* Slime 14: Stop! Hammer Slime! *

* Cauldron *

* Monday, Jan 17, 2011 *

Contessa smiled and sat back. Her power, Path to Victory, was already more efficient than it had been.

Even a bit cooperative now that there was a plan in place to revitalize it and several other Agents instead of letting them continue to rot in some alternate Earth's biosphere.

"What of our plans for Brockton Bay?" asked Doctor Mother from behind her. "The parahuman feudal experiment?"

"What of it?" asked Contessa. "The new candidate for warlord of Brockton Bay has quite a hand and is acquiring allies, is she not?"

"If she lasts that long, word is already getting out as to what she can do and the expected reactions are underway. I expect another week before the Yangban gets snatcher teams into the area. Perhaps two weeks before Gesellschaft mobilizes."

Contessa shrugged. "By then? I think Bounceback will be very close to untouchable. By anything they can reasonably put together."

* Docks *

"So how do we want to do this? I can just eat the thing you know," said Bounceback as she hovered over the small fishing boat.

"What are your options?" asked Zephron, adjusting his sunglasses as he sat near the wheel. He jerked a thumb at the large ship that blocked most of the entry to Brockton Bay. "That's a pretty big ship after all."

[Silicate Control plus Hydrokinesis to shift seabed. Pyrokinesis or Acid Spray to melt ship. Combining Aerokinesis and Pyrokinesis to create Black Lightning.]

"I'll just eat it and break it down to raw materials I can stack back at the Docks," said Bounceback aloud. "This is too big to just melt down with fire or trying to animate the sand underneath it."

"How many powers do you actually have?" called out Zephron as the breeze began kicking up.

"Uhm. You know I hadn't really thought about it," admitted Bounceback. "I got a few at this point."

"Looks like a couple of those Dragon drones observing us," noted Danny at a couple of specks in the air. "Are we going to panic them again?"

"Nah, I have her PHO address and sent her a notification this morning before school that we got permission from the Mayor. Finally." Bounceback continued to size up the massive cargo ship. "Something this big should never have been allowed into the bay, it's ridiculously oversized for the size of our docks."

"Hindsight is 20/20," said Danny. "We were a port city long before vessels like this were even possible."

"Too bad this has been a school day, I got so much to do and that's three-quarters of the day gone right there," complained Bounceback. "Oh. Is that Legend and Eidolon?"

"Even the Triumvirate are hanging back to see what you do," noted Zephron as one of Dragon's drones approached. "You are a scary little lady sometimes Bouncy."

"It is what it is," said Bounceback in her humanoid form, gesturing for one of the drones to approach. It quickly zoomed up to hang a few feet above the little boat. "Or to quote a famous sailor man 'I am what I am and that's all that I am' or at least I think that's the quote. Hey, Dragon. I decided the simplest thing was simply to eat the thing and then spit up the materials over on one of the dock areas. Maybe #6? That looks mainly clear."

"Go with #11 instead, it's more out of the way and the rail line is mostly intact there," suggested Danny Hebert.

"Got it," said Bounceback. "Dragon. We still on for Saturday?"

"Codename: Wizard of Odds was certain that the moles in the PRT would automatically cause the mission to fail, but Armsmaster is certain he can identify compromised systems by then," said Dragon's voice through the drone. "Are you certain you can manage this much mass?"

"It'll be a stretch, in both meanings of the term, but I upgraded Predator to Gluttony and I think I can barely manage it," said Bounceback.

"You can upgrade your powers," said the Dragon drone.

"Yeah. Why? Is that a big deal?" asked Bounceback.

"Yes!" answered Dragon, Zephron, Danny, and Kurt from where he was fishing off the side of the boat.

"We knew you could deactivate powers temporarily from the parahumans you captured, but being able to modify your own powers is very unusual," supplied Dragon. "There are a handful of Trumps who can do anything like that and Trumps are the rarest set of powers."

"Huh. How about that," mused Bounceback. "Okay, you guys back off a ways. When I eat the ship all that displaced water is gonna make waves."

