Origin 1.5

Salvatore

Evening

The Docks

April 6th

My memories of Elder Scrolls alchemy were spotty at best, and if we were reliant on my half-remembered lore, we would have been screwed. Thankfully, where my recollections of the setting failed me, Angelo's newfound burst of alchemical knowledge didn't. We could come to a more concrete understanding of the practice between the two of us.

When you got down to the base essence of the field, there were different ways of accessing the chemo-magical properties of various substances. Most of them were plants and materials available in our world, with some searching. Unfortunately, many more arcane concoctions would likely stay out of our access for some time until we get materials that Angelo can experiment with.

Most of the tools of the trade could be found in any half-decent chemistry lab. For obvious reasons and my voiced intent to stay off the radar, we had to make do with hunting for a drug lab to raid. Not for the drugs but for the cookware and other equipment inside. Potentially a first for the Brockton Bay Cape scene that a drug lab would be hit up for what was cooking the drugs, rather than the substances themselves.

Mortar and pestle for grinding out reagents, a retort for distilling the brew and magnifying its effects, calcinator for amplifying the positives and negatives, and an alembic used for decreasing the worst consequences of a concoction. Besides the mortal and pestle, everything else was technically optional…

Knowing my brother, he would do his best to be a perfectionist.

"Sword, or no sword?" I asked, as we stood at the back of the van. "I love it, don't get me wrong, but it's so fucking big. I'm worried it won't fit through doorways and stuff."

Even through my grumbles, there was a low level of satisfaction in me just staring at the Buster Sword. There was never such a thing as too big regarding swords. In my defense, I grew up on a very steady diet of JRPG's, the type that would inevitably confuse my traditional Italian mother when she came in to watch me play one.

It only took Angelo a beat of silence to respond.

"Bring it," he sighed, leaning forward to adjust a duffel bag filled with plastic Walmart bags of powdered bone meal. After he was satisfied that they wouldn't spill, he stepped back and tilted his head. "I've found it kinda odd that we haven't run into at least one vigilante or hero this past week of selling dope. Our luck probably won't hold out for much longer. Best to stay strapped, even if your strap is a six-foot-long slab of metal. Worst case scenario, we strap it to the undercarriage."

I couldn't find any faults in that logic. "Got it. I'm sure we'll get lucky and run into someone interesting, though," I reassured my brother. "Maybe a jolly fight for our lives, to really get the heart pounding."

"Maybe we'll even run into Glory Girl," I smirked. "Get your wish granted about having your head crushed between her thighs."

Angelo paused, and an intrigued brow arch had him looking very curious at the thought.

"Not so bad, brother, as far as pre-raid motivation goes. Something tells me she 'prolly reads a few- what do you call them? 'Enemies to Lovers' web-fiction?" he chuckled through his black surgical mask, stepping over to the side of the van in order to give me room to equip my big ass blade properly. The polished gleam of his freshly oiled Glocks shone from the dark holsters beneath the sides of his armpits.

That only got a derisive snort from me. "You sure that just ain't your wishful thinking talking?" I genuinely had no idea where Vicky fell on the spectrum in terms of corruption. For some characters, it really wouldn't take much to bring to the side of villainous intentions. Lily went rogue for her lesbian girlfriend, which was a real queen move.

Other characters had moralities that could best be described as arcane in their composition. The only reason Sophia Hess wasn't an outright villain was a nebulous sense of responsibility to her community. Make her abandon that much, or twist her neuroses in another direction, and you have a recipe for a cold-blooded shooter.

Or maybe I was just full of shit. I had to remind myself time and time again that the characters I read about on the screen weren't just black-and-white caricatures anymore. They were people, with all of the damning complexity that entailed. Presuming my knowledge from before would translate perfectly was a fool's errand.

Angelo, for his part, merely shrugged his shoulders with such nonchalant confidence that I almost felt bad for Dean Stansfield. "If she isn't into criminals now, she will be soon. That is all that matters."

"We're burning moonlight…" I sighed, hefting up my blade. "Let's find our poor, unfortunate victims and get this done."

Excitement glimmered in his eyes. "I agree. Verso I cieli, Corvo."

The raven appeared in a spark of blue magic, nuzzling its cheek against Angelo's gloved hand before soaring up into a cloudless sky as dark as its feathers.

And just like that, the hunt was on.

Moving counterclockwise from the abandoned parking garage we left the van in, Angelo and I made good time, sprinting through the alleyways and keeping ourselves flush with the seedy backstreets of the Docks. My brother's newly upgraded body initially surprised both of us with its flat-out superhuman speed. Still, Cursed Energy reinforcement didn't fall too short of the first level of 'Divine Physiology'. Without a doubt, if observed from on-high, we'd be categorized as low-level Movers to anyone with any semblance of common sense.

As it stood, in this instance, speed was exactly what we needed.

In the realm of scouting, Corvo was unmatched. Though it struggled to stay ahead of our full-tilt sprints whenever we would playfully race each other through short straights, the raven acted as our 'infiltrator's infiltrator', zooming through the broken windows of any suitably shady or foul-smelling building and confirming whether or not it was an actual cooking lab.

Darting through alleyways and side streets, it took around twenty minutes of a concerted effort to find a promising target. The townhouse had seen better days, with a yellowing lawn of patchy grass and a few Christmas decorations. A mostly deflated Santa Claus lay limply near the crumbling concrete steps leading up toward the building, paint peeling off the sides and desperately needing retiling with new shingles.

"Loud and quick, or quiet and slow?" I absentmindedly asked as we observed the home from the shadows.

Corvo had done his due diligence, creeping inside through an open window. Besides the overwhelming scents of chemicals that Angelo had recognized, you could always tell a cookhouse from a ways off. They felt less like a proper residence to anyone who observed them.

