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Bryce Kiley2010, December 26: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

Amy’s little speech left me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. It also left me feeling surer about the Taylor Question: She shouldn’t trigger. I didn’t think I’d be able to look Taylor in the eyes if I allowed that to happen.

I wasn’t crazy enough to think that I should be “Earth-Bet’s only protagonist” or something. Frankly, if I thought someone else had a reasonable shot of dealing with Scion and ending the Cycle, I’d have been all for it. I’d have recruited them in a heartbeat. I’d have teched them out in the best I could make before tossing them at every S-rank threat in the world to build up a reputation, then left Gold Morning in their capable hands.

Problem was, no one else could. Not Cauldron, not Lily, and not Taylor. Canon made that abundantly clear. Their victory had more to do with luck than anyone was comfortable admitting. Yes, Amy could jailbreak Taylor’s Shard. Yes, Taylor could use Doormaker to build herself an army. And yes, Lily could pop Scion’s avatar like a soap bubble.

But… But none of that was a winning strategy. As powerful as that particular grouping of Shards seemed, Khepri’s army wasn’t what killed Scion, not even close. She had every endbringer save Behemoth on her side and all she managed to do was distract him.

Khepri’s final strategy, the winning strategy, had been to make facsimiles of Eden’s avatar to mock Scion. She used countless changers and shapers to make copies of Eden, only to have him lash out and destroy them. Essentially, given what Shards were, she was making copies of his dead wife… out of his dead wife.

And then, Oliver died. Oliver, the member of the Travelers with the most worthless power, had unknowingly ingested the most important Shard. It was the same Shard that Eden used to project her humanoid avatar. In other words, to Scion, Oliver looked exactly the same as Eden.

Oliver’s presence gave Scion a flicker of hope, a way out of that nightmare. He thought, for the briefest moment, that Eden might have survived, that the past thirty-odd years was just a part of the Thinker’s plan.

And then, Oliver died.

Scion watched Eden die a second time, which finally broke him. He curled up like a child and allowed Lily’s final attacks to kill his avatar.

That was it. That was Gold Morning. Left to Taylor, the battle with Scion would end when Taylor bullied him with images of his dead wife made from the Shards of his dead wife. She pushed a depressed god to suicide.

From a narrative perspective, it was a masterstroke on Wildbow’s part, a wonderful bit of cosmic irony. Taylor became the exact kind of bully she once detested, all to save the multiverse. And in doing so, she completely lost herself to Queen Administrator, an utterly miserable end for a hero of her caliber.

I didn’t want that. Khepri was not the absolute win condition people back in my old world liked to think she was. She wasn’t even the most important piece of the puzzle. A conductor, a general, but not the silver bullet. Allowing Taylor to trigger made me feel like I was raising up a lamb for the slaughter, because that’d be exactly what I was doing.

Another argument in favor of allowing the locker event was that Taylor could do a lot of good in the world. She was a girl desperately seeking meaning in her life and would leap at the chance to be a hero. I could adopt her as The GOAT, take her under my wing and give her what she needed to find fulfillment as a rising heroine.

But… But I wasn’t sure I agreed with that sentiment. She didn’t need “purpose” nearly as much as she needed friends. The Undersiders had become a found family for her, and this family was what gave her the strength to help shape Brockton Bay’s future.

And I’d already arrested all her friends.

Was I willing to take Lisa’s place? I could. I could be her guiding light, groom her into a hero. She could be my contingency, my absolute last resort against Scion.

That… That sounded exhausting. 

No, I’d already decided: If I could prevent a whole lot of suffering, then I should. I’d failed with Sabah, she’d still triggered anyway, but that was no reason to allow the locker to happen.

I made my choice. When I got home, I gave SAINT a side project. He was to compile information about Taylor Hebert and her bullies, Sophia included. I then had him look into Sophia’s PRT handler and Winslow High’s administration.

Piggot would find every scrap of evidence on her desk, a New Year’s gift courtesy of The GOAT. It would be presented as a favor, helping her clean house before shit could hit the fan, but she’d understand the implied threat. I doubted she’d have any trouble cleaning up her side of things, so long as she was provided the right information.

