Slime 18: It's about Slime

* April 3 2011 *

"For so long. It's been a dream we've been promised for so so long," said Assault, getting misty-eyed as he approached it.

"Well, it'll take awhile for the civilian models to come out," said Dragon, her long pointed ears flicking as she watched the various Protectorate members react to the reveal.

"It's beautiful," said Vista.

"At long long last. We have flying cars," said Assault, acting as if he was wiping tears away.

"The lawmakers are throwing fits about all of it, rules and regulations and licensing and fees, and..." Dragon let out a deep sigh. Wow. That actually does help.

"So right now it's just DragonTech able to produce these, limited number, and such?" asked Battery as she inspected what LOOKED like a 1965 Ford Mustang Convertible. That had wheels that folded into position underneath the chassis and was currently hovering 2.5 feet off the helipad.

"Limited forcefield, reinforcement field, antigrav, and only available to Protectorate personnel." Dragon felt her tail begin to lash from nervousness and stopped it. "Uses our patented DragonTech Atomic Batteries to power. Top speed is 110mph, operational ceiling is 10,000feet. It's a flying car after all, not streamlined or designed for higher speeds and altitudes. Right now we're selling them under a lease and field testing agreement to avoid some of the legal problems as everyone in charge decides how much red tape you've got to go through to get something like this."

"I want one," said Assault.

"We know," said several of the people present for this unveiling.

"Seriously, with my power?" asked Assault. "Can you picture me setting the vehicle to hover and drop down into a group of crooks from a hundred feet up? It'd be awesome."

"I could shrink distances in front of it," said Vista wistfully. "My power is line of sight, so if I'm up above the buildings..."

"What about when it rains?" asked Battery, eyeing the clouds.

"Erect the forcefield at level one, it'll deflect the rain to the side," advised Dragon. "Or you could just put the top up. Chassis is reinforced with durasteel and a carbon-based polymer especially on the bottom. So... are you interested in testing these out?"

"How many?" asked Armsmaster, who was less interested because he'd already equipped his Armscycle with a hover mode. Still, the idea of his branch of the Protectorate becoming more efficient through this 'testing arrangement' was quite appealing.

"Three for the local Protectorate. The Mustang here, a 1962 Chevrolet Corvette, and a 1976 Chevy G-10 Van," said Dragon.

"Not a convertible?" asked Battery.

"The side and back both have quick releases," answered Dragon. "Limited self-driving in all three so you can deploy quickly and the vehicle will automatically go to hover mode and seal up to avoid someone trying to break in and steal it."

"How many have you built so far?" asked Vista, wondering about avoiding any other vehicles that might be flying around.

"Three local," said Dragon. "Armsmaster's motorcycle was given flight capabilities last month. There's the Dockworkers Union which has two vehicles, though no containment foam grenade launchers on those."

"Containment foam grenade launchers?" asked Vista, practically getting sparkly eyed as some vision danced in her imagination.

"Yes, under the headlights," said Dragon, helpfully pointing out the spots where the tube hatches were located.

"Not locally, there are four more vehicles that are being evaluated for performance," said Dragon.

* Earth-Gamma *

"Get your motor running.

"Head out on the highway.

"Looking for adventure,

"In whatever comes our way."

The Land Rover had windows rolled down and was speeding with no speed limits in sight. Or roads. Or any obstacles other than the occasional bird at this altitude.

Contessa smiled as she put the vehicle through its paces. She clicked two buttons that caused the windows to roll up, volume on the music to drop to a preset limit, and equipment to start shifting around.

"Yeah, darlin', go and make it happen,

"Take the world in a love embrace,

"Fire all of your guns at once,

"And explode into space."

The Land Rover passed the preset limits and achieved Low Earth Orbit.

Contessa guided the vehicle around to watch the world revolve beneath her, at the very limit of where her power would still connect.

Doctor Mother let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "This is..."

"This changes so much," said Contessa.

"So it does," agreed Doctor Mother.

* Dragon *

"So that's three Tachikoma models for the Brockton Bay SWAT team," said Dragon after the meeting with the local Protectorate and Wards had finished and she could return (her dragongirl form) to the factory. "Three of the flight vehicles for the Protectorate. Two flight-capable motor scooters for the Congressional Oversight Committee. One Dragonfly(tm) Ambulance for Brockton Bay General evaluation. One low-effect high-mass system to be granted for the US Army Corps of Engineers to outfit an Abrams tank. The Land Rover for Protectorate budgetary evaluation. NASA is getting the lift platform in... two weeks?"

