Cardmaster Worm

Myst blinked a couple of times when he found himself standing in the middle of a school hallway with a collection of large, graffiti covered lockers that seemed like they belonged to a bygone era, mostly because he could barely remember a time when they had lockers you could actually stuff a person in that weren't in a locker room. "What the fuck?!" he sputtered when the stench hit him, making him realize that he wasn't dreaming, not that he'd really expected to fall asleep while he'd been grabbing firewood.

"Help!" a female voice screamed from inside a nearby locker.

Myst grabbed the padlock to check to see if the idiot that had locked the person in the locker had forgotten to spin the wheel and stared at the foil trading card in his hand that showed a padlock in disbelief for a second before his mind kicked back into something resembling gear and he opened the locker, having written enough stories about this situation to recognize where and when he probably was. He quickly jumped back when a load of filth and a teenage girl spilled out of the locker, along with a horrid stench that had been partially contained by the locker and by the tape that someone had placed on the vents.

"What the fuck?!" Sophia snapped when she rushed back around the corner and realized that some middle aged asshole had slipped past her and let Taylor escape when she'd been knocked out.

Myst jumped back as Taylor let out a blood curdling scream of rage and charged Sophia, too blinded by rage to think straight. "Shit…" he trailed off as Sophia phased through the punch.

"Not going to-" Sophia cut off as her and Taylor zoned out.

'Trigger?' Myst mused, wondering if he should step forward and punch Sophia on general principle. 'Get your head in the game,' he told himself as he pulled a mostly clean handkerchief out of his pocket and quickly tied it around his face, wanting to get some sort of mask up before someone started taking pictures as he'd rather have the police think he was a cape than explain what he was doing in a high school in the middle of a fight.

"Work," Sophia finished then promptly took a punch to the face when she tried and failed to phase.

"Sophia!" Emma blurted when she saw Sophia getting the shit beat out of her by her ex-friend.

'Shit, this is going to cause a fucking mess,' Myst thought as a female ninja with glowing red eyes appeared behind the red haired teenager and grabbed her hair, causing her to scream and thrash. 'Ninjas?'

"Leave me alone!" Taylor shouted as she continued punching Sophia, all of the rage she'd been suppressing for the last year and a half boiling over.

"Get off!" Sophia screamed as she tossed Taylor off of her and pulled out a knife.

Myst lunged forward and kicked the knife out of Sophia's hand and sighed when his power activated and turned the insane teenager into a foil card. 'Shit, so much for my power only activating when I touch something with my hands.'

Taylor scrambled back to her feet, calming down slightly when she didn't find Sophia. "Where did she go?!"

"No clue," Myst admitted as he reached down and picked up the card that showed an image of Sophia along with details of her powers and her name, 'Sophia Hess/Shadow Stalker.'

"Let me go!" Emma screamed. "My father is a lawyer!" she shouted as the shadow ninja vanished.

Taylor stared at the spot where the ninja had just vanished, wondering why she remembered grabbing Emma's hair. 'Can I summon ninja?'

'Ninja projections? So much for having a decent idea of the timeline.' Myst slipped Sophia's card in his pocket and focused on the foil card of the cheap lock, trying to see if he could turn it back into a lock as he figured Taylor would need it for evidence unless he testified that he'd disintegrated it or something. He sighed when several students showed up and along with a couple of teachers before he could figure out how to restore the lock.

"What is the meaning of this?!" Gladly demanded as he glanced between Emma, Taylor, and the man wearing jeans, black boots, a black fleece jacket with a hood, non leather work gloves and a handkerchief over his face like a bank robber from a western movie.

"I let the girl out of a locker," Myst replied as he gestured towards Taylor. "You need to call the police and the CDC, some insane asshole filled her locker with filth then taped the vents shut, they were obviously trying to kill her or are too stupid to live."

"What did you do to Sophia?!" Emma demanded.

Taylor glared at Emma, almost hoping that she gave her an excuse but calm enough that she wasn't going to kill the bitch in public, if only because the cape might actually fix things and she knew that if she started hitting her, she wouldn't stop.

