Chapter 241 - My CO Stash #41 - Heteromorph in Worm by Akallas von Aerok (WormXOverlord)

-I'm surprisingly enjoying this OC with the Overlord Gamer System as his power/trigger, and since the author is Akallas you already know he bound to be OP asf~ It doesn't only focus on Brockton Bay like other Worm fics too which is a refreshing take!

Sypnosis: Maruyama-Overlord Style Power for a Cauldron Agent

Rated: ???

Words: 12K

Posted on: forums.spacebattles.com/threads/heteromorph-in-worm-overlord-maruyama-worm.793891/#post-61856674/ (Akallas von Aerok)

PS: If you're not able to copy/paste the link, you have everything in here to find it, by simply searching the author and the story title. It sucks that you can't copy links on mobile (´ー｀)

-I'll be putting the chapter ones of all the fanfics mentioned, to give you guys a sample if you wan't more please do go to the website and support the author! (And maybe even convince them to start uploading chapters in here as well!)

Chapter 1-3 (exceptional)

I stared at the contract in front of me and the person who offered it to me.

It was … incredulous. Fantastical. Unrealistic.

Yet I desired it.

"And what is the cost of accepting this exchange?" I asked, gesturing with my weak left arm at the contract.

My name was David, and I am a cancer patient. I wasn't a normal cancer patient, though; I was a terminal cancer patient. By a fault not of my own but rather an uncaring people who didn't even realize that they were dumping mutagens into the river, I have acquired three different types of cancers by eating plants grown that were watered from the same river, even after filtration and treatment. As great as modern innovations like filtration and water treatments were, they weren't perfect and things slipped through. I, out of a million people, was the victim.

I hadn't even realized that I had cancer until I just collapsed one day. According to the doctors, my balanced and healthy diet was the only reason why I hadn't collapsed earlier because I started not with three cancers but five cancer sites.

Miraculous, I know. My own diet was good enough to kill two sites but there was only so much diet could do against a host of problems.

So when I collapsed and they admitted me to the hospital, they scanned me and found where the cancers were and how far they were along.

Lung.

Heart.

Guts.

All terminal.

All widespread.

Upon hearing all of that, I grieved. Rather, I allowed myself to grieve for a single day. I spent the last month tying up loose ends.

Businesses, houses, lands, stocks. Nothing mattered when I was next in line to die.

But here this person was, offering me a deal.

I have been offered a deal, and the statement was thus.

'In exchange for curing you and giving you a supernatural ability, you will work for us.'

What a farce.

But … But it was a ray of hope for someone who'd been prepared to die.

I stared at the contract.

It was a simple thing. It was just a bunch of things that they were expected to give me, what they expected from me, and what the duration of my services would be. This was not something someone made to give false hope to a terminal cancer patient.

No, this was a deal with the devil.

There was not a single mention of what my services would be, what the side effect of this deal would be, what kind of cure would be used, or if I would be allowed to stay here in California with my family.

Death or Uncertainty. That's what this was to me.

I picked up a pen with my weak and trembling left hand and added a new statement.

[No memory alteration.]

The woman in front of me stared at it, seemed to calculate the impact of the statement, and then nodded.

I signed the contract.

I set the pen down as the woman walked to my side and pulled out a syringe. "Sedative."

"Does it matter?" I asked.

"... A little."

"Do it then," I said as I laid down.

She injected it into my trembling arm, and I felt the drug take effect rather fast.

'Hopefully, when I wake up next time, it'll be -'

"- F.U.C.K.I.N.G HELL!" I roared as the drug they injected into me for the "cure" coursed through my body.

Tied down to an operating table inside an unknown sterile white lab room, I screamed as I felt my body rip and tear itself apart. My heart pounded inside my chest but my chest was swelling and the bones were breaking and reforming -!

"GAAAAHHHH!!!!"

My head felt like someone poured white hot lead into it!

My legs!

My arm!

MY MINI-ME! HOLY SHIT APPARENTLY I CAN F.U.C.K.I.N.G JOKE WHILE IN PAIN!

I spat out blood and even with blood staining my mouth and lips, I screamed.

Sitting in a cell, I grumbled before the same woman who offered me this deal walked up to the bars.

"Are you calm?"

I rotated my floating head.

"Kind of," I spoke through grinding my rocks from within my head.

"Are you ready to talk?"

"... Sorry, I went crazy at the end," I grumbled out.

The fedora wearing woman simply nodded. "We do not fault you," she said as she pulled out a key chain, picked out a key, and used it to open my ridiculously high strength and tensile bars. She slid the bar gates open, and I stood up. When she nodded, I walked out and followed her to one of the exits in this giant complex.

I ignored the other hideously morphed creatures around me. They, like me, chose to take the chance to be cured. Like they, I had gone a little berserk after the end of the procedure. I'd gone a little insane after going through all of the pain I had to endure, and had lashed out.

The fedora woman here had been there to stop me, though I'm not sure how my new changed self had been stopped by a fork.

We exited the prison, because that's what it was, and entered the sterile white portions of the compound. We walked for some time before coming to a stop in front of a door. She opened it, and we stepped through together.

Waiting inside was a lab coat wearing person. He looked frazzled?

He looked up from whatever his work with crystalline glowing within the liquid was, and saw me.

"Ah, you brought him, Contessa."

"Yes," the fedora wearing woman replied. "He's the willing participant."

The researcher looked me over before huffing. "Well, bring him over here, then. None of us have time to spare."

The woman moved only a second after the researcher finished talking, and led me towards an empty armchair in the office. She gestured for me to sit down and when I did, she turned and left.

I took a moment to stare after her and her shapely ass, I turned to look at the researcher, who was still focused on whatever he was working on.

Then he abruptly stopped.

"Alright. You're name?"

"David."

"Hmm… give me a different name. Different form, different name."

A curt kind of man, I assume?

I looked over myself. I wasn't exactly human anymore. My "head" was a spherical construct floating with a hollow cavity filled with rough crystals. They ground for me to make the human sounds but they didn't suffer wear and tear so far. My body was of similar material.

"Augur."

"... warning of an outcome, good or bad," the researcher hummed. "Good name. Have you worked on figuring out what your power may be?"

I nodded my head.

When I woke up in this compound, another researcher, a dark skinned lady who was definitely less familiar with modern equipment, explained to me that I would be swallowing the contents of a vial that they chose for me. From this vial, I had the chance of being cured of everything that had gone wrong for me and also obtaining a superpower.

On the other hand, if I was incompatible with the power within even after the preparations they have gone through to ensure compatibility, then I would die from complications during the transition phase. I accepted regardless of the possibility of death because I was already a dead man walking. I just hadn't expected that level of pain.

During the time of my imprisonment, I took a lot of time to discover everything that had changed about myself. I immediately found that I had no neck, my head floated on its own, and all of my body was made out of barn red crystalline stuff. I absorbed iron to "heal" myself by touching but I could also abstain from doing so.

"Alright, then what is it?" He paused. "Actually, before we go through with that, why don't we establish some facts. What year was it, wherever you come from?"

"2015." I was in college a year before I found that I was a terminal cancer patient. My parents got a lot of money from the company that was responsible for my state, so that was good.

"It's 1986 in the Earth that we are going to send you to."

I felt the world sway for a second before everything snapped.

They can change bodies and give people powers. What's a parallel Earth to that?

"Okay."

"Great. We've established that, so let's talk about your power."

I scratched the "cheek" of my orb-head. "It's … game-like?"

"'Game-like'?" the researcher repeated.

"I tried a lot of things to call up my powers, and it took me a long time."

"Yes, you were in your cell for an entire day. You also didn't sleep."

