Empty

Now that two of the nine were dead, I needed to find the rest of them and kill them.

However, by the time I returned to the hospital, the rest of the Nine had already run. Several of the heroes were injured; I dropped in and helped reattach Armsmaster's arm.

"I assume Jack Slash is dead," he said, grunting as I healed him. He wasn't defeated enough for me to gain his powers, alas, and I pushed back the temptation to just smash him in the face until I got them.

Actual tinkering took too long, but recognizing how tinkertech worked, that was something entirely different.

"The Siberian too!" I said. "Did you know she was just a projection?"

"What?" he asked. He was looking at me for the first time with an expression of astonishment.

"It's why she was invulnerable; she wasn't really there!" I said. "Which is totally a cheat."

He scowled.

"If we'd known…."

Armsmaster wanted to be recognized, to be famous. Deep down he seemed to be a good man but that was covered by layer after layer of arrogant ass.

He had worse social skills than I did, too, which was amazing considering that I'd never really learned to play the game in the first place.

"You've probably got screens in your armor, right?" I asked.

He nodded.

I glanced pointedly at the shattered windows all around.

"I've got anti-shatterbird armor at the Rig," he said. "No silicates. It doesn't work as well as my usual armor, and I lose some of the functions, but it's better than nothing."

"I'm going to kill them all," I said. "Except maybe Bonesaw. Somebody told me that she had plagues she might release if she was killed?"

He nodded.

I might let Burnscar live if she was manipulated by her powers. I was beginning to understand what that felt like.

I'd just have to put her somewhere she couldn't do too much damage. Maybe on the cannibal world, if we could find non-cannibals for her to protect.

Of course, if she turned out to be an asshole even with her powers not manipulating her, then I'd kill her too.

"Say," I asked. "Can somebody with a Kill Order collect on Kill Orders?"

He frowned.

"There's no rule against it," he said. "It's never been done, of course, because most villains wouldn't get out of the city with the money. That's not a problem for you."

"Well, I've got a couple of bodies to drop off at the Rig," I said. "It'll probably take a while to get the money, so you guys can hold it for me while I get the others."

I noticed that Piggot was staring at me.

"Anybody want a ride to the Rig?" I asked. "Except Piggot, she can walk. The exercise and seeing what her policies have done to the community would do her good."

No car would be coming; Shatterbird hadn't just destroyed the windows, she'd destroyed parts of the computer control system. Most communications were down, although a few people had cell phones that worked without silicates.

It wasn't like the Slaughterhouse Nine hadn't attacked Brockton Bay before, and some people had prepared for it even though they didn't usually attack the same place twice.

"I've kept this city together," she said.

"You ignored a brewing gang war; if you'd done something about the Empire, they might not have killed my Dad and I'd have probably never even realized that I could get powers from people. I'd have fought a few muggers, might even have ended up in the Wards. The Slaughterhouse probably only came because of the carnage."

"It's because-" she said hotly.

I touched Armsmaster, inventoried him, and teleported to the rig. The force field was down; it had probably included silicates in its design.

I stepped into the lobby, and several PRT troopers stepped into my way. They still had screens on their face; I guess they weren't made of glass.

"I could kill everyone in this building with a word," I said. "And your usual defenses aren't working. Even if they were, they wouldn't be able to stop me."

I made Armsmaster appear beside me.

"Stand down, troopers," he said, and they immediately stepped back.

"I'm here to collect the reward for a couple of warrants," I said. I made the two bodies appear on the desk in front of the startled receptionist.

"I'm sure you recognize Jack Slash," I said. "The other guy was the Siberian. I know he doesn't look anything like her, but she was just a projection. You can totally trust that this is her and not just some random guy in a van that I killed."

The man behind the desk looked dubious for some reason.

"I've got no reason to lie," I said. "But maybe you don't believe me. I'll give you a week to get the money together. I'll be dropping other bodies off."

"It's not hygienic to drop them off on the desk," Armsmaster said.

"This guy looks like an asshole," I said, pointing at the receptionist. "Totally accusing me of random van murder."

"He didn't say anything," Armsmaster said.

"He totally felt it!" I said.

I could have felt his doubt from a couple of blocks away. Were all the PRT this distrusting?

The man glanced at Armsmaster.

He sighed and nodded.

"There's no rule against it," he said. "And we have to give her half a city's head start before we go after her."

"I'm a lot more powerful than I was a couple of hours ago," I said brightly. "Do you think Alexandria would prefer a radioactive hellhole or a cannibal world with no food?"

Armsmaster stared at me.

"I'm just thinking ahead for whenever you try coming after me. Does Alexandria even need to eat?"

"It won't come to that," Armsmaster said.

"Eidolon would probably just make a power to make food or just get a power to jump back," I said. "You think he'd do very well in space?"

"Powers don't work well in space," Armsmaster said.

"Hmm…better pick up Mannequin's power then," I said. "Get the old space bases up and running. Good place to stick Eidolon."

The receptionist looked like he wanted to shit himself.

I grinned at him.

Served him right for thinking I was a van murderer.

