Countless Joyful Dawns - Chapter ?? - 27: Incessant Pests V (Patreon)

AN: This week and next week will be 5 chapters of Countless Joyful Dawns to wrap it up. All the while, I'll be writing Aurora and building up the backlog/editing it. Then hopefully on the week of Nov 9th I can drop a chunk of chapters to get you all started on it, and start regular posting. It won't go onto RR until I feel like I've got:A) Enough chapters ahead for all of youB) A backlog for meC) Enough RR chapters to make a splashD) A coverI hope to be posting around... Feb? Later? But you'll all get stuff before then.

Cheers!

Selkie

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It was too much to hope that confoam would be able to keep the Slaughterhouse Nine confined. The Siberian moved through it like air, grabbed the other members, and pulled them out with ease. Actually, she was more than moving through it, she was annihilating it as she passed, leaving Siberian-shaped holes as she moved along.

Speaking of holes, I couldn’t see the inside of her body. It was a complete blank. Unlike everyone else, where I could, with minimal effort, see every part of them. I chalked it up to ‘yet another way the Siberian violates physics’. After all, my skill was based on what was possible to perceive. If there was an absolute ‘no’ going on, I couldn’t see it. Unusual, but not the first time I’d come across it this decade.

Honestly, it was amateur work half the time. ‘Oh look, there’s suspiciously nothing here.’ It was about as subtle as painting a mosaic black. ‘Huh, I wonder why this particular stretch of wall is painted over, versus everything else’. Sure, it beat a lot of skills, but it just made me curious. Here, I didn’t need to be curious, I already saw the problem.

To my surprise, the Siberian rescued the hostage as well - or perhaps more accurately, the ‘hostage’. Given that none of them were raising a hand to me or anyone else, I let them be.

Soon, we were standing off again, facing each other from either side of the warehouse, with small piles of confoam scattered around. The Siberian had one hand on Jack and one on Bonesaw, and they were both in monochrome as well. The sign - according to the reports Tattletale sent me - that she had expanded her invulnerability to them.

“Now now now,” Jack said, waggling his finger at me. “That wasn’t very nice. I haven’t even told you the rules of the game!”

I had zero interest in playing any sort of ‘game’ with a serial killer. The only ‘game’ was ‘when do they make a vaguely threatening move and I can attack’.

It didn’t mean I couldn’t provoke them or try to make something happen. But - Siberian invincibility. I wasn’t willing to test my power against hers, not when the entire world had tried and failed.

That left exactly one unprotected member.

“Who are you?” I asked, pointing to the probably-not-a-hostage, but not-in-Lisa’s-files member.

“Me?” She said, pointing at herself. “Oh, I’m nobody.”

I felt my interest in her rapidly fading. Not a known member, not a famous serial killer, I should be more interested in Jack. Who knew, maybe he’d slip up and threaten me. Or at least give me intel when he wouldn’t be currently invincible.

Seriously annoying ability. It made me think of my annihilation shields, and Void in general.

Hmmm… that could explain it. People were getting all sorts of random high-tier abilities here. Could the Siberian have a Void transformation ability? Was that what was going on? Void at such a high level it became conceptual? It was theoretically possible on Pallos, although we’d be side-eyeing anyone taking Void to such high levels. And by ‘we’ I meant ‘the entire damn world’, because Void Classers had an annoying habit of blowing themselves up. Along with the rest of the city they were in. 

“Now, we came here recruiting, but unfortunately, due to somebody’s efforts, there’s significantly fewer candidates than we had in mind. We want you to join us!”

“No thank you.” I immediately replied, cutting off whatever else he was going to say. “I already have a job.”

And ethics. Like, seriously? Trying to recruit the healer to ‘team murderhobo?’

Actually, would they still be murderhobos if I joined? I carried my house on my back, after all…

Hmmm… philosophy questions for another day. Or another train of thought. 

“Now then.” He waggled his finger at me, like somehow being taller made him older, and thus, a respected source of authority or some nonsense like that. “None of that. By the time we’re done, I think you’ll come round to my way of thinking.”

That raised all sorts of alarm bells in my head. I was not going to do whatever it was.

“Or not. Some candidates survive and still refuse to join, going on to live with whatever questionable happiness there is. Bonesaw?”

The peppy girl looked like she wanted to jump up and down, but couldn’t with Siberian’s hand on her shoulder.

“Oh! Oh! Like ‘Daddy’s little girl’! I took his daughter, and the family dog, and I smushed them all together! She’s so happy to see him when he comes home! Isn’t art and love just wonderful?”

I’d seen and heard worse atrocities, but not this level of skill and cruelty from someone so young. Usually the young psychopaths that couldn’t control themselves were drowning sacks of kittens or pulling the wings off bugs, not trying to make psychological torture that lasted. 

I rolled my hand in the ‘I’m impatient, keep going’ way.

“Each one of us will test you in some way.” Jack said. “It’s really quite simple. Pass the test, and you’re one step closer to your freedom. Fail? Well, there’s consequences for failing.”