Only after a few seconds of blank staring did Angelo blink back into focus, narrowing his eyes at me. "They're cooking. Three women on the equipment in the basement, six guys smoking crack in the living room - a few guns and blades scattered around, but they're fucking high, two more eating in the kitchen, and…"

He blinked, pulling his mask down to expose the disgusted sneer twisting his lips. "Two prostitutes upstairs, having sex with a… man-baby? I think this is Mush. There's period pads, syringes, and what looks like broken plaster and other garbage hanging off his body."

It took a lot to make my brother genuinely put-off, but clearly whatever he'd seen had done it for him.

My eyebrows furrowed together as I tilted my head down. "Is it that bad? We've seen some pretty fucked up stuff."

"There's a lot of feminine hygiene products, Sal, and these women are not clean. The smell itself…"

I gagged from the description, raising my hand over my face. "STOP! I don't want to hear anything more about it, please." There were things I didn't want in my brain, and that was one of them.

It's better to try and explain what Mush could do to my brother. "Mush has a pretty nasty power. Changer form, takes inorganic matter and draws it into himself to get bigger and bigger. Durable enough to take some hits from Glory Girl."

Which isn't an unimpressive amount of tanking for some random Changer. Most of the Merchants had decent powers, but they weren't very good at using them. "I don't know how rapidly he grows, though. Never really came up a ton in the story."

"He's pretty big now," Angelo shuddered, pulling his mask back up. "But the 'inorganic matter' collected so far is just detritus."

"Dude's fucking in his Changer form?" I grimaced. "That's nasty."

"You'll see."

"I'd rather not."

Hidden beneath the shadows, the Wizard reached down to his side and pulled his homemade spellbook from the dark satchel tied there. He'd made the purchase a few days ago, claiming that 'preparing his spells' went faster with an actual physical tone to encode his research and magic into. Considering just how much scribbling he did in the thick black journal, I could only take his word for it.

"… I've a couple buffing spells prepared tonight," he murmured, voice muffled beneath the fabric of his mask. "Would you rather speed or invisibility? The women downstairs are naked and exhausted, so we'll focus from the ground up. Assuming you or I take invisibility, that one could sneak upstairs to ambush Mush while the other focuses fire on the druggies below."

That was a good question. He wasn't good enough to cast Greater Invisibility yet, so there wasn't much of a point in picking it. The spell would break the moment I punched someone, which didn't endear it to me. "I'll leave the invisibility to you, if you're hankering for it. What's the speed spell?"

"Longstrider," was his immediate response as he thumbed the book to another page. "The speed increase isn't exponential, but it lasts a decently long time."

That was a good one for me. The boost wasn't that big, but compared to how fast I could move when reinforcing my body? It was a tidy upgrade to my ability to close the distance.

"I'll take that," I confirmed, nodding his way. "Combined with the reach from my blade, we'll have this in a stitch."

It'd be tricky to prevent myself from bisecting people or delimbing them. Theoretically, I could avoid that damage by carefully maneuvering the blade or using the flat side. The part of me that was a fully trained swordsman understood implicitly that it was wishful thinking, a best-case scenario. When you were in the thick of things, fighting for your life…

Well, combat was rarely that simple and clean.

With only a glance down at his open tome, Angelo nodded once and began quietly speaking words of arcane power.

Until you experienced magic first-hand yourself, it was almost impossible to describe. All those scenes from anime, fantasy movies, and video games - the ones where an invisible wind comes out of nowhere, and faerie lights begin twinkling in the eyes of the wizard? To some extent, they were true. An almost electrical feeling ran down my skin as my brother pressed his empty hand against my shoulder, previously hazel glare glowing a bright, luminescent purple.

And then I felt the magic take hold.

A heat bordering on discomfort surrounded my entire lower body, the static-like feeling from before darting from my spine down to the tips of my toes. The muscles in my legs felt different, like the stretchy satisfaction from a long, arduous workout.

Kicking out one of my feet, I grinned wide and rolled my neck in a tight circle. "Am I good to go all axe murderer with the sword?" I inquired. "Plan is, you go for Mush, I'll go for the other idiots?"

I'd even keep it restrained, given that we were trying to keep the cooking gear intact. Going as crazy as my standard tactics wouldn't work.

Clasping his book shut with finality, Angelo tilted his head. "Depends. Any upsides to keeping Mush alive?"

That question was enough to make me stop and think. Was there much reason to keep Mush alive? Squealer, at least, also benefited from being the most valuable kind of parahuman. Keeping her alive, sobered, and active would make her our force multiplier. It would be even better if we could recruit other Tinkers, several of whom were in the city.

Mush and Skidmark didn't even remotely have the same value—decent powers attached to some genuine idiots. "No, there's not much reason, but it's a big escalation. Breaks the Unwritten Rules in all sorts of ways."

Those rules were stupid, yes. But they protected us just as much as they protected them, and making it clear we wouldn't play by them was a big statement. "If you're going to kill a Cape, at least make it less obvious to track back to us. Like, I dunno, we set the drug lab on fire on the way out."

It would not take much for an illegal lab to go up. When the fire marshal went in to investigate, they'd find that it was a drug lab and make it a pretty open-and-shut case—well, unless they were given a reason to hand it over to the PRT.

How hard could Mush be to beat, though?

Angelo was suspiciously quiet for a few moments as he turned his head back to the junk-filled front yard of the two-floor crackhouse. When he turned back to me, his eye had a different look - a more thoughtful one.

"I'd rather our breaking of the Unwritten Rules happens in a more impactful way than killing some reject drugged-up dumpster baby. Still, I've been wanting to make a breakthrough in something, and if he is as durable as you say…"

He cracked his neck to the side and let out a low sigh. I could see the grin through the creases of the mask. "I have magic to keep him unconscious when I'm through with him. I'll go up the side of the house instead, no Invisibility, while you go 'axe murderer' downstairs. They've guns, fratello, and you are nowhere near faster than a speeding bullet. Be smart. If I see clear shots I can take from outside, I will take them."

