Cannibal

Emma wasn't all that important in the scheme of things, not compared to my father, but she was mine. If I wanted to seek revenge for the hell she put me through, that was my decision, not that of anyone else.

It wasn't even that I had strong feelings for her; it was enough that I had some feelings left, a remnant of the years of friendship we'd one had before everything had gone to hell.

I was covered in a shell of melting glass that Shatterbird kept adding to. It was opaque.

Presumably they still thought I was limited by line of sight in my teleporting, and they were hoping to suffocate me in glass and fire.

VACUUM RESISTANCE HAS INCREASED BY ONE LEVEL.

The burning and the pressure weren't enough to overcome my fire resistance or physical resistance, so I blinked behind Burnscar.

Before she could react, I slammed her face into the concrete.

30 HP!

Over and over again I slammed her face first into the ground, which began to crack, probably because of Bonesaw's enhancements to her bones.

It likely gave her some amount of damage resistance to blunt attacks, but I didn't care.

Fire exploded all around me, and I could feel shards of glass striking me from behind. I didn't care.

Over and over I slammed her face first into the ground. Her reinforced skull began to crack, and then I felt something break and brain matter hit the ground.

I ignored the popup that appeared even as the fire disappeared from around me.

My Dad's face was staring at me in shock. Emma had backed away, likely from the intense heat. I'd have expected Shatterbird to try to take her hostage, but instead she was flying away as quickly as she could.

I blinked to Shatterbird's location, standing in front of her.

Her powers weren't manipulating her, but mine certainly could. I reached for her, and she tried to dodge away.

Grabbing her arm, I ignored the glass trying to lacerate my hand, and I forced her to the ground. I could feel her fear that I was going to pulverize her head like I had Burnscar, but my immediate fury was calming replaced by a different, colder fury.

I formed an illusion.

I'd have preferred to have used an image of her own father, but Intuitive Empathy didn't give me enough information to form a face or tone of voice.

However, I did know what Jack sounded like.

I created an illusion of the Siberian hitting me and driving me away from her.

"You couldn't even manage the plan." The world faded away around her, and instead Jack was standing there. "It didn't fool her for a minute."

"Jack?" she asked. "I thought you were dead!"

She'd been attracted to Jack, but had never gotten up the courage to act on it. It had probably been a wise decision.

"You think some new cape could get the best of me?" I had him say. "I had Bonesaw make a copy of me from… somebody. It doesn't really matter. The thing is, the others are alive too, all except for Burnscar."

"I thought it would confuse her," she said. "If he was why she triggered…"

"Leave the thinking to the people who actually have a brain," the illusion of Jack said. "I'm disappointed. 'This was supposed to be part of a beautiful master plan, and you…screwed…it… up!"

"I…I'm…"

"Not who I thought you were," Jack said. "It was a mistake letting you into the Nine."

"It wasn't!" she said. "Give me another chance!"

"This is the Nine," he said. "We don't get second chances."

Before she could say anything, I had the Siberian fill her vision.

Quietly, I activated Blade Storm.

I created an image of the Siberian, and I had her move, slashing in all the places the blades hit her.

I didn't bother with phantom weapon; her defenses weren't as strong as what I was used to.

The Siberian had liked to play with her food before eating it alive. She'd been terrified of the Siberian, and it had been her worse nightmare to face her.

I watched her hit points dropping even as she desperately used glass to try to attack the illusionary Siberian. She knew that the Siberian was invulnerable, but she also knew that the Siberian could move faster than she could fly.

When her hit points were low enough, I created the illusion of myself reappearing and driving my fist through the Siberians chest and eating her heart.

I then turned to her.

"The Nine?" I asked. "You really thought you'd recruit me? Compared to me, you're just amateurs."

I dispelled the illusion, and I grabbed her and I slammed her face into the ground.

30 HP!

I healed her and then I began slamming her head into the ground again.

I had to time it right; I could only heal her once a minute, but it didn't matter.

My healing couldn't work on her cybernetic implants. As her skull got more deformed, she found it harder and harder to concentrate on the storm of glass surrounding me.

She tried driving it into my mouth and into my eyes. I closed my mouth and I closed my eyes; I used my arcane eyes to direct myself.

I created the illusion of my voice speaking.

While I didn't know that an attack inside my mouth would do more damage, I didn't know that it wouldn't, either.

I whispered in her ear.

"I'll bet you wished you'd never come here. All of your victims felt the same way. Your father loved you, but what would he think of you now?"

I held her head up. The skull implants were deformed and were pressing against her brain to the point that she was now taking constant damage without my even doing anything.

"You're a mass murderer, and you aren't even sorry. You killed him, and if he was alive again, it would kill him to see what you've become. He'd be disappointed in you."

She tried to moan incoherently.

"You're going to hell," I said. "And I've got some evidence that it actually exists. It's justice after what you've done to people."

Clearly, she was barely listening now, probably due to the brain damage, so it was time to end it.

I smashed her head over and over until she was finally still.

I looked at my screens.

FIRE BREATH HAS BEEN UPGRADED TO FLAME MASTERY!

