Crystalized Munchkinry - Act II - Chapter 17 (Patreon)

Taylor was rather surprised when Admin told her they were upgrading the difficulty level. At first, she thought he was joking.

Then he put her through the same forest filled with slimes. They almost demolished her.

The slimes were faster, stronger, and, most importantly, smarter. In turn, she had to react faster, be more accurate, and use her power more efficiently while pushing it to its limits.

At first, she hated it.

It reminded her of school, where no matter what she tried, she always ended up the butt of someone’s joke. But then she got better, and she realized it was completely different. Here, she could train and train until she could destroy anything Admin put in front of her.

And that thought made her happy.

Not because of the opportunity to destroy a lot of things, though that was certainly a pleasant bonus, but because she could see herself improving. And when she couldn’t, Admin was always there with some stupidly vague piece of advice that somehow contained exactly the hint she needed to improve further.

It took only a few hours to clear the Forest scenario, including the metal T-Rex, whereas the first time it had taken her an entire night.

“What now, Admin?” she asked, sitting comfortably atop the surprisingly cushioned corpse of the slime dinosaur.

Admin floated around her in lazy circles while whistling a catchy tune“How about something serious instead of cartoonish?”

“Sure,” she answered confidently.

“Then close your eyes and count to five.”

Taylor glared at him, silently warning him not to do anything weird.

He only smiled back, looking mighty cheeky.

With a sigh, she closed her eyes and started counting.

“… Five.”

She finished counting and immediately opened her eyes.

She looked around in disgust. The alley would have fit right in back home in Brockton Bay.  

Apparently, she had been transported to a dilapidated city, complete with dirty streets, crumbling buildings, smoke rising in the distance, and an assortment of ominous noises echoing from somewhere beyond the surrounding blocks.

“What do I need to do here?” she asked.

Admin had appeared nearby, dressed, for some utterly unfathomable reason, as a Japanese schoolgirl complete with pigtails.

“And why, in all that is holy, are you dressed like that?”

“It’s thematic!” came the cheery answer. “And you have to survive. Same as always.”

While listening to the explanation, she heard movement behind her. She whirled around, lightning already crackling between her fingers, ready to strike whatever was coming.

It was human-shaped, but that was where the similarities ended.

It wore dirty, torn clothing, its skin was a deathly gray, and its eyes were completely devoid of intelligence. And even from several feet away, it smelled absolutely horrible.

“A fucking zombie apocalypse?” she asked indignantly.

While taking a break from killing zombies that somehow grew stronger the more of them she killed, Taylor decided to try her luck with a question.

“When are we doing the mission?”

“Thursday,” came the immediate reply.

“That soon?”

“Yes. Time is of the essence.”

Taylor frowned.

“Anything else you can tell me?” she tried again. Her curiosity was slowly killing her.

Admin said nothing.

Instead, a zombie suddenly vaulted onto the rooftop where she was resting. Taylor stared at it for a moment before sighing. Taking that as a definitive no, she climbed to her feet and prepared herself for yet another fight with a super-zombie.

The next morning, she said goodbye to her dad after another breakfast spent actually talking to each other. It was still surprising to Taylor that they did that now.

Then she headed out for a quick run. According to Admin, her Brute power was about halfway through developing, which meant the more she exercised, the greater the gains she would receive.

After a revitalizing shower, she reluctantly sat down to start her schoolwork. She didn’t particularly want to do it, but it was the least she could do for her father.

It was rather boring.

The first few lessons consisted of placement tests designed to gauge her knowledge and recommend the appropriate modules for later study.

By the time she finished, it was around lunchtime.

To her surprise, she had found the tests much easier than expected. By the end of her time at school, she had barely been trying anymore. No matter what she did, the Trio always found a way to ruin it, and after enough years of that, she had stopped expecting success.

While making herself lunch and preparing dinner for her dad, she found herself thinking about the results.

Eventually, the answer struck her: she had Thinker powers now.

That would certainly explain her miraculous improvement. A quick consultation with Admin confirmed it.

Pleased to discover that Winslow hadn’t been a complete waste of time after all, she spent the afternoon enthusiastically building things in her workshop.

The first thing she built, at Admin’s request, was a server with extra hard drive space and additional processing power. She immediately connected it to her power source and her new computer, letting everything sync together.

Using two old watches, one for her and one for her dad, she also constructed a pair of communication devices. She wanted to make sure they could stay in contact, and this conveniently let her bypass her father’s ’no phone’ rule at the same time.