I paused. "I don't think I need to."

He noted that down.

"What else?"

Well, when I was thinking about my status," I began. "It popped up."

"It?"

"A game screen."

"A game screen… What is a game screen?"

"You haven't played any video games?"

The researcher shrugged. "Remember that I am from the same Earth you are being sent to. It's the 1980's for me but 2010's for you. Things are different between our two Earths."

"Ah. Okay. A game screen is part of a GUI, or Game User Interface, that allows a player to interact with the game in a manner that is not realistically possible."

"Such as?"

"Well, just like most roleplaying games that I know, my power seems to give me a status page and inventory."

"Can you explain both of those to me?"

"Status page shows me my status. Everything from any debuffs, like diseases, or just overall numerical, if arbitrary, clarification of my status. Inventory allows me to store things."

"Do you know the limits?"

"No."

"Very well. We can end the discussion for now. You'll be sent to my Earth, which is being called Earth Bet, as one of our agents."

"What am I to do?"

The researcher finally smiled. "Whatever is required of you."

Augur Status said:

Name:

Augur

Race:

Golem (Crystaline) LvL. 1

Gender:

Male (S.e.x: As.e.x.u.a.l)

Affiliation:

The Cauldron

Residence:

Undecided / Earth Bet

Karma:

Neutral (0)

Jobs:

N/A

HP: 5

MP: 5

Phy. Atk: 10

Phy. Def: 10

Agility: 5

Mag. Atk: 5

Mag. Def: 10

Resistance: 5

Special Ability: 3

Chapter 1.1

1990.2.6

Information was key to action.

It was something that most of the parahumans, or capes if they were active as a mask wearing freak, forgot about.

"NO NO NO-!" one such cape screamed as he tried to run away from me by crawling away backwards.

Not that it would work.

I pulled out a knife and threw it.

"EE-!

Thunk.

Slump.

I sighed. It was irritating, but it was work nonetheless. Walking over to the dead cape, I grabbed him by his hair and dragged him out of the room with me. I didn't say anything as I walked out of the room, and then the building, and finally out into the road.

Few people who were still out at night saw me. Whispers soon broke out, which turned into louder murmurs and gasps when they saw who I was dragging behind me. Passing beneath multiple streetlights, I came to a stop at the center of an avenue and nodded to myself.

I dropped the dead cape, and reached into my inventory. From there, I pulled out a long metal pole and planted it directly into the center of the asphalt road. Ignoring the growing crowd on the sidewalks, I grabbed the dead cape and hurled him up.

Then I impaled him.

People screamed but I ignored them. I knew that this cape was already dead.

I turned to the still remaining people, some of whom had cameras.

"I AM AUGUR!" I shouted. "Many of you know who I am and what I do. Some of you don't!" I paused to let it sink in. "I am a vigilante who roams across the entire North America! I have been to Toronto! I struck down a neo-Nazi in Brockton Bay! I fought with the Teeth in New York City! I was there to fight Behemoth's assault on Raleigh!" I let that sink in with another pause. "And I am now here in Phoenix, Arizona because I have heard of your troubles with this villain, the Slaver!"

Yes, that was what the guy named himself. He was the central figure in human trafficking in all of US Southwest because he had an ability called "Send Teleport," which was basically the ability to teleport something - never himself, though - to a location if he knew what it looked like.

It was a powerful ability, but the Slaver had neglected to use it for offensive uses. So secure in his petty criminal kingdom, he neglected to grow.

Now, he was dead.

"So I came and met out justice!" I roared, spraying my arms wide. "The cape who used the nation's inability to imprison him in these times of trouble to further his greed and sell children, women, and men to slavery! The Slaver of Phoenix is now impaled before you! No more of your family will be sent across seas to suffer horrors and humiliations! No more! NO MORE!"

Silence. It was always like this. Soon enough, however…

Someone clapped.

And another. Then more. Finally, the entire center of the avenue cheered wildly.

"NO MORE!" I roared out.

"NO MORE!" people cheered. "NO! MORE! NO! MORE! NO! MORE! NO! MORE!"

This was America.

I wasn't going to let evil run wild.

I bowed to the escalating cheers, and made my way out with the usage of [Fly], a Tier-3 spell of the Wizard Job. I watched as several of the newly minted Protectorates rushed to the area I was in, but they were too late.

By the time they wove through the crowds to see the impaled body of the Slaver and hundreds of people cheering me on, I was already gone.

Instead of hiding out within the city, I made my way towards Los Angeles. With the Slaver dead, his petty criminal kingdom was going to fall apart. There were still some capes that were under his employ, but they were soon going to fight each other.

The Protectorate could deal with the small fries. I intended to get some more -.

Ping.

I stopped mid-flight and stared at the notification I got.

[Level Up!]

"Oh~!" I noted happily before quickly pulling up my status page. There, at the bottom of the page, was [Unused LeveL: 1], and the Races and Jobs sections both had open slots now.

The way this Gamer power worked for me was that when I gained a Level, I didn't "gain" a numerical level to an overall power level but rather a "Level Point" I could use to gain Racial and Job Class Levels.

All races and jobs had their requirements, however, so I couldn't choose something willy-nilly. For example, Clerics and Paladins were jobs that required high levels of faith (Resistance), which I only had moderate level of. War Wizard also required me to possess at least Wizard LvL 15, which I did have.

This was great.

Why?

Because each job not only had requirements, or lack thereof for more basic jobs like fighters and wizards, but limitations. A regular Wizard could only use light armor, no matter their race or other job classes. A War Wizard, however, could use moderate armor. It was something I had been striving forward for sometime, and I was happy to finally get the chance to use it.

War Wizard was a Job Class that worked to supplement the basic Wizard Class rather than a Job Class that gave more spell options. The magic system of this Gamer style was based on a "tier-magic system," which ranged from 1st Tier to 10th Tier and beyond.

Gaining War Wizard allowed me to use spells at half cooldown period and use metamagic enhancements without cost. Whereas I needed to use ten percent of my entire mana pool (no matter how fast it recovered) to use [Extend Magic: Fly] to fly for 12 hours instead of the original 6 hours, once I obtained War Wizard, then I would be allowed to use [Extend Magic: Fly] with only five percent of my mana pool.

It was awesome!

I happily clicked away at War Wizard.

But with [Fly] already active, I could do something else to get me to L.A.

"[Boost Magic: Fly]!" I shouted cheerfully.

And just like that, my 80 mph 3rd Tier Magic [Fly] became a 160 mph 4th Tier Magic [Fly].

"WOOOOO!!!" I cheered as I blasted towards the city of Alexandria.

Name:

Augur

Race:

Golem (Crystalline): LvL. 15

Gender:

Male (S.e.x: As.e.x.u.a.l)

Affiliation:

The Cauldron / Indie Vigilante

Residence:

Earth Bet

Karma:

Neutral (0)

Jobs:

Wizard: 15

A/N: The entire first arc will be a lot of setting and character development rather than conflict development. There will be a lot of timeskips, usually 1~2 year periods.

Chapter 1.2

1990.4.10

Anaheim, California

"There are some people who are very upset with you, miss."

In this modern era when most of the weapons used had some sort of metal involved, the thing about fighting Tinkers was how easy it was.

"Who the hell are you?" my target shouted before reaching for a very clearly tinkertech pistol on her belt. But before she could even pull it out, I quickly raised my hand up, which had a steel and leather gauntlet I bought from a local hobbyist.

"[Triple Magic: Lightning]!" I roared out, and from the tip of my gauntlet, lightning burst forth like three white snakes, zigzagging towards the target while lighting up the night where I caught my target.

