Imitator Ch2 (Patreon)

[A/N: There's some stuff in this chapter that could be considered spoilers. Mostly it's an alternate fate for a character that I haven't decided if I will use in the main book. Maybe it will happen eventually, maybe it won't. If you're fine with knowing alternate universes read on.]

Rooftop, North-East New Santanio

Michael had had a rough couple of days. Well, a rough month really. Things had been looking up at first, on track to graduate high school, got accepted to a decent college, heck his grades had been good enough to grab a scholarship.

Then he turned 18 and his mom’s current loser boyfriend kicked him out because, quote; “If you ain’t working you ain’t eatin.” Kinda funny really, considering the guy’s own employment status. 

Michael didn’t have much in the way of options, but he had long since gotten used to such surprises and a few sleepless nights in the park later, a couple bruises, some begging, and he had managed to get a part-time job waiting tables at a complete dive called Friday’s Fish n’ Chips. More a bar than a restaurant, but hey, they didn’t ask about his age and he started that day. A week later and he had enough for a deposit on a single room (with attached kitchenette!) in an apartment building near the industrial sector. Unfortunately it wasn’t near the high school so he had to commute, a few missed days luckily didn’t hurt his grades badly in the last month. No, the real problem came after summer. His waiter job would hold the apartment, for now, but there was no way it could hope to match up to the costs of college. Scholarship or no, if he didn’t find a source of income his odds of starting school in the fall were zilch. It was while pondering this dilemma on the way home from work (and after a school day too, at least it was Friday) that the answer hit him.

Well, almost. The pickup swerved to the right and hit a signal light pole before it actually hit him. Nevertheless, for a moment there he was a deer in headlights. Everything moving too slowly, feeling faint but hyper at the same time, a rush of blood in his ears that sounded like whispers. The headlamps were right there now, the eyes of the truck gazing down the light beams at the pitiful life before them, shiny chrome grill, shiny chrome teeth itching to bite. He thought he should have fainted from fright, he thought he was dead, but the blood was louder now, almost yelling, it wouldn’t shut up and let him black out. Telling him how to survive, whispering it, confiding in him the secret, he needed it, he could use it. He reached out with his right hand, he could hold it back, it would work… but then the driver came to his senses drunk or no and swerved, the terminal moment passing. Michael could feel the vacuum as it passed, hell he could swear it brushed his arm but it couldn’t have, at that speed he would have bruised at least? Even his shirt sleeve was intact, not a thread missing.

Afterwards he kept his head enough to check the driver, who seemed to have mostly lucked out, and called an ambulance on a cell he found in the cab. He himself was done for the night. After throwing the cell back in the cab he walked home in a daze, ignoring the yelling 911 operator, ignoring the straight line of paint carved from the side of the truck, ignoring the world around him. He decided to deal with it tomorrow, went home, dropped his bag, and collapsed onto his futon, asleep before his head touched base.

And so a few days and experimental mishaps later, he found himself on the roof of a building two blocks down from the Bells Argo bank branch for Eastside. Partly he had stopped to go over his plan one last time, but also he was still psyching himself up to robbing a bank. Michael hadn’t exactly been on the law’s best side up till now but a felony was still a fair bit higher up the totem pole than he had expected to need to go.

To be fair to him he had a good plan. He was going to go in, rather than say “This is a stickup!” like in movies he would stay silent, head to the ATMs instead of the counter, take the money, and then run for it. 

Disguise was a go. A ski mask with padding to throw off his outline, gloves, a black sweater and sweatpants he hadn’t worn on the way here. He would shut the hell up so no one would get a voice recording and had even tied a bandana to hide his mouth before putting on the ski mask. Goggles to protect the eyes. A brown duffle bag to put the money in. He had even showered to try and reduce DNA sample potential.

The location was as good as he knew how to find. He had already seen the inside of the building when he tried to get a line of credit after getting kicked out (which he hadn’t gotten, high school ID’s apparently weren’t good enough to start an account on, assholes). It was close enough to suburban Northside that a bold crime like this wasn’t really expected. Close enough to Eastside that police response would hopefully be slower. And finally far enough from Central that any responding Capes hopefully wouldn’t be in time to stop him slipping away. 

Thinking of Capes he wondered again if he should just forget this whole thing and register his power with the New Santanio Supers Association like you were supposed to upon getting super powers. 

*Sigh*

He knew he wasn’t going to do that. There were several legal ways to make money with powers but most came with rules, regulations, restrictions on travel, the ever present urging of the government to join an officially sponsored team, and every now and then a lawsuit from a civilian for the property damage done to their car by the acid-spitting monster you just saved them from.

