make, or the Wards.
All of them were either people who could quickly recover from damage, avoid damage altogether, or were read enough into the "unwritten rules" as to rapidly disengage when they felt the situation was too dangerous to remain in.
As far as she was concerned, this was supposed to be one of those situations. It wasn't the first time the Empire was faced with an openly adversarial cape in the city, after all, and if they simply killed any cape that opposed them, they'd have a collective Kill Order slapped against their organization faster than one could say 'Slash'.
Sure, she'd expected her teammates to go harder on the enemy cape because he was a nigger, but she hadn't thought them to go for a killing blow from the get-go. She'd done what should've been expected from anyone in her situation, ignoring her shock and surprise and providing support for her teammates as needed, however, things obviously had not gone as the two intended.
Their 'target' was not like many of the other capes they'd run out of the city before, perfectly willing to strike down their non-cape members only to lose, turn tail, and run when faced with the capes. Rather, when faced with deadly intent, he responded with what she could now recognize as casual disdain, before responding with a level of brutality that she'd expect from someone like Hookwolf.
What made him shitfuckingly terrifying, however, was that unlike Hookwolf, or the more bloodthirsty capes one could sometimes come across, he did not gloat about his strength, try to drag the killing out, or luxuriate in the carnage and violence.
He was just so… Matter of fact, about it. Casual, one could even say.
He was not someone who would play by the rules of their costumed cops-and-robbers game.
'I… I don't even need to return to the Empire. My parents are still out there, I could just probably go back there. Or, shit, just make my way elsewhere. Plenty of groups are looking for powerful capes. I think Kaiser said something about Faultline being around Boston at this time, she would probably put me up. Hell, I'm sure the New York Wards could use another member. He probably wouldn't attack a ward under Legend-'
Tammi's panicked planning was interrupted by shock as she felt the dumpster under her feet simply fall apart, but before she could as much as fall an inch, she suddenly felt her throat be constricted by a hand.
'Oh god.'
The terror she currently felt was far too much for her to even be able to spare the mental power to feel embarrassment about the fact that she'd just lost control of her bladder, covering her legs and the lower front half of her cloak in piss.
'No please no help someone please-'
Standing on thin air as if it were solid ground, the cape she'd just recently tried to crush in a cloud of debris stared up at her, his gaze as impassive as it had been when he slashed Crusader's throat open, and chopped Cricket's knees off-
She began hyperventilating as his other hand reached for her, and had she not already emptied her bladder she would have done so as it got closer and closer to her head-
SWISH-
Before her cowl and mask were yanked back, revealing her terrified expression, tearing eyes and running nose included, to him.
"...You are a child."
He shook his head in disgust before tossing her aside onto a nearby rooftop.
Tammi's fear was such that she didn't utter a single grunt even as she impacted and rolled to a stop on the hard surface, despite what felt like half a dozen forming bruises and a few cracked ribs.
She turned back toward the cape, her emotional state completely chaotic, only to gulp at the sight of a sword longer than she was tall pointed right at her nose.
She barely managed to suppress a hiss as a hot feeling bloomed from the left side of the bridge of her nose to her left cheek, before he whipped his sword aside, flicking off what she knew to be her blood, and then sheathed the blade once more.
"Tell everyone, girl, that this is the first, and last, bit of mercy I will ever offer you empire scum, or to any member of the gangs. From here on out, if you're in 'uniform' and you're trying to take someone's life, I will treat you all like the filth you are, age be damned."
He then proceeded to turn around and start walking away.
Tammi let out a sigh of relief at having somehow managed to survive the encounter-
"I know what you look like. Remember that when making choices in the future."
Only for the breath to get knocked out of her at the reminder that the cold-blooded killer cape who didn't abide by the 'rules' of the 'game' knew what she looked like outside her suit.
After having said that, he simply vanished in a flash of blue light.
"Oh, you're still here."
Marcus gave Shadow Stalker, who stood over the body of the armor-clad man, a cursory look, before walking toward the pale, still, legless body of the Mad Max reject and piercing the sheathed Yamato through her chest - destroying her heart - before walking back to the armored one and doing the same.
The masked girl's gaze shifted to Marcus, staying on him for a long time, but just as she seemed about to say something, the sounds of sirens in the distance caused her eyes to widen in shock.
She gave him one last, long look before running off, her form turning wispy in between steps, before she eventually vanished from sight altogether.
Shrugging off the girl's oddness, Marcus took a moment to focus on both corpses one last time, eyes, ears, and nose focused on anything that could act as a sign of life.
Finally satisfied as he picked up none, he turned around, before, between one step and the next, vanishing from the site of the battle in a flash of blue light, and reappearing within his locked apartment.
Shifting his hair back to its 'regular' setting, Marcus thought back to his meeting with the empire capes.
As Vergil, he intended to craft himself into one massive stick for the criminal element of the city. He would instill into them the fear that they instilled in the masses. The same fear that made people despair at the sheer thought of going out into the streets late at night, or of suddenly finding themselves caught in the middle of a gang fight when they just wanted to get their groceries. He needed to establish a reputation for himself.
Even if that meant turning a conflict that he could have quickly resolved into a full 'fight'.
His letting go of the cloaked girl was part of his reputation-building plan.
First of all, he needed a witness. Someone who could attest to both his ability, and his willingness, to truly clean up the filth of the city. A primer, to work alongside the corpses in sowing the seeds of terror into the empire, and into the criminals at large.
Second, he needed someone to act as a warning for the younger gang members. Marcus' goal was to clean up the bay, but that didn't mean he wanted to do it entirely through bloodshed. If he could convince others to clean up their act and live a 'better' life, that would be a great option, especially when it came to the younger people who found themselves born, suckered, or forced into that life.
Perhaps that girl's words would be enough to cause others like her to turn their lives around. Not a likely occurrence, but not altogether impossible either.
Third… The thought of just killing her was an unpleasant one. She was still just a teenager, after all.
He knew that there was a non-zero chance that he might have to kill someone that was less than adult, to say the least, be it in appearance, demeanor, or outright age. Hell, the big bad of the scenario was, despite its many powers and great destructive might, a developmentally stunted individual, mentally speaking.
That is if he recalled the fanfics he'd read in his previous life correctly.
Or, at least, something close enough to it that it made little difference. A depressed, emotionally stunted kid or teenager, whose girlfriend/guiding figure died and left him behind to somehow accomplish a plan he had only the vaguest, most superficial understanding of.
'Damn. Even multidimensionally genocidal space worms have trauma in this universe.'
Still, despite all of that, it was something that he would inevitably have to deal with, so he needed to sort himself out and get ready by then.
As he climbed onto his King-sized mattress, Marcus' thoughts drifted in a different, less unpleasant direction.
'I can't wait to get my money-making ideas in progress. Can't see myself moving out of this place soon enough.'
-CHAPTER, END!-