Chapter Text
[A/N: Portions of this chapter have been ripped from the Worm chapters Gestation 1.4 and 1.5, and Insinuation 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3.]
Episode 1 - Rifling
They were going to kill kids?
A chill came over me - just for a brief moment - but I brushed it off. I had come out here to be a hero, and that meant going towards danger, not away. At least, that's what my mom used to tell me, even though Grandpa offered me some... sliiiiiiiiightly different advice. I chose the former right now, though, and - before any second thoughts could run thru my mind - I silently gave the command for『Rifling』to take the shot at Lung.
Crack!
When I was a lot younger, I remember that mom and Grandpa fought on occasion. One time, it was about killing. Mom said that it was wrong, and even with the best intentions it wasn't worth it. Grandpa, though, said that killing is an amoral act on its own; why you kill is much more important. Seeing the gang leader's body collapse onto the ground, I couldn't help but agree with the latter.
Sure, the ''unwritten rules'' were important, but even on a purely rational level, those ''kids'' might be parahumans themselves (or could become as such in the future), and if multiple parahumans lived to participate in an Endbringer battle, that was more cost-effective than a single parahuman who never showed up to them since he got his ass kicked by Leviathan. On a non-rational level, Lung was responsible for countless injuries, addictions, and deaths - I was not about to let him get away with killing a bunch of kids, least of all when a single bullet was all it took to stop him from continuing.
The second my shot hit, the gang members changed into motion, aiming their various guns at the rooftop I was just standing on. I responded with a few well-placed shots (nowhere lethal, though - they were weak enough where I could afford to keep them alive). By the time a van-size monster, all sinew and bone, showed up, half of the gang was out of commission and the other half was fleeing. It pursued them nonetheless, and thus gave me ample opportunity to hide when another two monsters showed up - each with two people riding atop their backs. It looked like two boys and two girls, and that meant they were probably capes, which meant it was time for me to employ the secret technique.
It was passed down on my mom's side, by her father's grandfather, and was instrumental in - if the stories were to be believed, which they were not - defeating several inhuman vampires and ejecting 'the ultimate lifeform' into the depths of space, never to return. Regardless of the silly backstory, it proved of great use in the moment. Hoping that nobody was there to see it, I... ran away from the scene, as fast as my legs could take me.
Unfortunately, as I was heading home, an eerily familiar ''Who the fuck are you?'' rang out from the rooftop to my left, and only my startled pause saved me from a crossbow bolt that would've hit me in the arm. I turned and, sure enough, it was Shadow Stalker, near-perfectly hidden by the dark of night. I'd heard about her during my research on the local scene, but this was the first time I'd heard her talk, and... there was no mistaking the voice. That was Sophia goddamn Hess. The one who ruined my life, tore my sister from me, made the last three years of high school a living hell.
..no wonder she didn't get into trouble. The value of a Ward was infinitely more than that of useless little Taylor Hebert. Everything fit into place, just. like. that. Given all that, plus how she had just attacked me a moment ago, I don't think my actions were entirely unreasonable when I turned towards her and - having already taken a life that night, and knowing that I had the option to make the shot hurt before she died (as well as make it quite thematically appropriate) - I ordered『Rifling』to switch over to its arrow-shaped bullets, then aimed for her head... and pulled the trigger.
Not looking to see whether or not my hit landed, I dashed into a side street and kept running until - a few hours later, with the detours and loops I made just to be safe - I made it home. From there, it was a leap up to my window, a change of clothes, and then a short tooth-brushing before I finally went to bed. The very moment my head hit the pillow, I was out like a light.
A man with golden hair, star-shaped birthmark on the edge of a back that wasn't his. He turned to face me, and-!
I woke up in a cold sweat. Something about that figure... it made everything about me scream ENEMY!; made me feel like I was being shoved into the locker again. The nightmare wasn't new to me, mind you; it had happened at least once a month, and Grandpa had been very vague when my mom confronted him while she thought I couldn't hear. Something about 'the Joestar line's enemy' and 'defeated him in that far-off Egypt, but he left behind...'. The memories were failing me, just a bit, but it was an excuse to stay in bed and avoid facing the morning.