YOU CAN CREATE, CONTROL AND DISPEL FIRE WITHIN A 10 FOOT RADIUS AT THE FIRST LEVEL. THIS RADIUS DOUBLES EVERY LEVEL.

50 HP PER LEVEL.

LEVEL 8!

1280 FEET RADIUS!

That was…pretty amazing. I was excited to try it out. The next message was less exciting.

NEW POWER CREATED!

GLASS MASTERY!

YOU CAN CONTROL GLASS AND TRANSFORM IT INTO OTHER SHAPES WITHIN A 10 FOOT RADIUS PER LEVEL, WITH THE RADIUS DOUBLING EVERY LEVEL.

YOU CAN USE THE GLASS TO DO 20 HP PER LEVEL OF DAMAGE.

LEVEL 1.

Looking down at the glass on the ground, I gestured, and it began melting and changing into a statuette of my father.

If I ever needed money, I could probably make money as a sculptor. There was probably a market for cape created art, and I didn't particularly care about the laws that dictated otherwise.

Glancing back, I noticed that not only was Winslow still on fire, but some of the surrounding buildings were also catching on fire.

I blinked back to Emma, and I waved my hand.

The fires all died instantly.

"Taylor?" Emma said.

It looked like my Dad wet his pants. She'd been watching me murder Burnscar and Shatterbird.

"What?" I asked.

Now that the initial rage was gone, I didn't really have a lot of time to deal with Emma.

"What's going to happen to me?"

She was in shock, barely hanging on. I didn't need Intuitive Empathy to know that. Regular Empathy was enough, and there was a distant look in her eyes.

I stared at her.

Her resemblance to my father was painful to me, and I looked away.

"Did they kill Alan, Zoe, your Mom?" I asked.

Given the kind of sadists they were, I had a hard time believing they would do anything else.

She looked away and didn't answer, which was answer enough.

"Join the club," I said harshly. "I've got nobody left, and you don't see me crying about it."

I touched her arm, so familiar, and I could feel the blank spaces where her mechanical appliances had been added. I didn't have any power that would let me see inside to those spots; if they'd been biological, I wouldn't have had to.

My eyes would only see darkness inside of her; I really needed to get some sort of X-ray vision or darkvision or something.

"She's put something in you," I said. "You'll need to be examined by the Protectorate."

Before she could respond, I inventoried.

Appearing in front of the gate, I saw the two guards.

"This one is different," I said. "Bonesaw victim. Surgical alterations from a fifteen-year-old female and she's got mechanical additions that I can't see inside. You need to get her into quarantine as quickly as possible."

They stiffened, then spoke into their helmets.

"You have a limit on how long you can hold them?"

"Another two minutes forty seconds," I said. "I can reacquire her after that, but it'll only last three more minutes. If she has some sort of plague hidden inside a machine, it may release when I have to release her. For all I know it could be triggered by being in stasis."

That would fit with the modus operandi of the Nine. Make the helpers the next victims, and trigger it by whatever they used to try to help. I'd heard of Bonesaw victims designed to release viruses whenever the victim was intubated.

"We've got a team scrambling," the first agent said. "Containment foam won't help because it's porous to air. Do you have any idea whether the victim has explosives?"

"It's buried inside where I can't see. If I could see some x-rays, I could probably tell you whether it was explosives or not, even if it wasn't something I could make myself."

I was practically admitting that I had killed Bakuda, but compared to everything else I'd done, what was one more thing?

"Armsmaster and Kid Win are on the way, along with a containment team." The PRT agent hesitated. "Is there any way that you could take her… somewhere else?"

I frowned.

There were likely at least ten thousand people left on cannibal earth, considering that I'd seen people shortly after I'd arrived, and there wasn't anything about the area to indicate that it was special.

More likely there were hundreds of thousands of people left.

However, they were spread far apart, and depending on the type of virus or bacteria Bonesaw used, the virus might not spread that far, if it required person to person contact. It'd wipe out the population of cannibal America, but it wouldn't affect the rest of the world.

If it was transmitted by plants or animals, again, nothing would be transmitted. It'd have to ride on some form of life to replicate.

Armsmaster approached, trailed by Kid Winn.

"Can this be accomplished off world?" he asked.

I nodded.

"I'll take you back to the vacation spot."

He was wearing a modified form of his armor, with oxygen tanks and a full mask.

Mannequin's power told me that his system was fully isolated and sealed.

"You have doctors?" I asked.

PRT agents arrived with a van. The van was filled with equipment, which Kid Win was helping to load.

Three men in specialized PRT armor that also had sealed systems appeared behind him.

I was impressed.

I inventoried the van, and then inventoried one of the scientists. The next scientist I grabbed and held a hand out for Armsmaster.

While I couldn't carry people teleporting, I could easily Planeswalk with two of them, even if it involved teleporting.

I'd just planeswalk and teleport, then planeswalk back if it wasn't for the chance of accidentally ending up in a radiation world and instantly killing someone.

"Miss Hebert!"

Apparently, Blackwell and her assistant had managed to find the house.

She sounded outraged.

"Take us back this instant!"

I released Emma because the time was up, and she immediately began to groan and clutch her stomach.

