… Elias Mercer
Brockton Bay stinks, and that wasn't news to anyone. Anyone with a working nose figures that out within the first five minutes in the city.
But I wasn't just talking about the smell of rotten seawater mixed with sewage running down the alleys, but also… spiritually.
The whole city felt cursed, like someone had wished on a shooting star for everything to go wrong… and the star had granted it with perfectionist levels of cruelty.
And even so, I grew up here. Between buildings falling apart, constant sirens in the background, gangs with more ammo than the PRT, and the tired look in people's eyes who learned to walk fast and keep their heads down.
I grew up hearing about the Unwritten Rules, watching the Protectorate's drones flying over the streets, and listening to stories about monsters capable of wiping a city off the map that none of our heroes could stop.
But like any halfway functional kid in fucked-up Brockton Bay, I went after understanding how this world works. And thanks to some entity that was possibly not a complete asshole, PHO existed.
Of course, the forum was trash most of the time. Conspiracy theories, idiots arguing with idiots, fanfic that should probably be considered a crime… and an impressive number of people acting like experts without knowing a single fucking thing. But every now and then, there was something useful buried in the garbage.
For example, there were different explanations about how so-called trigger events happen.
Extreme stress, near-death experiences, psychological trauma… some alien entity using us as an experiment (XxVoid_CowboyxX, obviously!)...
But nobody really knows how it actually works. What we all know for sure is that when it happens, everything changes. Your old life doesn't matter anymore. What comes next… depends purely on your luck, your bad luck, or the context of the situation.
If you're from Brockton Bay… well, that basically means you probably just signed your own sentence.
There are people who dream about wearing spandex, coming up with a cape name, and selling action figures with their face on them. The glorious glamour of being a hero.
But in this city, that's just another way to get fucked.
Gangs will test you, recruit you, or wipe you out. The PRT shows up with a "friendly" contract, and the whole world starts expecting you to pick a side or become just another body in an alley.
Like any of these people are actually worth a damn.
My name is Elias Mercer, and if I ever get a Cape name… you can bet your ass it won't be printed on some toy box sitting on a shelf at Toys "R" Us.
I'm a problem and my power… somehow manages to be even worse.
It showed up in the morning, without any of that usual bullshit like almost drowning or watching my family get turned to charcoal by some interdimensional monster.
One moment I was putting on my headphones, thinking about the walk to school and what I was going to ignore that day… and the next, I could see… everything.
Like my head had made room for something that wasn't there before, and I saw it… I could see a catalog of powers, items, entities… all kinds of shit that definitely shouldn't exist anywhere near me.
And in the middle of it all, there was a roulette wheel spinning, whispering all the possible outcomes.
If that was my trigger event… it was anticlimactic as hell.
…
I sat in my room with the lights off, only the glow from the monitor lighting up half of the peeling wall. PHO was open on the screen, but I wasn't reading a damn thing.
I'm not the kind of guy who freaks out easily, since growing up in Brockton Bay kind of vaccinates you against that... but the idea of having a power left me stuck somewhere between euphoria and panic.
'I'm a Cape now…' I thought, since I'm not stupid enough to say that shit out loud in a city like this.
And that's where things go to hell… because it doesn't matter what kind of power I've got, there's always someone bigger or more fucked up ready to show up.
If I'm too strong, the fake dragon shows up and cuts me in half just to prove a point. If I've got potential, the Empire bastards show up with a welcome platter full of swastikas and demands. If I slip up, the Merchants grab me and force me to shoot up their crap until I forget my own name and turn into a superpowered street zombie.
If I try to be a hero… the Protectorate will want to use me as a pawn and hand me a script to follow. "Don't kick the Nazis too hard", "Don't confront the dragon", "Pretend the world isn't sinking into a swamp of shit".
…None of that is something I can do.
And being independent? Ha, no fucking way! You don't survive in Brockton being independent! Not even the heroes manage that!
If anyone still thinks New Wave is some kind of model… heh. These days, New Wave is just Glory Girl with her intimidation aura and Panacea with her magic healing that doesn't work on brains.
A walking flying brick and a frustrated healer. Two girls who can't hold this city together even with both hands and a pair of shackles.
But even in the middle of all that… what really screws me over is the fact that I've always wanted a power.
Fuck the Endbringers, fuck the gangs, fuck the risk of dying before twenty.
I wanted to be able to do something.
I wanted to punch Nazis, I wanted to protect someone without relying on luck or waiting for another Cape to show up first… maybe even make some kind of difference in this rotting hole they call a city.
And now I can… and the answer to what I need to do is simple.
Don't become just another corpse; don't turn into a piece of propaganda…
And never… never let anyone else spin the roulette for me.