With Sophia and her handler under investigation, the school’s administration would naturally follow suit. If not, I could nudge things along with a few, anonymous notes to the school board. The bullying would stop, and without any need for me to get physical.

As for the locker, I’d go take a few pictures for evidence before scrubbing it out myself sometime before the semester started.

Hopefully, this would be my first and last involvement in Taylor’s life. Really, the kid could use a break. There was the chance that she’d find a way to trigger anyway, like Sabah, but I’d cross that bridge when I got to it.

Maybe I’d come to regret the lack of an active Queen Administrator. Even so, I could confidently say that I’d walk away from Omelas.

X

2011, January 1: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

New Year’s Day at the Kiley house was a fairly sedate affair. Mom and dad were both only children so no one visited us for the holidays. That just meant we were free to do what we wanted without the stress of traveling or trying to cater to sudden guests.

And what we wanted was to walk down to the Boardwalk to see the sun rise over the ocean. It was a family tradition, as close to sacred as could be in our house.

It apparently started with dad’s great grandpa, an Irish sailor who came to the New World shortly after the Civil War. He was a superstitious sort, and thought that making his oaths while facing his homeland, and the Vatican, made them mean more or something. Or maybe he was just homesick.

Either way, dad’s family would always greet the new year this way. Back when the city wasn’t such a shithole, they used to go all the way to the lighthouse, still operational at the time, and spend the morning fishing before having a little fry-up with whatever they caught.

Sisi and I hated this tradition. Neither of us were morning people, though I was slowly becoming one thanks to my morning jogs. Dad would wake us up, we’d bitch about one sunrise being identical to another, and then we’d grudgingly trudge out the door like vampires consigned to our deaths.

Funny, then, that we were both up before dawn. We didn’t agree on it, and I could see the bags under my sister’s eyes, but there she was, tying her shoes as mom poured out coffee into three thermoses.

Our little family tradition felt empty without dad. The three of us ended up staring out at the water in silence, watching as the orange glow spread across the waves.

“John would have made a dumb joke right about now,” mom said softly.

“He would have,” Sierra agreed. “Is it weird that I miss the stupid puns now that he’s gone?”

“No, I miss them too,” mom sighed as she pulled us into a hug. “But life goes on. Your father wouldn’t have wanted us moping. I wish that this year, I’ll be home more for you kids. Especially you, Bryce. I know I haven’t been around as much, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. Dad’s gone. You’re busy. I understand,” I said as I nudged her side. Silently, I wished for the opposite. I loved mom, really, but her being a single mom was what allowed me the freedom to be Creed. “I can take care of myself.”

“I know you can, honey. But I’m your mother. I should be an active participant in your life.”

“Did you get that from a parenting book?”

“Truthfully? Yes,” mom chuckled wryly. “But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. So that’s my New Year’s resolution: I”m going to be an active participant in my baby boy’s life.”

“You know? I wouldn’t mind if you took baby steps with that one,” I replied, inching away from her.

“Hush, you,” she said, yanking me back into a one-armed hug. “So… Do either of you have any New Year’s resolutions? I feel like it’s been a long time since we talked as a family.”

My sister watched as a seagull dove for the water but rose empty-beaked. She let out a sigh. “Can I be real, mom?”

“Of course, dear.”

“When… When dad died, I went and got plastered with my friends in college. I didn’t do anything dumb while I was drunk; it’s not like I’m a party girl now. I’m not really proud of it, and I know I’m not old enough to drink, but…”

“But you had to,” mom whispered into her ear. “Sometimes, anything to dull the pain sounds like a good idea.”

“My resolution…” she laughed. It was a watery sound. “I guess I should stop paying Michelle to buy me wine.”

“Well, I won’t hold it against you. In manageable amounts…”

“I’ll be more responsible.”

“And you, Bryce?”

I watched that same seagull try to mug another bird. It failed because four other birds noticed the food and turned it into a brawl.

