Establishment 1.1
Ganurath
Apologizes For Nothing
- Location
- A Valid Location
Decided to revive an old SI idea, which is basically "What if the me in Earth Bet triggered?" Expect lots of OCs, but enough familiar faces to keep fans of the base series interest. Transferring things over from SB manually, to follow a story I like that's leaving that forum.
Establishment 1.1
I smiled nervously down at the kid who was petting my cyborg. Normally, people were put off by how I'd modified the horse, and kept a comfortable distance. I had no problem with that; the distance was at least as comfortable for me as it was for them. This kid, though, they didn't care about robotic spider legs, the hero was riding a horse, and she was going to pet the horse, because horses were cute no matter how many legs they had.
This sort of public relations stuff was exactly why I'd quit after graduating from the Wards. Oh, sure, the official reason was that I wanted to try to explore the full range of my tinkering rather than limiting myself to crude oil and leather, but getting powers hadn't stopped me from being the person I was before I triggered. For all Mouse Protector and the Directors Chambers had insisted otherwise, I was not a people person. It was like doing math homework: I could be good at it if I applied myself, but applying myself was aggravating and boring and I really didn't want to unless there was a damn good reason. Such as, in this case, not having a young girl panic and cry right next to me. So, every once in a while, I'd trigger what would have been a reflexive behavior in the horse to maintain the illusion of the animal being alive for a little longer.
"Is it a boy horse or a girl horse?"
"Sleipnir is a boy horse." The original body had been a mare, because tinker or not there was no way I was touching horse penis, but I'd named the unit after the Lord of Horses, not the Lady of Horses. Judging by the older brother's smirking, he'd gotten the reference. If his shirt was anything to go by, he was a fan of the Aleph hero movies. I made the horse whinny after I said its name, since it might seem odd if it didn't react, and the girl squealed in delight. After a glance toward a parent who knew perfectly well I was riding a cyborg zombie horse with spider legs, I decided a little lie was in order. "I think he likes you."
"I like him too!" The girl wrapped her arms around the horse's neck, and I felt a surge of panic run through me. This was it. This is where she would notice it isn't breathing regularly, or doesn't have a pulse, and the screaming starts. She let go before she clued in, though, and turned to face her mother. "Mom! Think Fossil will let me ride on Sleipnir?"
My head snapped toward the mom, who looked roughly as alarmed at the idea as I felt. The way I'd set up the legs meant that it could handle the weight of multiple riders, but I had not designed Sleipnir to seat more than one person at a time. There was another pressing issue, which the mother gave voice to. "I don't think that's a good idea, sweetie. What if a villain attacked while Fossil was giving you a ride?"
"I'll be fine! All the bad gangs are east of 120th Street, Becka said so!" Technically accurate, if one was dismissive of the Better Half and solo villains like Flow, but Becka could still go to hell. The girl spun back to face me, holding her hands in a pleading gesture. "Please, Mr. Fossil?"
"How about this: I'll check with my old friends at the Protectorate to see if there's anything nearby they want me to help with. If there's no trouble..." As I worked with the headset inside my skullcap, I nodded toward a mother who was looking increasingly worried. "Then it would depend on if your mother said it was okay."
The girl spun again, facing her mother with what I could imagine was a crushingly hopeful expression. It was probably why the mom was letting her daughter walk all over her. She was probably one of the parents that kept the Zorinsky Zealots in business, or the same sort that posted bail when one of The Better Half got arrested. While I loved working in the safe part of town, I couldn't help but be frustrated with how just about everyone was an idiot.
There was a voice in my ear that saved me from hearing the mom flounder, though. "Hang on, I have an old code on the system out by- Fossil? Is this you?"
"Hey, Umber."
I let a brief chorus of greetings and profanities pass before I pursued the conversation further. As a voice I didn't personally recognize promised sessions with the other Director Chambers for using that sort of language, I gave a nod to the family that were now looking at me with rapt attention. Like me, Umber had a scary power. Unlike me, he had an approachable personality that was entirely genuine. It was why he was effectively in charge of the Protectorate while the lovably psychotic Mouse Protector was officially in charge. "Speaking of Glenn, Fossil! Are you going to give him any headaches today?"
