The Beasts of Brockton Bay

Summary: Brockton Bay is often said to be some hellhole city that doesn't match the country around it. Those who live there could tell you it's actually pretty nice, so long as you don't run afoul of a cape on a bad mood.

Amelia Lavere, also known as Dead Garden, the most versatile Biokinetic in the planet, shoplifted a pretzel.

It was arguably the dumbest thing she could have done at that point. Her father was a millionaire from his legit business enterprises, and a multimillionaire from the illegal ones. Her monthly allowance was bigger than what most people make in a year. Not to mention the fact that as Dead Garden was famous for volunteering at hospitals despite being a well known villain, daughter of a man who had absolutely no objections with turning people into boneless piles of meat, meant that she usually could get stuff with discounts or even outright free.

So why had she shoplifted that pretzel, you might ask?

Because she was a relatively sheltered little girl who had never actually done anything remotely villainous, or at least befitting her status, and her new friend, the daughter of a business associate of her father's, had dared call her a heroic individual.

It took only ten minutes for Amy to go back to the pretzel stand, almost crying, while an angry girl directed her to apologize to the salesman, who wasn't entirely certain on how to interact with the little girls making a scene.

And that would be the first time Amy would interact with Taylor Hebert, getting scolded for being a villainous individual... even though she was a villain to begin with.

Bradley 'just call me Brad' Meadows was many things.

Good at Basketball was not one of them, as he found out.

Of all things for him to lose at, it'd been the sport he'd played in highschool. And he lost to the fucking nerd that was Alabaster, of all people. He'd never live that one down, and he couldn't even kill him to keep him quiet because the fucker would just keep reseting and Kaiser would be pissed about the mess, and while Hookwolf normally wouldn't care all that much about Max's sissy tirades about the quality of his rug, he did care about the fact that Max was a vindictive little shit and would likely find some way to fuck Brad in a way he'd never be able to tell.

In the end, he told Alabaster to go eat a bucket of dicks, hopped on his bike and went to his favorite bar downtown.

Once there, he paid for his usual to the bartender and went to his usual table. Some would've found the lack of slurs towards the Mexican waitress that brought him his drinks and food to be quite weird. However, those people would be shocked to learn that Bradley Meadows was not so much racist, as he was just an asshole using a convenient excuse for general misandry.

Also the girl was just plain hot. Nice, big and round ass, plentiful breasts and a perchant for masochism was everything he wanted in a partner. He drank his beer. Admittedly, that also described Cricket, before that unfortunate training accident that resulted in the loss of her left boob. Eh, the right one was still good.

Brad was lost in thought, thinking about the possibility of turning his penis into a chainsaw when he noticed a gang of bikers strolled into the place, were acting like jackasses and harassing the bartender. They were also more than a bit handsy with the two waitresses. But in all honesty, even though he had already determined he'd intervene as soon as he was done with his beer, they decided that waiting to get their teeth kicked in was not a good idea at all, because one of those fuckers decided to push the other into Brad's table and knocked the food and drink off of it.

Brad had actually liked that pair of pants. Track pants his size usually made him look fat. Not even bringing the sweatshirt into the equation, he was pretty fucking pissed.

Fortunately they were dumb enough to follow him outside when he said he didn't want to break the bar with their faces.

Unfortunately for them, Brad had quite a bit of experience keeping the blades under his skin. They found out the hard way that he hit like a truck, when he knocked the first, most boisterous and largest of them, with a single punch, the satisfying crunch of his nose being broken being the herald to a kick that likely broke his pelvis.

Brad wasn't keen on holding back on those idiots.

When he was cleaning his hands in the bar's bathroom later, he idly wondered if they would be discovered in time for them to recover full mobility.

Eh, probably not. Then again, being a jackass in public in Brockton Bay had been reclassified as Suicide by Cape, last year, at least in terms of public opinion. So even the hospital would probably treat them like the idiots that they are.

Kenta, no longer remembering his last name, rubbed the bridge of his nose.

Considering the amount of gang leaders that had been killed or permanently crippled or turned into vegetables by spontaneous triggers, he legitimately had to wonder if his people were trying to die, and doing everything in their power to die.

