That was… way more than I had expected. Everything was so detailed! And there were exceptions and limitations on all of it! Seriously, just looking at all of that made my head spin.

It took me a while, but I eventually managed to puzzle through things. And, to my surprise, it was a mixed bag. The System had definitely increased my abilities in some ways, but had limited them in others. For instance, I used to be just straight up immune to any kind of cold damage, but now that had been changed to a 75% reduction in the damage, before my defenses applied. Granted, that still meant that I was mostly immune to the cold, but that was definitely not the same as being fully immune.

On the flip side, reading into how my Cryokinetics power worked, it seemed stronger than it had been before. There was a point limit, but other than that, I could do whatever I could think of, so long as it tied to the ice and cold. Before, I had had trouble forcing effects that I wanted, because I did not have the finesse or the basic scientific knowledge to apply my powers in that way. Now, I just… knew that if I could think it, I could do it, so long as the points came out right.

Then, there was the separation of powers into different types, based on their power source. I knew that there were people, before the System, who could negate powers. But they were always limited in some way. A fire-type might be able to snuff other people’s fires, or a water type could do the same. The real powerful ones were the guys who could negate an entire power source, like all mutant powers, or all magic powers. Those guys were scary to go up against, if you didn’t have anything but your powers to rely on.

That just wasn’t a thing under the System. Not really. You could try and Dispel a power, forcing it to turn off, or you could Drain it, reducing the points that were available for it. There was also Suppress, which could stop a power from activating, but that was an active power that had to be maintained. Either way, there was no absolute protection against certain powers any more, which was a game changer, to be sure.

I was still trying to figure out what all this meant for me, both as a supervillain, and as the apparent local system administrator for the System on Earth when I turned on the TV, to try and clear my head. Unfortunately, the news did nothing to take my mind off things. Or, rather, quite expectedly, the channels had all cut scheduled programming to go straight to breaking news, about the fact that some kind of System had just been activated, less than an hour ago!

Simply put, the world was threatening to go mad in a blind panic. The System affected everyone, after all. Even the common, powerless folk didn’t get a pass on the craziness. Their strengths, weaknesses, and so on were all numerated and codified now. The only good thing about the whole situation was that there didn’t seem to be any way for other people to see your ‘character sheet’ unless you showed it to them.

Of course, system administrator status would let me look at things, though I probably couldn’t change them, not without going through some kind of process. A process that likely would be logged, and possibly reported on to someone else. I had no desire to lose my newfound insight, so I decided just looking would be fine. It would, at the very least, tell me what someone was weak to, and what they could do. That alone was enough for me to want to keep in the good graces of the System, since I didn’t want that kind of power going to someone who might use it against me.

Either way, it was at least a little comforting that the rest of the world was taking this worse than I was. Of course, the only reason I was so calm about things was because of my Administrator status. I had more information than anyone else, which meant I could figure out how to best use, and exploit, this new System.

My musings were interrupted by yet another ‘Breaking News’ segment.

“This just in! There is a riot at Blackreach Maximum Security Prison! Reports are stating that, with the System’s activation, power negation collars used to prevent escape attempts have been knocked offline, allowing several high-value prisoners to stage a riot in an attempt to escape! We go now live to Benny Dover with our affiliate station in Dallas for a live report. Benny?”

“Yes, Jane, I’m here, and the situation is devolving rapidly. Thirty minutes ago, every human on the planet saw blue boxes talking about the fact that the System was being initialized. This includes inmates here at Blackreach Prison, outside Dallas. Unfortunately, this also include the super-criminals held in maximum security under constant power negation, to prevent any escape attempts.

“For reasons we can only just hypothesize about at the current time, the power negation collars worn by the prisoners all went offline with the System’s activation, allowing villains such as Miss Ion or Earthshatter to break their collars and release themselves and additional prisoners, without the risk of the collars’ anti-tampering countermeasures going off. Blackreach guards quickly responded, but it was too late to prevent thirteen super-criminals from breaking free of their collars.”

The reporter on scene was full of tension, but was doing his best to remain professional as he gave a brief run-down of the in-progress prison break. His anchor in the studio, however, was less reserved. Looking visibly worried for her coworker, she asked, “Is it safe where you are, Benny? Do you need to evacuate to another position?”

“To be honest, Jane, there’s no guarantees, here. We know that some of Blackreach’s defensive measures have been rendered nonfunctional by the System. However, we do not know exactly how they have been changed, as of yet, meaning that we don’t know what measures will be effective. There is the chance that the Blackreach guards can contain the riot, and force the prisoners back into their cells, but the longer this goes on, the less likely that hopeful event becomes.”

“Do we have any news on who the rioting prisoners are?”