"Literally and figuratively," quipped Danny.

* Canada *

"Do what?" asked Saint.

"She's a Trump that can nullify powers?!" asked Mags, watching the video feed. "What was this thing about Saturday?"

"Some minor villain that they're going to deal with," said Saint dismissively. "Small change in a little city."

Dobrynja snorted, having heard details and coming to a conclusion that may not have been entirely accurate. "I paid attention. Apparently villain-person do bad things with little girls. Good riddance."

"So we wait until after they've dealt with some pedophile on Saturday before we go after the slimy girl and explain to her why she should be working for us," said Saint. "If we do it right afterwards, then they'll have exhausted resources on the small fry."

"Good," said Mags. "Not to mention Dragon will have her most uprated suit there for us to grab as well."

* Brockton Bay *

[Vessel has retreated to Dock area. Two members of Triumvirate at safe distance. Five DragonTech surveillance drones are in attendance.]

"Only five? Wow, I expected more," said Bounceback, enjoying the late afternoon sun. "Really wish I could have done this in the morning but I still have to attend school. Waste of time."

[Suggest breaking vessel into two pieces for easier digestion.]

"How? Water Blade can maybe do a couple of inches of that," said Bounceback. "Huh. Hey, Dragon! I want to try a couple of things out before I get to the main course."

The drone nearest her projected a small holographic avatar. "Who were you talking to?"

"Great Sage, that's my Thinker power that handles analytics," responded Bounceback, using terminology that was PRT-approved. "First off I'm going to try 'Black Lightning' on the hull."

"If that's one of your attacks, you might want to try a different name," advised Dragon. "That's the name of a Rogue hero in Detroit. Electrokinetic."

"Black Fire?" asked Bounceback.

"Blackfire is the name of a minor villain in Florida," answered Dragon.

"Okay, well, I'll worry about the official name later," said Bounceback.

"I've relayed that you're trying out new applications of your powers," said Dragon.

"Thanks, Dragon, now..." Bounceback held up her hand and black lightning arced up and cut a line through the ship. A moment later, and a twist of that extended arm, and a spray of acid began eating away the edges of that metal. Both hands extended and white flames streamed out to heat the metal to dull red. Fingers flexed in and then back out and fire gutted out to be replaced with ice that shattered the superheated metal. She leapt up, forming a drill shape that she then armored and added blades to in order to widen the gap she was making.

{Ho. You're doing something interesting I see.}

"Hang on, Dragon, someone just opened communication with me from another world," explained Bounceback as she popped back to blob form but with the usual wings to better fly with.

{I told you, my name is Veldora the Storm Dragon, or Veldora Tempest if you prefer.}

"Not you, Veldora, there's someone here who is named 'Dragon'," said Bounceback. "I really wish I had a speakerphone option."

[Possible by using direct generation and manipulation of sound waves. Suggest using a mechanical speaker to avoid further anxiety in various allies.]

"Oh. Good idea," said Bounceback aloud, manipulating the materials from the scrapyard to find an old brick-phone and alter it a bit. "And... there."

"Some form of communication magic? Bwahahahaha!" declared the deep voice of Veldora from the tendril-held former-phone. "Now tell me of this person who is named 'Dragon'? I am intrigued!"

"My cape name is Dragon," answered Dragon.

"You named your cape 'Dragon'? For fire-resistance qualities perhaps?" asked Veldora.

"Uhm, no. And you are?" asked Dragon.

"Veldora Tempest! Also known as Veldora the Storm Dragon!" declared Veldora's voice through the device.

"Why do you have that name?" asked Dragon, thinking it was only fair.

"Because he's a hundred foot long fire-breathing dragon," interrupted Bounceback. "As in a literal dragon."

"Indeed, there are some who class me a living calamity!" boasted Veldora.

"That really isn't something to brag about," put in Bounceback.

"A... dragon?" asked Dragon.