He wondered this as he put a blanket on a dumb white bitch's shoulders, before moving away and allowing one of his female lieutenants to take her into a side room, where she'd be given a warm drink and would be prodded to tell them her address, so they knew where to take her, or if they needed to get her off of the city in a hurry.

Switching to Mandarin, because he knew it pissed them off, Lung turned to address the former leader of the Chinese Alliance, ironically born and raised in Rhode Island. "Were you born this dumb or did you practice?" he asked.

People 'knew' that the ABB had 'farms' where they locked girls in for the purpose of prostitution and enslavement. The people who believed that seemed to conveniently forget that cesspools of misery and suffering tended to result in someone triggering and blowing up everything in their vicinity. Lung knew this, because he had triggered while near death, suffering and miserable. And he had once busted open an operation of a Japanese Gang attempting to sell Korean teens into slavery, at which point a girl had triggered and very nearly killed him. Last he heard she was living in some middle of nowhere town in Ohio.

Later he'd even gotten statistics of how many human trafficking rings had been discovered post-destruction because they'd pushed someone to the point of triggering.

How and why people were still doing it was beyond Kenta. He was The Dragon, the one who could shrug off most weapons even before he started ramping up, and even he was wary of pushing people into triggering.

After the idiot former leader's tirade was finished, Kenta not having paid attention to a word of it, he just placed a hand on top of the man's head.

Then he began to squeeze. His hand began to heat up. The men scrambled. One of them even had the gall to shoot him. The conflict drove Lung's power, fed it, strengthened the Dragon.

Soon, there was a hand shaped burn all over the man's head, now bald as his hair had been burned off.

The man who shot him had a moment to contemplate just how horrible of a mistake he had made before Lung crushed his hand and then burned him as well.

"You dare defy The Dragon," he said, "you are now marked. There will be no more warnings! You will do as I say, or you will die!"

He finished his speech and drew himself to his full height.

"ARE. WE. UNDERSTOOD.!?"

The distortion created by his growing body was not enough to make his impeccable Mandarin difficult to understand. They all acknowledged.

Later, when he was at his home, Kenta sighed. Keeping the ABB in line was a full time job. Too many disparaging philosophies, cultures and even identities. Furthermore, the gangs were used to doing things a certain way, and their previous methods of operation simply didn't hold water in a world where at any given point, anyone might become a dragon empowered by rage and conflict.

Faultline pretended that her powers were weaker than they really were, and she was very used to it.

It worked outside. People just didn't believe that she could do the things that she could. They were used to this funny idea that buildings are sturdy, and that someone can't just collapse a building in under a minute with their minds. But Faultline could very easily do that. She pretended she needed contact to cut things, when in reality if she could see it, she could cut it.

Being Manton Limited was only a problem if you were facing a flier. Anybody else, though, knew to be wary of Faultline at the best of times.

That was why the bar she was known to run did not actually need a Bouncer at its door. The Palanquin was a popular place. Good music, good atmosphere, good drinks. The Nightclub had actually started off as a trashier place, she mused, before she became the mercenary she was today. Back then she could barely afford to keep the place open, these days she had quite a few rather wealthy patrons per week.

Even better was being recognized as a neutral place where heroes and villains, disguised in their civilian identities, could talk without fear of anything going wrong - Faultline and her crew guaranteed safety to all those within the Palanquin, and while she was not the strongest cape in the Bay, she had a good reputation and a strong team.

Which was why she found herself hosting the monthly poker game between all the big players of the Bay, and being the dealer for said game, owing to the fact that she had a terrible poker face.

Not the case for Miss Militia, who was sitting on a rather noticeably larger pile of chips than everyone else at the table.

The Protectorate's representative should, in theory, be Armsmaster, as he was the leader of the Protectorate ENE. However, Armsmaster was many things, but a man who you wanted to spend an evening with was not one of them. Therefore when Miss Militia had come as a substitute, nobody had really complained.

You'd expect the resident Nazi to complain about the Middle Eastern woman 'taking a white man's job', but Faultline had the sneaking suspicion that Kaiser was less of a Nazi himself and more of a colossal asshole using the Nazi ideology for quickly recruiting morons. She was not entirely certain whether that made him a worse human being or a better one.