"Problems with the stability of the platform. It's designed to be fairly slow but carry a lot of weight, so..." Danny Hebert shrugged. Not his area of expertise at all, but he could summarize what the various people were telling him. "Probably by next month."

"Where's Bounceback anyway?" asked Dragon.

"Meeting with Lung," said Danny. "Apparently there was a deal to be made with him, the US Government, and the top levels of the Protectorate. Also some secret organization."

"That certainly sounds ominous," noted Dragon.

"Anything dealing with that level of the government tends to sound ominous," agreed Danny. "Or frustrating. Or nonsensical, frustrating, and ominous."

* PRT ENE Wards Suite *

"Modular pieces. Plug and Play. Freaking Legos!"

"Eh?" asked Aegis, glancing towards where Kid Win had just beat his head against a table.

"He just figured out that all his tearing apart pieces of his equipment to repurpose stuff WAS his Tinker specialization," said Clockblocker, looking down at the Lego Batmobile he'd been assembling. That was now missing a few pieces because Kid Win was having a dramatic moment.

"You know you could have just asked Bounceback," said Vista as she filled out a sudoku.

Clockblocker just started humming the slinky commercial theme.

"Stop that, you know that song gets stuck in my head," complained Aegis.

"LEGOS!"

"Can you give me back the engine now?" asked Clockblocker.

* Elsewhere *

"How the heck did you even know 'hadouken' or that other stuff?" asked Rimuru now that they'd dealt with the whole Octagon thing.

"Uber and Leet had the Streetfighter games," said Veldora with a grin. "It was most intriguing."

"Eh?" asked Milim Nava. "What's all that about?"

Veldora began explaining. Milim got excited. Rimuru commented about how he felt this had the potential to be really really BAD.

Rafael agreed.

* Office of the President *

"Here we go, Sir, the latest deal."

"Alternate Earths? There is such a thing?" asked the President. "Besides Aleph, I mean."

"Yes sir. This doesn't involve Haywire's technology, it's something Bounceback and Dragon have been working on."

"Huh. So Lung gathers no more than 200 volunteers... I'm guessing we have a way to make sure the volunteers ARE volunteers?"

"Yes sir."

"Okay. So he gets his 200 volunteers and retires to a world where humanity never developed with enough materials to build a village. At which point we consider it to be an off-world prison where we don't need to fund anything?"

"Yes sir. We'd have to scout it out thoroughly to be sure but apparently there are hundreds of these worlds."

"Might be a resource to look into when the tech's proven out," mused the President. "So, no Birdcage for Lung but he's contained and not going to continue to cause problems. What's the PRT's take?"

"Just getting him to go quietly into exile as opposed to taking him down after a lengthy fight is the cheaper of the two options as long as we spend less than 750 million on it. Current estimate is we can supply the materials for less than 5."

"Why so cheap?" asked the President.

"First off, we're looking at a village not a full city," explained Agent Quincy as she placed a few pieces of documentation down on the desk. "We're also factoring in that it has to be something self-sustaining and built quickly. Prefab buildings, of which we actually have quite a few from projects that were cancelled, emergency shelters, and things like plans for building things on the other side from materials there. An Old West-style building can be constructed surprisingly fast and quickly compared to more modern constructions."

"And it is sufficiently rough living enough that I can justify to some members of Congress that this is actually punishment," mused the President as he flicked through the paperwork. "That's what he gets. What do we get?"

"Bounceback gets to copy his Tinker's abilities, which Costa-Brown informs us improves our chances of survival against certain problems."

"And?" asked the President absently.

"And it gets Oni Lee, Lung, and the ABB off American soil and out of the way of any plans we have for that part of the country," noted Agent Quincy.

"Any problems with it that I'm not immediately seeing?" asked the President.

"One. That leaves the single remaining gang of supervillains in that city a group of Nazis," said Agent Quincy. "Fortunately, they have been avoiding being a major problem since the one attempt to recruit Bounceback."

"I heard they're calling her an 'Eidolon package' now," mused the President as he went back to reading through the paperwork. "Because of the whole switching between a number of powers."

"They're calling Bounceback a lot of things. Including marketable," provided Agent Quincy.

"Yes, I saw the heated pillows," said the President absently. "This section here - wording is a bit tricky."

"Ah, I'll have Legal go over that again," said Agent Quincy.

* Docks *

He was an autonomous robot dog. Name: K-9. Purpose: Security and attache to Daniel Hebert.

"Coming, Master."

"Good boy, K-9."

"Affirmative, Master."