Because I possessed lightning and Tinkers had a lot of metal on them.

The villain Tinker screamed as all three lightning struck him, and she fell with a flop on the wet and dirty alley ground.

Leaving her there for a moment, I reached into my steel weave business suit's inner pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. I unfolded it, showing me a list of names, masks, description of attires, their affiliations, and powers.

The paper I held was the list of wanted parahumans in Los Angeles area, and one of the people on this list was the very Tinker I just electrocuted.

Mostly, it was requests from the state and federal government for me to put down some of the peskier local troublemakers. Xaya, the Tinker I just electrocuted, was part of a larger group of villains who ambushed a federal munitions caravan heading from the LA's docks to one of the army bases.

A federal agency specifically for parahumans have yet to form, so the policing of violent criminals fell upon the army, the regular police officers, militia, and coast guards. Poor bastards.

Anyways, Xaya made tinkertech that served as power multipliers for many of the villains, and was also the leader of said ambush.

The federal government wanted to make an example out of her. When I heard that, I almost rejected the job but Alexandria convinced me that it wouldn't be anything nasty like something an African warlord would do.

After being reassured, I went and came here. Finding Xaya was the hard part.

Taking her down, not so much.

I walked up to the prone figure and grabbed her. With a slight heave, I pulled her off the ground and over my shoulder. Then I flew up and over in an arc towards the nearest police station.

The nightlife of Southern California was quiet. I wasn't anywhere near Disneyland or downtown L.A. proper, and it was also 2 a.m.

I came to a soft landing in front of the police station, and walked up. The police station was lit, and someone inside saw me coming. Their hand immediately went to the gun that was surely by their hip, and I calmly walked into the police station's lobby after pushing the glass door in.

Before the officer could speak, I moved first. I raised a hand in a gesture of peace, the V. The officer looked quizzically at me with dark bags under his eyes, and I just moved on. I slowly dropped Xaya and pulled her hands behind her. Two zippers later, she was secure with her thumbs bound and her ankles tied together in a cross.

Then I turned to the officer and presented him with a business card.

"My name is -"

"Augur," the police officer interrupted. "You're quite famous."

I worked my nonexistent mouth a little before nodding. This was the first time a police officer recognized me.

"Then we can skip the introductions. I caught Xaya, the tinker behind me, who was behind the assault on federal munitions delivery two months ago. I was hoping you could call the army for me so that they can take her away to their more secure holding cells."

The police officer grunted in agreement before sitting back down into his driver's seat and pulling up a radio from the car's radio station.

It was the 90's here in Earth Bet, which meant that there was no cheap cellphone I could carry around with ease.

It was why I even had to come to a police station instead of heading straight to an army base. I couldn't call ahead and I was still considered a vigilante. If I just flew to the army base, then I would have been shot down, and as a violent vigilante, the army would have arrested me on the spot.

The PRT and the Protectorate had yet to establish themselves, sp people still believed that they could fight parahumans with guns. The fools. Most of them didn't even know how much a single parahuman could be.

(Technically they can but I was not exactly a low-tier parahuman like future Alabaster)

When the police officer got in contact with the army, I nodded and turned around to leave.

"Wait, you're leaving?"

I stopped and turned around just a bit. The police officer looked confused. "Yes."

"But what about the villain?" he gestured to the still unconscious woman.

I shrugged. "I electrocuted her hard. I doubt she'll wake up any time soon."

"But still, the colonel wants to talk with you…"

Ah. So that's why he talked to me instead of letting a "violent and very dangerous" vigilante go. But why did the army want to talk to me? While it wasn't my first time interacting, tangentially, on anything that involves them, they hadn't given me much attention before…

"Not interested," I said, waving him goodbye as I walked out. I didn't want to get involved.

With that, I left.

I didn't have an overarching goal.

I know. I had all of this power at my finger tip but I didn't have a single concrete goal. I took down villains because I believed in exercising justice where normal justice could not reach.

Beyond that, however, I didn't have a goal. I floated around the entire continent because I was looking for what I wanted to do. I had been sick and folded up all ventures but now I was healthy and without aim.

What could I do? A lot and I had potential for even more.

What should I do? I was unsure.

I intended to fulfill my end of the contract with the Cauldron. They gave me a new leash on life and they haven't asked me to slaughter thousands or something equally arbitrarily heinous.

I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew that when the time came, I didn't want to be left bereft of capital to chase after the goal.

For now, I had to grow not just personally but also influentially, socially, and financially.

…

While I have dabbled in hero work as a vigilante, I couldn't grow myself on vigilante work alone. I could already feel the progression with my "Gamer" system slowing down. When I first began, taking down a villain's mook got me to level two. Taking down an entire villain's organization in Atlanta brought me to level five. Taking down minor villains netted … much less than that.

I took down the Slaver in Phoenix and that netted me quarter of a level, yet Xaya, who was arguably stronger because of her connections and influence, netted me -.

I briefly checked my EXP progress.

- less than that. Was my EXP based on the personal powerlevel of the individual I took down? It certainly would make sense outside of the few "quests" that I completed.

This meant I had to fight a lot of people and win against them all to progress. I didn't know the limits of my leveling system, however.

What kind of work would put me in such a position where I could keep fighting but stop whenever I wanted to?

…

I snapped my fingers.

"A mercenary."

I wouldn't do it here in North America, but in more chaotic places like the Phillipines, Japan, China, India, all of Africa, and the Middle East?

"[Extend Magic: Fly]," I said and floated up slowly. I supposed that I had a new destination.

Name:

Augur

Race:

Golem (Crystalline): LvL. 15

Gender:

Male (S.e.x: As.e.x.u.a.l)

Affiliation:

The Cauldron /Mercenary

Residence:

Earth Bet

Karma:

Neutral (50)

Jobs:

Wizard: 15

War Wizard 1

Chapter 2.1

1995.6.2

The thing about warfare modified with capes was that it took a reverse effect on the evolution of military doctrine. Advanced weaponry - missiles, rockets, and even nuclear bombs - were capable of hurting low-tier capes, but against mid-tier and high-tier parahuman capes, even they fell short.

Yes, nuclear bombs would kill all but the most powerful capes, but it would also irradiate the very region the militaries of the world desired to take for their own, never mind the international repercussions and Scion coming to visit (but really, Scion seemed to destroy any nukes being launched so nukes were useless at this point). If the majority of any conflict happened as urban warfare, this left even the more useful artilleries and air bombers out of use because no one wanted to bomb their own cities.

No, this left capes to fight capes like the European medieval knights. Numbers mattered more than ever because even high tier capes like Eidolon could fall if enough ants swarmed him. It just hadn't happened yet. It would happen eventually.

So in a conflict prone region like the Middle East, numbers was what decided the battlefront. Not everyone could field many capes from their home country, however, for one reason or another.

This meant hiring parahumans willing to fight for money or other goods and services.

Mercenaries.

In fact, ever since the advent of parahumans, the Middle East had become the place with the highest concentration of parahumans, measuring at one parahuman per one-thousand people when America was at one parahuman per thirty-thousand in 1991.

The reason for this was simple: war.

So much f.u.c.k.i.n.g war.

'Not that I mind it,' I thought to myself. 'I benefit greatly.'

Indeed, my ability to provide numerous support brought likeminded parahumans to me, and by the end of the first year of myself stepping out of vigilantism and into mercenary work, I was a part of a parahuman mercenary company numbering in at thirty.

Now, that didn't sound like a lot, and it wasn't compared to Saudi Arabia's sixty-nine, Iran's ninety, Egypt's eighty, and Turkey's ninety-one.