It was weird to think that a 'hero' was playing poker at a table with not one, not two but three known murderers. Kaiser, representing the Empire 88. The Marquis, representing the Marche. Lung, representing the Azn Bad Boys. All three with known body counts, all three leaders of a major gang in the city.

As if that weren't enough, Coil had thrown his hat in the ring as well. As the man was probably the richest man in the Bay, nobody was exactly objecting to his presence, and he did have a small army of extremely well trained and equipped mercenaries. His territory may be small, but it was very rich.

After dealing everyone their cards, Faultline sat back and allowed them to gauge each other. She watched their tells. All of them were skilled and experienced, and all of them had their little quirks that showed off their hands if you knew what to look for.

Of course, because fuck forbid things go smoothly, just as Kaiser was about to lay down his four Jacks to win the admittedly small pot that he and the Marquis had been contesting over, an idiot with an automatic pistol kicked the door to the private room down.

As it turns out, some sort of wannabe gang was trying to take everyone out at once, having somehow found out about the gathering.

Needless to say, this went... poorly.

Amy frowned at her friend. "Was not!" she said, her tone having an air of finality to it, almost as if she hadn't just spent half an hour repeating the same phrase.

Taylor looked nonplussed, then unlocked Amy's phone, went to the picture gallery, and began to browse. Amy tried to stop her, but Amy was short for her age and Taylor was very tall for her age, so it was easy to keep her away with a single hand while scrolling through the pictures. With a satisfied sound, Taylor then turned the phone to Amy. It showed a picture of a girl's butt in a miniskirt.

Amy blushed bright red.

"Okay so what if she's pretty hot?" she huffed. "It doesn't make me a l-lesbian if I just find girls attractive! I mean, you keep saying that girls are pretty and nobody's calling you a lesbian!"

Taylor sighed. "You can appreciate someone's aesthetic appeal without being sexually attracted to them. I can tell you that Glory Girl has a fantastic ass without wanting to touch it. I mean, she does - she works out and it shows, or maybe it's her power or whatever, but the point is, you can find people attractive without being hot for them."

"Then why am I a lesbian because I like how she looks?" Amy countered.

"Well, the fact that you were drooling when I caught you staring at this shot should say enough," Taylor said with a smile. "Anyway, you really shouldn't be so ashamed of it. I mean, I hear that back in mom and dad's time it was seen as a really bad thing, but things have changed now! We're not gonna be stoning gay people in the streets! Which, did you know? It actually used to happen, and in fact, some equated it to bestiality because-"

"Taylor, stop," Amy said, rolling her eyes. "I don't need a lecture," she said. Taylor in chatterbox mode was already bad enough, but Taylor in Chatterbox Teacher mode? That resulted in Amy wanting to hang herself. "I don't think there's anything wrong with being gay, it's just that-"

"Well I'm not the person to talk to about this," Taylor admitted. "Maybe you should talk to your dad?"

Amy winced. "Dad's... a bit old fashioned," she said, slowly.

"Well, maybe you should talk to mom about it. Mom always makes your dad listen to anything she says."

Amy sighed. "Maybe..."

Anne 'Annette' Hebert was many things.

A government agent that pretended to be an English Teacher was an apt description for her, as some would learn moments before they had their brains turned into goop and all the information in them extracted. 'Brain Drain' had been a bit of a joke of a name at first, but it had stuck with her for quite a while, even post retirement.

Antoine Lavere, father to Amelia Lavere, knew her well. He knew her, because he'd been one of the first to find out that getting information out of people's brains wasn't the only thing she could do.

Needless to say, his attempt at muscling into the docks and intimidating the dockworkers had not worked as intended. Unfortunately the end result had been that Brain Drain found out about his daughter and used her as leverage to keep Marquis from being the villain he normally was, and instead setting him on the path to being more of an old school mobster, being an unofficial 'police force' for the docks, than the murderous psychopath he used to be.

Unrelenting Force and the Machinist, his only parahuman Lieutenants, had once tried to set up a gang of their own, and had achieved some success despite being the filthiest and most disgusting people in the Bay.

