Golden God I
The Merchants’ territory looked like Satan’s asshole after an angel gangbang. Fucking Empire neo-Nazi dicksniffers had rolled through with t
The Merchants’ territory looked like Satan’s asshole after an angel gangbang. Fucking Empire neo-Nazi dicksniffers had rolled through with their capes, trashing three trap houses and a lab that Adam Mustain—Skidmark to every cocksucker with ears in this piss-puddle city—had spent months setting up.
His sneakers squelched through something wet and crimson. Probably one of his boys. Weak little shit-barnacles couldn’t even hold off a bunch of tweaked-out skinheads.
“Fuck-knuckling SHIT!” Skidmark bellowed, voice bouncing off walls that were more bullet holes than plaster now. His heart was jacking hammer-fast, meth burning through his bloodstream like poison fire, making his teeth grind together hard enough to break. Little pieces already had. “Alabaster’s cumstain face is gonna be my new TOILET SEAT when I find that albino motherfucker!”
The rage felt good. Rage was clarity. Rage was pure. Rage didn’t have the come-down that the blue ice did, and it didn’t make his nose bleed like the powder, and it didn’t make him feel like his skin was crawling with invisible spiders like that last batch Squealer cooked up. Rage was free, and Skidmark was a businessman. Free was fucking good.
Nobody answered his proclamation. Three Merchant members stood in the corner, nursing wounds or too high to understand what happened. One was picking at a scab on his arm until it bled. Useless ball-swinging shit-puppets, every last fuck-nugget of them.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Colin Wallis stood at the exact center of devastation, HUD display scrolling with readings that contradicted every known law of physics. His armor’s sensors were operating at 147% normal capacity—a modification he’d implemented just three days ago—and still they struggled to quantify what had happened here.
Perfect hemispheric excavation. No debris pattern. No blast wave indications. No thermal scoring.
It was as if a spherical portion of reality had simply… ceased to exist.
“Analysis incomplete,” he noted into his helmet’s recording system. “Probability of conventional explosion: 0.02%. Probability of Tinker technology: 23.7%. Probability of new trigger event: 76.3%.”
The teen lay unconscious exactly at the center point of the crater, a precise mathematical constant that couldn’t be coincidence. Initial scans showed normal human biology. No remarkable readings. Nothing to indicate this unremarkable adolescent could have survived whatever erased a city block.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Behind Skidmark, Squealer was tinkering with a chunk of machinery that had no business being in a drug house. Her tits practically fell out of her oil-stained tank top as she bent over, ass swaying a bit as she moved. Even splattered with grease and coming off a four-day bender, she was hot in that “I’ll fuck you while stealing your wallet” kind of way that had his dick paying attention.
But his dick wasn’t in charge right now. His brain was. And his brain was still buzzing with the possibilities of what the Empire’s attack had almost—ALMOST—cost him.
“They almost got it, babe,” he muttered, scratching furiously at his neck where phantom ants crawled under his skin. “Almost got our fucking ticket up and out.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Squealer mumbled, not looking up from her work, fingers digging into the guts of whatever mechanical abortion she was birthing today. “Pass me that wrench-lookin’ thing.”
He didn’t. Instead, he paced, sneakers leaving bloody footprints that he still didn’t look at. The room swam in his vision, colors too bright, sounds too sharp. His high was going sour at the edges. He needed more. But more would have to wait.
Because they had something better than meth now.
Something GOLD.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Colin knelt beside the boy, medical scanners sweeping. Vital signs strong but irregular. Brainwave patterns unusual but within human parameters. Temperature normal. Respiration normal. Everything… normal. Too normal for someone at ground zero of whatever this was.
“Subject exhibits no signs of trauma despite apparent explosion. No burns. No contusions. No lacerations.” Colin paused, noting a detail. “Correction: faded bruising on face and torso suggests assault approximately 4-6 hours prior to incident.”
The implications were troubling. A kidnapped civilian. A Merchant lab. A trigger event of unprecedented magnitude.
Miss Militia approached from his left—he recognized her footfalls without looking up. “Containment foam perimeter is established,” she reported. “Transport is two minutes out.”