When he was created it was specifically by Bounceback as additional assistance for her father. He was capable of a great many things, but was not designed as being able to hold the line and protect his master against supervillains. Instead he had very very good sensors and a laser cannon capable of dealing with lower-level threats. For bigger threats, he had high-speed communications and recording equipment.

"Do you have the files on the Ironside Transport contract, K-9?"

"Located. Routing to your desk computer, Master."

"Where's Taylor anyway?"

"Locating Mistress. Mistress is currently working with Dragon on heavy-lift orbital platform."

"Thanks, K-9. Probably having trouble with those balancing mechanisms again."

* April 10, 2011 *

There was a lot of activity in Empire territory for some reason.

Bounceback flew through the city on patrol, silent and deadly. Well, mostly silent. And she generally wasn't exactly deadly because she favored nonlethal options. So, kind of sort of, silent and deadly avenger of the night.

She was aware of the E88 gangers hanging around a street corner looking tough, but as they were just standing there - there wasn't much she could do about it.

"Yo! You guys up to no good?"

"SHIT! IT'S BOUNCEBACK!"

"We ain't doing nothing! You can't prove it!"

"Cool it you twits," said a calm skinhead. "We just hanging out, right?"

"Uhm. True. So what's up?" asked Bounceback.

"You don't scare me!" declared one of the gangers, sliding open a boxcutter.

"Biff, she ate the Simurgh. She flattened the Slaughterhouse Nine. What do you think a boxcutter is going to do?" asked the non-panicking Empire tough. "Besides, all we're doing is keeping an eye out for other gangs trying to cut into territory. Ain't nothing illegal about that."

"...seriously, your name is 'Biff'?" asked Bounceback.

Biff grumbled something about his parents.

"Heard you kept those CUI jackasses from blowing up the city," said the non-panicker. "Good job."

"Yeah, that was a thing. Can you imagine smuggling a nuke into the city? What jerks," grumbled Bounceback. Getting complimented by a Nazi didn't sit well, but what could she legally do about that?

"My family lives here, so bit of free advice," said the apparent leader of this group. "Gesellschaft is planning on coming over here to try and recruit you. Guess they figured they'd do better than them Chin... Chinese."

"Huh. Thanks for the heads-up," said Bounceback. She'd get word to Dragon and the PRT so they were ready for it. With that, she flew up and out of sight.

"I thought we were allied with Gesellschaft," grumped Biff.

"It's complicated," said the leader. "Word I've heard is that Kaiser likes to remain independent of them, but the Germans want to take over. So are we more loyal to Kaiser or to them?"

Biff considered that for a second. "Kaiser's the one who pays us."

The group leader took out his phone and began pushing buttons. "Exactly. Now pipe down while I put this up the chain. See if this gets me smacked around by Hookwolf or a bonus."

* Bleeker Street *

"You came alone?" asked Lung. "Arrogance."

(VTT-VERT-VERT-VERT) went a nearby car, twisting and unfolding into a twelve-foot-tall robot.

Lung regarded the robot, then returned his attention to Armsmaster. "Transforming robots, really? Do they also combine into a bigger robot?"

"Working on the mechanisms for such a thing, it would simplify transportation with mass-limited teleportation," said Dragon's voice from the rather large robot.

"Well, at least you have a plausible reason for that," grumbled Lung. "Why transforming?"

"The portals to other Earths have a maximum sustainable size at current energy levels," stated Dragon. "Having forms that can fit within a cargo container is a work-around."

"Hmmm," said Lung, eyeing the giant robot.

"This is all besides the point. Hold on, I'm getting an alert." Armsmaster put a stack of paper on a mailbox and then added a wrench to weigh it down.

"I got it too. It's ahead of time," said Dragon. "So, Lung. How would you like to assist in a truly large battle?"

"I was a bit bored," admitted Lung. "How big?"

* Earth 27 B *

The golden man appeared in a flash of light, his face a study in anger and frustration.

This time was different though. This time he found himself under attack the moment he appeared.

A brief whine as rotating barrels oriented themselves before railguns began firing spears of metal charged with Sting.

Other turrets began lobbing spheres of black surrounded by blue-white lightning.

Drones launched and then launched rockets. Other drones fired lasers.

The golden man looked surprised for a moment before the projection popped.

In that moment, it happened. Other crystals lit up and the momentary opening between alternate Earths widened.

"Gate opened. Stabilized. Eidolon, Legend, you're up first. Alexandria, you're up next. Prepping for next dimensional plane. Planetbuster missile in 10 seconds."