What did I want? Well, there were plenty of things I wanted: Be a better hero. Expand my production process. Equip other capable heroes across the world. Prepare for Gold Morning. Maybe even give Cauldron a call and get them to stop being raging fuckwits about it all.

But, personally? I wasn’t sure. I’d only been a hero since the end of November and a cape at all since September. It already felt like an eternity. Before I knew it, being Creed had largely taken over my life.

Sure, I went to school and occasionally tutored someone to meet Arcadia’s work-study quota, but those were mere obligations. My attention and focus was dedicated to being Creed.

Still… My thoughts wandered to SAINT. He was my creation and my dearest friend. A brother, of sorts. If there was one thing I wanted to be, both as Creed and as Bryce, then… “I’d like to be a better brother. You know, a better role model.”

I felt Sisi wrap her arm around me in a headlock. Her knuckles rubbed unpleasantly against my crown. “Oi. Are you saying I need a role model? Who’s older again?”

“Ow! Hey! Who used to slip me ten bucks to do her math homework again?”

“You shut your yap! I’m still older-Eep!” she yelped when I jabbed her in the armpit. I knew all her ticklish spots by now, lessons learned through long years of practical experience.

I slipped out from under her arm and ducked behind mom. “Of course, this is mature, older sibling behavior. Mom, help!”

Mom sighed but didn’t bother stopping us as we ran circles around her. “You two won’t ever change, will you?”

X

2011, January 2: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

The past week had been rather nice for my project pipeline. Admittedly, the coming end of winter break lit a fire under my ass.

For starters, I finished up the tech side of Sabah’s costume and compressed it all into a quick-change canister, much like the one I used. I was tempted to encode a magical girl callout as the passphrase to fuck with her but decided against it. Amy got much the same. Now, they could visit as they pleased, and had cloaking modules to ensure they wouldn’t be followed.

I also finished a collection of every handheld pistol available in the Despicable Me setting. I’d already made myself a freeze ray and a fart gun, but I took the time this week to complete the set with a shrink ray, flamethrower, lava-thrower, slime gun, and a plasma cannon.

Well, strictly speaking, I didn’t have every gun from Despicable Me. Vector had his weird squid gun and piranha launcher. I wasn’t quite silly enough to launch seafood at people yet. Oh, and I’d yet to build a sonic amplification device to augment the Pledge Regalia.

Still, I had quite the catalog and it felt like such a shame that I’d almost never use them. I was too strong as things stood. Very few capes could hope to contest me even if I relied exclusively on my Regalia’s speed and a few basic martial arts moves.

So, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and spent the rest of the past week upgrading my ship. Chiefly, this led to the official establishment of what I called the Mimic Network. Big Rig’s fabricators and drones helped tremendously.

Drones shaped like various debris were discreetly set up all around and inside the Gullrest, establishing a sensory perimeter that scanned for everything from visible light to sound and radio waves. Not even my own cloaking modules would allow anyone to sneak in and out of my base.

I considered it a necessary precaution. Otherwise, Amy might sneak the devil fruit off-base to experiment at home. Not that I didn’t trust her, but… she was still a parahuman at the end of the day. Wisdom was absolutely her dump stat.

The Mimic Network also had teeth, of course. Gru equipped his cookie-bots with plasma-cutters to assist in infiltration. Some of my mimics had those too; they were damn useful and made for deadly close-quarters weapons. I replaced others with assorted guns. Intruders could be frozen, ignited, sedated, shrunk, or just plain blown up at my leisure.

Or, more practically, at SAINT’s. He could take control of the Mimic Network at any time and rush through ridiculous quantities of data to identify and assess potential threats before deciding on an appropriate response. If necessary, he could even race through the digital waterways, projecting himself from any of my mimics.

That was my favorite part of the Mimic Network. Rather than just hijack Gru’s idea, I managed to incorporate a pokenav into each mimic. For lack of a better word, SAINT had a “door” of sorts in every robot, allowing him to smoothly launch himself in and out of digital space.

