Revelations: Part 1

Grand Lake’s superhuman containment facility wasn’t much to look at. Few SCF’s were. Like the majority of them, the actual prison was located underground, so all we had to look at were concrete walls with barbed wire on the top. Two towers rose above the wall.

Originally located in farmland, the prison was now solidly in the suburbs. If it were daytime, we could have seen a grassy field the size of a city block, but it was night.

The highway ran along the outer edge of the prison’s property, headlights of cars passing constantly. Across the highway stood houses, windows aglow. A small forest stood far to the left side of the property. A jog in the highway bordered it on the right.

Behind us stood Grand Lake’s National Guard Armory, a long, low building that had once been a factory, but had been converted into storage and training facilities.

Ever since hearing about it, I’d never quite decided if I regarded placing a military base next to the local SCF as a good idea or an exercise in futility.

Haley and I had arrived in the van, lengthened and lowered into the sleeker “official Heroes’ League” vehicle look. I could have flown in carrying Haley, but she vetoed that. We also could have come with more people, but having Courtney and Camille escort Jeremy to HQ seemed like a better idea.

I parked the van in the (very well lit) parking lot. Haley and I walked through the front gate with only a cursory look from the guards. I was in the full suit. Checking for weapons was pointless. I definitely had some.

Our comms registered a request for identification and sent encrypted keys tied to the Stapledon program.

Once past the gates, we followed guards into a flat-roofed concrete building. The front door had been ripped out of the wall, and lay next to the entrance—a mass of smashed steel. Inside, the walls had been painted lime green, the same color as the inside of my middle school.

I wasn’t sure what that said about middle school.

The difference in the guards was interesting though. Outside the guards wore black jackets over Kevlar vests. Inside, they wore powered armor—Rocket suits without rocketpacks and enough additional bulky armor that I didn’t initially recognize the underlying structure was the WW2 Rocket suit.

They watched as I passed, likely noticing how much more natural and human my movements were.

A guard led Haley and I into a bare room. A blond woman in an orange prison jumpsuit sat in the chair. In normal clothes, she could have passed for a high school teacher. The guard next to her wore normal prison guard clothing—button down tan shirt and black pants. The guard behind him though wore black and tan powered armor.

“Hey there, Heroes’ League… Nice of you to visit. I’m Morgan, as I’m sure they told you. Normally when you’ve met me, I’ve been wearing the Eagle suit, but they frown on letting prisoners wear their armor. So, I’m wearing this snazzy orange number instead.”

She added, “I’d shake your hands, but…” Her voice trailed off as she raised her arms. She wore handcuffs.

Now that I could see Morgan more closely, I pegged her as being in her late thirties, maybe early forties at most.

“I’m surprised you’re here,” I said. “You don’t have any powers, right?”

Her guard, a balding twenty-something only a few years older than I was, said, “Policy, sir. Normal humans captured as part of a superhuman group are assumed to have powers until proven otherwise. Too many embarrassing incidents, sir.”

Morgan’s mouth twitched. “I’m not complaining. It’s one more thing I can tell you. The Feds came to an agreement with my lawyer. I’m to turn over evidence and help clean up this mess, and I’ll spend less time in the legal system.”

Haley watched her. “What will you be doing instead?”

“Can’t say,” Morgan emphasized the first word, “but I’ll have my armor back.”

The guard frowned.

Morgan laughed. “Anyway you’re asking the wrong questions. You’re supposed to be asking what happened here, and then ask why I was part of a gang robbing armored trucks in the first place. Be quick about it. They wanted me to talk to a bunch of Renaissance Fair rejects, but I chose to talk to you instead because I think you’ve got a better chance of doing something about it. Questions?”

Glancing over at Haley first, I said, “What happened here?”

Morgan grinned, “Excellent question. I was sitting in my cell wondering where my armor was, and how my life had gone so badly wrong, and feeling deep, deep remorse about the poor choices that had led to my imprisonment—”

Haley snorted.

Stopping to look at Haley, Morgan said, “Hey it’s my story,” and continued with, “—when suddenly I heard a ripping and tearing noise coming from above. Alden, the gang’s speedster and a metahuman guard from one of the banks came down, freed the rest of the gang and left with them. I wanted them to take me along, but then I saw that each time they freed someone one of their heads would change form into a big round head. Then they’d bite, and the people would go crazy and argue with themselves. After that I hid in my cell and they left.”

“Ok,” Haley said, “why were you robbing armored trucks in the first place?”

Morgan glanced at each of us before replying, “Because we’d been hired to embarrass the League. Just our luck to do it when the city’s being attacked by a giant, magic head.”

11 thoughts on “Revelations: Part 1”

  1. Who would is the person who hired you?

    I still love these stories. !!!!! Long Live The Legion

    Error:I pegged as being in her late thirties, maybe early forties at most.

    Fixed:I pegged her as being in her late thirties, maybe early forties at most.

  2. Eh not surprising that Morgan would not want to talk to the magicals given the kind of attitude they have…I am surprised they did not try to press to issue, speaking of them I canot help to wonder if they really know what they are doing as they did not seem to know about the Thing’s current behaviour(or they didn’t share intel with Vengeance, whhich would be incredibly stupid since I undertand he was brought in because he is used to deal with nasty stuff in ways involving ultraviolence and lots of stabbing with magic knife and help from zombies…er “undead americans” sorry).

    Now then the Coffee shop Illuminati are really a vindicative bunch to hire Criminals to commit roberries to embarass people who do not agree with them nor like them,well not surprising truly hope those guys get waht’s coming to them. ithink they are the group I despise the most in this story(but then that might have been done in purpose and of course the Magical council seem to be a bunch of dicks too, but at least THEY have some kind of legitimity).

    Anyway the story’s still great as always and now I am very curious to see how the two sides of the plot will go together here…Eh one might wonder if the Coffee Shop Illuminati are not some puppets of the Thing after all they DID help it quite a bit with Turkmenistan and it does love to posses powered people.

  3. I tried to leave a comment over on the Pen and Cape Society page, but it’s messed up, and I didn’t see a contact email anywhere. The PCS podcast feed and forum links are broken. I can see the forum but when I click on a thread I get “page not found”, same as for the podcast feed and for any particular episode. Hopefully you know the email of the webmaster and can pass this along.

  4. I started reading a few weeks ago after a recommendation from drew Hayes super powereds. Unfortunately I am all caught up and anxiously awaiting new pieces now. I really like this, I have bought and will be buying the ebooks as well because I believe in supporting authors. I should add I have more time to read than most because I am on bedrest and could use a healer like Alex or his dad, my Drs aren’t very optimistic although I choose to be.

    1. I’m glad you’ve been reading and enjoying the story. There’s some overlap in readers between Superpowereds and Legion though I suppose that’s not surprising given that they’re both online superhero serials (and that Drew and I know each other).

      My wife was briefly on bed rest while pregnant once and a friend was on bed rest for literal months. It’s not fun. Reading makes it better than it might be, I’m sure, but it’s still a challenging situation.

  5. Great job, Jim. I just found out about this serial after reading Worm and Pact. I just got caught up and will one of the Legion of fans waiting for each new installment. Keep up the Super work.

    1. I’m glad you found it. I loved Worm and Pact. I’m planning on reading Twig now that it’s close to the end, and I’m grateful that Wildbow linked to me on Worm (and a few other places).

      1. Yes, that is where I found you. Everybody spoke highly of you and this story. I am now starting “how-to-avoid-death-on-a-daily-basis”. very interesting.

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