I knew from experience now that the ostentatious wording of his perk's 'perfect aim' was not just for show. I'd seen him, as a showing to me, shoot the literal wing off of a fly that had been sitting on his unattended Ugly Bob burger. Then he shot through the bullet itself that had been embedded in the drywall.

"I'll be fine," I reassured him. "A Jujutsu Sorcerer should be able to take a few shots from a gun at least." If nothing else, I doubted I was going to die anytime soon if I got hit. Between that and my bigass sword to use as moving cover, we'd be good.

With our plan of attack all set up, I moved toward the front door, while my brother cut around to the back of the building. He knew the signal to start his infiltration was bound to be loud, knowing me, and I had no intention of letting him down now.

CE flooded my body as I concentrated, rearing back with my sword and striking hard. Forget about cutting through the front door; my Buster Sword cleaved through the threshold and a good chunk of the wall around it from the force of my impact.

Wood and debris flew as a manic laugh erupted from my mouth. Accompanying it was the loud crash as I all but dented the front of the home from my blow. Not enough to take down the entire front half of the building, but enough to carve open a good-sized hole into the living room as I rushed inside.

"OPEN UP, FUCKERS!"

Getting attention was never the hard part for me. It was usually what came after when I had to deal with the consequences of my actions.

Like my brother said, six guys were spread around the living room. Three were on the couch, two were on recliners, all of them in some state of disarray. One of them seemed to be bugging out while huffing on a pipe, while his Glock rested on the coffee table next to him. They all had frantic, wide eyes before the world felt like it bled into slow motion.

One of them began to stand out, reaching for his machete, mouth opening wide. "CAAAAP-!" Fast, I guess, the same way anyone hopped up on stimulants could be. Fast enough to beat me with Longstrider on my steps?

Not in a million years.

I wasn't at the speed where my movement was a blur yet, but it was still outside the boundaries of what was naturally possible for a human. Amplified by CE and spellcraft, I was on the machete wielder within seconds, the sharp whistle of my blade through the air. In that space between breaths, the flat side of my blade was impacted against his ribs.

If I had used enough strength, I was fairly sure that I could still have split him in twain just from raw might. Thankfully for him, the impact was only hard enough to break his ribs and send him flying against the wall. He slammed against the surface, a pained shout erupting from his mouth as he crushed some old family portraits against the wall, before falling to the ground in a slump.

The rest of the men were left gobsmacked and shocked for a few precious seconds, staring my way. All I could do was offer another low chuckle, raising my blade in preparation for another swing. "Are you idiots just going to stand there, or are you going to make this a little interesting?"

Damn my brother for taking the engaging fight. Oh well. Next parahuman we ran into for a fight, I was calling dibs.

"What are you fuckers waiting for?!" Bug-eyed menace with a Glock yelled, fumbling for his gun. "Shoot him!"

With that bit of incitement, the thugs didn't need much more to get moving. Thankfully, this living room was only so big, and the Buster Sword was stupidly long. Practically all of them were within my range, with relatively little effort.

I lifted my arm, and the sword followed, practically sweeping it in a high arc in a circle. Three of them were quick enough on the ball to dodge, backpedaling out of the way or getting low as they moved to arm themselves. The other two weren't so lucky.

"Oh fu-" One of them tried to spit out, only to go flying, screaming bloody murder when my blade struck his shoulder, the cleaver-sized edge splitting the flesh to the joint. His companion fared slightly better, a broad yet shallow cut to the chest the worst he got.

However, being struck with enough strength to be sent soaring through the window took him out of the fight.

Three down! Three more to g-

POP! POP! POP!

My body began to move by itself. Call it that plucky, unnamable shonen battle instinct that everyone in a battle manga seemed to have. Whatever you wished to name it, it was made the hairs on the back of my neck raise as I stepped to the side.

Not quick enough, as a bullet slammed into my arm. It flattened, falling to the ground quickly enough but not managing to pierce my skin through my reinforcement. That didn't mean it didn't hurt like a motherfucker, though. I had to imagine that the only reason why I wasn't outright wounded more seriously was between the CE Reinforcement, and the robustness from my other perk adding together.

It'd be enough to leave a nasty bruise in the morning, though.

The bug-eyed man was the lucky fool who'd gotten a shot off, continuing to squeeze the trigger on his Glock. Even with the throbbing pain in my arm, I didn't see a point in allowing him to shoot me again. Just tanking that singular gunshot had been more costly on my reserves than I'd initially assumed.

Disappointing, yet not all that unexpected given the situation. Twisting my blade down, I held it so it was covering most of my body perpendicularly, bullets ricocheting off the metal surface. As bad as the pistol was, one of the other two was reaching to the side of the couch and setting up what looked to be a sawed-off shotgun.

That, and the other Glock being produced, were too many guns for my liking. It was time to stop playing around and get serious.

"Alright," I breathed out. "Lucky shot."

This time around, I wasn't trying to be anything other than a dervish as I dived in. Shotgun guy was first up, because he was the most dangerous target in the room. My CE surged, irritation and frustration fueling me in that moment, as I crossed the distance between us. One hand was on the Buster Sword, the other simply manhandling the unfortunate man.

My goal? Putting him between me, and the other bullets about to come my way. A fact he realized as he saw his 'friends' were not putting down their guns. "W-Wait, wait, wai-!"

A staccato burst of gunfire erupted out, slamming into the man, and whatever managed to pierce through his body was stopped by my blade. I freely admitted that I was using him as a human shield, which was not my classiest moment. Compared to the pain of being shot again…well, I picked my poison.

