Greg Vs Raid 9-32 (Patreon)

Two days.

Forty-eight hours and change since the infirmary floor had been mopped down with enough industrial bleach to probably violate some kind of EPA or OSHA or IKEA regulation, and the phantom smell of old pennies and stomach acid was still stuck somewhere in the back of his sinuses.

Or maybe it was just burned into his brain.

Either way, Sophia Hess was okay.

Well.

To a highly subjective, completely fucked-up standard of okay.

The girl hadn’t bled out from the gunshot wound that she’d taken to the gut, so that was a point in the win column. She also wasn’t puking up motor oil or seizing like he’d sat her in front of Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go for five hours so that was another. 

Despite it all, the girl currently standing on the other side of the warehouse living area, tossing a literal ball of purple-black darkness from one hand to the other like a baseball, was definitely not the same person who had stained his mom’s foyer with her insides. 

Dark purple eyes tracked the shadow-ball.

Not brown. Not dark brown. Purple.

The ball of shadows hit her right palm and flattened out, sinking into her skin and turning her entire forearm into a blurry, indistinct smear of negative space before she flexed her fingers and it popped back into existence.

It was like watching a glitch in a graphics engine, the way she could just let the ambient shadows in the corners of the warehouse pull at her edges, melting her silhouette into the dark without even fully phasing out. 

Invisibility in low light, basically. 

Sophia had bitched about losing her normal powers for all of half of a day, but he had to give the crazy girl credit. She’s adaptable.

No more intangibility, sure, but considering she could cover as much distance in a jump as she could in her shadow form… well, Sophia seemed to consider it a decent trade.

All those ‘fuck yeahs’ from yesterday evening at least seemed to make Greg think so. Everyone wants to be a Brute, huh.

The Brute part wasn’t all that seemed to tickle her, either. Those shadows she shot from her hands were definitely a fan favorite as well. And Sophia seemed to love playing with it.

Even though every time she threw one of those shadow bolts at the targets up against the concrete, her chest heaved and a thin sheen of sweat popped on her skin.

"Could you tell the track bitch to put a fucking shirt on?"Sparky was slouched so deep into a beanbag chair his spine was practically a ‘U’, yellow-lensed sunglasses glaring across the room. A scowl deep on his face, one skate shoe tapped a machine-gun rhythm out on the floor."I'm right here, you junkie piece of shit." Sophia didn't even turn to look his way, the girl just rolling her shoulders. Greg got what Sparky was complaining about even if he didn’t think it was worth the whine. Sophia might not have been entirely his type but he’d be a dead liar if he said a sports bra over sweat-slicked skin wasn’t doing something for him. 

“And I’m working out!” She was doing exactly that too, gym shorts riding low on her hips as she pulled another ball of darkness out of thin air. "You want me to sweat out a hoodie just so your pussy little eyes don't gotta look?""I don't wanna look at you, bitch." Sparky’s jaw locked tight as he looked up from his phone with matching heat in his eyes and voice. "Specially not walking around our mothafuckin’ spot like you own it. You're a wanted fugitive for being a fucking psycho, remember? PRT's probably got a kill order on your ass.""Let 'em try."

A spiraling bolt of energy as dark as Sophia’s new eyes slammed into the wall. With a crack, concrete dusted the floor and a grin spread across her face. “Let ‘em fuckin’ try.”Greg dragged a hand down his face, fingers digging into his eyes. I hope I don’t regret this.

This was his life now. Running a halfway house for homicidal teenage girls and hyperactive skater boys while managing a gang of ex-yakuza/triad/whatever.

Speaking of teenage girls…

A flicker of light caught his attention to the right.

Pink.

Hot neon to be exact, a flare of the stuff dancing across manicured fingertips.

Emma sat on the edge of the faux-leather couch, knees pulled tight together as she stared down at her own hands as light flared back in her face. Pink fire rippled atop her skin, shedding absolutely zero heat and casting shadows that didn’t quite match.What even is that shit? Greg stared at it, his brain trying and failing for the hundredth time to figure out what it actually did. Analyze didn’t even seem to register it, either alone or when he used it on Emma, and actually observing with his own eyes didn’t do much either.