The watches had a simple design. When idle, the face displayed a fully functional analog clock. However, when an authorized finger made contact with the surface, the display shifted into a minimalist interface with options to call, accept, or decline.

Audio was handled through directional microphones and speakers, tightly focused to the user. According to Admin, the communication was completely unblockable, and eavesdropping was impossible.

After that, she built a handheld listening device detector using an old Geiger counter. She went through the house with it immediately, satisfied to find no signs of surveillance. Just to be safe, she added a secondary device to the phone line that would alert her, at least in theory, if anyone was listening in. More importantly, it also allowed calls to be rerouted directly to the watch communicators if necessary.

When her father arrived home, exhausted from work, she was already beginning the process of connecting the house to her energy source.

They were eating the prepared roasted chicken and talking about their day, mostly Taylor’s Tinker creations and Danny’s therapist appointment, when the phone rang.

Danny was the first to stand up, so Taylor stayed seated but stopped eating to listen.

“Hebert household,” Danny spoke.

Taylor couldn’t hear the person on the other end, but her father’s next sentence immediately gave her a clue about the topic of the call.

“Hello, Zoe,” he said flatly.

Taylor knew her father well enough to recognize that he was carefully suppressing his anger.

She continued listening to the one-sided conversation, made no easier by Danny’s short, clipped responses. She tried to piece together what Emma’s mother might be saying, but she couldn’t quite fill in the gaps.

A few minutes later, he returned to the kitchen with a strange look on his face. He sat down and stared at his food for several seconds without speaking.

Before Taylor could ask what had happened, he spoke up. “They arrested Emma.”

“What?”

“Yeah. According to Zoe, they had to sign some things, so she couldn’t really go into specifics, but she still wanted to apologize.”

Taylor let out a disbelieving snort.

“I know,” he said, giving her a sad, understanding smile. “But get this. One of the girls, Madison, turned herself in on Monday.”

“Madison?”

“You know her?”

“She was always hanging around Emma and Sophia, helping them,” she said angrily.

“Well, apparently she had a change of heart or something, because thanks to her evidence, they arrested all of them.”

“Good. They deserve it.”

Danny reached over and patted her hand sympathetically.

“I’ll call Steve tomorrow morning to see where this puts us with the school situation.”

“Good,” she replied simply.

She couldn’t quite put into words how she felt about it. The speed and ease of how everything had unfolded felt suspicious to her, and yet she was also relieved, even quietly satisfied, that the girls who had tormented her were finally facing consequences.

In the end, she decided it was better not to dwell on it and instead focus on things she could actually understand, or destroy with controlled bursts of glorious lightning.

She stood, taking a brief breather from the fight as she looked out over the dystopian cityscape, when a thought suddenly occurred to her.

“Hey Admin?” she called out.

“Yeees?” came the reply from just behind her.

“How would you rate me against an Endbringer?” she asked.

The only answer she got was laughter.

“That bad?” she grimaced.

“Yeah,” he said, still lightly chuckling. “You need a lot more practice and experience with your power before you could even survive something like that.”

“Oh.”

She wasn’t entirely sure what she had expected, but after all the time she had spent training, she thought she might at least be able to put up a decent fight.

“Want to try?” Admin asked casually.

“What?”

“I could simulate an Endbringer attack.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. How about Leviathan? That’s probably the easiest to fight against.”

Taylor could feel herself getting excited.

Seeing the Endbringers destroyed had always been one of her dreams. She was fairly sure she wasn’t alone in that. More importantly, she wanted to see how she would actually perform against one in a controlled setting.

Soon she stood on the beach of Brockton Bay, battered by torrential rain that never seemed to let up. When she asked why the Bay specifically, Admin’s answer had been simple: motivation.

She could feel the pressure immediately. Even though this was only a simulation of her home, she felt the instinct to protect it.

She wore the gray cape and featureless white mask she used in the city scenarios. The rain would have soaked her instantly if not for her lightning armor, which continuously evaporated every drop before it could touch her.

She was vibrating in place, barely holding herself back, when a flat voice announced the Endbringer’s arrival.

“Leviathan approaching Brockton Bay, ETA 240 seconds.”

Taylor drew in a steady breath and prepared herself.

She conjured dozens of lightning spheres at once, along with several layered clones, every construct primed and ready for immediate deployment. At the same time, she extended her senses outward, searching for any sign of Leviathan’s position.

Yet she couldn’t sense it.