The man in front was dead, or dying, bleeding out from half a dozen different wounds. Not my problem, so much as the thugs who were empty. And that meant they were oh so vulnerable in that moment. Dropping him, I advanced again. This time, I wasn't even trying to use the flat of my blade.

I had to end things quickly and cleanly.

A few Longstrider-enhanced steps put me within range of the last two men. It felt like the world was slowing down around me, as I swung my sword barely putting any CE into the strike, and catching both men as I did so. My reward?

A splatter of blood, quick and hot, spurted from the wounds. I might have cut them in twain if I'd been reinforced, but instead, I'd only left the kind of gashes that undoubtedly took them out of the fight as they'd dropped to the ground, wounded enough to be nonissues.

That win wasn't as clean as I would have liked, admittedly, but it was also on me. I'd gotten a little cocky, forgetting that my capabilities weren't so faultless as I'd thought. Something to keep in mind as I cleared the rest of the house…

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Angelo

Evening

The Docks

April 6th

A Few Minutes Ago…

It was the sound of splintering wood, collapsing drywall, and maniacal laughter that heralded the start of my assault.

I came through the grimy second story window feet first, announcing my arrival with an explosion of glass shards that showered the disgusting mass of garbage and dirty, sweat-stained flesh humping like chipmunks against the brown mattress. It had been hard to distinguish each individual whilst I'd been borrowing Corvo's senses, but now that I was actually there in person, with the moonlight spilling out from the hole behind me, I could see every revolting, stomach-turning detail so vividly now.

… Honestly, judging by the foam fizzing at the corner of her herpes-infested lips, I was sure one of the women was straight up dead.

It nearly made me reevaluate my decision not to go for the kill.

"A-aye, who th'… Who th' fuck turned on th' lights?!"

The best way to describe Mush was 'pink-skinned ET'. Short and hideously ugly, with grease brown hair that was balding in the middle, a bulging pot belly that made him look malnourished, and two twig-like arms that seemed better suited for a toddler than a middle-aged man. Large, moist, red-rimmed eyes blearily squinted up at me as he pushed away the sobbing, half-conscious woman slurping at his tiny dick, knocking her into a pile of garbage.

The whole fucking bedroom was just trash. A massive pile of disease and shit.

As I stared, my right hand drifted down to my component pouch.

"You. You ain't…" Mush's eyes widened, and he shoved himself off the bed and into his collection of filth. "You ain't one of ours! What th' fuck is going on?!"

I could've spoken to him, maybe play up the dramatism a little bit, but the scent in here was damn near gut-wrenching, and I didn't want to open my mouth, masked or not.

So I unholstered one of my pistols with my free left hand and shot him in the shoulder.

That seemed to wake him up.

"AAAGHHHH! Wha- wh-… You fuckin' bastard!" Mush wailed in his watery, high-pitched voice. His skinny pink arms suddenly split into ropes of fleshy, bloodless tendrils, lengthening by several feet and sliding over the overabundance of junk in the room. The rancid mass of used pads, needles, and broken plaster and debris surged along his new extensions, packing in close to his small, hairless body and forming the world's most biohazardous body armor.

When he charged at me with his new trash body, heroin needles glinting beneath the moonlight, my lips were already moving.

"Glissare."

Beneath my boots, thick and pungent, a huge puddle of magical grease suddenly slickened the wooden floorboards of the large bedroom. Having already planned this course of action, I skated back on the heels of my feet, gliding through the slippery substance easily as a charging Mush scrambled and scratched for purchase with his garbage-laden legs.

"Sh-shit, I ain't even use no lube!" He screamed, frantically waving his arms in a vain attempt to regain balance. His arms broke out into those vein-like tendrils again, wryly slapping against broken furniture in order to stop his forward momentum, but all that resulted in was more trash to add to the heap.

The small of my lower back slammed against the window sill, the impact softened by my Mage Armor, and I allowed myself to roll backwards out of the bedroom window, pressing myself down flat against the shingled rooftop outside.

Another spell came to mind, and I prepared myself. I needed to time this right.

Mush was screaming as he followed suit at a much more uncontrollable clip, damn near shaking the house as his newfound bulk slammed against the broken windowsill and shattered the weakened plaster, wood, and drywall surrounding it. I rolled over on my side, one hand stretched out towards the grass below, as the garbage goblin went flying ass-over kettle over the side of the house, half-absorbed pieces of wood and metal following his screeching form down to the ground.

It was only thanks to my divine-blessed reflexes that I was able to get my next spell off in time.

"Gravitus!"

This time, the expenditure of magic was noticeable. It made sense, considering I used the spell at Second Level.

WHOMP!

A deep, unnatural, distorted sound, not unlike that of compressed air being released from a can, forced the hairs at the back of my neck on end.

Gravity itself harkened my call, and Mush couldn't have avoided it even if he wanted to.

A translucent sphere of black surrounded his falling form and a good portion of the rotted Christmas sled he was about to crush, and in that very same instance, he abruptly descended. There was no conceivable lull between those two points - one moment he'd just started falling from a height of around 25 feet, and the next, an ear-splitting bang shook birds from the trees, poor Rudolph was scattered across the yard, and Mush was wheezing in a pile of warped and crushed garbage.

Down, but not out. Even now, as his exposed chest rattled and he struggled to breathe through bruised and battered ribs, I could see his tendrils slowly snaking out through the dark sphere created by my Magnify Gravity spell. Rudolph's remains were slowly pulled back in to add extra protection to his lower extremities, while more tendrils tried dragging a child's Barbie four-wheeler in for chest armor.

I found myself tiredly grinning at the oddity of it.

Capes were fucking weird.