Emma’s body was different, sure.

A little bit tougher and hardier, that much was obvious without needing a scan from his special little eyes. Not as much as Sparky was at the start and only a little over half that of where Sophia sat — really comparable to Theo, honestly — but at least that made sense.

Strong enough to manhandle grown adults, but still… it made sense.

The pink, though?That was nonsense in every way.

Honestly, the thing didn’t even burn for all it looked like flames. It didn’t freeze either. It didn’t push or pull or even seem like it existed past the purpose of making light. For all it was obvious as hell, it might have just been an overly aggressive cosmetic aura effect taking up an active skill slot.So to speak…"It's..." Emma swallowed hard, pink fire winking out as she clenched her hands into fists. "...It's doing it again."

Greg sighed with a shake of his head. “Don’t worry about it, it…”He let the words trail off as he realized Emma wasn’t even looking at him.

Hell, she wasn't even looking at the fire anymore.No, her eyes were aimed higher.

Towards the second floor. Where Seo and Tak and Joon were currently running logistics.

Where the Ronin were.

Emma’s chest hitched, the sound slipping through her teeth as she pulled her legs up onto the couch. Greg bit back a flinch as she wrapped her arms around her shins again, just like she had in the infirmary when the reality of his 'rebranding' had dropped a nuke on her brain.

"Emma. Hey." Greg stepped away from the wall, crossing the distance in two long strides and crouching in front of the couch. "Breathe. Just breathe. They're upstairs. They're not coming down here. I told them this floor is off-limits."

"I know." Her knuckles were white. "I know they're not. I know you... you control them. You're the... the boss."

She said the word like it tasted like poison. "But they're still here, Greg. They're still... the same guys who..." She squeezed her eyes shut, the words dying out on her tongue as she swallowed them back down."They aren't." Greg kept his voice low, trying to channel as much calm as possible. "They're a business now. They answer to me. If anyone even looks at you wrong, I'll throw them into the harbor. I promise."Emma let out a shaky breath, opening her eyes to show off bloodshot green. She’d been here every day since the stabbing, spending as much time in the warehouse as possible because apparently — even with the Ronin around — she seemed to like it here.

Or maybe she just liked being around him? Either or."I’m sorry, am I being a lot right now?"

He opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

"...Don’t answer that." Emma buried her face in her knees, a muffled groan escaping her. "I’ll cry."Greg stayed half-crouched as he prayed to any god that was listening that he didn’t have to watch another panic attack.

As Emma simply kept her face hidden with no sign of hyperventilation anytime soon, Greg took that as his cue to stand back up. And he did — slowly — turning back around to look across the room.Sophia melted into the shadows near the loading bay, her silhouette completely vanishing into the dark corner before she stepped back out, the purple glow of her eyes lingering a second longer than the rest of her body.

"Huh..."

The word slipped out before he could catch it.

"What?" Sparky’s head snapped over, glad for any excuse to look away from the girl reveling in her new shadow-state. “I know that ‘huh’.”

"I'm just remembering..." Greg rubbed his chin, eyes locked on Sophia’s new… thing. "That you guys... the Kings and Theo included... aren't really the only people I've done this for."Sparky stopped bouncing his leg, gold eyes narrowed Greg’s way as his lenses slid down his nose. "The fuck do you mean, brah?"

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

As much as he respected the Parahuman Response Team for all they did, it had to be said that the organization was distinctly more paramilitary than anything else. Granted, that made perfect sense, given that was exactly what they were designed for.

Still, as Rory Christner sat on the edge of the steel cot that had been his bed for nearly the last month, he wished they bothered trying to make their living spaces a bit more… livable.

I know the Wards at least get beds. He kept his expression flat, doing his best to avoid appearing irritated or angry or negative at all with the cameras almost always on him. Would that have been the craziest perk?With a sigh, he dropped his hands and head both to stare at the floor between his bare feet.

Three weeks had already passed him by since the Leviathan fight; at least from what he’d been told — a fight that he’d been taken out of before things apparently went insane in the best way possible.