Then, after nearly a minute of searching, she spotted it with her eyes beneath the water, the shadow of the monster moving with horrifying speed straight toward the shore.

She moved instantly.

 In the same breath she launched herself forward, unleashing everything she had at once in a concentrated opening strike, trying to overwhelm it before it could properly surface.

Only for everything to fade to black.

She came back to consciousness on the beach without the rain, staring at a giant bloody ’You died’ sign hovering in front of her vision.

She blinked in surprise. “What the hell happened?”

“You weren’t fast or strong enough,” Admin said calmly. “The water it launched cut you in half.”

That stopped her cold.

It was that strong?

Granted, she hadn’t been going all out with her reinforcement, expecting it to behave like everything else she had fought so far. Something she could brute-force through with enough power and momentum.

Clearly, that assumption had been wrong.

At least it was just a simulation…

“Again!” she said immediately.

“Are you sure?” Admin asked.

“Yes!”

“As you wish."

The next time she tried, she pushed her defenses to the absolute maximum. With her reinforced state fully engaged, she lasted long enough to land a solid hit on Leviathan itself.

Then Leviathan forced her underwater.

According to Admin she had drowned, but thankfully the screen went dark before she could register it.

After a few tries, she managed to consistently evade Leviathan and protect herself.

However, her attacks rarely landed, and when they did, they barely seemed to do any damage.

Meanwhile, it only took Leviathan a few minutes to sink the Bay into the ocean, leaving her hovering over the murky waters as the simulation played out around her.

“I get it. I’m not strong enough,” she told Admin while she sat with a cup of virtual tea on a warm beach, trying to wash away the lingering desperation from the simulation.

“Not yet,” Admin replied. “You just need more practice, and you’ll be able to kick its scaly ass to the moon.”

She smiled faintly at the attempt to cheer her up, but she couldn’t really believe it. Even if she survived, she hadn’t been able to actually stop anything.

“Plus, you were at a serious disadvantage,” he continued. “You were alone, without any other heroes.”

Taylor nodded, acknowledging the point.

“And I didn’t turn on the power that would give you a true edge.”

“What?” she exclaimed, indignation flashing through her. “You just let me suffer for no reason?”

“No. I wanted to show you how you stack up against something like an Endbringer.”

She frowned. “If you had turned it on, would I have won?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I’d rather not say. You wouldn’t like it,” Admin warned her. Something in his voice made it clear he wasn’t lying.

“I don’t care. I can take it.”

He studied her for a few seconds, and she met his gaze without flinching.

“The Endbringers are sandbagging. What you know about them is barely a fraction of their capabilities. If it saw you could hurt it, it would stop holding back and use its true power.”

That was not what she expected.

The Endbringers’ full power?

They were already horrifyingly strong, capable of reshaping entire landscapes, and that was while supposedly holding back?

“Do other people know?” she asked quietly.

“Not to my knowledge,” he said. “There are probably a few who suspect it, but they keep silent.”

“Why?” she asked, feeling her throat tighten and tears threatening to burst out.

“Imagine the panic…”

That made sense, but it didn’t make her feel any better.

Admin smiled gently at her. “Don’t worry, Taylor. If you follow my plan, you’ll be able to take them on… and take them down.”

She gave a shaky nod but didn’t trust herself to speak.

“How about we watch a few recordings of your mother?”

Taylor hesitated, then nodded. She really needed something to take her mind off this and cheer her up.

So they spent the remaining time watching scenes of her mother from the past.

The next morning, she immediately sought out her father and pulled him into a tight hug.

When he asked what was wrong, she simply told him she had a terrible nightmare. She didn’t feel like sharing anything about the Endbringers.

Danny hugged her back without hesitation and told her everything would be alright.

He read the reports and watched a few interrogation videos, frowning more with each passing minute.

This would disrupt a few things, and he would need to delay several plans.

Still, ultimately, it was just another variable he could account for and use. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t examine it from every angle, though. He was too close to the endgame now to afford anything less than absolute caution.

Just a few more months, and he would have it all.

All over the world, people woke up confused and anxious.

Parahumans with precognitive or sensing abilities felt it first, a shared unease that something significant was approaching. Yet none of them could point to where it would happen, when it would occur, or what it actually was.

Even the most powerful among them could sense that whatever was coming would have far-reaching consequences, but not why, and not how.

As a result, an undercurrent of panic spread across the globe. And yet, paradoxically, almost no one acted on it, because everyone feared that interfering might make things worse.

So on this day, the world sat up, held its breath and watched.