Fuck, that. He picked up his duffle bag.

“Time to go rob a bank.”

New Santanio Subway: 

I had decided not to continue my schedule as normal, that had gone on long enough.Today I was going to figure out what exactly it was that drones did. Er, what humans did. Looking back there was no way that humans weren’t highly self-aware. A lot of their unexplained behaviors made much more sense when you factored in the ability to make choices instead of merely reacting to stimulus. Random choices, strange choices, bad choices. Choices that sacrifice needs for wants (that one threw me a bit). Maybe if I could get a more in-depth look at how they lived I would be able to figure out what to do with myself.

As I exited the subway train I picked a human in a business suit. I would follow him to a new area to try and see what else humans did. I didn’t actually know the specifics of their activities outside of shops, markets, and public transit. Slowly I shifted my disguise to a more nondescript average person. I had learned that humans were surprisingly unaware of changes to the things around them if you did it slowly enough. Add in a few blind spots and corners and I had my new disguise. A gray hoodie, jeans, black shirt, and a clean shaven appearance. I was glad to lose the matted beard, they were itchy.

The businessman left the station and got on a bus line I hadn’t used yet. This one headed north. Thinking about it I mainly stayed in the eastern section of the city unless I was using the subways. The farthest I had gone was the outdoor mall closer to the skyscrapers in the city center. I hadn’t quite been brave enough to go and analyze the buildings themselves. The height dimensions involved were… somewhat dizzying. 

The businessman got off the bus and I exited with him. He was heading for the entrance of a large building close to the bus stop, the one with all the blue bins full of paper. I had searched similar bins before expecting food, but apparently they were a form of communication transfer. I had left the papers alone after scanning a few for symbol information. Paper was a decent filler but not big in the nutrient department.

I was deciding on whether to follow the businessman inside when I noticed a rather large shadow overhead. Too big to be a bird I was still quite surprised when it turned out to be a human! It had apparently jumped from the top of the ‘American Post’ building and was easily sailing overhead to land in front of the building across the street. How was it doing that! The angle was all wrong. It was traveling in a straight line from its start point to where it intended to land. I would have thought it was flying but that couldn’t be possible. It had no wings, no method of locomotion, not to mention it wasn’t in the least aerodynamic. The large bag it was carrying should have thrown it off course from wind resistance but it wasn’t moving an inch from its course.

My thought processes were still on fire trying to make sense of my analysis when it touched down. Best guess so far was that it was some kind of specialized human, it looked a little like a soldier with its black coverings. Then I saw the reaction from the nearby pedestrians and realized this was not only abnormal but perhaps quite dangerous. Half of the ones who saw were rushing to leave, the other half were pulling out those small rectangular devices they usually had, but even they were maintaining a distance they felt safe. 

Modifying my eyes slightly to get a closer look I saw that a security guard on the inside had seen the landing and was fiddling with the door, probably locking it. The new arrival ignored him and walked forward, as he reached the door I expected him to pull something from the bag to siege the entrance (this seemed like a faction/faction conflict of some kind), but instead he walked through the door! The glass crumbled and the metal bent, neither putting up even a hint of resistance. He made a few swipes to keep the glass from crumbling onto him but otherwise kept his pace. The strength required to accomplish that should have made him too dense to stand, forget fly! 

An alarm went off and I heard some yelling and gunfire (one of the guards must have started using a weapon) but apparently the intruder was fine. The sound of weapons firing continued for a bit before stopping and I almost thought they had killed him, but less than 10 minutes later he emerged again unscathed. He was running in full sprint now. A few steps more and again he made an impossible jump, making a straight line to the top of the building he originally came from.

A guard came out of the destroyed front entrance, weapon drawn, he braced his stance and fired at the floating figure. With my enhanced vision I watched the bullets impact the intruder from behind, they stopped the moment they touched him then fell to the street. Strangely the bullets did no damage (not even to his coverings), but his flight path was altered. Now he was heading for a point slightly below the lip of the roof. Impacting, he then easily pulled himself up and over using only a few fingers that had managed to grab the top edge.

I had to follow! The information of how he was flying and displaying such strength was too valuable to let pass by. Yes this carried large risk, but I had been acting too safely anyways. If I hadn’t obtained this human level of self-awareness in such a sudden and puzzling manner I might have continued my routine indefinitely. Now that such an exhilarating new source of info had literally jumped in front of me ignoring it simply wasn’t an option. Perhaps the explanation for one unexplainable event would lead to the answer of my own experience.