I’d heard more threatening monologues from toddlers. That, or I was utterly desensitized to the whole thing. 

I yawned. Deliberately.

Jack frowned. Good, the more I could rile him up, the better.

“Of course, you can’t leave the city, and you can’t call for outside help.” He said, wagging his finger at me. “That would completely defeat the point of this little game!”

Yes! Excellent! Time to bait the trap.

“What happens if I do?” I said, not over-acting for once. I put a tremor of fear in my voice, just a tiny undercurrent of worry. I tightened the corners of my eye just a hair. A tiny amount, practically unnoticeable. All of it was to transmit the signal that ‘I was worried’.

How do you sell a lie? By being known to be atrocious at telling them. For the one lie I really, really needed to sell.

“Why, we flip the board, of course! We devastate the city with no restraint.” He squinted at me. “Surely you’re familiar with some of our finest works?”

“No, not really.” I said, pulling out my cellphone. I called Tattletale back, hoping for once that her skills could match her ego.

“Boss.” She said, instantly picking up.

“Tattletale. Get me Legend on the phone, please.” I said, staring directly at Jack. Daring him to do his worst.

There was a brief pause on the phone.

“Got it.” She said. I could hear furious typing in the background. The standoff lasted just a moment before my phone got conferenced into another call. Or something like that, I just pressed the green button that showed up.

“How did you get this number?” A smooth baritone demanded.

Man, he wasn’t on the ‘distribute this number as soon as we found it’ list? Life was so unfair sometimes.

“Legend. This is Dawn. The Slaughterhouse Nine are in Brockton Bay. Come on over and give me a hand!” I said, dramatically hanging up before he could give a response. Like ‘no’, which would give Jack all the wiggle room he needed to not engage.

I stared the three of them down, calling their bluff and daring them to act on their word.

Another part of me was hoping there was an element to Siberian’s power I was missing. Otherwise, they could just walk through the city, arm in arm, and just annihilate everything with nobody being able to stop them. The fact that they didn’t, that it was reserved for a last second emergency measure, suggested to me that there was more going on than I was seeing.

Smoke and mirrors. The Sentinels weren’t the only ones capable of fucking with people’s perception. At the same time, I didn’t know what the mirror was, or where the smoke was coming from. I just knew a head-on attack would utterly fail.

“Now, that wasn’t very sporting, was it?” Jack frowned, stroking his greasy goatee with one hand.

“You know, your healing is fascinating.” Bonesaw said. “It took me so long to figure out a plague that got around it-”

That was enough for me. The totality of the evidence had Bonesaw threatening to unleash a plague on the entire city, which enabled me to act. Just against Bonesaw, and if I could manage it, the Siberian.

The first thing I did was snap up shields all around us. Panes of perfect annihilation appeared, with only a few scattered stars giving us light. Quite beautiful, when we weren’t in a fight.

I absolutely believed that Bonesaw could beat my healing. Mannequin had somehow beaten it, and Tinkers seemed to be an extra level of bullshit. However, a plague was harmless if contained. I might need to break out some extra-strong sterilization at the end of this, but I imagined it couldn’t be too terrible. Whatever Bonesaw was releasing, it was also going to get on the rest of them. She’d need a way to cure themselves. 

Well, except the probable-member who was busy running away.

For good measure, because I had seen some bullshit in my time, I coated the floor with my shield. The Siberian snarled at me, and stomped on the shield.

To everyone’s shock, both my shield and the Siberian vanished. I kept a cool face as I checked my mana.

Somehow, she had zeroed it out. At the same time she vanished. 

That was supposed to be utterly impossible. My mana spend could - should - be maxed out at my magic power per second per skill. At most, my shield breaking should consume the same amount of mana as I had power, not all of it.

Fortunately, it was regenerating at an absurd pace. Hundreds of thousands of points per second. My shields were free to put up, and I snapped them up around Bonesaw, basically putting her in a box. I left a tiny hole open, through which I fired a beam of Radiance, putting nearly all my mana into it.

I was playing with fire here. I was incredibly vulnerable right now. Sure, my healing was super efficient, and I’d be fine in about twenty seconds, but right here, right now, I couldn’t teleport and could barely use my skills.

I mean, okay. To be fair, it was ‘only’ knocking a few hundred levels off how powerful I was. 

Bonesaw collapsed, and I rapidly shrunk the box around her, destroying any pathogens that might’ve been in the air. As well as the air itself.

Which was when the Siberian burst through the wall and charged straight at me. 

Jack clearly was no speedster. He just started to react to everything going on, backpedaling hard. The Siberian tried to take my head off with a swipe of her claws, but I was faster than she was. It was trivial to dodge her attack, all while I finished squeezing down the box that had been Bonesaw. I even let my mana bottom out a second time. A fraction of a second of injury was completely worth not letting a plague loose that could destroy a significant fraction of the country.

The Siberian tried to punch me, and long-honed instincts took over. I tried the classic counter move, only for my hands to get removed from existence as they touched her. 