That was, until Brain Drain literally poured different personalities into them. Not so much replacing what they were, but altering it. It was amazing how knowing more things about life could change your outlook on it, and it was interesting to find out Brain Drain could actually alter brains to get rid of addictions, of all things.

Unrelenting Force, formerly known as Skidmark, was certainly thankful. Adam, to his friends, was most thankful about the fact that she'd expanded his vocabulary, because the man could not string three sentences together without at least forty five swear words in them, each unique.

Even the Marquis had actually found himself laughing at some of his more creative tirades.

The Machinist, or Sherrel to her friends, was constantly bemoaning the fact that she was no longer allowed to build tanks.

All three of the Marche's parahumans had gathered that day, called by Brain Drain for a meeting with them.

She opened it by smiling, offering them tea and biscuits (which the Marquis had instructed them to politely decline, as they were awful on purpose), and then dropping the bomb on Antoine that his daughter was gay, and had a crush on a heroine, of all people.

Marquis wanted to be angry, wanted to be intolerant because he was an old fashioned man, wanted to be angry that his daughter was gay...

But none of that mattered because a far larger part of himself decided right then and there, he'd put the fear of god into Glory Girl, lest she ever consider it an even remotely okay idea to break his little girl's heart!

Meanwhile, Max Anders and his wife, Kayden Anders, were stuck in traffic.

"I blame Lung for this," Max said, idly.

Kayden rolled her eyes. "You always blame Lung for traffic jams."

"Just let me be in my happy place, Kayden."

Rolling her eyes, Kayden checked her cellphone. Then she sighed. "We're never gonna get there in time... did you at least remember to pack the gift?"

It was her sister's wedding, after all.

Kayden felt that if she didn't show up with a great gift from her millionaire husband she'd look bad. So she bought a toaster and hid a card that said "thanks for the cake" in it. It was sarcastic, Kayden mused, her sister was a vegan and would not allow any animal product to be used at all, so no wedding cake. At least, not one that tasted even remotely of cake.

Sighing again, Kayden wondered if remaining on good terms with her parents was worth putting up with her sanctimonious shitstain of a sister. She wondered how she'd even found a man, let alone one as nice as the one she had. At least the man wasn't constantly trying to feed everyone he came across food that they didn't want...

"At this point I'm wondering if it'd just be faster to shoot a hole in the ground and drive through the tunnel. You can line it up with steel right?"

It spoke of their mutual frustration that Max seriously considered just outing the both of them to get out of traffic.

Fortunately, they started moving soon after. However, it was the column next to theirs that was moving faster. And when Max turned to look at them pass at a walking pace while he was moving at a snail's, he saw the shit eating grin in the asian man's face.

He knew that face.

"Fuck you," Max muttered to himself, "from the depths of my soul, fuck you!"

Lung saluted and drove off, the column moving faster by the second.

"You might be wondering," Piggot stated, as she sat heavily on her plush chair, "how we manage to maintain a calm situation in this city even though there are so many powerful parahumans here, many of which have power sufficient to obliterate cities within a short period of time."

The incoming PRT Director, her replacement after she retired, nodded.

"It's a very simple system," she explained, opening a key locked compartment of her desk and placing a file between them.

The incoming director opened and read it. He seemed confused.

"Why this civilian girl? What is so important about her?" he asked.

"That," Piggot said, "is the key to this whole city remaining peaceful," she said. Then she put a few more files on the desk, from another compartment.

The files were all severely classified. They contained villainous parahumans' identities, and penalties would be brutal should they be made public.

Dead Garden, also known as Amelia Lavere. The Marquis, known as Antoine Lavere, a false name but the one he was legally registered under as far as they knew. Brain Drain, also known as Anne Hebert. Three parahumans, all major players in the bay. Dead Garden was the premier healer of the world, pretty much. The Marquis was known for his brutality, his code of honor and the fact that he had killed three members of the Slaughterhouse nine.

Brain Drain, nominally a 'hero' because she was the Government's torturer and information gatherer, was also a former villain who used to work with a radical feminist turned terrorist.