"Trying to avoid that, actu-"
"Really."
"Yes, really!" Operational discipline? Not in the Mouse's Protectorate! I put a hand over the microphone sticking out of my mask's jawbone as I address the family. "Vulcan thinks I have too much fun while being a hero."
That got a chuckle out of the brother, along with the current generation of Wards. Umber's voice cut through the noise, though. "What's the situation, Fossil?"
"There's a kid here that wants to ride Sleipnir, but her mom is worried about her daughter getting dragged into a cape fight. So, I was wondering if you guys knew about any cape activity in the area I might need to respond to that would prevent me from giving..."
The girl beamed up at me as she held her back straight in the way kids did when they tried and failed to be taken seriously. "Susan!"
"Giving Susan a ride on my tinker horse?"
Initially, the only response was typing keys. I couldn't help but wonder how many heroes were screaming internally at the idea of not being able to get me out of having a small child riding a tinker tech zombie horse with spider legs in the middle of a shopping center. Their signal tracking would be good enough to pinpoint my location, so it was just a matter of waiting. After a few seconds, Umber spoke up again. "How quickly can you get from Village Point to Oakview on that thing?"
"I could get there in about five minutes in flight mode. What-"
The brother, of all people, interrupted. "That thing can fly?!"
As the siblings argued about whether or not Sleipnir was 'that thing' I refocused on Umber. "What's going on there?"
"Sighting of a new cape prowling around, or a restless idiot with a baseball bat who likes wearing yellow. I was going to send Overdrive since he's the closest on our roster, but if it gets you out of a PR thing... You'll make a pitch for us if it's a fresh hero, right?"
"Of course. I'll be there shortly. Thanks for the heads up. I'll give you another call once I've taken care of things there." I tapped out my earpiece, then turned my attention to Susan. Yep, the kid was heartbroken. I made Sleipnir huff, then lowered it a bit. One of the other reasons I hated working with kids was that I couldn't stand to see them upset. "I think Sleipnir could use a hug goodbye."
The girl's arms were around the horse's neck before I could blink, and I spared a glance toward the mother. She was understandably tense, what with her daughter hugging a dead animal, but on the whole she looked relieved that that was all Susan would be doing. Good, crisis averted. The girl let go after a few seconds, patting the snout as she backed away. "Bye, Slipner! Bye, Fossil!"
I had it whinny again as I waved goodbye, switching the controls from overland mode to flight mode. The legs repositioned into pairs, linking together so as to form four solid limbs that split into parallel prongs at the last joint. With a soft hum and a pale purple glow between the prongs, Sleipnir began to hover in the air. All three were waving goodbye, but as I sped off I heard at outraged and confused "WHAT?" behind me. I shook my head. I'd hoped Susan's brother would be more like me and less like my own older brother, but apparently the girl wasn't lucky in that regard.
Oakview Mall came into view quickly enough, although approaching from the northwest meant that I couldn't see much beyond the med center and the main mall's L-shaped structure. One of the troubles of the permitted cape flight altitudes, but the lower air pressure wouldn't have sat well with me anyhow. I spotted a security guard outside the mall's central entrance on the inside of the L's corner, and I came down to a hover in the large section of sidewalk that rounded out the parking lot's triangle. "Protectorate told me there might be a new cape in the area?"
Up close, the guard was exactly what one would expect from a mall cop: Middle-aged and obese. He gave me a curt nod, and gestured vaguely behind him. "One of the kids at the AMC was putting out trash when she first got spotted headed this way. She was just walking, so she's probably in the southeast parking lot by now. Think you can take that thing around the building, cut her off before she gets inside? Cape or not, a bat's a weapon."
