2 Chapter 2

The nightlife of Brockton Bay looked so beautiful from up in the sky that she almost couldn't believe this was Brockton Bay, one of the cities with the most crime rate across the entire Eastern SeaBoard. In fact, she wouldn't believe it if she didn't see about ten muggings and one rape attempt. She snorted in exasperation. She hadn't been to this city for nearly a week, wait, is that 10 years? She couldn't tell which one was anymore.

"Damn it, Great Red, reincarnating me in the past and creating unnecessary paradoxes," she mumbled to herself. Anyway, she couldn't let any crime go unpassed, after all, she wanted to be a hero. So, she immediately dived toward the nearest crime scene, which was a robbery. After she valiantly solved most of the petty crimes in the city, she took her time to explore this place again. The city looked familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. The memories of the homeless girl her current life once was, were shouting at her. Like which places to avoid, which dumpster still must have good food, and which alleyways should not be ventured into. Her memories of Taylor Hebert, a broken and bullied girl, was remembering her times of walking on these once-familiar roads full of memories of the past.

She walked slowly on these slowly deteriorating roads. She stopped in front of a park Taylor and her mother frequented. Taylor's side of her left out a lone tear. She quickly shook her head. That wasn't her anymore, Taylor Hebert was dead. The past is the past, it wasn't relevant to her present anymore. She continued to walk. She stopped once again as she heard a call of distress from nearby. Well, time to get to work. After all, the night is still young and heroes never rest. She immediately flew toward the place and bashed the shithead with her trusty fist. The guy whimpered as he rolled on the ground, clutching his head. Her mask-wearing face pointed toward the old man and asked, "are you alright?"

"Don't worry about it, these old bones could still handle this much. Thank you for your help. If not for you, my will would be put into use by tomorrow," he grumbled a bit.

"You must be new here?" The old man said as he looked at the figure wearing a red Draconian metal armour.

"Yes, I am, No, I was," she replied.

"Uh-huh," the old man replied. "So, what is your name?" the old man asked as he looked up and down at her costume.

"I am Incarnate," she replied. She initially decided to go with Weaver, but she decided against it as Incarnate felt more natural to her.

As for her real name, she chose Alice Liddell. Her current life's body kinda looked like her, and she shouldn't continue referring to herself as a homeless girl after all. So, she used the name of the protagonist from one of Taylor's favourite literature her mom read to her as a bedside story.

Now, the city was somewhat calm, she could start the process of finding herself an acceptable base. Usually, she would just live in some abandoned warehouse as she did, but her dragon self demanded something more, so she was currently hunting a house. Oh, she didn't need to sleep, not anymore, but she wanted to retain some semblance of life before she became the new Dream's Avatar.

As she was about to start her task, she heard voices of metals clashing metals and the voice of who seemed to be a kid. She had heard of these sounds, metals, twisting and turning like a meat blender, Taylor's memories supplied with a name, Hookwolf. She gathered what she could from the memories. It seemed like this Hookwolf person has an extensive list of crimes. With body counts of dozens and other crimes like robberies, harassments, being a nazi, and killing a bunch of dogs! It would take a new low for someone to kill dogs. These poor things, with that and anger from her task being interrupted, she immediately teleported into the battlefield. She was greeted with sharp metal claws slamming into her hard. She backflipped to avoid the claws. On second thought, she shouldn't have interfered with an active cape fight. She could be considered strong, but she could still be hurt.

Perhaps, she was an immortal, but she still didn't know how to use Dream to its full potential. After all, she only knew how to use her power instinctively. To use them in more versatile and powerful ways would need for her to research, exercise and experiment herself. Great Red didn't tell her anything about how to control and use it. All she had was instinctive feelings and what she wanted. Still, who would have thought that teleportation was one of the easier uses of Dream. Teleporting from one place to another using the omnipresent Sea of Fantasy which was a part of Dream was one of the things she was entitled to as the physical representative of Dream. But that was something to think about later. Now, she has to focus on more pressing matters. She dodged again as Hookwolf made a swipe against her. Probably feeling annoyed because someone had disturbed his "Hunt". Still, she called upon Dream, weaved it into forms and realised them. A sword formed in her hand.

"What a nuisance," she said as she looked at the recovering Hookwolf.

"Tell me about it," a young voice answered from behind her. She glanced at the voice. A figure wearing a dress with wavy swooping lines alternating between green and white and panels of armours covering her. Alice raised an eyebrow at her costume.

"They sent you out with these?" She asked in a somewhat disgruntled voice while pointing at her costume.

"Finally, someone who sees the problem," said Vista, the youngest and arguably the strongest shaker in the entire Eastern SeaBoard.

"It was called common sense," Alice replied.

"Something people in Brockton Bay lack," Vista replied with a long-suffering sigh, which caused Alice to giggle.

"Truer words were never spoken" Alice agreed.

"So, I am Vista," She introduced herself.

"Incarnate," she replied. "Let's take care of this bastard first before we continue," Alice said. Hookwolf now fully recovered, and his metal shrapnels were taking the shape of a cyclone. They were rotating with such force that even the air was screeching. It looked like he was pissed. Alice created a shield made of pure diamond. Simple things like a shield with nothing added was easy to make no matter the material, what was really hard was more complex things. You see, for her creations to work without a problem in this material world, she would have to conform the mechanisms of her creations to the laws of Reality of this world. If she just created something like a rod that shoots a rainbow just because it could in this world, this world's laws of Reality would just reject that rod and that would cause, let's just say some unsavoury side effects. Great Red probably could bypass said restrictions, but if he knew how, he didn't impart that knowledge to her.

'What an ass,' she thought unhappily as she remembered her predecessor. Alice was about to join the fight, but she was quickly dumbfounded by one maniacally grinning Vista bashing away Hookwolf like an adult bully a toddler. Hookwolf jumped, dodged and rolled, but Vista's shield always managed to find its way to the core.

"Huh? No wonder they didn't give her a weapon," she sweated dropped comically and said as she watched the brutality and savagery Vista was displaying. Metal parts flew around everywhere as Vista laughed disturbingly. Even Hookwolf was crept out as he tried to run away. Vista shouted, "GET OVER HERE!" in a voice that would surely be included in his nightmare from now on, and struck him with her shield again and again. After she was done, Hookwolf was whimpering in a pile of metal shards and his entire body was black and blue.

'Are they really sure that Vista didn't have a brute rating?' Alice thought as she looked at the damage Vista caused to Hookwolf, both physically and mentally. Vista panted heavily for a moment and smiled the sunniest smile Alice had ever seen.

"Thanks for the shield. Man, that beating really helped me with my stress. I felt lighter," Vista said while still smiling.

"Haha, right?" Alice said nervously.