"CDC?" Glady asked in confusion, the stench making him want to gag.

"Bioterrorism is a felony," Myst replied as he turned to look at Emma. "Who or what is a Sophia?"

"The girl you attacked!" Emma screeched.

"Let me guess, you didn't know that your friend was a cape and that she could phase through walls?" Myst asked, his voice easily carrying to the students that were watching. "I'm guessing that she's halfway to the city limits by now, the police don't appreciate terrorists or people that try to murder teenage girls."

"You can't just out people!" Emma blurted out, knowing there was a good chance that Sophia had made a tactical withdrawal to get her crossbow when she'd been distracted by someone grabbing her hair.

Myst laughed at the expression of disbelief on Emma's face. "If she didn't want to get outed, she shouldn't have used her powers in public to try to kill someone." He turned to look at the group of students that were standing behind the teacher. "If you want the principal to have a really bad day, someone should call the police, preferably multiple people."

"You can't just toss around accusations of people being capes," Glady sputtered. He turned to look at the students that were pulling out their cell phones. "Give me your phones!"

"Fuck you!" one of the seniors in the crowd said as he dialed 911, happy to cause trouble for the principal and his least favorite teacher, especially since he kept sticking his younger sister with skeevy jocks despite her explaining that they were harassing her. "If you touch me, I'll defend myself," he stated when Gladly reached for his phone. He let Gladly grab his left arm then decked him as hard as he could with his right, dropping the man unconscious.

"You've reached 911," the woman on the other end of the call said.

"I need to report a terrorist attack at Winslow, someone filled a locker with what looks to be medical waste and Mr. Gladly was trying to cover it up then assaulted me when I wouldn't give him my phone so I could report the incident," the senior stated.

"Are you in danger?" the operator asked, doing her best to remain professional.

"Not currently, Gladly is unconscious and a cape rescued the girl, but we need a hazardous waste team and an ambulance," he stated as half the rest of the people watching started placing their own calls.

"How many people were exposed to the waste?" the operator asked as the lights on the call board started lighting up.

"We're in the hallway and it spilled out on the floor. The girl's clothes are soaked with the shit and she might have scratches from when she was freaking out after they stuffed her in the locker."

"Do you know who stuffed her in the locker?" the woman asked as she sent the information to the precinct.

"I don't have any proof but Emma Barnes was ranting about the cape doing something to Sophia Hess who was trying to stop the cape from rescuing the girl," the young man explained, more than happy to send shit Sophia's way as she was a bitch to everyone that had to deal with her. "I wanted to make sure the principal didn't try to sweep things under the rug, my mother is a nurse, she says the stuff is nasty, especially if it had been there over break."

"I'm aware, the police are on their way. Can I speak with the cape?" the woman asked.

"Sure," he replied and handed the cape the cellphone. "She wants to talk to you."

"Yes?" Myst asked.

"Do you know who placed the biohazardous waste in the locker?" she asked.

"I don't have any proof but a cape with phasing abilities tried to stop me from rescuing the girl, this is turning into a bit of a mess," Myst admitted.

"Can I get a cape handle?" the woman asked.

"I don't have a cape name right now, I wasn't expecting to get dropped into the middle of this crap," Myst admitted.

"Do you have a temporary name?" the woman asked.

'This would be easier if I knew what my power actually did,' Myst thought before deciding that it didn't really matter. "Let's just go with Cape for the moment, I can always change it later."

"Cape, as in generic cape?" she asked.

"You wanted a temporary name, I gave you a temporary name," Myst replied. "Do you want me to get the victim to the nurse's office to clean up or wait for the EMTs?"

The operator glanced over at her co-worker who was looking a bit green. "Get her cleaned up, the police are on the way and the PRT have been notified about the cape with phasing, was she subdued?"

"She pulled a runner, I'm assuming she's armed and dangerous," Myst lied, not seeing a reason to admit that he'd turned her into a card.

"Stick around so that you can explain things to the police," the operator told him.

"I'll be here, I'm handing the phone back to the student," Myst told the operator then turned to look at one of the teachers. "Get Ms. Barnes to the office, the police are going to walk to talk to her. Let's go to the nurse, can you walk?"