I nodded. Hero or villain, it sounded like the kid was dangerously new. I took flight without a goodbye, not wanting to delay intercepting her. The baseball bat suggested her power wasn't inherently destructive, but a lot of capes could cause collateral damage without meaning to. For example, navigating the various skylights that dominated the central section of the mall to avoid cracking anything with my thrusters was a bitch. I managed, though.
As I came to the ledge of the mall's roof, I looked over the parking lot for signs of a girl with a baseball bat... wearing yellow, if I remembered what Umber had said right. I spotted her in the middle of the cars in the mall's parking lot, which was fantastic. Unlike the skylights, the windows of cars were actually designed with breaking safely being a priority over not breaking, so I brought myself down by the south entrance to one of the attached stores. I forgot which, and since it wasn't the main entrance it didn't have a name over it. The kid spotted me, and began to hurry in her approach. That was either promising or worrying.
There was traffic between us, and I waved people along until it came time for the girl to cross. She hesitated a moment, checking to make sure that traffic was indeed stopping for her, then she bolted across the road. Not a speedster by any measure, but she was clearly hurrying. As she approached, I took a good look at her costume, and quickly concluded that she'd both tried to make her own and did not have a power that facilitated doing so. Black jeans, a black hoodie, a yellow sweater thing with a neck that she'd stretched up to cover the lower half of her face... If it weren't for the yellow scarf wrapped around her waist and that her bat was covered in yellow tape, I wouldn't have pegged her for a cape. She was even wearing her civilian shoes!
Once she arrived at the sidewalk, she pointed her bat at me like it was a gun, and I was immediately on guard. While it was possible she was an idiot, I couldn't rule out the possibility of her being a Blaster, or a novice Tinker with a ranged weapon. My fingers shifted on the controls, ready to switch Sleipnir to the turret configuration, but I figured it was better to talk her down. "So, are-"
"Don't even start, villain, unless your next words are going to be 'I surrender' I don't want to hear it. I don't know why you came here, but if you were looking to pick a fight then you've got more than you planned for!" At that, energy sparked around the girl, and transparent duplicates made of yellow light started flaring into existence around her. When she spoke again, her duplicates echoed her. "A lot more."
A novice cape hadn't done her research, and thought I was a villain. Ah, the joys of being a corpse tinker.
Establishment 1.1
I smiled nervously down at the kid who was petting my cyborg. Normally, people were put off by how I'd modified the horse, and kept a comfortable distance. I had no problem with that; the distance was at least as comfortable for me as it was for them. This kid, though, they didn't care about robotic spider legs, the hero was riding a horse, and she was going to pet the horse, because horses were cute no matter how many legs they had.
This sort of public relations stuff was exactly why I'd quit after graduating from the Wards. Oh, sure, the official reason was that I wanted to try to explore the full range of my tinkering rather than limiting myself to crude oil and leather, but getting powers hadn't stopped me from being the person I was before I triggered. For all Mouse Protector and the Directors Chambers had insisted otherwise, I was not a people person. It was like doing math homework: I could be good at it if I applied myself, but applying myself was aggravating and boring and I really didn't want to unless there was a damn good reason. Such as, in this case, not having a young girl panic and cry right next to me. So, every once in a while, I'd trigger what would have been a reflexive behavior in the horse to maintain the illusion of the animal being alive for a little longer.
"Is it a boy horse or a girl horse?"
"Sleipnir is a boy horse." The original body had been a mare, because tinker or not there was no way I was touching horse penis, but I'd named the unit after the Lord of Horses, not the Lady of Horses. Judging by the older brother's smirking, he'd gotten the reference. If his shirt was anything to go by, he was a fan of the Aleph hero movies. I made the horse whinny after I said its name, since it might seem odd if it didn't react, and the girl squealed in delight. After a glance toward a parent who knew perfectly well I was riding a cyborg zombie horse with spider legs, I decided a little lie was in order. "I think he likes you."
"I like him too!" The girl wrapped her arms around the horse's neck, and I felt a surge of panic run through me. This was it. This is where she would notice it isn't breathing regularly, or doesn't have a pulse, and the screaming starts. She let go before she clued in, though, and turned to face her mother. "Mom! Think Fossil will let me ride on Sleipnir?"