But here in the Caucasus and the Kurdistan regions, we were not only the biggest but the most mobile and deadly force. This was because of me, my wizard class, and high level, which clocked in at combined level of level 43. While my c.u.mulative level meant little to people, what I could do did matter.

As a level 43, I had access to Seventh Tier Spells, some of which I kept hidden on purpose. There were other Seventh Tier Spells, however, that I used regularly. The greatest of these was "Create Greater Item." I could create items that last for a long time with just my mana. My most produced item was "Chainmail of Deflection" and other such similar items for a full head to toe outfit, all of which deflected any small arms fire.

It wasn't mass producible by any means, but it gave us all an edge in terms of combat efficiency.

It gave everyone a minor Brute rating.

It seemed at first like a small thing but when my friend, the leader of the mercenaries, told me that it would change everything, I believed him.

In the next combat engagement, we found out how true it was. Five of our numbers fought against a division of Iraqis trying to kill us because we had taken a contract from the Kurds.

No one in our squad was injured by guns while the enemies suffered a near total defeat. This one battle put not only my mercenary group on the map but it put me out there.

If that was all, then our group wouldn't even be good enough to hold the entirety of the Kurdistan region. I had "Greater Teleportation," which allowed me to teleport to anywhere in the world as long as I had an idea of the landing zone and had the mana to use the spell. I had "Control Weather" which allowed me to manipulate the weather as I saw fit in an area big enough to cover half of New York City.

But my greatest contribution to the mercenary group was the choosing of my secondary Race: Eldritch Construct. Combined with my Wizard and War Wizard job classes, I was able to do things that dictated more.

I could summon some nasty mind breaking monsters into existence.

My tactic was simple.

Find an enemy base, teleport in, summon three A-class threat monsters all of which could think, plan, and kill the same as - if not better - than humans, and let them loose.

This was how we kept Turkey back.

That was how I kept Iran on its toes.

I was the reason why Saudi Arabia kept to its borders and stepped out of the Middle East affairs.

…

Except, I didn't show myself like that. The group as a whole attributed many of these acts as those performed by the core five members of our mercenary, which included myself and our mercenary leader, who I pushed into that position because he was ambitious and adventurous.

Except, there was no "core five." It was just me and the leader, who had a Master power that let him make clones, posing as five when it was really just us two.

I'm very smart, creating decoys and everything.

-AKA-

"I hate ambushes!" I growled in my human disguise before peeking just a bit over the concrete-rubble-turned-cover, and shot a single hand out towards the enemies in the distance. "[Triple Magic: Chain Dragon Lightning]!" My chant triggered my magic to burst forth from my fingers, and lightning shot forth, forming vague images of dragons, before striking at the brick building across the street.

"GAH!" someone screamed.

I immediately pushed myself down as bullets rained down on my position.

I waited, hoping that my friends would use the opening I gave them to-.

RATATATATATATATA

More screams rang out, and the bullets stopped hitting my cover. I cast a quick silently cast Protection against Projectiles (3rd-tier) and looked up.

"Where the f.u.c.k did these desert rats come from?!" I shouted angrily before silently casting Sense Enemy (2nd-Tier*) with Boost Magic, revealing nothing in one kilometer radius around me. Seeing as there was no more enemy, I stood up from my cover. I pulled up my radio and turned it on. "This is CF-2 reporting no more enemy in one click. I repeat, CF-2 reporting no more enemy in one click, over."

The radio buzzed to life a little later. "{This is R-5. I copy you, CF-2. We'll be leaving our covers, over.}"

A second after that, my friends and mercenaries rose up from the covers that they have been using against the rain of bullets.

"[Teleport]," I mumbled before appearing on top of the last enemy position. The scene changed from the ground level Middle Eastern mud and brick building to one on a second story. I frowned when I was immediately struck by the smell of cooked meat. I looked around, scanning the rubble, and then found the last gunner who's been trying to kill us.

While charred beyond recognition because of my lightning, I saw that the vest had been spared the worst of the damages with only minor charring on the edges.

My eyes widened before I growled. I reached down to the corpse and roughly ripped off the patch and badge of the person that I now knew was a mercenary. I teleported back to my position, where the others have been gathering.

"It's the f.u.c.k.i.n.g Saudis," I growled as I tossed the badge at the leader of this operation, R-1.

"This is a Scari logo," R-1 remarked in surprise.

SCaRi, short for SamsonCarlsonRio Securities, was a Danish security company with operations across the globe with about as many employees as Walmart. What they weren't, however, was a mercenary company. Their primary areas of operation was providing security to gas sites, electrical plants, and other energy locations.

"What the f.u.c.k?" R-10, a Danish woman, muttered in shock. "Give it here!" she snapped and took the patch from R-1's hand, and when she confirmed that yes, it was a Scari security patch, she gawked. "What the f.u.c.k?!"

"Maybe it was stolen equipment?" I pondered. I knew that I was fooling myself; Scari didn't operate at all in the Middle East area. They avoided this place like the plague because of the instability. It couldn't have been stolen equipment because there was no Scari operation in the region.

And the only major power in the region who could afford to pull Scari into the region was the Saudis (Iran had a scandal with Scari a few years back that resulted in multiple employee deaths) because no one else was rich enough or influential enough.

"But why Scari?" R-10 asked angrily. "The f.u.c.k.i.n.g American mercenaries - no offense-," she added. I raised my hand up in acceptance. "Have more and better troops!"

This was also true. Scari was a security company, not a private military contractor. They didn't operate remotely similar to any private military contractors.

So why was it here?

"Could it be from Russia?" R-5, an Australian man, asked. "I mean, they're pretty well known corrupt assholes that sold their own nukes. I wouldn't put it behind their former generals and site directors from selling equipment belonging to international companies."

"Maybe," R-1 mumbled. "Let's just leave this place already. We're not getting anything here."

We all agreed and moved towards our destination: Deralok, Iraq, where the heaviest fighting between Iraq and Syria was taking place but it was part of the Kurdistan region, inhabited by Kurds. As the Kurds' contractors, it was our job to bring safety back.

I held my hands out, and the crew, all five of them, grabbed onto them. "[Mass Teleportation]," I chanted. A ring of halo surrounded all of us for a second before we zipped out of the ruins where we'd stopped to get me a breather.

When the teleportation ended, we arrived just outside of Deralok, a quaint town. I quickly scrambled up the hill that separated us from the town and looked.

Well, it was supposed to be quaint. It wasn't.

Hidden behind the hills, we watched as the Syrians in the west and the Iraqi in the east exchanged fire and artillery.

The war between Syria and Iraq was an Earth Bet exclusive event. Where I come from, Syria and Iraq didn't fight a war in the 90's between themselves. On Earth Bet, it was the assassination of Saddam Hussein by a Syrian parahuman assassin that sparked the war. Coupled with Iraq's previous wars and rebellions that crippled many of its cities and army, Iraq was on the losing side of this conflict.

One of the shells landed in the town proper, and detonated, sending a building flying in all directions.

"We have to get down there!" R-1, ever the impatient and passionate defender of the Kurds, growled. A parahuman capable of tanking bullets and artillery as long as he didn't move his feet, he was quick to act. He was also the most senior member of our mercenary group outside of the Core Five.

While I wasn't the leader of the operation, I was a member of the Core Five (or rather, one of only two real people in the Core Five while the other three were my illusory clones using my spells at a distance), and that meant that as long as I was on the field, my "suggestions" were taken before any action.

So I took my time to observe the situation.

The Iraqis and Syrians were exchanging bullets and shells, yes. Most of them were, however, fighting in the outskirts of the town. The center of the town was being avoided.