"And Legend?"

"He's pretty cool," I said. "And I'll bet he could level up all my resistances pretty quick. Maybe I'll try to find a gay world to stick him in."

"He's married," Armsmaster said.

"So, I'll get his husband and put them on a nice island somewhere," I said. "Tropical paradise."

"You stuck me in a cannibal apocalypse," Armsmaster said.

"It was a time out, not a vacation," I said. "Also, I don't have much luck looking for tropical paradises. I mostly get postapocalyptic hellholes."

"Was that before or after you got there," I heard the receptionist mumble.

"See?" I asked Armsmaster. "This guy's totally prejudiced against me."

The man hadn't meant for me to hear what he was saying, but I had sharp hearing now.

He had the grace to look embarrassed.

I grabbed Jack Slash's face and used one hand to manipulate his jaw.

In a falsetto voice, I said, "Wouldn't it have been great if Harvest hadn't come and killed me? I could have kept running around being an asshole, maybe turned the people in a hospital into human centipedes, or something worse! Maybe even human millipedes!"

"Harvest," Armsmaster said warningly.

I noticed that all of the agents had taken a step back from me for some reason.

"What?" I asked.

"Don't abuse the staff," he said. "They had no part in the executive decisions made about your kill order."

I scowled at him, but he was right, even if the receptionist was an asshole.

"Hey," I asked. "Is there a reward for Hookwolf or Lung?"

"Lung recently received a kill order because of Bakuda's rampage," the receptionist said.

Armsmaster looked surprised, but he'd been gone for a while.

"How much?" I asked.

"I don't know," the receptionist said. "All our monitors and computers were destroyed by Shatterbird, except for some of the computers in Armsmaster's lab."

Armsmaster looked smug.

I inventoried the bodies of Jack Slash and the Siberian's master. "I'll just go to Boston then," I said. "Presumably their computers still work."

The receptionist scowled.

It looked like he was taking notes on paper.

"There are other members of the Slaughterhouse still out there," Armsmaster said. "Perhaps you should wait on collecting until you have acquired the others."

I brightened.

"That's a great idea!" I said. "It'll be a lot more impressive if I bring the Boston Protectorate a crapload of bodies than just two, one of whom apparently looks like he was murdered in a van."

"Did you murder him in a van?" Armsmaster said.

"Yes?" I said. "But he really is a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine."

"I might have been able to tell if you were lying if I hadn't been away from my lab for a while." Armsmaster said.

"You don't really want to spend more time hanging around cannibals, do you?" I asked.

He fell silent.

"Do you speak German?" I asked.

He nodded.

"Well, if you're good, I might send you to help some people with a giant problem, once things get settled around here. You can help them design some anti-giant weaponry, and take a look of some of the stuff they've got. You could probably make that swinging rig they've got a lot smaller, and then you'd never have to take the stairs!"

"I'll take it under consideration," he said.

"It'd be like a non-cannibal vacation!" I said.

With that I teleported out of the Rig and into the sky over Brockton Bay.

My intuitive Empathy certainly wouldn't cover the entire city, but if I flew overhead, I was sure I'd eventually find who I was looking for.

It was possible that I'd miss some, because they'd move to avoid me, but I wouldn't miss them all.

Plus, I might be able to level up the distance of my Intuitive Empathy if I kept using it.

I decided to start in the center of the city and work my way outward from there in a spiral. In most cities, the center of the city was usually the oldest part, and often a run-down area, or alternately it was a thriving business district. The outside of town was where all the sketchy businesses and strip clubs were found.

That wasn't true in the Bay, or at least not entirely.

The Nine would need a place large enough to hide Crawler, but they'd think I'd start in the Docks area because of all the warehouses. Jack tended to be tricky, and he'd probably have settled somewhere else.

They might also want to recruit Lung and Hookwolf since they were two of the strongest capes remaining in the Bay. For convenience they might settle in between the Empire and the ABB areas.

They'd probably used protection against me as part of the selling point.

Well, they couldn't even protect themselves, so that promise was a lie.

Flying over the city, I made sure I was as conspicuous as I could. That was likely to arouse fear or at least some other kind of emotion in my enemies, and if they were in my range, I'd kill them.

The Nine were cowards, preferring to attack normal people or those weaker than themselves. I preferred attacking powerful opponents because I tended to get better powers from them. Someone like Skidmark probably wouldn't give me a whole lot, unless there was a synergy between whatever power he gave me and that of someone else.

Wait.

I could sense a familiar cape, along with numerous other people. They seemed to be inside an old movie theater, one that had been boarded up a long time ago.

I sent my four eyes down through the ceiling; hopefully I could level up again and have eight or even sixteen eyes. It'd be nice to get nightvision too; the darkness was my eyes biggest limitation.

There they were, huddled together.

All of the chairs had been removed from all three of the theaters inside, and bedrolls and cots had been set up. Hookwolf was on an elevated stage speaking to his remaining followers.

There only seemed to be eighty of them.

I sent my eyes out to the surrounding area, checking for people. My empathy didn't sense many; but I found a couple of homeless people asleep in a couple of rooms nearby.

