OYHN: Worm edition, Chapter 5

Saturday, September 11th, 2010

A Battle of Titans

Disclaimer: I don't think I have any more intellectual properties to add to the list of things I don't own in this story. There is a reference to a public domain cryptid.

Hermione and I watched it unfold with the inevitability of a slow motion train wreck.

"You see, Scion's appearance clearly shows that the Rosicrucians were finally ready to take the next logical step. After all, once you have immortality and infinite wealth from the Philosopher's Stone, really the only thing left is to reach for the Godhead." said Luna, "The first cape being a literal Golden Man is something of a give away."

"OK, but how does that connect with Eidolon being a cannibal?" asked Greg Veder, a.k.a. the Void Cowboy.

"Obviously, you can't build a God in one piece. Once they had their prototype, they realized they had to scatter the seeds, let them grow, and then assemble them. Of course, the people with the powers to make up the new Incarnate God will have to be sacrificed, but that's a small price to pay for Ultimate Power." she said, with the serene certainty that made everything sound almost reasonable.

Hermione smiled fondly as Luna inflicted her unique take on logic on someone new.

"Aww, she's making a new friend. Or possibly a blood enemy, it's hard to tell when conspiracy theorists meet." I said.

"Didn't you have a theory of your own?" asked Hermione.

"Yes, I came up with a way for Lee Harvey Oswald to be the Lone Gunman and it still be a conspiracy! It even had a much more reasonable mastermind in J Edgar Hoover. However, I was not rewriting most of history or the fundamental nature of reality." said I.

"You just didn't have the imagination." she said.

To illustrate whatever point she was making, Luna pulled Greg over to the arts and crafts section of the store, and began work on her visual aide.

"Given that she has my metaknowledge, is she just having fun screwing with his head, does she actually believe what she's saying, or is there some unfairly excluded middle ground?" I asked.

"It's probably some unfairly excluded astral domain at right angles to the value of pi, to be honest. She's adapted to the new cultural milieu, she hasn't mentioned wrackspurts or nargles once."

"You need to give people baby steps when getting them to believe seven impossible things before breakfast. For most people flying creatures with the psychic powers of precognition and fear projection are a bridge too far."

Luna held up her creation. It was a construction paper omega symbol with a toothpick connecting the open ends, and a taped on dowel rod through the vertical axis. She turned it upside down and rolled the dowel rod between her palms.

"Oh, Cauldron and Case 53s." I said.

"It's as if, when making their own conspiracy, they looked up how these things should act on the internet." said Hermione.

"At least they don't have mind controlled celebrities flashing their symbols in music videos."

"You should hear her talk about dramaturgy and how human belief and expectation can shape reality. It's apparently vital that long running successful conspiracies reveal their sinister plans in subtle ways, or they won't come to pass." said Hermione.

Willow walked up to them, looking disappointed and somewhat singed. "Hey guys, what's up?"

"Just watching Luna lead a guy to either an epiphany or a nervous breakdown. So, how'd it go?" I asked.

"Bad news. If there is some kind of subspace in this universe, it's completely unlike the one known to Federation science." she apologized.

"So, no warp drive?" I said.

"No warp drive, no faster than light communications, limited sensors, no transporters, no replicators. Oh, and there's no rapid nadion effect either, so no phasers." said Willow.

I took a deep breath. "OK, so we'll steal and reverse engineer local tinkertech. What we can't achieve that way, we'll fake with magic."

"For that to work in the time we have, we'll probably need to get skill stealing, or power copy a tinker ourselves. Can we do that without hooking our brains up to the alien supercomputers?" asked Willow.

"I've got a borrow skill spell, but it doesn't last very long. So, experiment. Copy the skill stealer, if that doesn't work, see if a tinker can function with the power, I don't know, internalized? Kind of fuse it into the person so it ceases to be a network connection to something else?" I said.

"More X-Men Forge, less channel the alien tech library?" said Willow.

"Fortunately enough we have two and a half tinkers we don't care about to experiment with in town."