Colin nodded. His social interaction subroutine noted her elevated heart rate and pupil dilation—signs of stress beyond operational parameters. Appropriate, given the situation, but potentially problematic for team efficiency.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
PROTECTORATE ENE: INCIDENT REPORT #2010-10-28-S
CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET / S-CLASS POTENTIAL
LOCATION: Merchant Territory, Docks North Quadrant, Brockton Bay, NH
INCIDENT TYPE: Parahuman Emergence Event / Mass Casualty
SUMMARY:
At approximately 0237 hours, seismic monitors detected an energy discharge of unknown type within known Merchant territory. Subsequent investigation revealed a perfect hemispherical crater approximately 112 meters in diameter where a city block previously stood. All structures within the radius were completely vaporized, with no debris remaining.
CASUALTIES:
Estimated 23-27 individuals (presumed Merchant gang members) were present at the time of the incident. No remains have been recovered. “Nuclear shadow” impressions were found on standing surfaces at the crater’s edge, suggesting instantaneous vaporization of organic material.
RECOVERY:
A single survivor was found at the epicenter – male Caucasian, approximately 15-16 years of age, unconscious but physically intact. Subject was unclothed with exception of fragments of denim fused to lower extremities. Subject exhibited no unusual external characteristics upon recovery.
PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS:
Energy readings inconsistent with known parahuman abilities. Radiation levels normal. No chemical, biological, or conventional explosive residue detected. Pattern suggests emergence of new parahuman with destructive capabilities potentially exceeding Triumvirate-class limitation protocols.
RECOMMENDATION:
Immediate containment and classification. Subject to be transported to secure medical facility for observation under Master/Stranger protocols level 5. Media blackout in effect. Cover story of gas main explosion to be disseminated.
ADDENDUM: Facial recognition has tentatively identified subject as Gregory Veder, age 15, reported missing 27 hours prior to incident. Next of kin (mother) believed to have been present at incident site. Verification pending.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Four hours earlier, Skidmark had been prowling his territory like the goddamn king of shit mountain that he was. The meth made his nerves sing like high-tension wires, made him feel like a cape even without using his power. Made him feel like the smartest cocksucker who ever lived.
And he was smart. Too smart for this gutter. Too smart for these drooling jizz-monkeys who called themselves his gang. Adam Mustain had been headed for MIT before life bent him over and fucked him crossways.
“Waste of brain,” he muttered, kicking an empty bottle across the filthy alley. “Criminal fucking waste of motherfucking GENIUS.”
That’s when he spotted the kid.
Skinny little piss-streak of a teenager, hunched over in a hoodie too big for his scrawny ass, looking around like he expected the bogeyman to jump out of the dumpster. Blond hair peeking out from under the hood. Pale skin. Blue eyes darting everywhere but never making contact.
Empire 88.
Had to be. Those Nazi fuck-nuggets sent one of their junior shit-gobblers to scope his territory after the attack. Probably thought Skidmark was too brain-fried to notice.
The rage came back, beautiful and pure. Skidmark felt his lips pull back from his rotting teeth in what might have been a smile if it didn’t look like a skull having a seizure.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
“This is beyond anything we’ve encountered,” Colin said, voice modulated to project calm authority. “We need to establish containment protocols far exceeding what we currently have.”
“You think he’s that dangerous?” Miss Militia asked, gaze fixed on the teenage boy. Her weapon morphed unconsciously between forms—pistol to knife to rifle to shotgun and back to pistol again—a stress reaction Colin had documented and she was well aware of.
“I think,” he said carefully, his HUD flickering up options for response, weighing accuracy over team morale management,”that in the worst case scenario, we might be looking at a potential S-class threat.”
The boy’s eyelids fluttered, a spike in brainwave activity registering on Colin’s display. Nothing else changed—no external manifestation of power. Just a teenage boy where a city block used to be.
“Prepare sedation protocol Alpha,” Colin ordered, stepping back and readying a specialized tranquilizer from his armor’s dispensary. “We can’t risk him waking disoriented.”
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
“Hey there, string bean,” Skidmark called, voice gone syrupy and mean. “You looking for something? Uncle Skiddy’s got what you need.”
The little blond fuckstain jumped up, a small little bitch squeal leaving his mouth the same way Sherry did when he shoved it in her cunt. A little bit of dry fuckin’ was good, for character and some shit.
Not that Sherry thought so.
“I, uh, I heard… I m-mean, I was t-told,” the kid stammered, voice cracking as his blue eyes turned Skidmark’s way, “that I c-could buy some… some weed? Here?”
