Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It all started during the cold morning of February’s first Monday of the year 2008, different from other mornings like it, for Annette Rose Hebert, it hadn’t started at dawn, so she had enjoyed a morning a bit lazier than normal. Winter was still going strong enough that some roads had patches of black ice.

That didn’t mean she hadn’t had to leave with her car in the direction of Brockton Bay’s College for her job as a Literature professor. Of course, leaving later than normal didn’t mean skipping the traffic in a city like Brockton Bay. Considered the second capital in terms of active cape density.

The city normally held between four and seven major groups vying for control. The first, and not necessarily the largest, was the Protectorate and PRT, or Parahuman Response Team, the two branches that dealt with all the cape-related business. The former was the smaller, formed by the capes working in the side of “justice”, the latter was the mundane people who dealt with normal criminals caught in the parahuman problems plus playing backup for the capes.

Second was the Empire Eighty Eight, also known as the homegrown nazis, Annette had to admit she was still impressed they could not only survive in a country that once wanted nothing more than to see them all dead, but also thrive. They were the largest and most solid group in the Bay, many had thought that the death of their original leader Allfather at the end of the 90’s would have spelled their end, but Kaiser had kept the organization together, even after the death of his sister, Iron Rain.

Third came the Asian Gangs, the ABB at their front with the parahuman known as Lung at the head, some other smaller still existed, fringe groups that hadn’t submitted yet, but none expected much from them, either folding under the dragon, dying or leaving the city. Lung had made an explosive entrance into the Bay about five years ago, fighting the whole Protectorate team active at that moment, not only keeping his ground, but forcing the heroes to retreat. After that he had slowly absorbed other groups, but he had slowed down in the last time, most starting to doubt if the last groups even existed anymore.

After that, the rest gangs were smaller, usually not having over two or three capes and a handful of normal people. The only outstanding group was the Merchants, drug peddlers and users who were considered complete trash, image not helped by their members taking it as a badge of pride. Their actual name was Archer Bridge’s Merchants, or was at the moment, since the group’s leadership tended to cycle frequently, between drug use and drug overuse, the members’ life expectancy was especially short, and with that, the name tended to change.

They also tended to be a complete annoyance most of the time, their image bad enough that other groups didn’t move to erase them, barely holding the worst parts of the cities, but being enough of a bother that the heroes had to move to stop them. Like right now.

Annette looked at her wristwatch once more, it had been fifteen minutes since she had been stopped by a police officer, along with all the cars in front and behind her, the crossing street left completely empty as the PRT expected that the Merchant’s new members, a Tinker called Squealer and another cape named Skidmark to try to escape the heroes’ intentions to capture them.

The villains apparently had been doing a drug run outside the city under the orders of the group’s current leader, Monstertruck. They had been intercepted by the Protectorate’s leader Armsmaster, the tinker working with some of the other heroes in his team to ambush the villains, sadly the criminal tinker’s creation, and she had seen pictures of the vehicles created by the so called Squealer, was closer to a train that ran off the rails, and had taken the previous attempts to stop it and just ran through them.

So now Annette had to wait, watching her wristwatch from time to time, and cursing that taking her morning slow had ended with her stuck in traffic like this. It was nearly ten minutes more before she noticed the cop letting cars start to move again, the Literature Teacher started her car again and patiently awaited her turn.

She had been driving for a couple of blocks when her phone rang. Annette wanted to say she knew better than picking it up while driving, but her mind wasn’t entirely in the traffic yet, she had made sure the light to cross the street was in her favor before she turned her head, hand reaching down for the small, plastic rectangle.

That was when she felt it before hearing it. A vibration starting at her feet and going up her legs and spine, then was the sound, metal scraping against the asphalt and the noise of cars crashing. Annette’s head turned fast enough to give herself whiplash when she saw the monstrous child of a tank and a locomotive, running at maximum speed at her.

Her feet pressed down on the accelerator all the way down, but old tires bit uselessly at the slightly frozen ground under her car. The vehicle only moved enough for the tinker creation to hit the back of her car and sent it flying.

For Annette, time seemed to slow down, her mind going over what she knew about cars, maybe it was from the barbecue parties hosted at the Dockworkers Union, talking with the mechanics there, hearing how older cars were built sturdier and how newer ones flimsier, that this change was to make the car absorb the energy during a hit. So for her, this moment of slow time was spent thinking how her car had still crumbled down before it was sent flying.

The next thing that entered her mind was the thought about how she was about to die. How for a second of, frankly, stupidity, she would be leaving her husband and her daughter alone. She knew Danny enough that this would destroy him, and she couldn’t not worry about what it would do to their daughter.