They both looked at me disapprovingly.

"Oh come on, embrace the mad science. We're probably gonna have to kill Leet and Squealer anyway, and Armsmaster's a dick. I mean, there's a nonzero chance it'll help them, or make them better people or something, and if not, no big loss." I said.

"Speaking of unethical human experimentation, something else occurs to me. We're Pokegirls, so the introduction of novel new abilities may cause unwanted evolutions." Hermione interjected.

The show-and-tell portion of the presentation over, Luna led Greg back over to the game sign-up sheets by the snack bar. She pointed us out, then Saya over by the register. Greg opened his mouth to say something, but his friend, Sparky?, put his hand over Greg's mouth and signed them up for Spelljammer Opera (Pathfinder system) and The Ship Of Secrets and Lies (Star Wars D20).

Monday, September 13th, 2010

"OK, so, full body armor, now with graphene, transparent aluminum and Missile Shield enchantment, advanced night vision visor with bright light filter and See Invisibility, invisibility rings with Soilproof and Resist Water so no embarrassing floating flour or wet footprints, boots with Mage Stealth, Light Tread, and No-Smell so no noise we don't want to make and no tracks, even for a bloodhound. Two of us can fly, all of us can teleport, so extraction's covered. Extendable batons, survival knives, tasers, and we have magic or psychic powers for offense, but we want to try to avoid anything identifiable if we can help it. Am I missing anything?" I asked.

"The air filter/ water breathing masks and the rings of fire and electricity protection. And that between us we've gone through demon hunts, multiple apocalypses, and a civil war with less." said Willow.

"And that was before we were physically strong enough to rip apart a normal human with our bare hands." added Hermione.

"I was half Vulcan for a while, so that part's actually kinda familiar." said Willow.

"I'm sorry, I just, I've never deliberately sought out a fight in my life. I've studied history and tactics and engineering and the biokinetics of it, gamed out scenarios, but I've never actually done it. The closest I've ever come is trying to make a point to some of my junior martial artist friends in junior high, and they were learning an almost pure sport form. I'm a little nervous." I admitted.

"Really, we hadn't noticed." Hermione said dryly.

Willow hugged me. "You'll be alright. You're not asking a girl out in the high school cafeteria where a likely rejection would lead you to being a laughingstock in front of the whole school, you're just getting into a fight with a couple Nazis that you don't have to win, you just have to scan and get away."

I took a deep breath. "That was surprisingly helpful. Let's do this."

Willow teleported us near the targets, because her version had the least side effects. Victor and Othala were leaving a meeting, still in costume, so if/when things went wrong we would at least still have the paper thin coverage of the Unwritten Rules (which were written down in a fairly large number of places). The fact that we'd horribly, egregiously broken said rules with a Sense Life item targeting capes that was powered by what Starfleet considered an emergency backup generator, and had a range that covered the city out to the suburbs, we weren't going to mention.

Willow held up her hand while she scanned the area. She made a 'go ahead' kind of gesture and projected reassurance. I scanned them with Builder senses, so that I could make minion versions if I needed to, then with Power Manipulation.

I should really combine them at some point.

We were outside his passive skill steal field. I took my scan and twisted it, inverted it into an immunity to such powers. It felt like it would be easier to modify an existing power to provide that protection. Each of us already had psychic protections of some kind, so I, extended? enhanced? them to take care of it.

Next phase. I tapped Hermione on the shoulder to tell her she was up.

She fired a wordless, near invisible cutting curse, a ripple in the air. It hit Victor in the shoulder.

Perfect.

They dove for cover, and Othala gave Victor regeneration.

Yes, now I can just copy the regen, instead of the power to give it to someone else. I gave it to me, making it part of my weak shapeshifting power.

I'm still the squishiest person in the group, I need it more than they do.

Hermione disarmed them of the phones they were going to call for help with, while I copied Victor's skill steal and kind of shoved it in as a part of Willow's telepathy. And then everything went wrong.