My mimics were soda bottles, chairs, potted plants, vacuum cleaners, toilet seats, and light bulbs. A porygon-2, bolt-beam at the ready, could pop out of a doorknob with practically zero warning.

Now, with two more weeks to go on the Despicable Me specialization, my two human teammates joined me at the Gullrest, each with their own concerns.

Sabah was easy. She wanted to start working on collaborative projects, namely Scarlet Overkill’s powersuit technology and Dru’s supercar. The former could be integrated into our costumes. The expanded bags from Pokemon were nice, but Despicable Me’s way of folding complex mechanisms down to innocent-looking objects could help me integrate my various inventions more holistically.

The supercar was much the same. Building it would allow me to incorporate many different bits of the setting’s technology. I doubted I’d ever need a ride of my own, but much like the Thousand Sunny, it was a way to preserve the tech base as a whole for future use.

No, as always, Amy was the problem child.

“I’ve got it… kinda,” Amy said. In her lap was the devil fruit, cradled like a precious firstborn rather than the melon-sized tumor that it was. “I think I fully understand the biology behind devil fruits. Now, all we have to do is apply an animal template.”

“You don’t sound sure,” Sabah replied with a teasing smile. She couldn’t hide it, though. Her fingers inched towards the fruit with an unspoken envy. “So, how about we get a second opinion?”

“Buzz off, Sabah. My devil fruit.”

“Come on, you hogged it all week!”

“Who told you to touch it? You have plenty on your plate anyway. Go work on your inventions.”

“But… But… It was really interesting,” the older girl pouted.

A few days ago, she touched the devil fruit out of curiosity. Her copy of Amy’s power, which included her ability to analyze biology, made her fall into a trance-like state. She’d been fascinated by the fruit ever since, only distracted by her projects.

I clapped my hands. “Enough, you two. Stop your bickering already. Amy, if you understand it, what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that I’ve learned as much as there is to learn,” she said with a huff. “Truth is, the devil fruit is incomplete right now, right?”

“Right. It needs an animal template.” I was starting to see the problem.

Though the devil fruit was a biological creation, it was also a “consolidated dream” according to Dr. Vegapunk. There was a chance that Shaper’s understanding of it was incomplete.

Or, maybe that wasn’t the right word. Maybe Shaper desired a more thorough observation period. The devil fruit was something that firmly resided in its domain yet defied its accumulated body of knowledge.

Amy nodded. Almost subconsciously, she stroked the fruit as if it was a cat. “And not all animals are the same. And after that, there is another stage of progression we need to study: people.”

“Are you… suggesting we get live test subjects?” I asked incredulously. That sounded like a horrible idea. 

She scoffed. “No, of course not. We’re not giving untreated tinkertech to randos, Bryce. But… But that’s the problem. We need to test it, but giving it to randos as it is would be unethical.”

“It’s a real Catch-22.”

“Exactly. I almost don’t want to move on to giving this thing a template. In a way, wouldn’t it be right for the person who eats the fruit to decide what animal template it should have?”

“You’re not wrong,” Sabah said. “But don’t pharmaceutical companies conduct testing on live animals and people? Can we do rats?”

“We could, but it wouldn’t be complete. A devil fruit’s powers are diverse, and change with the template. A rat wouldn’t be cognizant enough to use those powers, so it wouldn’t make for a good subject. I kinda hate saying this, but we need a human.”

“A volunteer then? New medicines get tested like that sometimes, too, right?”

“Right. Except those are done after animal trials. We’re skipping straight to human trials. Worse, we don’t even have a finished product yet. And it’s not like any of us want the fruit.”

“Nope, not risking it,” Sabah agreed.

“The weakness to the sea is too severe,” I nodded. It could be worked around, but I wasn’t eager to give myself such a glaring vulnerability quite yet. I did have a few ideas, but those could wait.

“So, yeah. I’m not sure what to do with this thing,” Amy sighed.

