Project Prometheus (Original Setting Superhero Quest) (2024)

The next day, you try again.

Your target is clear: the Third North Tower complex located on the intersection of Third Street and North Avenue. It's not a terribly creative name, but it does make it trivial to find.

That and the nuclear star of gravitational force above you.

Black Swan took to her assigned role of "distraction" with gusto. She seems to have taken your failure the day prior as a personal slight, and is carving through the nightmare creatures with nearly palpable glee.

She even took it upon herself to review footage of some of Novalight's old battles. She was using several of the former leader of New Dawn's tactics, most notably, using her superior speed in the air to maneuver below her targets before firing upwards. From that angle, she does not have to worry about collateral damage and is free to make her blasts as powerful as she wants.

You watch from your concealed vantage point with no small level of awe. Part of you wonders if you even need to infiltrate the building—Black Swan was doing such an admirable job that she might destroy the shadow-creatures before you found their source.

But it would be terribly uncouth of you to sit on your hands and watch your junior do all of the work. So, tearing your eyes from the impressive display of raw power, you slowly approach your target.

Third North Tower is a luxury high-rise apartment building that sticks out in the downtown area like a brick gargoyle. You can tell from the confused mishmash of architectural styles that it was built around thirty years ago; the ground-floor lobby is all brick and warm colors meant to invoke a Hummelstown Brownstone, while the upper part of the building is all glass and curved windows. You can almost see the exact moment funding initially ran out and a corp bought the building to finish construction.

It's an ugly building to be sure, and you idly wonder if you would be doing the Worker's Mitt a favor if Black Swan destroyed it. But, no, you were not a thug and its destruction would take any answers about what happened within its walls.

So, into the breach you go.

The birds race to the beacon that is Black Swan in a steady stream, leaving your approach unnoticed. As you get within a block of Third North, a few things become apparent.

First, every entrance and exit to the building is barricaded from the inside, as if someone were trying to keep something out—or, you suppose, something inside. Second, the fire-escapes are all broken and shattered, shards of metal ladders and platforms littering the ground around the tower. There was no way out of the building except the front. Third, and most importantly, whatever made the shadow creatures was not limited to just birds.

The ground floor of Third North and the surrounding street was patrolled by large, stygian dogs. They were massive—their heads would have been level with your shoulder—with unhinged jaws constantly slathering and blood-red eyes whirling in their sockets. You freeze in place as once passes you and thank your lucky stars you had Black Swan running interference; there was no way you would have had the time to spot the dogs while under attack from the birds.

Still, now you do not have Black Swan to help you fight them. You do not relish your chances in a direct confrontation with them . . . so you decide to—how would Nora put it?—use your f*cking head.

And use your head you do—without the swearing, thank you Valiant Silver. On the east side of the building, you spy a bank level with the fourth floor of Third North. Space in this part of town was at a premium, and so the buildings were all constructed in close proximity. The bank was close enough that there were several broken windows in Third North you might be able to reach with a long enough leap. It would certainly get you into the building without having to fight man's best friend.

Sure enough, after scaling to the roof of the bank, you get a running start and leap across the gap and through a window.

You scrape your arm on a shard of glass, but are otherwise unharmed. You see a shadow-dog sniffing the air and looking in the area of your jump, but then lower its head and walk away.

You look around the deserted room and see nothing out of the ordinary. The same cannot be said of the smell. You know what decomposing bodies smell like, and that is definitely the oder that assails your senses. With a sigh, you move into the building.

You suppose the easy part is over.

* * *​

As a child, you learned three lessons that still defined you to this day.

The first came when you were four years old. You were too young to understand the concept of "organized crime" and the toll it might take on a person living in a world like that. To you, it was normal. All you knew was that your mother was always sad unless she was with you. So, with all the innocent logic of a child, you decided you would never leave her side.

One night, she came to your room while you were sleeping and told you that you were going on a trip. She had already packed your bag—you just had to follow her and stay very, very quiet.

You got as far as the edge of the borough before your father's men caught you.

You still remember your father coming to you as you sat shivering in your room. It might be your first, real memory. There was no love in those eyes. No mercy. As he explained that you would never be seeing your mother again, the only thing you saw in those eyes was the lesson he was trying to impart.

Disobedience is death.

* * *​

Aside from the elderly couple in the apartment, you saw remarkably few bodies on this floor. You suppose Inspector Du Bois may have edited the footage to show you the highlights, not the endless stretches of empty hallway. Not that you were particularly complaining mind you.

