New week = new Skaldthetical with a longish storytelling OP and possibly a poll. Let’s see what I can come up with in ten minutes.
Your nation’s biggest city has become a wretched hive of scum and villainy, so Pallas Athena, Queen of Olympus, has decided to clean the place up. Through subtle means she’ll be guiding systemic reform, but she’s also appointed a super-powed champion to deliver emergency asskickings, and that’s you.[sup]1[/sup] Your powers include Captain-America-level physical skills; short-range teleporting; limited shapeshifting (you can only mimic humans, so you fight crime wearing looking like either Pam Grier or RipppedShirt!Kirk; and, most importantly, minor clairvoyance. Mostly you use the ESP to warn you of danger and aim your teleports, but by concentrating you can get precognitive flashes of up to 6 hours in the future. [sup]2[/sup] Use too much power too quickly, and you’ll run out till you get sufficiently rested and fed. You’ve been at this for about two years. The public is torn about you, and the cops definitely dislike you, as you not only helped bring down the former commissioner to prison on corruption charges, but on two occasions prevented traffic-stop murders through the power of sweet reason and right hooks.
Anyhoo, as our story opens, it’s an hour before dawn, and you’re just finishing up a particularly busy night of do-gooding. Before 'porting home, you decide to do one last ESP sweep to make sure nothing needs your attention. Unfortunately you don’t pick up one crisis, but three.
- At that very moment, thirty miles away–at the very limit of your teleport range–an abusive husband has decided to punish his wife for leaving him by tossing their six-year-old son off a bridge and into a raging river. The kid has already hit the water. Going to his rescue will almost exhaust your teleportation ability, leaving you just enough juice to jump home, but you’ll still retain your other powers. You’ll be able to save the kid and swim to shore. The most direct route there will take you into the sight of a TV news crew, who will laud your heroism and give you some much-needed good publicity.
ii) Also at that very moment, ten miles miles away, a warehouse is ablaze; three firemen fighting the inferno have been separated from their comrades by falling rubble. They’ll be dead in minutes unless you get them out. But you can carry only one adult at a time while teleporting, so you’ll need at least six jumps, and you’re already tired. By the time you’re done, you’ll have exhausted all your power for at least a day. That means you’d have to get home by normal means, wearing your own face but otherwise in full costume and gear.
Oh, and speaking of fire …
Ɣ) Five minutes from now, five miles away, a pair of corrupt, racist police officers will set fire to the city’s oldest white church. The cops themselves are white; they’re aiming to frame a group of black peace activists who have been criticizing the department on several fronts (one of whom has made some unfortunate inflammatory statements about arson at historic black churches) in order to discredit them. No one is in danger from this fire, but it’s certain to aggravate racial problems in the already tense city. (There have been riots recently, and much of the reason you were so busy tonight is that you were unstirring shit started by jackholes on both sides.) You could 'port there now and kick their asses preemptively, but in that case it will seem that you attacked a pair of cops without provocation, not to mention you probably won’t be able to save the baby or the firemen.
What do you do?[sup]3[/sup] Whom do you save?
Oh, and my pasta’s here, so screw the poll.
[sup]1[/sup] Yes, you get a costume, but nothing fancy: basically Kevlar body armor and whatever mêlée weapons you judge most useful. No, you don’t get supertech or magic talismans. Because I said so.
[sup]2[/sup] Of course you used the precognition to win the lottery early on. Super-heroing is both expensive and a full-time job.
[sup]3[/sup] No, you can’t call Athena for help or even advice. She’s busy with her own shit. A group of Brobdingnagian space gods are currently judging whether humanity should be exterminated, and She is occupied arguing for the defense.
