Chapter Text
—September 14th, 2010, Brockton General Hospital—
The amount of luck it takes to not die in Brockton Bay is on the higher end of the scale. I was just glad that I’d managed to be on that end yesterday. Especially since I won the hospital patient lottery by having the Living Cure herself heal me up. It’s not every day that you meet Panacea despite living in the same city as her.
Of course that was probably because I’d never needed her to heal me before. To add insult to injury, she’d given me a bunch of pamphlets about parahumans to look through.
Oh, right, that whole mess of a situation.
I wasn’t exactly stoked that I’d been a cape for less than a day and already had to deal with someone knowing what I was. At least it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. So long as I made sure to keep my distance from the snarky healer who definitely could give me cancer, I’d be fine. Which reminded me of yet another problem I had to deal with. The almost certainly precog power I’d gotten…
Maybe today was going to suck a whole fuckload.
OK, so I wasn’t totally sure it was precognition since I had no way to test it. But finding out didn’t matter as much as what I knew because of it. At the very least, I’d been handed some messed up thinker power, or I was losing my fucking shit; whichever made more sense in the end. Either way, I had to figure out why the hell I now had, what could only be described as forbidden ass knowledge downloaded directly to my brain.
I elected, in my infinite wisdom, to promptly ignore that particular problem for the sake of my sanity.
Ok Allie, you’re a cape now. You always wanted this growing up. You just didn’t really expect it to be nearly so bad as it was. You can handle this and totally not have a mental breakdown.
I totally didn’t have a mental breakdown afterwards. No siree. Because that would be beneath me and incredibly embarrassing.
After I calmly, and coolly, took the time to enjoy my situation. I opted on accepting the simpler things that I’d noticed after waking up. Like the fact that I could see through walls, which was sick as fuck if I did say so myself. Of course, it didn’t last forever, something switched it off. Note to self, test out powers before doing something as idiotic as fighting Lung.
Damnit, shit, fuckmothering bitch! Really thought I’d been able to stop focusing on that shit. Well fine, you win powers. I guess I’ll acknowledge the bullshit going on in my head for one microsecond and have another--- I mean be perfectly fine with it.
I knew a shit load of shit that I very much shouldn’t. If these memories, or whatever they are, even happened to be true.
Man, maybe I should have just asked Amy to clean my slate because, oh boy, I hate the fact I even know she could do it, but it pisses me off more knowing that she hates herself for it. These just aren’t the kinds of things one should be made privy to, ya know?
I don’t like it but I focus on the inside of my mind. It’s like some kind of archive has been put there. As I looked through the nonexistent halls of my mind, I come across a book with a specific date. The fifteenth of May. Curiosity got the better of me and I opened it up. Within an instant, I regretted that choice as I’m flooded by the events of the date. The feeling of heavy pouring rain pelting me constantly. A massive wave that was coming to swallow me whole and drown me. The terrifying form of a natural disaster that moved with malicious intent.
How the fuck am I gonna deal with Leviathan of all things?!
I felt a knot of churning tension deep in my stomach but it faded away quickly. Odd, but I’d take it since I really didn’t feel like having repeat panic attacks at seven in the morning. I took the deepest of breaths possible and slowly exhaled. Powers come in all flavors and boy did I wish this specific part of mine would take a fucking hike off a steep cliff!
“OK, let’s just focus on the facts,” I said to nobody in particular.
The first thing I did was try that object see-through thing again. I looked over at a nearby wall and focused. Nothing happened, of course, because that would have been too easy. I slumped over in bed and almost gave up before finally something in my brain kicked over a switch and, voila, I could see through the wall.
“Ha, take that!”
I took note of the fact that I can actually see Panacea making her rounds in the hospital. She looked like she was managing but also tired as all hell. I probably would be too if I did as much work as she did.
As I stared at Panacea’s head trying to see if I was Manton Limited in any way, I got hit with an overwhelming amount of information. I could see her power coursing throughout her whole body, like red veins that overlapped on multiple layers, it pulsed every time she touched a patient; the veins almost instantly appeared and I could see how it wormed its way through the body as she healed. I managed to clamp down on my power enough to shut the dam before I got hit with yet another migraine.
So I have some kind of Thinker power? Or would this be a Trump classification since it tells me how powers work? I pondered over the implications of having a parahuman alert system. Something I did not want to broadcast to anyone at all. I picked up the pamphlet with the unwritten rules, dealing with those was going to suck big time. On the other hand though… it was really cool that I could find capes and immediately know what they can do.
This time I was able to shut off my see through vision power like pulling on a switch. It was a bit easier to pick up on the second time but it was still a pretty subtle shift. It almost seemed natural to use it.
I guess it’s as good a start as any. Let’s check out what else there is!
“Ok power, show me what else I can do,” I said before trying to pull on the invisible strings in my mind. A beat. Nothing happened.
Well shit, I guess it’s not something that works with an on/off switch like my new vision powers. Whatever, I’ll figure it out once I’m out of here.