The rapturous expressions on the bodies that still held the knives used to cut their own throats were burned into your mind's eye.

You eventually find yourself in a stairwell that terminates on the 11th floor. Sticking your head out, you see that this is some sort of recreational floor with an olympic-sized swimming pool and gymnasium.

Inside the gymnasium you see that all of the equipment and benches have been pushed together to form a crude ring. In the center of the ring were about a dozen bodies of various people holding improvised weapons—dumbbells, knives strapped to brooms, even one man with a sledgehammer. Half were dressed in red, the other half dressed in blue.

And in front of all was a chair piled high on various exercise machines. From there, you would have a front-seat view of the entire ring.

You ill-like what this implies. The beat of your heart nearly drowns out the hum from the fluorescent lights . . .

. . . wait., That sound you hear is not just the hum of the electrical lights. There is another tone, lower, like a growl. No—like a purr. You look across the room and see, hidden beneath a weight-lifting machine, is a great, shadowy-cat grooming itself.

No. . . it's more a panther with oversized tusks jutting out of its mouth. Were it not for the glow of its eyes and the sounds it was making, you would have missed it entirely. But, as is, you've managed to see it before it has seen you.

You debate ambushing it before, slowly and deliberately, grasping a dumbbell off the ground and throwing it into a haphazard pile of equipment on the other side of the room. You give it a high arc so that, by the time it lands, you have repositioned yourself.

It knocks over the pile with a loud clatter, and the panther silently darts across the room with razor sharp claws extended. Your gratitude to be behind the monster is beyond words as you silently slip away.

* * *​

The second lesson came when you were eight.

By that time, you understood what living in your father's world meant: isolation. You had no other children your age to play with, no one who understood what it was like to be a lonely girl. You just had your tutors and the crushing weight of your father's expectations.

Your only friend in the world was an English Bulldog named Macduff who followed you everywhere. Macduff was an ancient dog by any standard—with rotting teeth and only one good eye—but he loved you and that was enough. He was the one bright spot in your world.

Until one night you were forced to attend a dinner with your father and his subordinates. You were bored, tired, and you missed your mother. One of them—you can't even remember who—made a joke about her being gone, and you burst into tears. You cried and cried and couldn't stop no matter how your father commanded you or how hard you tried. Eventually, he had you removed with a promise to punish you for your "outburst".

That time, he made you watch. As he took Macduff from you, as he cut away another piece of your heart, you learned the second lesson.

Love is a weakness.

* * *​

As you emerge on the 23rd floor, you know you're running out of time. Through a window, you can see that light still glimmers and blooms in the distance—Black Swan continues her offensive against the birds, but not even she can last forever. You move with as much speed as you can afford while remaining hidden.

The 23rd floor is another common area, one with a great library that is novel in that it actually seems to have a selection of paper books. Equally novel, but infinitely less enjoyable, are the crude gallows erected in the center of the room.

The smell comes back in full force as you eye bodies still dangling from the rows and rows of platforms covering the room. Men, women, all kinds of people were hung with seemingly no regard for how to cut them down afterwards. Around each poor victim's neck is a sign that details their various supposed crimes such as "thievery", "assault on a knight of the kingdom, and "promotion of ill morals."

However, the most common offense listed by far is "sedition".

You've seen this before. Not personally, but in the files back in the Apiary. You once again curse the loss of Justice Unlimited's home. What you wouldn't give to be able to access the information contained there right now.

Still, the handiwork is undeniable—Le Petit Prince had been here. You were fuzzy on the exact details, but he was the rare metahuman capable of controlling other people. He wasn't actually a child, rather, he was a short man in a near-permanent state of mental arrested development. Towarri and Yasmin defeated him nearly seven years ago, and he has been rotting in Wonderland ever since.

Or, "had" been, you suppose.

He had never been considered a major player in Horizon. Word was, his power had some caveats that made it short of true mind control and limited in effectiveness. But, looking at the carnage around, you wonder if that threat assessment had been accurate.

You eye a "sedition" sign. The picture was starting to come together, and you did not care for it even in the slightest. You're distracted enough by the revelations that . . .

. . . you almost miss the massive snake slithering around the bookshelf behind you. Its head was large enough to swallow you in one bite, and its body was thick as a tree-trunk. You can see its reflection in a shattered computer monitor in front of you as it begins to line up a strike.