Twenty-one whole days since he got his ribcage caved in, lungs punctured after taking a glancing hit from Leviathan, throat filling with saltwater and his own blood. It wasn’t the worst damage he’d ever taken, and not even the worst in the last three months. 

No, Bakuda’s bomb took the top spot for both.Still… a fortnight and a half since the kid in the knight costume had slammed his hands into his chest and pumped him full of blinding gold and blue light.

Aegis’s report had been pretty clear on what had been done to him. Externally, at least.Rory coughed, fist raised to his mouth.

He unfurled five fingers to stare at the saliva sitting on his palm; a sight enough to make him feel just a bit less tense. Still clear. His other hand ran through a head of dirty blonde hair as he sighed with simple relief. Good.

It had been over two weeks since it was anything but. Despite that, Rory still had nightmares of those first four to five days in this isolation chamber, watched by panicking medics as viscous black fluid poured from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth; the stuff tasting like burnt pennies and ozone. The PRT put him through a battery of everything, doctors in hazmat running him through quarantine, Master/Stranger protocols, containment sweeps. 

They thought he was infected. 

Poisoned.

Or worse.

Well, they were wrong.

After that had faded, he had felt... clean.

Cleaner than he had ever felt in his entire life.

Rory stood up, rolling his shoulders, taking in the new denseness in his body.

The tests had said as much and he felt it deep inside more than any doctor could confirm for him. It was just in the way all the muscle mass sat differently on his bones.

He opened his mouth, air compressing in his chest as he took a deep breath. Lips parting just a little, Triumph let out the tiniest fraction of a ‘roar’.

A physical wave of localized power — half-force, half-sound — warped the air within the modified cell, vibrating the reinforced glass of the observation window so violently a spiderweb crack appeared in the center pane.

His eyes widened a little.

That was different.

For one, it was a hell of a lot stronger.

The heavy vault door hummed, hydraulic locks disengaging and sliding apart to show the stout form of Director Emily Piggot.

Flanked by two armed PRT troopers, the woman managed to look as stormy as ever and four times as tired. "You're cleared, Triumph." The words sounded like they cost her money. "The lab says whatever anomalous biological material was in your system has purged. You're fit for duty."Rory nodded, grabbing his standard-issue PRT sweats from the chair. "Thank you, Director. I'm ready to get back out there. The city needs—"

"The city needs a miracle." Piggot cut him off, turning her back to the hallway. "Suit up and report to the main briefing room immediately."

Rory paused, shirt halfway over his head. "Did something happen?""We’ve received Thinker confirmation of what we’ve been worried about.”“Ma'am? “The Slaughterhouse Nine." Piggot didn't look back as she marched down the corridor. "They're here."

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

The Palanquin was thumping loud and hard, bass from the basement a strong rhythm he could tap out with his bare feet. It was the part of the club that was always on, for good reason. The dark was the best place to have fun, even in the middle of the day. 

And after Leviathan, plenty of people wanted to do exactly that.

"Invite only, kid.” Unfortunately, the bouncer of the day — a roided-up chocolate-skinned motherfucker of a man with a neck as thick as God’s thumb — crossed his arms over a black tee as he did his job of blocking the entryway. “Get the fuck on."The teenager in the oversized orange tank top didn't flinch as he stood there, running a pale hand through a mop of hair so black it looked purple. "Come on, Donno. It's me.”“Who you supposed to be?”

"Ask Gregor.” The kid leaned back on one pale leg far enough that any normal person would be at risk of tipping over, balance still as uncanny as he was used to. “I know he’s in there. Big guy’s already seen me in the hospital."

The frown on the bouncer’s face only deepened, beady eyes narrowing as he studied a face that knew it looked good. "I don't know you, twig.""Yeah, you do." The kid beamed at him, a wide grin full of normal human teeth he could switch back to sharp with a thought. “It’s me.” He tapped one side of his neck, where a pulsing vein of deeper orange used to sit. "I just got a makeover."Those beady eyes slowly went wide, something about the kid — face, voice, or something else altogether — finally making it click."Newter?""In the flesh." The violet-haired teenager looked down at his own hands as he cackled out loud, flexing pale fingers completely absent of hallucinogenic sweat. "Literally, in the fucking flesh."