I looked out the window of my little hospital room and yep, the bay looked about as mediocre as it was yesterday.
At least I’m higher up this time and can actually enjoy the sunrise with the Protectorate HQ next to it.
“Connection Established.”
“[QUERY] Host: Alina Irmgard”
OK… Apparently I have a voice in my head. If I am going crazy, at least I’m already at the hospital.
“[DENIAL] [ASSERTION]”
Thankfully, I managed to stay calm. It was kind of disturbing how quickly I accepted the sudden development. I took a moment to reconcile with the fact that I was about to talk to a disembodied voice in my head.
“Huh, well then… hi? What are you?” I said, or thought I guess to the weird robotic voice.
“Designation: Retributor.”
That was going to take time for me to get used to.
“Well that’s one hell of a name. Are you my powers or a part of them?”
“[CONFIRMATION]”
“Right, ok, I can definitely take that at face value. Not sure which part of my question you answered but cool.”
The fact that I can actually talk to my power is incredible in its own right. I mean just the implications alone are astounding to a cape geek like me.
“How fucking lucky do I have to be that I’m now going to be a case study in parahuman research?”
Probably a bigger number than I could think of, so I just dropped that line of thought. Instead, choosing to do what a parahuman researcher could only dream of doing. Asking my power some questions.
“Ok Retributor, what are you?” I asked in my head.
“Designation: Retributor.”
“I know your name already, that’s not what I’m talking about. How are you part of my powers?”
“[ERROR] Access Denied.”
I groaned. “Fine, keep your secrets then! Can you at least tell me how my powers work?”
“[ERROR] Access Denied.”
Another groan escaped me as I slumped fully into the bed. I left any further questions unanswered. Retributor didn’t seem the most open, but then again I’d only had my powers for a day. Maybe it was like building trust between friends? I just had to give it time and see if anything would change. I sighed as I sat up again. I was still over the moon excited by this. Almost enough to forget the horrific bullshit that plagued me just a couple minutes ago, not quite though. I had to admit that as cool as it was, not much could overshadow the sudden looming weight of an Endbringer attack forcing itself on my shoulders. I’d decided not to explore the archive more, at least for now.
Breathe in, hold five, breathe out. Thank god for therapy at a young age. Once I was calm enough, I could think about my next steps. The biggest issue now shouldn’t be worrying myself to death about it. I need to work out the best way forward from here.
If I was really going to try my best, I needed to get these powers tested. The irony wasn’t lost on me though that as I pondered this, my power yet again provided me with a healthy helping of information I really would rather not know. The exact people I’d initially been thinking to go to were connected to people far too dangerous for me. I considered that the only reason I hadn’t died to any creepy fedora wearing women yet was that my power was precognitive and was safeguarding me or I just wouldn’t make a big enough splash to warrant it.
Either way, there was going to be a lot of work to be done and I wasn’t going to the PRT or Protectorate for any help. Thank god I have a couple of dates to know ahead of time when shit gets absolutely fucked. I just need to not act on any of this information in any way that would earn me a bullet in the brain or being kidnapped by one especially sick bastard in a skintight black and white suit. Easy.
Leaving the city was an option. Despite knowing how smart it would be to not be around the mobile natural disaster, I couldn’t quite bring myself to be that selfish. It’d be a nightmare telling the heroes anything. Precog predictions were a serious thing and a single false prediction would land me straight in the Birdcage. That wasn’t even including the other reasons why it was a bad idea. I knew the Endbringer would be coming, but actually making a statement on paper wasn’t going to happen.
I’d still be using it to my own advantage so I don’t end up shit creek. I started thinking hard about how I was going to convince any single one of the most difficult people I’ve recently come to know. Ok, so I didn’t actually know any of them, all except for one, but she’s… hmmm, probably my best shot at getting in on things before it all really kicks off. Figuring out how to get into the future gang of warlords was going to be really hard if I didn’t do this exactly right. I had to get past Little Miss Pseudo Psychic and hope I gave her nothing I knew too. I’d count my lucky stars that once I was back home--
Actually, I might not even have a home to go back to. Shit, I can only hope that Mom wasn’t told much about what happened.
Immediately I found myself with tears welling up in my eyes.
Fuck, I let myself forget about her with all the shit that’s been going on.
I couldn’t help but see it again for just a moment, the horrible, sickening feeling when I saw Christi lying there on the ground. Krieg and the other Empire assholes laughing it up while I’d been forced to watch in horror. The blood and gore splattered over my face and clothes.
With the kind of speed that’d give me a Mover rating if it was possible, I changed mental gears and promptly ignored the awful memories that assaulted me from yesterday.
The first thing I was going to do was test the waters of my own home and, in the unlikely but possible event that Mom had been told, I’d grab as much as I could and fuck right off. She deserved to be fucked over way more than that but I figured it was probably best not to give the law a reason to start early on coming after me. If home turned out to be safe, well then I guess things would go on as usual and I’d have one interesting story for school.