Distantly, you can also hear someone sobbing. Or screaming. It's hard to tell, but you have a feeling you've found your target. Now, you just have to get past their final protector.

You slowly move until a reading table is positioned right in front of you. Right as the snake lunges, you fall forward and flip the table so it's standing on its side. The snake rockets past you, tearing through the table like it was made of wet newspaper.

You never expected the table to stop the snake, but now it cannot see you. You roll to the side and pull yourself on the snakes back before it slithers by. You take a moment to find your balance and then race up the snake's back. It's just beginning to turn its head—flickering tongue tasting the air for you—when you reach the junction where its head meets its body.

You aim a knife-hand and, with the power of lightning, strike through the snake's skin, past muscle and sinew, and sever its spine.

You fall to the ground as the snake dissolves into a black storm of dust. You can hear the sobbing getting louder, coming from one of the library's private study rooms. You flip your hair and start forward.

Time for some answers.

* * *​

The third and final lesson came on your thirteenth birthday.

You felt the cool grip of plastic and wood as your father slid a gun into your hand. As you eyed the bound and gagged man kneeling with his back to you, your father told you it was "time to join the family business".

The man was helpless. You didn't even know his name. He was just someone who had disappointed your father.

You knew disobedience was death.

You knew that love was a weakness.

And you knew that your father was a monster. But that day, as you wordlessly aimed the gun and pulled the trigger, you learned something else:

You were a monster too.

* * *​

"No! No! Get away! Get away! Getawaygetawaygetawaygetawaygetaway—-!"

The creature in front of you is disgusting, caked blood and her own filth. Her eyes are wild; her pupils shrunken, the whites wide, eyes rolling around madly focusing on nothing. You don't even know if she can see you.

She's emaciated—much too thin—like she hasn't eaten a good meal in a long, long time. Her hair is stuck to her face in matted clumps and her clothes are so bedraggled that she would be naked if it weren't for the large crow sitting in her lap. It opens one eye and gives a half-hearted "caaw" before closing it again and snuggling closer to its hysterical master.

You try to speak to her, "My name is Lady Lei—"

"Liar! Liar! LIAR! Shutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutup! SHUT UP! You all LIE! You leave and come back different! You're not people anymore!"

An English Mastiff laying in the corner chokes out a "woof" before going still again. Curled into him is a cat, fainlty breathing. Around the person's neck is a limp snake. You eye the woman . . . girl? The person speaking. She's nearly foaming at the mouth.

"They all leave and come back! And they do things! What HE tells them! You think someone's safe and they're NOT! THEY LIE! THEY ALL LIE! Get away from me, get away from me, just get away, get away, get away—"

You try to think of what to say—what you can possibly say—to this person. You wrack your brain; what would Yazmin do?

"I'm . . . a hero. I'm here to help."

"LIAR!" she screams so loudly a blood vessel bursts in her eye, "They all lie and they hurt! They hurt! They hurt! I won't let them hurt anyone anymore!"

You see her shadow move and begin to crawl over the bird in her lap. She is the source! Her metahuman ability begins to bend the light around the crow and in a moment you will have to deal with another shadow creature.

You couldn't get her to believe you. You couldn't get the people at town hall to believe you. You . . . you can't do this.

But as you look at your hand, sparks dance around it. You could take her out, right now. Before her power manifested. Hard enough she wouldn't be able to do anything.

But would she even survive? Another voice in your mind asks. It sounds like dead friends. Will the great Lady Leizi give up, just like that?

You want to scream back at it to leave you alone. You want to ask how dare ghosts impose this responsibility on you? You want . . . no. You wonder. You wonder if the voice could be right.

You don't have any more time to decide. You have to act now. You know the truth. You . . .

[ ] . . . know that you cannot be anything other than what you are. You strike the girl down.

(DC 5, HIT 1).

[ ] . . . know you can be more. You try to talk to her.

(DC 15, REPUTATION 10. A failure on the check will result in an injury level. The check may then be rerolled with a lower DC and Stat Check. Subsequent failures will result in additional injury levels and further lower the DC and Stat Check).

Lady Leizi has one level of injury!

This is a big one. This choice is important in ways that are both obvious and not obvious.

Please be prepared to accept the consequences of your actions.

TWO HOUR MORATORIUM ON VOTING.