'But I have my goal,' I thought, rolling over the side of the rooftop and hanging from the shingles. Without an ounce of hesitation, I let go and allowed Bet's natural gravity to take hold, dropping fearlessly into the sphere of darkness Mush was attempting to recover in.

My goal being, of course, to finally crack how best to blend gun and magic.

The impact of falling twenty odd feet was jarring, going right through my Mage Armpr and sending minor spikes of pain through my legs, but this body was no longer base human, and I was no stranger to pain. Mush groaned as my boots slammed into the bright pink material covering his chest, opening his mouth in a yellow-toothed snarl to scream something at me-

"BRAVO!"

Corvo's overhead screech was the only warning I received. My bird was me, and I trusted myself with my life.

Leaping backwards just in the nick of time was what saved me from the meth needles embedded in Mush's first sucker punch.

What it didn't save me from was the second one.

Glass shards and empty syringes, empowered by several feet of hard-packed dirt, wood, and other detritus, slammed into my body with enough brute force to rattle loose something white and bony inside of my stomach - I think people called them 'ribs', maybe? I sucked in air through my teeth, landing in a stumbling slide that sent even more pain shooting through my midsection.

Quickly, I felt along my abs. No protrusions. No broken skin, meaning my magic held up. Just a fracture, then, or a really bad bruise.

"You retarded motherfucker," Mush shouted, clambering up to his new body's full height. He had to be at or damn near eight feet tall now, his armor of trash complete with a Barbie chest piece, Rudolph greaves, and what looked like a trashcan lid melted down into a football helmet. "You fucked with th' wrong ones, bitch! Don' know what kinda freak powers you got, but it's gonna take-"

A flash of anger heated my blood.

"Leave the monologuing for the smart and powerful, brutto. You are neither, so you keep your lips shut and be put down like a dog."

I slid the Glock 19 from my shoulder holster, though my eyes never strayed away from my disgusting opponent. If I wanted to unlock the secrets of Bladesinging in this fight, I would need my left hand free to cast spells. But, just in case it helped…

With my left hand, I reached into my pocket, grabbed the secondhand mp3 player I'd bought from RadioShack, and clicked the 'play' button.

Peak spilled from the speakers.

"What the fuck?" Mush hesitated, flexing his large fists. "You some kinda fruitcake, guy? This a dance or somethin'?!"

I blinked, slowly. "Could be. That may actually help."

"… Faggot-"

CRACK!

The bullet plinked off of his lightly armored temple, dazing the bastard but otherwise not doing much damage. I didn't need it to, though. Not yet at least.

The fight was on.

I dashed towards him at speeds my old body could never have reached, the cool breeze of the night air filling my lungs with the scent of mildew and depression. Mush howled something coarse, lumbering forward to swing a forearm the size of my entire body directly at my bruised torso. Trash fell to the ground in the wake of the clothesline, crusted tissues and dirty plates flying in my direction, and I shot them out the air as I slid on my knees beneath Mush's arm.

Barely even a second had passed before I kicked back onto my feet, twisting around and letting loose with a word of magic.

"Glacies Telum!"

Hoarfrost suffused my free left hand, cold magic shrouding the tips of my fingers as a shard of glistening white ice formed between the slender digits. I twisted around a slow and powerful kick, absently placing three bullets into the tan ceramic material holding the foot to the ankle. The brittle material cracked and broke apart, spilling shards of pottery and wilted flowers across the ground, and Mush's left leg collapsed.

He fell to one knee, slapping at the ground in frustration. It would take his powers precious seconds to reshape the trash in his leg into a new foot.

"You rotten fucktard!"

I was getting in the fucking groove, now.

I leaped backwards to gain a bit of distance, and I could've sworn that my body reacted quicker, more gracefully than before. My left hand flashed, the glittering Ice Knife sailing through the air as perfect and straight as any bullet. It slipped into the gaps between Mush's right shoulder pauldron, sinking in several previous inches before halting.

The human goblin glanced down at his shoulder, snorted, and began raising himself up on his new, smaller left foot. "Shitty ass powers-"

And that was when the knife shattered.

This time when he screamed, Mush's voice was filled with genuine agony. His massive body staggered to the side, nearly tripping over a rusted swing set. His entire arm and chest was frostbitten by the explosion of ice magic, the wood and plastic armor there turning slick and foggy with the cold.

CRACK!

CRACK!

CRACK!

They broke apart beneath my barrage of bullets, revealing reddened and blistering skin.

I pushed the advantage. My magic was beginning to run low, but so was Mush's stamina and willpower. He was forced onto the back foot, pressed further and further away from the house as I came at him from all angles with gun and magic. A Firebolt would heat the metal of his helmet, but in that next moment, I was twisting around to his side and peppering his less protected flank with 9mm rounds. I had a few spare mags in my satchel, so ammunition wasn't an issue for me.

Within a couple minutes he was beginning to run out of his good junk, stone and metal being replaced by loosely packed dirt and discarded plastic. All the while, my speed increased, my focus sharpening in intensity until all I could hear was the singing of Con Te Partirò and the accompanying choir of my Glock 19. Before long I was punctuating and timing the instrumental of the song with the impact of bullets against armor, harmonizing vocally even though my mp3 had already been dropped and crushed during one of my many rolls.

It was only when I finally had Mush on his back, his armor destroyed and shattered across the uncut yard, did I realize what was going on.

I'd found my Song. It wasn't one of blades, sure, but it was my song nonetheless. My body felt as free as when Corvo and I was one, and I could feel the magic thrumming through my body like a hyperactive hummingbird, inciting me to harmonize and move. To flow, and sprint, and kill.

But instead, I allowed my newfound technique to fade away, relinquishing my grasp on the magic. With its loss came an immediate sense of lethargy and sluggishness, because even my new body was considered slow when compared to my Bulletsinging.