Why?

"Keep to the outskirts," I suggested. "And remain firmly in the northeast area if you can. Move down south through the eastern outskirts if you have to, but avoid the center."

"Alright, let's go people!" R-1 shouted and rushed over the hilltop. R-5, R-10, R-11, and R-12 rushed forward behind R-1.

I sat behind the hill, ready to provide support.

"{This is R-1. You keeping an eye on us, CF-2, over?}"

"This is CF-2. I got my eyes on you. Neither side knows we're here yet, over," I replied.

"{Got it. Moving in, over.}"

Pulling out my binoculars from my backpack, I watched from the hill as the five mercenaries of varying origins moved in to fulfill the contract our company signed with the Kurds. They reached the northeastern edge of the thick V-shaped town. My mercenaries stopped in front of a house, but then I immediately saw R-1 freeze upon peeking into the house.

He yelled something, and jumped out into the open. and immediately came into contact with Iraqi soldiers. The others followed him immediately.

R-10, a Blaster cape, fired off three ice crystalline projectiles at subsonic speeds, but the mass was enough to pierce through the head of the nearest Iraqi soldier. The surprised Iraqis turned and saw us, and from the way their mouths moved, they recognized us instantly.

But they died before they could return fire when R-5, a Mover/Changer/Breaker/Striker, transformed into a charging boulder on legs and slammed into their position with the force of a ton of TNT. The resulting explosion ripped a house apart, but from the disrepair it was in, I doubted there was anyone there.

"{F.u.c.k.i.n.g bastards were gunning down people!}" R-1 growled. "{I'll kill them all}!"

"Stick to the team, R-1!" I reminded him sharply.

I heard R-1 roar angrily on the other side of the radio, and I saw him stomping on the ground repeatedly in anger as he came out of the house that the Iraqi soldiers had just moved on from before my mercenaries got there.

Then I saw the Iraqi army turn their attention by moving their artillery…

"Oh shit." I immediately turned on the radio. "Iraqi is aiming at you lot with their artillery."

"{F.u.c.k that!}" R-1 shouted. "{5, we're taking out the f.u.c.k.i.n.g sand rats!}"

Uh oh.

"Wait, wait, wait, don't do i-!"

But 5 was charging with 1 on his back, the former's foot planted firmly into 10.

"Ah."

The thing about R-5 was that he lacked a Brute ability to keep himself safe from anything other than his own explosions.

R-1, however, made not only himself invulnerable when his feet were planted down, but whatever his feet were planted on. Including humans.

This was the duo tank of the Solid Pact Mercenary, the Juggernaut.

R-10 rushed forward at Mach 3, reaching the Iraqi forces in six seconds, and exploded with the force of fifteen tons of TNT. I winced expensive artillery pieces crumpled and rent from the explosion while body parts flew into the air.

"5, 11, and 12, hold position until 1 and 5 come back."

"{Roger, roger, over,}" 12's ever cheerful voice replied.

I facepalmed.

I wasn't worried about any of them. Oh no no no.

The problem was when this skirmish hit the international news, because our actions always hit the news.

I didn't want another "SP Mercenaries annihilate another army" on the headlines! Couldn't we have just driven the Syrians and Iraqis back without killing all of them?!

"Ah," I muttered as the Juggernaut duo charged the Syrians. This time, they were moving at Mach 5, which would result in a detonation with the force of twenty-five tons of TNT.

"Goddamnit."

BBOOOMMMM!!!

I groaned into my hand.

We didn't need more media coverage. We really didn't.

-AKA-

Name:

Augur

Race:

Golem (Crystalline): LvL. 15

Eldritch Construct: LvL. 7

Gender:

Male (S.e.x: As.e.x.u.a.l)

Affiliation:

The Cauldron / Mercenary (Constant Return Mercenary, co-founder)

Residence:

Earth Bet

Karma:

Neutral (50)

Jobs:

Wizard: 15

War Wizard 5

-AKA-

* = had to add non-canon levels due to a lack of info on said subject.

Sense Enemy (2nd-Tier*): Sense enemies in a 250 meter radius

Protection against Projectiles (3rd-Tier): deflects a dozen projectiles as long as the projectiles weigh no more than 100 grams.

Chapter 2.2

1995.9.13

Augur

Our success at Deralok was enough to get the Iraqis and the Syrians to back off from the region and take their fight elsewhere.

This, however, gave the Kurds another idea.

"You want to do what?" I asked in Arabic. I know that I wasn't being exactly polite, but god dammit I needed my incredulousness and shock conveyed, because what these idiots were suggesting was too much!

"We want to strike at Baghdad and force the dictator to concede," the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Masoud Barzani, declared.

"You mean you want to plunge the entire region into war with that kind of move," Jalal Talabani, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, grunted back.

Unlike in my Earth which saw Jalal call for a ceasefire between Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan, Earth Bet's Iraqi treatment of Kurds - due to the initial military might and parahuman recruits within the Iraqi army - resulted in a large Kurdish parahuman population, clocking in at twenty-one at this time. Combined with my Solid Pact Mercenary's parahumans, the Kurds matched the Egyptians and the Turks in number of capes and far above the fourteen employed by Iraq.

"Hussein's succesor is keeping his parahumans in Baghdad specifically for defense," I replied from across the seat of the two leaders. "You would risk not only my people but yours as well."

Barzani glared at me, and I glared right back.

Unlike Jalal, Barzani was far more militaristic and ambitious. He wanted to secure a true independence for the Kurds, not that I blamed him. What I did object to was his military ideas.

"Right now, the people of Iraq don't care about us, but if storm Baghdad, that will change," I added another objection before he could speak. "And do you think my company will simply go along with this? We were hired in the DEFENSE of the Kurds, not to lead the largest parahuman battle to date in the Middle East!"

"Then why did we hire you, hmm?!" Barzani spat. "You do nothing but lounge about while we figh-"

I wanted to punch him.

For some reason, Barzani froze, staring at me in horror.

Jalal was on his feet, quickly standing between me and Barzani.

"Mr. Augur, please excuse Barzani!" he said quietly. "He is just tired of being assaulted by the Iraqis and the Syrians!"

… The hell? Why are they acting like this? It's like they're scared of-.

I stopped and silently called upon my status page.

Immediately, I recognized an active buff on myself that I hadn't seen before yesterday, which was when I got the last level to Eldritch Construct.

[Active: Madness of the Void

Desc: Upon completing the metamorphosis into an Eldritch Construct, a being will become one of the denizens of the void…

Effect: (Fear) Aura, (Cold) Aura, (Madness) Aura

Trigger: Anger, Combat, Will]

Herp derp, what?!

I quickly deactivated it and wondered what had happened. Then I looked at what triggered the Madness of the Void.

Anger or combat.

'… I guess I activated it when Barzani pissed me off.'

I sat up straight and then stood up. "Nothing is getting done and tensions are high. Shall we have recess until tomorrow morning? It is already late," I said diplomatically.

"Yes, of course," Jalal nodded.

I turned around without so much as a goodbye and left the conference room.

Outside, three guards looked at me as I opened the doors. Their hands were on their rifles.

'Did my aura seep outside of the room?' I thought as I glared at them with my inhuman body, generating a single orb of fire that acted as my "eye" (not really because I didn't need any eyes to see, but it made people more comfortable to look at something).

The three guards saw me and quickly snapped to attention and moved aside.

They knew very well that I was the strongest parahuman in Kurdistan right now. Pissing me off was equivalent to pulling a gun on a soldier in a military base in America. Or kicking a grizzly bear.