She was also pretty sure that she wasn’t seeing her life pass in front of her eyes, because she had never seen two beings like these before. Two massive entities that made the word massive feel short, maybe monumental or monolithic would work best. So vast it was nearing the incomprehensible. Like whales dancing in space, they moved closer to each other and fragments flew off, like crystal tears.

She watched as one fell down to earth, but it wasn’t her planet, it was devoid of any intelligent life except this thing, and then something else impacted it.

And everything went black.

-(-(-|-)-)-

“Okay, okay, I can fix this,” A female voice spoke from… somewhere. “Okay, this goes here, and now this connects there, and something connects some else.”

The voice almost sounded cheerful as it apparently worked on something that had broken.

“And the spine counts thirty...no, thirty three, there we go.” Annette blamed whatever had happened because she was sure she wasn’t meant to hear that… and what had exactly happened? She didn’t remember well. “And the seventh chakra should be clear to let the mind be open…”

She was pretty sure she just had an accident of some kind.

“...and now we make sure the process won’t be noticeable for a few days.” The voice sounded young, not young young, but definitely younger than hers. “And I know you are awake, you can see .”

Annette hadn’t realized she had been in a complete void till she had been told to see, and suddenly she realized there had been a lack where now there was not. And she had no Toto to tell she wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

“…” She tried to speak, but she couldn’t.

“Shh, it’s okay,” Her vision was slowly getting more clear, the area around her was some strange crystal palace, most likely designed by someone in drugs given how lines seemed to melt into each other. “Here, come on, pay attention to me.” The voice pulled her back and now she could see the woman.

She appeared to be in her early twenties, Annette wouldn’t have blinked if she had been between her students at college.

“…” She tried to speak again but nothing came.

“Ah, I see the problem, okay, let’s take this slowly.” The woman smiled and waved her hand, a chair forming behind her, the woman sat down but it didn’t appear to change things for her. “Don’t panic, you are having an out-of-body experience, there were… complications, let’s say.”

Annette wanted to scream asking what kind of complications.

“Woah there, I know you can’t speak, but I can still pick up what you are thinking quite well.” The woman’s hands made a calming motion, and Annette reined her emotions in. “There we go, you were in an accident, I couldn’t pick up much, something with cars,” She felt a shiver go down her spine at the mention, but a snap of fingers from the woman brought her attention back.

“There we go, don’t think about it, it’s okay, it’ll be okay. The thing is, I kinda had an accident too, now, don’t worry, I can totally fix this, but it has to do with you.” The woman waved a hand, showing the place. “Oh, I’m Junko Tetsu, but you can call me Junk.” Annette could recognize the Japanese features on her face, even if she knew red was an uncommon color of hair.

“…”

“Ah, right, you still can’t talk, let me fix that.” The young woman’s hands glowed and suddenly things felt more solid for Annette.

“Thank you.” Her voice sounded strange for her, but if she understood right, she didn’t have a body right now, or at least, she wasn’t in it. “I’m Annette Hebert, a pleasure to meet you, Junko.”

“Good, it’s indeed a pleasure. Now, to explain things a bit more, please understand that while it may sound outlandish, I won’t lie to you.

“I come from an alternate Earth to yours.”

“Like Earth Aleph?” Annette couldn’t hold herself back from interrupting her, it was like there was no filter between her brain and her mouth.

“So you know about alternate Earths? Good, that will make things easier, so yes, but most likely not, my Earth’s… well, to be put simple, quite far. You’ve to understand that when you start to talk about things outside normal reality, words start to fall short in ways to explain and describe things. Things like escher math, imaginative numbers, etc…”

“Don’t you mean imaginary numbers?” She may have studied literature, but she had learned Math.

“No, I mean we have to get imaginative in how to use numbers to describe things.” The redhead explained with a small snort at the end. “Anyways, I’ve been studying methods to travel between realities for decades by now.” The woman stopped and looked at Annette with a grin. “Yeah, I’m much older than you, no matter how I look, I’m nearing a century.

“Back to the subject, I’ve been studying about travel between realities for a while. When you travel between ‘close’ realities, it’s not hard, but once you go far enough, things start to get weird. I’ll use a term I learned in my travels, they call what a reality exists inside a World, with capital W, a World can be as small a single room and as big as an infinite number of realities.

“Adding to that, Worlds also tend to have rules, laws, characteristics, basically they have constants they hold for everything that exists and works inside of them. Worlds close together tend to work similar, the farther you go… well, you get the idea.”

“So you come from a world really far away?”

“Yes, not the farthest, but this is the first time I traveled this far. Now comes the problem.” The woman made a metal sphere appear on her hand. “Imagine this is me, and this,” A sheet of fabric appeared floating on the air like some kind of plane. “is my reality.” She dropped the ball on the fabric and it stretched but held. “My reality’s ‘softer’ physics, there are ways to stretch things.