"Y-you know Skid's not gonna take this shit, r-right?! If he don't know now, he's gonna know soon!" The little bastard screamed, scrambling away from me on his back like some sort of slug. The piss covering his gross, naked body definitely made the comparison accurate. "I know who you are! You think he's gonna let you live after you betrayed him?! I can help. I-I can get-"

"Shut up, mouse. I'm thinking," I sneered, kicking the diminutive druggie. I'd gotten quite a few lumps in that fight, not to mention the bruised ribs, and if it wasn't for my Divine Physiology I was sure I'd have a whole list of diseases after everything I'd been forced to touch during the fight.

Fortunately Prestidigitation was amongst the few cantrips I'd prepared. Additionally…

One snap of my finger was all it took for five square feet of dirt and grass to simply disappear from the ground in front of me, followed by an equally large pile appearing to the side.

Mush stirred at my feet, groaning and holding his belly. His eyes shot open wide when I reached down to grab him by the crown of his skull.

"Human beings can survive without oxygen for about… Six minutes before brain failure. Sometimes less, sometimes more," I explained as if I was a teacher, easily ignoring his frantic and pleading whimpers.

"Waitwaitwaitwait!"

I continued as if he'd never said a word. "I consider you less than a human, but you have powers that let you manipulate inorganic matter… kind of. Maybe you'll survive, maybe you won't. Maybe you do, but oxygen deprivation turns you into a brain-dead vegetable. Hell, maybe the cops get here in time and manage to save your life. Either way, can't nobody say I murdered you in cold blood."

Coldly, I tossed him in the shallow grave. He landed hard on his knees, crying out in pain as he bounced against the cold, moist dirt. With half his body covered in frostbite and the other either bruised on bleeding, he was a sorry sight indeed. I would've been slightly more empathetic if I hadn't walked in on him fucking a sobbing prostitute beside an unconscious woman dying or dead from ODing.

Scum like this deserved worse.

"From where you're kneeling, this must seem like an eighteen karat run of bad luck…"

I couldn't fucking help myself.

"N-no…" Mush's large eyes nearly popped out of his head. He scrambled towards the side of the hole, too short and injured to do anything more than scratch at the dirt.

"Truth is," I smiled drily, the expression hidden behind my mask. "The game was rigged from the start."

"NO, FUCK Y-"

Snap.

The pile of dirt reappeared over the whole before raining down, sending Mush flailing and screaming into never ending darkness. Within seconds the ground looked exactly as it had been mere minutes ago, complete with the red wildflower growing in the middle of the grass. Magic was silly like that.

I couldn't help it: I laughed as I made my way back to the townhouse, moreso from finally being able to use a Fallout quote than any notable sense of sadism.

In the sky, keeping a lookout for anyone approaching our location, Corvo shifted positions to keep Mush's grave in his field of view.

That one red flower made it easy.

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"Knock knock," I called out as I entered the house proper, ducking through the broken entrance. "… Jesus, Sal."

It looked like a fucking slaughterhouse.

Now, I wasn't dumb. The Buster Sword was not precisely a blade designed for anything other than brutally cutting through your enemies. But whatever happened here went a little beyond the pale, as I looked over the various bodies sprawled across the living room.

Blood splatter was just about everywhere, the splinters and debris of destroyed furniture crunching underneath my footsteps. Sal was there, holding a box of items underneath one arm and a beer can in the other. Staring back at me, my brother paused, shifting from foot to foot underneath my stare.

"Listen…I got a little carried away. Everyone should be alive…for now." Judging by the pooling blood underneath some of them, that wouldn't stay true for long. But I wouldn't waste any tears for Merchants of all people. They were luckier than having gone against me, given my proclivity to just outright shoot people.

"I'd be a hypocrite to judge," I shrugged my shoulders, carefully stepping over the bleeding man leaking his body fluids all over the shag carpet. I moved briskly, ignoring the slight limp, towards the basement. "Any of the cooks come upstairs during the slaughter?"

He nodded. "I locked them in the bathroom since they weren't armed. Wasn't much of a point in fucking them up if they didn't try to hurt me first. After that, I just gathered as much as I could into this box."

Sal gently jostled the box for emphasis, filled with glassware and other equipment. "I pretty much grabbed whatever looked like it'd be useful for you."

I nodded my head, though I didn't stop moving towards the basement. While Sal was well-read, he didn't have the knowledge of a fantasy alchemist prodigy shoved into his brain, so what 'looks useful' to him could mean that he'd left behind components that looked useless but were, in fact, essential to other aspects of potion making.

Sure enough, either shoved into corners to marinade or hidden on the sides of the table they'd been cooking on, were a few other things that were useful to my goals. He'd taken the beakers, Bunsen burners, and other obvious glassware, but there was no way I was leaving behind the buckets of solvents or the mini-fridge.

I had maybe two more spells in be, one if I used a Second Level spell. That was enough for Tenser's Floating Disk.

When I came back upstairs, it was with an invisible, three foot disk of pure magical force holding practically everything else that had been left in the room - even the table, which had probably been considered too unyieldy to move. Despite the weight, the floating disk stayed floating a fair distance behind me, matching my long strides foot by foot.

"We should split, head back to the van. Mush is… indisposed, and Corvo's watching for trouble, but we've made a lot of noise."

I didn't bother mentioning that 'indisposed' meant buried five feet beneath the dirt. That discussion wouldn't help us get out of here any faster.

[HIDDEN QUEST COMPLETED: FIRST BLOOD]

[DEFEAT YOUR FIRST PARAHUMAN IN COMBAT!]

[REWARD: 1x Moderate Might Perk]

[EXPERIENCE MILESTONE REACHED: FIVE QUESTS COMPLETED]

[REWARD: 1x Minor Erudition Perk]​

The sudden chain of mystical notifications cut my brother off before he could even think to reply. I hesitated, my eyes glancing through the words one more time before I decided to make a smart decision-

And sit my ass down on the couch. Just in time, too, as the two perks hit me back to back.