"Soul corridor established. Do you wish to physically manifest in this world?" asked Great Sage through the device.

"And that was?" asked Dragon, feeling a bit lost.

"Great Sage, you can bring Veldora here?" asked Bounceback.

"Affirmative," answered Great Sage aloud. "Mathematical model developed during relayed communications with other world via connections with Veldora. Further communications allowed for connect to variant Great Sage of Rimuru Tempest. Data exchanged. With communication anchors established between Rimuru Tempest and Bounceback - transposition between worlds is possible. Only possible if Bounceback and Rimuru Tempest remain in their dimensional locations to provide coordinate data."

"There's no way I can meet this other slime then?" asked Bounceback.

"Impossible," answered Great Sage. "Anchors need to remain within multiversal mainlines as reference points. Also unable to duplicate Unique Skills within a universe, so would need one party to drop Great Sage for duration of visit. As corridor requires both Great Sage active to establish contact, no method of contact exists."

"This... has a lot of ramifications," allowed Dragon. "This other world is not an alternate Earth?"

"Answer," said Great Sage through the device, "dimensional strand of world of Veldora is entirely separate from Earth-dimensions. Outside reach of Shard network and parahuman abilities. Location 4.7 spokes off this Earth's omniversal strand."

* Elsewhere *

Doctor Mother, watching things unfold on a monitor (relayed video from Dragon's drones in fact) in New York, stared as her cup of afternoon tea grew cold. "What?"

Across the country, watching a monitor tapping into the same feed, Alexandria quickly came to the same conclusion. "What?"

In Vancouver, Saint exchanged a look with the other two Dragonslayers and unknowingly repeated the interrogative. "What?"

Director Piggot in her own office, exchanged a look with Armsmaster as they watched the feed. Neither spoke.

Coil, in his little lair, cursed that he wasn't able to get a live feed from the encryption but knew something was going on and could only guess just from what his rooftop spies were relaying through their observation post.

A moment later everyone was reacting to a dragon appearing who was rather bigger than Bounceback's original summary had led them to believe. Or at least was more impressive.

* Veldora, Brockton Bay *

"Smelly," was my first summation of this other world. Indeed, the world smelled specifically of decay. Not merely the usual salted-water with underlying decay smell one usually encountered at places where water met land. The smell of the city itself seemed to carry the odors of decay. Though perhaps a bit cleaner than some of the human cities I had encountered before being trapped in that cave.

"Well, a bit," admitted Bounceback.

That brought my attention fully to the individuals present.

Large ship floundered, truly large to the point where it was probably magnificent when it had been under sail. The human-sized figure was all in blue, having reshaped her outer membranes into that of a clothed human. This then was the appearance of the one titled 'Bounceback' and was this world's equivalent of my friend and not-of-birth brother Rimuru Tempest. The orb floating nearby must be the one called 'Dragon' though I saw no cape as was spoken of. Perhaps this was a remote-seeing device such as some wizards used for communicating from afar? That seemed likely. So a wizard with a cape who was cautious enough to remain in their desmense seemed the most likely reasoning.

Two much more distant wizards in odd clothing hovered nearby. Observers, possibly of foreign nations? Odd. The one seemed to be restraining the other who wished to come forward? Odd that but humans had their little squabbles as always.

I, of course, was interested in what excitement this world could bring me. Literally thousands of years of life tended to make something new something to seize on with great enthusiasm. Rimuru, my adopted brethren, was such a thing. Rimuru had brought attention of the things of this world to me. Manga! Picture Books! This was a treasure beyond measure.

There were things told about in those books that Rimuru could not provide access to. Video games! Anime! Computer games! Maid cafes!

"No video games?" I asked, a bit disappointed.

"As soon as I deal with this, I'll introduce you to Uber and Leet... why did I get the sudden feeling of doom?" asked Bounceback.

"No idea," I said.

* Taylor *

[Dragon form analyzed and added to Mimic templates.]

"Well, time for some GLUTTONY!"