“We need a willing test subject. This subject needs to be intelligent so as to provide a complete range of data…” I thought about it. Soon, I arrived at two possible courses of action. “That… might be doable…”

“Really? You know someone?”

“Well, one option would be to promise healing or other tech as a bonus. Human trials often provide compensation of some sort.”

Amy shook her head vigorously. “No. I don’t know about other tech, but not healing. We’re not going to hold healing them or their relatives as a bargaining chip. It sounds too much like blackmail.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d say. The other option might be even worse, or maybe not.”

“How so?”

“It wouldn’t be worse in the sense that we wouldn’t be the cause of his misfortune. And we can’t hold healing as a bargaining chip because we can’t heal him in the first place.”

“What are you… Case-53s. You’re thinking about giving a fruit to a Case-53.”

“I am.” I held out a hand to forestall their objections. “I know that sounds bad, but hear me out: First, we can’t heal them. Second, some of their situations are so bad that eating a devil fruit can’t really make things worse. Third, eating a fruit could potentially improve their quality of life a great deal, by either making their appearances more appealing, or in the case I’m thinking of, giving them functioning limbs again.”

“Hold on, functioning limbs?”

“Trainwreck. He’s one of the Merchants. His real body is a limbless blob and he needs his tech to even move effectively. I’m pretty sure he’s not actually thrilled about being a Merchant in the first place. If we gave him a better option via a new body…”

“You think you might be able to flip him,” Sabah finished for me. “That… That’s possible. It’d be like giving someone with an incurable disease an experimental treatment.”

Amy looked down at the fruit. “It… It might work. When I tried to heal a Case-53, their mutations returned, as if their bodies were being copied from a template. If the fruit could replace that template, or give the Case-53 a changer aspect to their power, then they can choose to remain in a more functional form…”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s the idea. So?”

“I… I’m provisionally okay with this. But,” she stressed, “You need to give him a full overview of what he can expect.”

“Of course. He’s a willing test subject, not a guinea pig.”

“He gets to choose his animal template.”

“So long as it’s not something impossible to find in New England, I agree. I just don’t want it to be a fucking panda or something.”

“That’s fine. He agrees to let me examine him to make sure he’s alright.”

“Sounds fair. We wouldn’t want him to suffer any side effects later. He’s a Case-53 so even he’ll understand that it’s a reasonable ask.”

“And lastly, he needs to be free to go. We’re not trying to recruit him,” Amy finished.

“I agree. I never considered recruiting him in the first place,” I said. “How about we add a clause that says he should stay on the straight and narrow? He doesn’t need to be a hero, but…”

“But no major crimes. I don’t think he’s known for any of that anyway, but still. He’s being helped by heroes. The least he can do is not continue being a villain.”

“Okay, you want me to write up a contract or something?”

“Eh… Actually, yeah. I know it’ll be worth less than the paper it’s written on, but let’s make this official. We should approach him as The GOAT, not just Creed.”

“Sounds good to me. I guess I know what I’m doing this week. You know, I’ve fought him before. He might have a bit of a grudge.”

“Tough. Take a box of chocolates with you.”

“Heh, this should be interesting.”

Author’s Note

I swear I don’t hate Taylor, guys. If anything, I think I admire her character quite a bit. There’s something about that much unstoppable determination that’s oddly charismatic. Even so, this is looking like yet another fic without the real protagonist.

Wouldn’t it be funny if QA finds a way for Taylor to trigger without the locker anyway?

Animal Fact: Most land-dwelling snails and slugs are hermaphrodites.

Some are known to make “love darts,” which are essentially harpoon-like darts made of chitin or calcium carbonate that contain an allomone compound which promotes sperm preservation in the victim.

And yes, I do mean “victim.” During mating season, two snails/slugs will literally duel each other to see who can spear the other. The one that gets skewered first is “female” for the season.

The funny thing is that snails/slugs don’t have vaginas. There is no “sperm receptacle” in the way mammals would consider it. Nor is the love dart a penis; it doesn’t transfer sperm despite common misconception. So really, a snail/slug gets speared twice, and anywhere will do.