u/scumfuckinbabylon

December 1st, 2022 0652

S.U.P.L.E.X. Assessment & Selection Course "The Quarry"

Two men watched the new recruit struggle up the course. Both are smoking, one a massive blunt the size of a crowbar and the other a more common (if still very illegal) Cuban cigar. The two of them stood on a scaffolding built over a sort of makeshift pen, and the new recruit was rolling her wheelchair down the ramp towards an open area similar to a rodeo arena.

"Look here. This is her fourth run at the fucking couse; she's figuring out the momentum is the trick." The speaker is older, in his fifties, and is known to the team as Tech Sergeant D. A former Marine, he is the head drill sergeant of the Bayonet Assault Course and a personal friend of the jumpsuited lunatic smoking a comically large bunt next to him. As he speaks, the rookie, her pink hair fluttering behind her in a rush of wind, picks up speed on the downramp heading into the pen where several dark masses are moving now-dark, bristly furred masses that grunt in anticipation of soft pink flesh. As she does so, she struggles to get her rifle out of its scabbard and slam the bayonet into place-the rifle, as for all S.U.P.L.E.X. recruits, is a Mosin Nagant 91-30, a Russian rifle over a century old.

"I still can't believe the insurance signed off on it AND agreed to fund the ADA adjustments to the course," said the man in the jumpsuit, a little known hero you've probably heard of called Chris By-The-Throat, World's Luckiest Detective. He ashes the blunt and the ashes carry off into the wind, but behind his high tech goggles he has eyes only for the new recruit, whose wheels are rattling as she cuts loose with a primal scream. Several of the dark hog shapes move to meet her, tusks shining in the bright glare of the shop lights that illuminate the pen. There is a sickening crunch and a loud squeal as impact is made. 30-50 hogs snarl and squeal at the bottleneck where the rookie makes impact, blocked from assaulting her only by the writhing wounded animal on the end of her bayonet. She keeps screaming, though the scream has lost all articulation and is now simply AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHH. The pretty recruit's vocal training has gone hoarse as she takes her fourth run at the course, with tears still streaking her makeup from her last failed attempt.

Most of the staff has gone home, though normally they would be standing by with heavy guns and specialized equipment to drive off the hogs from the recruit's tender flesh, but this one... "I mean, her healing factor alone is off the charts according to the smart boys," says Tech Sergeant D, absent mindedly looking over her Ratings Sheet. "Near as we can tell, she's crippled as fuck but ultimately unkillable. Look." As the hogs closed in, they could both see the recruit flailing with her secondary melee weapon, shrieking still as she lashes out with the brutal flexible length of steel cable with a simple handle-what is referred to in the hero trade as a GETBACK MF. The steel cable drew blood and welts, but the rookie missed a stroke and the hog shredded into her arm; both men winced at the crunch of bone. But by the time she had recovered for an upstroke, it was already healing-there was only blood where the wound had happened.

CBTT looked over to the ratings sheet as well. "That ain't the half of it. The Voodoo Doll power is even freakier." He flipped through a couple of photographs and gestures with the blazing end of his blunt towards where the beast that just sank it's teeth into the rookie is rolling in the dirt with several bloody bite marks on it's foreleg. "Any wound inflicted that involves an exchange of fluids actually spreads the damage back to the enemy. It's fucking insane-she hard counters melee attackers, because if her blood touches you or your saliva touches hers, you suffer exactly what she gets."

The rookie recovered her poise and continued swinging the whip, jamming her wheelchair into the narrow gap and forcing the beasts to come at her one at a time. "At least some of the tactical lessons are setting in," says the Tech Sergeant. Her gun went off several times, bloody chunks flying as the big 7.62 slug tears through several of the beasts, but they stayed standing, kept rooting for her guts.

"She's learning. She learns the ropes of close combat pretty quick, for a lefty." Both men share a chuckle, and CBTT takes a swig from his canteen as the rookie sets to work. "I wonder how she'll reload under pressure, though."

Turns out the rookie didn't even try the reload. She kept swinging the whip viciously, lashing out at the eyes, faces and sensitive snouts of the vicious feral hogs. The satan hogs healed quickly, almost as quickly as Dollface herself, but the rookie, with sweat and blood running down her neck, wrenched her bayonet free, bashed the tusks of a hog that got too close, and rammed it forward into another beast, right down it's steaming gullet. "Got-damn," said both men on the scaffolding.