“There are currently six confirmed rioters, with as many as thirty-seven more unconfirmed. Guards at Blackreach have been authorized to use lethal force to take down prisoners attempting to escape. So far, guards report at least seven inmate deaths, and six casualties amongst their guards, due to the suddenness of the attacks.

“Information is still coming in, but it appears that the leader of the rioting prisoners is none other than the S-Class supervillain, Miss Ion, accompanied by Earthshatter, Dark Shaman, and Storybreaker. No word on whether their powers and abilities have been affected by the System or not. However, we have not seen Storybreaker use his signature ‘Narrative Destruction’ power yet, instead relying entirely on his ‘Plot Armor’ ability to withstand attacks, suggesting that the villain’s most devastating ability, the power to wipe someone’s very existence from reality, is not available to him, for some reason.

“Unfortunately, Miss Ion’s control of the electromagnetic spectrum appears to have been unaffected by this System, from what we can determine from sources inside Blackreach. As one may expect, this is causing no small amount of trouble for the Blackreach Guards, who are fighting desperately to contain the escaped prisoners, and keep them from releasing more of their fellows. However, at last report they were being pushed back by the overwhelming force of Earthshatter and Miss Ion working side by side.”

“Is there any hope of keeping these criminals at bay, and forcing them back into confinement, Benny?”

“It doesn’t look good, Jane. But I have word that Dallas’s own super-team, the White Knights, are currently on their way to the prison. It is hoped that they will be able to at least keep any of the powerful villains from escaping.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Benny, but weren’t the Knights currently under investigation for racial profiling and police brutality charges, especially against minorities in the Dallas area?”

“You’re not wrong, Jane. In fact, the Patriots out of Austen were dispatched not three weeks ago to step between the White Knights and the populace of Dallas, as the Knights were engaged in a controversial crackdown on non-superhuman related crime. It was hotly debated at the time, due to the all-white White Knights focusing their efforts on the predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods, even when Gunsmoke, a mid-level supervillain who happens to be white, was actively selling weapons that were illegal, even in Texas, in mostly white neighborhoods. Cries of discrimination and racial prejudice grew loud enough that the Governor ordered the Patriots in to separate both sides, and let cooler heads prevail.”

“What effect, if any, do you think this will have—”

I switched channels. Whether the breakout in Dallas succeeded or not was no business of mine. The big thing was that the power negator collars ‘given’ to most prisoners in Blackreach were no longer working. That was huge, since while Blackreach was the premier super-jail, it wasn’t the only one in the nation, and certainly not in the world. That meant super-criminals would be attempting to escape all over the world, once they realized that.

As a supervillain, that meant all kinds of craziness would start happening over the next few weeks. I’m sure that the various heroes and hero groups were going to be screaming in frustration, as things went to basically become like it was the wild west. And some of those heroes were going to be challenged pretty badly, as their convictions against taking lives, even those of supervillains, would be put to the test, since they would know that prisons wouldn’t be able to hold the villains they catch.

That was important to me, for obvious reasons. Some of the superhero groups could easily take over the world, if they stopped caring about things like racking up a body count. That was concerning, of course, but even on the ‘street’ level, the idea that capturing villains would just result in a revolving door as they escaped was going to lead to more heroes aiming to kill, and more villains knowing that surrender meant that they might get executed, rather than go to jail. That was just going to increase the damages both sides racked up.

While I, personally, did not care that the damages from rampaging supers was going to go up, I did care about the knock-on effects. More damage from super-fights meant that people would start investing in more tech that would let normal people take on supers. If they couldn’t use power negators to keep supers from escaping, that would inspire a ‘take no prisoners’ attitude in the police and hero teams. And there was no way THAT wouldn’t come around and bite everyone on the ass, when some police officer killed a kid who was jaywalking because he was ‘scared for his life’, despite the fact that the kid’s only ‘power’ was having feathers for hair. No way at all that wouldn’t radicalize someone who actually had workable powers, and give them the motivation to wreck shit.

And when villains saw that people were looking to kill them, not drop them in prison? They’d start thinking twice about some of the ‘niceties’ they’d played by before. Things like not going after peoples’ family. And then you’d have heroes being forced to do crimes or get pieces of their families in the mail, one box at a time, and things would get even worse.

Eventually, a threshold would be crossed. Someone would finally stand up, and deploy a ‘final solution’ to the world’s problems, and the specter of Mutually Assured Destruction would not be enough to deter them. And life, as they knew it, would end, everywhere and forever.

That was the chain of events that I could see coming to pass, if someone didn’t find some way to settle things down. Something had to happen, and soon, or things would spiral out of control. The only problem was that I was the only person who had even half an idea about what was going on, so it was up to me to come up with the freaking ideas!