"Those three. Her mother, her best friend, and her best friend's father," she summarized. "Dead Garden has confirmed that she can create flesh eating bacteria that dissolve human corpses in seconds. The Marquis has slaughtered dozens and used their bodies as bombs to slaughter more," admittedly that'd been Spree clones, but still, "and finally, Brain Drain, who can not only drain, but also impart, knowledge and abilities."

"What about them?"

Piggot sighed. Her replacement was dumb, she could tell. He wouldn't live very long at this rate. "Brain Drain once sent me a letter. It contained the civilian identities of every Ward and Protectorate Hero, their home addresses, mine and Renick's as well, and a variety of incriminating information regarding our handling of the Shadow Stalker case."

"That's why the girl got sent to Juvie even after she took the deal, right?" the man asked.

"Yes," Piggot said. "Incidentally, I received a letter from Costa Brown right after, telling me to just give her what she wanted. Apparently she's got blackmail on the Chief."

The Director whistled. There wasn't much of that, as far as anyone could find.

"She has blackmail on everyone. Those three? They keep the order here. If the Empire acts out, their identities will be made public and their lives destroyed, and they have a lot to lose. If the ABB acts out, the Marquis will just kill them. They do this because that little civilian girl lives here," Piggot said.

"I see," the incoming Director said. "I suppose that working with them to ensure peace would be a priority, then?"

Piggot nodded. "As much as I hate it, the Protectorate forces simply aren't enough to fight the villains in this city, and the independant team here has... issues..."

Brandish was throwing a fit over the parahuman-power grown roses that Glory Girl was so happy about. Admittedly, she was secretly happy her daughter was straight and had rejected Dead Garden, even if that made her feel guilty over the homophobic undertones of such happiness.

An amused Mark had even told her to go kiss a girl if she felt so bad about it. What made Carol even guiltier was that she did actually wind up discovering her own bisexuality.

Well, at least Mark was happy for once.

Armsmaster was one of the best Tinkers in the world. The only reason he wasn't the best was because Dragon existed.

Considering he was currently dating Dragon and they worked together on quite a few projects, his work was basically the best Tinkertech in the world as it had input of the Best Tinker in the World, whom he had learned could not actually design any new technology, only derivatives of someone else's tech.

As it turns out, it was a weakness similar to his - he needed to shrink -something- in order for his powers to work, and between him and Dragon they were basically building improved versions of other people's tech.

Like his Dragon Arms SuperTech Omnitool Halberd, the one that used space-warping technology to literally cram everything they could think of into it. With an onboard AI that would link up to his combat prediction software to automatically use the weapon that it considered would be effective against his enemy, as well as direct Armsmaster when it came to using it.

Too bad it was still entirely on the planning face right now, because how the hell was he gonna obtain Dark Matter to fuel the Matter Annihilation Engine that it would need in order to actually function? Well, hopefully some other Tinker would find a solution they could steal. That only left creating the AI, which Dragon was adamant should not be crippled because being a crippled AI sucks, and the actual framework.

Miss Militia entered his workshop, and Armsmaster pulled back, wiping the sweat off his face and almost stopping to flex his well muscled body. Dragon's virtual avatar had progressed quite a bit since she'd first designed it, as it could now drool and blush almost naturally.

"Armsmaster, why are you not wearing pants," Miss Militia asked.

"They got in the way," Armsmaster said. "I have designed a new suit," he said, gesturing to what looked to be a pile of blue goop on the floor. "And I must not be wearing anything when I put it on."

"That's just goop," Miss Militia said. "It's... moving?"

It was indeed, trembling a little.

Armsmaster nodded. "It's the new suit. I'll show you. ARMSSUIT, ENGAGE!" he yelled.

First the goop morphed into an exclamation sign, almost taller than Armsmaster himself and as thick as a bodybuilder bear's arm. Then it turned into a net and wrapped around Armsmaster, before beginning to fill the 'holes' with silvery-blue material.

Finally, it finished, leaving Armsmaster in a much sleeker and slimmer version of his armor. It seemed to be spray painted on in some places, which Miss Militia figured it kind of was.

"... I can see your bulge," Miss Militia said, idly.

Armsmaster looked down. His bulge was indeed very visible. He hummed for a moment, and then a crotch guard formed over it, hiding it from view.

