102 A Glimpse of Something Greater

The area enters a strange sort of standoff with neither side moving.

Hundreds of them against a single me, yet they all know by now that if fighting breaks out that I will be the one to walk away, not them, so they don't open fire immediately.

I also don't make any sudden movements, as I don't want them to ruin the performance by shooting at me.

I wait in silence for a short moment, giving Carrot a chance to say whether she's ready to play or not, but her eyes are wide and unfocused as she stares at me, clearly in her own world for the moment.

"Welp! I'll take your silence as a yes then.~ Now, what to play, what to play.~" I ponder out loud, tapping my finger to my chin to sell the image of deep thought.

Really, I'm just buying time, and as planned, I stalled long enough that the next person to speak isn't one of those in my immediate surroundings, but a voice from the back, rapidly pushing his way through the crowd to get closer.

"Carrot! Carrot are you ok?" Root shouts out as he barges forward, moving straight to Carrot and repeatedly glancing down at her bandaged arm.

Wait a minute, didn't I break her legs?

I'm pretty sure I did, but parahumans exist, so they probably had some method to heal her quickly, as it is evidently not some kind of regeneration, otherwise her arm, which I assume was injured by Crawler, wouldn't be bandaged up and limp as it is.

However, rather than being relieved by his presence, seeing him next to her just seems to cause her to become even more fearful than before.

I feel my grin grow a little bit wider at the realisation that she understands what is about to happen.

"Aha!" I exclaim while snapping one of my hands and pointing a finger up as if I just had an amazing insight, "Root! Glad you could join us!~ Well then Carrot, you have been nominated by Crawler, and my test for you shall be thus. Either you kill everyone here except for Root, or, you stand still and let me kill him.~"

I know it would normally be more traumatising to get her to do the killing instead, but that's shallow thinking and also exactly why I thought the Nine were tacky.

There are more things to consider.

After all, just the other day, I stood before her and her friends and family, then I walked past her and killed one of them while she just stood there and did nothing.

No doubt, that's a traumatic thing. Something she's no doubt had nightmares about.

So I think it's fair to assume that anything that, say, mirrors the event completely would probably have the most impact.

That way she is not only experiencing the trauma of this moment, but also the memory of the trauma from a couple days ago.

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵, more than anything, is what Jack lacks. Attention to detail. He's all focused on what can break a person that he doesn't bother to consider how to do it 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘺.

He's like a wrecking ball instead of a few small, strategically placed explosives.

Either way, my words have a visible effect on everyone present. The normals all suddenly get even more nervous, looking between myself and the two Wards.

While the teens in question are both staring each other in the eye, silently conversing.

I almost fail to hold back a bark of laughter when I see Root give Carrot a small, shaky smile, which she accepts with a weak nod of the head as tears start gathering in her eyes.

Man, these hero types are too 𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘺.

Just give them an ultimatum and they'll keep picking the 'greater good', sacrificing themselves or their loved ones for the sake of some random strangers.

Weirdos.

Neither of them say anything, but they both look defiantly at me, chins raised high as if giving up is something to be proud of.

So with a smirk on my lips, I walk up to Root, making sure to match my pace to what it was when I killed the other guy, whatever his name was.

Again, I stop right in front of the boy, and I look at him with mockery in my eyes.

"Do you regret your choice of profession?" My question is whispered softly and kindly, perfectly replicating the effect of what I said to the other guy.

I can see the recognition form in his eyes, but he doesn't look away from me, causing him to miss Carrot's eyes blowing even wider as she stumbles back a step as if physically struck.

"No. I could never regret being a Hero." His words make me smile a genuine smile as he unknowingly helps me out by playing along, though he is significantly less of a pussy about it all.

"Neat. Any last words then, 𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘰?" I ask with far more interest than last time, greatly looking forward to the finale of this little show.

Root knows what is coming, but he doesn't falter, which is somewhat admirable. Instead, he just takes a deep breath and closes his eyes as he shouts out his final words.

"Yeah. Fu-𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬!"

My hands blur and his neck spins a full 360 before he can finish his words, interrupted at the same moment as Batguy(?) was.

But then, the world shakes and changes.

My mind flies away from the earth and through the skies.

I see my entire planet floating through the cosmos, dancing around like a brilliant marble. Beauty in a universe of desolation.

I see two beings, two.. Entities, crystalline fractals of nigh infinite possibility, swimming through the infinite blackness of the galaxy with purpose.

One of the Entities reaches a tendril of Something forward and it wraps around Earth for a moment and a century all at once before returning to the mass.

The Entities fly closer, vaguely defined goals of fear and survival driving them forward.

I watch as a Shard of the great creatures breaks off and is sent hurtling towards the Great Sandbox, so miniscule in comparison to the galaxy within which it resides.

As the Shard is falling, it seems to morph, it's flowing, ever changing crystalline surface shaping itself to form a basic, feminine face.

Then, it 𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘴 at me.

Suddenly, the world snaps back into focus and I become aware of the all consuming 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯 wrecking my entire body.