Skidmark’s bullshit detector lit up like a Christmas tree plugged into a nuclear reactor. This twitchy little fuck-muppet wasn’t here to buy. He was here to spy. To report back. To help those Empire cumstains plan their next hit.
Time slowed down as the meth and rage cocktailed together in Skidmark’s veins.
“Sure thing, Nazi boy,” Skidmark purred, moving closer, feeling his power hum in his fingertips. Ready to paint the ground with blue bands that would send this skinny fuck flying into a wall hard enough to break bones. “I got something SPECIAL just for you.”
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
“—live from what authorities are describing as a ‘gas main explosion’ in the northern docks area,” the blonde reporter shouted over the helicopter’s rotors, wind whipping her hair across her face. “As you can see behind me, nearly an entire block has been destroyed in what witnesses are calling an ‘unnatural’ disaster.”
The camera panned across the perfect circular depression in the earth, emergency lights flashing at its perimeter. PRT vehicles formed a cordon around the site, officers in full containment gear moving with practiced efficiency.
“Officials have declined to comment on rumors of parahuman involvement, but sources within emergency services have reported ‘unusual phenomena’ associated with the explosion,” the reporter continued, pressing a finger to her earpiece. “We’re now getting confirmation that at least one survivor has been recovered from the scene, though their identity and condition remain unknown.”
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
The kid’s eyes widened. “I’m n-not—I don’t—”
And that’s when Skidmark’s boot connected with the kid’s solar plexus, doubling him over with a satisfying whoosh of air. The meth made everything so CLEAR. So FAST. The kid didn’t even have time to raise his hands before Skidmark’s fist crashed into his temple, sending him sprawling onto the filthy concrete.
“Spy on ME? In MY territory?” Skidmark snarled, delivering a kick to the kid’s ribs that produced a wet crack. “I’m gonna peel your Nazi skin and make it into a CONDOM to fuck your mother with, you little shit-whistling dickspittle!”
The kid wasn’t moving much anymore. Blood leaked from his nose, from a split in his lip. His eyes rolled, consciousness flickering. Good. Made him easier to transport.
Skidmark called in two of his less-useless boys to drag the spy back to their secondary lab. The one the Empire hadn’t found. The one where Skidmark had been saving something special.
Something that might just change the fucking GAME.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Dark silhouettes burned into concrete at the crater’s edge, human forms frozen in their final moments. Colin’s analysis suite cataloged twenty-three distinct impressions, cross-referenced with known Merchant members, calculated a 73.4% probability that every occupant of the building had been vaporized in an instant.
Except for the boy.
Colin allowed himself a microsecond of emotional response—a flash of something like fear—before suppressing it completely. His HUD registered the spike in adrenaline, flagged it as inefficient, recommended adjustment. He ignored the alert.
The PRT transport engines grew louder overhead. Colin’s HUD rapidly calculated risk factors, processing response variables faster than consciousness could track. His subroutines flagged three potential containment breaches based on unknown subject capabilities.
Whatever this boy was, Brockton Bay had just become significantly more complicated.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
The basement lab smelled like chemicals and sweat and blood. Most of it was from the Nazi kid, tied to a chair in the center of the room, face a purple-red mess of bruises and tears. Four hours of Skidmark’s “questioning” had produced nothing useful—just pleas and sobs and claims that his name was “Greg” and he wasn’t Empire, he was just looking for weed to help with his anxiety.
Bullshit. Nazi lies. Empire propaganda.
“Anxiety,” Skidmark muttered, the world crumbling away into a half-cackle as Skidmark turned the little Nazi brat’s way. “Anxiety’s gonna be the smallest of all your fuckin’ problems, ya gritty cum-bubble,” the gang lord laughter vanished as he hissed, pacing back and forth in front of the kid.
His heart felt like it might explode, but that was normal now; he knew his baseline more than anyone else and he knew he was still fucking there.
The meth high had plateaued and was threatening to drop, but he couldn’t dose again. Not yet. He needed steady hands for what came next.
Squealer lounged against a workbench, eyes glassy and unfocused but still somehow managing to tinker with a device that looked like a fuel injector crossed with a medieval torture implement. She’d modified it—a standard car part turned into something that could pump liquid into a dozen points at once, amplify it, pressurize it.
“Almost got it, baby,” she slurred, wiping grease across her forehead. “Gonna make your special sauce go further.”