I slipped away pretending to be scared of the weapons fire (quite a few humans had curiously stood watching the events until the guard started shooting outside) and slipped down the alley next to American Post. Making sure I was out of sight I shifted into a form better suited to tracking over rooftops. Six limbs of about equal length, tipped with large gripping claws and friction hooks for flat surfaces, long boned with cords of muscle for jumping. I adjusted my neck for running on all limbs and made myself look vaguely rat-like. Constantly shifting skin patterns would be my main form of stealth but if someone saw me I wanted them to think I was some animal. Briefly I berated myself for not actually going to the zoo, I needed to know what animals humans wouldn’t look twice at. Whatever, speed would be my main defense now, not imitation.

It wasn’t quite as easy as flying (Jealousy), but I still climbed up the building almost as fast as he had moved through the air. Reaching the top I scanned for sign of him. About two blocks away I spotted him leaping in his peculiar manner from rooftop to rooftop, heading more or less towards the eastern section of the city. I followed his example and leapt from rooftop to rooftop myself, making sure to adjust for wind, air resistance, gravity, things he was apparently ignoring.

Tracking went fairly smoothly for the first 10 minutes, his course hadn’t wavered from its eastern direction. So far I had managed to determine that at the very least wind did seem to affect his flight, at least when it wasn’t coming from the direction he was traveling. This only added more questions, he wasn’t simply strong and capable of flight, he was ignoring select rules of force. I needed more observations before I was willing to pin down the rules involved. Identifying the mechanism itself seemed impossible for now.

Crossing over the rooftop of a particularly tall building a potential interruption was spotted. Back the way we had come there was a flying machine off in the distance. It was similar to the ‘helicopters’ I sometimes spotted flying overhead but seemed more sophisticated. Currently it was hovering over where I judged the American Post was. After a few moments an indistinguishable figure rose from below and appeared to enter the vehicle. Suddenly, it swung in our general direction and picked up speed.

It was fast! Me and the flying human had covered a great distance but at its current speed the vehicle (modified helicopter?) would be within sighting distance of us in about 5 minutes. The physics ignoring human had blundered it seemed, tracking him had been easy for me due to his straight path, and now it would prove easy for the humans of the enemy faction to track him as well. Turning my attention back to him he had apparently not noticed his predicament. He continued on about one building ahead of me.

I analyzed my options:

1. Hide and let the flying pursuers find my observation subject. I might be able to glean a few more useful insights before they killed/captured him. 
2. Attempt to make him aware of the situation without revealing myself. Most likely impossible. Forcing him out of sight wouldn’t work with his ability, and too many things could go wrong with subtlety.
3. Reveal myself and attempt diplomacy. Perhaps if I helped him escape his pursuers he would be willing to share information with me. 

I took a few more seconds to go over each option, but in the end option 3 was the only one with a good chance of getting further information. Strangely I found myself oddly hesitant about this option. I had never actually interacted with a human without them thinking I was someone else. This time it was me who would be the focus of attention. Speeding up to intercept my target, I pushed that thought to low priority and started shifting. Time was short. 3 Minutes 27 seconds left.

---

“Excuse me.”

“AHHgh!” Michael stumbled at the sudden voice, nearly falling over. Recovering, he turned to find a person behind him. Wearing a gray sweater and jeans, the guy (well, a teenager, he looked a bit younger than Michael anyway) was just standing there like being on deserted rooftops was totally normal.

“Sorry to startle you, but I wanted to inform you that you are being pursued.”

The hell?

“Hey look, I dunno who you are but I don’t want trouble, only warning.”

“I also do not want trouble, but you are currently being pursued by a flying machine with gray-blue markings.”

Shit. “A helicopter?”

“No, it looks similar but it appears to have two propulsion units rather than spinning blades.”

Double shit. Only the CC used skimmers. “Why are you telling me this? You a villain or something?”

A look of confusion crossed the boy’s face. 

“I don’t recognize that term but,” briefly he looked back in the direction Michael had come from, “we should probably get out of sight soon. They’ll be in range in approximately a minute.”

That kicked Michael into gear. Whoever the kid was if he was telling the truth he needed to get off the roof NOW. Michael started running to the edge of the building where luckily there was an alley. Reaching the edge he jumped over the two story drop without hesitation.

Thank god I practiced. As he fell he was surprised to find the boy had jumped with him, breaking his fall a bit with quick jabs at handholds, but nevertheless he was obviously a super of some sort. It was like watching one of those crazy martial artists in a kung-fu movie. No kid was that skilled without help.