Wargod's Blessing - Fairy Fencer F

Through the magic of this powerful bracer the holder becomes a force of destruction. The strength of all weapon and magic attacks increases by an incredible degree. A simple fire spell could turn into a searing blaze.

Quick Learner - Final Fantasy XI

Where others may fall behind in their studies you excel. You find it easier to learn new abilities than most, be they magical or mundane in nature. This exists as a form of natural talent for most things you put your mind at trying to learn; after all, even though you may be good at something, natural talent is nothing if not polished.

I was thankful that the rush of power wasn't as drastic as when I'd gotten Divine Physiology.

Outwardly, the only change was the snug, black and silver bracer now girded tightly to my left hand and wrist, squeezed against the slick leather of my glove. It was a somewhat gothic affair, mostly consisting of silver chains and a ring that kept it attached to my middle finger, and the gleam of silver skeletal decor glinted from the top of the palm. With its arrival, I could feel how the magical energy in my body seemed to writhe, an indescribable power flowing through me. Somehow, without a shadow of a doubt, I knew the effects of all of my spell attacks would be considerably stronger. It was a blessing from a Wargod, even if said deity was not any God of mine. The implications were exciting.

And that wasn't all. My mind felt different, too. Swifter, more porous - thoughts flowed smoothly from one to another, and although I'd never been dull in the slightest, I could tell that whatever 'sharpness' I'd possessed before was inconceivably dull compared to how my brain naturally absorbed and parsed knowledge now. The Wizard side of me immediately wanted to delve into my spellbook, try my hand at understanding those damned Level Three spells that I've been making arduously slow progress with for the past week, but-

"Ah, fuck…" My attention was turned toward my brother after my infusion of new abilities, seeing him drop to one knee, face pale as he held out his left arm. Grasped in his hand was some sort of slick-looking, black cube. It didn't look all that notable, though, until it began to morph.

Like living ooze, more like a symbiote, it began to creep and cover his arm in its entirety. The result was a limb that looked downright demonic, black flesh lit up with red lines that glowed with ominous intent. Just being close to it felt wrong, like my brother's arm had turned into the most dangerous thing in the room in seconds.

Tipped with dangerous claws, Sal's breathing was slowed, eyes closed as he brought himself back up to his full height. "Okay," he spoke, swallowing slowly, clawed hand flexing experimentally. "This is…not as bad as I'd thought."

I blinked, slowly holstering the pistol that had fallen into my hand by instinct. "What… the fuck was that, brother?"

"The Soul Eater." He could not have gained a more sinister-sounding perk. "Does what it says on the tin. It eats souls, and I can use that to empower my own. Also can slurp up blood to heal me. It's last power is the most fucked, though."

Did it get worse than eating souls? That was a difficult bar to mantle.

"I can eat memories with it," Sal chuckled, looking down at his clawed hand with a speculative glint. "Basically, I can give someone the ol' mind wipe special."

That had some potential, depending on if we ran into individuals we didn't want to kill but outright subvert. Amnesiac blank slates, pliable for whatever we told them to do? Well, it was arguably a better way of dealing with some foes than just outright killing them, or making an example out of Heroes that might come to stop us.

Morally? I can't say wiping someone's entire history away is, in any way, shape or form, good or even gray. Pretty fucking black, honestly. But I wasn't the squeamish sort, and as long as he didn't get too into his mind about it, neither was Sal. We'd just have to really vet who we let him… eat the memories of.

"Well, outside of those horrifying implications… it looks pretty fucking sweet. Some chicks dig the whole 'amorphous black blob' look, you know?" I pushed myself off of the couch, idly casting Prestidigitation to clean myself of any residual germs right after.

I waggled my brow at him as I walked backward towards the front entrance. "Can you turn it into tentacles, Sal? You may find your love life opening up immensely if so."

That got a snort from him as he shook his head, walking after me. "Nah, it's only an arm. However, if I do lose one somehow, it can be replaced with a complete replacement by the Soul Eater."

A good insurance policy with some of the absolutely busted powers that Sal had talked about here. The number of parahumans with powers that boiled down to "Go fuck yourself, do not pass go, do not collect $200" were relatively few, but they did exist. We'd been lucky so far, since most of our targets had been drug-addled dealers or simple thugs.

I winked. "Judging by the state of this place, that may end up becoming useful sooner than later. Ever think about taking anger management cla-"

The distant, echoing caw of a raven immediately stole my attention.

Immediately, I became we.

From our position in the sky, we saw two figures racing through the sky towards the dilapidated townhouse - one being an athletic-looking teenage boy in a full-bodied, rust red suit, flying through the air at relatively unimpressive speeds, and the other another boy riding on a red and gold hoverboard that matched the aesthetic of his own armored costume. He was faster than the other one by a notable margin, zipping in looping back and forth motions around the flier.

Without a doubt, they were coming towards us.

And I blinked back into my own body, all jokes melting away into a cool professionalism. "We've gotta move fast. Two Wards - Aegis and Kid Win, from what we saw - are heading this way. They're only a couple minutes out."

I turned as I spoke, briskly speeding up and dipping through the hole in the wall as my Floating Disk followed behind us.

My brother grit his teeth, exhaling between through his clench. "We need to get the hell out of here. Kid Win is a joke right now, but Aegis could fuck us up." Which was saying something, that the first Cape that might kick our asses might be a hero.

"Can your crow navigate us a route away from them? Or someplace to hide?" Sal asked, hastily following after me. "None of them should have any crazy tracking abilities."

"Already on it. And… he's a raven."

"Same difference."