I blinked inside and inventoried them, dropping them off outside the Protectorate.

The guards started.

"These guys aren't slaughterhouse," I said. "But they need a hot meal and a place to sleep. Where they were sleeping was…about to be not safe."

Before they could respond, I was already gone.

I teleported into the theater, standing on the ceiling.

"Now isn't the time to be fools," Hookwolf was saying. "That crazy bitch is still out there, along with the chinks and the Slaughterhouse. All we have to do is lay low and let them murder each other. We'll be the ones on top when the dust settles."

"Bone Garden," I said.

It was satisfying to see the last of the Empire go. The effect was maybe a little too quick, but I saw the counter tick down to two.

Hookwolf immediately began to change.

"You aren't the only one who can do that," I said, switching to metal wolf form.

He was the size of a car, and I was the size of a human, but size wasn't what mattered. What mattered was who was faster and more powerful.

"You shouldn't have killed my Dad," I said.

I leaped down from the roof even as he leapt up to meet me.

-1 HP.

+1 PHYSICAL RESISTANCE.

I bit at him and clawed, but I didn't seem to be doing any real damage to him. He wasn't doing much to me either; with my regeneration rate it was likely we could keep doing this forever.

"I didn't even know your father," he said, clawing at me.

I dodged as he tried to land on top of me. I wasn't sure how much he weighed, but it was possibly more then the four tons I could lift.

"You gave the order," I said. "And now, you're going to die."

He snarled, and the chains and blades on him began to whirl more quickly. He leapt up trying to reach me.

"This would have ended differently if you hadn't been an asshole." I said.

All four of my eyes were changing even as we spoke. They were shifting into long powerful weapons that reminded me of the ones Alucard's vampire minion had been wearing.

I blinked above him, staring down at him.

"BLADE STORM," I said.

Thousands of blades filled the air; each of the blades was different now; they were glowing with some sort of unholy light, shining silver in the light from the electric lanterns sitting around the room.

I'd expected a weapon different from my power, but this power was already a group of weapons.

4 HP!

4 HP!

It looked like the Silent Hill version was correct. He had 99.99% damage reduction, and was taking 1 point per thousand normally. Now he was taking 1 point per hundred.

He snarled and snapped at the blades lashing out at him.

"The vorpal sword went snicker snack," I said.

4 HP!

4 HP!

4 HP!

4 HP!

He leapt for the wall, obviously intending to break away and run; he wasn't taking a lot of damage, but the blades were somehow cutting through to his core, leaving him with minor cuts and scratches.

He didn't have the ability to regenerate, so he knew that he would die sooner or later.

I just had to stay on him until it was over.

Leaping for him, I inventoried him and then I blinked directly up, one hundred miles into space.

I brought him back, and I saw him clawing at the air.

As we began to fall, I developed the Breathless condition, but he seemed to be struggling with it a lot more than I was.

I kept cutting away at him, letting myself fall at the same rate as he was, and keeping the blades on him the entire time.

VACUUM RESISTANCE HAS INCREASED TO LEVEL TWO!

He was unconscious now, and that would not do; I inventoried him and dropped us to a mile above Brockton Bay. I continued to slash and cut away at him, until he finally woke up, groggy.

Then I blinked next to him and inventoried him again.

We were up five miles, and I began pushing him down with telekinesis.

I cut and cut at him as we were in free fall, even as he struggled. He passed out again, and I inventoried him and started the whole process all over again.

It took a while; he had almost a thousand hit points. But I could see the metal of his shell being cut away.

PHANTOM WEAPON HAS LEVELED UP!

That meant that my power would do 40 hp at a time to him. It wouldn't be long now.

I dropped us to half a mile and waited for him to wake up.

"I wish I could do this to you for longer," I said. "But it's time to go to hell."

Considering that holy water seemed to work, and a nail from the cross had a lot of power, there might even be a hell.

"Say hi to the rest of the Empire," I said. "When I get there, I plan on killing all of you all over again."

The blades cut through what remained of his shell, and a moment later he was a corpse.

I swooped in and grabbed his face.

POWER UPGRADE!

ARMORED SHELL HAS BECOME ARMORED SKIN!

DEXTERITY PENALITIES FOR ARMORED SHELL ARE REMOVED!

I didn't get a bonus to the power's level, but the improvement I got was more than worth it. I'd thought that I might get an improvement to my wolf form, but a hint from my intuitive empathy told me that he hadn't been limited to wolf forms; he'd just been dedicated to a theme.

Why did I suddenly feel empty?

There was still the ABB and the Slaughterhouse to kill, and eventually the Endbringers, but none of them had the emotional connection that the Empire had.

I looked at my quest counter.

There was one member to the Empire left. Who? Oh…Alabaster. Maybe I'd leave him for a while. As long as there was one Empire member left, then my quest wasn't done.

Besides, he was the only one who was getting a reasonable amount of punishment. Everyone else had died too quickly.

I'd leave him buried alive for a while longer.

Immediately I felt better.