As he impacted the ground Michael’s power kicked in and canceled the force from the down direction. He landed without a sound or sign of exertion, the force the ground would normally throw back at him for his impudent leap canceled completely. The kid landed moments later with a sickening crack. He had obviously broken something but in the next second was standing straight, not looking the least bit flustered.

“Jesus Christ are you ok?!” 

The boy looked confused again before responding: “Yes, I’m fine. More importantly do you have a disguise or should we search for a hiding place?

“I have a change of clothes.” Michael started pulling off the black sweater and sweats, revealing a white shirt and jeans underneath, hesitating before pulling off the goggles and ski -mask. If the cops find me my identity is toast anyways. Before he pulled off the bandana tied over the lower half of his face he heard, almost felt, the roar of air as the skimmer whizzed past the alley. He was sure his heart had stopped. Maybe they didn’t see us?

No such luck. The roar of the turbines on the skimmer got louder as it made a u-turn. 

“I thought you said a min…” He was alone. Fuck. Had the boy misled him? Was he some vigilante, trying to slow him down for the cops to catch? Michael barely managed to get the ski-mask back on as the skimmer came back over the alley. Orienting towards him it blared from its speakers: “THIS IS THE POLICE, LAY DOWN ON THE GROUND WITH YOUR HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEAD!” From the bottom a hatch opened and an armored police officer dropped down. Looking slightly like a SWAT uniform it was instead the standard blue and gray of the New Santanio police, at the shoulders a red emblem showed the officer to be P.I.D. Powered Investigations Division. A police issue automatic rifle was in his hands and pointed at Michael. Before he touched down he slowed and finally floated to a light landing.

“Sir, drop the bag and get on the floor!”

Nope, not doing that. The rifle looked scary serious but Michael knew it couldn’t hurt him, technically a taser would have been way more threatening. Instead Michael went for his backup plan: run through the nearest wall. Let them try and follow him through crumbling walls and pipes.

Michael lunged to his right, one step, two steps, and was promptly lifted off his feet into the air.

What, how!? His power normally canceled any force that endangered him automatically. He tried instead to manually direct his power but whatever was lifting him wasn’t coming from any real direction. Apparently the cape cop was a telekinetic.

“Heh, they always run.” said the cop, apparently into a hidden headset.

How could I know my power doesn’t work on telepathic crap? Shit! SHIT! Michael struggled vainly, his shoe toe briefly hitting the ground and carving a furrow like it was made of butter. The cop responded by floating him higher and away from anything he could touch.

“Oh dang, Cici radio in that we need a wagon to get here pronto, definitely looks like a Brute of some sort.”

A brief pause as the cop listened to the reply.

“No doesn’t seem to be a flyer, I’m holding him just fine, maybe the security guard was just rattled.”

*PANG* *BAM*

Both flinched before the cop spun at the sound of metal shearing and exploding, Michael craned his neck. Up where the skimmer had been hovering it was now spinning in a slow circle as smoke guttered from its right turbine, the other undamaged turbine doing double time to compensate. As the skimmer turned slowly Michael watched as an apparently empty section of the brick wall building shimmered, the pattern of red bricks misaligned, and something indistinct suddenly whipped a tentacle into the remaining turbine.*PANG* It guttered out and the skimmer dropped.

“Cici!” Michael was dropped to the floor as the cop refocused his power on the skimmer. He gave it a fair shot but the vehicle was obviously above his threshold. His nose started to bleed as he strained under its weight, the skimmer sinking every second. After it sank to within 15ft of the ground he gave out, the skimmer fell and crunched into the pavement, smoking and sparking but at least nothing more exploded. The cop himself was on his knees, heaving and retching as if he had run a mile in a minute.

Michael was in a bit of a daze as he watched the scene unfold. He hadn’t really expected to be in the middle of this much chaos. Thoughts of running had barely started to re enter his head when...

“I said approximately a minute.”

Michael jumped. To his left the kid had once again snuck up on him. Michael boggled at him, the boy’s words not yet registering.

“I haven’t seen one of those vehicles before, that’s why my estimate was off.”

The somewhat petulant tone to the boy’s voice was the last straw. Michael laughed his ass off.

“Er, are you ok? We should probably get going. Did you have a destination?”

“Haha, ha, heh, yeah sure, follow me.” 

Thoughts and feet kicking back into gear, the two ran down the alleys.

[A/N: Fun fact; the only characters who were planned were Tofu, Mikey, Hellion, and Nicole. All other characters currently in Super Minion were made up basically on the spot to fill the role I needed. I tend to worry a lot that characters don't match how they acted the first time they appeared, so I keep lists of character traits for most of them that I backtrack to constantly. Hopefully they seem consistent (call me out if they don't pls).]