Willow flashed bright white, her invisibility collapsing as she gasped in pain. Hermione and I both turned to help her, and were promptly tagged with throwing knives. Which didn't hurt through the armor, but still shouldn't have happened, because a) invisible, and b) Missile Shield, but apparently cape bullshit can overcome magic bullshit, and now the pair of Nazis knew exactly where we were.

Hermione lit up the night with stunners, tagging Othala but Victor blocked them with a trashcan while he charged. She switched to reductos as he threw it at her. She dodged the spreading remains of the trashcan as he grabbed me, twisted me around so I was between him and Hermione, and just hammered my kidneys.

This is what body armor is for. I barely felt it, and knew, even without the regen, I'd only have a few light bruises later.

He clued into that too, and switched tactics. He grabbed one of my arms as I flailed ineffectually (how was he doing this? I'm still invisible!), twisted it into some kind of joint lock, kicked me in the arm pit, dislocating my right shoulder, and spun me around by my dislocated arm into the path of one of Hermione's spells.

It was a banisher, and I went flying, first into Willow, then into the wall. A moment later, I was joined by Victor, who was then stuck to the wall, stunned, and tied up.

It took me a minute to process that the fight was over, because regen doesn't include pain suppression, and I am not an action movie hero. Grunt, fight some more with the other arm, then slam it into a heavy object to pop it back in place and you're fine, right? Wrong! Whimper in agony while you wait for medical attention, and, if you're a regular human, spend months in physical therapy.

I'm so glad I grabbed regen.

When I could focus through the pain enough to stand, I looked around and assessed the situation. Willow had torn open her chest armor and had her helmet off. She'd evolved into an Alaka-Wham, which meant that her antennae were now a foot long, she'd grown an inch or two in height, and her breasts had swelled to the point that she'd fit right in with the cast of Highschool DXD. She was surrounded by the shimmer of Hermione's Disillusionment charm while she sat against the wall, knees drawn up, hands clenching and releasing as she took deep, calming breaths.

Chloe was there, doing something with two phones, also disillusioned. Hermione was standing in front of two people with her wand out. They were dressed for bed, and had the blank look of the hypnotized/ enchanted.

I made my way over to WIllow, leaning on the wall with my good arm, which was super awkward as she was in the wrong direction for that to be natural.

She nodded to acknowledge me. "Sorry," she said, "there was suddenly just too much me for that suit. And it takes a few minutes to get used to having your species rewritten."

I started to say something, but made a bizarre, inarticulate noise of agony as my shoulder popped itself back in place instead. "Ok, I thought that'd be a familiar experience for you."

"I thought so too, but it's different, having someone else's memories instead of going through it yourself." she said.

"So, I take it Chloe and Hermione have the cover up in hand." I said.

"Yes, they do." Chloe said as she walked up to us. "Here, fix these." she said as she handed me what I presumed were Victor and Othala's phones. I didn't need to ask why I had to do it, Hermione's magic didn't get along with electronics. "I'll work my magic on them then we can Weekend at Bernie's these guys and get out of here."

"Find out how he knew where we were first." I said.

"On it." Willow said as she levered herself up. She staggered a little as she made her way over to Victor. She stared intently at him, her antennae twitching. "Oh. Well that explains it. He could sense the resistance to his power once he got within range."

I tapped the phones and repaired them, than had a thought. I made copies of them, then opened them up. "Hermione, protean charm these bits." I said, pointing at the connections to the antenna. While she took care of that, I replaced the trashcan and, well, not cleaned the street, but made it filthy in the same way it was earlier.

"Ok, what are we forgetting? Injuries fixed, phones fixed, memories wiped, street restored to previous state," I snapped my fingers, "throwing knives."

With all traces of the night's activities removed, we retreated outside Victor's range, telekinetically got them up and moving, and woke them up so they could continue their evening none the wiser.

Author's Note: Sorry this chapter took so long, I just could not get the conversation between Luna Lovegood, greatest conspiracy theorist of her fandom, and the Void Cowboy to flow right.