Don't put THAT in your mouth, you know where it's been!

(By CmptrWz)

"Are you certain this will kill the fucking lizard?" Skidmark asked the tinker. "I don't want to have to find something else if this fails."

"If this fails there is nothing else to find," the tinker responded. "Which, if you aren't careful, will also be the result if this works."

"Yea yea," Skidmark said. "Though I want to know why you aren't charging for it."

"I hate lizards," the tinker responded, shivering. "Have ever since I was a kid. My sister's pet, well, yea. Not going there. I triggered when an earthquake trapped me in the wrong part of a pet store."

"Fucking pansy," Skidmark grumbled as he left with his weapon. "Afraid of lizards? Fucking idiot. Just hope this thing wasn't over-hyped."

"Daaaaaaang this is a thick manual," his lieutenant said, flipping through the thick book. "Lots of warnings."

"Bah," Skidmark said, grabbing the book and throwing it in the back of the van they were using. "The pansy may be a fucking scaredy-cat but the controls are easy enough."

"This isn't good," Dragon said as she and Colin looked at reports on Skidmark. "He found something and is coming back."

"Have you informed the Family yet?" Colin asked, wondering if letting them know should be done over a more secure communications channel or not.

"No need," Dragon replied. "They let me know that others had already let them know."

"Really? Did they say who?"

"Looks like they got a message from an Adam Mustain? Wait a minute…"

Colin double-checked the PRT records himself. "Skidmark let them know he was coming?"

"Apparently. Though using his civilian name so as to not make it blatantly obvious that he was the one to do so is a little clever."

"Did he really think that using his civilian name was being clever?" Lisa asked, looking over the message again. "I mean, his PRT record includes that from his previous arrests so we already knew it."

"Maybe he didn't think that we had access to that information?" Taylor offered. "Of course, signing it with his real name but sending it from what appears to be Skidmark's email address doesn't make a lot of sense if he didn't know or suspect we already knew."

"Or maybe he is just an idiot," Amy offered. "Possibly was a tad high from his 'I found a weapon to kill you fuckers with' party?"

"Yea, the fact he called whatever they did that, in the email, is worrying," Lisa said. "Even if he claimed it was overhearing that party that caused him to decide to warn us. Whatever he found, do you really think it should be operated under the influence?"

"I bet it shouldn't be operated at all," Taylor said. "Because why would he find something nice and safe if used correctly?"

Amy and Lisa looked at each other, smirked, and sketched a bow to Taylor to acknowledge her point.

The entire DWU was on high alert, as were the PRT and Protectorate. Whatever Skidmark had found it was not going to be good news, so everyone was preparing for the worst.

Someone then decided that the previous worst wasn't bad enough and added "what if all three endbringers decide to attack at the same time Skidmark is deploying his weapon?" to the mix. Which was knocked down into plans for each individual Endbringer, then to "attacking Brockton Bay" and "Attacking Elsewhere" categories. Even if it was unlikely to happen.

Say what you will about them, but when it comes to making plans the Brockton Bay branches of the PRT and Protectorate were no slouches.

Unfortunately, Skidmark was also not a slouch and made it into Brockton Bay undetected. A previously secret safe house he had prepared became his new base of operations. He had used every bit of cunning he had in his bid to keep it secret, and had stumbled upon a nearly foolproof method.

He bought it. Under an alias, granted, but he bought it. Paid taxes, utility bills, and had a service maintain the property for him. Because who the fuck would expect him to actually obtain a safe house semi-legally?

As a side bonus he was actually able to vote under his alias, which was probably the only reason he had kept the place. He wasn't sure why, but for some reason complaining about elected officials when you hadn't voted bugged him. And having a nice, legal house nobody was questioning as an official address made registering to vote a lot easier, bought ID or not. That, and it was coming in handy now, so it was probably a good investment.

Now all he had to do was wait for the next ship to be dragged back to the docks for processing. He didn't have anyone in the DWU, but he did have an informant in City Hall, and the Family was giving advance notice of things as a courtesy, so he would know. The overgrown lizard wouldn't know what hit it.

It would be annoying, staying low, but he wouldn't give them any clues about what he had found or what his plan was until he was ready to make his move.