Without saying anything, I left the place. My chainmail armor tinkled snappishly as the rings of the chainmail bounced up and down. And as I walked away, I also teleported out, sending me to the hotel that R-2 was waiting at.

R-2, an American ex-Marine who joined us to pay for his kid's cancer treatment, looked up when he saw me.

"What'd they say?" he asked.

"They want us to attack Baghdad," I replied irritably as I tossed myself on the bed.

"... That's not part of our contract."

"I know, right?"

"So what did you say to that stupid?"

"We're taking a recess."

"Good. Tell them to f.u.c.k off next time you get back."

"I intend to. Diplomatically."

"F.u.c.k, why are you always trying to be the nice guy? Ain't that why the Kurds think they're hot shit even though we're doing half of their work?"

This was a true statement. The Kurds, emboldened by "their" success, began to show arrogance regarding their situation. Not all of them did it and it wasn't even the majority of them, but the significant number of people who did it were those who we had to deal with like Barzani.

"Because even if I may gone and scared them just now-"

"How'd you scare them?"

"Like this." I activated my Madness of the Void.

In seconds, R-2 was pointing a gun at me with cold sweat all over his face and hands and pinprick pupils. His arms shook while he tried to stutter something out. I slowly sat up on the bed, not having expected that.

I just raised an eyebrow as I deactivated the aura. I watched as R-2 gasped like a man taking breath after a long, gearless dive and collapsed onto the floor. I quickly cast [Minor Recovery], and R-2 glared up at me.

"Give me a f.u.c.k.i.n.g warning at least!" he hissed at me as he stood back up.

"I honestly don't even know how bad it is because I don't feel it at all."

"Well, it was f.u.c.k.i.n.g bad, alright?!" he shouted at me, only to flinch back. "A-Ah. Sorry."

Shit. If R-2 was reacting this badly…

"Got it," I replied casually. "Let's sleep in for the night. We can talk to them tomorrow."

-AKA-​

Barzani

After being humiliated by the American freak, Barzani wanted to cancel the contract immediately, but he didn't. He wasn't a fool.

The Solid Pact Mercenary was one of the two military pillars keeping Kurdistan from being destroyed. As much as he disliked them, they were crucial to the rise of Kurdistan.

At the same time, he couldn't afford to let this opportunity go.

So what could he do…

"Marqa."

Marqa, one of eight Kurdish parahumans, appeared behind him. "Yes, sir?"

Marqa was also the only parahuman to have sworn an oath of fealty to him only.

"I need you to do a job for me. I will, of course, take the blame if necessary, but I need this to be done if Kurdistan is to become reality."

"Of course, milord. It is why I serve you. What must I do?"

Barzani brought out a map. "I need you to go to the Tigiris upstream… and cut off the flow of water."

A pause.

"Milord, this would mean that the Kurds downstream of Tigris will not be able to farm."

"We can always relocate our people to and fro as necessary, but the Iraqi must see that their leadership will lead them to death. I want the indifferent Iraqi to die thirsty or move to protest their government's lack of agreement to our reasonable demands. I want instability within Iraq, and I want Saddam to know that the Kurds hold his balls in our hands."

"As you will it, milord."

Marqa disappeared, off to gather the troops necessary to hold the dam hostage. With that order given, Barzani began to scheme for a way to ensure that Jalal, the sentimental fool, wouldn't interfere in this.

-AKA-​

1995.9.20

Augur, Syrian Kurdistan

In the end, the negotiations for more action had been put off after Barzai and Jalal agreed to not pursue an active attack upon Baghdad and the Iraqi. What we did, however, was agree upon an expansion into further Syrian territory where they were persecuting their Syrian Kurds in fear of the latter joining us.

A self-fulfilling prophecy, if you will.

Nine of us were now out here in Syrian Kurdistan along with two hundred ninety Kurd militia attacking an encampment of the Syrian army.

As the nearly three hundred Kurds laid down cover fire, the nine of us rushed into the encampment.

I lagged behind the eight front fighters, looking out for ambushes and traps as I laid down area denial spells like Fireball one after another.

It was midnight, and this was the only reason that we were able to perform a maneuver of this level against an army five times our size.

The moonless night covered the track of my comrades as we weaved through their encampment while the Kurds continued to draw their attention. We circled around, killing anyone who spotted us before they could yell out alarms.

Then we were behind them.

The Syrians were stuck between us and the Kurds.

"Augur reporting in. We are in position," I radioed.

"{This is Mohammad!}" He was the leader of the two-hundred-ninety Kurds with us. "{We are ready as well!}"

"Operation is a go, then."

I nodded to my comrades before I activated a spell, targeting the middle of the Syrian formation.

"[Widen Magic: Wall of Fire]!" I shouted and a blast of unholy light erupted from right at the middle of the Syrian army encampment. A literal wall of unnatural fire roared to the skies, forming a barrier twenty yards high and a kilometer across.

A normal Wall of Hell would only be a quarter of that, but I was exchanging a lot of my mana for the length.

"Go!" I roared.

My mercenaries sped forward while the Kurds stopping sandbagging.

Pinned with a literal wall of fire in between them, chaos took over and the Syrians began to crumble.

Within the hour, the army oppressing the Kurds lost a third of their number and fell back to the west.

-AKA-​

1995.10.6

Augur

"What?!"

It was an outrage.

"You are waging a war on the unfair and oppressive government led by Saddam Hussein's succesor, not the people of Iraq!"

Barzani shouted back at me. "It is the people who keep the government afloat! I am only doing what is necessary to ensure that our enemies do not operate at full capacity!"

"By causing an artificial drought?!"

"You don't know what it is like to live underneath pompous, oppressive, and violent demons!"

"THEY ARE PEOPLE!"

"WE ARE TOO!"

I gave up. "Whatever. I'm done. I will not have a part in this. As stipulated by the contract, you have committed a war crime, which means that the contract is no longer in effect. Enjoy your f.u.c.k.i.n.g victory."

I walked out of the meeting room, ignoring the demands of the people back there. Once outside and alone, I put a hand to my ear, where I had a communication earring in place.

"Core One, this is Core Two."

A few seconds went by before Sebastian responded. "{Core One responding, what's up, Core Two?}"

"Our contractors violated Section 2 of the contract. I am pulling us out of Kurdistan."

"{... Which part of Section 2?}"

"War crime."

"{Well, shit. What did they do?}"

"They blocked the dams and cut off the entire river to southern Iraq. They're causing artificial drought."

Another pause.

"{So what?}"

I blinked and had to get a bearing.

"What do you mean, so what?" I asked in return.

"{They're just waging war?}"

I did not like where this was going.

"Core One, this is not what we signed up for."

"{And they're paying us a lot.}"

"They wanted us to bomb Baghdad mere weeks ago. They want to commit a war crime, do you not understand that?!"

"{It's not our business what they do.}"

I gawked. Standing alone as I was in my hotel room, I might look like an idiot but I could not believe what Sebastian just said.

"Sebastian, we agreed when we made this company that we won't involve ourselves in shit like this."

"{And they are paying us good money, Augur.}"

"F.u.c.k money! This isn't about money anymore! This is about being labeled war criminals!"

"{Like it ever gets down to it.}"

… I couldn't f.u.c.k.i.n.g believe it.

"You know what? I'm done. I'm taking all of my equipment, all of my shit back with me. Have all of the share of the company, have all of the contract payouts to yourself. I'm done, you f.u.c.k.i.n.g sellout."