My head snapped toward the mom, who looked roughly as alarmed at the idea as I felt. The way I'd set up the legs meant that it could handle the weight of multiple riders, but I had not designed Sleipnir to seat more than one person at a time. There was another pressing issue, which the mother gave voice to. "I don't think that's a good idea, sweetie. What if a villain attacked while Fossil was giving you a ride?"
"I'll be fine! All the bad gangs are east of 120th Street, Becka said so!" Technically accurate, if one was dismissive of the Better Half and solo villains like Flow, but Becka could still go to hell. The girl spun back to face me, holding her hands in a pleading gesture. "Please, Mr. Fossil?"
"How about this: I'll check with my old friends at the Protectorate to see if there's anything nearby they want me to help with. If there's no trouble..." As I worked with the headset inside my skullcap, I nodded toward a mother who was looking increasingly worried. "Then it would depend on if your mother said it was okay."
The girl spun again, facing her mother with what I could imagine was a crushingly hopeful expression. It was probably why the mom was letting her daughter walk all over her. She was probably one of the parents that kept the Zorinsky Zealots in business, or the same sort that posted bail when one of The Better Half got arrested. While I loved working in the safe part of town, I couldn't help but be frustrated with how just about everyone was an idiot.
There was a voice in my ear that saved me from hearing the mom flounder, though. "Hang on, I have an old code on the system out by- Fossil? Is this you?"
"Hey, Umber."
I let a brief chorus of greetings and profanities pass before I pursued the conversation further. As a voice I didn't personally recognize promised sessions with the other Director Chambers for using that sort of language, I gave a nod to the family that were now looking at me with rapt attention. Like me, Umber had a scary power. Unlike me, he had an approachable personality that was entirely genuine. It was why he was effectively in charge of the Protectorate while the lovably psychotic Mouse Protector was officially in charge. "Speaking of Glenn, Fossil! Are you going to give him any headaches today?"
"Trying to avoid that, actu-"
"Really."
"Yes, really!" Operational discipline? Not in the Mouse's Protectorate! I put a hand over the microphone sticking out of my mask's jawbone as I address the family. "Vulcan thinks I have too much fun while being a hero."
That got a chuckle out of the brother, along with the current generation of Wards. Umber's voice cut through the noise, though. "What's the situation, Fossil?"
"There's a kid here that wants to ride Sleipnir, but her mom is worried about her daughter getting dragged into a cape fight. So, I was wondering if you guys knew about any cape activity in the area I might need to respond to that would prevent me from giving..."
The girl beamed up at me as she held her back straight in the way kids did when they tried and failed to be taken seriously. "Susan!"
"Giving Susan a ride on my tinker horse?"
Initially, the only response was typing keys. I couldn't help but wonder how many heroes were screaming internally at the idea of not being able to get me out of having a small child riding a tinker tech zombie horse with spider legs in the middle of a shopping center. Their signal tracking would be good enough to pinpoint my location, so it was just a matter of waiting. After a few seconds, Umber spoke up again. "How quickly can you get from Village Point to Oakview on that thing?"
"I could get there in about five minutes in flight mode. What-"
The brother, of all people, interrupted. "That thing can fly?!"
As the siblings argued about whether or not Sleipnir was 'that thing' I refocused on Umber. "What's going on there?"
"Sighting of a new cape prowling around, or a restless idiot with a baseball bat who likes wearing yellow. I was going to send Overdrive since he's the closest on our roster, but if it gets you out of a PR thing... You'll make a pitch for us if it's a fresh hero, right?"
"Of course. I'll be there shortly. Thanks for the heads up. I'll give you another call once I've taken care of things there." I tapped out my earpiece, then turned my attention to Susan. Yep, the kid was heartbroken. I made Sleipnir huff, then lowered it a bit. One of the other reasons I hated working with kids was that I couldn't stand to see them upset. "I think Sleipnir could use a hug goodbye."