They were starting to wonder if Skidmark had gotten lost or something. He hadn't been seen for a couple of weeks, anywhere. It was quite annoying, actually. Why hadn't he made his move yet?

Still, lives had to go on, and the dockworkers were ready for another couple of ships to be dragged in. So Kaiju was in the bay, working on preparing a ship.

Unseen and unnoticed, Skidmark was also preparing. He had one shot, one shell available to take that fucking lizard out, and he didn't care who else got hurt in the process. But he also was cocky and wanted to make sure they knew who was responsible for their downfall. He had a plan for that. It might even make them think he had gone crazy in a harmless way, if it worked right.

Still, it would be a little bit before everyone was in position.

Lisa was worried. She didn't know why, but she felt something was seriously wrong today. On a hunch she wandered over to the WCC building and checked on the Endbringer trackers.

"Well isn't that disturbing," Lisa murmured. It appeared that Leviathan had stopped moving, and the Simurgh appeared to be staring at Brockton Bay in horrified fascination?

Today was apparently going to be a bad day. Or a weird day.

Probably both. Which meant she should consider heading back to BBFO and make popcorn.

Just in case.

Taylor was approaching the docks with a couple of ships trailing behind her. She was also bored, and wished she had something more interesting to work on other than waiting for Skidmark to pop up.

She was reminded of the saying to be careful what you wished for when a giant supersonic paintball slammed into her stomach, sonic boom coming with it. What the hell? Where did someone get a giant paintball that could handle supersonic velocities?

Quickly tracking the paintball back to where it originated, kicking herself mentally for not noticing it coming in the first place, she saw Skidmark up on top of a hill. Lots of broken windows and people clutching their heads between them.

It also looked like he was lining up a second shot. But she could see that the tube he had used for the paintball was discarded to the side. The tube he was preparing now was a bit smaller diameter and looked to be a tinkertech creation. It also had a number of warning symbols on it.

What to do about that projectile. On one hand she could try and catch it, encase it in EDM before it exploded or something. But if it generated enough heat that could be a problem. She could just block it, with EDM or otherwise, but then who knew what it would do damage-wise to the area. You had to be careful with tinkertech. Dodge and let it fly over the ocean? No, the angles were wrong, it was more likely to hit the rig, or land in the middle of the bay, depending on if he went for a headshot or a body-shot. Ecological disaster was a definite possibility there.

"Just eat it," Varga said. "I highly doubt it is actually capable of harming us and with any luck we will have digested it before it can do anything."

"I suppose that will work," Taylor mentally replied, giving the apparent weapon a good look. "I don't think it will taste good, though. Who will I file complaints about the taste to?"

The Varga thought about what Taylor had just said. Then about the fact he found it a perfectly good, logical argument. And, being careful to keep his thoughts to himself, wondered where any previous sense of normalcy had gone when the primary objection to eating an unknown piece of technology that could possibly do almost anything was that they didn't know who to complain about the taste to if it was disagreeable.

Probably to the same place traditional human sanity went when exposed to fractal dimensions.

"Perhaps we can find contact information on the launcher," Varga finally responded. "Or maybe he has a manual we can look over later?"

"I suppose," Taylor responded, mentally sighing. "Probably no tabasco sauce in the thing either."

"Why am I suddenly very happy that my propellant is based on tabasco sauce?" the tinker mused as he bought more. Hopefully there would soon be less giant lizards around, and one less idiot parahuman. Too bad it was likely to cost a large number of others their lives, but he doubted the idiot had actually read the warnings or come up with a plan to get to a deserted area first.

Lisa stared at Taylor, paintball mark on her chest. She then turned and looked at where the paintball had come from and her power froze.

A few seconds later her power gave her an estimate for what Skidmark was about to launch. She tried to come up with a plan to safely deal with it but failed. There was a very good chance that they were all going to die, because there was no way to contain that! Dodging wouldn't help, blocking wouldn't help. The best case scenario she was coming up with ended up cooking the entire bay. If they were lucky.

Frozen with indecision she barely noticed that Skidmark had fired.