I hopped back, already having enough mana to restore my body five times over, and let my hands instantly pop back. Thank goodness my regeneration was good, but man, I was going to have to fight my training every step of the way here. 

Three parts of my mind were dedicated to… I didn’t want to say I was fighting the Siberian. More like playing keep-away. There had to be a limit to her abilities, but I was sure that the locals had tried all sorts of things. I figured I’d continue to dodge her until my mana was full, then try a number of tricks and see if anything stuck.

One part was tracking Jack, and debating what to do. 

On one hand, the person ordering the massacre was just as culpable as the person executing the massacre. Not to mention he might try and cause his own brand of devastation on the way out.

On the other, he was trying to run, and I was a healer. I’d sworn to do no harm, and provoking people just to kill them didn’t sit right with me.

I paused at the thought, and spun it out. It’d been forever since I’d last debated the ethics of provocation. Anyone responding with lethal force was an issue. Anyone remaining calm and collected, and politely - or heck, rudely - telling me to leave just made me feel bad.

First, do no harm. The thought popped into my primary thinking-about-Jack chain of thought. I filtered that into its own thread, now spending three parallel thoughts working on the ‘do I obliterate Jack or not’ thought.

Healing is my art.

I cycled that away, and then it was like my mind got hit by a virus or something. More and more parallel thoughts, debating the pros and cons of killing Jack popped up. In each mind I was arguing with myself, giving excellent reasons both to capture or kill Jack, and to let his cowardly, fleeing ass escape. I didn’t go after other people running away, what made Jack special?

I paused too long, stumbling in my deadly dance against the Siberian. Her claws went through my chest, only for her to grab my still-beating heart and rip it out of my body. She mutely displayed it in front of my eyes and crushed it to pulp.

Oh no. How terrible. I was going to need to change my outfit, and I’d come out with my actual gear. The quartermaster was going to have one heck of a story. I couldn’t resist smirking at the Siberian…who then started to eat the pulped remains of my heart in front of me.

Normally, I’d punish showboating in a fight, but I couldn’t this time, because I couldn’t touch her.

Back to the grand debate about what to do with Jack.

One thought struggled out from the utter morass of ideas and philosophy, a warning bell that nearly killed the debate - except it not killing the debate was another point in its favor.

Master effect! GET OUT!

I wasn’t entirely sure. The literature I’d read wasn’t clear on what feeling a Master was like, or anything else like that. I simply had to trust myself. And I trusted that something was fucking with my mind. It wasn’t my own. I blazed straight up, through the roof of the warehouse, and up into the grand open sky. As I stopped debating Jack’s fate, the thoughts slowly died out, and my various trains of thought spooled down into nothing again. 

Was this how Jack had survived so long? Convince anyone he was fighting to not hurt or kill him?

Cripes, and I thought Hatchetface was going to be the dangerous one.

Actually, wait. Math time.

I’d seen seven of the S9. Jack, Bonesaw, Mannequin, Shatterbird, Burnscar, Crawler, and the Siberian. The unknown woman made eight, if she was a member of their team. If they were openly recruiting, that brought them up to nine.

Either Hatchetface was missing, or they were pulling a ‘smoke and mirrors’ by having extra numbers. The unknown, unnamed woman. 

I closed my eyes and resorted my mind.

I was purely on tracking duty. At no point was I going to escalate to causing harm, in any way, shape, or form. I gave myself orders. A hunting mission. No. Combat. At any cost.

Opening my eyes again, I locked onto where Jack was stumbling out of the warehouse, helped along by the Siberian. They picked up Nameless, and I carefully watched them get into a van, then drive off. The roads weren’t nearly as empty as I hoped - too many people were ignoring my curfew order - but they were clear enough for them to leave the city.

Disappointing. Extra disappointing that Legend never showed up, although the phone call had done what I needed it to. Only 5 out of 8? Whoof, I was going to get roasted in the AAR.

On the other hand, the moment I found out, nobody had died, and I’d promptly driven the murderers from Brocton Bay. I wasn’t Iona, I wasn’t Night, my calling wasn’t fighting or killing people. It was healing, and medicine. I just had a few tools for self defense, or defense of my patients.

… I wasn’t going to bring that up in the AAR. I’d get extra-roasted if I tried. Ah well, the people I cared about would understand.

I swooped down towards the midpoint of the city, and spent thirteen painstaking minutes recreating the city-wide announcement spell. Then I activated it, and let my voice boom across the city.

“Curfew has been lifted. Repeat, curfew has been lifted. The Slaughterhouse Nine have left the city. Repeat. The Slaughterhouse Nine have left the city. Curfew has been lifted. Have a nice day.”

Then I sent Lisa a text. And copied Legend on it as well. I’d get the information to the PRT as soon as I could, but hey, I could text and fly just fine! My reflexes were good enough to teleport me around billboards.

I cursed the first two times as my texts were ‘too long’, and finally got it short enough to send.

The Slaughterhouse Nine are using a van with the following license plate: #######

There! Perfect.