"Better?" he asked.

"Better," Miss Militia agreed. "Ahem. The New Director arrived. Perhaps you want to make a good impression?"

"Then I should show off my new suit, you think?" Armsmaster asked.

"Depends," Dragon said. "Man or woman?"

"Man," Miss Militia said.

"Then yes."

As it turns out, the new director was Gay, and Dragon still wound up jealous.

Dinah woke up with a start.

Then she grabbed her phone from her nightstand and dialed the emergency hotline for the Protectorate. She was a Parahuman, after all...

Later, when she was in their offices, she sat down with Armsmaster and Miss Militia. "I want to make one thing completely clear," then she cleared her throat and adopted a slightly fish eyed and mouthed expression, "I can see the future!" she screamed, then took a deep breath. "Okay, now that we're clear on that-"

"Why'd you just do that?" Miss Militia asked.

"78.099% chance of you believing what I have to say if I started the conversation like that, for reasons that are beyond me," Dinah said, "now shut up and listen, this is important," she added, coughing a little as her throat was entirely too sore from that scream. "It's very, very important that you don't forget this, okay?"

The two nodded.

"There's a 89.430% chance that in the event that Taylor Hebert triggers, this world will come to an end."

Dinah Alcott was not as young as she looked, or pretended to be.

When you've lived the same ten year span for dozens, if not over a hundred times, you can no longer claim to be a spry young'un, no matter your looks. She still remembered the face of her savior, from all the way back then.

She still remembered the dark room, she remembered Coil. She remembered a world so very different from this one, where her savior was herself a victim. A world where Brockton Bay was a miserable place, where nobody wanted to live.

She still remembered her only ray of light, her only hope, her savior, who had risked everything to save her that first time...

She still remembered the many times Taylor Hebert had lost everything for her sake. Every time she saw Taylor Hebert die was engraved into her very soul.

In over a hundred loops, Dinah had never, not even once, seen Taylor fail to save her. No matter the circumstances. No matter how different the world was. No matter whether she had powers or not. Every single time, Taylor had been the one to rescue her from the deep darkness.

Was it so strange, then, that Dinah would wish to save her savior in return?

In the end, Dinah kept silent. About her true power, unrelated to the Warrior. About her many, many lives. About her reasons, even.

Dinah kept silent, about her feelings.

It didn't matter, as Dinah watched Taylor's nervous and shy smile, while at a Meet & Greet with the Wards.

It didn't matter, if Taylor would never know of the work and sacrifice that Dinah made for her sake. Because in the end, the only reward she'd ever need was that beautiful smile, from slightly too wide lips and eyes too big behind glasses she still hadn't grown into, which filled Dinah's heart with warmth.

That made every bit of pain worth it, to construct a world where she could live happily.

Well, tbh, the ending is pretty rushed here because I ran out of patience and these arne't supposed to go so damn long anyway. Ahem.

Dinah's changes manifest in forms she's not entirely aware of, and sometimes fucking with the timeline has effects that go decades before she reappears, simply because the 'rope' that is the timeline gets frayed and when it's 'fixed' it's not put together exactly the same again.

This is a timeline where the villains are all signficantly less... evil, for lack of a better term, and much more interested in actually having lives like normal people. I mean they're still villains so they're still selling drugs, intimidating, burning stuff, vandalizing, etc. They're just not going to the extreme of human trafficking or holding rallies where they brutalize and execute minorities.

Anne's shard is a bud off of Lustrum's.

Taylor still has the QA. Danny triggered with a bud off of it, he runs a Fight Club offscreen. He doesn't know that his ability to enforce its rules comes from the QA's bud.

Shadow Stalker attacked some of Annette's agents in the gangs and got punished for it, she never really knew why other than her behavior.

Taylor triggering doesn't actually end the world, Dinah is omitting the information that involves how it happens, namely, Taylor triggering is part of the chain of events that results in the end of the world.

The numbers go slightly down with every new timeline.

In this timeline, Hero's name was Bob, the Siberian looks like Manton's mother instead of his daughter, and Riley is a boy.

No incubators were harmed in the making of this fic.