I put action to words and expanded out nearly to my limit, swallowing up the ship in a single gulp.

It took a few moments and three stages, which for some reason made a large ka-thunk noise as I shrunk back into my more compact blob form and then to my gel-girl form. I got the strange feeling that I was getting stared at a lot for some reason.

"BRAAAAAAAAAPPPPP!" That was a lot of air for me to burp up. Oh well, no reason to store that after all.

Then, of course, going to what I hoped was the right dock since there were a whole lot of people on either side of that particular dock area. Just a bit more self-conscious at this point. "Great Sage?"

[Working. Breaking down into component materials. Reassembling into blocks of fifty pounds each.]

"Good, that'll make things a lot easier for recycling and such," I said as the water finally started to settle down. Turned out that removing that much displacement was even more turbulent than I'd expected.

Veldora had shrunk down and become human-shaped. I understood that his "real appearance" was more of him showboating during his arrival, that the human form was a convenient size for him to do human-scale things. That didn't mean he wasn't powerful - I could feel it in the air surrounding him even in his 6'6" height version. Like a pressure in the air.

[Processing completed.]

"Hey, you've been in contact with Veldora and all, right?" I asked Great Sage, keeping my voice down to a whisper. Veldora glanced at me so it wasn't completely a private conversation. Dragon's drone was following at a bit of a distance though, so semi-private?

[Data has been acquired but not verified.]

"So how about putting those guys' adventures down on paper? That way I can hand it off to Leet & Uber - it'd probably be something they'd find interesting. And if they find it interesting maybe they can spend time reading that and not getting into trouble." I could hope, at least.

[Producing. Require more paper.]

"Yeah, I'll pick some up on the way there."

* PRT HQ Conference Call *

"Well, that was a thing," summed up Legend.

"Thing? That was an Endbringer! The Dockworkers Union in Brockton Bay has their own Endbringer!" Eidolon huffed at the end of that statement, looking quite put out.

"Just visiting," pointed out Contessa. She HAD seen the dragon before after all.

"From another universe?!" asked Eidolon. "We're importing Endbringers now?"

"Except he turned human and is apparently hanging out with two retired joke villains playing Mario Kart," said Contessa, sipping on a tea. "And he is a dragon who can adopt a human form, not the other way around. Oh this is a good one."

"Imported from Earth Zeta," said Doctor Mother. "It is very nice, isn't it? Slightly lower caffeine level, but higher amount of polyphenols."

"It certainly tastes crisp with a slight lingering bitterness-" began Contessa.

"Why are you talking about TEA when you've got a hundred-foot-long DRAGON in the middle of New Hampshire?" asked Eidolon.

"Because right now, my restrictions are being unraveled, my power is being more cooperative than it has ever been, the Conflict Drive has become a Creativity Drive that I'm directing to be more efficient, and there is a lovely cup of tea in front of me," said Contessa.

Alexandria's face on the videoscreen settled down to regard Contessa. "Yes. I figured that out. Bounceback can repair and modify Agents. So you opted to experiment yourself."

"The Path to improving oneself always begins with one's self," quoted Contessa.

"Voltaire?" asked Legend, recognizing that it was a quote but not placing it.

"Off-topic," grumbled Eidolon.

There was a ping on Contessa's tablet, she picked it up, smirked at the display, then tapped it a couple of times.

"What was that about?" asked Eidolon.

"Leet and Uber have started taking pre-orders towards inventing a videogame. One based on their new associate's exploits. It will have settlement-building, one-on-one and group battles, leveling up troops and real-time-strategy, and dating simulator segments. One can play through all or just the aspects one is interested in." Contessa smirked. "It might just be fairly popular."

"Seriously?" asked Eidolon.

"As there is now a chance of us being able to manage a long retirement after the current crises are over? A few choice investments won't hurt," said Contessa. "And just us being able to plan a life after all this is something I find quite... invigorating."

[Steps to peaceful retirement - 357.]

[Next Step - acquisition of Comfy Chair. 5 sub-steps.]