“Now this.” A similarly shaped plane of glass appeared. “It’s your reality.” She dropped the metal ball, the impact crashed it, the whole thing breaking. “Your reality’s rigid, so it’s fat shaming me and my ‘weight’. I hadn’t aimed to travel this far, or hadn’t expected to impact this reality this fast. Even less I expected to hit something that was going about its own business.”

“I still don’t see how that would pertain to me.” Annette was trying to follow, but she wasn’t understanding things completely.

“Well, this thing ,” She waved her hand to the crystal around them. “Seemed to be trying to connect with you,” Annette blinked, suddenly remembering the strange visions she was suddenly remembering but didn’t remember forgetting. “Yeah, those things, for what I understand, it was going to connect to you during some intense stress situation and use you for some kind of data acquisition experiment, I still haven’t looked too much into it, you are more important here.

“I managed to pull you [mind|soul|self] out of your body to prevent permanent damage from occurring, like death, it’s reversible, but usually brings a lot of side-effects, so better skip those.”

“I died?” She felt cold filling her. “...And souls exist?”

“No, you almost died, and let me tell you, there’s a world of difference there, also yes, souls are totally a thing. Now, I ‘mostly’ fixed your body, you won’t die when you go back in, but just in case, I didn’t fully heal you, that will kick-in in a couple of days, something tells me that coming out of a crash like that spot-less would bring bad unwanted attention to you.”

“...I… thank you, I can’t imagine how it would have been if I died, I can’t imagine leaving my husband and daughter behind.” Junk’s smile softened.

“From a mother to another, I understand you. So don’t worry, you will be better than ever… especially since I did fix your body.”

“I don’t understand.” Annette really didn’t.

“I… well… you could call it a curse? Maybe, I basically can’t not excel when fixing or creating things, and both your body and your soul, which I had to touch-up so I could pull it from your body, could be considered at least masterworks and will improve with time. Age, disease, etc will affect you less and less, this is non-negotiable, it’s part of me fixing things to begin with.

“So I have an offer for you.”

Annette looked at the woman in front of her, she wanted to say no to whatever was being offered, deny whatever Faustian Bargain was being set here. But she also understood that she would most likely be categorized as a parahuman anyways.

“I want to say no, but I’ve learned from my husband that I should at least hear what you offer.”

Junko smiled and gave her a nod. “My power comes when some thing , and I mean it, whatever they are, they come from a realm way above us. Choose me to give me powers through a collection of crafting knowledge called the Celestial Forge.” The young redhead explained, between them the image of a galaxy appeared. “This collection of knowledge, abilities and other things comes from many, many Worlds.

“But you won’t get them all at once, you will get, maybe, one at a time, I’ve since long completely absorbed mine, making every last bit of power my own, and I’ve collected much more, what I offer here, is a similar deal to what I acquired, you will gain charges, each time you gain them you will get the chance of getting a perk, one of the many stars in the Celestial Forge. The perks come with a cost of charges, if you can pay it, you will buy it automatically, otherwise you will bank and have to wait.

“If you accept, with time, you’ll gain a lot of power. I’m not talking about taking over your world. I’m talking about being capable of leading your galaxy. True that will take time, but the Celestial Forge tends to surprise.”

Annette didn’t reply, busy thinking about it. She was being offered Phenomenal Cosmic Powers! And she had watched Aladdin with Taylor enough times to remember that it came with itty bitty living space.

“What’s the price?” She decided to ask.

Annette would describe the smile as knowing or mysterious. “Technically, there’s no price, practically, you will be getting attention, lots of it. Sooner or later, someone will notice, by mistake or chance, and there will be interest, people trying to use you, control you, look to get you to follow their orders. It’s a price that comes after choosing. But I can see you will be smart enough to be prepared.”

Annette took her time to think about it. But after a bit she decided to take it, while there was some kind of safety in not taking it, how much would she gamble before there was another accident? What if it happened to Danny or Taylor, most likely there would be no Junko to save them then.

“Okay, I will take it.”

“Good choice.” The woman extended her hand, a small star glowing back and silver floating in it. “Let’s do this slowly, believe me, otherwise things will hurt.” The woman chuckled and pushed the black star into Annette.

“That’s it?” She didn’t feel anything, besides a new void in her.

“Well, you have no charges, but let me help you with that.” She didn’t manage to see what it was that Junk pushed into her, suddenly she could feel two charges resting inside of her, and something moved, she felt that black star turning harder before a smaller, glowing star pushed out against the surface. She felt it push out and start orbiting the central star.