Skidmark was happy. Slightly annoyed, but otherwise happy. He had acquired a target lock, had laid his power into the barrel to ensure that the fucking bomb made it to the fucking lizard, and was in the process of finding whatever safety was keeping him from firing the damned thing.

It's a fucking bomb, it isn't supposed to be safe.

He just hoped that the tinker's stupid little 10 kilogram payload was as powerful as claimed.

Aha, the firing system went green. He looked at the last safety that he had disabled. Minimum safe distance to target? Bah.

"Fucking lizard!" he screamed, pulling the trigger. "DIE!"

The bomb screamed out of the barrel, the sonic boom would have been deafening without the ear protection he was wearing. It was heading straight for the lizard. He was going to savor this…what the hell?

"Did it just eat the bomb?" Skidmark asked, turning to his associates.

"I think it exploded right as its mouth closed," one of them volunteered. "Though, er, it obviously didn't do much harm. If it did any?"

"Fucking hell," Skidmark said, noticing that the Protectorate was deploying. "I think it is time to leave." He paused for a moment, then turned around. He had just enough time to wonder why everyone else had decided to take a nap before he felt the sting in the back of his neck.

Amy was happy that Ianthe had been helping out in the area, and that she had spotted the paintball. Too bad she didn't get there in time to stop them from firing at all, though.

Wondering what they had been doing before she got to them she started looking over the launcher they had been using, looking to see what kind of payload they had attempted.

"Antimatter?"

Alec and Brian looked at each other, and then back at Lisa. Who was surrounded by empty beer bottles and several tubs of ice cream. And two bowls of popcorn? They had been called by a couple of the other dockworkers, who figured the two of them may have some insight.

"Any idea what set her off?" Alec finally asked.

"Not a clue," Brian responded. "Not sure I want to know, either."

Note that they do not, in fact, have the insight required.

"If we need to know I think she will tell us," Alec finally said. "Though it may be too late if she was going for drinking until she forgot."

"Works for me," Brian said. A couple of female dockworkers were going to drag Lisa to bed, so Brian and Alec started cleaning up the mess. Lisa would, after all, be more tolerable if that wasn't left to her later.

"He actually tried to use an antimatter explosive near a population center," Emily said, staring at the report in front of her. "We can even confirm it was legitimate."

"That is correct, though he didn't try so much as did and we got lucky," Colin said. "The labeled yield was 10 kilograms, but that was split between antimatter and reaction matter to leave just 5 kilograms of antimatter. And it was apparently negated by virtue of Kaiju eating it before it exploded."

"We believe it exploded in her mouth, actually," Dragon added. "There was the slightest hint of a flash having escaped, from the footage we were able to obtain. Rig sensors picked up a momentary spike in gamma radiation at the same time."

"We knew they were resistant to gamma radiation," Colin continued. "We just didn't realize how resistant."

"Have we tracked down where he got the thing?" Ethan asked. He was uncharacteristically serious. Then again, antimatter bombs were not something to joke about.

"The tinker is already in custody," Dragon supplied. "Apparently he put contact information on the launcher and in the manual for the system."

"How convenient. Any idea how to adjust Kaiju's ratings?" Emily asked.

"Not sure we need to," Colin shrugged. "We knew she was a brute and could handle a lot of gamma radiation, though perhaps an estimated just under two hundred and fifteen megatons exploding in her mouth might warrant an increase on the brute rating. Not sure this changes anything beyond increasing the lower limit of what 'a lot of gamma radiation' means on that front, and most of the blast would probably have been gamma radiation anyway. She didn't seem to have even experienced any discomfort either way."

"Ugh," Taylor groaned at lunchtime the next day. She looked over at the lunch line, barely gave it consideration, and instead claimed a seat at their usual table, no food in front of her. Amy joined her a few minutes later, giving Taylor a concerned look.

"Not feeling well?" Lucy asked as she came up with her lunch.

"I ate something I probably shouldn't have," Taylor answered. "Left me with a bit of indigestion."

"She'll be fine in a couple of days," Amy said before anyone could suggest she help out. Not that she could in this case, better to disguise why she wasn't helping instead. "The discomfort will help her learn not to repeat her actions."