February 14th 1996,Brockton Bay
Waking up on the asphalt floor of the alleyway is not the best way to start being a god but at least I was still alive. I could feel new power radiating in my body as I began taking a tally of my new powers. Having the ability to bestow powers on people would make me a supremely popular cape in no time if I joined the fledgling protectorate presence in Brockton bay. However they didn't have the best reputation in the city right now as the recently established organization only had a few mundane officers present with a couple parahumans present. I wasn't very confident in their abilities.
I could feel a boost in my strength and I put my hand on the brick of the alley. I easily crushed a fistfull of bricks when I gripped it.I Needed to be careful now and didn't want to accidentally crush any hands. As for my other powers they were not as flashy except for apparently being able to become 10 feet tall. I was lucky the clothes grew with me otherwise it would be an awkward walk home.
My other powers were mind based, I could tell. I knew about every fly about to touch me and instinctively knew how to dodge them which I hope applied to bigger things. And when I picked up a small steel pipe left in the alley I knew how to properly use it to bludgeon someone into a pulp with no prior training.
All in all a good spread and I was happy with what I got and hoped that my power counted as a power to get stronger with. Before I went looking for my fellow gods I needed to go home and change as I was still covered in blood from my encounter with someone called lead.
Home luckily wasn't too far a walk from the alley, however I wanted to be careful so I climbed onto the room of the apartment next to me with surprising ease. It took 10 minutes of roof running to get to my house. It looked the same as always a 2 stories townhouse with an inground basement and 2 dilapidated sheds that had been there since I moved in. I went in and was going to change into my night clothes before I realized that I was about to go look around for a bunch of capes and needed a costume. Unfortunately I was unprepared for the certain development and was regulated to wearing A black scarf with a wide brimmed black cowboyish hat. I put on my set of motorcycle goggles I had kept from when I'd bought one for my 18th birthday and looked in the mirror. It wasn't great but not terrible, at least you couldn't see who i was without some difficulty and body wise it helped i wore mostly baggy clothing anyway.
I set out after I grabbed my old baseball bat from the closet and a few of my kitchen knives as backup tucked into various pockets in my cargo pants. I had a vague feeling in the back of my mind where to go and headed towards the old docks. Unfortunately I almost immediately had trouble about 30 minutes into walking. A couple gangsters of the sicarios decided that I needed to pay a toll.
With my new strength and natural weapons skills I swung twice and broke the kneecap and forearm of each respective mugger and moved on with my day. I had gotten hit with one of their knives but surprisingly it didn't leave a mark, good to know.
It was getting dark out by the time I arrived at my destination, a small abandoned warehouse in the docks. No lights were on which was not a surprise as most of the windows were shattered and several gang tags placed on the exterior walls. The door was sealed shut by rust so I simply climbed through one of the broken windows seeing as I no longer had to worry about being cut.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Inside I saw several dozen boxes broken open and abandoned, the smell of rotting wood filling the warehouse. I also saw that I was not the first to arrive as I spotted a short woman maybe 5 foot at most wearing a very baggy hoodie with some sort of animated character on the front. For a mask she had a medical mask on with a pair of tinted swimming goggles covering her eyes.
As I made my entrance she let out a small “Eek!” of surprise and jumped near 2 feet in the air.
“H-hello ?” she asked, her voice extremely timid and sounding like she was barely out of highschool if i had to guess. She looked incredibly nervous, hood still drawn down and hands rubbing together like I'd seen my students do anytime I asked them a question.
“Hey, are you here for the... meeting?” I said not really knowing how to describe what we were here for in a way that wouldn't make me sound creepy to anyone else here.
“Yes I'm here to meet p-people I think, what should we call o-ourselves now that we are her?”
“Maybe go by the names of our patrons?” I guessed that would be the most appropriate way to make sure we knew who each other was.
“Makes sense i think, okay you can c-call me H-Hestia then please.” Interesting Hestia the god of the hearth. I wonder what powers she could get from that.
“Alright Hestia, that's good you can call me Ares.”
“Okay, do you think we are the only ones coming?” she asked as she started nervously pacing the interior of the warehouse, eyes shifting between various windows.
“NOPE!” A calamitous voice bellowed as the rusted door fellow off its hinges slamming into shelves shattering on impact. A large man entered behind the door at least 6’5” and 300 pounds of pure muscle with a shock of red hair Poking out from behind a Halloween mask of Frankenstein.
“CALL ME HERACLES!” He did not quite scream into the warehouse. Making his way over to us immediately pulling me into a bear hug before I could dodge out of the way.
“And who are you my new companions?!” He asked in almost a jolly tone.
“Call me Ares” I said, my lungs barely having enough air to push the words out as he finally let me down.” And this is Hestia.” I said for her as I saw her hiding behind her hands trying to be as unseen as possible.
“Good to meet you, my new companions! Should we say what we can do yet or wait for the rest of them?”
“I’m thinking we will wait for another hour or so and see if anyone else shows up than we start talking about plans and abilities.” I said not wanting to have to repeat everything said a dozen times if there were a lot of us.
A somewhat comfortable silence descended on the three of us as we waited for any others. About 20 minutes into waiting I could hear footsteps outside and saw 2 forms enter the warehouse.
One was a fairly tall woman with long brown hair and a green scarf tied around her neck and horse riding boots on. The other was being pushed in by her. A man in a wheelchair looking fairly barrel chested with blacksmith leathers on with an apron and goggles to match the aesthetic.
“HELLO FELLAS” Heracles declared as he went for another bear hug on the women, she swiftly dodged out of the way and put some distance between them.
“Yo, names Hephaestus and this is Artemis. The man in the wheelchair said as the woman gave a small nod. I got the distinct feeling that this was all of us.
“Alright then, let’s start the first meeting of the gods.” I declared.