I try to understand what is going on, pushing aside the memory for the moment to focus on the present, but I cannot see and all I can feel is pain.

But then the pain disappears and my regeneration rapidly fixes me up, returning my sight within seconds, allowing me to look around.

The first thing I notice is that the ground is soft and grainy, like sand but even finer.

The second thing I notice is the dozen or so corpses around me, each one looking as if they were hit by the worlds largest sledgehammer, with every single fibre of their bodies completely... shattered.

Ah. I see.

Moving quickly, I don't bother getting to my feet and just use my limbs to launch myself a decent distance away, spinning to face where I jumped from mid-air.

Sitting inside a ring of fine granules at least ten metres across, surrounded by broken bodies while cradling one in her arms, is Carrot.

She is silently crying on her knees as she holds Root's mangled body close to her and rocks back and forth.

I find myself just standing there in shock for a minute, hardly even noticing the normals around us running away as I stare at the ring of destruction around her.

She Triggered. 𝘈𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯.

She 𝘚𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘛𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥.

Holy fuck.

I don't even know what to say, double triggering is like a myth, even if it's known to be true.

Because Second Triggers tend to not live very long. In fact, I have literally only ever heard of one person living for longer than two weeks after Second Triggering and that's Narwhal, a hero with The Guild.

Now, this situation was most definitely not what I was expecting, but this is way better so I'm not going to complain. The question is, what changed?

Second Triggers always change up the power, or add something, maybe remove a limiter.

Well, there's one obvious change in that her Striker power seems to have turned into a Shaker power, which is incredibly deadly. It's range doesn't seem to be too big at least, but now she's like Hatchet Face in that if you get to close to him you generally just die, except she doesn't need to use a weapon.

...And her power can fuck up people like me who are mostly unaffected by power nullification.

The real question is whether anything else changed, and that's not something I can tell without her doing something other than mourning.

Though, while she's distracted, what was that vision thing that happened?

I don't remember anything like that when I triggered. Does it only happen to people 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 whoever's triggering?

Wait, what was even in the vision? What did I see?

I try my hardest to pull on the memory, to hold it in my head, but like water it slips through my fingers, only leaving me with scraps of something Large. Huge beyond our ability to comprehend.

I don't know what it is, what it represents or what it even looks like, I just remember something so big that I felt like nothing but dust, and then I remember... a grin?

Something, someone? Grinning at me in a way that almost feels familiar, like a strange mix of déjà vu and pareidolia.

I don't know. I can't understand it and I don't really care for existentialism, especially when something so much more interesting is happening right in front of me.

She's already passed my test, but considering the situation, I see no reason not to play the Devil on her shoulder.

With that in mind, I circle around her, making sure to keep my distance because while I 𝘤𝘢𝘯 tank her power and be fine after, it's not exactly 𝘧𝘶𝘯.

Pain is only fun in small amounts, like with Tiger. Losing a finger is painful enough to enhance the experience without ruining it.

Anyway, no need to get distracted.

Standing behind her, I spend a moment to think about what to say, and when I decide, my words come out as a faint whisper, truly sounding like the whispers of the Devil.

"It's your fault you know.~ It's your fault for obeying those faceless figures of bureaucracy who see you as nothing but a number.~ He could still be alive if you'd have just had the nerve to save him.~ After all, you don't know these people.~ Who are 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺, compared to 𝘩𝘪𝘮?~ Why do those nobodies get to live, while the people who actually 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 fall and crumble around you?~ Where is the 𝘑𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦 in that?~ If only you were free.~ Free from orders, from morals and what's right or wrong.~ If you were free from all of this, they would all still be alive.~ You never would have lost them.~ All you have to do, is break free.~"

I think that was a pretty good speech, and though I am behind her, I can tell enough from her shoulders to tell that she heard my every word, and I'm pretty sure they're having the desired effect, at least a little.

Eh, whatever, I've done enough. We'll see how that all pans out later I guess. I just hope she doesn't end up a disappointment after all of this.

I have high expectations.

With one last look over my shoulder, I leave, grabbing a corpse as I do so for a quick snack.

However, as I am hopping through the city on my way back to Crawler, I see something out of the corner of my eye and immediately change my mind about checking up on him.

Out in the distance, I caught sight of Siberian for just a moment, and I wanna see how she's doing.

Actually, her test should be ending soon, so I guess I can stick with her until then, because I have just had yet another hilarious idea.

I'm sure Sibby will smile when she hears it.

Ahhh, life is good.

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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

Poor Lusia, if only she understood what she saw then she wouldn't call Carrot 'something so much more interesting' XD

Ah well, it's not something that will have any bearing on her life for a while, if it ever even will, idk where this story is going.

Oh, for all my readers who don't know jack about Worm, uhhh, don't worry about it XP

You know, I really want to write a gamer fic, but I really just can't be assed to deal with all the system shit of putting things in bold and cantering and keeping track of shit.

(5+)Advanced chapters with the links below!

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