#enjoy the juicy plot and lore babes!

[swamplatibule]

@sugarcoatedsadism @acircusfullofdemons

WELL. UM.

This requires a whole fuck ton of background, so infodump incoming!

We have a small semblance of understanding of what gives the Enhanced their abilities! There are said to be several artifacts just lying around in wildly different spots deep underground. The Society has uncovered one, which happens to be located right below the headquarters where most of our story takes place. That’s not a coincidence, it was built like that on purpose.

We have no clue how these artifacts work or how they even got there, but a person’s Enhancement comes from some tiny, almost microscopic fragment of that material latching onto a unique mutation in their DNA! So there are really two deciding factors in whether or not someone gets Cool Crazy Powers™️ - whether or not you have that mutation, and whether or not you’ve somehow gotten a fragment in your system!

(Also I keep saying “artifact” but it’s more like a massive, constantly replenishing glowing ore vein . I just don’t really have a better word for it at the moment.)

Because of this, an Enhanced person can go their entire life without having any kind of ability, or a Nonenhanced person can have a fragment in their DNA and not get an ability because they don’t have that mutation. It’s a lot more complex than that, but I feel the need to keep this brief in order to not completely derail the story I’m trying to tell here. We’ll come back to the specifics later.

I mentioned that the Society has possession of one of these artifacts. There are actually three that have been found - the one under the Starwritten HQ, one that the IBW had that we’re still trying to figure out the location of, and one that it turns out the DoA has uncovered. Well, fuck! That ain’t good!

You see, each of these artifacts has one small difference from the others, which is part of what causes the variety in Enhanced abilities. When an artifact is “hurt”, so is everyone whose ability was given by that specific artifact!

Anywho. You now have the bare bones of this little chunk of lore (which you should have gotten a while ago but I have Incapable Of Ever Getting Anything Fucking Done Disease) which you need for context for this little story.

So. Fox, Remi, and Wilson attempt to track down Rosalind, leading them to sneak into a hidden sea cave crawling with DoA security. As they venture further and further in, Remi gets a bit of a migraine. and their ability stops working. I wonder why. 🤔

They get caught and have to fight their way to the back of the cave, where Rosalind is, and wind up finding her and a team of scientists in front of one of the artifacts, running experiments to try and figure out how to destroy it - which explains the thing with Remi! Isn’t that fun! Wilson attempts to convince Rosalind to take a step back and look at all the people that she’s hurting, which really does not work and in fact only irritates Rosalind more and raises the tension higher.

And then, in an impulsive moment of blind rage, Rosalind fires a bullet right into the heart of the artifact, and everything goes to shit all at once.

The artifact does not die here. It’s hurt, but it will regenerate, along with all the Enhanced it supports. Just for peace of mind. However.

There is a huge fucking explosion!

Remi passes out

Two large fragments fly off and hit Rosalind square in the back.

As I said before, the fragments that trigger most Enhanced abilities are tiny, even microscopic! So two baseball-sized chunks is a whole fucking lot! Rosalind might not have had the needed mutation before, but having that level of whatever material the artifacts are made of in her body? That pretty much rewrites her DNA. Which then leads to. Yknow.

That whole situation.

really took all that spider symbolism seriously.

Rosalind is now Enhanced! Which isn’t a great look for the leader of a cult trying to kill all the Enhanced. She is immediately accused of being a traitor, and has to flee before she’s killed by the same organization that she was leading not two minutes ago. Fox and Wilson manage to escape with a now-comatose Remi, seeing as all the guards currently have their attention focused on the giant spider lady. They’re back at HQ trying to process what the Actual Fuck just happened while Remi heals.

Meanwhile, Rosalind is now going rogue since she has not one but two organizations after her! Her main coping mechanism for when things are incredibly fucked is to go “:D yep I did that on purpose this is fine I can roll with it” until she believes it. She’s a schemer! She can fix this! And it! Will! Be! Fine! That doesn’t mean she won’t need backup, though, and she only has one person left to fall back on. Agent 23.

Back with the gals, shit did indeed hit the fan in that coffee shop! Jade immediately attacked 23 when she realized Hollister was In Fucking Danger, and the two absolutely beat the shot out of each other until Hollister split them up and convinced her ex-girlfriend-that-may-still-be-in-love-with-her and her maybe-girlfriend-slash-attempted-murderer to Please Not Do That. And then the DoA shows up! But they’re not after Hollister or Jade, they’re after 23.

Why? Because 23 and Rosalind have a very sisterlike relationship, and because Rosalind has now been branded a traitor who was definitely conspiring against them the whole time (sarcastic) 23 has been roped into her BS!

23 gets badly injured, and only after Hollister literally begs her to help does Jade reluctantly agree not to leave her behind. Of course, they are very outnumbered and outmatched, so the only feasible option here is to just hide, and even that doesn’t seem like it’ll work! Until someone drives up and yells at them to get in.

That’s right.

It’s Jake from Statefarm.

Kidding, it’s just Rosalind.

Rosalind really only came here for 23, but hey, the more the merrier. She needs all the help she can get, and having someone from the Society who can easily become a hostage if need be doesn’t hurt!