"Bitch has some fight in her, no matter what else you can say about her. I think we can work with this-especially with Mirrorverse Insurance footing the bill for handicap accessibility," says the World's Luckiest Detective, finally outing the blunt now that his eyes are red. He looks around in his many pockets for his cigarette for a moment, so only Tech Sergeant D sees the rookie slam another clip of 7.62 into her rifle and lift it to her shoulder.

The roar of the rifle and the hot wet splatter of a meat shot causes CBTT to lift his head in the middle of lighting his cigarette from the torch of his middle finger. Four more hogs are down, causing the others to stumble, and Dollface is making the best of it by stabbing them in the neck with the now empty rifle. "That's what it's about," he said, nodding with approval, and it is just then that disaster strikes.

One of the pigs climbed over the bodies of it's fellows and scrambled up the girl's wheelchair almost into her lap, and she ended up with the rifle crossways in a scramble with the thing's hideous maw closing over her face. Both men wince at the sound of tearing flesh, but hte moment the hog bites down its own face became a shredded wet ruin as well, and it fell over with a squeal, aided by a hard rifle butt-thrown blind-by the girl in the course. Unfortunately, more pigs got the same bright idea and soon they were swarming over her.

Somehow under the mass of 30-50 feral hogs, the girl managed a reload; both men heard the gun go off muffled by hog bodies. And of course, any hog that actually managed to tear into the rookie hero were immediately wounded severely; several managed to tear out their own throats and the girl's chopped off screams of pain and anger would fade off, then pick up again. There were twenty bodies around the broken doll when Christopher finally said "I've seen enough. Open up with the fifty, D." The tech sergeant slapped the receiver of the .50 calibre machine gun mounted on the walkway and shredded through the rest of the pork-and probably a few rounds through the rookie-in a single well aimed burst. Both men waited for the bleeding mass of meat in the chair, now tipped over and covered in dead pigs, to heal up again, her fantastic gift bringing back flesh whole where it had been ripped and torn by both bullets and tusks.

Both men descended into the pit, CBTT by using his niftomatic grappling hook hand and Tech Sergeant D on a more conventional rapelling line. They cross the course in a moment where Doll is grunting as she pushes her chair upright once more, a look of determination on her blood splattered face, a layer of makeup and then a layer of viscera. Both men are struck by her calmness, but then, the daily pain she lives with makes a simple attack by 30-50 feral hogs look like a cakewalk, if one can pardon the abelist expression. She does the right thing first, after she rights herself again; she reloads her rifle. The World's Luckiest Detective made his decision right then, though he kept a pretty good poker face as he sparked up a healing blunt.

"Did I pass?" said Dollface, one lens cracked on her eyeglasses and with a chunk of her scalp still missing. She was beautiful in that moment too; he could see it, in the fire-the drive-to become a hero, even through the hideous agonizing painful process of forging a hero.

"Kid, you made four attempts in one night. I've had guys quail out just seeing the damn pigs waiting for them," says the staff's master sergeant, as CBTT passes her the potent healing blunt. She takes a drag as D continues, the healing effect amplifying her own natural healing factor and restoring even the missing hair. Truly amazing stuff, S.U.P.L.E.X. technology. "If I don't pass you, I shouldn't have passed any of those losers. Final decision belongs to the boss-" He gestured to the detective, who grinned wolfishly, fucked up grill on full display-perks of the superhero life. "-but I think that's damned good enough. I'm impressed that you reloaded while being actively mauled to death."

"Pain is my bitch," murmured the rookie, passing the healing blunt. Both men waved it away-she needed it worse than they did, and CBTT was of course stoned as a motherfucker. So she continued to puff on it as she continued. "It was hard to reload missing that finger though." She waggled her fingers, two of them pink as hell and obviously new growth. Her regeneration was really off the charts.

"The key is that you kept doing it," the WLD broke in, lighting another cigarette. "This test isn't about your powers-though your powers really made it easy to skimp on the safety protocols-or about your skill-though you fight in the dirt pretty good for a lefty. It's about your will to go on, even when the shitshow is so bad that you can't see a way out. With a pile of fucking vicious pigs on you, you managed to get another couple rounds in the gun. That counts." He reaches out and, somewhat awkwardly, shakes her hand-it is covered in pig guts. Still, the detective doesn't flinch a bit when he says "Welcome aboard, Dollface."