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
As the PRT transport descended, Colin supervised the preparation for subject transfer. His predictive algorithms calculated a 42.8% chance of trigger-induced memory loss, 38.2% chance of hostile awakening, and a troubling 17.3% chance of power manifestation during transport.
“Standard power nullification measures will be ineffective given unknown parameters,” he noted to Miss Militia. “Recommend triple sedation protocol and accelerated transport to containment.”
“Understood.” Miss Militia nodded, her weapon settling into the form of a tranquilizer rifle. “Dragon is monitoring remotely?”
“Affirmative. Full data uplink established.” Colin’s systems registered a 0.7% bandwidth drop—acceptable under field conditions but flagged for later optimization. “She’s analyzing waveform patterns from the site.”
The boy remained unconscious, showing no external signs of parahuman abilities. Nothing to distinguish him from any other injured teenager. Nothing to explain how he had survived when everything around him had been erased from existence.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Skidmark nodded, then turned to a small metal box on the table. It had taken three of his best men’s lives to get this from that mysterious cape with the hat—the one who sold powers in a bottle. Cost him most of his savings too, but fuck it. Money was just a symptom. Power was the disease Skidmark wanted to catch.
Inside the box, nestled in foam, was a single vial filled with luminous golden liquid that seemed to move and shift even when perfectly still. He had read the paperwork from the fuckers he stole this shit from and he didn’t care what it had to say about splitting or wasting or what the fuck ever else.
He had a plan. He was gonna juice it up and make the best motherfuckin’ drug the world had ever seen.
But Skidmark wasn’t going to be the test dummy either. Not when he had a Nazi spy strapped to a chair right fucking there.
“You’re gonna be famous, shit-sniffer,” Skidmark crooned, lifting the vial from its case. The liquid inside seemed to respond to his touch, swirling faster. “First Empire fuck to fly to the moon without a rocket. Gonna BLOW. YOUR. MIND.”
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
The unconscious form of the boy was secured to a gurney, restraints positioned according to Colin’s specialized design—accommodating potential Brute ratings while minimizing soft tissue damage. Standard procedure for a very much non-standard situation.
“This level of power… destruction…” Miss Militia’s voice was quiet, barely muffled by her American flag bandana, but still oddly soft as she took in the devastation, “what… what could have caused this?”
It took a too-long moment, cross-referencing known parahuman phenomena with the evidence before them. His HUD offered twelve potential power classifications, none with more than a 31% confidence rating. The highest among them were Shaker, with Blaster possibly a close second, but even these designations inadequately described what they had witnessed. Ironic, that Nuker might have to return as a designation after being retired.
The PRT transport had landed at the edge of the crater, medical team deploying with practiced efficiency. Four containment foam guns tracked the boy’s position, ready to spray and pray at the first sign of hostility, consciousness or power manifestation. With their luck, all three might be one in the same.
“Unknown,” Colin admitted, the word bitter in his mouth. Uncertainty was inefficient. Uncertainty was dangerous.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
He transferred the golden liquid to a syringe, which glowed like it contained the sun itself. The kid—Greg or whatever Nazi lie he was sticking to—sobbed harder, trying to speak through the gag in his mouth.
“Gonna be the best high of your life, a permanent mothafuckin’ high and every other shot gets you higher,” Skidmark promised, grinning with teeth gone black at the edges. “Or it’s gonna liquefy your organs and make you shit yourself inside out. Either way, it’s gonna be a rush.”
Squealer’s machine hummed to life as she connected the syringe to the main input port. Something about amplifying the formula, making it spread throughout the body faster. Tinker shit that Skidmark didn’t care about as long as it worked.
“This is it, baby,” she said, eyes suddenly focused for the first time in days. “This is big.”
“Bigger than big,” Skidmark agreed, placing his hand on the plunger. “This is our fucking TICKET to the top. No more M in Merchants. We’re gonna be fucking BILLIONAIRES!”
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
“His vitals are holding steady despite notable trauma and environmental exposure,” the PRT-employed medical officer reported to him, the medic’s own equipment displaying unremarkable readings regarding the boy’s body. “No indication of enhanced Brute physiology or regenerative capabilities, progressive or rapid.”
Colin cross-referenced this with his own findings, the man already flagging the discrepancy in his systems for further analysis. Everything about this boy screamed ordinary—except for the impossible fact of his survival.
“Full biometric and genetic analysis upon arrival,” Colin ordered. “Priority override on all laboratory resources.”