"Yes," Taylor replied as she started walking towards the office, knowing the sooner she got to the office, the sooner she'd be clean.

"Let me know if you need help," Myst told her as they headed toward the office.

0o0o0

Myst was less than impressed by the PRT's response, mostly the fact that Armsmaster stalked into the office with his halberd in hand. "If you attack me, I'm going to sue the shit out of you."

"You potentially outed a teenage girl, putting her life and her family's life at risk, you could be liable for third degree manslaughter!" Armsmaster snapped.

Myst glanced at one of the police officers in the office. "Speaking of criminal offenses, I'm stating outright that the local PRT has a conflict of interest in this case. A girl with remarkably similar powers to Shadow Stalker attempted to stop me from rescuing a girl that was trapped in a locker filled with fermented feminine products. If Sophia Hess isn't Shadow Stalker, there's a cape running around that can pull off an excellent copy."

Armsmaster glared at Myst. "You're risking civilians."

"Bullshit," Myst replied with annoyance. "I called 911 within a minute or two of warning people that she could phase because the girl is dangerous, the school has her records and they can call her family and get them into some form of protective custody within ten minutes, that's going to be longer than it takes someone to look up their address and travel to their home or place of work for one of the gangs. So unless you completely drop the ball, I didn't risk her family's safety, just their ability to stay in the city."

"Do you have any idea where Ms. Hess went?" one of the cops asked.

"No clue," Myst admitted. "I tried to kick a knife out of her hand and she dove through a wall when she realized people were showing up. Considering the rumors of Shadow Stalker shooting people with hunting bolts even after she joined the wards, I'll admit that I'm a bit worried about getting shot in the back while I'm patrolling."

"There is no evidence that Hess is Shadow Stalker," Armsmaster stated, trying to deflect things without actually lying because he knew the Empire would have a PR field day with the information.

"True," Myst agreed. "Best of luck tracking down the girl with phasing that has already proved that she's willing to murder a teenage girl with no gang ties."

"Murder?" Armsmaster asked, suddenly coming to attention.

"Someone taped the vents shut and stuck a padlock on the outside," Myst replied as he focused on the padlock card in his pocket, hoping that he could figure out how to turn it back. He smiled slightly when he felt something drop in his pocket. He reached into his jacket and pulled the lock out. "I'm wearing gloves so I'm going to hand the lock to the police, what they do with it after that, isn't my business except that I hope they'll process it in their labs as you have a conflict of interest."

"He's right, this entire case is fishy," one of the cops said as he accepted the padlock.

Armsmaster scowled, wishing Pigot hadn't been overruled about the sociopath getting a place in the Wards. 'Hopefully the bitch wasn't stupid enough to touch the lock with her bare hands and we can run with a story about the girl having a similar power.' He turned his head to look at the officer. "I have no objection to the police processing it assuming they put a rush on it."

Myst turned to look as a man in a suit walked into the office with another officer.

"Is this the 'cape' that is accusing my daughter of various crimes?" Alan demanded, glaring at Myst and less than impressed by his 'costume' or lack of costume.

"That depends, are you the redhead’s father?" Myst asked.

"Yes," Alan replied as he turned his head to look at the officer. "What is going on and why hasn't the person pretending to be a cape been arrested for filing a false police report?"

"As far as I know, he hasn't said anything that is a lie, Emma Barnes was trying to stop him from rescuing a girl from a locker and ranting about her friend that happens to be a parahuman and about how her lawyer of a father would sue him. A dozen of her classmates called 911 about the incident and were happy to testify about Emma's character or lack of character when we asked about her character," the officer explained, trying to hide his amusement.

"Lack of character?!" Alan sputtered.

"There were twenty one students willing to testify that Emma has been harassing the student in question for the entire year and that her friend, one Sophia Hess had threatened people to stay away from the victim on numerous occasions."

"That's slander!" Alan snapped.

"Did you know that your daughter was friends with a dangerous parahuman?" the officer asked, wishing he was surprised when Alan froze and glanced at Armsmaster.