How had Jack thought this was going to encourage me to join? Was he an idiot?

Or was it like the US Military, where they broke people down in an attempt to build them back up in the way that they wanted?

Blackwell stopped.

"Mr. Hebert?" she asked.

Emma's body began to swell, and she screamed. I inventoried both scientists, and I grabbed Armsmaster. I flew straight up at sixty miles an hour.

"You can't teleport with passengers?" he asked, seemingly more interested in my powers than in the potential bomb below.

"I can if I jump worlds," I said. "But some worlds are fatal and there's a chance of a misjump. If I didn't care about my passengers…"

She exploded below me.

Blackwell and her assistant screamed, and in the space of a few moments they began to mutate.

"You experimented on the virus Shadow Stalker brought back," I said.

He grimaced through his face mask.

"We had to know what we were facing."

"And you didn't destroy it afterwards?" I asked incredulously.

"I was overruled by the people over me," he said. "They thought there were possibilities that the virus might be altered by a biotinker into something that could allow ordinary people to regenerate."

"That's probably what it was meant for," I said.

The transformation wasn't taking long.

"She aerosolized it," Armsmaster said. "I've got sensors in my suit."

"How far do we have to get away from it?" I asked.

"We've got a disinfection suite in the van," he said. "Using the best tinkertech we could get. However, if they damage the van, we'll be in trouble."

Dropping like a stone, I watched as Blackwell and her assistant writhed on the ground. It looked like it was really painful, and as I got closer, I could feel their pain and fear, and a growing, inhuman rage.

"You did this to me!" Blackwell said. Her voice was deeper, an it sounded like she was talking through shattered glass. "I wish I'd expelled you the first time you came and whined."

"It would have been helpful actually," I said.

"Do you think you can heal them?" Armsmaster asked.

I frowned.

"I could wipe the disease out of their system, but they'd just be reinfected by whatever cloud is around here. Even if I cured them, I can't undo the transformation. Panacea might be able to; she can mold people like putty if she wants."

The howls of the women were becoming incoherent.

"She doesn't do brains, though," I said. "And they're pretty much gone already."

I wasn't completely lying. There was enough of them left to know what was happening to them, but not enough to save.

Armsmaster nodded, and I blasted both of them with Far Strikes. Their heads exploded, and I rushed over to check for any new powers.

Armsmaster gestured toward body bags the scientists were pulling out of the back of the truck.

"No," I said. "You already let the disease spread once. Why should I trust you with more?"

"Because Bonesaw now has the T-virus," Armsmaster said. "And she wouldn't have used it all to kill a single person."

"What?"

"Jack is dead," he said. "He would have made contingency plans to destroy as many people as he could. He'd have convinced Bonesaw to follow through with his plans before he left to face you, just in case."

"He wanted to destroy the city I was from because I destroyed him?" I asked.

He nodded.

"Fine," I said.

The body bags were high tech as well. A special polymer covered the zipper, and I could tell that the plastic the bags were made from were much more damage resistant than plastic or cloth.

"Step into my van," Armsmaster said.

"The last guys who pushed me into a van didn't have my best interests at heart." I said. "The van's not some kind of suicide booth, is it?"

He shook his head.

"You have reached a stage in your development where killing you would be difficult."

"Inventory," I said. I pulled as much diseased air into my inventory as I could/

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Putting this diseased air into my inventory. If I die, everything in my inventory will be released. Once the kill order is rescinded, I'll go to space and release the virus where it can't hurt anyone."

He stared at me.

"You'd commit genocide out of spite?"

"You'd murder a fifteen-year-old girl because she's hard to control?" I asked. "Because your boss is a jealous old biddy who hates parahumans?"

I didn't know that from her, but he knew it and that was more than enough.

If I gained Bonesaw's power, I'd need a sample of the virus to create a cure. I'd have access to her lab, and I might have access to the equipment in this van.

"You'll…have to take your clothes off," he said.

"Will this clean other clothes that have been infected?" I asked.

He nodded.

"I'll spread them out when we get in there," I said. "I assume that we'll be leaving the van?"

He nodded.

"Well, all of you will face in the other direction, especially since I know you have cameras in your suits."

"That would be illegal," Armsmaster said.

I felt the faintest bit of embarrassment from him. The scientists were much more embarrassed.

"Just remember that I could leave you in worse places than here," I said.

As we sat there for the next thirty minutes, Armsmaster sat in silence, looking away from me as various types of radiation and chemicals hit us.

"Was that your school principal?" he asked finally.

"Possibly," I said. "She might have been a crazed cannibal."

"She sounded like she knew you."

"The cannibals here might have heard my name a time or two," I said.

"She was well dressed and well fed for a cannibal, and so was her companion."

"Guess they were good at cannibalism," I said.

He muttered something about being late in building his lie detector.

I was already planning my next step. If Bonesaw had the t-virus, then things were already pretty bad.

When we were finally clean, I stood, inventoried two of them, and grabbed Armsmaster.

"Planeswalk," I said.

Emma's death didn't bother me as much as I'd thought it would, likely because I had a lot more to worry about.

It was time to save the world.