“I seem to have acquired a Magic Cooking Pot , it’s part of the Magical Toolkit domain.” Annette looked over what she now knew about it. “But it’s actually an iron pan, uh, it will create a magical flame under it to cook things at the perfect temperature. It can also be used to prepare magical elixirs. Both meals and elixirs will provide much better results than normal too.”

“Pretty useful, but if I remember right, you should still have an extra charge, let's roll again.” Junk moved swiftly and she felt two more charges, making it three. And the black star started to turn faster once more. A new start pushed out as she felt the two new charges get spent.

“This time is Lab Standards , from the Design Domain, it gives me the ability to understand how technology works, from complex to simple, at least on scientific principles. I should be able to reverse engineer anything that I work out it’s inner workings.”

Junko smiled and let out a soft whistle. “That’s pretty nice, I mean, it doesn’t appear that strong, but I can tell you it will easily synergize with a lot of other perks.” The woman leaned back before checking her non-existent wristwatch. “Okay, looks like we have spent enough time here, they should be pulling you out pretty soon.

“Now, it will hurt, but remember that it’s the only way to make people think you didn’t gain powers, I promise you will feel better pretty soon.”

Her vision started to dim. “What if I want to ask more?” Annette asked, worried in her voice.

“Don’t worry, if I’m right, we’ll still be able to talk, just think of my name.”

Things slowly got dimmer and darker before Annette felt herself blacking out.

-(-(-|-)-)-

Annette couldn’t keep herself from groaning as she felt her body painfully held in place by the buckled metal frame of her car, even more as the vehicle was currently flipped.

“..am can you hear me?” A voice came from somewhere. “Ma’am.”

“Uh? Oh, yes,” A sound of pain escaped her mouth when she tried to breathe in. “that stings.”

“Okay, I’m glad to hear you are awake, and in a way, the fact you feel pain is better than you feeling nothing.” The voice appeared to be male. “Your car’s hit by a villain and suffered quite extensive damage, we will have to cut it to free you, till then, please remain calm and in place, we promise it will be much easier this way.”

Annette gave a confirming grunt as she tried to relax, she could slowly recall what had happened, how she had gone for her phone, which was currently missing.

“...did… did I imagine all that?” She mumbled very low to herself.

“ Nope, ”A familiar voice replied in her head. “ It all happened ‘Nette’. ”

-(-(-|-)-)-

“What do we have here?” Lupine Edge, a hero under the Protectorate’s banner, asked the police officer next to him.

“We have over seven blocks of cars that a tinker vehicle plowed through, twenty two cars had people in them, in total we have five fatalities, twelve people with life-threatening injuries, fifteen in with at least a broken bone and four who have miraculously escaped with little to no damage.” The black officer spoke as he checked his notes.

“Any parahuman between them?” The hero asked as he reached up to scratch one of his cheeks, the wolf-like mask he wore always itches after sweating like he had.

“Doesn’t appear that way.” The man read out loud. “Samuel Jackson, no relations with the actor, forty seven years old, his car was hit by another car and was simply stuck in the pile up.

“Manuel Fernandez, twenty one, was picking up a delivery of fabric, the material cushioned the hit quite well.

“Annette Hebert, thirty nine, teacher at the local college, her car took most of the hit, we are still freeing her, but she appears to have been simply shaken around, rare, but it happens, sometimes it’s just luck.

“Cynthia Lumine, twenty eight, bruised, but actually not using a belt saved her life as the crash sent her flying over into the same fabrics that saved Manuel’s life.”

“So just people having a bad time?” Lupine sighed.

“Hmm,” The officer agreed. “Any news on the criminal?”

“No, they managed to get into the Trainyard before the tinker activated some kind of camouflage and disappeared.” Lupine decided to ignore the officer’s curse, mostly because he was feeling the same. “Sadly, we knew they would be escalating after getting a Tinker.” Lupine also decided to keep to himself; he couldn’t wait till chance took the villain’s life. It was brutal, but the city could use a break before one of the other gangs decided they could do better with a Tinker.

They watched as the firefighters cut the car’s frame to free the woman, emergency workers cutting the seatbelt, ready to catch her and carefully pull her out. She appeared to be okay, but Lupine had seen shock more than once, he would bet she was still stuck going over the accident, and it wouldn’t hit her for an hour or two more.

“That should be the last, I should head back to base,” Lupine told the officer with a business smile on his face. “I've got paperwork to fill, I’m sure you’ll do the same. It was a pleasure meeting you, Officer Dalton, good luck with this.”

“Thank you Lupine Edge.” The man gave a nod and walked over to his bike, he drove it back to the Protectorate base, his mind occupied with the thought of how things could have gone if he had had the same kind of luck during his Trigger.