-AKA-

Name:

Augur

Race:

Golem (Crystalline): LvL. 15

Eldritch Construct: LvL. 10

Bloodgod (Cthulhutech) LvL. 2

Gender:

Male (S.e.x: As.e.x.u.a.l)

Affiliation:

The Cauldron / Mercenary (Solid Pact Mercenary, co-founder)

Residence:

Earth Bet

Karma:

Neutral (50)

Jobs:

Wizard: 15

War Wizard 5

Chapter 2.3

1996.2.3

After I left the Solid Pact Mercenary, I found myself in central Africa, selling my services to the highest bidder with the most acceptable moral compass. More often than not, I found myself selling my services to the defenders of ay conflict who didn't start said conflict with some stupid tribal, ethnic, or ideological massacres.

To my expectations, I found myself flying in the middle of the biggest conflict ground in Africa. I fought against the likes of Moord Nag, who sacrificed thousands of people every day to fuel her projection's growth. I was strong enough to fight against her, which made many other warlords and nations race to hire me whenever they felt that Moord Nag was looking towards them.

Oh, and the stupid Rwandans went through with their Tutsi genocide, causing mass-trigger among the Tutsi population of the Rwandans. That conflict spilled over into a massive war as traumatized genocide victims lashed out with the force of a nuclear warhead, which caused more trauma to the Hutu population, causing more trigger.

It was a bloody cycle where one group of traumatized victims lashed out, creating more groups of traumatized victims who too lashed out.

Perhaps that was the best their level of education and social culture could bring about not because they were inferior or anything but just not tolerant or accepting of the "new." Considering that most conservatives of developed nations like Germany and the USA were not much different, I chose to ignore them.

If the idiots wanted to kill each other, then let them kill each other.

On top of that, Cauldron also asked me to stay out of Rwanda. That cost them one favor from me after one Hutu and one Tutsi rebel groups raided the lands of the warlord I was being paid to protect.

"Ah, Mr. Augur!" someone called me out in German.

I stopped and looked up, ignoring the pitiful cries of the goats I have been shaping the flesh of.

The woman who called out to me looked down at the malformed goats baying in pain and fear and shakily looked up to me. "U-Um, King Kavanue wants to see you, s-sir!"

I nodded before killing the three fused-goats. The creature whined before falling still, only twitching once or twice before completely dying. I snorted in satisfaction before turning to the woman… and seeing her gone.

I was gonna ask her where Kavanue was.

-AKA-

Kavanue, or King Kavanue as he demanded everyone call him, laughed as he slapped my back. Currently in meeting with him and his other top advisors in my Bloodgod form (a buff and armored eldritch vampire with wings), I wondered if this wasn't too much of a hassle for me.

"So I keep on saying that my man here," Kavanue spoke in Afrikaan while chuckling. "Will be able to take care of Moord Nag for us! I trust him!"

Because King Kavanue, despite his self-proclaimed title as a king, was not a king of a whole country but only half of it; specifically, he controlled the northern half of Namibia while he fought on and off with Moord Nag's southern half.

Kavanue was a boisterous man, laughed a lot, and - by the local standard - a kind and benevolent warlord. He was also a parahuman whose power let him turn rocks of any size into bombs where the size of the rock in question was directly proportional to the size of the explosion.

What made him dangerous was that he could set "conditions" for the explosions to go off. What made Moord Nag hesitant to engage him even before Kavanue hired me was Kavanue's ability to turn mundane pebbles and rocks into mines. What kind of invasion can you launch when you can't even see the mines, makes you paranoid over rocks, and blows your leg up if you aren't careful enough?

Then Kavanue hired me with the intent to push into Moord Nag's part of Namibia after I showed him exactly how I could turn animals into monsters.

My latest racial class, Bloodgod, allowed me to mold and shape flesh as I wanted in all aspects. In essence, I was the better Frankenstein. The things I could do ranged from increasing sensitivity of the neural receptors and removing limbs without spilling blood to removing a person's ego by "resetting" hippocampus and creating mutant/fusion biological monsters from alligator and giraffes.

"You are too kind," I replied, bowing lightly. I ignored the rest of his court comprised of influential

Kavanue just laughed more. "Soon, we will rid the world of that menace that not even the western nations will fight!" he declared with a grin, but it soon faded, replaced by a blank look. He tilted his face down a little so that he was looking up to me. "My army and elites are ready to march on her lands, my friend. Are you ready?"

So it was a call for war.

I bowed, slightly deeper than last time.

"You only need to give me the command and oblige by the contract."

"'Civilians shall be left alone,'" he recited. "'No action shall be taken against innocent bystanders.' Those were it, yes?"

I straightened my back before I responded. "Yes, King Kavanue."

He nodded. "Good. I didn't intend to kill my future subjects anyway. You make contracts very easy to follow, my friend." He grinned after saying that. "You sure you won't stay after we kill Moord Nag?"

"I am sure. There are many places that need me."

"Bah!" He looked upset. "Places that betrayed you like your last 'friends'? If you stay with me, then I will never betray you. You are too valuable for me to try." The words 'because I am smart, unlike them' remained unspoken.

I chuckled, not completely faked. "I suppose I am."

-AKA-

1996.2.16

With a hundred thousand soldiers armed with the good old reliable Ak-47's - provided by Russians who were promised mineral rights - and a cadre of parahuman elites including myself, King Kavanue marched upon Moord Nag's territory. He expected this to be a short war, so our supply lines were dangerously low, something I'd advised against.

And then not too far outside of a city that sounded kind of like "Okay" plus something more, we met Moord Nag and her soldiers.

Kavanue and Moord Nag exchanged some meaningless dribble in local language and not German, and then they each signalled their armies to march and shoot to kill.

This did not include the parahumans.

So parahumans watched as the normal soldiers shot, bled, and died upon the field in the thousands in the first hour and then hundreds each hour afterward.

Six hours into the fight when the sun was waning towards the horizon, the parahumans moved into the battlefield.

If what the normal soldiers could do against each other was a massacre, then what parahumans could do was outright genocidal. Kavanue's rocks decimated entire companies in a single instance. Moord Nag's shadowy snake killed dozens with each swing of its tail without taking a single noteworthy damage from parahumans and soldiers alike.

Eventually, it became too much for either side to ignore the leaders, and thus while the lesser parahumans battled each other in the name of Kavanue and Moord Nag, respectively, the two titans and i fought.

Kavanue and I engaged in a two-on-two battle with Moord Nag and her monster.

The snake, thicker than most cows and long as three American school buses, moved more like a rabbit, jumping to and fro. I blasted the area with lightning when I can, fireball at other times, and even used holy spells. Kavanue attacked with abandon, unleashing literal hundreds of pebbles armed with his power, and when he set them alight, it was like a symphony of dooms rocking the world.

Eventually though…

Eventually…!

We won.

It came down to just how versatile one had to be to survive, and Moord Nag had relied oo much on her pet snake to do her work. While her pet had been committed to one attack against Kavanue, I attacked with an empowered multi-lightning strike.

That was all it took to fry the most hated warlord of Africa into charred ash.

With Moord Nag eliminated, Kavanue declared the War for Namibia over. In the celebration afterwards, he tried really hard to keep me there with him, prying me with a literal harem of women, but being a golem most of the time, I didn't really get the chance to do anything. In the end, after a week, I shook reluctant Kavanue's hand and left southern Africa.

It was about this time that Cauldron called.

I was needed in a city called Brockton Bay.

-AKA-

Name:

Augur

Gender:

Golem: Male (S.e.x: As.e.x.u.a.l)

Bloodgod: Male (S.e.x: Male)

Affiliation:

The Cauldron / Mercenary (solo)

King Kavanue, the Kingdom of Namibia (Ally)

Residence:

Earth Bet

Karma:

Neutral (50)

Race:

Golem (Crystalline): LvL. 15

Eldritch Construct: LvL. 10

Bloodgod (Cthulhutech) LvL. 5

Jobs:

Wizard: 15

War Wizard 5

Chapter 3

1996.3.10

"You want me to … make a criminal gang?" I asked incredulously.