Together, the three of them began to navigate their way back up the ramp towards the dubious shelter of an overhang; rain was on the horizon and dawn was fast approaching. It would be another wet, muddy day of S.U.P.L.E.X. assessment and qualification, but all three were suffused in a sense of accomplishment as they made their way up the ramp. The rookie was breathing hard, but otherwise okay-a testament to her insane rate of healing.

"You know, we had a hero named Doll, back in the day," said the detective idly as he held the gate open for the other two. They all went and settled in to the gloomy, poorly lit picnic shelter that served as the staging area for this part of the selection & assessment course. The two men sat down on a dusty old couch, while the rookie finished the healing blunt and put it out in a convenient ashtray.

"I read. According to your press releases, she died a hero," said Dollface, pursing her lips thoughtfully.

"She died because she didn't know how to fight," opined the detective grimly. "Our training protocols weren't what they are now; the infrastructure wasn't in place. She had some cool powers, was in good shape, had wits and courage, but it wasn't worth shit because she couldn't keep her head in the fight. That's the part we don't put in the press release." He tossed the cigarette away in a spray of orange and shook his head. "You're tougher than she is, and smart, too."

"Stooooop," moaned the new hero, waving her hands. "At least buy me a drink before you blow me."

"I'm not blowing you, motherfucker. You've got both wits and book learning-you're empathetic as hell and you can take a hit like a champion. That's all good shit for a superhero." This time the speaker was Tech Sergeant D, who was unbuckling a sword from around his waist. "I'd normally throw your ass in a support role right away-" No one shied away from mentioning the chair in S.U.P.L.E.X, an oddly refreshing method, just another tactical problem to overcome. "-but your power is just so damn good for combat. You could tank a hit from a god-tier and then make him tank the same hit to himself, kiloton for kiloton. That's the kind of pocket ace we need in some of these big set piece shitshows."

"But you have to make the choice," said Christopher, and this time he came close, squatted a little to look Dollface right in the eye. "We think you're good enough. But you have to decide that you're good enough-good enough and powerful enough to change the world." Up close, he smelled like cigarettes and gun oil, and the rookie couldn't supress a little bimbo giggle, while simultaneously berating herself for it internally-the conflict played across her face like a flash of cinema. The blunt was obviously kicking her ass in ways that the course had not. There was still a little bit of gore on her face.

"I mean, the design you guys showed me for the hoverchair with the mounted rocket launcher was pretty sweet," said Dollface.

"Oh, we're building that either way. Mirrorverse is footing the bill," said the detective, and the three of them chuckled. Never above saving a buck in this organization, lest Psyren's watchful CEO eye should fall upon them.

"...but I do worry I can do the job. Not the physical portion, I guess you guys have convinced me it can work, especially since I'm just damage transfer bait..."

Both men stumbled to the punch on a masturbation joke, something about master of baiting or something similar, and the rookie wearily endured it with a roll of her eyes.

"...but I wonder about the killing. I mean sure, pigs, they're invasive satan hogs or whatever, I eat bacon, it's fuckin' fine," said the rookie, looking towards the mass of bodies at the bottom of the ramp she had just rolled down. "But people? Especially mentally ill people in funny clothes? I mean who are we to judge? Though I am low key excited about my costume."

"Your costume is looking rad as fuck," agreed CBTT, lighting his third cigarette. Still squatting in front of her, he reaches for something in the spokes of the chair; it comes loose with a schleeeeerrrrripp and he holds the bloody object up to her face. To her credit, she doesn't recoil-she has become used to bloody object lessons like this. "But that is part of the reality of being a superhero. We empathize, we deescalate, we do all that progressive police department shit even though we don't have to under the law. But at the end of the day..." He waggled the shredded pig's ear for effect; it made a wet floppy sound and a few droplets hit her glasses. "...you either make chunks, or become them." He rose, tossing the pig's ear out into the darkness.

Things were quiet for a moment after that. "I get that there's sometimes no choice..."

The goateed sergeant paused in the act of pouring himself a drink. "That's the only time we use the chunkulation method, believe me. But some of these crazy fucks can blow up cities, kid. It's chunks, or megachunks."

"Oh shit! Is it too late to take Megachunks as my hero name?" burst out the stoned rookie, and this time the laughter went on for awhile, off into the quiet morning at the Quarry. And by morning, Dollface's name was on the contract. (Megachunks was unfortunately vetoed by Marketing.)