Fighting off a wave of fatigue - I only had a couple hours of sleep, what with my assassination and subsequent escape from justice(?) - I pushed myself out of bed and went through my routine. Sweats, a quick face-washing, and then I put on my sneakers while my dad came downstairs. We exchanged pleasantries, he suggested I sleep in, I made excuses for why I was so tired, but... my heart wasn't in it, and my head was racing with thoughts about the fact that I had killed a Ward.
The worst part was: I didn't even feel bad about it. Really, what upset me (and kept me busy for the whole of my jog and the following ride to school) was that I knew I should've felt bad. I should've been consumed by guilt and turned myself in, or pointed the rifle at my own head and pulled the trigger. Instead, I just felt... vaguely satisfied, and downright eager to go out again. Even the fact that I'd lied to dad was almost irrelevant to my emotional state.
Unfortunately, my good mood faded as soon as I got close to school. Somehow, in my mind's eye, Sophia Hess clicked into view, alive and unharmed, waiting by the stop with a rather displeased expression on her face. Beside her was a strange... dog-shaped thing; it looked like it was made of clouds, but its teeth and claws were razor-sharp and diamond-strong. In a similarly click-like fashion, recognition poured into me that this was another 'Stand', which I could only presume was a similar thing to my own power.
I didn't want to deal with that right then. She was clearly pissed, and getting jumped before class would suck; to avoid this, I got off the bus a stop early, then walked a couple blocks out of the way until I had the chance to enter campus from a well-covered angle and subsequently hurry to homeroom. I felt a bit worried due to my class-skipping last Friday - there was, after all, no guarantee I wouldn't be called up to the office, and Mrs. Knott's look told me that she knew too.
My mood was poor as I waited for the awful, prehistoric laptop to finish booting so I could get some information on what the hell happened last night. Once the web connection became stable - and it spoke volumes on the computer's quality that such a thing was a matter of minutes rather than of seconds - I opened Parahumans Online and browsed the latest Brockton Bay-related boards. There, on the front page, was a post titled ''Undersiders VS ABB - Lung Killed''. Shit. Well, I had a lead, and a quick search on the wiki revealed that the monster I saw was a dog amplified by one 'Hellhound', a girl named Rachel Lindt who was dangerous enough to have a do-not-interact warning on her page. From her picture, she didn't look especially pretty.
After doing a bit more research on her gang, I swapped over to the ABB and - sure enough - their page was locked-down for a few hours so that moderators could get the exact details behind Lung's death. Reading down, I saw that there were still two lieutenants - Bakuda and Oni Lee. Having done a bit of research, I knew that the former was a Tinker dedicated to high-tech and esoteric bombs, and the latter was a teleporter who left behind a duplicate that'd crumble to ashes after a few seconds, but could still act in the meantime. A stroke of luck, then, that they weren't there at the rally last night.
I was curious about the exact mechanisms of Oni Lee's teleportation, since most teleporting capes had something that prevented them from just hopping across the globe, shooting a politician, then hopping back. For many it was cooldown and distance, though some had to have line of sight or a clear memory of the exact location they were in. Hopefully I'd never need to find out, now that his boss was gone.
While I thought on that, my hands moved (almost on their own) to look at the 'Connections' section of PHO - in hindsight, I can only presume that I expected someone to thank me for what I did. Instead, I found a message simply titled ''Rifle Girl''
Subject: Rifle Girl
Owe you one. Would like to repay the favor. Meet?
Send a message,
Tt.
The post was followed by a cool half-dozen pages of comments, and many of them identified the sender as Tattletale, a member of the Undersiders who had little-to-nothing on her wiki page. How did she know what my Stand's ability was? I'd think on it later, because the bell rang and I could only watch helplessly as Hess calmly walked towards the classroom door, waiting just outside for me. I could only put together my backpack and prepare for the worst, as usual. But! when I reflexively moved to dodge her outstretched foot, she surprised me with a grab to the shoulder.
''Let's talk on the roof, Hebert.''
Stand Stats - 『Rifling』(un-localized:『The Rifle's Spiral』)
- Destructive Power: B
- Speed: A
- Range: B
- Stamina: C
- Precision: A
- Development Potential: E