"No comment," Alan replied, knowing they'd use it against him if he claimed that she wasn't dangerous, as parahumans were generally classified as dangerous by default.

"Let me guess, you signed an NDA with the PRT for their pet ward?" Myst asked sarcastically.

Armsmaster scowled at Myst. "Please stop implying that Ms. Hess has any relation to a ward."

"Sorry, I was just trying to get Mr. Barnes to say something that would get him disbarred in front of witnesses," Myst replied with a shrug. "Now if there are no more questions, I have places to be."

"You're free to go," the officer told him.

"Excellent," Myst replied as he turned to look at Alan. "If you threaten me again with a spurious lawsuit or the victim or her family with the same, I'm going to use every legal method I can find to ruin your life and make sure you never work in the legal field again."

"You can't do that!" Alan snapped.

"It's completely legal to hire people to protest in front of your office as long as we're not lying. It's also completely legal to offer a reward for information that leads to an arrest or a conviction, provided that we aren't trying to tamper with witnesses and go through the proper channels. It's completely legal to hire private investigators to dig up dirt on you and your wife and to publish what they find, it's a bit unethical but completely legal, as a lawyer I’m sure you are well aware of this. Normally, I'm not this much of an asshole, but I had to pull a girl out of a locker filled with biohazardous shit today, so I'm all out of fucks to give. Your daughter was involved and tried to stop me so grow the fuck up, put on your big boy pants and get the bitch some therapy."

"Do you have any proof?" Alan demanded as one of the officers brought Emma out of the detention center in handcuffs.

"That's not my job, I was just here to save a girl," Myst replied as he walked out of the office, wanting to be gone before he said something he shouldn't or Danny showed up and things spiraled out of control. 'Take a breath and relax, there are worse things than getting dropped in Worm, like getting tossed in 40k or Marvel Zombies. First step, get the hell away from the school and figure out what I've got to work with.'

'I've got a striker power I don't understand, about a hundred dollars in my wallet, half of which might as well be counterfeit because of the year and I'm going to have to worry about Scion since Taylor ended up with a different power. Then again, considering the taped over vents, she was probably going to end up dead in this timeline.'

Myst waited until he was across the street and had ducked into an alley before he pulled his handkerchief off and put it back in his pocket. 'First step, find an internet cafe or a library and make sure there aren't any massive surprises, just because things have lined up with Canon Worm so far doesn't mean they'll continue.'

Myst had walked through a couple of alleys before a pair of goons stepped out from behind a dumpster holding knives.

"Give us your money!" a guy with various tattoos scattered over his body demanded.

"Sure," Myst replied as he pulled his wallet out of his pocket and proceeded to take the cash out.

"And your cards!" the other man in his twenties snapped when Myst started putting his wallet back in his pocket.

"You'd never trust the pin numbers and the wallet was a gift," Myst replied as he held the cash out. "Take the cash and walk away."

"Fuck him up!" he snapped.

"No need to be hasty," the first guy said as he reached out to grab the money.

Myst turned the thug into a card when he touched his glove then tossed the money at the second thug and kicked him in the leg while he was distracted, turning him into a card. He glanced around to make sure no one had seen the fight then picked up his cash and put it in his pocket. 'It takes a special sort of idiot to mug people when there are capes walking around or just people that have had enough.'

He picked the cards up and glanced at the cards. 'Random Empire Thugs? Does that mean I need to know the names of the people for my power to label them or does it only label parahumans? I should have kicked the knife out of his hands.' He blinked as the top card glowed for a second and separated into a knife card and a thug card. "Huh."

Myst focused on his hand and used the knife card, causing the thug's knife to appear in his hand. 'That's a lot more useful than just turning people into cards.' He focused on the thug's wallet and pulled a loot card out of the thug's card. 'One hundred and fifty dollars and twenty seven cents, you had more than I did, mine now, you shouldn't have tried to mug me.'

He smiled as he turned the knife back into a card then let it sink back into his mental deck. He summoned the card to his hand then let it fade back into his deck. 'I'm nowhere close to the Triumvirate's level but it's a solid power.'