The girl's arms were around the horse's neck before I could blink, and I spared a glance toward the mother. She was understandably tense, what with her daughter hugging a dead animal, but on the whole she looked relieved that that was all Susan would be doing. Good, crisis averted. The girl let go after a few seconds, patting the snout as she backed away. "Bye, Slipner! Bye, Fossil!"
I had it whinny again as I waved goodbye, switching the controls from overland mode to flight mode. The legs repositioned into pairs, linking together so as to form four solid limbs that split into parallel prongs at the last joint. With a soft hum and a pale purple glow between the prongs, Sleipnir began to hover in the air. All three were waving goodbye, but as I sped off I heard at outraged and confused "WHAT?" behind me. I shook my head. I'd hoped Susan's brother would be more like me and less like my own older brother, but apparently the girl wasn't lucky in that regard.
Oakview Mall came into view quickly enough, although approaching from the northwest meant that I couldn't see much beyond the med center and the main mall's L-shaped structure. One of the troubles of the permitted cape flight altitudes, but the lower air pressure wouldn't have sat well with me anyhow. I spotted a security guard outside the mall's central entrance on the inside of the L's corner, and I came down to a hover in the large section of sidewalk that rounded out the parking lot's triangle. "Protectorate told me there might be a new cape in the area?"
Up close, the guard was exactly what one would expect from a mall cop: Middle-aged and obese. He gave me a curt nod, and gestured vaguely behind him. "One of the kids at the AMC was putting out trash when she first got spotted headed this way. She was just walking, so she's probably in the southeast parking lot by now. Think you can take that thing around the building, cut her off before she gets inside? Cape or not, a bat's a weapon."
I nodded. Hero or villain, it sounded like the kid was dangerously new. I took flight without a goodbye, not wanting to delay intercepting her. The baseball bat suggested her power wasn't inherently destructive, but a lot of capes could cause collateral damage without meaning to. For example, navigating the various skylights that dominated the central section of the mall to avoid cracking anything with my thrusters was a bitch. I managed, though.
As I came to the ledge of the mall's roof, I looked over the parking lot for signs of a girl with a baseball bat... wearing yellow, if I remembered what Umber had said right. I spotted her in the middle of the cars in the mall's parking lot, which was fantastic. Unlike the skylights, the windows of cars were actually designed with breaking safely being a priority over not breaking, so I brought myself down by the south entrance to one of the attached stores. I forgot which, and since it wasn't the main entrance it didn't have a name over it. The kid spotted me, and began to hurry in her approach. That was either promising or worrying.
There was traffic between us, and I waved people along until it came time for the girl to cross. She hesitated a moment, checking to make sure that traffic was indeed stopping for her, then she bolted across the road. Not a speedster by any measure, but she was clearly hurrying. As she approached, I took a good look at her costume, and quickly concluded that she'd both tried to make her own and did not have a power that facilitated doing so. Black jeans, a black hoodie, a yellow sweater thing with a neck that she'd stretched up to cover the lower half of her face... If it weren't for the yellow scarf wrapped around her waist and that her bat was covered in yellow tape, I wouldn't have pegged her for a cape. She was even wearing her civilian shoes!
Once she arrived at the sidewalk, she pointed her bat at me like it was a gun, and I was immediately on guard. While it was possible she was an idiot, I couldn't rule out the possibility of her being a Blaster, or a novice Tinker with a ranged weapon. My fingers shifted on the controls, ready to switch Sleipnir to the turret configuration, but I figured it was better to talk her down. "So, are-"
"Don't even start, villain, unless your next words are going to be 'I surrender' I don't want to hear it. I don't know why you came here, but if you were looking to pick a fight then you've got more than you planned for!" At that, energy sparked around the girl, and transparent duplicates made of yellow light started flaring into existence around her. When she spoke again, her duplicates echoed her. "A lot more."
A novice cape hadn't done her research, and thought I was a villain. Ah, the joys of being a corpse tinker.
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