The kid’s eyes were wide with terror, bloodshot and swimming with tears. Pathetic. Empire trash.
Skidmark jammed the needle into the port and pushed the plunger home.
“Let’s watch this little Nazi fuckstick go sky high!”
The machine roared to life, tubes and pipes pumping as smaller needles slid into the boy’s skin from all directions—arms, legs, neck, back. The golden fluid, now somehow multiplied well beyond the original amount, raced through the clear tubes.
For a moment, nothing happened.
The room was silent other than the hum and whirr of pipes and tubes.
Then the boy began to scream.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
The news helicopter circled above the crater, the camera inside zooming in on the medical transport as WBBN’s Melina Holdover began her report. The reporter’s voice-over continued, Melina’s voice pitched with the perfect balance of concern and sensationalism that came with years of practice.
“Once again, I must state that according to official reports, authorities continue to maintain that this was a supposed ruptured gas line causing an explosion that leveled the block of Lord Street and Saints Row, but sources within emergency services tell Channel 8 that the damage pattern is inconsistent with any conventional explosion. Speculation about parahuman involvement has spread throughout the city, with some witnesses reporting a ‘golden flash’ visible from as far as three miles away.”
The footage cut to bystanders, faces anxious and confused.
“It was like the sun came up at night,” one man said, gesturing emphatically. “Just for a second. Then everything went quiet.”
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
“Establish two-kilometer exclusion zone,” Armsmaster ordered the PRT officers still around him, voice steady despite system alerts warning of elevated stress indicators in his own body. “Full decontamination protocols for all personnel.”
The boy was loaded into the transport, medical team securing equipment around the gurney. His vitals remained stable—too stable, almost artificially so. Clinical reports scrolled across Colin’s HUD: blood pressure normal, oxygen saturation normal, core temperature normal.
Nothing to indicate this unconscious teenager had just experienced—or caused—an event that had atomized a city block.
The PRT document printer spat out pages marked TOP SECRET, classifications and warnings in bold red text. Medical equipment beeped steadily in the background as technicians prepared the secure transport.
Director Piggot scanned the preliminary report, the woman’s portly face impassive but micro-expressions betraying elevated stress levels. Colin’s social analysis suite cataloged each one: tightened jaw muscles, pupillary contraction, increased blink rate.
“So we have a teenage civilian at ground zero of what appears to be a parahuman bomb,” she summarized, voice clipped. “No visible powers. No explanation for his survival. And a crater where at minimum fifty-plus Merchants and God knows how many civilians used to be.”
“Accurate assessment, Director,” Colin confirmed, voice level as he tried not to think of how they would handle such a threat if he proved to be one. “The subject remains unconscious but stable.”
Piggot’s beady eyes locked on to him. “And we’re absolutely certain… Armsmaster, absolutely certain that this isn’t just Squealer finally blowing herself up with badTinker tech?”
“87.3% certainty. Energy signatures from Tinkertech, even from the most non-standard samples, maintain at least some level of trace during manifestations even a fraction of this magnitude. And the timing correlates with a reported kidnapping—the subject was likely in Merchant custody when the event occurred.”
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Dawn broke to a new day in Brockton Bay as PRT officers and emergency services continued to cordon off the area, evacuation orders in effect for neighboring blocks.
Inside the secure medical wing of PRT headquarters, monitors displayed the vital signs of Gregory Veder, age 15, unconscious but stable. No unusual readings. No indications of parahuman physiology. Nothing to explain how he had survived what should have been his death—or how he had potentially caused the deaths of everyone around him.
Outside his room, Armsmaster stood with Miss Militia, reviewing data from the incident site.
“The pattern defies explanation,” Colin admitted, already scanning the reports flickering across his HUD as fast as his eyes could manage. “Perfect hemispheric erasure of matter without heat, without radiation, without conventional energy transfer.”
“That still doesn’t explain much other than what it’s not.” Miss Militia asked, eyebrow rising high above her bandana.
“The timing suggests correlation with his kidnapping by the Merchants,” Colin acknowledged. “But the power manifestation—if it was that—seems unlikely to be from him. By all scans, he’s not even a parahuman. If we can’t find anything, we won’t even be able to keep him on PRT grounds longer than 48 hours.”
“Well then, what could generate this kind of power?” Miss Militia asked quietly.
Colin had no answer his systems could verify as accurate.