Myst spent a minute stripping the thugs down to their underwear then flipped one of the thug cards upside down and activated it over the dumpster, dropping the mostly naked guy head first into the dumpster. He reached out as the tattoo covered man stood up and turned him back into a card. 'At least I know I can get them back and I can change how they reappear.'

He focused on one of the man's Nazis tattoos and pulled it out of the card. "Oh, that has potential…" he trailed off as he realized that he wanted to try something a bit mean spirited. He took the tattoo card and touched the card to the other thug's card, focusing on his face. He smirked when the tattoo appeared on the thug's face.

'This would be a lot easier if you hadn't seen my face, ah well, it's not like they'd bother holding you for more than a week, no evidence and all that.'

He let the cards fade into his deck then pulled Sophia's card out, focused on the knife and pulled it out as a card. He focused on the foil on the card and pulled, creating a phase card and leaving Sophia's card looking a bit faded. "So much for having a basic power, this is awesome!"

Myst let the phase card fade into his deck along with Sophia then continued walking down the alley, figuring he'd find something to eat and come up with a plan.

0o0o0

'What are the chances?' Myst mused when he saw a figure with chalk white skin taking a leak in an alley on the wall of a corner store while a couple of thugs spray painted graffiti on the wall. 'Two idiots, one cape with no offensive powers, probably just a couple of pistols at worst.'

"What the fuck are you looking at?!" one of the thugs demanded.

"I was just looking for a place to take a piss," Myst replied, slurring his words a touch.

"Welcome to the party," the other thug said cheerfully. "We'll teach this gene trash to run a business in a nice part of town."

"Totally," Myst agreed as he walked into the alley. He tapped the nearest thug when the other 'artist' turned to go back to painting the wall, turning him into a card. He 'stumbled' forward and hit Alabaster's shoulder, turning him into a foil card then lunged forward, tagged the last thug and turned him into a card as well. 'And nothing of value was lost,' he mused as he read the card. 'Alabaster? So much for getting their civilian names, it must have labeled Sophia's card because I already knew her name.'

He pulled on Alabaster's power, creating a separate card for his powers and leaving the ex-cape looking like a pasty white but normal looking man in his twenties. 'White skin, white hair, white eyes, a minor thinker ability that lets him maintain his gear, pain resistance and perfect health that resets things every four point three seconds. Can I split the power?' he mused as he focused on Alabaster's power and pulled a card out of his power. 'White? It turns your skin, hair and eyes completely white, while still allowing you to see normally.'

He applied the white card to one of the thugs then pulled the card back out, just to make sure he could. 'If I ever want to screw with people, that seems like a nice card to have, I wonder if that would work on Case 53s.'

He took Alabaster's remaining power and gave it to Sophia, curious if it would fix her head or mutate. He scanned her card, happy that she had Alabaster's powers as that meant he could move powers around. He added her power back then pulled her phasing power out when he didn't see anything wrong with the combination. 'Not exactly something that I'd want to deal with considering her issues with electricity but someone might like it.'

He walked over to the dumpster filled with rotting food then closed it and put the bar up to keep the lid closed. 'Not the same as a locker but it's close enough.' He pulled the knife out of her card, along with her phone. He glanced back at the mouth of the alley to make sure no one was watching, then put his handkerchief over his face, wanting to make sure that Sophia didn't catch a glimpse of his face.

He used Sophia's card on the dumpster, dropping her inside the dumpster.

"What the fuck!" Sophia blurted out when she found herself in a dark place that stank almost as badly as Taylor's locker. She reached up and hit the lid and scowled when she realized where she was. "I'm going to fucking murder someone!"

Myst stared in shock as a wisp like Sophia phased through the dumpster and punched him, causing him to stagger backwards in surprise and a bit of pain. “Strike two,” he said, backhanding her and sending the card she turned into smacking into the dumpster, which was rather satisfying when someone had just tried to punch him in the dick.

“How the hell did she get her power back?” he asked himself as he checked his deck and saw a Phasing card was still there before bending down and picking up her foil card to check what it said. “Still has her power. This requires some testing.”