where was I…
Right, Philadelphia burned. It was a spectacularly horrifying sight. The fires reached higher than any building present in the city. The toxic air I created seeped into the area and killed anything too close, and the fires burned everything to cinders. I fled but I watched from afar. I didn't feel great about doing it but I also didn't feel guilty.
So widespread was the fire and so terribly powerful, its smoke would reach as far as the ruins of Manhattan and D.C., its fire spread almost to Baltimore itself, and refugees poured out of the once prosperous city to elsewhere. They called it "Abaddon's Wrathful Fire," something some nobody in the Philadelphia mayor's office shouted in front of the cameras before he was swept up by the flames.
It underscored just how powerful I was. I didn't affect just a city; I was a regional destruction incarnate and if I really pushed it, a nation killer. The volcanoes I created using [Sandbox]? Those didn't go away. They erupted again and again until Eidolon finally did something about it.
It was a sobering realization. As much as I didn't feel anything great about it, I knew that I had to set up rules for myself - rules that I won't rationalize away when the going got tough for me - to ensure that I wouldn't burn this world to nothing.
I mean, I liked my creature comforts too much to burn the world.
So, as I and the world watched the USA burn in the primordial fire, I set up rules for myself.
First, I would not create environments that would create so much death and destruction as I had done at Philadelphia.
Two, during fights, I will go for quick and clean knockouts and kills to shorten the length of the fight.
Three, if I have to use the Endbringer form, then I will attack places that deserve it.
The people of Philadelphia deserved none of that. Maybe the cops who kept chasing me and the Triumvirate, but the people didn't.
1991 June 10th
Today was a momentous day for America for it was the day the Protectorate was born under the leadership of America's four foremost parahuman capes: Hero, Legend, Eidolon, and Alexandria.
Unlike the Triumvirate who fought me twice, Hero came to be called such because of what he did in the post-me Philadelphia. Using tinkertech, he cleaned the land of toxic gas and cooled the land. His efforts were far more effective than Eidolon and his ever changing powers, and earned himself a medal.
I wouldn't say that I was happy for them because I knew who they were and where their true fealty laid.
As for me, in the months since the Philadelphia Fire and June of 1991, I moved up north to Rochester, NY. It wasn't big like New York City (which was recovering), Philadelphia (where they were now finding exotic ores), Baltimore (too close to DC), and Washington D.C. (which was the capital, thus I decided I didn't want to risk exposing myself to national news).
Rochester was an out-of-way city. It was close to Buffalo, NY, which was close to the Canadian border, but if one wanted to come here, then one had to intentionally come here. It wasn't like Syracuse where the highway just took you there.
It was perfect for someone like me, who was tired of authorities chasing after him. After a little bit of scouting the city, I settled down in northern residential district of Rochester. It was close to Downtown but also far away enough and with enough reputation that police wouldn't come after every single report of violence.
Why?
It was Rochester's own little gang hub.
It was also where Rochester's first two parahumans led their gangs against each other in a never ending war. The first of these was the "Bigga Nigga" composed primarily of … African Americans. They really couldn't have used a better name? God. The other group was "Karl's Raiders."
Cape called Hukka led Bigga Nigga. Hukka was a Shaker that disrupted speed. He couldn't stop anything immediately but it would either speed up tremendously or slow down to uselessness. A bullet that was slower than a thrown rock was just a pebble, after all. All Bigga Nigga members wore bright neon red.
It was the 90's, after all.
Karl's Raiders was led by a cape titled "Karl." Karl was a Master/Trump that boosted people based on how much they trusted him with a maximum of Brute 2, Mover 1 being able to be bestowed.
Naturally, Karl had a smaller force but those fighters of his were high quality and stronger in general. Hukka's Bigga Niggas were mobs. They swarmed enemies in firepower and numbers. Neither of them were careful with bystanders caught in the crossfire.
On January 5th, I made my move when the two forces clashed over territory. I sat waiting out of sight on top of a building far away from the actual fight while watching with a pair of binoculars and a mound of rocks I picked up along the Rochester shore.
I didn't know why these gangsters used so primitive tactics. I understood that territory was a thing for gangsters, but couldn't they wage their wars quieter?
Well, it's good for me.
Oh, Karl and Hukka. They … must be shit-talking each other. I can't hear anything from here aside from the boo's and cheers of the two crowds.
Without much thought, I grabbed a stone into my hand and teleported the stone from my hand directly in Hukka's brain.
Hukka jolted in place before he flopped forward.
Silence.
Confusion.
I smiled gleefully as panic and rage broke out.
TATATATATATA
And bullets flew.
I kept my eyes on Karl… and then …
Teleport.
Karl jolted, and he too flopped down.
And just like that, my two rivals were dead even before they knew I existed.
From then on, I recruited people and consolidated my manpower from both of the now broken gangs. I, of course, recruited only from the least loyal members of those two gangs and their splinters. Most of them were people who were marginalized by the leaders of the gang for one reason or another.
I promised them protection from parahumans, and they would offer me a cut of their profits. I was cool with that. After showing who was the boss to the splinter gangs in a battle that resulted in me killing two dozen people, I took up territory just west of the Benjamin Franklin High School. Wearing a grey-painted hockey mask and red striped brown leather jacket as my costume, I went around the neighborhood demanding protection fees for "not allowing the gangsters from smashing your houses." I demonstrated exactly what I could do with a few well placed rocks into pet dogs' brains, and they gave in quickly.
They were surprised to find that I only charged a hundred bucks per house (but when I demanded the PF from a hundred households each month, that one hundred soon became ten thousand dollars).
Since then, I made a tidy profit from protection fees. By the time the Protectorate was announced, I made $40,000 from the protection fees alone. As for the cuts from the other gangs under my protection, I made $61,000, though it felt like they were cheating me a little bit.
I would investigate it later.
Along with my own ventures in robbing gangs who didn't take up on my protection, I made a total of $140,000 over four months.
Of course, then someone got uppity and called the cops on me.