Though it was hard to see in the gloom of the night sky, I always knew where my raven was as long as he stayed relatively in the same area. As we spilled out into the front yard and hit the ground in a swift jog, I felt Corvo do a smooth 180 and swoop down in the opposite direction of the Wards, up and over the overgrown fence that would take us further into the Northern Dock's decayed suburbia.

It didn't take much longer than a few tense seconds of boots against ground to reach said fence, and despite it being damn near seven feet tall, a quick hop and vault saw me scale its height and smoothly land in a roll on the other side. I pushed off of my feet with the momentum, forcing myself into a dead sprint across the uncut front yard of another home, and chanced a glance behind me to check on my brother and our pursuers.

Sal didn't have much issue keeping up with me, even with my own upgrades. The problem was that I didn't know where he was on his CE reserves, so presuming he was topped up was the best case scenario, and a rather unlikely one. Meanwhile, our pursuers seemed to clock in on our presence, given the height they were flying at. Kid Win looked back and shouted something at Aegis, who waved his arm forward. Turning back around, Kid Win increased his speed even more.

Between Sal's sword and arm and my floating disk - which thankfully floated over the fence instead of crashing into it, we didn't exactly cut very subtle figures running away at full tilt.

My eyes flashed up to Corvo as thoughts ran rampant through my head.

"There's a shed up ahead, on the side of this house. We've got distance on them," I hissed quickly as I pumped my arms in tandem. A pressure built behind my eyes as I tried to both manage Corvo's senses and my own, but I kept it pushing. "We dart in there, break line of sight, and ambush 'em when they approach. We won't lose them like this."

Spells, spells, spells - I had a few that could work. I wouldn't be able to hurt Aegis, but there was magic to ensnare the mind and the will. I just needed him to get close enough for it to work.

Sal nodded back, as the two of us darted inside of the nearby shed. There was a lock, but my brother just wrenched it off as we entered into the dark space, joining all the yard maintenance supplies in silence. He had his grip on his sword with one hand, and his demonic-looking hand free.

My eyes dulled, and once again we were in the sky, watching.

One…

Two…

Three.

"Swing now, fratello!" I hissed, just as the whirring of servos rumbled right outside of the shed.

The flimsy material of the shed couldn't have stopped my brother before his acquisition of cursed energy. After? He crashed through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man, his blade whistling through the air and all but sinking into Kid Win's hoverboard. He never saw it coming.

"What-?" The Ward was more than a little surprised, understandably so, to have a massive sword come from below and practically cleave through his board. Even more so when he was no longer properly attached to it, the sheer force and momentum keeping him moving as he sailed through the air.

Still, the kid had pretty good armor. He'd be fine, probably, as he skidded across the lawn next door, rolling to a stop. I had my part to play in taking out his very close partner.

"KID!"

The scream of concern and anger that fled Aegis' lips would've sounded more intimidating coming from a grown man. As it were, I found myself somewhat underwhelmed as I leaped out from behind Sal's wanton destruction, my prepared spell already hot and ready on the tip of my tongue.

"Rictus!"

The fact that I had to actually wave a feather toward the flying brick did nothing to curtail my ruthless intent. I felt the writhing magic inside of me finally empty out, leaving my brain pounding as that last dredge of energy surged from my body and ensnared Aegis' mind. He'd barely been within range, pushing his speed to its utmost in a desperate attempt to assist Kid Win, and when Tasha's Hideous Laughter hit him with the added magical potency of my new bracer?

He fell out of the air immediately.

"H-hehe…heheha…hehahAHAHAHA!"

The Leader of the Wards fell hard against the ground, his armored body skidding across the grass and tearing grooves in the loose soil. Whether the fall actually bothered him or not was inconsequential - not with how fucking hard he was guffawing, the laughter racking his body sounding almost agonizing in its aggression. Aegis was holding his stomach, clenching it tightly with both arms as he shook and rolled around in the dirt.

I watched for only a moment before shaking my head, unable and unwilling to stop the amused smirk from forming on my lips. "Let's go. He'll be like that for a minute or so."

More than enough time to disappear.

My brother couldn't help but let out a small laugh of his own at the predicament I'd put Aegis in. "Lead the way, bro."

I glanced to my left. Kid Win was picking himself back up, but judging by the way he was cautiously staring in our direction but not engaging, I could only assume that he was given orders to stand down with Aegis indisposed of. Not my business.

With my eye in the sky leading the way, Sal and I sprinted out into the darkness at full speed, our ill-gotten gains hovering behind us all the while. We managed to leave the suburban neighborhood entirely by the time a minute had gone by, and spent another ten lurking in an alleyway, listening to the sirens zoom off into the distance. When it was clear that we'd gotten away scot free, we packed up our shit and headed back to where we'd stashed the van.

Raid successful.

God damn was it good to be back.

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Salvatore's Perks

Fake Arm - BlazeBlue: Phase Zero

How interesting. This black cube seems to have a limited shapeshifting capacity. It's covered your arm in this black goop. Actually, if you happen to be missing an arm, it's flat-out replaced it. On top of that, it seems to have an unusual power. Let's call it... Soul Eater. And it does just what it sounds like - with it, you can eat souls. Actually, it's a bit more. Absorb blood like a vampire to heal, eat souls to repair and strengthen your own, even memories can be consumed in a mockery of a mind wipe. Just keep in mind, this can only be used while it's equipped. That and it's intensely exhausting to use.

Carian Sorcery - Elden Ring - Liurnia of the Lakes

As a servant of the Carian royal family, it would be slightly embarrassing should you be incapable of casting sorceries. You will be no such embarrassment, as by utilizing a staff you can summon numerous variants of arcane swords, from massive greatswords to firing them at enemies from a distance. It is not enough to claim full mastery of the arcane, but it is enough for some.