"Yes," the Number Man, one of Cauldron's inner members, replied.

"Why?" I asked him, still incredulous at the request. I could deny this favor, and would simply have to accept another favor. "Your organization doesn't need money or influence, so why do you need a criminal organization in a city known for its oversaturation of villainous persona?"

When I did something, I needed the whole reason why.

"We are conducting an experiment in the city," he replied as he pulled out a file from his suitcase and slid it across the table, the only place lit in this dark room. My crystalline hand - as I was not wearing my Blood God transformation for now - took the file and opened it up.

"'Parahuman feudalism'?" I read out loud the title of the file.

The theory listed in the file was ridiculous… and yet not. Even without superpowers, feudalism and warlords reigned where the natural resources of the land outweighed the resource provided by the people. Back in my world, there was a book called The Dictator's Handbook by Bruce something. The book stated, with ample enough evidence, that dictatorsh.i.p.s reigned in places with abundance of resources like gold, oil, and diamond while dictatorsh.i.p.s with low land resources eventually had to invest into some infrastructure (roads, hospitals, schools, and etc), which would lead to people being able to rebel because they would be smarter, less starving, and easily spread ideas.

Unlike those situations, parahuman feudalism as Cauldron proposed stated that while natural resources would still be very important, the enforcement of laws - and thus power - would slowly move into the hands of a few empowered individuals capable of fighting small armies by themselves.

Because if the likes of Alexandria, Eidolon, Legend, Hero, and myself decided "F.u.c.k it, I want a piece of America," then there was no one to stop them other than other parahumans.

When a single individual became eligible to earn the label of nuclear superpower, then power truly laid with that individual.

A tyrant, whether they wanted to be or not. After all, just because the tyrant was generous, tolerant, or benevolent, such attitude did not remove the power of the tyrant from the tyrant; the power was simply being used - or not used - for socially acceptable reasons. Power remained in the hands of a few, and this was the definition of a dictatorship.

I could understand why they wanted to research this phenomenon. To research it was to learn about it, and to learn about a system was to know its strengths and weaknesses.

"But why a criminal organization with my track record?" I asked. "A lot of people already know that I am

"Yes, you as in Augur."

"... Oh, you want me to use a different identity," I hummed. Though I only used the Blood God form in Africa, I supposed that Cauldron knew about it. Why wouldn't they?

"Yes. Play a hero if you wish as Augur, but we want you to be a villain in your other form."

"... I understand the need to perform a test like this, but why me?"

"Because you are the only one who is willing to operate a criminal organization for the sake of an experiment without taking it too far."

"Aren't there plenty of criminal organizations in Brockton Bay already? I don't think Cauldron needs me specifically to join in this experiment."

"That is true, but no one likes Nazis."

"... Right, there are Nazis in that city. So you want me to replace them or something?"

"If you want. All we want is to provide the heroes and the people of the city a reason to change the villain-dominant scene."

"What will that prove?"

"If the people rise up to prevent the strengthening of the parahuman feudal system, then …"

"Then what?" I asked after a moment of silence. "What's the point of this?"

The Number Man sighed. "Honestly, all this experiment does is to open up an avenue for the average person. One of the primary questions this experiment is used to solve is this: how would people react to a criminal yet benevolent organization headed by a powerful parahuman when surrounded by other criminal organizations that are not as benevolent?"

"You are being very malevolent with this experiment. Rather than encouraging a positive reaction from the people, you are asking them to perform a negative reaction: choosing the lesser of two evils."

"Not necessarily," the Number Man countered. "They can always form their own organizations to counter you and others."

"But that's assuming that the people … I see. I understand what you are doing."

"See what?"

"The people don't feel safe in the first place because they do not have power. Even if they have guns, they cannot fight against the stronger parahumans."

"And Brockton Bay has many stronger parahumans. The Brockton Bay Brigade, for example, is a hero group with what Cauldron considers five B-tier parahumans."

"You guys have tier systems?"

"Yes. PRT's numerical threat assessment lacks the urgency that fighting them imparts beyond how weak or how strong they can be."

"Awfully open of you to tell me that. What do I rank as?"

"S."

I nearly did a spit-take as a body fluid-less golem. "What?" I wheezed out quietly, which sounded almost like a whistle with how my body created sounds.

"You have a growth rate that stuns most of Cauldron, myself included. The variety of your abilities outstrip all individual parahumans. You helped kill Moord Nag, who was S-rank herself, but that was not the reason you earned yourself a S-tier recognition from us and the PRT."

"Then?"

"The PRT is aware of the fact that you were able to arm and armor yourself and your allies during your time as the leader of your mercenary band."

I cringed. That was supposed to be the biggest secret. How did they find out?

"It wasn't hard. I learned about it not too long after you started distributing your armors to your friends."

"Thinker?"

"Yes."

"Is it an information you will sell to others?"

"... How about this? If you agree to take part in this venture, then I will ensure that Cauldron never distributes this information on top of acknowledging this as the last favor you owe us as long as you try your best in keeping the organization believable. And if you don't try, we'll know."

I thought about it. Getting a guarantee about my own information's safety felt good, but at the same time, if I really tried to make whatever this criminal organization I was supposed to make work, then I would eventually distribute some kind of weapon or armor.

"It won't matter, will it?"

The Number Man smiled. "You are smarter than most. Yes, it won't matter because since we know that you trying your best involves distribution of the armors and weapons you empower, the information would get out anyway."

I sighed. "I guess then it doesn't matter, does it? But if I don't except this request, then what kind of favors would I be expected to return?"

"It may be another request to stay out of anything similar to the Rwandan Massacre to attacking a nation."

"Yikes. You guys don't play small, huh?"

"If you were small, perhaps, but then again, you are an S-tier threat."

"Fine. Let's get back to talking about this experiment of yours."

"Very well. Brockton Bay itself will serve as the primary antagonist to the rest of the United States. The PRT functions well enough as a force of 'good' for the people to flock to. Brockton Bay is special in that regard because while the local Protectorate and PRT aren't weak, they aren't strong enough to take over the entire population of villainous parahumans."

"So I will act as the lesser of two evils. I attract people. And then what?"

"You will try to set up parahuman feudalism."

"... that's it?"

"No. We don't care how you go about it, though it may not earn you points if you decide to be - let's say - mean about it."

I snorted. "And then what? You give the PRT enough information to bring me down?"

"No. That would be counter to the experiment. The purpose of this experiment is to see the viability, necessity, strengths, and weaknesses of parahuman feudalism. While we certainly won't push the PRT into removing you, we also won't help you once you accept."

"So basically, once I accept, I won't have to do anymore more while you just 'ignore' me."

"More or less, yes, unless you give us a reason to give you attention."

I thought about it. What I was faced with was either make a "criminal" organization and then expand or wait until Cauldron could find another purpose for me including but not limited to causing massacres or not stopping another massacre.

The choice was obvious to me right here.

"I accept. Do I get help?"

"I'm afraid no," he smiled and then that Doormaker opened behind him. He stood up and gave me a nod as he left. "Until next time, Mr. Augur."

I grumbled as he walked through the doorway and the Doormaker closed, leaving me alone in this safehouse of mine.

I let out a deep breath. "... Well, I guess I should … get to making myself some kind of a … criminal organization." I shook my head as I stood up, changed my appearance to that of the Blood God, and then walked out of the safehouse.